#1827: Mike Kelly

Mike Kelly has been the U.S. Representative for Pennsylvania’s 3rd congressional district since 2011 and is the kind of person who thinks that the administrative decision categorizing contraception access as preventive health care was comparable to 9/11 and the attack on Pearl Harbor, and who says that August 1, 2012, when the HHS mandate passed, was “the day that religious freedom died”. That’s pretty silly, but illustrative of the persecution complex and willful failure to understand what “religious freedom” amounts to that characterizes Mike Kelly. In 2014 Kelly and Mike Enzi sponsored a bill that would allow adoption agencies to refuse to facilitate any adoption that “conflicts with … the provider’s sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions.” The motivation was, of course, neither religious freedom nor moral conviction.

Kelly is also on the record comparing the EPA to terrorists for regulating pollution from coal plants. He did admit that he used the word “terrorism” broadly. “Idiotic” is a better description, but yes: No one doubts that he went for inflammatory rhetoric rather than accuracy.

Unexpectedly, Kelly was no fan of Obama. Kelly thinks Obama “divides” Americans “on race”, presumably because Obama is black and some people react negatively to having a black president. Accordingly, Kelly didn’t rule out impeaching him to prevent him from dragging the US into a civil war. In 2015 Kelly blamed the Baltimore riots on Big Government, mostly because the riots were bad and so is Big Government. Apparently Obama also emboldens terrorists (note the dog whistles to the birthers in that one) because, well, apparently because Obama is in favor of gun control and legislation that is sensitive to environmental concerns.

Diagnosis: Saying something so patently idiotic as Kelly continues to say should make you ineligible for being left home alone, but in Pennsylvania’s 3^rd District they apparently elect you to Congress instead. It’s hard to react with anything but a sigh at this point.