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Showing posts from March, 2018

Wingnut Wrapup

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A lot of disgusting nonsense to get to these days, so let's just dig in with what is likely to be the most degraded, sickening response to the teenagers working to control guns, of course coming from the legendary Stupidest Man On The Internet, and holder of a Trump administration press pass, Jim Hoft: Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit:  "FLASHBACK: Hitler Also Used Children to Promote Gun Control:" Yup, he went there, right in the headline.  And here is the picture Jim used: I spent some time searching for details about this picture and guess what?  There seems to be no record of the occasion it was taken, and certainly not a reason in the world to think that it involved guns.  Surprise, surprise.  "Today’s gun control and confiscation rally was nothing new. Nazis and leftists have been using children for decades in their attempts to take guns away from law abiding citizens.  Here’s a history lesson for young adults in America – Hitler’s regime took away guns fro

Forgotten Heroes of Conservatism- Chapter Four: Father Charles Coughlin

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With Father Charles Coughlin, I will complete the part of this series devoted to early right wing political figures who came from a religious background.  There are a number of others I might deal with, but I think by the end of this chapter, I will have made my point.  Coughlin is, of course, nowhere near as forgotten as figures like Billy James Hargis or Gerald L. K. Smith- many will remember him from a couple of lines in their high school civics classes- but he is a sufficiently important figure that he will get his own treatment here. Father Charles Coughlin Let me begin with some bare facts, from the Wikipedia entry for Coughlin: "Charles Edward Coughlin was a controversial Canadian-American Roman Catholic priest based in the United States near Detroit at Royal Oak, Michigan's National Shrine of the Little Flower church. Commonly known as Father Coughlin, he was one of the first political leaders to use radio to reach a mass audience, as up to thirty million l

Old Guy Speaks Up at Gun March

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“One of my best friends was killed in gun violence right around here, so it’s important to me.”

It's All About Him

I want to clarify a point I tried to make yesterday about Trump's appointments of Joseph DiGenova, John Bolton and Larry Kudlow. What is paramount to remember is, it's all about him.  It has nothing to do with the good of the country, or really anyone else.  Trump is a person whose ego is so deformed that he can not see nor comprehend anything except as it relates to himself.  Given this as an obvious fact, here is what I make of these changes. First, DiGenova. This guy is not an attorney in any meaningful sense of the term; he is a vicious, hate filled liar who has honed his craft spreading smears for decades on Fox News.  The fact that Trump has fired his real head lawyer and replaced him with DiGenova shows that Trump knows that he is guilty as charged, and is now switching from a legal defense strategy to one intended to destroy his opponents.  Most of us have heard of the legal concept of "consciousness of guilt."  That consciousness is written all over this

Wingnut Wrapup

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You will observe below a strange reluctance on the part of wingnuts to have anything to do with either the Texas white terrorists or the clear evidence of Trump's crimes and treason.  Wonder why that might be.  Anyway, here is what they are obsessing about: Mark Davis, Town Hall:  "John Bolton: The Wisdom of This Choice Is Made Clear in the Panic of Liberals" Because starting a meaningless war or killing a few million innocent civilians is a wonderful thing if it pisses liberals off.  We all know this guy is a certifiable lunatic, but since he scares liberals (or any other sane people) he's just who wingnuts want running the country. Pat Buchanan, Town Hall:  "Will the Deep State Break Trump?" It might if it existed.  Since it has as much real existence as Saruman, probably not.  So we'll just have to go on hoping that someone else breaks him, before he starts a world war or causes a depression. David Harsanyi, Town Hall:  "The Facebook

He Hasn't Hit Bottom Yet

I've pretty much stopped commenting on Donald Trump's clear insanity, because everyone can see what is going on, but today represents a new low.  Is there no bottom to this man's depravity, and is there no point at which his fellow Republicans, who hold all the reins of government in their hands, are going to do their duty and remove him? In the last day or so, we've seen this: First of all, Trump just precipitated a 724 point one day drop in the Dow Jones average, through an erratic and totally un-thought out trade attack on China.  We'll have to see what happens to the markets tomorrow; hopefully this is a one day catastrophe and not one more step toward a real crash.  In any event, the guy is playing with worldwide depression, in order to feed his own ego.  I don't care who voted for him; what decent person wants him in the White House? Next, Trump's main lawyer in his incipient treason case quit yesterday, for reasons that seem pretty obvious.  I c

