TBR News March 21, 2020

The Voice of the White House
Washington, D.C. March 21, 2020:“Working in the White House as a junior staffer is an interesting experience.
When I was younger, I worked as a summer-time job in a clinic for people who had moderate to severe mental problems and the current work closely, at times, echos the earlier one.
I am not an intimate of the President but I have encountered him from time to time and I daily see manifestations of his growing psychological problems.
He insults people, uses foul language, is frantic to see his name mentioned on main-line television and pays absolutely no attention to any advice from his staff that runs counter to his strange ideas.
He lies like a rug to everyone, eats like a hog, makes lewd remarks to female staffers and flies into rages if anyone dares to contradict him.
It is becoming more and more evident to even the least intelligent American voter that Trump is vicious, corrupt and amoral. He has stated often that even if he loses the
election in 2020, he will not leave the White House. I have news for Donald but this is not the place to discuss it.

Commentary for March 21, 2020

More scare propganda from Reuters

• Stay-at-home directives multiply in major U.S. states
• New Jersey’s governor is expected to follow four other states – California, New York, Illinois and Connecticut – demanding that millions of Americans close up shop and stay home to slow the spread of coronavirus infections.
• Senators defend selling shares before coronavirus crash
• Member of Pence’s office tests positive
• Drive-through tests: coming to a store near you
• Coronavirus drives up demand – and pay – for temporary U.S. nurses
• Starbucks closes most U.S., Canada cafes, moves to drive-through
• Singapore reports two deaths from coronavirus, first fatalities in country
• Virus poses new threat for Games
• Italy’s coronavirus deaths surge by 627 in a day, elderly at high risk

and from The Guardian

• Up to 1,000% increase in claims: jobless New Yorkers overwhelm system
• Coronavirus layoffs see 400% increase in logins to website
• Claimants say phone and online contact nearly impossible
• Fears of catastrophe as Greece puts migrant camps into lockdown
• Doctors say coronavirus outbreak could be disastrous amid ‘horrific’ conditions
• America is in crisis. We need universal basic income now
• ‘We were on borrowed time’: coronavirus could strike final blow to local newspapers
• A number of west coast papers have suspended publication as ad revenue from local events and businesses plummets
• Spain death toll passes 1,300 as Singapore reports first two deaths
• New York announces all non-essential workers must stay home

and from the New York Times

• With New State Decrees, 1 in 5 Americans to Be Ordered Home
• U.S. Is Plunged Into Deeper Disruption and Paralysis
• The Coronavirus’s Rampage Through a Nursing Home
• Coronavirus Recession Looms, Its Course ‘Unrecognizable’
• 1,200 Airport Workers in N.Y.C. Area Abruptly Laid Off With No Severance
• How to Avoid Complete Economic Destruction
• What to Watch, Listen to and Cook During Self-Quarantine
• The weekend is upon us. You’re home, and you need a distraction. Let us help.
• You Can Take Care of Yourself in Quarantine, Starting Right Now
• How Coronavirus-Weary Americans Are Seeking Joy

and the Washington Post
• States increase restrictions as U.S. cases surge toward 20,000
• Americans stranded in Honduras are scrambling to find a way back home
• UAE reports first two deaths, both elderly patients
• Los Angeles County tells doctors to limit coronavirus testing
• Economy deteriorating faster than anticipated as 80 million Americans are staying at home
• How coronavirus will radically alter the U.S.
• America needs to be on a war footing
• Prepping for coronavirus is just like prepping for Doomsday
• Laid-off restaurant workers face uncertain futures with looming rent and plenty of worry
• Homeowners are getting federal mortgage relief. Renters aren’t so lucky.

and, finally, from Deutsche Welle

• Coronavirus latest: Germany reports over 20,000 cases
• The coronavirus is the end of the ‘entitled millennial’
• Coronavirus and the homeless: Washington risks ‘people dying in communal shelters’
• German states move closer to near-total lockdowns
• Coronavirus: Germany plans to mobilize military reservists
• Aside from a Coronavirus vaccine, antibodies from recovered patients could provide a short-term “passive immunization.”
• Coronavirus can damage lung function after recovery
• Coronavirus strands refugee children
• Traffic chaos at German-Polish border a threat to local supply chains?
• Toilet paper as a symbol of the coronavirus crisis

Or How about …..

• Thousands of dead pile up in New York subway stations
• All citizens of Denver to be locked in their homes this week
• Food stores close in New Orleans; locals turn to cannibalism
• AMTRAK trains and passengers to be sanitized with nitric acid
• Boy Scout shot by deputy for forcibly stealing sanitary napkins
• Death toll in Madrid to reach 20,000,000 by Sunday
• Breathing forbidden in Mont Royal after 9AM
• Huge Saudi camel die-off caused by plague
• New evolution of coronavirus causes massive incontinence in pets
• In Miami, hundreds of sceaming coronavirus cases thrown into alligator pen at zoo

The Table of Contents
The Loony Tunes News
• One in five Americans under strict stay-home orders to slow coronavirus spread
• ‘Inducing panic’: Media under fire for driving coronavirus hype to epidemic levels
• Toning down the 2019-nCoV media hype—and restoring hope
• It is near; it is at hand. Maybe tomorrow but probably never
• The Encyclopedia of American Loons

