In 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, as well as 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published profiles of U.S. Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, a former pastor who has referred to same sex marriage as “an attack upon the family” while campaigning for office, thinks being gay is a choice, refers to climate change a myth, spoke at length about his frustration of endangered birds receiving more protection from the government than fetuses, blamed the Sandy Hook Massacre on “welfare moms overmedicating their kids to get more benefits” and in June of 2016 against a measure that would have made it illegal for firearms transfers to people who were suspected terrorists on the “no fly list”. His Christian principles lead him to believe migrant children should be thrown out of the country because in the Bible, being kind to strangers doesn’t specify that they should be citizens of the country you live in. Seriously, this guy is such a fanatic when he was asked about the national debt, his solution was to pray that it gets better.
He currently is pushing for “religious freedom” legislation because he defines no being allowed to discriminate against gay people as “being targeted for his faith”, claiming they are the real victims in a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” situation. Lankford’s also prolifically absent in Congress when it comes time to vote, as he missed almost 10% of them from his final term serving in the House. Near the end of our 2015 entry about Lankford, we noted he had found himself among the #47Traitors, for writing a letter to the leaders of Iran trying to undermine the peace treaty that the Obama administration had arranged with them, and was campaigning to push for national “religious freedom” laws to allow for the discrimination of LGBTQ citizens and prevent them from having equal rights based on the supposed faith of who was discriminating against them. He has also voted to defund Planned Parenthood, voted to maintain the gun rights of people on the no-fly list so they could procure firearms for mass shootings, voted to try and block Syrian refugees from being resettled in the United States, and refused to consider Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court because “he isn’t conservative enough”, waiting a year to vote for Neil Gorsuch.
Since we last updated our annual look at James Lankford, he has made several troubling votes, including continuing to vote for every Trump administration nominee, no matter how unqualified or utterly appalling (including torture maven Gina Haspel to be the head of the CIA), he voted against disaster relief funding for victims of Hurricane Harvey back in October of 2017, and in December of 2017, he voted for the big GOP Tax Plan/Scam.
For all that party line bulls***, does Sen. Lankford get any love from the White House. HA! No. Trump doesn’t even know his name, he calls him “Tom”. And yet… he still blindly supports him, by doing things like vote for Donald Trump’s supposed “national emergency” on the U.S./Mexico border.
Or in other key votes:
James Lankford is currently fretting about the fact that people received their Covid-19 stimulus money, opining that they were being given a “disincentivize” from going back to work, and that the $1200 payment was “too generous”. Because we know a pastor must have read the Bible and learned all the important lessons where Jesus thumbed his nose at the poor and sick.
And everyone should remember what a hypocrite he is when he’s up for re-election in 2022.