Friday Fun-- You Think We Have Dangerous Extremists In Congress Today? Meet John G. Schmitz (R-CA)

John G. Schmitz, formerly a Nazi congressman from Orange County

"I didn't care that Nixon went to China, I was only upset that he came back."
                     -Congressman John G. Schmitz (R-CA)

The above quote, given as an answer by Congress' then most extreme right member, to a question about President Nixon's 1972 trip to China, is the only time I recall ever agreeing with Schmitz about anything. You may not remember him but he was kind of the Paul Broun of his day-- only with some clout-- a fanatical leader of the John Birch Society and a deranged tool of the anti-communist plutocrats who felt they owned America. [In fact, I've embedded a video of the worst of that breed, Texas Republican oil man-- possibly the man who bankrolled the assassination of JFK-- H.L. Hunt, which typifies the spirit of the day in domestic right-wing circles and shows how just a little ahead of their time these dangerous sociopaths were-- the teabaggers of the mid-20th Century.]

We'll come back to the colorful Congressman Schmitz, who raised his family in a home owned by his idol, Joe McCarthy, in a moment. First let me ask you if you recall a school teacher in Washington state, a Mary Kay Letourneau, who was convicted of child rape for having a sexual relationship with one of her 12 year old students? It was a pretty notorious case. After serving 6 years in prison she married the kid-- by whom she had two babies in prison-- and took his name, Mary Kay Fualaau. Although she was born, in 1962, Mary Katherine Schmitz. Yeah, she was one of a large brood of children fathered by Congressman Schmitz in at least two simultaneous marriages, one with-- what else-- a teenage student of his while he taught at Santa Ana College. (Weird, yes, but he wasn't a Mormon; he was-- I kid you not-- a self-described "strict" Catholic.) Mary Katherine was a "strict" Catholic too but because she came from-- and ascribed to-- far right Republican values, she had no trouble reconciling that with her life as a "party animal," all through high school and college. She got knocked up in college and her parents forced her to marry the poor guy, who she says she never loved, Steve Letourneau. They had 4 children and he beat her frequently and eventually turned her over to the police for raping her then-13 year old student. Both she and Steve had extramarital affairs all during their "strict" Catholic marriage. Currently she and Fualaau host "Hot for Teacher Night" promotions at a Seattle night club-- Fualaau serving as the disc jockey and Letourneau as hostess.

Not to be overly judgmental, but her siblings-- the ones who can be tracked down-- turned out even worse. Two of them, John, Jr, and Joseph-- named for guess who-- have been Republican Party apparachiks for many years, although Joseph, who served in the German Navy (for old times sake, I guess) also worked for the far right mercenary firm Blackwater as a top executive, probably indicating that he's a war criminal. He also worked as a special assistant for Attorney General Edwin Meese III and as Inspector General for the Pentagon (until forced to resign for a pattern of extreme corruption that was exposed by Chuck Grassley) and for one of Washington's most notoriously shady lobbying operations, Patton Boggs. John, Jr worked as a deputy counsel for George H.W. Bush.

OK, another family values fanatic with the most fucked up family ever? First of all, you haven't heard the half-- and second of all... you haven't heard a half of the half. Remember I mentioned that Congressman Schmitz fathered two children with one of his college students, Carla Stuckle. (His legal wife, a right-wing TV commentator, Mary Schmitz, was widely known as the West Coast Phyllis Schlafly.") When the other woman died, Schmitz gave the kids to another German fascist-- crackpot astrologer Jeanne Dixon (born, like him, into a fascist home in Wisconsin)-- who had made a name for herself "predicting" JFK would be assassinated, although she traveled in the fascist circles of the people who were always talking about having him killed. She's also famous for being an advisor to both Nixon and Reagan and for writing a completely insane book on dog horoscopes. She died soon after taking the kids and both of them wound up in an orphanage, since their father (Congressman Schmitz) and his other family refused to have anything to do with them or give them a dime.

So, how crazy was Schmitz? How about this? A complete kiss-ass to wealthy Orange County wingnuts, he was a longtime national leader of the John Birch Society. His extremism was so off the cliff that they kicked him out of the organization! He ran against Nixon on the ticket of a domestic Nazi party, the American Independent Party, and got over a million votes, mostly in the same kinds of low information centers where Republicans still dominate, Idaho, rural Louisiana, Alaska, Utah...

A virulent racist his entire life, Schmitz was a Martin Luther King hater and once said, "I would have voted for a three-tier system-- have one school that the blacks could go to, one school that all the whites could go to, and those who want to mix go to a third school." He was also a bizarre anti-Semite at a time when Republicans were still very associated with Nazis. When Schmitz announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate, he had Yassir Arafat at his side, a way to rally deranged right-wingers at the time.

Before becoming a congressman-- and again after he was defeated in a Republican primary by another psychotic wingnut, Andrew Hinshaw, who eventually went to prison for accepting bribes-- Schmitz was a California state senator. He made a name for himself opposing sex education, ironic when you consider he was basically raping his happily uneducated teenage students. He saw Communists under every bed and accused anyone and everyone he ever disagreed with of being a Communist, including Nixon, who lived in his district. Nixon recruited and helped finance Hinshaw's successful run against him.

Back in the state Senate he became the poster-boy for the anti-Choice movement, which he managed to turn into an anti-Semitic and anti-gay crusade as well. His last campaign was an attempt to gain back his congressional seat in 1984. He ran against B-1 Bob Dornan, the only race Dornan ever ran where he was the more mainstream candidate. Schmitz came in third and got 11% of the primary vote. He fnally died in January, 2001, then a peddler of knickknacks to tourists in Washington, DC.

How, to put this all in context and to see how Schmitz's were the strands that have tied the modern Republican Party together, please watch this video by one of the financiers of the GOP and the rest of the American far right: