In 2016, 2017, as well as in 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled the U.S. House Representative from Ohio’s 4th District, Jim Jordan, a brain dead lunk who is now serving in his seventh term in office. Prior to that, he spent twelve years as a member of the Ohio state legislature. Jordan’s background prior to entering politics was as a national champion as an NCAA wrestler who eventually became the men’s wrestling coach at Ohio State University (which OSU has a fanatical following, frankly, in the state, more on this later). Jordan’s career in the Ohio state legislature was spent trying to strip welfare and the social safety net out from those in need of government assistance, and after winning the primary for his Congressional seat in 2006 to replace the retiring Mike Oxley, has been all but guaranteed re-election every year in Ohio’s 4th, a district that has voted Republican in all but 16 years since the Civil War ended.
Jordan was one of the original founders of the House Freedom Caucus in 2015 that orchestrated the downfall of former House Speaker John Boehner, stemming from an disagreement that the two had over the debt ceiling limit way, way back in 2011. If you’re wondering, yes, Rep. Jordan was thus one of the main hindrances into getting an agreement on the debt ceiling passed, refusing to work with his own party to do so, and the inability of the GOP to produce one with control of the House is why Standard and Poore’s lowered the United States credit rating for the first time in our nation’s history.
We’re going to put this in perspective… John Boehner, of all people, refers to Jim Jordan as a terrorist.
And when it comes to committees… well, Jim Jordan first came onto our radar on the day the then-GOP-controlled House Oversight Committee badgered Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards after the release of the Center for Medical Progress’ fabricated “sting” video, interrupting her 19 times in a 5 minute span. He turned up to utterly embarrass himself while trying to harangue Hillary Clinton during the Benghazi hearings, eventually being called to the carpet for his egregiously incorrect take on the investigation by the collective Beltway media, and after FBI Director James Comey decided there was no precedent or charges that could be pressed against Hillary Clinton for her e-mail server, Jordan turned on him and accused Comey of helping “cover up the cover-up” which sounds as paranoid and ludicrous as you’re thinking.
But perhaps that’s not as paranoid and ludicrous as the interview Jim Jordan gave to Tony Perkins, the leader of the anti-gay hate group, the Family Research Council on April 30th, 2013, where he started insisting there was merit to the government conspiracy that the Obama administration was trying to “buy up all the ammunition” as part of a plan to negate the 2nd Amendment and limit the freedom of gun owners.
Yeah, that really happened. But it’s little surprise that Jordan would say something like that around Tony Perkins, after all, in April of 2012 Jordan was telling Perkins the importance of registering Evangelical voters to get them to vote against President Obama was akin to the Union Army winning the war to stop slavery, or Americans in World War II going to Europe to beat the Nazis. Ah… Godwin’s Law. Never gets old.
And that’s not all… after the faux “IRS Scandal” that the GOP worked itself into a frenzy was investigated, and no wrongdoing was found, he continued to demand investigations at taxpayer expense, saying:
“We need this special counsel to help us get to the truth because the so-called investigation by the Justice Department has been a joke. The current investigation has no credibility because it is being headed by a maxed-out donor who is financially invested in the president’s success.”
I guess what we’re getting at is Jim Jordan is an extremist fiscal conservative, provided the money being spent isn’t being wasted on partisan witch hunts that only exist to throw red meat to lunatic conservatives.
Jordan aligns himself legislatively with the House Freedom Caucus on their most extreme positions, and has gone from whining about presidents using executive orders, to defending Donald Trump for using them. That might be because Rep. Jordan likes that it screws over people who would dare to sign up for medical insurance through the Affordable Care Act, which Jordan STILL insists isn’t constitutional (in spite of the Supreme Court twice ruling that it was).
At least Jim Jordan hasn’t been bailing on town halls in his district. Naw, that would be wrong, and deny him the satisfaction of telling his constituents to go f*** themselves for expecting the government to provide them with any sort of security on healthcare, or doing anything to stop industrial giants from polluting the environment. But, y’know, doing it while cowering behind a police officer while he blew off everyone who asked a question, because apparently his wrestling skills aren’t what they used to be.
A lot of interesting coincidences also popped up with Jim Jordan in 2018. The first off is that one of his former aides, Wesley Goodman, was an Ohio state legislator up until the time he was caught having sex with another man in his office, and then dozens of individuals came forward, some underage, to report being sexually harassed by Goodman. And then a report came out that Goodman had sexually assaulted an underage boy while working for Jordan in Washington at a Family Research Council retreat, and the whole thing got hushed up.
But what’s that you say? That’s just a former staffer of Jim Jordan’s. It’s not like that he would ever be caught up in such a scandal and cover up a sexual assault. To that, we say… OH RLY?
