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This Week In Crazy: Our Long National Nightmare

This Week In Crazy: Our Long National Nightmare

Prognostications of the apocalypse, puritanical fools, and punditocratic blowhards. 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. Rick Santorum

Erstwhile presidential candidate Rick Santorum has made clear that deeply felt dedication to the cause of religious liberty is strictly limited to establishing his own extremist brand of conservative Christianity as law. And his utter ignorance of Islam has not stopped him from implicating every Muslim wholesale in his condemnations of terrorism. (““Islam is not just a religion; it is also a political governing structure,” he said at the fifth GOP debate.)

The depths of his ignorance about Islam were neatly and rather pathetically laid bare recently in a confrontation with college student Hamzah Raza, which was captured on cell phone video (below). Santorum sounded his usual notes about the monolithic evils of “Sharia law,” but when asked to clarify exactly what that was — other than a convenient talking point — the former senator was unable to do so.

Raza wrote Monday in Alternet:

I asked Santorum to name the 5 foundations of Sharia, which he was unable to do. It was also difficult for him to fathom the fact that Muslim scholars across the religious spectrum have all condemned ISIS. And that ISIS does follow not a legitimate interpretation of Sharia, according to basically every Muslim in the world. Although he could not name a single Muslim scholar who supports ISIS, he still insisted that ISIS is very popular (a claim that is statistically untrue). Santorum also found it difficult to fathom the fact that religion is up to interpretation. 

Hat tip Raw Story

Next: Rick Wiles & Mark Taylor 

4. Rick Wiles & Mark Taylor

Perhaps the only thing more alarming than Donald Trump are his fans, who can count among their dubious ranks apocalypse prognosticator Mark Taylor. Taylor recently appeared in Rick Wiles’ TruNews program to enlighten listeners on his frankly insane visions of a cosmology in which Trump is an avatar of God himself, and his enemies are the armies of Satan.

Right Wing Watch’s Brian Tashman writes:

Naturally, Wiles was overjoyed by his “amazing” prophesy.

Taylor also alleged that God made Fox News host Megyn Kelly “violently ill” for asking Trump “gotcha” questions at the first GOP presidential debate: “God was firing a warning shot: Don’t attack my anointed. Period.”

“The kingdom of darkness is attacking this man like never before,” Taylor said. “God is using this man — he’s not rattling the gates, because when you rattle the gates you don’t make entry — this man is literally splitting the kingdom of darkness right open.”

He claimed that protests at Trump rallies are a sign that “the kingdom of darkness is actually noticing the authority that God has put on this man and those are demons manifesting at this man’s rallies.”

“God is using him to literally split hell right open and stop this New World Order,” he added.

Hat tip and audio courtesy of Right Wing Watch

Next: Bryan Fischer 

3. Bryan Fischer

If you are a conservative in favor of comprehensive tax reform, surely you can make a cogent argument without literally comparing income tax to the Dred Scott decision and literal slavery. Unless of course you are American Family Association (AFA) mouthpiece (and perennial, but richly deserving, TWIC piñata) Bryan Fischer.

In a post published this week on the AFA’s Stand blog, Fischer outlines his philosophy of how income tax is both “immoral and unconstitutional.”

(As a side note, it is awfully precious for Fischer to express any grievance over taxes since he operates — and spews his virulent, hateful garbage — from under the aegis of the AFA hate group, which enjoys non-profit status even as it militantly campaigns to erase people’s civil rights.)

He ends his screed thusly:

In essence, every wage earner is now in a state of involuntary servitude. We are obligated to pay an unjust and unconstitutional tax or face the full wrath and fury of the federal leviathan.

What the American people need is a second Emancipation Proclamation to free us from this bondage. Such an Emancipation Proclamation can be issued by Congress in the form of a law in line with the 16th Amendment that prohibits the federal government from collecting a tax on wages and salaries. Or an Emancipation Proclamation could be issued by the Supreme Court led by originalists who would issue a ruling that bound the federal government down by the chains of the Constitution and declared that it was not allowed to collect a tax on the wages and salaries of working Americans. Until that day comes, we will continue to be in the same condition as Dred Scott, slaves to an immoral, illegal, and utterly unconstitutional edict from the central government.

An Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863. There is no reason another cannot be issued in 2017. [emphasis added]

On a separate episode this week, Fischer claimed on the radio Wednesday that Reuters — yes, Reuters — had written an article disproving the Theory of Evolution and validating Fischer’s own brand of young earth creationism.

The only problem — as I pointed out to him on Twitter — was that his main source was not an article by the venerable news organization, but rather the heavily slanted Christian Times, which used a Reuters photo. Fischer, in effect, confused the photo caption for a byline, and so went on the air boasting that the secular media was writing articles confirming his unintelligent designs. “The Bible forbids evolution,” he said. “This book. This book does not lie.”

He later tweeted that he was “Not perfect. Just forgiven.” By whom, he did not say.

Next: Brigham Young University

2. Brigham Young University

After a female student at the Mormon institution of higher learning Brigham Young University told police that she had been raped, her school busted her for violating the university’s bylaws.

BYU’s “honor code” — essentially a catalogue of puritanical, religion-inflected prescriptions — allows for the student to be punished for having had a member of the opposite sex in her home or for consuming alcohol.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the university is magnanimously allowing the student to complete her semester but has barred her from registering for future classes. The Tribune‘s Annie Knox writes:

[S]he filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, saying BYU denied her services available to victims under Title IX, a federal law barring sex discrimination at schools that receive funds from the U.S. government.

If a school is found to have violated Title IX, it usually reaches a settlement with the Office for Civil Rights and must show it is making new efforts to comply with the federal law.

