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This Week In Crazy: How To Zap God Out Of Your Head

This Week In Crazy: How To Zap God Out Of Your Head

Captain America is anti-American, scientists can nuke the religion right out of your brain, and the End Times are in sight.

Welcome to “This Week In Crazy,” The National Memo’s weekly update on the loony, bigoted, and hateful behavior of the increasingly unhinged right wing. Starting with number five:

5. Rush Limbaugh

In case you were not aware, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified before the House Benghazi Committee Thursday. To give his listeners a taste of what to expect, Rush Limbaugh looked into the tea leaves on his Monday show and predicted the whole thing was “going to be a giant nothing burger.”

Fair enough. The legitimacy of the committee has been thoroughly gutted — thanks in no small part to Republicans cheerfully parading the fact that this has all been one badly botched political hit job.

So yes, it was safe to predict that committee chair Trey Gowdy and his investigation theater show were pretty much D.O.A. — undone by sloppy hubris and a nakedly political agenda. A “giant nothing burger,” indeed.

Oh wait. Rush wasn’t finished.

It is going to be a giant nothing burger. The Democrats will waste as must time as possible praising Hillary for her cervix. Yes I meant that. You think I meant to say service, right? No, they’re going to praise her for being a woman. It’s a big deal now. She’s a victim. It’s the reason she’s running. To be the first woman. So they’re going to praise her cervix. What else is there? When you’re talking about that to praise. They can’t mention the wig. So they’ll praise her — okay, okay, I’ll say service. Just to smooth it over.

Yes. Very “smooth.”

ViaMedia Matters

Next: Fox & Friends

4. Fox & Friends

The folks over at the morning chatterdome Fox & Friends are continuing their project to espy culture warfare in every last nook and cranny. On their Sunday show, they cast their indignation spotlight upon the latest issue of Marvel’s Captain America, which introduces the classic character’s new identity — Sam Wilson, a Black superhero also known as the Falcon (portrayed in the Marvel films by actor Anthony Mackie).

Co-host Clayton Morris described the move as a “publicity stunt” to drive sales and to poison the all-American ideology of traditional superhero comics. Specifically at issue is the fact that Wilson’s foes in this latest storyline are the Sons of the Serpent, which The Comics Book Database describes as a “racist and anti-immigrant extremist group, espousing a white-power ideology, and often seeking to destabilize the U.S. government through terrorist and hate-crime activities.” They claim to defend the laws of God, nature, and the U.S. Constitution. Topical, no?

Captain America is “going up against conservatives! They’re the new enemy!” Morris exclaims.

The Serpent, co-host Tucker Carlson says, is not a jingoist homegrown terrorist. He “is an American who has misgivings about unlimited illegal immigration and the costs associated with it. That, according to the comic, is ‘evil.'”

Morris describes the Serpent as an “odd new enemy,” but far from being an Obama-era weapon of liberal cultural propaganda freshly cooked up to tee off conservatives, the Sons of the Serpent have been wreaking havoc in the pages of Marvel Comics since 1966.

Per Vulture:

Tucker Carlson voices his displeasure that Captain America isn’t fighting ISIS instead of “ordinary Americans, probably some of you watching at home.” Morris chimes back in that he misses the days when “Captain America used to be punching Hitler in the face.” Captain America has not fought Hitler since 1945, you know, the year Hitler died. At the time, Morris was negative-31 years old.

Video below courtesy of Raw Story:

Co-host Anna Koiman concludes: “Keep politics out of comic books.”

(All of this recalls the outrage of Evangelist Franklin Graham, who got indignant when Marvel introduced a gay superhero in its flagship title, X-Men, which has been an allegory for discrimination since its 1963 inception, so it kind of made sense that the story would include an LGBT character.)

I don’t regularly read superhero comics, but National Memo comics expert Eric Kleefeld informs me that Captain America’s latest move is part of a long and proud tradition of wedding politics to comic books: “The essence of Marvel Comics, going back to its glory days in the 1960s, has been morality tales with clearly liberal values,” he says.

