Orange Meltdown, Con't

As Donald Trump's constant legal troubles continue, it seems like every day there's a new development in at least one legal venue where Trump is facing ruination, and this week is no different. We switch gears to New York AG Tish James and her civil fraud case against Trump, where both sides are asking for summary judgment ahead of October's scheduled state civil fraud trial.

 

Before Donald J. Trump was indicted four times over, he was sued by New York’s attorney general, who said that for years the former president, his business and members of his family had fraudulently overvalued their assets by billions of dollars.

Before any of those criminal trials will take place, Mr. Trump is scheduled for a civil trial in New York in October. During the trial, the attorney general, Letitia James, will seek to bar him and three of his children from leading their family business, the Trump Organization, and to require him to pay a fine of around $250 million.

On Wednesday, Ms. James fired an opening salvo, arguing that a trial is not necessary to find that Mr. Trump and the other defendants inflated the value of their assets in annual financial statements, fraudulently obtaining favorable loans and insurance arrangements.

The fraud was so pervasive, she said in a court filing, that Mr. Trump had falsely boosted his net worth by between $812 million and $2.2 billion each year over the course of a decade.

“Based on the undisputed evidence, no trial is required for the court to determine that defendants presented grossly and materially inflated asset values,” the filing said.

But Mr. Trump’s lawyers, in their own motion, argued that the entire case should be thrown out, relying in large part on a recent appellate court decision that appeared as if it could significantly narrow the scope of the case because of a legal time limit. Mr. Trump had received most of the loans in question too long ago for the matter to be considered by a court, his lawyers argue.

“The appellate division has now limited the reach of the N.Y. A.G.’s crusade against President Trump and his family” wrote Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Christopher M. Kise, Michael Madaio and Clifford S. Robert.

Both filings seek what is known as summary judgment, or a ruling from the judge that they are entitled to a victory before trial based on undisputed facts in evidence.

Ms. James sought that ruling on the claim at the core of her case — that Mr. Trump’s financial statements were fraudulent — and if she prevails, it would mark a significant victory and could smooth her path to a potential win at trial on the remaining claims.

If Mr. Trump won even partial summary judgment, the case could become a shadow of what it once appeared, significantly lowering the stakes of the October trial.

Or the judge could deny both bids for early victory, which would simply set the case for trial.

The judge, Arthur F. Engoron, is scheduled to hold a hearing in late September and could rule then.

Ms. James’s lawsuit disputes the value of some of Mr. Trump’s best-known properties, including Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate, and Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan. In her new filing, she wrote that, given the way that the worth of Trump Tower was calculated in 2018, it was overvalued by nearly $175 million. The following year, she said, the value of the building was falsely boosted by nearly $323 million.

“At the end of the day this is a documents case,” the filing unsealed on Wednesday said, adding that the documents left not a shred of doubt that Mr. Trump’s annual financial statements “do not even remotely reflect the ‘estimated current value’ of his assets.”

Ms. James also took aim at Mr. Trump for submitting the financial statements to obtain loans for a golf resort outside Miami, a hotel in Washington and a hotel in Chicago.

Yet Mr. Trump’s lawyers argue that Justice Engoron should throw out those transactions from the case, citing the recent appellate court ruling. In that ruling, the appeals court dismissed Ms. James’s case against his daughter, Ivanka Trump, because the accusations concerned conduct that had occurred too long ago. As Mr. Trump’s lawyers interpret the appellate ruling, any loans that Mr. Trump and his company received before July 2014 were too old to be included in the case.

The appeals court declined to throw out the case against Mr. Trump, his company and his two adult sons — effectively leaving it to Justice Engoron to decide. But Mr. Trump’s lawyers noted in their motion for summary judgment that the loans for the Chicago hotel and Florida resort were negotiated before the July 2014 legal deadline.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers also argued that Mr. Trump’s lenders did not rely heavily on his financial statements when issuing him loans, and that the lenders reaped millions from their dealings with the former president.

“The sophisticated private parties all profited considerably from successfully consummated transactions,” Mr. Trump’s lawyers wrote. “Thus, ‘fraud’ cannot exist in the abstract or solely in the mind of the N.Y. A.G.”

 

This case too seems destined for a Trump-friendly Supreme Court, given the defendant is a ex-Oval Office occupant. Trump may not be able to force the trial into federal court, but I imagine he'll appeal any verdict against him as high as he can possibly go. Whether or not SCOTUS will take anything up is up in the air, but Trump will certainly demand it.

Hell, there's a fair chance he's back in the White House by the time this gets to SCOTUS, and we already know exactly what's going to happen if he does.

 

Former President Donald Trump joined controversial radio host Glenn Beck for an interview on Tuesday and was asked flat out if he would use the office of the president to jail his political opponents – as he promised to do in 2016.

