All On Board the Crazy Train!

Wonderful News!

Crusaders are now coming out of the woodwork and wormholes to save our nation! They tell us they know better than anyone else and can and will save us from ourselves. They will take us all back to a far simpler, safer time when everything is all milk, honey, roses and cash on the barrelhead. Back to the past where the world is flat and the Sun revolves around the Earth, the very center of the universe itself, where a Christian God rules everything, where the good get richer and the poor get poorer, the sick get sicker and deserve it by God. Back to a time of black and white certainties, with no grey areas and no doubts about anything at all, ever, thank you very much!

To save ourselves we are told, we will have to put our faith in these wise, determined crusaders for mom, apple pie, cold hard cash and the American Way, and let them show us the way. They are on board a wildly careening and crusading Crazy Train and stoking the fires to work up a head of steam for days to come. They have their Tin Hats all secured in their luggage and their White Horses, Unicorns and Centaurs in the baggage car and letting us know they are on their way to save us all.

‘Just who are these crusaders?’ you may well ask.

If you ever doubted the existence of the figures in those irrational fantasies we heard about and feared as children, now is the time put those doubts to rest for good. They actually do exist in the form of these crusaders who daily live and speechify amongst us. That’s the good news - but very sadly, that’s the awful, wretched news too.

So, who are they? Let’s make a list, in no particular order shall we?

There’s, the Minnesota Banshee of course, Michelle. You didn’t think Banshee’s actually existed? Think again. Michelle is a living proof, with the wail or a tormented woman and the shriek of an injured owl, who gives continuous vent to venomous outrage violating all laws of lucidity or rationality. In fact, Michelle seems to posses a strict, determined and unfailing allegiance to irrationality.

Then there’s Jabberwocky Paul Ryan of Wisconsin who recklessly swings his Vorpal Sword in noisy defense of the official Tin Hat Banner (“Don’t Tread On Me!”) and has famously been heard to mutter, ‘All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.’, and, ‘Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas---only I don't exactly know what they are! But, I DO KNOW what’s good for YOU!’

There’s Tim the Seraphim, also from Minnesota. (Is there something in the water in those regions?) Tim has eagerly climbed aboard the Crazy Train too and champions evangelical endeavors to return the Earth to its flat, pure state and America to a place where immigrants, foreigners, abortionists and gays may be securely walled off for the protection of all good Christian folk, who are the inheritors of, and the rightful owners of this great nation, thank you very much.

There’s Huck, the pious Golem, who fantasizes we need “. . . . to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.” (These are his actual words!) The contemporary view, by the way when the Constitution was written was ‘separation of church and state’. Huck sits right in the middle of the God Car on the Crazy Train along with Tim and Sarah, but running hot or cold depending on the mood of his handlers at Fox News.

We must not leave out The Donald, the comb-over Satyr who has lately boarded the Crazy Train and is now happily seated first class way up front. The Donald’s particular fantasy is that certain people are not actually born where they are born, but in fact, somewhere else, say not ‘Hawaii’ but ‘Africa’. People who believe this way are called ‘Birthers’ and are a brand new addition to Fantasyland. Alas, there are so many that most Birthers are compelled to ride second class on the Crazy Train - but certainly not The Donald whose hair we’ve been informed, actually has its very own birth certificate!!

There’s Newt the Phoenix, who’s risen from the ashes of his once commanding political career to re-board the Crazy Train anew. Newt fantasizes about a return to fondly remembered days of yore, when men were men, and women were women, and women could marry only men and vice versa. Newt himself provides three excellent examples for this procedure by having had affairs with younger women while his current wife is seriously ill, then divorcing the currently extant wife to marry the younger woman. None of that evil same-sex marriage stuff for an ethically challenged Phoenix, nosiree! Newt the Phoenix has a sub-speciality in train wrecking governments.

