Back when I was coaching high school debate it was normal and expected that almost every advantage or disadvantage claimed to result from a plan by either team had to end with a nuclear war. No matter how tenuous the connection, the final impact of every argument was that the plan would either prevent or cause a nuclear war. Nuclear war was the ultimate bad thing, the worst thing one could imagine and therefore the argumentative trump card – play it and you win.

In political discourse, the equivalent of the nuclear war in high school debate is the Nazi comparison. It’s the worst possible thing one can invoke, the very archetype of evil, the most heinous and vile comparison one can use to disparage their opponents. And it has become all too common, an almost casual throwaway line for political activists.
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To give you an idea of just how far into the lunatic fringe Glenn Beck is slipping, look at this clip from his show where his guest declares that the only thing that can save America from Obama is for Osama to detonate a really big weapon in the United States.

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This is just one of the weirdest bits of video ever produced by Fox News (and imagine the competition for that title). It’s Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly explaining ACORN using Barbie dolls.

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And this time it’s in the form of a question, posed by Ellis Washington, one of the more ridiculous Worldnutdaily columnists (and imagine the competition for that label):

“Why have virtually the entire conservative and liberal media so hardened their hearts and closed their bowels of compassion against this magnificent conservative intellectual, Michael Savage?”

Michael Savage. A “magnificent conservative intellectual.” You can’t make this stuff up; no one would believe it. But wait…it gets worse.
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From the increasingly unhinged Glenn Beck on his radio show:

No, did he say — go quote the scripture to your professor. Ask him, did Jesus say when a man asks for your shirt, you give the government your coat, also, and have the government give that coat to the man? No. The government is a middleman. The government is acting in the role of Lucifer. They are taking stuff from you. They are forcing you — yes, I did, I did just say, yes, the government is the devil. They are taking your choices from you. There is — you ask your professor this. I hope you’re writing this stuff down and I want to hear the answers from this nut job of a professor. You ask this — you ask your professor this: At what point — now, jeez, I just lost it. What were we talking about before that? The government is the devil, I remember that.

I must have missed the part of the Bible that talked about Satan giving out welfare checks and health care.

Here’s some hilarious video from one of those 9/12 tea party get togethers that Glenn Beck is pushing like crazy. Love it when the guy says that Obama is putting things on your TV to brainwash people. Then he tells people to pull their kids out of college to avoid the brainwashing, whereupon a woman yells out “Burn the books!” And says she’s dead serious, because of that “evolution crap.” Put on your tinfoil hat before you watch this. Shiny side out, remember.

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Warning: do not drink a beverage while reading this headline:

I may run for president of Texas

On Glenn Beck’s radio show last week, I quipped in response to our wayward federal government, “I may run for president of Texas.”

That need may be a reality sooner than we think. If not me, someone someday may again be running for president of the Lone Star state, if the state of the union continues to turn into the enemy of the state.

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The execrable Glenn Beck, who is actually calling on his listeners to waste as much energy as they can in order to make up for the positive steps the Democratic National Convention is taking to reduce the environmental impact of the event. No, I’m not making this up:

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Here’s something I did not know. Warren Throckmorton has been doing some digging and documents the fact that the Mormon church claims that the founding fathers were posthumously turned into Mormons by prayer after their spirits asked LDS church leaders to do so. He quotes from former LDS president Ezra Taft Benson:

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I’ve been very excited to see how Ezra Klein’s new startup at Vox Media develops but I have to confess to being absolutely baffled by his decision to hire Brandon Ambrosino, who is little more than a gay Uncle Tom who has made a career out of being the “good” gay guy who will back up everything the bigots say about the “bad” gay people.

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