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If you have been reading the political web today, you've probably come across Bob Morris, an Indiana State Representative who has condemned the Girl Scouts as "sexualizing" young girls and molding them into "feminists, lesbians, or Communists." Let's get to know him better. He's only been a legislator since 2010, but long before he ran for office, Morris was often in the local newspapers -- he was good for a quote. Before he turned to politics, he mostly showed up in the press promoting dietary supplements he sold, such as by encouraging high school athletes to take Creatine in 2005. (Why shouldn't they? He did and reported to the the Fort Wayne News Sentinel that it "transformed his body over the past six months into something any high school football player would envy.") That's why you could see Morris's attack on Girl Scouts as a cabal of left-wing lesbians coming. Like other political trolling that comes out of the statehouses every few days (hours?), Morris has been practicing for years. Today's outrage may look like an overnight sensationalist, but he was really years in the making. Welcome to Profiles in Politrolling, our occasional series on the people behind the news outrage of the day.
Background: The impressively-browed Morris, 37, was born in Streator, Illinois, and moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1976. He got his bachelor's from Indiana University, and ran a business called Healthkick Nutrition Centers and was no stranger to the news: On October 20, 2001, he told the Fort Wayne News Sentinel's Nancy Nall that he was stocking Healthkick's shelves with Chicago Nutrition Solutronic Silver, which supposedly could protect you from anthrax. "I gargle with it whenever I get a sore throat," Morris said. On April 16, 2005, when the ban was briefly lifted, Morris said he pulled the old ephedra cases back out. "I believe in the product," he told the News Sentinel.