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Sen. John Kennedy

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(RepublicanWire.org) – Joe Biden’s energy policy doesn’t make a lot of sense. The only way it makes any sense is if you’re trying to kill the American energy industry. He’s been attacking the energy industry since the first day that he came into office.

That’s part of the reason that the price of gas under Biden hit record numbers. Then to pretend he’s addressing that, he’s been artificially trying to keep the price low by draining our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That puts our national security at risk if there is a true emergency and not just Joe trying to help the Democrats during the election. We could have cheap and reliable energy — indeed we did under President Donald Trump — if Biden just had a sensible policy. But instead, the policy is about limiting our drilling while reaching out to oppressive governments like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela to beg them for oil.

Louisiana Republican Senator John Kennedy was asked about this during a recent appearance on FOX News and answered in a way that only John Kennedy can. The man has a real way with words.

“I used to have a beagle named Roger, and Roger was a rascal,” Kennedy noted. “About every two weeks, Roger would run off — he’d always come back — but about half the time he’d come back dragging roadkill that he would hide under my back porch,” he explained. “President Biden’s energy policy looks like something Roger used to keep under my back porch.”

“It is a fact that America has the greatest, the strongest, economy in all of human history,” Kennedy continued. “We can’t run it without fossil fuels — not today not tomorrow. It is also a fact that, through reserves and technology, America can produce every drop of oil and natural gas that we need and have extra left over to sell to our friends,” he reminded.

“That presents a problem to President Biden because he has embraced the woke or berserk wing of the Democrat Party, and woke ideology says we need to get rid of oil and gas in the United States,” Kennedy explained of his radical counterparts in Congress.

“So President Biden has developed a new energy policy and it is this: Instead of producing at a cheaper cost our own oil and gas in America, we’re going to buy oil from foreign countries that hate us — in this case Venezuela — so those foreign countries will have more money to buy weapons to try to kill us. It’s a moronathon,” Kennedy quipped of Biden and his party’s energy policy.

(RepublicanWire.org) – Crime is up, and President Joe Biden’s administration would like you to believe they’re supporting local law enforcement in dealing with the surge.

In one brutal six-minute clip from Attorney General Merrick Garland’s testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday, however, GOP Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana dismantled the administration’s top law enforcement official over how serious it was about supporting cops in cities which have borne the brunt of the recent crime wave.

According to the Daily Caller, the Department of Justice is asking for $37.65 billion in funding for Fiscal Year 2023. That’s a $2.63 billion increase.

However, Kennedy didn’t think that money was going to the right places, particularly given the circumstances.

“I think the Justice Department is losing. I think you’re losing on crime,” Kennedy began.

“I think you’re losing on drugs. I think you’re losing on immigration. I think you’re losing on Chinese espionage.”

On crime, Kennedy began by asking Garland what percentage of law enforcement officers he thought were “bad cops” or “racist.” He also asked what percentage of cops didn’t follow the Constitution. In all cases, Garland said the number was very small.

All right, then: “Why doesn’t the Justice Department support stop, question and frisk?” Kennedy asked. Garland said he wasn’t aware of a Justice Department position, so Kennedy restated: “Why doesn’t the Justice Department aggressively encourage law enforcement officials to use that technique?”

“Let’s take Chicago, where we haven’t made any inroads in stopping the killing,” Kennedy said. The city has already seen 169 murders in 2022 and almost 800 in 2021, which was the highest number since 1996.

“Chicago is now the world’s largest outdoor shooting range. We know that a lot of the shootings come from gangs,” Kennedy said.

“Why wouldn’t you want to call the police chief and the mayor in Chicago and say, ‘Look, you know who these gang members are. When you have reasonable suspicion under Terry v. Ohio, an objective standard, more than just a hunch, why don’t you aggressively stop, question and frisk these gang members?”

Garland deflected: “The best way for the federal government to stop violent crime is to work at each local level and determine, and let the state and locals determine, what the best use of their own resources is.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’m trying to get some answers,” Kennedy said. “Why won’t you do that? Just tell me why you won’t do that. Your opinion matters.”

“Because there is no one-solution-fits-all that the federal government can suggest to state and local law enforcement,” Garland responded. “We believe state and local law enforcement knows best as to what to do there. We provide our technical expertise. We put lots of resources into joint task forces.”

And that’s where Kennedy pounced, as they like to say.

“You are asking in the middle of raging inflation for 7 percent more money, $2.63 billion, to provide technical increase, technical advice?” Kennedy said

“I mean, we’re going backwards here on crime, General. You are the country’s chief law enforcement officer, and you won’t even answer my question about how you feel about stop, question and frisk?”

The answer is obvious: Stop, question and frisk is highly effective. It’s also highly radioactive in leftist circles since it’s assumed the practice will be applied in a racist manner. The issue practically destroyed Michael Bloomberg’s 2020 Democratic presidential campaign before it began because of his endorsement of stop-and-frisk during his time as New York City mayor. Coming out and endorsing it would be suicide for anyone in the Biden administration, much less Attorney General Garland.

And yet, Kennedy prefaced this by making sure everyone knew Garland didn’t think cops were “bad” or “racist” and that they followed the Constitution. Thus, if they weren’t targeting people by race and respecting their constitutional rights, stop-and-frisk should be something the Department of Justice is encouraging in cities like Chicago, right?

This administration can “fund the police” all it wants — but we’ll still have the same lawlessness and a bigger pile of debt to go with it.