Welcome to what is the 924th original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be discussing Brian Mast, who has served as the U.S. House of Representatives in Florida’s 18th Congressional District since 2016, based on his honorable service in the U.S. Army working in explosive ordinance and disposal, and we’ll salute him for her service to our nation in the role that cost him the use of his legs…And that’s about our limit for saying nice things about Brian Mast. During his first run for office in 2016, Mast was briefly linked with World Patent Marketing, a company that today no longer exists because the Federal Trade Commission shut it down because it was an invention promotion scam. World Patent Marketing donated a bunch of money to Mast's campaign fund and said in a press release that he sat on their advisory board. Mast has some convenient amnesia about his association with a professional scam outlet, saying he has no knowledge of being given a position on the board and said he only had a couple encounters with members of the company, at all.So that’s shady. But that’s not even as “shady as hell” as our next item…Back in 2018, Anthony Bustamante, a campaign consultant who worked on Mast's 2016 campaign, told The Wall Street Journal that as a member of the Mast campaign, had used data hacked from the Democratic National Committee by Guccifer 2.0, a front for Russia's GRU military intelligence service, to adjust Mast's campaign strategy. The hacked data had been leaked by Guccifer 2.0 to the HelloFLA blog, just to help Brian Mast win election to Congress. (This would seem to be the member of Congress who solicited help in the 2016 election from Russia that was mentioned in the Mueller Report.) And, not for nothing, but in 2019, Brian Mast was pressured into returning campaign donation that he accepted from the quite dubious source that is Igor Fruman, as in the second half of “Lev and lgor the Russian guys arrested while trying to flee the country. Again, not a good look, and clearly got enough ties to Russia to be worn around Vladimir Putin’s neck. Now, after the Pulse Shooting and then the Parkland Shooting, most of the Florida Republican caucus has been careful regarding statements they have made about the massive uptick in gun violence in our country, because when that many people have died in mass shootings, it’s practically personal for most of the state… however Brian Mast isn’t that smart, and only two days after Parkland, he blamed the rampage on “video games and violent movies”.But we’re still not done with this creep. And we emphasize he’s a creep, especially given his idea of “humor”. Two “jokes” that turned up on Brian Mast’s Facebook page are particularly telling. Back in February of 2009, Rocco LeDonni, who is now Mast’s campaign manager, posted photos of himself in a bar in South Africa, and Mast commented, “im so proud of you... i hope you hook up with at least fifteen 15 year olds over there.... its legel there right.”Yes, he just encouraged his campaign manager to commit statutory rape.Two years later, in May of 2011, LeDonni posted, “Anyone have any good pick up lines for this weekend considering according to the crazy christian radio guy the world may end on Sunday?” And Mast responded that LeDonni should tell the target of his affections:
“How about don’t turn this rape into a murder.”
It got more disgusting than even that, and we know, that shouldn’t be possible, but in Mast’s “apology”, he Mast blamed his poor attempt on humor on his injuries in combat, and his campaign claimed the comments were posted while Mast was drugged up with “morphine, oxycodone, sleep sedatives, anti-inflammatories and anti-depressants” and therefore he wasn’t in his right mind when he made the comments … except he made the inappropriate “jokes” a year before he got his Purple Heart. So now he’s an outright liar, too… Anyway, if anyone’s curious, Brian Mast also has a revolting voting record:
- February 16th, 2017: Mast 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: Brian Mast 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.
- May 4th, 2017: Mast votes for the GOP's healthcare plan, that would allow 24,000 more people to die a year, give $50,000 in tax breaks to millionaires, would eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions, and would treat pregnancy, post-partum depression, and sexual assault as "pre-existing conditions". Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Mast 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: Brian Mast 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.
- October 3rd, 2017: Mast votes for HR 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, that would try to create an unconstitutional ban abortion at 20 weeks (even though medical science tells us fetuses do not have the capability to feel pain until 29 weeks).
- December 19th, 2017: Brian Mast votes for HR 1, the GOP’s $1.7 trillion tax cut to benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations permanently that coincidentally also removes the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate and kicks 13 million people off their health insurance.
- February 18th, 2018: Rep. Mast and his fellow Republicans decide that poor big businesses are suffering too much at the hands of the Americans with Disabilities Act too much, and vote for HR 620, which would strip most of the civil rights protections guaranteed by it. (Just a reminder… he himself is a disabled veteran.)
- January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Mast voted against HR 648, because he was gleefully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/116-2019/h49
- January 27th, 2019: Brian Mast can’t be bothered to vote for HJR 30, which was meant to express disapproval of Donald Trump not acting against Russian Federation for attack Mast our democracy. You see, he’s fine with our nation being sublet to Vladimir Putin.
- February 28th, 2019: Mast votes against HR 1112, a bill which would have required universal background checks on all firearm purchases, and close the gun show loophole.
- March 14th, 2019: Rep. Mast 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.
- April 4th, 2019: Brian Mast 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: Mast votes against The Equality Act, which would have prevented discrimination towards Americans based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.
- June 4th, 2019: Rep. Mast votes against the Dreamers Act, because she’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
- July 16th, 2019: Brian Mast votes 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”.
- October 17th, 2019: Mast 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.
- December 3rd, 2019: Rep. Mast is one of 71 Republicans who votes against a resolution to disallow Russia from re-entering the G7 and makes it the G8 until it leaves Ukraine.
- December 18th, 2019: Mast ignores his Congressional duty to hold a president who has been proven to commit high crimes and misdemeanors accountable and votes against the impeachment of Donald Trump.
- May 15th, 2020: Mast votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Florida’s 18th Congressional District has only a +5 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, And that might be a big problem for Brian Mast, as generic Democratic Candidates are polling at about a +9 advantage in this year’s election over their generic Republican counterparts. But Brian Mast is hardly generic. His opponent, Pam Keith, is herself a former Navy officer, and is making sure that Mast’s jokes about rape and sex with underage girls are foremost in the minds of voters in this part of Florida.
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