It's Almost As Though The Georgia GOP Has Figured Out A Way To Elect Michelle Nunn To The Senate

Sam Nunn (L), Michelle Nunn (R)

Virginia Republicans who weren't paying close enough attention are still wondering how their party got saddled with such radical extremists at the top of their ticket. Neo-fascist Ken Cuccinelli and certifiably insane sociopath E.W. Jackson are not going to attract any of the independent swing voters Virginia Republicans need to win statewide, not even against a Democratic candidate as patently unattractive as Terry McAuliffe. But there was no primary. The Cooch manipulated the system so that a nominating convention, dominated by extremists and radical ideologues, would determine who the candidates were. That was a disaster for Virginia Republicans-- and some Georgia Republicans would like to follow suit.

With Michelle Nunn looking more likely to run for the open Senate seat-- and looking like she could beat any of the extremists, especially Handel or Broun, the far right of the Georgia GOP is doing exactly what Nunn's advisors were hoping they'd do: follow Virginia down the yellow brick road... to electoral oblivion. The far right activists are petrified that Rove and other "pragmatists" are trying to manipulate the process in favor of someone who could win a general election.

Georgia Republicans are weighing an election shift that could reshape the state’s political landscape by giving grass-roots activists tremendous new clout in picking the party’s nominee.

State GOP leaders plan to vote Saturday whether to take a first step away from the summer primaries that elect the party’s nominee and toward allowing a convention of party insiders to choose the candidate for statewide and national office. Consider it an audition for a more sweeping electoral change.

Not surprisingly, some elected Republican leaders and assorted power brokers are wary of an overhaul they fear could disenfranchise the roughly 700,000 people who vote in party primaries and cede power to a smaller group of activists.

But supporters say the change is needed to offset what the resolution calls the “power of Big Money and Big Media” and give more say to the activists who feel they’ve been ignored during the GOP’s ascendancy.

“This is an effort to try to remove money from the nominating contest, and some who aren’t in support of it are the ones who enjoy the privilege to dictate who will be our nominee through their money,” said Dale Jackson, a LaGrange businessman who chairs the state GOP’s 3rd district.

“Right now there are a very few people who are participating, and those are the people who can afford to spend hundreds if not millions of dollars to influence who wins the nomination.”

The pitch comes at a pivotal moment for Georgia Republicans. Gov. Nathan Deal and other leaders routinely acknowledge the party needs to broaden its message or risk facing a resurgent Democratic Party emboldened by a growing minority population. And the heated competition for an open U.S. Senate spot triggered a race to the right that some fear could give Democrats a better chance at seizing the seat.

...The party’s establishment wing hasn’t been keen on the idea, and some point to Virginia as a prime example why. Virginia’s Republicans selected E.W. Jackson, a little-known minister and attorney, as their candidate for lieutenant governor despite controversial comments about gays and abortion that could haunt him during the general election.

“I’m not sure less democracy is the solution, at this point in our history, to whatever ills or frustrations are out there,” House Speaker David Ralston said this week. “I can’t support that and I don’t support it. I re-read the resolution this morning and I’m not sure what the rationale for it might be.”

Brant Frost V, the Coweta County GOP chairman who brought the resolution, said his reasoning is simple: The grass-roots base that powered the GOP for generations during its political exile has been “discriminated against” as the party came to power in the past decade. Enough members of the party’s 16-member resolution committee agreed, setting up Saturday’s vote.

“We’ve seen the cost of a primary spiral out of control, and that means you’re excluding candidates who can’t raise the money,” said the 23-year-old, whose family has been influential in GOP politics. “Politics is like a stew. You’ve got to have money, support, the ground game. But we’ve so spiced it up with the money angle that we’ve completely deadened the effect of all the other essential ingredients.”

...Top Republicans, though, are wary of any changes. Ralston, a Blue Ridge Republican, said the voters in his North Georgia district spend their nights going to Little League games and weekends hunting and fishing-- not at party meetings and insider conventions.

“Are we going to tell them that if they don’t have time to be an activist then we are going to disenfranchise them?” he asked. “I’m not going there.”

