On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, as well as 2022, that “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published profiles of the U.S. House Representative from Colorado’s 5th Congressional District, Doug Lamborn, who first won office in 2007 by gay-baiting and claiming his primary opponent “supported the homosexual agenda” (which wasn’t the case). Lamborn was also named the most conservative member of Congress in 2010 by the National Journal, which makes sense when you realize he was one of the original member of the GOP to push legislation fueled by FOX News’ “War on Christmas”, as well as being the guy the guy who co-sponsored a bill to try to defund National Public Radio. Plus, long before Mitt Romney ever talked about defunding PBS and speaking ill of Big Bird, Rep. Lamborn did it first.
Lamborn even once gave an interview where he described being associated with President Obama “like touching a tar baby”, which he defended by saying he had no idea “tar baby” was a racial slur. That may be part of the reason that he once called for American generals to resign to protest President Obama's foreign policy or the time he made a spectacle of himself back in 2012 by announcing that he was boycotting President Obama's State of the Union Address, then complaining when the media actually reported it, and saying he was being "unfairly singled out". Lamborn has also took to claiming President Obama was doing nothing to prevent Christian persecution around the globe because he was too busy supporting LGBTQ causes, instead.
Needless to say, Doug Lamborn got a lot of grief at his town hall meetings, particularly as the Trump administration began. Then he was implicated as someone who benefited from stock advice from fellow Congressman Chris Collins, whose stock advice really amounts to insider trading, although unlike Collins, Lamborn avoided being directly indicted.
He managed to survive the scandal of fraudulent signatures to get on the ballot in 2016, to fend off two primary challengers in the form of fellow FREDs Owen Hill, and Darryl Glenn, before holding off Democrat Stephanie Rose Spaulding in the general election that year with 57% of the vote.
Lamborn has continued his feud with PBS, complaining not just about Sesame Street and Big Bird, but getting his knickers in a twist and trying to defund PBS because the teacher on the cartoon Arthur had the titular character’s teacher, Mr. Ratburn, married to another man (anthropomorphic animal man, but GASP, A MAN!). Lamborn’s fury, as follows:
”A case in point is PBS—the Public Broadcasting Service—which recently aired a surprising episode of the children’s show “Arthur” titled “Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone.” In this episode, PBS writers deemed it appropriate to preach their liberal views on same-sex marriage to America’s young children: The episode featured—and celebrated—a same-sex wedding.
After the episode, many conservatives, including Rev. Franklin Graham and Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, came out in opposition. Even the state of Alabama opted against airing the program and instead barred the episode from Alabama Public Television. When confronted with criticism, Marc Brown, the creator of “Arthur,” explained: ‘That’s not the kind of world we want to live in, and we want children educated so they can see there’s not just one type of family.’
Taxpayers now know with complete certainty that the goal of the PBS cartoon is to impart social liberalism to children… “
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Get bent, Lamborn. And stop whining all the time about the Green New Deal without seeming to even know what it IS, and labeling everything you don’t like “socialism”.
Make no mistake, Doug Lamborn has become one of the Republicans embracing the GOP becoming the “Party of Trump”, as evidenced by his speech in the House in September 2019 commending Donald Trump for choosing to have U.S. Space Command housed at Peterson Air Force, where he bizarrely referred to “space warfighters”, which we can only assume is related to the fever dream of Trump’s Space Force.
Anyway, it’s probably not a shock to anyone that Lamborn, now in his ninth term in office after winning re-election in 2022 with 56% of the vote, and continues to rack up a highly conservative voting record, now in the minority:
- December 3rd, 2019: Rep. Lamborn can’t be bothered to show up to vote against a resolution to disallow Russia from re-entering the G7 and makes it the G8 until it leaves Ukraine.
- December 18th, 2019: Lamborn ignores his Congressional duty to hold a president who has been proven to commit high crimes and misdemeanors accountable and votes against the first impeachment of Donald Trump.
- December 10th, 2020: Lamborn signs his name to an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, begging them to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The same election that he won re-election in.
