Not Your Father's Republican Party-- Meet Jody Hice, Who Wants A Bazooka In Every Home

John Birch Society stalwart and former drug addict Paul Broun has widely been considered Congress' most extreme Member. He ran in the May Georgia Republican primary for the open U.S. Senate nomination and lost miserably, failing to even crack 10%. But in his own north central Georgia district, GA-10-- stretching from just east of Atlanta to just west of August and from Athens in the north and Milledgeville in the south-- he's pretty popular. The Democrats didn't bother running anyone against him in 2012. The district has a PVI of R+14 and Obama only managed 36%. When Broun last faced a Democrat, Russell Edwards, in 2010, he beat him 137,262 (67%) to 66,574 (33%)-- despite the fact that Edwards beat Broun in the district's biggest county, Clarke, 63-37%. Broun won every other county. His endorsement of Hated Talk Radio host and wigged out Baptist preacher Jody Hice as his House successor, over Establishment Republican Mike Collins, helped Hice win the race on Tuesday.

Presuming Hice wins in November, he will enter Congress as the craziest and most extreme Member, and most observers have remarked that he almost makes lunatics like Broun and Michele Bachmann, both of whom are retiring, look vaguely conventional. The only outside spending in the primary were from 2 gun-nut/domestic terrorism groups who find the NRA "too liberal," Gun Owners of America (who hasn't run ads for anyone in the country but Hice) and the National Association for Gun Rights (whose only other race this cycle was opposing Thad Cochran and supporting Chris McDaniel in Mississippi). Why are the gun worshippers so wild about Hice? Watch the clip up top from his crackpot radio show. "It is my belief that any, any, any, any weapon that our government and law enforcement possesses ought to be allowed for individuals to possess in this country, provided they can afford it." He goes on the explain why people should have cannons and bazookas and missiles. Really. He just got 54% of the vote against a former congressman's son-- not despite his views but because of them. It was a low turnout runoff primary and the nuts came out in force. That's what happens.

With the Republicans still hoping to change their image before the midterms in order to appeal to a broader swath of the population, Hice is having none of it. He regularly lambasts the LGBT community and Muslim-Americans and he insists that gals who want to run for office get permission from their husbands. I suppose if they're not married, they could get permission from a father, brother, uncle or son. And if you don't think there are Republican women in Congress who wouldn't agree with him, you've never come across Virginia Foxx (NC), Diane Black (TN), Marsha Blackburn (TN), Susan Brooks (IN) and Martha Roby (AL).

The Democrat in the race, Ken Dious, has virtually no support and the DCCC is studiously ignoring the race, not lifting a finger to keep this lunatic and sociopath out of Congress. Right Wing Watch has been doing a great job keeping an eye on Hice and making sure that when he tried to make some of his craziest rants disappear-- so independent and plain vanilla conservatives in Georgia wouldn't realize what they are being asked to vote for-- the archives would still exist. A lot of it is about his deranged, hysterical hatred for gay men and women but I kind of took a fancy to the baying at the moon clip:



"God is a God of war and he is not playing hide and seek. He has spoken. He has made himself known. It's very difficult for me to look at something like this [blood moons] occurring on Jewish holidays in two consecutive years that it just seems wise to take notice." This freak is probably going to be a Member of the United States Congress. I hope he brings a bazooka or a missile to a Republican caucus meeting on the first blood moon of his term.

Will The Republican War On Science Lead To A Paul Broun Victory In Georgia?

Friday, Alan Grayson endorsed particle physicist George Gollin for Congress from Illinois' 13th congressional district. He began his endorsement with a simple statement you can hear all too often from the more educated members of Congress-- Grayson has three graduate degrees from Harvard: "I’m really getting tired of listening to people who don’t know what they’re talking about. One of the dirty little secrets of Congress is that many of us legislate in areas in which we are utterly bereft of knowledge. If ignorance is bliss, then some of our Members must be deliriously happy." He says it's why he decided to back Gollin.

George Gollin is a physicist. In the 70s, he worked on muon scattering, to test quantum chromodynamics theory. (I’m not making this up.) In the 80s, he studied neutral K meson decay, to test for CP violation. (I swear that this is true.) In the 90s, he measured the production and decay properties of heavy quarks. (I kid you not.) Since then, he has specialized in the design and construction of electron-positron colliding beam facilities. (This is indeed bona fide.)

…I serve on the House Science and Technology Committee. It is bleak, really bleak. A few months ago, one of our Members on the Committee said that evolution is “a lie straight from the pit of hell.” Most of the Members are climate change deniers. I keep encouraging them to transfer from the House Science Committee to the House Religion Committee, and follow their true calling. (There is no House Religion Committee, but their eyes light up anyway, when I tell them that.)

I just finishing up, Predisposed a book by 3 academics, John Hibbing, Kevin Smith and John Alford, about how genetics plays into political affinities. They refer to the very well-known Science Magazine article from 2006 by Jon Miller, Eugenie Scott and Shinji Okamoto, Public Acceptance of Evolution which begins, ominously with a warning: "The acceptance of evolution is lower in the United States than in Japan or Europe, largely because of widespread fundamentalism and the politicization of science in the United States." The chart below comes from that study. From Predisposed:

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? "Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals." Actual responses taken from polls conducted in 34 countries between 2001 and 2005 make for a fascinating comparison of attitudes toward evolution. There is little controversy in the most developed countries included in the survey. For example, in Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, France, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Norway, between 80 and 90 percent of the population agrees that "humans developed from earlier species." On the other hand, in countries with lower levels of development and education agreement sometimes dips below fifty percent. The five countries on the low end of the "support evolution" spectrum include Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus, and Turkey, the Turks being the most skeptical: Only 23 percent of them agree with the statement.

What is the country rounding out the bottom five, a country that ranked just above Turkey in its skepticism of evolution? Astonishingly, it is arguably the most educated and economically developed country ion the planet. It is acknowledged as the world leader in scientific accomplishments, it spearheaded the development of nuclear power, is the only country to put people (12 of them) on a celestial body, and boasts 338 Nobel laureates (nearly three times as many as the country with the next most-- the United Kingdom), and year after year attracts undergraduate students from all over the world to study biology and medicine at its world-leading universities. Yet only 40 percent of the citizens of the United States believe humans developed from earlier animals. Significant portions of the remaining 60 percent are convinced that humans burst on the scene in their current form, shape, and size, approximately 6,000 years ago and have not changed since. Any way you slice the numbers, a good chunk of Americans simply do not believe the most basic and rudimentary tenet of modern biological science: the evolution of species.

The situation might be slightly more excusable if Americans actually knew what they are rejecting. Yet the denial of evolution is accompanied by a remarkable level of ignorance concerning evolution's basic principles. Maybe some of this ignorance can be traced to the difficulty K-12 biology teachers and students have concentrating on the topic because of all the screaming from people who believe The Flintstones is an animated documentary series.

