1. Outlawing the dollar.

Washington state lawmakers introduced a bill that would have outlawed the paper dollar, because “only gold and silver may be recognized as government legal tender.” This is just part and parcel of the extreme right’s continuing fascination with goldbuggery, a fascination to which the Republican party’s presidential candidates gladly pandered.

2. Striking the words ‘sea level rise.’

In Virginia, the Republican-led legislature commissioned a study to determine the impacts of manmade warming on the state’s shores, only to ban terms like “climate change” and “sea level rise,” deeming them “liberal code words.” And North Carolina Republicans voted to ignore studies that predict rapid sea level rise due to global warming.

3. Banning ‘Sharia Law.’

Republicans in states like Florida and Kansas passed Sharia-law bans in their state legislatures. In Kansas, a spokeswoman for Gov. Sam Brownback (R-KS) went so far as to say that the ban meant that the state “will not consider the laws of foreign jurisdictions.” The bans signified yet another year of the Republican establishment endorsing fringe Islamophobes.