(photo courtesy of AP)

Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe is the Grand Poobah of right wing nutjobs in the Senate, and is probably the leading Global Warming denier on Capitol Hill. On Friday, he proved yet again why he is nothing short of an embarrassment to the United States. Using taxpayer money he flew to Copenhagen with no schedule, no plans or arrangements made, and did little more than put on a right wing sideshow for anyone who would listen. He found the European press a little less accommodating than the media lap dogs here in the good old USA:

COPENHAGEN — Sen. Jim Inhofe flew across the Atlantic and — on little sleep — braved the snow, the cold and the dark to deliver his skeptical message at the international climate conference.

What he found when he got here: a few aides and a single reporter.

“I think he’s going to be a little disappointed,” one of his aides remarked.

When he was finally able to find a few reporters to listen to him, he went full on lunatic fringe:

“We in the United States owe it to the 191 countries to be well-informed and know what the intentions of the United States are. The United States is not going to pass a cap and trade,” he said. “It’s just not going to happen.”

A reporter asked: “If there’s a hoax, then who’s putting on this hoax, and what’s the motive?”

“It started in the United Nations,” Inhofe said, “and the ones in the United States who really grab ahold of this is the Hollywood elite.”

One reporter asked Inhofe if he was referring to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Another reporter — this one from Der Spiegel — told the senator: “You’re ridiculous.” Read on...

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Countdown's Worst Persons for Dec. 14, 2009 with winner John Whitehead. Runners up Vincent Keane and James Inhofe.

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Chris Wallace pushed the phony "Climate-gate" story on FNS today and actually tried to make an argument supporting the deniers, but no matter how much Kim Strassel says otherwise, the hacked emails taken out of context prove nothing. Chris Wallace's logic is that since these freaks don't believe in real science, then science should welcome the debate.

Wallace: Now, oftentimes that phrase is used -- Holocaust deniers. But the Holocaust was a historical fact. We’re talking here about science, and science usually welcomes opposing views.

Huh? When science is explained then the discussion is over. It's that simple. Let's say the conservative crazies were arguing that the earth is flat and science comes in and disproves that hypothesis and proves that the world is round then there is no debate or an opposing view any longer. It's settled. The earth is round and no matter how many of the Inhofers cry that the earth is still flat, it's immaterial. What the Inhofers are doing is scientifically proving that they are certifiably insane.

Sen. Inhofe is a notorious global warming denier and after Chris Wallace promoted the fraudulent Climate-Gate hacked email story, he asked wacko Sen. Inhofe to explain the fact that this decade has been the warmest ever recorded if there is no such thing as climate change. here's what a conservative crank responds.

WALLACE: Whatever you want to say about the e-mails, Senator Inhofe, the fact is that just this week, the World Meteorological Organization said that this decade is the warmest on record and that 2009 is the fifth warmest year on record. Does that mean nothing?

INHOFE: It -- well, it means -- it means very little because that was based on the same flawed science, the IPC science, that we have been looking at.

Now, we have to say on the science thing that this is something that -- we saw this coming years ago, and for those individuals who doubt the fact that it’s flawed science, listen to what the U.K. Daily Telegraph said. They said it’s the worst scientific scandal of our generation. Publications all over have looked at this and decided that.

You see, proof means nothing in conservative circles. Science means nothing to conservative nitwits. The earth is flat dammit!

Transcript via CQ Politics:

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Rachel Maddow with the latest development on the kill-the-gays bill in Uganda. Pastor Rick Warren finally comes out and denounces the bill. As Rachel notes, better late than never and a positive turn given Warren's influence in Uganda. Apparently Warren isn't too happy about Maddow's reporting and claimed that he had been "mischaracterized by the media".

Rachel assumed that meant her since she's the only person in the media that has been covering this story. She invited Warren to come on her show. That I would like to see. As Rachel reports James Inhofe is now trying to distance himself from the bill as well, and Chuck Grassley wouldn't take the time to respond, but his staff told The Rachel Maddow Show that he's never been a member of The Family. Jeff Sharlet said he stands by his reporting and his sources told him that Grassley travelled to Uganda on behalf of The Family back in the 80's.

MADDOW: An update for you now on a story that we‘ve been covering for many more days in a row than I thought we would be covering it. The story involves Rick Warren.

