Just in time for the holidays, the senior members of the Republican party reminded us today that, no matter how much lipstick they slather on the pig in order to fool the more credulous members of the courtier media, the heart of their party is still black and withered and smells of death and corruption.

"I do not support the cumbersome regulations and potentially overzealous international organizations with anti-American biases that infringe upon American society," said Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla [of rejecting a UN treaty on the rights of the disabled that is modeled after the Americans with Disabilities Act]. They were not swayed by support for the treaty from some of the party's prominent veterans, including the 89-year-old Dole, who was disabled during World War II; Sen. John McCain, who also suffered disabling injuries in Vietnam; Sen. Dick Lugar, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee; and former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh. Eight Republicans voted to approve the treaty. The treaty also was widely backed by the disabilities community and veterans groups.

This is what prevails when you scratch down beneath the pretty surface — a party so completely fking unhinged that it thinks that a treaty on the rights of disabled people is some sort of one-world plot to steal the liberty of a third-rate moron like Jim Inhofe. This is conspiracy-theory brought to government. This is what's there beneath all the perfumed words about "reforming," say, Medicare and Medicaid. They simply do not care. Their prejudices and their paranoia must have pride of place over any help to be given to the less fortunate among us. Christians, my ass, They'd have been signing up for luxury suites on Golgotha.

The opposition was led by tea party favorite Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who argued that the treaty by its very nature threatened U.S. sovereignty. Specifically he expressed concerns that the treaty could lead to the state, rather than parents, determining what was in the best interest of disabled children in such areas as home schooling, and that language in the treaty guaranteeing the disabled equal rights to reproductive health care could lead to abortions. Parents, Lee said, will "raise their children with the constant looming threat of state interference."

Keep an eye on this Lee character. He is one of their "constitutionalists" the same way Paul Ryan is a "budget wonk." That he is a conspiratorialist loon who's one tiny step away from shooting at imaginary black helicopters over his neighbor's yard, and yet is still considered an important young conservative voice, should be a matter of some concern in an evolved democracy to, among other people, actual conservatives. Also, too: is Lee arguing that disabled women shouldn't have the same constitutional right to choose as other women? No, stupid question. He's arguing that nobody should, but that the UN is somehow going to drop in with the blue helmets and stop people from shooting doctors or something.

(Outside the Senate, because the people of Pennsylvania got tired of being represented in Congress by a colossal dick — and have I mentioned recently what a colossal dick he is? — Rick Santorum led the fight against globalist compassion from his new post as columnist for birther fanzine World Net Daily. He thinks the UN is coming to steal his handicapped daughter away from him. He's one step away from driving nails into his own palms.)

As long as Politico and all the rest of the rentboys in the Beltway seraglio already are handicapping 2016 with such alacrity, maybe they should ask all promising contenders Marco Rubio why he voted against it. Was it because he was cruel or because he's a little nutty? Yeah, I can hardly wait for the next Beltway hummer in which Rubio is promoted as "the changing face of the Republican party." They can't stand up to the lunatic base because the lunatic base is all they have.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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