Welcome to “This Week In Crazy,” The National Memo’s weekly update on the wildest attacks, conspiracy theories, and other loony behavior from the increasingly unhinged right wing. Starting with number five:

David Schweikert

Never ones to miss a good excuse to attack the president, right-wing Breitbart News published an article this week accusing the federal government of trying to close the ocean.

The article — which compares President Obama to King Canute and actually contains the sentence “Today, however, our President actually believes he has the power to control the oceans” — is a fairly transparent attempt to replicate the factually challenged trolling that made the site’s namesake famous. As Mother Jonespoints out, however, this didn’t stop legions of right-wingers from sharing the myth. And while the denizens of #TCOT nation can be excused for believing that President Obama was shutting down the Atlantic, Congressman David Schweikert (R-AZ) should really know better:

Feds try to close the OCEAN because of the #shutdown. http://t.co/BS52fionvz

— Rep David Schweikert (@RepDavid) October 5, 2013

The embarrassing swarm of attention eventually led PolitiFact to debunk the rumor, presumably while an exasperated fact-checker second-guessed his career choice.

Steve Lonegan

Steve Lonegan, the self-described “right-wing radical” Republican running against Newark mayor Cory Booker (D) in New Jersey’s special election for U.S. Senate, has a solution to the shutdown that has paralyzed the federal government over the past 10 days: Wait for him to win his election.

Lonegan gave the advice in a statement released by his campaign on Thursday.

“Republican U.S. Senate candidate Steve Lonegan today urged House Republicans ‘not to capitulate to the president’s unreasonable demands. When I win, Obama will fold,'” the statement reads.

That scenario seems ridiculously unlikely; although Lonegan has made some gains over the past few weeks, every public poll finds Booker up double digits. That doesn’t bother Lonegan, however, who seems to think that the polls are either skewed or irrelevant. “Lonegan says his internal polling shows a neck-and-neck race in the U.S. Senate contest and that all the momentum is in his favor,” the statement notes.

And nothing says “momentum” like a debate full of thinly veiled racism and cracks about murder victims!

But of all of the crazy things that Lonegan has said and done throughout his campaign, the most absurd may have been on Thursday, when Lonegan held a rally with a woman he describes as a “great conservative leader who should have been the Vice President.” That’s right: According to Lonegan, the government shutdown will only end with the help of Sarah Palin.

Furloughed workers should probably prepare to stay home for a little while longer.

Photo: Nick Step via Flickr

Rick Wiles

Right-wing radio host Rick Wiles, who was last seen on this list accusing Glenn Beck of practicing a Mormon/Muslim/Buddhist/pagan cult religion called “Chrislam,” makes his triumphant return to the list this week for another odd sociological musing.

“Is the racist Obama administration specifically targeting conservative white people for shutdowns and evictions?” Wiles asked on the Monday edition of TruNews. “I really think so. I think he is deliberately trying to provoke an outbreak of anger.”

“Have you noticed that the only people being shut down or evicted are white Americans? Please tell me how all those welfare people living in federally owned housing complexes are still there during the shutdown?”

Of course, white people are not the only ones affected by the shutdown (African-Americans make up about 18 percent of the federal workforce, in just one of countless examples of why Wiles is wrong). But the “welfare people” example was probably not designed to be factual, but merely to set up this zinger:

“And what about Barry Soetoro and his little wifey Michelle? They’re living rent-free in a federally owned house at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.,” Wiles added. “Somebody ought to remove them, send some National Park Service police officers over there to remove the Obamas, shut that place down too.”

And someone should tell Rick Wiles that the White House isn’t a national park.

Screenshot via YouTube

Ellis Washington

After seeing the GOP’s approval rating plunge to historic lows, some right-wingers are finally giving up on their quest to destroy the Affordable Care Act.

Unfortunately, the unhinged folks at WorldNetDaily are not among them.

In an op-ed for This Week In Crazy’s favorite source of lunatic fringe news, religious radio host Ellis Washington writes that although you may not have noticed it in the three years since the Affordable Care Act became law, it is actually leading us to “health care rationing, death panels, millions of uninsured and, eventually, the systematic genocide of the weak, minorities, enfeebled, the elderly and political enemies of the God-state.”

You have Sarah Palin (and Steve Lonegan’s) attention. Go on…

“Obama is using his Gestapo and SS Stormtroopers or so-called “navigators” (e.g., the youth, the unions, Planned Parenthood, NAACP, ACORN, La Raza, etc.) to propagandize the poor, the miseducated and minorities who are being exploited to lead this final blitzkrieg toward forcing universal health care,” Washington continues.

Although Washington contends that “Hitler would be pleased” with the Affordable Care Act, he is careful to note that “Of course, I do not contend that Obama is Hitler.” That message is somewhat undercut, however, by the image that WorldNetDaily chose to illustrate the column:

Although in fairness to Washington, that image would fit seamlessly into about 90 percent of WND’s other columns as well.

Michele Bachmann

This week’s “winner” is yet again Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who seems to be getting crazier with every day of the government shutdown.

On Saturday, as the Obama administration was busy overseeing the raid that captured alleged al Qaeda operative Abu Anas al-Libi in Libya, Bachmann was on Jan Markell’s right-wing radio show accusing the president of actively supporting the terrorist organization.

“Your listeners, U.S. taxpayers, are now paying to give arms to terrorists including al Qaeda,” Bachmann warned. Setting aside the fact that Bachmann is completely wrong, the congresswoman pressed forward with her warning.

“Now what this says to me, I’m a believer in Jesus Christ, as I look at the End Times scripture, this says to me that the leaf is on the fig tree and we are to understand the signs of the times, which is your ministry, we are to understand where we are in God’s End Times history,” Bachmann said. “Rather than seeing this as a negative, we need to rejoice, Maranatha Come Lord Jesus, His day is at hand.”

In an odd way, Bachmann’s apparently fervent believe that the apocalypse draws near may actually be one of her savviest political moves. After all, it’s hard to convince a woman who believes that we are in the End Times that we actually need to reopen the government, or raise the debt ceiling.

In any case, one thing is certain: This Week In Crazy will miss Rep. Bachmann once she’s gone.

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Check out previous editions of This Week In Crazy here. Think we missed something? Let us know in the comments!