Encyclopedia of American Loons

Peter Brimelow was born in Britain, but is currently American. He used to have a career as a writer and editor for various more or less respectable magazines (no, he really did have a quite substantial influence on American and Canadian politics), until he doubled down and founded the webzine VDARE, a platform for Brimelow’s anti-immigration views, white nationalism and “racial realism” (other topics covered seem to be just so much window dressing, though they do seem to want to take credit for popularizing the idea of a War on Christmas). VDARE takes it name from Virginia Dare, the original anchor baby (a point that seems to be lost on them), and is designated as a hate group by the SPLC – Brimelow’s response was to call the SPLC “the notorious Treason Group.”

Brimelow’s main target is, unsurprisingly, multiculturalism, and as he put it in his talk “The Failure of Multiculturalism: How the pursuit of diversity is weakening the American Identity” at the 2012 CPAC (oh, yes), diversity is the greatest threat we are facing and “immigration is polluting America.” The host of the session, Robert Vandervoort, former leader of the White Nationalist group Chicagoland Friends of the American Renaissance, thanked CPAC for hosting the panel despite the work of “leftist thugs” trying to “shut down freedom of speech and freedom of assembly,” since not giving people a platform to speak is obviously a violation of their constitutional rights.

As expected, Brimelow is a fierce critic of “Obama’s racial-socialist coup,” and fears that the U.S. is doomed to face a “minority occupation government.” In fact, according to Brimelow, the Democrats’ supposed support of an “invasion” and “colonization” of the US by non-white immigrants is treason because it reduces the percentage of the white population. Accordingly, he called on the Republican Party to start focusing on becoming the party of white voters by attacking “ethnic lobbies,” affirmative action, bilingual education and “taxpayer subsidies to illegal aliens.”

And the connection to the War on Christmas? In his book Alien Nation, Brimelow wrote that “weird aliens with dubious habits” were damaging the “ethnic core” of white Christian America and were part of a “multicultural struggle to abolish America;” seeing the trend toward saying “happy holidays” as part of this sinister movement, he decided to do something about it: an annual competition in the magazine for the “the most egregious attempt to suppress Christmas.” It should be mentioned that the idea had already been promoted by the John Birch Society for years.

In 2015 Brimelow, in a Martin Luther King day speech, argued that states must secede to protect “white rights” (i.e. the right not to have to see black people). Instead of promoting unity, Brimelow said, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day “has just turned into anti-white indoctrination.” And unless “cultural Marxists” who are behind “political correctness” and “the war on Christmas” are resisted, he claimed, the U.S. will collapse. Again. With regard to the Ferguson protests, he argued that force is needed to counter the inherent “criminality in the American underclass”.

Steve King is a positively giddy fan of Brimelow’s.

Diagnosis: Dude, this guy’s views on immigration are too extreme for the WND. He nevertheless maintains quite a bit of influence.

Joel Brind is a professor of human biology and endocrinology at Baruch College, CUNY, a pro-lifer and a by now famous pseudoscientist. He is best known for his association with the discredited link between abortion and breast cancer; it was Brind’s 1996 meta-analysis that popularized the idea (and got him famous). That study, which despite Brind’s strongly worded conclusions showed a barely statistically significant increase, was not particularly professionally done, and the results were quickly discredited (summaries here, here and here). What makes Brind a pseudoscientist is not the initial claim – the hypothesis really wasn’t that far-fetched given the available information – but that he has continued to push the link after it has been thoroughly refuted (yet another study discussed here). At present he is primarily pushing it through his organization “The Breast Cancer Prevention Institute”. He has been active in the anti-abortion movement (e.g. through Christ’s Bride Ministries) for several decades.

Though his original analysis appeared in a respectable journal, his later papers on the same theme (presumably because they didn’t manage to overcome the refutations using proper methodology) was published in places like the pseudojournal JPANDS, the house journal of the crank organization Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Brind, on his side, remains contemptuous of mainstream medical professional organizations and journals, accusing them of conducting a deliberate cover-up with the goal of “protecting the abortion industry”, asserting in print that the National Cancer Institute “… is just another corrupt federal agency like the IRS and the NSA.” Ah, yes, but of course; that’s the proper reaction when everyone else refutes your claims. Conspriacy mongering is, of course, as much a staple fare among this particular group of science denialists as it is among other groups promoting similarly refuted ideas.

To further cement his reputation as a pseudoscientist, Brind is also a signatory to the Discovery Institute’s anti-evolution petition A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism.

Diagnosis: Though he has credentials, Brind is not reluctant to let any commitment to truth, evidence or sound methodology fly when truth, evidence or sound methodology doesn’t serve his ideologically driven purposes.

Felicia Briones-Colman is another MD who has turned to the dark side, yet again reminding us that MDs are not scientists, and are not necessarily trained in anything remotely resembling evidence assessment or proper methodology. Briones-Colman is, in fact, so extreme in her rejection of evidence, facts, and science in recommending healthcare strategies that she has contributed to NaturalNews. Yes, that NaturalNews.

As she will point out, Briones-Colman is not only an MD; she is “board certified in both Internal Medicine and the American Board of Integrative Holistic Medicine,” the latter of which is nothing to be proud of. Nonetheless, she recommends that you should “[c]hoose a doctor certified by the American Board of Integrative Holistic Medicine” when you need holistic medical help. We don’t want to share the market, do we (it’s not like the board in question bases the certification process on evidence and reality in any case)? According to her, “[t]he practice of Integrative Medicine i[…] requires knowledge about alternative therapies that are scientifically proven to be effective and which can cause harm,” which is inaccurate in that any treatment that is “scientifically proven to be effective” is by definition not an alternative therapy, and seeing a board certified alternative practitioner rather than a non-certified is advisable to make sure that you receive the most efficacious woo and avoid harmful practices; “… a doctor who is board certified provides assurance of excellence,” says Briones-Colman, a claim so stupid and crazy it easily justifies an entry in our Encyclopedia.

