#3032: Joe Hoft

We’ve already covered Jim Hoft, founder of and principal writer for the popular source of wingnuttery and disinformation The Gateway Pundit (GP), and we grudgingly concede that his twin brother, Joe Hoft, should have his own entry, even though there is little of substance to distinguish them in terms of style, content or degree of lunacy.

 

So, Joe Hoft is for instance a rabid promoter of stop the steal conspiracy theories. Among other things, Hoft called on then-VP Mike Pence to throw out electoral votes he (Hoft) didn’t like: “If Pence steps up and throws out the electoral votes in certain states where rampant fraud ensued, he will go down in history as one of the most courageous leaders of our generation. If he approves the nomination of Joe Biden, he will go down as the greatest traitor in history.” And Joe Hoft was the architect behind GP’s “Reward Offered: $10,000 to the First Individual Who Can Successfully Address and Defend as Legitimate the 2020 Election Anomaly Referred to as the ‘Drop and Roll’”. Well, the ‘anomaly’ referred to is easily explained, but no: you won’t get any monetary reward for doing so. GP, of course, went all in on election conspiracy theories, including deranged nonsense about crisis actors in Florida, and ended up getting sued for defamation by Georgia election workers and by Dominion Voting Systems – indeed, TGP Communications filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April 2024 to get around all the defamation lawsuits, but a federal judge dismissed the filing as the “bad faith” attempt to avoid accountability for lawsuits from election workers that it obviously was (they ended up settling).

 

On other occasions, Joe Hoft has called for Democrats to be hanged for attempting to impeach Trump on the grounds that trying to impeach a president Joe Hoft fancies is “seditious and treasonous”. Indeed, Joe Hoft has not shied away from promoting (numerous) QAnon-adjacent and QAnon-reminiscent conspiracy theories about Trump and the mythical Deep State, such as this one and his 2019 declaration that Trump offered “various hints that the Deep State may soon face justice” – the hints being things like Hoft’s interpretation of Trump as being “very calm” at Trump rallies where the topic was broached.

 

Diagnosis: His brother has been identified as the dumbest man on the internet, and we have a hard time not seeing Joe Hoft as something of a Felix to Jim’s Calvin Fischoeder.

 

#3031: Frank Hoffmann

  

This is an older one, but Frank Hoffmann is apparently still around, and his successors are unfortunately not unlikely to take up his legacy, so he still deserves an entry. Hoffmann represented House District 15 in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 2008 to 2020 and was vice chairman of the House Education Committee, a position he used to try to undermine public education in Louisiana as much as possible – ad that he previously worked as a teacher and superintendent himsels makes his antics all the more disconcerting.

 

Hoffmann was, as sponsor of House Bill 1168, one of the architects behind the Louisiana Academic Freedom Act, which sought to promote science denialism concerning “evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning” in Louisiana public schools using teach-the-controversy-style language. As superintendent, Hoffmann had already succeeded in getting the Ouachita Parish School Board to adopt similar policies. And it is worth noting that Hoffmann subsequently voted against adopting biology textbooks that presented the theory of evolution as well-supported by evidence.

 

Indeed, even the Louisiana Academic Freedom Act wasn’t sufficient for Hoffmann, who in 2011 also sponsored HOUSE BILL NO. 580 (a stealth creationism measure colloquially known as the Flat-Earth Option bill), which would allow local public schools to decide on their own to use state money for purchasing any textbooks they want without state supervision (the state senate counterpart was sponsored by Mike Walsworth). That one died, but not without hard fight. And it wasn’t Hoffmann’s last attempt.

 

Diagnosis: Hopefully out of power for good. But Hoffmann being out probably doesn’t lead to much improvement, unfortunately.

#3030: Tom Hoefling

  

More wingnuts! And this one is also a presidential candidate. Thomas Conrad Hoefling is the founder and national chairman of America’s Party and the party’s 2012, 2016 and 2020 presidential nominee, after seeking but failing to gain the highly competitive nominations for the Constitution Party and the American Independent Party. In 2012, at least, he received some 40,000 votes in total. Hoefling has also served as political director for Alan Keyes’ group America’s Revival and has been a representative for the American Conservative Coalition. 

