On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of Sheila Butt , a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives who we gave special attention to for responding to the existence of the Council of American-Islamic Relations on Facebook by suggesting that she should start a Council of Christian Relations and a NAAWP (which would presumably be the National Association for the Advancement of White People). What Butt might have wanted to check before she shot her mouth off that there already WAS a NAAWP back in 1953, founded by a White Supremacist in response to the NAACP. It fell apart within two years, but made a comeback in 1979, being run by none other than former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke. Sheila Butt refused to apologize, claimed she was being unfairly targeted by a liberal conspiracy for her remarks, and was offended that anyone would even suggest she was racist because of them. Butt, who is a pastor’s wife, also wrote a book in 2008 that gave advice like to not date outside one’s race to avoid having biracial children, along with other tips like “find a young man who believes he is a breadwinner so his wife could be a stay home mom someday”, that “we did not come from ‘goo’ as the theory of evolution suggests”, and that “being gay is a choice” that is typically made because of “Satan, a bad sexual experience with members of the opposite sex, or a mom who didn’t encourage her son’s masculinity”. As a legislator, Butt has racked up the kind of voting record you might expect from a Tennessee Republican, including trying to nullify federal firearms laws, declare abortion as against the law because there’s nothing in the Constitution regarding it, and to try and name the Bible as the state book. And yes, she’s quite the theocrat, having produced legislation that would ban public schools from mentioning other religions during world history lessons, because she felt Islam was being given too much attention in it., being concerned that acknowledging it exists and played a role in world history could amount to “indoctrination”. Go figure, she also started haranguing Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam to block the admission of Syrian Refugees that might be resettled into the state in November of 2015. She’s also currently on board with Tennessee Republicans’ attempts to prevent the removal of Confederate monuments (but she still insists she’s not racist). But perhaps her lowest moment was when she argued against putting rape and incest exceptions into an abortion bill because they are “not verifiable”, which would be news to a lot of crime labs with rape kits and genetic testing, but it’s still sad to see a woman who believes anyone who seeks an abortion due to rape should be immediately be under suspicion of deception. Oh, and we weren’t the only ones who noticed the phenomenon that is Sheila Butt, as Samantha Bee gave her a special spotlight on Season One of her TBS show, Full Frontal, back in April of 2016, where she mocked Butt not only for her new stance on transgender citizens using public bathrooms (Hint: Butt’s ideas are on the intolerant side of the issue) for all of what we covered, and referred to Butt’s book for advice for girls, “Instead, do all the stuff Sheila Butt suggests, or as she may call it, ‘Butt Stuff.’ This Tennessee state representative wants you to do lots and lots of Butt stuff. Do Butt stuff until it hurts!” And, we have some great news… apparently all the criticism and mockery finally withered away enough on Sheila Butt that she has decided to retire after four terms in office, and did not be running for re-election in 2018. Thus, we’ll retire her profile at this time and go ahead and take a look at a different wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 761-40, since this was established in July 2014.)


John Fitzgerald

Welcome to the 761st original “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where today we’ll be discussing John Fitzgerald, a Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives who was going to challenge Democrat Mark DeSaulnier by campaigning on the issues that really matter to GOP voters these days… like denying the existence of the Holocaust.

Yes, that’s right… the Republican Party had yet another anti-Semitiic lunatic on the ballot in 2018, and Fitzgerald “campaigned” by going on Neo-Nazi podcasts to talk about his dedication to “exposing the Holocaust as a fabricated lie”. He insisted he wasn’t anti-Semitic and was “just stating facts”, but that’s hard to believe considering he actually ordered robocalls that warned about “Jews taking over the world”, while blaming them for 9/11. Fitzgerald is also such a moron that he paid for the calls to be made outside of the district he was running for office in. And, one would think that Republican voters aren’t just brain dead enough to vote for anything with an “R” next to their name… and yet, Fitzgerald still got 26% of the vote.

For f***’s sake, the state of your party, Republicans.