COVID-Wise, Will All Of America Be Like Texas? Or Much Worse-- Like Florida?

On Friday, Texas had a relatively good day in the new case department, "only" 8,552 confirmed new cases. Yesterday there were 7,735 more, bringing the total to 393,683 in total-- 13,577 cases per million Texans. The population of the state is around 29.9 million, about half as many people as Italy, which is one of the hardest-hit countries in the world. But with twice as many people, Italy only has 245,864 cases (4,067 cases per million Italians). So far 35,102 Italians have died and both new cases and new deaths have petered out (only 274 new cases yesterday and 5 new deaths). The pandemic is still relatively young and virulent in Texas, which has already had over 5,000 deaths and 135 new deaths announced yesterday). It's going to get much worse in Texas, although it doesn't have to. At least it wouldn't have to if Texas wasn't so tightly controlled by aggressively science-denying Republican politicians, all vying with each other to see who can be the most extreme and the furthest up Trump's ass.

With dozens of sheriffs telling Abbott they refuse to enforce his mask mandate, there's a new wrinkle in Texas Republicans' assertion that they have the right to spread the contagion no matter how many people they kill. Late yesterday, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that "Almost 800 bar owners across the state will participate in Freedom Fest, an event where bar owners will defy Abbott’s June 26 order that closed bars as the state’s coronavirus numbers surged." Bars that open illegally could see their liquor license suspended but no one expects that to actually happen.

Writing for the Wall Street Journal yesterday, Elizabeth Findell asked Will Texas Shut Down Again Amid Surge in Covid-19 Cases?. "In Houston, where booming Covid-19 cases have pushed many hospitals beyond their intensive-care unit capacity for the first time," she reported, "doctors have been sounding alarms for weeks. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the Democratic elected executive of the county which includes the nation’s fourth-largest city, has been pushing to again implement stay-home orders there. Face coverings, which Republican Gov. Greg Abbott made mandatory this month, remain a lightning rod of controversy. The divide over policies to combat Covid-19 has only deepened in a state where politicians have been at war for months. The governor, who has seen his approval ratings tumble, has struggled to form a consistent public-health response to the crisis as he is buffeted from both right and left. Democrats want tougher restrictions, while many Republicans fear he has already gone too far, leaving him bouncing between policies and yet having appeased no one.

In recent weeks, Mr. Abbott has vacillated between denying another state shutdown is imminent and warning Texans that it will be necessary if things don’t improve.

“I know that many of you are frustrated,” the governor told the state GOP at its virtual convention last week. “So am I. I know that many of you don’t like the mask requirement. Neither do I. It’s the last thing I wanted to do. Actually, next to last. The last thing is lock Texas down again. We must do all we can to prevent that, but every day the facts get worse.”

In Texas, the average number of new Covid-19 cases confirmed each day jumped from around 1,000 in late April and early May to more than 10,000 on many days in July, but has begun to taper slightly. The proportion of tests that are positive, which health experts say should be below 5%, has been nearly 15%. Texans are now dying of the disease at a rate of nearly 140 a day, and more than 4,500 [5,059] have died of it total.

Texas’s largest cities, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas and Austin have all seen significant virus spread, with average daily new cases per 100,000 people ranging from 20 to 60 in the past week. The Rio Grande Valley, meanwhile, has seen death rates six times the state as a whole. But some rural counties, especially in the western part of the state, have remained relatively unaffected.

Texas, like Georgia, Florida and Arizona, was relatively spared for the first months of the virus and then saw a rapid rise in cases following Memorial Day, after reopening from fairly short lockdowns. Over the past week, the proportion of positive tests those states have seen was 16%, 19% and 25%, respectively.

Like Florida and Arizona, Texas has closed bars and limited both indoor dining and large gatherings. Texas also has a mask mandate for most residents, unlike Arizona and Florida, which don’t.

In Houston, the 60 hospitals that make up the Texas Medical Center, a medical district considered the largest in the world, have exceeded their normal ICU capacity for the first time in memory and are using 17 of 273 beds added for a “phase two” surge, said Chief Executive William McKeon. The tide of incoming patients is slowing slightly, he said, after the mask mandate.

Despite the rise in Covid-19 cases in Houston, the state Republican party pushed to hold its mid-July 2020 convention in person there, ultimately losing a showdown with Mayor Sylvester Turner, a Democrat.

“This is a convention that Trump wants,” Leslie Thomas, a member of the state’s Republican Party executive committee, said as she voted on July 2 to hold the event in person. “Like it or not, Texas is the Republican state. We bear that. So we need to stand our ground.”

In a recent interview, Ms. Thomas said her vote, weeks before President Trump canceled an in-person convention in Jacksonville, reflected his views on live events, along with her belief that in-person conversations are key to a convention. She said she wasn’t concerned about risks from the virus, likening the convention to going to Walmart.

Mr. Turner blocked the convention, calling it far too dangerous for thousands of people to gather together indoors. The GOP fought it all the way to the Texas Supreme Court, but didn’t obtain the right to go forward. Instead, the party scrambled to hold the event online, where it struggled to get past repeated computer errors.

In the wee hours of Monday morning, state Republicans participating in the online convention voted to replace their party chairman with Allen West, an Army veteran and onetime Florida congressman known for his firebrand style. His statement before the vote derided Mr. Abbott’s Covid-related executive orders as “the despotism, the tyranny that we see in the great state of Texas.”

The view reflects the ire of some of Mr. Abbott’s fellow Republicans in response to making masks mandatory. Some consider such requirements unconstitutional. Local Republican parties in a handful of counties approved censure resolutions to condemn the governor’s move.

Ms. Hidalgo first required masks in the Houston area in April, following other Texas counties and cities. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican, called it “the ultimate government overreach” and local Congressman Dan Crenshaw, a Republican, said penalties could “lead to unjust tyranny.” The Houston Police Officer’s Union called the rules “draconian” and sought a ruling on whether they were legal. Looking back in a recent interview, Ms. Hidalgo said the order was the beginning of a political battle.

“But I didn’t realize how much it would grow,” she said. “It was a harbinger of things to come.”

Typical of Texas politics, which is often marked by tugs-of-war between Republican leaders of the state and Democratic leaders of its largest cities, Mr. Abbott overturned the mask mandates of Harris and other counties when he began reopening the state in May.

Two months later, however, after the number of Covid cases diagnosed each day had increased eightfold, he issued his own statewide mandate requiring face masks. Last month he was also forced to walk back the reopening, closing bars for a second time and reducing restaurant capacity.

Houston resident Kiersten Tapia, 32, said the state reopened too quickly, “like it was red light to green.” She remains a supporter of Mr. Abbott, whom she has long liked, but is concerned the changing requirements regarding masks led many in her area of central northwest Houston to take fewer precautions than she did.

“It was confusing,” she said of the mask shifts. “They should have started out with them being mandatory.”

