Evangelicals May Be Abandoning Trump... But Where Do The UFOs Stand?

A member of Trump's "evangelical council," James MacDonald of Harvest Bible Chapel, an Illinois megachurch, emailed the other members of the Trumpist council that Trump's "grab-the-pussy" comments were "truly the kind of misogynistic trash that reveals a man to be lecherous and worthless-- not the guy who gets politely ignored, but the guy who gets a punch in the head from worthy men who hear him talk that way about women... No more defending Mr. Trump as simply foolish or loose lipped."

The Satanic-controlled wing of the American evangelical movement-- hucksters and right-wing prostitutes like Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, Robert Jeffress, James Dobson and Jerry Falwell Jr.-- are all firmly in thrall to Trump and 100% in his sulphuric camp. Christianity Today's editors... not so much. The influential magazine is politically neutral but the editorial on Trumpy-the-Clown wasn't. "We are especially not indifferent," executive editor Andy Crouch wrote, "when the gospel is at stake... [W]e recognize that all earthly governments partake, to a greater or lesser extent, in what the Bible calls idolatry: substituting the creation for the Creator and the earthly ruler for the true God."

This past week, the latest (though surely not last) revelations from Trump’s past have caused many evangelical leaders to reconsider. This is heartening, but it comes awfully late. What Trump is, everyone has known and has been able to see for decades, let alone the last few months. The revelations of the past week of his vile and crude boasting about sexual conquest-- indeed, sexual assault-- might have been shocking, but they should have surprised no one.

Indeed, there is hardly any public person in America today who has more exemplified the “earthly nature” (“flesh” in the King James and the literal Greek) that Paul urges the Colossians to shed: “sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry” (3:5). This is an incredibly apt summary of Trump’s life to date. Idolatry, greed, and sexual immorality are intertwined in individual lives and whole societies. Sexuality is designed to be properly ordered within marriage, a relationship marked by covenant faithfulness and profound self-giving and sacrifice. To indulge in sexual immorality is to make oneself and one’s desires an idol. That Trump has been, his whole adult life, an idolater of this sort, and a singularly unrepentant one, should have been clear to everyone.

And therefore it is completely consistent that Trump is an idolater in many other ways. He has given no evidence of humility or dependence on others, let alone on God his Maker and Judge. He wantonly celebrates strongmen and takes every opportunity to humiliate and demean the vulnerable. He shows no curiosity or capacity to learn. He is, in short, the very embodiment of what the Bible calls a fool.

...Most Christians who support Trump have done so with reluctant strategic calculation, largely based on the president’s power to appoint members of the Supreme Court. Important issues are indeed at stake, including the right of Christians and adherents of other religions to uphold their vision of sexual integrity and marriage even if they are in the cultural minority.

But there is a point at which strategy becomes its own form of idolatry-- an attempt to manipulate the levers of history in favor of the causes we support. Strategy becomes idolatry, for ancient Israel and for us today, when we make alliances with those who seem to offer strength-- the chariots of Egypt, the vassal kings of Rome-- at the expense of our dependence on God who judges all nations, and in defiance of God’s manifest concern for the stranger, the widow, the orphan, and the oppressed. Strategy becomes idolatry when we betray our deepest values in pursuit of earthly influence. And because such strategy requires capitulating to idols and princes and denying the true God, it ultimately always fails.

Enthusiasm for a candidate like Trump gives our neighbors ample reason to doubt that we believe Jesus is Lord. They see that some of us are so self-interested, and so self-protective, that we will ally ourselves with someone who violates all that is sacred to us-- in hope, almost certainly a vain hope given his mendacity and record of betrayal, that his rule will save us.

That's not nearly as odd as a Facebook posting from Glenn Beck this week that said "If the consequence of standing against Trump and for principles is indeed the election of Hillary Clinton, so be it. At least it is a moral, ethical choice." You go, girl!



You must have liked a Blink-182 song some time in the late '90s, no? They're still around, kind of, but not really because lead singer Tom DeLonge left the band. Their big breakthrough third album, Enema of the State had sold over 15 million copies. If the Wikileaks statements are to be believed, DeLonge has some kind of a relationship with Hillary campaign chairman John Podesta (a lobbyist and former Obama chief of staff). Podesta's in a documentary DeLonge produced about UFOs and the two of them emailed about UFOs as well. Hillary's campaign doesn't want to talk about UFOs but blames the Podesta-Blink-182 leak on the Russians.

Cruz And Trump-- Not Really That Much Of A Stretch

Saturday afternoon Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith interviewed Ted Cruz in front of a lively audience in Austin, Texas' capital city, famously described as a big blue dot in a sea of red. When Cruz ran for the Senate he lost Austin-- badly. Travis County gave his opponent, Paul Sadler 224,070 votes (59%) and gave Cruz 133,354 (35%)-- around the same outcome that Obama and Romney had the same day. Austin voters believe in science and knowledge and don't believe in the hogwash that conservative ideologues like Ted Cruz peddle. To stifle it's voice and minimize it's electoral impact, Austin in divided up between 4 congressional districts. One of the congressmen-- far right Republican Lamar Smith, a Trump fanatic, was on the ballot that same day. He won his district, TX-21 61-35% but the Travis County part of the district was a nightmare for him. He lost in his part of Travis County 48,104 (61%) to 25,607 (32%) to Candace Duval, who spent $56,932 to Smith's $1,705,681. Point being: Austin might not be the best audience for Senator Cruz. So I applaud him for going to the University of Texas' Hogg Memorial Auditorium to be grilled-- and he was grilled-- about why he endorsed Trump. Evan Smith did a really good job.

Cruz admitted his decision to endorse Trump was "agonizing." Why agonizing? Check out the video at the bottom of the page. But why did he do it? One-- he gave his word that he would endorse the winner of the GOP primary process, and, two-- he asked the campaign to guarantee him that they would pick Supreme Court nominees from an expanded list (21) of far right judicial extremists-- and they did. If you believe in Ted Cruz and his hope about being a principled, freedom-loving conservative, the story ends there.

If on the other hand, you see Cruz as a crass and craven politician, who was staring at the end of his career after he tried the principled freedom-loving shtik in Cleveland, only to see it collapse catastrophically as Texas Republicans began openly debating who would be a better candidate to take him down in 2018, Rick Perry or Michael McCaul. Parenthetically, McCaul, who married into the Clear Channel fortune and is now one of the richest men in Congress, also has a chunk of Austin in his congressional district and of the 7 counties in the district only Travis County voted against him-- 51,121 (55%) for Tawana Cadien, an African-American nurse, to 37,302 (40%) for him. Cadien had spent $51,855 against McCaul's $1,075,667. On his Facebook post endorsing the same Trump he asserted "is a pathological liar" who "doesn't know the difference between truth and lies," one of his excuses for the endorsement was the time-honored conservative shibboleth-- he prayed on it. Yeah... God wants Ted Cruz to endorse the pathological liar.