Forgotten Heroes of Conservatism- Chapter Three: Gerald L. K. Smith

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In this chapter, I want to continue with another right wing predecessor of today's Conservative movement, who was massively popular in the thirties through the fifties, but who has been virtually pushed out of the historical record at this point:  Gerald L. K. Smith.  Like Billy James Hargis and Father Coughlin, he started out as a religious figure, and over a period of years migrated into politics, promoting a political viewpoint which I believe will be familiar to anyone watching the Republican party of the last few decades, although perhaps in a less varnished form.  I mention this because it is important, I believe, to understand that the current view that the Republican party has somehow coopted the Evangelical movement is actually backwards- standard American Conservatism actually grew out of Evangelical Christianity and has been manipulated by it, not the other way around.  Anyway, decide for yourself. Smith was born in 1898, and spent the early part of his adulthoo

We Live in a Dictatorship

As of today, with the American Reichstag deciding on a total party line basis that the manifest treason of their leader must be allowed to continue unopposed, I think it is past any question that this party has openly embraced totalitarian, one party rule.  Today is the day that the Republican treatment of the opposition truly justifies comparison with the way the Nazi party destroyed other parties in the months after Hitler's rise to power.  And let us be clear about this:  there is not one single person on the House intelligence committee, Democrat or Republican, who does not know the true nature of Trump's crimes.  The destruction of the means to uncover the evidence shows that the Republicans know the monstrous crime in which they are accessories. And all of this accompanied by Trump's staging of the closest thing he could manage to a Nuremberg rally in Pennsylvania this week; an open display of hatred, racism and barely suppressed violence that is, finally, truly d

Worst Twitter Insult of All Time?

From someone named Deano: "ROFL As if Donald Trump would sleep with a disease ridden slut like you all you are is a glorified prostitute after quick cash.  Why would he want you when he has Ivanka?" You've got a great point there, Deano!  Why would he want to get a porn star in bed, when he could just fuck his own daughter?

Wingnut Wrapup

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Every kind of idiocy to blot out the wingnut's apprehension of what sort of monsters they elected.  It continues to amaze me what mental gymnastics they are willing to go through to deny the obvious reality, but I keep feeling that someone has to keep an eye on this distressing phenomenon, because it is going to form the intellectual basis of their rejection of any responsibility for what has happened to this country: Guy Benson, Town Hall:  "EXCLUSIVE: Meet the Conservative Parkland Massacre Survivor the Media Has Largely Ignored" No thanks, Guy.  Do you expect us to be impressed that out of all the students at this school, right wingers managed to find one sixteen year old that they could manipulate with promises of fame and fortune, to say what they want?  And it's sort of funny that we are expected to ignore everything a teenager says, unless they agree with the Republican party; then they are the voice of enlightenment. Michael Brown, Town Hall:  "Ho

Forgotten Heroes of Conservatism- Part 2- Billy James Hargis

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I've gotten distracted from this series, but I want to get back to it with a post about Billy James Hargis, who was a radio preacher from the 1950's on, at his peak appearing on over 500 radio stations.  I want to make it clear that I am doing this not because anyone should really care about these people, but because their history demonstrates that the current plague of wingnut madness which is spreading around the country is not a new phenomenon, not a product of Trump or even Reagan, but is the current manifestation of what at this point must be regarded as the essential character of American Conservatism.  Secondarily, by pointing out some of the connections between my featured characters and others in the Conservative movement, I hope to show that the entire thing was produced by a relatively small, interrelated group of charlatans, criminals and corrupt politicians and religious figures.  This should serve as a warning about how dangerous it is to write these people off as