“You said in 2016, you know, ‘lock her up.’ And then when you became president, you said, ‘We don’t do that in America.’ That’s just not the right thing to do. That’s what they’re doing. Do you regret not locking her up? And if you’re president again, will you lock people up?” Beck asked Trump.

“Well, I’ll give you an example. Uh, the answer is you have no choice because they’re doing it to us,” Trump replied, making clear he would.

“I always had such great respect for the office of the president and the presidency and but the office of the president. And I never hit Biden as hard as I could have. And then I heard he was trying to indict me and it was him that was doing it,” Trump continued, adding:

"You know, I don’t think he’s sharp enough to think about much, but he was there and he was probably the one giving the order. But he was, you know, hard to believe that he even thinks about that because he’s gone. But then I said, well, they’re actually trying to indict me because every one of these indictments is him, including Bragg. But he put his top people.

I don’t know if you know this, he put his top person into the office of the Manhattan district attorney. They’ve been in total coordination with Fani Willis. The woman that I never met, that they accused me of rape, that’s being run by a Democrat, a Democrat operative, and paid for by the Democrat party. You know, so many of these days, I have a couple of other lawsuits all funded against me by the Democrats. But these are sick people. These are evil people."

 

He's telling us that he will put dozens, maybe hundreds of Democrats in jail. We shouldn't exactly give him the chance, right?

 

Right?

All Demagogues Matter

Glenn Beck reportedly drew 20,000 for his "All Lives Matter" rally in Alabama on Sunday, proving once again that whenever the black community says something, we have to be corrected by a "concerned" white guy.

Led by conservative activist and talk show host Glenn Beck, more than 20,000 people chanting "All Lives Matter" marched the historic civil rights route from Kelly Ingram Park to Birmingham City Hall this morning.

"It's about taking our church out in the streets," Beck said. He said marchers came from as far away as China, Dubai and the Netherlands.

Actor Chuck Norris, a conservative activist known for his martial arts, action movies and TV show "Walker, Texas Ranger," marched about two rows behind Beck. Alveda King, a niece of civil rights activist the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., marched in the front row. Bishop Jim Lowe, pastor of the predominantly black Guiding Light Church in Birmingham, co-organized the march with Beck and marched with him at the front. As a child, Lowe attended Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, where the march started, a headquarters church for the civil rights movement in Birmingham. Lowe and his sisters were in the church when a KKK bomb blew up the church and killed four little girls on Sept. 15, 1963.

"Love is the answer," Lowe said as he marched. "God is the answer."

Some Birmingham police officers said the crowd could have been as large as 25,000 to 30,000. It may have been the largest march in Birmingham since the civil rights marches of 1963.

It's a march for white people to tell black people what they are doing wrong, which is apparently not trusting white people enough.  By the way, Glenn Beck really cares about the black community.

The march was part of Beck's "Never Again is Now" campaign to raise awareness and funds to aid persecuted Christians in the Middle East.

Not so much us black people being killed in the US.  They're Christian too, but hey, why would Beck raise funds and awareness for us?

Wearing a Yankees cap, Steve Titus of Chicago, 63, and his wife, Terri, 62, wore red, white and blue clothing.

"As chaotic as our country is right now, the history of this city will help us to unify, racially and spiritually," Titus said. "It's really in the spirit and words of Martin Luther King Jr."

"The United States has really become divided," Terri Titus said. "We want life for everybody. How does it feel to have a movement start in your town? It's happened again."

Yay white people co-opting the black civil rights struggle for their own purposes, with Beck replacing King.  I'll tell you what, this is some prime BS right here.

And it's only going to get worse.

Your Stopped Clock Is Right Twice A Day Alert

Glenn Beck is still an awful, divisive, serial liar and scumbag and is a terrible person, but for some screwball reason he admitted that us liberals were right about Iraq on his radio show yesterday.  Mediaite covers the story:

From the beginning, most people on the left were against going into Iraq. I wasn’t. At the time I believed that the United States was under threat from Saddam Hussein. I really truly believed that Saddam Hussein was funding terrorists. We knew that. He was funding the terrorists in Hamas. We knew that he was giving money. We could track that. We knew he hated us. We knew that without a shadow of a doubt. It wasn’t much or a stretch to believe that he would fund a terror strike against us, especially since he would say that. So I took him at his word.

[...] Now, in spite of the things I felt at the time when we went into war, liberals said: We shouldn’t get involved. We shouldn’t nation-build. And there was no indication the people of Iraq had the will to be free. I thought that was insulting at the time. Everybody wants to be free. They said we couldn’t force freedom on people. Let me lead with my mistakes. You are right. Liberals, you were right. We shouldn’t have.

Well thanks Glenn.  That and 50 cents will get you two quarters and my eternal hatred for what you've done to this country with the megaphone you inexplicably still have.