He may have no choice-- and that would open the door further to a crackpot like Paul "Lies Straight From the Pit of Hell" Broun, a John Bircher, Karen Handel or Phil Gingrey, all fringe candidates Nunn could beat statewide. Although there's another Democrat running as well, Branko Radulovacki-- "call me Dr. Rad"-- an Atlanta psychiatrist, Republicans are blasting away at Nunn.

“National Republicans are so terrified of the possibility of a Michelle Nunn candidacy that they are already misleading the public about her and her record,” said Matt Canter... at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “The divisive Tea Party primary and the demographic changes in Georgia, make this seat one of the best pick up opportunities for Democrats this cycle,” he said.

This is what the Georgia neo-fascist/KKK/Bircher grassroots wants to send to the U.S. Senate:

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Which Georgia Extremist Will Out-Extreme All The Others?

Republican voters seem more and more insane lately-- like in the last decade. No one believes in all the trumped up "scandals" Republican congressional obstructionists are pushing out to a media desperate for fireworks except GOP voters. And in the Old Confederate states, the Republican base is far crazier than the representatives they elect (except for a few like Louie Gohmert, Paul Broun, Phil Gingrey and domestic terrorist suspect Steve Stockman). And speaking of Paul Broun and Phil Gingrey...

Those two crackpots are among a gaggle of crackpots running for the Republican nomination for the open Georgia Senate seat. They're all running to the extreme right-wing fringes, the lunatics who vote in the Republican primaries. And their antics are turning off mainstream voters and independents. The latest polling in Georgia shows the main candidates bunched up together and "undecided" (which can also be interpreted as "none of the above") way ahead.

• Jack Kingston- 17.61%
• Phil Gingrey- 15.98%
• Karen Handel- 15.81%
• Paul Broun- 14.14%
• David Perdue- 5.77%
• Undecided- 30.69%

And the more radical and extreme the candidate the GOP primary comes up with, the more likely Sam Nunn's daughter, Michelle Nunn, will snatch the seat from the Republicans. Nunn is competitive polling wise, and would beat former Secretary of State Karen Handel hands down. But is she going to run? Sunday she was the big buzz-- along with Obama-- at an Atlanta DSCC fundraiser. Michael Bennet (D-CO), chair of the DSCC said "We believe Georgia presents us with the greatest opportunity for a pickup." And, needless to say, all the Republican crackpots have, for example, come out against the bipartisan immigration reform bill. They know well who the Know Nothing primary voters are.

"We absolutely must deal with it but we don't need any new laws," Broun said. "The solution is to secure the borders, both north and south."

"We absolutely are going to be opposed and stand strong against any amnesty," Gingrey said. "My idea about solving this problem is to enforce the laws that are currently on the books."

Gingrey and Handel both said the current proposal was too similar to a 2007 immigration bill that ultimately failed.

"We are about to have deja vu all over again," Handel said. "Only in Washington could the same failed policies be put forward as 'reform.' We need to secure the borders now before we do anything else."

Kingston also called for the end of automatic citizenship for those born in the United States. "When you come to America as a visitor and if you have a child, that child should not automatically be an American citizen," Kingston said. "We are one of the few nations left that still have that relic on the books. It was needed at one time but it is not needed anymore."

The Governor asked them not to behave like the Hatfields and the McCoys and destroy each other's chances. Broun, a former drug addict and a current John Bircher, is probably the most extremist of the candidates, though not by much. When he first entered the race, he claimed he was the "only" conservative running and that the others are, essentially, poseurs. "I believe in the original intent of the Constitution," he clucked. "There’s no other candidate that’s going to get into this race that does. I believe in the Constitution as the Founding Fathers meant it. They believe in a Constitution where government finds all the solutions for all the problems. So there are big differences between me and all the other candidates that can get in this race."

