Wingnutology 101 - Introduction into Wingnutology.

Lesson - How to communicate with a Winger.

Step 1. Pick topic of discussion.

Step 2. First State that Al Gore is fat.

Step 3. Start discussion.

Step 4. If fortunate achieve breakthrough which may last until the AM Radio or the Foxnews comes on .

Via Powerline Blog addressing the furor on the wingnet known as Climategate 2.0, i.e., the latest round of stolen e-mail from climate scientists:

I can’t resist this one short excerpt that I haven’t seen mentioned in any of the coverage so far–a 2007 email from Tommy Wils, a climate researcher at the University of Swansea in Britain, who wrote: “Politicians like Al Gore are abusing the fear of global warming to get into power (while having a huge carbon footprint himself).”

The climate science community might have done a lot of good and avoided a lot of agony if they’d ever said this kind of thing publicly, or called out the egregious distortions and exaggerations of the environmental activists.

- Powerline Blogger Hayward

It turns out that all these eggheaded scientists have to do to reach a larger audience is couch each discussion of global warming by first acknowledging that Algore is fat and lives in a big house and flies in a plane which emits CO2 and if he really was serious about global warming he'd use a row boat instead of a plane to travel. And after having done so, the scientist will a much more receptive audience.

QED.

Ron Paul is mean

Watch "Newt Gingrich: Serial Hypocrisy" on YouTube

A Serial Adulterer, you mean

Herman Cain's latest presidential campaign implosion has put some of the Republican Party's most active voters in a distinctly uncomfortable position: deciding whether to abandon an accused adulterer to side with an admitted adulterer."

- LA Times

Family VALUES!

Operation Batshit in Peril…..Grave Peril

The Plan to spread out the crazy vote amongst as many candidates as possible in order to let Willard Milton Romney weasel his way to a GOP nomination with 25% of the vote is back on the rocks. Poll after Poll has Willard stuck at no higher than 25%. But hey 25% could be enough if the loons split up the remaining 75% of the vote. This seemed like a solid plan with the possibility of Sarah, Bachmann, Paul, Gingrich and Perry still competitive in the race.

This all sounded like a good plan at the time however the Internets are telling me that Former House Speaker Gingrich has taken the lead in several polls. Not only is Gingrich rising, Herman Cain is in free fall after yet another allegation of infidelity which may cause a good portion of the Cain Voters to move to the disgraced ex-speaker. With Cain Doomed, Sarah MIA, Bachmann seen as a loon and Wingnutopia convinced that Perry is a dullard, Newt could see his totals rise to 40%!

I've written this before, but the political science indicates that a crazy candidate is likely to emerge as the GOP nominee under the present circumstances, i.e., The GOP has only been out of the Whitehouse for 3 years , the economy is lame and unemployment is stuck around 9%. According to the eggheads who study these things, GOTP primary voters are less likely to compromise on a Moderate candidate. That being said Newt could be the one to consolidate the crazy vote and strand Romney.

I still expect Willard to weasel his way to victory, because that is just how he rolls, but the eggheads' theory give Newt a shot.

GOTP Minority Outreach Continues

Quote of the Day

"In the eyes of the liberal media, Herman Cain is just another uppity black American who has had the audacity to leave the liberal plantation. So they must destroy him, just as they tried destroying Clarence Thomas."

- Media Research Center President Brent Bozell

It is a wonder that more black folks don't line up and march with the GOTP.

Things I wish I would have Written - A New Meaning to Debt Ceiling Kamikazes

A Foxnews Apparatchik offers up the Boehner Proposal and the Colburn Proposal as proof that the GOTP genuinely tried to reach a deal on Revenue Increases and Spending Cuts. However as everyone knows, these Proposals were shot down by debt ceiling kamikazes:

[Republican offered compromises] were shot down by Republicans in Congress. Citing those examples as evidence of Republican flexibility is like citing Admiral Yamamoto’s reservations about the Pearl Harbor attack to prove that the Japanese didn’t want to go to war with the United States.

Yamamoto may have had doubts about his Nation's War Plan, but just like Boehner's tepid offer to raise taxes, it didn't amount to much.

Tax Cutting has become an Article of Faith within the GOTP. The Rank and File Believe that Economic Salvation and the Freedom of Mankind can only come through Tax Cuts and Deregulation. And who can blame the average Teabagger for thinking this way? The GOTP has spent a generation preaching this dogma to the masses. So it is not surprising that many have bought into this bullshit. And it is not really surprising that the Party Establishment could not talk its Debt Ceiling Kamikazes into backing down.

Translating Politispeak into English

Herman Cain on his latest infidelity charges:

“Let’s see what the story will be. I don’t want to be pinned down with things until we know what the story will be.”

Translation:

I have made a cost benefit analysis of the situation and believe that I am better suited to admit as little as possible and hope the media finds a new bright shiny object to fixate upon - which I hope is really soon. And then I will fix my facts around the narrative.

The More Things Change.......

I was reading the latest outrage on the Wingnet over a NYT Book Review on the Klan which in passing notes some similarities of right wing populism in the current period with right wing populism in the 1920s. The Klan linked with Teabaggers, HOW DARE THEY?!?

