Tag: frank turek
This Week In Crazy: ‘It’s Time For American Jihad,’ And The Rest Of The Worst Of The Right

This Week In Crazy: ‘It’s Time For American Jihad,’ And The Rest Of The Worst Of The Right

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. Laura Ingraham

AFP Photo

AFP Photo

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama held a press conference in which he saluted the health care workers fighting the Ebola virus as “American heroes,” who “deserve our gratitude,” and “deserve to be treated with dignity and with respect.”

This did not sit well with right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham, who used her Wednesday show to slam Obama for inviting the humanitarians to join him at the podium. After all, they probably aren’t even doctors!

“He was flanked by volunteers who have gone to West Africa to help the victims of Ebola. Are we positive that it was all volunteers?” Ingraham asked. “Could it have been some of the folks from Organizing for America just in the white coats?”

“I swear the White House has a wardrobe department,” she added sarcastically. “They snapped up some white coats somewhere and they passed them out.”

So yes, President Obama is now dressing up campaign operatives as doctors to play up the Ebola crisis.

We’ve come a long way from two weeks ago, when Ingraham was accusing President Obama of lying…to downplay the Ebola crisis.

4. Pat Robertson

On the Monday edition of his show, televangelist Pat Robertson took a question from a viewer named John, who had turned to the false prophet for a bit of righteous investment advice.

“For years I have not invested in mutual funds for fear of investing in a company that profits from unbiblical means, such as the company who makes the abortion pill,” the viewer wrote. “Are there ‘safe’ investments I can invest in with little start-up money?”

Robertson steered the investor towards putting his money in master limited partnerships, which generally generate their revenue from the natural resources such as oil and natural gas extraction. As David Edwards helpfully points out at Raw Story, they’re actually a risky bet that may be “the next great investment debacle.” But Robertson isn’t concerned with any of that.

“They are not flowing condoms through pipelines!” Robertson explained. “So, don’t worry about the fact they’re giving abortion pills. They’re putting out oil and gas through pipelines.”

Of course, if John is really taking investment advice from Pat Robertson, he probably has bigger problems than which MLP to choose. He should probably trade up for a better financial advisor (Roberston himself might suggest a diamond-polishing Jew.)

3. Paul Broun

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

U.S. Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) was a few weeks late to the GOP’s Ebola freakout party, but on Wednesday he joined with a bang.

(Not the kind from the pit of hell.)

During a radio appearance with fellow This Week In Crazy favorite Rick Wiles, Broun ripped President Obama’s decision to deploy the military on a humanitarian mission to help fight the Ebola outbreak in western Africa.

“I don’t know if Obama thinks that they are going to shoot the virus with their M16s,” Broun lamented, apparently never having seen a recruitment video. “What in the world is he thinking? I have absolutely no clue, he is just exposing American citizens to this very deadly virus.”

So it’s President Obama’s fault that two people have contracted the Ebola virus on American soil. But did he get them sick intentionally? Probably!

“Some people might think that it is malicious intent and certainly if you look at it from a logical perspective, there is no logic whatsoever about why they are acting the way they are,” Broun said. Later, when Wiles shared a conspiracy theory that President Obama is going to use the Ebola virus to contaminate VA hospitals (for reasons that remain unclear), Broun readily agreed.

“That may very well be, and it’s almost apocalyptic what potential is coming if that happens, if we bring these Ebola patients here and put them in hospitals, VA hospitals or any hospital,” Broun said. “We should not be exposing American citizens to this virus and this administration already is exposing people to this virus and is going to continue to expand that exposure.”

Notably, Broun was actually the moderate in this meeting of the minds. After all, just a few months ago Wiles was hailing Ebola as a potential solution to “America’s problems with atheism, homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, pornography and abortion.”

Audio of Broun’s remarks is available atRight Wing Watch.

2. Frank Turek

Religious right activist Frank Turek checks in at number two, for reminding us that the American Family Association doesn’t need Bryan Fischer’s presence for things to go completely off the rails.

During a Wednesday interview with the AFA’s Tim Wildmon and Ed Vitagliano, Turek called for a conservative governor to refuse to recognize any federal court ruling striking down their state’s gay marriage ban. His model for such an act of nullification? The slave states of the Old Confederacy.

“Somebody’s got to stand up to them. Who’s in the position to do so?” Turek asked rhetorically. “How about South Carolina or Texas? It started in South Carolina with the Civil War, as you know.”

“For the same kind of issue, state’s rights,” he continued. “Obviously the issue is different. I mean, slavery was different than obviously this. But, I mean, it was a states’ rights issue.”

Sounds like somebody is angling for a job in Reaganstan.

1. Keith Ablow

Screenshot: Fox News

Screenshot: Fox News

This week’s “winner” is Dr. Keith Ablow, who has moved from the World Cup to world domination.

Ablow, who ususally uses his perch on Fox News to push bogus psychology and crack fat jokes, waded into international security with his Wednesday column. It did not go well.

The basic thesis of Ablow’s argument is that the U.S. Constitution is a “sacred” document, which is so superior that it is our “manifest destiny” to “insist on its reflection in every government.” By waging jihad on the world.

“An American jihad would embrace the correct belief that if every nation on earth were governed by freely elected leaders and by our Constitution, the world would be a far better place,” Ablow explained.

“We would urge our leaders, after their service in the U.S. Senate and Congress, to seek dual citizenship in other nations, like France and Italy and Sweden and Argentina and Brazil and Germany, and work to influence those nations to adopt laws very much like our own,” he continued. “We might even fund our leaders’ campaigns for office in these other nations.”

Ablow recognizes that the citizens of the world may be hesitant to submit to an American empire. But he has a solution to the problem.

“We would unabashedly fund pro-democracy movements around the world, partly with government funding and partly with donations from American citizens,” he writes. “Through these donations we would seek to double the budgets of the CIA and our Special Forces, seek to fund an international mercenary force for good and provide our veterans unparalleled health care.”

If that sounds like terrorism to you, don’t worry — Ablow has thought that through as well. “An American jihad would never condone terrorist acts of violence against our adversaries or the targeting of people simply because their beliefs are different from ours,” he writes. “But for those who malignantly demonstrate their intentions to subjugate others, there would be no quarter.”

This seems like a good time to mention that Ablow thinks the Unabomber was “precisely correct in many of his ideas.”

Ablow’s jihadist plan for global conquest was odd enough to catch the attention of co-workers at Fox & Friends, who invited him on the show to defend his unhinged plan.

“What’s to discuss?” Ablow responded.

Check out previous editions of This Week In Crazy here. Think we missed something? Let us know in the comments!

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