(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day: Mike Kelly- 2023 Update [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-06-09
In both 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and in 2022, that “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” presented profiles of the U.S. House Representative for Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District, Mike Kelly, who was first elected in the Tea Party Wave back in 2010, defeating Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper by double digits with the benefit of GOP turnout that year, and after gerrymandering has turned the Cook Partisan Voter Index for his district from +2 Republican lean, all the way to +8 Republican, he’s now in his sixth term in office. Of course, in 2016, that was likely because nobody even bothered to run against him.
Mike Kelly has raised some eyebrows since heading to our nation's capitol, with his first foray into the spotlight coming in August of 2012, when at a press conference, he compared the birth control mandate of the Affordable Care Act to "Pearl Harbor or 9-11." Certainly there was no hyperbole there, comparing the deaths of thousands in a surprise attack to employers having to cover contraceptives women might need to help regulate irregular menstrual cycles. No sir.
A year after that blunder, in August of 2013, Rep. Kelly decided to comment on President Obama, explaining that actually, it was that Barack Obama "divides our country on race". Kelly went on to rant about how his "liberty and freedom were under attack" by the Obama administration, offering little explanation of how that was, exactly. But that's far from the worst thing he said about President Obama. He also discussed impeaching him for "dragging America into a Civil War" shortly after winning re-election back in November of 2014, and in a December 2015 interview with Houston conservative talk-show host Sam Malone, Kelly began questioning where Obama was born and who raised him, before ranting about how his remarks "embolden our enemies", and that terrorists could "shoot up a ballet while Obama dithers."
His fearmongering about terrorism isn't a one off, as during the massive Ebola Virus outbreak in 2014, Mike Kelly was on Newsmax, calling for a travel ban (that doctors said would only make the outbreak worse) and making the ridiculous assertion that American Jihadis were going to go into Africa to deliberately infect themselves with the lethally terminal disease, and then bring it back to the states and spread it to massive numbers of people. Which is stupid, because people infected with Ebola are pretty easy to spot, and usually unable to move because they're so crippled by their organs liquifying. And to infect other people, they would have to smear blood or feces on people en masse, which is sort of a telltale sign of ill intent.
After President Obama left office, Rep. Kelly did not stop being a paranoid loon about the former president, in March of 2017, he told a crowd in his home district that President Obama was staying in the capitol not to just let his daughter Sasha finish high school, but was actually “running a shadow government that is totally gonna upset the new agenda.” Kelly never apologized for this blatant and paranoid lie, and his staffers tried walking it back, to being “frustration that some Obama holdovers within the federal bureaucracy are attempting to upset the Trump agenda”… which for a walk-back, is still pretty inflammatory. Meanwhile, President Obama took the time outside the White House to go kite-surfing with Richard Branson, because that’s exactly how shadow governments operate.
In 2018, Mike Kelly got humiliated on the floor of the House by Congresswoman Maxine Waters, after he tried claiming that he knew more about discrimination than she did as an African American woman before dropping “MAGA” into his remarks, and trying to skulk out. Waters was having none of that crap, and straight up torched him. A few days later, Kelly doubled down on his behavior, going on Fox News and uncorking the most outlandish take imaginable. This time he claimed it was Un-American to acknowledge and talk about the existence of racism in the United States, and that he was often prejudiced against because… before he was a Congressman, he was a car salesman. Then, he praised Donald Trump for improving racial unity. No, we’re not making that up, here’s the quote:
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/9/2174393/-Fanatical-Republican-Extremist-of-the-Day-Mike-Kelly-2023-Update
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
