House Speaker Andy Tobin, running for Congress in CD 1, has frequently asserted in press releases that he alone among his GOP primary opponents has not made any embarrassing gaffes during this campaign.
Well, that was until this past week. Tobin expounded on the latest wingnut conspiracy theory making the rounds to The Tucson Weekly. Charles Pierce at Esquire lets him have it. Please Stop Electing Morons, A Continuing Series:
The Ebola fever outbreak in west Africa is bad enough . . . One thing that the victims of that catastrophe don’t need right now is to get hauled into the American political process, even by proxy, because nothing ever ends well for anything that gets hauled into the American political process, even by proxy.
Aw, dammit. Too late [h/t The Tucson Weekly]
In the meantime, though, Tobin says he’s hearing about worries from constituents that the recent wave of undocumented youth from Central America could cause an Ebola outbreak in the United States. “Anything’s now possible,” Tobin said last week. “So if you were to say the Ebola virus has now entered (the country), I don’t think anyone would be surprised.” Tobin acknowledged that Ebola has been limited to outbreaks in Africa, “to the extent that they’re really aware of that. I think there is a reason we should be concerned about it and say, ‘Hey, can you assure us the people crossing the border are not from the Middle East?’ … So I use that as an example, that the public would not be surprised to hear about the next calamity at the border.”
Ebola does not exist in Central America. It has never been found there. This current outbreak is the first one that’s occurred outside of very remote places in Africa, for god’s sake. The reason that the “public would not be surprised” is because a good piece of “the public,” and almost all of “the public” to whom Tobin is pitching himself for Congress, gets its “news” from grifters and charlatans and professional hysterics. And Tobin is not alone. For example, this cluck is a physician [Phil Gingrey (R-GA)]. These guys are elected members of the Congress. And, of course, this guy is from Zontar [Louie Gohmert (R-TX)]:
“Because they see people coming across as undocumented Democrats. And so, they want to keep the surge of people coming in illegally, even though it includes a big spike in Other-Than-Mexicans, OTMs as we call them…It includes a spike in people from countries where terrorism abounds,” he continued. “We have people coming in from countries where Ebola is located.”
God, this election is going to suck so much pond water.
Doktor Zoom at Wonkette “zooms” Tobin some more. Congressional Candidate Will Protect Arizona From Ebola-Ridden Immigrant Kids, Sharknados:
Arizona’s primary election is next Tuesday, and the final days of the campaign are bringing out the crazy. Like the early days did, for that matter. And stepping up to the challenge in the District 1 Republican congressional primary is Andy Tobin, the speaker of the state House, who worries that migrant children are carrying Ebola across the border to liquefy our internal organs, just like in that one movie.
Tobin is just the latest Republican to warn about the completely nonexistent threat, following in the steps of Georgia Rep. Phil Gingrey, who wrote a very worried letter to the Centers for Disease Control in July because he’d heard “reports” of immigrants with Ebola. The absolutely not-realistic panic has also been stoked by Minnesota Indiana (oops!) congressfearmongers Todd Rokita and Larry Buschon, and of course by Louie Gohmert, who never found an irrational paranoid idea he didn’t like. In an interview with the Tucson Weekly, Tobin said that he’s heard from a lot of constituents who are really worried about refugee children from Central America bringing Ebola to US America, and in Arizona, if constituents worry about a thing, it must be taken seriously, like chemtrails.
* * *
And just to make things especially fun for voters in District 1, Tobin’s primary rival for the nomination is Adam Kwasman, the genius who freaked out over a bus full of kids going to a YMCA camp and then tried to blame immigrants for scaring those poor kids on that YMCA bus. And now those kids need to worry about Ebola, too. Will the crimes and usurpations of the Obama administration never end?
We’d say that Democratic incumbent Ann Kirkpatrick seems a sure bet against either member of the Kwasman/Tobin Brain Trust, but this is, after all, Arizona.
As I have said before, none of the GOP candidates in CD 1 deserves to win. “None of the Above” really ought to be an option on the ballot in Arizona.