Representative Matt Gaetz: Dangerous Driver and Threat Generator

Matthew Louis Gaetz II is a Representative for the 1st congressional district of Florida in the United States in Washington, DC.  He is a staunch Republican and a "yuge" supporter of the man who was installed as the 45th sitting President of our nation.  He was born and raised in Florida.
   Matt's father, Don, was born in Rugby, North Dakota, and was the son of the Mayor of Rugby, who went on to become a state legislator for that state.  Don was a registered Democrat until his father, running as a Republican, died while running for the office of Lieutenant Governor of North Dakota in 1964.  Don then registered as a Republican.  He moved to Florida in 1978, working as a hospital administrator in Jacksonville and lobbying in Tallahassee to create hospice programs.  In 1983, Don created VITAS Healthcare Corporation with a group of investors; the business was sold in 2004 for almost half a billion dollars.  In 2013, the US Department of Justice charged VITAS Healthcare with Medicare fraud beginning in 2002. Don declared no knowledge of the fraud.  (But the company had to pay $75 million to the government in fines and false charges.)  In 1994 Gaetz dipped his own toes into politics, beginning small, with the Okaloosa County School Board, and won.  Six years later, he ran for Superintendent of Okaloosa County schools, won, and kept the position until he ran for the Florida Legislature.  Don served in the Florida State Senate for 10 years, from November 2006 through the same month in 2016; and he was President of the Florida Senate from 2012 to 2016. (Being a member of the Florida state Senate was important in 2008.)
    Matt, in the meantime, graduated from Florida State University in 2003 with a BS degree.  He then traveled to Williamsburg, Virginia, where he received his Jurisprudence Degree in 2007.  He then returned home, to Fort Walton Beach and worked in a local law firm.  (There is a delicious, but unfounded, report that an FSU roommate of Gaetz was found dead in their dorm room, and that Gaetz was suspected of his murder sometime between the years 1999 and 2003.  There are no reports of such a death in local or state papers, and no investigations by either FSU police, Tallahassee police, or the Sheriff's Office.)
   In the early morning of 31 October 2008, Matt Gaetz was driving back from a bar called The Swamp on Okaloosa Island in the 2001 BMW that was registered to his father, Florida state Senator Don Gaetz.  He was driving at 48 mph in a 35 mph speed zone.  A Sheriff's Deputy pulled him over.  According to the Deputy's report, Mr. Gaetz's eyes were red and watery, and he stumbled and swayed getting out of the car.  The Deputy smelled alcohol coming from the driver.  The Deputy first made a field sobriety test by asking Gaetz to follow his moving finger with his eyes.  Gaetz failed that test twice, nearly falling over.  He refused to take a breathalyzer test to check his alcohol level.  He was arrested for DUI, and mug shots taken.  The firm that employed Gaetz took up his defense.  --  However, before the court date for Gaetz's hearing, the Sheriff's Deputy was forced to resign over a previous arrest, and Daddy Don Gaetz made certain that all charges against his son were dropped.
      In Gaetz's hometown in Florida, the local newspaper describes him as "an entitled ne'er-do-well."  A political opponent said, in 2016, "Matt would be a WalMart manager, if it wasn't for his father."  Steve Schmidt, a veteran Republican political strategist, says of Gaetz, "Matt Gaetz is living proof that Veep was less parody and more prophecy. To some degree, he's a character in the grandest reality show of all. He exists at the hinge of reality and alternate reality."
     Between 1999 and 2014, Gaetz has racked up 16 speeding tickets in Florida alone, and is particularly well known for rear-ending a car stopped at a traffic light while he was talking on his cell phone in 2014, while a member of the Florida House of Representatives.
    In  February 2010, a Republican Florida House member resigned from office due to corruption charges.  Matt Gaetz began his run for that Special Election seat in March 2010.  He served at the district 4 (southern Santa Rosa County and Okaloosa County) from April 2010 through November 2016.  During Gaetz's time in the Florida legislature, the killing of Trayvon Martin, an un-armed African-American youth, took place. After the trial of George Zimmerman for the murder of Martin, using a Florida "stand your ground" (law) defense, the Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives ordered a hearing regarding the "stand your ground" law.  Matt Gaetz, the Chairman of the Criminal Justice Subcommittee, was tasked with reviewing the legislation, and announced before the hearings that he would not support changing "one damn comma," though he said he would listen to arguments on both sides. 
   He was sworn in to the US Congress as Representative of the 1st District of Florida on 3 January 2017.  And he has been 45's lick-spittle ever since.

