In 2014, 2015, as well as 2016, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published profiles of the sitting U.S. House Representative from Oklahoma’s 1st Congressional District, Jim Bridenstine. We noted the first time we turned our eye to Bridenstine that he said on the floor of the House that he didn’t want to impeach the president because he felt VP Joe Biden would be more of an embarrassment. He also denies that when the Supreme Court rules something constitutional, that it actually IS then constitutional. Bridenstine’s most disgusting moment, though, was probably when he hosted a town hall and had a constituent tell him “President Obama should be executed as an enemy combatant,” and he made no attempt to dissuade her ideas, instead fueling them further by, in response, telling her the falsehoods that the Toomey-Manchin gun control bill would create a national gun registry and that the legalization of marijuana in Colorado had made the whole state overrun with organized crime. In our second look at Jim Bridenstine, we added that he has stated his desire to privatize Social Security, continues to deny the science behind climate change by saying “there’s no credible evidence CO2 levels effect the environment”, and signed onto a letter with many Congressmen demanding the GOP House work together to defund Planned Parenthood, or else they would shut down the federal government.
Now, after the 2016 elections, there was a line in the sand drawn regarding the website Breitbart News, owned by Trump campaign strategist and administration member Steve Bannon because… well, it was Alt-Right. And by Alt-Right, we mean White Nationalist. Guess who we’ve discovered is a paid writer at Breitbart News? Congressman Jim Bridenstine. And they say the rest of the media is “fake news”.
Anyway, Bridenstine didn’t manage to win enough favor with the Trump administration to get his dream job as the administration for NASA (troubling that a climate science denier could get that gig), and has had to be content to return to the House to vote on some of the worst bills to hit the chamber in decades:
- February 16th, 2017: Bridenstine votes for HJR 69, to make it legal for hunters on wildlife reserves to kill several species of hibernating bears or wolves while they’re sleeping. Because… well, the logic really isn’t there as to why, it’s just awful.
- March 16th, 2017: Jim Bridenstine votes for HR 1181, which would allow veterans deemed mentally incompetent to continue to own firearms, and not have them taken away without a judge’s written order. We feel safer already.
- March 28th, 2017: Rep. Bridenstine votes for SJ Res 34, which allowed internet providers to sell the data information of their customers’ internet usage to businesses. Well, so much for privacy.
- May 4th, 2017: Bridenstine votes for the House GOP’s healthcare plan, that would kick rougly 24 million people off their health insurance plans, allow up to 28,000 more people to die a year, give $50,000 in tax breaks to millionaires, and would eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions which would include such medical conditions as pregnancy (current or past), post-partum depression, or prior sexual assault. Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Bridenstine would be allowed to keep his healthcare plan as it exists under the ACA, which would be repealed for the rest of the country. He and his Republican compatriots threw themselves a beer bash to celebrate taking away healthcare from millions and then gloated about it with Donald Trump at a White House press conference, as well.
- June 8th, 2017: Jim Bridenstine votes for HR 10, the GOP’s attempt to repeal Dodd-Frank financial reform, because what the country really needs is to allow the big banks to make the same mistakes that imploded the economy only a decade earlier.
Jim Bridenstine won re-election in his highly conservative district by winning his primary with 80% of the vote, then not facing any challenger in the general election. This will be his third term in office in the House, barring he suddenly gets that NASA job or not.