When Grayson wrote that he encourages his science denying Science Committee colleagues to "transfer from the House Science Committee to the House Religion Committee, and follow their true calling." He's only half joking. Presumably you've watched Georgia Congressman Paul Broun-- the current frontrunner among Republicans for their party's Senate nomination-- talking about his views on science. This is a congressman, an opinion leader, a respected Georgian, a "doctor" and a member of the House Science Committee. Watch:



And it isn't only Paul Broun. Most Republican Members of Congress believe exactly the exact same thing-- or, at the very least, pretend to. And although he's classified as a "conservative Democrat," Arkansas' senior senator, Mark Pryor, can't even fall back on Republican orthodoxy to excuse his idiocy. This is the senator who will fight with his dying breath to protect the ability of the Walton family to exploit working families in his state-- and to make sure you never have to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate:

A Case For Electing An Expert-- Instead Of An Airbag… Meet Lee Rogers

The DCCC claims they're recruiting "problem solvers" as candidates this cycle. That's a nice phrase with a focus group-tested appeal but, alas, it isn't true. Unlike Steve Israel, however, Alan Grayson has been helping candidates who actually know something. "One of the dirty little secrets of Congress is that many of us legislate in areas in which we are utterly bereft of knowledge. If ignorance is bliss, then some of our Members must be deliriously happy… Seriously," he wrote recently, "we have Members on the Agriculture Committee who couldn’t tell a plow from a harvester. We have Members on the Science Committee who couldn’t tell a proton from a photon. We have Members on the Foreign Affairs Committee who couldn’t locate Indonesia on a globe if their lives were at stake. And we have Members on the Intelligence Committee who are as dumb as…"

As you know, both Rep. Grayson and Blue America are backing Lee Rogers' campaign in CA-25 (Santa Clarita, Simi Valley and the Antelope Valley), the district Buck McKeon is abandoning this year. Last week, while endorsing Rogers, Grayson mentioned that "I respect Lee Rogers, because he is the doctor who founded and directed the Amputation Prevention Center, and reduced amputations by 72%… I know that we need a progressive doctor like Lee Rogers in Congress, to help… counter the demented ravings of Drs. Paul Broun (R-Paleolithic), Scott DesJarlais (R-Patient Dating), Michael Burgess (R-Fetal Wanking) and Larry Bucshon (R-Guns)." And Grayson is hardly the only person to have noticed that Rogers is an expert in the field of public health policy. As a national spokesperson for the American Diabetes Association, Grayson had worked with other surgeons how to prevent amputations due to diabetes, especially among vulnerable American populations. And he has brought his expertise to countries all over the world, not just Canada and Mexico but also to France, Japan, Russia, Jamaica and, last week, Saudi Arabia where he worked with hospital directors and physicians from all over the Middle East on diabetes-related health issues. The five countries in the world with the highest incidences of diabetes are Saudi Arabia (24%), Kuwait (23%), Qatar (19%), the United Arab Emirates (19%) and Egypt (17%).

Yesterday, Rogers told us that "In Saudi Arabia, there are several cultural reasons for their health problems. For example, since women are covered when outside except for their eyes and hands, they get minimal sunlight which is responsible for converting Vitamin D in the skin. This leads to a high incidence of osteoporosis. Also, Saudi Arabia has a 25% incidence of diabetes, the highest in the world. It is a result of easy access to calories, since they are a wealthy nation, but minimal physical activity. Only 3% of women work outside the home and neither it isn't culturally appropriate of either gender to wear sports clothing, so they don't exercise… I'm hopeful that my advice can help experts in Saudi Arabia to come up with strategies to prevent diabetes and treat complications to avoid amputations."

His trips abroad, of course, are as a private citizen and the help he is giving physicians, whether in Mexico, France or the Middle East is a matter of "medical diplomacy," not government diplomacy. But having a public health expert in Congress-- someone who warned about the shortcomings of the Affordable Care Act while the bill was being debated-- is a necessary part of perfecting a flawed piece of legislation.

"I firmly believe that diplomacy, and especially 'medical diplomacy' is the key to ensuring a safer United States for our children’s future. I’m honored to share my expertise with the great people in Saudi Arabia, just as I welcome the opportunity to serve the constituents in the 25th Congressional district as they face economic and healthcare challenges of their own… People in Saudi Arabia suffer from one of the highest rates of diabetes in the world. About 25 percent of Saudis have diabetes. Due to the traditional footwear, ulcers, infections and gangrene are common, leading to amputation. Saudi Arabia is a key US ally, and I’m happy to provide what I can as a doctor and a teacher to help them curb the rate of diabetes and the complications that result."

 While in Jeddah, he spoke to a group of vascular surgeons from around Saudi Arabia and toured the King Abdullahaziz University Hospital and Medical School. He went on ward rounds to see patients and met with doctors and medical students. I hope he is as able to communicate a scientific approach as easily to future colleagues of the House Science and Technology Committee, like Dr. Paul Broun, who has a unique way of looking at science:

We On The Grind In... Georgia

In Georgia, they want Medicare expansion and they want to keep their crazy anti-healthcare Governor. Maybe they listen to too much Hate Talk Radio and watch too much Fox News and have wound up with addled brains, but an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll released today yields a portrait of one very confused electorate. Let's start with this interesting finding among Peach State respondents: 57% of them favor Medicaid expansion. OK, that makes sense and is pretty much in line with what voters in other red states without Medicare expansion want. But the guy who's preventing Medicare expansion-- and keeping 450,000 from getting healthcare-- in their state, right-wing Governor Nathan Deal, has a healthy 54% job approval rating going into his reelection campaign. The poll shows him leading Democrat Jason Carter 47-38% in a head-to-head matchup (although Carter leads in metro-Atlanta and it's basically the really backward parts of the state where Deal piles up his big margins).

The poll shows that the Senate race to replace retiring Saxby Chambliss is also a hodgepodge that defies reason. Anti-Choice extremist Karen Handel seems to be the frontrunner among the Republicans… maybe-- and depending how you look at the numbers. OK, so, keeping in mind, there are no Republican candidates that are objectively better than any of the others and that any of them would go immediately to the bottom of the senatorial barrel, let's look at this hot mess. The 3 percentages are favorable/unfavoranble/never heard of

• Karen Handel- 39/24/21
• David Perdue- 35/20/27
• Michelle Nunn (D)- 31/18/33
• Paul Broun- 31/21/29
• Phil Gingrey- 31/26/26
• Jack Kingston- 30/19/32

I included Michelle Nunn's numbers in that little chart as well, but the primary is May 20 (with a July 22 runoff) and the Republicans still have plenty of time to bash each other up but good before then. Broun, a John Bircher and former drug addict, has been endorsed by Ron Paul and the dangerous radical right Gun Owners of America. David Perdue has been endorsed by his cousin, Sonny, a former Georgia governor. And Handel has been endorsed by Vivien Scott and Betty Price, whose husbands are crazed right-wing congressmen Austin Scott and Tom Price.