She “is one of several students at the school, owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who have said they were investigated by the school’s Honor Code Office after reporting a sexual assault.”

Next: Sean Hannity

1. Sean Hannity

The Fox News host is finally coming under fire from both within and without his network for treating Donald Trump with the breathless adulation of a fawning fanboy. (To cite just one example, Hannity teed up the exact same obsequious question, “Do you have a nickname for Hillary?” at both last week’s and previous week’s town hall.)

When the host lost his cool at Ted Cruz this week for playing politics with the delegates, he all but laid his bias for The Donald naked on the table. Hannity then went on a long Twitter tear, blasting his critics and asserting that any pro-Trump, anti-Cruz agenda was “BS.”

“Now let me go back to this other idea about the media,” he said on his radio show Wednesday. “The media has accused me of going soft in interviews on Republicans. I plead guilty. I absolutely plead guilty. You know why? Because I want one of them to win.”

Here he echoed remarks he had made last week, when he said: “If I’m interviewing Hillary Clinton, it’s gonna be a hundred times harder than any Republican, because I believe the Republicans represent, and have, a far better vision, one that I agree with.”

“I’m not a journalist,” he admitted. (No kidding.) “I’m a talk show host.”

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Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Check out previous editions of This Week In Crazy here. Think we missed something? Let us know in the comments!Get This Week In Crazy delivered to your inbox every Friday, by signing up for our daily email newsletter.

How The Civil War Never Ended For Black America

How The Civil War Never Ended For Black America

Originally published on AlterNet

Hundreds of African-American men marched to the White House this past Sunday. They were not wearing hoodies in honor of Trayvon Martin. They were not making the “hands up don’t shoot” gesture in honor of Michael Brown.

They were wearing blue wool trousers and greatcoats, forage caps and cavalry boots — in honor of African American soldiers who fought in the Civil War. Their aim: to correct a wrong made in 1865, when black soldiers were left out of the Grand Review, the Union Army’s victory parade.

1865? Seriously? With all the critically important racial justice causes of 2015?

“Everything about the Civil War is present tense,” author C.R. Gibbs told me. “This is not settled. Ferguson and Baltimore are just match flares on a long historical fuse.”

One need look no further than the U.S. Supreme Court docket for evidence of the Civil War in our contemporary lives. In March, the court heard a case regarding a request by the Sons of Confederate Veterans for a special Texas license plate featuring a Confederate battle flag.

In 2010, the Virginia public school system introduced a 4th grade textbook with bogus claims about thousands of loyal slaves fighting on the side of the Confederacy. The source? The Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Such disinformation is part of a broader neo-Confederate movement to deny that slavery was a major factor in the conflict — and to bury the history of African-Americans’ active role in their own emancipation.

Dr. Clarence Anthony Bush, whose great-grandfather fought in a light artillery regiment of the U.S. Colored Troops (USCT), told me it’s especially critical for young people to learn this little-known history. “Some African-Americans feel a little ashamed, thinking it was Abraham Lincoln who gave them their freedom. When you know your people fought for their freedom, it changes the way we look at ourselves and what our abilities are.”

Bush created a gospel jazz musical about black Civil War soldiers that was performed at the African American Civil War Museum in Washington, DC. Nearby is a monument engraved with names of the more than 200,000 USCT members. By war’s end, they made up 10 percent of federal troops.

For years, the museum has been tracking down descendants of black Civil War soldiers, recording their stories, and organizing them for the big Grand Review 150. On the eve of the parade, they hosted a vigil in which descendants from across the country paid tribute to their ancestors. Audrea Barnes, a second cousin of First Lady Michelle Obama, spoke about one of their mutual slave ancestors, Jerry Sutton (aka Suter), who ran away from a plantation in Alabama and joined the USCT’s 55th Regiment. Through archival research, she’s learned of his struggles for military pay equity and a failed attempt to obtain a veteran’s disability pension.

While the pension program was supposed to be color-blind, Brigham Young University research confirms that African-American veterans received less than their white counterparts. In part, this was a result of a lack of necessary documentation, but bureaucrats were also less likely to believe their claims. For example, they approved 44 percent of white soldiers’ claims regarding back pain, compared to only 16 percent of such claims by black soldiers.

A century and a half after the Civil War, racial inequalities in America are still staggering. Median income for nonwhites is only 65 percent that of whites. The wealth gap is even wider, with white families’ net worth six times that of non-whites.

Jeremiah Lowery, a 29-year-old labor activist with Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, told me he attended the Grand Review because “Just like the slogan ‘Black Lives Matter,’ black history matters too. They started to break down institutions of slavery 150 years ago. Today we have institutions that block people from earning a living wage and make people victims of brutality in the streets. It’s all connected.”

African-Americans led the Grand Review in 2015, but hundreds of white re-enactors also marched. “We even had people who’ve always re-enacted as Confederates put on Union uniforms today,” said African-American Civil War Museum Director (and former civil rights activist) Dr. Frank Smith.

Asked whether the event was more poignant in light of the explosion of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, Smith said, “The Civil War led to the passage of the 14th Amendment, which was supposed to ensure that the federal government protected African-Americans when states didn’t. These young men don’t feel safe. And today it’s not just in the South, it’s in the North too. The fact that people are in the streets, though — that’s what gives me hope.”

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Sarah Anderson directs the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC, and is a co-author of the Institute’s 20th anniversary Executive Excess report, “Bailed Out, Booted, and Busted.”

This article was originally published by AlterNet.

Photo: Washington, D.C. Infantry units with fixed bayonets, May 1865. Via Wikicommons.