This election season, the GOP witnessed an extreme makeover of their candidates with Tea Party upstarts like Sharron Angle (R-NV), Ken Buck (R-FL), and Christine O’Donnell (R-DE) burying any form of moderation with their radical views. While they were unsuccessful, others among the crew of candidates former Bush advisor Karl Rove’s deemed “insistent, loud, and relatively unsophisticated,” were able to tap dance around extreme and unpopular policy positions and statements in their past to secure electoral victory. No candidate provides better evidence of this strategy than Sen.-elect Rand Paul (R-KY).

During his campaign, Paul swept much of his radical history under the rug to convince Kentucky that he was a palatable choice for the national stage. However, before the spit shine, Paul sat down with prominent 9/11 truther and “aggressive Constitutionalist” Alex Jones of InfoWars to articulate his views regarding “the war for your mind.” Released 14 months after the original taping in 2009, the interview entitled “Thought Crimes USA” sheds further light on Paul’s insights on the inevitable coming of the thought police, a new Hitler, and “martial law” before he was sanitized for national consumption:

–Thought control: Paul warned that “we’re doing what’s called political profiling,” which defined as discriminating against people based on their opinions. “You know people were worried about profiling people for the color of their skin, now we’re profiling people for the color of their thoughts. You know, what are you thinking? Do you believe in something scary like the Constitution. You might be a dangerous person.”

–A new Hitler: Paul casually compared President Obama to Hitler. “I think times of crisis is when we have to worry the most about things. You know, Rahm Emanuel, who’s chief adviser to President Obama, said ‘let no good crisis go past without allowing government to grow, these are our chances for government to grow stronger and for more security at the expense of liberty.’ And it’s happened before. When you have severe crisis, that’s when sometimes strong leaders arise. You had the money destroyed in Germany in 1923 and out of that chaos came Hitler who promised that these awful people were the ones doing this to you and we need to round them up and put them in camps. And the liberties just went out the window. But people actually democratically voted in a Hitler. And I worry about that again in our country.” Later in the interview, he jokingly asked if Obama supporters were wearing “brown shirts,” a reference to the Nazi’s paramilitary units.

–Health reform, martial law, and vaccines: Paul warned that individual mandate in Obama’s health reform legislation could lead to “martial law.” He also delved into a long conspiracy theory about vaccines. “Well I mean, the first sort of thing you see with martial law is mandates, and they’re talking about making it mandatory. Um, I worry because the last flu vaccine we had in the 1970s, more people died from the vaccine than from the swine flu. I think you have to use your brain but I think every individual should be able to make that choice.”

Watch part 2 here:

Paul’s elaborate conspiracy theories mirror many other extreme, unpopular, and downright ridiculous viewpoints he harbored before contorting into an electable candidate. Paul has stated that he wants to abolish the Department of Education so kids don’t have to learn about “two mommies,” that Medicare is socialism, and that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme that should be privatized. Last May, Paul even told a local editorial board — and then again on NPR and MSNBC — that his belief in a “free society” means that whites-only lunch counters are the right of private businesses — a statement he later learned to dodge, but not refute entirely.

But regardless of the actual views of Paul and his fellow freshmen, the GOP establishment is working hard to make sure that they fall into line, appointing old hands and insiders to staff these anti-establishment outsiders.

Yesterday, Rep.-elect Allen West (R-FL), who has risen to national prominence amid controversy over his disparaging views of Islam, progressives, and multiculturalism, appeared on Meet the Press. In the process of explaining why we should permanently extend the Bush tax breaks for millionaires – a move that would add $830 billion to the deficit over the next ten years alone – West made some curious comments about the economic situation in his new home of Washington, D.C. After noting that unemployment is as high as 13 percent in his Florida district and foreclosures are skyrocketing, West claimed that “you don’t see people getting laid off” and “you don’t see anyone suffering” in our nation’s capital:

GREGORY: The — Congressman, the — on the issue of tax cuts, do you buy the president’s argument, “Look, let’s extend those Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class first, then we can come back and do the upper earners, or at least have that conversation”?

