7 worst right-wing moments of the week — Ann Coulter's climate-change insanity

Coulter claims that solving climate change would cause genocide, while an ex-TV host says Satan's behind evolution

Published May 27, 2014 12:18PM (EDT)

Ann Coulter                        (AP/Jose Luis Magana)
Ann Coulter (AP/Jose Luis Magana)

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

AlterNet1. Pat Sajak: Climate scientists are unpatriotic racists. Huh?

Apparently, "Wheel of Fortune" host Pat Sajak is not content with merely solving inane word puzzles and coming out against Obamacare. He also really likes to tweet things. This week, he staked out an absurd position on climate change denialism with this tweet:

“I now believe global warming alarmists are unpatriotic racists knowingly misleading for their own ends. Good night.”

This makes him the first conservative to conflate science with racism. What the hell does patriotism have to do with it? And why the “Good night” at the end of the inexplicably incendiary tweet? Makes no sense. Of course, Sajak never explained what he meant despite a storm of ensuing outrage. The frequent tweeter went mysteriously mute. Two days later he finally claimed he was kidding. It was “hyperbole,” he said. Can’t you people take a joke?

The game show host has a long history of incendiary tweets and conservative stances. Here’s a hilarious one he recently posted to make fun of Michelle Obama’s participation in the #BringBackOurGirls campaign:

“Hard to imagine Eleanor Roosevelt holding a sign reading #Don'tInvadeTheRhineland,Adolph.”

Resorting to Hitler and Nazi imagery is a favorite tactic of right-wingers in this country. So is the use of historical anachronisms.

Tell you what, Pat. No need to buy a vowel, we’ll spell this out: You’re the joke. No hyperbole.

2. Ann Coulter defends Pat Sajak’s right to be an absolute idiot by being an absolute idiot herself.

“Wheel of Fortune” gained a new fan in Ann Coulter, who just couldn’t agree more with Sajak on climate change and liberals being Nazis and to blame for everything. Coulter helpfully pointed out the humor in Sajak’s tweet to CNN’s Erin Burnett and then she upped the ante, because... she was on TV, and saying outrageous things is her brand. “We all have to believe in global warming, we all have to believe in immigration — either lots of immigration or even more immigration,” Coulter said. “We have to believe that Trayvon Martin was killed by a brutal racist, and if you don’t you get called all of these crazy names that Sajak is referring to.”

(Note: Even George Zimmerman’s former neighbor, a longtime white supremacist now admits Zimmerman is a racist.)

But back to Pat and Ann. The liberal thought police, who for some reason believe in science, are so mean, Coulter says. They compare climate change deniers to "Holocaust deniers." She also, totally inexplicably, said dealing with climate change would lead to genocide.

Here’s where Coulter parts company with Sajak. He should not have said he was “just kidding” in her view. She is not kidding when she asserts her multitude of ignorant positions, nor will you ever catch her being the least bit funny. Or human, for that matter.

h/t Mediaite

3. Canceled HGTV host: Satan is why they teach evolution in schools.

Virulently anti-gay brothers David and Jason Benham, who almost got a show on HGTV before their hateful views were exposed, aren’t merely bigots. They’re also science deniers who see Satan’s work everywhere. They chalked up their firing to “demonic possession,” and this week opined that Satan is behind the teaching of evolution in school. Everything has been going downhill, the brothers wrote in a recent blog post, since the Scopes Trial in 1925, which allowed evolution (science) to be taught in schools. That’s when Satan gained his “toehold” here. A “toehold” that has morphed into a foothold and from there into a stronghold.

An excerpt:

“There are other strongholds in America as well. At first, Satan got a toehold on life in the 1920′s with the Scopes Monkey Trial (evolution can be taught alongside creation). Eventually, of course, this toehold became a stronghold to where creation can no longer be taught at all. And the result, 1973′s Roe v. Wade. Without a Creator we now become the determiners of life instead of God.”

Hoo boy. See how Satan connects all those dots?

h/t Raw Story

4. Duck Bro Phil Robertson talks more shit about gay people.

Enlightenment is a funny thing. For some people, it never comes. Never ever. One such person is Bible-thumping, 68-year-old Phil Robertson, the "Duck Dynasty" star who gained notoriety and numerous right-wing friends by saying racist, anti-Semitic and gay-bashing things, like explaining to men why women’s vaginas are more preferable for screwing than men’s anuses. Thanks, Phil. Needed that.