Rick Warren is perhaps the most famous pastor in America today. He was the source of great political controversy earlier this year when President Obama invited him to lead prayer at the inauguration, despite Mr. Warren‘s history of antigay activism, specifically his support for Proposition 8 in California, which revoked existing marriage rights for same sex couples.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICK WARREN, PASTOR: I‘m opposed to having a brother and sister be together and call that marriage. I‘m opposed to older guy marrying a child and calling that a marriage. I‘m opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You think those are equivalent to gays getting married?

WARREN: Oh, I do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Oh, I do.

On the issue of Prop 8 specifically, Mr. Warren made the mistake of trying to deny that he‘d ever taken a position on it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WARREN: During the whole Proposition 8 thing, I never once went to a meeting, never once issued a statement, never once even gave an endorsement in the two years Prop 8 was going.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: No statement. No endorsement.

That ended up being awkward because of the whole “bearing false witness” thing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WARREN: Let me just say this really clearly, we support Proposition 8, and if you believe what the Bible says about marriage, you need to support Proposition 8. So, I urge you to support Proposition 8 and pass that word on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: I think that counts as an endorsement. Rick Warren had not only been involved in Proposition 8, he had been involved on tape.

Well, now Rick Warren has been implicated in much worse antigay politics as Uganda—a nation in which he has been intensely involved—is now considering legislation that would imprison and even potentially execute people for the grave crime of being gay.

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Rachel follows up on her interview with Jeff Sharlet where they discussed C-Street Family member David Bahati's role in introducing anti-gay legislation in Uganda. Jeff Sharlet reports that the Ugandan MP did not as many thought first get the idea for the legislation at the conference held in Kampala Uganda in March of 2009, but instead was discussing it at a private meeting at the 2008 Ugandan National Prayer Breakfast hosted by The Family.

Rachel asks Sharlet if there were any American’s at the 2008 Ugandan National Prayer Breakfast where the idea for executing gays in Uganda was floated. Sharlet says there were a number of Americans at the breakfast and possibly present, but they haven’t been able to confirm it yet, Sen. James Inhofe. Sharlet talked about a rift within The Family over supporting this legislation although as Rachel noted, none of them have been willing to come out publicly and say anything against it.

The last really disgusting item they talked about is the possibility of the Ugandan politicians who are promoting the kill-the-gays bill coming to America to speak at the National Prayer Breakfast next February and President Obama being scheduled to speak there as well. As Rachel notes:

Maddow: And if not there’s the prospect of an American president speaking at an event before an invited audience that includes the guy who promoted—who introduced legislation to execute people for being gay in his country with the support and encouragement of American quacks like ex-gay therapists. Wow.

Wow indeed.

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Rachel follows up on her reporting on the 'kill the gays' bill being considered in Uganda. Her show attempted to get some responses from the American legislators who have decided to inject themselves so deeply into African politics - with predictable results. Most of them either tried to wash their hands of their part in this absolutely horrid piece of proposed legislation or didn’t bother to respond at all. The scandal ridden John Ensign’s office said he was too busy screwing up the health care bill to give a response.

James Inhofe and Sam Brownback didn’t bother to respond, either. Don’t hold your breath waiting on those two knuckle-draggers, Rachel. I’m sure it will be a cold day in hell before either of them bother to tell the evil “librul” lesbian woman why they could care less if you were killed if you were unfortunate enough to live in Uganda, assuming this law gets passed.

Props to Rachel for keeping after this story. It has to be one of the most disgusting news items I’ve watched in a very long time and these C-Street wingers need to be held to account for their actions. It’s a shame the rest of the media is not giving this story the attention it deserves. They’re too busy chasing around the White House party crashers or Tiger Woods’ mistresses.

Transcript via Nexis Lexis below the fold.

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Rachel Maddow and Jeff Sharlet discuss the ties between C-Street, Pastor Rick Warren and an anti-gay bill in Uganda. Good for Rachel for bringing some attention to this truly horrific story, unlike her cohort at MSNBC David Gregory who forgot to mention Uganda during the softball interview he gave Rick Warren on Meet the Press.

MADDOW: The government of Uganda is considering passing a law to execute gay people. Execute as in by hanging a, quote, “serial offender” or an HIV-positive person who commits same sex act. If enacted, this law would also impose a three-year prison sentence on anyone who knows of a gay person in the country but doesn‘t report that gay person to the government within 24 hours.

Who is supporting and promoting this legislation? Well, one of the proponents is a minister named Pastor Martin Ssempa. He was a familiar face to American conservative Evangelicals, because Mr. Ssempa has been a frequent guest of Pastor Rick Warren at One Saddleback Church in California.

