Ear Wax Eating Congressman Says “Communism Works” [Video]

Formerly obscure Congressman Joe Garcia has been getting a lot of publicity lately, but not in a good way.

The Florida Democrat recently stirred up social media when he was caught on live TV during a Congressional hearing seemingly snacking on his own ear wax. The embarrassing footage that the lawmaker blamed on a hangnail has generated about 2.5 million YouTube hits so far.

In another apparent gaffe, during a Google hangout he suggested that “Communism works.”

Garcia was trying to make a convoluted point of some kind that the GOP was wasting money on border security efforts. See embed below and draw your own conclusions.

Said Garcia: “… Let me give you an example, the kind of money we’ve poured in. So the most dangerous — sorry, the safest city in America is El Paso, Texas. It happens to be across the border from the most dangerous city in the Americas, which is Juarez. Right? And two of the safest cities in America, two of them are on the border with Mexico. And of course, the reason is we’ve proved that Communism works. If you give everybody a good government job, there’s no crime. But that isn’t what we should be doing on the border. The kind of money we’ve poured into it, and we’re having diminishing returns…”

In an apparent attempt at damage control, Garcia later responded that “This is an absurdity, accusing the son of Cuban immigrants of believing in Communism is just ridiculous.”

Serving his first term, Garcia represents Florida’s 26th Congressional district in the Miami area and will likely face either Republican challengers David Rivera or Carlos Curbelo in the November general election. The GOP primary is August 26.

Rivera defeated Garcia in the 2010 election for the House seat before losing a rematch in 2012. The district is rated as a tossup in the general election.

HotAir.com questioned Garcia’s underlying premise: “Garcia is about as confused on employment as he is about communism and immigration. The unemployment rate in El Paso for April is 7.3%, higher than the national average. It dropped from 7.6% in March, as it did nationally, but it’s still higher than the US average. The crime rate for El Paso is more difficult to determine, but the real-estate site Neighborhood Scout says 73% of American cities are safer than El Paso. It’s not clear where Garcia gets his data about communism, crime rates, and employment, but I’d assume it comes from another body part other than his ear.”

Which is worse — eating ear wax or claiming that Communism works?