US senator denounced as 'profoundly ignorant man' over remarks on Mexico

[riversedge]

Source: the guardian



John Kennedy’s comments about Mexicans ‘eating cat food’ came as he urged the US military to enter country to ‘stop the cartels’


Ramon Antonio Vargas Last modified on Sun 14 May 2023 11.28 EDT

Mexicans “would be eating cat food out of a can and living in a tent behind an Outback” Steakhouse restaurant if it were not for their nation’s proximity to the US, and their country should be invaded because of the presence of drug cartels there, the US senator John Neely Kennedy said.

The Louisiana Republican’s racist remarks drew a strong condemnation from Mexico’s foreign affairs secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, who called Kennedy “a profoundly ignorant man”. Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, meanwhile, urged the 37 million Americans of Mexican descent – along with other Latinos in the US – “not to vote for people with this very arrogant, very offensive and very foolish mentality” in the future.


Kennedy’s rant came on Wednesday during a Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing that in part focused on the Drug Enforcement Administration’s budget. Kennedy told DEA administrator Anne Milgram that she and other members of the Biden White House should pressure López Obrador to let US military and law enforcement officials storm into his country “and stop the cartels”.

“Make him a deal he can’t refuse,” Kennedy said, an apparent allusion to the famous line from the classic mobster film The Godfather. Kennedy also said: “Without the people of America, Mexico, figuratively speaking, would be eating cat food out of a can and living in a tent behind an Outback.”.............................

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/14/senator-john-kennedy-mexico-drug-cartels?CMP=share_btn_tw

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[LonePirate]

1. He has a degree from Oxford. He's intentionally saying dumb, racist crap to boost his base.

[atreides1]

3. And?

So he has a piece of paper in a frame...with a fancy named school!!! Doesn't mean he isn't a racist POS like his flat earther constituents!

The man would be just as comfortable wearing an SS uniform, goose stepping his white racist ass down Independence Avenue...as he would wearing his white hood at his family BBQ's back home!

I know a lot of people with degrees...it doesn't change what they have always been!!!

[elleng]

5. Suggests he is not 'profoundly ignorant,'

not that he isn't a racist POS.

[LonePirate]

7. Exactly. He's evil, not dumb.

[Ray Bruns]

46. Why not both?

[paleotn]

17. He should know better and does, but that's irrelevant.

Being a racist piece of shit knows no social or educational class, though thankfully there are far fewer among the educated. Level of education correlates strongly with sensible and humane politics. But not always. Ted Cruz, one of the most evil and certainly the creepiest man in DC, is a Princeton and Harvard law grad.

[2naSalit]

25. +1

[IronLionZion]

29. He knows what he's doing

He and his voters have chosen to go all in on racism because it appears to be working for them.

[BOSSHOG]

34. And the current front runner

For Governor of Louisiana is trump endorsed ignorant trash Jeff Landry.

[Hekate]

31. He is an utter embarrassment to America, pretending to be as stupid as his base

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

41. Surely you realize that attending a top-tier uni

Is no guarantee of intelligence...right?

Plenty of people who attend even the best unis come out as stupid as they entered them. It's entirely possible to attend those schools and not learn a bloody thing. Plenty of them learn the material only for as long as they "need" it to get a good grade, then they flush it once they don't. This is especially true of your average legacy admits who are there to make the necessary "connections" they'll need when they take over the family corporation, but also of the types who attend not to learn, but to get the imprimatur of the elite degree to further their own ambitions.

It would terrify you to know how high a percentage of admits such idiots are to your average "elite" university...and to a good deal of "gifted and talented" programs in primary and secondary schools, as well.

[LonePirate]

43. He graduated at/near the top of his Oxford class. He's not the dumb rube he portrays to his voters.

[Rhiannon12866]

44. Exactly.

[Martin68]

2. Both stupid and ignorant. Must be a Republican politician.

[Novara]

4. Imagine thinking it's preferable to be a profoundly stupid, racist redneck to using your brain.

My mind can't quite grok this.

[LiberalFighter]

6. I wonder how much he or his mother ate cat food.

He probably forced his mother.

[bronxiteforever]

8. Kick for visibility.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

24. Resign! Is the visibility we should be seeing, but the media bar for that no longer exists.

[pfitz59]

9. Dumbing down for his base

speaks in folksy tones of pure racism...

