Meet Kornelius Friske (R)
Before he was arrested yesterday, Rep Kornelius “Neil” Friske (R) was best known as an opponent of a bipartisan bill banning child marriage. But there’s a lot more we need to know about one of Michigan’s craziest and most extreme right Republicans while we wait to see what kind of accountability will come into play after he was arrested for sexually assaulting a stripper from the Deja Vu Showgirls while trying to shoot her. He's expected to be arraigned tomorrow.
His northwest Michigan district (107th) includes all of Charlevoix and Emmet counties and parts of Cheboygan, Chippewa, and Mackinac counties. All 5 counties are MAGA hellholes that voted for Trump Friske was first elected in 2022. But if Fiske is often referred to as a neo-Nazi, his father, also a Michigan politician, was an actual Nazi, who was born in Poland but enlisted in the Luftwaffe to help the Germans during World War II. Despite that, he managed to emigrate to Wisconsin and the Michigan just 7 years after the war.
Papa Friske jumped into U.S. politics and in 1968 served as a campaign organizer for George Wallace, an avowed racist, perfect for Friske who had vehemently opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He joined the John Birch Society after the George Wallace campaign flamed out and a year later he was elected to the Michigan state House as a John Birch Republican, who openly campaign as a racist.
In the legislature, he advocated a eugenics agenda that would increase the birthrate of upper class whites and decrease it for “welfare recipients.” The Nazi Michigander was proud to babble nonsense about a need to “curb the growth of the drone population that weakens our society. Educated, propertied Americans need a vigorous pro‐natalist outlook, but the tax pressure on the middle class all but forbid this outlook. The danger today is that educated, propertied Americans will limit their families, while the ignorant, dependent elements will multiply. Bright young people in college are being persuaded that they shouldn't have more than two children because of a global population explosion. The birth rate among this element is already beginning to decline. But the population growth in America's slums, where the welfare population resides, is explosive. Those who have to pay the taxes, who in many cases provide quality education for their children because public schools have been wrecked by political and sociological experiments, seem to be deciding that the middle class will have to limit the size of families in the future. Those who live out of the public trough, who subsist on food stamps and welfare checks, are continuing to have big families. They are confident that Uncle Sam will pick up the tab for food, housing, medical care, education and even recreation.”
He accused the Republican governor, William Milliken, of being part of an “international satanic conspiracy” planning to take over the world. He also claimed the JFK, LBJ and Nixon were deliberating selling out the county to Communists. He was defeated for reelection in the GOP primary in 1972, ran unsuccessfully for Congress and subsequently lost 2 more GOP primaries to get back into the state House. In 1999, he contributed $1,000 to KKK Grand Wizard David Duke when he ran for Congress in Louisiana.
How about that for a family! So no one was surprised when Neil campaigned on a MAGA platform opposing critical race theory, nor that he is widely considered the most right-wing member of the state legislature. He’s also a member of the NRA and of the neo-fascist House Freedom Caucus. A self-funder, he came in first with 42.1% of the vote in a 5-way GOP primary. And in the general, he beat Democrat Jodi Decker 26,867 (56.6%) to 20,610 (43.4%). Call me crazy, but all 26,867 of them should having their voting rights suspended until they attend a civics course.
Enough background? Judging from the photo above, he— like Ted Cruz— is a big fan of crack-smoking strippers. The guy’s a nut-bag from a nut-bag family. And as I write this, he’s sitting a jail cell having been arrested early Thursday morning (2:45 am) in Lansing after a shooting incident. He— or someone operating his account— posted these two tweets either just before or just after his arrest.
Predictably, he’s already claiming that his arrest is part of an attempt to influence the election.
In a statement on social media Thursday afternoon, Friske’s campaign said the lawmaker is “always exercising his 2nd Amendment right” and that they know nothing about the incident other than what has been reported in the media.
The campaign called the timing of the incident “highly suspect” and suggested it is related to Friske’s reelection campaign and his upcoming Aug. 6 primary battle against a Republican opponent who they allege has “deep-state ties.”
“We ask everyone for prayers and to stay tuned for updates directly from this campaign or Representative Friske himself,” campaign officials wrote. “Thank you for the outpouring of concern and unwavering support we have received this morning. Clearly, Rep. Friske is over the target in this race.”
Friske is up for reelection this year and faces one challenger, Parker Fairbairn, in the Aug. 6 Republican primary. In a statement, Fairbairn said Friske should be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
However, Fairbairn said, the people of his district deserve better than Friske and his voting record.
“I’m running against Neil because he has an abysmal and immoral voting record, and the families of the 107th District deserve better,” Fairbairn wrote. “Since going to Lansing, Neil has voted against nearly every pro-family and conservative value issue that he’s had the chance to vote on.
“He voted against protecting spouses from marital rape, voted against making child marriage illegal, voting against tax cuts for veterans— and just this past week, he voted against making it illegal to create AI ‘deepfake’ pornography using the likeness of our daughters and wives. Neil deserves his time in court, and the people of the 107th District deserve better than Neil.”
Do they deserve better than Neil? They elected him and before that the elected the unrepentant Nazi father running as a racist. The people in that district deserve something, that's for sure— how about a good punch in the nose for starters?
nazi gun nuts are almost all white. but that's about the extent of their physical similarities.