Ben & Jerry’s Co-Founder Arrested After Protest During Hearing

By
Rachel Stevenson
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Oh, what a scene it was on Capitol Hill—because of course, nothing says “serious policy debate” quite like screaming protestors being hauled out of a Senate hearing. And not just any protestors—no, this time we got Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s, a man who’s made his billions off pints of overpriced ice cream and now fancies himself a moral compass for American politics. He showed up, screamed a bit, and got himself arrested. If you’ve ever wondered what Rocky Road activism looks like, well, there you have it.

The chaos unfolded during testimony from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has somehow become public enemy number one to a particular flavor of progressive protestor. Apparently, they’re so threatened by someone talking about departmental efficiency and public health accountability that they need to resort to literal screaming. Yes, instead of listening to Kennedy explain why consolidating 27 overlapping HIV offices into a streamlined, functional unit might actually help people, they chose to shriek about hate and lies—because nuance, evidently, is hard.

One particularly subtle sign read, “RFK Lies, People with AIDS Die.” Really? That’s the level of discourse now? Screaming slogans that sound like they were pulled from the back of a Whole Foods protest banner? The irony, of course, is that Kennedy wasn’t even making ideological statements—he was talking about wasteful government duplication. But try telling that to people who think throwing glitter and glue on a protest sign is the same thing as understanding policy.

Let’s also talk about the pearl-clutching from the left as Kennedy dared to call out the very people who’ve overseen this bureaucratic mess for decades. Enter Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who wasted no time accusing Kennedy of endangering lives with the sheer audacity of… cutting waste? She tried to frame him as some sort of villain for daring to consolidate women’s health offices and restructure HHS into something resembling functional. Meanwhile, Kennedy calmly laid out what any sane taxpayer has been screaming into the void for years: this department is bloated, ineffective, and long overdue for a tune-up.

He didn’t mince words either. He described the agency as being in “absolute cataclysmic disorganization,” and who could argue? But Democrats, ever the masters of selective outrage, clutched their pearls at the idea that someone would dare threaten the sacred cow of bureaucratic sprawl. Kennedy pointed out that even though some offices were consolidated, funding wasn’t cut. The programs still exist—just without the wasteful redundancy. But sure, let’s throw a tantrum about it.

Then, Ben & Jerry’s co-founder, Ben Cohen, was also arrested. Time to boycott this guy.

Here’s more from the liberal ice cream maker. So ridiculous.

And in true statesman fashion, Kennedy extended an olive branch, telling Democrats, “Let’s work together and do something we all believe in… there’s no such thing as Republican children or Democrat children. There’s just kids.” You’d think that would be the kind of line to unite both sides of the aisle, but nope. Not when there’s performative outrage to be had.

So, to recap: a billionaire ice cream mogul got himself arrested while yelling nonsense in the middle of a hearing about how to make public health actually serve the public. Democrats raged at someone trying to clean up their mess. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had the audacity to suggest that maybe, just maybe, government should work a little smarter.

Only in Washington.

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