Congressman Blake Farenthold (R-TX), who this week said he would duel female Senators who voted against the Republicans’ health-care bill, has a history of questionable treatment of women, from owning a porn site to being subject of a sexual-harassment lawsuit.
On Tuesday, Farenthold criticized “some female Senators from the Northeast” for their opposition to Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare without a replacement plan. ““if it was a guy from south Texas I might ask him to step outside and settle this Aaron Burr-style.”
The female Senators in opposition were Susan Collins (R-Me), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).
“In twenty years in the Senate, I have had a lot of people make suggestions about how to resolve legislative disputes, but until today nobody had ever suggested a duel,” Collins said in a statement.
“And as I far as I know,” she later added, according to the Associated Press, “dueling is illegal in every state. He’ll be disappointed, I guess.”
Then Collins let it be known how she really felt, if unintentionally. On Wednesday, Collins was caught on a hot mic talking with Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) during an appropriations subcommittee meeting.
“Did you see the one who challenged me to a duel?” Collins asked Reed. “Well, he’s huge. And he is so — I don’t mean to be unkind — but he’s so unattractive, it’s unbelievable.”
Collins later apologized to Farenthold.
In 2014, Mediaite reported that Farenthold owned the URL blow-me.org, and had since 1999.
“Farenthold did not use the name and does not intend to renew it,” a spokesman said at the time.
