Do you want to really piss Donald off? I do. And I think I found the perfect candidate to do it.
Mar-a-Lago is on the edge of FL-18, which is controlled by a Trump boot-licker named Brian Mast. Until last year, that seat was held by a Democrat. In the coming blue wave, Pam Keith is poised to make a strong bid to take it back.
She is everything Trump isn’t: intelligent, accomplished, dignified, a legal mind, and a military veteran.
Trump loves the yes-man he has in Brian Mast, who has voted in-line with Trump's position 96.6% of the time according to FiveThirtyEight. This is way out of step with a district that only slightly leans republican. If the northern part of the district, which is Democratic, decides to come out and actually vote in midterms—she will win.
Pam was a Senate candidate in 2016, and was strongly endorsed by the Miami Herald because of her background and grasp of the issues. She was a longshot candidate, but with barely a shoestring budget, she got nearly as many votes as Alan Grayson, who blanketed the airwaves.
Now she’s running for Congress:
Her opponent will be the incumbent, Brian Mast. As a veteran, I respect Brian’s service and sacrifice to our nation, but I absolutely do not respect how he treats them. Brain Mast is one of Trump’s most loyal supporters, and said he supports Donald Trump “unanimously and wholeheartedly”. This even after the fact that Trump has personally trashed POWs, and compared his sex life to fighting in Vietnam.
Brian supports Trump despite his use and abuse of veterans. To begin with, Trump made a sincere effort to eliminate the Limb Loss Resource Center and the Paralysis Resource Center, both of which provide essential support for veterans—something I would think Mast would have a problem with. This is to say nothing about his attacks on jobs programs, food security programs and health programs that veterans rely upon.
Brian Mast also supports the current GOP tax bill, which contains a provision eliminating tax-exempt status bonds used to fund affordable housing, helping many low-income veterans put a roof over their heads.
Yet it isn’t just veterans that Mast is screwing over.
Mast has faced “acid criticism” over his votes to raise healthcare premiums drastically for those over 50, which is the majority of his constituents.
Perhaps Mast like him because he has a lot of Trump-like characteristics. He seems to have no problem with scam businesses. He was a board member of World Patent Marketing, which was accused by the Federal Trade Commission of defrauding thousands of clients in the last few years out of millions of dollars, and then harassing customers who threatened to report the scam:
Mast, a Republican and military veteran who represents part of Palm Beach County, was named a member of the company’s advisory board in February 2016, shortly before [CEO] Cooper donated more than $5,000 to Mast’s election campaign.
In a press release, Mast stated it was an “honor to be a part of an organization that is so dynamic and forward looking.”
Mast also, like Trump, enjoys creating fake scandals. Mast went on Fox and Friends to falsely claim that the Florida VA medical center were keeping portraits of President Donald Trump off the wall for political reasons. He never bothered to ask them why. The real reason? The White House hadn't released the official portraits yet. Employees are only authorized to display official photos of government officials on facility walls. Yet Mast decided to go on a rant about veterans somehow were "being stabbed in the back" because they didn't hang phony pictures on the wall.
(I can think of other ways veterans are being stabbed in the back, Brian, and none of them involve a stupid picture on a wall.)
Pam Keith will be an advocate for veterans, for Medicare, for the workers, and for all of her constituents—not just the wealthy few. Let’s drive Donald crazy.