Anyway, if you don't see Cruz as the prayerful idealist, you might see that he decided to take the gamble that he'll be accepted back into the Republican mainstream fold now that he's kissed and made up with The Donald. Starting with Austerity-obsessed Paul Ryan, the party establishment has normalized Trump and successfully moved to paint him-- often against his will-- into a Republican-in-good-standing. The GOP grassroots now overwhelming sees him as such. Cruz keeps saying something to the effect of that no matter what one thinks of Trump, Hillary is the greater of two evils. More and more Republicans have been doing so in the last month. Cruz just came late to the party. Oh-- and that party is presided over by Cruz's biggest life-time donor, right-wing sociopath and hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer-- who also happens to be Trump's biggest donor and who was loudly pissed off that Cruz wasn't on board.

Glenn Beck says he now wishes he had backed Rubio instead of Cruz. His idol cracked! "For the very first time I heard Ted Cruz calculate. And when that happened, the whole thing fell apart for me. And it’s my fault. It’s my fault for believing men can actually be George Washington. It’s my fault. I should have said, 'You know who can win? You know who can beat Hillary Clinton? Marco Rubio.'"

And the most recent poll of Texas voters shows, predictably enough, the state firmly in Trump's hands-- 42% to 36% among likely voters. Perhaps more concerning to Cruz, though, were the unfavorable numbers immediately before his prayers told him to endorse Trump. "Extremely unfavorable" among likely Texas voters:

• Cruz- 33%
• Senator John Cornyn- 11%
• Governor Greg Abbott- 16%
• Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick- 18%
• Attorney General Ken Paxton- 13%
• Obama- 40%

Herr Trumpf Threatens To Sue Ted Cruz For Sneaking Into The Presidential Primary

Friday night I went down to CBS to watch Alan Grayson on Bill Maher's HBO Show, Real Time. Maher asked Grayson about the law suit he's promised to bring if Cruz wins the Republicasn nomination and Grayson, one of Congress' most astute legal minds, explained it in detail. Unfortunately a crazy right-wing, foul-mouthed, helmet-head backer of Cruz, Liz-something-or-other, kept interrupting and refused to pay attention to the facts of the matter beyond her own limited and insular experiences. Grayson's point is that when Cruz's mother was voting in Canadian elections, there was no dual citizenship for Americans and Canadians so Cruz's claim to be a "natural born" American is patently false.

I guess Herr Trumpf was watching because hours after the show he was in Sioux Center, threatening to take Cruz to court based on Grayson's arguments! "I’ve said Ted has a lot of problems-- number one, Canada. He could run for the Prime Minister of Canada and I wouldn’t even complain because he was born in Canada... The Democrats are going to sue if he ever got the nomination within two days. There have already been two lawsuits filed, but they don’t have standing. I have standing to sue. Can you imagine if I did it? Should I do it just for fun?"

He says he'll beat Cruz without a legal fight and save the court costs and legal fees. Trumpf is in an upbeat mood-- bragged he could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue and still not lose any of his supporters-- probably because he had a not-that-subtle endorsement from senile Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, the top dog in the state's GOP establishment and an avowed Cruz-hater.

Meanwhile, the Grayson campaign Act Blue page lit up, not just because people like seeing him in Maher's show and not just because of how he explained Cruz's lack of qualification to run for president but because when Maher asked him: "Trump or Cruz?" Grayson responded-- to loud applause-- "Trump or Cruz? How about a revolution?" Sounds Bernie-esque? More Bernie-esque than Hate Talk Radio host Glenn Beck's remarks yesterday when he endorsed Cruz in Iowa, yowling that "[I]f Donald Trump wins, it’s going to be a snowball to hell... Honesty, faith and truth are basic requirements. And quite honestly, I have to tell you, this probably isn’t going to go over very well, that’s why I like Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders is like, 'Yep, I’m a socialist.' I can actually sit at a table with a man who says, 'Yes, I’m a socialist, and yes, I don’t like what we are doing, we should be more like Denmark.'"

And, before we say goodnight, here are me and Alan, backstage at CBS Friday Friday evening:

The Great Trumpf Take Down Falls Flat On Its Face

Louisiana's Duck Dynasty Klan is split on who to support for president. None are following North Carolina Republican Richard Burr's example and pledging fealty to Bernie Sanders, but Phil Robertson, patriarch of the reality TV show went for Cruz while Phil's son, Willie, a former Bobby Jindal backer, is now pumping for fellow TV reality star, Herr Trumpf. "Mr. Trump is a real leader. He represents success and strength, two attributes our country needs. Like me, he is a successful businessman and family man and I endorse his candidacy for President of the United States," said Willie. Willie Nelson, of course, supports Bernie Sanders.

Greg Sargent detects some cynicism among the GOP elites: they're "telling themselves that Trump doesn't mean any of it."

One Republican-aligned business figure says GOP elites prefer Trump to Cruz because Trump “has no obvious core values.” One Republican donor says: “in the middle of the campaign a lot of people say things that they think are going to help them get elected.” Another donor says that while he finds Trump’s demagoguery to be wretched, that’s overshadowed by the fact that Trump is the only contender with the “entrepreneurial spirit” to solve our country’s “big problems.” Bob Dole says that Trump is preferable to Cruz because in reality, Trump is “kind of a deal-maker.” Translation: Trump won’t actually go through with all that crazy stuff he’s talking about.

As I noted the other day, the emerging argument is that Trump’s various pronouncements (even if these establishment types personally loathe Trump’s expressed values) merely reflect an entrepreneurial and adventurous spirit-- they are the inevitable byproduct of thinking big, of a refusal to be constrained by convention. Come to think of it, that’s a good thing, isn’t it!

Yes, they think-- like the German industrialists thought in the early 1930s in regard to their version of Trumpf-- that they'll be able to handle President Trumpf. So just as the Republican Big Money Establishment convinces itself that Trumpf is just fine and is practically one of the boys, as long as he can stop Cruz who they-- and everyone in DC--now hate more... a last ditch effort to stop Trumpf breaks out from the Republican Not-Big-Money Establishment.

The GOP civil war always looks strange but now it looks like the Hate Talk Radio hosts have all turned on Herr Trumpf and are urging their listeners to get on the Cruz train. Limbaugh, Beck, Deece and Levin currently treat Trumpf like the enemy and Levin seems to be implying Trumpf has a private investigator on his tail and is trying to silence him or blackmail him or some kind of crazy right-wing nonsense.