- January 7th, 2021: Doug Lamborn votes for the objection to the electoral college’s votes in the 2020 election, a failure to send any sort of message that he wasn’t intimidated or sympathetic to those who attacked the Capitol to attempt a violent coup.
- January 13th, 2021: Rep. Lamborn votes against the second impeachment of Donald Trump, because the Republican Party no longer feels like they should be accountable for anything, including failed coups that result in the deaths of both their participants and police officers.
- February 25th, 2021: Lamborn votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
- March 3rd, 2021: Rep. Lamborn votes against HR 1, a bill created to prevent the corruption of money in politics, and protect voter access to the ballot box.
- March 3rd, 2021: Doug Lamborn votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
- March 10th, 2021: Lamborn votes against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, because he feels people deserve to die in poverty during a pandemic.
- March 17th, 2021: Rep. Lamborn votes 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 19th, 2021: Rep. Lamborn votes against HR 3233, the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol Attack.
- July 28th, 2021: Doug Lamborn rages on the floor of the House against mask mandates for members of Congress as advised by the attending physician for the House, saying that if he is required to wear one, instead, all of Congress should just be “adjourned and shut this place down”. He continued rambling and publicly questioning the efficacy of vaccines, while he was at it.
- November 5th, 2021: Doug Lamborn votes against HR 3684, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
- March 31st, 2022: Lamborn votes against HR 6833, the Affordable Insulin Now Act, which would limit the cost that drug companies could list insulin at to $35 and make sure no diabetic was priced out of surviving their condition. Doug Lamborn would rather they be gouged by pharmaceutical giants and/or die.
- May 18th, 2022: Doug Lamborn is one of 192 Republicans who votes against HR 7790, to create supplemental funding for infant formula (while claiming to be pro- life).
- May 18th, 2022: Rep. Lamborn votes against HR 350, the Domestic Violence Prevention Act, because these days, a plank of the Republican Party is ostensibly domestic terror.
- May 19th, 2022: Lamborn doesn’t even bother to show up to vote for HR 7688, a bill which would help prevent gas companies from gouging customers on prices.
- July 15th, 2022: Doug Lamborn votes against House Amendment 262, which would require the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and Secretary of Defense to publish a report on the infiltration of American law enforcement by Neo-Nazis and white supremacists, offer measures to be taken to remove them from their ranks, and prevent further infiltration by others.
- July 13th, 2022: Lamborn votes against the Honoring Our PACT Act, to provide healthcare to veterans affected by toxic burn pits while serving in the War on Terror that leave them more susceptible to forms of cancer.
- July 19th, 2022: Rep. Lamborn is one of 157 Republicans who vote against the “Respect for Marriage Act”, which would codify same sex marriage into law nationally.
- July 21st, 2022: Lamborn is one of 195 Republicans who vote against the Right to Contraception Act, which codified the right of Americans to have access to birth control.
- December 1st, 2022: Rep. Lamborn is one of 90 Republicans who vote against HR 6878, meaning he is perfectly fine with pregnant women in prison being placed in solitary confinement while claiming to be “pro-life”.
- December 6th, 2022: Lamborn, embracing the GOP’s white nationalist, anti-immigrant sentiment votes against HR 7946, which was meant to honor the promise to grant citizenship to immigrants who served in the United States Armed Forces.
- July 13th, 2023: Lamborn is one of 70 Republicans who vote for an amendment that would cut all U.S. funding to support our ally, Ukraine, to repel a Russian invasion.
Even what with news that his own staffers are getting fired for taking precautions during the Covid-19 pandemic and allegedly being told by Lamborn that Covid-19 is a “hoax fabricated to derail Donald Trump’s reelection bid”. Further e-mails between staffers put Lamborn as the target of an ethics investigation for allegedly having Congressional staff run errands for his wife, against Congressional rules. Or that his Chief of Staff, Dale Anderson, pressured staffers to buy Lamborn and his wife gifts.
Doug Lamborn settled this lawsuit out of court for an undisclosed sum, and in a sane world, where people understand science and don’t adhere to conspiracy theories, he’d already have been toast years ago. Alas, that’s not the direction this country, in particular his district has trended.