Before today's poll, a PPP survey in August showed Gingrey ahead with 25%, followed by Broun with 19%, Kingston with 15%, Handel with 13% and Perdue with 5%. That same poll also showed Nunn beating Broun 41-36%, beating Handel 40-38%, beating Kingston 40-38%, tying Gingrey 41-41%, and tying Perdue 40-40%. At the time, Tom Jensen wrote that PPP's first poll showed the race was competitive and PPP President Dean Debnam said "The Georgia Senate race starts out as a toss up. None of the Republican candidates are particularly well known or well liked to begin the race. Meanwhile the Nunn name still carries a lot of weight with voters in the state."

Since then Gingrey, Broun and Kingston has made repeated missteps and shocked people with their extremism and obvious lack of qualifications for the job. Just this week, for example, Kingston, who had insisted school children from poor families be put to work because "there is no such thing as free lunch," was exposed for taking thousands of dollars for his own free lunches… and dinners from lobbyists and other trying to bribe him to vote for their own special interests, something Kingston is notorious for in Washingtion.

As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, Kingston has traveled to four continents, racking up $24,313 in per diem allowances. While the allowances were allotted for more than just lunch money, midday meals were included.

…Beyond taxpayer dollars, Kingston has enjoyed many free meals on the campaign trail. WSAV 3 reported $145,391.26 in expensed meals and catering for campaign events, $26,066.45 of which was charged at the Republican Club of Capitol Hill, an exclusive, members only venue.

"Isn't this a free lunch?" a WSAV 3 reporter asked Kingston.

"This is what we need in America," Kingston responded. "We need workfare over welfare. I learned a lot when I was 14 and 15 years old doing chores inside and outside the household and as a result i grew up with a good work ethic. ... It's hard in today's society to have a discussion where you want to challenge the status quo because of the 'I gotcha' politics."

It's going to be a long campaign. And to put it in a little context, let me go back to the healthcare reform that 57% of Georgia voters seem to say they want-- albeit while voting for political leaders who solemnly swear to prevent them from having it. According to a report from the House Ways and Means Committee, repealing the Affordable Care Act-- which all the Georgia Republicans advocate-- would be a catastrophe for the state's residents. Thanks, the report asserts, to the Affordable Care Act, in Georgia:

• 2,202,000 individuals on private insurance have gained coverage for at least one free preventive health care 
service such as a mammogram, birth control, or an immunization in 2011 and 2012. In the first eleven months of 2013 alone, an additional 728,900 people with Medicare have received at least one preventive service at no out of pocket cost.

• The up to 4,324,000 individuals with pre-existing conditions such as asthma, cancer, or diabetes-- including up to 613,000 children-- will no longer have to worry about being denied coverage or charged higher prices because of their health status or history.

• Approximately 2,036,000 Georgians have gained expanded mental health and substance use disorder benefits and/or federal parity protections.

• 1,699,000 uninsured Georgians will have new health insurance options through Medicaid or private health plans in the Marketplace.

• As a result of new policies that make sure premium dollars work for the consumer, not just the insurer, in the past year insurance companies have sent rebates averaging $82 per family to approximately 247,900 consumers.

• In the first ten months of 2013, 94,400 seniors and people with disabilities have saved on average $875 on prescription medications as the health care law closes Medicare’s so-called “donut hole.”

• 123,000 young adults have gained health insurance because they can now stay on their parents’ health plans until age 26.

• Individuals no longer have to worry about having their health benefits cut off after they reach a lifetime limit on benefits, and starting in January, 3,317,000 Georgians will no longer have to worry about annual limits, either.

• Health centers have received $102,945,000 to provide primary care, establish new sites, and renovate existing centers to expand access to quality health care. Georgia has approximately 175 health center sites, which served about 321,000 individuals in 2012.

Right Wing Revolution Eating Its Children-- And Parents… GOP Needs A Time Out

It's nothing new to hear progressives bloggers-- particularly this one-- try to persuade donors, and even Members of Congress, to defund the DCCC, particularly while Steve Israel is recruiting fellow corrupt conservatives to serve in the interests of Big Business and undercut ordinary working families. The Democratic Establishment, Beltway "professional Democrats," don't care for us either. You might have caught Wall Street whore Chuck Schumer's hissy fit about liberal bloggers the other day. He was bitching to Isaac Chotiner about how misunderstood his Wall Street financiers are: "You don’t want to go after them for the sake of going after them. The left-wing blogs want you to be completely and always anti–Wall Street. It’s not the right way to be." Chotiner asked him if he thought the left-wing blogs are as bad as the Tea Party. He probably thinks the left-wing is even worse. What he said though was "Left-wing blogs are the mirror image. They just have less credibility and less clout." Wow less credibility than the Tea Party… at least in Schumerland-- the exact same creepy, self-obsessed guy I remember from high school in Brooklyn.

I had to laugh yesterday when I saw a report that one of the tea baggy operations, DeMint's old Senate Conservatives Fund, was calling on Republicans to defund the NRSC, as corrupt a mainstay but of the stinking Beltway Establishment as the DCCC is.

The Senate Conservatives Fund said Friday that its supporters say Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) need to be replaced and the National Republican Senatorial Committtee (NRSC) needs to be defunded.

In an email to supporters, Senate Conservatives Fund executive director Matt Hoskins said that results of a new poll show that the group's supporters want Graham, Alexander and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to be replaced.

…Hoskins also wrote in the email on Friday that a majority of supporters want Senate Republicans' campaign arm to be defunded: "On the question of whether the grassroots should stop donating to the NRSC because of its bias against conservative candidates, 86% said the NRSC should be defunded, 5% said it should not, and 9% were unsure."

Having missed Jacques Mallet du Pan's tragic adage from the French Revolution, "la révolution dévore ses enfants," the GOP, in the midst of a deadly civil war, is doing just that. Georgia crackpot Paul Broun-- in the ad above-- claims he's a doctor but neglects to say he was a severely strung out drug addict while he was going door to door soliciting patients. He's running for senator and making it clear that he's far to the right of all the other extreme right-wing candidates, especially of Jack Kingston. And he's scared Kingston so badly that he's running far off into right field as well.

