Crackpot Utopia: The Year in Republican Crazy, Part 10

• Newsmax -- Beyond Drudgery
• Crazyspeak of the Year nominees Nos. 12 and 13: Michele Bachmann, Kimberly Guilfoyle


Newsmax, says Noah, "tells republicans what they want to believe." (See No. 1.) And the way Newsmax sees it, who better to tear President Obama down than "political analyst" Dick Morris? In this segment (watch it here), Dick's "news" is that Obama is blowing off national-security briefings -- part of his determined effort to undermine national security.

Crackpot Utopia: A dream world as envisioned by republicans; a manifestation or expression of the deranged, warped alternate universe inhabited by republicans, at least in their minds. See also: Bachmannism, Boehneresque.

by Noah

1. Newsmax -- Beyond Drudgery


Ah, the good old days when we burned witches!

As we all know, republicans live in some sort of comic-book bizarro alternate universe. Unfortunately, that universe overlaps with the real world that normally adjusted people live in. It's a twist of fate that defies the laws of quantum physics, but it is what it is and it's not going to go away anytime soon. The last Dark Ages lasted hundreds of years. Witches were burned and people really thought that plagues are sent by God as punishments for perceived "sins." Sound familiar?

So, you might ask yourself, how has this come about? Is it as simple as what Karl Rove arrogantly said shortly after Bush the Usurper took over the White House? You recall:

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."

Following that mission, what republicans have since created is indeed their own reality. They might as well be going back to the gory old days when people believed that the sun revolves around the earth. That's bad enough, but they want to take everyone down the drain with them.

To create this world you need more than lies from presidents, you need an alternative media. The selling of the Iraq war would be a case in point. People have a natural tendency to believe what they see on the TV and what they read on the Internet. "It must be true, I found it on the Internet." Orwell knew: People who lack critical thinking or just have the desire to be spoon-fed comfortable, reassuring lies that support their prejudices or superstitious preconceived notions are malleable. Just put it in the media and a certain percentage of people will numbly follow.

Goebbels also knew this. So did Stalin when Pravda was created. So did Roger Ailes when he first proposed his idea for GOP TV to Richard Nixon. But it isn't all just FOX. The corporate media supplies hours and hours of daily right -wing talk-radio lunacy for the acolytes. In fact, over 95 percent of talk radio is of the Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage ilk.

Then there's Newsmax.

Newsmax is not to be confused with Newsbusters. Newsbusters is another, perhaps even weirder republican font of information. Newsbusters is where righties find out about John Kerry faking his wounds and President Obama being secretly gay and married to man -- hence his support of "gay marriage." Newsbusters and Newsmax do have some things in common, though. For instance, both believe that President Bill Clinton's deputy White House counsel, Vince Foster, was murdered by one or both of the Clintons.

The link between Newsmax and Newsbusters is not just republican kookery. The link also exists in the form of one man, Christopher Ruddy. Ruddy literally wrote the book on what is known as the Vince Foster Conspiracy. The book is The Strange Death of Vincent Foster: An Investigation. It wasn't the first time Ruddy had put forth this tale. Before writing his book, he had "covered the story" as a "reporter" for Rupert Murdoch's New York Post and Richard Mellon Scaife's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

When three separate official investigations of Vince Foster's death concluded that the death was a suicide, Ruddy concluded that those official investigations were obviously part of the conspiracy! One of the investigations was even headed up by Kenneth Starr, the man who tirelessly led the impeachment of President Clinton and the attempt to remove him from the presidency. One could argue that the current republican penchant for irrational conspiracy started with the strange mind of Christopher Ruddy and his Vince Foster conspiracy.

Ruddy also came up with what is known as the Ron Brown Conspiracy. Brown, the Clinton secretary of commerce, sadly died in a plane crash in Croatia in 1996. Ruddy claims that Brown's head was found with a bullet hole in it. The medical examiner found no bullet hole. Neither did the United States Air Force. I guess they were part of the conspiracy.

Christopher Ruddy was not to be deterred. He had been impressed with how the Internet virally spread the stories surrounding the Clinton impeachment effort. He decided that he would form his own media outlet and it would be called Newsmax. He's not a stupid man. He is apparently deranged, but that is all too often a characteristic that goes with being a republican. His mission was clearly to spread some derangement around.

Ruddy started Newsmax with money from Scaife, the family of former CIA Director William Casey, and others. Former Nixon and Ford administration chief of staff Gen. Alexander Haig and right-wing talk-radio host Michael Reagan are key players, as are Adm. Thomas Moorer, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (chief of naval operations at the height of the Vietnam War), and Jeff Cunningham, former publisher of Forbes magazine. Rape apologist George Will, homophobe Dr. Laura Schlessinger, and bug-eyed frothing-at-the-mouth lunatic Ben Stein are frequent contributors.

