Wingnuts – Page 44

“Republicans? Terrorists? Same Difference.” Bush Donor Bankrolls Al-Qaeda And Republicans

Published on February 26, 20072 Comments

Emptywheel at Firedoglake on the Republican nexus of money and corruption:

It really is getting to the point where we ought to start going down the list of Pioneers and Rangers and asking how each has advanced the criminal plots of the GOP, because it’s sure beginning to look like the Pioneers and Rangers program is just a brilliant front for old-style Dirty Tricks.

It’s even worse than that:

WASHINGTON: A man charged with trying to help terrorists in Afghanistan has donated some $15,000 (€11,410) to the campaign committee of Republicans in the House of Representatives, and a resume in his name indicates various other links to the party.

Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari pleaded not guilty Friday in U.S. District Court in New York City to charges that include terror financing, material support of terrorism and money laundering.

From April 2002 until August 2004, the man, also known as “Michael Mixon,” gave donations ranging from $500 (€380) to $5,000 (€3,805) to the National Republican Congressional Committee, according to Federal Election Commission reports and two campaign donor tracking Web sites, http://www.politicalmoneyline.com and http://www.opensecrets.org.

A resume listed in his name and posted on an MSN group Web site on Jan. 8, 2007, identifies him as being an “industrialist and philanthropist” and references previous connections to the Republican Party.

The Republicans are the party of President George W. Bush and until last month was the majority party in the House and Senate.

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Comment of the Day: what powers Conservapedia

Published on February 26, 2007

I fixed your post, sweetie...

Frequent Sadly No commentator Billy Pilgrim has the answer:

I can visualize several crank engines, a steam driven bellows, some bubbling beakers and a rack of glowing vacuum tubes – kind of like that contraption Spock made in City On The Edge Of Forever- all being run by coffee-addled marmosets. With Yakety Sax playing in the background. And, of course, a monkey washing a cat.

(Shorter) Frank Luntz: “I Helped Kill The Planet….Ooops, Silly Me!”

Published on February 24, 2007

Luntz playbook

Does right-wing ~~pollster~~ propaganda-monger Frank Luntz, currently trying his luck in London, even comprehend the damage he has done in his flamboyant and greedy quest for fortune, influence and beltway insiderdom?

From a profile of Luntz in this morning’s Independent :

The man they called George Bush’s polling guru is also upset to be linked to an unpopular leader, and a string of discredited neo-con policies, such as (certain aspects of) the Iraq war, and the US withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

He adopts a mea culpa approach to the latter, admitting to a degree of regret for having written a famously controversial memo advising Republicans how to rebut the science of global warming.

“Seven years ago there was a real battle over whether the earth was going through global warming,” says Luntz. “Now I don’t believe there is. I’m willing to accept the science as it is. I would not have written that memo today.”

Oh well, that’s all right then.

Luntz – a bloody paid pollster, for god’s sake, elected by no-one and accountable to no-one – by his own admission deliberately discouraged the world’s biggest contributor to global warming from doing anything about it. Now it’s too late.

Mea culpa? That fat fuckwit doesn’t know the meaning of the words. If he were really taking responsibility for what he’s done, he’d be committing public, ritual suicide by drowning himself in melting glacier water, not prancing about London sucking up to that murderer Bibi Netanyahu like some starstruck high-school kid spotting a jock.

“Bibi!” he shouts, rushing from the bar like an excited schoolchild. “I know him! I know that guy! Will you please excuse me a minute? I gotta say hello… Hey… Hey, Bibi!”

Five minutes later, Luntz returns triumphantly to our table. “You should have come,” he declares. “Netanyahu came in, and I said ‘hello’, and we talked. I did some work for him once, and he remembered. You see? I really do know these people!”

I can’t believe anyone in the British press or at the BBC takes this dangerous, self-interested clown seriously and furthermore I think British license-fee payers should be questioning why their hard-earned money is going into the pockets of such a blatant paid neocon-enabler and shill for Bushco.

You can make complaints to the BBC here.

The Sins Of The Father

Published on February 23, 2007

I meant to mention this post of Martin’s from Wisse Words in the week but it slipped my mind, sorry.

But he points out one of the big unspokens about wingnuts, and wingnut pundits in particular, though it’s not a phenomenon that’s exclusive to the US right:that it’s all about Daddy.

