GOP just can't get its sh*t together

My God! As Election Day gets closer, the GOP crazy train is picking up steam!

Aw, Paul.  You know you love her.

Paul Ryan hearts Ayn Rand

Ever since Mitt chose Paul Ryan as his running mate, the media has been all atwitter with glowing comments about Ryan's youthful good looks and his well-maintained physique.  I concur.  The man is a physical specimen.  At 42 years of age, he looks great.

But alas, in addition to his youthful physique, his emotional maturity appears to have advanced little beyond the adolescent.  How else can one explain his boyish fawning over Ayn Rand, author of the Objectivist manifesto, Atlas Shrugged?

As Paul Krugmann so aptly put it:  "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

Ryan used to proudly taut his Objectivist creed, claiming in 2005: “There is no better place to find the moral case for capitalism and individualism than through Ayn Rand’s writings and works."   But now that he's figured out that Tea Partiers hate atheists, he's changing his tune.

I suppose the falling out between Ryan and Rand should come as no suprise.  Ayn's habit of taking up with younger men seems to always end in the same way.  Badly.

"I's a proud Tea Party Republican.  A-yup."

Todd Akin and legitimate rape

Republican Senate Candidate Todd Akin, who faces off with the heretofore endangered Senator Clair McCaskill of Missouri this November, gave an astoundingly ignorant response to a question about abortion.  In an interview with the Jaco Report, a St. Louis political talk show, the questioner asked Aikin if he would support abortion in rape cases where the woman is impregnated by her assaulter.  Quoth Aikin:

"It seems to me first of all, from what I understand from doctors, that's really rare. If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." 

Putting aside the baffling notion of "a legitimate rape," does Akin really believe that a woman's physiology includes some kind of anti-rape spermicide that prevents pregnancy?  If so, what else does he believe about human reproduction?  Do storks deliver babies?

"I can't explain it.  You had to have been there.  Everything just felt so... free!"

Tea Party Republican Kevin Yoder's morning-after regrets

When the Tea Party crashed Congress, back in 2010, we were assured that serious, no-nonsense citizens were coming to Washington.  One of them was  Representative Kevin Yoder, R-Kansas.

Last year, on a congressional "fact-finding" mission to Israel, Yoder and some other GOP congresspersons and staff had a little party on a boat in the Sea of Gallilee.  (You know?  The place where Christ walked on the water?)

Well... drinks were served.  One thing led to another.  And then?  Well, here's what the Honorable Mister Yoder had to say about it:  "A year ago, my wife, Brooke, and I joined colleagues for dinner at the Sea of Galilee in Israel. After dinner I followed some Members of Congress in a spontaneous and very brief dive into the sea and regrettably I jumped into the water without a swimsuit."

Pause for a minute to allow our conservative readers to catch their breath...

Personally, I've got no problem with skinny-dipping.  In fact, I think Republicans in particular could benefit from a little loosening up.  Maybe go sit in a clothing-optional hot springs or hang out at the Oregon Country Fair.  But Yoder was part of an official congressional delegation, (funded to the tune of $10,000 per attendee by an AIPAC-affiliated group). If the Israelis had any doubts about the gravitas of their staunchest allies in the US Congress, I'm sure the incident went a long way toward reassuring them.

House Majority Leader and Serious Man^TM Eric Cantor was reportedly livid when he heard about the incident.  But I think Eric ought to cut Mr. Yoder some slack.  We've all been there, eh? 

Keep swinging, kids

All of these incidences are but manifestations of the misogyny, sexual repression, and ignorance that is today's Grand Ol' Party.  Yuck it up, folks.

And if the Republicans win in November?  Well, in that case, there won't be anything to do but laugh all the harder.