Crackpot Utopia: The Year in Republican Crazy, Part 10

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


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

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

by Noah

1. Newsmax -- Beyond Drudgery


Ah, the good old days when we burned witches!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then there's Newsmax.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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


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



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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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Panic Polling: Walker Supporters Feeling The Heat

-by Noah

Because of my somewhat perverse sense of humor and partly to have a window into the typical delusional Republican mind, I subscribe to Newsmax. It doesn’t cost anything and it gets my adrenaline going every morning. As long as I’ve got Newsmax, I don’t need no stinking Starbucks.
 
Subscribing to Newsmax will fill your inbox with frenzied emails about President Obama’s socialist takeover, his plans to take your guns, secret government cover-ups of Mayan predictions, Obama stealing the minds of children, the wonders of Bill-O, Islamophobia, homophobia, phobiaphobia and terror threats of every stripe… You get the picture. It’s all delivered with a breathlessness of desperation not seen since the end of the original “Invasion Of The Body Snatchers” when Kevin McCarthy runs screaming through the streets, “Can’t you see? They’re here already! You’re next!!!!



The Wisconsin/Scott Walker story has been the focus of Newsmax for days. They, like most of the media, were late to the story but each day has brought the crazy that Newsmax does so well. They just can’t help themselves. Wednesday was one of the best, yet. On Wednesday, I got this:
 
“Scott Walker Needs Your Vote, Urgent National Poll”
 
Urgent! Urgent! FEARFEARFEAR!!!! There was no mention of the teabag governor-Republican boy wonder getting pranked and confirming his sleazeball bonafides that sentient people already knew he had anyway. But, Newsmax smelled a heap-a-trouble brewing. The tape of the prank call was viral in the extreme. And, Walker was already slipping in the polls before this. It was all anyone this side of Foxworld was talking about on all Wednesday. Jesus could have landed in Times Square and sung a duet with the Naked Cowboy and no one would have noticed. What’s a raving loony to do? Quick! We need a poll that shows America loves our boy! Let’s poll our readers! Sound the trumpet! Here comes the Calvary of Crazyland!
 
After a self-aggrandizing intro and a plea to “let your voice be heard!”, the poll asks the following questions. Who was I not to answer?

1. Do you support Gov. Scott Walker’s efforts to reduce the power of public employee unions in his state?

     Yes, I support him
     No, I don’t support him

I answered no. I thought I’d cut to the chase right away and darken some wingnut’s day.
 
2. Do you believe public employee unions have become too powerful?

     Yes, too powerful
     No, not too powerful

Ah, the old leading question school of polling!
 
3. Do you believe public employee union members should be paid less, the same, or more than employees with similar jobs in the private sector?

     Pay them the same
     Pay them less
     Pay them more

I think most people, regardless of which side of this issue they are on would choose “Pay them the same,” but I chose “Pay them more” because union pay often sets the bar for higher pay for non-union jobs and I happen to feel that, if there were no unions, all wages would be suppressed. I also believe that, if Scott Walker ends up winning this fight, that non-union workers will be next to get the shaft even more than they already have. Ever since Reagan, I have felt that the goal of the right is to create a pre-Magna Carta society of Lords and Serfs. No middle class: An oligarchy with all too few Lords with all the wealth and the rest of us being relegated to being sharecroppers at best. That is the wet dream of lowlifes like the Koch brothers and the Bush Crime Family. 
 
4. Do you believe President Obama was right when he came out against Gov. Walker?

     Obama was right
     Obama was wrong

I tried not to answer this one but when I hit submit, I was told I had to answer. This one kinda stumped me. You see, I am not aware of the President saying anything that I could possibly interpret as an attack of Walker. All I heard was Obama saying that people have to accept some adjustments and then turning around and saying that he hadn’t heard much about the situation since he had budget problems of his own in Washington, heh, heh, blah, blah. He did throw a few words out there about an assault on workers but it was all prime DC Double Speak and fence sitting, especially in light of his “shared sacrifice” except for the rich Top 2% nonsense, and, his extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. He knows which side his bread is buttered on and it’s buttered by Goldman-Sachs and the rest of their criminal element on Wall Street.
 
