You know a presidential campaign has a problem when they start declaring the candidate’s spouse to be off limits. Michele Bachmann’s campaign seems to be reeling over the attention her husband Marcus Bachmann is getting for his “pray the gay away” therapy, and Mrs. Bachmann is now saying that the topic of her spouse and their business is off limits.

Just as a footnote, in 2008 Bachmann was more than happy to take shots at Michelle Obama.

Herman Cain has generated some buzz in the Tea Party community, but he’s showing that he’s not ready to mount a serious campaign for the presidency. His latest comments offer a good example:

Herman Cain said Sunday that Americans should be able to ban Muslims from building mosques in their communities.

“Our Constitution guarantees the separation of church and state,” Cain said in an interview with Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.” “Islam combines church and state. They’re using the church part of our First Amendment to infuse their morals in that community, and the people of that community do not like it. They disagree with it.”

Last week, the Republican presidential candidate expressed criticism of a planned mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, telling reporters at a campaign event that “This is just another way to try to gradually sneak Sharia law into our laws, and I absolutely object to that.”

If you’ve graduated from high school, it should be easy for you to recognize the stupidity of these comments given that we have a First Amendment in the Bill of Rights.

It’s not uncommon for someone from the business community to generate buzz on the left or the right with common sense criticisms of our government. That’s the easy part. But these businessmen are not disciplined, and many of them are used to being surrounded by people who let them spout off ridiculous statements without any pushback.

So you end up with egomaniacs like Donald Trump spouting off outrageous comments, and then people like Herman Cain who are ignorant about basic policies and constitutional principles.

He might scores some points with the Angry Right, but his candidacy is finished.

After demagoguing 9/11 for the past decade and constantly talking about the heroes of that terrible time, the Republicans blocked benefits for 9/11 first responders. Many of the have become seriously ill and some have died due to what they had to breath while responding to the terrorist attack. Jon Stewart lets them have it.

Here’s more evidence of what we already know – that Fox News is just a propaganda machine for the GOP and the conservative movement.

We’ve been watching as the Republican Party has been losing its collective mind. With the merger of the Tea Party and the GOP, we’re seeing more and more of the nuts getting the GOP nomination in prominent Senate, House and Governor races.

That’s emboldening the nuts in the GOP who already hold office. The latest case is GOP Representative Louie Gohmert and his “terror baby” allegations. Watch as Anderson Cooper gives him a forum and helps him make a fool of himself.

We’re getting to the end of the conservative movement that really kicked into gear with the election of Ronald Reagan, and now we’re seeing the inevitable final stages, as the loons on the far right start reeking havoc on the Republican Party.

Future historians tracing the crackup of the Republican Party may well look to May 8, 2010, as an inflection point.

That was the day, as is now well known, that Sen. Robert Bennett, who took the conservative position 84 percent of the time over his career, was deemed not conservative enough by fellow Utah Republicans and booted out of the primary.

Less well known, but equally ominous, is what happened that same day, 2,500 miles east in Maine. There, the state Republican Party chucked its platform — a sensible New England mix of free-market economics and conservation — and adopted a manifesto of insanity: abolishing the Federal Reserve, calling global warming a “myth,” sealing the border, and, as a final plank, fighting “efforts to create a one world government.”

You can read the rest of the article for some of Glenn Beck’s greatest hits.

What’s left of the conservative movement and the Republican Party?

We have the Reagan worshipers who have become so dogmatic that they think tax cuts solve everything at every time in history, regardless of the circumstances. These folks seem to forget that George W. Bush enacted huge tax cuts that would be followed by the greatest economic collapse in 80 years. These folks also turn on former allies like Bruce Bartlett and David Frum who dare top open a debate on how conservatives might adapt to the changing circumstances of today’s economy.

Then we have the religious right, who’s leaders keep getting caught up in sex scandals. All these folks who preach morality can’t keep it in their own pants. Most of the public has tuned out these self-righteous fools at this point.

We also have moderate Republicans who would like to see the government spend less and who also tend to be social liberals. These reasonable folks abandoned the party and the conservative movement long ago.

And finally we have the Tea Party clowns. Many of these folks are angry as hell – some are angry at everybody, while others don’t know why they’re angry. As noted above, they can be a force at times, and they may be the GOP’s not-so-secret weapon in the fall as anti-incumbent fever hits new highs.

Or, they may just turn off everyone else with their peculiar brand of crazy. Nuts like Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and and Michelle Bachman can rile up these nut jobs, but they may end up giving the Democrats a lifeline as well.

Most people don’t like the crazies. The GOP did a great job for years of exploiting the loony left and painting the Democrats with a broad brush, and now the tables are turned, and the Tea Party folks are giving Democrats some good talking points for the fall.

We’ll see how it plays out.

Those crazy religious right conservatives strike again.

Here’s a good article detailing all the childish gloating from the right. This is another example of how low our politics have sunk in recent years. Conservatives used to rail against liberals for alleged “Bush Derangement Syndrome,” but the contempt and hatred for Barack Obama has reached bizarre levels on the right. Frankly, they sound like a bunch of dumb teenagers taunting a rival team.

It’s hard to imagine how the angry right helps the GOP in the long run. The angry 30% of this country might get energized, but one would this this stupidity would turn off the middle.

Here’s “Tea Party” leader Mark Williams appeared on a CNN panel on “Anderson Cooper 360″ last night making a complete ass of himself.

The lunatic fringe has consumed the right. Funny stuff.