It is totally unfair to compare groups motivated, in part, by anti-government, anti-immigrant, anti-union, anti-religious minority and racial animus. I of course agree, but something seems familiar here.

Let's Venture Back to Minnesota Circa 1919:

"There hasn't been much labor trouble around here, has there, Mr. Stowbody? " she asked innocently.

"No, ma'am, thank God, we've been free from that, except maybe with hired girls and farm-hands. Trouble enough with these foreign farmers; if you don't watch these Swedes they turn socialist or populist or some fool thing on you in a minute. Of course, if they have loans you can make 'em listen to reason. I just have 'em come into the bank for a talk, and tell 'em a few things. I don't mind their being democrats, so much, but I won't stand having socialists around

"Do you approve of union labor? " Carol inquired of Mr. Elder.

"Me? I should say not! It's like this: I don't mind dealing with my men if they think they've got any grievances— though Lord knows what's come over workmen, nowadays— don't appreciate a good job. But still, if they come to me honestly, as man to man, I'll talk things over with them. But I'm not going to have any outsider, any of these walking delegates, or whatever fancy names they call themselves now— bunch of rich grafters, living on the ignorant workmen! Not going to have any of those fellows butting in and telling me how to run my business!"

Mr. Elder was growing more excited, more belligerent and patriotic. "I stand for freedom and constitutional rights. If any man don't like my shop, he can get up and git. Same way, if I don't like him, he gits. And that's all there is to it. I simply can't understand all these complications and hoop-tedoodles and government reports and wage-scales and God knows what all that these fellows are balling up the labor situation with, when it's all perfectly simple. They like what I pay 'em, or they get out. That's all there is to it!"

"What do you think of profit-sharing?" Carol ventured.

Mr. Elder thundered his answer, while the others nodded, solemnly and in tune, like a shop-window of flexible toys, comic mandarins and judges and ducks and clowns, set quivering by a breeze from the open door:

"All this profit-sharing and welfare work and insurance and old-age pension is simply poppycock. Enfeebles a workman's independence—and wastes a lot of honest profit. The halfbaked thinker that isn't dry behind the ears yet, and these suffragettes and God knows what all buttinskis there are that are trying to tell a business man how to run his business, and some of these college professors are just about as bad, the whole kit and bilin' of 'em are nothing in God's world but socialism in disguise! And it's my bounden duty as a producer to resist every attack on the integrity of American industry to the last ditch. Yes—SIR!" Mr. Elder wiped his brow.

Dave Dyer added, " Sure! You bet! What they ought to do is simply to hang every one of these agitators, and that would settle the whole thing right off.

Main Street, Sinclair Lewis

Golden Wingnut Nomination

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"Our commander-in-chief is an effete vacillator who is pushed around by his female subordinates... Before you send me any burning bras, the problem is not with women leaders -- the enemies of the Virgin Queen and the Iron Lady can attest to that. The problem is not even with the president having strong female subordinates. Rather, Obama's pusillanimity has been hugely magnified by the contrast with the women directing his foreign policy and the fact that they nagged him to attack Libya until he gave in. Maybe it's unfair and there shouldn't be any difference from having a male secretary of state do the same thing, but there is,"

Anti-Immigrant Activist Mayflower Mark Kikorian

I believe that Wingnut Welfare Outfit where Mayflower Mark works has been listed as a Hate Group. I bet Mayflower Hates this fact as much as he hates........ other things.

Golden Wingnut Nomination

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Reacting to the President’s outline to close the budget gap, RedState Blog Apparatchik Moe Lane emotes:

Apparently, being forced to abandon his happy-shiny 2011 budget has made the President… well, Obama was already “petulant,” and “more petulant” doesn’t have the same ring to it. “Childish” or “adolescent” are both overused. “Labile” sounds dirty. Let’s go with “imbalanced;” it has a certain ring to it. […]

My recommendation, going forward? Democrats: cut the President out of the loop. His presence in this discussion insults both parties at this point. Send him off to a permanent round of golf games and trips to various parts of the country: Obama hates his job anyway, so letting him know that from now on all he has to do is sign papers on cue will probably relieve him somewhat. In the meantime… well, God help us, there’s always Joe Biden* for domestic policy. I am disgusted that we are now in a situation where going with Joe Biden looks good as a strategy in comparison, but this is where we are now…

I usually don’t comment on Moe’s work due to the rule on nutpicking, but this was really kinda sweet

Golden Wingnut Nomination

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K-lo really goes off the deep end

"A totally crazy Saturday-morning thought: Wouldn't George W. Bush make an awesome high-school government teacher? Wouldn't it be something if his post-presidential life would up being that kind of post-service service? How's that for a model? Who needs Harvard visiting chairs and high-end lectures? How about Crawford High? (Or wherever?) Reach out and touch the young before they are jaded, or break them of the cynicism pop culture and possibly their parents have passed down to them. Whatever you think of President Bush, he's a likable guy in love with his country with some history and experience to share.