Sitting up front first class in the God Car on the Crazy Train with Huck and Tim is Sarah from Alaska, the Harpy/Siren who seems to so thrill the sex-subverted legions of Tea Partiers in their search for truths about God and making American safe for all good Christians, not to mention those lusting after unattainable women. Siren Sarah competes at least evenly with the Banshee for shrilling nonsense, especially when it comes to God-hollering and smacking down the less fortunate, and out does her by far when it comes to casting out demons and uncovering Death Panels.

Way back in the caboose is Haley, the Hellhound Boogeyman from Mississippi, whose main hope and goal it is to reestablish the Confederacy to an equal footing with the US Government and install the Ku Klux Klan as overseers of Social Security, Medicare and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. His secondary goal is to encode the Ten Commandments as law and official policy in a Christian government.

Alas, left behind at the station is a more sanely rational, but now very lonely Mitt Romney whose sin it was to actually put in place a health care system for all in Massachusetts when governor there. This is an unpardonable sin in the view of most Crazy Train riders in the wake of the new US national health care system modeled on Romney’s, but installed by a . . . gasp! . . . black democrat! However, Mitt is not completely out of the running as he is now urgently seeking and hopes to find a suitable shapeshifting methodology to overcome his handicap.

And, you thought myths and fantasy were just make believe?

Gosh! How gullible you must be!

How Crazy Can They Get?

Much of the country - the moderate people who comprise the vast middle ground of US political opinion - marvel at the political excesses of the Tea Party people. I have written about them in several times before, sometimes simply reporting the facts and sometimes trying for a bit of humor. *

The Tea Party mindset is not a recent development. We have always had the far out crazies on both the radical right and left. However, these crazies were more constrained in the past, perhaps because of their sub-conscious sense of their own ridiculous radicalization. No longer. Today they are ‘mainstream’.

The rising crescendo of shrill right wing demagoguery and the demonizing of anyone who doesn’t subscribe to their regressive dogma has motivated thousands of these crazies to come out of the woodwork. They now believe - and loudly proclaim - they represent a groundswell of grassroots majority populism, even though poll numbers say otherwise. There have always been some who never hid their nuttiness, who didn’t care if others thought they were way over the edge. Recall George Wallace of Alabama, David Duke of Louisiana and the recently deceased Reverend Jerry Falwell. Falwell once said, ‘Textbooks are Soviet propaganda.” in one of his many witless proclamations. He said so many stupid things I had to laugh when Christopher Hitchens said after Falwell’s death, "If he had been given an enema, he could have been buried in a matchbox."

Tea Party populism is the ‘God, Guns and Gold’ variety, loudly and obnoxiously championed by people like Sarah Palin, and Ron Paul, and their Fox News collaborators. The Tea Party succeeded in electing a number of their people into office in the 2010 elections, and they are making themselves heard and felt, misguided as they are. A lot of these people are new to the political process, but some have been there all along. Until now, their bizarre activities have been shoved to the side or ignored. But now, newly emboldened, they are ‘mainstreaming’.

That does not make them any less bizarre however. One nut case in Georgia recently made the news when he asked his Republican Congressman Paul Broun in a public meeting: “When are we going to shoot Obama?” At the time Broun made absolutely no objection to the publicly expressed thought of shooting the sitting President of the United States.  Later, Broun tried to justify his failure to be responsible, claiming “I was stunned by the question and chose not to dignify it with a response; therefore, at that moment I moved on to the next person with a question."

R-I-I-I-G-H-T. But, not surprisingly, that’s not what really transpired. At the meeting Broun actually matter-of-factly answered the question saying, “The thing is, I know there’s a lot of frustration with this president. We’re going to have an election next year. Hopefully, we’ll elect somebody that’s going to be a conservative, limited-government president that will take a smaller, who will sign a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.”

