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 Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District, Thomas Massie, who you would expect to be reasonably intelligent, what with a successful tech company with two dozen patents to his credit and a Master’s Degree from MIT. Sadly, though, Massie at some point became a disciple of Ron Paul, even apparently trying to emulate Rand Paul’s awful hairstyle so he can blend in as a member of the family.
Massie’s dedication to libertarian smaller government to an extent that you wonder if he’s doing it in the hopes that it’s some sort of magic ritual to get Ayn Rand to rise from the grave. But three weeks after the Newtown shootings, and as the new session of Congress began after it, Massie had the unmitigated gall to submit a bill to allow guns in school zones, by repealing a law passed by the first Bush administration and supported by the NRA at its passage. He also shrugged and claimed that the nine victims of Dylann Roof at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina were to blame for their own deaths because the church had “disallowed guns” which is a truly awful thing to do the deceased.
He has voted against the new version of the Violence Against Women Act, Hurricane Sandy Relief, and is one of only 3 people in Congress to have voted against the Stolen Valor Act, all because he thinks the government should instead do NOTHING. And he’s unafraid of being the one lone vote against any and all legislation, like when he was the lone vote against naming Israel as a strategic partner of the United States. He voted for the 2013 Government Shutdown and called the compromise over the fiscal cliff as “a really big turd sandwich without the bread”.
But on top over everything else, we noted Massie has the quality of his hero Ron Paul where he hitches his caboose onto anti-government conspiracy theories, including falsely claiming the military gave a “stand down” order during the attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi and alluding to “knowing the truth” about 9/11 and wanting the 28 page report about it declassified completely. Meanwhile, he’s the same moron who in April of 2017 who went on CNN to push back against reports that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad gassed his own people again, saying, “I don’t think he could have done that.”
In February of 2017, Rep. Massie co-sponsored legislation to attempt to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency completely, and on October 10th, 2017 only days after a shooter in Las Vegas uses bump stocks in semi-automatic firearms to make them fully-automatic weapons and mass murder 58 people… Rep. Massie argued in favor of legalizing bump stocks nationwide, because apparently not enough people died in Vegas to appease his twisted libertarian worldview.
How are things looking for Thomas Massie in Kentucky? Do they love him there? Well, let’s put it this way, after that very libertarian vote he made against disaster relief aid for victims of Hurricane Harvey, the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce literally called him a “piece of s***” on Twitter. That’s not some random liberal we’re talking about… a friggin’ Chamber of Commerce went with that. He’s been defending international dictators and endorsing pedophiles like Roy Moore for Senate.
And, much as we are loathe to report it, Thomas Massie just won a fourth term in office in the 2018 elections, earning 62% of the vote. Before being sworn in for this term, he was mocking progressives for wanting Healthcare for All by arguing against the idea that human beings have a right to food:
”How long until someone runs on the platform of #FoodStampsForAll? If healthcare is a right, is food as well?”
Spoiler alert, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights confirmed food was a human right. Also, Massie’s supposed influence, Jesus Christ, was rather vocal about the value of feeding the hungry, so…
This past year, Thomas Massie also embarrassed himself when he showed a lack of understanding about how Bachelor’s Degrees work as he bizarrely interrogated former Secretary fo State John Kerry about it in a Congressional hearing in regards to climate change. For a painful stretch of minutes, Massie kept conflating social sciences with natural sciences, as everyone in the room, particularly Kerry, wondered what the hell he was getting at.
Here’s some of the other jackassery from Massie over the past few years, and the extent of legislation which he mindlessly opposes:
- January 22nd, 2019: Massie votes against HR 676, which would prevent Donald Trump from doing the unthinkable and walking away from our allies in NATO to appease the Russians.
- January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Massie voted against HR 648, because he was gleeully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
- January 27th, 2019: Thomas Massie can’t be arsed to bother to vote against HJR 30, which was meant to express disapproval of Donald Trump not acting against Russian Federation for attack Massie our democracy. You see, he’s fine with our nation being sublet to Vladimir Putin.
- February 28th, 2019: Massie votes against HR 1112, a bill which would have required universal background checks on all firearm purchases, and close the gun show loophole.
- March 7th, 2019: Massie votes against HR 183, a resolution to condemn anti-Semitism as a hateful extension of intolerance.
- April 4th, 2019: Thomas Massie is one of 158 Republicans who choose to vote against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).
- May 17th, 2019: Massie votes against The Equality Act, which would have prevented discrimination towards Americans based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.
- June 4th, 2019: Rep. Massie votes against the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
- July 12th, 2019: Massie is one of 12 Republicans who vote against the re-authorization of the Zadroga Act to provide healthcare to 9/11 First Responders.
- July 16th, 2019: Thomas Massie votes against a resolution to condemn Donald Trump for his racist statements that four people of color in Congress should “go back where they came from”.
- October 17th, 2019: Massie is one of 60 Republicans who vote against HJ Res 77, which opposed Donald Trump’s disastrous decision to abandon Syrian Kurdish forces in Northeast Syria to the mercies of a Turkish invasion.
- December 3rd, 2019: Thomas Massie is one of 71 Republicans who vote against House Resolution 546, which stated disapproval of any attempt to readmit the Russian federation back into the G7 and make it the G8.
On top of all the above moments, we’re going to link to a ThinkProgress investigation that has shown how many other times there were resolutions in Congress to criticize or punish Russia for executing its political enemies, or its annexation of Crimea, and how the only people who voted against the bills were Thomas Massie and “Putin’s favorite Congressman” of the time, Dana Rohrabacher. By default, that would mean Massie is now Putin’s favorite. And considering he was wining and dining Maria Butina prior to her arrest, and also had dinner with Alexander Torshin, maybe that should be a major concern.
Thomas Massie has proven himself so unreliable and bats*** crazy that the national GOP has begun looking for primary challengers to him. Being “too crazy” for today’s GOP is truly a feat, and yet he manages.