Golden Wingnut Nomination

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Every once and a while the wingers will tell us what their motives are in denying the scientific consensus on Climate Science:

Policy makers at the head of government in the United States and elsewhere apparently want to believe, and to have others believe, that human use of fossil fuels accelerates global warming.They pursue this quest in order to impose ever greater and clearly unconstitutional control on the economy and personal liberty in the name of a hypothetically omnipotent government. There exists no true concern by the President or Congressional Leadership about the true effects of climate change - only a poorly concealed, ideologically driven attempt to use conjured up threats of catastrophic consequences as a lever to gain authoritarian control of society. [em-mine]

John Hinderaker about to go on to blame the SUN is to blame for Global Warming.

There you go. To fight Science is to Fight Socialism. That is it.

Golden Wingnut Nomination

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Quote of the Day:

That got me thinking: Obama enjoys being president, and he especially treasures the symbolic significance of being the first African-American president. That's how his supporters feel, too. I haven't heard anyone defend his actual performance in a long time, but there is still widespread satisfaction with the symbolic value of his presidency. So why don't we make him king? If being the first African-American president has symbolic value, just think what it would mean for the first King of the United States to be African-American! Plus, Michelle would be a queen and Malia and Sasha would be princesses. How cool would that be?

John Hinderaker, Right Wing Blogger at Powerline Blog

If Obama ever does become King the first thing to do, imo, would be to create Anti-Obama Dissident Camps and round folks up using a Secret Gestapo Like Police Force.

Golden Wingnut Nomination

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Government Employees as Parasites

To borrow an analogy from biology, if the parasites overwhelm the host, it is catastrophic for both the host and the parasites. (Which is why viruses aren't really trying to kill you, at least not quickly.) That analogy may be unfair; certainly not all government workers are parasites. Let's try this one: if the cowboy gets bigger than the horse, both the horse and the cowboy are in trouble.

There are many reasons for pessimism these days, but first on the list is the prospect that the growth of the public sector at the expense of the private may have become irreversible.

Blogger John Hinderaker cowering at Powerline Blog wonders "Are we Doomed?"

Actually Public Sector employment is down by 500,000, but in wingnutopia…...

Golden Wingnut Nomination

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Why Do We Have to Raise Taxes on the Rich?

by Douglas Holtz-Eakin

It has become standard wisdom that tax increases on the rich are a necessary part of any bipartisan deal to avoid federal financial meltdown. It is simply not possible to talk to any member of the media about the substantial problems in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, or other entitlements without the first response being “but don’t revenues have to be on the table?” Why? […]

…the only reason that taxing the rich has to be “on the table” is pure jealousy. Is jealousy really a good public policy? And why is it accepted as a “fact” by the mainstream media?

Simple Answer. We have to raise taxes on the rich in order to help them get into Heaven. Everybody knows this. Such a f*cking Idiot

Golden Wingnut Nomination

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This from Lamestream Media Figure Head and Wingnut Blogger, Erick Erickson:

By now you’ve probably heard about Barack Obama’s interview with Jake Tapper where he says, “I believe all the choices we’ve made have been the right ones.”

I want to focus on something else that I think gets to the heart of the matter. It’s Barack Obama’s fun use of the pronoun “it,” as in the economy. He tells Tapper, “The economy is not where it wants to be.”

Since when did the economy have an opinion on where it wants to be? When did we anthropormophize the economic? Does Walt Disney know about this? Maybe we should put this economy in the Hall of Presidents or something and let it speak for itself.

“I want to be bigger,” said Mr. Economy.

Nooooooo. This is the President giving away the game. Barry O thinks, like with the physician, the economy should heal itself. The economy does not want anything. People want jobs. Investors want growth. The economy Does. Not. Want.

Barack Obama has become so detached from his own destructive policies, he is having to anthropormophize the freaking economy and give it wants and desires so he can just blame it. It’s just not living up to what it wants.

He's got the derangement syndrome bad, man.

Golden Wingnut Nomination

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Obama may be putting while Rome burns, but you gotta hand it to him on his brackets: He got 29 of the 32 first-round games. I believe he picked Gaddafi Fembots to meet the Muslim Brotherhood in the championship game in Benghazi April 4th, so that's looking good, too.

Mark Steyn, NRO Guy and "Marked Man" on Libya and "leading from behind."

Note to Steyn - Kaddafi ain't around anymore and the massacre of folks in Benghazi that intelligence predicted did not happen.

Golden Wingnut Nomination

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From RedState Blog Honcho Erick Erickson:

Obama can look Presidential again — all through manufacturing the need for American involvement where there was no need. Barack Obama wants to be re-elected. The best playbook for his re-election is that of Bill Clinton. But Clinton had a government shutdown and Kosovo. In the absence of either, Barack Obama must manufacture them.

And he has.

Golden Wingnut Nomination

Hoisted from Archives

"Witches and Lutherans today stand on equal footing, at least under the law (the law is a ass), since nobody much thinks that sort of thing is terribly important anymore.... It was a new dawn, a day of hope and change, the ancien régime and the theocrats and the plutocracy having been supplanted by fresh new faces dedicated to Reason and promising to fundamentally changeFrance.... The government decided upon a stimulus package.... The problem was that theJacobins were, perforce, marginally less irresponsible than, say, the present government of the United States..."