David Van Delden, however, an owner of 14 bars in Austin, Dallas and Houston, said the state moved too quickly to reverse its reopening and shut bars down again, leaving him unable to pay his workers. Instead, he said, there should have been stronger attempts to enforce rules regarding capacity and distancing at bars.

“You can’t pick and choose who is shut down,” he said. “We need to open back up and people need to be more responsible for their own actions.”

Mr. Abbott, the most popular politician in Texas and one of the most popular governors in the nation, has seen the effects of the virus crisis on his favor. Approval of his handling of the virus has fallen from 60% in late April to 44% in late June, according to the COVID-19 Consortium for Understanding the Public’s Policy Preferences Across States, a joint project of four major universities which has surveyed governor approval ratings in all states. Texans’ opinions of their governor are now in the bottom fifth of U.S. states, according to the report.

Some local Democratic officials, meanwhile, are now beginning to test the limits of Mr. Abbott’s authority. In Hidalgo County, on the U.S.-Mexico border in the Rio Grande Valley, which has seen a death rate this month six times that of the state, County Judge Richard Cortez, a Democrat, said Monday he will issue a new stay-home order for nonessential employees.

Mr. Cortez acknowledged in an interview on local radio station KURV that such an order contradicts the state’s reopening-- so he has no way to enforce it. Asked whether he expects a punitive response from Austin, Mr. Cortez replied “I don’t know.”

Monday, Mr. Abbott tweeted that “the mask mandate is successfully slowing the spread of Covid-19 in North Texas” and “a community lock down is not needed as long as masks & other distancing strategies are used.”

Mr. Crenshaw, the congressman who had taken aim at Ms. Hidalgo’s mask mandate, retweeted it, with the comment “This is good news.”

Mike Siegel, the Democratic candidate for a central Texas congressional seat that goes from north Austin all the way into the exurbs of Houston (TX-10), told me that Abbott and his own opponent, Michael McCaul "only care about regular people when election time comes around. It was nearly June, the second half of this year, when McCaul began acknowledging the seriousness of COVID-19. In fact, the three month anniversary was yesterday, of him speaking on the House floor with no mask on. Even now he refuses to acknowledge the poor performance of the Trump administration in handling the virus and passes all the blame away. We need a Congress that cares about the people all the time and especially during a pandemic. Not some one so out of touch that one of that one of their largest campaign expenses is limousine services."

Georgia Crackpot Barry Loudermilk Wants To Be The New Allen West

Barry Loudermilk reads Revelations while waiting for his make-up artist to arrive

Unindicted war criminal/torturer and one-term far right congressman Allen West, was widely considered an embarrassment even to the Republican Party. Although Democrats had their collective fingers crossed that he would run for the Rubio Senate seat if Rubio decided to run for vice president, those hopes were dashed last month when West took a job at an extremist think tank in Dallas. He celebrated his new position on Fox with Sean Hannity, describing a Jeb Bush vs Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential race as "a big government progressive Republican running against a bigger government progressive socialist Democrat."

West had built up quite a money-milking machine on the fringes of the psychotic, paranoid right of the GOP and he started and ran his on PAC, the Guardian Fund. Last year the PAC raised $6,418,777 and spent $6,088,154. Most of the money, of course, made it into the West's now pockets but $70,000 went to right-wing candidates and $1,536,951 went into Independent Expenditures. The extremists who West gave $5 and $10,000 checks to were

• Dan Bongino (R-MD)
• Will Hurd (CIA-TX)
• Lawrence Kaifesh (R-IL)
• Barry Loudermilk (R-GA)
• Mia Love (R-UT)
• Martha McSally (R-AZ)
• Steven Russell (R-OK)
• Lee Zeldin (R-NY)
• Ryan Zinke (R-MT)
• Tom Cotton (R-AR)

West's biggest independent expenditures were on behalf of extremists Joni Ernst ($551,937), Tom Cotten ($450,257) and Dan Sullivan ($349,075). Of the $6,418,777 reported raised, over $4.2 million was spent on fundraising itself, a very profitable endeavor for GOP hucksters like West.

Last week, he turned over the keys to his kingdom one of the craziest extremists elected in 2014, Georgia sociopath Barry Loudermilk. Already considered one of Congress' silliest crackpots. Loudermilk was elected to Phil Gingrey's seat-- when Gingery made an abortive run for the U.S. Senate-- beating libertarian Bob Barr in the primary runoff 34,641 (66.1%) to 17,794 (33.9%). GA-11 is one of Georgia's most politically backward districts-- R+19-- and the Democrats didn't field a candidate in the general election. Loudermilk was excited to don West's whacky mantle as he took over the PAC:

“Under the exceptional leadership of Allen West, the Guardian Fund led a grassroots conservative movement that led the way in taking the Senate back from liberal control and expanding our conservative majority in the House,” Lourdermilk emailed supporters on Friday. “Colonel West always leads by example, valuing decisive action over cheap talk. And I'm honored that he's asked me to follow him as chairman of the Guardian Fund. It's my intention to carry the torch forward as he would -- with direct action against the liberals who are trying to destroy America by sending strong constitutional conservatives to serve in Washington.

“Allen West played a major role in helping me get to Congress,” Loudermilk continued. “I am an Air Force veteran who served in intelligence during the Cold War, and when I made the decision to run for Congress, it was because I wanted to preserve liberty for my children and grandchildren. The Guardian Fund shares that desire and stood by me through victory in November. Now it's my turn to lead and I'm ready to go to the ends of the earth to fight for veterans, constitutional conservatives, and minority candidates, all of which we need more of in Washington.”

Calling President Barack Obama “dangerous,” Loudermilk tore into the president’s record on terrorism and immigration.

“Barack Obama, with his failed leftist ideology, is putting America at risk,” Loudermilk insisted. “Just like Allen West, I swore an oath to defend this country and its Constitution that I intend to uphold. The fight is on.”

Louder milk has already lost considerable credibility among the lunatic fringe, having solemnly vowed to vote against Boehner for Speaker while he was campaigning, but then voting for Boehner last week. On July 5 he told the Marietta Daily Journal that “I think Speakers have a term limit. They have a shelf life. And nothing personal against Boehner. He’s probably a great man, but I think we’ve got to have some leadership. Really, the deciding factor for me was allowing the bill to give Obama the ability to raise the debt ceiling at his will without any Congressional constraints whatsoever for over a year. I think that was irresponsible. That was irresponsible for the American citizens, and so it’s nothing personal, I think it’s just time for rotation in the leadership.” The same newspaper reminded Loudermilk's constituents that on the very first day of Congress he broke his first promise to them:

Loudermilk, when running for the seat, emphasized his objection to what Washington does and how its does it, i.e. to the status quo. He wanted change. The theme worked well as he demolished former Congressman Bob Barr in the Republican primary for the seat.

