Stacey Campfield did this? Why, I'm shocked.
On Monday, a Tennessee state senator apparently likened Obamacare's individual mandate to Nazi Germany's slaughter of Jews.Many of the people who've written about this have carefully preserved the post in a screen shot, in case Campfield pulls it down. He hasn't -- and he won't. He's an obsessive-compulsive troll. This is what he does. This is what he lives for.
A brief post published at the blog of state Sen. Stacey Campfield (R) read: "Democrats bragging about the number of mandatory sign ups for Obamacare is like Germans bragging about the number of manditory [sic] sign ups for 'train rides' for Jews in the 40s."
As I wrote in 2011:
This is a guy who once introduced a bill requiring death certificates for all aborted fetuses. He later introduced a bill that would deny birth certificates for children of undocumented immigrants. (It probably won't surprise you when I tell you that he and three other Republican legislators were among the first to demand to see Barack Obama's birth certificate -- this was less than month after Obama's inauguration.)I wrote that when Campfield was making his annual push for a bill that would make it illegal to discuss any sexual behavior other than heterosexuality in grades K-8, even with children of gay parents. (The bill had died every year before 2011, and has continued to do so.) The Washington Post also reminds us of this bit of trolling:
Campfield has declared that Michael Vick's dogfighting activities weren't nearly as bad as abortion. He has filed legislation demanding that institutions of higher learning adhere to David Horowitz's so-called academic bill of rights. He's filed legislation that would require federal law enforcement agents to get permission from a local sheriff or attorney general before making an arrest.
And although he's white...
... he once tried to join Tennessee's Black Legislative Caucus; when he was denied membership, he compared the Caucus to the Ku Klux Klan, arguing that the Klan doesn't restrict membership by race. (In fact, the Caucus will grant "honorary membership" to "those persons whose belief and actions contribute to the purpose for which this caucus was formed"; given the fact that Campfield's voting record in Tennessee includes a vote against the Tennessee Rosa Parks Act, which would expunge the convictions of those whose crimes were challenges to segregation, I don't believe he qualifies.)
Almost exactly a year ago, he posted a photo of an "Assault Pressure Cooker" prefaced by the words "Here comes Feinstein again."What do you know? He never took that post down, either.
That post was widely criticized for apparently making light of the Boston Marathon bombings, in which pressure cookers were used as explosives. He later explained on CNN that he was using it to make a point: calling for gun control after a tragic event was like calling for pressure cooker control in the aftermath of the bombings.
This is what passes for wit among Republicans. It's also what passes for responsible public service.
