GOP Rep Doesn't Get Geography, Wants to Challenge Female Senators to a Duel

Either Republican Congressman Blake Farenthold of Texas doesn't know that a duel is an act intended to defend one's honor, or he somehow feels as though the three female GOP senators who opposed repealing the Affordable Care Act without an alternative in place have somehow personally dishonored him, because he said he'd like to challenge them to a duel, according to CNN.

Last week Sens. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said they wouldn't support repeal of the ACA, which would have left millions of Americans stranded when the GOP failed to put forth a viable health care plan to replace it. But Farenthold, who during his previous job working for a computer company that acquired domain names, including "Blow-me.org" (which is still registered to the Texas lawmaker), was deeply offended by the stance that the three female senators took on health care.

"The fact that the Senate does not have the courage to do some of the things that every Republican in the Senate promised to do is just absolutely repugnant to me," he told Bob Jones, a radio host in Farenthold's hometown of Corpus Christi, in an interview last week.

But Farenthold wasn't merely bent out of shape that the Senate did not have the votes to appeal the ACA; he was outraged because three of the senators were women. He then said something both misogynistic and deeply lacking in an understanding of basic geography.

"Some of the people that are opposed to this, there are female senators from the Northeast. ... If it was a guy from South Texas, I might ask him to step outside and settle this Aaron Burr-style," Farenholdt said, referring to the politician who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel.

Farenthold, a congressman representing Texas's 27th district since 2011, has a personal stake in dismantling the ACA, since its repeal was the cornerstone of the campaign that got him elected. So there is a chance he actually feels personally dishonored by the three women in the Senate who had the courage to stand up to the GOP and save millions from losing health care, but his energy would be better spent investing in a basic American geography course at the local adult education program.