The Loony Tunes News
One in five Americans under strict stay-home orders to slow coronavirus spread
New York, Connecticut, Illinois and California tell residents to stay indoors while New Jersey set to announce more restrictions
March 21, 2020
by Edward Helmore
The Guardian
As New Jersey prepares to order more social restrictions on its citizens, more than one in five Americans are now under orders to only leave home to run essential errands and maintain a 6ft separation from others.
New York, Connecticut, Illinois and California have now asked residents to stay at their places of residence, representing about 75 million people out of a total US population of about 327 million.
It is an unprecedented closure of vast parts of the country as the US seeks to get a grip on the rapidly expanding coronavirus outbreak and is dealing a devastating blow to the largest economy in the world by threatening millions of Americans with unemployment.
It is also wreaking havoc on social and cultural life. Americans have shut themselves indoors and businesses, restaurants and cultural institutions like cinemas, theaters and sports events have come to a shuddering halt.
The directives come as an increasing number of states issue disaster declarations that allow for military to be called in and to gain access to more than $50bn in federal relief funds.
Under the declarations, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) will be authorized to send its personnel and resources to set up mobile coronavirus testing centers, disinfect public facilities, and distribute medical supplies including face masks, gloves and surgical gowns.
House-quarantining, or stay-at-home orders, are scheduled to take effect on Sunday evening in New York. The Army Corps of Engineers has said it plans to take over hotels, sports arenas, college dorms and other buildings to cope with the growing number or residents requiring medical care.
Growing alarm over the fast spread of the virus in US population centers comes as the American Red Cross announced it is facing a shortage of blood donations drop by 150,000 as centers close across the US.
The warning comes as researchers at Columbia University said even if the US cuts its rate of transmission in half, 650,000 people might become infected in the next two months.
The study is based on a New York Times database of known infections to model how coronavirus transmission could develop.
Health authorities, meanwhile, have announced a worsening shortage of masks and gowns need by health workers as thousands flood hospitals and testing stations. Panic buying at supermarkets is accompanied by other efforts to stock up: gun shops in upstate New York and elsewhere have been flood with customers.
On Friday, governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey said the state planned to order all non-essential businesses closed. The directive is expected to come Saturday. Murphy did not go as far as saying if he will mandate people in New Jersey to stay at home. “To be determined,” he said during a Facebook Live interview with NJ Advance Media.
In Illinois, Governor Jay Pritzker announced on Friday asked all 12 million residents to leave the house only when necessary, starting Saturday. The Connecticut order came on Friday also.
Other orders have been issued at the city level.
New Orleans mayor LaToya Cantrell issued a similar order, asking the city’s 390,000 residents to go out for “critical needs only.”
Wall Street ended its worst week since the 2008 financial crisis with the Dow below where it stood on the day before Donald Trump was inaugurated. The S&P 500, which fell more than 4%, is not far from that mark as well. The president has trumpeted the so-called “Trump bump” throughout his presidency as evidence of his success.

‘Inducing panic’: Media under fire for driving coronavirus hype to epidemic levels
Experts urge public to take disease seriously but not overreact
March 11, 2020
by Valerie Richards
The Washington Times
Concerns about the coronavirus pandemic are both warranted and understandable, but the media is increasingly coming under fire for stoking a panic mentality that experts decry as both counter-productive and unsupported by the facts.
In addition to the stock market’s daily roller coaster ride, grocery stores and warehouse clubs in some areas have been picked clean of essentials such as toilet paper, paper towels and sanitizing wipes (or have rationed sales to prevent that) as coronavirus coverage dominates social media and the 24/7 news cycle.
The message from public health and infectious disease experts: It’s important to take the coronavirus threat seriously, but it’s also critical not to overreact.
“There’s been a mad rush to go out and purchase all these items in anticipation of the next apocalypse. That’s not what we’re dealing with,” said Dr. Robert Quigley, regional medical director of International SOS. “We’re dealing clearly with a pandemic for all intents and purposes, but the vast majority of us who are going to contract the disease are not going to be significantly impacted.”
University of California, Irvine associate professor E. Alison Holman, who has published research on media exposure to mass-trauma events, said the toilet paper scare appeared to have originated with articles about stocking up before the virus’ spread.
“A week ago, there were a handful of articles in major newspapers saying, here’s what you should do to prepare for the coronavirus. And one of the top things that was listed on at least two or three websites — major media outlets — was: Buy toilet paper,” Ms. Holman said. “I think some of the freak-out about getting toilet paper has to do with that.”
She described the media-fueled worry as “a little overblown,” while others have gone so far as to accuse the press of sensationalizing the virus to juice ratings.
Celebrity internist Dr. Drew Pinsky said Tuesday that media outlets “really somehow need to be held accountable because they are hurting people.”
“I think it was a concerted effort by the press to capture your eyes, and in doing so they did it by inducing panic,” said Dr. Pinsky, who operates a private practice in Pasadena, California, in an interview with DJ Sixsmith on CBS Los Angeles.
He pointed to coverage of the World Health Organization’s estimate of a 3.4% fatality rate, far higher than the 0.1% death rate associated with the flu, which stoked alarm even though WHO officials emphasized that the figure was expected to drop as more cases were reported.
“Every publication from the WHO says 3.4% and we expect it to fall dramatically once we understand the full extent of the illness,” said Dr. Pinsky. “No one ever reports the actual statement.”
Even without the media hype, epidemics by their very nature can easily generate public panic.
“People aren’t sure exactly what’s going on and how and where it’s going to hit. And it’s also invisible,” Ms. Holman said. “That’s the other thing. It’s an invisible threat. It’s not something you can actually see and figure out how to get away from, and so the ambiguity and invisibility of this threat are making it more anxiety-producing.”
Then there’s the political angle. Democrats have slammed the Trump administration’s response to the public health emergency, while President Trump has accused Democrats of “politicizing the coronavirus” in an attempt to weaken his reelection bid.
“Someone needs to tell the Democrats in Congress that CoronaVirus doesn’t care what party you are in. We need to protect ALL Americans,” Mr. Trump tweeted on Wednesday.
The White House lashed out at a Vanity Fair magazine report Monday that Mr. Trump was in “total meltdown” over the coronavirus, citing several unnamed former administration officials, an article blasted by press secretary Stephanie Grisham as “100% fake news.”
The conservative Media Research Center said Wednesday that The Washington Post had 49 separate articles on its homepage on the coronavirus on a variety of virus issues including canceled sporting events, dating protocol, even before WHO made its pandemic announcement.
“Cynics will inevitably suspect the virus overkill is just partisan Posties piling on bad news to hurt Trump’s reelection prospects,” said MRC’s Matt Philbin. “And, as stated above, clicks are king in the news biz and nothing drives traffic like a good crisis.”
Certainly, there’s plenty of news to report as schools shutter, the stock market rises and falls, and state and local governments declare emergencies. One byproduct is that every American is doubtless aware of the oft-repeated advice to wash their hands regularly for at least 20 seconds with soap and hot water.
“We do have a lot of control here on the way we react, and to the credit of the American people, we are reacting,” former Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said on Fox News. “While it’s difficult to hear about the COVID-19 all day long, it is getting the message across.”
On the minus side, the alarming tone and non-stop nature of the coverage is producing overreactions like stockpiling toilet paper, raising concerns that hospitals, nursing homes and other front-line facilities will be caught short.
“There are things the media can do that sensationalize, and also the repetitive over and over and over — you show the same stuff over and over, say the same things over and over — sometimes that actually will breed anxiety and worry in the population,” Ms. Holman said.
Even worse is social media, where hype, misinformation and outright falsehoods about the disease have gone viral, including posts about “cures” such as drinking bleach and snorting cocaine, both of which are false.
Dr. Quigley said he’s been asked if a hot shower can reverse a case of the coronavirus — it can’t — and called social media “a blessing and a curse.”
“It’s a great way to disseminate information in real time, but boy, the information that is disseminated is not filtered, and it does put people in a panic mode,” he said. “So social media, which is now much more prevalent than it was 10 years ago, is probably not helping us.”
For those seeking to bypass the media intermediaries, experts agree that the most accurate sources are the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“My recommendation to people is pay attention to the World Health Organization and CDC,” Ms. Holman said. “Those are the people you need to see who are managing this and really know.”
⦁ Jessica Chasmar contributed to this report.

