First thing yes, he is related to Shelley Capito—he’s her nephew and his grandfather was the criminal former governor. There are dynasties here in Dollar Store Gilead, and they are as venal and as full of stupidity as you would expect.

My previous Congress critter, Alex Mooney, decided to run for the empty Manchin Senate seat, and because he’s not very bright, he of course lost to the current governor, Jim Justice. Mooney was pretty bad. He was a carpetbagger from Maryland who didn’t move to WV until after he won the election. He served 5 terms in which he introduced 1 (one) piece of legislation which did not become law. Also he spent campaign funds on personal expenses and the House GOP dropped his ongoing ethics investigation at the end of the last Congress.

I knew nothing about Moore, and honestly thought that he couldn’t be as bad as Mooney. I am happy to tell you he’s not as bad. He’s worse. He’s a lobbyist turned congressional staffer turned nepo baby politician. As lobbyist he worked for Tony Podesta’s firm that was later caught up in FARA violations because of their association with Paul Manafort and Viktor Yanukovych. Yeah. And equally predictably this was his comment after Bob Mueller indicted Manafort:

Moore, who this past summer went to work for Textron as a director in its Washington office, said he was unaware at the time of the aspects of the work alleged in the indictment. He said it’s disturbing to hear what may have been going with the Podesta Group.

“It’s hurtful and upsetting since I had no idea that this was going on,” the Republican delegate from Jefferson County told WEPM News on Tuesday.

Moore, the nephew of U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito, said he was unaware of anything illegal going on when he worked for the firm.

[deletia]

Moore said that while he does not know Manafort, he does know others who worked for Podesta Group who were involved with the work but not knowingly part of any illegal activity.

“I think it’s terrible, and I think there’s a lot of good people who are being dragged into this that don’t have anything to do with it.”

“Hurtful and upsetting” is a really weird word choice.

Since he got to Congress he has transformed himself into essentially a pull string talking doll. His issues now are “woke capital” and cryptocurrency. He also went all in yelling about closing the border after the horrific attack in New Orleans even as he damn well knew the killer was born here.

On Tuesday he bragged about sponsoring the Laken Riley Act, a completely unnecessary law to deport undocumented migrants who are charged with theft. Here’s a synopsis of why it’s just an excuse to dog whistle:

Perhaps because the Laken Riley Act has little chance of passing the Senate or becoming law, there has been little public analysis of its details, although its initial passage by the House was covered by major media such as the New York Times and CNN. At least one press release has correctly observed that “Under the Laken Riley Act, a Dreamer who lives in a hostile state could be subject to indefinite detention simply because someone says they suspect them of a petty crime.” As it turns out, however, some of the details are even worse than that press release suggests.

[deletia]

The most obvious problem with this new language would be that, as the above-quoted press release flagged, it does not require a conviction, only that one be “charged with” or “arrested for” the crimes in question. Mandatory detention following an arrest or charge that need not even lead to a conviction would be bad enough if it only applied to people who one would otherwise reasonably expect to be placed in removal proceedings, since even they are entitled under the Constitution to due process of law—and there has been at least one recent and notorious incident of an asylum-seeker being accused of a more serious crime than shoplifting before being exonerated. But for reasons that may be less obvious, the Laken Riley Act would go significantly farther even that that.

It gets worse from there. And that article was written when it first passed last session, so not only is it possible that it will pass the Senate this time, but my new Congress critter took credit for a bill he had no hand in drafting. Such is the life of the spoiled nepo baby.

I can’t believe I have to pay the salary of this asshole whose social media output is the rote repetition of GOP-supplied talking points. These people are just empty shells with different ideological chips stuck in them.

I’ll leave you with this approximation of Moore and his new GOP buddies (minus Woody’s innate humanity, of course):