From WWW.AZCENTRAL.COM
Democratic Senate candidate Mark Kelly apologized on Thursday for an offensive comment he made two years ago while joking about the physiological changes his twin brother experienced after spending a year in space.
Kelly, a retired NASA astronaut, made the remarks during an appearance before the Boy Scouts of America, Northern New Jersey Council.
During a question-and-answer portion, Kelly was asked if he thought there would be a time in which Mars was colonized. Kelly said his brother Scott, also an astronaut, went aboard the space station for a year and that his DNA was altered from either radiation or zero-gravity.
“I think the word hasn’t gotten out how bad it is for him,” Kelly said. “You know, it’s gotten so bad, that we recently had to release him back into the wild,” he continued to a laughing crowd.
“He’s like halfway between an orangutan and a Howler Monkey. We’ve even changed his name to Rodrigo. He lives in the woods. He lives in Eagle Rock Reservation,” a reference to a New Jersey forest reserve and recreational park.
The video of Kelly speaking was posted Thursday on Twitter by Moses Sanchez, a Republican businessman and Navy veteran who unsuccessfully ran for Phoenix mayor in 2018.
“Shameful video of Mark Kelly making a racist joke to an all-white crowd,” Sanchez wrote on Twitter. It is unclear if the crowd was all white…. (Read more)