And, as you know, while the Hate-Talkers rally for Cruz, the rightist intellectual base all got together and wrote up little snippets for National Review about why Herr Trumpf is the conservatives' anti-Christ. Now, Erick Erickson, one of the organizers of the anti-Trumpf effort says he would still vote for Trumpf over Hillary (although he hasn't said if he will join Richard Burr and Willie Nelson in voting for Bernie Sanders). Erickson is basing his anti-Trumpism on the Bible: "I take my conservatism seriously, and I also take Saint Paul seriously. In setting out the qualifications for overseers, or bishops, Saint Paul admonished Timothy, 'If anyone aspires to the office of overseer . . . he must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil' (1 Timothy 3:1,6)... Like the angels in heaven who rejoice for every new believer, we should rejoice for Donald Trump’s conversion to conservatism. But we should not put a new conservative in charge of conservatism or the country, so that he does not become puffed up with conceit and fall into condemnation. Republicans have wandered in the wilderness already by letting leaders define conservatism in their own image. Donald Trump needs more time and more testing of his new conservative convictions."

Public intellectual Glenn Beck kicked off the National Review anti-Trump onslaught. "Sure," he wrote, "Trump’s potential primary victory would provide Hillary Clinton with the easiest imaginable path to the White House. But it’s far worse than that. If Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination, there will once again be no opposition to an ever-expanding government. This is a crisis for conservatism." His case:

While conservatives fought against the stimulus, Donald Trump said it was “what we need,” praising Obama’s schemes of “building infrastructure, building great projects, putting people to work in that sense.”

While conservatives fought against the auto bailouts, Donald Trump claimed “the government should stand behind [the auto companies] 100 percent” because “they make wonderful products.”

While conservatives fought against the bank bailouts, Donald Trump called them “something that has to get done.” Let his reasoning sink in for a second: “[The government] can take over companies, and, frankly, take big chunks of companies.”

When conservatives desperately needed allies in the fight against big government, Donald Trump didn’t stand on the sidelines. He consistently advocated that your money be spent, that your government grow, and that your Constitution be ignored.

Cato's David Boaz's case is that Trumpf is not just crazy but that he lets everyone see that he's crazy-- bad enough, but... "From a libertarian point of view-- and I think serious conservatives and liberals would share this view-- Trump’s greatest offenses against American tradition and our founding principles are his nativism and his promise of one-man rule." So... exactly what the right-wing masses want.

Cruz organizer Brent Bozell III uses the Richard Viguerie test: does he walk like us? Trumpf, he says, doesn't. "Trump might be the greatest charlatan of them all."

Mona Charen finds Trumpf too much the boor, a creep and a louse to be president and has the backup:

• "My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body"
• "If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her."
• he tried to bully an elderly woman, Vera Coking, out of her house in Atlantic City because it stood on a spot he wanted to use as a garage.

And he's not a conservative, just an ego-maniac "simply playing one in the primaries."

Who, except a pitifully insecure person, needs constantly to insult and belittle others including, or perhaps especially, women? Where is the center of gravity in a man who in May denounces those who “needlessly provoke” Muslims and in December proposes that we (“temporarily”) close our borders to all non-resident Muslims? If you don’t like a Trump position, you need only wait a few months, or sometimes days. In September, he advised that we “let Russia fight ISIS.” In November, after the Paris massacre, he discovered that “we’re going to have to knock them out and knock them out hard.” A pinball is more predictable.

Is Trump a liberal? Who knows? He played one for decades-- donating to liberal causes and politicians (including Al Sharpton) and inviting Hillary Clinton to his (third) wedding. Maybe it was all a game, but voters who care about conservative ideas and principles must ask whether his recent impersonation of a conservative is just another role he’s playing. When a con man swindles you, you can sue—as many embittered former Trump associates who thought themselves ill used have done. When you elect a con man, there’s no recourse.

Ben Domenech of The Federalist asserts that "the case for constitutional limited government is the case against Donald Trump," not a bad argument, although none of the Trumpf backers would care about it. "Trump assures voters that he will use authoritarian power for good, to help those who feel-- with good reason-- ignored by both parties. But the American experiment in self-government was the work of a generation that risked all to defeat a tyrannical monarch and establish a government of laws, not men. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people is precisely what the Constitution offers, and what is most threatened by 'great men' impatient to impose their will on the nation."

Mark Helprin also makes the Mussolini/caudillo argument and likens him to "a tapeworm [that has] invaded the schismatically weakened body of the Republican party" and that "he is astoundingly ignorant of everything that to govern a powerful, complex, influential, and exceptional nation such as ours he would have to know."

He doesn’t know the Constitution, history, law, political philosophy, nuclear strategy, diplomacy, defense, economics beyond real estate, or even, despite his low-level-mafioso comportment, how ordinary people live. But trumping all this is a greater flaw presented as his chief strength. Governing a great nation in parlous times is far more than making “deals.” Compared with the weight of the office he seeks, his deals are microscopic in scale, and as he faced far deeper complexities he would lead the country into continual Russian roulette. If despite his poor judgment he could engage talented advisers, as they presented him with contending and fateful options the buck would stop with a man who simply grasps anything that floats by.

Should I keep going? How about William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, which probably has even fewer readers than National Reviews? He's posing questions to conservatives: "Hasn’t Donald Trump been a votary merely of wealth rather than of freedom? Hasn’t he been animated by the art of the deal rather than by the art of self-government? ... Hasn’t Donald Trump always been a man inclined to go along-- indeed, impatient to get along-- with history? ... Isn’t Donald Trump the very epitome of vulgarity? In sum: Isn’t Trumpism a two-bit Caesarism of a kind that American conservatives have always disdained? Isn’t the task of conservatives today to stand athwart Trumpism, yelling Stop?"

Dana Loesch writes that she knows Herr Trumpf. "He’s been a frequent guest on my radio and television programs, and I introduced him at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2015. He has always been amiable and complimentary. I genuinely like him. But not as my presidential pick." She doesn't believe his conversion (to conservatism) story. Does anyone?

David McIntosh, head of Club for Growth, which ran some ineffective ads against Trumpf to try to stop him a few months ago, says Trump isn't a conservative and that he's "no better than what we already have. He’ll say anything to get a vote but give us more of the same if he gets into office." Trumpf's platform, he says are "the ramblings of a liberal wannabe strongman who will use and abuse the power of the federal government to impose his ideas on the country."

If you've been listening to Michael Medved's Hate Talk Radio show you already know he loathes everything about Trumpf and sees him as an embarrassment to the party: "Worst of all, Trump’s brawling, blustery, mean-spirited public persona serves to associate conservatives with all the negative stereotypes that liberals have for decades attached to their opponents on the right. According to conventional caricature, conservatives are selfish, greedy, materialistic, bullying, misogynistic, angry, and intolerant. They are, we’re told, privileged and pampered elitists who revel in the advantages of inherited wealth while displaying only cruel contempt for the less fortunate and the less powerful. The Left tried to smear Ronald Reagan in such terms but failed miserably because he displayed none of the stereotypical traits. In contrast, Trump is the living, breathing, bellowing personification of all the nasty characteristics Democrats routinely ascribe to Republicans... If Trump becomes the nominee, the GOP is sure to lose the 2016 election. But the problem is much larger: Will the Republican party and the conservative movement survive?"

