Tentherpalooza

If you thought the GOP crazies were limited to the deep south and the borderlands, the new frontier in wingnut stupidity is the Land of 10,000 Lakes.  Meet Minnesota Republican Tom Emmer, who makes the Bachmanniac look sane.

State Rep Tom Emmer picked up the official Republican endorsement at the party's convention this weekend, and he also walked away with the backing of Pawlenty himself. "We don't have any doubt about what Tom Emmer stands for or what his values are," Pawlenty said at the convention. "He is strong. He is steadfast. He is clear. ... He is going to be the next governor of the state of Minnesota." Emmer also has the support of Sarah Palin, who praised him just before the convention got underway as a "hockey dad" who once played for the University of Alaska-Fairbanks -- a move that may have been a tipping point, according to the Star-Tribune.

Emmer was first elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2004. He is a co-author of a proposed state constitutional amendment that would, to borrow the words of Nigel Tufnel, turn the Tenth Amendment all the way up to 11, with Minnesota preemptively nullifying all federal laws unless a state supermajority consents to them. Here is the key quote from the amendment's text: "A federal law does not apply in Minnesota unless that law is approved by a two-thirds vote of the members of each house of the legislature and is signed by the governor. Before voting to approve a federal law, each legislator must individually affirm that the legislator has read the federal law and understands it."

In other words, he wants to nullify all federal laws that apply to Minnesota unless they are ratified by a two-thirds majority vote in both the state House and Senate, and then he wants to give the Governor veto power over that nearly impossible task.  It's not just health care he wants to repeal, it's pretty much every federal law out there that he doesn't like.

And this guy's the new GOP candidate for Governor.

I'm actually glad I moved away from Minnesota in 2002.