U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, is prone to fits of hyperbole and spastic verbal outbursts, mostly directed at Republican politicians, seemingly the bane of his existence.
There’s that time he warned of a massive outbreak of Ebola if Republicans didn’t expand Medicaid in Tennessee.
There’s that time he compared Republicans to Nazi propagandists Joseph Goebbels.
Heck, most recently he said Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marsha Blackburn should kill herself.
But Cohen evidently can’t handle what he throws out, even when what he gets back is sarcasm — and nowhere near the verbal overkill he’s delinquent of.
This, according to Twitchy.com this week.
Cohen blocked the account of Twitter user Sean Spicier, a parody account and a play on the name of President Donald Trump’s former White House communications front man Sean Spicer.
“Our favorite parody account and yours, @Sean_Spicier, seems to have gotten himself blocked by the one and only Rep. Steve Cohen,” the website reported.
“Granted, Cohen blocks anyone with a pulse who disagrees with him even slightly but part of us would like to think the representative who wanted to award Peter Strzok the Purple Heart for ****-talking Trump thought for just a moment Spicer himself was busting on him.”
Spicier mocked Cohen’s endorsement of Beto O’Rourke, who wants Ted Cruz’ Texas U.S. Senate seat.
Spicier’s response:
“Endorsement from the guy who wants to give Peter Strzok a Purple Heart. Should go over real well in Texas.”
That’s all it took for Cohen to drop his Twitter ban hammer on Spicier.
The author of the Twitchy piece then noted Cohen blocked her on Twitter months ago.
(Writer’s note: Cohen blocked me on Twitter back in 2014 after I published a series of stories questioning his on-the-job rhetoric)
Spicier, among other things, torches leftists almost every day with the following type tweets:
• “Fake news isn’t going anywhere because reporting real news only gets us 6 more years of Republicans running everything.”
• “So far this week ICE apprehended a suspect wanted for murder in Mexico and deported a Nazi. Yea those people are useless.”
• “I don’t understand how they found a Nazi in New York. I was told they all live in states President Trump won.”
• “If the judge in the Manafort trial thinks he has a dangerous job, he should try being a Republican softball player.”
• “‘Booing CNN is un-American!’say people who booed God.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
I personnel have been blocked twice by @RepCohen. His PR person apologizes afterwards but still the same results. Thanks for your articles. A negative story about @RepCohen would never show up in the Commercial Appeal newspaper here in Memphis.
[…] As The Star reported last week, Cohen has blocked several people on Twitter, including the parody page in the name of Sean Spicier. […]
[…] As The Tennessee Star reported last week, Cohen has blocked several people on Twitter, including the parody page in the name of Sean Spicier. […]
Dang Steve, looks like youre puckered up to kiss something. Did Schumer just bend over to pick something up?
Isn’t Cohen violating the First Amendment?
Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald, U.S. District Court of Southern New York, ruled Trump was when he blocked other users, saying President Trump’s Twitter account is a public forum and blocking people who reply to his tweets with differing opinions constitutes viewpoint discrimination which violates the First Amendment.
Imagine that! An elitist, Democrat – and one of Trump’s most vocal critics – playing by different rules than the rest of us!
Closer to home that Tqitchy or Spicier … folks in Tennessee have had a good long dialog for a good few months about how he’s blocked his own #TN09 constituents.
Moreover they’ve been tweeting about how they feel abandoned down in that corner of the state.