NEO-NAZI FASCIST TRUNT Sen markiewaynsie "O"mullin is not qualified to be the Sec of Homeland Security ( just like bukkake queen fascist fotze trunt kkkristi noem was never qualified ). He is a liar, ignorant, prone to violence, a fascist; more a gang leader than Sec of Homeland Security except in the fascist authoritarian drumpf / trump-vance administration. He shouldn't be confirmed but will be by the goose-stepping gop / magat cultist in the US Senate. Still, we do have a responsibility to vigorously oppose his confirmation for the sake of our democratic Republic so please e mail your senators telling them to vote against him. DEMOCRACY IS NOT A SPECTATOR SPORT!!! My e mails are at the end of this post. This from the New York Times.....
Mullin Pledges to Revoke Noem Policy That Slowed Disaster Aid
Reporting from the Capitol
Senator Markwayne Mullin was grilled on Wednesday about comments he had made that suggested he had been in a war zone, even though he has not served in the military and had no record of holding a job that would take him to conflict areas before he was elected to Congress.
Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, pressed Mr. Mullin during his confirmation hearing on his past statements that he had completed “special assignments” overseas and was familiar with the “smell” of war. Mr. Mullin, a Republican of Oklahoma, is President Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security.
“War is ugly. It smells bad,” Mr. Mullin said on Fox News earlier this month. “And if anyone has ever been there and been able to smell the war that’s happening around you and taste it and fill it in your nostrils and hear it, it’s something that you’ll never forget.”
Asked about his international trips, the Oklahoma senator explained to Mr. Peters that he had tried to enter Afghanistan in 2021 to help get Americans out of the country. The attempts were well-documented in media reports at the time and drew objections from some political and congressional leaders. Mr. Mullin told Mr. Peters he had also taken an “official trip” that was classified when he was a member of the House a decade ago.
Mr. Mullin said that in 2015, he “was asked to train with a very small contingency and go to a certain area, which was scheduled for 2016,” he said. “During that time, I was asked to go through — had to meet certain training qualifications, certain qualifications, had to go through SERE training.”
SERE is the Air Force’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training program, which is meant to prepare pilots for the possibility that they might be shot down behind enemy lines in wartime. It was created after the Korean War, when airmen who had been captured by Communist forces were tortured and forced to produce propaganda tapes against the United States.
The program includes undergoing various coercive interrogation techniques. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when the C.I.A. created its program to torture high-value Al Qaeda suspects, it drew on SERE to craft the techniques it used. Mr. Mullin did not explain why a sitting member of Congress would go through the program, a highly unusual occurrence.
“The training and stuff was kind of fun — the SERE training was absolutely awful,” he said, adding that he had never publicly spoken about the details of the trip, including its mission.
Mr. Peters said an F.B.I. report showed that Mr. Mullin had traveled to places that Mr. Peters thought included Georgia and Azerbaijan. Asked by Mr. Peters where he had “smelled war,” Mr. Mullin responded that he could not discuss classified information.
A House expenditure report from September 2016 states that Mr. Mullin took a trip to Jordan that year, arriving on Aug. 16 and leaving on Aug. 19. Jordan is next to southern Syria, which was then in the midst of a civil war.
Mr. Mullin said he was not yet on the House Intelligence Committee at the time, but was serving on the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Senator Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican who chairs the Homeland Security Committee, raised the possibility of postponing the committee’s vote on Mr. Mullin’s nomination if he was not willing to discuss the trip. After Mr. Paul and Mr. Peters asked Mr. Mullin if he would provide more detail in a secure room for sharing classified information, the senators relocated there.
After walking out of the secure room, Mr. Mullin declined to answer questions from reporters about what had been discussed.
Senator James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, who was also in the meeting, brushed off questions afterward about Mr. Mullin’s travels and declined to share details with reporters.
“When you hear the story, you’re like, why is this a story?” Mr. Lankford said. “This is not a big story.”
Mr. Paul also declined to reveal more details about Mr. Mullin’s secretive trip on Fox News later that day. Mr. Paul, who sparred with Mr. Mullin during the hearing, said that he would not vote to confirm Mr. Mullin, pointing to his refusal to apologize for criticizing Mr. Paul.
Mr. Paul said the vote was still scheduled for Thursday “as of now.”