Toning down the 2019-nCoV media hype—and restoring hope
March 1 2020
by Giuseppe Ippolito, David S Hui, Francine Ntoumi, Markus Maeurer, Alimuddin Zumla,
The Lancet
Volume 8, ISSUE 3, P230-231, March 1, 2020
As the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak has revealed, the world has become increasingly susceptible to the emergence and outbreaks of new and re-emerging infectious diseases that can spread quickly due to the rapid movement of people globally.1 The appearance of a new infectious disease with pandemic potential usually ignites serious cross-cutting media, as well as scientific and political debate.2, 3 The events surrounding the 2019-nCoV are no different, and for the past 5 weeks, 2019-nCoV has captured global media, political, and scientific attention.4, 5
The flurry of scientific activity surrounding 2019-nCoV has led to over 103 publications (as of Feb 10, 2020), which have defined various epidemiological and clinical features, including evidence of human-to-human transmission in community, household, and hospital settings. These have guided the development of numerous guidelines from WHO and other public health agencies for diagnosis, prevention, and control. As a result of these guidelines, airlines have reacted quickly to the outbreak, including British Airways, Lufthansa, Swiss Air, and Austrian Air, who have suspended flights to and from mainland China. Several countries have also been evacuating their nationals and their family members from Wuhan.
This outbreak highlights the lessons learned from previous outbreaks, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and Ebola, for which China, Saudi Arabia, and WHO faced severe criticisms for slow action. For every outbreak, global preparedness for, and response capacities to, emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases with epidemic potential can be improved upon. The rapid, well coordinated global response to the emergence and detection of 2019-nCoV, and effective communication between scientists, researchers, and epidemiologists and public health and funding agencies, was unprecedented compared with past outbreaks. However, since the first announcement of the outbreak, the news and social media hype has also been unprecedented.
The path from generation of scientific and public health information to consumption and use of this information by the media contains several steps, each of which can lead to exaggeration or misinformation. The proliferation of internet-based health news might encourage selection of media and academic research articles that overstate the strength of causal inference. We investigated the state of causal inference in health research at the end stage of the pathway—ie, the point of social media consumption. Did the media hype emanate from ineffective risk communication both to the public and media? Proactive case finding and increase in contact tracing and screening led to an exponential rise in the numbers of cases reported by the Chinese authorities, with a consequential increase in media reports and ensuing hype. The reproductive rate (R0) predictions, evacuation of European and North American citizens from China, and in some cases the confinement and quarantine of people (eg, in the UK), have gained major visibility in the press and have also contributed to the hype.
Reporting of the situation in real-time from the public on social media could lead to more accurate collating of information by the media. However, the rapid pace of developments, increasing case detection rates, along with increasing diversity of information mean it has become increasingly difficult for the media to assimilate and make meaningful interpretations from this information source. Moreover, the volume of information being reported to and by global public health authorities exceeds the capacity to collate and analyse it, or to cross-reference and verify with other data received. This inability to validate information can fuel speculation, and thereby lead to media and public concern.
The balance between providing the information required for appropriate actions in response to risk and providing information that fuels inappropriate actions is delicate. The global media response to 2019-nCoV remains unbalanced, largely due to the continuously evolving developments and, as a result, public perception of risk remains exaggerated.
The many unknown factors surrounding the virus are likely to lead to further media hype and aberrant public response. For example, the number of people who travelled to and from Wuhan before travel restrictions and the lockdown were put in place, how many of these individuals were asymptomatic or were incubating the virus, and whether screening and current control measures will be effective, are all unknowns.
As of Feb 10, 37 558 cases were confirmed, and 812 deaths had been reported to the WHO. Outside of China, 307 cases had been detected in 24 countries.6 Therefore, although several hundreds of patients remain in intensive care, the overall hospital fatality rate remains at 2%. Therefore, it is time to reduce the hype and hysteria surrounding the 2019-nCoV epidemic and reduce sensationalisation of new information, especially on social media, where many outlets aim to grab attention from followers. Additionally, the disparity between the strength of language as presented to the media by some researchers and politicians and the inference shared on social media requires more research to determine how content is being relayed on different platforms.
An effective way of putting this outbreak into perspective is to compare it with other respiratory tract infections with epidemic potential. 2019-nCoV appears to fit the same pattern as influenza, with most people recovering and with a low death rate; the people at risk of increased mortality are older in age (>65 years), immunosuppressed, or have comorbid illnesses. There is currently no evidence that 2019-nCoV spreads more rapidly than influenza or has a higher mortality rate.
The media should focus on having altruistic intentions and develop dialogue with the appropriate authorities to protect global health security through effective amiable partnerships. They should highlight vaccine development efforts as well as educational and public health measures that are being put in place to prevent the spread of infection. Although there are many things to still learn regarding how best to respond to disease outbreaks of this nature,7 there are also several positives, such as diagnostics tests being developed within 2 weeks and rolled out globally or the rapid garnering of financial support for vaccine development, which should perhaps be in the headlines, to fuel reassurance rather than fear.
GI, AZ, and FN are co-primary investigators of the Pan-African Network on Emerging and Re-emerging Infections (PANDORA-ID-NET) funded by the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership the EU Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. AZ is a NIHR senior investigator. MM is a member of the innate immunity advisory group of the Gates Foundation and his work is funded by the Champalimaud Foundation. We declare no competing interests.

