Per the prescient Mr. Charles P. Pierce:
Regular visitors to this shebeen will recall that, once Michele Bachmann announced that she would be fluttering out of Congress one step ahead of the ethics committee, we ran a little contest to find out who would replace her as Royal Regent Of The Crazy People. (Louie Gohmert, of course, is Padishah Emperor of the Crazy People for life.) Our winner was Blake Farenthold of the 27th Congressional District of where-the-fk-else? Texas. Recently, with the election of a Congress that, by all indications, will be an even chewier cluster of fk than the 113th was, we wondered how Farenthold would manage to hold onto his throne against a new crop of pretenders.
Worry no longer. He’s got an unbreakable grip on the crown — and, apparently, on other things, too…
At NYMag, “Congressman Who Owns ‘Blow-me.org’ Sued for Sexual Harassment“:
… In court documents filed Monday, Lauren Greene, Farenthold’s former communications director, claims that he regularly made comments meant to “gauge whether Plaintiff was interested in a sexual relationship.” She says she was cut out of important meetings after she complained, and was then fired in July 2014.
Greene claims that when she mentioned to the congressman’s executive assistant, Emily Wilkes, that he seemed to be avoiding her, she said he’d “admitted to being attracted to Plaintiff and to having ‘sexual fantasies’ and ‘wet dreams’ about Plaintiff.” She describes Farenthold pointing out that she had a stain on her skirt, saying “a reasonable person would infer that Farenthold was joking that she had semen on her skirt.”…
Greene also offers this tidbit: “Farenthold regularly drank to excess, and because of his tendency to flirt, the staffers who accompanied him to Capitol Hill functions would joke that they had to be on ‘red head patrol’ to keep him out of trouble.”…
The Washington Post‘s gossip column, Reliable Source, discusses Farenthold’s… qualifications:
… CV: He was an attorney and owned a computer consulting and web design firm before being elected in 2010. Now he’s in Congress, where he chairs the subcommittee that oversees the Postal Service. He won re-election for a second time this year, defeating Democratic challenger Wesley Reed — a feat made easier by GOP redistricting that made his seat safer for Republicans — though he was a finalist in comedian Bill Maher’s “Flip a District” campaign.
Legislative accomplishments: Farenthold sponsored six bills in 2013, according to his last report card from Govtrack, which tallies congressional stats. He attracted only four co-sponsors for them, putting him in last place (out of 435) in that category. But! he did have perfect attendance…
Bonus drama: Politico reports that Farenthold hired veteran GOP mouthpiece Kurt Bardella to handle the fallout from the lawsuit. Hey, we’ve heard that name before! Bardella is the House staffer fired for leaking emails to NYT’s Mark Leibovitch, as he was writing “This Town,” his send-up of official Washington.
It’s a small (but certainly not tidy) little village, there inside the Beltway. As Anthony Trollope might’ve said, one cannot in honesty attest that stranger things happen in fiction.
srv
Silly libtards, you haven’t seen the latest bimbo eruption?
Console
I’ve met Farenholt at a DC cocktail party before. He’s not a politician. And I don’t mean that in a good way. I mean that in a “how does this creepy socially awkward guy with zero charisma get elected to anything” way.
The fuck is wrong with you Corpus Christi.
jl
He seems nice and has good taste in lil’ ducky jammies.
I don;t see how his bills did very well with only 2/3s of Congressperson sponsoring each one. Is that allowed now?
The Pale Scot
The “Asshole” Song
Major Major Major Major
Christ, what an asshole.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I never thought Ignatius J Reilly would come to life, and come to life as a Republican.
Violet
Ewww….that picture of him makes my skin crawl.
Villago Delenda Est
And yet these utter scumbags keep getting reelected to Congress.
Bring on the meteor.
Villago Delenda Est
@Console:
Forget it, Jake. It’s Texass.
jl
@Violet:
” Ewww….that picture of him makes my skin crawl. ”
Come to think of it though, we (including me) have been assuming he is the weird looking person on the right hand side of the picture. You know what they say about ‘assume’, right? We better get confirmation.
Regnad Kcin
more to the point, who are these Texan jackwits who would hire him to preform “computer consulting and web design” preversions
beltane
@efgoldman: Wow. At least she doesn’t have to endure the shame of having him in her bloodline. Also a reminder of the fine people Texas has produced in the past.
Mandalay
Ugh….more awful news from down under:
JGabriel
Anne Laurie @ Top:
To be fair, fiction is constrained by the requirement to be plausible to its audience.
Politicians are under no such constraint.
JGabriel
The Australian via Mandalay:
Right Wing Asshole responds: See! 1! 1! Take away our guns and we’ll all just stab each other to death. 1! 1!
JGabriel
Where is everyone?
Tree With Water
I feel bad for the women in that photo. It was their fate to be photographed at that moment, with that slob, looking like that, the poor things. I’m sure they had their reasons, too, and they’re no one’s business but their own. They’re both innocent bystanders, in other words. But now their nice faces will forever be linked to that slob, made undeserving objects of international ridicule. I’m sure they’ll weather it just fine, but it’s a shame it happened to them at all.
Tree With Water
I remember feeling sort of bad for Rosalyne Carter, too, when that photo of her turned up (with a big smile on her face) standing next to an also beaming John Wayne Gacey, clothed in his infamous clown costume.
lamh36
Watching the FINAL broadcast of The Colbert Show.
Gonna miss it a lot.
I consistently found it better than the Daily Show.
Stephen Colbert’s caricature will be missed.
lamh36
SatanicPanic
OMG, this guy is like beyond the most uncharitable parody we could come up with. Wow. I’m kind of impressed.
Deecarda
Only Colbert could get that diverse crowd on the stage at one time.
Mike in NC
@Villago Delenda Est: I had Navy buddies who went through flight training at NAS Corpus Christi. They really hated the area.
lamh36
@Deecarda: I know right.
Did I actually see Stone freakin’ Phillips!
Deecarda
@lamh36:
New thread upstairs re Colbert.
Deecarda
@lamh36:
I couldn’t pull names out of my brain fast enough.
RSR
Ugh, the poor Postal Service.
Paul in KY
@Tree With Water: You have more sympathy than I for their plight. She might be a wanna-be-Fox-bot,
RaflW
Well, I’m sure that made Farenthold quake in his kinky boots.
SaneMD
Ugh. This idiot is my congressman. Before him it was Ron Paul. My representative to the Texas legislature started off his first term by introducing a bill that would withdraw state funding from any school district that offered insurance benefits to same sex partners. It is really hopeless out here.