“I have more of a chance of hacking off my loyal listeners and audience by saying this,” he conceded, “but so be it: Not one more life. Not one more life. Not one more dollar, not one more airplane, not one more bullet, not one more Marine, not one more arm or leg or eye. Not one more.”

Oh, so now suddenly Beck is maneuvering to attack Obama from the left on this issue.  Well, there's always money in that particular banana stand.

For his conclusion, Beck said that Republicans need to listen to their non-interventionist instincts before “politicizing” Iraq and supporting another military action simply because of politics — i.e., because the president is a Democrat. “This has to become about the principles because in the principles we all agree,” he ended. “Enough is enough. Bring them home, period.”

In other words, he's pulling a Rand Paul, with even less credibility to try to do so.  Sure, OK.  Let's not fall for this bullcrap, shall we? 

Post Beck And Call

Glenn Beck signed off for the last time on his FOX News show yesterday, and he was all broken up about it...broken up enough to direct everyone to his new web site and pay-per-view services.

Glenn Beck's final show on Fox News had everything you've come to know and love about his program. The chalkboard. The demagoguing. The Goldline commercials.

But before things got underway, it was time for a reel of man-on-the-street interviews of Beck fans singing the television host's praises.

"I will always remember the things you taught me," said one Beck fan. "You taught me to look around, open my eyes and question things I felt were wrong," added another.

"You have enlightened me," chimed in another. "Thank you for everything you do. Thank you for speaking the truth every day," another said.

Then Beck offered a backstage tour of his set. "These are cartons of chalk. Yes, we buy chalk by the case."

"We've done amazing things together, and I thank you for watching," Beck said. "We've made an awful lot of enemies in the program. We've taken on every single person we've been told not to take on."

"And lost."  He forgot that part.  I sure as hell didn't.   The guy that took him out?  A young lawyer who went after Beck advertisers.  Hit em where they hurt the most.  That's the media circus story of the year as far as I'm concerned.

It's Not About Race, They Tell Me

You can call wingnuts who have a serious problem with the nation's first African-America President just about anything you want, but never, ever, ever call them racists.

Rep. Sally Kern, R-Oklahoma City, said minorities earn less than white people because they don’t work as hard and have less initiative.

“We have a high percentage of blacks in prison, and that’s tragic, but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don’t want to study as hard in school? I’ve taught school, and I saw a lot of people of color who didn’t study hard because they said the government would take care of them.”

Kern said women earn less than men because “they tend to spend more time at home with their families.”

Never call them racists...

Yesterday during his press conference in New Hampshire –- after the cable news networks cut to President Obama’s remarks regarding the release of his long form birth certificate — potential GOP presidential candiate Donald Trump spent some time extolling infrastructure investments made by China and other countries, suggesting the U.S. should follow suit. This prompted Les Trent, a reporter for Inside Edition, to ask Trump: “Isn’t that what President Obama tried to do with his stimulus package?”


Trump’s response to Trent, who is African American, was “Look, I know you are a big Obama fan.” Trent replied, “Why do you say that?” 

...never call them racists.

The head of Orange County's Republican Party is vowing to keep up the pressure on a local GOP official to resign for sending an offensive email about President Barack Obama.

"This issue will not go away until she has taken 100 percent responsibility for sending out a racist email that offended millions," Chairman Scott Baugh said.

He commented by telephone on Wednesday after Marilyn Davenport, speaking for the first time, said she will not resign and had no racist intentions when she sent the email.

The message depicts Obama's face superimposed over a baby chimp's. The text under the image reads, "Now you know why — No birth certificate!"

 But it's not about race.



And if you think it's about race, you're the racist.

Trump said of Obama and race: "And he did it with (former President Bill) Clinton. Clinton was made into a racist by Obama, and he's never forgotten it. And there's nobody that's less of a racist than Bill Clinton… He did it with Bill Clinton, and with Hillary. He made them into racists. That's why I was amazed that Hillary went to work for him." He added that “the President is ‘probably’ trying to do the same to him, ‘and there's nobody who's less of a racist than me.’” More from Trump: "Here's two people, Hillary and Bill Clinton, who really devoted a lot to African-Americans. They did probably as much as anybody, and he made them into racists."

Because in the end, it's all the black guy's fault.

Last Call

Bye, Glenny.

Fox News and Mercury Radio Arts, Glenn Beck’s production company, are proud to announce that they will work together to develop and produce a variety of television projects for air on the Fox News Channel as well as content for other platforms including Fox News’ digital properties. Glenn intends to transition off of his daily program, the third highest rated in all of cable news, later this year.

So "transition off" is the new "rightsizing" for FOX News.  Question is, where will he end up?  Maybe he's taking a cue from Olbermann...