I chose yes, figuring that, in their world, they believed Obama had attacked Walker and was wrong to do so. Screw ‘em.
 
5. Do you plan on voting to re-elect President Obama in 2012?

     Yes, re-elect
     No, for another candidate
     Not sure right now

Count on a no from me. Let’s just call it some “shared sacrifice” for Obama. He has sacrificed my vote.
 
6. Who did you vote for in 2008?

     McCain-Palin
     Obama-Biden
     Other

That would be “other.” I went Green and voted for “other.” Hey, I have no illusions about “other” winning anytime soon, but my conscience is clear in that I felt then and feel now that I should vote for a party that I believe in and a party that believes in our future rather than the future bonuses of multi-national corporate criminals, their lobbyists and the Congressmen and Senators that they own and operate like puppets on strings. I can be and have been sold out and betrayed by both major parties and I’d rather not continue being a party to it. As it is right now, neither party is standing up for workers, union or otherwise so I might as well give someone else a shot. Until they fix the campaign finance laws in this country, there is no hope of D.C. standing for anything but Dirtbag Central.
 
The poll results as of this writing are proudly available here.

I tell ya. I just can’t believe it! I’m in the minority! Shocking! Oh well, I think I’ll go out and get some nice fresh New York air now.

Looking Back at 2010: Justice Elena Kagan 1, Crackerjackass Newt 0

Newtie sez: "I think Kagan is in many ways much more radical than people think."

by Noah

For those who need more evidence that Newt Gingrich is a now officially a crazy person, just check out his obsession with the idea that everyone to the left of him (which would be most citizens of the Western world) is behind a vast Islamic plot to install Islamic sharia law in the United States. Even the appointment of Elena Kagan to the “Supreme” Court is part of the dastardly plan that Newtie sees wherever he goes. Mannequins in the local department store? All part of “the plan.” The local Little League team? You bet! Even the birds in the trees -- eh, Newt?

Funny thing about the dreaded sharia law is that it sounds an awful lot like the utopia of slave-driving and brutality that the right wishes for. Jihadists can wear a different clothing style and give themselves another name, but hate-filled jihadists are still hate-filled jihadists.

Man, he sure do blink a lot in that clip. I think I know a doctor who can help you with that, Newt. Some might say the man is walking around with a head full of tumors, but I happen to think he’s just a twisted psychological mess. His unhealthy obsession with Elena Kagan in a long black robe continued three days later when it met up with his equally unhealthy obsession about who marries whom and the nasty things they do behind closed doors or behind a bush in a London park if you are named George Michael.

August 4 was the unholy day when a California court struck down the state’s famous Proposition 8, which forbade two gay people getting hitched. Like Republicans everywhere, Newtie spent the day hyperventilating and throwing his latest version of the biggest hissy fit the world has ever seen. Calling the court’s decision “outrageous,” he also managed to sputter:

Today’s notorious decision also underscores the importance of the Senate vote tomorrow on the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court because judges who oppose the American people are a growing threat to our society.

Hmm, maybe Newtie has something there. Could he be right for the first time in his sad life? I mean, think about the last phrase of that quote: “because judges who oppose the American people are a growing threat to our society.” Could I have underestimated him? Could he be slyly referring to the December 2000 case of Bush v. Gore which gave the presidency to George W. Bush? That certainly was a case of judges subverting the will of the American people, and it certainly has proved to be still a growing threat to our society! The damage continues and continues.

OK, not to worry. I know, I’d be giving Newt way too much credit. He's a smart man, even if stone loco, but he’s too warped to ever see or admit the truth. He's just another cracker jackass who has lost his mind at the sight of a black man in the Oval Office. I find it pathetic that some walking turd can blabber and blubber on about things like the “sanctity of marriage,” “one man and one woman,” etc, etc, when he himself was by his first wife’s hospital bedside with divorce papers after she just came from a cancer operation, all so he could get the groggy, vulnerable woman to sign on the dotted line so he could go marry his mistress.

