On this date, in both 2014, as well as in 2015, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” posted its profile of Trent Franks, the U.S. House Representative from Arizona’s 8th Congressional District. In our first look at Rep. Franks, we had to let everyone know that there’s nothing wrong with your eyes, his mouth is kind of weird, as Rep. Franks was born with a cleft lip and palate and required surgery to correct it. That’s honestly one of the least weird things about him, as he’s declared Barack Obama an “enemy of humanity”, segued debates on the House floor about a balanced budget amendment into a discussion of abortion and Nazis, claiming straight married couples “deserve” the legal rights they get as opposed to gays, and to top it all off, demanding investigations into President Obama’s birth certificate. Franks is one of the, if not the most fervently anti-abortion Republican in Congress (and that’s saying something).
In our profile update from Trent Franks last year, we discussed how Franks has gone on FOX News to say that ISIS was going to work together with Iran (even though they are sworn enemies of one another) and attack America with a nuclear weapon while President Obama would be out golfing, and that President Obama’s executive orders on immigration are the “death of the Republic”. Oh, and we mentioned that Trent Franks gave the game away about the Planned Parenthood “sting” videos, admitting that he was allowed to have seen the Center for Medical Progress’ fraud a month before they were even released to the public. Did Trent Franks mellow out this year? HA! Of course not:
- September 8th, 2015: Trent Franks is one of 28 Republicans who signs on to a letter to House Speaker John Boehner threatening another government shutdown if funding is not cut to Planned Parenthood.
- September 11th, 2015: Franks votes against the United States’ nuclear treaty with Iran.
- September 14th, 2015: Trent Franks returns to “Washington Watch”, the show hosted by his old anti-gay hate group pals in the Family Research Council, where he promised God’s Judgment would soon fall upon abortion providers as it once did upon those who worshiped at altars to Baal:
- September 18th, 2015: Rep. Franks co-sponsors and votes for a bill with most House Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood, based on highly edited “sting” videos submitted by a Pro-Life advocacy group that have been repeatedly debunked by investigators.
- November 19th, 2015: Franks co-sponsors and votes for the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act, reacting to the terror attacks in Paris by jihadists from France and Belgium by trying to create greater restrictions to keep out Syrian refugees, of whom exactly zero were involved in those attacks.
- February 2nd, 2016: Trent Franks votes for HR 3762, the 61st attempt by Congressional Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act (which is still working better than was predicted).
- April 14th, 2016: Rep. Franks sponsors the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, an attempt to ban sex-selective or race-selective abortions (which actually are not predominant reasons why women seek abortion). During his hearing to justify the need for such a law, he tosses out a lot of misleading statistics that have no basis in reality before he yet again compares abortion to slavery and the Holocaust.
- April 29th, 2016: Franks, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, votes with Republicans on that committee for an amendment to allow defense contractors the right to discriminate against LGBT employees, or fire them outright, to try and undo an executive order by President Obama to provide protections.
- May 19th, 2016: Rep. Franks votes against House Amendment 1079, which would have prohibited the use of federal funds for discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. So if you had any doubts otherwise, yes, he’s definitely pro-discrimination.
- June 1st, 2016: Trent Franks goes to hang out with his old pals, the anti-gay hate group the Family Research Council on their weekly show “Washington Watch”, where he throws out his belief that “all of the research shows” that children of opposite-sex parents perform better “on every measureable metric” than those raised by same-sex couples. He would be incorrect, based on the actual studies. Franks wasn’t done lying yet, though, as he added that LGBT rights advocates are trying to force pastors to officiate same-sex couples’ weddings and prohibit speech critical of marriage equality, adding that “the so-called tolerant left are the most intolerant people that I know of.”
Franks was not challenged by a Democrat in the 2014 elections, defeating Clair Van Steenwyk with 73% of the vote in the GOP Primary, and then Stephen Dolgos of the America Elects Party with 76% of the vote for victory. Arizona’s 8th Congressional District has a +15 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, which would make it hard for any Democrat to have a chance to knock off Trent Franks and stop him from winning re-election to his eighth term in Congress. And, as you might expect, his road to that eighth term is nearly identical, where he faces Van Steenwyk in the primary, and will only face a Green Party challenger, Richard Grayson (not the original Robin, sadly), in the general election. Trent Franks will thus likrly remain around to be rabidly obsessed with stripping women of their right to choose, and praying for the God of the Old Testament to strike down those who would provide the service until at least 2018, barring a major upset.