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Can The Democrats Take A Senate Seat In Georgia? With Barrow Out, It's A Real Possibility

If you thought the Dems got lucky with Akin & Mourdock, wait 'til you meet Paul Broun

Teabaggers decided right-wing senator Saxby Chambliss wasn't pure enough-- after all, with a 1.95 lifetime ProgressivePunch score (and a ZERO for 2013), look how much more conservative he could be voting-- so they threatened him with a primary and he decided to retire. That leaves a Senate seat in a very Republican state up for grabs. Chambliss won in 2008 with 57.5% and in November Romney beat Obama 53-46%. Very Republican-- but not very, very Republican. Chambliss probably wouldn't have had to break a sweat to win reelection. But the teabaggers screwed that up for the RNSC. So now they have two declared candidates, two of the most certifiably insane extremists in Congress-- Paul Straight-From-The-Pit-Of-Hell Broun and Phil Akin-Was-Right Gingrey-- another lunatic (anti-Choice sociopath Karen Handel) threatening to jump in, a more respected right-winger (Tom Price) pulling out and Rove's handpicked Establishment candidate, Steve Kingston, under fore by the extremists for not being conservative enough for the party base. Broun had Kingston in his sites when he said the other Republicans running don't believe in the Constitution, "I believe in the original intent of the Constitution. There’s no other candidate that’s going to get into this race that does. I believe in the Constitution as the Founding Fathers meant it. They believe in a Constitution where government finds all the solutions for all the problems. So there are big differences between me and all the other candidates that can get in this race."

I wish there was more of a difference. But the 4 of them are all crackpots-- and that creates an opening for the Democrats, particularly a Democrat with a respected and beloved name in the state: Nunn. The Republicans, who were dying for weak, pusillanimous Blue Dog shill John Barrow to run, are petrified that Sam Nunn's daughter, Michelle Nunn, will run instead. (The Wall Street Journal announced Barrow's decision to not run as good news for Georgia Democrats.) The DSCC tested candidates against the least extremist of the 4 GOP extremists, Jack Kingston, and they found that Michelle Nunn would have the best chance to win the seat.

The March poll of 800 respondents found Kingston leading Nunn 33 percent to 32 percent, while Kingston led Barrow 33-29.

Barrow announced Tuesday that he would not run for Senate after months of flirting with the idea, and indications are that Nunn's refusal to step aside in a primary was a major reason for his decision. Democrats are now trying to spin Nunn as the superior candidate who can better turn out the base, while Republicans are crowing about how the battle-tested Barrow turned down the DSCC and dampened Democrats' dreams of taking over the seat after the retirement of Republican Saxby Chambliss.

...Nunn, daughter of the former senator Sam Nunn, is the CEO of the volunteer service organization Points of Light. She has not run for office before and is mostly a blank slate to Georgia voters, according to the DSCC poll. She was viewed favorably by 14 percent of respondents and unfavorably by 5 percent. Barrow stood at 18-10 favorable/unfavorable, identical to Kingston and the latest sign of how little-known these members of Congress are outside their districts.

After unspecified "positive and negative messaging" about the candidates was read to the respondents, Nunn pulled ahead of Kingston 37 percent to 34 percent, while Kingston led Barrow 33-32. The AJC was not provided any additional information about the poll, such as how the Democrats performed against the other Republicans in the race.

POLLING UPDATE

On Monday Better Georgia released a poll showing the GOP extremists make the open Senate seat very mich up for grabs. Michelle Nunn would beat Handel substantially and is in position to beat any of the crackpot congressmen the Republicans are looking at.

The survey shows a Republican advantage of 4 percentage points before either party has chosen its candidate. It also shows that in a crowded primary, Republican voters favor the most conservative candidate, Congressman Paul Broun.

Michelle Nunn, the founder and CEO of an international non-profit and the daughter of former United States Senator Sam Nunn, performs best when compared with potential GOP candidate Karen Handel, former Georgia Secretary of State. In a head-to-head match-up of the two women, Nunn draws 47 percent to Handel’s 39 percent. Nunn is tied with Congressman Phil Gingrey at 46 percent for each candidate. The most moderate Republican candidate, Congressman Jack Kingston, performs best against Nunn, 48 percent to 42 percent. None of the Republican candidates top the 50 percent mark when tested against Nunn.

“Georgia voters are growing increasingly tired of status quo conservatives who put ideology before common sense solutions to Georgia’s biggest challenges,” said Better Georgia Executive Director Bryan Long.  “Georgia is simply not a ‘red state’ where the most conservative candidate is assured victory. Anyone who believes otherwise simply has not looked at the data.”