NRO Guy Daniel Foster comparing the Stimulus Bill to those who used the Guillotine to lop off the heads of their betters during the French Revolution.

If I had a brother in Jail and another one in Georgia , I'd bust the one out of Georgia First, cntd

This is a whole new Definition of BLACK FRIDAY!

Today is the official Robert E. Lee Birthday Celebration in Georgia. While Lee never marched through Georgia , he did lead an army that invaded northern states twice in an attempt to destroy the United States of America. He was turned back both times at Antietam and Gettysburg.

Today they celebrate his birthday in Georgia! Personally I enjoy Thanksgiving. But to each his own.

Another interesting fact about Georgia is that its state flag is a knock off of the Official Confederate Flag. It is true! And it is also against the law to burn a confederate flag in Georgia Too. So with that said, you'd definitely need to try to spring your brother out of Georgia first.

Golden Wingnut Nomination

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Big Ed Whelan on the Prop 8 Judge:

Applying Ockham’s razor, I will readily presume that Walker’s wild course of misconduct in the anti-Prop 8 case was driven entirely by his ideological fervor for same-sex marriage and that Walker wasn’t also trying to feather his own post-judicial nest. That said, if he were trying to feather his nest, his high-profile invention of a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, including his remarkable (and overturned) denial of a stay of his judgment pending appeal, would be one way to build a lot of goodwill among many prospective San Francisco employers

In other words: If the Judge Ain't Straight, You must Vacate.

Golden Wingnut Nomination

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Powerline Blogger John Hinderaker reflecting on Sarah Palin’s inarticulate description of Paul Revere’s midnight ride……..to warn the British.

Left-wing outlets were delirious with glee: Sarah Palin! What an idiot! She thought Paul Revere rode to warn the British!

Let's just pause on that for a moment. Do these people seriously believe that Palin thought Revere was a British agent? That he risked his life to warn English troops--who were mostly in Boston, so why would he need to ride anywhere to warn them?--that John Hancock and Sam Adams were...asleep in their beds? That his capture by British soldiers, not to mention his subsequent enshrinement as a hero of the revolution, was a mistake, since he was only trying to be helpful to the English? Really? Really?

This reminds me of the time when a liberal told a joke to the effect that Dan Quayle said he wished he had brushed up on his Latin before visiting Latin America, and liberal news sources repeated the joke as fact. Some people are so far gone in partisan hate that they will believe just about anything, without reflecting on whether it makes any sense.

I feel bad about the whole Dan Quayle needing to Brush up on his Latin shtick. Really I do! But talk about people dominated by partisan hate. Pot calling out Kettle!

Golden Wingnut Nomination

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At this moment, Sarah Palin may be a more important figure than Barack Obama, despite his infinitely greater powers. Obama's most basic problem is that he has never been a thinker. He has not invested the years of hard work that are needed to develop coherent policy positions. Superficiality has always been good enough to get by for Obama, and now, when his policies are in tatters, he has neither a philosophical foundation nor a deep knowledge of the issues to fall back on. He is left staring into the headlights like a doomed deer.

John Hinderaker at Powerline Blog Sept 19, 2010

Golden Wingnut Nomination

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Palin has her faults, but she is a serious participant in the national dialogue on the key issues of our time. The New York Times and the Washington Post, in contrast, are frivolous rags with little or nothing of substance to offer.

Powerline Blogger John Hinderaker Sept 2011

Golden Wingnut Nomination

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Here is you daily dose of stupid. Someone did not like the Last State of the Union Address:

As much as the Democrats caricature the Republicans as hell bent on driving us back to 1950’s style culture, Barack Obama is hell bent on driving us back to 1950’s style economics where people work for large corporations that subsist on government program subsidies and the employees all belong to unions. In the history of the United States, that world view is very recent.

Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs — none of these people needed government subsistence to innovate. They did it on their own. And those, like Jobs, Gates, and others that built off of government inventiveness, the inventiveness on which they built off of came from technological advancements in national security and war — an area of the budget the President is willing to cut.

Barack Obama’s speech was a terrible speech. The only saving grace for him is that it will not be remembered by the American public. Paul Ryan had much more substance and, surprisingly enough, Michelle Bachmann had the best speech of the night with both style and substance.

All and all, Barack Obama’s “sputnik moment” should stand in American history for a great buildup without delivery. Barack Obama did not jump the shark; he sputniked.

RedState Blog Honcho and Lamestream Media Elitist Erick Erickson “sputniking”

Of course the Government created the internet. And without the internet, Erickson would just be an angry fella' issuing diatribes from the floor of the Macon City Council.

Golden Wingnut Nomination

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Here is your daily dose of Stupid:

The corruption of the Department of Justice under Barack Obama and Eric Holder is one of the saddest of many sad stories that have emerged from the Obama administration. Under Obama, the Department has been politicized to a degree this country has never experienced; certainly not in its modern history.

Yesterday the Civil Rights Commission released its final report on its investigation of the New Black Panthers case. That case presented the question--seemingly not a difficult one--whether it is permissible for political partisans, at least one of them an official of the Democratic Party, to wield weapons and make threats outside a polling place on election day for the purpose of deterring members of an opposing political party from voting.