And after some right-wing heroes praised Nelson Mandela-- who conservative mouth-breathers had always been taught to despise-- the National Review website comments section exploded into an orgy of hatred and insane bigotry. Ted Cruz, the gold standard for a deranged neo-fascist, who was just the other day wishing aloud that there were 100 Jesse Helms in Congress, said he mourns the loss of Nelson Mandela and said he "will live in history as an inspiration for defenders of liberty around the globe. He stood firm for decades on the principle that until all South Africans enjoyed equal liberties he would not leave prison himself, declaring in his autobiography, ‘Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.’ Because of his epic fight against injustice, an entire nation is now free." Cruz's Facebook page went bonkers and so did the neanderthals who comment at National Review.

One GOP lunatic fired the first salvo: "Yes, you can tell that to the civilians who never harmed anyone, many of them well under 18, whose murder Mandela sanctioned via one of his goons. Mandela should have known better as forcible confiscation of land had such bloody consequences in the past, and the idea that anyone could associate with a communist party in the aftermath of what was known in the mid 20th century and still be considered an ethical person is unfathomable. Mandela also praised Mugabee after he knew that Mugabee had tortured and killed well beyond anything done by any colonial government. The track record of post colonial governments has been violence and brutality well in excess of the proportion allotted to their predecessors. South Africa is the last chapter in a very sad saga. He is nothing like a hero in the way that Solzhenitsyn is, someone who suffered and endured just as much and who did not resort to such things, though he could have and someone who's death, because he stood up to their moral and political nonsense, the left largely ignored."

Last I looked there were 410 comments, mostly from people in bad need of professional psychiatric help who seem to think Ted Cruz isn't right-wing enough. I hope some of them caught President Obama this morning though and listened with open minds and open hearts as he urged Congress not to leave for their vacations before extending unemployment insurance for 1.3 million workers who lost their jobs because of the ideologically-driven GOP economic agenda in the Bush years.

Our top priority as a country should be restoring opportunity and broad-based economic growth for all Americans. And yesterday, we learned that our businesses created about 200,000 jobs in the month of November. That’s more than 8 million new jobs in the last 45 months. And the unemployment rate fell to its lowest level in five years.

But we need to do everything we can to help businesses create more good jobs that pay good wages even faster. Because the hole that we’re still digging out of means that there are still millions of Americans looking for work-- often because they’ve been laid off through no fault of their own.

We also have to look out for the Americans working hard to get those jobs. That’s why, as a country, we offer temporary unemployment insurance-- so that job-seekers don’t fall into poverty, and so that when they get that job, they bounce back more quickly.

For many families, it can be the difference between hardship and catastrophe. It makes a difference for a mother who suddenly doesn’t know if she’ll be able to put food on the table for her kids. It makes a difference for a father who lost his job and is looking for a new one. Last year alone, it lifted 2.5 million people out of poverty, and cushioned the blow for many more.

But here’s the thing: if Members of Congress don’t act before they leave on their vacations, 1.3 million Americans will lose this lifeline. These are people we know. They’re our friends and neighbors; they sit next to us in church and volunteer in our communities; their kids play with our kids. And they include 20,000 veterans who’ve served this country with honor.

If Congress refuses to act, it won’t just hurt families already struggling-- it will actually harm our economy. Unemployment insurance is one of the most effective ways there is to boost our economy. When people have money to spend on basic necessities, that means more customers for our businesses and, ultimately, more jobs. And the evidence shows that unemployment insurance doesn’t stop people from trying hard to find work.

Just this week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted that allowing benefits to expire will be a drag on our economic growth next year. A report by the Department of Labor and my Council of Economic Advisors estimated that it could cost businesses 240,000 jobs. And without the ability to feed their families or pay the bills, many people currently looking for work could stop looking for good.

So extending unemployment insurance isn’t just the right thing to do for our families-- it’s the smart thing to do for our economy. And it shouldn’t be a partisan issue. For decades, Congress has voted to offer relief to job-seekers-- including when the unemployment rate was lower than it is today.

But now that economic lifeline is in jeopardy. All because Republicans in this Congress-- which is on track to be the most unproductive in history-- have so far refused to extend it. So this holiday season, let’s give our fellow Americans who are desperately looking for work the help they need to keep on looking. Let’s make it easier for businesses to attract more customers, and our economy to grow. And together, let’s keep doing everything we can to make this country a place where anyone who works hard has a chance to get ahead.

Republican Civil War: Big Business Intends To Teach Grassroots Activists Who's In Charge

Monday morning, the Washington Post noted that the big money GOP Establishment groups, particularly the Chamber of Commerce and Rove's Crossroads have not opened the financial spigots for the Republican Party to the extent they have in the recent past, "spending dramatically less to help the party ahead of the 2014 congressional elections." And specifically, they are not underwriting extremists and Tea Party candidates. This is a godsend for red state Democratic senators and Senate candidates, especially in states like Louisiana, Arkansas, Michigan, Iowa and South Dakota.

At this point two years ago, the fight for the Senate was in full swing. Pro-GOP groups had spent $11.4 million on 2012 Senate races, twice as much as their Democratic rivals.

But as of last week, pro-Republican groups had spent just $4.8 million on television advertising. None of that money was spent in Iowa, one of a half-dozen states where Democratic retirements have given the GOP hope it hasn’t had in decades.

Much of that spending was in Kentucky where the Senate’s most powerful Republican, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, is fighting challenges from the right and left.

Democratic-leaning groups had spent $3.3 million.

“Unlike previous cycles, we won’t be sending good money after substandard candidates with weak campaigns,” said Jonathan Collegio, a spokesman for the conservative super political action committee American Crossroads.

A year later, the ghosts of high-profile Senate losses, including Missouri, still linger.

By the end of 2011, pro-Republican outside groups, led by American Crossroads and its sister Crossroads GPS, spent more than $1.8 million against Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri. By Election Day, they had spent more than $11.5 million against her.

Along the way, then-U.S. Rep. Todd Akin emerged from a three-way primary, only to implode in August after suggesting publicly that female victims of “a legitimate rape” have the biological capacity to prevent pregnancy.

The party also suffered losses in Republican strongholds of North Dakota and Indiana.

…[E]stablishment-minded groups such as Crossroads have been slow to act, and their absence has caught the tea party’s attention. It’s using the vacuum to strengthen its influence while recruiting like-minded candidates.

“Establishment donors are unhappy. They spent a lot of money and didn’t do well,” said Sal Russo, the Tea Party Express political director.

“We’ve been busy,” he added, noting that his organization has interviewed more than 60 candidates this year across 17 states.

The tug of war between such groups isn’t helping Republicans unify around strong candidates.

Iowa’s Senate contest should be a promising pickup opportunity for Republicans. But some candidates in the crowded field have little proven campaign experience.

Outside spending can be helpful but doesn’t always mean success.

Americans for Prosperity, a group backed by the conservative billionaire Koch brothers, saturated Iowa mailboxes and telephone lines recently to support conservative city council candidates. But they all lost.