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Conspiracy Theory Lunatics Are Now Part of The Republican Party's Shrinking Tent

Wednesday evening Rachel Maddow introduced her listeners to the false flag mania that has swept first late night radio, then the extreme right and has now seeped into the Republican mainstream. The seepage, of course, is inevitable because so many freaks and nuts from the fringes are now in the heart of the Republican Party power structure. Rachel starts with Glenn Beck admirer/New Hampshire state Rep. Stella Tremblay (R-Rockingham). Even New Hampshire Republicans are worried that Tremblay, who has been publicly claiming the U.S. government staged the Boston marathon bombings as part of a false flag operation, is making the party look weirder than it already looks.

"It is hard to believe that just days after the cowardly acts of terror took place in our backyard that Rep. Tremblay would thoroughly discredit herself with her bizarre, embarrassing and unfounded comments," said Matthew Slater, executive director, N.H. Republican State Committee. "New Hampshire Republicans strongly reject her outlandish views and believe that anybody who holds such bizarre beliefs should not be taken seriously."

New Hampshire Democratic Party Communications Director Harrell Kirstein quickly pounced on Rep. Tremblay's post as the latest in a string of Republican outrages.

"How long will it take Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, Senate Republican Leader Jeb Bradley, and House Republican Leader Gene Chandler to condemn Representative Tremblay's vile and chilling comments?" he asked.

"Tremblay's post is further proof of what can only be called an epidemic of disgusting and shockingly inappropriate behavior by members of the N.H. Republican Party. Yet even for the N.H. Republican Party, which has become synonymous with the Tea Party and radical extremism, Representative Tremblay's claims are a new low. She is an embarrassment to the N.H. House of Representatives, to her constituents, and to the entire state of New Hampshire."

Chandler said Tremblay's comments are so offensive that he was "at a loss for words." They in no way reflect the House leadership or the Republican caucus, he said.

Despite the condemnation, Tremblay was unapologetic. People should question things, she asserted.

"There are too many things going on in this country and nobody questions it," she said.

Tremblay said when the bombings first happened, a Saudi Arabian national, who was wounded in the incident, was named a "person of interest" by the FBI. Investigators obtained a search warrant for his residence and, she said, reporters gathered at a Boston courthouse because they believed the man was going to be arraigned on charges.

But then, she said, the man was released and deported. Tremblay maintains that happened after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama met with high-placed Saudi officials.

"We are supposed to boldly question what our government does," she said.

And, Tremblay pointed out, everyone has freedom of speech.

"We can say whatever we want, am I correct in this premise or not?" she asked.

Tremblay also made news in March when at a legislative committee hearing she said she believes President Woodrow Wilson agreed with Adolf Hitler's view on race.

"This stuff," Rachel explained, "is also sloshing into the U.S. Congress." Texas Congressman Michael McCaul, the wealthiest Member of Congress (married into Clear Channel money) is the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee... and he's batshitinsane. He wouldn't even be in Congress except that Tom DeLay created a district for him by dividing up Austin in three to dilute Democratic votes there. He and three of his colleagues want to investigate groundless and absurd charges made by Alex Jones and Glenn Beck-- pulled out of their asses to bring them attention and cash. Rachel:

The right has always had this to contend with... the Alex Joneses of the world and the Glenn Becks of the world have always been out there on the fringe right, eager to decode anything that seems complex or upsetting in the world to make it very simple for you. To make it very simple so that every story in the world has the same implication, which is that all of your suspicions and prejudices are true; that the world is in fact a very simple place; that people really are out to get you; and that you do understand all of it. And that you can trust no other sources of information about the world other than these gentlemen, who would please like you to send another $19.95 for another month's subscription, since they are the only people who will tell you the real truth."

I'm sure the New Hampshire Republican Party and the voters in the Granite State will figure out how to deal with a deranged Tea Party freak like Stella Tremblay. There isn't much harm she can do anyway-- unless she has some black gunpowder and a bomb-making manual. But what about highly placed nutcases like Mike McCaul in the U.S. Congress? Boehner appointed him chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. He actually has real power. And he's either as crazy as Stella, on his way to being as crazy as Stella, or faking it for the teabaggers back home. And McCaul is considered vaguely mainstream among Texas Republicans especially when you compare him to colleagues like Louie Gohmert and Steve Stockman, both of whom are even more out of their minds than Stella in New Hampshire!

