We have yet another entry in the Republicans Diving Into A Pile Of Sh*t Sweepstakes. This time it’s Michigan state Representative Matthew Maddock (R-Milford) alerting the country via twitter that the hordes of illegal invaders are coming – through our airports! Run for the hills he seems to be saying which since Michigan has little in the way of hills is cause I guess for him to panic. But he had “proof” to back up his claim. Buses, several of them in fact. ILLEGALS he screamed. I’m sure the Gonzaga men’s basketball team, staff and others (and perhaps some from other schools) on those buses in town to compete in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament don’t see themselves as an invading illegal horde.
This however is what the GOP is reduced to. Ginning up a culture war over an actual problem (our country’s broken immigration system) to scare the hell out of everyone. Posting poor quality pictures of non-descript buses without bothering to check out who was on them. USA Today has a story on this latest GOP face plant and it includes the tweet this asshat GOPer posted:
Happening right now. Three busses just loaded up with illegal invaders at Detroit Metro. Anyone have any idea where they’re headed with their police escort? @petehoekstra pic.twitter.com/3xFhIP1jf1
— Matt Maddock (@matthewmaddock) March 28, 2024
It’s mid-morning Friday where I live and it seems the tweet is still up. (I’m surprised Musk hasn’t had it scrubbed) As you might expect Maddock’s gotten himself ratio’d big time. All for teams in town for the regional arrived at the same airport but since the pictures in this tweet were found elsewhere in coverage of the Zags it’s almost certainly the Gonzaga team, coaches, staff and some of the rest of the school’s entourage.
Gonzaga in case you didn’t know is a small (5k enrollment) liberal arts university in Washington state. By all accounts it’s a fine university. It also became a fixture in the NCAA’s annual “March Madness”, the tournament that each year generates a fortune as it crowns the season’s champion. The Zags not only make the tournament each year, they’ve developed into a perennial “Sweet Sixteen” program. They are often deemed capable of making the Final Four. Now, for a conservative, looking at those players perhaps the fact that among the lily white faces wearing those uniforms there are some of “those” people means “Mah Gawd! There’s some of THOSE people there. They MUST be furr-en-ers snuck in ill-lee-gully to take over!” but perhaps I’m being unfair.
Maybe this dipsh*t GOPer needed to quickly burnish his conservative street cred and told his staff to find a picture of some non-descript buses at the airport he could insert into a “THERE! RIGHT THERE! Now they’re not even sneaking in but coming right through the AIRPORT!” type tweet. However, as the Washington County Airport Authority (WCAA) has confirmed it wasn’t buses packed chock-full of “illegal invaders, but just competitors for the upcoming basketball games:
“The four men’s basketball teams competing in the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 at Little Caesars Arena arrived at DTW Wednesday evening. The buses seen in a photograph circulating online were transporting the basketball teams and their respective staffs,” a WCAA spokesperson said over email.
If this attitude from Maddock and other’s wasn’t so dangerous due to the inflammatory rhetoric it would be funny. However, too many MAGA goobers out there take all too seriously. And Maddock doesn’t seem to be doing anything to walk this back. He could do the classy thing and admit his mistake, maybe even arrange a photo op at a practice session at the arena where the games will be held to include with his apology tweet… Sorry, it took me a minute to recover from the slap I gave myself upside my head for being so stupid.
The linked article points out that the Detroit Free Press reached out yesterday, but hadn’t gotten a response to their voicemail asking for comment. Figures. The thing is, this airport isn’t even in Maddock’s district! I wonder if due to his position he’s scored tickets, or an invite to a skybox in the arena for the games.
If so, perhaps Gonzaga grad John Stockton will make it a point to give him a dressing down. It’s possible that most here might see that name and think of him as some former athlete who turned out to be a conservative and anti-vax idiot. True enough but he’s also a Gonzaga grad and objectively speaking on everyone’s short list of the top NBA point guards in history. I’ll bet he’s hopping mad over HIS alma mater getting dragged like this. I can easily imagine him wanting to “have a word or two” with Maddock.
March Madness long ago lost its charm for me. I just don’t like the changes that have taken place in college basketball in the last couple of decades. In fact I haven’t watched a single minute of live coverage. I can’t even tell you which teams are IN the Sweet Sixteen this year. However, a dumbass state legislator from Michigan has caused me to actually pay attention to this year’s tournament. And for a sick and stupid reason.
Good to see reporting on yet anther stupid, moronic nitwit’s vile actions.
Um, you might want to correct that “perineal” to “perennial.”
Thanks for the catch. Correction made. In my defense, while writing (well, all the time actually but sometimes the thought comes to the forefront) I was thinking about what congenital assholes most GOPers are so perhaps you’ll forgive a sort of Freudian slip?
If “they” are coming in through the airport, putting razor wire and a wall at the southern border helps exactly how?
No, no, no, no, no!
Don’t confuse a MAGAdolt with that kind of logic!
I realize the morons in the party of morons move the goalposts daily to suit their lies, but when did they move the border to Michigan? Damn! Living in NC now makes me a resident of south of the border! I wonder how long it will take Trump to rescind the citizenship of Democrats?
A recent GOP tactic is to target any accident or tragedy and point the blame at a “DEI hire” (i.e. anyone who isn’t a white heterosexual man). Since virtually all firms have employees who are female, LGBTQ, and people of color, finding a scapegoat isn’t difficult. GOP morons don’t care who might actually be liable (they would never blame corporate cost-cutting, for example). The no-so-subtle message is that all of our nation’s ills are the fault of “those” people.
Not unexpected as Mr. and Mrs. Maddock are front and center in the 2020 Michigan fake electors scheme.
“The linked article points out that the Detroit Free Press reached out yesterday, but hadn’t gotten a response to their voicemail asking for comment. Figures. The thing is, this airport isn’t even in Maddock’s district!”
Not really sure what the point of that last statement is since 99% of the folks so outraged at “the border” and all the “illegals crossing it” don’t live within a state that actually lies on THAT border, and even the most outraged ones who do live in an actual “border” state generally don’t live within 100 miles of said border. (There was an article story from Nogales, Arizona about how locals there feel about “the border.” Surprisingly, even self-described conservatives in the city weren’t happy with how right-wing politicians are handling the issue since their businesses actually relied *heavily* on the Mexicans who routinely–legally–crossed the border every single day; they didn’t really support undocumented migrants but they also didn’t like the heavy-handed behavior in treating LEGAL migrants as though they were all “illegal.”)