Wed 21 Feb 2007
More Reynolds

Scruggs over at UFO Breakfast Recipients has read my post on Glenn Reynolds and points out something I missed: that Reynolds’ dad was a moderately famous antiwar protestor himself and much of his behaviour may just be because of unresolved daddy issues:

Now let’s be clear that many young, rebellious kids say awful things. I made my parents wince more times than I care to contemplate when I was in the throes of puberty. And some parents really are pretty dreadful. Growing up and individuating is not always easy, especially in an authoritarian state. So one can understand why some apsects of the angry, frustrated, spiteful child persist into physical adulthood.

They certainly do: witness the angry frustrated, spitefuilly childish rightwing bloggers and commenters in full flow this week post- Reynolds’ call for the assassination of nuclear scientists and clerics who have had the misfortune not to be born white and American. The uber-angry, frustrated, spitefuilly childish Instapundit is right in the vanguard of the Daddy-issues wingers.

There’s certainly past evidence for Scruggs’ thesis that Reynolds (and by extension, his fellow wingnut pundits) has unresolved paternal issues and it comes from a unexpected, hawkish source:

Listen to Yourself, Instaman
by Gene Healy | Jan 9, 2003 | 4 comments

So here’s Glenn Reynolds on the US (the Daddy Country) and its relationship with other countries (sniveling, spoiled teenage brats with no respect for authority):

LAST NIGHT there was a Cosby show rerun on Nickelodeon. Theo defies his parents, and they leave him with nowhere to live in order to teach him that actions have consequences, and forgiveness isn’t to be taken for granted.

This morning Howard Kurtz is writing about the surprising degree of support, even among conservatives, for the idea of hanging South Korea out to dry. I wonder if there’s a parallel to be drawn here?

… long-term, there’s a lot to be gained by reminding our triangulating allies that American love, and American forgiveness, are not to be taken for granted either. That’s a lesson we keep ramming home to the Germans. And the Koreans need to learn it too.

We live in a world where most of our allies are Theo Huxtables: self-centered, unrealistic, and overconfident in their assorted schemes because they know Heathcliff will always bail them out in the end. But this isn’t a situation comedy.

[…]

Reynolds is like one of those spoiled, crying, snot-nosed children you see shrieking and grabbing their parents’ sleeve in the supermarket. “Daddy! Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!, DADDY!! Notice meeeeee!”

The Rapier is Mightier Than The Spiked Club

Published on February 23, 2007

Speaking of deadly courtesy……the US blogosphere has it’s own seasoned practitioner in General JC Christian, who with deceptively gentle acidity points out the evidence for wingnut Michael Medved’s (see Martin’s post) undoubted, red-blooded heterosexuality:

Friday, February 23, 2007

Remember, Michael Medved is 110% heterosexual

I’ve learned a couple of things about Mr. Medved since yesterday when I asked you to remind yourselves that he’s as heterosexual as Lindsey Graham. I think it’s important that I address them quickly before people get the wrong idea.

First, Seattle Dan tells us he saw Mr. Medved on a mandate with former WA gubernatorial candidate John Carlson at a Seattle movie theater. According to Dan, the manly couple seemed to enjoy the film, Shrek, very much. He also reports that he did not see them holding hands, but he can’t rule it out either.

I don’t see anything wrong with a man bonding with another man by attending a children’s movie about a love affair between an ogre and a princess. It sounds like good, clean, manly, heterosexual fun to me, like watching NASCAR or punching each other in the shoulder. And inasmuch as Dan doesn’t mention any tongue action, I think we have to conclude, notwithstanding any popcorn tricks, that it wasn’t anything more than a harmless little mandate between two very special friends.

Second, on his Thursday show, Sam Seder told a story about an interview he had with Medved when Sam was promoting his book, F.U.B.A.R.. During a break, Medved asked him if his coauthor, Stephen Sherrill, was his “partner.” Seder replied that while he and Sherrill sometimes collaborated, “partner” might not be the right term. Medved responded that he meant “partner” in the sense of being lovers. Seder said, “No, I’m married,” and Medved replied with something like “but, so am I.”

Hmmmm…

Please notice that at no time did Mr. Medved invite Seder’s little soldier to go spelunking in his cave of ecstasy. I think that’s all the evidence we need. Obviously, Mr. Medved is 110% heterosexual.

Labels: Our Man Flanders

It’s tempting to go in with boots and fists flailing and I’m hardly the one to be needlessly civil when dealing with fuckwits. But sometimes the rapier is more effective, and funnier, than the club with nails in it.