Send in the Clowns

Today’s House Judiciary Committee’s Rethuglican highlights:

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The Macaca Awards! Part IV

We continue with nominations for the Mock, Paper, Scissors–Hysterical Raisins 1st Semi-Regular Macaca Awards.

(Image courtesy of Tengrain)

Tonight’s category is Outstanding Achievement in Promoting Fundamentalist Christian Theocracy and Pooping on the First Amendment, and the nominees are:

James Inhofe Has Crystal Balls!

From THINK PROGRESS:

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), right-wing conspiracy theorist and oil-industry apologist, has promised that Republicans are “certainties” to win at least the ten seats necessary to regain control of the U.S. Senate on November 2. In an interview while stumping for Colorado U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck on Thursday, Inhofe told the National Review Online that extremist candidates such as Buck, John Raese (WV), Dino Rossi (WA), Pat Toomey (PA), and Carly Fiorina (CA) are guaranteed to win. Inhofe even said that Tea Party favorite Christine O’Donnell (DE) has a shot:

Little Chrissie may be a witch, but I bet she can’t see the future!

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Priva-tea-zation

From coloradoan.com:

During a television interview months ago, Republican Ken Buck discussed the need for public-private partnerships while talking about how the federal government is inefficient.

Now, less than a month before the election, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet’s campaign is criticizing what it calls Buck’s suggestion to privatize the Centers for Disease Control.

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Take Them Out! To the ballgame, I mean.

From Mitchell Bard at THE HUFFINGTON POST:

Noted football coach Bill Parcells once said, “You are what your record says you are.”

Parcells’ quote jumped into my mind when I was thinking about the slate of Tea Party-influenced Republicans running in November. I feel like we’ve become immune to the stories about the extreme and, sometimes, downright delusional things they’ve said, since they’ve come in a steady stream over the past several months. But if you step back and look at the group as a whole (or at least some of the leading Tea Party favorites), you can get a real sense of what the Republican Party is offering voters in November.

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(In the window, not allowed to participate: Michael Phathead Steele. Back row, l to r: Coach Rush Limbaugh, cheerleader Rich Iott (running for OH-Nein), Coach Glenn Beck, Marco Rubio. Middle-but not moderate-row, l to r: Linda McMahon, Joe Miller, Rand Paul, Ron Johnson, Carl Paladino. Front row, l to r: Christine O’Donnell, Ken Buck, Dan Maes, Sharron Angle, and Batboy David Vitter)

Juicy Fruit

From POLITICO:

Jon Ralston today posted a remarkable audio recording of Nevada Republican Sharron Angle meeting privately with a conservative rival, Scott Ashjian, and his allies.

The recording is worth listening to in full despite its poor quality. It suggests that — at least for the purposes of this conversation with a Tea Party figure — behind the facade of a real grassroots outsider who hates the organized Republican Party is … a real grassroots outsider who hates the organized Republican Party.

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Rowdy With a Chance of Screwballs

From Betsy Reed at THE Nation:

In the media spectacle that is the 2010 midterm elections, women of the GOP are playing starring roles. They have figured prominently in nearly every plot and subplot that holds any real interest or potential for debased amusement: from Indian-American Nikki Haley’s triumph over her mudslinging male rivals for the GOP gubernatorial nod in South Carolina, to Carly Fiorina’s catty open-mic swipe at her opponent Barbara Boxer’s hair in the first-ever contest between two women for a California Senate seat, to WWF founder and Connecticut Senate hopeful Linda McMahon’s gifts to oh-so-lucky Democratic ad firms (including video of the candidate physically attacking a buxom, scantily clad woman purporting to be her husband’s lover), to the daily dose of clips revealing Christine O’Donnell’s youthful preoccupations with witchcraft and masturbation. Remember when politics was boring?

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That’s the Spirit!

From JOE KLEIN at TIME:

An astute commenter noted that I passed through Nevada without a word about the Harry Reid-Sharron Angle Senate Race. There is a reason for that. This trip is about things I can actually see with my own eyes. For all intents and purposes, Sharron Angle is invisible–and Harry Reid was out of state for the days I was there. Angle is part of a growing legion of (mostly Republican) ghost politicians.

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