On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, as well as 2017, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of the U.S. House Representative from Illinois’ 12th Congressional District, Mike Bost, a man whose screaming, flailing, paper-punching meltdowns back when he was in the Illinois State Legislature made him a Youtube legend before he ever made it to Congress. The Chicago press, fascinated with his temper, did some digging, and as far back as an incident in 1986 where he got annoyed at a neighbor’s beagle for biting his daughter, and rather than wait for the proper authorities to handle it and decide if the animal should be euthanized, Bost instead supposedly opted to shoot and kill the dog with his handgun like he was Charles Bronson in a revenge movie. And during his 2014 campaign for Congress, he joked about putting a bullet in Ol’ Snoopy. Between that and the time he started yelling out lines from the Book of Exodus like “LET MY PEOPLE GO!” over worker pensions, or other incoherent rants… “Meltdown Mike” seemed to be a volatile commodity, even for a modern Republican.
With Mike Bost’s history of irrational outbursts, how has he held up against the pressure many Republicans have seen about hosting town halls? NOT WELL. Honestly, it might have been bad enough that he compared the opposition who might show up to Chinese Maoists… but to refer to them with the racist derogatory term “Orientals” while doing it?
“The amount of time that I have at home is minimal, I need to make sure that it’s productive. You know the cleansing that the Orientals used to do where you’d put one person out in front and 900 people yell at them? That’s not what we need. We need to have meetings with people that are productive.”
How quaint. Even without a town hall, Rep. Bost has been chased down by constituents when he’s been in public, like having to face down one resident from his district whose wife has a pre-existing condition, and Bost’s votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act without a replacement including pre-existing condition coverage would have amounted to a death sentence for her. Bost’s response? “That’s just rhetoric.” (It isn’t.)
Bost regrettably won a second term in Congress with 54% of the vote over Democrat C.J. Baricevic, and has voted almost completely along party lines in spite of being in a swing district:
- February 16th, 2017: Bost 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. Because… well, the logic really isn’t there as to why, it’s just awful.
- March 16th, 2017: Mike Bost 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. Bost 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: Bost 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 Bost 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: Mike Bost 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. Bost chooses to be one of 90 Republicans in Congress who votes against disaster relief for Hurricane Harvey.
- October 3rd, 2017: Bost 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: Mike Bost 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: Rep. Bost 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.
Bost had to survive a challenge on the right from a 27 year old former international model, Preston Nelson, who had the backing of the Breitbart wing of the GOP. With that in his rearview mirror, he went on to the general election where he faces Brendan Kelly, a State Attorney for St. Clare County and veteran, who he has leveled the standard 2018 GOP attack line against, claiming Kelly would “support Nancy Pelosi” in Congress, when Kelly’s actual stated record from the jump has been that he would not support Pelosi to be the new speaker of the House.
Bost is desperate enough to actually campaign with Baron Dementia von F***stick himself in the final stretch leading up to Election Day, and hope that he doesn’t say anything too outrageous or offensive about his temper or tendency to murder pets in front of a crowd to give him a nudge over the finish line. “Meltdown Mike” might have a lot to be angry about in two days, if he’s on the losing side and gets bounced from office when we check back in with him a year from now.
