#613: Bradlee Dean

We are not completely convinced that Tony Davis of the International Legal Services counts as a loon, despite his assurations to clients that due to technicalities every conviction in the last 60 years is null and void (a theory rejected outright at every level of the legal system). There are other explanations for his behavior than craziness.

You can’t fake being Bradlee Dean, however. Dean is not a fraud. He is one of the most aggressively insane persons to spread his breathtaking mindrot in the US at the moment, challenging Fred Phelps himself for hatred and Ray Comfort for density. Dean is the founder of the Taliban satellite organization You Can Run, But You Cannot Hide International. The Ministry has made itself famous for using bait-and-switch tactics to push a hardcore fundamentalist Christian agenda in American public schools by claiming to teach kids about how to fight drugs (that’s his gateway to public schools) but instead turning the sessions into frothingly insane Jesus events accompanied by psychotic gay-bashing – though it should be mentioned that his bait-and-switch technique did not go over particularly well in Dunkerton, Iowa.

Dean’s most frequently appreciated pastime, bashing gays, desevers a few words, starting with pointing out that when engaged in the activity Dean does not always observe the strictures of common decency or coherence. For instance, he supports castration of gays for the not entirely coherent or accurate reason that the Founding Fathers wanted that (he may actually believe that himself, or he may be lying; Dean has a well-established problem with that truth-thing). This should presumably be part of the legal punishment gays should face for their dirty thoughts and inclinations. In fact, jailing and castration are merely just punishment for the past sins of homosexuals; after all – according to Dean (who has jumped onto the Scott Lively bandwagon) – homosexuals were responsible for the Holocaust. Apparently they must have collaborated with the evolutionists (or the “religion of evolution”), given that Dean thinks the evolutionists are responsible for the holocaust as well.

In one of the most ridiculous displays of fatwa envy ever, Dean also praised Muslims for executing gays: “Muslims are calling for the executions of homosexuals in America. This just shows you they themselves are upholding the laws that are even in the Bible of the Judeo-Christian God, but they seem to be more moral than even the American Christians do.” (His subsequent attempt at backpedalling was rather feeble). Nevertheless, Dean is of course virulently anti-Islam, since there is “a correlation between the Muslims and the homosexual agenda.” Though he doesn’t say it in so many words, coherence is apparently an enemy of Dean’s as well. It is probably a gay-Muslim-liberal conspiracy. Here he argues that Muslims have infiltrated our schools and are teaching kids to be jihadists.

In 2011 Dean filed a 50 million dollar lawsuit against Rachel Maddow for defamation after Maddow reported on Dean’s anti-gay stance, presumably targeting her in particular because she is herself openly lesbian. In fact, Dean has a history of completely baseless lawsuits, which he tends to lose badly. He has indeed also been noticed for trying to censor his critics on youtube. It is less clear that censoring his critics really matters when his own screeds are so batshit insane that even the most hardcore wingnut would hesitate over them to begin with (here, though, is Dean arguing that negative reactions to his offensive bigotry are offensive). If you want to access any of said screeds, you can go here – we don’t feel particularly comfortable linking directly to any of it, though here is his rant at the 2013 Awakening conference, where he argued that the Supreme Court has “opened the door to Satanism” by ruling that the government can’t force kids to pray and that Obama is just like Chairman Mao. (And not only Mao – apparently the American government is “emulating many similarities” with Nazi Germany, such as freedom of religion, equality, tolerance and liberty; the similarity ostensibly being that the government, like the Nazis, is “setting itself at war with God”).

A particularly notable event in Dean’s career occurred when the Minnesota Republican Party invited him to lead the ceremonial prayer at the start of the Minnesota House's legislative session. Dean's prayer turned out to be, shall we say, controversial; he would only recognize Christian members of the legislature and, for good measure, accused Obama of being a Muslim. It was in fact sufficiently appalling for the Speaker of the House to order a full re-start of the session and issue an official apology for the event. Dean later lambasted the Republicans for not endorsing his ridiculously insane, incoherent piece of fuming rage. As indicated, Dean is of course also a hardcore dominionist, who calls liberals “criminals” and urges the right to take up weapons against a liberal government (his association with the Sovereign Citizen movement is discussed here). You can imagine he was upset when Minnesota legalized same-sex marriage. Apparently they did it “covert-like” so as not to draw unwanted attention, because apparently elected officials passing a bill with the attention of the whole state is being “covert” when Dean disagrees with the bill’s content.

In his daily life, Dean is the drummer for the band The Junkyard Prophet, a hardline Christian conservative band promoting and promoted by his front organization. They are evil, and the other members, Rene Benton (guitar/vocals) and Massey “Mass Dogg” Campos (bass/vocals), have voiced their share of crazy as well.