Enemies Of The State (Of Glennsanity)

Via Digby it looks like the groundwork is being done to create another one of those "coincidences" involving right-wing rhetoric and violence, this time over an obscure CUNY professor who co-authored some papers on poverty 45 years ago who is now getting death threats thanks to some unwelcome attention from one Glenn Beck.

Frances Fox Piven, a City University of New York professor, has been a primary character in Mr. Beck’s warnings about a progressive take-down of America. Ms. Piven, Mr. Beck says, is responsible for a plan to “intentionally collapse our economic system.”

Her name has become a kind of shorthand for “enemy” on Mr. Beck’s Fox News Channel program, which is watched by more than 2 million people, and on one of his Web sites, The Blaze. This week, Mr. Beck suggested on television that she was an enemy of the Constitution.

Never mind that Ms. Piven’s radical plan to help poor people was published 45 years ago, when Mr. Beck was a toddler. Anonymous visitors to his Web site have called for her death, and some, she said, have contacted her directly via e-mail. 

When a liberal non-profit group asked Fox News to maybe tone it down a smidge, Fox News replied that it had no reason to because Glenn Beck "denounces violence".

So if anything happens to the 78-year old professor that maybe .001% of America had ever even heard of before Glenn Beck targeted her, if any of Glenn Beck's more deranged followers actually does decide that Beck's right and that she's an enemy of America for something she said 45 years ago, it'll be just another unfortunate coincidence, we'll be told.

And Beck will move on to demonizing his next "enemy of the state" while saying he denounces violence.  Meanwhile, I see my new best friends have quite the enlightened viewpoint on the whole deal:

Um. She IS an enemy of the constitution. She’s an enemy of capitalism. She’s an enemy of free speech. If she thinks that the actions of others, ie: nasty e-mails, threats, comments on a blog, translate into silencing someone talking truthfully about her work, then I do believe Piven is ironically giving Beck a circular validation of his claims.

Nice guys.  A person's opinion makes them an enemy of free speech.  If we could harness the irony in that statement, we might have enough to manufacture a new sun or three.

With all due respect… drop dead , lady. You’re a monster not a healer. Helping poor people by recklessly and intentionally gerrymandering a system that would result in the wholesale destruction of the world’s economy should, in my view, put you on the Olbermann World’s Worst List. (What?… fired?  bwaha)

Free speech apparently means "In America we can say whatever we want that might terrorize a senior citizen and could possibly lead to someone taking death threats seriously against somebody for having an opinion we don't like from two generations ago, so don't you dare try to silence us!"  Oh yeah, and Olbermann was fired and "silenced" so let's have a good laugh.  Champions of free speech, our friends.

Never mind the fact that a 78 year old woman is now getting death threats thanks to macaroon on FOX News.

Last Call

They keep telling me there no reason to believe conservative commentators had anything to do with the Tusc...what's that you say, Lassie?

"I will stand against you and so will millions of others. We believe in something. You in the media and most in Washington don't. The radicals that you and Washington have co-opted and brought in wearing sheep's clothing — change the pose. You will get the ends.

"You've been using them? They believe in communism. They believe and have called for a revolution. You're going to have to shoot them in the head. But warning, they may shoot you.

"They are dangerous because they believe. Karl Marx is their George Washington. You will never change their mind. And if they feel you have lied to them — they're revolutionaries. Nancy Pelosi, those are the people you should be worried about.

"Here is my advice when you're dealing with people who believe in something that strongly — you take them seriously. You listen to their words and you believe that they will follow up with what they say."

Huh.  Now, I wonder which irreposible knucklehead said that?

Oh, it was Glenn Beck last June.

I wonder if somebody took him seriously.  I wonder if somebody who believed in Beck's words that strongly, took Glenn Beck seriously, listened to his words, and believed they needed to follow up before the "Communist Democrats" in Washington destroyed America first.

The odds of this being the exact incident that made Jared Loughner shoot Gabby Giffords in the head seven months later?  Astronomically low.  But how many weeks and months and years has Glenn Beck said things like this about Democrats?  He gets paid to say stuff like this about Democrats, and he says them to millions of listeners and viewers every week.  And he's far from the only one.

So how many times does Glenn Beck need to tell people to shoot Democrats in the head before a Democrat gets shot in the head?

That's maybe a question somebody should have asked Glenn Beck before January 8th.

Just saying.

Then again, we still need to ask the question now.

Police in Arlington, MA this week seized a “large amount” of weapons and ammunition from local businessman Travis Corcoran after he wrote a blog post threatening U.S. lawmakers in the wake of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ). In a post on his blog (which has since been removed) titled “1 down and 534 to go” — 1 referring to Giffords and 534 referring to the rest of the House of Representatives and the Senate — Corcoran applauded the shooting of Giffords and justified the assassination of lawmakers because he argued the federal government has grown far beyond its constitutional limits. “It is absolutely, absolutely unacceptable to shoot indiscriminately. Target only politicians and their staff and leave regular citizens alone,” he wrote in the post.

