It has been a banner week for the U.S. House of Representatives. In the midst of continued economic hardship at home and events on the world stage with the potential to create a startling shift in the geopolitical landscape, they passed an ever-so-timely apology for slavery. To be fair, they weren’t entirely oblivious to the the cataclysmic events dominating the news (and by “news” I don’t mean to imply that the events dominated cable news networks where footage of wild traffic arrests or breathless, hand-wringing reports about missing children still took priority). They did, after all, overwhelmingly pass a resolution offering their support for the protesters in Iran, support in this instance nothing more than a distant approval. Congress collectively made a stern face, jutted out their lower lip and nodded slowly, sternly, proudly. It was the cheapest sort of grandstanding. As a bonus, it was also far more likely to be used as a tool by the current oppressive regime to unite the citizenry against the meddlesome police-of-the-world over in the U.S. that it was to become a rallying point of inspiration for the protesters risking their lives in the street.

Meanwhile, CNN concentrated on promoting their exclusive interview with The Jonas Brothers.

Of course, the real intent of the resolution, as introduced by the Republicans, was to offer a rebuke to President Obama for his measured response to the situation. Taking their cues from largely discredited neo-cons, the right-wingers mistook wisdom for weakness and continued their self-destructive assaults on a highly popular president too smart to fear them or engage them in their childish attempts at distraction politics.

That’s just one manifestation of their profound tone deafness. It’s even more astounded when it’s mixed with the hyperactive persecution complex that seems to infect every member of the party and their legion of frothing followers. Michigan Representative Pete Hoekstra brought these qualities together while demonstrating the imprudence of politicians putting their unfiltered rumination out for public consumption by posting the following to his Twitter page:

Because those situations are roughly equivalent. I suspect Eric Cantor and Mike Pence probably did fear for their lives as they stood up bravely to the despotic Democrats and demanded that their voices be heard. Briefly setting sarcasm aside, Michelle Bachmann probably was genuinely worried about her safety, but that’s because she’s batshit insane with a mental stack of conspiracy theories so tall that it’s a wonder she ever leaves whatever reinforced bunker she lives in without a tin foil hat.

Happily, we live in an era in which no act of idiocy goes unnoticed or unpunished. So some intrepid Web denizens have taken it upon themselves to follow in Representative Hoekstra’s wavering bike treads and come up with their own disproportionate comparisons of personal hardship to the great challenges of history. For example,

There’s more where that came from. And may the pile of indignant hilarity and ridicule grow ever higher.

(Posted simultaneously to “Jelly-Town!”)