Diagnosis: A useful reminder that a proper appeal to expertise on the efficacy of medical treatments is not the same as an appeal to your local MD. That’s the best I can manage to say about her.

Dr. Kelly Brogan was educated at Cornell and MIT, so one would think she ought to know a thing or two about methods for aligning beliefs to reality. Well, clearly Cornell and MIT need to do something somewhat differently, for Brogan has managed to delude herself into a pretty impressive array of ridiculous denialist and pseudoscienfic beliefs and conspiracy theories, and she has shown a remarkable inability to read scientific literature or evaluate hypotheses. You can read her articles on Sayer Ji’s abysmally insane website GreenMedInfo, as well as on her own website, where she claims to be practicing “holistic women’s health psychiatry,” for some examples. Oh, yes, Brogan has embraced a whole range of woo, including homeopathy, acupuncture, antivaccine views, anti-GMO views, functional medicine and pretty much every kind of medical nonsense you’ll ever encounter.

Given that she has some (nominal) background in topics related to science, she is dimly aware of the value of using scientific studies to support her views. But managing to find a single scientific study that could be twisted into looking like it supports your view isn’t enough to make those views respectable, and Brogan’s writings constitute some spectacular examples of how a professional denialist can dishonestly twist and distort and cherrypick real (as well as less respectable) studies to seem to support her cherished, otherwise non-evidence based views. What she does to an extent know how to do, is to mask her own unscientific rants in the format of something resembling real, serious writing (to those who don’t know better). Take a look, for instance, at her writings about the HPV vaccine (or here).

What is clear, is that Brogan is a hardcore antivaccine conspiracy theorist, who has managed to become a rather influential figure in the antivaccine movement, and she has been caught touting even the most egregious examples of inane pseudoscience published in profoundly disgraced pseudojournals to “support” her own insane ideas, such as the idea that vaccines are a likely cause of SIDS. She even appeared in the whale.to-level conspiracy flick “Bought” (oh yes, Brogan is a frequently cited “authority” over at whale.to, which is something that should make anyone with an even minimal wish to appear respectable stop up and wonder what they’re doing with their lives). The premise of “Bought” is the pharma shill gambit, one of Brogan’s own favorite tricks. Of course, the fact that she herself is constantly trying to sell stuff – speeches and suchlike – while she bashes Big Pharma is an irony lost on both her and her followers. (Here, for instance, if you buy the Depression Summit, you get the Sexyback summit Free!)

Much of her writings seem to boil down to fallacious appeals to nature, which are often also based on false premises. For instance, Brogan characterizes vaccines as working by “bypass[ing] natural immunity and provoke inflammatory response.” Vaccines do not bypass natural immunity, however; they induce immunity completely naturally. But that’s how Brogan starts off when discussing the HPV vaccine. It is hardly surprising that the results of her line of reasoning are absolute nonsense as well. It does, however, seems to suggest that Brogan really doesn’t understand even basic stuff about the topics about which she more than willingly shares her unsupported opinions. She is not above rank dishonesty either, as long as it can look like it lends support to views she has already convinced herself are true based on no good evidence or reason whatsoever.

She’s even been toying HIV denialism (oh, yes). Of the idea that HIV causes AIDS she has pointed out that AIDS is “a syndrome of 25 illnesses that does not satisfy Koch’s postulates of infectious disease” (Koch’s postulates date from 1890 and have been obsolete since then), and in the process positioned herself dangerously close to germ theory denialism – she probably doesn’t notice, though, since she doesn’t seem to have the faintest idea what she’s talking about. At least she rejects the effect of antiretroviral drugs on the mortality associated with this disease: “That drug toxicity associated with AIDS treatment may very well be what accounts for the majority of deaths,” says Brogan. “may very well” means there is no evidence or plausibility behind this claim I pulled out of my ass concerning topics I do not understand but you dear reader – since you are reading my bullshit – probably don’t know that. A collaboration of 12 prospective studies that included more than 62,000 HIV infected individuals found, contrary to what Brogan believes, that mortality was halved in the treated groups. We also know that in South Africa there were an estimated 3.8 million person-years lost between 2000 and 2005 because of delays in implementing treatment programs in part because central figures in the government had been convinced by pseudoscientists that HIV was not the cause of AIDS and that the drugs were not useful. We leave it to the reader to evaluate how, in light of that, Brogan’s recommendation should be used to judge her as a member of humanity.

Diagnosis: Raging pseudoscientific conspiracy theorist, who has managed to make something of a name for herself among conspiracy-minded “natural” healing gohmerts. One of those who, on balance, has made the world a worse place to live, and she appears to be just getting started. Dangerous.

Yes, yes, the state legislatures. This time its Tennessee, which is saddled with Kevin Brooks (24^th district). Brooks is a Tea Party candidate and a conspiracy theorist. For instance, Brooks sponsored a resolution condemning Agenda 21, a UN environmental plan and a common target for unhinged conspiracy theories, as a “destructive and insidious” effort to advance a communist agenda through the guise of community planning. The plan called on members of the UN to adopt sustainable development principles to alleviate poverty and combat global warming. According to Tennessee lawmakers, however, it is as a plan for the “socialist/communist redistribution of wealth” through energy conservation policies, zoning restrictions and forced abortions. “It reads well. It has nice words like sustainability and helping the poor,” said state Rep. Glen Casada, R-Franklin, “[b]ut what these people want to do is they want to cap the number of people this planet can have. … So ladies and gentlemen, if that doesn’t bother you, if those words don’t scare you, we’ve got to talk.” Yes, I do think you need to talk to someone, Casada. What is particularly interesting about the bill is that it used a language almost identical to a John Birch Society model bill.

