Some People-- Say 37% Of American Registered Voters-- Are Comforted By Fascism's Orderly Nature... And The F Scale

"Making the trains run on time" has long been a kind of excuse for supporting the neatness of authoritarian rule. There were-- until Pearl Harbor-- lots of Americans who enthusiastically and openly supported fascism. In 1933 a Nazi from organization, Friends of New Germany, was active in New York and Chicago, spreading fascist propaganda. Two years later it morphed into the German American Bund, led by Fritz Julius Kuhn, a nationalized American-- like Trump's grandfather. It was most active in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It is most famous for a giant rally that filled Madison Square Garden in 1939 where FDR was referred to as "Frank D. Rosenfeld" and the New Deal was called the Jew Deal. It was very appealing to Republicans of German descent. My father was an FBI agent at the time and the Bund was his beat-- especially after it dissolved when the U.S. and Germany went to war and fascists were rounded up and jailed.

When I was in elementary school a decade after the war, I used to ask my father about what kind of Americans would be-- could possibly be-- Nazis. That's when I first heard about trains running on time (as well as about anti-Semitism). And about Republicans. We didn't really have any in our Brooklyn neighborhood-- no Nazis, no Republicans. [I'm mortified that my old neighborhood-- filled with Russian Jewish immigrants today-- was New York's biggest bastion of Trump support outside of Staten Island in 2016. I guess that answers the age-old question of whether or not there were Jews in the 1930s who voted for Hitler... before being carted off to be made into soap and lampshades.] My dad told me about something he called the authoritarian personality type-- characterized by an ability to find comfort in unquestioned obedience and even submission to authority.

I recall a few years later being in Berlin. It was after midnight and there were no cars in the street at all. I came to a corner with a red light. It was crowded with people, mostly college-aged like myself, many drunk. But all waiting for the light to turn green. This seemed odd to me. I crossed the street. The crowd was mortified... angry. They didn't turn violent... but almost. Lucky the didn't know I was a Jew or gay. People who revel in their own submission to authority often delight in oppressing "the other."

In college I had learned about Erich Fromm's work on the oppressive authoritarian personality-- a strict superego controlling a weak ego unable to deal with the strong impulses of the id. These are the most conventional of people-- conservatives... Republicans, Blue Dogs, New Dems, Trumpists. They are rigid and judgmental and extremely anti-intellectual. They hate people and have a psychological need to weld power over others-- and have power yielded over themselves. How lucky was my father that he got to hunt them down and throw them in prison-- but only the ones from Germany, like the Trumps.





The fascists in the GOP will not tolerate a messy convention next year. The New York Times reported yesterday that Trump campaign agents "have concluded a months-long effort to tighten the rules for choosing delegates to the Republican National Convention, all but ensuring there are no dissenting speeches at the gathering of party officials in Charlotte next year. In 37 states and territories, there have been changes to the rules that will all but stamp out the possibility of any raucous divide on the convention floor. Those kinds of schisms have plagued party conventions in years when a Republican incumbent went on to lose his re-election bid, Republican officials said. Mr. Trump himself confronted an effort to strip him of delegates in 2016."

In 1977, the early U.K. punk band, The Damned, released their debut album (on Stiff Records), Damned, Damned, Damned and put out their classic (second) single, "Neat Neat Neat" the same day. Take a little break from all this ego and superego and id stuff and listen before we get to into the South Carolina Republican Party:





Is the South Carolina GOP a bastion of fascist authoritarianism? Well... absolutely, positively. And yesterday we found out that a firmer big shot within the party, ex-Congressman Bob Inglis is suing it for being fascist. Actually he's suing "over its decision to cancel its GOP presidential primary next year," so not specifically over fascism per se.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in state court in Richland County, alleges the party scrapped its 2020 election contest illegally and violated party rules and state election law.

The suit further contends the near-unanimous decision made by the party’s Executive Committee deprives Inglis, of Greenville, and fellow plaintiff Frank Heindel of Mount Pleasant, of their right to vote for the candidate of their choosing in a primary.

“Instead, the State Executive Committee has chosen which candidate to support by fiat, and in doing so, excluded Republican voters from the process entirely-- in violation of the law and its own rules,” the lawsuit states.

The suit comes after the Executive Committee met Sept. 7 in Columbia and voted to forgo a presidential primary. The move effectively cleared the way for Republican incumbent President Donald Trump to receive all of the state’s nominating delegates without contest.

S.C. GOP Chairman Drew McKissick, who is named in the suit, cited the public cost of the primary as a top reason for nixing the vote. The State Election Commission estimated it would cost $1.2 million to hold a Republican presidential preference primary.

The 26-page suit, however, alleges the party broke its own rules. The complaint cites Rule 11(b)(1), which states that “Unless decided otherwise by the state party convention within two years prior to each presidential election year, the... party shall conduct a statewide presidential preference primary on a date selected by the chairman of the party and this date must be within two weeks after the New Hampshire Republican Primary, or earlier if necessary to preserve South Carolina’s ‘First in the South’ status.”

When Republicans met for their state convention in March, they did not vote on holding a presidential primary.

The lawsuit additionally alleges Republicans broke state law that requires political parties to follow their own rules.

The suit also cites a 2014 state party resolution that warned “anything other than a fair and legitimate primary” could irrevocably damage not only the primary process but also the state’s First in the South standing.

Inglis and Heindel are being represented by Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan Washington-based nonprofit that has filed more than 50 legal actions to protect democratic institutions, according to their website.

A couple years ago, writing for Psychology Today, Dr. Timothy Pytell noted that he vividly recalled when he "first realized that fascism has a genuine populist base. As a beginning graduate student at NYU in 1987 I had located an old school barber shop that cut hair for $5. The shop was located between City Hall and West Broadway, and was popular for young Wall Streeters working in the so-called white collar sweat shops. The barbers were universally Italians out of Brooklyn and for about a year “George” regularly cut my hair. I always left with a high and tight military cut which fit my job as a fitness trainer for executives, but left me on the outside with NYU’s bohemian history graduate students. When I asked George how he learned to cut hair he described how as a very young man he had been brought to Nazi Germany on a work train. Since he could cut hair he was assigned as a barber for the SS. He described how he shaved them with a straight razor while a machine gun was trained on him. I immediately realized the origins of the high and tight haircut! As we talked about the past I queried him about growing up in fascist Italy, but he always demurred. I could tell he wasn’t comfortable speaking on the subject surrounded by his Italian friends. I pestered him though and finally one day he leaned in and whispered in my ear “Mussolini?, Mussolini was a great man-- it was just that pact with Hitler that ruined everything.” Stunned by the realization of unrepentant fascist was cutting my hair, I have never overcome how uneasy it made me feel.

...I am slowly succumbing to the disturbing conclusion there is a fascist lurking in all of us. It seems to me the politics of fascism are endemic to democracy and in times of social crisis (prevalent in capitalism!) emerge in the political arena as “Neither Left nor Right” according to the historian Zeev Sternhell’s diagnosis of Italian fascism... In the end, Fascist impulses appear not to be something of the past and explained by the social crisis of the inter war period-- but endemic to western democracies that originated with the advent of participatory politics after 1789. Modernity as it is conceived has unleashed untold human energies that are deeply liberating for the individual; however, in times of social crisis, third path movements of nationalism and socialism or will and responsibility mobilize democratic political cultures in authoritarian/fascist direction."