That was it. That’s the new ‘normal’ for these people.  Broun's kind are not lonely in this area of Georgia. This year, the region’s Republican Georgia State Representative Bobby Franklin - who holds a 'Biblical degree' - was first in line to introduce numerous bizarre bills and resolutions to the state legislature, including but not limited to the following:

• A bill to make women prove miscarriage or face felony charges;
• A bill to eliminate drivers’ licenses; “"licensing of drivers cannot be required of free people because taking on the restrictions of a license require the surrender of an inalienable right.”;
• A bill to bar state from requiring vaccinations, the ‘Freedom from Compulsory Pandemic Act’;
• A bill to require taxpayers to pay in gold or silver only;
• A bill prohibiting local governments from interfering with a (city) resident who wants to raise chickens, rabbits, hogs cows or goats;
• A bill stating that since Georgia was not a party to the suit in Roe v. Wade, it is not bound by that decision. The bill defines life as beginning at conception, and abortion as murder;
• A bill prohibiting the state from collecting income taxes;
• A bill to change names of ‘victims’ to ‘accusers’ (as in rape ‘victims’ to ‘accusers’);
• A bill to allow any legislator to lobby for special interests;
• A bill to abolish Department of Human Services;
• A bill to require property damage or bodily injury or death before citing a person for traffic violations;
• A bill to repeal prohibition agains carrying concealed weapons in church
• A bill to repeal prohibition agains carrying concealed weapons for post-secondary schools;
• A bill to abolish property taxes;
• A bill to provide that land use and zoning laws, ordinances, and resolutions shall be prohibited;
• A RESOLUTION informing a Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice that Georgia is a republic, not a democracy.

This is completely nuts, and unbelievable to any rational person, I know. Anyone except Tea Partier types would consider this guy as certifiable - yet he is routinely justified and defended in our right wing blogosphere. More bizarre yet is that that this is routine for Bobby Franklin, who has been elected over and over, and is now serving his EIGHTH consecutive term!

No one should be surprised however. This region also produced Newt Gingrich, who ‘shut down’ the government once before, and also US Representative Larry McDonald (a ‘conservative Democrat’!) who died when Korean Air Lines flight 007 was shot down over Russia in 1983. McDonald also just happened to be the President of the John Birch Society at the time, and was considered as the second most conservative member in Congress - behind Ron Paul!

The Republican Party is desperately trying to get ahead of what they perceive, correctly in my opinion, as a movement which can engulf them. They are trying to 'embrace' the crazies in order to preserve their party, but in the process finding themselves being moved so far right as to make the GOP increasingly irrelevant. That's the danger in trying to ride a wild horse. The so-called Tea Partiers themselves are too radical ever to be a party in their own right. Mainstream America simply will not tolerate their excesses for long.  They will end up sucking the life out of the GOP

We know where the crazies are. They live among us - and are trying to convince everyone they are the new normal. But, that just ain't so. . . and never will be.

* Tea Party in Alaska

   Questions for Tea Party

   Tea Party Jesus

   Tea Party Ship of State

   Tea Party Gun Nuts

   Tea Party Racists

   Black-balled by Tea Party

   How to Tell if You May be a Tea Partier

   Should I be a Tea Partier?

   Modern America Tea Party

   Planning a Tea Party

Republican Strategery Meeting

A Soul-Searching Meeting . . .

Michael Steele, chairman of the RNC began the meeting by saying, "I've called this meeting to discuss the direction to take the Republican Party."

"We're really in deep doo - doo." broke in Newt Gingrich quickly, attempting to take charge. "This Arlen Spector defection has really hurt us. If we don't do something fast, the Republican Party is toast."

"Yeah right! That's what you said when you resifned your post as Speaker and bugged out from Congress back in '97." Sneered Congressman John Boehner of Ohio. "I 'member that's when you wanted to train wreck the government 'cause you were pissed at Clinton. That cutesy little move sure didn't win you brownie points anywhere, did it dick shit? What kinda stuff were you sniffing back then anyhow?"

"Kiss my round, pink, well-cared-for sweet and fat ass!" Newt retorted huffily.

"Now, now boys." intoned Michael Steele, . "Remember who you are."

"Who the Hell you callin' 'boy', Boy?" demanded Newt.

Steele smacked him smartly up side the head.

"You wouldn't get away with that crap if we's back down in Kennesaw, GA." sobbed a mortified Newt as he rubbed his pinkened noggin. "Them good ol' boy's down there 'ould straighten out yer black ass for sure!"