Do you remember Rick Warren? Him being selected to deliver the invocation at Barack Obama‘s inauguration was the little black cloud that crawled inside the silver lining that day for a lot of Americans who support gay rights.

Given with Rick Warren‘s deep involvement with Pastor Ssempa on matters including gay rights and AIDS issues in Uganda, “Newsweek” magazine asked Pastor Rick Warren his opinion of this proposed “kill the gays” law in Uganda.

Mr. Warren responded by distancing himself from Martin Ssempa, but also by refusing to condemn the proposal saying, quote, “It is not my personal calling as a pastor in America to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations.”

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(h/t Jamie)

Founder of the blog Little Green Footballs, Charles Johnson has seen the light and decided he can no longer support the right wing of his party and makes no bones about why:

1. Support for fascists, both in America (see: Pat Buchanan, Robert Stacy McCain, etc.) and in Europe (see: Vlaams Belang, BNP, SIOE, Pat Buchanan, etc.)

2. Support for bigotry, hatred, and white supremacism (see: Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Robert Stacy McCain, Lew Rockwell, etc.)

3. Support for throwing women back into the Dark Ages, and general religious fanaticism (see: Operation Rescue, anti-abortion groups, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, the entire religious right, etc.)

4. Support for anti-science bad craziness (see: creationism, climate change denialism, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, James Inhofe, etc.) Read on...

Conservatives like Kathleen Parker and Christopher Buckley found out that leaving the GOP fight club isn't easy -- and Johnson will undoubtedly suffer the same fate. Johnson is taking major heat for his defection, which comes as no surprise, and comments like these at Politico merely prove his point.

I don't expect to see Charles Johnson showing up with Code Pink at any war protests any time soon, but this post covers much of what C&L and other progressive blogs have been saying about the GOP for some time now. It is a dying party that has been taken over by religious extremists, bigots, conspiracy theorists and worse.

Johnson's observations about his party mirror those of my conservative friends and family...well, most of them. They wonder what happened to their party and where they belong in the political spectrum.

I agree with Nicole Belle who wrote backstage - "I don't want him on the left. But it's nice to see someone on the right injecting a little sanity into the discussion."

From NOW on PBS--Power Struggle. More available here.

This is what I hate having to explain to my relatives and friends abroad in Europe about politics in the US. We know that global warming is a fact. We know that our actions, if they didn't cause global warming, definitely exacerbate it. We know that we must reduce our dependency on oil, for both ecological and political/strategic reasons. And yet, what we are able to do is hampered so predictably by the Republican party:

Here we go again. James Inhofe, the most prominent climate change denier in the United States Senate, has concocted a new and innovative strategy to thwart the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act. To wit, he and his Republican colleagues on the Environment and Public Works Committee have worked up a plan to simply not show up for next week’s markup:

But Boxer cannot hold the markup unless at least two Republicans show up, and EPW ranking member James Inhofe (R-Okla.) signaled that he has unanimous support among the panel’s minority members to boycott the session until they get more data on the legislation from U.S. EPA and the Congressional Budget Office.

Inhofe said he will wait for Boxer to file an official notice of the markup — expected today — before responding with his own declaration of the GOP’s markup strategy.

“As soon as we find out what her announcement is and what she wants to do, we’ll have our response,” Inhofe told E&E last night. “We’ll have our unanimous expression ready.”

Sadly, this is a continuation of the GOP’s longstanding strategy of delaying clean energy legislation:

• As Chairman Markey shepherded his American Clean Energy and Security Act through the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Republicans employed multiple parliamentary tricks to — as Politico put it — “nitpick the bill into legislative oblivion.” Brian Beutler called these nefarious stall tactics, and noted that Democrats responded by hiring a speed reader.
• Last year during the debate over the Climate Security Act, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell demanded that the entire 491 page bill be read on the floor of the United States Senate. A strategy memo was leaked at the time detailing the Republican strategy for delaying the bill as much as humanly possible.

While this Republican obstructionism is not necessarily surprising, it is especially egregious this time. Here are a few things about this episode that struck me:

1. Despite the fact that Senator Inhofe has been working to orchestrate this obstruction for a week now, Republicans are pretending the effort is being led by the two moderate Republicans on the committee. Politico handled the stenography.

The Politco, acting as a mouthpiece for the Republican Party? Say it isn't so!