Now... why was Walt Disney the most dangerous man in America? How can anyone possibly understand the Republican Party and the people who vote for it-- and Trump-- without understanding sociologist Theodor Adorno?

If Swamp Guy Tries To Break Into The House Tuesday Evening . . .

Swamp Guy's bound to flip his lid, wouldn't you think?

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said in a letter that the House will not consider a concurrent resolution authorizing the president's address in the House chamber until the government has opened.

"Pelosi's response came shortly after President Trump said he would show up at the House for the prime-time speech on Tuesday.

“ 'Again, I look forward to welcoming you to the House on a mutually agreeable date for this address when government has been opened,' Pelosi said."

-- washingtonpost.com, Wednesday afternoon

by Ken

Here's the scenario as I imagine it. It seems pretty tight to me.

• Swamp Guy shows up at the House Tuesday evening, Coked up on Diet C. He behaves so utterly trumpishly, demanding admission to the (empty) House chamber, where his two surviving brain cells are convinced applause awaits him, that the assorted security forces in the zone (House cops, D.C. gendarmes, FBI, Homeland Security enforcement agents, whoever), while squabbling over jurisdiction, agree on one point: This swamp creature needs to be detained.

• In due course Swamp Guy is brought before some sort of magistrate, judge, or other arraignment-type official for processing. After a minute or two of psychotic Swamp Guy babbling, it's hard to imagine any magistrate, judge, or other arraignment-type official in the country -- well, in the D.C. area, at least -- not ordering that the detainee remain in custody, by whatever means necessary, for proper psychological evaluation.

• It's hard to imagine any psychological evaluator who's not directly in Swamp Guy's chain of command not recommending in the strongest terms that the creature be bound over -- in the highest-level security facility possible -- for full psychological testing.

• Are you going to tell me that any competent psychological or psychiatric professional is not going to recommend that the subject, in whom not a single sanely functioning brain cell can be found, be remanded immediately to a maximum-security facility for treatment, again under the highest level of security possible?

• Surely no competent psychological or judicial adjudicator would ever allow Swamp Guy to resume slithering the earth free.

• Ideally, the Unspeakable Pence can be grandfathered in, on the ground that what sane person could possibly commit to four if not eight years (two of them already served) of wedging his head that far up the smelly, toxic butt of a creature like Swamp Guy?

• Which means: Over to you, President Pelosi. A grateful nation thanks you for your service.

Works for me.


YESTERDAY'S NEW YORKER "DAILY CARTOON,"
BY IVAN EHLERS

"This is the perfect location to deliver
my State of the Union address."

#

News Flash! Spicer! Conway! The Trump White House Is Now Officially An Insane Asylum

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer is on the job.

by Noah

That the Trump White House has become a home for crazy people shouldn't come as a surprise to any sane observer of the events of recent years. Face it: We've seen the Republican Party cross over the edge of sanity since the dawn of the Tea Party. That was the point where it became apparent that the Republican Party had fully become the Crackpot Party. I don't need to recount the Bizarro World antics of the likes of Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Louie "The Bestiality Guy" Gohmert, Paul LePage, et al. Their numbers are legion, and they have been parading across our TV screens for years like the sideshow freaks they are.

Nixon's "last press conference" (oops!)

In fact, if you're a glutton for punishment, you can trace the origins of this thing of total lunacy the Trumpies call a movement back through the Reagan years all the way to President Nixon. Nixon was a raving maniac who we learned literally ran through the corridors of the White House screaming his head off. Even before he was elected president, America had evidence that Nixon was severely paranoid and given to delusion. Think: "You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore" (Nov. 7, 1962, at what he said was his "last press conference," after his California gubernatorial loss). Eventually, his White House taping system proved once and for all that he was a racist and, even more, an anti-semite.

So, really, the precedent for a President Trump or someone like him was set long ago. Most of America, with the help of the mainstream media myth machine, just chose not to see it.


1968-69: THE NIXON PODS DESCEND ON DC

I lived in Washington, DC, in all but the last of the Nixon years. The Nixon government aside, I saw the change in the population of Washington as it moved from the LBJ years to the Nixon years. To say the least, no one I chose to associate with had much if any regard for either man. We could look at LBJ and give him his due for ramming civil-rights and voting-rights legislation through Congress, but there was also his role in escalating the Vietnam War. Nixon, on the other hand, had no redeeming qualities other than the creation of the EPA. Please note that all three of the positives I just mentioned are things that today's republicans hate with all their being.

What I found most disturbing about Washington in those days was that when Nixon took over, you could see a marked difference in the kind of people that were coming to town to replace the LBJ people. I'm not talking just about cabinet people; I'm talking about the massive numbers of department staff and support staff that come along with the tide when a new president comes in. With Nixon it was an influx of crewcut, wound-tight, pole-up-the-ass types, people who were stuck in a world view of 1953, 15 years out of date; people who really did still believe that Commies lurked in every shadow and that the Earth is only 6000 years old.

These people feared a world where males had sprouted long hair. Which made them easy to terrify in the streets of Georgetown, especially after the horrific crimes of the Manson Family, and I admit that I personally had some fun with this. You could just stare at them and they'd start walking on eggshells. Dumb fucks that they were, they thought that any guy with hair over his ears was carrying a machete.

The Nixon types also hated those who hated war. War was big business for them, plus it was waged against Commies. Understand: The word Commies didn't necessarily mean Communists in the literal geopolitical sense. To them a "Communist" was anyone who didn't agree with their myopic, narrow-minded view of things. To the vast majority of them, both bread and people should only come in one color: white.

Today's republicans aren't that much different. Sure, it's harder to tell them from normal people just by fashion differences. I mean, can you tell those Duck Dynasty freaks from a death-metal band or the Manson gang? But if you notice that wound-tight thing, substitute "Muslim" for "Commie," and listen to the various bigotries they express, it's really the same. The difference now is that there seems to be a larger concentration of them in the general population. Either that or they just feel bolder and more entitled to act out in civilized society. Then again, it could be because social media and more TV and stations have given them a platform where they can reach each other easily and egg each other on.


SO HERE WE ARE NOW IN 2017

Russia is still an enemy of the United States. Only now that's OK with republicans 'cause the Russians helped put their guy in the White House. The Republican Party went over the cliff and dropped down so low that, to them, there's not a thing wrong with that. They got so insane that they put party over country like no party has ever done before. They got so insane that they embraced a man who is obviously severely mentally ill and now he is our president. If Nixon ever wanted a president in the White House that made him look sane by comparison, he's got him. Somewhere in Hell, a great burden has been lifted from his shoulders.

It has now gotten so bad that on Saturday afternoon, when I was in our kitchen and heard an angry, shrieking madman on the TV in our living room, I had to stop what I was doing and see what the commotion was about. At first I thought maybe the authorities had arrested some bonkers terrorist at some airport somewhere. Maybe my wife was watching One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest or Vincent Price's House on Haunted Hill.


