I think it’s time to make something called the GOP cocktail. We want to gather together one part delusion, mix with two parts hubris and shake well over pathetic. Strain and serve to the utterly incredulous.
Herschel Walker is creating a legend in the last few days of the 2020 election campaign. I mean, he is burning a way into the history books. If Biggest Fool To Ever Run For Office becomes a reality TV show, he’ll be the marquee star.
Walker got miffed at Barack Obama the other day. All Obama said, as usual, was the obvious, that Walker might have been a fine football player but does that qualify him for the U.S. Senate? This is what Walker has to say about Obama.
Herschel Walker on former POTUS Barack Obama: "My resume against his resume, I'll put it up any time of the day." pic.twitter.com/bRkwdDOTqa
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 2, 2022
And he says this with a straight face, no less.
What about his claims of one of the “largest minority-owned” bla de bla companies? Here’s a refresher course from the Daily Beast:
Over the years, Walker has claimed numerous times, falsely, that Renaissance Man is the largest minority-owned food business in the country. And since launching his Senate bid last August, he’s said it was either the nation’s largest minority-owned food company, food service company, or chicken distributor at least five times. On Feb. 24, he told Savannah’s Fox 28 it was one of his top qualifications for the Senate.
“Well, people need to know about me. They know I’m a winner. They know what I work. Well, people need to know I started a company. People just think of me as a football player. I started a company that became the largest minority-owned food company in the United States,” Walker said.
In October, he told a UFC-themed podcast, “I own a food company—that’s going to freak you out—I own the largest minority-owned food company in the United States.”
The Daily Beast’s review shows that this is nowhere near accurate.
Walker, who claims to have also played Russian roulette half-a-dozen times, has never made the Fortune 500 cut, which has featured only 19 Black CEOs, ever. And Renaissance Man does not appear in a list of the largest 100 black-owned businesses in the country, maintained by Black Enterprise magazine.
And, in true Trumpian fashion, he exaggerates the hell out of how much his businesses are worth.
The Associated Press reported that, in recent interviews, Walker has touted annual revenues between $70 million and $80 million. But The Daily Beast obtained a deposition in federal court from 2019, where Walker pegged the combined net earnings of three related entities—Simmons Foods, Renaissance Man Foods, and H. Walker Enterprises—at $14 million. Further, that number was spread out between 2009 and 2017, for an annual average of about $1.5 million.
The AP also reported that Walker’s claim contradicts what he told the government in forgivable pandemic loan applications.
Walker is dangerous. The way he lies with impunity is an indicator that he doesn’t even know that he’s lying and that is scary.
Someone needs to ask him, ON CAMERA to spell “renaissance” – and watch him freak and whine because he won’t be able to get it right! And then follow up with “That’s an interesting name you chose. Do you know what “renaiissance” means? To quote his benefactor Trump, “people say” you don’t know Herschel so prove them wrong!
Should make for some epic memes!
“For the benefit of the jury, please explain ‘time code'”
“Just because I don’t know what it is, doesn’t mean I’m lying!”
I used to feel sorry for Hershel being used so callously by the rethugs, but it’s getting harder. It’s obvious he has mental health issues, but he knows what he’s doing, so who is using who? It’s amazing how someone could come from the background he has and yet turn out to be the black version of TFG – the pathological lying and narcissism.
I will never feel sorry for a woman beating lying tool of the fascist gop.
He acknowledge that he wrote a check for a woman to get an abortion, but then said it was a plot by others. He’s so out of touch with reality that he should be in a home, not running for federal office.
I kind of thought being loony tunes was required to run as a ‘pube these days.
I was never a big fan of Obama’s (I still maintain he should’ve let Hillary take the top spot in 2008 and be her VP with an eye on replacing her in 2016) but Obama’s résumé (or “C V” as they say in the UK) would “trump”–pardon the pun–Walker’s by a couple million light-years at a minimum. Especially when it comes to legislative ability (again, that’s a reason I think Obama needed a little more time before making his Presidential bid; DC is a different political critter from either Illinois or Chicago and less than 2 years isn’t sufficient time to navigate the DC waters).