Yesterday former GOP operative, David Frum, sent out this tweet about the fringe right-wing party in Britain, the UKIP, something like a combination of the Tea Party, the KKK and some crackpot neo-Nazis:

A UKIP candidate has sparked outrage by reportedly claiming that Jews deliberately murdered each other in the Holocaust as part of a masterplan to create Israel.

The extreme racist views were posted in Mrs Anna-Marie Crampton’s name on a conspiracy theory website called 'Secrets of The Fed.'

Crampton, 57, is allegedly quoted as saying: “Holocaust means a sacrifice by fire. Only the Zionists could sacrifice their own in the gas chambers.

“The Second World Wide War was engineered by the Zionist jews and financed by the banksters to make the general public all over the world to feel so guilty and outraged by the Holocaust that a treaty would be signed to create the State of Israel as we know it today.”

Mrs Crampton posed with UKIP leader Nigel Farrage at a rally in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, two weeks ago-- and proudly posted a photo on her Facebook page.

A further outrageous comment, posted two months ago, added: “The Rothschilds are Zionists..there is a difference between Jews and Zionists. These Psychopaths hide behind and use the Jews.

“It was thanks to them that 6 million Jews were murdered in the War (along with 26 million Russians!).”

Another comment says: “I am anti Zionist, not antisemit (sic). I love the true Israel and the Jews.”

Mrs Crampton is standing for UKIP in next week’s county council elections in the traditionally Conservative ward of Crowborough in East Sussex.

Even the UKIP, essentially a neo-Nazi outfit, is on the verge on expelling Crampton. The Republican Party takes psychopaths like her and push them up the ladder. They're on the verge on giving Senate nominations to two congressional crackpots just as bigoted and insane-- if not more so-- than she is, Steve King of Iowa and Paul Broun of Georgia. And, don't forget, John Boehner put Michele Bachmann on the House Intelligence Committee and filled the House Science Committee Climate Change deniers and conspiracy theory lunatics like McCaul and Broun as well as equally crazy and uninformed fringe loons in need of mental health treatment like Stockman, Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Randy Weber (R-TX), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Steve Palazzo (R-MS), Bill Posey (R-FL), Jim Bridenstine (R-OK), David Schweikert (R-AZ), Mo Brooks (R-AL) and Kevin Cramer (R-ND). America has some real problems... and the GOP deals with them by screaming about Benghazi, another crackpot conspiracy theory woven into the warp and woof of the Republican Party mindset. I was in Germany once and heard this band play this song and I signed them to Reprise. The band is BiGod 20 and the song is called America:

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American Political Elites Are Really Bad-- Roundup

Painting by Attila Richard Lukacs

Ken's back in action and he'll be taking back this slot starting tomorrow. If you think you're happy, imagine how I feel!

Heidi Heitkamp-- Cowardly And Disappointing

You probably heard about the tremendous disappointment that 4 Democratic senators-- Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Mark Pryor (AR), Max Baucus (MT) and Mark Begich (AK)-- made common cause with the Republicans against the bipartisan background check amendment offered by Second Amendment fanatics Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA). Former Obama Chief of Staff, Bill Daley wrote a blistering OpEd this past weekend for the Washington Post about how Heitkamp betrayed him. She didn't only betray a wealthy and powerful contributor like Daley; she betrayed the Democratic values and principles that have propelled her into the Senate.

She voted to block legislation to make gun background checks more comprehensive. Her vote-- along with those of 41 Republicans and three other Democrats-- was a key reason the measure fell short of the 60 votes needed for passage.

Polling has shown that nine in 10 Americans and eight in 10 gun owners support a law to require every buyer to go through a background check on every gun sale. In North Dakota, the support was even higher: 94 percent. Yet in explaining her vote, Heitkamp had the gall to say that she “heard overwhelmingly from the people of North Dakota” and had to listen to them and vote no. It seems more likely that she heard from the gun lobby and chose to listen to it instead.

...The other two Democrats who voted against background checks are Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Max Baucus of Montana [who announced today that he's throwing in the towel; more on that tomorrow]. Like Begich, they will be running for reelection next year. And no doubt they’ll come to Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and other cities looking for money to fuel their campaigns. These cities, of course, are also too often the destination for illegal guns flowing in from out of state.

