After Bill Clinton and the democratic party lost control of congress in 1994, they moved to the middle, where most Americans lie. They collaborated with Republicans to pass welfare legislation and eventually balanced the budget, paying down on the national debt. After losing the elections in 2006 and 2008, the Republicans have moved further to the right. We’re all judged by the company we keep. If that’s the case, you can’t say much for the GOP. Here’s a short list of some of the circus freaks now welcome under “The Big Tent.”

1. The John Birch Society. Still fighting the Cold War after all these years.
Their founder, Robert Welch Jr. expounded on his paranoid world view: “Both the US and Soviet governments are controlled by the same furtive conspiratorial cabal of internationalists, greedy bankers, and corrupt politicians. If left unexposed, the traitors inside the US government would betray the country’s sovereignty to the United Nations for a collectivist New World Order, managed by a ‘one world’ socialist government.” The JBS was one of the hosts of the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference. The Birchers also oppose the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as being unconstitutional and may have been behind some of the racist posters at the Tea Party town hall meetings, if Lyndon LaRouche didn‘t beat them to it. Apparently no one is too far right for the Republican party.

2. Crackpot Lyndon LaRouche, who ran for president as the Libertarian candidate several times. He also sponsored the Hitler posters at the Tea Party sessions, pretty ironic coming from a gruppenfuhrer like him. Like former Minnesota senator Norm Coleman and Ronald Reagan, the man can’t seem to make up his mind. He started out as a Marxist/Leninist, ran for the democratic nomination for president, then became a Libertarian conspiracy theorist. LaRouche also did jail time for mail fraud.

3. Shock jocks and drug addicts disguised as political commentators. Glen Beck is a “reformed” alcoholic and drug addict who couldn’t finish one class at Yale. Limbaugh flunked out of college. Are conservatives not familiar with the word “credibility”? Obama was editor and president of the Harvard Law Review and a law school professor. Who do you hire when your life is at stake, a doctor or someone who reads tea leaves?

4. Governor Sanford, who, by the way, is still governor of South Carolina. Where’s the impeachment process and how is Sanford’s infidelity different than what Bill Clinton did?

5. Congressman Joe Wilson, the “You’re a liar” guy at Obama’s speech to Congress. No class, Bud. Lately we’ve had Republican Congressmen call people “baby killers” in the middle of the vote on Health Care. Outside tea baggers were harassing Nancy Pelosi, calling Congressman Frank a faggot, and spitting on black Congressmen. Tea Party organizers condemn these actions, but they’re guilty of inciting this kind of behavior in the first place. Act like a lady, Michelle Bachmann.

6. Jack Abramhoff and Ralph Reed, former leader of the Moral Majority, both hypocritical born-agains. Abramhoff is in jail and Reed should be.

7. Sarah Palin. Thought Africa was a country. Couldn’t name a newspaper. Underwent an exorcism performed by an African witch doctor.

8. Michelle Bachmann, the Joe McCarthy of 2010. Has lately taken to calling the Obama administration gangsters, a veiled racist slur. This woman got her law degree from Oral Roberts and worked as a lawyer for the IRS. Does Oral Roberts have an accredited law school?

9. Dick “I love to waterboard and I don’t mind outing CIA agents” Cheney. Blames his friend after shooting him in the face.

10. The Teapartier who ran his plane into the IRS building in Austin, Texas after burning down his house, leaving his wife and children destitute. Other tea partiers proclaim him a national hero. Another tea partier tries to take a couple of nines into the Pentagon, wounds a guard.

11. Birthers. Arizona house passes a law catering to the birthers. Obama must prove he was born in Hawaii to get on their ballot.

12. The Taxpayers League, synonym for the Posse Comitatus. Eleven states are on the verge of bankruptcy, thanks to Republican tax legislation.

13. “Pro-lifer” Scott Roeder who murdered the abortion doctor, Dr. George Tiller. Another Conservative hero. Meanwhile, some winger decides it’s a good idea to put an interview with Roeder on YouTube. Pro-lifers seem more concerned with the unborn and the living dead than they are with people. They’re for capital punishment, sending troops Iraq, and they’re opposed to the minimum wage as well as welfare. 30,000 people die each year because of the lack of reasonable gun legislation. Where’s the “life” in pro-lifer?

14. Newt Gingrich, a married man at the time, who carried on an affair while clamoring for Bill Clinton’s impeachment. Can you say “hypocrite”? Gingrich gave another pious speech at a recent Conservative meeting.

15. James Watt, Reagan’s secretary of the Interior, who didn’t have a problem with using up our national resources since we are in the End Times and when they are used up, Christ will appear and take the true believers up to Heaven.

16. Tim LaHaye. Author of the RAPTURE series, which has sold something like ninety million copies. LaHaye portrays the Secretary General of the United Nations as the anti-Christ. He also wrote THE BATTLE FOR THE MIND, a homophobic rant against gays, feminists and human rights activists. He and his wife formed CONCERNED WOMEN FOR AMERICA, a front against feminism, and formed FAMILY AMERIC, another focus group that opposes day care, divorce etc. In other words, a woman’s place is in the home. No self-respecting woman should ever vote Republican. LaHaye also helped found Patrick Henry College, whose avowed purpose is to send Christians to Congress.

17. James O’Keefe, the ACORN pimp dressed in his grandmother’s fur coat, pulled the same sort of stunt, trying to tap Senator Mary Landrieu’s phones. Hopefully he’ll be doing jail time. This all smacks of Donald Segretti, Richard Nixon’s dirty tricks coordinator. Haven’t we learned anything in forty years? 

18. Rick Perry. The governor of Texas started this secession nonsense, and of course, other conservatives who didn’t see anything wrong with Civil War secession in the first place are now threatening to the same if they don’t get their way.

19. This is what you get when you elect a right wing state legislature: Everybody knows about Arizona’s profiling law, but not a lot has been said about Oklahoma’s new abortion law that treats women as second-class citizens (see the LaHaye entry), an Alabama gubernatorial candidate’s ad requiring immigrants to take driver’s tests in English, and, Arizona’s new law allowing citizens over 21 to carry a concealed gun without a permit (Way to go Law and Order party. Let’s make it tough for the police).  

20. The Texas School Board. Approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light. Affects the rest of the nation since Texas is so large and textbook companies use them as a template for the rest of society. 

21. The NRA and the Taxpayer's League.
I can't think of two more irresponsible groups. The NRA seems content to sacrifice 30,000 lives every year so their members can pay with dangerous weapons. This resist liability insurance and trigger locks as an attempt to hamper their specious liberties. The Second Amendment was aimed at the British and is ambigious to an extreme; yet, the Supreme Court refuses to deal with it. The Taxpayer's League is almost as obtuse. No new taxes? Sure, go ahead and paint yourself into a corner. All options should be on the table when it comes to balancing the budget. Why not tax fast food? Our kids keep getting heavier and heavier. And there will be a VAT tax eventually if we ever want to decrease the national debt.

After refusing to identify themselves for months, the Tea baggers have finally been outed. According to a New York Times/CBS poll, the 18% of respondents who identified themselves with the Tea Party movement are financially better off (probably already have health care) and more well-educated than the general public (hard to believe), and are no more or less afraid of losing their financial status to minority groups. For one thing, they feel Obama favors blacks. They are generally more conservative than most Republicans, and when asked if blacks would work harder they could improve their circumstances, most agreed. In other words, they are just what we thought they were, sore-loser Republicans who want revenge for the way they think George W. Bush was treated.