 ***  United States House of Representatives Committee Assignments  ***

   House Committee on Armed Services
     (1) Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
     (2) Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces

  House Committee on the Budget

  House Committee on the Judiciary
     (1) Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet
     (2) Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law

  Republican Safety Committee

In April 2018, Politico described Matt Gaetz as "one of the most enthusiastic defenders of President Trump on cable news" and a "proud Trump protege."  Aaron Blake of  The Washington Post referred to him as "one of the most controversial members of Congress," and as someone who has "unabashedly aligned himself with Trump on basically all things."
   Gaetz wants to completely abolish the Environmental Protection Agency, because "our small businesses cannot afford to cover the costs associated with compliance, too often leading to closed doors and unemployed Americans.  It is time to take back our legislative power from the EPA and abolish it completely."  He says there is climate change, but it has nothing to do with humans and their waste and factories.
   Matt Gaetz has an A+ rating from the NRA and is a lifetime member.  While serving in Florida, he fought for both open carry and concealed carry gun rights.   Former NRA President Marion Hammer said that Gaetz was "one of the most pro-gun members to have ever served in the Florida legislature."
   Gaetz opposes sanctuary cities and has stated that illegal immigrants "suck us dry."  In January 2018, Gaetz defended Trump's statement that Haiti and African countries were "shithole" nations, saying that Haiti was covered by "sheet metal and garbage" and was in a "disgusting" condition.  In October 2018, Gaetz falsely declared that George Soros paid for a caravan of migrants travelling from Central America to the United States.  -  The man is bursting with hatred for anyone not of his race or his monetary standing.  -  In January 2019, Gaetz invited Charles C. "Chuck" Johnson to be his guest at the State of the Union address by 45.  Johnson is a known alt-right Holocaust denier and has raised money for neo-Nazi website "The Daily Stormer."  Gaetz said in an interview that Johnson "is not a Holocaust denier, he's not a white supremacist."
   The stupid asshole even believes that his buddy Jim Jordan didn't know about the sexual abuse at Ohio State while he was coaching there, and that then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions had "...got Stockholm Syndrome" over there at the Department of Justice, "he's become sympathetic with his captors over there in the Deep State."  - Yep, Gaetz is a true believer in all the "Deep State" idiocy, too.

Matt Gaetz - Doofus Deluxe

On 26 February 2019, the night before Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen was to testify in an open hearing to the House Oversight Committee, Gaetz directed a Tweet to Cohen that implied - without evidence - that Cohen had had several extra-marital affairs, and also suggested that his wife might do the same if he was incarcerated. Other members of Congress saw this as an attempt by Gaetz to intimidate the witness, Cohen. Gaetz defended his Tweet, saying it was "witness testing, not witness tampering," and "I don't threaten anybody." Asked to clarify, he said the "tweet speaks for itself."  After multiple complaints from other Congressmen, and a rebuke from Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Gaetz deleted the Tweet and gave a wishy-washy apology.

   In late October of this year, Deputy Defense Assistant Secretary Laura Cooper was to begin testimony before the House Intelligence Committee regarding 45's behavior and the possibility of impeachment.  She was scheduled to begin her testimony at 9 o'clock in the morning.  Representative Gaetz organized a "storming" of the Secret Compartmentalized Information Facility by almost two dozen Republican House members.  They took their cell phones with them breaking all security rules, and camped out on the steps  and in the hall - even ordering pizza to be delivered - until finally leaving.  They managed to delay Ms. Cooper's testimony by 5 hours.  They did this because they claimed they weren't being allowed to sit in on secret meetings.  There were - and are - 8 Republicans sitting on the House Intelligence Committee, who can ask questions and share their findings with their Republican colleagues.

    Matt Gaetz is a Trump-humping brown-noser and has no reason to be on this planet.  Let's send him in a rocket to explore an asteroid.  He's stupid enough to open the door and get sucked into space.  (And I wish that would happen to him.)