But we don't have a domestic terror problem in the US assisted by a climate of irresponsible eliminationist rhetoric.

And the wingers will be proclaiming this right up until the next astronomically low coincidence where people get hurt or killed happens.  Then they will go after anyone who points out it may be a coincidence and browbeat the media into silence again.

The cycle will then repeat.

Last Call

Sully for the win.

The right and the left both have intemperate voices. But here's the key: only the conservative movement counts the most vile blowhards as leading lights, embraced by the leadership. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Sarah Palin: these are among the most popular conservatives in America. Who are the folks on the left with equivalent popularity and influence?

Which is the point I made yesterday.  When random jagoffs from the progressive left (and there are plenty of those, myself included some days) have the same level of media influence that Rush, Beck, Palin and BillO do, wake me up. I'd like to know where my big fat contract is so I have enough money to be eccentric rather than just kinda weird.

The two are not equal.  When TBogg or John Cole or the Rumpies end up controlling vast amounts of power in the Democratic party and the media from a position of unofficial leadership and can make or break a candidate for office in the party singlehandedly, then you have an argument.

Meanwhile, El Rushbo is saying crap like this:

What Mr. Loughner knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country.

And nobody bats a friggin' eyelash, he makes millions a year, and enjoys dozens of sponsors.  Couldn't make my point any better there for me.

And finally, some Bonus The Stupid for your late night edification:

CNN's Erick Erickson is upset with what people aren't saying about the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords:

Through it all though, well meaning people on both sides of the ideological and partisan divide are not talking about the one thing that should be talked about — a saving faith in Jesus Christ.

For the record: Rep. Giffords is Jewish, so "a saving faith in Jesus Christ" might not be "the one thing that should be talked about."

Douchebag.

Epic The Plural Of "Moose" Is "North Korean Allies" Fail

Oliver Willis finds this little gem from Palin talking on Glenn Beck's radio show today, where she's asked what President Palin would do handling the current crisis on the Korean Peninsula. She promptly responds in some quasi-English word soup run-on sentence:

PALIN:  "Well North Korea...this is stemming from, I think, a greater problem when we're all sitting around asking "Oh no, what are we gonna do?" and we're not having a lot of faith that the White House is gonna come out with a strong enough policy to um, sanction what is is North Korea is gonna do, so this speaks to a bigger picture that scares me in terms of our national security policies, but obviously, gotta stand by our North Korean allies, we're bound to by treaty..."

HOST: "South Korea."

PALIN: "...and we're also bound by prudence to stand by our South Korean allies and to uh, remind North Korea that we're not gonna reward bad behavior and we're not gonna walk away, and um, we need to press China to increase pressure on North Korea."

Yeah, North Korea, South Korea, Obama, Osama, it's an easy mistake to make and LEAVE BRISTOL PALIN'S MOM ALOOOOOOOOONE!

And even without that ludicrous mistake, what she said is exactly what Obama is doing:  pushing China to talk to North Korea, and to call for real sanctions against the regime there.  To her credit, at least she's not directly advocating bombing Pyongyang (yet) but really?  President Palin would get confused, blather stuff for 30 seconds and then remember what she read was told Obama was doing enlisting China's aid to mutual benefit?

I wouldn't vote this woman to be President of the Sarah Palin Fan Club.

EPIC FAIL.

National Public Backlash, And More On Juan Gone

Well, that didn't take long, did it?



Glenn Beck went on his radio show this morning screaming about how George Soros has a million-dollar bounty on his head and how Soros and his "jack-booted thugs" at NPR have already claimed Juan Williams' head, and how they are coming for Beck and all of his listeners next.

Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee is calling on Republicans in Congress to slash NPR's funding.

"NPR has discredited itself as a forum for free speech and a protection of the First Amendment rights of all and has solidified itself as the purveyor of politically correct pabulum and protector of views that lean left," Huckabee said in a statement provided to CNN.

Williams told Fox News host Bill O'Reilly on Monday that he gets "worried" and "nervous" on flights when he sees people wearing "Muslim garb." NPR terminated Williams' contract on Wednesday evening.

Huckabee said he "will no longer accept interview requests from NPR as long as they are going to practice a form of censorship, and since NPR is funded with public funds, it is a form of censorship."

"It is time for the taxpayers to start making cuts to federal spending, and I encourage the new Congress to start with NPR," he said.

Guess what's coming with a Republican Congress?   Hope you enjoyed All Things Considered.  Past tense.  but remember, it's conservatives who are the victims.  Meanwhile, count on Republican calls to pull the plug permanently on NPR.

They're only defending free speech, you know.  Besides, it gets rid of radio competitors for Beck and Huckabee.  These guys aren't stupid.  No NPR means they get more message time.