"Don't try to escape! You can't!"

But no, it wasn't a movie. It was Comrade Trumpinsky's press secretary, Sean Spicer, channeling the Orange Fascist himself. He was clearly off his meds, and was a thing to behold -- emphasize thing.

He wasn't wearing a straitjacket, but you could be forgiven if you remembered it that way. That's how intense the crazy shooting out of his mouth, eyes, and entire body language was as he berated and tried to intimidate the assembled press. Mere words cannot do this bizarre incident justice. And this was just his first day! He made a lasting and credibility-destroying impression. It was a tantrum for the ages. I have never seen Facebook explode over an ongoing event like it did with this one.

What set Spicer off was the press coverage of the Trump inauguration, particularly the reporting of the simple fact, verifiable by aerial photographs that we have all seen by now, and verifiable by photographs of the empty seats along the parade route, that President Obama's crowd was bigger than President Trump's crowd. Freud would have a field day with this. Obviously Trump had sent Spicer out to combat this reality that Trump cannot deal with and is not mentally equipped to deal with. His megalomania and massive insecurities get in the way.



Spicer managed to set some sort of record for speed lying as he spat out an incredible five lies in just five minutes. You can click here for the specifics. It was engrossing. It was both hard to look and hard to look away. I was watching a man disintegrate on national TV.

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo had this to say:

On the one hand it is chilling, bizarre, un-American to see the President's spokesman begin the term excoriating and threatening the press, telling demonstrable lies, speaking with a palpable rage in his voice. On the other, the President and his toadies are on the second day almost vanishingly small. They are embarrassing themselves. They look silly. They look ridiculous. It is hard to be intimidated by ridiculousness. I suspect this will be the abiding duality of the Trump presidency.

Yes, they look ridiculous, and yes, they are embarrassing themselves. But sadly for them and everyone in the world, they have no idea that this is how they come off, just as those who voted for Trump have no idea how this seems to the moral and the sane. Even former press secretaries from both major parties took issue with Spicer's behavior.

The thing is, of course, that Trump and his toadies are taking millions of naïve, wounded, and gullible Americans right over the cliff with them, and the rest of us are at risk of being collateral damage. While this bit of Saturday-afternoon horror theater was going on, I checked the FOX "News" twitter feed, where Trump's army of brainwashed souls, in an orgasmic state, were cheering Spicer on in his ranting insanity. There were a lot of "About time!" and "Hell yeah!" shout-outs to Spicer. To them, a star was born.


Is Sean Spicer counting hockey crowds now too? Maybe it was the very same "million and a half people" President Trump saw at his inauguration who packed Dallas's American Airlines Center for Saturday's Stars loss to (ahem) the Washington Capitals. [Click to enlarge.]

Reading the FOX Twitter feed offered a glimpse at the total Opposite World these brainwashed crazies live in. The danger is that they want to make the rest of us live in their world. It's like they've already gone through the looking glass and blown right past, into a state of ultimate denial. This is way beyond "O.J. didn't kill Nicole" stuff. This is alternate-reality creation that allows them to rationalize and justify, consciously or unconsciously, the criminality of what they have just done to their own country and the world.

Trump's lost souls are trying to reverse the polarity of reality itself. It may be that the only way to deal with these people is to constantly throw their vile bullcrap right back in their faces until their heads explode from brain-hemorrhaging apoplexy. Disdain, derision, and zero tolerance should be the order of the day.


"ALTERNATIVE" REALITY INVADES SUNDAY-MORNING TV

The Sunday morning news-talk shows like Meet the Press, Face the Nation, and "This Week With George Stephanopoulos brought out Trump's mistress of spin, Kellyanne Konartist. On This Week she made the point that (crowd) size doesn't matter while saying that it was "completely unacceptable" for the media to call Sean Spicer a liar. Well, Kellyanne, I'll go ya one further: If Spicer keeps it up, soon the word spicer will be synonymous with liar.

But it was on Meet the Press that Kellyanne reached the heights of crazy that republicans adore her for, claiming that Spicer wasn't lying, he was just presenting "alternative facts"!



It's really something when you are a republican so disingenuous that even a republican water carrier like Chuck Todd puts you on the hot seat. Still, I have to give Ms. Konartist credit. She is very good at her job and proved it in the campaign. She can also go on TV and erect a stonewall like nobody's business. Maybe Trump can send Kellyanne to the Mexican border and she can just talk any would-be "illegals" away.

I took some amusement from the moment where Kellyanne appeared to flip off Chock Todd UK-style with a two-finger F-U salute. Was it intentional, or am I making up some of that famous "fake news" that is all the rage?



To be fair -- and, like I say, I'm always fair -- I do want to address the bit of unfortunate real fake news that Ms. Konartist brought up on Meet the Press. There was lots of chatter from republikook circles over the weekend about a "fake news" report on the bust of Martin Luther King being removed from the Oval Office (now declared by me to be the Offal Office for the duration of Trump's hopefully short term).

In fact, the bust was not removed. It turns out that it was obscured by someone standing in front of it. The reporter who wrote the story should have at least taken a better look. The righties are focusing on this incident as an example of what they term "fake news." Fair enough, but there is a much more serious underlying issue at play here. The issue is: Why would we assume that President Trump would remove the MLK bust. It's only natural to assume that he would because of his previously demonstrated feelings towards African-Americans, which include his having them removed from the floors of his casinos, the rabid support he received from KKK and other white supremacy groups worldwide, and many of his own words.

[Click to enlarge.]

The silver lining in this is that, if Trump was going to remove the MLK bust, a likely scenario, he will now have to think twice about it. I take pleasure in knowing that, when he is in his new office, he will have to look at something he'd rather not see. Oh well, funny how things can work out! Maybe he can just paint it gold or cover it with a handy white hood.


ANDY BOROWITZ OFFERS A TAKE ON THE SPICER STORY

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) -- A man who was described as “visibly deranged” eluded the Secret Service on Saturday and gave a five-minute press conference at the White House.

The man, who somehow obtained White House credentials in order to bypass security, unloaded a delusional and paranoid rant that left a room full of experienced reporters shaken.

“We were all very, very scared,” Tracy Klugian, a reporter who witnessed the incident, said. “The things he was shouting made absolutely no sense, and he seemed to just get angrier and angrier.”

After a stream-of-consciousness tirade in which he accused the reporters of being part of a far-reaching conspiracy to distort reality, the man abruptly walked off “before he could do any real harm,” a Secret Service spokesman said.

Reporters who left the White House called the incident the scariest five minutes of their lives and said that they were grateful it did not escalate further.

“We were all terrified that, at some point, he was going to ask us if we had any questions,” Harland Dorrinson, a reporter, said. “None of us wanted to say anything that would set him off.”

