Just in case you haven’t had enough political loony tunes from the unhinged right today, here’s a couple of tidbits that have recently emerged about Rand Paul’s Senate campaign. First, from Joseph Gerth’s article “Rand Paul part of AAPS doctors’ group airing unusual views” in the Louisville Courier-Journal:

Republican U.S. Senate nominee Rand Paul belongs to a conservative doctors’ group that, among other things, has expressed doubts about the connection between HIV and AIDS and suggested that President Barack Obama may have been elected because he was able to hypnotize voters
…Speaking to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons’ annual conference last October in Nashville, Paul said he has been a member of the group since at least 1990…”I use a lot of AAPS literature when I talk,” he told the group.
…Dr. George Nichols, Kentucky’s former longtime medical examiner, said the AAPS’ positions sound like a combination of “pseudo-science, public policy and mysticism.”
And Mother Jones, a liberal magazine that wrote about the group earlier this year, has said the group is “hardly part of a mainstream medical society. Think (Fox News commentator) Glenn Beck with an MD.”

OK, queue up Twilight Zone music for this one:

…On its Website, the AAPS included an article in October 2008 titled, “Is Obama a Brilliant Orator … or a Hypnotist?” It cites an unsigned paper suggesting that Obama used hypnotic techniques and speech patterns in his 2008 campaign.
The paper bases its finding on the work of a controversial psychologist, Milton Erickson, who died 30 years ago and pioneered the also-controversial field of neuro-linguistic programming, which purports to use voice patterns to subliminally influence people’s decisions.
The paper claims to examine Obama’s speeches “word by word, hand gesture by hand gesture, tone, pauses, body language, and proves his use of covert hypnosis intended only for licensed therapists on consenting patients.”
The paper goes on to say that Obama’s “mesmerized, cult-like, grade-school-crush-like worship by millions is not because ‘Obama is the greatest leader of a generation’ who simply hasn’t accomplished anything, who magically ‘inspires’ by giving speeches. Obama is committing perhaps the biggest fraud and deception in American history.”
The AAPS article notes that the Obama campaign logo “might just be the letter ‘O,’ but it also resembles a crystal ball, a favorite of hypnotists.”
And it suggests that hypnosis is the reason some Jewish people backed him.
“It is also interesting that many Jews are supporting a candidate who is endorsed by Hamas, Farrakhan, Khalidi and Iran,” the article says.

Oy. Also in the Courier-Journal, Stephenie Steitzer’s “Conway camp calls on Paul to return money from white separatists” reports:

The New York Daily News reported Friday that, according to Federal Election Commission records, “self-described separatist” Virginia Abernethy gave Paul $500 in March; separatist movement leader William Johnson gave Rand Paul $500 in August 2009; and Carl Ford, a former member of the separatist League of the South, gave Paul $400 in March.
Jesse Benton, Paul’s campaign manager, said in an e-mail that the money would not be returned…Conway spokesman John Collins, who held the teleconference with Miller, said in a statement afterward that “Rand Paul’s association with white separatists … continues a disturbing pattern of not sharing Kentucky values. Paul should return this tainted money.”
…Abernethy, of Nashville, is a retired Vanderbilt University professor and member of the Editorial Advisory Board of The Occidental Quarterly and The Occidental Observer, according to her personal Web site.
According to The Occidental Observer Web site, its mission is to present content on the themes of white identity, white interests and the culture of the West.
According to the Web site, it would attempt to “rectify” the “construction of culture in which legitimate interests of whites have been compromised.”
In a telephone interview, Abernethy said “there are people in the world who are race bullies, race dolts, tools … of the immigrant advocacy groups, and I would say this Democrat is one of them.”
Johnson, a Los Angeles attorney, is chairman of the American Third Position, which “exists to represent the political interests of White Americans,” according to its Web site.
…Johnson said he supports Rand Paul because “he is the son of Ron Paul, who is the best politician this country has had in the last 100 years.”
…Ford said he is not a white separatist but is a member of the Sons of Confederate Victims organization and considers himself “pro-Confederacy and anti-(Abraham) Lincoln.”

Anti-Abraham Lincoln? In Kentucky? Might not play so well.
Perhaps all of this helps explain why Democrat Jack Conway is moving up in the most recent polls, and is now in a statistical tie with Paul, according to the latest Courier-Journal/WHAS11 Bluegrass Poll. Conway has also scored with a new political ad, featuring footage of Paul saying “the real answer to Medicare would be a $2,000 deductible.” Paul has reportedly called the 30-second ad “a lie” and “politics at its lowest form.”
Those who would like to contribute to the restoration of sanity in the Blue Grass state are directed to Jack Conway’s Act Blue page.