In the future, all restaurants are Taco Bell, dig?   But hey, I hope they go too far.  Take away America's Car Talk and Prairie Home Companion.  Then duck.

Seriously, folks.  Williams did this to himself.  As Bon The Geek told me earlier today when we were discussing this, "One does not hash out one's insecurity with a mic attached to the GLOBE."

Over at Balloon Juice, E.D. Kain makes the argument that Williams should have kept his job, and that if Williams was a white commenter, he would have.  His argument does have a pretty substantial amount of merit and is worth a read.

[UPDATE]  Eric Boehlert reminds us that the Dubya-era GOP tried to rid us of NPR and PBS back in 2005 because of their "liberal slant" only they couldn't find one.

Piling On The First Lady

With news that Michelle Obama is still popular with a majority of Americans came out this month, the Wingnut right had to do everything they could to reverse it, from Glenn Beck...

On the October 14 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Glenn Beck Show, Beck invoked the horror film The Omen while attacking Michelle Obama for her comments. Beck said, "I've never heard that. I've never heard that from a Christian -- I'm not questioning her Christianity, here." Later, executive producer Steve "Stu" Burguiere said, "Thank you, Michelle Obama. Creating jobs." Beck replied, "Jobs? Spooky phrases."

...to Michelle Malkin...

"Keeping the spirits clean around us?" Huh? She sounds like the liberal caricature of Christine O'Donnell. Bubble, bubble, toil, and trouble.

As for the "prayer circles" and "Everybody I know in our communities is praying for us" and "we're all proud of Barack and his accomplishments" jabber, have the Obamas learned nothing about the price of arrogance and the value of humility over the last two years.

Question: Does Michelle O ever pray for anyone other than Barack?

...to El Rushbo...

"I've never heard of prayer circles and keeping the spirits clean around us. I mean, I've been praying for things like my family and friends' health, the country, things of this nature, and now I learn that we're supposed to be praying for the hygiene of the spirits?"

 ...to Moose Lady...

Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin seemed to have the 2008 election – and, specifically, first lady Michelle Obama – on her mind during a speech at a conservative forum Thursday night.


"You know, when I hear people say, or had said during the campaign that they've never been proud of America, haven't they met anybody in uniform yet?" Palin opined during her remarks at a Liberty and Freedom Foundation forum in San Jose, California. 

...to Matt Drudge.

Did Michelle Obama violate Illinois election law?

The question arose after the first lady, who voted early at her Chicago precinct Thursday, responded to voters who voiced support for her husband. It’s unlawful in the state to have a “political discussion” or engage in “electioneering” within 100 feet of a polling place.

A pool report by Chicago Sun-Times reporter Abdon Pallasch said Obama had a photo taken with electrician Dennis Campbell, 56 years old. It quoted Campbell as saying, “She was telling me how important it was to vote to keep her husband’s agenda going.”

Boy, do you remember all the nasty, vicious, mean-spirited attacks Democrats made on Laura Bush?

Me either.  They didn't happen.  But if you're a Democrat in the White House, your spouse is fair game.  As I've said a few times before, not all Obama Derangement Syndrome is directed at Barack.  You'd think Wingers would have something better to do, but alas, they have no human souls.

Last Call

And Glenn Beck loses it.  Completely.  Digby:

The last 24 hours as I've been thinking about the doctors saying we're looking for toxins, we're looking for poisons in your body, I know what they are. For four years I have tried to understand the mind of what I believe are monsters. It started with Walter Lippmann. The first book that I closed and said I can't read this anymore was Walter Lippmann. And it was about how they can breed better people and how there are undesirables. I never finished the book. That was the first one. And for four years I have been trying to understand the minds of people that I think are so misled, and they are the exact opposite of what I have tried to be, what I want to be, what I strive for. But I have done it because I have to, I have to understand it, I have to see what's try to understand to explain what's coming, what's happening. And not for you but for my children.

I believe we can be better people. I believe in the American experiment. But I also believe there are very misguided people, and I have been drinking that poison, which others may not find poison, but I do because it is exact opposite of me. And I have been "That which you gaze upon, you become."

Yeah.  That's right.  Glenn Beck, or as Elvis over at Bob Cesca's place keeps saying, "the character than Glenn Beck plays in the media" like a dark mirror of Stephen Colbert, is now blaming liberalism and Democrats for making him physically ill.

You know, the guy that openly compared liberalism itself to cancer, as actually being a malignant tumor in the body politic, you know, one that has to be cut out, is now claiming that liberalism has robbed him of his health, that it has poisoned him.

So of course, these "plague carrier" liberals have to be excised from America. before they make you sick too.  Unbelievable. At what point will Beck again warn people not to take up violence because he knows his words are inflammatory to the point of being dangerous?

Hell of an act until somebody gets hurt.