Mr. Mullin would most likely need the support of one Democrat to advance his nomination out of committee if Mr. Paul maintains his position. That backing may come from Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, who said before the hearing that he supported confirming Mr. Mullin.
Michael Gold and Charlie Savage contributed reporting.
Reporting from Washington
Mullin signals that he would end a Noem policy of grant signoffs that slowed disaster aid.
Senator Markwayne Mullin, President Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, said Wednesday that if confirmed he would “absolutely” revoke a policy that has drastically slowed the flow of federal disaster aid under the current secretary, Kristi Noem.
Since June, Ms. Noem has required that her office approve any contracts or grants of $100,000 or more, creating significant delays and uncertainty for disaster-struck states and communities waiting for recovery assistance. An investigation by Senate Democrats this month found that the policy had delayed Federal Emergency Management Agency projects by three weeks, on average.
“That’s called micromanaging,” Mr. Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican, told Senator Andy Kim, Democrat of New Jersey, at a confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill. “I’m not a micromanager.”
The statements provided the first clear signals of how Mr. Mullin might approach federal disaster policy differently than Ms. Noem if he is confirmed to lead the Homeland Security Department, which includes FEMA. Under Ms. Noem, FEMA shed thousands of employees as the Trump administration moved to shift more responsibility for disaster response to states.
But Mr. Mullin also echoed statements by Ms. Noem and Mr. Trump that FEMA should defer to states and communities and respond to fewer disasters, while speeding the flow of aid. And though the administration had briefly explored the idea of abolishing FEMA, Mr. Mullin said the agency needed to be “restructured, not eliminated.”
He defended steps to reduce federal agencies, including FEMA, saying many of them “got very bloated” in recent years. If confirmed, he said he would ensure FEMA will be “adequately staffed to respond to our nation’s disasters” and pledged “to be very responsible for the taxpayer dollars.”
But, contrasting himself with Ms. Noem, he pledged to let FEMA leaders take control of their agency and said he would prioritize hiring an administrator to lead the organization. Since Mr. Trump took office last year, three people have run FEMA on an acting basis, but Mr. Trump has not nominated any permanent candidates for the role.
“We’re already looking at some in the case that we do get confirmed,” Mr. Mullin said.
That heartened some emergency managers, who have stressed that federal law requires FEMA’s leader to have a background in disaster response. Samantha Montano, an associate professor of emergency management at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, called it “a good sign in terms of where he stands on FEMA.”
But Ms. Montano said she was still concerned that the Trump administration’s vision for a leaner disaster agency could hamper its ability to help communities. Even before the current administration began cutting the federal work force, research by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that FEMA lacked the necessary staff to tackle increasingly frequent and complex disasters.
Over the past year, FEMA has faced relatively few tests of its capabilities, with no hurricanes making landfall on U.S. shores and a relatively quiet wildfire season in the West. Disaster activity could soon increase, however, as meteorologists forecast that the chaotic El Niño climate pattern will form this year.
Mr. Mullin said he planned to move forward with stalled efforts to overhaul FEMA.
“I do believe the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting the same results,” Mr. Mullin said. “How can we deliver the mission better for the American people?”
FEMA and Homeland Security officials did not immediately respond to questions about Mr. Mullin’s comments. A spokeswoman, Victoria Barton, said on Tuesday that the agency was “working through the process right now on the transition.” Ms. Noem is still on the job through March 31, and Mr. Mullin is awaiting confirmation.
Mr. Mullin’s Republican colleagues in the Senate largely used his hearing to pressure Democrats to end a partial government shutdown affecting FEMA and the rest of the Homeland Security Department as the minority party seeks new restraints on federal immigration enforcement.
Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, told Mr. Mullin that tornado victims in his state have been waiting months for disaster aid.
“They’re being told, ‘Sorry, there’s nothing we can do, because FEMA’s shut down,’” Mr. Hawley said.
But such delays began months before the partial shutdown did, and Democrats have blamed the lengthy financial reviews that Ms. Noem implemented for the problems. Disaster aid work is not typically affected by shutdowns because it is usually paid for by a disaster relief fund that Congress often funds outside of the annual budgeting process.
Senator Markwayne Mullin just walked out of the secure facility, but declined to answer any reporter questions about what he discussed with senators on the Homeland Security Committee.