 

His 2020 platform was focused primarily on his opposition to “the abortion holocaust”. Indeed, Hoefling views abortion as a form of cannibalism: “The bodies of aborted, i.e. murdered, children […] are being cannibalized, with their plundered cells being used to make vaccines” – no, Hoefling doesn’t fancy vaccines (and needless to say, his conspiracy rantings about them are bonkers false) – and “the intelligentsia of our time not only insist on making these products of cannibalism AVAILABLE to the general public, they INSIST on making the injections MANDATORY”, thereby not only letting us get away with being cannibals but saying that “to be a responsible citizen, you and your (unaborted) children MUST BE CANNIBALS”. And no, as Hoefling falsely sees it, vaccines didn’t save us from disease; rates of vaccine-preventable disease fell, according (mistakenly) to Hoefling, due to increased “knowledge about sanitation, human physiology, and health,” not vaccines; quite the opposite: “When doctors insist on going down the cursed path of a Mengele [i.e. by offering vaccines], the only thing that can follow, inevitably, is a curse on our nation.” He is, by the way, not the only lunatic to have compared vaccines to cannibalism.

 

For his presidential campaigns, Hoefling had views on e.g. education as well: children should be “taught, with a solid biblical basis, by their parents, their pastors, and trusted fellow citizens in the old hometown” and not by “far off (spiritually/philosophically hostile) bureaucrats or hired hands”. And you can, if you want, read Hoefling’s chaotically paranoid rants on perceived communist influences in America here. He is also very concerned about the homosexual agenda and the anti-religious conspiracy led by academia and media that “don’t examine issues but follow emotional and often illogical propaganda” in their support of e.g. gay marriage.

 

At least Hoefling has been a consistent and vehement critic of Donald Trump  and MAGA, in particular over their involvement in the January 6 United States Capitol attack, and he has compared Trump to a tyrant and called for the Senate to convict Trump and bar him from ever holding office again – Hoefling also dismisses 2020 election conspiracy theories. As for the 2016 election, Hoefling denounced Trump as a “liberal friend” and “financial backer” of Clinton … so ok, even his opposition to Trump is not quite a stopped-clock moment.

 

Diagnosis: Fringe lunatic; probably largely harmless.

 

#3029: Dave Hodges

Dave Hodges is an Alex Jones-wannabe conspiracy theorist who hosts The Common Sense Show, a radio talk show dedicated to bringing you information about what’s really going on in the world that They don’t want you to know about. His bio lists him as a “psychology, sociology, statistics and research professor” though is, perhaps not very surprisingly, sparse on details about affiliations and actual credentials; we’re sure Hodges feels very strongly that he is competent at analyzing current events, though. Currently, Hodges’s show seems to be a rather prominent one among a plethora of insane wingnut clown shows (Sheila Zilinsky, Jim Garrow, Rick Wiles and so on) whose hosts tend to interview each other and other wingnut influencers, and who occasionally has managed to pull in politicians and others with genuine power into their orgy of hateful insanity. He is apparently also spokesperson for something called The American Coalition to Protect Personal Property Rights, a group dedicated to “combat the growing erosion of personal property rights across America”.

