Welcome to “This Week In Crazy,” The National Memo’s weekly update on the wildest attacks, conspiracy theories, and other loony behavior from the perpetually unhinged right wing. Starting our countdown:
5. Operation American Spring
Screenshot: YouTube
Operation American Spring, the revolutionary group dedicated to removing the “despotic and tyrannical federal leadership” from office, makes a return appearance to our list this week after “winning” the coveted number one spot last time.
These self-styled patriots have a big day ahead of them on Friday as they make their way to Washington, D.C. to carry out their coup against the federal government.
A leader of the group, retired Army colonel Harry Riley, said, “We are calling for the removal of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, and Eric Holder as a start toward constitutional restoration.” Their objective is simple — to preserve the very existence of America and restore our country to its free citizens by removing the “greedy, self-serving occupant[s] of the White House or Congress” and “removing the flea infestation that is sucking the blood out of America.”
Riley is optimistic that he’ll get a decent showing for the coup d’état on Friday. “We have well over 1 million militia members mobilizing; bikers, truckers, hunters, Tea Party groups—citizens across America. No, I don’t think 10 million [participants] is high at all.”
It gets crazier: Another right-wing blogger warned other patriots that Friday’s protest is itself a nefarious plot. David Chase Taylor wrote, “In essence, ‘Operation American Spring’ is a trap to set up well-meaning ‘patriots’ [his scare quotes] for acts of state-sponsored terror so that Obama’s political opposition can be vilified and a civil war can commence.”
Taylor continued: “It is during one or both of these seemingly harmless events that a state-sponsored coup d’état and/or terror attacks will likely take place. Although terror plots are always subject to change, most likely target is Washington, D.C., namely the Obama White House and the Washington Monument.”
Feeling inspired yet? Watch here for more, via Operation American Spring’s YouTube:
H/t: RawStory
4. Louie Gohmert
Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr
This Week In Crazy veteran Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX) makes the cut yet again.
Speaking on the House floor, Gohmert preached against the “intellectual fascism” plaguing American society. “Now, with this new intellectual fascism that has arisen in our universities, some of them — far too many of them, actually — say: ‘If you disagree with our position, we don’t want you here. We want you eliminated. We don’t want you to have work. We want your family defiled. We just don’t want you to succeed in any way whatsoever.”
Gohmert was furious over two recent instances where he believes liberals used the same discriminatory policies characteristic of Nazism: Brandeis University’s decision to rescind an honorary degree before awarding it to former Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, owing to her remarks bashing Islam and Muslims; and the cancelation of HGTV’s Flip It Forward in a backlash against anti-gay statements by its hosts, David and Jason Benham.
“We stand up for those things, but there is no hate for individuals, yet those who are the most hate-filled, who do not follow the teachings of Jesus, seek to impose or to project upon those of us who are Christians–and some orthodox Jews and even atheists or secularists like Ms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali —their own hate, their own intolerance,” said Gohmert. “We really need to understand what is going on.” Then he continued:
It is not tolerance that becomes intolerant and says a woman who was tortured — I don’t know what else you would call some of the procedures that were done to her most private areas in the name of religion. It was not voluntary. She was ordered into a marriage she wanted no part of. She did not want to have to be covered up and stay in a back room and never own property and never drive. She kind of thought, like most of us do in America — except for the intolerant fascist liberals – that, ‘Gee, women ought to be able to own property, we ought to be able to marry whom we wish, we ought to be able to espouse our own views without being called hatemongers.’
See it for yourself, via The Raw Story:
H/t: The Raw Story
3. Sean Hannity
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Fox News Channel and syndicated radio host Sean Hannity announced on Thursday that he will fulfill his promise to pack up his Long Island home and leave the state of New York.
Hannity made the threat in January after New York governor Andrew Andrew Cuomo (D) said in a radio interview that “extreme conservatives, who are right-to-life, pro-assault weapon, anti-gay… have no place in the state of New York.”
“I can’t wait to get out of here. I really can’t,” Hannity responded. “I don’t want to pay their 10 percent state tax anymore. I live in the second-highest property-taxed county in the entire country in Nassau County. I can’t wait to sell my house to somebody who wants it. I can’t wait to pay no state income tax down in Florida or Texas.”
He ended his temper tantrum by promising: “Gov. Cuomo, I’m going to leave and I’m taking all of my money with me – every single solitary penny.”
Hannity continued this tirade for months, insisting he was a victim of Cuomo’s intolerant views. The conclusion came on Thursday, during an interview with Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), when Hannity announced, “I’m going to Florida, and I’m going to get a little Texas ranch. I’ve decided I’m leaving New York when my kid graduates high school.”
2. Tom DeLay
Photo: Jimmy Bramlett via Flickr
This week’s runner-up award goes to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX). Earlier this year, DeLay explained who he believes actually wrote the U.S. Constitution — God. DeLay said in an interview that the American people seemed to have forgotten “that God created this nation [and] that He wrote the Constitution, that it’s based on Biblical principles.”
The former House Republican boss, an unsavory figure known as “The Hammer” in his heyday, returned to this religious revelation on Wednesday, when he called for “a revolution for the Constitution.” DeLay said, “The Consitution was created by God. I got attacked just a few weeks ago by the left because I said God wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and they ripped me to shreds over that one.”
The radio interviewer quickly added: “They need to read some of the founders’ quotes and how they said you could see the figure of God in what happened.”
DeLay agreed: “Alexander Hamilton himself said that the Declaration and the Constitution were written as with a sunbeam in the whole volume of human nature by the hand of divinity itself. So I’m just quoting him.”
While Hamilton did in fact make that statement, notice that it doesn’t refer directly to the founding documents. That’s because he penned those words in The Farmer Refuted in February 1775 — a full 12 years before the Constitution was drafted and a year before the founders penned the Declaration of Independence.
Listen to DeLay’s remarks here, via Right Wing Watch:
[sound width=”166″ height=”100″ id=”https://soundcloud.com/rightwingwatch/tom-delay-defends-himself-by-spreading-false-history”]
H/t: Right Wing Watch
1. Joel Gilbert
This week’s “winner” is right-wing activist and producer Joel Gilbert — for his new film There’s No Place Like Utopia.
Gilbert’s latest movie is a bizarre reworking of The Wizard of Oz, in which President Obama brings Communism to the U.S. by introducing social welfare programs and immigration.
Watch the trailer here, via Right Wing Watch:
In the movie, Gilbert interviews far-right authors including Jack Cashill, Dr. Jerome Corsi, and David Horowitz.
According to its website, “There’s No Place Like Utopia is a humorous and horrifying exploration of Progressivism, amnesty for illegals, race relations, Islam in America, political correctness, and Barack Obama himself, who promises to ‘remake the world as it should be’.”
Gilbert’s first movie, Dreams from My Real Father, aims to convince viewers that President Obama’s actual father was a former Communist Party activist named Frank Marshall Davis — and that he tried covering up this embarrassing fact by getting a nose job.
H/t: Right Wing Watch
Screenshot: YouTube
Check out previous editions of This Week In Crazy here. Think we missed something? Let us know in the comments!
