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. Louie Gohmert
U.S. Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX), who infamously once warned Americans of the grave threat posed by foreign “terror babies,” graduated to a new target this week: toddlers.
Speaking on the House floor on Monday, Congressman Gohmert argued that young children shouldn’t get legal status in the United States — because they don’t pay taxes.
After recounting the story of “a three-year-old [who] had someone convince them that they needed to try to get here,” Gohmert explained that this undermines the case for comprehensive immigration reform.
“We have people saying, oh, if we just legalize everybody that is here, all of this new tax money will come flooding in,” Gohmert said. “There can be no debate that young children who are not working, even if they are legalized, for those who make the argument, gee, look at all the tax money that the federal coffers will be getting if we just legalize everybody here, that is a bogus argument. It is a strained argument by people who want more people coming in illegally.”
Indigent toddlers weren’t the only target of Gohmert’s speech; he also accused President Obama of being “complicit” in sex trafficking, by “luring” vulnerable children into the U.S. with promises of amnesty.
His speech can be seen below, in all its illogical glory, via The Raw Story:
In related news, Gohmert and the GOP are still waiting for their poll numbers among Hispanic voters to skyrocket.
4. Ted Yoho
Earlier this month, Kentucky senator Rand Paul warned his fellow Republicans that they should ease up on their efforts to make it harder to vote, saying, “It’s wrong for Republicans to go too crazy on this issue because it’s offending people.”
On Tuesday, Right Wing Watch provided a handy example of what Paul was talking about. The website posted a newly discovered video of U.S. Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) suggesting that instead of a voter ID, citizens should have to present a deed to cast a ballot.
“I’ve had some radical ideas about voting and it’s probably not a good time to tell them, but you used to have to be a property owner to vote,” Yoho told a cheering crowd at Berean Baptist Church in Ocala, Florida, during his 2012 campaign.
Yoho added that early voting through absentee ballots is “a travesty,” and lamented that Florida governor Rick Scott’s decision to reduce early voting — which he later reversed under significant political pressure — didn’t go far enough.
Yoho is right about one thing: It’s never a good time to tell voters that you are running on Bryan Fischer’s “poor people shouldn’t vote” platform.
Despite this latest revelation, Yoho remains the most normal Republican candidate in Florida’s 3rd congressional district.
3. Bryan Fischer
Speaking of Fischer, the hate group leader checks in at number three for offering a Clinton conspiracy double play on the Wednesday edition of his show.
While discussing the right-wing meme that Hillary Clinton’s 2012 concussion rendered her brain damaged, Fischer took a moment to launch a new conspiracy theory: Bill Clinton is secretly sabotaging his wife’s still-nonexistent campaign.
“The fact that Bill Clinton dropped that little nugget, to me that was inexplicable,” Fischer said of the former president’s recent comments on Hillary Clinton’s recovery. “Unless maybe some part of Bill Clinton does not want Hillary to be president in 2016.”
Fischer’s evidence? Well, he doesn’t have any. But he has a feeling that Bill Clinton “doesn’t want to share the limelight. Doesn’t want to share the glory. And maybe he doesn’t want the media tracking his every move, for reasons I think are obvious to you and me.”
If The Daily Beast’s David Freedlander ever writes an update to his piece on the Clinton Crazies, Fischer is sure to be his first call.
2. Allen West
On Wednesday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced the five Democrats who will serve on the Benghazi select committee.
It may not shock you to learn that former congressman Allen West disapproves of Pelosi’s picks. But even by West’s standards, the content of his complaint is startling.
During an appearance on The Janet Mefford Show, West questioned the patriotism of Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), saying, “I just don’t know where her loyalties lie.”
“You know, for her to have been a veteran, a wounded warrior for the United States Army, she should know that this is not the right thing,” West elaborated. “And hopefully, you know, she will remember the oath of office that she took as an Army officer and not the allegiance I guess she believes she has to the liberal progressives of the Democrat Party.”
This seems like a good time to mention that Duckworth lost her legs and partial use of her right arm during her service in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and was awarded a Purple Heart for her service.
West’s military career ended when he was forced into retirement rather than face a court martial for assaulting an Iraqi detainee during an interrogation.
The former congressman didn’t limit his criticism to Duckworth; he also told Mefford that Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) is “one of those geeky little debaters that is going to try to micromanage every single detail” — because who wants a stickler for the facts in a federal investigation? — and that Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) has a “very whiny way.” It almost makes one wonder what West would have said if Pelosi had bowed to left-wing pressure and named Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) to the committee.
Ultimately, it’s not surprising that West is angry with Pelosi’s choices for the committee. After all, letting Democrats participate in the process is clearly just another distraction from #Benghazi.
1. Larry Klayman
This week’s “winner” is right-wing activist Larry Klayman, who is calling for a “Second American Revolution” to stop Hillary Clinton from becoming the next president of the United States.
Writing in WorldNetDaily — which recently featured an article under the charming headline, “‘Worst’ fire season still better than Obama” — Klayman warns that “the possible election of the female partner of the Bonnie and Clyde duo of Bill and Hillary Clinton would usher in the death knell of the United States of America.”
Explaining that he “fought the Clintons tooth and nail during the 1990s…having pursued them for their commission of a host of crimes, ranging from Whitewater, to China-gate, to Travel-gate, and Monica Lewinsky-gate to name just a few of the 40 or so of their misdeeds,” Klayman writes that Bill and Hillary Clinton “would resume their practice of selling off anything of value for their political expediency…In effect, the entire country would be put up for sale at a Bonnie and Clyde auction to further subjugate the American people to political slavery under their rule.”
In fairness to his nemeses, Klayman does acknowledge that at least “they are not black Muslim-sympathizers like Obama and his racist comrades.” But still, Clinton is too popular for Republicans to stop — so the right wing must take matters into their own hands.
“All of this is why We the People must wage our Second American Revolution now, before it is too late, to free the nation and ourselves of the scourge of the likes of the Obamas and Clintons,” Klayman writes. “If we do not do it now, then all is likely to be lost.”
If Klayman’s plan to overthrow the government sounds familiar, it’s because he tried to do so less than a year ago. It didn’t work out. But if Klayman is serious about trying again, I know where he can find literally dozens of supporters.
Stay tuned for next week’s edition of the list, when Klayman claims that his stupid column was actually written by the DNC.
Check out previous editions of This Week In Crazy here. Think we missed something? Let us know in the comments!
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