Yet it seems that Barack Obama and Eric Holder approve of such threats of violence and want them to continue in the future, as long as the clubs are wielded on behalf of the Democratic Party.

[...]

The Obama Justice Department, in other words, is both racist and lawless.

Powerline Blogger John Hinderaker wailing about super scary black panthers and racism against white folks pervading the Government.

Yeah Right. Reverse Racism. It has to be tough being a winger. These days it means being a victim - about just about everything.....even things that don't exist.

Golden Wingnut Nomination

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The RedState Blog Honcho believes that the President has manufactured high gas prices as part of an effort to return to the “14th century” energy policy:

Friends, Barack Obama is making sure this energy crisis largely of his own creation is not going to waste. He wants fundamental change.

To make it all seem viable, the Left needs two things to happen.

Gas prices must increase to around $5.00 a gallon. That is, at least, the much talked about figure where suddenly high-speed rail seems like a great alternative to flight and driving. But population density must also increase.

To get a higher population density you need to get people out of their cars. So raise gas prices and put them in battery powered cars. Then they can’t drive more than 40 miles without plugging in. It gives people incentive to move closer to their job. It increases population density.

These people are not fools. They want a world where we all live in big cities and use the sun and wind to run our lives — a return to the 14th century with 21st century hygiene. To get that to happen, gas prices must go up.

Barack Obama does not care about what is happening in the Middle East. He does not care about the cost to you to fill up your car with gas. Because the more you pay through Mid-East turmoil and inaccessible American oil deposits, the sooner his future of coal powered cars and high-speed trains can arrive.

This is an Obama created crisis he wants to make sure does not get wasted.

It has to be tough being a winger with dark conspiracies all around. At least Erickson is not as far gone as Glenn Beck. If he starts hyping Gold and Survival equipment, we’ll know that he is trying to catch up.

Coming Soon...!

This weekend I won't be around the series of tubes that forms the internet, but I will have several posts scheduled to appear throughout the long weekend addressing the phenomenon of Wingnuttery and the Web.

Check back periodically.

Happy Thanksgiving!

On Wingnut Welfare and Climate Change

I was reading the latest tin foil hat post at Powerline Blog which again alleges that a conspiracy of scientists are pushing anthropogenic global warming to cash in on speaking fees and research grants and trips to cool places to talk about their research. It is all a conspiracy. It is over cash - plain and simple. Only the Wingnuts have it figured out. And suddenly realized what may be going on with the denial crowd.

I will call this Theory of Global Warming Denial projection. Let me explain.

Many wingers are hooked on Wingnut Welfare. And in order to keep receiving your wingnut welfare cash, you have to stay on message and loyal to the team. If you do so, you get to keep playing and collecting cash from wealth right wing patrons. If you go off message, you get rebuked or cut off or even worse - banished. Hence there is a powerful incentive to play by all the rules - even if that having means writing crazy shit about Bush being a Genius or Iran posing an existential threat to Western Civilization. You just have to do it to keep on the team. Along the way many end up buying into the Bullshit and become trapped in right wing counter culture. It is a terribly sad dilemma, but what can you do? There was no funding for FEMA run anti-Obama dissident camps in the Stimulus Bill. And if anyone says the Stimulus bill was a failure, perhaps this lack of funding is one point that can be used to backs up that contention.

Let's look at an example of Wingnut Welfare in Action. Take Michael Barone. He is a winger, a hardcore winger that lays down shrill tracks accusing the President of being a hyper-thug one day and a weakling apologizing to America's enemies on the next without missing a beat to note the inconsistencies. It is all just part of the game. And if you play the game well, you get rewarded with cash grants like the $250,000 Bradley Prize which goes annually to loyalists like Barone who have demonstrated their value through their good works. If one's loyalty is to facts instead of team there is no payout . Worse yet, disloyalty could earn banishment for what passes as good society in right wing circles.

Now back to Global Warming Denial. What if the wingers hyping the conspiracy talk on global warming are viewing Scientists in the same light as fellow Wingnut Welfare Recipients? "We got this Racket all Figured, Man. Because we play this game with the rubes everyday " a winger may think. "Just like us," the winger may continue "the Scientists have to tell their left wing benefactors what they want to hear or they'll lose out." This false equivalence between rightwing counter culture and science leaves the winger thinking he's the smartest guy in the room having figured out something that only the Eggheaded Scientists are in on. And Hence what follows is tinfoil hat posts alleging that man induced global warming is all a great big hoax cooked up by scientists in order to (1) cash in; and/or (2) impose a global regulatory scheme designed to destroy freedom.

Keep in mind this is just one theory of describing Global Warming Denial. There are others as well, such as the fact that many of these guys are just irredeemable assholes. So keep this in mind.

Dispatches from the Fever Swamps

It has got to be tough being a winger:

It recently came out that James Hansen, one of the two or three most prominent global warming alarmists on whose work the IPCC reports rest, “forgot” to report $1.6 million in outside income, as required by his government contracts. Is that significant? Well, yes: A handful of scientists, including Hansen, have gotten wealthy on climate alarmism. They have an enormous financial interest in the faux science they have done so much to perpetrate. It is more likely that the Pope would renounce Christianity than that Hansen, Michael Mann, etc., would change their minds about global warming, regardless of the evidence. (I say that because the Pope has far more intellectual integrity than the climate alarmists.)

