Kennedy rips House Dems' coronavirus stimulus proposal: 'It's dead as fried chicken in the Senate'
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Senate Judiciary Committee Member John Kennedy, R-La., channeled actor Jack Nicholson Tuesday to describe his response to the latest coronavirus stimulus bill pushed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
"Go sell crazy somewhere else, we're all stocked up here," Kennedy told "Hannity," quoting Nicholson's character Melvin Udall in the 1997 movie "As Good As It Gets."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}LOS ANGELES COUNTY'S STAY-AT-HOME ORDER COULD LAST INTO SUMMER, OFFICIAL WARNS
"It's not a serious or mature effort to legislate," Kennedy went on. "It's dead as fried chicken in the Senate. It's dead as fried chicken with the American people once they find out what's in it."
Kennedy told host Sean Hannity that most Americans of "good faith" don't want more people to die due to the coronavirus pandemic, nor do they want to see lasting economic damage from it.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}However, the senator went on, Pelosi "has moved from folly to farce" with her latest proposal, which he said will "set us back."
"Her bill would require us to borrow $3 trillion," Kennedy said. "That's $3 thousand-billion that our kids have got to pay back. Her bill would rewrite our immigration laws. Her bill would release many federal prisoners. Her bill represents a federal takeover of our state election systems.
"Her bill would turn over all of our public safety decisions, or most of them, to OSHA," he added, referring to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which Kennedy described as the kind of organization that would people to "wear face masks in the shower."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I was hoping for a serious mature, honest effort," Kennedy concluded. "But that's not what this represents."
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However, the senator added that the proposal would speak loudly to a few of her core constituencies.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"The pronoun police, the nature-cure quacks, certain members of the media; they will suck it up," he said. "But once the American people find out what's in this bill, they are not going to like it."