MEMES OF THE ORANGE WHITE HOUSE INSANE ASYLUM

"News Flash! Spicer! Conway! The Trump White House Is Now Officially An Insane Asylum" (1/23)
"Trump Press Secretary Spicer Spawns A Cottage Industry Overnight!" (1/24)
"Kellyanne Conway Memes: Crazy Lady Now Roams The Halls Of The White House, America’s Newest Insane Asylum" (1/26)

#

Republicans Find a Big Ol’ Pot of Perversion and Terrorism at the End of Every Rainbow!

Featuring Tom DeLay and his fabulous future world of
"12 New Perversions"! Plus: Mike Huckabee in chaps!

Uh-oh, looks like the republican God has some punishing to do.

by Noah

It's summertime, the time of beastly hot weather, which is often relieved only by big storms. At the end of those storms, one can often see a rainbow. To normal people, a rainbow is something beautiful. To republicans, rainbows are ugly things that equate to perversion and even terrorism, especially if those rainbows take the form of flags.

This past week, while so many of us, even a few South Carolina republican politicians who risked being cast out of their jobs for not toeing the partyline of hate, bigotry, and belief in a flag of treason, supported the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the state's capitol building, several leading republican voices saw something ominous, threatening, and flat-out evil in another flag. No, the object of their fear was not the flag of ISIS, but the flag of “The Gay.”

Republicans always seem to be masters of nihilism and seeing the half-full glass as bone dry. For them, happiness and love are things to be stomped on as if they were plague-infested rats. Perhaps it's one of those projection things.

Lest you think I exaggerate, here are just five of the seemingly limitless examples of just how far into the mirror of lunacy the Republican Party has gone, courtesy of Right Wing Watch.


1. Franklin Graham: "[President Obama] might want to have
some extra lightning rods installed on the White House"

God will punish the president's "arrogantly sinful behavior."

Billy Graham's son not only calls himself a man of God and claims to speak for God. He has also offered up an idea of something that republicans should pray for. Graham's sick idea is that, as punishment for the Supreme Court's ruling on same sex marriage, God might smite President Obama with lightning.

Echoing Bill O'Reilly, who I wrote about here last week, Reverend Goofball said that President Obama --

had the gall to disgrace the White House by lighting it up with the gay pride colors to celebrate. This is arrogantly sinful behavior in the face of Almighty God. My advice? He might want to have some extra lightning rods installed on the roof of the White House.

I guess after that particular storm, republicans might see a rainbow they could like, even if it wasn't really there. If it was, it would be solid black or some sickly shade of green.

Maybe these loons would just prefer that scene from Independence Day when their fellow aliens just send a beam down to vaporize the White House. Failing that, they might be happy, Tories that they are, if the British came and burned it down like they did in the War of 1812. They could even carry the Confederate flag they love, thus combining two wars against the spirit of America into their current one.


2. Sandy Rios: "If you use [God's] symbol for a sign
of sexual behavior that is ungodly, unallowed . . ."

That's right, tinfoil-hat wearer, Sandy's talkin' to you!

FOX News contributor Rios, like Franklin Graham, is delusional enough to think she has firsthand knowledge of God's thoughts. She says that the Supreme Court's decision is "an unbelievable affront to God," and we can expect punishments to be forthcoming from on high. Ever notice how the righties are always so big on punishment? They love it so.

Like straitjacket model and TV host Pat Robertson, Ms. Rios warns that God will lift His hand of protection from America, thus increasing the likelihood of terror attacks. Yep, there it is, just with like old Pat and the thankfully dead Jerry Falwell. It's all "the gays'" fault.

Talking to her tinfoil-hat-wearing disciples about a rainbow that, the story goes, appeared after the biblical flood of the first Noah's time, Ms. Rios said the rainbow "was God's sign to mankind that he would never destroy the Earth again." She prattles on to say in pure republicanese that "if you take his symbol and you use it for a sign of sexual behavior that is ungodly, unallowed"… well, let's just say that bad, bad things will be visited upon us -- like a plague of locusts or republican talk radio morons. Come to think of it, wasn't that already happening before the Supreme Court did the Devil's bidding and joined the Great Gay Conspiracy?

Ms. Rios, you better warn your followers not to wear those tinfoil hats. Tinfoil attracts lightning bolts. Better yet, maybe we should make a line of fashion right, that's Fashion-Right™ tinfoil hats. We could get all the republicans to wear them easily enough, and then pick the days when thunderstorms are most likely and hold a series of nice Big Day of Republican Picnics for them -- on restricted golf courses.


3. Tom DeLay: "LGBT is only the beginning. [The administration
is] going to start expanding it to the [12] other perversions"

They're going after the churches too, and the pastors, and businesses.

The Republicans' former House majority leader and current Tea Party icon also claims to hear the voice of God in his loco cabeza. Maybe peyote is getting into the water supply down in his East Texas homeland. In the past, DeLay has uttered such pearls as:

It's time for a revolution. I am not advocating for revolution in the streets. But if that's what it takes…

Right. You're not calling for it, but hey, if that's what it takes . . . .

You can bet that if that day comes, Tom DeLay will not be fighting in the streets along with those he's incited to riot. No, he'll be holed up in some gated community playing strip poker with Karl Rove, Sean Hannity and Mitch McConnell, while Mike Huckabee, clad only in an apron and bare-ass chaps, makes pigs-in-a-blanket with full-size kielbasas in the kitchen.

Now, in 2015, DeLay's republican insanity has progressed to the point where he has gone on republican wacko Newsmax TV and told host Steve Malzberg that the Supreme Court's same-sex marriage ruling has triggered his predicted Pandora's box of about-to-be-legalized perversions. You read that right.He says he's seen a super-top-secret Department of Justice memo that outlines some sort of dastardly Obama plan to legalize "12 new perversions," including the old Texas favorite, bestiality, along with pedophilia.

We've already found a secret memo coming out of the Justice Department. They're now going to go after 12 new perversions, things like bestiality, polygamy, having sex with little boys and making that legal.

The maniac continues raving:

Not only that, but they have a whole list of strategies to go after the churches, the pastors, and any business that tries to assert their religious  liberty. This is coming and it's coming like a tidal wave.

When Malzberg asked DeLay to clarify his statement, he added that --

LGBT is only the beginning. They are going to start expanding it to the other perversions.

So there you have it, LGBT itself is a perversion! Man, if you go on TV and spew stuff like this, shouldn't you expect to be put on some sort of watch list? This is way beyond your run-of-the-mill "you can't make this stuff up" material. Satire has gone full circle and become something else: madness.


4. Rick Wiles: "The floodgates to sexual perversion, lewdness,
sorcery, witchcraft and rebellion opened wide last Friday"

Has a personal relationship with God the new-media consultant.

There they go again! Rick Wiles also claims to have a personal relationship with God. The brief description of Mr. Wiles at his "Trunews" site tells us that he is a "citizen reporter" who, upon deciding to take on "Big News Media," started Trunews with a $7500 donation. It also tells us that "throughout his early years, God's hand silently guided him to be employed in the latest new media."

Think of the ego one must have to think one is chosen by God! Apparently, Wiles's version of God also told him to react to the Supreme Court's decision by lamenting that "the America I knew and loved is dead, rest in peace. It will not be resurrected."