WEST: No. I think that we need to extend those tax cuts permanently across the board. Look, I come from a — an area down in South Florida where unemployment is at 13 percent, foreclosures are absolutely high. We are seeing closed upon closed storefronts. But yet, when you walk around here in Washington, D.C., you don’t see people getting laid off, you don’t see, you know, anyone suffering, you don’t see the foreclosures.

Watch it:

West’s comments display an unfortunate lack of awareness of the economic hardships that many D.C. residents experience. Unemployment is low for the upper crust of Washington, including those who populate the halls of Congress — just 4.2 percent for those with a college degree, according to a study by the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute.

However, working-class residents have acutely felt the pain of the economic recession. In Ward 8, which lies just south of Capitol Hill, the unemployment rate topped 28 percent last year, “one of the highest in the nation.” West’s comments about foreclosures are equally misguided, as local blog DCist shows with a video of residents lining up around the block and crowding into the Convention Center to receive free home loan counseling.

It is extraordinarily easy for congressmen like West to arrive in Washington, ingratiate themselves in lobbyist luncheons and the cocktail circuit, and assume that economic hardship somehow passed over our nation’s capital. As a result, it is no surprise that West would argue for permanent tax breaks for billionaires while — in the very same breath — denying the existence of poor people in D.C.

Thankfully, West will not chair the House subcommittee that oversees Washington, D.C. in the 112th Congress. That role will be filled by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), a man who believes that giving D.C. governing autonomy and voting rights is unconstitutional.

As debate in Washington begins to focus on ways to reduce the deficit, Republican lawmakers — notoriously unable to actually specify any significant spending cuts they would like to make — often give repeal of the President Obama’s health care law as one of their best ideas to reduce federal spending. But there’s one small problem with this plan — repealing the Affordable Care Act would actually increase the deficit, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, to the tune of $143 billion over ten years.

Asked about how he would save money on Fox News yesterday, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), who is one of the few GOP lawmakers to oppose a full repeal, nonetheless claimed the law will cause a massive amount of new spending. He dismissed the CBO’s estimates out of hand, without any explanation, and found the concept of listening to the CBO so “absurd on its face” that he laughed when host Shannon Bream mentioned the office’s findings, saying, “if you believe that I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you”:

GREGG: The health care plan alone will add $2.5 trillion in new spending to the federal government over the next ten years. [...]

BREAM: Okay, you point to $2.5 trillion in increased costs because of health care, but Democrats are going to point to figures from the CBO estimates and other economists saying that it is actually going to save us money. Where is the disconnect on the math?

GREGG: [Laughs] Hey, if you believe that, Shannon, I’m going to sell you a bridge in Brooklyn. I mean, that’s just absurd on its face.

Watch it (beginning 2:40):

While Gregg is quick to dismiss the CBO — or anyone else — who disagrees with the disinformation he is trying to push, the senator has been happy to heap praise on the office when its findings do comport with his narrative. While discussing health care in 2009, Gregg said, “the nail was hit on the head by Doug Elmendorf, who’s head of CBO — and who is, by the way, appointed by the Democratic leadership of the House and the Senate.”

In March, on Fox News, Gregg urged viewers to “go to CBO” if they didn’t trust a figure he had mentioned on Medicare. “[T]hey are the independent score keeper,” he explained. But just hours later on CNN, Gregg was back to attacking the office, saying, “of course” he didn’t believe the office’s calculations on the Affordable Care Act. Rehashing his familiar talking point, he joked, “If you believe those numbers, I will sell you a bridge in Brooklyn and probably two in Oakland.”

Perhaps Gregg should take some sage advice from a senior U.S. senator: “We can solve this problem if we would just simply listen to what the CBO proposed and proceed on a plan of addressing the problem rather than addressing the politics.” That senator? Judd Gregg, just over a year ago.