GOP right-wingers jump on story about fake Dem candidate's Ebola wish

I thought for sure I had come up with a Democratic wacko to write about who would help balance my many posts about the wingnuts in the GOP -- and in the Michigan Republican Party in particular. 
The headline that was promoted on Facebook by some right-wingers said: Democratic congressional candidate wishes Ebola on NRA members.
A juicy bit of political hate-mongering, right? Sure enough -- Fox News jumped on the story.

Well, wouldn't you know it -- the story was wrong.

The "awful Democrat" responsible for the tweet that prayed for Ebola to infect the NRA membership is Mike Dickinson of Virginia. He's not a candidate for Congress (despite what he tells people online) and it turns out that he's such a loose cannon that the Democrats have disavowed him.

Here's the tweet:

Twitter

And here's how Reason, the libertarian publication, dismantled the story that was first peddled by the far-right site known as Rare:

"... Rare's Douglas Barclay informs us that Dickinson is a 'political lightweight and Virginia candidate for Congress' in the 7th district. That he is a lightweight is true: Dickinson has no political experience whatsoever. But he isn't a Democratic candidate for anything, either. The local Democratic Party has emphatically denied any association with the troll. He almost certainly has no intention of actually running for any office.

"Shortly after the above tweet, Dickinson claimed Ben Franklin was a 'well known pervert' with herpes, and insisted that 'George Washington had several well known mistresses and was known to hit the brothel in many towns.'  But these weren't the first blaring signs of bull---- that he ever put up..."

You can read more here.