References
1.McCloskey B Dar O Zumla A Heymann DL
Emerging infectious diseases and pandemic potential: status quo and reducing risk of global spread.
Lancet Infect Dis. 2014; 14: 1001-1010
2.Rodriguez-Morales AJ Bonilla-Aldana DK Balbin-Ramon GJ et al.
History is repeating itself, a probable zoonotic spillover as a cause of an epidemic: the case of 2019 novel Coronavirus.
Infez Med. 2020; 28: 3-5
3.Hui DS Azhar EI Madani TA et al.
The continuing 2019-nCoV epidemic threat of novel coronaviruses to global health—The latest 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China.
Int J Infect Dis. 2020; 91: 264-266
4.McCloskey B Heymann DL
SARS to novel coronaviruses—old lessons and new lessons.
Epidemiology Infection. 2020; 148: E22
5.Huang C Wang Y Li X
Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 coronavirus in Wuhan, China.
Lancet. 2020; (published online Jan 24.)
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30183-5
6.WHO
Novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) situation report 20.
https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200209-sitrep-20-ncov.pdf?sfvrsn=6f80d1b9_4
Date: 2020
7.Horton R
Offline. 2019-nCoV outbreak—early lessons.
Lancet. 2020; 395: 322

It is near; it is at hand. Maybe tomorrow but probably never
A compendium of endless predictions of the Second Coming based on period documents
An untold number of people have tried to predict the return of Jesus by using elaborate timetables. Most date setters do not realize that mankind has not kept an unwavering record of time. Anyone wanting to chart, for example, 100 BC to 2000 AD, would have to contend with the fact that 46 BC was 445 days long, there was no year 0 BC, and in 1582 we switched from Julian Years (360 days) to Gregorian (365 days). Because most prognosticators are not aware of all of these errors, their math is immediately off by at least several years if not decades.
The return of Jesus Christ for His Church will easily be the most important event in Pentecostal fictive history and long before the Pentecostal sect evolved in 1900, empty-headed religious zealots, banging on their empty drums, have been predicting the Second Coming. Herewith we present a brief compendium of the more entertaining prophesies for the entertainment of the reader.

