Sure, it was an epic year for public corruption on a large scale, but also on stupid and small scales. For one thing, George Santos existed. But the expelled congressman’s resume padding and (alleged) fraud was given a run for its money by Sen. Robert Menendez’s (D-NJ) insatiable appetite for (allegedly) accepting bribes in the form of gold bars, or Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ gluttonous penchant for luxury yachts and vacations with billionaires.
But the Golden Dukes are about so much more than your average, shameless public corruption. TPM lives to celebrate mendacity and we raise our glasses to the bad, salacious and crazy in all of its most foolish, and also carnal, forms. Whether you’re a congresswoman lying about vapin’ and gropin’ in a public theater or a governor so desperate to find your MAGAland footing you pull out a poop map during a debate — we’re here to celebrate you.
Last week, we asked you to submit nominations for the worst offenders in seven different categories. TPM readers, you delivered. So much so that we had to spend hours winnowing down the list.
Now we need your help again. Help us crown 2023’s most odious weasels by voting below. May the best bigot win!
Category 1: Best Scandal — Local Venue
There are some bad acts back home that don’t make it into the national news cycle. And then there are these.
The nominees:
Eric Adams Renting Prospective Services To Turkey: The extremely lively NYC mayor is under investigation over allegations that his campaign accepted illegal donations, including some from the Turkish government. Only in New York will your constituents rejoice to learn the often-despised city mayor is even more corrupt than they already suspected.
— Nicole Lafond
Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ Podiumgate (YES WE KNOW IT’S TECHNICALLY A LECTERN): The former White House press secretary and current Republican governor of Arkansas deserves some props for her administration’s shady $19,000 payment for a lectern from a political friend and her office’s subsequent bid to kill the state’s FOIA in order to keep it secret.
— Nicole Lafond
Mark Robinson’s Whole Thing, Basically: North Carolina Lieutenant Gov. Mark Robinson is a special case in the storied annals of the Golden Dukes. He didn’t get this nomination for one particular episode, his entire political career has been an episode. Robinson has a propensity for making shocking and scandalous statements in his speeches and prolific Facebook posting that run the gamut from racial stereotypes to religious discrimination to bizarre conspiracy mongering. TPM helped bring Robinson’s history of bizarre and offensive comments to light in March, in a piece that also highlighted his online pro-wrestling alter ego “Bigg Smoke.” Exactly one month after that story, Robinson announced a run for governor and he’s currently leading in some polls.
— Hunter Walker
DeSantis vs. Disney: To begin, I’ll point out there is a 1,500 word Wikipedia entry detailing all the ins and outs of Mr. Poop Map (see below) vs House of Mouse. Everything started when Disney denounced the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” Bill. DeSantis tried to retaliate by taking away a special tax status the company had had since the 1960s. Some other bickering and jockeying happened. Then Walt Disney sued DeSantis for violating its First Amendment rights. The upshot is basically that Ron is getting sued by Mickey Mouse and somehow managed to come off as a Republican who is anti-business and anti-free speech. Amazing.
— Joe Ragazzo
Vote below:
Category 2: Judge Lest Ye Be Judged
2023 gifted us not just a new cast of judicial characters to go along with the various Trump indictments, but judges old (Clarence Thomas) and new (Matthew Kacsmaryk) were on their worst behavior this year.
The nominees:
Clarence Thomas’ Billionaire Buddy: The Supreme Court justice has been globetrotting on ritzy vacations with conservative movement stalwart Harlan Thomas for years, we learned this year, and even sold him property — all out of the public eye. The problem, you see, was that his salary was too low — and to his credit he had been sounding the alarm about this problem for years.
— John Light
Matthew Kacsmaryk, Judge Shopaholic: The Trump appointee has turned Amarillo into a bustling hub of right-wing (specifically anti-abortion and anti-Biden administration) lawsuits, with ideologically aligned plaintiffs secure in the knowledge that there is virtually no legal reasoning too tortured for this partisan hack to give his stamp of approval.
— Kate Riga
U.S. District Judge Aileen (don’t call me sneaky when I’m just incompetent and don’t call me incompetent when I’m just sneaky): Cannon is in so far over her head in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case that whenever she tries to carry water for Donald Trump she darn near drowns.
— David Kurtz
Unabashed Zealot Jim Ho: For presumably taking a break from screaming at women on their way into Planned Parenthood appointments to write in an actual official legal ruling that doctors suffer an “aesthetic injury” during abortions as they are deprived of seeing a cute baby.
— Kate Riga
Sam Alito (take your “appearance” of “conflict” and shove it): Like Thomas, Alito got the ProPublica treatment this year, and was revealed to have taken a luxury vacation to Alaska to catch enormous fish with Paul Singer, a billionaire who has had and continues to have all sorts of business before the court. But he also gets a nomination for agreeing to a series of bizarre, softball WSJ interviews, conducted, astoundingly, by a lawyer who had a massive case before the Supreme Court, and for his oh so clever political maneuvering as he got ready to scrap Roe, also revealed this year.