Loudermilk’s first official action as a new member was to cast his vote for John Boehner to continue as Speaker of the House. In so doing, he helped put down the largest revolt of House back benchers against sitting in place leaders in more than 90 years. Arguably this was not a bad first vote for the freshman member who must gain his footing by learning the ways and means of the legislative body he has joined. It is, however, hard to explain coming from a new member who believes, as Loudermilk is quoted as believing Boehner has already retaliated against Loudermilk for having voiced opposition to Boehner continuing as speaker in the November Republican caucus meeting. The danger is that Loudermilk and his fellow would-be reformers will fall into the habit of supporting the Congressional leadership, which typically means supporting the status quo.

In the recent effort to dethrone the speaker, the media reported that Boehner’s opponents claimed he was not sufficiently conservative. Those who characterized the contest that way were not listening or watching. The contest was more about legislative strategy and tactics, neither of which appears to be Boehner strengths.

...The problem for Barry Loudermilk is that his first vote could put him on a path of going along to get along. The attitude is the death-knell to the politics of reform. Opposition to Mr. Boehner in the caucus grew out of the fact that he has for years embraced the go along to get strategy. Congress as an institution is today approved by less than one quarter of the nation’s voters because of this kind of cynical cronyism.

As Loudermilk finds his footing he needs to remember he ran for the position he holds by opposing business as usual. This will be achieved only if Boehner hears from the members of his caucus that it is time for a change. If the reform impulse in lost in undue allegiance to the speaker and his leadership team, Loudermilk will have very quickly become part of the problem before he ever tried to become part of the solution.

Crackpot Utopia: The Year in Republican Crazy, 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
• Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 8: Rick Wiles calls for a coup

2016 GOP Buffoon No. 1 steps forward: He-e-ere's Booby!

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. And so it begins: The running of the buffoons

The media will call it the Extended Republican Primary Season, the period where all sorts of weirdos and wackos come out of the woodwork of American society and begin vying for the republican nomination for president. This is the freak show that leads up to the November 2016 election.

Already, at the end of 2014, one buffoon is stepping forward! It's Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and, he's even starting out his campaign just like Texas Gov. Rick Perry did in 2012. Praise God, hallelujah! No, really.

Like Perry in 2012, Jindal is beginning his quest for the White House by headlining the notoriously extremist American Family Association Christ-o-nut hate-fest event called "The Response." If you want to go, the next one will be held at Louisiana State University in January. The AFA has put out a prayer guide for the event that happens to be the same as the one from four years ago when Rick Perry was the headliner. Among other things, the prayer guide blames Hurricane Katrina on abortion and the fact that "Homosexuality has been embraced as an alternative lifestyle." Also to blame are such things as same-sex marriage and Internet porn.

It gets better. When reporters from the New Orleans Times-Picayune questioned the, for lack of a better word, sanity of the American Family Association's prayer guide for the Jindal-headlined event, the AFA removed the prayer guide from their website, then -- wait for it -- put up a new guide that blames 9/11 on homosexuality!

Bobby Jindal is no fringe republican. His state has elected him twice. The national republican party chose him to give its response to President Obama's first State of the Union speech in 2009. To republicans, his extremism is mainstream and normal. Do not make the mistake of thinking that there is such a thing as a sane republican. Those went extinct decades ago.

The problem for these psychos is that they'd rather it be 1692, or any time when witches could still be burned in the public square. The more "liberal" among them might not long to go back quite so far in time. They might want to just settle for pre-1967 England, when the local police could arrest you for so much as looking a bit gay, or the glorious days of the early-20th-century United States, when women could not vote. Some would settle for 1950s pre-Little Rock America. Pleasantville.



So, who will it be this coming primary season? Will we see Rick Santorum doing his Mr. Rogers imitation again? Will he be spouting off about leading an anti-contraception movement one more time? Santorum is not to be taken likely. It's safe to say that had he had any kind of organization geared towards winning the 2012 nomination, he, not the contemptuous Mittens Romney, would have been the candidate proudly put forth by the Crackpot Party. But Santorum couldn't even get it together enough to get his name on the Washington State primary ballot.

Mittens? His titanic overblown ego says yes. His "It's our turn" wife probably still dreams of walking around the White House in a tiara and gown. Many of the cash rustlers like him, But until he can learn to hide his contempt for the un-rich and un-white, along with the rest of the psychopathic characteristics of his makeup, any candidacy of his is doomed to simply not get enough votes from anybody other than a fellow republicans. Besides, all that allegedly laundered Sheldon Adelson casino gangster cash from Las Vegas and from Macao couldn't buy him the White House last time.

Rudy Giuliani? He once spent $50 million to get one delegate, and that delegate was from Florida! Florida -- not surprising. Plus, Rudy is deteriorating mentally at a rapid rate, as evidenced by his recent man-crush on Russian leader Vladimer Putin, who he says is his idea of a great leader  -- much better than President Obama. Then there's Rudy's recent attempts at fanning the flames of racial division and making political hay over the tragic killings of two New York police officers.

Jeb Bush? Another scion of America's biggest crime family? The man who directed the purging of minority voters from the voter registration rolls in his state? He's being cutesy about it, but he's already running. Yeah, brother Neil Bush can find enough cash, laundered and otherwise, and god knows what Karl Rove would get up to, but after Dubya and their dad, if America "elects" another Bush, then America truly does have a death wish. Do we really want to see another era of phony wars, an uptick of terror, a blown economy, and the newest drugs all over our streets?

Allen West? This shining light of the Republican Party says he knows for a fact that up to 81 Democratic members of Congress are members of the Communist Party.



President West? Well, wouldn't that be entertaining! He's even more certifiable than your average republican politician or voter.

Maybe one of the neo-fascist governors of the Midwest like Scott Walker (WI) or Rick Snyder (MI) or John Kasich (OH)? They're all managing to turn their respective states into hellholes of republican governance. Michele Bachmann? Well, she's not doing much now that she's left Washington. Where does Chris Christie fit in? Herman Cain? Paul "Crazy Eyes" Ryan, who worships at the altar of Ayn Rand and calls rape just another "method of conception"? Now who's satanic?

Media types can't go an hour without mentioning Rafael "Ted" Cruz or Rand "Lester Maddox" Paul. Even Sarah Palin has not ruled herself out. So many folks suffer greatly from delusions of grandeur these days!

Texas moron (yeah, I know that description is the definition of redundant) Rick "Ooops" Perry
now wears glasses, thinking it makes him look more intellectual. Is the republican base dumb enough to fall for that one? Rhetorical question.


It's as easy as one-two-three! Remember, though, that almost-ex-Governor Rick is wearing glasses now, so he could probably make it all the way to three.

Of course, there just may be some other great white misogynist or Grand Wizard wannabe lurking in the weeds. Louie "The Bestiality Guy" Gohmert? Lindsey "We're Running Out of Angry White Guys" Graham? Somebody we haven't even heard of, yet? Maybe Newtie thinks his time has finally come! Oh, joy!