[Alexander Of Assyria]

22. This one is pure racist mixed with impure intelligence. Racism in the open...at least we know

where to aim.

Not sure all white folk u derstand how racist this screed is and more so, how hateful and self revealing of fear.

Racism drips with fear as well as satisfied ignorance.

Yet in America it’s always a close call if the racists take power???

[anciano]

10. Oh, please .....

this guy is no Marlon Brando. Just saying .....

[JohnnyRingo]

11. He can find constituents doing that in his own state.

Thank goodness for the food card that he so adamantly opposes, otherwise even cat food would be hard to come by for the destitute in Louisiana. A real tent is a luxury item for the homeless in New Orleans as well.

F' you Kennedy.

[japple]

12. Lip-smacking, teeth sucking, cornpone actor who somehow got

advanced degrees in college & law school turns in a fine performance as J. B. Stoner, late, GA.

[BumRushDaShow]

13. He is now Steve King (R Dumbass-IA) reincarnated

[keithbvadu2]

14. Outback sounds Aussie. Doesn't he mean Taco Bell or Petsmart?

John, You can go lead some Proud Boys/militia down there to Git 'er Done.

[Hassler]

15. Phony Senator Cornpone must be pissed knowing the invasion

He was predicting didn't happen. Sleepy Joe wins again.

[3catwoman3]

16. Foghorn Leghorn.

IIRC, he is known to turn that accent on and off depending on who he’s addressing.

[Peregrine Took]

18. I call him "Ole flabbermouth" - it has to do with his not having any teeth yet the lips are flying!!

I know he probably has teeth...but you just can't see them.

[paleotn]

19. The modern Republican party attracts the garbage of our society.

The psychopaths, sociopaths and hateful morons have found a home. In short, the scum of America, including Senator Foghorn Leghorn (Complete Asshole - LA)

[area51]

32. +1 n/t

[heckles65]

20. Americans tend to be pig-ignorant about Mexico

About the rest of Latin America, we're a veritable chasm of ignorance.

[moniss]

42. It's one of the things

that gripes me the most about our 24/7 cable media. They could at least take one hour a week and cover Mexico and Central America current issues/history and educate their audience with factual reporting. But instead they spend years and years talking about people immigrating from those areas and yet they do almost nothing to give anybody here information to have an informed opinion about various aspects of the problems being faced by those people fleeing those areas, the root causes and our own sordid and continuing history in arming and supporting crooked governments and doing so to provide protection for companies doing business there that are exploiting the people.

I gave up on cable/network media mostly. I still hang in for PBS for a couple of programs like "Frontline" and "POV" and those shows do go more in depth about a range of topics but we need programming each week that specifically tells us about our neighbors and other countries around the world in a factual informative manner of reporting. When I can I watch BBC World News, NHK News from Japan and DW News from Germany so I can at least catch a far more broad idea of what's going on than the limited picture given by our US media.

[Iggo]

23. When white racist Americans talk about us amongst themselves, these are the things they say.

I only know this because I look just like them, and when the last brown person leaves the room, they let loose.

[moniss]

40. I can attest to that and

the level of misogyny/sexism is off the dial. Years back on my first day at a major corporation I was in a meeting in a room with a view to the entrance when lunchtime came. We kept the meeting going and as the clerical staff exited to their vehicles to go for lunch I was stunned when these highly placed professionals in the room with me began to speak about this woman or that as they walked past our view. It was about every body part and desired activity. It was my first day and first exposure to any place other than small businesses. After that employment ended I never did work for a big place again. I now consider myself lucky.

[Roy Rolling]

26. To use my Senator's phony schtick

He knows which side his bread is buttered on. Here’s a hint for the rest of us:

"

[bronxiteforever]

35. +1

[EndlessWire]

27. I think this is dangerous rabble rousing

rhetoric. It was bad enough when Trump had to be talked out of bombing Mexico. Now we have this idiot advocating an invasion. Mexico has done nothing to us except become a punching bag for American politicians trying to manufacture a cause.

Sure, it has a major drug problem. Think they don't know it? Think they don't want to be free of them? But, wth, let's work on getting rid of the fascists in our own country. Sure hope Mexicans don't offer to invade the red states to free us of this threat. We'll probably have to toss a coin on that one.