The resolution passed 72-23, so Brooks is hardly the only lunatic in the Tennessee House of Representatives. But we knew that. Brooks was also one of the representatives at the House General Subcommittee of Education meeting on March 16, 2011, who voted for Tennessee’s infamous “teach the controversy” bill. The others – they all deserve mentioning – were Harry Brooks (R-District 19), Joe Carr (R-District 48), John J. DeBerry Jr. (D-District 90), the bill’s sponsor Bill Dunn (R-District 16), Joey Hensley (R-District 70), Ron Lollar (R-District 99), Debra Young Maggar (R-District 45), and Richard Montgomery (R-District 12)

Diagnosis: Tennessee: wtf is wrong with you? Wingnuttery or no, this is lizard-people, whale.to-level lunacy at the House level. You have a House of Representatives filled with weapons-grade tinfoil hatters!

Floyd Brown is a co-founder of Citizens United (yes, that Citizens United) and president of Excellentia Inc. (helping clients “achieve success in the conservative and Christian marketplace”) and a range of other wingnut organizations. Brown specializes in mudslinging and devising dishonest political ad campaigns and is widely renowned for his brazen rejection of facts, evidence, reason and similar liberal conspiracies – and he’s for hire. Indeed, has established himself as one of the nation’s dirtiest political strategists, for instance by devising the infamous Willie Horton ad during the Bush sr.-Dukakis election, and many of his campaigns are undeniably effective. He also pushes “insider” stock tips and advice, gold coins and municipal bonds (here is a report from the Western Conservative Conference, which he organized; it reads just like your average spam mail).

During recent presidential elections Brown and his company released ads asserting for instance that Obama was registered as a Muslim student in Indonesia, and that he attended an Indonesian school that taught Islam as a child. Moreover, according to Brown, “for the international socialist movement of which Barack Obama is a card-carrying member, the U.S. must be brought to its knees, and I guarantee you that Barack Hussein Obama is doing everything he can to bring the country to its knees. He wants to bring it to its knees.” In fact, “[d]oes he simply hate Christianity … Does he hate the United States … or both?” – those were the questions he asked in his 2009 campaign to impeach President Obama (which were, of course, amply covered by the WND). According to the campaign, Obama should be impeached for his “high crimes and misdemeanors,” including the crime that “Obama has consistently refused to approve the release of his actual birth certificate, college transcripts and his medical records ... It's almost as if Obama is intentionally trying to destroy the country ...”

He even teamed up with Jerome Corsi to promote the latter’s book Obama Nationvia viral web campaigns and emailings. Few people who have been in the vicinity of Corsi can avoid being in the extension of the description “hysterically insane”. And for a recent example, have a look at this email from Brown declaring that Obamacare “just killed its millionth person.” He doesn’t not even try to back up the claim.

So why the question mark by Brown’s name at the beginning of this entry. The thing is, we don’t really think that Brown believes any of the shit he is promoting, any more than he believes the claims behind the gold coins he is pushing. But he is a wingnut, and he does realize that many of his fellow wingnuts are crazy enough to take any crazy conspiracy theory at face value.

Diagnosis: If you ever listen to anything Brown says about politics and find it reasonable, you are probably a loon yourself. We doubt that Floyd Brown does. He is immensely influential nonetheless.

Zion Oil and Gas is a hydrocarbon exploration company based in Dallas and the proud owners of three license blocks in northern Israel. The company is distinguished by being faith-based, and by working under the conviction that it is going to discover one of the largest oil fields in the Middle East based solely on its founder John Brown’s impressively strained readings of Bible verses (more details here), and presumably partially on indignation over the apparent injustice that those evil Muslims got all the oil in the area and the good state of Israel got none. The aim is to make Israel self-sufficient with oil for the next few decades until the Rapture solves the situation for good. In Brown’s words:

“Following continued assessment of all geological and geophysical data, renowned petroleum engineers, geologists and geophysicists continue to ask ... ‘where is the most logical place to drill where we can be sure of ‘tapping’ those vast reservoirs of oil?’ Yet, there is an ‘ANSWER’, and it is found in the most ‘overlooked’ source of geological information available to mankind today ... the Bible! The archaeologists have found the Bible to be their unerring guide to hidden treasures [I cannot interpret this as anything but a reference to Ron Wyatt] ... Why cannot the geologists utilize the same ‘tool’ to find this oil?”

So it seems to be that Brown noticed on a 1973 map of the 12 tribes of Israel that Asher’s Land of the Bible looked like a foot, which is surely a clue: “And of Asher he said, Be Asher blessed above sons; let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him DIP HIS FOOT IN OIL. (Deuteronomy 33:24).” And heck: secular oil companies look for oil based on methods that assume an unbiblically old Earth, don’t they? No wonder they can’t find oil in Israel.

Although the plan is so beyond ridiculous that it beggars even hardened loon researchers’ beliefs, they’ve kept it going for some 14 years, largely due to heavy promotion by fundamentalist newsletters such as the WND and people like Hal Lindsey, who told his viewers in 2007 that “Zion Oil right now is on the verge of discovering oil... [a sign that] we are really on the very threshold of Lord Jesus' return,” and deliberately lied about their prospects (Lindsey had 725,000 shares in the company, the value of which rose significantly after the announcement).

Needless to say, they have yet to hit the jackpot. Lately, they appear to have abandoned the Biblical maps and gone for pure geology with bids for acreage around the Dead Sea where there are known asphalt seeps – currently several board members are actually qualified geologists or have worked in senior positions for major oil companies. It hasn’t helped much.

It is also worth mentioning that some investors have accused Brown of fraud. In particular, according to Yousef Yomtov, a.k.a. Yosalov, Brown believes that “the oil will only flow when a super spiritual person known as Joseph comes into his life,” and the complaint is based on Yomtov’s conviction that heis that “super spiritual person”, yet Brown has thus far refused to meet with him. Yomtov also points out that by January 2009 Zion announced that they had issued “approximately 666,000 warrants with a $7.00 exercise price,” which cannot be a coincidence but rather proof of “a deliberate poisoning of the company from within and an indication to investors who seek God’s will that there is something ugly about Zion Oil and Gas.”

Diagnosis: Nothing short of remarkable. I don’t really have the words for this.

