how did senator joseph maccarthy use or abuse his power?

Answer 1

Joseph MacCarthy couldn't mind his own business about how people felt about the government and sent his people to spy on others. Ronald Regan was more than glad to help turn in many people in Hollywood who didn't share the same political ideologies as him. At lot of talented people lost jobs because of this stupid witch hunt.

Answer 2

I see that the liberal lemmings are out in force once again. Senator Joe McCarthy was a great man who stood up against Communism and Communist spys here in America. Everyone who Senator McCarthy accused of being a spy was. The one thing that McCarthy did that liberals will never forgive him for was to tell the truth about their support for the USSR over the USA.
People like Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, David Greenglass, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg,Annie Lee Moss, Owen Lattimore, Judith Coplon and journalist I.F. Stone just to name a few were proven by the decrypted venona cables to be paid soviet spies. All these people were all Liberal heros and they were all working for the enemy.
At the height of the Left's counterattack against McCarthy, just months away from a Senate censure, Polls taken showed Americans approved of the job he was doing by 50 to 29 % and his approval rating was 63% Real Americans loved him.
At the age of 48 McCarthy died.Yes he did developer a drinking problem after years of personal attacks by the treasonous left and the liberal press.
Contrary to today's image of McCarthy as a despised Torquemada, McCarthy was given rare state funeral with a private memorial service in the Senate chamber, his seat covered with flowers. St Matthews Cathedral bestowed him with the highest honor the Catholic church can confer, performing a Solemn Pontifical Mass before 100 priests and 2000 well-wishers. Seventy Senators attended his funeral as did J. Edgar Hoover. Thirty Thousand Americans lined up outside the Washington funeral home where McCarthy lay to pay their final respects from early in the morning until late at night. Condolences poured in to McCarthy's wife over the next few days amounting to more then seventy bags of mail.

Answer 3

I was going to skip this one but, since no one has bitten: here goes.
Joe McCarthy started or, coined the term "McCarthyism" and went on a witch hunt in the fifties that lasted for more then a few years.
His idea was to ferret out Communist people in power in the U.S. and destroy them, their work, their position.
He made, believe this or not, John Wayne his Hollywood President of that chapter and John Wayne tore into it with a vigor. He ruined many careers before he realized what was going on and stopped, apologizing publicly.

This was Joe McCarthy, a witch hunter, he ruined many people before he could be stopped and run out of Washington.