Welcome to the 679th original “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where today, we’ll be profiling the sitting member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California’s 22nd District, Devin Nunes, who has rocketed up into our “must profile” list over the past two years after actions he took his role in the Trump transition team, as well as in the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Trump transition team with Russia. Because it’s not so much that Rep. Nunes has made Trump look like a traitor, or that he’s made his campaign look like traitors, or that he’s made himself look like he was covering up his own potentially treasonous actions… no, Devin Nunes has drawn our scrutiny because he’s so goddamned transparent and incompetent of how to cover up a scandal, he may as well have been trying to put out a fire by pouring gasoline on it.
Devin Nunes spent his high school days back in the 1990s rocking a mullet and passing the time like you would think a guy with a mullet would, then first ran for Congress at the age of 29 back in 2002, winning and spending six years quietly going about his business as most Bush-era Republicans, using patriotism after 9-11 as a shield against any criticism. Nothing too interesting about him, through that stretch. Of course, Rep. Nunes’ tone changed around 2009, in the face of Democrats having control over the White House, Senate, and House, when during the debate over the soon-to-be-passed Affordable Care Act, he spitefully claimed it was bringing back “ghosts of communism”, which we’re sure in no way was any kind of hyperbole about democratic socialism. Fast forward a few years to February of 2014, and the Congressman was also going “all-in” on climate change denial, during one of the worst droughts in the history of California, no less, when he declared “global warming is nonsense”. Other than that, Nunes spent the second half of the Obama administration wasting taxpayer dollars so that conspiracy theory nuts could bay at the moon over theories about the attack on an American-controlled compound in Benghazi, but after years of promising some clear links to wrongdoing by President Obama or Hillary Clinton, Rep. Nunes and his GOP-controlled House Intelligence Committee investigation ended up having to debunk most of their own theories.
Still, all of that partisanship brought Devin Nunes to the attention of the Trump campaign, and he was quickly brought on as a member of the Trump transition team. Only days after the inauguration, Nunes was entrenched enough with the secrets of Team Trump and on their side that he was backing his Muslim ban, in spite of the fact that, y’know, it was unconstitutional as f*** and most national security experts thought it actually would make foreign relations far, far worse. Less than a month into the Trump administration, though, the whispers of links between the Trump campaign and the Trump transition team trying to set up secret meetings with Russians were growing to a claxon alarm… and Devin Nunes, the man who only a few years earlier was whining about healthcare reform bringing back “the ghosts of Communism” was suddenly referring to the reports from the FBI, CIA, and others in the intelligence community as a “Witchhunt” or a new “McCarthyism”. It’s only apparently Nunes who’s allowed to fear-monger about the commies, you see, and when his own party literally has their candidate linked to the leftovers of the KGB to swing the American elections that it’s dirty pool to talk about it.
And let’s be honest, it’s around March of 2017 where Nunes done f***ed up when it came to being a covert operative trying to help out the Trump administration and himself. As the great John Oliver summed it up, Devin Nunes managed to become a key player in “Stupid Watergate”, where if Watergate were happening again, but everyone involved was very, very stupid. Nunes was caught leaking classified information found during the intelligence community’s investigation into the Trump campaign and Trump transition team directly back to the White House and then blurting it out to the public outside the White House to frame public opinion in Trump’s favor. Similarly to how Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced to recuse himself from the Department of Justice’s inquiries into Trump/Russia because of his own involvement, Nunes was forced to step aside after leaking classified information to the White House, then the public.
Except, Devin Nunes is completely full of s*** that he’s no longer tainting the House Intelligence committee’s investigation, especially when he’s been caught by the media sending his own investigators on taxpayer’s dime to the United Kingdom to try and find Christopher Steele, author of the Steele Dossier. (Note: They failed, using House Intelligence Committee position to taint investigation and attack the FBI investigators.) As time goes by, though, Nunes has become less and less subtle about putting his thumb on the scale, moving on to actually outright talk of “corruption” he’s imagining is happening at the Bureau, trying to throw up smokescreens to distract from the Trump/Russia investigation like say, demanding an investigation Hillary Clinton over the conspiracy theory Uranium One in December of 2017, because no Republican would enjoy giving a Christmas gift to their party like continuing to waste taxpayer dollars harassing Hillary Clinton for daring to be both a Democrat and a woman seeking the presidency. And of course, choosing the FBI’s surveillance of Carter Page, the most suspicious Russian operative in the entire Trump/Russia operation to be the hill to die on, by write a memo about it, saying it was full of “shocking revelations” but once it was released, would do little but make him look like even more of an incompetent boob.
By February of 2018, Congressman Nunes was caught funding his own alternative news site to try and manipulate what “news” was being spread about the Trump/Russia investigation, and that in no way mirrored how the intelligence community reported on how the 2016 election was tainted by Russian bots spreading those kinds of stories, right? It’s dragged on now to where Nunes has started threatening senior members of the FBI and Department of Justice with impeachment for not revealing all of the information they’ve gathered during their investigation of the links between Trump and Russia (when by now, Nunes is supposed to have recused himself anyway, and has already shown he’d leak classified information for partisan reasons) and he’s been left with no other option but to go on Fox & Friends to claim that the Trump campaign was “set up” by the FBI.