Did you catch that phrase from the Rove operative above, "we won’t be sending good money after substandard candidates with weak campaigns?" He who decides which candidate is substandard and which isn't, wields considerable power. The GOP Establishment like to point how teabaggers dragged the GOP to ruin with "substandard candidates" (i.e.- teabaggers) in Missouri (Akin) and Indiana (Mourdock) Senate races. But teabaggers are just as eager to point out that it was Big Business who ruined GOP chances with "substandard candidates" backed heavily by Rove in Wisconsin (Thompson), Montana (Rehberg) and North Dakota (Berg). I'm not sure which side gets the most blame for Ohio, where Sherrod Brown whipped a candidate who is clearly substandard by anyone's measure, Josh Mandel, 51-45%. And next up, someone has to deal with is John Birch extremist and former drug addict Paul Broun in Georgia. Republicans are petrified he can win the primary and lose the general election-- yes, in Georgia. "GOP leaders are vowing to step in. And they're not only training their sights on Georgia. Just as Akin wasn't the only ham-handed GOP nominee-- think Richard Mourdock in Indiana and Christine O'Donnell in Delaware-- Republicans nationwide are on a search-and-destroy mission for candidates they fear could embarrass the party. Party operatives describe the looming battle as an effort that will look less like an all-out assault and more like a series of stealthy precision strikes, because everyone involved acknowledges that any attempt to meddle in a GOP primary is fraught with risk. Rank-and-file conservatives, the kind who pick primary winners, don't like being told what to do."

Democrats can't laugh, of course. Their own election committees, the DSCC and DCCC make the same kind of judgements and those judgments are only as good as the leaders making them. In the case of the DCCC that was catastrophic in 2012 and is proving even worse in the 2014 cycle, where corrupt conservative Steve Israel has adamantly refused to learn any lessons at all from his catastrophic performance in 2012. On the Senate side, Patty Murray did an incredible, even mind boggling job in 2012 but this year the DSCC has the worst leadership in recent memory (Michael Bennet, a fool who allows the staff to walk all over him) and he is already signaling that he's ready to give up on winnable races in South Dakota and Maine. Israel uses the "substandard candidate" description to protect his GOP cronies in blue-leaning districts from grassroots progressives who don't meet his own ideological and extraordinarily low ethical standards.

Georgia And U.K. Conservatives Have Something In Common- Demographic Shifts They Can't Adjust To

According to The Hill, Georgia Republicans are starting to panic that their party's demented and ill-informed base will saddle the party with "a flawed candidate" (meaning almost any of the crazy contenders) and allow Democrat Michelle Nunn to win the open seat.

Recent polling shows the two candidates Republicans are most anxious about-- Reps. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) and Paul Broun (R-Ga.)-- leading the pack. Whoever emerges from the clown-car primary, with seven candidates and counting, will face a candidate Democrats are high on in a state where shifting demographics benefit their party... Those are the two that worry Republicans the most as potential problems going into the general election,” said Georgia Republican strategist Joel McElhannon, who’s neutral in the race.

...Eric Tanenblatt, a Georgia strategist who advised and was national finance co-chair for Governor Mitt Romney’s 2012 Presidential campaign, says he’s worried the candidates haven’t acknowledged the state’s shifting demographics. Georgia has fast-growing African-American and Hispanic populations and a large number of younger voters moving in from across the country.

“Georgia is changing, and the further you go to the right in the primary, the more difficult that becomes in the general,” he says. “If we're not careful we could create an unfortunate situation for ourselves.”

Funny... Conservatives in the U.K. are running into the same problem. Who would have guessed that the targets of racism would react decisively at the polls!

Of course Conservatives in England don't have the history of violent and brutal racist aggression that conservatives in Georgia have. But they have a big problem that has increased as black and Asian voters have become a bigger part of the electorate. Similar demographic shifts in the U.K. and Georgia are threatening to destroy conservative/Conservative election prospects.

A study by the cross-party group Operation Black Vote (OBV) found the number of seats where black and Asian voters could decide the outcome had rocketed by 70% compared with the 2010 election.

The study suggests that in 168 marginal seats, the ethnic minority vote is bigger than the majority of the sitting MP. The seats extend beyond inner-city areas to include places such as Southampton, Oxford, Sherwood, Ipswich and Northampton.

The findings will be of particular concern to the Tories, who have acknowledged that they are struggling to capture the ethnic minority vote. The party secured only 16% of the minority vote at the last election, compared with 68% for Labour. Experts say the trend will continue and may change the dynamics of British politics.

...According to one new estimate, the change in Britain's ethnic makeup may already be enough to cost David Cameron the next election. The Conservatives' race deficit will cost them between 20 and 40 seats in 2015, according to calculations by Prof Anthony Heath, of Oxford University, who has studied ethnic demographic changes and their effects on elections.

In 2010, Labour polled its second worst result ever, but the party still thrashed the Tories in the ethnic minority vote, where its 68% to 16% win contrasted with the Tories' overall 36%-29% victory. Operation Black Vote estimates that the BME vote was bigger than the sitting MP's majority in the 2010 election in 99 seats, but those figures are based on the 2001 census, so probably underestimate the impact.

The Tories fell short of a majority by 20 seats. Heath, in estimates for a forthcoming book, says 10 of those were down to their race problem. "Minority voters can be won away from Labour, but only if you make active efforts, including addressing their concerns. There is little sign of long-term erosion from Labour," he said.

Tory insiders acknowledge that they have recently introduced eye-catching measures in areas with high immigrant populations-- including adverts telling illegal immigrants to go home-- as they try to hold on to white working-class and lower middle-class voters who are moving to Ukip. But these measures tend to play badly with ethnic minority voters.

Nadhim Zahawi, the Tory MP for Stratford-on-Avon, who has called for an amnesty for illegal immigrants, said the findings should lead to a redoubling of efforts to attract black and Asian voters. "These numbers are significant. The ethnic minority vote is going to be important. The party is in the midst of a debate and it is an issue which is now being taken seriously," he said.

Besides growing in numbers, minorities are moving out of inner cities into more marginal seats. This double whammy will increase their electoral importance in 2015 and is expected to feature even more prominently in future elections.

...Privately, leading Tory figures fear their chances of victory will be hampered unless they improve their insipid appeal to ethnic minority voters. Figures such as Lord Ashcroft, the former deputy chairman and treasurer, fear the party has a race problem, and he has commissioned polling that demonstrated this.

In the 2012 US election the defeat of the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, was blamed in part on a failure to connect with a growing ethnic minority vote.

Labour's efforts to secure and increase its huge ethnic minority lead are being led by Sadiq Khan, the MP who ran Ed Milliband's leadership campaign.

