Monday Morning Madness in America

I should learn to abstain from browsing political news on Monday mornings. Getting myself out of bed, showered, dressed and to work on time is challenge enough, I don’t need a further assault on my senses by reading articles about our frighteningly ignorant, dangerously delusional leaders. I need to ease into it, prepare myself mentally for the tsunami of absurdity that passes for politics in America today. Why make Monday’s tougher than they already are?

Today, however, it’s too late. I dove headfirst into Raw Story, The Huffington Post, Truthout, and Salon and found myself treading water in a cesspool of profound lunacy, hypocrisy, misogyny, bigotry, and…I could keep going, but I’ll stop there. From the Governor of Indiana trying lamely to rationalize the inherent bigotry of his “Religious Freedom” law to the droopy faced Ted Cruz wishing the White House could be moved to Texas where people like him to “The Dumbest Person in Congress” Louie Gohmert’s assertion that negotiations with Iran have already failed and we should just fly there and bomb their nuclear facilities.

The gravity of their stupidity has me reeling. The level of government to which they have ascended has me terrified. Whatever name you want to give our election system, it has failed us and allowed dangerously inept people into the halls of power, and the media is forced to take them seriously. How bad is it? The FOX News host who was interviewing Gohmert was visibly stunned and disturbed by his loony plan to bomb Iran. When, as a Republican, you can say something so inane it makes a FOX News host shudder, you have literally crossed the line into a clinically recognized mental disorder.

You can’t unthink this stuff. The Republicans running for President are crazy, and one of them could end up in the Oval Office. America has been given the opportunity to elect a person who would make George Bush look like FDR. It’s Monday morning and I’ve already had my week’s fill of stupidity. Thanks, me.

Another fun-filled week of Republican lunacy

During a discussion on gun legislation, Arizona State Sen. Sylvia Allen (R) expressed her support for mandatory church attendance nationwide. “Probably we should be debating a bill requiring every American to attend a church of their choice on Sunday to see if we can get back to having a moral rebirth,” Allen said at a recent Senate subcommittee meeting.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R), chairman of the House Rules Committee, said he did the math and that the federal government will be paying $5 million dollars per Obamacare beneficiary in the 2016 fiscal year. After others did the math correctly, the actual cost is closer to $4,130 per person.

Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) filed a budget amendment intended to keep American dollars printed as paper currency – instead of minting fancy, European-style coins. The Louisiana Republican objected to a proposal by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi (R-WY), who wants to facilitate the move toward dollar coins as a potential budget-cutting measure.

Indiana Governor Mark Pence signed the disingenuously named “Religious Freedom Bill” into law that allows businesses the right to refuse serving gays and lesbians on religious grounds. Former Star Trek actor and gay rights activist George Takei is leading a boycott of the state, urging people not to attend events taking place in Indiana.

Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt (R-Colorado Springs) commented about the recent attack on a pregnant woman where her unborn child was removed from her womb. "This is the curse of God upon America for our sin of not protecting innocent children in the womb," Klingenschmitt said, attributing the attack in Longmont to legal policy on unborn children. "Part of that curse for our rebellion against God as a nation is that our pregnant women are ripped open."

Texas Senator and Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said this week, “The global warming alarmists are the equivalent of the flat-earthers.” He also said that he used to listen to rock music, but switched to country after 9/11. Oh, and he also signed up for Obamacare.

In an interview during this year’s state of the union address, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson called President Obama a psychopath.

If you voted for or supported these people, you should feel really bad…

Ted Cruz – Wants to eliminate all restrictions on campaign contributions. Gave a speech were he painted such a bleak picture of America he made a little girl cry.

Tom Cotton – Stands by his letter to Iranian officials despite world-wide condemnation. Doesn’t know Tehran is the capital of Iran. Makes America wonder what it actually takes to get a degree from Harvard.

John Boehner – Wants to launch yet another time-wasting, money-wasting investigation of a Clinton, this time it’s about Hillary’s emails. Wonders why everyone hates the U.S. Congress.

Scott Walker – Thinks eliminating the federal income tax “sounds like a pretty appealing idea.”

Mitch McConnell – Is holding attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch hostage as he tries to force Democrats to vote on a human trafficking bill into which Republicans snuck an anti-abortion provision.

