The news has been insane lately. But how this was missed is beyond crazy.
As a U.S. Senator just died and the mainstream media isn’t even talking about it.
It’s totally understandable that the attention has largely been spent on Joe Biden and Donald Trump lately. The election is just a few months away, and the two have been all over the news in the wake of the debate and the assassination attempt to take Trump’s life.
But would you believe that there’s been hardly any discussion about a U.S. Senator that just died? That’s exactly what’s happened, and it really makes you wonder why that would be the case. Why are we ignoring this story?
U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe died on July 9th at the age of 89-years-old. Mr. Inhofe died of a stroke, which he sadly suffered from on Independence Day on July 4th. Mr. Inhofe had previously retired from service in the U.S. Senate back in 2023 after dealing with health issues that were worsening. He still had four more years remaining in his term.
Inhofe’s Political History: A Conservative Environmental Skeptic
After serving four terms in the House, Jim Inhofe was elected to the Senate in a special election in 1994. His career coincided with Oklahoma’s transformation from a state long governed by conservative Democrats to one of the nation’s most Republican states, a shift that Inhofe, a staunch conservative, clearly embraced.
Inhofe’s rejection of climate science became a central part of his legacy, epitomized by a moment in February 2015 when he threw a snowball on the Senate floor. For years, he was one of the GOP’s most vocal critics of environmental regulation, wielding considerable influence as chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee during the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
His impact on environmental policy extended beyond his use of the gavel. He cultivated staffers who later assumed key positions at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) during the Trump administration, working to roll back Obama-era regulations.
Trump-era EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler wrote on X that Inhofe “was a devout Christian and family man. He was also devoted to his former staff who he considered his extended family.”
Inhofe played a central role in the appointment of both of Trump’s EPA administrators — first Scott Pruitt, a former Oklahoma attorney general, and then Wheeler.
Serving as the top Republican on the environment panel for 14 years, Inhofe was chair from 2003 to 2007 and again from 2015 to 2017, and held the position of ranking member during the intervening period. He retired in 2023.
Inhofe maintained a light-hearted air about his opposition to green programs. In 2011, after getting sick from an algae bloom in an Oklahoma lake where he had gone swimming, Inhofe joked to the Tulsa World that it was a case of “the environment strikes back.”
The Media’s Ignorance of Inhofe’s Passing
There’s probably a few reasons for why the media is largely trying to ignore Inhofe’s passing away. Sadly, it has everything to do with the Joe Biden debacle that has been unfolding over the past few weeks.
By the time July 9th rolled around, the media was already shifting back into its “pro-Biden” gears. The dust was settling and it was made clear that the Biden team would be defiant concerning any calls for him to step down and allow another Democrat to run for president in 2024.
Ihofe, then, is another example of a U.S. Senator who probably shouldn’t have been spending his last years in Congress. It’s a theme we’re seeing all too much. U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein died while serving her last term. They knew when she was elected to her last term in 2018 that she was declining. They did nothing about it.
Conservatives were the ones trying to warn the Democrats about the failing health of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It was obvious to everyone that she was bound to pass away sooner rather than later given her increasing health issues.
She also passed in office and Democrats paid the price with Donald Trump getting another chance to nominate a judge to the High Court bench, seeing Amy Barrett confirmed to the bench as his third addition.
The media, once again, doesn’t want any attention brought back to the Joe Biden issue. They’ve been punked into obeying the Biden campaign and administration. Running stories about another U.S. Senator like Inhofe who probably shouldn’t have been serving as long as he did is bad optics for Joe Biden whether he likes it or not.
So the story was brushed aside. Simple as that.
Stay tuned to the DC Daily Journal.