One wonders if the republicans put crazies like West, Bachmann, and Jindal on their stages just to make your average everyday nutter like Rudy Giuliani look relatively sane by comparison. It may be their way of pushing the envelope in what is "acceptable." With that in mind, for the next installment of "Crackpot Utopia," 'm going to offer up some possible republican presidential tickets that would make sense to the majority of those who call themselves republicans. My suggestions are no stranger than what we have seen and what we will continue to see from the republican party as the 2016 race approaches. Keep in mind that every four years republicans get even crazier than before. It is their way.


2. Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 7:
George Will has no idea what rape is

Colleges and universities are being educated by Washington and are finding the experience excruciating. They are learning that when they say campus victimizations are ubiquitous (‘micro-agressions,' often not discernible to the untutored eye, are everywhere), and that when they make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate. [Emphasis added.]

OK, Will's verbal excretions are not as buzzwordy as Todd Aiken's "if it's a legitimate rape" or Paul Ryan's "method of conception" comments, but women coveting rape status? One wonders about the women such cretins marry.


3. Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 8: 
Rick Wiles calls for a coup

Wiles is a righty radio host who travels the same American Family Association road I opened up this post with. Among other things, he says that rights for homosexuals have prompted North Korea to threaten nuclear war, and that Columbine and Sandy Hook were perpetrated by government "mind-control assassins." Here's the great mind of Wiles calling for a coup:

I warned in 2008 that Barack Obama's mission is to instigate a second Civil War in America. His regime is deliberately ripping the country apart and if the US Military doesn't take action soon to arrest Barack Obama and remove him and his regime from the White House, there will be no country left for the military to defend. We are on the edge of collapse as a nation. Jesus Christ is America's only hope. Let us pray that Almighty God delivers us from this very real tyranny that seeks to persecute the saints of God.

Man, the Crackpot Utopians sure like to play the victim card and the God card. This assclown has managed to combine the two, along with some really neat paranoia into one little package of republican crazyspeak. Brilliant! May God have mercy on their tortured souls. I wouldn't.


TOMORROW IN 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 Ryan; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 10, Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association

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.

#

Is Allen West Disappearing Down A Right Wing Rabbit Hole In Dallas?

Many Floridians were looking forward to inindicted war criminal and torturer Allen West running for Marco Rubio's Senate seat if Rubio decided to run for vice-president, something which has been looking increasingly far-fetched as Rubio descended into the realm of national joke with his childish, tantrum-like response to President Obama's decision to change the course of U.S.-Cuba relations. No one really thinks Rubio is running for anything-- except reelection. And West has decided to take a job as CEO of a Koch-sponsored right-wing fringe think tank, the infamous Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis. He did one last fundraising event for his PAC on Saturday in Pal Beach Gardens before taking his clown show off to Texas. He leave as a plagiarism scandal swirls around him-- perfect for a think tank-- and right after going on Sean Hannity's Fox hate segment to denounce former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who he termed "a big government progressive Republican running against a bigger government progressive socialist Democrat."

"I think the challenge for Gov. Bush is going to be his policies on illegal immigration and also Common Core," West continued.

The GOP nominee, he said, will need to be able to communicate clearly and directly with voters in the party’s conservative base and explain how his or her views line up with theirs.

"I don’t think you’re going to be able to go out and win a presidential nomination without, I don’t want to say kowtowing to, but proving to conservatives that limited government, fiscal responsibility, individual sovereignty, our free market and free enterprise system, and also our strong national defense" are important to protect, he said. "Those are five key points that any Republican nominee is going to have to stress."

West helped elevate Debbie Wasserman Schultz to undeserved national prominence by pointing out that she's "the most vile, unprofessional and despicable" member of the House and a "coward," and by telling her to "shut the fuck up," insisting she had "proven repeatedly that you are not a Lady." He's the Republicans' public idea of an intellectual although behind the scenes many sneered at him as a trained minstrel show performer for their entertainment.

So he's packing up his family and moving west in search of greener redder pastures. The National Center for Policy Analysis is just the kind of outfit you would expect to hire someone of Allen West's calibre as their CEO. Established in 1983, by a right-wing British turtle farmer, Antony Fisher, its top policy objectives are cutting taxes for the rich, denying climate science, and, most important, privatizing Social Security and Medicare (as well as education, the EPA and criminal justice) and eliminating the estate tax for multimillionaires and billionaires. Along side the rich British turtle farmer, now dead, other founders included wealthy right-wing crackpots Russell Perry (CEO of Republic Financial Services), Wayne Calloway (CEO of Frito-Lay), John F. Stephens (CEO of Employers Insurance of Texas), and Jere W. Thompson (CEO of the Southland Corporation). The group claims to have written the basis of Gingrich's Contract With America. Although wealthy Republicans have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars on an individual basis, most of the operation's budget comes from the insurance industry and just seven far right anti-democracy family foundations: Koch, of course, as well as Scaife, Olin, Earhart, Bradley, Castle Rock and JM.

About a decade ago these kooks made the national stage when one of their spokesmodels, Bruce Bartlett, turned on his former employer, George W. Bush, and wrote a book, The Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy. The National Center for Policy Analysis, scared of offending right-wing mega-donors, immediately fired Bartlett. Something tells me if Bartlett couldn't keep a job at this organization, Allen will soon be running for office again, somewhere in Texas this time. And... for your edification, some excerpts from Chapter One of the book that so offended the National Center for Policy Analysis big-wigs. While you read Barlett's critique of George W. Bush, keep West's critique of Jeb in the back of your mind.

I Know Conservatives, and George W. Bush Is No Conservative

George W. Bush is widely considered to be one of the most politically conservative presidents in history. His invasion of Iraq, his huge tax cuts, and his intervention in the Terri Schiavo case are among the issues where those on the left view him as being to the right of Attila the Hun. But those on the right have a different perspective-- mostly discussed among themselves or in forums that fly below the major media's radar. They know that Bush has never really been one of them the way Ronald Reagan was. Bush is more like Richard Nixon-- a man who used the right to pursue his agenda, but was never really part of it. In short, he is an impostor, a pretend conservative.

I write as a Reaganite, by which I mean someone who believes in the historical conservative philosophy of small government, federalism, free trade, and the Constitution as originally understood by the Founding Fathers. On that basis, Bush clearly is not a Reaganite or "small c" conservative. Philosophically, he has more in common with liberals, who see no limits to state power as long as it is used to advance what they think is right. In the same way, Bush has used government to pursue a "conservative" agenda as he sees it. But that is something that runs totally contrary to the restraints and limits to power inherent in the very nature of traditional conservatism. It is inconceivable to traditional conservatives that there could ever be such a thing as "big government conservatism," a term often used to describe Bush's philosophy.