I guess Republicans never see their own hypocrisy. Hey, if they did, they just wouldn’t be Republicans! Newt, I’ll see your Lester Maddox and raise you one Jimmy Swaggart with a carload of porn mags in the back seat.


ADDENDUM: THE WONDERS OF NEWSMAX

If you’ve never checked Newsmax out, it is really quite special. The same day that Newsmax.com ran the little piece on Newt’s opinion of Kagan, it ran articles on Fox being awarded a front-row seat at White House press conferences. (No word on whether Jeff Guckert, the HotMilitaryStud.com guy, would be Fox’s correspondent. Maybe it’ll just be some guy in a Bozo costume.) Also featured that day were articles featuring Newt on why he backs the Tea Party (I think we already know), Newt's all-new (not really) Contract on America, and my personal favorite: “When Will Jesus Return, Some Are Wondering.”


Yes. Some people are wondering. Apparently Glenn Beck knows something about this. Here he is back on April 20:

I haven’t seen Jesus and what he would do on a talk show on Fox, but I’m going to try.

God is giving a plan I think to me that is not really a plan. . . . The problem is that I think the plan that the Lord would have us follow is hard for people to understand. . . . Because of my track record with you who have been here for a long time, because of my track record with you, I beg of you to help me get this message out, and I beg of you to pray for clarity on my part.

The plan that He would have me articulate, I think, to you, is, "Get behind Me," and I don’t mean "me," I mean Him. "Get behind Me. Stand behind Me."

Yes, and if you act now and buy some of my gold and a year’s subscription to my super-deluxe Jesus Beck, er, a, uh, Glenn Beck Podcast, I’ll throw in ten special blessings and a beautiful Christian prayer cloth made especially for Me, Me, Me, by our friends over in China! Act now!


NOAH'S YEAR 2010 IN REVIEW

10 Random Musings (1)
2010, Looking Back: To Republicans, It Was So Much More Than Just a Speech to Kids
Random Musings on 2010 (2)
Random Musings on 2010 (3)
Random Musings on 2010 (4)
Random Musings on 2010 (5)
Wacko of the Year: Sharron Angle -- A Lesson in the Outer Limits of Republican Lunacy

Quotations of a Party on Crack, 2010 Version --
Republicans in Their Own Words:
Part 1, The Unemployed
Part 2, When Cousins Marry
Part 3, It's a Party!

AND THE YEAR 2009 IN REVIEW:
12 Days of Christmas Scorn

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The Judy Miller case: If the corporatist elite doesn't take care of its own, how will it recruit and maintain future stooges?

Did it ever occur to Judy Miller in her career as a Village media whore that she deserved to lose the reputation you'd think would be what matters most to an actual journalist?

by Ken

In my post earlier today, "So where are the jobs? (And are they coming back?," in which I had occasion to ridicule media whore Michael Gerson for his puppylike servitude to his corporate masters, I tried not to overlook how important it is to the corporatist elite to maintain a faithful roster of bought-and-paid-for whores in both government and media service.

Incidentally, I realize how crazy-paranoid it is to be talking, as I find myself increasingly, about a conspiracy of corporate-elite types, but I don't see any way around it, since it seems to me to describe the reality we now live in: "Money talks; no money, fuck you." "Oligarchy" seems to me an excellent description of where we are, but that seems to me to sound even crazier-paranoider.

And crucial to the operation of the corporatist whore-networks is the assurance the whores have to have that they'll be taken care of. I'm sure, for example, that President Obama very much wants to be elected to a second term. At the same time, though, I have a strong feeling that policy-wise his thinking includes a powerful understanding that as long as he provides the service his corporate bankrollers expected of him, as long as he goes down fighting for them, he'll be taken care of. It will cost them only chump change to take care of one of their own, and doing so provides reassurance to all the other people they'll be buying, while failing to do so would send a terrible message to all their other stooges, present and future.