Duckpocalypse

This made me giggle.



Ahh, but there's an important lesson here. There are a lot of folks out there in Donald's position here, and the Obama administration still isn't doing everything it can be to help them.

Yes, a lot of that is being blocked by the Republicans. They've shown that they are more than willing to kill thousands of jobs at election time just to try to ruin the Democrats in this election. These are the people you should be angry at.

There's more Obama should be doing, however.

Last Call

Estimates of the crowd at today's One Nation rally in DC drew some 175,000+ people on the National Mall.

So...since only 87,000 or so showed up at the Glenn Beck rally on 8/28, does that mean that the Tea Party really doesn't represent all of America, and that the majority of Americans are remarkably sane, normal people?

Enquiring Zandars want to know.

Acquire Currency, Disregard Poltroons

Will Bunch pegs Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin as what they are:  old-fashioned snake oil salesmen in the age of Twitterati who aren't above cashing in on 9/11.

The spiritual guru of the 9-12 Project will be marking the anniversay of 9-11 along with his new best friend Sarah Palin with a high-priced (and as far as the actual program goes, somewhat mysterious) event at the Dena'ina Center in Anchorage, Alaska. The potential event has been rumored and discussed under the radar for days, possibly even as the launch of a Palin 2012 presidential bid.

But apparently, in the immortal words of Steve Martin in "The Jerk," it's yet another "profit deal" for the two leading high-def hucksters of the right wing. According to the Ticketmaster page, tickets for this solemn 9-11 commemoration run from a low of $73 to a top price of $130, and that's not all. There's also $225 for a special meet-and-greet with Beck (and possibly with Palin), so that die-hard (and not economically struggling) Beck fans can wish him a happy 9-11 in person.

If there's a contradiction or some sort of irony in cashing in over 9-11, that seems to have eluded the hosts. Palin wrote this week on her Facebook page: "We can count on Glenn to make the night interesting and inspiring, and I can think of no better way to commemorate 9/11 than to gather with patriots who will 'never forget.' "

Visa and MasterCard accepted.

Truth be told, outrageous as Beck's latest scheme is, it's almost hard to work up the outrage at this point because to those of us who aren't drinking the David Barton-fueled Kool-Aid, this is simply who Beck is: One of the most shameless businesspeople in America, who happens to be in the business of entertainment and warping some minds politically in the process. Beck has millions of fans -- and to him they are all walking ATM machines. He thinks nothing of selling the people who admire him overpriced gold coins or surivial seed banks and "Food Insurance" kits, none of which they need, and almost every Beck event not named "Restoring Honor" is designed around maximizing ticket prices.

That's why Glenn Beck made $32 million last year and Sarah Palin made $12 million in a matter of months.

The only difference is that this time it's 9/11.

And Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin are open for business 365 days a year.

From Moose Lady's book tour, speaking engagements, reality TV series and FOX appearances to Glenn Beck's rallies, radio show, TV show and appearances all over, these two are the Oberon and Titania of the Wingnut Popularity Court.  Bunch isn't telling us anything new about these two.  They've been cashing in again and again on making Obama hate a full time cottage industry worth millions to them personally and even more to their corporate sponsors and the GOP.

Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin are nothing more than a slickly manufactured product mass-produced for consumption by the disaffected Right, and baby, the market has never been better for these two clowns.  Nothing should be more cynically obvious to the wingers than being manipulated into coughing up Ticketmaster prices to see these two on 9/11...but of course missing the patently obvious is a requirement of being a wingnut.

I'd say that they all deserve each other and they can simply nip off and commiserate in hell, except for the fact that as a result these jokers have a disproportionate effect on our representative democracy process with the goal of preventing said process from working for anyone but themselves.

That's a problem for all of us.  Kudos to Will Bunch however for speaking the truth here.

Really, Alaskans?  You have so many better things to spend money on.

To Fight Or Not To Fight?

Bob Cesca explores the debate over taking on the Right Wing Noise Machine.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson posted an item tonight about how we should just ignore Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and the others.

The Beck bashers have learned nothing from attacking Limbaugh and the Fox Network. The thing was that the more you bash, savage, pick at and ridicule a media outlet or a gimmicky talk show host you do what ad people, P.R. flacks, agencies, and sponsors drool over, and sink a mini-king's ransom into. That is to inflate, hype, and pump up a product. The product is Beck.

Obviously, I very strongly disagree with the liberal "ignore them and they'll go away" isolationist attitude. I hear it all the time: stop giving publicity to Beck and the others. While it's true that any publicity is good publicity, we ignore these people at our own peril. 

I can see both sides of the debate.  On one hand, going after Glennsanity and El Rushbo does carry the risk of "staring into the abyss long enough" about it all, just ask Keith Olbermann.  A large component of the credibility Beck and Limbaugh have among the right wing is precisely because of the fact that liberals go after them whenever humanly possible.  Media Matters, for instance, has a large chunk of its resources dedicated just to debunk Rush Limbaugh's radio excrement on a daily basis.  Hutchinson has a real point that people listen to Rush and Beck just because they piss liberals off.