...Traditional conservatives view the federal government as being untrustworthy and undependable. They utilize it only for those necessary functions like national defense that by their nature cannot be provided at the state and local level or privately. The idea that government could ever be used actively to promote their goals in some positive sense is a contradiction in terms to them. It smacks too much of saying that the ends justify the means, which conservatives have condemned since at least the French Revolution.

George W. Bush, by contrast, often looks first to government to solve societal problems without even considering other options. Said Bush in 2003, "We have a responsibility that when somebody hurts, government has got to move." A more succinct description of liberalism would be hard to find.

...George W. Bush brags about never even reading a daily newspaper. Having worked in the White House, I know how cloistered the environment can be and how limited its information resources are-- much of what White House staffers know about what is going on in the White House actually comes from reporters and news reports rather than inside knowledge, which is frequently much less than reporters imagine. It's distressing to contemplate the possibility that the president's opinion about the worthlessness of outside information sources is widely held within the White House. Unfortunately, I know from experience that the president sets the tone and style for everyone in the White House, suggesting that it is more likely than not that this view does indeed permeate the West Wing-- a suspicion confirmed by the memoirs of those who have worked in this White House.

Reagan, on the other hand, had a conservative distrust of his own ability to know all the facts and arguments before making important decisions. That is one reason why he was so tolerant of leaks from the White House during his administration. Reagan knew that this was an important safety valve that allowed dissenting viewpoints to reach him without being blocked by those with their own agendas. Deputy Chief of Staff Dick Darman, who controlled the paper flow in and out of the Oval Office, for example, was often accused of preventing Reagan from seeing memos that argued against positions Darman favored.

...Traditional conservatives had grave doubts about George W. Bush since day one. First, he was his father's son. George H. W. Bush ran as Reagan's heir, but did not govern like him. Indeed, the elder Bush signaled that there would be a sharp break with Reagan-style conservatism in his inaugural address, when he spoke of being "kinder" and "gentler." Conservatives immediately asked themselves, "Kinder and gentler than whom?" To them, the answer was obvious: Ronald Reagan. In effect, Bush was accusing his predecessor and the philosophy he stood for as being the opposite of kind and gentle-- nasty and brutish, perhaps. As columnist George Will later put it, Bush was determined "to distinguish himself from Reagan by disparaging Reagan."

George H. W. Bush's break with Reagan quickly became apparent in other ways as well. For instance, he fired virtually every Reagan political appointee in the federal government just as thoroughly as if he had been a Democrat. Of course, the Reagan appointees all knew that they were liable to be replaced at some point, but the suddenness and thoroughness of the purge caught them all by surprise-- there had been no forewarning before Inauguration Day. It created a lot of ill will that came back to haunt the elder Bush when he got into political trouble later on. Most of the Reagan people sat on their hands rather than come to his aid.

I was spared the purge only because Reagan had appointed Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady in the last days of his administration, knowing that he was a close friend of then–Vice President Bush. Since Brady stayed on, that spared Treasury the "transition" that other departments underwent and thus avoided a purge. Within a year or so, most of the senior political appointees moved on anyway and Bush had his chance to appoint their successors. The same thing would have happened in all the other departments, too, thereby saving Bush a lot of unnecessary antagonism from the Reagan crowd. It would have helped Bush govern as well, since many of the purged positions remained vacant for some time for various reasons and were often filled with less competent and experienced replacements. Moreover, many of the so-called Bush people turned out to have no meaningful connection to him and were nothing more than friends of friends, serving in government just to get a line on their résumés and not because they had anything to accomplish in terms of policy.

One of the first things I noticed when the new crowd came in in 1989 was that they would very seldom mention Ronald Reagan's name. When necessary, they always referred to the "previous administration." And it was quite clear that they viewed Reagan's "hard-line" conservatism as passé and counterproductive to governing. They, on the other hand, thought themselves to be much more politically astute and believed that they would be far more effective by jettisoning Reagan's ideological baggage.

The problem was that having abandoned Reagan's principles, they had nothing to replace them with except political expediency. This culminated in the infamous abandonment of the no-new-taxes pledge in 1990. The Bush people thought they were being so clever by simply posting a notice in the White House pressroom on June 26, 1990, which said that budget negotiations with congressional Democrats would take place and include discussion of "tax revenue increases." They seem to have thought that no one would notice this fundamental reversal of Bush's position on taxes. Needless to say, it was noticed instantaneously, causing an almost immediate decline in Bush's poll ratings.

I was told by one of the key participants in this decision that they never intended it as a repudiation of the pledge, but merely as an acknowledgment that in a growing economy taxes automatically rise. If this is true, it certainly is not evidence of political sophistication, but rather its opposite. Being the only Reaganite left in the Treasury Department, apparently I was the only one who knew how negatively Bush's concession would be perceived by the Republican rank and file. Unfortunately, no one asked my opinion before the decision was made.

I bring all this up because when George W. Bush first came on the radar screen as a potential presidential candidate, all that most conservatives knew about him was that he was the son of a president who had abandoned a successful conservative governing philosophy in favor of what they saw as squishy moderation, and was appropriately punished by voters for his sins. So when the younger Bush started talking about "compassionate conservatism," therefore, traditional conservatives immediately were suspicious of another Bush betrayal. As Richard Miniter wrote in the conservative Manchester Union Leader, "Bush's 'compassionate conservatism' strikes some as insulting and signals a return to his father's 'kinder and gentler' conservatism, which led to tax hikes and the loss of the White House."

As National Review's Andrew Stuttaford later put it, compassionate conservatism is an idea that should have been "strangled in the cradle." To even call it an idea is "flattery," he said. For the most part, it is little more than "pork wrapped up in schmaltz."

Right from the beginning, George W. Bush made it clear that he was not a conservative in the Reagan mold. In a speech in Indianapolis on July 22, 1999, he called the idea that our problems would be better solved if government would just get out of the way a "destructive mind-set." Government is "wasteful and grasping," Bush said, but "we must correct it, not disdain it." Commenting on this speech, Cato Institute president Ed Crane said it could have come straight out of the Progressive Policy Institute, a think tank allied with the Democratic Party.

Even in front of explicitly conservative audiences, Bush continued his theme that government was not the enemy, but just wasn't being used for the proper ends. In a speech to the Manhattan Institute on October 5, 1999, Bush put it this way: "Too often, my party has confused the need for limited government with disdain for government itself." He went on to complain that the government was too weak to do what was needed. It was "grasping" and "impotent," he said.

