Republicans really want you to think a secret misdeed happened.

How suicidal do you think Reince Priebus is right now? Because I think he may be trying to put together a reboot of “Suicide Squad” already and he’s enlisted Ted Cruz and Paul Ryan to help in his quest. I’m not saying I know for a fact he’s feeling suicidal, but if I were Reince, I’d be looking at the fifteen guns that Wayne LaPierre gave me over the years with a little bit of longing right now.

Maybe Priebus isn’t suicidal, but he’s desperate.

Really desperate. How desperate you ask? So desperate that he and his fellow Republicans have decided the best way to distract everyone from the four-alarm shit show that his party is currently putting on is to do what they do best. Namely creating scandals out of literally nothing. This time around, it’s the SUPER-DUPER ZOMG IRAN RANSOM PAYMENT scandal.

They’re trying to take a six month old story that’s a resolution of a 35 year old story and turn it into a brand new, fresh scandal.

But here’s the thing — the payment wasn’t secret six months ago, and it’s not secret now. No one tried to hide anything because there was nothing to hide. The Iranians were owed this money, and the dispute over it had even gotten to the Hague. That’s an international court, for all the Trump fans reading this. We were giving them their own money back. Did the timing have anything to do with the nuclear deal?

Of course it did. That’s how deals get done.

You’d think Republicans, who just nominated the douche bag author of the book entitled “The Art of the Deal” would understand how negotiations work. Instead, they cling to bumper sticker slogans about negotiating with terrorists. When you realize that their “master deal maker” is just a fraud, it all makes sense. For a group who claims to be the smartest and most savvy ones in the room, they really are nuts to skulls ignorant sometimes, aren’t they?

Anyone who reads the articles from the time and does so without their “MAOBAMA IS THE COMMUNIST SHARIA LOVING DEVIL” glasses on will be able to tell this newest scandal exists in an even bigger vacuum of context and facts than Benghazi and Fast & Furious combined. They latch onto one key fact — that $400 million was transferred to the Iranian government — and then immediately dispatch with any and all reasoning or subtext, screaming about state sponsored terrorists and mullahs.









We all know why they’re doing it.

They’re the party of war first, questions never. The party of “we’re pussies if we don’t kill enough brown people each year.” This is the way Priebus and company have decided to patch over the gaping hole Trump has ripped adjacent to their already existing assholes. The shit show go must go on, as it were.

But poor Reince, his ringmaster is currently in the center ring executing clowns and punching babies who came with their parents to see the greatest show on 6,000 year old Earth. At this point I have to think he’s praying for some kind of miracle that involves Trump quitting. Maybe the orange bag of shit will get bored; maybe he’ll finally say or do something so reprehensible his followers will stop supporting hi-

Just kidding, that’ll never happen.

And the thing is — Reince knows he needs to keep them at a point where they believe the crazy shit they hear. Because maybe Trump’s a shade of crazy too far, but Reince isn’t above saying crazy shit. You know, like that somehow announcing something six months in advance as part of a structured and legitimate diplomatic agreement is evidence of weakness or conspiracy and not evidence of savvy leadership to people with more than a handful of synapses still firing.

But even if Reince gets his wish and he becomes a real boy and Donald Trump drops out, does he really think Ted Cruz is going to win? Cruz’s RNC speech notwithstanding, he agreed more than he disagreed with Donald on just about every single subject during the primary. He’s as tainted as Trump, and now that I’ve given you the mental image of both Cruz and Trump’s taints, let’s move on before I have to fap myself into oblivion.

The die hards will lap this shit up, no doubt. I’ve already been bombarded with angry Tweets from Trumpeters and run of the mill Republicans alike that believe since Iran was once our enemy, they should always be so, and we shouldn’t return their money to them. Because you know, they’re super-duper principled and shit and would never agree to outright theft of someone else’s money, right?

Because taxes are theft, right?

The real question is whether this non-scandal costs Hillary.

And the answer is — it won’t. Not among people who don’t already call her Killary and scream that she should be locked up for breaking a law they can’t even name. But the shit show will go on, and on, and on until the GOP is put out of its misery. Me? I’m hoping it’s Trump that does it, but in the end it doesn’t matter who puts the pillow over the elephant’s trunk; it just needs to be done sooner than later so we can have a rational right-wing in this country again. Not the angry, spite and spittle filled, xenophobic shell of it was used to be.

Not even fake Iranian ransom payment scandals will be enough lipstick for the pig that the Republicans have become. And I want some carnitas. Who else wants carnitas?

We all want carnitas.

Follow James on Twitter @JamboSchlarmbo.