In past decades, a significant number of current GOP Congressmen in the House of Representatives would have been suitable candidates for commitment to the asylum. 
In an opinion piece in The New York Times ("The Crackpot Caucus," August 23, 2012), Timothy Egan described the comments of Representative John Shimkus of Illinois, chairman of a subcommittee that oversees issues related to climate change, toward the issue of climate change. Egan reports that at a 2009 hearing Shimkus sought to assuage the concerns citizens who worried about environmental catastrophes with a biblical reassurance: "The earth will end only when God declares it to be over," Shimkus stated, and then quoted passages from the book of Genesis.
Egan also observed that GOP Congressman Joe L. Barton of Texas, who has defended the interests of oil companies on Capital Hill for decades, sits on the same committee. In 2010, Congressman Barton apologized to the heads of BP after the Obama administration demanded that the company agree to immediately compensate victims whose livelihoods had been destroyed because of an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. At one point, Egan reports that Congressman Barton questioned whether producing energy from wind turbines would contravene God's own energy plan remarking that "wind is God's way of balancing heat" and that energy from turbines "would slow the winds down" and thus could make the earth even warmer. "You can't regulate God!" Barton also rebuked the former House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, during a debate on global warming.
A third GOP Congressman, Jack Kingston of Georgia, a 20-year veteran of the House, serves as a member of the subcommittee that oversees labor, health and education issues. During an appearance on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in January of 2011, Representative Kingston stated clearly that he does not believe in the process of evolution. "I believe I came from God, not from a monkey so the answer is no," he said, laughing, when asked if he subscribes to the theory. Later in the segment he added, "I don't believe that a creature crawled out of the sea and became a human being one day."
In September of 2012, Kingston's colleague, Georgia Republican Congressman Paul Broun, opined that modern science is an instrument of the devil. During a speech before the Liberty Baptist Church Sportsman's Banquet, the two-term congressman stated: "All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell. And it's lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior."
Broun further explained that much of modern science has been fabricated to hide the true age of our Earth. "You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I've found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth," he told the audience. "I don't believe that the Earth's but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That's what the Bible says." Perversely, Broun, a physician who somehow obtained an M.D. from the Medical College of Georgia and received a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Georgia at Athens, currently serves on the House Committee on Science and Technology as the chairman of one of its subcommittees on investigations.
Equally bizarre, this past summer, GOP Representative Todd Akin, who was the GOP's nominee to represent Missouri in the U.S. Senate, suggested that the female body had natural defense mechanisms against pregnancy in the event of "legitimate rape:" "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down," he said.
In a similar vein, Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, the GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate from that state, remarked "I believe that life begins at conception. The only exception I have to have an abortion is in that case of the life of the mother. I just struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is that gift from God--that I think even if life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen."
Finally, lest anyone forget, during her unsuccessful GOP presidential primary campaign, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Backmann ominously warned that the HPV vaccinations could cause retardation if administered to pre-adolescent girls as the Centers for Disease Control recommended . She quoted an unnamed woman "who told me that her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection, and she suffered from mental retardation thereafter," Bachmann opined. "There is no second chance for these little girls if there is any dangerous consequences to their bodies."
All of these lunacies need viewed in the light of a vote that the House of Representatives took yesterday. Members of the House, following previous approval by the Senate, voted to expunge the word "lunatic" from the United States Code because its stigmatizes people who suffer from mental health disabilities. The Associated Press reported that the lone "no" vote was cast by GOP Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas who issued a statement that "not only should we not eliminate the word 'lunatic' from federal law when the most pressing issue of the day is saving our country from bankruptcy, we should use the word to describe the people who want to continue with business as usual in Washington." The good Congressman did not explain whether his use of the word "bankruptcy" referred to this country's fiscal condition or to the current state of civic discourse, as exemplified by his GOP colleagues and their supporters. Nevertheless, his "no" vote should be applauded.
President Obama should veto the proposed legislation in the public interest. The English language presently lacks any other meaningful word to describe the current condition - characterized as it is by delusions, a denial of reality, fantasies, obsessive fears and auditory hallucinations from celestial voices on high - from which so many GOP legislators suffer.
