Tom Cotton So Mad At Merrick Garland, Boy Howdy, Oh Boy, Boy Howdy, Oh Boy!

Why? Reasons.

Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican of course, is trending on Twitter, so that's never good.

Attorney General Merrick Garland is testifying today in the Judiciary Committee, so naturally Cotton decided it'd be a good time to fuck the same weird chicken Rand Paul has been fucking for months, accusing Dr. Anthony Fauci of lying to Congress about whether the National Institutes of Health funded so-called "gain of function" research in the lab at Wuhan. ("Gain of function" refers to lab experiments to engineer more lethal viruses for studying or developing treatments, and is a crucial part of wingnuts' theory that Dr. Fauci personally invented COVID-19.)

But wait, didn't we just say this was a Merrick Garland hearing? Yes.

So why was Cotton asking the attorney general about Dr. Fauci? And was it anything more than the rhetorical equivalent of a zoo animal getting an erection and proceeding to play with it in front of a tour group?

As usual, everything about Tom Cotton brings up more questions than it answers.

Aaron Rupar has been live-tweeting the hearing, so we'll take his clips a couple at a time. 

In the first clip below, Cotton read out delusional conspiracy theories about the NIH supposedly admitting it funds gain-of-function research, then demanded to know if Garland was investigating Fauci for lying to Congress. Garland, of course, said the department doesn't discuss the existence or non-existence of investigations. (Garland answered similarly when Cotton huffed and puffed and demanded to know if the Department of Justice was investigating the people who followed Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema into a bathroom recently. We guess Cotton was mad because of how Sinema is effectively a Republican these days.)

Then Tom Cotton asked Garland if Fauci was a liar, and Garland was like WHAAAAA? "This is outside the scope of my knowledge," he said, shocked a sitting senator was even wasting his time like this.

Then Cotton stuck his tailfeathers up in the air and shook them back and forth about Garland's "outrageous directive siccing the feds on parents at school boards across America." This is, of course, also a delusional conspiracy theory, one that's really popular among mediocre white Republican elected officials these days. (The DOJ is trying to protect school officials from actual rightwing terrorism and physical violence.)

Tom Cotton is trying very hard to craft a perfect 20-second soundbite for Laura Ingraham https: //t.co/QcvDHJI2lW

— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1635350837.0 

OK, little buddy.

In this second set of videos, it's just Tom Cotton stomping his feet and clapping his hands and snapping his fingers and having conniptions oh boy, he is just hot under the collar and about to have a dyin' duck fit! He is ill as a hornet and mad as the snake that married the garden hose!

About what? Oh, who cares. It seems he's still upset about his conspiracy theory about the feds arresting all the mommies and the daddies for innocently making their concerns known to their school boards, and the DOJ directive they think outlines how that is to be done.

COTTON: Judge, this is shameful! This testimony, your directive, your performance is shameful! Thank God you are not on the Supreme Court! You should resign in disgrace, judge!

Garland stared at him for several long seconds, and then said he wasn't sure Cotton had a question to ask.

Tom Cotton leaves the hearing room in a huff https: //t.co/6nhZbakY1P

— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1635351034.0 

As the final clip above says, at the end, Cotton stood up and huffed and puffed away. "I'm done!"

Because he was, he was done. He had no more to say, and his time was up. Merrick Garland had really dilled his pickle and he was madder than a puffed toad and all of this just really put him in a horn-tossin' mood and made his butt want to grind corn.

Tom Cotton is a United States senator, and has been one for six years.

That's how far we've fallen as a country.

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