It was in both 2015, and in 2016 that we published our first two “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiles of Michael Speciale, a member of the North Carolina House of Representatives who has not just supported some of the most extreme legislation the North Carolina GOP has sent to the desk of Gov. Pat McCrory, but as a freshman lawmaker back in 2013, sent out an e-mail accusing William Barber, the head of the North Carolina NAACP of being “racist” and a “race opportunist” because Barber had pointed out how Voter ID legislation in North Carolina was being used to suppress the vote of minorities (and some Republicans have been kind enough to admit this.) Only a few months later, Speciale made most of the North Carolina legislature question his humanity, outright, when during discussion of a bill to regulate puppy mills, he started mocking suggestions with comments like, “‘Exercise on a daily basis’ – if I kick him across the floor, is that considered daily exercise? ‘Euthanasia performed humanely’ – so should I choose the ax or the baseball bat?” He didn’t just say that, he went on Facebook and doubled-down on his remarks, saying they were appropriate because he didn’t believe in over-regulation. And that wasn’t the only time… after he posted inappropriate comments about President Obama being lectured by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, calling the president an “Islamic son of a bitch”, he again doubled down, saying liberals were “pretending” to be offended. (Nobody was pretending, dude.) But weeks before the 2014 election, Michael Speciale Jr., his son, was arrested and plead guilty to sexually assaulting two teenage girls, which is ironic only because Speciale was a co-sponsor of North Carolina’s much-loathed HB 2 law, which wanted to force transgendered people to use the bathroom of their birth because they were supposedly attacking women in restrooms. Maybe if Speciale could have ignored a non-existent threat in public restrooms, he could have prevented his son from doing what the North Carolina GOP was so worked up about, you know?
Speciale won re-election in 2016 with 63% of the vote. By January, he was back to being an ***hole on his Facebook page, this time commenting on the Women’s March on Washington, D.C. that had more people show up than for the inauguration, but calling those participating “leftists” and their efforts a “joke”, while sharing a video of a conservative commentator who “infiltrated” the march by dressing in drag and commenting that “no one questions, criticizes nor conducts security background checks on trannies.” Speciale was asked about his comments when he finally hosted a town hall six months later in July, and of course, he didn’t back down, even going farther and call the march “disgusting” because the hats the women wear are made to “look like their body parts” (the p****y hats are actually pink cat ears, not actual vaginas, so apparently he’s admitting he doesn’t know what the female anatomy look like). Still, over half the room WALKED OUT in outrage over this moron.
And can you blame them? We’re talking about Speciale, who’s such a speciale snowflake that in February 2017, he submitted HB 147, an attempt to reverse North Carolina’s state constitution so they could secede from the union (apparently the lessons learned in the Civil War are lost on this putz) and he actually sponsored HB 780 in April of 2017, a bill that argues North Carolina can still ignore the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling and ban same sex marriage, citing what else, but the 10th Amendment as his justification.
At this point, Speciale is more of a troll than a legislator, and it’s becoming increasingly likely that he’s going to be targeted to be shown the door, possibly from within his own party if he continues to be an irritating embarrassment for them.
One Year Ago, November 1st, 2016: Michael Speciale (NC)… 2016 Update
Two Years Ago, November 1st, 2015: Michael Speciale (NC)… Original Profile
Three Years Ago, November 1st, 2014: Tom Corbett (PA)