Can you imagine how much further we'd get in this country if we didn't have so many idiots in office?

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From the Rachel Maddow Show Oct. 5, 2009. Rachel reiterates this report from TPMDC--The GOP's New Foreign Policy: Undermine American Diplomacy:

An interesting pattern has been emerging in the Republican Party's handling of foreign policy: Individual GOP officials are now making a regular point of not only formulating an alternative foreign policy, to be presented to the American people and debated in Congress -- they're acting on it too, and undermining the official White House policies at multiple turns.

• Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is visiting Honduras in order to support the recent military coup against a leftist president, which has been opposed by the Obama administration and all the surrounding countries in the region. (Late Update: DeMint's office says he is not taking sides during his visit to the current Honduran leadership, denying the New York Times reports that this was his intention.)

• Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) will be going to the upcoming climate change conference in Copenhagen, bringing a "Truth Squad" to tell foreign officials there that the American government will not take any action: "Now, I want to make sure that those attending the Copenhagen conference know what is really happening in the United States Senate."

• House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) traveled to Israel, where he spoke out against President Obama's opposition to expanded settlements. He also defended Israel on the eviction of two Arab families from a house in east Jerusalem, which had been criticized by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

• Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) boasted in June that he told Chinese officials not to trust America's budget numbers. "One of the messages I had -- because we need to build trust and confidence in our number one creditor," said Kirk, "is that the budget numbers that the US government had put forward should not be believed." Since then, he has declared his candidacy for U.S. Senate.

Anyone remember this statement by Trent Lott when some Democratic Congressmen dared to visit Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion?

Lott raps U.S. congressman in Iraq:

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Washington, who is one of three House members visiting Iraq to urge Iraqi officials to avert war by allowing U.N. weapons inspectors back in, has acted irresponsibly, Lott said.

"For him to be in Baghdad, the center of one of the most dangerous dictators in the world, with all kinds of weapons of mass destruction, to be questioning the veracity of our own American president, is the height of irresponsible," said Lott, R-Mississippi. "He needs to come home and keep his mouth shut."

Or these attacks on Nancy Pelosi for going to Syria? Pelosi's Syria Trip: Media Advancing Right-Wing Spin.

As always, IOKIYAR.

Update. Transcript below the fold.

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From The Daily Show:

Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed as America's newest Supreme Court justice, but John McCain doesn't think her excellent resume and inspiring life story qualifies her.

I just loved this little tidbit from Paul Krugman this morning:

David Broder has a column this morning calling for bipartisanship. I know, you’re shocked. But what struck me was this bit about Al Franken:

Franken, the loud-mouthed former comedian, will be the 60th member of the Senate Democratic caucus …

Two points.

First, implicit in this characterization of Franken is the notion of the Senate as a decorous gentlemen’s club. I doubt that club ever existed in reality; but in any case, these days the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body is, not to put too fine a point on it, chock full o’ nuts. James Inhofe: I rest my case.

Second, Al Franken’s dirty secret is that … he’s a big policy wonk.

I used to go on Franken’s radio show, all ready to be jocular — and what he wanted to talk about was the arithmetic of Social Security, or the structure of Medicare Part D.

In fact, the only elected official I know who’s wonkier than Al Franken is Rush Holt, my congressman — and he used to be the assistant director of Princeton’s plasma physics lab. (The campaign’s bumper stickers read, “My Congressman IS a rocket scientist.”)

So what will Franken do to the level of Senate discourse? He’ll raise it.

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Rick Sanchez fact checks Sen. James Inhofe on military spending.

SANCHEZ: Here's a fact check for you. This week, President Obama revealed his first military budget for our country -- total outlay, more than $533 billion.

Here's how it compares to the last military budget under President Bush -- total outlay, some $515 billion.

So, as you can see, in his first year in office, President Obama is proposing more for the Pentagon than did George Bush -- a fact that is not being well-received, by the way, by many on the left, who don't want to see that.

Why then, from the right, is Republican Senator James Inhofe complaining and, in fact, saying this?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM YOUTUBE.COM)

INHOFE: Here we are in Afghanistan right now. We have our -- our men and women in uniform in harm's way. And we hear an announcement we're cutting -- and I would say gutting -- our military. I've never seen a budget like this. We're spending so much money. The Obama budget has increased welfare and all time we're doing this, increasing all these welfares to an (INAUDIBLE), the only thing in the budget that's being cut is military. Right here, things are going to increase. The numbers are going to increase and yet we're cutting the budget.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Cutting and gutting the military budget.