— John Light
Vote below:
Category 3: Best Use Of A Visual Aid
Donald Trump gifted us the sharpie hurricane map. This year’s class of visual virtuosos hope to build on his legacy.
The nominees:
Vivek Ramaswamy’s Childlike Scrawl: For dropping a soggy popper of a bombshell with “Nikki = corrupt” scribbled on a legal pad at the GOP debate, even more of a waste of time as he should have been scoping out weapons to defend himself when she inevitably snapped and murdered him on prime time television.
— Kate Riga
Ron DeSantis’s Poop Map: Someone somewhere, probably in a board meeting, decided what the world needed was actually more debates and so we were gifted a tussle between California Governor Gavin Newsom and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. When Newsom pointed out that Florida’s mental health system was third last behind Mississippi and Texas, DeSantis whipped out a map of San Francisco that allegedly charted where human feces had been found on the street. It’s hard to know what DeSantis’ point was here, but it might have underscored Newsom’s.
— Joe Ragazzo
MTG Shares Hunter Biden Nudes: The Republicans say a lot of stuff about Hunter Biden. It’s hard to keep track of it all. But every once in a while something breaks through the maelstrom. Case in point: During a hearing in July, Marjorie Taylor Green displayed explicit photos of Hunter Biden. Who was she showing them to, you might reasonably ask? Two IRS whistleblowers, of course. What was her point? She alleged Biden had violated “The Mann Act,” which I could tell you more about but, frankly, I’ve already have devoted too many words to this grifter.
— Joe Ragazzo
Nancy Mace’s Scarlet A: Mace, who likes sex but not as much as prayer, decided to wear a bright red “A” on her shirt back in October because she “felt demonized” after voting to oust the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy. I’d argue the real “visual aid” was simply Nancy herself in an almost too-on-the-nose demonstration of the GOP’s constant grasps for attention in the form of feigned victimhood, often comparing themselves to either real or fictional characters who faced actual persecution or ostracization.
— Joe Ragazzo
Vote below:
Category 4: Summer Of George
A new category dedicated to celebrating George Santos’ various aliases and personas. Vote for your favorite, if picking is even possible.
Vote below:
Category 5: Best Scandal — Sex & Generalized Carnality
We’re not here to kink shame. Calling out hypocrites just happens to be our kink.
The nominees:
The Throuple That Blew Up The Florida GOP: We couldn’t have dreamed up a better end-of-the-year sex scandal if we tried. A Florida Republican “family values” power couple, one member of which was at the helm of the state Republican Party, the other the mastermind behind Moms For Liberty and the “don’t say gay” bill, were outed as sniveling hypocrites when the woman they’ve been having a three-way, consensual sexual relationship with came forward to accuse the husband, Christian Ziegler, of rape.
— Nicole Lafond
Shake, Shake. Shake, Senora: Every detail of this story is priceless. Newly single stalwart MAGA Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) had a rough night out in September. Boebert went with a male companion to a performance of the “Beetlejuice” musical in Denver. The classy evening of musical theater ended badly and the pair were ejected from the theater after being accused of vaping and disturbing other patrons. Not content to admit fault or just move on, her campaign initially denied any wrongdoing and said the congresswoman is simply “a supporter of the performing arts” who was “guilty” of nothing other than “singing along, laughing and enjoying herself.” Security footage of Boebert and her date indicated they were overcome by the touring production of the macabre movie musical adaptation. The pair were filmed groping each other. Oh yeah, the vaping allegation was definitely real too. The tape and comments from witnesses also indicated that Boebert got into a confrontation with a pregnant woman and pulled a “do you know who I am?” on her way out the door. Boebert subsequently admitted she “fell short of her values” that night and her relationship imploded after her beau was outed as a Democrat who owned a bar that hosts drag shows. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, BEETLEJUICE!!
— Hunter Walker
Playboy Mike Pence: For proclaiming on the debate stage loudly yet robotically, stiffly yet while chuckling, provocatively yet to no discernible reaction whatsoever, that he does, in fact, have sex with his wife, “mother.”
— Kate Riga
Randy ‘Enjoys Interacting With Constituents’ McNally: The Tennessee Republican lieutenant governor, who has supported some of the state’s anti-LGBTQ legislation, posted 80-plus comments from his verified Instagram account on racy shirtless photos of a young gay man, which his office defended as him being “a prolific social media commenter” who “enjoys interacting with constituents and Tennesseans of all religions, backgrounds and orientations on social media.”
— Nicole Lafond
Vote below:
Category 6: Meritorious Achievement in the Crazy
We literally can’t explain it.