No, Conservative Democrat Patrick Murphy Has No Significant Opposition-- But He Wants Your Contributions Anyway

Crooked father and crooked son,  Patrick and Tom Murphy

Many Democrats found the presence of torturer and in unindicted war criminal Allen West (R-FL) so outrageous that they were willing to contribute to the $4,480,428 campaign lifelong Republican Patrick Murphy ran against him. Murphy, decided to run against West as a Democrat instead of taking him on in the GOP primary. His wealthy Republican father started a PAC, American Sunrise, to funnel money into his son's campaign. In one of the closest races in the country, Murphy won 166,257 to 164,353, even as Romney was beating Obama on the same day 52-48%. Democrats were happy to be rid of West, of course, but many soon discovered they had simply replaced a loud-mouthed reactionary Republican with a sneaky and corrupt conservative Republican (who still calls himself a Democrat-- or at least a "New Democrat"). Murphy has been-- with Blue Dogs Kyrsten Sinema, Cheri Bustos and Pete Gallego and fellow New Dems Sean Patrick Maloney and Joe Garcia-- the worst freshmen Democrats in terms of betraying progressive values by voting with the GOP most frequently.

This cycle, the public polling shows Murphy-- who has eyes on a Senate seat-- beating his underfunded Republican opponent, Carl Domino quite handily. Murphy, a Wall Street whore, has raised $4,607,882 to Domino's $1,020,504. As of the September 30 FEC filing deadline, Murphy had $881,896 cash-on-hand to Domino's measly $84,590. On top of that, a right-wing PAC, the National Association of Realtors has spent $809,606 bolstering Murphy with ads. Their biggest expenditure, though, was $1,887,550 for Mitch McConnell and nearly all the money they are spending this cycle is for extremely right-wing Republicans. Suddenly, though, the DCCC, is signaling they or their "independent" House Majority PAC may come to Murphy's "rescue." They must have some private polling that shows Domino gaining.

In any case, a very shady Steve Israel-connected Blue Dog 501(c)(4) "social welfare organization," which does nothing but politics and funnel money to favored crooked operatives, spent $149,882 attacking Domino this week. Previously their Independent Expenditure Committee had spent money attacking opponents of Blue Dogs John Barrow ($167,600) and Ron Barber ($147,864). They ran positive ads bolstering conservative Cheri Bustos (Blue Dog-IL), John Carney (New Dem-DE), Charlie Dent (R-PA), who has no opponent, Pete Gallego (Blue Dog-TX), Richard Hanna (R-NY), who also has no opponent, Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ) and Ron Barber (Blue Dog-AZ). They announced they will also be running ads in support of Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Nick Rahall (Blue Dog-WV) and Brad Schneider (New Dem-IL).

This is how Center Forward, which dances to the tune of corporate America and Wall Street banksters, describes itself:

America is neither right nor left. Republican nor Democrat. Red nor blue. The mainstream values and principles that will move us forward come from where they always have-- the center. The center is where we leave our political labels and baggage at the door, to find commonsense solutions to America’s great challenges.

Center Forward brings together members of Congress, not-for profits, academic experts, trade associations, corporations and unions to find common ground. Our mission: to give centrist allies the information they need to craft common sense solutions, and provide those allies the support they need to turn those ideas into results.

...Center Forward has its roots with the Blue Dog Democrats, which have always played a critical role in maintaining fiscal responsibility, supporting pro-growth business policies and leading meaningful reform. After the extreme polarization in the 2010 elections the Blue Dog Research Forum was founded to give centrist Democrats and Republicans an opportunity to come together to tackle our country’s biggest problems. Founded by former members and staff of moderate Members of Congress who experienced firsthand how the legislative process became marred by the excessive polarization existing in politics, the organization serves a venue in which good ideas may be elevated, studied, discussed and developed.

One Democratic insider told me this morning that Murphy is in no problem and will win reelection handily and that the reason conservative Democrats are spending money in the district is to run up his numbers so that he will be more viable as an opponent to Marco Rubio in 2016 or-- if Rubio runs for vice president and not for his Senate seat-- the likely Republican candidate, Allen West.

Normal People Are Horrified At The Boko Haram Kidnapping Of 276 Girls While Right Wing Sociopaths Claim It's An Obama Benghazi Plot

View the FOX 17 clip "Western Michigan Mothers Rally to Bring Back Our Girls" here.

Everyone in the world knows the tragic story by now. Primitive, anti-education, mysogynist religious fanatics in the failed oil plutocracy of Nigeria kidnapped 276 young girls from their school and are threatening to sell them into slavery. On Mothers Day, both Pope Francis and Michelle Obama helped publicize the "Bring Back Our Girls" movement. "Like millions of people across the globe," said the American First Lady, "my husband and I are outraged and heartbroken at the kidnapping of the more than 200 Nigerian girls from their school dormitory in the middle of the night."

As you can see in the video above, Fox News in Michigan interviewed Dr. Paul Clements, the progressive candidate for Congress who taught mathematics at a similar school while serving in the Peace Corps in the Gambia. "They pulled up with pickup trucks and motorcycles, heavily armed, and they kidnapped at least 276 girls who were just trying to do their school leaving exams. This group has been such a ruthless terrorist group for five years. They’ve already killed over 1,500 people this year. These girls are trying to get an education because that's the way they can improve themselves."

Clements told Fox, that the terrorist group is Boko Haram and that that their name translates, roughly, into "Western education is forbidden." But, he warned, "That's the exact thing that their name says they're against. So it shouldn't come, unfortunately, as too big a surprise that that's who they're attacking."

Republican Party icon Allen West, however, sees it differently. Viewed through the prism of deranged GOP obsessions and psychosis, West-- a Fox News contributor, torturer and war criminal who was booted out of the U.S. military and later booted out of Congress by his own Florida constituents-- wrote on his insane, paranoid website that the worldwide concern over the horrific kidnapping is a Wag the Dog scenario that Obama is using to divert attention from… yes, the Republican Party efforts to fundraiser off the Benghazi tragedy! Yep, in West's crazy little right-wing world this-- as everything-- is all about Benghazi, the only "issue" the crackpots wing of the GOP has left after public opinion turned so sharply against them on the Affordable Care Act.

I circled back to Paul Clements and told him about Allen West's taking on this. He didn't seem amused. "As a Peace Corps Volunteer," he told me, "I taught math for two years at a school in West Africa. Far too many young people in Africa and around the world don't have access to quality education-- in Nigeria only 44% get to secondary school. We need to stand up for young people trying to educate themselves around the world. To people like Mr. West who have consistently disrespected educators and women, that might be a distraction, but it's not to the people in those classrooms."

Threats Of Primaries By GOP Racists Make It Harder For Non-Southerners To Back Popular Mainstream Positions

As soon as Jim DeMint took over the already right-wing Heritage Foundation, he made sure it would be even more extreme and, especially, more racist. Their first big effort under his regime was to put out a phony "study" claiming immigration would cost American taxpayers gazillions of dollars-- or, to be more "exact," 6 trillion dollars. No doubt, South Carolina's former KKK senator brought the figure with him and asked the propagandists at Heritage to write a justification of it. The KKK senator from Alabama, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III was so sold on the Heritage nonsense, he demanded the professional and nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office confirm it. The report, as we mentioned yesterday, didn't go the way Beauregard expected. Instead of DeMint's $6 trillion deficit, it "estimates that in the first decade after the immigration bill is carried out, the net effect of adding millions of additional taxpayers would decrease the federal budget deficit by $197 billion. Over the next decade, the report found, the deficit reduction would be even greater-- an estimated $700 billion, from 2024 to 2033."