It’s almost as if Devin Nunes has some personal stake invested in the matter, you know? Like, more than the average Republican who will just look the other way, Nunes seems to want to outright taint the investigation and declare it over… like how he might in some way be implicated in illegal activity because of things he did as a member of the Trump transition…
Well, if that isn’t enough of a reason to loathe Rep. Nunes, we’ll look at the low lights from his voting record over the past eight terms in office:
- July 18th, 2006: Nunes votes for a resolution towards creating a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
- December 6th, 2006: Rep. Nunes votes for the “Abortion Pain Bill”, which would create a ban on abortion at 20 weeks.
- July 31st, 2007: Devin Nunes votes against the Equal Pay Bill.
- November 7th, 2007: Devin Nunes votes against ENDA, allowing the continued discrimination of LGBT citizens based on their sexual identity in the workplace.
- July 24th, 2008: Rep. Nunes votes against funding for the prevention of AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis.
- January 9th, 2009: Nunes votes against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
- April 29th, 2009: Devin Nunes votes against the Hate Crimes Expansion that would provide protections to LGBT citizens.
- July 31st, 2009: Nunes votes against the widely successfuly “Cash for Clunkers” program that helped save the American auto industry.
- June 30th, 2010: After Wall Street bankers taking unnecessary risks nearly imploded the global economy in 2007, legislation finally comes forward to prevent the same behaviors from being permitted in the future. The signature piece of legislation to prevent another financial meltdown was Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform, which Devin Nunes voted against.
- December 8th, 2010: Rep. Nunes votes against the DREAM Act.
- December 15th, 2010: Nunes votes against the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.
- January 5th, 2011: Rep. Nunes votes the first attempt by Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
- February 18th, 2011: Devin Nunes votes to defund Planned Parenthood on the very same day his “smaller government principles” compelled him to vote to continue funding taxpayer dollars towards NASCAR sponsorships.
- March 17th, 2011: Rep. Nunes votes to cut funding to National Public Radio.
- September 15th, 2012: Rep. Nunes votes for the “No More Solyndras Act”.
- June 19th, 2013: Devin Nunes votes against restoring $20.5 billion towards the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program.
- September 30th, 2013: Rep. Nunes votes for the 2013 Government Shutdown.
- Feb 26th, 2014: Devin Nunes goes “all in” on the faux-scandal surrounding the IRS researching SuperPACs by voting for the “Stop the Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act”.
- July 10th, 2014: Nunes votes for House Amendment 1040, to prevent the implementation of the dreaded United Nations Agenda 21 Treaty, that in spite of just being recommended climate change guidelines, have many conspiracy theorists within the extreme right convinced it’s a plot for global domination.
- January 22nd, 2015: Devin Nunes votes for HR 7, an anti-abortion bill that makes even some Republicans pause before voting for it because of its language that tries to define the conditions for what “rape” is, in it.
- February 3rd, 2015: Rep. Nunes votes for the 60th Republican attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act. This in spite of the fact that the law is not just working, but better than experts predicted.
- September 11th, 2015: Nunes votes against the United States’ nuclear treaty with Iran.
- September 18th, 2015: Rep. Nunes votes for a bill with most House Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood, based on highly edited “sting” videos submitted by a Pro-Life advocacy group that have been repeatedly debunked by investigators.
- November 19th, 2015: Nunes votes for the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act, reacting to the terror attacks in Paris by jihadists from France and Belgium by trying to create greater restrictions to keep out Syrian refugees, of whom exactly zero were involved in those attacks.
- February 2nd, 2016: Devin Nunes votes for HR 3762, the 61st attempt by Congressional Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
- February 16th, 2017: Nunes 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: Devin Nunes 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. Nunes votes for SJ Res 34, which allowed internet providers to sell the data information of their customers’ internet usage to businesses.
- May 4th, 2017: Nunes votes for the GOP’s healthcare plan, that would allow 24,000 more people to die a year, give $50,000 in tax breaks to millionaires, would eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions, and would treat pregnancy, postpartum depression, and sexual assault as “pre-existing conditions”. Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Nunes 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: Devin Nunes votes for HR 10, the GOP’s attempt to repeal Dodd-Frank financial reform.
- October 3rd, 2017: Nunes 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: Devin Nunes 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.
With the 2018 California Primary now over, Devin Nunes will face off in November against Andrew Janz, who unlike many Democratic candidates, is not mincing words about how much Nunes has sold out all his values and principles in the interests of keeping a budding dictator like Donald Trump in power. Now, while Democrats, by most estimates are looking at a +6 to +10 advantage going into 2018 against generic Republicans across the country, that advantage is negated for Janz versus Nunes because California’s 22nd District has a +8 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index.
Then again, Devin Nunes is not your “average” Republican, he’s the sea-worthy douche-canoe using what power he has to prop up in incompetent racist s***heel in the White House. Janz raised $1 million in the first quarter of 2018 alone, and polls are already showing him polling closely towards Nunes, who has won comfortable victories in the past several elections by over 20 points.There are districts we’re hoping that get flipped in five months’ time, and seeing Devin Nunes have his career destroyed for what he’s done will admittedly warm our heart full of schadenfreude.
One Year Ago, June 17th, 2017: Pat McDonough (MD)… 2017 Update
Two Year Ago, June 17th, 2016: Pat McDonough (MD)… 2016 Update
Three Years Ago, June 17th, 2015: Pat McDonough (MD)… Original Profile