North Carolina Lt. Governor Mark Robinson is a black Republican and a piece of work: anti-vax, anti-gay theocrat, anti-Semite, Holocaust denier, opponent of women’s right to vote or to lead — and as the old joke goes, those are his good points. Oh, and he thinks women wouldn’t need abortion and birth control if they just stopped having sex instead of being sluts. And that Pearl Harbor was an inside job masterminded by FDR and Stalin. His wife’s nonprofit owes the state $130,000 and the Girl Scouts sued her over a $3,000 bad check.
Despite all of which he’s a Republican in good standing. When I heard last week that stuff was coming out that had Republicans urging Robinson to drop out, I was curious what it could possibly be. CNN broke the news that in his pre-politics days Robinson posted online about being a Black Nazi (and that Mein Kampf was a great book), wishing slavery was legal so he could buy a few, was a peeping tom as a teen and has a thing for transsexual porn.
I’m honestly not sure there’s anything in there Republicans would consider a dealbreaker given his politics — as we see with Trump, they’ll put up with a lot to restore white men to the pinnacle of the hierarchy. Newsmax, for example, thinks he’s awesome. However the party’s clearly worried, possibly because Robinson was already trailing Democrat Josh Stein. Happily, Robinson has refused to drop out and claims it’s all AI fakes.
And while we’re on NC politics, the Republican candidate for NC Superintendent of Schools is as batshit and bigoted as Robinson.
Moving on those Low Bar types … while I’m very familiar with Robinson, I never heard of Olivia Nuzzi, a New York Magazine writer, before last week. She was an enthusiastic promoter of RFK Jr, claiming his candidacy offered a fresh, exciting alternative to Trump and Biden. It turns out she was also having an affair with him (she says purely online). And a big admirer of fascist, antisemitic, racist Ann Coulter. And freaks out about things like the Deep State not letting Americans consume raw milk (which would seem to put her in the RFK camp of nutjobbery).
Having an affair with someone you’re covering is massively unprofessional (she claims she didn’t cover him for her employer while they were an item). I don’t know this will kill her career or Robinson’s — there’s always a place on Newsmax for well-known faces willing to spout bullshit. Though the scandal does seem to have killed Nuzzi’s shot at an online show.
In the meantime, as we’re discussing odious people, here’s a few more:
Trump wishes Americans would stand respectfully when he speaks like in North Korea.
Elon Musk, transmitter of Kremlin propaganda.
JD Vance admits he’ll keep lying about Haitian immigrants in Springfield because it’s politically useful. Shakezula vents about him. He also claims calling him out for inciting violence is censorship (yes, the usual right-wing whine that criticism equals oppression). Oh, and he’s upped his game to imply the Haitians are murderers.
Vance thinks insurers should be free to separate out people with pre-existing conditions from healthy people (i.e., the pre-Obamacare standard) and charge them differently.
The Felon lies that if global warming raises sea levels, America will have more waterfront, which is a good thing.
Rich Lowry, editor of the rightwing National Review, drops the n-word in an interview.
An Ohio sheriff encourages people to write down addresses of Kamala Harris supporters.
My brother is extremely old-school and has never been online. He’d heard about the Robinson craziness, but only from CNN, so I was able to read him the even nuttier and ickier bits off the net.
Kiting a check to the Girl Scouts is really above and beyond in anyone who’s pretending to be pro-family. I have either been or bought cookies from Scouts for many a decade and wouldn’t dream of it.
(No matter the price which would tempt a lesser woman to steal a box of Thin Mints. Still better than the Keebler or generic versions.)
Does Newsmax pay as well as NYMag? I suppose she can always start a side grift.
I’m guessing it pays well enough to keep body and soul together. And for an Ann Coulter fangirl, it’s probably more congenial territory.
While Nuzzi claims she wasn’t involved with RFK while covering his campaign she was writing about him (the dynamic candidate capturing millennial hearts and making this a three person race!) and criticizing other campaigns so that’s a piss-poor defense.