Cesca's counterargument goes like this:

Beck and Limbaugh don't need us to give them publicity -- they do just fine on their own. So to give them an extra slice of publicity is totally negligible if it means exposing the nonsense to the light of day and whittling away at the their credibility (such as it is). It's a long-term cumulative effort, and if there's one thing we can learn from these guys is that we need to remain aggressive and unrelenting. Conceding these fights for the sake of not wanting to give Beck's website a few more hits or Limbaugh's radio show a few more listeners is dangerous and weak.

This is also true, plus it's the right thing to do.  Of course, Limbaugh's been around now for nearly twenty years, and Beck a good decade.  There's plenty of other right-wing radio loudmouths to go after these days too.  There seems to be no shortage in listeners for them, either.

I come down on Cesca's side of the argument simply because Limbaugh's lies are so pernicious.  But it's a necessary step.

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

 

Ta-Nehisi Coates wins the Internet today.

Cult Of Personality

Some perspective to keep in mind next time you hear remarks on "Obama's cult-like following" or his "messianic tendencies".

Among those surprised by all of conservative TV host Glenn Beck's recent religious talk - including at Saturday's Washington rally, where Beck said that "America today begins to turn back to God," - is the Rev. Richard Land, a Southern Baptist leader.

"I've been stunned," said Land, who directs public policy for the Southern Baptist Convention and who attended the Saturday rally at Beck's invitation.

"This guy's on secular radio and television," Land said Saturday, "but his shows sound like you're listening to the Trinity Broadcasting Network, only it's more orthodox and there's no appeal for money ... and today he sounded like Billy Graham."

Beck's speeches around his "Restoring Honor" rally have brimmed with religious language: "God dropped a giant sandbag on his head" to push him to organize the rally, he said Friday.

On Friday night, Beck held a religion-focused event at the Kennedy Center that was billed as Glenn Beck's Divine Destiny.

Beck's speech Saturday also evoked the feel of a religious revival.

"Look forward. Look West. Look to the heavens. Look to God and make your choice," he said.

Glenn Beck's not running for anything so pedestrian as a political office.  He's running for something somewhat...higher in nature (or lower, depending on your theosophy.)   Sarah Palin I think is content with being a grifter, but Beck actually lets himself believe his own rhetoric, and that's what makes him truly dangerous.

Dismissing him as a loudmouth TV host is a critical error.  He has a lot more in mind for both himself and America.

Mostly himself, however.

[UPDATE] A much more informative article on Beck's Messiah complex by AlterNet's Alex Montgomery.

Beck, who seems to view himself in increasingly messianic terms, says he is helping to launch another religious “Great Awakening” that will shape American history and promised attendees that on Saturday they would be “fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

Beck has plenty of company among those who saw Barack Obama’s election as a sign that politics is failing America, and that a religious revival is the only real hope for its future. In fact, it’s become practically routine at Religious Right events for leaders to announce that history would view their event as the spark of a new awakening. But none of them have had an audience near the size that Beck does.

And it is that combination of big business "win the news cycle at all costs" Republicanism and Christian Dominionist "We're on a mission from God" theory that makes Beck uniquely and truly dangerous. 

The revolution will be propagandized.

Last Call

Looks like our friends the Invisible Teabaggers are back. Gateway Dipstick:

Glenn Beck announced, “I heard two estimates from the media. One was 300,000 and the other was 500,000. So, who knows just how many are actually here today.”

Wow, half a million is certainly an impressive number...if by "half a million" you mean less than a hundred thousand.

An estimated 87,000 people attended a rally organized by talk-radio host and Fox News commentator Glenn Beck Saturday in Washington, according to a crowd estimate commissioned by CBS News.

The company AirPhotosLive.com based the attendance on aerial pictures it took over the rally, which stretched from in front of the Lincoln Memorial along the Reflecting Pool to the Washington Monument. Beck and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin spoke at the rally.

Beck, who predicted that at least 100,000 people would show up, opened his comments with a joke: "I have just gotten word from the media that there is over 1,000 people here today."

AirPhotosLive.com gave its estimate a margin of error of 9,000, meaning between 78,000 and 96,000 people attended the rally. The photos used to make the estimate were taken at noon Saturday, which is when the company estimated was the rally's high point.

Yes I know, it's another massive left-wing conspiracy to hide the other 400,000-plus people just like last year, when they said 70,000 people was actually two million.

By that winger math anywhere from 2.28 million to 2.74 million wingers were really out there, it's just all the aerial photos are owned by George Soros, right?

At least they've kept their lies within an order of magnitude this time.