53 AD
Even before all the books of the New Testament had been wholly invented, there was talk that Christ’s Return had already taken place. The Thessalonians panicked when they heard a rumor that the day of the Lord was at hand, and they had missed the event..
500
A Roman priest living in the second century predicted Christ would return in 500 AD, based on the dimensions of Noah’s ark. Someone must have used a bad ruler because Jesus did not appear in 500 AD
1000
All credulous members of what passed for normal society seemed affected by the prediction that Jesus was coming back at the start of the new millennium. The magic of the number 1000 was the sole reason for the expectation. During concluding months of 999 AD, everyone was on his best behavior; worldly goods were sold and given to the poor; swarms of pilgrims headed east to meet the Lord at Jerusalem; buildings went unrepaired; crops were left unplanted; and criminals were set free from jails. When the year 999 AD turned into 1000 AD, nothing happened. Many citizens of the world who had given their property away, but certainly not those who accepted it, were stunned but eventually hopeful that the event would be postponed until 1001. Nothing happened then, either.
1033
This year was cited as the beginning of the millennium because it marked 1,000 years since Christ’s alleged crucifixion.
1186
The “Letter of Toledo” warned everyone to hide in the caves and mountains. The world was reportedly to be destroyed with only a few spared, including the letter writer. It was not.
1420
The Taborites of Czechoslovakia predicted every city in the known world would be annihilated by fire. Only the five mountain strongholds they occupied would be saved from the Celestial Barbeque. This did not happen
1524-1526
Muntzer, a leader of German peasants, announced that the return of Christ was near. After Muntzer and his men destroyed the high and mighty, the Lord would supposedly return. This belief led to an uneven battle against government troops. He was strategically outnumbered. Muntzer claimed to have had a vision from God in which the Lord promised that He would catch the cannonballs of the enemy in the sleeves of His cloak. The prediction within the vision turned out to be false when Muntzer and his followers were mowed down by cannon fire. If one believes their stories, the disintegrated had the pleasure of going to heaven in a number of pieces which God Himself would lovingly sort out just like pious Jewish religious ambulance workers reassembling those fragmented in a Jerusalem bus attack.
1534
A repeat of the Muntzer affair occurred a few years later. This time, one greatly deluded by apparently very forceful, Jan Matthys took over the city of Münster in Germany. The city was to be the only one spared from Divine destruction. The inhabitants of Münster, evicted by Matthys and his men, regrouped and laid siege to the city. Within a year, every one of the strange occupiers in the city was dead. They also had an express ticket to Heaven.
1650-1660
In an England beset by religious fanatics, the Fifth Monarchy Men beseeched Jesus to establish a theocracy. They took up arms and tried to seize England by force. The movement, and most of the senior leaders of it, died when the British monarchy was restored in 1660. Jesus apparently was not listening or was otherwise engaged. Heads rolled, quite literally, as England finally escaped from the unwanted attention of dim witted fanatics.
1809
Mary Bateman, who specialized in fortune telling, had a magic chicken that laid eggs with end-time messages on them. One message said that Christ was coming. The uproar she created ended when an unannounced visitor caught her forcing an egg into the hen’s oviduct. Mary later was hanged for poisoning a wealthy client. History does not record whether the offended and sodomized chicken attended the hanging.
1814
Spiritualist Joanna Southcott made the startling claim that she, by virgin birth, would produce the second Jesus Christ. Her abdomen began to swell and so did the crowds of people around her. This gathering is similar to certain ethnic groups who see visions of the Virgin Mary on refrigerator doors or reflected on rooming house walls. The time for the birth came and passed with no Jesus appearing. As for the miraculous Southcott, she died soon after. An autopsy revealed she had experienced a false pregnancy. Her followers blamed the Antichrist for this.
1836
John Wesley wrote that “the time, times and half a time” of Revelation 12:14 were 1058¬1836, “when Christ should come” John Wesley was wrong in this matter as well as in a number of other items of religious thought he preached. It has been said, truthfully, that there was indeed madness in his Methodism
1843-1844
William Miller was the founder of an end-times movement that was so prominent it received its own name, Millerism. From his studies of the Bible, Miller determined that the second coming would happen sometime between 1843-1844. A spectacular meteor shower in 1833 gave the movement excellent momentum. The buildup of anticipation continued until March 21, 1844, when Miller’s one-year timetable ran out. Some followers set another date–Oct 22, 1844. This too failed, collapsing the movement. One follower described the days after the failed predictions: “The world made merry over the old Prophet’s predicament. The taunts and jeers of the ‘scoffers’ were well-nigh unbearable.” People in general do not suffer fools gladly.
1859
Rev. Thomas Parker, a Massachusetts minister, looked for the millennium to start about 1859. It did not. Parker subsequently was placed in a lunatic asylum when discovered running, buck naked, down the street in Bainbridge, screeching that Jesus was right behind him. What were behind the Reverend Parker were local bailiffs with nets.
1910
The revisit of Halley’s comet to the earth’s bemused vision was, for many, an indication of Jesus’ Second Coming. The earth actually passed through the gaseous tail of the comet. One enterprising man sold comet pills to people for protection against the effects of the toxic gases. Toxic gasses, mostly vocal methane, from frantic Fundamentalists did not need pills. It might have been better if the predictors had used Thorazine tranquilizer pills but as they had not yet been invented, this is a moot point.
1914
Charles Russell, after being exposed to the lunatic babblings of William Miller, founded his own organization that evolved into the Jehovah’s Witnesses. In 1914, Russell predicted the return of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was not listening and did not appear in 1914.
1918
In 1918, new studies assisted Russell from extending his predictions to that year. Jesus Christ, or His travel agent, did not oblige.
1925
The Witnesses had no better luck in 1925. They already possessed the title of “Most Wrong Predictions.” They would expand upon it with great zeal and no sense whatsoever in the years to come.
1967
When the city of Jerusalem was captured from the Arab inhabitants by the Jews in 1967, prophecy watchers declared that the “Time of the Gentiles” had come to an end.
1970
The ‘True Light Church of Christ’ made its claim to fame by incorrectly forecasting the return of Jesus. A number of church members had quit their livelihoods ahead of the promised advent. In earlier time, such deluded creatures gave their property away to their gleeful, non-believing neighbors, donned white nightgowns and stood up on hilltops, waiting for the Celestial Elevator. It never came for them but pneumonia did.
1973
A comet that turned out to be a visual disappointment nonetheless compelled one preacher to announce that it would be a sign of the Lord’s return. It was not.
1975
The Jehovah’s Witnesses were back at it again with commendable zeal in 1975. The failure of the latest forecast did not affect the growth of the movement. The Watchtower magazine, a major Witness periodical, had over 13 million subscribers. Many of them actually are able to read, albeit very slowly and with moving lips, but the majority love the large pictures. However, over 40 millions have read the Left Behind books or, as they have irreverently been termed, the My Left Behind books.
1981
One author boldly declared that the rapture would occur before December 31, 1981, based on Christian prophecy, astronomy, and a dash of ecological fatalism. He pegged the date to Jesus’ promised return to earth a generation after Israel’s rebirth. He also made references to the “Jupiter Effect,” a planetary alignment occurring every 179 years that supposedly could lead to earthquakes and nuclear plant meltdowns. Also, there were saintly rumors of the Lost Continent of Atlantis suddenly emerging from the depths of Lake Baikal in Russia, or according to other enlightened cretins, Lake Michigan, New York Harbor, the Mississippi River just off of New Orleans or the main public reservoir of Phoenix, Arizona. There was no rapture and Atlantis never surfaced.
1982
The lunatic fringe was at it again in 1982 when they loudly proclaimed that the world as we all knew it was going to end in 1982, when the planets lined up and created magnetic forces that would bring “Armageddon” to the earth. Astrologers and religious predictors joined forces here and when nothing happened, all of them went back to the Ouija boards. Armageddon is, of course, pure fiction and is not found in the Bible, even in the weird rantings of the lunatic John of Patmos.
1982
A group called the Tara Centers placed full-page advertisements in many major newspapers for the weekend of April 24-25, 1982, announcing: “The Christ is Now Here!” They predicted that He was to make himself known “within the next two months.” After the date passed, they said that the delay was only because the “consciousness of the human race was not quite right…” Obviously, this same statement can easily apply to the mental stability of the Tara Center people. Unfounded rumor had it that Jesus in fact did arrive but was arrested by New York City Vice Squad for unmentionable acts in a public lavatory in Central Park.
1984
The Jehovah’s Witnesses made sure, in 1984, that no one else would be able to top their record of most wrong doomsday predictions. The Witnesses’ record currently holds at nine. The years are: 1874, 1878, 1881, 1910, 1914, 1918, 1925, 1975, and 1984. Tired of loud public scorn and derision, the Witnesses have modestly retired from the field and now spend their time banging on doors and hawking their magazines, T-shirts and Second Coming bath mats and ashtrays.
1988
The book, 88 Reasons Why the Rapture is in 1988, came out only a few months before the event was to take place. What little time the book had left to it and its feeble minded readers, it used effectively. By the time the predicted dates, September 11-13, rolled around, whole churches were caught up in the excitement the book generated. Not unnaturally, nothing happened. The writer and publisher, however, benefited greatly from the sales.
1989
After the passing of the deadline in 88 Reasons, the author, Edgar Whisenant, came out with a new book called 89 Reasons Why the Rapture is in 1989. This book sold only a fraction of the number of copies his prior release had sold.
1991
A group in Australia predicted Jesus would return through the Sydney Harbor at 9 a.m., March 31, 1991. Rumors are that He was doing the breast stroke in the Harbor but was run over by a car ferry and drowned.
1991
Menachem Schneerson, a mystic Russian-born rabbi, called for the Messiah to come by September 9, 1991, the start of the Jewish New Year. Apparently, Jesus was not listening and failed to appear. The good rabbi passed away and his followers eagerly anticipated his own return. He did not do so, having jellified and become one with his casket bottom.
1992
A Korean group called Mission for the Coming Days had the Korea Church in a state of frenzied excitement in the fall of 1992. They foresaw October 28, 1992 as the date for the Glorious Rapture and arrival of the Celestial Ominbus. Numerology was the basis for the date. Several camera shots that left ghostly images on pictures were thought to be a supernatural confirmation of the date. Careless photography was a more likely suspect.
