On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of the U.S. House Representative from California’s 50th Congressional District, Duncan Hunter, the current U.S. House Representative for California’s 50th District, who has a prolific record of voting against women’s interests, like against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act or renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, defunding Planned Parenthood back in 2011, and voting for measures like the Blunt Amendment and Personhood bills that would criminalize even some forms of birth control, let alone abortion. On gay rights, he has been opposed, even voting against the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and claiming “the homosexual lobby” was trying to take over our military
. Hunter has also been a hard-liner against immigration, calling for an end to birthright citizenship guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, praising Arizona’s SB 1070 law that allows racial profiling by law enforcement to catch illegal immigrants, and making outrageous charges that people were bringing the Ebola Virus across the U.S./Mexico border, or that 10 member of ISIS were caught attempting to cross it into the United States (which our nation’s intelligence community completely rebuffed).
Duncan Hunter is also a huge war hawk, having once listed nuclear war as an alternative to the treaty being forged with Iran, and playing the demagogue to President Obama on Syria, alternating stances from wanting intervention, to voting against it, to saying Obama should be impeached for ordering air strikes against ISIS there. His thoughts on the military are, as well, backwards and exist, as in a Armed Services hearing in January of 2016, he told Navy Secretary Ray Mabus he was “a greater threat to the Marine Corps than ISIS” for putting women in combat roles. In 2017, Hunter supported a Declaration of War on North Korea that didn’t exist, and expressed his support for Donald Trump by giving him the ringing endorsement of, “He’s an ***hole, but he’s our ***hole.”
Rep. Hunter, also voiced his support for a GOP tax plan, in spite of both Republicans, Democrats, and in particular, Californians being opposed to it. He was actually quoted in an interview in late October of 2017, saying he would support such an unpopular piece of legislation, saying, “Why punish the rest of the nation because California is stupid?”
The younger Duncan Hunter also has been a dedicated ally of the tobacco lobby, frequently doing everything he can to improve access to cheaper tobacco products on U.S. military bases, because our combat efficiency will be greatly improved with our troops being chain smokers. In 2016, Rep. Hunter showed how far his allegiance to the tobacco lobby (who have funneled tens of thousands of dollars towards him) went while in a Congressional hearing, he was arguing against laws that would ban vaping on airplanes, and decided to show his solidary for users of e-cigarettes by honest-to-goodness vaping in the middle of a Congressional hearing, dramatically puffing vapor out to prove his point. Hunter has interesting ethical problems arising from other hobbies he’s interested in, including video games which he illegally paid for using campaign money in 2015. He responded to that by starting off the new session of Congress at the beginning of 2017 by being one of a handful of Republicans attempting to gut funding to the Office of Congressional Ethics.
If you’re wondering why it is that Hunter would be so terrified of facing the music over his children sneaking a credit card to pay for video games… oh, the rabbit hole kept going deeper. And literally, it involves a rabbit. It seems Rep. Hunter also used campaign money to have his family’s pet rabbit flown on a plane from California to Virginia… but that isn’t even the tip of the iceberg. The extent of him violating campaign finance laws was egregious enough to garner the attention of the FBI, and sparked a criminal investigation, because the Hunter family was using campaign money to pay for several personal purchases and utilities. Keep in mind, the honorable Congressman has already tried blaming this on his wife, and has recently forced the resignation of his campaign chief of staff, whom he has employed since 2014, and seems to want to take the fall for him. There’s one problem with that attempt at accepting responsibility for the crime… these abuses of Hunter’s campaign money that mysteriously benefit his household and his children have apparently been occurring since 2010, four years before that chief of staff was hired. Among the other things the Hunters charged to taxpayers? Trips to Costco, Riverdance tickets, shots at bachelor parties, and hotel rooms which he was using to screw mistresses behind his wife’s back (that would be the same wife he tried blaming all the illegal spending on). All told, he and his wife were indicted on 60 corruption charges.
Now, we’d like to think the people of California’s 50th Congressional District are, at this point, just voting “Hunter” on their ballot for a man under indictment and who literally called Californians stupid within the current term of Congress because they haven’t noticed he isn’t his father who retired yet. So, in order to make sure he could hold onto power, he opted to go with full on bigotry in his campaign ads, claiming his opponent, Anmar Campa-Najjar, a former Obama White House staffer, was actually a member of the Muslim Brotherhood who changed his name to avoid being linked to terrorism.
Somehow, that was enough for Hunter to win re-election with about 54% of the vote in a district that is supposed to be a +11 Republican lean. If the pending trial he’s about to go on for his alleged crimes isn’t enough to prevent his re-election campaign for 2020… Hunter is still stubbornly trying to hang on to his Congressional seat. Even as Anmar Campa-Najjar sets up for a rematch, and even ol’ Darrell Issa tries jumping in to the GOP Primary to avoid seeing this seat flip to Democrats (yes, THAT Darrell Issa). We’re pretty sure that our final update on Duncan Hunter will come this time next year, reporting on his inevitable defeat, and any updates on his trial.