It just doesn't get much better than American politics over the last few months:
1)
Congressman Hank Johnson (a democrat from Georgia) was part of a hearing in March on the expansion of the US military base on Guam. He was questioning an admiral. He went through a painstaking series of questions about how small Guam is:
(Original Source:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zNZczIgVXjg)
Johnson: ...it is, at its widest level, 12 miles from shore to shore? And at it's smallest level, uh, smallest, location it's seven miles between one shore and the other? Is that correct?
Admiral: I don't have the exact dimensions, but to your point, sir I think Guam is a small island.
Johnson: It's a small island, if I recall it's about 24 miles long? So 24 miles long, about 7 miles wide, at the least widest place on the island, and about 12 miles wide on the widest part of the island? And, uh, I don't know how many square miles that is, do you know?
Admiral: I don't have that figure with me sir, I can certainly supply it to you if you'd like.
Johnson: Yeah, my fear is that, uh, the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize.
Admiral: Uh...we don't anticipate that.
2)
Rand Paul, the son of former presidential candidate Ron Paul, is running for Senate as a Republican in Kentucky. Rand is noted for being extremely conservative, just like his father. He even caused controversy by saying he opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act ending segregation because he supports the rights of private businesses to decide who they will and won't do business with.
Yet, he had to
force his communications director to resign when it came out that the staffer was a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, a white supremacist and a satanist. All at once.
3) This year in my home state of North Carolina,
five convicted felons ran for election for the office of county sheriff.
One of them was a Republican candidate in my home county. To make matters worse, he had previously served as sheriff from 1994 until 2003, when he was arrested and charged with 15 felonies.
While sheriff, this man (
Gerald Hege) painted his jail cells pink with teddy bears and re-introduced prison stripes. He drove a patrol car fueled on nitrous oxide. Instead of a service pistol, he carried an MP-5K. He drove his car at 140mph down the road in non-emergency situations, causing the department's insurance company to pull their coverage. Twice, he chased speeders into neighboring counties and opened fire on them with said MP-5. He got his own TV show and his own radio show. To host these shows, he lined the walls of his office with sandbags like a military bunker. He sold a line of merchandise, including barbecue dip, posters, model cars, and action figures of himself. After 9/11, he mailed out a Christmas card of himself holding Osama Bin Laden's severed head, like he was going to personally go to Afghanistan and kill Bin Laden.
The office bunker.
All this ended when he was arrested and charged with 15 felonies including embezzlement, obstructing justice, illegal wiretapping, and obtaining property under false pretenses. Throughout his term in office, Hege's motto was "no deals", yet when he was the one facing jail time he was quick to accept a plea bargain.
And yet, after completing his probation he ran for sheriff again. If he won, he would not be able to carry a gun while serving as sheriff due to being a convicted felon. Fortunately, he got crushed and lost the election in a landslide, restoring some of my faith in humanity in the process.
4)
James Traficant is a former Democratic congressman from Ohio. Before becoming a congressman, he was a sheriff. He must have been pretty bad, because after he allegedly took bribes from the mafia, his entire department was declared an organized criminal organization and he was charged with racketeering under anti-mobster laws. He was acquitted, claiming he was conducting a one-man sting operation. So he ran for congress in 1985. He won.
He was also guilty of wearing a dead ferret on his head.In congress, he ended every speech with the words "Beam me up, Mr. Speaker." He gave a whole series of one minute speeches
that can be read here. While in DC, he lived in a yacht on the Potomac River with no working toilet. He said he had the yacht "so Playboy bunnies would come and visit me. I wanted to be promiscuous with them."
All this fun and games ended in 2002, when Traficant was charged with stealing money from his own campaign. He was convicted of 10 felonies and impeached from congress. He got sentenced to 7 years in prison. In prison, he was put into solitary confinement after starting a prison riot. He denied any wrongdoing, saying he was being persecuted because he had discovered the truth about "Waco, Ruby Ridge, Pan Am Flight 103, Jimmy Hoffa and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy." While in prison, he ran for election to congress. What's scary is, he got 15% of the vote in his district.
He got released from prison last year. Now, he's running for congress again. As an independent. His entire platform is to advocate repealing the 16th Amendment to the US Constitution (which authorizes the collection of income tax).
5)
Richard Blumenthal is a Democratic candidate for Senate in Connecticut. As part of his campaign, he was very fond of talking about his military service with the Marine Corps in Vietnam. For example, at a veteran's gathering he said: "We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam. And you exemplify it. Whatever we think about the war, whatever we call it — Afghanistan or Iraq — we owe our military men and women unconditional support."
Except the
New York Times did a little bit of digging. And it turns out that he didn't actually serve in Vietnam. Instead, he took five draft deferments and then joined the Marine Corps Reserve and ran a Toys for Tots program in Washington DC. Not only that, but Blumenthal claimed he was captain of the swim team during his college days at Harvard. Except that he was never on the team.
Fail.
Richard Blumenthal in deadly combat in 1969.6)
Tim D'Annunzio is a Republican congressional candidate from North Carolina. He is also
bat-crap insane. In fact, he's so insane that the
chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party declared that he was "unfit to hold public office."
According to D'Annunzio:
-The US government is "the Antichrist"
-He discovered the Ark of the Covenant. In Arizona.
-He claimed in 1995 that "God was going to drop a 1,000-mile high pyramid on Greenland"
-Says he doesn't have to pay child support to his ex-wife because the government is the antichrist.
-Says he is the Messiah.
-Traveled to New Jersey to raise his stepfather from the dead.
-Says of liberals: "At what point are you going to realize this is a war to the death. This is a fight that is either the end of US or the end of them. I say it is the end of them and their evil world."
-Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi are "liberal leftist God haters."
-Press reporters covering his campaign are "demon beasts."
-Claims that Native Americans are descended from ancient israelites, and that an ancient copy of the Ten Commandments has been found in the US.
-His plan for government is "Abolish the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Energy, Labor, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Transportation, Treasury, and Homeland Security. Any duties remaining that are Constitutional should be rolled into other Departments."
-About his chances of winning the election: "The Republican Party establishment is against me, the intellectuals are against me, the news media is against me, the local crop farmers are against me, and of course the Democrats are against me even though they act like they want me because they think I will be an easy target of the typical attacks. I like Our odds." (In other words, politicians, thinkers, farmers and the media are all against me, so I'll win).
-And to top it all off, his campaign buttons say "Crazy for Tim D'Annunzio"
He has also:
- Been to drug rehab for heroin abuse.
- Been to jail three times, for burglary, robbing a post office van, and assaulting an police officer.
- Was kicked out of the Army for using marijuana.
- Smokes weed every day.
- Cheated on his first wife, then got married immediately following their divorce.
- Has a blog called
Christ's War if you want to read more delusional ramblings.
Yep, these are the people who have run, been running, or are trying to run some part of America.