Edwin Meese, Reagan's Attorney General, compares Trumpf to Reagan and finds him negative, divisive and destructive. Another GOP Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, insists that a "Trump presidency would imperil our national security." (I bet he'd vote for him in the general anyway.)

Katie Pavlich from Townhall seems most worked up that "Trump has made a living out of preying on and bullying society’s most vulnerable, with the help of government. He isn’t an outsider, but rather an unelected politician of the worst kind. He admits that he’s bought off elected officials in order get his way and to openly abuse the system."

Can't leave out John Podhoretz, right? He makes an interesting and plausible case that Herr "is the apotheosis of a tendency that began to manifest itself in American culture in the 1980s, most notably in the persons of the comic Andrew Dice Clay and the shock jock Howard Stern: the American id. Guys like the Dice Man and Stern had been told and taught and trained by respectable middlebrow culture to believe that their tastes and desires were piggish and thuggish and gross, and they said: So be it! Clay filled stadiums across the country with young men who chanted dirty nursery rhymes along with him. Stern invited young actresses onto his show to discuss their breasts. The screams of outrage that greeted them were part of the act... The cultural signposts Trump brandished in the years preceding his presidential bid are all manifestations of the American id-- his steak business, his casino business, his green-marble-and-chrome architecture, his love life minutely detailed in the columns of Cindy Adams, his involvement with Vince McMahon’s wrestling empire, and his reality-TV persona as the immensely rich guy who treats people like garbage but has no fancy airs. This id found its truest voice in his repellent assertion that the first black president needed to prove to Trump’s satisfaction that he was actually an American. In any integrated personality, the id is supposed to be balanced by an ego and a superego—by a sense of self that gravitates toward behaving in a mature and responsible way when it comes to serious matters, and, failing that, has a sense of shame about transgressing norms and common decencies. Trump is an unbalanced force. He is the politicized American id. Should his election results match his polls, he would be, unquestionably, the worst thing to happen to the American common culture in my lifetime."

There's more, of course-- read it all here-- but how can anyone top the Trumpf/Andrew Dice Clay comparison? By the way, you can contribute to the antidote to all this Trumpism here.

Crackpot Utopia: The Year in Republican Crazy, Part 1

• Princess Liz Cheney -- 2014's Smoothie of the Year?
• "Miss Beck regrets" -- Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 1
• And the Crackpot Party reacts to President Obama's SOTU

The Curious Case of the Princess and the Senator (see No. 1)

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. Princess Liz Cheney tries for the Smoothie of the Year Award

Since we're talkin' about crazy crackpot folks, why not start back in early January with the Cheney Princess, Liz, and her surprising -- and then surprisingly brief -- candidacy for the office of U.S. senator from Wyoming, the old home state of her Dr. Strangelovean Daddy Dick. Liz coulda been a contenda, or at least she thought so . . . at least for a while.

First, for purposes of frame of reference, here's a sample of Princess Liz speaking the crazy via Twitter:

Rarely do I disagree with best VP ever* but @SarahPalinUSA is more qualified than Obama and Biden combined. Huge respect 4 all she's done 4 GOP.
-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -
* "Best VP ever" = Daddy Dick -- Ed.

You see, incumbent republican Sen. Mike Enzi (there are only republicans in Wyoming) was thinking of retirement. All Dark Princess Liz had to do was be gracious, courteous, and professional, or even just one of those three, and go ask him if the rumors were true and say that, if so, she would like to run for his seat. If he said that yes, he wanted to retire, she could ask for his blessing which those in the know say would have come.

But nooo! The arrogance apple doesn't fall far from the tree. She just called Senator Enzi and let it be known that she was going to run against him in the republican primary. That didn't sit well with the senator, who went all "Nobody's gonna push me out -- screw you!" on Princess Liz's royal ass. Strike One!

Now, the citizens of Wyoming happen to like Old School things, such as respect for elders, class, and earning your stripes, so Liz's bull-in-a-china-shop approach just didn't play in her state, especially when it turned out that Wyoming wasn't even really "her" state. That became clear when she thought she'd put a veneer of "local" on herself and apply for a Wyoming fishing license. She also bought a $1.9 million mini-castle in Jackson Hole, a place that real Wyoming folks regard as Hollywood East. She even bought brand-new boots and squeaky brand-new blue jeans to "look the part," and claimed to be a resident, but it turned out that Beltway Liz hadn't lived in Wyoming enough to claim resident status. She got fined $220 for her untruthfulness (another family trait!). Nothin' like finding new ways to say "I'm a carpetbagger!" Oh well, at least she didn't go and shoot one of her friends in the face on a fake bird hunt.

Princess Liz did manage, however, to wish death upon the local media when they didn't bend to her will and ran with the fish story. Now, who works in the local media? Local voters, that's who. She later said that she was referring to the liberal national media. Strike Two!

Then there was the open-range dispute with her gay sister Mary over marriage equality. The battle flew all over social and cable media. The princess mouthed the usual "marriage is between one man and one woman" crapola. It got ugly, and if you turn on your own family, why should Wyoming voters think you'll always have their back? Strike Three!

Tanking polls! You're out! Even FOX "News," trying desperately to give her some sort of gravitas, could not save her. Mike Enzi is still senator. He ought to thank Liz for making him look good by comparison. Back to the Beltway, Princess Liz!

Next time, the Cheney family might want to consider running Princess Mary the Gay. She's actually less of a princess than Liz. She's a little better-adjusted, and maybe her party could make an exception and back an openly gay person for national office. Hey, I'm not sayin' this would be sometime in this decade, but maybe in 30 years or so. Her dad will still be around due to his 15th pacemaker, an artificial liver, plenty of Depends, a jet-propelled wheelchair, and a suit made of nicotine patches. Mary's campaign slogan could be: "Wyoming, I Just Can't Quit You!"


2. "Miss Beck regrets" --
Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 1: Glenn Beck



Also back in January, eternal misanthrope and conspiracy theorist Glenn Beck put on a faux hairshirt and went on Faux News to confess to Mistress Megyn Kelly about his role in polarizing the United States Of America better than Tokyo Rose ever dreamed.

I remember it as an awful lot of fun and that I made an awful lot of mistakes, and I wish I could go back and be more uniting in my language. . . . I think I played a role, unfortunately, in helping tear the country apart and it's not who we are.

I'm moved, I tell ya. I'm moved! Why, this is almost like little Idi Amin saying he's sorry he ate all those people!

Will Beck be giving back some of the millions he's made in the service of evil? What's next? Charlie Manson says he regrets that hot August night at Sharon Tate's? Too harsh? OK, maybe Beck was just trying to chat up Mistress Megyn by showing a "sensitive side."