Is Wiles a secessionist? After calling the Court's decision "the final abomination," he asked:

How can I pledge allegiance to the flag of a nation that celebrates sexual perversion, pornography and baby killing?

Is this a case of Rick wanting to take his ball and leave? If so, he's to be encouraged. But he was just getting warmed up. He later added that he is --

embarrassed to be a legal citizen in a nation that that is openly promoting sexual perversion and compelling other nations to rebel against God too.

And, after saying that, like his comrade Tony Perkins, he would no longer be saying "God bless America," he played his grand finale for the day:

[T]here is no end to the sexual perversion this country has now opened itself to. The floodgates to sexual perversion, lewdness, sorcery, witchcraft and rebellion opened wide last Friday.

Sorcery! Witchcraft! Were these people swept up by some sort of snowy vortex in Salem Massachusetts back in February of 1692 and deposited in our 21st century? This is much more than republicans wanting to return to the pre-civil rights, all gays in the closet 1950s. If this is what such republican spokespersons feel comfortable saying out loud in public, one wonders what darker thoughts towards those they consider perverts republicans are concealing from us.


5. Todd Starnes: "When the Supreme Court says they know
better than God: Send the hornets, Lord! Clear the field!"

Todd wants God to use His powers as master of pest control.

Some republicans might say that the people on this list don't really represent republican views. Such people are the much the same as those who say that Donald Trump's views on Mexican immigrants also don't represent republican views. Yet there sits Donald Trump atop the polling of preferred republican candidates for president.

It's possible that one could say that Rick Wiles is a bit fringe, even on the republican scale of reality because he, among other things, is an "end times" guy. But so are many prominent republicans, such as former Rep. Michele Bachmann, who not only was elected to multiple House terms but four years ago was spoken of as a potential candidate for president. Number 3 on this list, Tom DeLay, was the House majority whip, and number 1 on the list, Franklin Graham, is frequently consulted and quoted by republican leaders, much like his father was.

Then there's Todd Starnes. Like number 2, Sandy Rios, he is a FOX News pundit, a frequent contributor to the utter lunacy that is FOX News. He's also, like so many of his party, a chronic player of victim cards. Let's take a look at why he makes this list.

Speaking during last month's Faith and Freedom Conference before the Supreme Court's decision, Starnes not only decried Democrats as "godless," he argued that  our Founding Fathers would see some shameful Republicans as campaigning as culture-war conservatives but governing the same as those damn "godless Democrats."

There they go again, putting words in the mouths of our Founding Fathers! The same Founding Fathers who didn't believe in having a state religion and who gave us the concept of the separation of church and state, which just happens to be a big reason why many colonists came here in the first place and then fought a war with England for liberties including that of religion. This is what happens when republicans edit textbooks and history isn't taught to our children.

Now, however, using a twisted definition of religious liberty, Starnes spoke before the conference, whining that a decision in favor of same-sex marriage would be part of the so-called War on Christianity:

This is not just about marriage; this is about whether or not a government can begin to put limitations on the conscience and the convictions of people of faith.

It's as if, to these poor unfortunates, Christianity is somehow being singled out when Christians are asked to obey the laws of the land. Is it possible that in their minds Jews, Hindus, Muslims, and people of all the other faiths represented in America are not also being asked to be fair and follow the same laws? Or do these republicans just think that the laws should not apply to them, but only to everyone else? Now that's what I call freedom! I guess that's the libertarian strain that has infected these people. Or maybe they're just promoting their own version of sharia law.

Rest assured, though, FOX's Todd Starnes is a man with a plan. He has a solution! Referencing the Old Testament's Book of Exodus 23:28, which told of God sending a "swarm of hornets to clear the battlefield," Starnes beseeched the Lord:

Send those hornets! Clear that field!  When the Supreme Court says they know better than God: Send the hornets, Lord! Clear the field!

And when the president says that America is no longer just a Christian nation:

Don't send the hornets, Lord. Send the mosquitoes and the gnats, and the bumblebees and the lightning bugs and the cicadas! Send every critter you got, Lord! Clear the field!

 No guys in white coats with big butterfly nets were seen. No colorful butterflies either -- too much like rainbows.


EVERY TIME YOU THINK THEYVE DESCENDED AS FAR
INTO ABSOLUTE CRAZYWORLD AS THEY POSSIBLY CAN . . .

These republicans surprise you. As it is, the insane shouting of these Reince Priebus horror troops can only devolve further into the speaking of unknown and unintelligible tongues. These people ain't never comin' back.

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From NJ to Maine, Big Rat Bastard Gummers of a feather flock together: Part 1, "The Idiot Thug Running Maine"

Oh no, there are two of them! Notice how even if you overlap Big Rat Bastard Gummers LePage and LeKrispy by about two-thirds, you still can't fit them in a single frame! Similarly, we're not going to be able to squeeze their current high jinks into a single post.

"Paul LePage has become a terrible embarrassment to the state I live in and love."

-- Maine's most famous citizen, novelist Stephen King

by Ken

As the Bangor Daily News's Mario Moretto reported last week from Becky's Diner in Portland, "On a rain-slickened patio above a bustling diner, Maine Gov. Paul LePage on Wednesday morning became the first Republican governor in the nation to endorse a presidential candidate for 2016: Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey."

Christie and LePage shook hands and exchanged pleasantries with a handful of customers before making their way upstairs to a rooftop deck for a news conference, where LePage announced his endorsement.

“When all of you and your colleagues around the country had me as a dead-walking governor, Chris Christie had faith,” LePage told members of the media. “He believed in us, came up, supported me wholeheartedly, never batted an eye.”

According to campaign finance reports, the RGA under Christie’s watch spent $5.1 million to help re-elect LePage in 2014, the most spent by any group on any candidate in Maine that year.

“I think he’s the real deal,” LePage later added. “He’s been a governor. He knows what hard decisions are. He’s going to make them. He’s not going to be a politician and talk out of both sides of his mouth. He’s going to tell you things you may not want to hear, but you need to. Then he’s going to go to work trying to fix them.”

And LeGovernor LePaul knows the real deal when he sees it. If not for that $5.1 million Governor LeKrispy poured into his reelection campaign last year, very likely he would now be the Nation's Battiest Ex-Governor rather than the Nation's Battiest Governor. It seems only right that now the Krispyman is kashing in -- if an endorsement from this "idiot thug" (to borrow the Daily Beast's epithet -- see below) qualifies.

And just as we couldn't squeeze both of our Big Rat Bastard Gummers in the picture atop this post, we can't squeeze their Big Rat Bastardry in one post, so today we'll focuse on LeGummer LePaul, and tomorrow we'll return to our old pal LeGumer LeKrispy.

When we last looked in on LeGummer LePaul, he was basking in the glow of the publicity generated by his jolly declaration that he'd like to shoot Bangor Daily News cartoonist George Danby -- a jolly declaration made in front of a college audience that included Danby's son. (See Noah's June 30 post, "Maine Gov. Paul LePage Conjures His Inner Terrorist.") Since then LePaul has kept right on making news, to the point where he's got a committee of the state legislature demanding an investigation into his hi jinks, and half a dozen legislators talking about impeachment.