Khan said: "The DNA of politics needs to change in the light of this research." He added: "This research shows how important the ethnic minority electorate is going to be in future general elections. Any party that seriously wants to win needs to take the ethnic minorities with them."

Labour cannot count on continuing to dominate the ethnic minority vote, warned Khan, who expects the Tories to try to compete harder. He pointed to the Bradford byelection, where Muslim voters turned their backs on Labour and cost the party the seat as they backed George Galloway's Respect party. "We can't take ethnic minority votes for granted," he said.

If the Conservatives fail to win an outright majority in 2015 it will mean their last such majority was almost a quarter of a century ago, under John Major in 1992. Heath said: "The Conservatives may need to adjust their appeal in the same way Labour created New Labour to deal with the decline in the working class [vote]."

And that's exactly what the UKIP fascists are hoping for-- an exodus of angry white wing-nuts from the Conservatives to the more extremist right. So far, that's what has been happening across a wide array of issues as Cameron has moved the Conservatives more into the mainstream center. Georgia Republicans have no worries about anyone trying to move their party towards the mainstream, not for a very, very long time and a lot of lost elections.

It's Almost As Though The Georgia GOP Has Figured Out A Way To Elect Michelle Nunn To The Senate

Sam Nunn (L), Michelle Nunn (R)

Virginia Republicans who weren't paying close enough attention are still wondering how their party got saddled with such radical extremists at the top of their ticket. Neo-fascist Ken Cuccinelli and certifiably insane sociopath E.W. Jackson are not going to attract any of the independent swing voters Virginia Republicans need to win statewide, not even against a Democratic candidate as patently unattractive as Terry McAuliffe. But there was no primary. The Cooch manipulated the system so that a nominating convention, dominated by extremists and radical ideologues, would determine who the candidates were. That was a disaster for Virginia Republicans-- and some Georgia Republicans would like to follow suit.

With Michelle Nunn looking more likely to run for the open Senate seat-- and looking like she could beat any of the extremists, especially Handel or Broun, the far right of the Georgia GOP is doing exactly what Nunn's advisors were hoping they'd do: follow Virginia down the yellow brick road... to electoral oblivion. The far right activists are petrified that Rove and other "pragmatists" are trying to manipulate the process in favor of someone who could win a general election.

Georgia Republicans are weighing an election shift that could reshape the state’s political landscape by giving grass-roots activists tremendous new clout in picking the party’s nominee.

State GOP leaders plan to vote Saturday whether to take a first step away from the summer primaries that elect the party’s nominee and toward allowing a convention of party insiders to choose the candidate for statewide and national office. Consider it an audition for a more sweeping electoral change.

Not surprisingly, some elected Republican leaders and assorted power brokers are wary of an overhaul they fear could disenfranchise the roughly 700,000 people who vote in party primaries and cede power to a smaller group of activists.

But supporters say the change is needed to offset what the resolution calls the “power of Big Money and Big Media” and give more say to the activists who feel they’ve been ignored during the GOP’s ascendancy.

“This is an effort to try to remove money from the nominating contest, and some who aren’t in support of it are the ones who enjoy the privilege to dictate who will be our nominee through their money,” said Dale Jackson, a LaGrange businessman who chairs the state GOP’s 3rd district.

“Right now there are a very few people who are participating, and those are the people who can afford to spend hundreds if not millions of dollars to influence who wins the nomination.”

The pitch comes at a pivotal moment for Georgia Republicans. Gov. Nathan Deal and other leaders routinely acknowledge the party needs to broaden its message or risk facing a resurgent Democratic Party emboldened by a growing minority population. And the heated competition for an open U.S. Senate spot triggered a race to the right that some fear could give Democrats a better chance at seizing the seat.

...The party’s establishment wing hasn’t been keen on the idea, and some point to Virginia as a prime example why. Virginia’s Republicans selected E.W. Jackson, a little-known minister and attorney, as their candidate for lieutenant governor despite controversial comments about gays and abortion that could haunt him during the general election.

“I’m not sure less democracy is the solution, at this point in our history, to whatever ills or frustrations are out there,” House Speaker David Ralston said this week. “I can’t support that and I don’t support it. I re-read the resolution this morning and I’m not sure what the rationale for it might be.”

Brant Frost V, the Coweta County GOP chairman who brought the resolution, said his reasoning is simple: The grass-roots base that powered the GOP for generations during its political exile has been “discriminated against” as the party came to power in the past decade. Enough members of the party’s 16-member resolution committee agreed, setting up Saturday’s vote.

“We’ve seen the cost of a primary spiral out of control, and that means you’re excluding candidates who can’t raise the money,” said the 23-year-old, whose family has been influential in GOP politics. “Politics is like a stew. You’ve got to have money, support, the ground game. But we’ve so spiced it up with the money angle that we’ve completely deadened the effect of all the other essential ingredients.”

...Top Republicans, though, are wary of any changes. Ralston, a Blue Ridge Republican, said the voters in his North Georgia district spend their nights going to Little League games and weekends hunting and fishing-- not at party meetings and insider conventions.

“Are we going to tell them that if they don’t have time to be an activist then we are going to disenfranchise them?” he asked. “I’m not going there.”

He may have no choice-- and that would open the door further to a crackpot like Paul "Lies Straight From the Pit of Hell" Broun, a John Bircher, Karen Handel or Phil Gingrey, all fringe candidates Nunn could beat statewide. Although there's another Democrat running as well, Branko Radulovacki-- "call me Dr. Rad"-- an Atlanta psychiatrist, Republicans are blasting away at Nunn.

“National Republicans are so terrified of the possibility of a Michelle Nunn candidacy that they are already misleading the public about her and her record,” said Matt Canter... at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “The divisive Tea Party primary and the demographic changes in Georgia, make this seat one of the best pick up opportunities for Democrats this cycle,” he said.

This is what the Georgia neo-fascist/KKK/Bircher grassroots wants to send to the U.S. Senate:

Which Georgia Extremist Will Out-Extreme All The Others?

Republican voters seem more and more insane lately-- like in the last decade. No one believes in all the trumped up "scandals" Republican congressional obstructionists are pushing out to a media desperate for fireworks except GOP voters. And in the Old Confederate states, the Republican base is far crazier than the representatives they elect (except for a few like Louie Gohmert, Paul Broun, Phil Gingrey and domestic terrorist suspect Steve Stockman). And speaking of Paul Broun and Phil Gingrey...

Those two crackpots are among a gaggle of crackpots running for the Republican nomination for the open Georgia Senate seat. They're all running to the extreme right-wing fringes, the lunatics who vote in the Republican primaries. And their antics are turning off mainstream voters and independents. The latest polling in Georgia shows the main candidates bunched up together and "undecided" (which can also be interpreted as "none of the above") way ahead.