More nonsense! Alphabiotics® is an altmed practice claiming that most disease is caused by stress and a lack of “life energy” and that stress can be easily relieved, quickly and magically, by a few gentle twists of the neck (the technique is discussed here). As a matter of fact, some more recent websites back off from the vitalist nonsense and rather make bolder but equally unsupported claims about affecting the brain. Practicioners also tend to call alphabiotics “the new science of stress relief,” though “new science” doesn’t mean science, and there is – unsurprisingly – no reputable studies confirming the efficacy of their techniques. The main proponents of the technique appear to be Virgil Chrane Jr. and his son, Michael Chrane, descendants of the inventor of the technique, but we file it under John D. Brown, allegedly a disciple of theirs, who operates the Alphabiotic New Life Center and who lost his license to practice as a chiropractor as a result of this (revealing) court case.

Despite the neck manipulation, alphabioticists maintain that they are not chiropractors. Instead, they call themselves priests and claim that the manipulation is a sacrament of the Alphabiotics Church – The Alphabiotics International Web site defines alphabiotics as “a truth and love based metaphysical belief system that concerns itself with the interrelationship between the lesser self, the better self, and Life; i.e. the Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent Supreme Consciousness” – presumably to evade taxes or problems concerning medical licensing or any other pesky legal issues (their own certificates say “Doctor of Divinity”). Moreover, “Medical therapeutics and Alphabiotics are based on completely different principles; so different that each of the two systems are almost incomprehensible to the believers in the other’s concepts. Ordinary medical therapeutics is based in physical biology, which is in turn based in an atheistic philosophy called materialism. […] Alphabiotics admits to another reality. It recognizes a Spiritual Presence in human beings; an Intelligent, inner Life Force, which is not physically measurable. Alphabioticists see this inner Presence as being infinitely wise and purposeful and recognize that it is an expression of a greater Unified-Field, called God.”

And of course, it’s quantum woo: “Alphabiotics is grounded in quantum mechanics, relativity physics, and a spiritual theology,” even though it is not based on physics. Go figure. But “[a]lphabioticists see physical disease as a result of wrong choices and a mis-direction of normal Life energy flow.” Ah, yes, the Law of Attraction, explicitly used to blame the victims for their illnesses and presumably their failure to improve from alphabiotics.

Brown, for instance, has been pretty clear that the practice is religious, and in the aforementioned court case he argued that the freedom to practice his religion prevents the State from regulating his practice.

Diagnosis: Quasi-religious drivel. Though as opposed to most other altmed practices, at least they admit as much. Somehow it doesn’t make it much better – perhaps because it’s incredibly hard to convince oneself that its practitioners are acting in good faith.

Plenty of Michael Browns around, but we’ve singled out Bible-thumper, homophobe, Messianic Jew Michael L Brown, who regularly contributes to Townhall.com and serves as Head of the Coalition of Conscience, a small group of Taliban Fundamentalists, as well as president and professor of practical theology at the Fellowship for International Revival and Evangelism School of Ministry [stay well away from that one, please]. Brown’s primary obsession is with homosexuality and gay marriage, and his primary strategy is pretending to be persecuted by the gays. A good illustration of persecution is the manner in which Rush Limbaugh (yes, seriously) has been intimidated and compromised by the homosexual lobby.

In his book A Queer thing happened in America Brown spells out his persecution complex rather clearly – that gays demand rights just means that they want those who oppose them to lose their rights to bully, harass or discriminate against them. Which, according to Brown, is persecution (gay equality activism is even the“principal threat to religious freedom, freedom of conscience [and] freedom of speech”). It isn’t. But to Brown, the logical conclusion to draw is that gays will eventually want to put anyone who oppose them out of circulation. That’s what we call projection; it says very little about gays ,but probably a bit about how Brown views those who disagree with him. And Brown offers no coherent evidence, though he concludes that “[t]he war is on against people of conscience and people of faith who do not affirm homosexual practice, no matter how loving and fair-minded they may be.” And if you doubted that there was a nefarious conspiracy, Brown can cite a lot of demonstrably bogus articles and hoaxes that suggest otherwise.

According to Brown, homosexuality is caused by demons (the same as, or related to, the demons that according to Brown are responsible for porn and drug addiction): “ ... the battle lines have been drawn, the enemy is taking ground, and many of us hardly realize that the war is on. The devil is moving forward with energy and aggression. What in the world are we doing?” Accordingly, according to Brown, if gays are freed of demonic influence they will become heterosexuals. (“I have friends who [shall apparently remain unnamed and who] identified as transgender and who had GID who are healed and transformed by the power of the gospel.”) After saying things like this, Brown usually points out that he will be called out for saying it, which he probably will be given the sheer stupidity of the claims, but which to him is, once again, proof of persecution. You see, criticism is persecution when Brown is on the receiving end of that criticism. It also proves that Brownis really the victim here, and therefore not a homophobe.

Surely, calling him a homophobe is unfair. After all, he takes pains to emphasize his love and compassion, for instance in his 2014 Can You Be Gay and Christian?: Responding With Love and Truth to Questions About Homosexuality. Among what counts as “truth” is apparently that “gay activism”, rather than bigotry, was responsible for the brutal murder of 15 year-old openly gay eight grader Lawrence King in 2008 because gay kids are not sufficiently discouraged by their communities from hiding their sexual orientation when in environments where bigots like Michael Brown may hate and attack and abuse them. (He later admitted that gay teens do kill themselves because of bullying, but it’s not a big deal since kids kill themselves for all sorts of reasons). Among what counts as “love” is presumably his defense of Uganda’s draconian anti-homosexuality law, which according to Brown is necessary to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS and combat pedophilia: “Uganda has some very strong reasons for having issues with homosexual practice.” So, apparently, does Brown.

Naturally, the reasonBrown opposes gay rights is the Bible. The Bible is clear about homosexuality. Of course, Brown admits, the Bible is also clear about slavery. However, according to Brown, “God did intend to legislate slavery in ancient Israel, but in a humane way and as part of a larger economic system.” And “[l]et’s not forget that every Sabbath, slaves rested as the nation remembered Israel’s deliverance from Egyptian slavery.” Indeed.