3. The Crackpot Party reacts to President Obama's State of the Union speech

On January 28th, President Obama gave the annual State of the Union speech. Several republican voices, including foaming-at-the-mouth talk-radio wacko Mark Levin and Judicial Watch's Tom Fitton had encouraged republican senators and representatives to boycott the speech over such issues as "amnesty," the president's "luxurious travels," and of course (say the magic word!) Benghazi. Feeling that a boycott of the speech was appropriate, Fitton said:

Imagine if half the chamber is empty.

Well, for one thing, no goofballs would be mouthing: "You lie!"

The medication-free Mark Levin went even further over the top:

Since these men and women will not use the U.S. Constitution to defend this nation, since they will not use the Constitution to confront a lawless President, worse yet, since they're funding his activities with these omnibus bills filled with all kinds of crap, what the Republicans should do is boycott the State of the Union . . . so half of the House floor, because that's where they meet, is empty.

The immensely reality-challenged Levin rambled on semi-coherently with phrases like "threatens the Republic" and "liberty and tyranny" -- all the usual republican insanity.

Seems to me that if President Obama were half the tyrant these people think he is, they wouldn't have their radio shows, columns, etc. But hey, playing the victim card can rile up the critical-thinking-challenged disciples and rake in piles of money.

In the end, just about everybody,other than far right "Supreme" Court Justices Alito, Thomas, and Scalia showed up, but republican Rep. Steve Stockman did indulge in his version of Crackpot Theater when he got up and walked out halfway through the speech, saying he did it over the usual perceived abuses of the Constitution, Obama's not mentioning Benghazi, Obama's alleged "wholesale violation of his oath," "failed policies," blah, blah, blah. He's from Texas, so say no more -- except, well, he did bring the rockin' racist Ted Nugent as his date. (More on Ted in the next installment of "Crackpot Utopia.")

Another one of Texas's finest, Rep. Randy Weber, tweeted out something about Obama being the Kommandant-in-Chef. Chef? There go those Texas schoolbooks again. But who ever said you needed to know how to spell in order to go into politics? As outgoing Gov. Rick Perry says, it's not an IQ test.

The media reactions were just as bad. FOX's Erick Erickson blanched at the thought of equal pay for women in a tweet during the speech, while Bush's brain Karl Rove reached all the way back to 2005 to find something to whine about on his Twit account.

The man who threatened the full faith and credit of US now lectures congress on the issue.

The biggest media farce, though, occurred the very next day on FOX-Lite CNN, where republican shill Wolf Blitzer was seen tossing soft and fluffy questions to one of his most favorite guests, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), who had given one of the not-the-historically-usual-one-or-even-two-but-three SOTU rebuttals that the laughably called "liberal media" had afforded their republican friends. On his day-after show, Wolfboy asked Cathy if she supported "equal pay for equal work."

"Absolutely!" came the response. She blathered on and on about how the GOP supports pay equality for women in the workplace, etc., etc., blah-blah-blah. Did Wolfie the bearded wonder shill then ask her why she has voted against equal pay four times? Nope, but hey, that's not what he's there to do. He just plays a journalist on TV.

I wonder if McMorris Rodgers handed her interviewer a bag o'cash after the show. "Keep up the good work, Wolfie! Reince loves you! Kiss, kiss!"

•     •     •

Well, that's it for Part 1 of "Crackpot Utopia." And I'm not even done with January yet!


TOMORROW IN PART 2: Republicans wonder why normal people call them racists; Sean Hannity wants to self-deport; and the First Annual Mr. Burns Award

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*

Part 1: Take a bow, Repugs! (*including Nico's "Janitor of Lunacy") [12/30/2013]
Part 2: Remember when Reagan cut funds for insane asylums? (Storms, guns, bombs, free stuff, and the secret gay life of Obma: Some top Republican lies of 2013) [12/31/2013]
Part 3: No Cruz control (Rafael "Ted" Cruz in his own words) [1/1/2014]
Part 4: A great anniversary approaches! (plus more "Quote of the Year nominees") [1/2/2014]
Part 5: Everyone's a critic, including me -- Some people really try my patience (Bill-O, Howie Kurtz, E. W. Jackson, et al.) [1/3/2014]
Part 6 (and last): In the words of Dan Quayle, "What a waste it is to lose one's mind" (Exploiting tragedy for a buck; Miss America's not American?; "Quote of the Year" winner) [1/4/2014]

#

Dana Milbank notches a threefer of phony apologies -- from NJ Guv KrispyKreme, ex-VA Guv "Handsome Bob" McD, and -- wait for it -- Glenn Beck!

Say it ain't so, Glenn B! Did you really "ma[k]e an awful lot of mistakes" that "help[ed] tear the country apart"?

"Chris Christie is terribly sorry that his staff lied to him about things they did without his knowledge, and he feels remorse that the partisan media are targeting him with a witch hunt.

"Bob McDonnell is really sorry that an overzealous federal prosecutor is going after him for doing perfectly legal things.

"And Glenn Beck feels just awful that people were so 'fragile' that they allowed his rhetoric to tear the country apart. . . .

"Christie's problem is the fault of MSNBC; McDonnell's problem is the fault of the U.S. attorney; and the damage Beck caused is the fault of the people who listened to him -- and besides, he says, he didn't have a choice."

-- Dana Milbank, in his Washington Post column
posted today, "Apologize, then blame someone else"

by Ken

It still drives me nuts that the minions of the Right-Wing Noise Machine continue to praise NJ Governor KrispyKreme for "taking responsibility" for Bridgegate, usually with pointed contrast to a certain president of the United States and an incident in North Africa. Let me say again that we can begin a discussion of what happened in North African as soon as Republicans take responsibility for their role in underfunding U.S. embassy security and for taking no interest in previous incidences of U.S. embassy violence. The discussion is apt to be short, since at that point they will all presumbaly have blown their own tiny brains out in remorse.

Of course the governor "accepted responsibility" only in the narrowest, most technical sense: that all those people implicated by the e-mails in the scheme to close the George Washington Bridge to traffic coming from the Fort Lee

It also drives me nuts that the infotainment noozers continue to intone that the issue in NJ is whether Governor KrispyKreme can survive the Bridgegate kerfuffle, without pointing out that Bridgegate only exploded because (a) in this particular case a few dogged reporters knew where to look for the incriminating e-mails that, incredibly, they were able to shake loose, and (b) his close political and personal cronies were stupid enough to leave that e-mail trail -- perhaps thinking that just because they were "smart" enough to use personal rather than government e-mail accounts, they were safe from discovery. (I'm assuming, by the way, that this is legal in New Jersey, as many things seem to be. Unlike with federal officials, who legally aren't allowed to conduct government business by e-mail other than the government variety. You'll recall that this is the law that Bush regime officials violated at will, apparently in accordance with the legal doctrine of Who's Gonna Stop Us, Huh? Huh?)