ViaVulture

Next: Ben Carson

3. Ben Carson

The GOP presidential candidate and Twizzler-headed historical revisionist Dr. Ben Carson is second only to fellow political gatecrasher Donald Trump in the polls.

Luckily for him, he has secured the endorsement of God Almighty. This, according to Carson himself, speaking Tuesday on Marcus and Joni, which airs on evangelical Christian network Daystar.

As Carson tells it, he once thought the notion of a presidential run was ridiculous, but the clamoring for him to enter the ring kept building until at last he couldn’t ignore it, turned to God for guidance, and has been operating under His aegis and benefitting from His considerable influence ever since.

The political class and the pundits who said he couldn’t do it — “They don’t understand the power of God,” Carson said.

Carson has spoken of the primacy of his Christian faith to his campaign before. (His tax plan is based on the Bible, after all.) But his remarks that God is basically securing his campaign’s success sounds a tad myopic, considering he has stated that any presidential candidate would need to “swear to place our Constitution above their religion.”

Then again, that was in reference to remarks he had made that a Muslim shouldn’t be president. According to Carson anyone can sit in the Oval Office as long as their beliefs and practices fit within his narrowly circumscribed interpretation of what is “consistent with American culture.”

Would President Carson “place our Constitution above [his] religion,” or would he run his administration in deference to his Biggest Backer?

ViaRight Wing Watch

Next: Rick Wiles

2. Rick Wiles

Rick Wiles snags a spot in TWIC for the second week in a row — for his claims that Bernie Sanders’ popularity is a herald of the End Times. His latest ravings weave a tapestry of far-right-wing anti-government paranoia and conservative Christian apocalyptic claptrap — and it all makes makes for some seriously unsettled verbal gumbo.

Per Right Wing Watch:

Wiles warned that leaders like Pope Francis, Al Gore and Bernie Sanders are part of a plan to “use global warming to impose global socialism” during which they will “take control of property, eliminate private property rights take control of natural resources.” Wiles said the purpose of this plan is to impose “a centralized global government controlling the activities of every human being on the planet. That’s what Al Gore and all those socialists are after, and they’re using the climate as the justification.”

Wiles also proposed that this is a sign of the second coming of Christ, “this is evidence of Jesus Christ coming back.” Harris offered that mass support for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign is also
evidence that the second coming is imminent.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/229460513″ params=”color=ff5500″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Wiles has been on a roll lately, claiming that Russia is some sort of newfound city on a hill and could be a refuge for conservative Americans once Obama’s mass slaughter begins.

Next: Joe Miller

1. Joe Miller

Joe Miller, the Tea Party darling who five short years ago was a Republican nominee for U.S. Senator from Alaska, spent a recent segment of his weekday radio show explicating a theory that transgender advocates were going to use magnets to alter the brain chemistry of Christians.

Along with his guest William Briggs (“Statistician to the stars!”), Miller was responding to a recent UCLA study, which, according to a release from the University of York, was designed to see if stimulating parts of the brain with transcranial magnets could influence participants’ ideologies — particularly their attitudes regarding religion and nationalism.

Per the release, investigators found that “both belief in God and prejudice towards immigrants can be reduced by directing magnetic energy into the brain.”

This of course led Briggs to worry aloud if eugenics was coming back into favor, even though, as Raw Story helpfully notes, genetics did not factor into the study at all: “It focused on an area of the brain and the effects of shutting it down temporarily.”

But Miller saw a more imminent threat posed by these findings: Transgender advocates could one day use magnets to zap the faith in God right out of Christians’ brains! Per Raw Story:

“The whole transgender crowd, they see their main opponent as being those of faith and so obviously they’re going to use any aggressive tactics they can to move forward that agenda,” Miller said

Some grist for Miller’s paranoia mill: The original design for the ARM processors present in all of our smartphones was developed by Sophie Wilson, an eminent computer scientist who happens to be transgender, and a luminary in the realm of mobile computing technology (which we put near our brains every day!). Maybe the best thing to do, Joe, is cancel your show and take what’s left of your un-magnetized brain off the grid before it’s too late.

