The state’s GOP released its platform on Monday, and the document is full of some of the most far-reaching, Tea Party-inspired policy proposals ever introduced into mainstream politics, including a call to investigate the citizenship of any presidential candidate. Here is a round up of the top five most notably far-right ideas from the document:

1. BIRTHERISM: Under the section entitled ‘Elections,’ the Iowa GOP uses non-specific language to hint at the idea that President Obama was not born in the United States. The section reads:

We insist that a candidate prove that he or she meets all requirements for that office prior to being placed in nomination, including proof of United States citizenship.

2. GETTING RID OF GOVERNMENT: The platform proposes the elimination of 16 federal departments and agencies — despite the fact that throughout the rest of the document they call on these particular agencies to enact or repeal certain policies:

We support the elimination of the departments of Agriculture, Education, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Energy, Interior, Labor, and Commerce as well as TSA, FDA, ATF, EPA, National Endowment for the Arts, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.

3. INVESTIGATING ACORN: The Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) came up a lot during the 2008 election, because it was a ‘radical‘ group that ran voter turnout for President Obama. Critics — and apparently the Iowa GOP — believe that Obama ‘stole’ the election using ACORN. Despite the fact that ACORN no longer exists, the Iowa platform calls for an investigation:

We call for a full investigation of the organization formerly known as ACORN and its allied organizations, call for full prosecution of those involved in any illegalities discovered, and call for elimination of government funding of such organizations.

4. AGENDA 21: While most think of Agenda 21 as a global sustainable development campaign, there is a long-running conspiracy theory that the UN effort is actually a plan for world-dominating government entity. The Iowa GOP has included this theory as well:

We demand that the term “sustainable development” be defined, vetted, and controlled by county and state agricultural agencies whose private property it impacts rather than the UN, other international or Agenda 21 agencies, or any federal organization.

5. NULLIFICATION: The platform takes the stance of ‘nullification’– that any state, under the 10th amendment, can choose to side-step federal law because they deem it unconstitutional. The platform also takes the stance that they can ignore Supreme Court rulings under the 10th amendment:

We support constitutional state sovereignty including nullification of federal oversteps.

We disagree with Roe vs. Wade and Doe vs. Bolton as “settled law.” Under the Tenth amendment, these Supreme Court decisions have no authority over the states.

Iowa Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins

In 2010, anti-gay groups such as the Mississippi-based hate group the American Family Association spent close to $800,000 to remove three Iowa Supreme Court justices who joined that court’s unanimous decision holding that marriage equality is required by the Iowa constitution. This fall, Justice David Wiggins is also up for a retention election, and Iowa’s GOP Gov. Terry Branstad recently announced that a similar campaign against Wiggins is likely. Wiggins, however, actually plans to fight back:

Iowa Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins vows he won’t stand quietly by if opponents of same-sex marriage launch a potent campaign to oust him from the bench.

“If someone wants to attack me, I’m not going to let them bully me,” Wiggins said in a telephone interview last week with The Des Moines Register. “If asked to, I’ll speak up for myself. The others didn’t do that last time. I will.”

Justice Wiggins’ statement that he actually plans to campaign to keep his job should not seem all that remarkable, if it were not for the fact that his three former colleagues essentially threw their retention races in 2010 by refusing to do the same:

[Former Justice David] Baker, in his speech accepting the Profile in Courage Award, said that he, Streit and Ternus made a deliberate decision not to form campaign committees in 2010.

“Our founding fathers chose wisely to not have judges in a political position,” Baker told the audience, which included Wiggins. “Had we chosen to form campaigns, we would have tacitly admitted that we were what we claimed not to be — politicians. … We strongly believed that the people of Iowa did not want us to be in the position of raising money for a campaign.”

Pretending that you are above the fray may be a lovely way to earn awards, but it is no way to win an election. Moreover, by effectively throwing their elections, Baker, Streit and Ternus did a whole lot more to undermine judicial independence than they did to protect it — their defeats only emboldened their opponents, and encouraged more efforts to apply political pressure to judges.

Despite receiving over $100,000 in corporate PAC contributions, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) claimed earlier this month that, “I don’t have any corporate contributions into my campaign.”

King made the remarks during a town hall meeting on April 6 in Jefferson, Iowa. Pressed by a constituent about the impact of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, King claimed he had “not dug into” the decision yet, but conceded that he’s “not comfortable with the result.” Still, he claimed that his own campaign was free from the influence of corporate contributions.

CONSTITUENT: The whole question of what’s wrong with our country here is corruption. Money buying elections. Money buying corporate messages.

KING: That’s another thing. I will listen to him. I just want to tell you. I don’t have any corporate contributions into my campaign.

Watch it (relevant section begins at 1:25):

A cursory glance at King’s fundraising reports this year shows maxed-out contributions from the PACs of many corporations, including Koch Industries, American Crystal Sugar, AT&T, Berkshire Hathaway, Exxon, First American Bank, Kirke Financial Services, Mail Services LLC, Mobren Biological, Silverstone Group, Sukup Manufacturing, and a wide array of corporate trade associations.

King is technically correct that corporations haven’t contributed directly to his campaign. Federal election law prohibits corporations from making such contributions to any candidate. However, corporations establish their own PACs precisely so that their leadership and investors can donate to candidates. King’s campaign has benefited immensely from these corporate PACs, receiving more than $100,000 for his reelection bid.