This Week In Crazy: Al Sharpton Is A Terrorist Czar, And The Rest Of The Worst Of The Right

This Week In Crazy: Al Sharpton Is A Terrorist Czar, 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. Glenn Beck

American prophet Glenn Beck leads things off, for identifying the real problem exposed by the recent protests in Ferguson and New York City: Al Sharpton!

According to Beck, Sharpton is not actually a Baptist minister — he’s a terrorist cleric.

“Al Sharpton’s not a reverend, he’s a cleric!” Beck exclaimed during the Thursday edition of his show. “He stands up in his pulpit, and he spews his hatred, his anger, for his own purposes…and everybody in the mosque is either buying into this crap — the few crazies — or they’re just afraid to say anything. Because the culture will kill them.”

Yes, apparently Sharpton is responsible for black-on-black crime, too.

Beck’s argument was too extreme for even co-host Stu Burguiere, who noted that unlike the radical clerics that Beck fears, Al Sharpton hasn’t killed anyone.

“Really? Al Sharpton’s not killed anyone?” Beck asked. “Can we look? Has there been any deaths in any of these marches? How much terror has been done on the streets of Ferguson? How much terror? What do you think this is? These are terrorist organizations!”

If organizing marches and spewing anger for one’s own purposes makes Al Sharpton a terrorist cleric, then what does it make Glenn Beck?

4. Ted Nugent

Mike Licht via Flickr

Mike Licht via Flickr

Shockingly, Beck’s rant wasn’t even the dumbest anti-Sharpton diatribe of the week. That honor belongs to NRA board member and washed-up rock star Ted Nugent, who remains neither dead nor incarcerated.

In his latest column for right-wing conspiracy landfill WorldNetDaily, Nugent expressed shock and outrage at President Obama’s decision to name Shaprton as his “race relations czar.”

Constantly catching our breath following one blow to the guts after another has become the new American mantra, but nothing could have prepared us for the president’s recent appointment of what may very well be the worst racist in the world today – his Reverend Al “not so” Sharpton.

Are you kidding me? This guy as some kind of race relations czar? Seriously?

And Al Gore is the expert on global warming, Michael “make stuff up as you go along” Moore will film the documentary, and I will edit the Lawrence Welk box set as soon as I hone up on my harpsichord jams.

You can’t make this stuff up.

As it turns out, you can. President Obama never appointed Al Sharpton as “race relations czar”; in fact, the position doesn’t actually exist outside of WorldNetDaily, and Nugent’s overheated fantasies.

But if President Obama is looking to hire one, Nugent does know a little something about race relations…

3. Trent Franks

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

It’s been two weeks since President Barack Obama announced an executive action to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation, and Republicans are still not done freaking out about it. The latest paranoiac is Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), a six-term congressman and B-side Todd Akin who believes that Obama has literally killed America.

Franks issued his warning during a Tuesday interview with Islamophobic radio host Frank Gaffney.

“I think that there’s probably nothing that this president has done or is doing that is more dangerous to the fundamental foundation of this Republic than ignoring the Constitution and betraying his oath of office,” Franks explained. “There is something very frightening about a president who simply aggregates this power onto himself, and ignores the very oath that he took that president.”

Franks went on to add that things may only get worse from here.

“Without trying to sound overwrought, it literally could be the death of the Republic,” he said. “Because once the chief executive officer of any republic all of the sudden begins to ignore the rule of law to hold himself unconstrained to the Constitution and to the truth of his own words, if that should become a common practice of presidents, then that little unpleasantness with England we had is something we should probably apologize for.”

Right Wing Watch has the audio:

Given that Franks also claimed that President Obama’s golfing would lead to nuclear war, it’s possible that Queen Elizabeth will have to wait a bit longer for her apology than the Tea Party expects.

2. Rand Paul

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

The House Intelligence Committee’s recent report, which debunked several long-held GOP conspiracy theories surrounding the Obama administration’s culpability for the 2012 Benghazi attack, has been difficult for many Republicans to accept. Few have taken the news harder than Senator Rand Paul (R-KY).

Paul rejects the report’s findings, and he isn’t stopping there. In a Monday op-ed for Breitbart News, the soon-to-be presidential candidate revealed the horrible truth about the GOP-led House Intelligence Committee: It is part of the Obama administration’s conspiracy!

From the beginning of this controversy, Obama officials have used smoke and mirrors at every opportunity to evade blame. They have ducked and weaved to avoid anything that could possibly cast the administration in a bad light.

“C.Y.A.” is a term many Americans are familiar with that was invented by U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War. This new Benghazi “intelligence” report is little more than a C.Y.A. attempt designed to protect incompetent politicians and government agents at the expense of justice for the victims of September 11, 2012.

They will continue to cover up. I will continue to seek the truth until those at the top of this two-year chain of deception are finally held accountable.

That’s right: According to Senator Paul, the House Intelligence Committee — which is chaired by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), and on which Republicans outnumber Democrats, 12 to 9 — is complicit in the Obama administration’s devious conspiracy to change Susan Rice’s talking points, or smuggle guns to Turkey, or whatever other theory Paul is fixated on at the moment.

I knew that King Obama was powerful, but who could have guessed that his reach extended to House Intelligence Committee member Michele Bachmann?

Perhaps Paul would be better off sticking to bread-and-butter Libertarian issues like taxes and civil liberties.

Or actually, maybe not.

1. Ben Carson

This week’s “winner” didn’t just finish ahead of Rand Paul on this list — he also leads him in 2016 presidential polls.

Over the past year, Dr. Ben Carson has repeatedly compared President Obama to Adolf Hitler. While this has played well with Carson’s right-wing crowds, it’s a bit more problematic now that God’s fingers are pushing him to run for president. So on Wednesday, Carson explained his extreme rhetoric during an interview with Wolf Blitzer, who challenged him on his comparison of the United States to Nazi Germany.

According to Carson, the problem isn’t what he said — it’s that you were actually listening.

“What you were doing is allowing words to affect you more than listening to what was actually being said. And that’s part of the problem,” he said.

“You are just focusing on the words ‘Nazi Germany’ and completely missing the point,” Carson told Blitzer. “That’s what ‘PCism’ is all about. You may not say this word, regardless of what your point is. Because if you say that word, I go into a tizzy. We can do better than that.”

“When I was a child, and when you were a child, they used to say, ‘Sticks and stones break my bones, words will never hurt me.’ What ever happened to that?” Carson added. “We need to get to the point where we can look beyond the word and look for the meaning.”

Got that? Stop worrying about Carson comparing the U.S. to Nazi Germany, and start worrying about how the United States is Nazi Germany!

Say what you will about Carson, but at least he defends all Americans’ right to free speech. Unless you’re speaking out in favor of gay rights or abortion rights, in which case you are an enemy of the state.

Just 423 days to go until the Iowa caucus.

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

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