Dean’s local wingnut radio show, The Sons of Liberty, has also established itself as a legend of untarnished lunacy. Rick Santorum has appeared on the show praising Dean for his stance on homosexuality and voicing his support for criminalizing sodomy. He also occasionally writes columns for WND, primarily for promoting shit he has to sell you (check out the Ray Comfort quote in that link, by the way.

Oh, and he is of course a hardcore conspiracty theorist. In fact, Dean is a Sandy Hook truther; that is, he claims that the (Aurora and) Sandy Hook shootings were orchestrated by the government (I suppose disagreeing with him is still considered “offensive”). Public schools are also part of a conspiracy – the rigorous International Baccalaureate program is, according to Dean, part of a global scheme to disarm Americans and indoctrinate students in a homosexual agenda (as well as Islam). Dean himself, on the other hand, apparently learns the stuff he should have learned at school from David Barton, with predictably disastrous results.

It is probably little surprise that Dean is a supporter of – and is endorsed by – Michele Bachmann. I don’t know who comes off worse by that association. More here.

Diagnosis: His level of crazy is only matched by his malice and bigotry. A rather unsavory fellow, in other words.

#600: Bill Cunningham

Bill Cunningham is, essentially, a slimmer and possibly slightly dumber version of Rush Limbaugh. He hosts a couple of conservative radio shows as well as his own national TV show. He is also a commentator/contributor for Fox News, and fits their profile rather perfectly. Cunningham is, for instance, a perceptive and profound critic of Obama (and what he allegedly takes to be Obama’s plans to revive the Holocaust). In 2008, for instance, Cunningham discussed the life of Obama's father, remarking that “his father was a typical black father who, right after the birth, left the baby. That's what black fathers do. They simply leave.” He also weighs in with facts and reason on redistributive justice, arguing for the position that poor people are poor because they “lack values, ethics and morals,” and advocates “beat(ing) the hell outta homeless people” as a measure to solve the problem of homelessness – if they just take a good beating once in a while they’ll probably stop being homeless.

Of course, this is what wingnut talkshow hosts say. They simply spew nonsense and vitriol. Are such comments sufficient to qualify Cunningham for an entry in our Encyclopedia? Well, Cunningham – a local hero in the dimmer parts of Cincinnati, Kentucky – has made some efforts to settle that question, in particular with his furious attacks on the Cincinnati Zoo for pulling out of a promotional partnership with the local Creation Museum, probably realizing that teaming up with such a monument to anti-science wouldn’t help their credibility. In Cunningham’s mind, however, the zoo “buckled under” when faced with “intolerance of Christianity”. It is worth quoting Cunningham at some length: “We cannot put up with a religiously based discriminatory organization and the bigots at the Cincinnati Zoo who would do this to the Creation Museum. It's not necessarily about the museum; it's about publicly practiced bigoted racial discrimination against individuals who have a different faith set. Whether it's race discrimination or religious discrimination, it cannot stand.”

Yes, Cunningham is qualified for an entry.

Diagnosis: At least he doesn’t buckle in the face of reason, reality and sanity. His impact is probably limited to those already in the grips of Rush Limbaugh, but Cunningham should be watched nonetheless.

#587: Ann Coulter

A.k.a. Coultergeist

A mainstay of any list of loons as well as the American Taliban, Ann Coulter has created a career out of saying the same things other rightwing pundits say in even more offensive and stupid manners. As such, her role among conservatives could be viewed as part of a systematic strategy to move the Overton window.

Facts are of course less important, and Coulter has become rather famous for her ability to distort, misrepresent, or omit them, sometimes to what would have been hilarious effects were it not for the fact that an uncannily large number people actually listen to her. Among her numerous attempts at rewriting history, for instance, one of the most celebrated may be her view on McCarthyism. Her book Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism had a chapter called “The Indispensable Joe McCarthy,” in which McCarthy was portrayed as the victim of liberal persecution and witch hunts: “The myth of ‘McCarthyism’ is the greatest Orwellian fraud of our times [which is a rather strange claim, given that Coulter supports precisely the tactics of the demon of those alleged myths] … Liberals are fanatical liars, then as now. Everything you think you know about McCarthy is a hegemonic lie.” Which is not entirely true. More obviously self-defeating is her staunch support of the Confederacy, which sits rather, well, interestingly with her accusations of liberal treachery and her claim that it was the Democrats (who have since became the Republicans) who formed the KKK and were the segregationists, and that liberals were to blamefor slavery.

In her book Slander, she claimed that “Books that become publishing scandals by virtue of phony research, invented facts, or apocryphal stories invariably grind political axes for the left … but it’s hard to think of a single hoax book written by a conservative,” which says little about the existence of crazy conservative books but lots about Coulter’s ability to survey reality.

