crazy extremists

Tom Toles, Washington Post [click to enlarge]by KenThe political craziness level has, at least for the time being, flipped me out, and I refuse to let it crowd out some swell times I've been having on to such nifty places as The Players, the theatrical club founded by the great actor Edwin Booth on Gramercy Park South (a Municipal Art Society Tour with Matt Postal), Coney Island (a Municipal Art Soci

Last week a new name started popping up on my Twitter feed: Cliven Bundy. Before I had even processed it, he was in a standoff with federal law enforcement officials over unpaid taxes and fees and Harry Reid was calling him a domestic terrorist, Sean Hannity was egging him on to start an armed rebellion and Ted Cruz seemed to be angling to get him to run on his ticket in 2016. It looked too silly/ugly/predictable to pay any attention to. So I didn't. But it didn't go away.

Everybody likes inoffensive, friendly, old Tom Petri, right? He's the 4th most senior Republican in the House-- having beaten Tommy Thompson for an open GOP seat back in 1979. His central Wisconsin district is a swing district that leans red. Obama eked out the narrowest of victories there in 2008 and lost to Romney in 2012.

Despite the hairdo, Susanne Atanus is not from EMILY's ListEvery good progressive deserves their own opponent like Susanne Atanus. Recall that last January we had a chuckle over the crackpots running against Jan Schakowsky in her Evanston, Wilmette, Winnetka, Des Plaines, Arlington Heights district (IL-09).

Thanks, Hank Fox! I too am struggling to be a bigger person about the (now) death of Fred Phelps, just as Alexandra Petri suggests -- see below. But it's hard.

"I am a biology professor, not a lawyer, and I had never considered bringing a gun to work until now. But since many of my students are likely to be armed, I thought it would be a good idea to even the playing field. . . ."In terms of the campus murder rate -- zero at present -- I think that we can all agree that guns don't kill people, people with guns do. Which is why encouraging guns on campus makes so much sense.

It's good to know that, despite losing the Virginia governorship, former AG "Cuckoo Ken" Cuccinelli hasn't forsworn the public arena.by KenEvery time you think you've heard it all . . . .I don't know how many readers remember Bruce Fein as a pipsqueak who styled himself a "constitutional lawyer" and squeaked at the time what seemed the nuttiest right-wing nutjob you could have outside the walls of a mental institution. Well, surprise!

Garden variety GOP racist Ted Cruz couldn't even make it into the Top 10December-- time for Rolling Stone to make lists of the 50 greatest albums, 50 coolest videos and 50 greatest drummers, right. Sure… and the 50 dumbest things right-wingers said in 2013.

[Click to enlarge.]by KenNow that the nomination of Chris Christie as the 2016 Republican candidate for president is all but official, even as the sure-to-be-virulent "hell no" of the party's farthest-right wing is acknowledged, a spell of craziness.

The Dallas Morning News reported on a Republican judge, Carlo Key, getting so fed up with Republican extremism that he switched parties.