I don’t know how to respond to Rep. Shri Thanedar's (D-MI) announcement: the man is filing several articles of impeachment against Donald Trump. Who is this guy? This move isn’t shocking, as Democrats were bound to do it at some point because derangement syndrome still runs high, though Elon Musk has become the new target of the Left.
We need a total shutdown on people with Star Wars names entering our country until we can figure out what’s going on https://t.co/98uUz6CTk5
— Logan Hall (@loganclarkhall) April 28, 2025
https://t.co/gxI893jQ3I pic.twitter.com/uy2eKF86YU
— Steven Cheung (@StevenCheung47) April 28, 2025
Still, it’s telling that no one is rallying around this no-name Democrat. It shows that the party remains a rudderless vessel with no leader or message. There is no alternative agenda—it’s all raging against Trump. This push is red-meat material for Democrats—so why is Shri alone? Despite singing songs and engaging in all-around strangeness on the Capitol’s steps, the party leadership knows this has no shot at passing, which is true.
Cory Booker and Hakeem Jeffries have been sitting and blathering on the steps of the Capitol for 6 hours to protest Trump... pic.twitter.com/hgztcCEtmy
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) April 27, 2025
Second, this guy is a train wreck.
From an animal cruelty circus to allegations of business fraud, Mr. Shri is sort of a shady character, one who is out of his depth for wanting to be the face of this attempt to impeach Donald Trump. The man is a beagle beater—that’s not exactly someone you want as the point of the lance on this stuff (via HuffPost):
This guy owned a pharmaceutical testing lab. In 2010 he went bankrupt, locked the doors and left all the puppies and monkeys he was testing inside to die. https://t.co/LcXNAgzCvy
— Chef Andrew Gruel (@ChefGruel) April 30, 2025
About 170 dogs and monkeys were rescued in 2010 from an abandoned pharmaceutical testing lab owned by Shri Thanedar, a Michigan Democratic gubernatorial candidate currently leading in the polls.
Thanedar had to shutter the New Jersey testing facility, AniClin Preclinical Services, after its parent company, Azopharma, which he owned, went bankrupt in April 2010.
Local animal rights activists learned in June of that year that 118 beagles were still stuck inside the facility. The lab’s workers had been jumping the lab’s fences to provide food and water for the dogs, according to a USA Today report.
Two animal welfare groups teamed up to find homes for the beagles and were finally able to take them from the shuttered lab on July 4 to shelters, where they would be matched with adoptive families. A video report conducted by the Times Herald-Record, based in Middletown, New York, showed the dogs arriving in a van from the lab to a staging area where volunteers groomed and attended to the forlorn animals.
Shri also settled a suit where he was accused of inflating the value of his business (via The Detroit News):
Former Michigan Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Shri Thanedar has reached an agreement with plaintiffs to avoid trial in a business fraud lawsuit alleging he inflated the value of a company he sold in 2016.
U.S. District Judge Gershwin Drain dismissed the case Friday, citing a notice from Thanedar and Avomeen Holdings LLC that they had reached an agreement to resolve the matter out of court.
The trial had been set to start Tuesday in Detroit, where Thanedar recently moved as he contemplates another political run.
Avomeen had claimed economic damages of approximately $7 million to $8 million in the sale, which netted Thanedar roughly $20 million. Thanedar disputed any wrongdoing and filed a counter claim seeking damages of at least $2.5 million, according to court records.
On paper, the congressman is America personified: worked through college, came up through poverty, was at the helm of a supposedly successful business, and is now serving on the Hill. Yet, it’s a mixed bag. In a deep blue bastion, like Detroit, where his congressional district resides, it’s not the GOP who are your enemies, it’s your own party. Maybe he’s impeaching Trump to curry favor with his base, but that also feeds into another anti-Shri point, which is that many think his public service career is a vanity stunt dotted by “malleable” stances on policy (via HuffPo):
Thanedar’s fiercest critics see his congressional career as a vanity project built on self-obsession and malleable political beliefs. Many also see it as the fullest expression of a life spent pursuing the American Dream.
[…]
Detroit leaders who spoke to HuffPost for this piece say they weren’t thrilled by Thanedar’s win, though they were willing to give him a shot. But Thanedar’s first year in office has only compounded their concerns: The freshman representative is facing allegations of creating a toxic work environment with chronic turnover and of dedicating an exorbitant amount of his congressional budget to advertising — including billboards in the Detroit area that feature his blown-up face and the number of the office — that feel more like campaign self-promotion than official communication, according to three people with direct knowledge of the office who view this as improper, if not unethical.
Since the Trump impeachment announcement, there are Democrats already gunning for Shri’s seat, labeling him out of touch with voters. Yet, the Huffington Post highlighting Shri’s flimsy policy positions is somewhat entertaining: he called Israel an apartheid state and wanted to cease all aid to the Jewish state, and later joined an AIPAC trip to the country and disassociated with Democratic Socialists of America for not condemning the October 7 attacks harshly enough. I think the guy is just nuts (via NBC News):
A two-term Michigan state representative backed by the progressive group Justice Democrats is launching a primary challenge against Rep. Shri Thanedar on Monday, setting the stage for a significant fight over the Detroit-area House seat.
The race will also serve as another proxy fight over the war in Gaza as Thanedar, previously a critic of the Israeli government in the state Legislature, renounced his membership in the Democratic Socialists of America after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, saying the DSA did not offer adequate condemnation of it. Earlier in 2023, Thanedar took a trip to Israel sponsored by a group affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
In a statement, Michigan state Rep. Donavan McKinney, 32, contrasted himself with Thanedar, a multimillionaire and two-term incumbent. McKinney’s campaign described Thanedar in a press release as “Detroit’s own Elon Musk.”
Okay, again, as I said, this party is lost. Thanedar is ‘Indian Elon Musk’—and we’re primarying him not because he’s out of his depth here, but primarily, it would seem, being that it’s Michigan—the land of Rashida Tlaib—that he became a little too cozy with Israel.
Trump touched upon this last night, calling the Democratic Party crazy. Also, who is this guy?
This little dance isn’t going anywhere. It was never credible, and now that a Democrat facing what could be a stiff primary challenge is using it as a life vest, it’s a full-blown joke.