James Lankford Censured For Doing One Decent Thing In His Miserable Legislative Career
Thinking Lankford sucks has become a point of bipartisan agreement.
Baby-cheeked Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) remains adorable in his apparently sincere belief that the feral gasbags of Oklahoma elected him to the United States Senate in order to solve problems. Like the American immigration system, with its impenetrable bureaucratic mazes and its inability to absorb huge numbers of migrants trying to cross America’s southern border.
Buddy, no! When they first elected you in a special election in 2014, it was so you could stop the Kenyan Muslim usurper Barack Hussein Obama from implementing sharia law by fiat. Then in 2016 they sent you back so you could help Donald Trump, Our Lord of the Burnt Umber Crayon, own the libs. And in 2022 you were re-elected to stop the Biden Crime Family from getting rich by selling America’s Strategic Panda Reserves off to China or something, we don’t know, your party says a lot of things that can’t be understood by anyone with an IQ higher than a negative number.
Thanks to this misunderstanding, Lankford spent months trying to find some fixes that might at least alleviate some of the strain that has the whole immigration system bulging at the seams like Fat Bastard modeling a pair of yoga tights. But the bill he produced after months of hard work and negotiations was killed by Donald Trump and Lankford’s cross-Congress colleagues in the Housefor the obvious reason that they can’t solve a problem in an election year. Or any other year.
THEN:
Now Lankford’s folly has earned him another black mark, as the Oklahoma County Republican Party last weekend officially censured him for the crime of daring to try to be constructive:
"The people have spoken," the county party chair, Ken Warner, told The Oklahoman.
"It's really because he's said he's willing to allow 5,000 illegals ... per day," Warner said. "That was part of the border bill. ... That was one of the things in there."
What do you call something that’s not true … a lie … this … was … that!
This was the second time a GOP organ in Oklahoma has censured Lankford for daring to work on the problem that the entire GOP has practically blown its lungs out screaming about for the last couple of years. The first effort, in January, was ruled null and void because the vote was taken by a small number of Republicans at an unofficial meeting and “definitely does not represent the voice of all Oklahoma Republicans.”
The most hilarious part is that the bill was a conservative bill. Lankford had managed to get the GOP nearly everything it wanted and the support of a Democratic president, who spent a chunk of his State of the Union address last week praising some of the bill’s provisions while Lankford sat in the audience and nodded along in affirmation.
And the party still told him to fuck off into the sun.
AND BEFORE THAT!
With this censure, Lankford joins the ignominious ranks of GOP members censured by their state parties for the crime of only being a giant butthole 99 percent of the time. Mitt Romney was censured by a county Republican Party in Utah for voting to convict Donald Trump in one of his impeachment trials, and again in another county two years later for both his impeachment vote and his hand in helping the country elect radical Marxists, uh, *squints at notes* Joe Biden.
The two men were also joined in ignominy this week by Robin Vos, the hard-right speaker of Wisconsin’s state Assembly, who barely escaped being recalled for the crime of explaining to Trump supporters that no, he did not have the legal authority to unilaterally decertify the 2020 election, they would just have to accept that Trump lost like normal human beings whose brains are not smoother than river stones.
And God, do we loathe giving Lankford any credit for anything, because he is otherwise terrible. Just this week he publicly lied that chemical abortions aren’t safe and also opposed IVF access for veterans because he’s worried about “human cloning.” You have to go back 11 years to when Wonkette’s editrix was blowing a gasket as Lankford blamed the Sandy Hook school massacre on … welfare moms doing fraud.
THIS ONE!
He’s a hideous shite of a person, is what we mean.
William Saletan remarks over at The Bulwark:
The GOP’s betrayal of Lankford marks a new stage of its degeneration. The party isn’t just shunning members who try to hold Trump accountable, as Romney did, or excommunicating those who defend the Constitution, as Cheney did. It’s attacking a lawmaker for trying to do the most basic part of his job: solving a problem.
Ah, see, that’s where Saletan is wrong. It is no longer a basic part of the job of a lawmaker to try and solve problems. The job is now, and has been for some time, tripping over its own dick in its hurry to get Donald Trump back into office by any means necessary.
James Lankford is up for re-election in 2028. So he has plenty of time to finally get that last part through his dainty skull before he has to decide if he’ll run for another term. Assuming we still have elections in 2028.
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OT- I can't stop gloating.
Judge McAfee removes six charges from PAB's Georgia case.
MAGA- Praise Judge McAfee for his laser focused sense of justice!
Two days later- McAfee rules that Fani can continue with her RICO case.
MAGA- He is a terrible and corrupt LOSER who should be REMOVED from his position.
McAfee played that very well.
I'm not gonna say that I will absolutely celebrate the day PAB shuffles off this mortal coil and his entire coterie of cultish brain-dead followers collectively self-immolate as tribute to their Dark Lord of the Shith. But I'm totally bringing marshmallows, graham crackers, and delicious chocolate to that particular bonfire if and when it happens.