Over The Cliff

It should come as no surprise to anyone to hear that the latest barely legal, totally unethical con-job from the Republican Party happened on Monday, during the Presidential inauguration festivities in Washington, DC. That the traitorous actions didn't happen at the Federal level also should be no surprise, as we warned you at the beginning of this year, that much of the swindling and chicanery of the modern GOP would happen at the state level this year.

What may surprise some people is that the extremists in the Republican Party are driving the rest of the party off a political cliff - and the rest of the non-nuts in the GOP don't want to go on these political suicide missions.

In case you missed it, the Virginia state Senate, a body divided evenly between Democratic and Republican lawmakers, had one member missing on Monday, state Senator Henry Marsh. Sen. Marsh, a longtime civil rights activist had gone to see the inauguration in Washington, DC in possibly one of his last opportunities to ever do so.

While he was out, the Republicans in the Virginia state Senate rammed through a plan to redistrict the entire commonwealth of Virginia. Their gerrymandered map would effectively make it impossible for Democrats to ever gain control of the state Senate again.

While the far-right Republicans were busy raping the spirit of democracy in the Virginia Senate, they also put forward a plan to permanently change how presidential electoral votes would also be allocated in Virginia. Just like their state redistricting hoax, this second GOP proposed bill would effectively render the voices of the overwhelming number of Virginia voters - who live in the urban and suburban areas of Virginia's cities - permanently silent. Sadly, this is a trick the GOP is trying all over the nation.

There's a phrase for these kinds of actions. It's called cheating, and in politics, it's the last tool of both gutless cowards and shortsighted fools - especially in Virginia.

In Virginia, 2013 is an election year, for both the Virginia House and Governorship. The GOP's leading candidate for this fall happens to be their controversial Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a man well-known for problematic comments and ideas, including Virginia's invasive and unnecessary transvaginal ultrasound bill. Further complicating political matters, Virginia Republicans currently hold 67 House seats, and they'll need every bit of legitimate political muscle not to lose significant numbers of those seats this fall.

Extreme actions like this are also likely to sink any serious efforts by the current term-limited governor, Republican Bob McDonnell, to get any serious legislation passed this year - a fact McDonnell seemed painfully aware of last week, and a fact that he desperately wants to go away now.

Even with this year's elections hanging precariously in the balance, the far-right nuts in the Virginia state Republican Party quite obviously couldn't care less about trust, ethics, or good governance, as evidenced by their reckless and selfish actions.

If you think this kind of nutbaggery is limited to Virginia, think again. Virginia is just one example of this kind of insanity - and only sane Republicans can stop their extremist members from driving the rest of the party right off the political cliff.