I assume that this is the "abject stupidity" with which Governor KrispyKreme dismissed the Bridgegate goof-up. (Well, that and perhaps that the scheme didn't include any mechanism for making sure that the Dems and Dem-symps being punished knew they were being punished.) He might have made the point clearer if he had offered us the corresponding paper and e-trail of, say, five or ten KrispyKreme administration vendettas of which he's especially proud -- the ones that were executed the smart way.

To get back to this epidemic of phony-baloney apologies covered by Dana Milbank in his new Washington Post column, he begins the column: "I am sorry." [New paragraph] "I am sorry that so many people have been making insincere apologies. I hasten to add that I am not to blame for these terrible apologies, but I regret them deeply, all the same."

This epidemic of lying and finger-pointing, says Dana, "brings to mind George W. Bush's long-ago vow to change a culture that says "if it feels good, do it; if you've got a problem, blame somebody else.' " (Dana hastens to add, "That didn't happen, I regret to say.")


(1) NJ GUV KRIS KRISPYKREME (aka "NJ FATS")

In the matter of the governor's sorriness, I think it's worth recalling, as washingtonpost.com's "lighter side of politics" blogger Alexandra Petri pointed out after his marathon press conference, what he really professed to be was sad. Oh, the business of taking responsibility did come up once, briefly, but that was in the context of his 16,000 references to how sad he was. Sad isn't at all the same thing as sorry and isn't even in the same discussion syllabus as responsible. On the contrary, there seems surely a powerful suggestion that someone as sad as the governor told us he was had been wronged by somebody else, somebody who should be sorry and owed him not just an apology but a taking-responsibility-for.

"Christie at least began," says Dana, "with a nominal acceptance of responsibility." (Note: links onsite.)

Even as he pleaded innocence in the bridge scandal -- "I'm telling you: I had nothing to do with this" -- he acknowledged that, at least in the technical sense of being New Jersey's chief executive, "I'm ultimately responsible." But this changed on Jan. 18, when his office issued a statement saying the mushrooming scandal was the fault of the liberal media.

"MSNBC is a partisan network that has been openly hostile to Governor Christie and almost gleeful in their efforts attacking him," the statement said. It also said the burgeoning accusations of intimidation by Christie's administration mean "partisan politics are at play here."

(2) VA GUV "HANDSOME BOB" McDONNELL and MRS. "HB"

"Ultimately," Dana notes, "the scale of the Christie administration's wrongdoing will be sorted out by a federal prosecutor. But, as [Virginia ex-Gov. Bob] McDonnell made clear on Tuesday, a federal prosecutor is just another person who can be blamed for one's own transgressions."

The former Virginia governor, indicted along with his wife in a corruption scandal involving gifts from businessman Jonnie R. Williams, issued a statement saying he would "prevail against this unjust overreach of the federal government." Said McDonnell: "I deeply regret accepting legal gifts and loans from Mr. Williams, all of which have been repaid with interest." He then went on television to say "I did nothing illegal for Mr. Williams in exchange for what I believe was his personal friendship and his generosity."

Uh-huh. The "generosity" included a shopping spree for the first lady at Oscar de la Renta ($10,999), Louis Vuitton ($5,685), and Bergdorf Goodman ($2,604), a $50,000 loan without documentation, $15,000 for his daughter's wedding, the use of a vacation home and Ferrari, the Rolex inscribed "71st Governor of Virginia," the hot-tub cover, the deck staining, a Cape Cod vacation, yacht charter and golf outings. By total coincidence, the benefactor allegedly got help with state scientific researchers and support at various company events -- including a product launch at the governor's mansion.

But McDonnell, who gallantly rejected a plea deal that would have spared his wife, blames the feds.

I should note some welcome pushback against Handsome Bob's self-declaration of purity and his determination not to plead out when he and the lovely Mrs. Handsome Bob have done nothing illegal. In Handsome Bob's handsome head, the federal prosecutors' tortured legal reasoning would make normal political interchange illegal. The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus, for one, isn't buying it. "It’s worth rereading the indictment of McDonnell and his rapacious wife, Maureen," says Ruth (in her column "In Virginia, not politics as usual"), and "wallowing in the sordidness of a scheme that, as portrayed by prosecutors, went far beyond back-scratching as usual. Even in the context of Virginia’s lax-beyond-belief gift rules, the McDonnells’ conduct crossed the line from undeniably scummy to arguably criminal."

Nor is the Post's Eugene Robinson thrilled (in his column "It takes two to tango") with what he calls "the Dragon Lady Thesis -- the scenario that McDonnell, previously known as a man of courtliness and rectitude, was led unwittingly down the path to perdition by his flashier, more status-conscious spouse," despite the former Virginia First Lady's seeming credentials for the role.

It was Bob McDonnell, according to the indictment, who had a follow-up discussion with [businessman Jonnie] Williams to finalize arrangements for that $50,000 loan -- no paperwork, just a promise to repay with interest. It was Bob McDonnell who allegedly asked Williams for subsequent loans of $50,000 and $20,000. It was Bob McDonnell who allegedly took his sons golfing at Williams's private club -- and charged Williams's account for merchandise in the pro shop worth hundreds of dollars.

You’re broke, your spouse comes home with armloads of designer dresses and shoes, and you don’t freak out? You’re governor of Virginia, your wife asks a businessman for $50,000 and you don’t go ballistic?

Nobody’s as stupid as Bob McDonnell pretends to be.

(3) "THIS BRINGS US TO BECK," SAYS DANA

Lord knows we've had plenty of opportunity to chat about the phony-baloniness of Governors KrispyKreme and McDonnell. However, the mea culpa of dirtbag extraordinaire Glenn Beck is brand-new, and it's an eye-popper. In fact, my whole head is reeling.

"On Tuesday night," notes Dana, our Glenn "went on his former network and told Megyn Kelly that, before Fox News dropped him in 2011, 'I made an awful lot of mistakes. . . . I think I played a role, unfortunately, in helping tear the country apart.' " (This last link is to a post on the website "GLENN BECK: The Fusion of Enlightenement and Entertainment" poignantly titled "Glenn poignantly reflects on his time at Fox News with Megyn Kelly." Hold on to your hankies, ladies and germs.) So our Glenn thinks he may have "played a role, unfortunately, in helping tear the country apart"! Says Dana:

Ya think? The nightly Nazi metaphors, the routine race-baiting and sponsorship of conspiracy theories and apocalyptic visions that, it appears, drove some to desperate violence? But hold on: Beck said the real trouble was that he "didn't realize how really fragile the people were. I thought we were kind of a little more in it together." In a follow-up interview on his online network, the Blaze, he further absolved himself, asserting that "there's no way that I could have done it any different than I did."