Among her other more notorious publications you will find:

- Godless: The Church of Liberalism, a much-anticipated book in which she claims that liberals reject God and hate those who don't, and that liberalism is a religion in itself.

- Guilty: Liberal ‘Victims’ and their Assault on America, in which she claims that liberals are always claiming to be victims while victimizing conservatives; for instance, she and Bush and McCarthy and Christians are all victims of liberal persecution, she claims. No, the slight tension in her thesis does not occur to her.

- Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America, in which she claims that liberals constitute a demonic mob and that she is a victim, and advocates shooting everyone who disagrees with her. Also, liberals are anti-science.

Godless presented her views on evolution, with talking points obtained from Bill Dembski and Michael Behe, as well as plenty that even Dembski and Behe wouldn’t touch (much of it is completely debunked here). She presented evolution as “the flatulent raccoon theory,” since the theory of evolution is just as likely to be true as the theory that a raccoon created the universe with a fart (see this for an eloquent takedown). In other words, she does not understand probabilities. Or evolution. But she does point out that evolution is just a theory and that lots of biologists are women, which is a smoking gun. Michael Egnor endorsed every word of it, but then Egnor is not particularly good at reality or reason himself.

Among Coulter’s celebrated opinions are the idea that the US should invade Canada, that the Occupy Wall Street protesters should be shot (discussed here), as well as the following (more quotes here):

- “I'm always suspicious when a story is covered heavily on one of the liberal stations and not being talked about on Fox. For example, the birther story, all over MSNBC – no one on Fox ever mentioned it.” Which is not entirely true (she also argues that liberals are to blame for the birther conspiracy).

- “The ethic of conservation is the explicit abnegation of man's dominion over the Earth. The lower species are here for our use. God said so.”

- “I think our motto should be, post-9-11, ‘raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences.’” Which was followed by “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”

- “They’re [Democrats] always accusing us of repressing their speech. I say let’s do it. Let’s repress them. Frankly, I’m not a big fan of the First Amendment.”

- “My libertarian friends are probably getting a little upset now but I think that’s because they never appreciate the benefits of local fascism.”

- “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building”

- “It would be a much better country (the United States) if women did not vote. That is simply a fact. In fact, in every presidential election since 1950, except Goldwater in ‘64, the Republican would have won, if only the men had voted.” Followed by “I think [women] should be armed but should not vote … women have no capacity to understand how money is earned. They have a lot of ideas on how to spend it.”

There is a helpful guide to Coulter’s quotes here.

She also blamed 9/11 on Edward Kennedy and Barry Lynn, but didn’t elaborate on the causal mechanisms purportedly at work.

She did receive some attention for her positions on the Fukushima disaster, where she endorsed the most radical crackpot position on radiation hormesis, even claiming that radiation released from the nucear power plant was good for you and can reduce the rate of cancers, and that “the scientific consensus has changed, but that the media are not reporting it.” It should tell you something that Bill O’Reilly had to assume the role of the voice of reason here. In the aftermath there were plenty of attempts to raise funds to send Coulter to the Fukushima reactor so she may experience the healing powers herself.

To put things into perspective Coulter has received criticism by people like John Lofton for being too liberal (and a woman), and has the last couple of years stirred up some controversy by speaking at “Homocon”, a conference sponsored by the homosexual Republican group GOProud. Her appearance made several wingnuts go off the rails, and invited criticism from notable characters such as Joseph Farah. Coulter is accordingly currently unpopular with some segments of the wingnut community, as illustrated by this not entirely coherent critique from Steve Deace.

(Much of this entry relies on this, and there is a decent Ann Coulter resource here.)

Diagnosis: Ann Coulter

#562: Neil Cavuto

Neil Cavuto is a political pundit currently employed by Fox News and Fox Business Network. He hosts Your World with Neil Cavuto and Cavuto on Business, as well as Cavuto on FBN. He is also senior vice president and managing editor of business news for FBN, which basically means that he is to blame for its contents. He is also known for being one of the primary strategists behind Fox News’s Benghazi coverage and for serving as a microphone for a variety of loons and cranks such as Pat Boone.

That, by itself, might not be enough to qualify for a separate entry, but Cavuto seals the deal with his rather rabid climate change denialism, which includes all the major denialist talking points, including but not limited to (deliberate?) confusing weather and climate, smearing, and playing the victim. He has also, given his position, been able to host and serve the interests of a range of prominent climate change deniers as guests, such as Chris Horner.

Diagnosis: Cavuto’s influence is rather scary, and he uses it to enable rather insidious forms of denialism. A not insignificant enemy of civilization.