Dick Morris says that Newsmax has become "the most influential Republican-leaning media outlet" in the nation. Think about that. Now Newsmax is not just an Internet site, it's also a magazine, and they even have Newsmax Radio and Newsmax TV. People watch it. Lots of people. According to Nielson Online, Newsmax is the most trafficked conservative website, with approximately 4 million visitors per month. It tells republicans what they want to believe.

To illustrate where Newsmax is coming from, I thought a list of 2014 headlines would tell a story. I subscribe in order to see what members of the Crackpot Party are saying. I don't even need to really read the stories; the headlines tell the tales. You can see the agenda behind them. So many times you can also see a lot of wishful thinking. Often you can also see the paranoia. Here's a selection:

1/14/14: FBI Won't File Charges For IRS Targeting; Obamacare Death Spiral At Hand
2/5/14: CBO: Obamacare To Kill 3 Million Jobs; D'Souza Slams Obama Power Grab
2/6/14: Dick Morris: Obama creates 'Nation Of Independents': Rand Paul Warns Of Socialist Nightmare
2/11/14: Colt AR-15 Giveaway [This one was just an announcement of a special promotion -- runs about monthly!]
2/27/14: Sarah Palin Gets Reality TV Show; Son Of God Movie Blows Records
3/5/14: Shocker: Pope Open To Gay Civil Unions; Issa Hits IRS
3/18/14: FEMA Plans For Massive Depopulation? [This one is a sponsored article. Newsmax features a lot of this kind of thing, including Bible verse stuff, and endless warnings of stock-market collapse.]
3/27/14: Ruddy: Rick Perry Emerging
4/3/14: Tom DeLay: Obama Faces 'Armageddon'; Cruz Nabs $1.5 Million
4/11/14: Limbaugh Slams Colbert Pick
4/30/14: 'Smoking Gun' Benghazi Email
5/3/14: Where Was Obama During Benghazi Raid?
5/8/14: Revealed: The One Thing That Will Take Down Obama… Finally! [Another sponsored article. Runs frequently, to give readers hope.]
6/30/14: Obama: I Will Bypass Congress On Immigration
7/11/14: Matalin: Obama Has No Soul
7/15/14: Obama's Secret Plan For Illegals
7/25/14: CNN Poll: 33% Want Obama Impeached
7/27/14: Christians Face Extinction
8/4/14: Record Number Of Illegals Coming From Nations With Ebola Terror Ties
8/9/14: White Students To Be Minority
9/6/14: Franklin Graham Fears End Times Are Near
9/29/14: O'Reilly: Kissinger Agrees With Me
10/15/14: Ebola Droplets Spread In Air
10/20/14: Epidemic Still Getting Worse
11/8/14: Claim: Sharpton Chose Holder Replacement
11/17/14: NRA Warns Of Obama End Run
12/17/14: Obama's Cuba Deal 'Propaganda Coup' For Castro
12/22/14: Giuliani: Anti-Police 'Propaganda' Led To NY Police 'Assassinations'

2. Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 12: Michele Bachmann

Really, I couldn't just let Ms. Batshit Loco -- already featured in Part 4 -- leave Washington without one last parting kick. She'll probably resurface on the telly soon anyway. Something like Blaze TV or Newsmax TV will hire her to dispense her unique "wisdom" and "expertise." Meanwhile, shouldn't there be a big book of Bachmann's Greatest Hits so far?

Here's a great one from this year, where she proposes "a 100% tax on monies that immigrants send home," the idea being that a 100-percent tax will make it all disappear.



Really? All of it? Take it all? Now, that's the republican dream of human suffering for all but the few, and creating the slave class! Hey, why not go for 150 percent? How about yer firstborn is taken from you at age six and forced to work in the oil fields?

Or should we just make them pick cotton all day? Give them a bowl of watered down soup and a tent to sleep in? If they have no earnings in the first place, they can't send any back home either. Save the extra step of giving them money and then taxing it. Less work for the IRS too, and we know how she feels about the IRS. She hates the mere existence of the IRS. So why is she proposing giving them more work to do? Presumably they'd have to hire more people to collect these increased taxes. That was even one of her arguments against Obamacare. Wouldn't the hiring of more IRS agents to tax immigrant money leaving the country be expansion of government? Michele, have you really thought this through?

At first, when Bachmann proposed this, I thought she was referring to illegal immigrants, but she does just say "immigrants." She said this on a conference call with the anti-immigrant group Numbers USA this past summer. Specifically, she wants the 100-percent tax on money that immigrants send back to the Old Country, in this case Mexico and various Central American countries. Her proposal does not apply to, say, Canadians, Brits, French people, Germans, etc.

