Virgil Goode Just Can’t Stop

Virgil Goode really is having a tough time recently. The other day he went on a bizarre rant against Muslims. Now, I see that he’s signed on to a bill that would outlaw in vitro fertilization.

H.R. 4157, which Representative Broun refers to as the Sanctity of Human Life Act, might more accurately be entitled the Zygote Political Enfranchisement Act or the Anti-Fertility Act. The legislation has been written by Congressman Broun in order to define a human egg created in the United States from the moment of fertilization, through its development into a fetus ready to be born, as a complete person with full legal rights and constitutional protections equal to that of any other American citizen.

Under Broun’s proposed law, this award of full legal protections to all fertilized eggs, even one created just one minute ago, would be given regardless of the ability of the fertilized egg to implant in a womb and grow to become a baby. H.R. 4157 states this very directly:

“the life of each human being begins with fertilization, cloning, or its functional equivalent, irrespective of sex, health, function or disability, defect, stage of biological development, or condition of dependency, at which time every human being shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood.”

A fertilized egg must be given all the legal protections of a person, irrespective of health, function or disability? That means that even if a fertilized egg or blastula (a tiny hollow ball of human cells post-fertilization) is somehow determined to have a terrible genetic disease, it would nonetheless have to be given full medical treatment in order to make sure that it survived to be born. If that treatment was not given, its parents could be criminally charged with child abuse or neglect.

Think about in vitro fertilization, and you’ll see how absurd this new law would be. The way that in vitro fertilization works is that many eggs are fertilized, and then sorted, so that healthy fertilized eggs are separated from the unhealthy ones. Under Paul Broun’s law, the unhealthy fertilized eggs would have to be implanted in a woman’s womb, just like the unhealthy ones. Remember that the law says that “health” and “function” are irrelevant. So, even “fertilized” eggs in which the nucleus of the sperm and egg somehow failed to unite to create a genetically coherent union would have to be implanted in a woman’s womb as if they were viable.

This is what Virgil Goode is offering? This is just a crazy as Bob Marshall’s plan a couple of years back to bar unmarried women from having in vitro fertilization treatments. It really is a miracle a guy this crazy could not only get elected to Congress, but continually get reelected.

Hat Tip: Democratic Central

Virginia Republicans in Congress Make Fools of Themselves

Congressmen Eric Cantor and Virgil Goode really made fools of themselves today.

Goode came first. In the debate over Iraq today, Goode went on a bizarre rant against Muslims.

When the commentary begins in the Middle East, in no way do I want to comfort and encourage the radical Muslims who want to destroy our country and who want to wipe the so-called infidels like myself and many of you from the face of the Earth. In no way do I want to aid and assist the Islamic jihadists who want the crescent and star to wave over the Capitol of the United States and over the White House of this country. I fear that radical Muslims who want to control the Middle East and ultimately the world would love to see “In God We Trust” stricken from our money and replaced with “In Muhammad We Trust.”

He’s really just following up on his rant against Kieth Ellison.

I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way. The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.

Its never a good day when you further prove yourself to be a bigot.

Goode’s race against Tom Periello this fall ought to be fun. You see, Periello “was once the co-director of an organization that ran an apology on the Qatar-based network al-Jazeera on behalf of people of faith in the U.S. to the Iraqis for atrocities committed in U.S. detention facilities.”

Cantor came next, a little later in the day.

In an interview with The Atlantic’s Jeffery Goldberg Barack Obama said:

JG: Do you think that Israel is a drag on America’s reputation overseas?

BO: No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this, and I also believe that Israel has a security interest in solving this because I believe that the status quo is unsustainable.

Cantor, along with House Minority Leader John Boehner, immediately put out a statement:

“It is truly disappointing that Senator Obama called Israel a ‘constant wound,’ ‘constant sore,’ and that it ‘infect[s] all of our foreign policy.’ These sorts of words and characterizations are the words of a politician with a deep misunderstanding of the Middle East and an innate distrust of Israel”

Only an idiot would read Obama’s comments as talking about only Israel, as opposed to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Does Cantor want us to think that Obama doesn’t think Israel is a “drag on America’s reputation abroad” but does think that it is a “constant wound” and a “constant sore.” Obama didn’t explicitly say the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it’s pretty damn clear what he was referring to. As ABC News’ Jake Tapper wrote Obama was very, very pro-Israel:

After describing some of the first times he thought about Zionism, Obama said “the idea of a secure Jewish state is a fundamentally just idea, and a necessary idea, given not only world history but the active existence of anti-Semitism, the potential vulnerability that the Jewish people could still experience.”

He talked about how “the idea of Israel and the reality of Israel is one that I find important to me personally. Because it speaks to my history of being uprooted, it speaks to the African-American story of exodus, it describes the history of overcoming great odds and a courage and a commitment to carving out a democracy and prosperity in the midst of hardscrabble land.”

He assailed Hamas as a terrorist organization and said the United States “should not be dealing with them until they recognize Israel, renounce terrorism, and abide by previous agreements.”

Does that sound like someone hates Israel? Tapper says that “Boehner et al are falsely accusing Obama of besmirching a nation and a people. They are accusing him of being anti-Israel, even anti-Semitic. It is false,” and that “Voters may conclude that Republicans think they have to make things up to beat Obama.” He’s right.

Talk about a bad day.

[Update] It’s not just me. Jeffery Goldberg agrees. After calling on Boehner to retract his statement on Obama and the “constant sore” comment Goldberg writes:

If he doesn’t, however, I would, sadly, have to agree with my colleague, the less-forgiving Andrew Sullivan, who called Boehner’s statement a “flat-out lie.” In fact, I would add to Andrew’s post, by calling Boehner’s statement mendacious, duplicitous, gross, and comically refutable. So Mr. Boehner, do the right thing, and correct the record. I’ll be happy to post the correction right here.

Not to mention, these wonderful performances came less than a week after voting against Mother’s Day.

It was already shaping up to be a difficult year for congressional Republicans. Now, on the cusp of Mother’s Day, comes this: A majority of the House GOP has voted against motherhood.

On Wednesday afternoon, the House had just voted, 412 to 0, to pass H. Res. 1113, “Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother’s Day,” when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), rose in protest.

“Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote,” he announced…. This time, 178 Republicans cast their votes against mothers.

It has long been the custom to compare a popular piece of legislation to motherhood and apple pie. Evidently, that is no longer the standard….

Republicans, unhappy with the Democratic majority, have been using such procedural tactics as this all week to bring the House to a standstill, but the assault on mothers may have gone too far. House Minority Leader John Boehner, asked yesterday to explain why he and 177 of his colleagues switched their votes, answered: “Oh, we just wanted to make sure that everyone was on record in support of Mother’s Day.”

By voting against it?