Over the summer of 2018, reports surfaced that while Jim Jordan was working as an assistant coach in the wrestling program at Ohio State University, a team physician, Richard Strauss, was sexually assaulting dozens of students over several years. And when asked about it, Jordan denied having any knowledge of any such sexual abuse taking place. You’ll never guess what happened next… multiple wrestlers came forward who said that they were aware of the abuse, brought it to the attention of Jim Jordan, and he just laughed it off as normal everyday locker room shenanigans. Further, as more wrestlers came forward, some reported being contacted by former Ohio State coaches on behalf of Jim Jordan asking them to make public statements to defend him from the controversy. And of course being involved in a coverup of sexual assault means that Jim Jordan received special attention and praise from Donald Trump. Because of course.
Now, in some eras of American history, a scandal like the one Jim Jordan is involved in one be enough to force his resignation, and the president wouldn’t be coming to talk about how great he is. However, we’re in the darkest timeline, and thus a man suspected of being involved in not one, but TWO DIFFERENT coverups of sexual assault could be re-elected with 65% of the vote.
And so it is that Jim Jordan has become one of the most predominant gas-lighters in the modern Republican Party, turning every minute of the time he gets to speak in House Oversight Committee hearings into a farce, and when that’s not enough, to run onto cable news to further the misinformation being spread on behalf of Donald Trump. Here are but some of his worst moments in the past year and a half or so:
- January 22nd, 2019: Jordan votes against HR 676, which would prevent Donald Trump from doing the unthinkable and walking away from our allies in NATO to appease the Russians.
- January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Jordan voted against HR 648, because he was gleefully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
- February 27th, 2019: Rep. Jordan spends the entire Michael Cohen hearing trying to make a “gotcha” moment happen that never comes, and if anything, just makes Cohen visibly perplexed for how stupid he is.
- February 28th, 2019: Jim Jordan votes against HR 1112, a bill which would have required universal background checks on all firearm purchases, and close the gun show loophole.
- March 4th, 2019: Rep. Jordan makes an arguably anti-Semitic Twitter post where he attacks Tom Steyer (who has Jewish heritage) by replacing the S in his name with a “$”, to complain about him donating money to Democrats.
- March 14th, 2019: Rep. Jordan votes against HJR 46, which sane members of Congress voted for to reject Donald Trump’s “national emergency” regarding the U.S. border and his attempts to reallocate funds for a border wall without Congressional approval.
- March 27th, 2019: Jim Jordan sends a letter to Donald Trump’s accountants, Mazars, and instructs them to ignore any subpoenas they might receive, including Congressional subpoenas.
- April 4th, 2019: Jim Jordan is one of 158 Republicans who choose to vote against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).
- May 17th, 2019: Jordan votes against The Equality Act, which would have prevented discrimination towards Americans based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.
- June 4th, 2019: Rep. Jordan votes against the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
- June 11th, 2019: Jim Jordan harasses former White House Counsel John Dean during his testimony about how impeachment should be handled, and for whatever reason, tries to insinuate that Dean is attacking Donald Trump because of how he has handled foreign policy with Israel (???).
- July 16th, 2019: Jim Jordan can’t be bothered to vote against a resolution to condemn Donald Trump for his racist statements that four people of color in Congress should “go back where they came from”.
- September 29th, 2019: Jordan goes on CNN to try and confuse the public regarding the Whistleblower Scandal, and Jake Tapper humiliates him, catching him in several lies and contradictions, and refusing to allow Jordan to try and deflect by spreading conspiracy theories about Joe Biden.
- October 14th, 2019: After 10 hours of damning testimony from State Department employee Dr. Fiona Hill during the impeachment inquiry, Rep. Jordan makes the ludicrous claim to the press that impeachment testimony doesn’t count unless it’s presented in front of all 435 members of Congress, and not just a committee. He also tried claiming that Congressman Matt Gaetz was unfairly kicked out of the meeting, but Gaetz wasn’t on any relevant committee to the discussion. (Jordan is, as per usual, full of s***.)
- October 17th, 2019: Jordan is one of 60 Republicans who vote against HJ Res 77, which opposed Donald Trump’s disastrous decision to abandon Syrian Kurdish forces in Northeast Syria to the mercies of a Turkish invasion.
What is becoming more and more clear is that Jim Jordan is a shameless partisan hack living in a fantasy world, and that there is no bottom for how low he’ll stoop to prop up a corrupt, racist, anti-democratic, and utterly incompetent Republican Party.
One Year Ago, October 21st, 2018: Jim Jordan (OH)… 2018 Update
Two Years Ago, October 21st, 2017: Jim Jordan (OH)… 2017 Update
Three Years Ago, October 21st, 2016: Jim Jordan (OH)… Original Profile
Four Years Ago, October 21st, 2015: John Kline (MN)
Five Years Ago, October 21st, 2014: Bob McDonnell (VA)