1993
If the year 2000 is the end of the 6,000-year cycle, then the rapture must take place in 1993, because you would need seven years of the tribulation. This was the murky thinking of a number of prophecy writers. They were all wrong.
1994
In the book, 1994: The Year of Destiny , F. M. Riley foretold of God’s plan to rapture His people. The name of his ministry is “The Last Call,” and he operates out of a Missouri that has produced both John Ashcroft and Jesse James.
1994
Pastor John Hinkle of Christ Church in Los Angeles caused quite a stir when he announced he had received a vision from God that warned of apocalyptic event on June 9, 1994. Hinkle, quoting God, said, “On Thursday June the 9th, I will rip the evil out of this world.” From a proper reading of Bible prophecy, the only thing that God could possibly rip from the earth would be the Christian Church. Some people tried to interpret Hinkle’s unscriptural vision to mean that God would the rip evil out of our hearts when He Raptured us. As usual the date came and went with no heart surgery or rapture.
1994
Harold Camping, in his book Are You Ready?, predicted the Lord would return in September 1994. The book was full of numerology that added up to 1994 as the date of Christ’s return. The numbers did not crunch and Camping joined a long list of failed prophets, seers and other mountebanks in blessed oblivion.
1994
After promising they would not make anymore end time predictions, the Jehovah’s Witnesses fell off the wagon and proclaimed 1994 as the conclusion of an 80-year generation; the year 1914 was the starting point. Magazine sales are up but the ashtrays are not doing as well as expected. This group of lovelies is now selling Rapture Travel Suits, matching Rapture luggage and Dramamine pills for the trip.
1996
A self-proclaimed California psychic Sheldon Nidle predicted the end would come with the convergence of 16 million space ships and a host of angels upon the earth on December 17, 1996. Nidle explained the passing of the date by claiming the angels placed us in a holographic projection to preserve us and give us a second chance. His doctors will not let him write any more and even took away his crayons.
1997
When Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat signed their peace pact on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993, some saw the events as the beginning of tribulation. With the signing of the peace agreement, Daniel’s 1,260-day countdown was underway. By adding 1,260 days to September 1993, you arrive at February 24, 1997. Jesus, on the other hand, did not arrive nor were the Elect of the Pentecostal cults shot up into the stratosphere like so many ballistic missiles.
1997
Stan Johnson of the Prophecy Club saw a “90 percent” chance that the tribulation would start September 12, 1997. He based his conclusion on several end-time signs: that would be Jesus’ 2,000th birthday and it would also be the Day of Atonement, although it wouldn’t be what is currently the Jewish Day of Atonement. Further supporting evidence came from Romanian pastor Dumitru Duduman. In several heavenly visions, caused by the imbibing of too much plum wine, Dumitru claimed to have seen the Book of Life. In one of his earlier visions, there were several pages yet to be completed. In his last vision, he noticed the Book of Life only had one page left. Doing some rough calculating, Johnson and friends figured the latest time frame for the completion of the book would have to be September 1997. There were, quite naturally, more bitter disappointments as the time came and passed without a sight of Jerusalem Slim.
1998
Numerology: Because 666 times three equals 1998, some people point to this year as being prophetically significant. This incredible information was posted on the internet where it stunned dozens of true believers. .
1998
A Taiwanese cult operating out of Garland, Texas predicted Christ would return on March 31 of 1998. The group’s leader, Heng-ming Chen, announced God would return and then invite the cult members aboard a UFO at group excursion rates, no meals served.
The group abandoned their prediction when a precursor event failed to take place. The cult’s leader had said that God would appear on every channel 18 of every TV in the world. Maybe God realized at the last minute, the Playboy Network was channel 18 on several cable systems, and He didn’t want to have Christians watching a porn channel.
1998
Marilyn Agee, in her book, The End of the Age, had her sights set on May 31, 1998. for the Glorious Arrival. This date was to conclude the 6,000-year cycle from the time of Adam. Agee looked for the rapture to take place on Pentecost, which is also known as “the Feast of Weeks.” Another indicator of this date was the fact that the Holy Spirit did not descend upon the apostles until 50 days after Christ’s resurrection. Israel was born in 1948; add the 50 days as years and you come up with whatever figure you like.
After her May 31 rapture date failed, Agee, unable to face up to her error, continued her date-setting by using various Scripture references to point to June 7, 14, 21 and about 10 other dates. Marilyn then set a new date for the rapture: May 21 or 22 of the same year, Again, she and the dozens of believers who read her works were doomed to disappointment. Eventually, later rather than sooner, Agnes joined the ranks of the Disproven and passed into blessed oblivion.
1999
TV newscaster-turned-psychic Charles Criswell King had said in 1968 that the world as we know it would cease to exist on August 18, 1999. It did not.
1999
Philip Berg, a rabbi at the Kabbalah Learning Center in New York, proclaimed that the end might arrive on September 11, 1999, when “a ball of fire will descend . . . destroying almost all of mankind, all vegetation, all forms of life.” Nothing happened on that date of note except that the Devil was arrested at a sex arcade in Times Square using counterfeit coins in a porn film viewer.
2000
The names of the people and organizations that called for the return of Christ at the turn of the century is too long to be listed here. If there were a day on which Christ could not return, it must have been January 1, 2000. This day came and passed and the waiting multitude did not see Jesus descending on Dallas, arrayed like Solomon in all his splendor. Many had hangovers and the only visions they had on that day were of the double variety.
2000
On May 5, 2000, all of the planets were supposed to have been in alignment. This was said to cause the earth to suffer earthquakes, volcanic eruption, and various other nasty stuff. A similar alignment occurred in 1982 and nothing happened. People failed to realize that the other nine planets only exert a very tiny gravitational pull on the earth. If you were to add up the gravitational force from the rest of the planets, the total would only amount to a fraction of the tug the moon has on the earth.
2000
According to Michael Rood, the end times have a prophetically complicated connection to Israel’s spring barley harvest. The Day of the Lord began on May 5, 2000. Rood’s fall feast calendar called for the Russian Gog-Magog invasion of Israel to take place at sundown on October 28, 2000. It did not. Perhaps Prophet Rood might have considered the annual Harvest of the Floating Condoms from the waters of New York City as an alternative event.
2000-2001
Dr. Dale SumburËru looked for March 22, 1997 to be “the date when all the dramatic events leading through the tribulation to the return of Christ should begin” The actual date of Christ’s return could be somewhere between July 2000 and March 2001. Dr. SumburËru is more general about the timing of Christ’s second coming than most writers. He states, “The day the Lord returns is currently unknown because He said [Jesus] these days are cut short and it is not yet clear by how much and in what manner they are cut short. If the above assumptions are not correct, my margin of error would be in weeks, or perhaps months.” Or more likely, never.
2003
ARKANSAS CITY (AP) — A Little Rock woman was killed yesterday after leaping through her moving car’s sun roof during an incident best described as “a mistaken rapture” by dozens of eye witnesses. Thirteen other people were injured after a twenty-car pile up resulted from people trying to avoid hitting the woman who was apparently convinced that the rapture was occurring when she saw twelve people floating up into the air, and then passed a man on the side of the road who she claimed was Jesus. “She started screaming “He’s back, He’s back” and climbed right out of the sunroof and jumped off the roof of the car,” said Everet Williams, husband of 28-year-old Georgann Williams who was pronounced dead at the scene. “I was slowing down but she wouldn’t wait till I stopped,” Williams said. She thought the rapture was happening and was convinced that Jesus was gonna lift her up into the sky,” he went on to say. “This is the strangest thing I’ve seen since I’ve been on the force,”said Paul Madison, first officer on the scene. Madison questioned the man who looked like Jesus and discovered that he was dressed up as Jesus and was on his way to a toga costume party when the tarp covering the bed of his pickup truck came loose and released twelve blowup dolls filled with helium which floated up into the air. Ernie Jenkins, 32, of Fort Smith, who’s been told by several of his friends that he looks like Jesus, pulled over and lifted his arms into the air in frustration, and said “Come back here,” just as the Williams’ car passed him. Mrs. Williams was sure that it was Jesus lifting people up into the sky as they passed by him, according to her husband, who says his wife loved Jesus more than anything else. When asked for comments about the twelve dolls, Jenkins replied “This is all just too weird for me. I never expected anything like this to happen.” This event is probably the most illustrative of all the great compendiums of Prophesy.
2011-2018
For the past several decades, Jack Van Impe has hinted at nearly every year as being the time for the rapture. Normally, he has only gone out one or two years from the current calendar year. However, Jack’s latest projection for the rapture goes out several years. His new math uses 51 years as the length of a generation. If you add 51 years to 1967, the year Israel seized Jerusalem from its Arab inhabitants, you get 2018. Once you subtract the seven-year tribulation period, you arrive at 2011. Dozens will be energized and will sell off their bicycle training wheels and lifetime collection of dignity pants but again, sad to say, nothing will happen.
2012
New Age writers cite Mayan and Aztec calendars that predict the end of the age on December 21, 2012.
2013
The Family Christian News and Prophesy Church claimed in frantic emails to dozens of their supporters that Jesus was going to return on July 4th, 2013, bringing with him a legion of muscular angles armed with whips and spears. According to the Reverend Norbert Crumley, head of the Church, Jesus was going to destroy all evil homosexuals, evolutionists, multi-partnered Mormons, florists, ballet dancers, a large number of popular musicians, readers of Harry Potter books, all evil Moslims, secular humanists, the over two hundred thousand practicing witches in America and all unbaptized small children under five years of age. We will never know if the Reverend Crumley was correct because on June 30th, he was arrested for having anal sex with his seven year old niece. The Reverend, who later hanged himself in his cell, using his underswear, claimed that the niece had lied about her age. “She told me she was ten!” he said in court.
2060
Sir Isaac Newton, Britain’s greatest scientist, spent 50 years and wrote 4,500 pages trying to predict when the end of the world was coming. The most definitive date he set for the apocalypse, which he scribbled on a scrap of paper, was 2060. This original scrap is now in the archives of Brother Pat Robertson. It appears to have been written in a ball point pen which was not invented until 1948.