The Idiot Thug Running Maine

Maine’s ultra-conservative governor might have finally messed with the wrong people: a school for disadvantaged kids. Now, he could get impeached for it.

Luke O'Neill
07.06.15 1:00 AM ET

Last week, members of the Maine legislature’s Government Oversight Committee unanimously called for an investigation into Tea Party Governor Paul LePage. At question is whether or not he inappropriately—and potentially illegally—abused his control over the state’s budget to force a charter school to fire a political opponent.

The “combative” governor, as The New York Times called him—which is New England shorthand for “asshole”—hasn’t so much protested his innocence as he has thumbed his nose at the bipartisan committee’s authority.

In a letter to Beth Ashcroft, the director of the oversight group, his counsel cited the legally-binding “You’re Not the Boss of Me” doctrine.

“The Governor and the exercise of his discretionary executive power are simply not subject to OPEGA’s jurisdiction and/or oversight,” the letter explained. “If members of the Legislature wish to ‘investigate’ the Governor, they should look to the Constitution for the authority to do so.”

They might do just that. Six state lawmakers recently said they would begin looking into the process of impeachment over the imbroglio, in which LePage has been accused of withholding more than $500,000 in state money from Good Will-Hinckley—which, sadly, isn’t a straight-to-DVD sequel, but rather a charter school for disadvantaged children.

LePage admits to demanding that the school sever ties with recently hired president Democratic House Speaker Mark Eves. Fearing the substantial and immediate loss of funds, the school promptly did just that. Eves, a longtime political foe, has said he’s considering a lawsuit against the governor.

He might have to wait in line.

Joining the chorus calling for LePage’s sizable head on a buttery roll is the Portland Press Herald, who outlined other instances in which LePage has toed the line of propriety. This time, at long last, the paper’s editorial board argues, he’s gone too far.

“If this is allowed to stand, the governor could intervene in the legislative process at will by using the full power of the state to threaten the livelihood of anyone who doesn’t vote his way,” the state's largest paper wrote. . . .

O'Neill goes on to hit some of the spectacularly lowest of the consistently low points of the governorship of the "idiot thug," and to explore the question "How does such a spittle-lipped, gaffe-prone, 'business-first' governor get elected in the traditionally mild-mannered state of Maine?" And, yes, reelected, in both cases by something like the narrowest of margins. He also directs attention to a column by the Bangor Daily News's Alex Steed, "We can't let LePage become who we are as Mainers," "about how frustrated he's become explaining what the deal is with LePage to people outside of Maine."

He tells The Daily Beast that it’s confounding that LePage managed to pull off another slight victory in 2014 “despite having become known for telling the NAACP to kiss his butt and warning school children against the dangers of reading newspapers.”

“Those things actually happened,” he says.

So yes indeedy, LeGummer LePaul would know "the real deal" when he sees it.


SAME TIME TOMORROW: GLAD TIDINGS
OF OUR OLD FRIEND LeGUMMER LeKRISPY

The KrispyMan has been a regular laff riot too, not least for going on Fox Noise and demanding an "apology" from "the liberal media."

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Maine Gov. Paul LePage Conjures His Inner Terrorist

Benefit Cuts
(The Statue of Levity replacing the lamp for a placard sign)

link (h/t Amanda Terkel @ HuffPost)

by Noah

Maine Gov. Paul LePage isn't the only batcrap-crazy, nihilistic, sociopathic Republican governor in our country. There's Abbott (TX), Brownback (KS), Christie (NJ), Jindal (LA) and Walker (WI), just to name five. But when even a right-wing media outlet like Politico (founded by  former Reagan Chief of Staff Fred Ryan among others, and endorsed by the Bushes) suggests that LePage may be America's craziest governor . . . well, his chances of being Numero Uno on the wacko list are greatly enhanced. If for some reason one wanted to create a fetid blend of Louie Gohmert and Michele Bachmann, one would likely end up with Paul LePage.

Remember that name. For some reason LePage hasn't received the media coverage that others get, but this may be changing after reports of a LePage pronouncement last week that things might be better if a local cartoonist, George Danby of the Bangor Daily News, was killed.

The story goes that he said this to a local high school audience in answer to a question from Danby's teenage son. Swell guy, eh? How is LePage different from the Muslim terrorists that shot up the offices of Charlie Hebdo in France, killing five of the humor magazine's cartoonists? The answer is, of course, that George Danby is still alive and no one has shot up the offices of the Bangor Daily News, no matter how happy that would make one of the republican party's rising stars.

Has LePage apologized for his remark? Not as of this writing, and let's not hold our breath waiting. In fact, he has doubled down. On Thursday, the Maine Sun Journal reported that LePage said state lawmakers from the city of Lewiston, Maine, should be "rounded up and executed in the public square."

Ideally, LePage will be exposed before he kills someone more directly than his fellow governors. While the other lunatic governors kill people by denying health care or providing extra pollution to the local air and water, LePage has now expressed the more direct approach.

Think about this. Suppose a Muslim citizen said the same things as LePage, either publicly or in an e-mail intercepted by the Department of Homeland Security. Wouldn't that person be halfway to Gitmo by now? Instead, LePage is free to roam about the country, irresponsibly mouthing off.

When Pigs Fly

link (h/t Amanda Terkel @ HuffPost)

Even more frightening is that we have a lot of unstable people among us that hear what passes for a leader say such things and their reaction is to take it as some sort of permission or justification to act accordingly. It's not lost on me that LePage made his kill-the-cartoonist statement in front of a high school audience in a time where a month does not go by when we don't hear about a couple of unstable kids planning on shooting someone at their school. Is what LePage did any different from a terrorist website that offers suggestions of targets for murder and mayhem?

Two weeks ago Dylannn Roof, a young man who had bought into twisted ideas about minority people raping white women, in addition to the constant drumbeat about "black on white crime" that is the standard fare offered by white supremacy websites, republican talk radio and FOX News, shot up the historic Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, killing nine African-Americans. He was under the impression that others he had listened to would follow his lead into a race war. FOX, along with republican leaders such as SC Sen. Lindsey Graham, initially tried to cover their tracks by presenting the event as simply yet another "attack on Christianity."

Years ago, the right, led by such republican leaders as Newt Gingrich, engaged in an incessant spew about bringing down big government and blowing up big government. An unstable man named Timothy McVeigh was listening. Ideally, no one is listening to Paul LePage. I'd like to think he isn't so far gone that he would take action himself. People like him rarely do, preferring that someone else act in their behalf. But for LePage to do what he has done reveals some serious, out-of-control anger issues.

In the meantime, some politicians and pundits are talking about impeaching LePage. But again, don't hold your breath. The only people who seem to do the impeachment thing are republicans, and you don't really see them impeaching one of their own, do you? Besides, although Democrats control the Maine House, Republicans control the Senate. There's also the fact that Maine voters have elected LePage to be their Governor twice. They must be very proud.

Perhaps the water and air up there are more polluted than any of us imagined.