Beyond that handful of leading alarmists, if you are involved in any way in climate science, you have a financial interest in alarmism. Even minor climate scientists get consulting contracts and are invited to present papers in exotic locales. And if you are not an alarmist, you have little or no chance of cashing in on the billions of dollars in government grants for climate research.

Essentially, the closed world of climate “science” has been bought and paid for, largely with our tax dollars. Under these circumstances, it is remarkable that so many real scientists have been willing to forgo financial advantage and blow the whistle on the alarmists’ frauds.

Via Powerline Blog

Big Buck in the Science Game? Who knew?

I may be missing something, but don't the Eggheads get paid to do research? If the research backs the consensus on anthropogenic global warming so be it. If it doesn't, it doesn't.

The Cancer Researchers get paid to research Cancer…...not to cause it or obstruct a cure. They do the research, earn a salary and do their best. Nobody says the Cancer Researchers are not curing Cancer because they want to keep producing phony research to present papers in Birmingham Alabama or other such exotic locales. However, such is life for the tinfoil hat crowd.

Sounds like I need to Translate "Alarmism" and "Alarmist" from wingnutspeak into good ol' Red Blooded American English - you know the language that Jesus spoke.

Just doing my part to elevate discourse in America, because…...

…...Elitists in the Media Still Act All Elitist and such

Check Out the Latest Outrage perpetrated against Michele Bachmann:

Spin magazine noticed something when Michele Bachmann arrived on Jimmy Fallon's stage last night. Fallon's house band, The Roots, played a jumpy song with no lyrics, just horns and a hook: "She's just a/La la la la, la la la la la/she's just a/La la la la, la la la la la."

The song: "Lyin' Ass Bitch" by Fishbone.

While some people may find this funny due to her past history of uttering demonstrably false statements, it is also over the line. Let me explain.

First of all for Bachmann to be shown as a proven liar, one must show an intent to lie. Second, The Costanza Rule - it is not a lie if you chose to believe what you say is true. Third, Bachmann is so deep into rightwing counter culture that it is likely that she can't tell fact from fiction. As such, Bachmann has a perpetual get out of jail free card when it comes to allegations of lying. And Fourth, the only way to help Bachmann would be to send her to a FEMA run re-education camp. Since these camps don't exist, there is nothing that can be done to help with all the false statements.

Accordingly, I have just demonstrated that it is incorrect to call Bachmann a "Lyin' Ass Bitch." End of Debate.

Now if only the main character in the song was Crazy as opposed to a known Prevaricator, the song would have been appropriate.

Gingrich Houses Seem kinda seem RED to me

Actually Gingrich Houses may not be so far off the Soviet post WWII Model of child care.

It reminds me of this:

...take 1940s Russia, which lost some 20 million men and 7 million women to World War II. In order to replenish the population, the state instituted an aggressive pro-natalist policy to support single mothers. Mie Nakachi, a historian at Hokkaido University, in Japan, has outlined its components: mothers were given generous subsidies and often put up in special sanatoria during pregnancy and childbirth; the state day-care system expanded to cover most children from infancy; and penalties were brandished for anyone who perpetuated the stigma against conceiving out of wedlock. In 1944, a new Family Law was passed, which essentially freed men from responsibility for illegitimate children; in effect, the state took on the role of “husband.” As a result of this policy—and of the general dearth of males—men moved at will from house to house, where they were expected to do nothing and were treated like kings; a generation of children were raised without reliable fathers, and women became the “responsible” gender. This family pattern was felt for decades after the war.

Father Gingrich caring after the Nation's Children is not a pretty thought.

Perry Signs on Gay Marriage Pledge - Pledges not to Get One

Rick Perry Vows to Protect Marriage from Gay Folks:

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry has signed the controversial marriage pledge from a social conservative group in Iowa, a spokeswoman said.

“I have received the signed copy,” Julie Summa, Director of Marketing for The Family Leader said. Summa said the Texas governor’s campaign submitted it electronically on Monday and the governor did not modify the document before signing it.

According to the pledge’s text, signers “solemnly vow to honor and cherish, to defend and uphold the institution of marriage as only between one man and one woman.”

Signers also vow to: remain faithful to their spouses, oppose any “redefinition” of marriage, such as that between same-sex couples; and embrace a federal marriage amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Language in the original document, put out in July, sparked some controversy.

Its preamble asserted that African-American children, who were born into slavery, were better off than today’s black children. The group later removed that language.

Gingrich Houses - Another reason why New Gingrich may be a Sociopath

Here is a blast from the Ancient Past. It is all the way back to 1994 when Newt Gingrich was advocating breaking up Families so that Children could be raised institutionally with a new type of father i.e., the Federal Government.

"Are Orphanages Better for Kids than Welfare"

Resurgent Republicans in Congress under Newt Gingrich are breathing new life into an idea whose time most people thought had already come and gone.

