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. Keith Ablow
Photo via Wikimedia Commons
Dr. Keith Ablow — a Fox News contributor who is best known for remotely diagnosing Vice President Joe Biden with dementia and suggesting that Newt Gingrich’s three marriages proved that he’d be as irresistible to voters as he was to his mistresses — cited an unconventional source in his latest column: the Unabomber.
Ablow cited infamous terrorist Ted Kaczynski as part of his case that the “political ‘left'” is “psychologically disordered — seeking to compensate for deep feelings of personal disempowerment by banding together and seeking extraordinary means of control in society.”
“Well, Kaczynski, while reprehensible for murdering and maiming people, was precisely correct in many of his ideas,” Ablow continues.
“I would rather be correct than politically correct,” the not-so-good doctor concludes. “And it is time for people to read Industrial Society and Its Future, by convicted serial killer Ted Kaczynski.”
Of course, this type of advice shouldn’t really be surprising coming from Ablow. He did, after all, co-author a book with Glenn Beck.
4. Joseph Farah
Photo: WorldNetDaily
Perhaps the most ridiculous of the many absurd right-wing reactions to the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decisions belonged to Joseph Farah. Farah, who is editor-in-chief of the right-wing conspiracy repository WorldNetDaily, believes that allowing same-sex couples equal rights under the law will not just lead to America’s complete collapse. No, the Supreme Court’s actual plot is much more sinister: In Farah’s reality, gay marriage is just a backdoor scheme to take away your guns.
“The Supreme Court virtually declared an open season on those with whom the 5-4 majority disagree,” Farah wrote in a rambling op-ed. “We are no longer relevant. What we think no longer counts. We are, after all, bigots who only want to demean homosexuals.”
“So when does the persecution begin?” he asks.
“When are we stripped of our citizen status, the right to vote, the right to bear arms and other constitutionally guaranteed liberties? Isn’t that next?”
Of course, one can’t help but wonder why Farah is so concerned with losing his right to bear arms. After all, as he’d tell you, Doomsday should be coming any day now.
3. Glenn Beck
It wouldn’t be This Week In Crazy without right-wing carnival barker Glenn Beck, who took some time out of his Tuesday show to deliver a lecture on disgraced former Food Network host Paula Deen.
According to Beck, who is something of an authority on the subject of scare tactics and unfounded accusations, the Food Network’s decision to drop Deen’s show is a clear and classic example of McCarthyism.
Beck also argued that Deen’s firing has something to do with Nancy Pelosi, Martin Luther King, and Magellan — but surprisingly that wasn’t the most confusing part of the segment (that honor goes to his unexplained decision to wear a Boy Scout uniform on air).
2. Louie Gohmert
The always-entertaining Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX) places second this week, for his odd — even by his standards — proclamation that sex education makes America just like the Soviet Union.
“You don’t have to force this sexuality stuff into their life at such a point,” Gohmert told right-wing radio show WallBuilders Live on Monday. “It was never intended to be that way. They’ll find out soon enough.”
“Mankind has existed for a pretty long time without anyone ever having to give a sex-ed lesson to anybody,” Gohmert added, apparently unaware of the purpose of sex education. He then went on to compare sex-ed to the Soviet Union, “when they were sayin ‘no, the children don’t belong to parents, they belong to the state.'”
But thankfully for Gohmert, like Farah, he shouldn’t have to worry about America turning into the USSR; after all, now that gay marriage is legal, he believes that civilization will soon collapse.
1. Jodie Laubenberg
One would think that after the experiences of Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock, Tommy Franks, and so many others, Republican politicians would have learned to keep their mouths shut on the topic of rape. But some, like Texas state representative Jodie Laubenberg (R), just can’t help themselves.
While making the case for Texas’ extreme anti-abortion bill, which she sponsored, Laubenberg veered disastrously off topic by conflating rape kits with abortions. “The emergency rooms they have what’s called rape kits, that the woman can get cleaned out,” she explained.
Like Todd Akin before her, Laubenberg’s theory has no actual basis in reality. PolitiFact graded her statement as “pants on fire,” calling it “incorrect and ridiculous” — and frankly, that was being generous.