This is bad news for Republicans who prefer to keep their racism and bigotry under cover. It's not going to matter for the real crazies-- mostly in the South-- whose overt appeal is racism anyway, your Steve Southerlands (R-FL), Patrick McHenrys (R-NC), Louie Gohmerts (R-TX), Tom Prices (R-GA), Alan Nunnelees (R-MS), Steve Stockmen (R-TX), Virginia Foxxes (R-NC), Rob Pittengers (R-NC), Steve Scalises (R-LA), Tom Rices (R-SC), Trey Gowdys (R-SC), John Micas (R-FL), or Bob Goodlattes (R-VA). But what happens to the Republicans who were looking for a legitimate fiscal excuse to vote against comprehensive immigration reform-- the ones who want to maintain a veneer of not being pawns to the racist yahoos who run their party?

It puts "mainstream" Republicans like Chris Gibson (R-NY), Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ), Charlie Dent (R-PA), Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm (R-NY), Chris Smith (R-NJ), Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA), Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Pat Meehan (R-PA), Tom Petri (R-WI), Jon Runyan (R-NJ), Mike Turner (R-OH), Tom Reed (R-NY), Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ), Richard Hanna (R-NY), David Joyce (R-OH), Leonard Lance (R-NJ), Rodney Davis (R-IL), Dan Benichek (R-MI), Dave Reichert (R-WA), Jim Gerlach (R-PA)... in a bind. The immigration bill turns out to be a gigantic deficit-reduction plan-- both in the short term and in the long term! Their constituents are different from the die-hard racists in the backward parts of Texas, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. The voters in these districts may not appreciate racism as a raison d'etre for refusing the solve a pressing national problem. Of course, on the other hand, there is an overt threat to these congressmen. Either vote NO on immigration reform, or face a well-financed primary.

And if you won't think primaries by radical extremists are real enough to scare the hell out of Republicans, look what's already happening to high profile Tea Party Senator Marco Rubio. During an interview the other night on WMAL, anti-Hispanic sociopath Allen West, who has the ability to raise millions of dollars from fellow extremists, said he will look into a primary challenge against Rubio.

"That's a pretty heavy lift, because you're talking about running against a sitting senator, and then, of course, that creates that schism that the other side would love to see happen," said West, who appeared as a guest co-host on WMAL's Mornings on the Mall Wednesday.  West was pressed further by WMAL's Larry O'Connor, who asked him directly if he would rule out a challenge against Rubio.

"Chirping... chirping... chirping...," replied West with a chuckle, before elaborating with a more direct response.

"If I see people that are not taking our country down the right path, if I see people that are not standing up for the right type of principles, and putting their own party politics before what is best for the United States of America," West indicated he might make a run.

Rubio, who rode a wave of Tea Party momentum to the Senate in 2010 in the same election that sent West to the House, has fallen out of favor with some Republicans because of his support for the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" immigration reform bill. West told WMAL he has a "lot of concerns" about the measure himself.

...But will he attempt to make that point as a Senate candidate against Rubio?

"We'll see what happens down the pike," said West. "God will set my feet on the right path."

And if you doubt Heritage and other far right extremist groups have the clout to mount effective primaries against mainstream Republicans you've probably never heard of Heritage's venal Conservative Action Project, which Lee Fang has exposed in his new book, The Machine.

The Heritage Foundation’s most audacious move to harness the conservative movement has been its role in crafting the Conservative Action Project-- a strategy committee that meets at the Wednesday morning breakfast hosted by the Family Research Council. This is the same meeting that rivals Norquist’s Wednesday morning planning meeting and is closely connected to the aggressively ideological Weyrich Lunch. The Conservative Action Project is actually part of a broader plan set forth by Heritage vice president Becky Norton Dunlop, a point person for Heritage’s sprawling external affairs program. Throughout her career, Dunlop had spun through the revolving door of working in various Republican administrations on both the state and federal level, a corporate PR firm, and multiple conservative nonprofits, including Heritage, the Alexis de Tocqueville Institute, and the Virginia Institute for Public Policy. A committed conservative, Dunlop was once asked how to spread conservative ideas at a panel discussion hosted by the Atlas Economic Research Foundation. “How do you maintain liberty?” Dunlop replied, “Well, at the end it’s at the cartridge box if you can’t win at the ballot box.” She then smiled and said that her response was probably too “extreme” for her audience of international right-of-center donors.

As the Heritage Foundation’s “chief ambassador” to the movement, Dunlop helps the American Conservative Union plan its annual CPAC convention, the largest annual gathering of conservatives. Philanthropy Roundtable, Dunlop and her external affairs team also organize multiple events to bring corporate donors and conservative foundations together, and she organizes regional and President’s Club events. Dunlop sits on the boards of over half a dozen other organizations, from the Phillips Foundation, which disburses grants to young right-wing journalists, to the Family Foundation of Virginia, a religious right powerhouse in the state, to the American Conservative Union itself.

Despite Dunlop’s impressive set of official responsibilities, her most important duty is not revealed on her profile page on the Heritage Foundation website. Behind the scenes, Dunlop serves as the president of the Council for National Policy (CNP), a secretive right-wing committee that has brought together key Republican officials, Christian right eaders, and wealthy right-wing donors to set the conservative agenda since 1981. Although she had been a director for the CNP for many years, according to tax disclosures filed with the IRS, Dunlop appeared to take the reins of the organization in 2008. Called the “most powerful conservative group you’ve never heard of” by ABC News, the CNP is still critical to the conservative movement, and deeply entwined with Heritage and other prime players of the conservative movement.

Initially organized by fundamentalist preacher Tim LaHaye, author of the Left Behind Rapture-genre series, the CNP is credited with cementing the role of the religious right within the modern Republican Party. The CNP initially hosted Pat Robertson, the televangelist owner of a network of different Christian media companies, Moral Majority Founder Jerry Falwell, LaHaye, and theologian Cleon Skousen, an influential thinker within the religious right who wrote that white slave masters were the real victims in the antebellum South. Some of the first wealthy businessmen included in CNP were Amway’s Richard DeVos and oilman Charles koch. Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese eagerly embraced the group and served as a direct link between the CNP and the Reagan White House. In addition to Republican Party officials, the religious right, and wealthy donors, CNP members include representatives from the conservative media infrastructure, libertarians, and many neoconservatives. Although the CNP has never allowed the press access to its events, it is widely known that the group hosts several meetings a year to allow Republican leaders to consult with movement conservative types. According to Bob Barr, the Republican lawmaker who spearheaded the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton, Barr met with the CNP to hone “our message and focus” around the impeachment effort at a CNP meeting in 1997, well before Clinton made his claim that he did not have “sexual relations” with Monica Lewinsky. In his memoirs, Barr said the CNP members were in “near universal agreement” that impeachment was necessary because of Clinton’s “abuses of power” concerning “national security.” However, CNP continued to support the impeachment when it transformed into a crusade against Clinton’s claims about his sexual improprieties.