In an opinion piece in The New York Times ("The Crackpot Caucus," August 23, 2012), Timothy Egan described the comments of Representative John Shimkus of Illinois, chairman of a subcommittee that oversees issues related to climate change, toward the issue of climate change. Egan reports that at a 2009 hearing Shimkus sought to assuage the concerns citizens who worried about environmental catastrophes with a biblical reassurance: "The earth will end only when God declares it to be over," Shimkus stated, and then quoted passages from the book of Genesis.
Egan also observed that GOP Congressman Joe L. Barton of Texas, who has defended the interests of oil companies on Capital Hill for decades, sits on the same committee. In 2010, Congressman Barton apologized to the heads of BP after the Obama administration demanded that the company agree to immediately compensate victims whose livelihoods had been destroyed because of an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. At one point, Egan reports that Congressman Barton questioned whether producing energy from wind turbines would contravene God's own energy plan remarking that "wind is God's way of balancing heat" and that energy from turbines "would slow the winds down" and thus could make the earth even warmer. "You can't regulate God!" Barton also rebuked the former House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, during a debate on global warming.
A third GOP Congressman, Jack Kingston of Georgia, a 20-year veteran of the House, serves as a member of the subcommittee that oversees labor, health and education issues. During an appearance on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in January of 2011, Representative Kingston stated clearly that he does not believe in the process of evolution. "I believe I came from God, not from a monkey so the answer is no," he said, laughing, when asked if he subscribes to the theory. Later in the segment he added, "I don't believe that a creature crawled out of the sea and became a human being one day."
In September of 2012, Kingston's colleague, Georgia Republican Congressman Paul Broun, opined that modern science is an instrument of the devil. During a speech before the Liberty Baptist Church Sportsman's Banquet, the two-term congressman stated: "All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell. And it's lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior."
Broun further explained that much of modern science has been fabricated to hide the true age of our Earth. "You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I've found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth," he told the audience. "I don't believe that the Earth's but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That's what the Bible says." Perversely, Broun, a physician who somehow obtained an M.D. from the Medical College of Georgia and received a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Georgia at Athens, currently serves on the House Committee on Science and Technology as the chairman of one of its subcommittees on investigations.
Equally bizarre, this past summer, GOP Representative Todd Akin, who was the GOP's nominee to represent Missouri in the U.S. Senate, suggested that the female body had natural defense mechanisms against pregnancy in the event of "legitimate rape:" "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down," he said.
In a similar vein, Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, the GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate from that state, remarked "I believe that life begins at conception. The only exception I have to have an abortion is in that case of the life of the mother. I just struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is that gift from God--that I think even if life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen."
Finally, lest anyone forget, during her unsuccessful GOP presidential primary campaign, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Backmann ominously warned that the HPV vaccinations could cause retardation if administered to pre-adolescent girls as the Centers for Disease Control recommended . She quoted an unnamed woman "who told me that her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection, and she suffered from mental retardation thereafter," Bachmann opined. "There is no second chance for these little girls if there is any dangerous consequences to their bodies."
All of these lunacies need viewed in the light of a vote that the House of Representatives took yesterday. Members of the House, following previous approval by the Senate, voted to expunge the word "lunatic" from the United States Code because its stigmatizes people who suffer from mental health disabilities. The Associated Press reported that the lone "no" vote was cast by GOP Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas who issued a statement that "not only should we not eliminate the word 'lunatic' from federal law when the most pressing issue of the day is saving our country from bankruptcy, we should use the word to describe the people who want to continue with business as usual in Washington." The good Congressman did not explain whether his use of the word "bankruptcy" referred to this country's fiscal condition or to the current state of civic discourse, as exemplified by his GOP colleagues and their supporters. Nevertheless, his "no" vote should be applauded.
President Obama should veto the proposed legislation in the public interest. The English language presently lacks any other meaningful word to describe the current condition - characterized as it is by delusions, a denial of reality, fantasies, obsessive fears and auditory hallucinations from celestial voices on high - from which so many GOP legislators suffer.