ViaRaw Story

—

Illustration: A Health Blog via Flickr

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

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Alaska Tea Party Candidate Says He’ll Back Republican If He Loses Senate Primary

Alaska Tea Party Candidate Says He’ll Back Republican If He Loses Senate Primary

By Maria L. La Ganga, Los Angeles Times

The final days in the race for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate offered some only-in-Alaska moments, as when the three major candidates were asked in a debate about whether they’d eaten salmon in the last week.

Tea party candidate Joe Miller: “Yes.”

Front-runner Dan Sullivan: “Yes.”

Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell, showing impressive culinary dedication to the Alaska state fish: “Yes, about five times.”

There were nasty national political disputes, one over the mailer Miller sent around depicting undocumented immigrants as menacing gang members. When Treadwell took the 47-year-old lawyer to task, Miller defended his stance, calling the document “the truth” and “real-world stuff.”

But the pivotal moment was one that Republicans worried might never happen. When asked if he would endorse a Republican rival against Democratic Sen. Mark Begich if he loses Tuesday’s primary, Miller finally said that he would.

“I believe I’m going to be the primary winner, with the voters’ and God’s help,” Miller said Thursday during the last televised debate in the race. “But if one of you two guys — I’ve never said this before: I’ll support you guys. I will. We’ve got to get rid of Begich. There’s no question about it.”

Miller has shaken up Republican politics in Alaska before, and the fear was that he would do it again by continuing on as an independent, splitting the conservative vote and allowing incumbent Begich to win.

That fear spoke to the stakes involved as Republicans try to knock off Begich, a first-term senator whose defeat would be critical to Republican hopes of taking over the Senate.

A third-party challenge would have been an odd echo of the last contentious Alaska Senate race, in 2010, in which the father of eight took on incumbent Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski in that cycle’s primary and beat her. Murkowski then turned around and launched a write-in campaign, and managed to keep her seat.

Many wrote Miller off for dead politically after that loss, and most polls show him a distant third behind Sullivan — who has served as state attorney general and U.S. assistant secretary of state — and Treadwell, largely in that order. He is also third in the race for campaign donations.

But Alaska is a notoriously tricky state to survey accurately, with its vast geography and sparse population. And Miller appears to have been closing the gap with his rivals.

Treadwell and Miller both have emphasized social issues on the campaign trail, even if the three men who would be senator gave nearly identical responses to a survey from Alaska Family Action.
All are in favor of a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. All would repeal the federal health-care law. All would overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling that recognized the right to abortion.

Treadwell, however, went one step further, noting that the only time abortion should be legal is “in the rare circumstances that the mother and child will die if the pregnancy continues and all other possible means to save the mother and child have been exhausted.”

Photo: Ryan McFarland via Flickr

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Disaster In Alaska? How Tuesday’s Primary Could Go Wrong For Republicans

Disaster In Alaska? How Tuesday’s Primary Could Go Wrong For Republicans

Alaska Republicans will head to the polls on Tuesday to select their candidate to oppose Democratic senator Mark Begich in November — and could end up repeating a critical mistake from four years ago.

Former Alaska attorney general and Department of Natural Resources commissioner Daniel Sullivan is appears to be the frontrunner; he has led every public poll of the race this year (the most recent, from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, had him up 6 percent.) Sullivan is trailed by Lieutentant Governor Mead Treadwell, and Tea Party activist Joe Miller.

Sullivan also appears to represent the GOP’s best chance to defeat the vulnerable incumbent Begich in November. But there is some reason for Republicans to worry that they won’t end up with their strongest candidate.

One potential issue is the presence of another Dan Sullivan on the ballot. Daniel A. Sullivan, the mayor of Anchorage, is running in the Republican primary for lieutenant governor, and polls have suggested that about a third of likely primary voters don’t know the difference between him and the Senate candidate who shares his name. How this will affect the race remains unclear, but given the expected low turnout, even a small amount of confusion could have wide-reaching effects.