Beck is nothing if not adaptable. He was a ponytail-wearing liberal before he saw a commercial opening in conservative talk radio. Now that an improving economy has cast doubt on his end-times visions, he's recasting himself again. This week, he unveiled a new mission statement for the Blaze: "We tell stories of love and courage where the good guys win." He devoted a radio show this week to "three classic Frank Sinatra songs you need to hear."

And now we're supposed to believe he's genuine?

I'm sorry.

#

2013 in Review -- A Prayer to the Janitor of Lunacy,* Part 2: Remember when Reagan cut funds for insane asylums?

Storms, guns, bombs, free stuff, and the secret gay life of Obama: Some top Republican lies of 2013

[*TO MEET THE JANITOR OF LUNACY, SEE PART 1]


Plum loco, stone stoopid, or pathologically dishonest? You be the judge.

by Noah

I'm calling this "Some top Republican lies" because everyone else does "Top 10s" or "Top 20s," but I see no reason to come up with some arbitrary round number. Besides, with the Crackpot Party there's always another lie, and chances are very good that the corporate media will be all too willing to repeat them all without examining their veracity. That said, here are a few. I hold these lies to be self-evident.


1. The Boston Marathon bombing was a false flag (government) job

Wingnut Alex Jones (see above), Natural News, New Hampshire Republican State Sen.Stella Trembley, and others had the "scoop" on this one almost immediately after the tragic bombing on April 15th. It's straight out of Marvel Comics or some wacko Twilight Zone. Just like 9/11 truthers, there are a lot of wingnuts out there that are so determined to hate the government for something, anything, especially if that Obama dude is in charge, that their sick minds will concoct and believe anything. For some, the idea of the government taking their guns away or evilly giving you the opportunity to purchase healthcare for your family just isn't enough.


2. A Saudi national or nationals were responsible for the bombing

Shall I speculate as to why it is that, in the twisted minds of Republicans, terrorists must be nonwhite or Muslim? Immediately after the Oklahoma City bombing, the same people were proclaiming that Muslim terrorists from the Middle East were the bombers. That one turned out to be white folks. Oooops! And white folks that were a lot closer to Republicans than Republicans would like to publicly admit, right down to Newt Gingrich, as House speaker, having radical Idaho Rep. Helen Chenoweth as a liaison to the militia groups of the Northwest. In this case, the bombers were Muslim, but it became obvious that, to Republicans, the glass was only half full.


3. The Saudi government warned the U.S. about the Boston Marathon bombing



Nope. Turns out the Russians did communicate some info about the actual bombers, but a few days after the bombing Glenn Beck said he knew the truth about a Saudi national who had been questioned and let go. It wasn't even the same guys that Rupert Murdoch's New York Post had falsely claimed right on his front page were the perps.

Beck claimed the White House knew who did it and was covering up, and he claimed he would lay out all the evidence the following Monday if the government didn't come clean. There was even some sort of Benghazi connection. So what happened? Well, in the meantime the real bombers were identified and one was killed and one was caught. They weren't Saudis. They even (oh, the disappointment!) weren't of a darkish hue. The whole thing had gotten started on Hannity's show. Bill O'Reilly had Beck on to lay it all out. Thanks, Fox. Where would this country be without you?


4. The White House is full of Muslim Brotherhood

It seems that as soon as Egypt's government fell, and Americans became aware of the Muslim Brotherhood's position of influence and power in that nation, it just somehow sounded perfect to those in the Crackpot Party that there must be some nefarious connection to the Kenyan-born, secret-Muslim, socialist black man in the White House. (Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the Obama administration, even "letting Muslim Brotherhood run anti-terror ops," is just one of the Impeachable Offenses "documented" by crackpot "authors" Aaron Klein and Brenda J. Elliott. If you shopped on the right wingnut website, you could get not just a less-than-half-price copy of the book, autographed, but also a "a FREE Impeach Obama bumper sticker.")

Yes, I can see it all clearly now, the unseen hand of . . . yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. Guilt by association when there's no association -- I get it. Next!


5. Bush kept us safe


Giuliani on Hannity again! He did? I coulda sworn that Bush, not Clinton, was at least pretending to be prez on 9/11. It's amazing how anyone can still put Rudy Julieandrews in front of a camera and let him prattle on. It's 2013, for Christ's sake! The man was a failure as a mayor who made himself Mr. 9/11. The guy was so lame, it took him umpteen numbers of trials to nail John Gotti. He spent $50 million running for his party's nomination for president and got one delegate and that delegate was from Florida. But there he was again, in Sean Insanity's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest studio uttering those famous four words, in the wake of the Boston bombing.

One of the sick Republican memes, post-tragedy, was to somehow make the Boston bombing Obama's fault. Hey, Repugs! People were maimed. People died. Families were destroyed! And you, you just see it as an opportunity.


6. Superstorm Sandy was caused by Obama seeding of clouds

Okay, I know this was from late in the previous year, but it still has life in at least some Republican minds. The rest seem to be more fixated on blaming Gov. Blowhard Christie for turning the 2012 election in Obama's favor when he took a romantic walk on the beach with the president. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFvmguc56YA


The first minute and a half is just a Fox News report on the progressing storm. But listen for the eerie voice of insanity that comes in at 1:29 and then shows us "why this Frankenstorm may be changing its trajectory." Can you guess whodunnit? (Hint: "Obama is falling behind in the polls. Is this the October surprise we have been expecting.") The poster, PEREXUSREX, followed up with this reply to doubting commenters: "Watch the news - Obama has been able to look presidential and Mitt Romney has had to slow his campaign. This hurricane has definitely helped Obama who was definitely behind - he is not behind anymore since the hurricane."


7. Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi

[Click to enlarge]

Repugs don't even seem to realize that their very own lies about what happened in Libya may have cost Romney the White House when he repeated a portion of their Libya lie in a the second presidential debate and got caught. In Republikook world, President Obama supposedly either let the storming of the embassy happen or encouraged it, maybe with his supersecret Muslim underground decoder ring, or something.

One thing Republicans won't tell you is that it was they who voted in Congress to withdraw security funding for our embassies. Nice goin', a-holes. Since then we've had madman Rep. Darrell Issa, doing his best Joe McCarthy imitation, running hearing after hearing after hearing, wasting mountains of our taxpayer dollars on some insane attempt to build an impeachment-worthy case against the president.  Again, people died, so let's exploit it! Ain't that the Republican way?




8. Romney lost because of "free stuff"


Watch the Lawrence O'Donnell Last Word segment here.

Sooo much chest-beating and recrimination in the wake of Romney losing. So many accusations: Christie, the storm, and, most of all, "free stuff." Obama won by giving out "free stuff" to you know whom.

Just keep telling yourselves that, Repugs. But if Romney had won, people like Sheldon Adelson stood to get a whole lotta free stuff; free stuff in the form of a return of an estimated $700 million in tax breaks in return for his $100 million in campaign contributions. $600 million? Now that's what I call free stuff! Sorry, Mittens, you lost because enough Americans of all backgrounds saw you for what you are.