In 1999, George W. Bush reportedly gave a speech to the CNP promising to only appoint pro-life judges, which in turn helped guarantee the support of CNP members and solidify Bush’s nomination in the Republican primaries. Although little is known about the activities of CNP events, many have speculated about the degree to which CNP used its influence within the Bush administration. Salon’s Ben Van Heuvelen has noted that the rise of the private military contractor Blackwater, now known as Academi, might have stemmed from the fact that Blackwater CEO Erik Prince’s parents Edgar and Elsa Prince were prominent donors to the CNP and its affiliates, especially the Family Research Council. Prince family members met regularly with prominent Bush administration war planners, like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Bremer, through the CNP.

John McCain kowtowed to the CNP in a speech shortly after locking up the GOP nomination in 2008, but still struggled to gain their trust. “I want to look you in the eye and tell you that I won’t let you down,” pledged McCain to the group of evangelicals and donors in his March 2008 address to the group. According to the New York Times' David Kirkpatrick, several audience members in the CNP crowd said that McCain made “little impression” despite his pandering. James Dobson, Tony Perkins, and many social conservatives simply did not trust McCain, and viewed his acclaimed “maverick” streak as a liability to the movement. According to the New York Times and The Nation’s Max Blumenthal, CNP officials finally pledged their support to the McCain campaign-- and in turn the support of tens of thousands of evangelical churches organized by CNP members, various right-wing front groups owned by CNP members, and other conservative organizations-- only after McCain selected Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Heritage can put a lot of resources behind targeting mainstream Republicans who are looking towards independent swing voters. The GOP base is still predominantly racist, bigoted and unable to think beyond the latest rants on Hate Talk Radio. But in many districts outside of the South, that's not enough to win elections. Look at the report from the new Iowa Poll for example. Steve King, one of the most viciously anti-Hispanic xenophobes in Congress spent Wednesday lying about immigrants and about the reform bill. The picture up top is from his rally yesterday. And King is backed by Iowa's increasingly senile Senator Chuck Grassley. But 54% of their state's voters approve of the Senate bill with a path to citizenship. 68% of Democrats approve and 54% of independents approve. True, just 44% of Republicans approve but only 48% of Republicans are opposed. The only demographic group that is against immigration reform are the elderly-- 65 years or older-- and even in that case, 48% approve but only 40% oppose. The rest are unsure.

No, Alan Grayson Is NOT Just Like Allen West

I think it was Saturday-- days are blurring together again-- but I passed a TV that had MSNBC on. It must have been the Inside-the-Beltway Convention Wisdom For Morons Show, which is in really heavy rotation lately, and they had a couple of the worst pundit-hacks in the pundit-hack business on as guests, spouting their gibberish. I think one was Dave Wasserman, and he is the Cook Report's most outspokenly foolish bobblehead-- at least on Twitter-- and the other was a woman whose name I didn't catch (maybe Jennifer). I was just putting on my shoes and socks so I wasn't paying close attention to all the conventional nonsense they were spouting. But then the one I think was Wasserman started babbling about how crazy Florida is because they elect extremists like Allen West and Alan Grayson. I'm mature enough to have learned to not throw shoes at TV screens-- although (fair warning) I do yell out loudly at lectures and even at movies.

First, as I'm sure even the bobbleheaded Wasserman is aware, no one who voted for Alan Grayson, in the center of the state in and around Orlando, could have possibly voted for Allen West on the southwest coast of the state has. So you can't blame "Florida." It's not like a senator or governor where the whole state is responsible. I'm giving Wasserman the benefit of the doubt on that one and assuming he was just trying to be an asshole. He succeeded. Alan Grayson is nothing like Allen West except in the fevered minds of Beltway pundits like Wasserman and the Villagers of his tribe. Allen West is a Tea party opportunist and a war criminal with no accomplishments to his name, not before Congress or since getting into Congress as part of the Great Blue Dog Apocalypse of 2010. (Off topic: Wasserman, who I assume from his tweets is the resident right-wing lunatic fringe idiot at the operation, referred to the Blue Dogs yesterday as a "coalition of center-left and center-right Democrats." No mention of far right-wing Democrats who almost always vote with Boehner and Cantor on crucial rollcalls.)

Grayson, a smart, savvy Bronx guy, worked his way through Harvard as a janitor and graduated summa cum laude in three years with a degree in economics. A few years later he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law. He also got a masters in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He clerked for both Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia and taught law at George Washington University. He is the only lawyer who was successful in suing any of the Bush Regime corporate cronies-- or anyone else-- for war profiteering in Iraq. That's how he got famous. Allen West got famous for torturing civilians in Iraq and then being drummed out of the military. There is no difference between him and Alan Grayson in Dave Wasserman's sad and ugly little Beltway world.

There is in Jim Hightower's world-- and he was in Orlando last week campaigning for Grayson. The video below was recorded by Hightower. Enjoy it; it isn't something that would make any sense to someone like Dave Wasserman, none at all. And tomorrow celebrate that no one outside of the Beltway cares what Dave Wasserman and people like him have to say. In the last poll Grayson released, he was up 15 points over an opponent very much like Allen West. And then I saw a Republican poll a few days later that showed Grayson up 18 points. Maybe that's because he fights-- effectively and hard and without DC sleaze tactics-- for ordinary working families. Hightower:

An old time humorist once said that, “Every now and then, an innocent man gets sent to the legislature.” Well, Alan Grayson is innocent of the corporate money and the caving in to corporate interests that so many practice in Washington.

But he is not innocent in terms of knowing how to get things done, for ordinary people. In fact, he drives those right-wingers and the corporate lobbyists crazy. Of course, that’s a pretty short ride for most of them.

There’s a motel here in my town of Austin, Texas. It has a great iconic marquee in front of it. It says, “No additives, no preservatives, corporate-free since 1938.” That is Alan Grayson; that is our guy; corporate free. He is a leader who actually leads. Imagine that. And he will make every Democrat in Congress better just by his presence there, and by his fighting spirit. So that will add up to making America a better place to be. That’s why I am backing Alan Grayson.

Did you vote yet? The polls are still open in Florida.

UPDATE: Grayson won... by a lot

Grayson's race was one of the first to be called by AP. He beat his silly, hapless opponent, Todd Long 155,072 (62.2%) to 94,161 (37.8%), so by a much bigger margin than any of the polls had predicted. And Allen West lost, albeit narrowly, to a fake Democrat backed by the DCCC.