2. Paul Broun (R-Georgia): Science Is the Devil's Playground
One of the more distressing movements in Jindal's "stupid party" is its increasingly anti-scientific fervor. Leading the charge is Georgia Congressman Paul Broun, who believes that science is the Devil's work. Literally.
"All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell," Broun once declared.
This didn't stop Republican leaders from appointing him to the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, a decision akin to Apple hiring Nicki Minaj to head its research division.
In a speech before a sportsmen's club, Broun told the audience that though Jesus hates science, Our Savior showed a great deal of enthusiasm in getting Paul Broun elected to Congress and helping him kill a Kodiak bear and two lions.
He's also accused President Obama of upholding the Soviet constitution rather than the U.S. version. Among his proudest moments: He claims to be the first politician to call Obama a "socialist."
Though Broun represents a fundamentalist swath outside Atlanta, his anti-science views don't reflect a sliver of sanity in his district known as Athens, home to the University of Georgia. So biologist Jim Leebens-Mack started a write-in campaign against the congressman.
Instead of running himself, Mack encouraged voters to back a new candidate: Charles Darwin. Broun may have won re-election, but the long-deceased Darwin still managed to get 4,100 votes.
1. Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota): The Demagogue Slugger With Power to All Fields
Years from now, historians will look back on the year 2013 and think to themselves, Michele Bachmann? Really?
She's the rare politician who can demagogue any issue — and the only member of Congress weird enough to be nominated by everyone contacted for this story, be they Republican or Democrat. If there's a crusade requiring crazy talk, Bachmann is sure to be yammering on a newscast near you.
Perhaps only Donald Trump rivals her thirst for attention, a neediness that often causes her to fabricate arguments from Play-Doh. She's claimed that hundreds of scientists and Nobel Prize winners support intelligent design, and that same-sex marriage will force judges to tell little kids, "Homosexuality is normal, and you should try it."
During an appearance on the Today show, Bachmann suggested that the HPV vaccine could cause mental retardation. She's also intimated that there's a direct correlation between swine flu outbreaks and Democratic presidencies.
Finally, she's claimed that no study has ever shown that carbon dioxide is harmful to the environment — neglecting the hundreds of studies concluding just that.
But her worst stunt came last year, when she launched a McCarthy-esque witch hunt to rid Washington of Muslim Brotherhood infiltrators. Her prime suspect was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's top aide, Huma Abedin, whose only crime was having a foreign-sounding name.
But even if she were voted out tomorrow, Bachmann's legacy would live on: Roughly a third of this list is composed of frequent Bachmann co-conspirators. Not only is she their leader, but she's a role model, too, the crazy North Star that guides them, even as she makes an ever-growing number of Americans question this whole experiment we call democracy.