 

Most recently, Hodges’s show has been particularly focused on spreading conspiracy theories about the murder of Charlie Kirk (“THE CIA IS BEHIND EVERY PRESIDENTIAL DEMISE AND ACTIVISTS LIKE CHARLIE KIRK”), and he seems very unhappy about the direction Turning Point USA has been taking (it is apparently currently a puppet organization for Israel and the Zionist agenda), but Hodges has covered a remarkable range of idiotic conspiracy theories on his show over the years – he’s impressively productive, which is easier to be when you apply Hodges’s standards for evidence and fact checking – and has been instrumental in promulgating most of the various paranoia-driven conspiracy theories that have gone viral in wingnut circles the last decade or so. In particular, it seems that batshit insane conspiracy theories surrounding the Jade Helm military exercise in 2015 was something of a milestone in Hodges’s rise to prominence in paranoid wingnut circles – Hodges outlined a conspiracy theory involving FEMA camps, foreign troops, and false flags, and – in a conversation with Jason Van Tatenhove, then National Media Director for the Oath Keepers and co-host of something called The Liberty Brothers – putative government plans to use NSA threat-matrix scores to determine whether American citizens were to be executed by government death squads (the military itself was also being bamboozled here, and the government would ultimately rely on the aforementioned foreign troops to finish the job).

 

At the time of Jade Helm, however, Hodges had already established himself as a purveyor of nonsense. Did you know, for instance, that in 2013, then-President Obama was preparing an executive order to give away 8 states to Mexico to form the nation of Aztlan? Apparently, Obama did so after trying (and failing) to pass the resolution through Senate Bill 744, the text of which is here (Hodges was presumably ‘reading between the lines’). And in 2016, the government, with the use of “Nazi occupation storm troopers”, had “taken over Eastern Oregon” – Hodges was apparently referring to checkpoints set up for anyone trying to get into the Malheur wildlife refuge where there was an ongoing standoff with Ammon Bundy and his gang who had taken over federal property (a topic Hodges covered extensively). In general, Hodges recommended taking up arms against Obama and taking him down through guerrilla warfare: Obama “is definitely an imposter, he’s a traitor. He needs to be in jail […] But my fear is that our military, because we’re so dispersed all over the world, we’re not strong enough domestically to stand up to the Russians and Chinese that are here or will be here soon, and then their Canadian allies as well, as well as anybody else that might wear the blue helmet of the UN. So I think we don’t have any choice but to really engage in guerrilla warfare, long-term guerrilla warfare.”

 

And of course, nefarious Deep State plots just kicked it up a notch under Trump. By 2018, for instance, Obama was forming a private army that would work with the gang MS-13 to assassinate government officials in order to force the United Nations to impose martial law on America and reinstall him as leader – for this information, Hodges cited “sources” (but come on: the primary evidence is of course that “Democrats are the dirtiest organization to ever exist in this country, they're on a level with ISIS”, and if you wondered whether it is correct to say that the Democrats are on a level with ISIS, Hodges would of course cite things like Obama’s attempt to form a private army with MS-13 to assassinate government leaders, and so on, in an airtight epistemic loop). By then, Hodges was of course deeply mired in QAnon-related conspiracy nonsense (like this one or this one). Meanwhile, we’ll let headlines like “The Use of Manchurian Mind-Controlled Subjects to Disrupt Trump’s Political Events” speak for themselves.

 

Importantly, such nefarious plots didn’t all originate with people officially associated with the Democratic Party either: there are agents of darkness all of over the place – Brett Kavanaugh, for instance: Hodges stated that the confirmation of Kavanaugh would signal the start of a Chinese/Russian EMP attack on America, launched from Puerto Rico. (No, he doesn’t use the success rate of previous predictions to inform what credence he – or his listeners – should place in new ones; that’s not the kind of evidence that registers with Dave Hodges.)

 

Diagnosis: Yes, batshit crazy, of course. Dave Hodges is deeply paranoid and has a wild imagination unfettered by the constraints of reason, rationality or evidence. And his show seems to be something of a go-to source for similar-minded people, of which there are, apparently, very, very many.

 

#3028: Angela Hock

The insanity known as free-birthing and the cultlike behavior of free-birthing groups have fortunately received some long-needed attention and exposure recently, but it has been around and caused tragedies for a while. The Nebraska Birth Keepers (NBK), for instance, was one group affiliated with the radical free birth movement, espousing the idea that women do not need medical intervention to deliver babies. Of course, Birth Keepers do not have medical training nor do they hold licenses to practice midwifery; they nevertheless attempted to help women have a “natural” birth experience with as limited assistance as possible. Their services were not cheap. 

