In 2014, 2015, as well as 2016, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published profiles of Blake Farenthold, the four-term U.S. House Representative from Texas’ 27th Congressional District, who originally won office in 2010 by only 799 votes, and then had his district gerrymandered into being far more conservative, guaranteeing him victories in future elections as long as he did not face a primary opponent. The picture above remains unedited, and is of Farenthold from a campaign fundraiser prior to his arrival in the Tea Party Wave at a gentlemen’s club with one of the ladies who was “featured entertainment”. It comes as little surprise, then, that Farenthold was sued by his former Communications Director for sexual harassment shortly after winning election to his third term in 2014, in the form telling her he had “sexual fantasies” and “wet dreams” about her, and that there were occasions where he’d joke about her having semen on her skirt, or show her nipples to get along better with his chief of staff.. Through his career, Farenthold has outed himself as a Birther who has exhibited to the public that he doesn’t understand how the debt ceiling works, and gleefully voted for the 2013 Government Shutdown.
As has been the pattern through most of the past few election cycles, Blake Farenthold was re-elected in 2016 after surviving a scare in the GOP Primary, before coasting to victory against a Democrat by over 20 points in the general election, with his highly gerrymandered district. This was in spite of the fact that he actually gave the worst possible endorsement of Donald Trump in October of 2016 after the Access Hollywood tape was revealed where Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women, with Farenthold dismissing it as “all locker room talk” (coming from a guy who sexually harassed his own staffer, that’s not reassuring), before saying of Trump, “Until he does something so bad to make him worse than Hillary , I’m still in.” Chris Hayes of MSNBC asked a follow-up hypothetical question of if a tape also emerged of Donald Trump literally saying, “I like to rape women”, if Farenthold would still support him then, as well. And, Blake did not disappoint those who make a case that he’s pretty stupid and sexist:
”That would be bad. I would have to consider it.“
WHOA NOW… SLOW DOWN BLAKE. YOU’D TAKE THE BRAVE STANCE OF CONSIDERING NOT ENDORSING SOMEONE WHO BOASTED OF LIKING RAPING WOMEN? DON’T BE HASTY, BRO.
And this stagnant turd in ducky pajamas still got re-elected. One of the first things Farenthold wanted to do in the new session of Congress? He was one of six Republicans who led the charge to try and defund the Office of Congressional Ethics, because he held a personal grudge against them for, y’know, enforcing ethics. Which included the sexual harassment case filed against him by his former Communications Director a few years back.
And Blake Farenthold is still a highly stupid conspiracy theorist, even outside of his background as a Birther. In May of 2017, he went on CNN, and while being asked about the Trump/Russia investigation, he tried to deflect to claim that instead of investigating that breach of our democracy, federal investigators should instead take a look at how the DNC hack by Russia was actually an “inside job”, referencing the sort of partisan garbage that was coming out of Sean Hannity at the time, and Farenthold acknowledging parts of the conspiracy theory surrounding the deceased DNC staffer, Seth Rich. You know, the one that even the normally remorseless Fox News retracted (Sean Hannity is still an ***hole and refuses to retract his claims or apologize to the Rich family). Farenthold was adding fuel to THAT conspiracy. To quote the Rich family, who are still mourning their deceased son:
”It just won’t stop. The amount of pain and anguish this has caused us is unbearable. With every conspiratorial flare-up, we are forced to relive Seth’s murder and a small piece of us dies as more of Seth’s memory is torn away from us.”
When Farenthold was immediately called out for how irresponsible his comments were by CNN anchors Poppy Harlow and John Berman, Farenthold shrugged it off, because of “there’s stuff circulating on the internet”. (By this logic, every pop up ad Farenthold reads that tells him his manhood is too small and he needs a pill to enhance it are plausible to him, too. Well, those might at least be right.)
But wait, there’s more! Only three days ago, Farenthold was lamenting that the Senate GOP kept failing to pass an Obamacare repeal, and he didn’t just blame it on the ladies of the Senate and call them “repugnant”,… he said that if they were men, he would challenge them to a duel to solve the impasse:
“The fact that the Senate does not have the courage to do some things that every Republican in the Senate promised to do is just absolutely repugnant to me. … Some of the people that are opposed to this, they’re some female senators from the Northeast. If it was a guy from South Texas, I might ask him to step outside and settle this Aaron Burr style.”
Jesus Tapdancing Christ, he didn’t single out all the Senators who voted against the repeal, just the FEMALE ones, because this dips*** is that much of a misogynist. And a DUEL? What century are you living in?
We now turn to Farenthold’s voting record, that will turn your stomach:
- February 16th, 2017: Farenthold 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: Blake Farenthold 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. We feel safer already.
- March 28th, 2017: Rep. Farenthold 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: Farenthold 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 Farenthold 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: Blake Farenthold 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.
With Blake Farenthold’s track record of bumbling through interviewers’ giving even moderately tough questions in cable news interviews, it makes perfect strategic sense for him to have avoided any town halls in his district after he voted for the AHCA. This guy would suffocate trying to argue his way out of a plastic bag… put him in a room with scores of people pissed off about their healthcare insurance being taken away and being potentially being given the choice between bankruptcy or death… that would be a disaster for the GOP. Seriously… he can’t even think quick enough on his feet to condemn a proud rapist…
So yeah… somehow this idiot has held office now for seven years. SEVEN. If there were ever a more damning fact about American politics being broken, it’s that Blake Farenthold has lasted that long.