They want to bring back orphanages and other forms of state-supervised residences to care for the illegitimate children of young women who would be cut from welfare rolls under their proposals.

In addition to evoking images of little Oliver Twist begging for another bowl of porridge, the initiative, a part of the Republicans' Personal Responsibility Act, has sent a shiver of apprehension through the community of child-care workers.

This is because the idea collides with the principal tenet that has guided their profession for nearly a century: that children are raised better in families, even imperfect or incomplete families, than in institutions.

Resort to orphanages, said one political scientist writing a book on the subject, is a return to the very institution whose failure led to the welfare system as it exists today.

Matthew Crenson, a Johns Hopkins political scientist, said the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program actually evolved from earlier measures devised as remedies for the ills visited upon thousands of children raised in orphanages.

The movement to reconstitute orphanages or other forms of supervised group-living outside the family has been growing for several years. It has been supported by conservative Republicans such as William J. Bennett, academics like Charles Murray (co-author of "The Bell Curve"), and more recently by Rep. Newt Gingrich, Republican of Georgia.

The nature and preoccupations of some of its other partisans, prominent criminologists James Q. Wilson and John J. DiIulio, suggest that though it is being touted as welfare reform, it is also seen as an anti-crime measure. Its partisans believe it would help reduce illegitimacy, which many people think stimulates crime.

Talk about Right Wing Social Engineering!

"Gingrich Houses" for poor children would sprout up all over the land to replace the families of children whose parents were down on the luck or whose behavior was deemed outside of local cultural norms. If you thought Paul Ryan plan to end Medicare as we know it was a bad idea, this one is a whopper.

Did Gingrich actually believe that a government takeover of the family, i.e., "Gingrich Houses" was a good idea? My guess is that it felt good at the and was convenient way to support his idea of the day. You know, if it feels good do it!

If you are a patriotic tea drinking American can you support someone who proposed replacing families with Government Run Orphanages? What about family values? What about, gasp, the tax increases to run such an operation? When you add "Gingrich Houses" to the list of Newt's foibles like changing Religions, lying under oath, living double lives and going through wives and marriages like sick kids go through kleenex I just don't see how he gets very far in the race.

Newt Gingrich is a Sociopath, I do believe

Otherwise how can he keep making bizarre statements like this. The Lamestream Media Reports :

"The CBO is a reactionary socialist institution which does not believe in economic growth, does not believe in innovation and does not believe in data that it has not internally generated."

I am beginning to think that we may all Really be Socialists After All. However, at the same time I do believe that one has to actually advocate Socialism to be a Socialist.

The problem with Gingrich's bizarre statement is that a Reactionary Socialist is an oxymoron like "military intelligence" or "serious teabagger." One would have trouble being a reactionary socialist if one tried. How could you be both a fire breathing Slavery advocate and a Fervent Abolitionist at the same time. You couldn't. The same is true here. How can one be both a socialist and anti-socialist at the same time. You can't.

The fact that this man is leading the Polls among republican primary voters is a sign of a very sick political party. This is a party that should just be boarded up and shut down for the love of all things decent.

Foxnews is bad for you in many ways, cntd

There is more Evidence that Foxnews is a defective product. Like the Ford Pinto, Foxnews should be recalled before it hurts more folks:

According to the latest results from Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind Poll, some news sources make us less likely to know what’s going on in the world. In the most recent study, the poll asked New Jerseyans about current events at home and abroad, and from what sources – if any – they get their information. The conclusion:

Sunday morning news shows do the most to help people learn about current events, while some outlets, especially Fox News, lead people to be even less informed than those who they don’t watch any news at all.

... the real finding is that the results depend on what media sources people turn to for their news. For example, people who watch Fox News, the most popular of the 24-hour cable news networks, are 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government than those who watch no news at all (after controlling for other news sources, partisanship, education and other demographic factors). Fox News watchers are also 6-points less likely to know that Syrians have not yet overthrown their government than those who watch no news.

"Because of the controls for partisanship, we know these results are not just driven by Republicans or other groups being more likely to watch Fox News," said Dan Cassino, a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson and an analyst for the PublicMind Poll. "Rather, the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at all."

By contrast, some media sources have a positive effect on political knowledge. For

example, people who report reading a national newspaper like The New York Times or USA Today are 12-points more likely to know that Egyptians have overthrown their government than those who have not looked at any news source. And those who listen to the non-profit NPR radio network are 11-points more likely to know the outcome of the revolt against Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. However, the best informed respondents are those that watched Sunday morning news programs: leading to a 16-point increase in the likelihood of knowing what happened in Egypt and an 8-point increase in the likelihood of knowing what happened in Syria.

This has been noted before, but if you consume the Foxnews product as intended, it does the opposite of what it promises. It ends up harming the consumer.

This seems to be a product liability case waiting to happen. Perhaps an ambitious trial attorney can hook up with someone who watches Foxnews near 24 hours a day and who threw his life savings behind some Tea Party Fueled investment scheme pitched on the Glenn Beck show and who ended up losing everything. Question: if you were a teabagger who fell for such a scheme would you want fellow Teabaggers on the jury who may sympathize with you or Reality Based Folks who dislike Foxnews? Not sure about this one.