He also writes about politics (and Michael Sam). For instance, Brown – an avowed theocrat – has argued that President Obama is not a Christian because he supports gay equality and opposes the criminalization of abortion, and is “more a disciple of Saul Alinsky than of Jesus.” (Yup, that’s the level of his contributions to debates). He also compares Obama negatively to Martin Luther King, Jr., whom he said was a “great unifier” while Obama is the “great divider.” Need we remind Michael Brown that MLK was not exactly seen as a unifier by people like Michael Brown in the 60s?

Here is Brown on gays in the boy scouts.

Diagnosis: Yes, evil is good, lies are truth and dishonesty apparently a virtue. With great hatred comes great disregard for reality, evidence and reason. Fortunately there is evidence that howling, lunatic monsters like Michael Brown are in the process of marginalizing themselves (though he thinks they’ll bounce back any moment now). Perhaps zeh gays are just realizing that persecution is way less effective than what Brown is doing to his own credibility through his own words and actions?

We’ve already covered Tom Brown the tracker, but he is presumably not related to the Tom Brown of this post. This post’s Tom Brown is an exorcist and a bit of a D-list celebrity after having made some TV appearances (e.g. a credulous portrait on MSNBC).

Brown actually thinks he can exorcise curses such as being gay from people (curses, by the way, is a means to keep the attention of his congregation at the Word of Life church; according to Brown, if the lives of his church members are going badly – their finances are a mess, their kids won’t behave, they keep getting sick – they may literally be cursed, and Brown is the go-to guy for supernatural powers to break the spell). Indeed, Brown actually seems to think that he is actually influencing the politics of his hometown El Paso through religious exorcism magic. Brown did for instance help lead the drive to harm gays by ending the domestic-partner benefits in the city. “I think the values of El Paso are the same as other cities, but it is very hard to pass these things” when the citizens have opponents like Brown, who is proud to be as hateful, petty and malicious as to be indistinguishable from the demons he claims to exorcise. To make sure he succeeded Brown did of course not restrict himself to spiritual means, since, you know, when push comes to shove.

“Christ”, says Brown, “does not say people should be tolerant of homosexuals,” but he does emphasize that he is not a hater. I don’t think saying that you are not a hater is enough to make it true, Tom.

Diagnosis: Unflinching hater.

A.k.a. Sye tenB

Sye ten Bruggencate is an Internet … uh, personality, most familiar as Kent Hovind’s squire and herald. He is also a regular contributor to Eric Hovind’s “Creation Today” videos, which promote anti-science, biblical literalism and demonstrably false information about science with the goal of indoctrinating children and vulnerable adults because the Ten Commandments don’t apply when you are doing the work of Jesus.

Ten Bruggencate is particularly famous for what Rationalwiki calls “his aggressive indifference” toward evidence, logic or any reasoned response to his own claims, a trait that is notable for instance in his “defense” of a transcendentalist argument for the existence of God as a necessary presupposition for logic and morality. The basic strategy, then, is to argue that without (the Christian) God it is impossible to know anything (never mind the obvious self-defeating nature of that position), therefore nothing will count as evidence unless you presuppose the existence of a God or subscribe to a literal interpretation of the Bible; therefore evolution is wrong, Big Bang is a fraud, science is meaningless, and ten Bruggencate is free to believe whatever he wants. It is less intelligent than that description makes it sound (hint to ten Bruggencate: Your transcendentalist argument for God can at best establish the conditional “if knowledge is possible, God exists;” to show that God exists, you have to establish the antecedent, and any way of doing that will undermine the argument; not that he will ever see the problem, or that this is the most egregious problem with his argument.) He is generally not particularly willing to discuss the argument (here’s one example), however, and instead threatens any non-Christians (or Christians who disagree with him) them the fires of hell for their failure to agree that to engage in a conversation requires that they first acknowledge the existence of God and the Bible is inerrant.

Be warned about engaging with him, though: ten Bruggencate is well known for repeatedly using heavily, rabidly dishonestly edited and quote-mined discussions he has had with people who disagree with him for commercial purposes. Then again, he doesn’t believe in people who disagree with him anyways.

We have covered his creationist talking points so many times before that we can’t be bothered to repeat them. He has also said that he thinks a Christian theocracy would be the best form of government, which is not very surprising from someone who thinks that disagreeing with him or refusing to debate him on his premises is persecution.

Diagnosis: A sort of Platonic idea of lack of self-awareness – and a scam artist (though he probably doesn’t realize). He also really seems to be insane enough to believe that his arguments have some merit.

A small break from the onslaught of angry anti-gay activists: Karissa Brusseau is a massage therapist in Fargo, ND who has, over the years, “expanded her massage therapy practice beyond the body to the mind and soul” and became a “past life coach”. Indeed, she is touted as a “certified soul and past-life coach,” which adds just so much extra credibility. She also does CranioSacral therapy, reiki and intuitive consulting through her business, Lotus Touch. And to top it all, she leads classes, workshops and speaks at holistic expos, as well as phone and email readings and coaching (but of course).

Diagnosis: Just one of hundreds or thousands of similar people who just had sufficiently bad karma to come our way. But the fact that there are so many of these people doesn’t alter the fact that Brusseau touts herself as a “past life coach” and claims to be able to do things she can’t explain and much less is actually able to do.

It’s hard to talk about Dave Buehner without talking about Kevin Swanson, his partner in crime. And since Swanson is clearly the, uh, dominant part in their relationship, we were tempted to just mention Buehner in our upcoming post on Swanson. On the other hand it’s hard to defend the usefulness of an Encyclopedia of loons that didn’t have an entry on Buehner, so here we go.