Then there's the question of what is done with this money once it's collected. Will it be going toward the Bachmann family's socialistic farm subsidies? Or will it be going for her socialistic lifetime health care and pension, whicht all ex-congresspersons get?

Damn, Michele, if you want to raise more money from taxation, it seems to me that you could have raised a lot more by taxing the money that U.S. corporations take out of the U.S. economy and stash in the Cayman Islands.


3. Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 13: Kimberly Guilfoyle



Now who, you ask, is Kimberly Guilfoyle? In the last installment of "Crackpot Utopia," I mentioned Rudy Giuliani's hot man-crush on Russian leader Vladimer Putin. Rudy loves Vlad so much that he rhapsodizes about him being our president. Kimberly is another poor, unfortunate asylum shut-in that Roger Ailes hired to dispense republican kookery on FOX, and she wants Putin or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in charge of the U.S. "for 48 hours."

Can I just make a special request in the magic lamp? Can we get, like, Netanyahu, or, like, Putin in for 48 hours, you know, head of the United States?

Can you imagine if Kimberly had been around in the 1950s or 1960s and said she wanted Russia's leader to be president of the United States? Yeah, Kimberly. That's what we need. Someone who'll go to the UN and pound his shoe on the table! Great idea -- you go, girl!

It wasn't so long ago that none other than Michele Bachmann was calling for a media investigation into "anti-American activities" of members of Congress, along the lines of Joe McCarthy's famous hearings. ("I think people would like to see an exposé like that," she said in 2008.) Maybe it's time to investigate how many of Rupert Murdoch's employees have "anti-American" views? That's how far FOX has sunk. Love it or leave it, a-holes!

And a personal note to Kimberly: Cut your makeup use in half, at least. The Tammy Faye Baker thing doesn't work for you. And you too, Rudy!


UP NEXT IN PART 11: GOP and FOX whip up the hate over a POW exchange; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 14: Iowa asylum escapee Rep. Steve King

NOAH'S 2014 IN REVIEW --
Crackpot Utopia: The Year in Republican Crazy

Part 1: Princess Liz Cheney tries for the Smoothie of the Year Award; "Miss Beck regrets" -- Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 1: Glenn Beck; and the Crackpot Party reacts to President Obama’s State of the Union speech [12/19/2014]
Part 2: Republicans wonder why normal people call them racists; Sean Hannity wants to self-deport; and the First Annual Mr. Burns Award, to ABC "shark" Kevin O'Leary [12/20/2014]
Part 3: Using fear, loathing, and paranoia to sell stuff; Arizona legalizes crack!; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 3: Bill O’Reilly [12/21/2014]
Part 4: A celebration of Michele Bachmann: Pray away the crazy?; What "War on Women"?; and the "Obama angle" on Malaysian Flight 370 [12/22/2014]
Part 5: The GOP and the kiss heard 'round the world; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 5: Joe the Plumber [12/23/2014]
Part 6: A word about South Carolina; Pat Robertson and his magic asteroid; and I'll have a pack of Twizzlers and an IUD to go, please [12/24/2014]
Part 7: And so it begins: The running of the buffoons; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 7, George Will has no idea what rape is; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 8, Rick Wiles calls for a coup [12/29/2014]
Part 8: Things to come: Forward into the past! (11 Presidential Dream Tickets); Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 9: Former republican VP nominee Paul "Crazy Eyes" Ryan; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 10: Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association [12/30/2014]
Part 9: Pompous Blowhard of the Year Award: Bill O’Reilly; FOX "News" announces new spinoff: the "FOX Benghazi™" Shopping Channel!; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 11: DiGiorno Pizza [12/31/2014]
Part 10: Newsmax -- Beyond Drudgery; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominees Nos. 12 and 13: Michele Bachmann, Kimberly Guilfoyle [1/1/2015]
Part 11: GOP and FOX whip up the hate over a POW exchange; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 14: Iowa asylum escapee Rep. Steve King [1/3/2015]
Part 12: Arizona Republican protests busload of YMCA campers; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee(s) No. 15: the Impeachment Variations (group nomination); Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 16: NM Rep. Steve Pearce [1/4/2015]
Part 13 (and last): TV for Dummies: Sarah Palin launches her own channel; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 17: Arizona schools superintendent John Huppenthal (rhymes with Neanderthal); and the final Crazyspeak of the Year nominee -- and also the winner! [1/5/2015]

NOAH'S 2013 IN REVIEW --
A Prayer to the Janitor of Lunacy

For listings and links, see Part 1 of this year's series.

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