A few days ago, I was jumping around the web, reading the news, when a comment that someone had left after an article caught my attention. A woman had asked what the Republican endgame was. She wanted to know where, if we stopped resisting and allowed them to lead us, the Republicans would take us. I thought that it was a great question, and prepared to respond, when someone else offered the following… We’d be a snake-handling nation of hunter gatherers with advanced military aircraft, he said. As I couldn’t possibly do any better, I moved on to something else. But, the question, and its answer, have stuck with me ever since. And, current events, I’m sorry to say, are making that particular scenario seem all too possible.

Let’s start with Joe Barton, the man who very likely could be the Chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. He, among other things, doesn’t think the government has any place telling us that we should replace our “traditional” incandescent light bulbs with those “little, squiggly, pig-tailed ones.” (Advocating for energy conservation, I think we’d all agree, has no place on the Energy Committee, especially at a time when we have such an unlimited abundance of non-renewable resources.) You might know him better, though, as that Congressman who bravely stood up and apologized to BP’s CEO Tony Hayward after the Obama administration asked the company to pay for the cleanup of the Gulf. But, others are vying for the position now held by California’s Henry Waxman. Fortunately for us, they’re all three climate change deniers.

One of these men is John Shimkus. John, like Joe Barton and almost all other Republicans these days, does not believe in global warming. Unlike these folks, though, he doesn’t rely on the bad science of oil industry lobbyists to make the case. No, he doesn’t have to. He goes right to the source – to God directly. Global climate change, according to Shimkus, can’t be real because God told Noah after the flood that he would never destroy the world again. I could see how some might think it risky to have someone with a less than open mind on such a critical issue running the Energy Committee, seeing as how an overwhelming percentage of climate scientists are telling us that we have a very small window in which to avert global catastrophe, but I for one would find comfort in his certainty that God is “infallible, unchanging, perfect.” The sad truth of the matter is that science is depressing, and what we need right now, more than anything, is to feel good about ourselves. People, after all, don’t buy SUVs, air conditioners and snuggies when they think the world is ending.

Fortunately, there’s likely to be a whole lot less science under Republican leadership. Here’s a clip from a recent article in the New York Times:

Federal financing of science research, which has risen quickly since the Obama administration came to power, could fall back to pre-Obama levels if the incoming Republican leadership in the House of Representatives follows through on its list of campaign promises.

In the Republican platform, Pledge to America, the party vows to cut discretionary nonmilitary spending to 2008 levels. Under that plan, research and development at nonmilitary agencies — including those that sponsor science and health research — would fall 12.3 percent, to $57.8 billion, from the Mr. Obama’s request of $65.9 billion for fiscal year 2011.

An analysis by the American Association for the Advancement of Science looked at what would happen if all of the agencies were cut to the 2008 amounts. The National Institutes of Health would lose $2.9 billion, or 9 percent, of its research money. The National Science Foundation would lose more than $1 billion, or almost 19 percent, of its budget, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would lose $324 million, or 34 percent…

That’s what I call a win – win. Not only do we save some money that can go toward corporate welfare and advanced military weapons systems, but we do so by cutting the funding of those pesky climate scientists who are to blame for all the Henny Penny hysterics over the adverse affects of CO2 in the atmosphere. And, I think we all know that the new Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner is absolutely right when he says that it’s “almost comical” to suggest that greenhouse gasses are bad for the planet. As a former executive in the plastics industry, he should know, right?

Fortunately for democracy, America’s patriotic corporations are stepping up to assist the Republicans in their righteous fight against environmental regulations. Here, on that subject, is a clip from as article in the Guardian that ran right before the midterm election:

The next Congress is expected to throw up a whole new set ofroadblocks to Barack Obama’s environmental agenda – from time-consuming investigations to budget cuts.

So how much was the fossil fuel industries willing to pay to help cast out White House allies on energy and climate change?

A lot, it turns out. Oil and coal lobby groups have spent $69.5 million on television ads specifically targetted against Obama clean energy policies in these mid-term elections, according to data compiled by the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

That’s a 10-to-1 advantage over clean energy groups. Opinion polls are all predicting big wins in tomorrow’s elections for Republicans, especially Tea Party candidates…

Climate scientists, the sneaky sons-of-bitches that they are, are speaking out en masse, but I suspect that our true patriots will come forward to drown them out with the beautiful music of corporate free speech. God bless them.