Just Plain Ole Mean
You know, Republicans are just plain ole mean.
There’s a special election being held in the Texas 6th congressional district today. The district is bright cherry red. There’s no way a Democrat can win it, so 23 Republicans are clawing each other to death for a highly likely run-off. I call it a jungle primary.
All the polls show that the leading candidate is Susan Wright, widow of the late congressman who died of COVID earlier this year. But, while she may be leading, she does not have the 51% necessary to pull off a full win. The race for second place is tight and could be about any one of five folks.
Texas Republican congressional candidate Susan Wright is seeking help from federal law enforcement the day before her special election, after supporters reported receiving robocalls that accused her of being responsible for the death of her late husband.
Wright’s campaign reached out to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice on Friday after discovering robocalls baselessly alleging that she had “murdered” her husband, the late GOP Rep. Ron Wright.
They are accusing her of purposefully contracting COVID and deliberately giving it to her husband. After, of course, she took out a million dollar life insurance policy on him.
That just seems like a whole lot of trouble when this is Texas and you can shoot people in the face and call it an accident. So, I think they are just being mean. On the other hand, Donald Trump endorsed her so she’s earned all the mean she gets.
And now there’s also this one. Mark Samsel is a Republican state legislator in Missouri.
On Wednesday, Samsel, R-Wellsville, was substitute teaching at the Wellsville school district’s secondary school. Throughout the day, high school students began recording videos of the lawmaker talking about suicide, sex, masturbation, God and the Bible.
In one video shared with The Star, Samsel tells students about “a sophomore who’s tried killing himself three times,” adding that it was because “he has two parents and they’re both females.”
He also kneed a student in the groin and then asked as the student was on the floor, “Did it hurt?” He told the student he could go see the nurse and she’d “check it out.”
You know, that’s mean.
If the election were for dog catcher, I’d just sit back and enjoy another episode of Fight Club. But these people are just one more reason that Texas is a laughing stock. As for the “teacher”, GOPers don’t want universal preschool – I might not with if he were around my kids!
1I’m reading that Samsel is a Kansas politician, and that his disturbing behavior as a substitute teacher took place in Wellsville, Kansas (rather than Missouri). Regardless of location, Samsel should never be in proximity to school children again. Ever.
2It’s almost as if Republicans are more engaged in winning a “Meanest, Nastiest Candidate” contest rather than a political office. Or maybe it’s demonstrating cred for their Fox/Newsmax/OAN audition tape?
3Perhaps Randy Rainbow can re-work the “Anything You Can Do” song for Republicans:
“However low you sink, I can sink lower …”
4I’m convinced that it’s something in the water. Nothing else makes a lick of sense.
5Actually, TX-6 special election has a bunch of democrats among the 23 candidates, and several of them look very good, and have some campaign funding – we were phone polled by two of them. We hope a Democrat makes the runoff. Failing that, there is a well-funded mostly anti-Trump Republican, Wood, who could make it a race about the former president (lots of national coverage). We should know before bedtime.
Tarrant County includes a gerrymandered finger of this district and went for Biden by a fraction of a percent in 2020, earning us mention in that Sidney lawyer’s proof of flawed election. I imagine our competent Republican county judge pitched a fit (quietly in his office) when he heard this.
Our gerrymandered district has been trending toward blue over the last few elections, though who knows what redistricting will do. I’ve lived most of my adult life in “cracked” districts. Maybe I will be in a “packed” district.
6Texas has nothing on Alabama, we still ban teaching Yoga in schools.
7The Kansas whack job substitute ‘teacher’ was also a state rep and an attorney. He certainly should have been aware NOT to ever place his hands on a minor. Evuh. Yet he committed sexual assault on a minor in a classroom full of witnesses. If Kansas does not prosecute him to the max, DOJ needs to do what Kansas won’t.
Please parents if you have school age children who can operate a cell phone, please instruct them to 411 you immediately, if not sooner. Or, call 911, if you trust your local LE. That deviant should have been met at the classroom door by LE, not arrested hours or days later.
Are our two boys too young for cell phones? We are about to test the theory. Class starts tomorrow.
8Wait a minute, the child abuser is a state rep AND a lawyer?!!! Why the **** was he substitute teaching to begin with? Who the **** hired him?!!! Geez……
9We have way too many disgusting people in the Missouri Lege, but we cannot claim Mr. Samsel. He is a Representative in Kansas, HD5. And may he please stay there, because if he ran, he could probably be elected in Missouri.
10yet another baby boomer @9, it’s unlikely we’ll receive anything approaching a satisfactory answer from Koch KKKontrolled Kansas or the level of prosecution that pervert deserves for multiple felonies. #libertariansLoveChildAbuse
Newly appointed Attorney General Merrick Garland has a full plate. We can sympathize. However, this is exactly the type of case that needs the attention of federal prosecutors. Time for a “stomp down” on all the racist, bigoted, and other “states rights” blinds behind which conservatives hide. We need Garland to be our “RFK for the 21st century.”
11I lived in Missouri for 3 years during my childhood and most of my adult life [then I moved to Florida. I never learn.]
But the point here is, as far as Samsel is concerned, nothing will happen. No investigation. He certainly won’t be fired from his subbing job and he WILL NOT be unseated from the state legislature.
12After all, why should he? He’s doing exactly what the good folks of Missouri hired him to do: intimidating people before they start voting.
Guy in Mansfield: just before the November elections another habitue of the salon here pointed me towards a Tarrant County group at
https://tarrant-together.com/
They seem to be doing Good Work, concentrated on registering people who had recently moved to Tarrant County. I’m stuck in a state even dumber than Texas, but donated to them and would have done the door-to-door thing if I had been physically there. Just in case you have not run across them before, and are interested. And in case you can pass on any info to me about the organization, good or bad.
13Clawing each other to death? Sounds about right.
14This went on all day and the school didn’t put a stop to it?
15Hope this fake person, mark samsel, gets prosecuted for felony assault, and as part of his punishment, the student he kneed gets to kick him in the balls. That would wipe his shit-eating grin off his kisser.
16Samsel has been fired from the substitute teaching job. He is ” under investigation ” by his fellow repukes & this was for some reason a misdemeanor charge? God Bless Kansas! He is quite crazy but republicans refunded all mental hospitals but one under Sam Brow back. No waste of money here, don’t you know!
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