The exact state of the race isn’t clear, either. As Nate Cohn explains at The Upshot, due to Alaska’s low, spread-out population, it is notoriously difficult to poll:

That reputation stems from an uninterrupted string of polling errors going back a decade: In 2004, Lisa Murkowski trailed in the only two nonpartisan polls of October, yet won; Mr. Begich was thought to have a significant lead in October 2008, but he won by only a point; Mr. Obama was through to trail by perhaps 10 to 15 points in 2008, but he lost by more than 20; Ms. Murkowski trailed again in 2010, but her write-in campaign ultimately prevailed.

The polls’ unreliability may be compounded by an extremely low turnout. That was the case in 2010, when just 109,750 voters participated in the GOP primary between Murkowski and Miller. Although polls showed Murkowski up by 30 points just weeks before the election, Miller rallied the party’s right-wing base to win a stunning upset.

That’s the scenario that should have Republicans holding their breath on Tuesday. Although Miller remains popular in Tea Party circles — he has been endorsed by Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Mark Levin, and Joe Arpaio, among others — he is not an electable statewide candidate. While polling averages show Begich virtually tied with Sullivan or Treadwell, he leads Miller by double-digits. And that’s before Democrats bother to focus on Miller’s controversial 2010 campaign, obsession with impeachment, and unabashed xenophobia:

Miller flier

Republicans who understand that defeating Begich is likely a precondition to winning a Senate majority in November got some good news last week, when Miller announced that he won’t run as an Independent if he loses in the GOP primary. And that’s still the most likely scenario.

But they should still be holding their breath until all the votes are counted on Tuesday night. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time that pollsters have swung and missed in a low-turnout primary.

Photo: Ryan McFarland via Flickr

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Another Republican Candidate Wants To Impeach President Obama

Another Republican Candidate Wants To Impeach President Obama

Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller reminded Republicans of why they desperately hope he fails to capture their party’s nomination, when he joined the growing chorus of Republican candidates calling for President Barack Obama’s impeachment.

Miller weighed in on the subject during a Chamber of Commerce forum with fellow candidates Mead Treadwell and Dan Sullivan. The Alaska Dispatch Newsreports:

In the mix of anti-federal and anti-Obama statements, Miller went beyond Sullivan and Treadwell, calling for impeachment of the president.

“I think we all agree that Obama’s out of control,” Miller said, adding that the president is acting almost like a dictator.

When it was Miller’s turn to question Sullivan, he asked the former attorney general what it would take for him to support impeachment. Sullivan did not answer the question directly but said that if articles of impeachment reached the Senate, he would take them seriously.

Under the Constitution, the House of Representatives has the power to vote for articles of impeachment, while the Senate serves an adjudicatory role. Sullivan said he agrees “110 percent that this administration is out of control” but argued that an Alaska senator has to use influence to accomplish what the state needs, citing votes to confirm Cabinet secretaries that Begich should have used for leverage on such issues as the King Cove road request.

Although GOP leaders have insisted that the threat of impeachment has been manufactured by Democrats for their own political gain, Miller is just one of many Republican politicians to openly declare his desire to remove the president from office.

That’s not to say that Democrats aren’t making political gains from the threat; polls suggest that Americans strongly oppose impeachment, and Democratic fundraising has gone through the roof since the party began seizing upon the GOP’s impeachment talk. There’s a reason that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee keeps a running list of Republicans who have broached the subject.

Miller himself could be a political boon for Democrats. The Tea Party-backed attorney demonstrated in 2010 that he is unelectable in a statewide race; after edging incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski in the Republican primary, his hard-right politics and a series of controversies (most notably an incident in which his security guards handcuffed a journalist at a town hall event) opened the door for Murkowski to topple him with a write-in campaign in the general election. Accusing President Obama of dictatorial behavior is nothing out of the ordinary for him (indeed, the resurgence of impeachment talk was started by Miller’s highest-profile supporter, Sarah Palin).

In 2014, he’s once again a serious longshot to win the general election. Although incumbent Democratic senator Mark Begich barely leads Sullivan and Treadwell in the polls, he’s up by 14 percent on Miller.

Sullivan is generally considered to be the narrow frontrunner for the Republican nomination, with Treadwell in second and Miller in third. But, as Miller proved in 2010, anything can happen in a low-turnout primary.

Photo: Ryan McFarland via Flickr

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