The End Is Near, but never near enough. 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:
5. Elisabeth Hasselbeck
The arrest of Sandra Bland, the African-American woman who was found dead of an alleged suicide in a Texas jail cell, began with a routine traffic stop, and escalated with alarming speed when the white state trooper demanded Bland put out her cigarette, and she refused to do so.
The officer’s conduct has been widely condemned as overkill at best, racially motivated malice at worst.
So count on Fox News host Elisabeth Hasselbeck to tell you the side of the story that the Lamestream Media (and people of good conscience) refuse to acknowledge. On Monday’s edition of Fox & Friends, Hasselbeck exhibited both grace and good sense when she accused Sandra Bland of wielding what could have been perceived as a weapon at the officer. The weapon in question being the cigarette she refused to put out.
In an interview with former NYPD officer John Rafferty, Hasselbeck speculated that perhaps “there are times, I’m sure, someone has, in the history of this land, used a cigarette against a police officer, maybe chucked it at him, pushed it at him.” If the cop did see a “potential threat” here, did he not act correctly?
Media Matters has the video:
Via Raw Story and Media Matters
4. Bryan Fischer
Another day, another asinine comment. Conservative activist Bryan Fischer went on his radio show last Friday and blamed the Louisiana movie theater shooting that left two dead on… who else? Barack Obama.
The canard that the shooter, John Russell Houser, was an Obama supporter has been making the rounds in conservative outlets, and it stems from the fact that, despite being an avowed extreme conservative, Houser did vote for Obama in the 2012 election. But just because he voted for him doesn’t exactly mean he was full-blown Obamaphile. In fact, Houser viewed his vote for Obama’s second term as a way to accelerate the country’s liberal-driven demise. Houser’s senseless motives, in his own words, courtesy of Raw Story:
“Here is something that is truly funny: since I accepted this it came to me that the president is doing exactly what Tim McVeigh did, only the president is much more effective,” he wrote. “The way I see it, the faster he wrecks this nation, which in no way resembles what its founders envisioned, the faster working people with morals may re-assume command. […]”
He added: “Encourage whatever takes us forward. Right now, down is forward.”
In his other writings, Houser expressed support for far-right views. He said the United States needed a right-wing party like Greece’s neo-Nazi “Golden Dawn” and he registered in 2005 to attend at event hosted by white nationalists.
So Fischer’s assertion that Houser “was a big time Barack Obama supporter” is pretty much dead on arrival, much like Fischer’s credibility. Lest we forget, the hate group he once directed, the American Family Association (AFA), had to distance itself from Fischer on account of some of his more loathsome remarks.
Lately, Fischer has been firing on all cylinders with his nescient, vile ramblings— thanks, in part, to the Obergefell ruling, which legalized marriage equality in all 50 states. He proclaimed that June 26 (the day of the SCOTUS ruling) was the new 9/11 because “moral jihadists… blasted the twin pillars of truth and righteousness into rubble.”
So, you know, grain of salt and all that.
ViaRight Wing WatchandRaw Story
3. Marco Rubio
The killing of Zimbabwe’s beloved Cecil the Lion by a Minnesota dentist sparked righteous anger and indignation across the Internet.
Of course it took exactly three seconds for it to become co-opted into everyone’s political point at once. The handy Mad Lib, which tweeters on all points of the political spectrum use, goes roughly thus: “I see you’re all upset about a lion. But where was the moral outrage when ____?” and here you may insert your own pet cause, movement of choice, or political football. Everything from climate change to the cancelation of Crystal Clear Pepsi. Whatever ticks you off.
Surely, when an issue gets this much widespread attention, we can expect some crass remarks and specious equivalence from dark, sunless corners of the Internet. Of course. But surely a statesman — a statesman vying for the Oval Office at that — has more decency and tact than to liken the senseless killing of an animal with women’s right to make their own decisions regarding their health?
Ah, I’m afraid not. Enter Senator Marco Rubio, who asks: “Where is all the outrage over the planned parenthood dead babies.”
Click to enlarge
In this last minute rat race to squeeze into the top 10 slots for Fox News’ first major GOP debate, you can expect Republican candidates to say a lot of dumb crap to raise their profile. Don’t worry though. There’s only one more week ’til the debate.
And then… how many more weeks ’til the convention?
Oh. Oh dear.
ViaMother Jones
Next: Is The Pope The Antichrist?
2. People Who Think Pope Francis Is The Antichrist
Well, it’s an innocent enough question: Is the Pope the Antichrist?
Look at the signs. Pope Francis has been courting the ire of right wingers of all religious persuasions after urging global consensus and action on climate change, condemning the evils of capitalism, and expressing more open-mindedness on social issues than we’ve come to expect from the Holy Father, daring to ask the question, “If someone is gay and searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”
In an article titled “Why So Many People Think Pope Francis is the Antichrist,” Christian news site Charisma asked the hard questions, such as: “Could Francis be the final pope before Christ’s return? Could he be the Antichrist? Is he the False Prophet?” And, by the by, what’s all this about the New World Order?
According to Right Wing Watch, the author of that article, Jennifer LeClaire, has in the past issued “‘prophetic’ warnings about how gays are possessed by demons and will work with Satan to ban straight marriage.” So that’s about how sound her reasoning is.
But of course that didn’t stop Matt Drudge, who, Talking Points Memo reports, picked up on the story, earnestly running the headline “POPE FRANCIS ANTICHRIST?”
Here’s the wrinkle though: LeClaire’s sources for comments the Pope allegedly made, equating the Quran and the Bible, are, in fact, fake news sites.
And so now we have this glorious daisy chain of the damned, whereby a guileless Christian site reports fake news as fact, and a conservative site, in turn, reposts the Christian site’s findings — and now, well, this happens.
ViaTalking Points MemoandRight Wing Watch
1. Rick Wiles
Have you drunk “the Commie Kool-Aid” lately?
Do you find the “Communist-inspired cultural cleansing” puts a damper on your day?
Do all the hippies seem to get the jump on you, as some wise fellas once said?
In this case, “hippies” of course refers to the hordes of atheistic footsoldiers coming for your guns, indoctrinating your children, confiscating private property. This is all the opening act of a grand opera, currently in repertory in Rick Wiles’ emulsified brain, in which President Obama will take a cue from his totalitarian brethren in China and the former Soviet Union to enact a “cultural cleansing” that will erase all memory of American values and culture.
Wiles went on an protracted rant on the conservative radio program Trunews last Thursday, claiming that Obama and his “Obamanistas” are going to:
ruthlessly persecute any and all opponents. They will confiscate private property and wealth. They will destroy the careers and businesses of opponents. They will imprison those who dare to defy the revolution. They will send resisters to reeducation camps. And if all else fails to stop opposition to the Marxist revolution, they will slaughter millions of American resisters in a bloody cleansing of the general population.
Maybe you read about the tragedy in Chattanooga and thought it was the story of yet another disturbed, angry young man who had ready and easy access to guns. When in fact the shooter was “one of Barack Hussein Obama’s Muslim bros,” paving the way for this massive takeover. The more you know…
Wiles says he has been warning Americans that Obama would seize control of the country since 2007 — and now that Obama has all but installed his permanent dark dominion over these lands from sea to shining sea, it looks like Wiles may have been right.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some powder to mix.
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Illustration: SS&SS via Flickr