Senator Markwayne Mullin, the Oklahoma Republican President Trump tapped to serve as his next homeland security secretary, just walked into a secure facility where he had promised to talk to senators about details of a 2016 trip abroad that he said was classified. The trip was the focus of a heated exchange during Mullin’s confirmation hearing, as the top members of the homeland security committee challenged him and pressed for details.
Senator Markwayne Mullin’s confirmation hearing has concluded. He deviated from the positions of the outgoing homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, on a number of critical issues and seemed to acknowledge that he needed to improve the American people’s confidence in the agency.
Mullin’s tone at his confirmation hearing underscores a Republican shift.
Senator Markwayne Mullin, the pugilistic Oklahoma Republican whom President Trump nominated as his next homeland security secretary, is a former mixed martial arts fighter known for once challenging a witness at a congressional hearing to a brawl.
But at his own confirmation hearing on Wednesday, he brought a warmer and fuzzier persona, with language and policy positions to match, as he fielded questions on some of the most divisive immigration enforcement issues he would face as secretary — a contrast to the president’s hard-line, aggressive approach.
After months in which the Trump administration vocally defended the use of administrative warrants to enter homes to arrest undocumented immigrants, Mr. Mullin signaled that he would be willing, in most cases, to require officers to obtain such permission from judges.
He committed to collaborating with senators in both parties to address their concerns over immigration policy, telling them, “If you call me, you’re going to get a response; if you text me, you’re going to get a response.”
And when Mr. Mullin was asked how he would confront the leaders of so-called sanctuary cities, which limit cooperation with federal immigration officials, the senator, once a vocal critic of those jurisdictions, suggested he would approach the issue as he would a dispute born of innocent confusion between two loving spouses.
“These law enforcement, and I would even say these mayors — they still love their communities” Mr. Mullin said. “They still love their cities, they still love this country. So maybe it is a misunderstanding we can work by, and I’m going to start with that. That’s what I’m going to start with.”
Mr. Mullin’s comments suggested a sharp break with Mr. Trump, who has vilified such leaders and tried to withhold federal funding from states and cities that blocked his immigration crackdown. Mr. Mullin had in the past defended the president’s actions and said he believed such jurisdictions were violating federal laws.
At the hearing, Mr. Mullin also said he regretted calling Alex Pretti a “deranged individual that came in to cause max damage” after Mr. Pretti, an American citizen, was fatally shot by federal immigration officers, acknowledging that he had rushed to judgment without knowing the facts.
As he worked to win confirmation, Mr. Mullin’s attitude toward his fellow senators appeared aimed at setting him apart from the combativeness of Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary he would replace. Her appearances on Capitol Hill were marked by sparring with lawmakers as she defended her militant approach to immigration enforcement, and recently refused to apologize for her characterization of Mr. Pretti as a domestic terrorist.
Mr. Mullin’s softer tone was also in line with a broader shift underway among Republicans in how they talk about immigration enforcement. Some have acknowledged that Mr. Trump’s aggressive language and tactics on immigration, which they have backed almost without qualification, have cost their party support with voters, imperiling their already dim prospects for keeping control of Congress in November’s midterm elections.
Last week, Speaker Mike Johnson acknowledged that Republicans were recalibrating after the Trump’s immigration crackdown had alienated Hispanic voters in particular, and pointed to Mr. Mullin as the solution. “We’re in a course correction mode right now,” he said. “We’re going to have a new secretary of homeland security.”
It is unclear whether Mr. Mullin’s gentler posture will hold if he is confirmed. Many cabinet officials have backtracked on commitments they made to senators during their confirmation hearings once they take up their positions and are more focused on keeping Mr. Trump happy.
On Wednesday, while Mr. Mullin faced some sharp questioning, he and senators in both parties played up their warm personal ties. Before launching into some probing questions, Senator Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona, greeted the Oklahoman as his “neighbor.”
“Hey brother,” Mr. Mullin responded. “Good to see ya.”
MY E MAILS TO SEN WARNER D-VA & SEN KAINE D-VA
Sen markwayne mullin r-OK is not qualified to be Sec of Homeland Security. He is a liar, ignorant, prone to violence, a fascist; more a gang leader than Sec of Homeland Security except in the fascist authoritarian drumpf / trump-vance administration. I expect you to vote against his confirmation.
Thank you
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