• Jack Kingston- 17.61%
• Phil Gingrey- 15.98%
• Karen Handel- 15.81%
• Paul Broun- 14.14%
• David Perdue- 5.77%
• Undecided- 30.69%

And the more radical and extreme the candidate the GOP primary comes up with, the more likely Sam Nunn's daughter, Michelle Nunn, will snatch the seat from the Republicans. Nunn is competitive polling wise, and would beat former Secretary of State Karen Handel hands down. But is she going to run? Sunday she was the big buzz-- along with Obama-- at an Atlanta DSCC fundraiser. Michael Bennet (D-CO), chair of the DSCC said "We believe Georgia presents us with the greatest opportunity for a pickup." And, needless to say, all the Republican crackpots have, for example, come out against the bipartisan immigration reform bill. They know well who the Know Nothing primary voters are.

"We absolutely must deal with it but we don't need any new laws," Broun said. "The solution is to secure the borders, both north and south."

"We absolutely are going to be opposed and stand strong against any amnesty," Gingrey said. "My idea about solving this problem is to enforce the laws that are currently on the books."

Gingrey and Handel both said the current proposal was too similar to a 2007 immigration bill that ultimately failed.

"We are about to have deja vu all over again," Handel said. "Only in Washington could the same failed policies be put forward as 'reform.' We need to secure the borders now before we do anything else."

Kingston also called for the end of automatic citizenship for those born in the United States. "When you come to America as a visitor and if you have a child, that child should not automatically be an American citizen," Kingston said. "We are one of the few nations left that still have that relic on the books. It was needed at one time but it is not needed anymore."

The Governor asked them not to behave like the Hatfields and the McCoys and destroy each other's chances. Broun, a former drug addict and a current John Bircher, is probably the most extremist of the candidates, though not by much. When he first entered the race, he claimed he was the "only" conservative running and that the others are, essentially, poseurs. "I believe in the original intent of the Constitution," he clucked. "There’s no other candidate that’s going to get into this race that does. I believe in the Constitution as the Founding Fathers meant it. They believe in a Constitution where government finds all the solutions for all the problems. So there are big differences between me and all the other candidates that can get in this race."

Can The Democrats Take A Senate Seat In Georgia? With Barrow Out, It's A Real Possibility

If you thought the Dems got lucky with Akin & Mourdock, wait 'til you meet Paul Broun

Teabaggers decided right-wing senator Saxby Chambliss wasn't pure enough-- after all, with a 1.95 lifetime ProgressivePunch score (and a ZERO for 2013), look how much more conservative he could be voting-- so they threatened him with a primary and he decided to retire. That leaves a Senate seat in a very Republican state up for grabs. Chambliss won in 2008 with 57.5% and in November Romney beat Obama 53-46%. Very Republican-- but not very, very Republican. Chambliss probably wouldn't have had to break a sweat to win reelection. But the teabaggers screwed that up for the RNSC. So now they have two declared candidates, two of the most certifiably insane extremists in Congress-- Paul Straight-From-The-Pit-Of-Hell Broun and Phil Akin-Was-Right Gingrey-- another lunatic (anti-Choice sociopath Karen Handel) threatening to jump in, a more respected right-winger (Tom Price) pulling out and Rove's handpicked Establishment candidate, Steve Kingston, under fore by the extremists for not being conservative enough for the party base. Broun had Kingston in his sites when he said the other Republicans running don't believe in the Constitution, "I believe in the original intent of the Constitution. There’s no other candidate that’s going to get into this race that does. I believe in the Constitution as the Founding Fathers meant it. They believe in a Constitution where government finds all the solutions for all the problems. So there are big differences between me and all the other candidates that can get in this race."

I wish there was more of a difference. But the 4 of them are all crackpots-- and that creates an opening for the Democrats, particularly a Democrat with a respected and beloved name in the state: Nunn. The Republicans, who were dying for weak, pusillanimous Blue Dog shill John Barrow to run, are petrified that Sam Nunn's daughter, Michelle Nunn, will run instead. (The Wall Street Journal announced Barrow's decision to not run as good news for Georgia Democrats.) The DSCC tested candidates against the least extremist of the 4 GOP extremists, Jack Kingston, and they found that Michelle Nunn would have the best chance to win the seat.

The March poll of 800 respondents found Kingston leading Nunn 33 percent to 32 percent, while Kingston led Barrow 33-29.

Barrow announced Tuesday that he would not run for Senate after months of flirting with the idea, and indications are that Nunn's refusal to step aside in a primary was a major reason for his decision. Democrats are now trying to spin Nunn as the superior candidate who can better turn out the base, while Republicans are crowing about how the battle-tested Barrow turned down the DSCC and dampened Democrats' dreams of taking over the seat after the retirement of Republican Saxby Chambliss.

...Nunn, daughter of the former senator Sam Nunn, is the CEO of the volunteer service organization Points of Light. She has not run for office before and is mostly a blank slate to Georgia voters, according to the DSCC poll. She was viewed favorably by 14 percent of respondents and unfavorably by 5 percent. Barrow stood at 18-10 favorable/unfavorable, identical to Kingston and the latest sign of how little-known these members of Congress are outside their districts.

After unspecified "positive and negative messaging" about the candidates was read to the respondents, Nunn pulled ahead of Kingston 37 percent to 34 percent, while Kingston led Barrow 33-32. The AJC was not provided any additional information about the poll, such as how the Democrats performed against the other Republicans in the race.

POLLING UPDATE

On Monday Better Georgia released a poll showing the GOP extremists make the open Senate seat very mich up for grabs. Michelle Nunn would beat Handel substantially and is in position to beat any of the crackpot congressmen the Republicans are looking at.

The survey shows a Republican advantage of 4 percentage points before either party has chosen its candidate. It also shows that in a crowded primary, Republican voters favor the most conservative candidate, Congressman Paul Broun.

Michelle Nunn, the founder and CEO of an international non-profit and the daughter of former United States Senator Sam Nunn, performs best when compared with potential GOP candidate Karen Handel, former Georgia Secretary of State. In a head-to-head match-up of the two women, Nunn draws 47 percent to Handel’s 39 percent. Nunn is tied with Congressman Phil Gingrey at 46 percent for each candidate. The most moderate Republican candidate, Congressman Jack Kingston, performs best against Nunn, 48 percent to 42 percent. None of the Republican candidates top the 50 percent mark when tested against Nunn.

“Georgia voters are growing increasingly tired of status quo conservatives who put ideology before common sense solutions to Georgia’s biggest challenges,” said Better Georgia Executive Director Bryan Long.  “Georgia is simply not a ‘red state’ where the most conservative candidate is assured victory. Anyone who believes otherwise simply has not looked at the data.”