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The "Giuliani Test": A Republican Primary Candidate Questionnaire (Plus: Rand says he's in!)

Rand Paul strips the contest to bare essentials

And then there were two: Today Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul followed Texas Sen. Rafael "Ted from Alberta" Cruz as the second announced "major" candidate for the GOP presidential nomination. (Says Politico: "Rand Paul launches 2016 bid with attack on GOP." Says the Borowitz Report: "Rand Paul Joins Crowded Field of People Who Will Never Be President.")

by Noah

Since it's that time again, and all sorts of totally unbalanced insufferable Republican weirdos are crawling out of their dark corners to vie for the title of candidate of their party for various positions, I thought there must be a way to eliminate at least some of the months and months of tedious drawn-out craziness that republican primaries, from the local office primaries on up to the presidential primary, brings us with each election cycle.

As an example, Rudy Giuliani, who likes to market himself, with the aid of his corporate media accomplices, as "America's Mayor," recently reminded us all of just how out to lunch republicans are with his utterly insane comments about President Obama not loving him, us, and our country. FOX "News," of course, treated his blithering crackpot pronouncements as pure gold and managed to feature him on seemingly every show they have.

Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!

Giuliani is far from alone. Hardly a day goes by when some republican, somewhere, doesn't reveal his or her total insanity ("Rep. Glenn Grothman urges constituents to keep an eye out for poor people at grocery stores"). In Rudy's case, why anyone would put him on camera and place a microphone in front of him is way beyond me or any other rational human being. One might as well go to the local asylum and put a microphone in front of the most unfortunate inmates.

So, being an upbeat and positive guy, I'm offering a solution that could save everybody an awful lot of time, money, cringing, and effort by reducing the upcoming primary season to a kind of SAT test. After all, lots of people talk about getting the money out of politics, and primary seasons just drag on and on, no matter how much republicans try to make them so damn entertaining.

A simple SAT-style multiple-choice test that addresses issues important to republican voters could at least separate some of the mold-infested "wheat" from the chaff.

For example, if there are seven little repugs wanting to vie for a particular office, they could all first take my test. Most of the answers aren't wrong, in republikook eyes, but some answers are better than others. Each possible answer would be assigned a top-secret number value by RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, using the republican belief system as a guide. The "best" (most insane) possible answer of four choices gets the highest number; the worst choice gets the lowest. The potential candidate with the highest total score gets to move on with his or her candidacy.

Thus, republican voters and party leaders can be confident that their candidates have been tested and found to be the most irrational crackpots available. The other candidates have to step aside and spare us all their brand of incessant blithering madness, in favor of candidates who demonstrate that they are better-equipped to show the world the essence of being a republican. Party leadership will thereby achieve their obvious goal of preventing that one-in-a-million sane republican from ever getting nominated for any office.


REST ASSURED, WE'LL STILL HAVE PLENTY OF THE CRAZY

But in a better world it will be coming to us from far fewer people. Why have seven or eight potential candidates spouting off every damn day when just one (or at most two, in case of a tie on the test) will do? Hell, Rafael "Ted" Cruz has already announced. So has Rand Paul, just this afternoon. And some goon from Florida named Rubio is threatening to announce its candidacy at any moment. There's also the expected entrance of the latest villain from the shameless Bush Crime Family. Oh, joy!

Three of the above-mentioned crackpots recently came out in support of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence when he proudly signed his pro-discrimination law into being. Until Pence's law exploded in his face, he too fancied himself as "presidential material." Rand Paul, however, kept ominously silent. If would-be candidates all had to take The Test, silence or failing to answer would lower their score. How could republican voters tell if their favorite was truly as crazy as they are?

Isn't this test a cheaper, quicker way to get through this? Just these few simple questions, or at least questions that are simple for normal people, could eliminate hours of debate, TV interviews, insane crackpot pronouncements, and bizarre TV commercials. There will still be money spent on the final candidate choices, but it will be less. I'm sure even Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers would like that!

The official name of The Test will, henceforward, be the "Giuliani Test."

NON-CRACKPOT ALERT! Scattered among the certifiably crazy answers are some that could be chosen by a sane person. Any prospective candidate who chooses one of these answers and is caught at it may be subject to automatic disqualification.

LET US BEGIN!

Remember, whichever republican lunatic out there -- and I mean out there -- gets the highest score ascends (descends) to the position of candidate.

1. The current president, whose name must not be spoken except when denigrating "Obamacare," hails from --
(a) Kenya.
(b) Indonesia.
(c) a previously unknown foreign country named Hawaii.
(d) Alpha Centauri.

2. Our Earth revolves around --
(a) the Moon.
(b) Jesus, the son of God.
(c) the Sun.
(d) This is a trick question -- we all know the Sun revolves around the Earth.

3. Do you believe in evolution?
(a) Yes.
(b) No.
(c) The concept of evolution is not settled law.
(d) The concept of evolution is not settled science and anyways I'm not a scientist.

4. "The current president loves his country." Comment.
(a) Absolutely not!
(b) No! And he doesn't love me either!
(c) He is incapable of love because he is a robot built by mad Iranian scientists.
(d) Yes, but "his country" is Kenya.

5. Complete the following sentence: "A woman has a right to choose --"
(a) which cookies to bake.
(b) what to make for dinner.
(c) what to wear.
(d) whether or not to have sex with me when I demand it at unlicensed gunpoint.

6. This country has always been --
(a) a Christian nation.
(b) a nation built by and only for Christians.
(c) a nation that offers freedom of religion, including the right to not believe.
(d) a nation that welcomes people of all faiths as long as they are willing to convert in order to please Bill O'Reilly, Pat Robertson, and any number of other useless stale old farts who drag our society down to the depths of Hell.

7. Gay people --
(a) must never "act gay" in my glorious God-anointed presence.
(b) must never "dress gay" in my glorious God-anointed presence.
(c) should stop with the Lindsay Graham imitations, already!
(d) must undergo conversion "therapy" and hormone shots once I am elected by God and Corporate America.

8. Rather than offer health care, we should adopt a policy of --
(a) medical care for only the privileged few who can afford it.
(b) "Let 'em die!"
(c) die and die quickly! Die and die again!
(d) continuing to close clinics where most women in this country get breast and uterine cancer screenings.

9. The Bible --
(a) is the literal word of God.
(b) says homosexuality is an abomination.
(c) is full of contradictions that can be twisted to fit whatever perverted notions I have that suit my purposes in the pursuit of power over the masses.
(d) should be the only book offered by the Book of the Month Club.

10. Unions are --
(a) one of the key things that built our middle class.
(b) great ways to raise pension funds that I can steal once I am elected. Then I can act like a Midwestern governor and either use the money to balance my budget or kick it back to my corporate masters who supported my campaign.
(c) doorways to Communism!
(d) the spawn of Satan!

11. Those who live in urban areas --
(a) are crackheads.
(b) act "strange."
(c) are naturally and provably inferior, except on the basketball court.
(d) are "nontraditional" people.

12. Racism --
(a) no longer exists in America.
(b) no longer exists in America.
(c) no longer exists in America.
(d) is a choice.