9. Guns don't kill people

Neither do 30-shot magazines, right? Well, 11 kids escaped death in Newtown, Connecticut, while the shooter in their school had to switch to a new magazine. Suppose he only had 10-shot mags. How much death and human misery would have been avoided?

Yet there are the Republicans, the party that pushes human misery, demanding the right to their 30-shot mags. And if you want to look at the face of insanity --




10. Background checks bad; straw purchases good

Terrorists don't have to try to smuggle their guns into the country. So what's the easiest way for a terrorist to get a gun here in these United States? Well, if you enter a gun emporium and you look like ya just might not be quite white enough and ya might have some sort of one o' them un-'merican accents, they might not sell you a gun. What to do? There's already no background-check thing. That's good for would be evil-doers, but still, there's that accent and skin-tone thing.

Ah, easy! Pay someone to go buy you whatever you need! Street gangs do it all the time. It's called a straw purchase, and Republicans like that just fine. Of course, in the case of the gang gunplay in Chicago, that's all Obama's fault, not the permissiveness of the Republican gun kooks.


11. The Government is buying all the ammo in order to kill us all

No one likes this lie more than the companies that make bullets. It inspires more purchases and hording of ammo. Republicans spend a lot of energy telling each other that Obama is going to take away their guns. They campaigned on it. They shrieked that he'd be coming for our guns as soon as January came along. So it follows that when he couldn't get Congress to pass saner gun laws, he would, naturally, buy up all the bullets!

"We just denied everything that this president and the vice president are trying to do. So what are they going to want to, if they want to violate our Second Amendment rights? Do it with ammo."

-- Sen. Jim Inhofe (Republikook-OK)

Or maybe Iraq, Afghanistan, and the creation of a huge Department of Homeland Security have something to do with the so-called ammo shortage. Look, bozos, if Newtown shooter Adam Lanza can get all those bullets, and all the shooters we hear about every damn day can get all the bullets they need, maybe you ought to rethink this. Please, oh Janitor of Lunacy, make it stop!


12. Obama is still a secret Muslim

Yes. Well, that explains everything. Scientists may still be looking for their Unified Field Theory that explains all the physical workings of the universe, but until then, this works fine for those in the Crackpot Party. Behold, all is explained! I saw it on Fox!


13. Obama is deliberately tanking the stock market in order to destroy capitalism

Hey, let's not let the reality that the market has gone over the 16,000 mark get in the way of this "theory." Wingnut chatterboxes and more reputable authorities like Forbes say a crash is coming. Some say everyone should sell their stocks and cash out. Repug media like Newsmax issue weekly warnings about an imminent crash as if they want it to happen, just so they can blame Obama.

Hey, it might happen. The fall of 2008 wasn't pretty, and not much has been done, and the Wall Street criminals run free, but hmmm, now if everyone were to listen to these Chicken Littles and pull their stocks at once, wouldn't that crash the market and destroy the economy to the likes of which has not been seen since 1929? So just who is trying to deliberately destroy capitalism?


14. Obama is gay and has even been "married" to a man



So says World Net Daily's Jerome Corsi, the Swiftboat guy, so it must be true. Can Issa investigations and Hannity breathlessly speculating about gay orgies in the White House be far behind?

This gay Obama thing refuses to die in Repug circles. It's even used as the reason that there are so many of those wicked LGBTs working in the White House. Maybe the saddest thing is that such a thing would matter to Republicans. Ah, but no wonder Obama is pushing that "gay marriage" thing. Say no more!

NOAH'S 2013 IN REVIEW --
A PRAYER TO THE JANITOR OF LUNACY*

Part 1: Take a bow, Repugs! (*including Nico's "Janitor of Lunacy") [Monday]

Part 2: Remember when Reagan cut funds for insane asylums? (Storms, guns, bombs, free stuff, and the secret gay life of Obma: Some top Republican lies of 2013) [Tuesday]

Part 3: No Cruz control (Rafael "Ted" Cruz in his own words) [Wednesday]

Part 4: A great anniversary approaches! (Nixon's resignation) (plus more "Quote of the Year nominees") [Thursday]

Part 5: Everyone's a critic, including me -- Some people really try my patience (Bill-O, Howie Kurtz, E. W. Jackson, et al.) [Friday]

Part 6 (and last): In the words of Dan Quayle, "What a waste it is to lose one's mind" (Exploiting tragedy for a buck; Miss America's not American?; "Quote of the Year" winner) [Saturday]

And don't forget Noah's recent --
"Need a last-minute Christmas gift suggestion?" [12/22]
"50 Years Ago Today: The Beatles" [12/26]
"A Tale of Two Popes -- the one in the Vatican and the one in North Carolina" [12/27]

#

Surprised That Freaks And Kooks Like Glenn Beck Are Selling Conspiracy Theories About The Boston Tragedy?

Most of my blogger friends told me that the whole mess around the Boston Marathon was driving traffic in a big way. We don't sell ads and I couldn't see what I could possibly add to the tsunami of information-- and misinformation-- about the bombing and subsequent manhunt, resulting in the death of Tamerlane and the eventual capture of Dzhokhar. Yesterday, when looking at the shredding of the Constitution Lindsey Graham was hysterically screeching about, we had our first mention of the Boston tragedy. And there's even worse out there than Lindsey.

All week long I watched the bloodthirsty tweets from dedicated satanist Bryan Fischer, who decided to turn the tragedy into one of his Islamophobic jihads, whipping up sentiment among his followers against Muslims in general. The man is a danger to public safety. And then there's Glenn Beck-- another desperate right-wing freak show looking for relevance in intolerance.

Near the end of today's radio broadcast, Glenn Beck declared that the cover-up of the Saudi link to the Boston Marathon bombing makes this the second most important thing (behind 9/11) that he has ever covered in his broadcasting career.  And depending on how the media and the government responds in the coming days, it just might be the most important thing he's ever covered because the response "will either save our country or we will be done."

Beck then went on to send a semi-coded message to those in the upper level of the government warning that they had better come clean about this Saudi national because The Blaze has information that reveals that he "is a very bad, bad, bad man" which will be revealed on Monday.

"I don't bluff," Beck stated, "I make promises. The truth matters. I've had enough of what you've done to our country. I thought I had heard and seen it all.  I thought I didn't trust my government.  Oh no, no, no.  There is no depth that these people will not stoop to.  They have until Monday and then The Blaze will expose it."

If you haven't been paying attention, you might not realize that sociopaths like Fischer and Beck were blaming a 20 year old Saudi student for the bombing, even though he was a victim of it, hospitalized as a result of the bombing. Law enforcement officials tried pointing out that Beck's hysteria was baseless. The Saudi student was never in custody and was not deported. It was just another sickening display of the far right's mad rush to blame Muslims-- any Muslims-- and to generate interest in themselves (and sell ad time).