Ranking the Shittiest Local Powermongers in America: The Biggest Small-Time Dicks of 2015 

In the deranged spirit of overreaction beloved by alleged slumlords everywhere, Dunne has admitted he’s the one who put up blaring red signs all over town. The signs feature a bunch of tiny little hammer-and-sickle insignias above a caricature of Ho Chi Minh and the words, “Don’t vote for Ho Chi Chin. Vote for more jobs, not more welfare.”

6. Larry Barton, mayor of Talladega, Alabama, and/or Benny J. Green, the man who allegedly beat Barton with a bat for having sex with his wife. We could have a fun and lively debate about who’s the bigger dick here, or whether men aged 71 and 74 maybe ought to know better about a thing or two:

In a masterful use of understatement, police initially said that the beating was due to “domestic issues.” That was before Green’s former lawyer told AL.com that the whole thing started because Green saw Barton on tape having what he described as “full blown” sex with his wife, Charlotte Green. The Greens are reportedly in the midst of a divorce.

The attorney, Stewart Springer, told the Daily Home the sex tape took place in the back of a liquor store that Charlotte owns.

5. Mark Gremaud, Perry County School Board, Perryville Missouri, for telling a female colleague all about her place:

Mark Gremaud of the Perry County School Board in Missouri is being censured for telling his female colleague Kathy Carron in a closed meeting: “Kathy, you are just a woman. The only thing you know is laying on your back with your legs in the air splayed.”

Not only is that sentence grammatically unwieldy (“splayed in the air” would’ve worked far better), but the board wasn’t discussing sex education, yoga positions, biological determinism, or anything else that might warrant that comment, according to board president Nancy Voelker. In a statement reported by KVFS 12, Voelker called Gremaud’s comments “unprovoked.”

4. Drew Hastings, Mayor of Hillsboro, Ohio, who has bad opinions on Facebook:

On Friday, Hastings added Facebook Pundit to his skill set, offering up his essential thoughts on the Planned Parenthood shooting by comparing it to the race war he sees as imminent:

“When are people going to figure out that we are in a Revolution in this Country. Blacks have all but formally declared war on whites, ideological types are fighting with Planned Parenthood, there’s violence over immigration, Muslim extremism, and our own Government at war with its citizens.”

He added, “This isn’t ‘lone wolf’ stuff. It isn’t a crazy with a gun. It isn’t ‘domestic terrorism,’ these are all skirmishes in a Revolution that’s here. Pick your side and pick your battles, we are about 3 steps away from All bets are off.”

3. City Commissioner Amos Newsome of Dothan, Alabama, who slap-scratched a reporter on camera for asking about voter fraud allegations:

WTVY reporter Ken Curtis approached City Commissioner Amos Newsome of Dothan, Alabama to ask if he was planning to resign. Newsome, a Democrat, has been facing calls from fellow city commissioners to resign after three of his campaign workers were convicted of voter fraud. Newsome, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, has not been charged with fraud himself.

Newsome’s response to Curtis’s questions was, some face-shoving, some yelling, and then, finally, some hitting, hard enough that Curtis staggered backwards.

2. Jim Brownback, brother to Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, accused of relentlessly terrorizing his neighbors for years:

A thirdhand conversation relayed to the Topeka Capital-Journal alleges that Brownback behaved himself until his brother won re-election, then took up firing guns outside the Peine’s place immediately afterwards…

Another local farmer says Brownback stole two of his cows in 2012. The farmer, Ben Katzer, claims that Brownback brags openly that he’ll use his brother to get out of any tight legal spots.

1. Finally, perhaps “dick” is insufficient to describe Arkansas State Representative Justin Harris, who an Arkansas Times investigative series revealed in February gave away two of his three adopted children to a sexual abuser.

Harris and his wife reportedly did this in part because he believed the two little girls, aged 4 and 2, were possessed by demons and able to communicate telepathically. They also “re-homed” the girls’ older sibling, 6, and were vocally unhappy about having “had” to adopt her in the first place along with her siblings.

Harris faced no criminal or professional consequences. He continues to both serve in the Arkansas House and operate a state-funded preschool, Growing God’s Kingdom. In September, the state investigated the school after a three-year-old was left in a van for five hours. Mercifully—and certainly no thanks to Harris or anyone connected to him—the little girl survived.

Image via AP, screenshot, AP