On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who used her office to serve, alternatively as a puppet for Florida Governor Rick Scott, and to waste taxpayer money on failed lawsuits to try and overturn the Affordable Care Act, or same sex marriage. The latter case fascinating because she has been divorced multiple times, but is supposedly obsessed with “upholding the sanctity of marriage”. Among her more disturbing abuses of power include signing an amicus brief to provide support for Arizona's controversial anti-immigration law, SB 1070, trying to overturn laws to allow gun sales to 18 to 20 year olds (Note: This was in the wake of the trial of George Zimmerman in Florida after the death of Trayvon Martin.) asking Florida Governor Rick Scott to reschedule the execution of a death row inmate because it conflicted with her personal schedule so she could host her re-election fundraiser party, and an investigation that revealed that both Pam Bondi and Rick Scott had violated Florida's "Sunshine Laws" for transparency by destroying e-mails and failing to retain text messages. For someone in charge of ensuring the law is upheld, she’s remarkable for defying courts whenever possible and breaking the law quite a bit. After winning re-election in 2014, Bondi immediately used the power of her position to dig her heels in and try to do everything she could to keep same sex couples from getting married in Florida, even beyond the point where the Supreme Court ruled in the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, asking for delays before allowing gay marriage to happen for… reasons, and threatening to arrest individuals who performed marriage ceremonies during that would-be interim. Most could only guess as to her motivations, other than trying to make herself a martyr and later parlay that into running for higher office. Maybe she should have been more focused on the fact that up until April, unmarried couples in Florida were forbidden from living together since 1868. Convenient that she never bothered enforcing one edict about romantic partners, and hell bent about another one, right? She probably wished people didn’t remember that fact about her at one point… As tragedy struck in Orlando, Florida and the biggest mass shooting in the history of the United States took place at Pulse, a gay nightclub in the city that claimed the lives of 49 victims, Pam Bondi began After YEARS of fighting to file whatever lawsuits she could to prevent marriage equality and insisting that allowing it would cause “public harm” in the wake of the shooting, she began to posture herself as a champion of the LGBTQ community that would keep them safe. What she didn’t realize, though, was that she would be interviewed by the Silver Fox himself, Anderson Cooper, who was having none of it, and as professionally as a journalist can do so, effectively let her know, “I haven’t forgotten about you motherf***er.” Feel free to watch CNN’s Cooper remind her of all of her previous work with the LGBT community, and her hypocrisy at trying to play at being their friends now. It’s… breathtaking. So the good news is, love won, and Pam Bondi lost (as she frequently does in her quixotic quests, at taxpayer expense). But there’s a far more interesting news story involving her floating around, and it just so happens to also tied into the corruption scandals of one Donald Trump. There was talk about while Trump was being investigated for fraud in relation to Trump University, his online real-estate education program that most describe succinctly as “straight up fraud” that the New York Attorney general pursued several lawsuits on the behalf of individuals wronged by Trump’s business dealings. But as it turns out, New York wasn’t the only state to file a lawsuit on behalf of a large number of people defrauded… both Texas and Florida saw people file complaints as well. Pam Bondi received those complaints back in 2013, and shortly thereafter, Donald Trump, out of the kindness of his heart (yeah, right) decided to donate $25,000 to her re-election campaign. She never did anything to help the people he wronged, and effectively filed the case in the trash. Pam Bondi, of course, has not commented on her failure to do her job, and get $25,000 to sit on her hands by Trump (who she endorsed for president, of course). But it’s sure a disgusting bit of quid pro quo that amounts to bribery. Bondi continued her shady relationship with Cheeto Mussolini has seen her appointed to a White House position to serve on a commission to curtail our nation’s opioid abuse epidemic, serving under New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and doing… nothing except collecitng a paycheck.Considering most of Bondi’s career as an attorney general ended in her failing to execute her agenda, for the time being, we have been spared seeing her run for higher office.
It was on this date in 2019 that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Loretta Miller, a 2018 candidate for U.S. House of Representatives for Florida’s 15th Congressional District who was, for a brief time, the only Republican on the ballot in the race after long time Republican Congressman Dennis Ross abruptly announced his retirement in April of 2018. The Republican Party quickly scrambled to find someone… ANYONE else to get on their primary ballot, because Loretta Miller was really into spreading conspiracy theories, including the legendary “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory about the Clinton family running a child sex ring out of the basement of a pizzeria in Washington, D.C. that doesn’t actually have anything below the ground floor of it. The former member of the Israeli Defense Force also was advocating for the xenophobic policy of “English only” to be the only language spoken by U.S. citizens, which is, of course, unconstitutional. The Florida GOP managed to keep Loretta Miller off the ballot in 2018, and she passed away in April of 2020. As such, we will retire her profile at this time and take a look at another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 879-45, since this was established in July 2014.)
Ilrina Vilarino
Welcome to what is the 879th original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be discussing
Irina Vilarino, who was
a 2020 candidate for U.S. House of Representatives in Florida’s 26th Congressional District. Yes, Vilarino had designs on upsetting Congresswoman Debbie Murcasel-Powell, and was so eager to fundraise to take her down, she didn’t bother discriminating on where she was accepting donations from, getting
caught taking donations that had been funneled to her from Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro.
But that’s not even the beginning of the problems that Vilarino would have had as a candidate. She has promoted several conspiracy theories on social media through the past several years, including the Birther Conspiracy about Barack Obama, a conspiracy started by Dinesh D’Souza that Obama’s academic history at Columbia University is false, and an anti-Semitic conspiracy
claiming that George Soros was behind a secret campaign to tank Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. And boy, did she dig in hard to support an accused sexual predator in Kavanaugh. Vilarino was one of five Republican women who excused him in a CNN interview, and
was questioning why Christine Blasey Ford was “still stuck on that” because it was 36 years ago. Meanwhile online,
she continued promoting Qanon conspiracy theory member accounts that were slandering the victim, and accusing her of promiscuity in high school.
So of course Vilarino had become a darling favorite of Donald Trump.
She was invited to the White House for Hispanic Heritage Month as a Cuban immigrant… and proceeded to call for an “American Heritage Month”, because she’s apparently got some self-loathing.
Alas, once better candidates joined the race who started to do a better job of fundraising than her (without accepting money from dictators, even),
she dropped out of the race on April 23rd, 2020, and Florida’s 26th will be better for that fact. Here’s hoping her conspiracy-loving dumbass stays out of any election going forward.