Steele smacked him again quite hard, quickly and sharply before he could duck. Newt slunk off into a corner where he pouted darkly and cried, while his friend Eric Cantor tried to console him. "There, there, Newty." said Cantor. "There, there, Baby."

"We've got work to do guys." Steele went on, ignoring Newt. "We don't have time for the good-ol-boy stuff. Newt and all his bullshit and nonsense is old news We've got to work on saving the party George W. Bush and his bunch destroyed. Hell, they have the whole country believing Republicans are nothing but incompetent, corrupt, brain-dead religious fanatics out to destroy everyone's civil rights."

A chorus of general agreement ran round the table, until Senator Mitch McConnell bobbed his head turtle-like and got hurriedly to his feet.

"Hey now, let's not be so quick to throw out the baby with the bath water." Mitch insisted sonorously. "We owe those good-ol-boy bible thumpers and snake handlers a lot. If it wasn't for them, I never would have been elected in the first place. I'm not talking about the ones on welfare of course. I'm talking about the 20% or so of American dumb clucks who still believe in us and cling to the fantasy we're on their side."

Rush Limbaugh, attending as the uncrowned, and unofficial king of conservatives, now aggressively pounded the table and spoke for the first time: "Damned right! We won't ever lose those dummies who still think we're right - we've got those bozos for life. Hell, I even call 'em'Dittoheads' and they just eat that shit up. Would you believe they even call themselves that? Go figure!"

"But, speaking as the real head of the party, I've gotta insist we get rid any damned RINO's - 'Republicans In Name Only' - left around who might decide to defect too. I'm talking right now about people like Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and that God-damned maverick McCain!"

"Now, just hold on a gosh-damned minute!" shouted an angry John McCain from the back of the room, but few heard him beyond a few feet and he was otherwise ignored. Neither Snowe nor Collins were in attendance.

Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, recently recognized by many Republicans as their newest young up and comer, now put in his two cents' worth: "From where I sit, it's really pretty simple: We either need to find something else good to scare the hell out of everyone with, or find some WMD's in Iraq to prove we had it right over there. Since it looks like both of those are out, and as much as I hate to admit it, we might have to rebrand ourselves.. How's about 'Vote For Change'?"

"That's been done you ninny." retorted Steele sharply. "Obama did that."

"I can see Russia from my house!" shouted Sarah Palin over the general din, but everyone studiously ignored her, including Orrin Hatch who snored softly in his corner.

Steele continued, "We're in trouble guys. Newt was right about one thing. We ARE in deep doo-doo. We're out of money for one thing, and contributions are way down. Our corporate sugar daddies are bailing out by the hundreds and going to the other side."

"Speaking of bailing out, can't we qualify for bailout money from the Stimulus Bill?" demanded Palin. "We can call ourselves the 'Republican National Bank' or something."

"Go on back over to Nordstrom or Neiman-Marcus, Sarah." said Steele. "You're qualified there, but way out of your pay grade here."

"Well, I never!" snorted Palin indignantly.

"Oh, hell yes you did!" cried a suddenly re-energized John McCain. "For one thing you damned sure train wrecked my run for president, you bitch! And another thing, everybody knows all your bullshit 'abstinence' talk is just so much horse puckey after your daughter got knocked up - and on your watch too as governor. What kind of damned mother are you anyway?"

Palin retorted angrily, "Well by God at least I don't need a shot of oxygen just to wake up each day! And if your damned people had listened to me, you'd be president right this minute, and I'd be half a heartbeat away myself. I'm still mad as hell about all that. Listen numbskull, you want to be real careful about making this pig bull, er, ah, er, I mean a pit bull in lipstick mad at you. I could go off like a pit bull with PMS!"

"Yeah, right! You might be real dangerous if you'd stop shooting yourself and everybody around you in the foot too." said a quick thinking McCain as he ducked the shoe Palin threw at him.

"Meeting's adjourned!" shouted an exasperated Michael Steele.


* (Disclaimer: This is an imaginary account of a strategy session among today's Republican leadership)