Christopher Monckton, birther

Via Dave Weigel, Monckton spoke at a “Tea Party” rally, astroturfed by Americans For Prosperity (a front group of Koch Industries):

“America!” said Monckton at the start of his speech. “Land of opportunity! You can be born in Kenya and end up as president of the United States!”

Though Monckton later claimed this was a “joke”, he does indeed have doubts about the President’s citizenship:

“I have no idea where he was born,” said Monckton, who was working the crowd and signing autographs. “What I do find strange is that the public records of his Hawaiian birth have been sealed, and can not be obtained by the public. His lawyers have spent a lot of money trying to seal the records of his public life. All of those records should be open to the public, as they always were for previous presidents.”

And:

“The effective classification of all of these documents of his early life is surely contrary to the spirit of freedom and openness in the Democratic west,” said Monckton. “It’s bound to raise questions in some peoples’ minds.”

Monckton previously referred to the President as “Osamabamarama”, linking Obama to the terrorist Osama Bin Laden and prophesied that Obama and others seeking to mitigate climate change would “kill tens of millions” in a keynote speech hosted by the right wing, anti-regulation, climate denialism front group Heartland Institute.

It’s not a coincidence that climate denialists believe (or claim to believe) a lot of other insane things like denial of CFCs causing ozone depletion, denial of cigarettes causing cancer, denial of evolution, believe that environmentalists had DDT banned which killed hundreds of millions of people in Africa, etc. While some of this is just part of being an “expert” for hire for anti-regulatory interests, much of it is more simply explained by the phenomenon of crank magnetism. Cranks believe kooky things, and these kooky beliefs are rarely isolated to a single subject. So people like Monckton are not only climate denialists, but they turn out to be birthers and also believe that they can cure HIV.

Also be sure to check out Peter Sinclair’s two latest Climate Denial Crock of the Week videos, starring the potty peer.