The upcoming Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) “Advance” (because they refuse to call it a “retreat” – soooo clever!) looks like it’s going to be one heck of a wild and crazy (emphasis on CRAZY) time.
For starters, the RPV just announced that Laura Ingraham will be one of the “headlining” acts. Just as a refresher, this is the same Ingraham who mused in September 2014 about how Ebola aid to Africa was actually about President Obama’s “father’s rage against colonialism,” and as a means to carry out wealth redistribution while exposing “a few American military personnel…to the Ebola virus.” Ingraham also suggested this morning “that President Barack Obama would be perfect to play the part of African-American singer Ray Charles, but she insisted that it had ‘nothing to do with his skin color.'” Ingraham also opined earlier today about how “We don’t want our boys raised as girls and we don’t want our girls raised as boys. And that’s what the schools are doing, they’re gender norming the kids.” She’s also busy defending Donald Trump’s false, bigoted, outrageous claim about “thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey cheering 9/11. We could go on and on (see here for tons more of Ingraham’s extremism, bigotry and insanity), but for now, just consider that Virginia Republicans are proud and excited to have this nutjob as one of their featured guests at the party’s annual “Advance.”
As for John Bolton, this guy’s a warmonger who recently wrote an op-ed in the New York Times advocating for bombing Iran. Bolton is also a Benghazeeeee conspiracy theorist and has vowed to never let the (non-)issue go away. Perhaps not surprisingly given what we know about him, Bolton’s also a raving anti-Muslim bigot (see Romney Adviser John Bolton Warns the Obama Administration might ‘Reinstitute Blasphemy Laws’ and Romney Adviser John Bolton Defends Michele Bachmann’s Anti-Muslim Witch HuntK, for instance).
Finally, check out the sponsors of the RPV “Advance.” They includ, among others extremists: the blood-on-its-hands NRA; the far-far-right-wing FreedomWorks (its mission “is headed by privatizing Social Security, implementing a flat tax and abolishing the estate tax, limiting tort liability, and expanding school vouchers,” also weakening environmental regulation and more broadly trashing the environment, and lots more heinous stuff); bigot and blowhard Donald Trump; and of course our pals at Dominion “Global Warming Starts Here” Power.
Sound like a fun time? Well, no, of course not. But it IS highly revealing of what the Republican Party has become…the 2015 version of the John Birch Society.