In both 2016, 2017, 2018, and in 2019, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican 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 fourth 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.
Since President Obama left office, Rep. Kelly has not moved on, and 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.
It was only a few weeks ago that 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 bulls***, 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:
“We have seen the economy take off. I just think that if you come to the floor and there are 60 minutes to debate. 30 minutes on each side. But as I was sitting there, I had 30 minutes of Democrats coming down and talking about how bad automobile people are because they discriminate against nonwhite buyers. I said that’s not America. We don’t talk about those things.
We are a people of diversity, but we come together to make America great again. When I’ve seen what President Trump has done and you come in this area you can see it. It is so uplifting. Look at this, you say ‘if your only platform is hate and resistance and not about bringing the country together again’ — I mean, listen, we are still the United States of America, not Divided States of America, and if we can’t talk better than what happened on the floor the other day. I was disappointed and the Democrats that came down, every single person demagoguing and talking about how bad automobile people are. It’s just not true.”
Mike Kelly is living on Bizarro World, it seems.
Anyway, other than all that insanity, there’s the matter of Mike Kelly’s partisan, conservative voting record, that includes votes for the 2013 Government Shutdown, votes against raising the debt ceiling (!), two votes to shut down Planned Parenthood and one to shut down National Public radio, votes against disaster relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy, voting against the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, votes for banning abortion at 20 weeks, and a vote for the SAFE Act, to keep Syrian refugees from fleeing the civil war in that country.
Kelly barely managed to hold off Robert DiNicola in the 2018 elections, winning office with 51% of the vote.
And guess what? He’s still a bastard of a legislator:
- January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Kelly voted against HR 648, because he was gleefully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
- February 28th, 2019: Mike Kelly 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. Kelly 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: Mike Kelly 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: Kelly votes against The Equality Act, which would have prevented discrimination towards Americans based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.
- June 4th, 2019: Rep. Kelly votes against the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
- July 16th, 2019: Mike Kelly 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: Rep. Kelly 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.
- October 23rd, 2019: Kelly is one of 41 Republicans who, while staring down the possibility of Donald Trump being impeached, stage a ridiculous publicity stunt in response by crashing a classified impeachment inquiry hearing for a “protest”.
- December 18th, 2019: Rep. Kelly 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.
Mike Kelly’s seat was one of the top Democratic targets in 2020 to be flipped and further their majority advantage in the House. And he’s still in the middle of controversy. Because Mike Kelly still owns car dealerships… and
has benefited from a law that allows him to sell models of cars that have been recalled by their manufacturers. And, over alll, the practice has resulted in 24 deaths around the country, including vehicles with defective airbags that kill passengers. Mike Kelly’s own dealerships have sold 17 recalled vehicles, and thus far, and luckily, he hasn’t managed to sell anyone a death trap yet.
Yet.
What has caused far more deaths is Covid-19. And Mike Kelly tested positive in March, and during a couple weeks of debilitating infection, he managed to lose 30 pounds, but was lucky enough to never see symptoms any worse than congestion other than the weight loss. One would hope that this would motivate Kelly to make statements that would benefit the public interest and advise people to go along with “stay at home” orders.
Not so much. Mike Kelly mostly likes to mention he was taking hydroxychloriquine as a treatment, and while he admits he can’t prove it helped him recover, he still seems to promote the dangerous drug that kills more people than it saves. Because this man is a moron who will put coal in the train engine that is Donald Trump’s stupidity whenever he can.
Just keep your fingers crossed that people in Pennsylvania’s 16th Congressional District don’t consider his illness a free pass to give him another two years in the House.
One Year Ago, June 4th, 2019: Mike Kelly (PA)… 2019 Update
Two Years Ago, June 4th, 2018: Mike Kelly (PA)… 2018 Update
Three Years Ago, June 4th, 2017: Mike Kelly (PA)… 2017 Update
Four Year Ago, June 4th, 2016: Mike Kelly (PA)… Original Profile
Five Years Ago, June 4th, 2015: Jerry Bergevin (NH)