Let’s start easy, with Buehner’s views on homosexuality (“flesh eating virus” and “sores” with “happy faces carved into them”). On a broadcast of Generations Radio Buehner warned that God “hates homosexuals” just as a father would hate having his daughter put her hand on a hot stove, and homosexuality will reap divine punishment just as a hot stove will burn someone’s hand: “If we put our hands on the stove, we’ll get burned,” Buehner said, and “if we embrace homosexuality, we’ll destroy society, we’ll destroy lives, we’ll destroy families, we’ll destroy everything.” Earlier, he compared making gay friends to befriending cannibals and likened gay marriage to the Sandy Hook shooting, which is a totally reasonable thing to do. (He’s not that strong on spelling out the actual mechanisms for the causal relations he posits, or the details of his analogies, but never mind.)

He has also urged legislators to “remove homosexuals from society, saying they’ll also pay the price at the golden gates if they don’t fall in line.” And “God’s law to the civil magistrate in terms of homosexuality says you should remove the abomination from the land, so that’s God’s instruction to the people who work up in the capitol who make our laws. That’s what they’re going to be held accountable for.” (Note that the idea of having any government form short of strict theocracy isn’t even on Buehner’s radar). He also expressed support for the Ugandan “kill the gays” bill and laws from the pilgrim era that criminalized homosexuality (they must be punished in all ways possible – Buehner and Swanson actually suggest stoning (and wondered why the 2014 Rose Bowl parade didn’t include a float with a gay person being stoned to death) – in the name of freedom just as God will punish America in the name of freedom). To Colorado legislators he argued that recognizing civil unions would make Colorado worse than North Korea, but he didn’t go into detail, and given his views on how society should function elsewhere one wonders precisely what aspect of North Korean government he finds objectionable. (You can probably guess the answer, and it is probably not totalitarianism.) Here Buehner and Swanson explain why some people become gay.

People had various reactions to Obama’s 2012 reelection. According to Buehner (with Swanson), it “solidified our doom.” They also said that Obama doesn’t have a mandate, he has a “womandate” because men didn’t vote for him (which presumably means that his presidency is illegitimate since women don’t count). Oh, and he’s also just like the North Korean dictator, just so. And yes, these people are for reals.

And the misogyny is very much representative. Buehner has earlier argued that women ought only be legally allowed to work for their husbands as the Bible commands. Single women, on the other hand, are owned by theirfathers, and have no rights (new gonorrhea strains are being sent by God to punish America to underline this, by the way). Dimly aware that some may disagree, Buehner has also tried to preempt the obvious responses by discussing feminism (with Swanson), concluding that there are “two forms of feminism.” There are “cute” feminists like Sarah Palin who will find jobs in the “marketplace” and “get themselves a husband” but will “never submit to the husband, in fact they will use their power probably to make their husband submit to them.” (Yes, Palin is Satan’s whore: A hot, arch-liberal champion of equality and communism.) Then, there are the “ugly” feminists whose “lack of attractiveness has not given them access to the power that they wanted in the marketplace.” These “attractively challenged” feminists will only find careers in academia [the Pharisees!] and in government agencies, for instance: “you can run the EPA.” What all these feminists have in common, though, is that “all of them want to be free from the family” and together with “the homosexuals” they are “destroying society.” This conclusion led Buehner to speculate that in the future, feminism will be remembered as “a time in which women lost the love of their children” and “decided to become selfish, narcissistic, family-destroying whores.” Girl scout cookies are evil, “big, black magic” as well, for the same ~~reason~~ I don’t know what to call it.

And the boy scouts? They will soon have merit badges for “sodomy” and “cannibalism”, Buehner and Swanson predict.

A highlight of his career may still be his discussion (once again with Swanson) in the wake of Desmond Tutu’s remark that he would rather go to hell than “a homophobic heaven.” B&S concluded, predictably, that Tutu “hates Jesus”, but added, referring to the famous Christ the Redeemer statue that towers over Rio de Janeiro, that “he’s probably good with Jesús, the drug lord from Bolivia, or the big drug lord from Rio De Janeiro that’s got his hands out, remember that guy?” And Tutu’s remark certainly proves that the pope is the head of the gay agenda since he wears a dress. No, these guys are serious. Not poes.

Diagnosis: Yup, he’s vying for the title of most extreme, hatefully bigoted wingnut on the Internet. Even the Phelpses struggle to out-hate this guy, and probably falls short on hysterically incoherent mindrot as well. A feat indeed.

Benjamin Bull is the executive director of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) Global. The ADF supports a ban on gay marriage“to protect the integrity of the family and by extension to protect traditional marriage,” and wants homosexuality to be criminalized. According to Bull when the high court struck down sodomy laws in Texas in a 6-3 decision that affected similar laws in other states, the case “laid the groundwork for the invalidation of traditional marriage by a number of courts subsequent to that.” He also suggests that we need to look to India, applauding the Indian Supreme Court for reinstating a colonial-era law that punishes homosexuality with up to 10 years in prison: “America needs to take note that a country of 1.2 billion people has rejected the road towards same-sex marriage, and understood that these kinds of bad decisions in the long run will harm society.” One cannot help but conclude that Bull and his fellow ADF people called their organization what they did precisely because they are very much aware that what they are defending is so far removed from freedom as it is possible to get but need to pretend otherwise. The fact that you hate someone doesn’t automatically make campaigns to oppress them a fight for freedom. We really shouldn’t need to have to point that out.

Diagnosis: A Taliban fundie, Bull might actually think he is defending freedom, which would make him utterly, abysmally delusional. He might also just be really dishonest.

Judy Burges is a Republican member of the Arizona State Senate and a staunch opponent of evidence, truth and science. Oh, yes – another hysterically insance, incomprehensibly deluded and demented state senator. In April 2014, Burges also traveled to Nevada and showed support for rancher Cliven Bundy (who is not going to get his own entry) in breaking the law because he doesn’t recognize the United States as having any legislative power over him. “I stand with them,” Burges said of the Bundy family, but does apparently not wish to extend her support for breaking laws one doesn’t want to follow particularly far.