This ahole is making a big mistake about the cat food as a food source for poor people. He thinks he's being cute when he says that. It's very offensive. As someone who has been poor enough to consider cat food in the past, I can tell you jokes about it aren't funny. You can't think when you're that hungry. But nowadays, its cheaper to stock up on beans, mac n cheese and rice, and fill in the missing bits with vitamins, greens powders, and water.

Cats won't eat just anything, unlike a dog that you can feed from your own allotment. Just have to consider that if you fall on hard times. A dog may pout, but eventually it'll give in. But a cat, not so much.

How do animals know what is food and what is not? Ever wonder that? How do they know that the tasty processed flour and sugar donut you're eating is food they want?

Did you see the video of the racoon taking a turn at the drive through window waiting patiently for a free donut from the food worker? Took it in its hands and ran for the bushes...

[SWBTATTReg]

28. Kennedy: a profoundly ignorant man

These words say it all. Kennedy is a long-term politician (too long) who shouldn't be bad mouthing one of our geographical neighbors, a Country w/ whom we have so much in common, and w/ family and friends numbering in the millions. What a sick moron. This play by the gop on immigrants and such is getting way too old, way too ignorant, and ridiculous.

[IronLionZion]

30. Are they stealing our jobs too?

Since many states are in "nobody wants to work anymore" with lots of help wanted signs for low paying jobs with no benefits.

Our country needs immigration reform. Why not a way to do it legally with more work visas? Then if they don't commit any crimes, give them a pathway to citizenship.

[moniss]

39. The GQP

would have no problem with with the numbers of migrants coming if they could enslave them for low wages, exempt them from labor laws, exempt them from any social benefits, tax them and never allow them to be citizens. Senator Corn Pone himself would probably gladly own a bunch of substandard shacks for them to live in and pay him an exorbitant rent.

[Evolve Dammit]

33. He is one stupid fuck. Seriously, how do you make Senator and be that fucking stupid???

Yeah, I know. It happens all the time.

[moniss]

38. When it's

Louisiana if you are white, racist, homophobic, ignorant and corrupt you have checked all the necessary boxes in that state for getting elected to high office.

[Evolve Dammit]

52. Two Americas. Still fighting the civil war 160 years later. "United" we are not. I have to remember

all the Dems and liberals are in those states and hope they will be able to survive, cope and push on, despite the obvious suppression/oppression.

[moniss]

53. Right you are

and it is so important to keep telling the history of Civil Rights struggles in those states and the sacrifices made of life /limb and money. The GQP/white nationalists know the importance of telling that history and that's why they want to stop it from being done.

[Evolve Dammit]

54. Yes indeed. They require truth to be suppressed to continue. Lying fascists. n/t

[Sogo]

36. The ads write themselves, Dems....

Play this on a continuous loop to show who the Reps are.

I just hope the 37 million Americans of Mexican and Latin descent take Mexican President Obrador's advice:

"Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, meanwhile, urged the 37 million Americans of Mexican descent – along with other Latinos in the US – “not to vote for people with this very arrogant, very offensive and very foolish mentality” in the future."

[70sEraVet]

37. I might propose that the reason the Mexican Cartels are so powerful, is BECAUSE of the proximity

of the US.
We buy their drugs, then we happily sell them military-grade weapons with the money they get from us.

[Retrograde]

45. Last time we sent troops to Mexico

we ended up annexing half of that country (1848: I'm not counting the border skirmishes c. 1916). Is Kennedy proposing we annex the rest of it now?

I know DU rules are that headlines in the Breaking News forum be exactly as originally published, but there are so many idiot GOP senators now that it's hard to figure out which one a particular headline is talking about!

[Paladin]

47. Repulsive, worthless piece of trash. (nt)

[Baltimike]

48. Notice each time it's the kGQPb, they don't mention party affiliation.

It's absurd

[truthisfreedom]

49. This guy does not own a cat.

Cat food prices have exploded. I wonder how the Outback feels about being targeted by his hateful rhetoric?

[oasis]

50. "...and up from the ground came a bubblin' cude

[Cha]

51. Of course Kennedy is Stupid & Ignorant..

he's a magat.

Thankfully the Mexican Officials are Asking Latinos in the US NOT to vote GOP.

Some of the Best Advice EVER!!!