attribution: REUTERS
The NRA and its spokesthing Wayne LaPierre was omnipresent in the months after Sandy Hook.
Welcome back to the Twelve Months of Crazy, our entirely serious and thoughtful and very, very respectful look back at the haunted circus of 2013. After much deliberation, I have decided that our look back at January would be followed by a look at February. No, that's my decision. Sometimes you just have to be bold and decidery about these things.
Those of you with weak constitutions past probably ought to look away now.
- John Boehner told us all that the House was working very, very hard on immigration reform—or rather, that there was a secret "immigration reform" club that was doing super-secret stuff and just you wait, they were going to beat the Senate in creating draft legislation. The next ten months would see the group make great strides in nothingness, capped with an eventual towering accomplishment of nothingness that would give Glenn Beck's Glenn Beck Theme Park a run for the nothingness crown.
- We learned that the NRA had an enemies list. Among the NRA's enemies: Olympian Mary Lou Retton, poet Maya Angelou, and actor Patrick Stewart. So yes, they're a bit touched in the head. That might also be NRA spokescreature Wayne LaPierre felt it necessary for the NRA to give their own separate "response" to the president's State of the Union Address.
- Former Vice President Dick Cheney and crack rifleman talking about the inherent outrage of trying to increase gun safety was a thing that happened. Also, too, because former Vice President Dick Cheney was very concerned that the current administration wasn't listening to the Constitution enough.
- Mississippi pondered whether or not to ban human-animal hybrids. No manimals for Mississippi, thank you very much. Not to be outdone, Oklahoma pondered whether or not public school students ought to be able to get full credit when answering evolution or climate-science-related assignments by denying those things exist. Other efforts included a Missouri bill making it a felony for legislators to even propose gun safety reforms.
- The nation was introduced to the antics of the new/old congressman from Texas, a certain Rep. Steve Stockman, who lost his Newt-era office for being too crazy but was returned to office in January under the new Texas "there is no such thing as too crazy" plan. Let's just say he made an immediate impression.
- Still sore from that whole primaries thing, Texas Gov. Rick Perry redoubled his efforts to poach jobs from other states via, apparently, a campaign of being aggressively insulting to those states.
- Sen. Ted Cruz began to make a name for himself as a McCarthyite, questioning whether Republican secretary of state nominee Chuck Hagel was secretly getting money from North Korea or other American enemies. He would go on to make a name for himself as a great many other things besides.
- Sen. Jim Inhofe helped lead an effort to block conservative Republican Chuck Hagel from becoming secretary of defense because conservative Republican conservative Chuck Hagel wasn't Republican enough to be secretary of defense. This was after a(nother) "gentleman's agreement" from Republicans that they would no longer unduly abuse the filibuster, which as we all know solved the problem of that bit of pointless Republican obstructionism forever and ever, the end.