So I’ll have some advice for my friends in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles: Just say no to the Democrats who said no on background checks.

Far more progressive elements in the Democratic Party released this video about Heitkamp's betrayal yesterday:



GOP Fears Another Todd Akin Catastrophe In Georgia

Right-wing crackpots cheered when conservative Senator Saxby Chambliss announced he was retiring. After all, his lifetime ProgressivePunch crucial vote score is 1.95-- tied for the 17th most right-wing Member of the Senate with neo-fascist crackpot Jim Inhofe (R-OK)-- and his score for this session is zero. But that wasn't good enough for the extremists... so now they're liable to get stuck with one of two congressmen who make Todd Akin seem almost mainstream, Paul Broun and Phil Gingrey.

In a recent fundraising letter, [Broun] boasted that he was the first member of Congress to call Obama "a socialist who embraces Marxist-Leninist policies."

That makes Broun a tea party and evangelical favorite. To other Republicans, however, such comments stir memories of 2012 losses in Senate races in Missouri and Indiana where the GOP nominees, Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, made controversial comments about women, rape and abortion.

"There's no question that the Republican Party in Georgia and the nation are concerned that we could have another Todd Akin-type scenario here," said Heath Garrett, a Republican campaign consultant and former top aide to U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson.

Not Sure If Fred Malek Is Still A Jew Hater, But If He Is, He's Now A Pro-Gay Jew Hater

Malek is a rich GOP fundraiser for extreme right-wing candidates and causes now but he's best known as Nixon's "Jew counter," who worked to make sure there weren't "too many" Jews working for the government. He told Think Progress yesterday that he's in favor of marriage equality. "I feel it’s overdue and I support gay marriage... It’s a free country. They ought to be able to get married and they ought to have legalization of that." The candidates he finances through the shady PAC he operates, the American Action Network, do not favor marriage equality. In the 2012 cycle Malek spent $11,689,399 on independent expenditures trying to elect vehemently anti-gay candidates like Daniel "Taliban Dan" Webster (R-FL), Jeff Denham (R-CA), Richard Mourdock (R-IN), Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY), Chip Cravaack (R-MN), and Jesse Kelly (R-AZ). But he supports gay marriage. And he likes the Jews too.

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Neanderthals... In Northeast Georgia?

Discover isn't a political magazine and doesn't get into the politics of the science stories it publishes. Something tells me, though, that lunatic fringe science-deniers on the House Science Committee, like Paul Broun (R-Pit of Hell), Mike McCaul (R-TX), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Steve Stockman (R-OK City Federal Building), Steven Palazzo (R-MS), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Tom Massie (R-KY), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Jim Bridenstine (R-OK), Randy Weber (R-TX) and Chris Stewart (R-Utah), don't subscribe. They should-- if, for no other reason-- to get a better understanding of the people who vote for them. At least in this fascinating new article by distinguished science author Carl Zimmer on Interbreeding with Neanderthals.

Did you watch the Paul Broun video at the "Pit of Hell" link above? If you agree with him that the earth was created 9,000 years ago in six 24 hour days, you might as well stop reading right now, since the premises in Zimmer's essay include something about humans and Neanderthals going their separate ways about 700,000 years ago. The essay is about how the branches kept linking up again all over the world-- humans and Neanderthals interbreeding. Harvard Medical School geneticist David Reich is who's been doing the work and examining the DNA, that Rep. Broun, a John Birch Society freak running for the open Georgia Senate seat (and not especially as a joke candidate), would term "lies from the pit of hell."

Some 200,000 years ago, our ancestors evolved in East Africa. They spread throughout the rest of the continent and then moved out into Asia and Europe. As they journeyed along coastlines and over mountains, they encountered Neanderthals and other human relatives. And at least once in a while, they had sex.

We don’t know the prurient details of those encounters, although it is possible that someday Reich and other scientists will be able to fill in a few of them. But the work Reich has done already leaves no doubt that interbreeding was a major feature of human evolution. Billions of people carry sizable chunks of DNA from Neanderthals and other archaic human relatives. Some of those genes may play important roles in our health today.