According to Angela Hock, founder of the NBK, “[t]hough I possess knowledge in many birthing techniques, I am a natural undisturbed home birth advocate. I believe that we were created to birth without invention and that women possess the God-given wisdom and intuition to birth their babies free from regulation.” After all, women have given birth without medical assistance for thousands of years, so why start now? Given the deranged delusional fantasies of its members, it is perhaps little surprise that NBK was also a member of the Private Membership Association, a group that thinks any government regulations and laws do not bind them – Hock herself encouraged potential clients to join the association (for a fee) because it promised members “immunity from the law.”

Well, it didn’t. Hock herself got in trouble in 2019 when she was charged with negligent child abuse resulting in death after an infant died during a home birth where she served as “midwife”: Hock apparently knew for several hours that the baby was in a breech position but continued with the home birth and did not call for medical help. Predictably, Hock tried to cast herself (rather than e.g. the dead infant) as the victim in her GoFundMe to raise legal funds for her case: “The state of Nebraska is waging a war on the birthing women’s right to choose,” said Hock, citing a putative “relentless move to harass [crazy conspiracy theorists who want to provide midwife services but who are not Certified Nurse Midwifes], prosecute them and drive them out of existence”. After all, “Death of babies happens in the hospitals”, too, “and when it does, nobody is criminally charged” – which is false while also omitting the rather relevant fact that deaths of babies in hospitals tend to be the result of doctors doing everything they can to save a baby and mother rather than refusing to call for help when it is obviously needed and would have saved the baby if it had arrived in time. Following the legal proceedings, Hock was apparently acquitted of the charges but was at least restricted from practicing midwifery.

Diagnosis: Yes, parents may have the legal right to choose her services rather than safe and effective procedures, but do not suggest that there isn’t deception involved in how Hock and her fellow dingbat New Age fundies market their services: deception born of wild-eyed self-deception but deception nonetheless. Although barred from practicing midwifery, we have no doubt that the rank lunacy of Angela Hock continues to pose a major threat to the health and well-being of her surroundings.

 

#3027: Gene Ho

Eugene Ho was a campaign photographer for Donald Trump in 2016 who later has become a central figure in the propagation of QAnon-related conspiracy theories and related types of incoherent, paranoid wingnut nonsense. Part of the reason for his success is obviously his perceived access to Trump himself in virtue of being a campaign photographer (the perceivers in this case don’t assess such things in reasonable manners), and has led, for instance, to being a speaker at Michael Flynn & Clay Clark’s Reawaken America tour in 2021.  That same year, Ho tried his hand at politics himself by unsuccessfully running for mayor of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on an anti-vaccine, Christian nationalist platform. Ho is also the author of TRUMPography: How Biblical Principles Paved the Way to the American Presidency.

 

As mentioned, Ho is probably among the more widely recognized champions of QAnon conspiracy theories, and he has been something of a mainstay at QAnon events. He was for instance a speaker at Alysia & Brian Gamble’s “family-friendly” grassroots rally The Great Awakening, which gathered somewhat less than 100 pro-QAnon adherents at the National Mall in September 2021. At the event, Ho stressed to attendees that he believed that the Q movement “is all about blood” – which is about as coherent a summary as any – having in mind both the blood that QAnon adherents think elite Democratic pedophiles drink for its adrenochrome and the blood of Jesus Christ: “This whole thing of what we’re doing is all about blood. Q says constantly, ‘Check the bloodlines.’ We know they’ve been misusing blood with their adrenochrome and all of this stuff. But ultimately, what this is about, it’s about blood and it’s about blood from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Indeed, the Q movement is apparently about all sorts of things Ho has warm feelings for: “Q is about all of us together and all of us not being scared, because that’s what happened to us in America,” said Ho (one is excused for being a bit unsure whether Ho quite understands the word ‘about’), adding that “Q has wakened us up. Q has made us alive again and Q has taught us to think for ourselves” (no, it doesn’t seem to be the right word, especially for a group whose slogan is “where we go one, we go all”). Unfortunately, there is a conspiracy afoot to smear those who have seen the light, and Ho laments how “they take us Q believers and they make us into tinfoil hat wearing people. That’s not the truth. We here in the Q community, we are the ones with the beautiful families. We’re the ones here with the businesses.” Photos of the putatively family-friendly event show him perched on a stage in front of a giant “Q” and hashtags like MKUltra and Pedogate.