I voted for Obama twice but his record is checkered. The former ‘choom boy’ smoking weed asked over the internet what the publics’ priority was. #1 was legalize cannabis since tens of millions have been criminalized over nixon’s lie put into law. He didn’t honor his pledge. He & Eric holder allowed the richest of the rich to steal hundreds of millions of dollars causing a financial crisis that resulted in job losses, foreclosures etc. & no one was prosecuted. He also initiated the drone program that has resulted in many civilians being killed as if it were a video game. Still, he is a far far better president on his worse day than any republican in memory & at 69 I’ve seen quite a few.
I was born and lived my first 26 years in Illinois – southern Illinois which I like to define as south of I-64 (look at a map) but after joining the Marines never moved back. However, I’ve stayed in touch with plenty of folks in the intervening almost four decades. Granted, since the rise of Trump far fewer than was once the case but still. Anyway, Obama got on my radar (as was the case with so many others) with his keynote address at the DNC and so I kept tabs (sort of) on him. As a result, I never believed he’d be as liberal in his policies as everyone hoped he would be. On the contrary. Now, I THOUGHT (and still do) that to a degree he was in fact more progressive than Hillary but not decisively so. I also believed that while well qualified (very much so but not the “most qualified ever”) for the Office of President and would have made a good one she didn’t have much of a chance. Too much demonization over the years of both her and her husband, all of which got revived in spades when it was clear she’d be running for President and seemingly had the nomination locked up. So starting in the primaries I went for Obama and even canvassed for him. In West by god fucking Virginia no less. Fortunately my physical size made those who were less than thrilled to see me walking around or at their door with an Obama button didn’t get too worked up at me.
The point though is that from the beginning, which was confirmed with his various appointments during the transition I knew he’d be too centrist for many of those who voted for him. At meetings prior to the 2010 midterms to set up canvassing and outreach the lack of energy was palatable, and I TRIED to explain to organizers that it wasn’t limited to where I was. One of the few ok things about having given in and joining FB was reconnecting with friends around the country and we knew the messaging was bad. Obama’s field organizers didn’t want to hear it that spring, and it was a factor in the wipeout of the 2010 midterms.
The thing is, even had he had a Democratic Congress his entire time, or at least his first term Obama was savvy enough to understand the old adage about politics being the “art of the possible.” I think he always knew, and better than most that as much as those who put so much into getting him elected didn’t want to accept that he was a black man in the job, and he knew from day one there’d be backlash. That, and people on his own side in Congress (and Gov. mansions) who gave him some of the same treatment Jimmy Carter got – fucking with him because he jumped to the head of the line when they believed THEY would have been better didn’t help.
So his record is in fact checkered. Having served in the Corps, I’ll say he was in an impossible position when it came to Gitmo and Afghanistan. He could only push so hard. And the sad fact is few Americans understand the complexities of that whole area where the war was fought. If you’d like to get a better sense of things, I’d recommend The Afghan by Frederick Forsythe who actually does know his shit about that part of the world. And if you’ve got time The Fist of God which introduces many of the characters in The Afghan only starting back with the first Gulf War.
On the balance, I’d say Obama walked into a mess not seen since Lincoln took office and didn’t a damned fine job of navigating it. Name me someone you think could have done better. I can’t think of anyone including Biden.
I think Obama tried to tread very lightly for pretty much his whole presidency, trying and hoping to get along but not using all the tools he had. He kept hoping he’d be able to come to some compromises but Mitch McConnell and his crew made sure nothing he did passed. Thank God for Obamacare! AT least that is a giant plus for his presidency!
Trump was partly the backlash from the first black president. This is a racist country. We white people forget but the black & brown folks know the score.