In case you haven’t heard, the clowns took over the GOP circus today with a lunatic vengeance, first successfully ousting House Speaker John Boehner, who announced his resignation, and then loudly celebrating his demise at the annual Jesus-loving, fringe-pandering, gay-Islam-abortion-hating revival meeting that is the Values Voter Summit. God! Guns! Bibles! Freedom! Christmas! Kim Davis! Can it get any worse? Actually, likely, yes.

Boehner’s sudden resignation was widely viewed as a big victory for the Tea Party and other right-wing elements of the GOP, who evidently considered him a moderate wuss. “American voters are weary of GOP leaders running into  political battles waving a white flag,” intoned Tony Perkins of the anti-gay Family Research Council, who added he welcomed leaders who understand that “some values like life, religious liberty and national defense are worth fighting for.” The rudest proof of crazies’ animosity for Boehner: When Marco Rubio gloatingly announced the resignation, the Summit audience roared through the day’s longest standing ovation. Really, nobody seemed sad to see him go. From Twitter: “It took several years, but Boehner finally created a job.”

The Summit featured the usual demented suspects – Cruz, Brownback, Santorum, Huckabee, Gohmert, Barronelle Stutzman, the Washington state florist who refused to sell flowers to a gay wedding so as not to “betray her Lord” – ranting about religious liberty, sanctuary cities, the right to life (until you’re born, after which you need to stop asking for free stuff) alongside workshops like The Landscape of a Post-Planned Parenthood Future and Saving Religious Freedom in Our Military and Civilizational Decay and Renewal: A Biblical View. No doubt because this is about the only place where people think they make sense, speakers felt free to go for it. Cruz called Obama “the world’s most powerful communist,” declared “persecution of religious liberty ends today!,” and promised on day one as president to get rid of the Department of Education, IRS, EPA, Obamacare and Planned Parenthood. Trump waved around a Bible and said he really likes Christmas, because Christmas is Christmas. Kim Davis cried and thanked Jesus. Etc.

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