 

Ho was also part of the lineup e.g. at the Gambles’ 2020 QAnon event in Jacksonville to complement the nearby Republican National Convention, as well as at the December 2020 “stop the steal” prayer rally in DC and the 2021 Qanon event For God & Country Patriot Roundup in Dallas.

 

A curious and rather famous part of QAnon mythology is the idea that John F. Kennedy Jr. faked his 1999 death in a plane crash in order to be able to team up with Donald Trump to take on the Satanic cabal that currently forms the deep state (QAnon followers’ evidence for the claim seems, for all practical purposes, to be that it is completely random and incoherent, which suits their reasoning patterns – apparently, the full baroque but notoriously gappy narrative involves time travel as well). As such, Ho’s cred among QAnon conspiracy theories got a significant boost when he and one Dave Blaze helped revive (well, reanimate might be more accurate) JFK, jr.’s long-defunct magazine George with Ho as editor-in-chief – note also that he was himself photographed with a “Trump / JFK Jr. 2020” T-shirt during the 2020 campaign. The current George-titled zombie magazine targets audiences interested in “spirituality” and “MAGA/Patriotism” and has offered “sit downs” with “Patriot Streetfighter” Scott McKay and the illustrator going by the name “The Commander’s Artist”, familiar for his portraits of Trump allies such as Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn as Revolutionary War heroes. As far as we can tell, it remains unclear whether Ho actually has the legal rights to use the George logo.

 

It is, we suppose, hardly surprising that Ho is firmly antivaccine as well. Together with his wife Nadean, Ho has e.g. hosted a podcast episode titled “Are Vaccines the Mark of the Beast?”, and no, that wasn’t just a question. During COVID, Ho was a reliable source of misinformation, both to downplay the virus and to warn the public against the vaccines, e.g. during his participation in the Health and Freedom tour.

 

Diagnosis: We will just modestly submit that it isn’t they who are primarily responsible for the image of Ho as a tinfoil hat wearing person. Those who listen to him – and there are, apparently, some – don’t need any further help to cultivate that image either. Good grief.

 

#3026: Mark Hitchock

A.k.a. Mark Hitchcock (sources seem unsure about how to spell his name)

 

Mark Hitchock is an End Times preacher, Senior Pastor of Faith Bible Church in Edmond, Oklahoma, and author of dozens of End Times-related books, including Blood Moons Rising: Bible Prophecy, Israel, and the Four Blood Moons; The Late Great United States: What Bible Prophecy Reveals About America's Last Days (potential signs of the end times include “the rising cost of foreign oil” and “a tidal wave of illegal immigrants”); Can We Still Believe in the Rapture (with the late Ed Hindson); and The End: A Complete Overview of Bible Prophecy and the End of Days.

 

Yes, Hitchock takes a ‘Biblical approach’ to a range phenomena. He thinks for instance that UFO sightings are “demonic forces that are passing themselves off as some kind of extraterrestrial beings to draw and distract people’s [whose?] attention away from God.” Indeed, “I think it’s very possible that these kinds of things also could be setting people up for various kinds of delusion in the End Times” – just think about it – Hitchock said (he seems to be intimately familiar with such kinds delusions), and UFOs are “just another one of Satan’s tactics, especially as we draw nearer to the End Times”.

 

Diagnosis: Probably mostly harmless. People do buy his books, apparently, but those people would buy anything anyways.