Anyway,one such candidate to headline a defective product suit against Foxnews, may be Eric Cantor:

One of the rightwing talking points of the past two years touches on the coming onslaught of inflation. Inflation is coming warns, Sarah Palin, and its going to destroy your household budget. Pretty soon you won't be able to afford Milk or Soap or Slim Jims or anything else on your grocery list, all because of President Obama. He is bad. Be afraid. And so on and so forth.

This is of course, bullshit. Inflation projections appear to be quite low for the foreseeable future. But this reality, didn't stop the Foxnews or the AM Radio or the WSJ editorial page from, as Nathan Bedford Forrest* would say "Keeping Up the Scare" about the inflationary menace. If you can score points against the other side, does it really matter that in keeping up the scare, your views/listeners/readers become misinformed? Actually it does.

This reminds us that living within right wing counter culture, with its attendant horrors such as fearing inflation or death panels when the threat of neither exist, comes with a price. Simply put, getting one's news from a Foxnews program or from another rightward source can be bad for you.

Exemplifying just what the right wing counter culture can to do a person is none other than Majority Leader Eric Cantor. According to the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Cantor, frightened of inflation and firmly living within right wing counter culture, made a $150,000 bet. In December of 2009, he bet against US treasury bonds and on future inflation by purchasing a fund that correspond to twice the inverse (opposite) of the daily performance of the Barclays Capital 20+ Year U.S. Treasury Bond Index. In other words he bet on a fund that would do quite well should the onslaught of inflation come to pass and do very poorly in the absence of such an onslaught. What are the results of Cantor's bet? Cantor's 2009 investment of $150,000 would be worth about $75,000 today due to the lack of inflation. A bad bet indeed.

There is a price to be paid for believing in the wingnuttery. Unfortunately, I do not believe Mr. Cantor will learn from the error of his ways.

* /cheapshot> This reference to a Confederate General is in no way an attempt to associate the old timey conservatism of the past with the conservatism of today's crazy crowd. It is just a mean-spirited jab on my part.

I think Cantor or someone like him may have a Case. But while Cantor is wired into the wingnut welfare culture and likely would alienate his benefactors with such a suit a nameless winger would not have this problem and could champion such a suit. I encourage such behavior.

One is the loneliest Number

Comrade Frum is still deluded.

I don’t know if it is Stockholm Syndrome or something like it, but David Frum still thinks he is a Republican:

It’s fine to be unconcerned that the rich are getting richer, but blind to deny that ­middle-class wages have stagnated or worse over the past dozen years. In the aftershock of 2008, large numbers of Americans feel exploited and abused. Rather than workable solutions, my party is offering low taxes for the currently rich and high spending for the currently old, to be followed by who-knows-what and who-the-hell-cares. This isn’t conservatism; it’s a going-out-of-business sale for the baby-boom generation.

I refuse to believe that I am the only Republican who feels this way.

Well Huntsman is polling at 1% in the polls so maybe Comrade Frum is not alone.

...in the interests of avoiding false evenhandedness, it must be admitted: The party with a stronger charge on its zapper right now [is most broken], the party struggling with more self-­imposed obstacles to responsible governance, the party most in need of a course correction, is the Republican Party. Changing that party will be the fight of a political lifetime. But a great political party is worth fighting for.

But even if the 1% were to unite and join the battle against the 99%, it is probably too late to save the GOTP. I think it is broken and beyond repair.

A party exists to organize coalitions and gain victory at the polls. However it also plays a role in educating and informing its coalition members. The GOP has failed to in this regard. Health Insurance is not slavery. Record-high corporate profits, almost 500,000 job losses in the public sector, and the lowest tax rates since the Truman administration is not socialism. Torture is not virtuous. And up is not down. Yet many GOTP voters confusingly believe these things. Why has the GOP been unable or unwilling to inform its voters? Simple - it is broken and does not work properly anymore.

Comrade Frum must face facts and accept that the best he can do is to play for Team Blue.

Giving Herman Cain the Benefit of the Doubt for Once

Last week Herman Cain said this About the Taliban Libya. And just like clockwork the Lamestream Media jumped all over it:

His question was -- and I hope you all show this or write about it -- Do you agree or disagree with President Obama on Libya? What part? Do I agree with the part where we intervene with rockets and missiles? Do I agree with siding with the opposition? Do I agree with saying that Khaddafy should go? Do I agree that they now have a country where you've got Taliban and Al Qaeda that's going to be a part of the government?

Everyone knows that Taliban comes out of tribal groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan . It is not related to Libya. It has not left Afghanistan and invaded Libya by launching an amphibious assault spearheaded by the Taliban Navy. Everybody knows this - even Herman Cain, I suspect.

What Cain was likely referring to was the fact that religious extremists, a synonym for Taliban, could be part of the new government. This is a commonly accepted use of the term Taliban. For example, The Republican Party has a Taliban Wing to it. You can find that wing represented by political characters like Michele Bachmann, James Dobson and Pat Robertson. Even portions of the Tea Party could be describes as Taliban in nature.

This is all Cain that was likely describing by noting a government with made up in part, by religious extremists would be bad. We can all agree with this and cut Cain some slack here.