Conspiracy Theory Lunatics Are Now Part of The Republican Party's Shrinking Tent

Wednesday evening Rachel Maddow introduced her listeners to the false flag mania that has swept first late night radio, then the extreme right and has now seeped into the Republican mainstream. The seepage, of course, is inevitable because so many freaks and nuts from the fringes are now in the heart of the Republican Party power structure. Rachel starts with Glenn Beck admirer/New Hampshire state Rep. Stella Tremblay (R-Rockingham). Even New Hampshire Republicans are worried that Tremblay, who has been publicly claiming the U.S. government staged the Boston marathon bombings as part of a false flag operation, is making the party look weirder than it already looks.

"It is hard to believe that just days after the cowardly acts of terror took place in our backyard that Rep. Tremblay would thoroughly discredit herself with her bizarre, embarrassing and unfounded comments," said Matthew Slater, executive director, N.H. Republican State Committee. "New Hampshire Republicans strongly reject her outlandish views and believe that anybody who holds such bizarre beliefs should not be taken seriously."

New Hampshire Democratic Party Communications Director Harrell Kirstein quickly pounced on Rep. Tremblay's post as the latest in a string of Republican outrages.

"How long will it take Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, Senate Republican Leader Jeb Bradley, and House Republican Leader Gene Chandler to condemn Representative Tremblay's vile and chilling comments?" he asked.

"Tremblay's post is further proof of what can only be called an epidemic of disgusting and shockingly inappropriate behavior by members of the N.H. Republican Party. Yet even for the N.H. Republican Party, which has become synonymous with the Tea Party and radical extremism, Representative Tremblay's claims are a new low. She is an embarrassment to the N.H. House of Representatives, to her constituents, and to the entire state of New Hampshire."

Chandler said Tremblay's comments are so offensive that he was "at a loss for words." They in no way reflect the House leadership or the Republican caucus, he said.

Despite the condemnation, Tremblay was unapologetic. People should question things, she asserted.

"There are too many things going on in this country and nobody questions it," she said.

Tremblay said when the bombings first happened, a Saudi Arabian national, who was wounded in the incident, was named a "person of interest" by the FBI. Investigators obtained a search warrant for his residence and, she said, reporters gathered at a Boston courthouse because they believed the man was going to be arraigned on charges.

But then, she said, the man was released and deported. Tremblay maintains that happened after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama met with high-placed Saudi officials.

"We are supposed to boldly question what our government does," she said.

And, Tremblay pointed out, everyone has freedom of speech.

"We can say whatever we want, am I correct in this premise or not?" she asked.

Tremblay also made news in March when at a legislative committee hearing she said she believes President Woodrow Wilson agreed with Adolf Hitler's view on race.

"This stuff," Rachel explained, "is also sloshing into the U.S. Congress." Texas Congressman Michael McCaul, the wealthiest Member of Congress (married into Clear Channel money) is the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee... and he's batshitinsane. He wouldn't even be in Congress except that Tom DeLay created a district for him by dividing up Austin in three to dilute Democratic votes there. He and three of his colleagues want to investigate groundless and absurd charges made by Alex Jones and Glenn Beck-- pulled out of their asses to bring them attention and cash. Rachel:

The right has always had this to contend with... the Alex Joneses of the world and the Glenn Becks of the world have always been out there on the fringe right, eager to decode anything that seems complex or upsetting in the world to make it very simple for you. To make it very simple so that every story in the world has the same implication, which is that all of your suspicions and prejudices are true; that the world is in fact a very simple place; that people really are out to get you; and that you do understand all of it. And that you can trust no other sources of information about the world other than these gentlemen, who would please like you to send another $19.95 for another month's subscription, since they are the only people who will tell you the real truth."

I'm sure the New Hampshire Republican Party and the voters in the Granite State will figure out how to deal with a deranged Tea Party freak like Stella Tremblay. There isn't much harm she can do anyway-- unless she has some black gunpowder and a bomb-making manual. But what about highly placed nutcases like Mike McCaul in the U.S. Congress? Boehner appointed him chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. He actually has real power. And he's either as crazy as Stella, on his way to being as crazy as Stella, or faking it for the teabaggers back home. And McCaul is considered vaguely mainstream among Texas Republicans especially when you compare him to colleagues like Louie Gohmert and Steve Stockman, both of whom are even more out of their minds than Stella in New Hampshire!

Yesterday former GOP operative, David Frum, sent out this tweet about the fringe right-wing party in Britain, the UKIP, something like a combination of the Tea Party, the KKK and some crackpot neo-Nazis:

A UKIP candidate has sparked outrage by reportedly claiming that Jews deliberately murdered each other in the Holocaust as part of a masterplan to create Israel.

The extreme racist views were posted in Mrs Anna-Marie Crampton’s name on a conspiracy theory website called 'Secrets of The Fed.'

Crampton, 57, is allegedly quoted as saying: “Holocaust means a sacrifice by fire. Only the Zionists could sacrifice their own in the gas chambers.

“The Second World Wide War was engineered by the Zionist jews and financed by the banksters to make the general public all over the world to feel so guilty and outraged by the Holocaust that a treaty would be signed to create the State of Israel as we know it today.”

Mrs Crampton posed with UKIP leader Nigel Farrage at a rally in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, two weeks ago-- and proudly posted a photo on her Facebook page.

A further outrageous comment, posted two months ago, added: “The Rothschilds are Zionists..there is a difference between Jews and Zionists. These Psychopaths hide behind and use the Jews.

“It was thanks to them that 6 million Jews were murdered in the War (along with 26 million Russians!).”

Another comment says: “I am anti Zionist, not antisemit (sic). I love the true Israel and the Jews.”

Mrs Crampton is standing for UKIP in next week’s county council elections in the traditionally Conservative ward of Crowborough in East Sussex.

Even the UKIP, essentially a neo-Nazi outfit, is on the verge on expelling Crampton. The Republican Party takes psychopaths like her and push them up the ladder. They're on the verge on giving Senate nominations to two congressional crackpots just as bigoted and insane-- if not more so-- than she is, Steve King of Iowa and Paul Broun of Georgia. And, don't forget, John Boehner put Michele Bachmann on the House Intelligence Committee and filled the House Science Committee Climate Change deniers and conspiracy theory lunatics like McCaul and Broun as well as equally crazy and uninformed fringe loons in need of mental health treatment like Stockman, Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Randy Weber (R-TX), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Steve Palazzo (R-MS), Bill Posey (R-FL), Jim Bridenstine (R-OK), David Schweikert (R-AZ), Mo Brooks (R-AL) and Kevin Cramer (R-ND). America has some real problems... and the GOP deals with them by screaming about Benghazi, another crackpot conspiracy theory woven into the warp and woof of the Republican Party mindset. I was in Germany once and heard this band play this song and I signed them to Reprise. The band is BiGod 20 and the song is called America: