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
Two weeks into its existence, the 114th Congress is picking up right where its predecessor left off: with paranoid, unhinged Benghazi conspiracy theories.
As Brian Tashman explains at Right Wing Watch, certain segments of the right have long believed that former CIA director David Petraeus didn’t actually resign from his post in 2012 because of an extramarital affair. He was really trying to cover up the truth about the Benghazi attacks.
News that the Justice Department is considering criminal charges against Petraeus for leaking classified information to his then-paramour would seem to confirm that an affair took place. Or, if you’re Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), it confirms that the conspiracy goes straight to the top.
“This administration knows that General Petraeus has information that would virtually destroy any credibility that the administration might still have nationally and internationally, so what else would this administration do but leave over his head for a year and a half the threat, ‘We’re going to prosecute you so you’d better keep your mouth shut,’” Gohmert explained.
“If you wonder why General Petraeus has not come out in the last year and a half and said, ‘No, those weren’t our talking points, somebody that created them needs to be prosecuted, it was a fraud on the American people,’ he’s not going to say that,” he continued. “He’s got this administration hanging a prosecution over his head. What do you expect? I doubt he’ll ever be able to say it without worrying about something over his shoulder coming on after him.”
That’s right — David Petraeus will never be able to tell the horrible truth about Benghazi, which must be why he’s already given up and said that Hillary Clinton would make “a tremendous president” due to her “extraordinarily resolute, determined, and controlled” response to the attacks.
There’s only one question left: What dirt does Obama have on the GOP-led House Intelligence Committee to get them to join the conspiracy?
4. Dave Agema
Photo: @DaveAgema via Twitter
The Republican National Committee has a problem. On one hand, it would very much like to improve the GOP’s terrible numbers among minority voters. On the other hand, it is composed of people like Dave Agema.
Agema is a well-known bigot who serves as a committee member from Michigan. Despite his long history of incredibly offensive rhetoric, the RNC can’t do anything to get rid of him (the committee’s bylaws provide no mechanism to remove members). So they generally keep their fingers crossed, and hope that he doesn’t embarrass them.
This strategy is not working.
In advance of this year’s RNC winter meeting, Agema took to Facebook to share an article from a white supremacist website. The money quote:
[B]lacks are different by almost any measure to all other people. They cannot reason as well. They cannot communicate as well. They cannot control their impulses as well. They are a threat to all who cross their paths, black and non-black alike.
According to Agema’s post, the article is “very enlightening for anyone who is concerned about crime in America.”
Unsurprisingly, the post sparked outrage. The RNC’s top officers even went so far as to officially sanction Agema. But the former state representative would like you to know that he’s not a racist. He got the article from a black friend!
Unfortunately, that friend was Allen West.
But again, the RNC can do nothing to stop Agema unless he chooses to resign (which he has thus far refused to do). So until then, all Reince Priebus can do is hug a copy of his Growth and Opportunity Project and hope for the best.
3. Randy Weber
Photo: CSUF Photos via Flickr
Many Americans were upset over President Obama’s failure to attend the unity rally held in Paris in the wake of last week’s horrific terrorist attacks; even the White House admitted that it had erred. But that apology wasn’t good enough for Congressman Randy Weber (R-TX), who took to Twitter to express his outrage.
“Even Adolph [sic] Hitler thought it more important than Obama to get to Paris. (For all the wrong reasons.) Obama couldn’t do it for right reasons,” Weber tweeted.
Don’t let the poor spelling and absurdly flawed logic fool you; that is an elected member of Congress describing the president as worse than Hitler (perhaps fittingly, he succeeded fellow Godwin’s Law enthusiast Ron Paul in Texas’ 14th district).
Unsurprisingly, Weber’s tweet sparked outrage, causing the congressman to delete it and apologize less than 24 hours later. That actually represents progress for Weber, who declined to delete his last offensive message.
But while Weber’s judgment may be slowly improving, unfortunately his spelling is not.2. Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr
Speaking of Dr. Paul, his insane think tank weighed in on the Charlie Hebdo massacre on Wednesday. It went just about as well as you’d expect.
The institute published a piece by Paul Craig Roberts which claimed that the attack may well have been an inside job organized by the U.S. government:
The Charlie Hebdo affair has many of the characteristics of a false flag operation. The attack on the cartoonists’ office was a disciplined professional attack of the kind associated with highly trained special forces; yet the suspects who were later corralled and killed seemed bumbling and unprofessional. It is like two different sets of people.
Usually Muslim terrorists are prepared to die in the attack; yet the two professionals who hit Charlie Hebdo were determined to escape and succeeded, an amazing feat. Their identity was allegedly established by the claim that they conveniently left for the authorities their ID in the getaway car. Such a mistake is inconsistent with the professionalism of the attack and reminds me of the undamaged passport found miraculously among the ruins of the two WTC towers that served to establish the identity of the alleged 9/11 hijackers.
According to Roberts, there’s a simple explanation for why the U.S. would arrange the brutal murders of a dozen innocents: “Clearly, France was showing too much foreign policy independence. The attack on Charlie Hebdo serves to cow France and place France back under Washington’s thumb.”
Roberts then goes on to compare the devious plot to America’s most successful false flag operation (yes, he is a 9/11 truther), before concluding with an attack against Americans. We’re the crazy ones, not him:
Americans are a pitifully misinformed people. All of history is a history of false flag operations. Yet Americans dismiss such proven operations as “conspiracy theories,” which merely proves that government has successfully brainwashed insouciant Americans and deprived them of the ability to recognize the truth.
Americans are the foremost among the captive nations.
Who will liberate them?
Probably not Rand Paul, if his father’s institute keeps publishing crazy rants like this.1. Joe Walsh
This week’s “winner,” former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), has always had a hot temper. But even by his standards, Walsh’s response to the latest issue of Charlie Hebdo is pretty startling.
Many media outlets have declined to show the cover of the special “survivors’ edition” of the satirical magazine, which features a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad holding a “Je Suis Charlie” sign. Walsh disagrees with their decision, to put it mildly.
Yes, the former congressman hopes that terrorists behead the “infidels” working in American cable news. When challenged on his rhetoric, Walsh refused to back down.
So terrorists have to murder those working at CNN and MSNBC… or the terrorists win. Got it.
With any luck, Walsh will one day return to CNN to defend himself.
Check out previous editions of This Week In Crazy here. Think we missed something? Let us know in the comments!
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