Making Every GOP Candidate Choke on Their Tea

Toward the end of last month, I wrote that everyone was nationalizing the craziest teabagger candidates -- that is, everyone but the Democratic Party. If dems put Republicans on the spot with positions held by out-of-state nutjobs, those Republicans would be forced to either reject Tea Party orthodoxy or embrace craziness. The last thing a candidate wants to do is spend a lot of time explaining that they're not Christine O'Donnell -- for more than one reason. My argument went like this:

The only avenue left to dig Democrats out of the hole is to point out the obvious and the undeniable -- a lot of these people are crazy. And not the fun-at-a-party kind of crazy, the bad kind. Put Republicans on the spot, make them defend these lunatics or cut them loose. Are you with Rand Paul on the Civil Rights Act? Do you agree with Alaska senatorial candidate Joe Miller that federal unemployment benefits are unconstitutional? Do you agree with Sharron Angle that Social Security should be phased out and the Department of Education shut down -- or that rape can be a blessing in disguise? Give Republican candidates a choice: appeal to the teabagger base or to the rest of the electorate. It's a situation most won't benefit from. Advantage becomes predicament, since most of that GOP enthusiasm comes from the feverish base. And that's not enough in all cases.

It seemed like a no-brainer to me. And now it seems that the Democratic Party has come to the same conclusion. Run against the crazies, no matter what race you're in.

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Taxation By Fees is Inherently Unfair

By now, you've probably heard about Tennessee homeowner Gene Cranick. The victim of government cost-containment gone mad, Cranick watched as his home burned down -- as did local firefighters.

About that assault on Fire Chief: The Messenger, a local newspaper, has the skinny:

Timothy A. Cranick, 44, a resident of Buddy Jones Road near South Fulton, was arrested and charged with felony aggravated assault, according to South Fulton Police Chief Andy Crocker.

Crocker said the assault stemmed from a fire that occurred earlier in the day and he identified Cranick as a family member of the person whose property burned.

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Every GOP Senate Candidate a Flatearther

I've decided that exercise is bad for you. Every time you light a candle, it gets shorter. Every time you take a drink of water, the glass gets emptier. Every time you draw off a battery, it's useful life gets shorter. Besides, I'm not the world's biggest fan of exercise, so this works out better for me.

Of course, this requires ignoring decades of research and the established opinion of the medical community. But I don't need some fancy-pants, ivory tower elitist medical degree. Common sense tells me that the more I work out, the worse off I'll be. It's a declaration I feel totally qualified to make: stop exercising everyone, it's killing you. It's all just a big scam to sell gym memberships and Gatorade. I don't care what your doctor might tell you, I'm just relying on good old American horse sense. And isn't that always better? It's certainly easier to understand than this pie-in-the-sky science stuff.

The above is basically the argument offered by global warming deniers. Sure, there are a few actual scientists who don't believe in global warming, but the vast, vast majority accept it. And the majority of people offering opinions contrary to the scientific consensus aren't scientists. So the odds are extremely good that anyone speaking against anthropogenic global warming is basically making my "no exercise" argument -- I'm ignoring decades of research, I'm ignoring the opinions of experts, and I'm going with my gut on this one. Besides, global warming is just as inconvenient for me as Al Gore said it was, so the science must be wrong. End of story.

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