One of Tobin's "constituents."
Aaaaaaaaaaaagh.
[Arizona congressional candidate Andy Tobin] says he's hearing about worries from constituents that the recent wave of undocumented youth from Central America could cause an Ebola outbreak in the United States.
"Anything's now possible," Tobin said last week. "So if you were to say the Ebola virus has now entered (the country), I don't think anyone would be surprised."
Tobin acknowledged that Ebola has been limited to outbreaks in Africa, "to the extent that they're really aware of that. I think there is a reason we should be concerned about it and say, 'Hey, can you assure us the people crossing the border are not from the Middle East?' ... So I use that as an example, that the public would not be surprised to hear about the next calamity at the border."
Of course, Ebola is not in the "Middle East" either, but no matter. As Tobin says, "Anything's now possible." It's possible the kids crossing the border have Ebola. It's possible they have a new kind of Muslim Ebola, from the Middle East, and they're bringing in Muslim Ebola Adidas-brand Prayer Rugs for unsuspecting American militia members to find and then the militia members will get Muslim Ebola and then the government will round those border-watching patriots up and put them in FEMA camps which is exactly what Dinesh D'Souzaphone was trying to warn everyone about before Ebola Santa carted him off for violations of the Christmas spirit, or whatever the hell that was about.
I don't doubt that Tobin is hearing from "constituents" that these immigrants are probably riddled with diseases that don't even exist in the hemisphere they're from. Supposing immigrants to be disease-riddled dangers to the community is an old racist trope, and you could disprove it a thousand times and it still wouldn't make any difference to the sort of folks Andy Tobin is desperately trying to appeal to.
Keeping track of all the various conspiracy theories that Republican House candidates have been tossing out there this season is getting to be quite a chore. Is there any Republican running for the House that has not piped up with something about secret Muslims, or secret Ebola, or secret Democrats, or not-secret U.N. plots, or the plot of Big Scientist against Ma and Pa Oildrum? It'd be nice to hear that having a stupid theory about an obviously stupid thing was not in fact an ironclad requirement for being a proper Republican.