13. The right to vote should be available only to --
(a) old white men who own property, just like the original Constitution said.
(b) old white men, and women.
(c) old white Christians.
(d) old white Christian men and maybe some women of economic means.

14. If a woman wants equal pay for equal work, she should --
(a) bring home-baked cookies to work every day.
(b) dress like Nancy Reagan.
(c) dance around a pole in my office before, during and after work, preferably while dressed like Nancy Reagan.
(d) grow a penis.

15. Education --
(a) can be the key to a bright future.
(b) is for suckers!
(c) leads to "strange" and "nontraditional" ideas and values.
(d) is the playground of liberal communist devil-worshipping professors.

16. The current president, whose name must not be spoken except when denigrating "Obamacare" --
(a) is a "subhuman mongrel."
(b) a secret Muslim Marxist with a "deep-seated" racism toward white people.
(c) seeded the clouds of Superstorm Sandy in order to get reelected.
(d) All of the above!

17. The environment --
(a) is a sacred trust that we should protect for future Americans.
(b) is a sacred trust that we should protect for future Americans but nobody else.
(c) doesn't matter one bit because the End Times are coming soon, praise Jesus!
(d) will kill us all if we continue to poison it.

18. Tucker Carlson --
(a) is exactly what I would want my son to be.
(b) sure knows what he's talking about.
(c) should create a very high-priced and exclusive line of bowties.
(d) dances around poles dressed as Nancy Reagan.

19. Climate change --
(a) does not exist as long as Big Oil continues to give me "campaign contributions."
(b) does not exist as long as I cover my eyes and ignore it.
(c) is a scam invented by "scientists" in order to get socialist grants from the big, bad government.
(d) is only caused by farting cattle and nasty bad, bad trees that spew methane.

20. Raising the minimum wage --
(a) is socialism!
(b) will enslave us all!
(c) sets a bad example for the rest of the world.
(d) has proved to benefit our nation's economy every time we have done it in our history.

21. Immigration is --
(a) a way to bring terrorists to America.
(b) a way to bring disease to America.
(c) a scary invasion of brownish people with calves the size of cantaloupes.          
(d) what built America.

22. Rape is --
(a) just another form of insemination.
(b) so hard to define and rarely "legitimate."
(c) a "coveted status."
(d) When two people love each other…

23. The current president, whose name must not be spoken except when denigrating "Obamacare" --
(a) was influenced by Communism as a child.
(b) is deliberately destroying America.
(c) is secretly gay and married to a man. (I know because I read it on World Net Daily.)
(d) is no Ronald Reagan.

24. Rudy Giuliani has, once again, established himself as --
(a) America's Mayor.
(b) a leading spokesman for the Republican Party and a hero to FOX News viewers everywhere.
(c) a pathetic, senile old drooling basket case, driven over the edge by his own megalomania.
(d) a candidate for repeated electroshock therapy followed by dunking in a tank of water on prime-time national television without the electroshock wires being unplugged and removed.

25. Regarding the Keystone XL Pipeline --
(a) Big Oil companies that contribute to my campaign have every right to seize land owned by private citizens.
(b) Construction of the pipeline will create thousands of jobs -- wink!
(c) Building the pipeline over the nation's largest freshwater aquifer is not a danger in any way, especially in a time of increasing drought.
(d) We need to ship that Canadian oil down to the Gulf of Mexico to finish the job BP started!

26. The U.S. Postal Service --
(a) is an engine of our economy.
(b) employs too many minorities.
(c) was invented by Benjamin Franklin but he loved "the French" and was a "scientist" so what does he know?
(d) needs to be privatized so that the delivery services that contributed to my campaign have less competition.

27. The free market --
(a) is the antidote to Communism, or Marxism, or something.
(b) allows Big Business to run wild and free!
(c) is a marvelous way to crush a small business.
(d) There ain't no free.

28. Which of the following best defines Africa?
(a) It is a country.
(b) It is a country that I can see from my house.
(c) It is a continent -- the dark continent, if ya know what I'm sayin'.
(d) It is a country rife with ebola, where they make ebola and send it to America via ebola-infected latin-speaking Latino illegals. Did I mention ebola? Did I mention President Obola?

29. Gun control is fascism because --
(a) the Second Amendment forbids it.
(b) I have the right to have a home arsenal of Tomahawk missiles.
(c) if I drive an M1 tank, I can always get a parking space.
(d) the Newtown (CT) massacre was a hoax.

30. Rousseau's concept of the social contract is --
(a) the most hysterical idea I've ever heard of.
(b) way too French-sounding and socialistic for me.
(c) a special toilet paper for exclusive use by the 1%.
(d) All of the above!

31. A person can invoke their religious beliefs if --
(a) they are a pharmacist and a customer wants a prescription filled.
(b) they are a local magistrate and a same-sex couple asks them to marry them.
(c) they run a deli counter and someone orders a sandwich combo they would not eat.
(d) Just do the damn job you were hired or elected to do!

32. Which organization is more dangerous to America: ISIS or the Girl Scouts?
(a) We can deal with ISIS militarily, but the Girl Scouts are far more subversive.
(b) The Girl Scouts are more un-American with their lesbian-abortion cookies -- the profits from cookie sales go to Planned Parenthood, and we know what goes on there!
(c) On the one hand, ISIS kidnaps girls and sells them as sex slaves, but the Girl Scouts promote prostitution.
(d) The Girl Scouts, or should I say Shrub Scouts, teach lesbianism to young, impressionable girls, and if we're not careful, they'll grow up to put a Communist in the White House! That is, if we don't already have one!

33. We would be better off if we elected another Ronald Reagan because --
(a) Ronald Reagan! Ronald Reagan! Ronald Reagan!
(b) Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times and still managed to achieve a huge increase in the federal deficit. That takes a special talent!
(c) while governor of California, Ronald Reagan signed the most liberal abortion bill in the United States into law. (Say what?!!??)
(d) Ronald Reagan was in favor of amnesty for illegal aliens.

34. I say I support Israel because --
(a) it might get me some votes.
(b) it doesn't get any hotter than an Israeli babe in uniform wielding an Uzi!
(c) once elected I want us to invade Iran and bring about the End Times!
(d) if Jesus doesn't return, I'll still make a fortune with my Halliburton stock that the great Dick Cheney told me to buy!

35. Vladimir Putin is the kind of man who --
(a) I will be if elected, or appointed by the Supreme Court and Wall Street.
(b) is to be envied for the way he does things.
(c) sure looks hot to us Repubicans when he goes shirtless -- a man's man who wears man pants and wrestles bears, just like Sarah Palin says!
(d) is who Rudy Giuliani, the entire staff of FOX, and all true Republicans dream about in that special way.




WELL, THERE YOU ARE!

A streamlined primary process for the republican party. The only remaining question is: Which republican candidate, for whatever office, will choose to announce his or her candidacy, live on FOX, at the Westboro Baptist Church, complete with a mission-accomplished-style "God Hates Fags" banner as a backdrop? It's just a matter of time.

What are you waiting for? Spread the word!

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