The Encyclopedia of American Loons

Russell Targ

One of the grand old men of American pseudoscience, Russell Targ is a physicist, parapsychologist and author best known for his work on remote viewing – indeed, he and Harold Puthoff coined the term “remote viewing” for the practice of trying to obtain visual information of distant or unseen target using parapsychological means. Yes, it is – of course – bollocks, and Targ’s “research” on the phenomenon is most striking for its lack of rigor: many of his experiments would also have been easy to make more rigorous without additional effort or use of resources, and reasonable people should really wonder why he chose not to do so. According to Martin Gardner, Targ and Puthoff “imagined they could do research in parapsychology but instead dealt with ‘psychics’ who were cleverer than they were,” though wishful thinking and motivated reasoning are certainly important parts of the explanation for their “results” as well.
Targ’s and Puthoff’s project took off in 1972 while they were “testing” alleged remote viewer Ingo Swann at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), which led to the initiation of the $50,000 CIA-sponsored Stargate Project. Though the SRI team managed to publish some papers, real scientific reviews of the SRI (and later) experiments on remote viewing have of course found no credible evidence for remote viewing but have found plenty of striking shortcomings in the SRI experiments (Targ and Puthoff were initially unwilling to provide later researchers with unpublished transcripts upon request, but after obtaining them from a judge these more serious researchers found “a wealth of cues” to how Targ and Puthoff had achieved their non-reproducible results). Targ and Puthoff for instance believed that famous fraud Uri Geller had genuine psychic abilities, so when they tested him they made sure that Geller had substantial control over the procedures and few limits on his behavior to enable him to make use of his trademark sleight of hand. The CIA has later expressed some embarrassment over their involvement in such nonsense.
In 1982, Targ, Keith Harary and Anthony White formed the company Delphi Associates to sell psychic consulting services to individuals and businesses. In their book Mind Race, Targ and Harary claimed that all nine “silver futures predictions” made at Delphi (prices on the silver market) in 1982 were correct, though – as usual with psychic claims – they had some trouble documenting their successes. More recently, Targ has accused “skeptics” of defaming his Wikipedia entry by correctly describing his psychic studies with Uri Geller or studies on remote viewing and resisting his attempts to use sock puppets to alter the text and delete any critical commentary.
In addition to Mind Race, Targ’s books include Limitless Mind: A Guide to Remote Viewing and Transformation of Consciousness (2004); The Reality of ESP: A Physicist’s Proof of Psychic Abilities; Mind Reach: Scientists Look at Psychic Abilities (1977, with Puthoff), Miracles of Mind: Exploring Nonlocal Consciousness and Spiritual Healing (1998, with Jane Katra – yes, of course Targ would go there, too), and The Heart of the Mind: How to Experience God Without Belief (1999, with Katra).
His daughter Elisabeth Targ has followed in her father’s footsteps with regard to sloppy research and a general distaste for evidence and rigor, though she focuses on the field of distant healing rather than distant information seeking.
Diagnosis: Many will find it hard to believe that the flaws in Targ’s pseudoscientific research were not deliberate, and wonder to what extent he really is a true believer. But that, we suspect, would be to underestimate the powers of motivated reasoning. As fine an example of flamboyant pseudoscience as you’ll be likely to find.