Joining us now is Jim Arkedis.

He's the director of the National Security Project of the Progressive Policy Institute.

You guys check on these things...

JIM ARKEDIS, PROGRESSIVE POLICY INSTITUTE: We do.

SANCHEZ: ...to make sure the figures are right. So because you're down now in the middle, I'm going to ask you the question -- is Senator James Inhofe correct to say that President Obama is "gutting the U.S. military budget?"

In fact, he goes on to say disarming America.

ARKEDIS: Obviously, the senator's words are pretty ridiculous. President Obama has proposed an increase, as the numbers you just rattled off suggested. And there's absolutely no hint any time in the future that America's military budget is going to be gutted or we're going to be incapable of fighting the wars that -- that we are in now and we will look to in the future -- or have to in the future.

SANCHEZ: And just to be clear, you're -- you're not a lefty, right?

You're not coming at this from oh, I'm a defender of Barack Obama or the Democrats' proposals here, right?

ARKEDIS: Well...

SANCHEZ: Your organization is?

ARKEDIS: We are the Progressive Policy Institute. So I'll let the -- the title speak for itself. But we are a centrist progressive organization.

SANCHEZ: Do you think this has something to do with the fact that Senator Inhofe did have some programs cut from his own state, in Oklahoma -- apparently some kind of defense mechanism project where they used -- that they used for tanks or something?

Which...

ARKEDIS: Yes...

SANCHEZ: ...happens from time to time.

ARKEDIS: Absolutely. It's a big problem in the defense industry.

Look, what Senator Gates has done is essentially reoriented America's defenses. This is long overdue. He's told the defense industry that we have to move from a cold war mindset into fighting the battles like irregular warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan that we're current -- currently in.

As you mentioned, the senator in Oklahoma -- there's a big construction of a program called Future Combat Systems, which is supposed to be this very high tech, integrated system on the battlefield that -- that links up everything from tanks to medical vehicles to... SANCHEZ: And it was cut.

ARKEDIS: It was cut.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

ARKEDIS: It's a big, unwieldy problem, it's been the sort of problem child of the defense industry. It's decades overdue and...

SANCHEZ: So...

ARKEDIS: ...and hundreds of billions of dollars too expensive.

SANCHEZ: So, really, when he says the U.S. defense is being gutted, actually what he probably seemed to be inferring was Oklahoma's was -- or at least this particular project.

Jim, we're out of time.

Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us.

ARKEDIS: Thank you very much.

SANCHEZ: By the way, we reached out to Senator Inhofe. His office says that he is traveling overseas and though he'd love to have joined us, he could not be reached.

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From The Cafferty File Nov. 17, 2008. David Sirota has more at Daily KOS.

Republican Senator Jim Inhofe from Oklahoma wants to put a “freeze” on the remaining cash in the big government bailout of the financial industry. In this week’s lame duck session, Inhofe plans to push for legislation that will require Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s plan for the remaining $350 billion in the bailout package to be voted on in Congress.

Despite promises from Congressional leaders that there would be both, there is absolutely no transparency or congressional oversight on where the first $290 billion has gone. Senator Inhofe suggests Paulson “may have given the money to his friends.”

Inhofe, who voted against the bailout package when it was originally passed, said in a letter to fellow lawmakers this weekend, “It is Congress’s duty to have a say in what happens with the remaining authorized amount of $350 billion. It is clear that it was a mistake to sign a blank check to one man for such a tremendous amount of money.”

Here’s my question to you: Should Congress freeze the remaining bailout money?

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Late last week, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) released a so-called "report," pointing to hundreds of alleged independent scientists who agree with him about climate change -- which is to say, they deny the reality of global warming.

More than 400 scientists challenge claims by former Vice President Al Gore and the United Nations about the threat of man-made global warming, a new Senate minority report says.

Far-right blogs pounced, heralding Inhofe's "expose."

There is, however, one small problem: Inhofe's report plays fast and loose with the facts.

“Padded” would be an extremely generous description of this list of “prominent scientists.” Some would use the word “laughable” (though not the N.Y. Times‘ Andy Revkin, see below). For instance, since when have economists, who are pervasive on this list, become scientists, and why should we care what they think about climate science?

There's been a lot of great coverage of this, highlighting Inhofe's many errors of fact and judgment, including items here, here, and here.