Irrational positions

It would appear we've gone stark-raving mad.

Despite attempts to make some sense of this carnival of the absurd, there is just no other logical conclusion.

For example, Albert Gore and his fellow eco-travelers want to spend $90 trillion to eliminate all passenger vehicles in urban centers in favor of mass transit.

In Gore's world, urban centers need to be more "compact" and residents would use only mass public transportation to further reduce the carbon footprint of humanity.

Regardless of the amazing lack of merit to his warped view, Gore -- apparently with a straight face -- throws out an absurd figure of $90 trillion.

If that's not an example of literal madness, our president opts for a sit-down interview with a YouTube personality whose claim to fame is eating a bowl of cereal while apparently sitting in a bathtub also filled with cereal.

And to compound that embarrassment, the prez chooses that interview while at the same time declaring he will not sit down with the leader of Israel, our closest ally in the most troubling region in the world.

Yet, there won't be a serious discussion about priorities in the mass media in just their latest attempt to protect this crumbling presidency.

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We give a massive platform to the Rev. Al Sharpton despite the universal understanding and a wealth of factual data that this man is a race-baiting, tax-cheating street hustler who has personally set back racial relations in every imaginable definition possible.

And our friends in the mass media are far from immune from this growing madness.

As more beheadings are committed in the name of Allah, the top headline of the week centers on the air pressure of a football. In a world of sanity, this brain-dead, tone-deaf media would be a laughing stock

But there's more.

While omitting any mention of the nation's $18 trillion debt last week, the president proposed his new wish list of an estimated $46 billion in annual spending programs for his pet projects without mentioning 1 cent of reduced spending unless it involves our military.

While carefully dodging the mention by name of those terrorist groups who have declared war on Western civilization, he did however take time before a national audience to give a big presidential shout-out to the transgender community.

And not to be forgotten, the Democratic Party leader Howard Dean recently opined that the movie "American Sniper" was only popular with the tea party crowd. Dean might want to reconsider his unique thought process given the $200 million-plus take at the box office. If he's right, the tea party is just a tad bit larger than most would believe.

Taken separately, these unbelievable words and deeds would be considered just the mad ramblings of irrational positions. Collectively, however, they tend to illustrate a form of madness that is not only frightening but clearly beyond the understanding of most Americans.

Michael Jensen is the publisher of the Sikeston Standard Democrat.