The nominees:
Rudy Crazies Himself Into Bankruptcy: This old Dukes standby, as rich in corruption as in sheer absurdity, took his doddering antics to a new level of financial liability this year by flouting a defamation case brought by Georgia election workers Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman until the very end: a $148 million judgment which will likely haunt America’s ex-mayor past the grave.
— Josh Kovensky
Markwayne Mullin’s Testosterone Explosion: Just before the Thanksgiving recess, the Republican Men were Losing It. Kevin McCarthy kidney punched Tim Burchett in a House basement hallway, James Comer verbally smacked Jared Moskowitz during a House Oversight Committee hearing for wearing too much blue, and Markwayne Mullin challenged the president of the Teamsters union, a witness during a Senate Help Committee hearing, to a literal fist fight, forcing the 82-year-old Bernie Sanders to shut down his machismo tear: “You’re a United States senator! Sit down!”
— Nicole Lafond
Paul Gosar’s Groyper Staffer: What if we told you there was a member of Congress who had a staffer that was a prominent follower of neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes? That would be pretty crazy right? Well, what if we told you that staffer went by the online alias “Chikken” and had sworn undying allegiance to Fuentes and the “white race.” Yeah, that’s even crazier. Well, that’s exactly what TPM exposed back in April when we detailed the links between a digital director for Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and the Hitler-loving Fuentes’ “Groyper” movement. It was a new level of nuts even for the MAGA wing of Congress. Perhaps the craziest bit of all is that Gosar kept “Chikken” on staff following a nationwide scandal.
— Hunter Walker
MTG Explains Global Warming: “People are not affecting climate change. You’re going to tell me that back in the ice age, how much taxes did people pay, and how many changes did governments make to melt the ice? The climate is going to continue to change.” — Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ice Age), on X, 9/5/23.
Vote below:
Category 7: Best Scandal: General Interest
The Duke’s version of Best Picture, awarded to the scandal that best exemplifies the form.
The nominees:
Senator Bob Menedez and his gold bars: By refusing to resign after being indicted for allegedly aiding the government of Egypt in exchange for cash, a Mercedes-Benz, and gold bars, Menendez is acting like he’s been here before. The only sitting senator to be indicted two different times for two different sets of crimes, he’s gone to the sequel playbook for round two: bigger, gaudier, and with a confusing side plot involving an American roller skating star who found herself on the wrong end of a U.S.-supplied Apache helicopter operated by the Egyptian military. Cool!
— Derick Dirmaier
Sam Bankman-Fried and the collapse of FTX: SBF’s offenses are legion if not explicitly political. He donated millions of dollars to political causes and forced effective altruism into the mainstream, but what’s earned him a spot in the main event is the scale at which he accomplished good old-fashioned fraud. As Manhattan’s top prosecutor said after SBF was found guilty and sentenced to 110 years on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy for stealing up to $10 billion: “The crypto industry might be new. But this kind of fraud, this kind of corruption, is as old as time.”
— Derick Dirmaier
For Ken Paxton’s Friends, Anything: The long-serving and long-indicted Texas Attorney General came dangerously close to accountability this summer after the state House impeached him for his relationship with a local real estate bro who asked — and apparently received — access and tipoffs about an FBI investigation.
— Josh Kovensky
The Great Replacement: In April, Fox News ditched cable news’ highest-rated host, Tucker Carlson. On the way to his ouster, Carlson had many brushes with Duke-worthy scandal. He consistently promoted conspiracy theories to his millions of viewers including the racist mythos about white Americans being systematically replaced with immigrants, COVID misinformation, anti-gay panic, January 6 denialism, and, of course, the 2020 “Big Lie.” Carlson’s litany of falsehoods figured into the over $787 million defamation settlement his network was forced to pay to Dominion Voting Systems, an election software company. Discovery in that case dredged up Carlson’s racist text messages. He also played a part in a sexism and harassment suit from one of his former producers that cast his show as a haven for “systemic lying, bullying, and conspiracy-mongering.” However, in the world of Fox News where sexual harassment suits have piled up and partisan lies are the coin of the realm, none of that may have been Tucker’s last straw. According to Brian Stelter, who chronicled Carlson’s exit in his aptly titled book “Network of Lies,” the host’s most fatal sins included badmouthing Fox execs and leaving Rupert Murdoch feeling he “got too big for his boots.” Of course, Carlson, who now plies his trade before a much smaller audience inside the desiccated husk of the site once known as Twitter, went out trying to spin fresh conspiracy theories about his own demise and suggested it was due to Dominion. Sure it was, Tucker. Sure it was.
— Hunter Walker
The George Santos Oeuvre: See above.
The Clarence Thomas Billionaire Omnibus: See above.
Vote below:
PAST WINNERS