But we’ll focus on her anti-science efforts. Burges was, with the late Chester Crandell, the sponsor of Senate Bill 1213 of 2013 (co-sponsors Rick Murphy, Steve Pierce, Don Shooter and Steve Yarbrough), the purpose of which was to use an “academic freedom” strategy for undermining the teaching of evolution and climate change (as well as “the chemical origins of life” and human cloning), presenting them as “scientific controversies” that should allegedly be used to encourage students to develop critical thinking skills (which was of course not the actual purpose and would have been an absolutely silly purpose if it were). Burges said that climate science was her primary concern, complaining of an imbalance in the presentation of climate change – apparently the schools mostly present facts, not the denialist myths Burges prefers to believe.And Burges, of course, wouldn’t recognize critical thinking skills if they hit her in the face.

The bill died in committee, but we don’t expect Burges to give up.

Diagnosis: Yes, it’s an onslaught. Apparently Arizona’s District 22 is crammed with morons who continue to elect demented nitwits like Burges to their State Senate. Stupidity and zeal make her something of a threat to civilization.

Jack Burkman is a political consultant and the president of Burkman Associates, LLC. He is most famous, however, for (yup, another one) being a rabid anti-gay crusader, and drew some media attention for organizing a protest against the Dallas Cowboys NFL football team after it signed Michael Sam. “We cannot just stand idly by as Christian values and morals are trampled [because a gay man got a job]. We will do whatever we can to preserve family values in this country,” said Burkman (and it’s all about “family values”). “We are losing our decency as a nation,” continued Burkman: “Imagine your son being forced to shower with a gay man. That’s a horrifying prospect for every mom in the country. What in the world has this nation come to?” But he’s not a homophobe, apparently; it’s all about values. Apparently he also boycotted Visa.

The protest was organized by his organization American Decency, which claims to have 3.62 million members.

In February 2014, Burkman claimed to be working on legislation that would prohibit openly gay players in the NFL, a project that quickly engendered some backlash. His argument is that “If the NFL has no morals and no values, then Congress must find values for it.” Apparently guys in the NFL who are, you know, wife beaters or drunk drivers or so on aren’t a value concern, but gay men?

It also seems that Burkman has a … colorful background, but I suppose it’s all in the name of “family values”.

Here is Burkman discussing foreign policy with Frank Gaffney.

Diagnosis: Morally bankrupt, and crazy to boot. He still appears to have some powerful connections, but we really cannot imagine that he’ll retain them for long.

Phil Burress is a self-described former porn addict and director of Citizens for Community Values, an anti-porn group founded on religious extremism.

Of course, Burress is not quite content with targeting porn, so he has branched out to anti-gay efforts as well (surprise). His efforts reveal an almost remarkable lack of ability to think clearly about issues. For instance, when Ohio Gov. Strickland issued an order protecting gays from discrimination in state employment, Burress took objection to the use of “gender identity” and “actual or perceived” homosexuality in the order. There are at least two problems with those definitions, Burress maintained: first, there is no definitive test for homosexuality; and second, the word “perceived” addresses what people think, which made Burress ask: “So we’re going to be suing people because of what someone was thinking?” Yes, he is that ridiculous, and if someone fired Burress because he’s a Christian, you’d think he’d be consistent and refrain from suing “because of what someone was thinking”? He also complained that the order was likely a move to help homosexual activists who hope to eventually get a law passed through the state legislature that codifies “special rights” for them because of their sexual orientation (like not being fired for their sexual orientation). But the clincher was his claim that his organization “has been unable to find one case in his state [Ohio] or elsewhere in the United States in which discrimination because of sexual gender or identity in employment-related cases has been proven,” which for him makes Governor Strickland’s new executive order “very suspect”. He didn’t expand on what data gathering approach his organization had been using.

As for a 2014 proposal to expand Cleveland’s nondiscrimination ordinance to include protections for transgender people, Burress warned that it would allow “mentally disturbed” people to “be around women and girls in a women’s restroom” (which, it should be noted, also illustrates Burress’s view on people with mental health problems).

When Senator Rob Portman came out in support of gay marriage after his son had come out as gay, Burress was (very) upset and called him “a very troubled man” who is “distraught over what’s happened to his son.” Burress drew that conclusion after talking to Portman, who was “basically sad throughout the conversation,” according to Burress, who had initially thought Portman was “looking for help for his son to walk away from the lifestyle” through “ex-gay” therapy, but eventually realized that it was “obvious that he was going to embrace his son’s behavior, which was devastating, because he just gives his son no chance whatsoever of understanding, you know, that he doesn’t have to be that way.” One could, perhaps, imagine some reasons why Portman appeared, uh, “sad” to Burress in that conversation, but Burress is apparently not very savvy when it comes to picking up such things. He later declared war on Portman and the GOP over marriage equality.

“Hey, this guy is … kinda delusional,” should be your response at this point. And indeed. In March 2014 Burress said that if there’s a ballot referendum in Ohio in 2016 to repeal the state’s ban on same sex marriage, that will be the demise of Hillary Clinton if she’s the Democratic nominee for president. Yes, really; the fact that polls suggested otherwise was just proof these polls were skewed: “On no other issue in America is the polling data is so wrong. The real polls are when people go to the polls and vote.” (Likewise, America will revolt if SCOTUS votes in favor of gay marriage, predicted Burress). And according to Burress, LGBT “activists” (“bullies” who seek to “brainwash Americans”) are in a conspiracy to confuse children in order to recruit new members; well, at least someone (probably Burress himself) has managed to confuse Burress to the point where one almost feels a bit sad for him.

More drivel from Burress includes his claim that gays will use every opportunity to force themselves on people and insult American families by existing (the premise is that people who are not themselves gay are by default opposed to gays).

Diagnosis: Hateful and angry and still somewhat influential, but so delusional he is almost worthy of pity.

Haywood Bynum III seems to have a lot of good people confused. I am almost completely sureit is satire, but there are people who would in all seriousness make the kinds of claims Bynum makes about homosexuality or evolution, and he’s managed to fool a lot of otherwise good people.

