Tom Cotton, one of America's most self-serving & racist politicians
The Senator from Arkansas has become the point man to champion the needs of a foreign country, Israel, above the needs of his state, Arkansas, which has among the worst challenges in the country
By Ray Hanania
FREE/Politics Senator Tom Cotton/Sunday Jan. 19, 2025
Who is Senator Tom Cotton, the politician who is driving the campaign to shut down TikTok?
Cotton asserts falsely that he is seeking to protect the American people from the prying spying of the Chinese Communist government, the boogeyman exploited by every politician who wants to deflect voters away from their own failings.
Yes, China is a threat. But if Chinese-owned TikTok is a threat to Americans what about the other social media that siphon user data that have ties to China, or that may not have direct ties to China but exploit user data too?
Is Tom Cotton concerned about protecting the interests of the American people, or is he being driven by his own greedy self-interests and the needs of the dark political powers that fund him?
Cotton was elected Congressman in 2013 representing the State of Arkansas. In 2015, he was sworn in as the U.S. Senator. As a House member, Cotton defined himself as a champion of the Government of the State of Israel, and immediately the powerful Israeli Political Action Committees (PACs) began pouring millions into his elections.
Pro-Israel PACS pumped more than $4.5 million into Cotton’s elections to ensure that he would be their voice in the U.S. Senate, and since have funded his elections with nearly $238,000.
Israel’s dark money financing of Senator Cotton remains “dark” because the mainstream news media is biased and doesn’t actively report on politicians who have been bought and paid for by powerful lobbies that they support.
Many media recognize that if Americans knew how much foreign countries were pouring into the coffers of our elected officials to do their bidding — instead of ours — the people might get too upset and it might disrupt a system that also benefits the media. The media also profits from these PACs because most of the donations are used to purchase media Advertising to get the candidates elected and re-elected.
Cotton also believes that there is nothing wrong with Americans serving in the militaries of foreign countries, like Israel. Many of these Americans who serve in Israel’s military have never served in the U.S. military. Cotton hides behind his own military service in Afghanistan and Iraq to blur his failed service to the American people.
And of course, pampered politicians like Cotton, the privileged son of a government bureaucrat and a school administrator, always find it convenient to exaggerate their military service to make themselves look better than they were, maybe raising questions about the genuine facts in his real service.
And serious questions have been raised about Cotton’s military service claims.
In 2021, Salon reported that Cotton falsely claimed in campaign ads and videos from 2011 to 2014 that he had served in Iraq and Afghanistan and earned a Bronze Star as a U.S. Army Ranger even though he did not serve in the Army's 75th Ranger Regiment.[13][19][20][21] Fact-checking site Snopes rated Salon's reporting as true.[22] In response to the article, Democratic congressman Jason Crow, who served in the 75th Ranger Regiment, criticized Cotton for calling himself a Ranger. A spokesperson for Cotton said, "To be clear, as he's stated many times, Senator Cotton graduated from Ranger School, earned the Ranger Tab, and served a combat tour with the 101st Airborne, not the 75th Ranger Regiment."[23]
Cotton has supported giving Israel hundreds of billions of American taxpayer dollars over the years because they need it to cover the costs of their wars against Muslims and Christians who are demanding but are denied equal rights in Israel and the occupied territories.
And yet, many Americans living in Arkansas are struggling to survive, and apparently Sen. Tom Cotton doesn’t really care about the voters in Arkansas. After all, the people of Arkansas didn’t put Cotton into office. Israel’s powerful political lobby put him into office and manipulated the suffering people of Arkansas to do it.
How much suffering are the people of Arkansas going through?
Here are some facts:
Arkansas ranks ninth in the country for the regressiveness of its tax system and seventh for poverty. Let me boldface that point. Arkansas has the 7th worst poverty rate, and yet it’s elected Senator, Tom Cotton, can’t find the time to address those problems. But, he can send a foreign country, Israel, billions to cover the costs of their genocide in the Gaza Strip, their war in Lebanon and their planned wars against Iran.
Arkansas Tax system:
Regressiveness: Arkansas's tax system is the ninth most regressive in the country. This means that income inequality is greater in Arkansas after taxes are collected than before.
Sales tax: Arkansas has the third-highest combined state and local sales tax rate in the country.
Property tax: Arkansas's property taxes are lower than most of the country, with a statewide average effective rate of 0.57%.
Capital stock tax: Arkansas has the highest capital stock tax rate in the country at 0.3%.
Tax competitiveness: Arkansas ranked 36th overall on the 2025 State Tax Competitiveness Index.
Arkansas Poverty:
Poverty rate: Arkansas has a poverty rate of 17.2%, which is the seventh highest in the country.
Poverty by county: Poverty rates vary considerably by county in Arkansas.
Poverty prevents the needy in Arkansas from augmenting their voices and organizing to demand proper representation. Poverty is a suppressant and it undermines a person’s ability to achieve positive change, especially if it is not addressed. The struggle to climb out of poverty without assistance from the people paid to assist you makes it an even greater challenge to overcome
In order to be as bad as Arkansas is, the poverty level there has to be wantonly ignored.
But it is easy to take money from Israel and compromise your principles and morals, especially in a campaign to shutdown TikTok, which is one of the only places where videos are posted that show Israeli soldiers and military units using American supplied weapons to kill women and children. The media censors those reports only showing the generic war images devoid of human sympathy, or compassion for the egregious suffering.
The pro-Israel lobby is no different than the sinister lobbies of our issue-driven PACs like the Health Industry lobby, which undermines the rights of the unhealthy to get proper care for the premiums they send, or the Banking and Credit Card Industry which exploit the poorest citizens with outrageously high interest rates and unjustified and unchallenged banking fees.
These PACs are the real disease that makes it easy for a movement with money to radically influence the decisions of the politicians who are elected to be more concerned with the PAC interests than with the people's interests.
NOTES:
You don’t believe TikTok was shut down to protect Israel’s image by politicians who have been on Israel’s PAC payroll for years? Listen to former US Senator Mitt Romney speak with the Liar-in-Chief Secretary of State Antony Blinken in this video interview clip.
While in the US Senate, Romney received nearly $1 million from the pro-Israel PACs to do their bidding, and the benefits continue even now that he is out of office.
you’re right. But many poor people, or those who feel abandoned turn to religion for comfort. Religion becomes the shell that justifies the poverty existence. And people like Huckabee and Cotten are quick to exploit it for their own profit. attitudes don’t change the facts that Arkansas has one of the worst levels of poverty. Huckabee and Cotton throw religion on it to make themselves feel better about their own enormous wealth
According to Pew Research, 48% of Arkansans believe aiding the poor does more harm than good. 46% of Arkansans identify as Mainline Protestants and 48% say they read Scripture at least once weekly. 45% of Arkansans say Scriptures should be taken literally. Despite the prevalence of poverty in Arkansas, 55% of Arkansans say they would rather have smaller government and fewer services. 46% of Arkansans believe that humans always exited in our present form, denying any possibility of evolution. These are significantly large percentages and show that political conservative propaganda is woven with religious Christian conservatism. It's no wonder why Sarah Sanders, daughter of conservative minister Mike Huckabee, is governor of Arkansas and why Tom Cotton enriches himself as you point out so well. When people believe they have special religious knowledge and their leaders are divinely led by God, where's their motivation to change, their motivation to evolve? For people like those in Arkansas, even their poverty is "God's divine will" and Cotton's money shows God's favor. Doesn't everyone know someone who believes that same way, despite different religious affiliations?