One year ago, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” ran its original profile of the current U.S. House Representative from Kansas’ 4th District, Mike Pompeo, a man who we noted at the time was first elected to office in the Tea Party Wave on the strength of the largest single campaign contribution from the Koch Brothers, and using racist dog-whistles (and in some instances, air raid sirens) against his Indian-American opponent who his campaign floated theories about on social media saying he was a secret Muslim or a “turban topper” while telling people to “Vote American”. His Islamophobia continued at the capitol, where he declared all Muslim clerics “complicit” in terror attacks for not criticizing them vociferously enough for his tastes. Pompeo also has also been one of the loudest warmongers in the GOP the past few years, calling not just for boots on the ground against ISIS, but insisting the United States should start bombing Iran with tens of thousands of sorties to curtail their nuclear program instead of trying to negotiate a treaty to do so. Lastly, we will reiterate that Mike Pompeo often makes conservative arguments while claiming “history” backs up his statements, when he’s completely talking out of his hind end, like the time he gave a lesson on gun control around the world by claiming the United Kingdom doesn’t have their own Bill of Rights (they do, and it predates our own by a century), or the time he argued against gay adoption by saying that same-sex couples don’t have the same ability to properly rear children that traditional couples do (statistics show that’s actually completely false).
Pompeo, who remains a Citizens United poster-child as one of the easiest Congressman to track their political donations to legislation he introduces and supports, won re-election in 2014 with 67% of the vote over Perry Schuckman. His reality-challenged, warmongering, Islamophobic adventures continued on…
- On January 22nd, 2015, an anti-abortion bill, HR 7, was moving through the House, and was halted because even some members of the GOP were put off by the language in the bill regarding its definition of rape. Mike Pompeo, however, had no problem with that, and voted for it anyway.
- On February 3rd, 2015, Rep. Pompeo co-sponsors and votes for the 60th Republican attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act. This in spite of the fact that the law is not just working, but better than experts predicted.
- February 27th, 2015: Pompeo goes on all-around Islamophobe Frank Gaffney’s radio show, where he talks about how he feels President Obama has an “kind of an affinity for, if not the violent beheading and crucifixions and slaying of Christians and all that”, before beginning to speculate that Muslim Congressman Andre Carson could be part of an “Islamic fifth column” with “deep ties to the Muslim Brotherhood”. Somewhere, the late Sen. Joe McCarthy was giving a thumbs-up from beyond the grave.
- On March 3rd, 2015, Pompeo votes against funding the Department of Homeland Security as part of a Republican protest of President Obama’s executive orders on immigration.May 13th, 2015, Rep. Pompeo co-sponsors and votes for HR 36, a ban on abortion at 20 weeks.
- June 25th, 2015: Mike Pompeo releases a statement after the Supreme Court ruled to uphold the Affordable Care Act, where after whining about it remaining in place, he produces the false charge that it “decreased access, and posed enormous economic burdens on millions of Americans”.
- On September 11th, 2015, Pompeo votes against the United States’ nuclear treaty with Iran. This after months of releasing statements saying things like “Harry Reid trusts the Ayatollah”, or “John Kerry hasn’t even read the Iran Nuclear Deal”, or that it is “surrender”.
- On September 18th, 2015, Rep. Pompeo co-sponsors and votes with most House Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood (not shocking because he did in 2011 as well), based on highly edited “sting” videos submitted by a Pro-Life advocacy group that have been repeatedly debunked by investigators. He also releases an inflammatory statement about how he “voted to defund the selling of baby parts”.
- October 18th, 2015: Mike Pompeo, on Meet the Press with Chuck Todd, declares that “Benghazi was worse than Watergate”. This is four years after the attacks, and after all investigations found no proof of wrongdoing.
- October 23rd, 2015: Pompeo votes for HR 3762, the 61st attempt by Congressional Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act (which is still working better than was predicted).
- October 23rd, 2015: At the Benghazi hearings, Rep. Pompeo tries insinuating that the consulate in Benghazi was being used by Sec. of State Clinton to run guns illegally to Syria. It’s part of an insane, hard-right conspiracy theory that had already been repeatedly debunked by investigators, which apparently Pompeo never got the memo about.
- November 19th, 2015: Mike Pompeo co-sponsors and votes for the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act, reacting to the terror attacks in Paris by jihadists from France and Belgium by trying to create greater restrictions to keep out Syrian refugees, of whom exactly zero were involved in those attacks. One terrorist had a fake passport of a member of Assad’s army, apparently to create a false trail to help in their escape, or hoping that the attacks would be blamed on Syrian refugees, and the governments of nations like France and the United States would fall for it and not allow refugees to escape ISIS abroad. And… the Congressman fell for it.
- December 17th, 2015: Pompeo is one of 15 Congressman who write a letter to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and letting military servicemen know he “has their back” if they choose to defy President Obama’s executive orders regarding the Guantanamo Bay Prison (which would violate their oath of military service).
As of the time of this posting, Mike Pompeo’s got one challenger, Democrat Dan Giroux, a lawyer and political newcomer who has an uphill battle in Kansas 4th District. Given it has a +14 R lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, and the fact that Pompeo’s campaign already has more than a million dollars on hand. It’s going to take some doing for any Democrat to unseat the incumbent. With a lot of moderate Republicans in Kansas getting frustrated with the Tea Party wing of the GOP to the extent that hundreds of them endorsed Gov. Sam Brownback’s Democratic opponent in last year’s gubernatorial election, Giroux can hope for some help in an ugly primary. Here’s hoping that Giroux can pull an upset when November rolls around.