This Week In Crazy: Michele Bachmann Says Goodbye

This Week In Crazy: Michele Bachmann Says Goodbye

Welcome to “This Week In Crazy,”  The National Memo’s weekly update on the wildest attacks, conspiracy theories, and other loony behavior from the increasingly unhinged right wing. Starting with number five:

5. Montana Legislature

For years, Republicans have been warning their constituents about the looming threat represented by Sharia law. But some of them might find that they like parts of the rules. Specifically, the dress code.

On Friday, the GOP leadership of Montana’s state legislature sent a memo to members laying out the proper attire for legislative business. The instructions for men take all of 22 words.

But the women’s dress code is a bit more complicated. It takes several bullet points, and contains helpful reminders like “open-toe sandals are not considered appropriate,” “leggings are not considered dress pants,” and “women should be sensitive to skirt lengths and necklines.”

Montana Memo

(Yes, they did forget number 6.)

Unsurprisingly, the instructions sparked controversy. House Minority Whip Jenny Eck (D-Helena) derided it as “right out of the 19th Century,” and wondered “How would it be enforced? Would the sergeant of arms be the clothes police, checking our skirt lengths and cleavage?”

Meanwhile, Florida Republicans are presumably wondering whether or not they could come to work in their Rick Scott dresses.

4. Rush Limbaugh

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA’s use of torture during the Bush administration triggered shock and outrage across the country. But you may not be shocked to learn that the right-wing media saw things differently.

No one exemplified the far-right reaction better than Rush Limbaugh. On the Tuesday edition of his show, Limbaugh responded with anger — that the Senate ruined “Jonathan Gruber day” with their stupid investigation.

“The lead story today, by design, is the release of…the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture. Dumping on the Bush administration on Jonathan Gruber day,” Limbaugh lamented. “Gruber, whatever’s happening up there, being dwarfed by what is happening with the release of how rotten and horrible this stinking country was when George Bush was president.”

“This is the picture being painted today: As we head into Christmas season, once again, America sucked — and it really sucked during the Bush years,” he added. “On the day that Jonathan Gruber is being questioned about all of the lies that were told in order to pass Obamacare.”

But Limbaugh wasn’t done there. Later, after agreeing with a caller that the outrage over Michael Brown and Eric Garner’s deaths was manufactured to distract the nation from Gruber (and immigration), Limbaugh wondered if President Obama — not torture — is the real “stain on our nation’s honor.”

After all, fraternity pranks are better than Hitler.

3. Peter King

Some Republican politicians also had a difficult time coming to terms with the torture revelations. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) took a break from his battle against obesity to remind Newsmax TV host J.D. Hayworth that if Americans hate torture, they also hate America.

“This was really very mild,” King said of the revelations that detainees were beaten, humiliated, and — in at least one case — killed. “Why people have this hate-America-first attitude, this self-loathing, this self-hatred is beyond me.”

The congressman is right: If the hate-America crowd had its way, we never could have stopped that imaginary attack against Fort Knox.

King also agreed with Hayworth (and Limbaugh) that the Senate timed the release of the report to distract from Jonathan Gruber’s Earth-shattering testimony.

“We have to assume that there’s politics involved here when you’re talking about Harry Reid and the Democrats,” he explained.

Just imagine what Dianne Feinstein has planned for the day of the next Benghazi hearing!

2. Jerry Boykin

The most outrageous response to the torture report came God’s gun salesman, Family Research Council executive vice president Jerry Boykin.

During a Wednesday night appearance on Glenn Beck’s television show, Boykin — joined by fake ex-terrorist Kamal Saleem — dismissed the allegations

“I think that this report came from a bunch of sanctimonious hypocrites. This is not torture,” Boykin raged. “I’ll tell you what’s torture. Torture is what we’ve done to the veterans at the VA hospitals. Torture is what we’ve done by having the IRS go after conservative groups.”

Well, when you put it that way… nope, rectal rehydration still sounds worse than being targeted by the IRS. Especially considering that the torturous “scandal” never actually happened.

Maybe if Boykin had compared the torture to President Obama’s psy-ops, he might have had a point.

1. Michele Bachmann

When the 113th Congress departs on Friday, so too will its craziest member: this week’s “winner,” Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).

On Tuesday night, Bachmann took to the podium to deliver her farewell address to a nearly-empty House chamber. And her Bible-thumping stem-winder did not disappoint.

Among the highlights:

• Bachmann went on at length about the phrase “In God We Trust,” claiming that:

These words were mouthed by the founders of our country. Those who decided to leave the comforts of their home to come here to what was essentially an untested, untapped world where there were people — the Native Americans who populated this land — but where a brand new culture that was about to be born. One that would be, again, the fulcrum to bless the entire world.

(One imagines that the Native Americans didn’t feel so blessed.)

• She also claimed that God gave Moses the Ten Commandments so that Americans could one day grow wealthy:

We know those laws, those laws are the fundamental laws of mankind, and here in the United States, the Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses is the very foundation of the law that has given happiness and the rise of the greatest prosperity that any nation has known before.

Mr. Speaker, it could be no coincidence that this nation, knowing and enjoying the heights of such great happiness and such great prosperity, that it could be built upon that foundation of the Ten Commandments and of the law given by the God in whom we trust.

• Bachmann also took a moment to praise our greatest citizens: “My favorite Americans are people who didn’t know they were Americans. They were the Pilgrims.”

Video of the speech can be seen below:

This Week In Crazy will miss you, congresswoman. But don’t worry, readers: There’s always 2016.

Check out previous editions of This Week In Crazy here. Think we missed something? Let us know in the comments!

Get This Week In Crazy delivered to your inbox every Friday by signing up for our daily email newsletter!

Advertising

Start your day with National Memo Newsletter

Know first.

The opinions that matter. Delivered to your inbox every morning

North Carolina GOP's Extremist Nominees Excite Democratic Strategists

Michele Morrow

In 2020, Joe Biden narrowly missed capturing North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes, losing the state by a slim 1.4-percentage-point margin. But that was nearly four years ago. Before the Dobbs decision. Before Donald Trump’s 91 felony indictments. And before last week, when the state’s GOP voters nominated a guy who favorably quotes Hitler, has compared LGBTQ+ people to insects and larvae, and thinks a six-week abortion ban isn’t quite extreme enough for governor. Tar Heel State Republicans also nominated another extremist, Michele Morrow, for superintendent of the state’s schools.

Keep reading...Show less
{{ post.roar_specific_data.api_data.analytics }}