Last week, Rep. Aaron Schock (R, Illinois) was defiant. “I’m not going anywhere,” the 33-year-old congressman assured everyone, despite the growing scandal over his lavish spending habits and questionable business dealings with his donors. This week things got so bad that Schock’s own father even joined the pile-on.
- The Justice Department launched a formal criminal investigation into Schock’s office and campaign expenses, as well as his personal business dealings with political donors.
- Apparently, Schock even billed taxpayers for 170,000 miles logged on a Chevy Tahoe that only had 80,000 miles on it when Shock sold it.
- Schock’s father, Dr. Richard Schock, gave his son this ringing endorsement: “Two years from now he’ll be successful, if he’s not in jail.”
- The attention focused on Shock’s finances resurrected old rumors about his sexuality.
- Dr. Schock had this to say about his son’s sexuality (or lack thereof): "Aaron is a little different. He wears stylish clothing, and yet he’s not gay. … He’s not married, and he’s not running around with women. So, everybody’s throwing up their arms; they can’t figure out Aaron. So he must be crooked.”
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Looney-Tunes Legislators
- March is the month for anti-gay madness:
- Texas State Rep. Molly White’s bill would give the state the authority to ignore Supreme Court rulings.
- Alabama’s Supreme Court ordered probate judges to ignore the federal injunction against the state’s gay marriage ban
- Oklahoma State Rep. Rodd Russ proposed legislation to take marriage out of the state’s hands, and leave it solely to religious officials.
- Missouri Lt. Governor Peter Kinder (R) told Newsmax’s Steve Malzberbg, "“There is more racism in the Justice Department than anywhere I see in the St. Louis area.” Yes, he means the Ferguson Police Department, too.
- Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) spoke out on his radio show, accusing his critics of subjecting him to a “struggle session” like those branded “class enemies” were subjected to during the Cultural Revolution in China.
- New York State Senator Thomas Croci (R) proposed a “terrorist registry” modeled after sex offender registries, except this one would target Muslims.
- Nevada State Assemblywoman Michelle Fiore (R) said that racism is over, and a proposed over ID law can’t be discriminatory, because “We’re in 2015 and we have a black president.” Fiore also congratulated a colleague on being the first “colored person” to graduate from his college.
- Tennessee State Sen. Bo Watson (R) warned that the plan to bring 200,000 jobs to his state was “a magnet for unionized labor, intentionally.”
- A group of New Hampshire fourth graders got a lesson in cynical political grandstanding, when the state legislature debated their bill to make the Red Tail Hawk the official State Raptor. Rep. Warren Groen (R) used the moment to attack reproductive freedom, saying, “It grasps them with its talons then uses its razor sharp beak to basically tear it apart limb by limb, and I guess the shame about making this a state bird is it would serve as a much better mascot for Planned Parenthood.” Rep. John Burt (R) objected to the bill, because he thinks there are already too many laws. The bill went down in a 160 to 133 vote.
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Here’s the rest of the best of the worst in wingnuttia this week:
- Schock wasn’t the only Republican rip-off artist in the news. Former Arkansas governor and perennial presidential wannabe Mike Huckabee was busted for an infomercial hawking cinnamon rolls as a cure for diabetes.
- Dismayed RedState co-founder Erick Erickson declared Huckabee’s hucksterism “a plague on conservatives.” “I don’t know that a potential presidential candidate should be running survival food ads,” Erickson added.
- Conservative “investigative journalist” James O’Keefe not only ordered employees embedded with anti-police groups to incite violence, but fired one for refusing to do so.
- Rep. Louie Gohmert (R, Texas) told the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins, “I don’t think we ought to put Israel in position of having to save both themselves and the United States. I think it’s time to bomb Iran — anything that resembles a nuclear facility.”
- Actor Jon Voight posted a call to arms on YouTube, denouncing President Obama for entering into nuclear talks with Iran. Voight said those who believe that kind of dealmaking is “the solution to what Israel faces” are “as wrong as Neville Chamberlain believing he made a peace deal with Hitler.”
- Mark Levin accused President Obama of being anti-Semitic during an appearance on Sean Hannity’s Show.
- President Obama got a few laughs at Republicans’ expense during the annual Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, DC. “You don’t diminish your office by taking a selfie,“ the president said. ”You do it by sending a poorly written letter to Iran. Really. That wasn’t a joke.” he said.
- Afterwards, the president fact-checked Republicans, and made them eat their words about what they claimed his policies would do.
- First the president pokes fun at them, now this: Republican bungling is actually boosting President Obama’s approval ratings.
- Wall Street Journal editor Jason Riley said black people saw faster progress “when whites were still lynching blacks, not merely singing about it.” Riley referred to the video of Oklahoma University SAE fraternity brothers singing a racist chant.
- Radio host Bryan Fischer told his audience that President Obama wants Hillary Clinton to lose, because of “President Obama wanting to preserve his ability to continue to be a community agitator.”
- Glenn Beck said that boycotting Dolce & Gabbana after the gay fashion design duo expressed opposition and in vitro fertilization is like “putting Galileo back in the tower.”
- Beck also declared, “I’m out. I’m out of the Republican Party” — because it’s not conservative enough.
- Radio host Sandy Rios warned Christians to “prepare for martyrdom” if the Supreme Court rules in favor of marriage equality. Rios also warned a gathering of religious right activists, “your wives, your sisters, your children who now are going to be forced to go into public restrooms and share them with men dressed like women.”
- When 24-year-old Caleb Moore was arrested for marijuana possession, the son of Alabama’s anti-gay chief justice Roy Moore blamed it on a liberal plot to “destroy” his family. Does that go for all of his other arrests too?
- Pat Robertson advised “700 Club” viewers not to “enable” their gay son’s “lifestyle.” “So don’t be an enabler, any more if he’s a drug addict, you don’t enable people to continue in their drug habits," Robertson said.
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