In Case You Forgot How Vile Rep. Ken Buck Can Be

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by: Colorado Pols

Reps. Lauren Boebert, Ken Buck (R-CO).

CNN updates as the fallout from Colorado freshman GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert’s series of falsehood-laden slurs against Rep. Ilhan Omar, which included the completely bogus suggestion that Capitol Police are afraid of Omar as a potential terrorist threat, continues to spread:

The House is planning to advance Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s legislation to create a special envoy to combat Islamophobia on Thursday, marking the first step members are taking since Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert’s anti-Muslim comments calling Omar a terrorist…

Moving forward this legislation that addresses the rise in incidents of Islamophobia worldwide, which has been sitting in committee for months, comes as Pelosi has been facing increasing pressure from members within her own party to take aggressive action against Boebert.

Progressive Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts is introducing a resolution, cosigned by other progressives, that would strip the Colorado Republican of her committee assignments.

One week ago, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tried to put an end to the controversy by seizing on Boebert’s initial apology to the “Muslim community” while conveniently omitting Boebert taking it back just a few days later. Donald Trump himself tried to take the heat off Boebert by repeating among other slurs the false story that Rep. Omar married her brother. Trump didn’t defend Boebert by name, the purpose for his “intervention” was to join in the smearing of Rep. Omar and thus normalize Boebert’s behavior.

We spend so much time these days trying to document the worst of Boebert’s snowballing cavalcade of crazy that we had almost forgotten about the congressman who did much of the distasteful dirty work of “owning the libs” in Colorado years before Boebert came on the scene, Rep. Ken Buck. With Republicans racing to excuse Boebert by joining her in the depths of indecency, we should have known that Ken Buck would jump on the bandwagon eventually. And true to form, here’s the amendment Buck just offered to Rep. Omar’s “anti-Islamophobia” bill:

There’s only one reason to introduce an amendment like this. It’s to make sure everyone knows that the author of the amendment is as big an asshole as the bill’s raison d’être. Buck, like Trump, is deliberately working to normalize Boebert’s outrage by taking part in it–the theory being, we assume, that Democrats will blanch at the prospect of having to punish Republican after Republican like some twisted version of Spartacus.

In the end, there’s no winner. But by making Boebert’s outrageous behavior the norm, the “libs get owned.”

For today, all the rest of Colorado can do is apologize on their behalf.

5 thoughts on “In Case You Forgot How Vile Rep. Ken Buck Can Be”

RepealAndReplace says:

December 10, 2021 at 11:05 am

That photo makes it look as though she's aiming to blow away Buck's tibia.

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1. Colorado Pols says:
  
  December 10, 2021 at 11:14 am
  
  Fortunately that gun, much like the two people pictured, is missing the parts to be functional.
  
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kwtree says:

December 10, 2021 at 11:54 am

What a scumbag. Mr. Buck has always been a hypocrite on immigrant and refugees, talking the racist party line when expedient, but also willing to exploit refugees as workers in the meat plants, encouraging more refugee resettlement.

Back in 2008, in when he was the area’s district attorney, his office led a raid, later found unconstitutional, which deported hundreds of JBS meat plant workers back to Mexico and Central America.

Then, of course, the plants needed to hire more workers. Buck again stepped in to push increased refugee resettlement in Greeley and Fort Morgan, thus supplying the meat plants with thousands of legal, but still low-paid and often badly-treated refugee workers from dozens of countries, including a sizeable Somali population.

Buck knows his district needs these workers- he knows the discrimination they endure- so his perpetuation of a stereotypical anti-Muslim slur against a Somali refugee colleague speaks to a deep desire to pander to the worst impulses of his constituents. Many of these people have been here for decades and are now citizens, and hopefully will remember Buck’s duplicity.

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1. Duke Cox says:
  
  December 11, 2021 at 7:49 am
  
  Bucks' behavior is only slightly more civilized than the capitalists who cut the ropes on the hanging flume above the Dolores River in SW Colorado.
  
  No one knows exactly how many Chinese workers fell to their deaths…just before payday.
  
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notaskinnycook says:

December 11, 2021 at 12:01 am

I don't know if they process chickens at the JBS plant, but I'd say Buck's are definitely coming home to roost.

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