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. Pat Robertson
Increasingly confused televangelist Pat Robertson is predictably upset over a recent Washington state ruling against a florist who refused to sell decorations for a gay couple’s wedding. On Thursday, he vented his rage in a manner that would make Rick Santorum proud.
“This is outrageous!” Robertson declared on his 700 Club show. “To tell a florist that she’s got to provide flowers for a particular kind of wedding? What if somebody wanted to marry his dog? She’s got to have flowers for that? What if there’s a polygamous situation where a guy has five wives and he wants to have five ceremonies, and she’s going to be forced by the law to provide them flowers? This is crazy!”
But there may be a silver lining to the man-dog union that Robertson fears: It couldn’t result in a pregnancy, meaning that all of the witches on Facebook would never get an opportunity to curse photos of the fetal ultrasound.
Yes, this is also a grave concern of Robertson’s this week:
So there you have it: If you want to defeat covens, support gay marriage.
4. Glenn Beck
American prophet Glenn Beck checks in at number four, with some bad news for Americans: “We are in World War III.”
You may not have noticed the titanic, armed struggle between superpowers, but that’s OK. As usual, Beck is the only one who has put all of the pieces together.
“We are in World War III, it just hasn’t caught up yet. We’re here,” Beck warned. “This is one for all the marbles. This one will be to the last man. This will be until there is an unconditional surrender of one of the sides.”
Of course, Beck has claimed that a new World War is about to break out more than once before. But this time he’s super serious!
“I have a growing sense of…uh…surety that what I believe is here,” Beck lamented. “This is the beginning of sorrows.”
Is anyone up for a quick episode of The Walking Dead?
3. Isaac Latterell
Official Portrait
Many Americans are concerned by the looming overseas threat posed by ISIS. But South Dakota state Rep. Isaac Latterell (R) has identified an even greater threat on our own shores. You guessed it: Planned Parenthood.
Latterell shared the horrible truth about the women’s health care provider in a blog post on his website, subtly titled “Planned Parenthood worse than ISIS and lying about it.”
“Most states including South Dakota allow for the death penalty for murderers. There are certain revolting methods of execution, such as beheading, that no state would ever permit, even against murderers who use this method on their victims,” Latterell writes. “It is this revulsion that leads us to rightly condemn the beheadings committed by unconscionably violent soldiers in the Middle East.”
“Planned Parenthood abortionists in Sioux Falls are similarly beheading unborn children during dismemberment abortions,” he then claims. “No state, no religion, and no organization should ever be allowed to use this unspeakably horrifying method. While we rightly take the speck out of our neighbor’s eye by holding ISIS accountable, let us be sure to take the plank out of our own eye by holding Planned Parenthood accountable.”
So when do the airstrikes start?
Probably never. As Planned Parenthood spokesperson Jennifer Aulwes pointed out to Talking Points Memo, the group does not actually perform the type of abortion procedure that has Latterell outraged. And in any case, comparing an organization that provides health care to millions of Americans each year to a brutal terrorist organization seems like a bit of a stretch.
But shockingly, Latterell didn’t even manage the stupidest ISIS quip of the week.
2. Jason Rapert
Official Portrait
That honor belongs to Arkansas state senator Jason Rapert (R), who knows just how to handle these ISIS characters.
“With ISIS spreading all over the Middle East and Africa and Islamic extremists carrying out violence in Europe, The United Kingdom and even in the United States, I wonder why the civilized world just sits by when we have weapons that could wipe out these barbarians where they are concentrated?” Rapert wrote, as reported by the Arkansas Times. “I believe it is time to annihilate the strongholds and pursue the rest till we have them all captured or killed. A strategically placed nuclear weapon would save the lives of our soldiers and quickly turn things around. It is time for the insanity to be stopped.”
Why won’t our feckless president stop listening to his elitist military “experts,” and finally man up and annihilate Iraq and Syria with a “strategically placed” nuclear weapon!?
If Rapert’s solution to insanity is a nuclear bomb, then now would probably be a good time for Arkansans to head for their shelters. But on the plus side, I’m sure that Rapert’s fellow nuclear diplomat Sheldon Adelson will one day cut a hefty check to his inevitable Senate campaign.
1. F.W. Burleigh
During last year’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, most of the far right was busy freaking out that President Obama was trying to spread Ebola to Americans. But six months later, this week’s “winner,” F.W. Burleigh, has realized that they were chasing the wrong conspiracy theory.
Writing on Wednesday in American Thinker, Burleigh examines a photo of President Obama holding a finger in the air at the conference, and realizes that it could only signify one thing: A secret Muslim gang sign!
Screenshot: American Thinker
“The one-finger display is the distinctive Muslim gang sign,” Burleigh writes, before going on to explain that “when believers stick their index finger in the air, they demonstrate they are partisans of Muhammad’s God concept,” and members of “the exclusive transtribal supertribe of believers that Muhammad started 1,400 years ago.”
In case you needed more evidence, Burleigh points out several of the African leaders “are Muslims through and through, and they are all smiles. They knew what Obama’s upright forefinger meant.”
Unfortunately, back in reality, Obama’s secret Muslim gang sign — not to be confused with his secret Muslim foot signals, or his secret Muslim State of the Union — was less exciting than American Thinker hoped. As Matt Gertz patiently explains at Media Matters, video of the event shows that President Obama was actually wagging his finger — making him no different from George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, or any of the many other politicians to be photographed with a finger in the air.
It’s hard to believe that Rush Limbaugh’s favorite blog would follow a ridiculous anti-Obama conspiracy theory without doing any fact checking.
Check out previous editions of This Week In Crazy here. Think we missed something? Let us know in the comments!
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