Sen. James Inhofe, conspiracy crackpot
Burn this lesson into your brain, or at least into 20 or so top-notch Washington lawns:
The Republican Party is nothing more than a cult:
Republicans want to limit the number of bullets federal agencies can purchase so American gun owners can buy more.
Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe and Rep. Frank Lucas have introduced a bill that would prohibit every government agency — except the military — from buying more ammunition each month, than the monthly average it purchased from 2001 to 2009.
You'll probably recognize what Inhofe is spouting here as one of the biggest running conspiracy theories in the far-far-right, aka the militia crowd, aka people who shouldn't be trusted with scissors but who are still allowed to have guns, aka Glenn Beck's base. The theory goes that the federal government is buying up huge amounts of ammunition so that their federal agents in, for example, the Treasury Department, are well prepared for the coming military dictatorship in which those agents, e.g. the Treasury Department, will start rounding up all good far-right crackpots and putting them into FEMA camps. The cry started up as soon as the America's black president took office and has been running strong ever since—and no, there hasn't been any big jump in government ammo purchases, and yes, even the NRA has come out to acknowledge that the conspiracy theory isn't true, and yes, the conspiracy theory has still led to runs on ammo from good, honest, batshit crazy American morons.
The Inhofe version is premised thusly: President Obama has secretly ordered the government to buy up all the ammo in America as an end run around the 2nd Amendment. No, seriously:
"President Obama has been adamant about curbing law-abiding Americans’ access and opportunities to exercise their Second Amendment rights," said Inhofe.
"One way the Obama Administration is able to do this is by limiting what’s available in the market with federal agencies purchasing unnecessary stockpiles of ammunition.”
Wow. All right, let's review. James Inhofe (R-NotOK,NotByAStretch), actual United States senator, says that President Black Guy is behind a secret effort to buy up all the ammunition in America so that God-fearing patriots can't get any, thus rendering their mighty guns and gun-related Constitutional rights useless.
This is the guy whose various other holds and pronouncements and good-old-fashioned tantrums have been instrumental in causing the Senate to become the dull, incompetent wreck it is today. He's one of their big names, and he's proposing new laws based on things he read in the pamphlets men in strange hats sell inside this nation's lesser gun shows.
To repeat: The modern Republican Party is nothing more than a cult. As each year of the Obama presidency has gone by, both its advocated-for policies and the pronouncements of its biggest names (Inhofe; Graham; McCain) have gotten more and more radical, more conspiracy-laced, and more unintelligible. Feel free to notice that, all you top-notch political reporters who just got back from a fine night of mingling at the Correspondents Dinner. Feel free anytime.
