Remember the classics

The new cohort of wingnuts entering Congress is so kooky and reactionary we tend to lose sight of the similarly reactionary and kooky crackpots who have been around forever:

Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe told a female Environmental Protection Agency nominee on Wednesday that if she did not “behave,” then “I’m going to talk to your daddy.”The awkward exchange was during Radhika Fox’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to be the assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Water. Fox currently serves in the role on an acting basis and is the Office of Water’s principal deputy assistant administrator.During the hearing, Inhofe, a Republican senator from Oklahoma, asked Fox about the Trump administration’s changes to the Obama-era Waters of the United States rule, or WOTUS, which extended federal authority and protections to streams and wetlands but that others felt was government overreach.As Fox was answering, Inhofe interrupted her, explaining that he didn’t mean to, but needed to use his remaining time to ask questions of the other two Biden administration nominees at the hearing.

“I appreciate your comments particularly in your opening statement, I enjoyed that,” Inhofe told Fox. “And so I will look forward to working with you.” “And if you don’t behave, I’m going to talk to your daddy,” he added, to which Fox then laughed.

Well, in Jim Inhofe’s eyes being a woman, a person of color and not being a climate denier is definitely strike 3.