Obstructionism, Taken To The Extreme-- Who Were The Lunatic Fringe Members Of Congress Who Voted Against Police And Green Energy Education?

McClintock, determined to prove he's more extreme than anyone

You know when you're really so far out of the mainstream that you're way to the right of Michele Bachmann, Mean Jean Schmidt, Patrick McHenry and Virginia Foxx? When you can't even vote for a bill sponsored by Texas rightist Michael McCaul that uses the word "green" in it. Only half a dozen of the craziest kooks in the House voted against the Green Energy Education Act (which passed 411-6). You wondering if your own congresscritter just got exposed way down in the tar and muck at the bottom of the barrel? The lunatic fringe beyond the fringe:

Paul Broun (R-GA)
Jeff Flake (R-AZ)
Tom McClintock (R-CA)
Ron Paul (R-TX)
John Shadegg (R-AZ)
Don Young (R-AZ)

And yesterday, if that wasn't enough, 5 of those 6 extremist loons-- this one was too much even for Young-- were joined by almost half the Republicans in the house to vote against the COPS Improvements Act of 2009 which will help finance salaries for more police on the streets. It was a bipartisan measure with Democratic and Republican co-sponsors. All the Democrats plus 94 Republicans voted for it. But 78 Republicans, the ones who just do not believe in government under any circumstances, voted no. All the worst reactionaries were back together isolated in their extremism and sociopathic tendencies-- Bachmann, Ryan, Garrett, Lungren, Foxx, McHenry, Hensarling, Cantor, Rohrabacher, Blackburn, Pence, Dreier... Blunt, Fallin, Barrett (and these last 3 expect to be elected governors next year!).

This morning's CQPolitics is framing the way the Republican primaries are shaping up in that deeply red state as a national test of what direction the GOP wants to go in-- mainstream conservatism or a more aggressive Know Nothing/proto-fascist direction. A week ago we watched as lifelong right-winger, and candidate for governor, Rep. Gresham Barrett was mercilessly booed at a teabagger party for catering to the wrong half of the GOP coalition-- the banksters instead of the bigots, racists and dittoheads-- and for requesting earmarks for his district in the Stimulus legislation. "[I]n the GOP primaries, candidates who like any portion of Washington’s Democrat-led economic agenda risk being tarred as too liberal," even an arch-reactionary like Barrett. And candidates to the apparent right of Barrett-- a mighty narrow place to fill in the political firmament without running around in a white sheet with a pillowcase on your head-- "are asking voters to consider what brand of conservatism ought to be ascendant, and how much of a role government should play in their lives." And indeed, several of the lunatic fringe would be successors to Barrett have no trouble with stepping over that line.

In fact, two other right-wing congressmen-- Henry Brown and Bob Inglis-- are being viewed by the mob as "too mainstream," and both have attracted primary opponents from the far right. Inglis says he's excited about the "conversation" that's starting to heat up and says its one the whole nation is looking forward to-- although it appears he means by "the whole nation," the Confederate States of America. The rest of the country is looking on in horror while South Carolina extremists decide, in Inglis' words, "whether conservatism is the ideology of a small angry sect or whether it’s the governing philosophy of a majority of Americans.”

Inglis has drawn 2 opponents so far, a sandwich maker and a college professor who accuse him of collaborating with the Yankess Democrats. There are several more extremists about to jump into the race from the KKK end of the party.

In November Henry Brown was nearly tossed out of office by his constituents for a mainstream Democrat, Linda Ketner, 177,540 (52%) to 163,724 (48%), the closest call any South Carolina incumbent had. This time he'll face a primary challenge from "the Sarah Palin of South Carolina," Katherine Jenerette (who is also an ex-Miss South Carolina) and from the son of former Governor Carroll Campbell, lobbyist Carroll Campbell III, more opportunist trying to use the teabagger energy for career advancement than an actual fire-breathing Nazi. Ketner is likely to run again.