The deadly outbreak of Ebola virus in west Africa has the world's attention. The American Center for Disease Control recently
declared that the current crisis is "unprecedented," and, yesterday the World Health Organization (WHO), held an emergency meeting and declared that the Ebola epidemic in West Africa is "an international public health emergency."
Not too many people on the planet are celebrating the Ebola outbreak . . . but then Reverend Rick Wiles is not like everyone else . . .
From his roost at "Trunews" radio, Wiles foretold:
This Ebola epidemic could become a global pandemic and that’s another name for plague. It may be the great attitude adjustment that I believe is coming. Ebola could solve America’s problems with atheism, homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, pornography, and abortion.
An interesting take, to say the least, on how politically selective viruses can be. Fortunately Rev. Wiles tells us just how to protect ourselves and our loved ones:
If Ebola becomes a global plague, you better make sure the blood of Jesus is upon you, you better make sure you have been marked by the angels so that you are protected by God. If not, you may be a candidate to meet the Grim Reaper.
Admittedly, some less extreme variations on that pitch can be heard in churches throughout the land, but, Rev. Wiles is a multifaceted prophet and, like others of his generation of doomsayers, has discovered the utility of enhancing his prophecy with a liberal dollop of partisan politics.
For example, the previous day, he shared these divinely-inspired insights on how President Obama could exploit the Ebola epidemic to grow the government and force Americans to be inoculated with a vaccine:
Obama would claim executive powers to mandate that every human being in the United States be vaccinated. They could use the panic to stampede hundreds of millions of people in this country to be vaccinated, in fact billions worldwide, they could stampede the world to receive to (sic) a vaccine against a deadly virus and nobody knows what is in the vaccine.
Which impresses me as strikingly similar to the way in which Rev. Wiles, himself "uses the panic" to "mandate that every human being in the United States" "make sure the blood of Jesus is upon you."
Wiles would be easy to dismiss as just another self-promoting End Times prophet with his own media operation, but a peek at his guest book is pretty chilling. Evidently, quite a few Republican members, and former members, of Congress find it politically expedient to visit with Rev. Wiles, from time to time, for a chinwag on his conspiracy theory du jour.
On the same day that Wiles shared his enthusiasm for Ebola as a way to "clean up" America, he also hosted Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) who shared his thoughts on immigration with Rev. Wiles:
If you were a terrorist, why would you come through Dulles airport or Kennedy airport and go through TSA, why wouldn’t you just go to Mexico City and come across the border?
Last year,
Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) visited Wiles to discuss Duncan's own fear that IRS agents are receiving training with assault weapons.
Pete Hoekstra, former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has visited with Wiles, as well as Tom Tancredo.
Former representative Allen West (R-FL) is a regular guest on "TruNews." Recently, Wiles asked West if he believes that Obama is a closet jihadist bent on converting America to Islam -- here's West:
I don’t think it is secretly happening, I think that you can look at his actions and he is enabling Islamist forces to be successful in the Middle East. He is aiding the rise of radical Islamism, not just in the Middle East but really across the world.
We don’t really know who this President Obama is and I’m not talking about his birth certificate. We don’t know who he is, we don’t know about his college transcripts, we don’t know what he was doing in Pakistan when he was back in college and who funded him to go over to Pakistan.
Trust me, there are more . . .
Here are just a few of the other fever dreams spinning around in Rick Wiles' head:
- the Sandy Hook and Columbine shootings were carried out by CIA mind-control assassins
- Miley Cyrus sold her soul to Satan and had sex with a demon
- President Obama is a Jim-Jones-like, Nazi antichrist working to bring about a civil war
- Adolf Hitler’s “race of super gay male soldiers” is currently taking over America.
- Obama’s reelection amounted to the “communist takeover of the United States of America. Obama and his “internal revolutionary party of communists” will “eradicate Christianity,” outlaw its practice and eventually “bulldoze Christian churches in Dallas, Texas.
My point in laying all of this out is to ask these questions:
Why would a top-tier elected official have anything to do with this man? Why would a politician consider it a career-enhancing move to associate with a conspiracy theorist, no matter how many radio listeners find him entertaining? Why would a sane person, occupying a seat of power in our government, endorse such a person and such ideas by participating in his circus?
I'm quickly coming to the conclusion that there are only two answers to all of those questions:
a) Americans really are electing some mentally unstable or intellectually challenged individuals to run their government; or
b) Republican politicians are such craven and cynical operators that they will pander to anyone for votes.
Or maybe a little of both?