Another Entry in the Nuttiest GOP Legislator Competition

April 22, 2013 by Ed Brayton

Steve King, Michele Bachmann and Louis Gohmert may have a head start on him, but Rep. Jeff Duncan of North Carolina is making a strong case for being included on the short list of the nuttiest Republican members of Congress. Here’s a question he asked Janet Napolitano about the ridiculous conspiracy theory about the Department of Homeland Security stockpiling ammo:

DUNCAN: You know, when Forbes Magazine or Drudge or some reputable news sources start to repeat the numbers…the numbers cease to become Internet rumors and they start having some credibility. I just ask, why was there a long delay or silence from the DHS for a period of time, almost three months, before y’all came forward saying these numbers aren’t correct, these are the actual facts. Why was there a delay or silence from your department?

NAPOLITANO: Well I don’t know about that, that there was that kind of delay, but I will tell you we found it so inherently unbelievable that those statements would be made it was hard to ascribe credibility to them. I don’t know if I’d put Forbes and Drudge in the same sentence.

No, Drudge does nothing but detract from the credibility of a claim. And yes, this is the same guy who a few days ago said that if we require gun registration it will lead to a genocide like it did in Rwanda because the government would know where we live. Someone who makes an argument that fucking stupid shouldn’t be trusted to run a night shift at a Taco Bell, much less have a seat in Congress.

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DaveL

There’s a common thread between this conspiracy theory, the crowing over Agenda 21, the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, and I’m sure many others, in that they all involve government documents, some of them quite long, all of them written in specialized legal or diplomatic jargon that the typical low-information voter lacks the reading skill to comprehend. They just take it for granted that their trusted sources are telling the truth about what’s contained in those documents and what it means.

Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like the Bible.
slc1

It’s amazing how assholes like Duncan, who is undoubtedly a two fisted gay basher, rely on the writings of a closeted gay man like Matt Drudge.
composer99

NAPOLITANO: Well I don’t know about that, that there was that kind of delay, but I will tell you we found it so inherently unbelievable that those statements would be made it was hard to ascribe credibility to them. I don’t know if I’d put Forbes and Drudge in the same sentence.

Props to Napolitano for not pulling punches here.

Too bad that’s one of the few good things we can say about Napolitano in relation to her job as Secretary of DHS.
TGAP Dad

It appears that in North Carolina there are more requirements to cast a ballot in an election than to appear on that ballot as a candidate.
mikeyb

A larger question is who in the GOP isn’t a wingnut, tea party member (any difference), corporate shill, warmongerer or combination of all of these, the mystery of why these types continue to get elected. Its a sad commentary on our current educational system.
cheesynougats

As someone who does run a night shift at Taco Bell, I am insulted (!) to be included in a comparison with Jeff Duncan; I don’t know if I would hire him as a crew member.
Mr Ed

We need a scale to measure and compare these statements similar to the scoville scale for chili peppers. I say that while this statement was stupid it wasn’t so overly complex to rate more than 5 bachmanns.
gopiballava

@mikeyb:

“the mystery of why these types continue to get elected. Its a sad commentary on our current educational system.”

I think they’re voted in because they’re from the party that the voter’s parents were in.

There’s also a good amount of disinformation and demagoguery. I just saw somebody say that Keystone XL’s 35 new permanent jobs was a better result than Obama’s failed stimulus.

Hundreds of billions of dollars of spending. And this guy thinks that it created fewer than 35 jobs? WTF? Creating a million jobs would still be a failure. Spending that much money without creating jobs is a Brewster’s Millions style challenge.

Point is, this guy has presumably heard “it failed” so many times without actually thinking about what that even means.
thisisaturingtest

DUNCAN: You know, when Forbes Magazine or Drudge or some reputable news sources start to repeat the numbers…the numbers cease to become Internet rumors and they start having some credibility.

Mere repetition is all it takes to lend credibility to a rumor? The repetition is what made it a rumor in the first place; endless repetition doesn’t make it more than still just a rumor that’s been passed around a lot.
Ouabache

And yes, this is the same guy who a few days ago said that if we require gun registration it will lead to a genocide like it did in Rwanda because the government would know where we live.

And yet Duncan had no problem voting for CISPA.