Of course the employer of last resort in the media-whore wing of corporatist stoogedom is Fox Noise. However, there are limits to how many refugees from factuality the NewsCorp empire can absorb, and even those openings really require some kind of bona fides in TV -- not that it takes much more than an ability to talk crazy on camera.

Fans of larger-than-life media whores will be pleased to know that after a rough patch, one of their titans has found a new home. Yes, Judith Miller, who wangled her way into the upper echelon of New York Times reporters in order to create a personal empire in which, as national-security correspondent, she could promote her both her personal foreign-policy agenda and her bloated and diseased ego, only to see it fizzle when she was caught as essentially a coconspirator of Irving "Lewis" Libby and the rest of the elite pondscum in Vice President "Big Dick" Cheney's entourage in the matter of the outing of Valerie Plame and the subsequent cover-up of it.

I'm not privy to what travails our Judy may have endured in the effort to, er, resell her services following her discreet separation from the usually unembarrassable NYT. That she disappeared from the active roster of media whores seemed blessing enough. Well, she's ba-a-ack! As HuffPost media watcher Jason Linkins reported yesterday: "Judith Miller Lands At Newsmax."

Now, as it happens, and as Jason points out, our Judy was already a Fox Noise contributor. And "she has already served as an online contributor" for Newsmax. But now she's a published Newsmax writer. That this development has given rise to what Jason describes as "a stir on the Tweetdecks of American journalists" is a measure of the length of the leap from the NYT to Newsmax. And here one has to wonder at the extremity of Jason's tact in describing Newsmax as "right-leaning." A festering cesspool of extreme-right-wing news-bending is closer to how most of us would describe it.

Jason reports that our Judy's maiden Newsmax voyage, "Terrorism, Money, and Drugs," --

is a perfectly decent read on the law enforcement effort being jointly undertaken by Americans and Iraqis to curb the drug trafficking that's fueling what's left of the insurgency. Assuming it doesn't have the sourcing problems of her pre-war work at the Times (again, I am referring to her history of using the Bush administration's favorite grifter-shills as her "sources"), there's nothing objectionable about the piece itself.

The problem is that she's earned herself such an unseemly reputation as a media whore. The sin isn't being a media whore, which after all is what nearly the entire employment rolls of the infotaiinment noozemedia are. No, the sin is getting caught being a media whore. After all, she was hardly alone in writing what Jason calls "hilariously wrong pieces on Iraq's WMD program," pieces that --

were cited by Bush administration officials as a factor in their decision to invade Iraq (by design, considering international grifter-clown Ahmed Chalabi was telling Miller exactly what the Bush White House wanted her to hear: as Jack Shafer puts it, "Bush's guy was the Times's guy"),

How many of the others paid any sort of price for being "hilariously wrong"? I sure haven't heard about them. Mostly I've heard about people who were right being punished and people who were wrong being rewarded.

Looking back, what's really shocking is how little Judy seems to have tended to her reputation. I'm sure she was far from alone among the Village media whores in thinking she was burnishing her reputation by making herself a "player" in the stories she was (mis)covering. And you can forgive them all for thinking, based on experience and observation, that this is in fact the way the "journalistic" game is played. Probably to this day Judy thinks of herself as the victim in her career of journalistic malfeasance.

You have to wonder if it's ever dawned on our Judy that, short of a superhuman effort of rehabilitation, of a sort she shows no signs of having undertaken, no one with any sense will ever trust another word she reports. True, at Fox Noise and Newsmax it doesn't matter a whit. But I think she used to have, however erroneously, a very different image of herself as a "journalist."

It doesn't make up for all the other Village media whores who've gotten, and continue to get, away with journalistic murder, and sure, on a human level it's possible to feel sorry for the one that got caught. However, on the level of integrity and trust, those ancient relics of once-talked-about virtue, it counts for something that one of these SOBs got caught. She swims now with the "right-leaning" media fishes.

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