Now that spouting ignorant things has become so much a part of Robertson’s everyday to-do list, he needs to keep it up. On Thursday, "Radar" revealed a new video of Robertson. In an Easter sermon at his church he referred to the GQ interview that brought him his fame, saying: “Is homosexual behavior a sin? The guy asked me. I said, do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Don’t be deceived.”

Then, mistaking Easter for an Old Testament event, rather than a celebration of Jesus, who preached love and never actually had a bad word to say about same-sex love, Robertson cited Corinthians, or his version of it. “Neither the sexually immoral, nor the idolators nor adulterers nor male prostitutes, nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves, nor greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

5. Rep. Steve King challenges Chuck Schumer to a duel. What’s a duel again?

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Iowa Tea Partier Steve King, famous for his xenophobic remarks about immigrants having “cantaloupe calves.” Apparently, his reputation for being an all-out lunatic is not sitting well with him. It seems even his fellow Republicans think he’s crazy and are blaming his frothy, racist stance for keeping a GOP “immigration reform” bill from coming to the floor.

So, he did what any reasonable person would do under these circumstances. He challenged pro-immigration Democrat Chuck Schumer to a duel, conjuring up Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, but then apparently thinking better of it and suggesting different weapons.

“If we’re going to have some kind of a challenge of rhetoric bouncing back between the House and Senate, let’s do it face to face,” King speechified on the House floor on Thursday, “Let’s do it eye-to-eye. Let’s have that duel — not like Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton — but… like real men do it today. Not dueling pistols at 50 paces; let’s do this with microphones within arm’s reach.”

Some might call this a debate. Schumer did. Not King, who suffers from the scourges of xenophobia, malapropism and historical anachronicity.

h/t: Salon

6. Ted Cruz: Democratic senators want to 'repeal the First Amendment.'

Someone get a doctor. Tea Partier Ted Cruz is going into hysterics. Not the laughing kind. He’s having hysterical visions. This week Cruz warned some of his fellow religious nutcases that, “This year, I’m sorry to tell you, the United States Senate is going to be voting on a constitutional amendment to repeal the First Amendment,” at a gathering of pastors called Watchmen on the Wall sponsored by the far-right Family Research Council. Specifically, Cruz said, those big bad Democrats want to “muzzle” pastors.

Oh, no, the crowd gasped audibly. Whatever could the idiot junior senator from Texas mean? Oh, he’s talking about the fact that Senate Democrats are going to try to undo some of the horrific damage wreaked on democracy by the U.S. Supreme Court decisions deregulating campaign financing in the Citizens United and McCutcheon cases, by voting on a bill called Senate Joint Resolution 19. Unfortunately, it stands no chance of passing.

The right (and the Roberts court) has equated money with speech, and more money with more speech. So any attempt to roll back or regulate the amount of big money flowing into candidates’ coffers is then characterized by these absurd ideologues as a full-on assault on free speech.

“I am telling you, I am not making this up,” Cruz said. “Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has announced the Senate Democrats are scheduling a vote on a constitutional amendment to give Congress the authority to regulate political speech, because elected officials have decided they don’t like it when the citizenry has the temerity to criticize what they’ve done.”

What a bunch of hooey!

7. Arizona GOPer: Democrats are usually the shooters in mass shootings.

An Arizona rancher and Republican congressional candidate bizarrely asserted last week that the vast majority of mass shootings in the United States are committed by Democrats.

There is, of course, not a scintilla of evidence for that claim, though when has that ever mattered?

“If you look at all the fiascos that have occurred, 99 percent of them have been by Democrats pulling their guns out and shooting people,” said Gary Kiehne, who hopefully will get nowhere in his quest for a congressional seat, during a GOP primary denate. “So I don’t think you have a problem with the Republicans.”

Then he bragged about all the many guns and ammunition he owns.

Which is fine, because he's not one of those shoot-em-up Democrats.


By Janet Allon

MORE FROM Janet Allon


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Alternet Ann Coulter Climate Change Evolution Hgtv Pat Sajak Satan