Shelley Penney

The alkaline diet is a diet fad and type of nature woo that has recently gained quite a bit of popularity. The guiding idea is that altering your blood pH through diet change to make it more alkaline is a means to health benefits. As an idea, it is as stupid and insane as they come, because i) ) changing your blood pH will quickly lead to alkaliosis and death and certainly no health benefits, but ii) it doesn’t matter since it is impossible to change your blood pH through diet anyways. There is, in short, no evidence (not even the slightest) for any of the claims made by proponents of the diet, and the dietary recommendations – which are usually related to alkaline pH values at a rate little better than random chance – are often harmful for different reasons. Facts, however, tend to be of minimal importance to promoters of the idea, who often push it as part of some MLM scheme. It is of course common to mention that diet can alter urine pH (which may reduce the impact of kidney stones), something that is unrelated to your blood or the rest of your body.
One ardent promoter of the alkaline diet, is Shelley Penney, who runs the blog Real Water Health. RWH pushes in particular alkaline water, which ostensibly contains “millions of added electrons” to make the water alkaline and improve cell hydration. The blog does contain a list of 17 “Peer Reviewed Articles on Alkaline Water”, but a quick scan shows that these are articles discussing research on acidosis; none of them mention any benefits from actually drinking alkaline water. So it goes.
Penney herself is a retired nurse with interests in “health, peace and abundance”. Apparently she skipped the chemistry classes one would have hoped nurses (or any student with a highschool diploma) should have had. Penney claims, for instance, that “because it is very alkaline, ionized water may dissolve accumulated acid waste and return the body to a balance.” (The notion of “balance” involved is presumably this one.) She also claims that “keeping our body fluid pH in an alkaline state may be the first line of defense in fighting any disease,” which is technically true since an arterial blood pH much lower than 7.35–7.45 would quickly kill you. Of course, ionized water (which has a pH around seawater in any case) will not have the slightest effect on your body fluid pH.
Diagnosis: A disgrace to her profession, currently wasting her life on pushing harmful nonsense. A sad and sordid affair.

Harry Mihet

Liberty Counsel (LC) is an organization created (ostensibly) to defend religious freedom. In reality, they do no such thing, of course. Instead, LC is an extremist, at least borderline dominionist hate group for whom “religious freedom” means the freedom of fundamentalist, radical wingnuts to suppress other people’s religious freedom. Its most prominent members are Mat Staver and Matt Barber, but those are not the only deranged lunatics associated with the group. Harry Mihet, for instance, is the current vice president of legal affairs and chief litigation counsel for LC, and his confusion regarding what constitutes religious oppression and freedom is telling.
For instance, Mihet thinks that gay rights is the same as communist oppression. Indeed, in 2017 Mihet brought anti-gay hero and wingnut welfare recipient Kim Davis on a tour to Romania to spread their message that “same-sex ‘marriage’ and freedom of conscience are mutually exclusive, because those who promote the former have zero tolerance for the latter.” (Davis and Mihet, of course, wouldn’t dream of promoting either.) Mihet said that Davis gave a “powerful” message about the need to define marriage in the Constitution in a way that prevents the kind of “devastating” impact on people of faith experienced in the United States because of “judicial activism and judicial overreach,” where “judicial activism” means that a court issued a decision Mihet didn’t like. Davis didn’t choose to become a celebrity, said Mihet (she sort of did), who has also compared Davis to MLK, but because of her courage: “God gave her a tremendous platform for liberty.”
In 2014, the Church of Satan in Oklahoma sought to arrange a black mass in a public civic center in Oklahoma City (since other religious groups were allowed to). Mihet, of course, argued that Oklahoma City should not allow its public facilities to be “used by a satanic group for the sole purpose of mocking, insulting and offending other faiths through a lewd and lascivious ceremony. The perverted sexual deviance characteristic of a ‘black mass’ ought to remain in the dark tombs and catacombs where it originated, and should not see the light of day in a civilized society, much less on public property.” I.e. religious practices should be banned if they offend people of other faiths, but only if those practices are not his practices, of course. The reason an organization puts “Liberty” in its name is that no one would ever think that what they were doing had anything to do with liberty just based on looking at what they are, in fact, doing.
As you’d expect, Mihet is miffed about the fact that subjects such as evolution are allowed to be taught in schools but creationism is not. This is completely unfair, since atheism and humanism are religions, too, and if “public schools decide to teach the tenets of those religions while excluding the tenets of other theistic religions, then that is discriminatory treatment in and of itself.” It’s instructive to note how the distinction between a religious tenet and a scientific result is lost on Harry Mihet, and it is something to keep in mind when Mihet elsewhere might happen to say anything about what science shows or says.
When New Jersey banned the practice of ex-gay therapy on minors in 2013, the LC filed a lawsuit to block the law, with Mihet claiming that the law is really an attack on Christianity, mostly because everything Mihet doesn’t like is an attack on God. He also warned then-governor Chris Christie that he would beat him up his friend would come beat him up he’d risk divine punishment for having “declared war” on the Gospel and for assisting the “power of darkness” (the ban is part of an “intense and coordinated effort to silence people of faith when it comes to the subject of homosexuality”). The LC didn’t win the court case.
Apparently God will also punish America in general for gay marriage, presumably by sending tornadoes to areas of the US where gay marriage is unpopular (as He seems to have a tendency to do). Mihet has also claimed that good Christians in the near future may well have to go to jail for their opposition to gay marriage, once again just “like Martin Luther King did”. As usual, the predictions are based solely on Mihet’s febrile imagination, just like it is when he claims that the “destruction of marriage has been [marriage equality proponents’] goal all along,” since obviously you’d only want to enable couples to get married if you hate marriage, and therefore marriage equality is really motivated by a hatred of God. According to Mihet, marriage equality proponents are not even trying to hide the fact that this is their goal, since he can easily see that it is through his powers of intuition.
Apparently anyone who disagrees with him is intent to put Christians in jail; those who oppose ENDA, for instance, will soon be charged with crimes against humanity, according to Mihet, presumably because that’s how he would treat those who disagree with him if he could. As usual, Mihet’s claim tells you little about proponents of ENDA but quite a bit about the workings of the deranged mind of Harry Mihet.
Diagnosis: Pure insanity. Mihet’s level of bigotry is arguably only matched by his level of critical thinking skills and his paranoia. The LC as an organization, however, is not without power and influence.