On this date in 2014, 2015, as well as 2016, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of the U.S. House Representative from North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District, Mark Meadows, who currently possesses the most right-leaning, gerrymandered seat in all of the Tar Heel State. Prior to taking office in 2012, he pandered to Birthers by saying that President Obama should “go back to Kenya”. One of his first votes upon arriving in the capitol was to vote against disaster relief funding for Hurricane Sandy victims, an amazing precedent for a freshman Congressman whose own district is in a state notorious for being hit by hurricanes and wanting disaster relief of their own. Meadows is also a confirmed climate change denier, says that gay marriage will cause a Constitutional crisis, and voted against a new version of the Violence Against Women Act because it provided protections towards lesbians. He’s also prone to jumping on faux scandal bandwagons, as we evidenced by his comments about Hillary Clinton’s original Benghazi testimony, and calling for IRS Commissioner John Koskinen to be held in contempt in the middle of his testimony, getting rebuked by Koskinen for doing so. Perhaps his most infamous moment, though, came during Congressional testimony He over healthcare plans for the Affordable Care Act, where he raged against the idea that men should have to pay an equal amount for insurance plans as women, and they have the nerve to also ask that they get maternity coverage on their insurance, when he doesn’t need it… the physician testifying, and trying to explain this to him was a Dr. Mindy Cohen, who was… wait for it… 8 months pregnant at the time. If that isn’t “GOP’s War on Women” optics in a nutshell, I don’t know what is. Oh, maybe the fact that Rep. Meadows still paid his chief of staff thousands of dollars months after he was fired for sexually harassing female staffers, because he really can’t have any less respect for women.
Since being re-elected in his conservative district in 2016 (that could very well be ordered by the Supreme Court to be redrawn by 2018 or 2020), he has returned to the House to continue to produce an unflinchingly partisan voting record:
- February 16th, 2017: Meadows 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.
- March 16th, 2017: Mark Meadows 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.
- March 28th, 2017: Rep. Meadows 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: Meadows votes for the House GOP’s healthcare plan, that would kick roughly 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 Meadows 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: Mark Meadows 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.
- September 8th, 2017: Rep. Meadows chooses to be one of 90 Republicans in Congress who votes against disaster relief for Hurricane Harvey.
- October 3rd, 2017: Meadows 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).
- November 16th, 2017: Meadows 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.
And, is Mark Meadows still an extremist? Oh, you better believe it. Where to start… how about in July 2017, when Mark Meadows began making noise about another Government Shutdown, this time having one if the House could not secure funding for Donald Trump’s idiotic ideal to build a border wall between the United States and Mexico. Remember, though… Rep. Meadows’ party is the one in control of Congress in the first place. A few weeks later, news was spreading about how Mark Meadows wanted to gut the funding to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, because the organization had this nagging habit of reporting factual data over how many millions of Americans would be kicked off of their health insurance if the Affordable Care Act was repealed, and what the overall impact would be on the American economy.
Meadows’ is so out of sync with American opinions and attitudes right now, where even after a White Nationalist like Steve Bannon was forced out of the White House, Meadows has continued working with Bannon, and is more focused on trying to get anything in the House Freedom Caucus’ insane agenda passed prior to this December, or he’s aware 2018 is going to be an ugly prospect for him.
Hurting Mark Meadows’ chances even further in 2018? He was one of the most vocal people who endorsed noted pedophile Roy Moore for Senate in Alabama, and after Moore’s history of diddling kids came to light, Meadows would only go as far as to say he should drop out of the race “if the allegations are true”, immediately putting on that caveat to cast some doubt on Moore’s accusers. Mark Meadows is going to have a rough time surviving a primary, depending on who comes along to challenge him, and Democrats still would have a tall order to overcome the +14 Republican lean in that district.