And politics. It certainly goes a long way to explaining why the South is still the South so long after we whooped them in the mid-1860s. White supremacists like Broun would not be happy with conclusions scientists are drawing like "today’s Europeans are not latter-day Neanderthals but African immigrants." Thems fightin' words in the backward part of northeast Georgia that elects Broun to Congress, one of America's most racist and bigoted areas.

Reich was curious about what happened when these groups came into contact with each other. Even though they would probably remain mostly separate, some individuals might interbreed. Reich wondered if he could look at the genomes of living humans and find evidence of those ancient liaisons.

Detecting these signs is not easy. Imagine that two people from very distant parts of the world—a woman from Spain, say, and a man from Polynesia-- get married and have a girl. She is born with 23 pairs of chromosomes: one set from her mother and one from her father. Her mother’s chromosomes are loaded with genetic markers that pinpoint her Spanish heritage. Likewise, her father’s DNA is unmistakably Polynesian. But as the girl’s own eggs develop, her DNA gets mixed up.

In the cells that give rise to an egg, a Spanish chromosome will pair up with its Polynesian counterpart. Segments of the chromosomes switch places. Each egg ends up with a new, hybrid chromosome. Now imagine that the girl grows up and marries a Spanish man. The DNA of her children will be only one quarter Polynesian, and the Polynesian DNA will be chopped up into even smaller segments. As the generations pass, the signs of interbreeding get even fainter.

Despite the challenge, Reich thought that detecting interbreeding could be important. It could expose some of humanity’s hidden history, or even shed light on why people are susceptible to certain diseases. When Reich arrived at Harvard Medical School, he began a study on prostate cancer that proved the value of this type of analysis by revealing the genes that make certain men more likely to develop such cancers. “Prostate cancer occurs 1.5 to 2 times more often in African American men than in European men,” Reich says. “We were able to find the reason why.”

To do so, Reich had to reconstruct the genetic history of African Americans, who came to the United States as slaves beginning in the 17th century. White owners sometimes had sex with their slaves and fathered children, thereby introducing European genes into the African American population. Freed slaves also had children with Native Americans and Latinos. As a result, African Americans today may have up to 80 percent European DNA.

...Finally, Reich and his colleagues had no choice but to conclude that Neanderthals had mated with humans. They estimated that the DNA of living Asians and Europeans was (on average) 2.5 percent Neanderthal. They had to reject a pure version of the out-of-Africa model. Instead, their model was closer to out-of-Africa-and-get-to-know-some-Neanderthals-very-well.

The patterns Reich and his colleagues identified can help narrow down when and where the interbreeding took place. Since Africans do not carry Neanderthal DNA, it would appear Neanderthals bred only with the ancestors of Europeans and Asians. One possibility is that when humans emerged out of Africa some 50,000 or more years ago, they encountered Neanderthals in the Near East.

Once humans and Neanderthals mated, the humans continued to expand into Europe and Asia, taking Neanderthal genes with them. Another possibility is that the interbreeding came later. Neanderthals lived across a vast range, from Spain to Russia. As humans came into contact with Neanderthals, they might have mated in several places... Clearly the hybrid children from these interbreedings had to have been accepted into human cultures. But we can’t say whether these couplings happened as rapes during violent battles between humans and Neanderthals or when individual Neanderthals were welcomed into human society. 

Max Blumenthal concluded his epic book, Republican Gomorrah-- Inside The Movement That Shattered The Party with an epilogue, an anecdote about Broun from 2009 called "The Anointing." By any definition, Broun is a Bronze Age throwback, a time which came considerably after we thought Neanderthals had gone extinct. He may well be the living proof that they're still alive and well. Blumenthal caught up with Broun and a couple of his crackpot friends trying to anoint a door that Obama would pass through with crosses painted in oil (or lard).

Although he was only a backbencher, Broun presented himself as the future of the House Republicans. Joining other right-wing members, he opposed the emergency financial bailout, attacked any efforts at immigration reform, and sponsored a bill to protect soldiers from images of unclad women. "Our troops should not see their honor sullied so that the moguls behind magazines like Playboy and Penthouse can profit," Broun proclaimed. His spokesman testified to his expertise as an "addictionologist" who is "familiar with the negative consequences associated with long-term exposure to pornography."

On cave walls?

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