His namesake, Pierre Bynum, is not funny at all, however, and is definitely not satire – even if his views are interestingly similar to those satirically promoted by Haywood. Pierre Bynum is prayer director at the hate group the Family Research Council, no less. As such, Bynum spends his time on activities like calling on the FRC members and sympathizers to pray for God to stop LGBT Pride Month, i.e. to “stop the advance of this official celebration of sin,” and to pray against “homosexual tyranny” (yeah, another one). Says Bynum: “Only heaven knows exactly how this brazen departure from the moral law of God will impact our nation,” which is, you know, an abysmally stupid thing to say. He has also called on God to “intervene” to stop marriage equality in Washington, which, if you think about it, is a rather strange thing to do: If he genuinely believed that God hates gays, and that he himself was opposed to gay marriage because he was just committed to following God’s rules, you’d think that he would pray for God not to do something stupid even if Washington adopted gay marriage. What he actually does, however, suggests that Bynum sort of knows that he is the one who hates gays and just hopes that God will take his side on the matter.

Bynum, a close ally of none other than Cindy Jacobs, is also a staunch dominionist, and a firm supporter of instituting a blatantly unconstitutional religious test for office. That, in Bynum’s mind, would have stopped Obama. According to Bynum “Obama loves to spit in the face of scripture,” and his support for gay marriage is proof that “the spirit of the Antichrist” is behind President Obama’s “deep-seated hatred of God, the Holy Bible and the Christian faith.”

Diagnosis: Complete and utter madman with no redeeming qualities. Dangerous.

The idea that abortion could increase the risk of breast cancer wasn’t medically wholly implausible, and yes: It was worth studying. However, at this point serious studies have thoroughly refuted the idea – there is no link. Predictably, though, those with certain political agendas to fuel are not prepared to accept reality, and – as expected – the topic has given us plenty of opportunities to observe crankery in action.

Dennis Byrne is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, and he has an axe to grind. In Byrne’s world, the issue is still open, but studies indicating a link are suppressed by the establishment for political purposes. In particular, to bolster his claim Byrne has referred to studies published in JPANDs that continue to assert that there is a link between abortion and breast cancer. According to Byrne, however, these studies are dismissed because they appear in“a ‘conservative’ scientific journal.” So let us just get this straight: The fact that a purportedly scientific journal is identifiable as having a political profile should channel a bazillion red warning flags. And of course, the problem with JPANDs is not that it is published by the, uh, “conservative” Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, but that the group is as scientific as the Family Research Council and that JPANDs is a pseudojournal the credibility of which is roughly comparable to whale.to. As for the study Byrne refers to, it is discussed here, here and here; it is hard to believe that it was honestly done by anyone minimally competent in scientific research (we’ve encountered the author, Patrick Carroll, before, by the way). Byrne, however, doesn’t seem too interested in the details and opts instead to defend the study by arguing that “science was wrong before”.

He has also been caught defending creationists – Byrne accepts evolution, but claims that “[m]y own believe [sic] is that creationism and evolution are not mutually exclusive lines of thought,” which suggests that he doesn’t understand that debate very well either. And here he seems to defend Intelligent Design (it is a bit unclear whether he understands what it is) by claiming that “[p]hilosophers and theologians may – must, actually – rigorously examine the scientific theory that random chance explains everything,” which is supposed to address … what, exactly?

At present Byrne is probably most noted for his global warming denialism (no, we will provide no link).

Diagnosis: Shame on the Tribune for picking up someone who clearly doesn’t understand the barest fundamentals of the topics he writes about, presumably in an effort to represent “all sides” of issues that are controversial among non-experts. Doddering fool.

If you ever find yourself in the vicinity of Stone Mountain, Georgia, you risk running into the lunatic hubris of Mark Cahill. Cahill is an evangelist known for books like One Thing You Can’t Do In Heaven and One Heartbeat Away, manuals for how to harass your surroundings with Taliban-style fundamentalist talking points. A favorite tactic of Cahill’s is apparently stuffing evangelism tracts inside soda pop cartons when you visit the local grocery store, but he also recommends using “malls, music and art festivals, beaches, sporting events, and bar sections of towns”. His books contain materials intended to convince otherwise abysmally ignorant people of the existence and worldly influence of angels and demons, as well as the Satanic dangers of Buddhists, fornicators, pot smokers and the theory of evolution. Accordingly, Cahill is a fierce opponent of … schools, including Christian schools: “We have heard of Christian schools teaching all kinds of unbiblical information from evolution being true to ‘old earth’; that the prophecies in the Bible were written down after they occurred,” says Cahill, so “the real danger for students as they head to school lies in whether their guard is down, and whether they have been taught to be critical thinkers.” Which means, it seems, that in order to protect fundamentalism, students shoud avoid critical thinking like the plague. His website also contains a long list of anecdotes about speaking with atheists and “evolutionists” that are rather obviously ridiculously false, and recommendations for how creationists can challenge teachers when it comes to evolution (straight from AiG), including “were you there?”

Diagnosis: Oh, ye liars for Jesus, and Cahill is even more blatant about his use of this strategy than most. He seems to have a bit of influence, but it is very, very doubtful that he’s ever convinced anyone not already on the side of unreason.

#1419: Peter Brimelow

#1420: Joel Brind

#1421: Felicia Briones-Colman

#1422: Kelly Brogan

#1423: Kevin Brooks (and more or less the entire Tennessee House of Representatives)

#1424: Floyd Brown(?)

#1425: John Brown

#1426: John D. Brown

#1427: Michael Brown

#1428: Tom Brown

#1429: Sye ten Bruggencate

#1430: Karissa Brusseau

#1431: Dave Buehner

#1432: Benjamin Bull

#1433: Judy Burges

#1434: Jack Burkman

#1435: Phil Burress

#1436: Pierre Bynum

#1437: Dennis Byrne

#1438: Mark Cahill