John McCain – When questioned about why he signed Tom Cotton’s much-reviled letter to Iran, he responded, “I sign lots of letters. It was kind of a very rapid process. Everybody was looking forward to getting out of town because of the snowstorm.” That’s our deliberative, reflective political process at work, fellow Americans.

Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum – All three spoke at an event called “The Awakening” last weekend hosted by Liberty Counsel. Attended by the country’s most conservative religious right leaders, speakers included Mat Staver, who supports criminalizing homosexuality; Kamal Saleem, who claims President Obama attends a Mosque in D.C. and that Islamists are working through Sasha and Malia Obama’s babysitters to establish a shadow government; and Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, who believes the White House is infiltrated by Muslims and America’s pastors must be prepared to get their heads chopped off in the fight against gay rights.

Lindsey Graham – From the early 1980s to 2000, Graham’s longtime political advisor, pollster and consultant Richard Quinn was editor-in-chief of The Southern Partisan, formally one of the country’s leading neo-Confederate magazines.

This Week’s Crazy Conservatives

Montana lawmaker David Moore (R-Missoula) wants to expand his state’s indecent exposure laws to outlaw yoga pants and other tight-fitting or revealing clothing. It would also make it illegal for men to wear speedo swim trunks in public.

Republican state Rep. Alan Clemmons proposes what he’s calling the “Second Amendment Education Act.” As the name implies, the bill would “provide all public elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools” with “instruction in the Second Amendment” for no fewer than “three consecutive weeks in one grading period in each academic year.” The curriculum would be written by the NRA.

Responding to President Obama’s comments at a recent National Prayer Breakfast about Christians and historical violence in the name of religion, FOX News contributor Star Parker said, “Because I was in that room. And it was, frankly, verbal rape. Oh yeah. We were not expecting it. Nobody wanted it. It was horrible to sit through. And after it was over we all felt like crap.”

A Christian group CADMinistry (Christians Against Dinosaurs) is an advocacy group that argues against teaching children that dinosaurs actually existed. While it sounds like an Onionesque hoax, it appears to be real, and members have argued in online discussions that, “The science behind them is pretty flimsy, and I for one do not want my children being taught lies. Did you know that nobody had even heard of dinosaurs before the 1800s, when they were invented by curio-hungry Victorians?” and that dinosaurs “lack family values.”

During a legislative dinner where the subject under discussion was domestic violence, South Carolina State Sen. Thomas Corbin told fellow GOP state senator Katrina Shealy that women should be “at home baking cookies” or “barefoot and pregnant,” not serving in the state legislature. When Shealy asked Corbin where he got off making such statements, he responded, “Well, you know God created man first, then he took the rib out of man to make woman. And you know, a rib is a lesser cut of meat."

And of course, what list of crazy conservative comments would be complete without an entry from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R)? In a speech to the North American Prospect Expo (NAPE) in Texas this week, Palin said that caribou that died as a result of oil pipeline expansions would have to “take one for the team.”

Crazy Republicans are useful idiots for the one percent

Washington Post writer Paul Waldman ruminates in a column today on the different standards the mainstream press uses when evaluating the damage caused by gaffes made by Republican and Democratic candidates. He notes correctly that Democrats are held to a higher gaffe threshold than Republicans, and a minor slip for a Democrat will induce howling indignation among the pundit class whereas Republicans can drop crazy bombs all day long and there isn’t a whisper in the MSM. The author concludes that the media has become so numbed by Republicans saying insane things they simply ignore the stupid. I have a slightly different take.

My feeling is that Republicans are generally spared harsh MSM critiques because they are the party of useful, pliable dupes who can be counted on to do the bidding of America’s corporate elite. Our media is owned by a small cabal of corporations who depend on Republicans (and some Democrats) to push their goals and policies while in office. They know that many Republican politicians are crazy, but why should they care, as long as the nut job they own supports deregulation and low corporate taxes?

So for the most part, Republicans can get away with calling Obama a socialist or saying that local sheriffs should arrest people trying to institute the Affordable Care Act without much reaction from the MSM. It’s not because the MSM has grown calloused to the right’s crazy rants, but because Republicans play an important role in helping corporate America get the policies it wants.