With all the talk of how Mitch McConnell "stole" Obama's Supreme Court nomination and Trump putting immigrant children in cages, I think we've forgotten that the US government has always been kind of gross. Sometimes hilariously gross.
1. Scott Robinson attacks a door.
Finally, a candidate who isn't afraid to hammer stuff out and work through obstacles.
Okay, so this is actually a local one. So local in fact, that my dad drove past this while it was happening. Scott Robinson became the Republican nominee for mayor of Carlisle in 2017. He was also a property owner and rented it out during his campaign. He got into some kind of argument with the resident and like a normal person who wants to run a city and deal with people who disagree with him on a daily basis, he pulled out his power tools. He smashed the front door with a hammer and then tried to take it off its hinges with a power tool. The cops were called and he was arrested... with a Taser. After this story broke to the news, it came to light that he had two other active criminal cases still levied against him at the time. Both of those were for misdemeanor defiant trespass, and for this incident, he was charged with felony burglary, criminal trespass, misdemeanor resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, and summary criminal mischief.
Always pay attention to local politics, kids, otherwise you might miss something amazing.
2. FDR tried to stack the Supreme Court.
President Roosevelt, seen here lovingly depicted as both a power hungry monster and a helpless orphan trying not to starve to death.
Just after starting his second term, the most popular President in US history tried to stack the Supreme Court in his favor. Roosevelt had been losing court cases 5-4 for a while and had had enough. So, he pitched the idea of adding an extra Justice for every one over 70 years old, and of course he'd get to nominate all of them and he was so popular that he expected every congressman to just fall in line. The public was not in favor of Presidents being able to just add more Supreme Court Justices whenever they please and his plan failed. Corrupt governments still pull this to this day as well as try to oust political opponents by saying they're too old. If you see something like that, then you're living in a veiled dictatorship.
3. Congressman goes missing.
Okay, so you might have heard of this one because Trump recently mocked him about this thing and got something wrong and so every comedy news show had to collectively go "um actually, he didn't get lost on that trail he got lost on THIS one." Well, he didn't actually get lost on either, really; he just said he did. Mark Sanford was the governor of South Carolina and he went missing from June 18th-June 24th, 2009. No one knew where he was, not his wife, his staff, or even his security team. On the 22nd, his office said that he was hiking the Appalachian trail.
He showed up two days later, stepping off a plane at 6 AM from Buenos Aires, and he was doing more than hiking. He was having an affair with a woman from Argentina and had flown out to see her, leaving the State of South Carolina without a governor and no way of knowing if he would return. He spent the next six months as governor being dragged through ethics investigations and public hearings before being allowed to leave office at the end of his term. At least he did it for love.
