Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day: Daniel Webster- 2018 Update

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Wednesday August 15, 2018 · 4:10 AM PDT

2018/08/15 · 04:10

In spite of being closely tied to disgraced pastor Bill Gothard and the Duggar Family, U.S. House Rep. Daniel Webster from Florida's 11th Congressional District has managed to remain in office, and might take a crack at being the next House Minority Leader or Speaker of the House, depending on which party has control of the House after 2018.

In both 2016, as well as 2017, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” presented our original profile of the U.S. House Representative for Florida’s 11th Congressional District, Daniel Webster, who first got swept into office in the 2010 Tea Party Wave after having previously served as the Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives and Florida Senate Majority Leader during a 28 year career as a Florida state legislator (and not as an extra working in the background of a morgue in a horror movie, like you’d expect). Webster is, at the moment, the preferred voice of Republican leadership of the recalcitrant House Freedom Caucus, and has finished second in the past three votes for Speaker of the House as a result.

Now, given how much of a group of extremists the House Freedom Caucus is, you can bet it’s more than Daniel Webster’s resume that impresses them. His record on issues show’s he’s clearly of like mind. Case in point… how “pro-life” is Daniel Webster? Well, while we can’t be sure of if he supports exceptions for rape and incest in his anti-abortion stance, because he refuses to answer the question when asked, we do know he’s voted for virtually every pro-life measure that’s ever crossed his path, including even when Jeb Bush was working overtime in Florida to make sure a feeding tube stayed inside of the long-since brain dead Terry Schiavo, and forcing her to keep on living against her wishes… the central figure in the Florida state legislature trying to write creative laws to drag out that situation even longer was Daniel Webster, while he was in the Florida State Senate.

And that’s hardly the only conservative social position Daniel Webster had. There was also his 1990 sponsorship of a bill to legalize covenant marriage. The draconian measure would have only allowed couples to divorce if only one partner cheated on the other (if both were unfaithful, they must remain married), and did not even offer exceptions for situations involving domestic abuse.

Now, you might wonder where these extreme conservative views Webster’s got are coming from… there is a quite plain answer. Daniel Webster has close ties to Bill Gothard and Gothard’s ministry, the Institute of Basic Life Principles, repeatedly collaborating with the disgraced church leader who was revealed to have covered up scores of abuse claims from his flock, and has a disturbing habit of counseling female rape and sexual abuse victims to make them feel as though they’re to blame for what their attackers have done to them in an overall patriarchal agenda where women must submit to their husbands. One of the first legislative acts in Florida that Webster pushed for back in 1985 was to legalize homeschooling (which Gothard and his flock are big proponents of).

The amount of degrees of separation between Daniel Webster and the disgraced Duggar family are also shockingly few, but is Rep. Webster a total fanatic, though? Well, according to some, he’s spoken before Bill Gothard’s flock in a way that seems to indicate he views the gerrymandering of his district as “God being on his side and opposing his opponents”. And that’s pretty nuts. As is the rest of his voting record:

February 16th, 2017: Webster 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: Daniel Webster 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. Webster 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: Webster 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), postpartum depression, or prior sexual assault. Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Webster 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: Daniel Webster 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: Webster 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: Daniel Webster 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: Webster 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.

Daniel Webster got to run unopposed in the GOP Primary this fall, and goes on to face Democrat Dana Cottrell in the general election this fall. Cottrell’s a teacher and a graduate of the University of South Florida. Cottrell’s got a big partisan disadvantage in Florida’s 11th, sitting at a +15 Republican. Webster’s evangelical support base also prop him up with donations, so conditions will have to be perfect for her to, if you’ll pardon the pun, teach him a lesson.

Click Here Full CSGOPOTD Archive

One Year Ago, August 15th, 2017: Daniel Webster (FL)… 2017 Update
Two Years Ago, August 15th, 2016: Daniel Webster (FL)… Original Profile
Three Years Ago, August 15th, 2015: Craig James (TX)
Four Years Ago, August 15th, 2014: Tom Tancredo (CO)

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