Happy Hour Discurso

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

Remember how I said there was too much yummy stupidity to merely skim? I was ever so right. Prepare for a feast, my darlings.

Cons’ little bubble of personal “reality” may be shrinking faster than most Americans’ bank accounts, but they’re still happily living the lie:

Some opponents of a public option in health care reform seem to have a new strategy: pretend they know what Americans want — and ignore evidence to the contrary.

On Fox News this morning, for example, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), arguably the chamber’s most far-right member, insisted, “Americans don’t want more government in health care.”

Yesterday, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) made the same argument in a bizarre piece in the Washington Examiner: “The President’s proposal would empower bureaucrats — rather than patients and doctors — to make key medical decisions, limit treatments, and ration care, raise taxes, and kill jobs. The American people simply don’t support it.”

There are only two instances in which these absurd claims would be true. Either numerous polls all showing sustained American popular support for a public option would have to be incorrect:

Um, yeah, not likely.

Or, America would have to consist of about 76,750,000 people, because that’s roughly the number who sneer at the public option. Alas, the United States government seems to think there’s nearly 307,000,000 Americans, and strangely doesn’t define “American” as “someone who swallows Con bullshit whole.” Weird, I know, but there it is.

And yet Sen. Chuck Grassley seems to think there’s some sort of support for Con fuckwittery:

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee and arguably the lead Republican negotiator on health care, argued on MSNBC this morning that a public option was a deal-breaker for the minority party. Period.

If the legislative package is going to be “bipartisan,” Grassley said, “We need to make sure that there’s no public option.”

You know what, Chuck? I think we can pass on the bipartisanship this time around, thanks anyway. Go ahead, take your ball and go home. Cry yourself to sleep. 75% of Americans care bunches, really.

Speaking of sniveling crybabies who don’t quite get where the vast majority of Americans are coming from, check out Rep. Shadegg:

Rep. John Shadegg says all Americans should “boycott ABC” for the network’s plan to air a “one-sided” townhall meeting on President Obama’s healthcare plan.

The Arizona Republican tells The Hill that it’s “outrageous” that the news network intends to air a 90-minute primetime special Wednesday evening featuring Obama talking about his plan, which includes a “government-run” option.

“I think every Americian should boycott ABC, if they aren’t going to cover both sides of the issue,” Shadegg said. He is a member of the Energy and Commerce Health subcommittee.

Shadegg said that the idea of “airing the issue is wonderful, but the idea of making it one-sided is outrageous.”

His fellow House Republicans were upset as well.

I’m sure they were. And you know, me and my fellow 75% of Americans are just devastated they’re unhappy. We’ll be weeping all through Obama’s townhall, I’m sure.

You know, Arizona’s elected officials aren’t exactly covering themselves in glory, here, and it’s not just on healthcare that they’re being the usual bunch of outrageous fucking idiots:

The Senate has yet to confirm a number of President Obama’s nominees to various State Department posts. One of those nominees, Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) — a champion of repealing the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy — has had a hold placed on her nomination to become Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. But the hold on her nomination is not anonymous, as Foreign Policy’s Laura Rozen reports:

A blanket hold placed late last week by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) on all State Department nominees appears to have been lifted on Saturday, administration sources tell The Cable. Kyl’s only remaining hold, The Cable was told, is on Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA), President Obama’s nominee to be under secretary of state for arms control and international security.

Kyl’s office confirmed his remaining hold on Tauscher’s nomination. “He honestly has made no guise of his hold on her nomination,” spokesman Ryan Patmintra told The Cable Monday.

[snip]

But last week, Rozen reported that Capitol Hill sources said Kyl “is not satisified with the information he has been receiving from the administration on the progress of arms control negotiations with Russia”:

“Kyl’s beef and the general Republican argument now emerging against the Obama administration’s nuclear weapons policy is that they are rushing to conclude a new agreement with Russia on strategic arms levels before their Nuclear Posture Review [NPR] is complete,” a Democratic congressional source said.

[snip]

Nuclear non-proliferation expert Joseph Cirincione told ThinkProgress, “Senator Kyl wants to delay any arms reductions until the Nuclear Posture Review, then work the process so the NPR makes only minor changes to the existing nuclear arsenal.”

Indeed, if Obama m
akes a deal with Russian President Medvedev to drastically reduce nuclear stockpiles, Kyl — who is against reducing America’s nuclear weapons — won’t have much of an opportunity to challenge it. Kyl would rather play domestic politics with the NPR and have a chance at limiting nuclear reductions before any U.S.-Russia binding agreement. Thus, it appears Kyl is using the NPR as an excuse to block U.S. negotiations with Russia, and is holding up Tauscher’s nomination as blackmail.

Isn’t he just charming? He wants to make sure Amurka has plenty of nukes for the kiddies, and he’s not afraid to use extortion to get them. Awesome, Arizona. Thanks for sending this assclown to the Senate.

Speaking of assclowns… Glenn Beck’s been getting steadily more frothing insane, but you know there’s something wrong with a man when he starts playing with dolls on national television:

Now, I can appreciate the notion that some news stories are hard to explain with just text or words. Graphics, charts, video, etc. can help a news consumer understand an item with more depth.

But when Glenn Beck starts playing with dolls on national television to go after ACORN, explaining a “story” that really isn’t especially complicated, it’s a helpful reminder of the caliber of “reporting” we’re getting from Fox News.

I know. Scary, isn’t it? And it’s not like his dumbassery stops there. Oh, know. This is Glenn Beck, after all. He’s got to go whole hog:

Last week Glenn Beck scoffed at the notion that he had been promoting the notion of state secession, somehow overlooking the fact that he had in fact been promoting the notion of state secession.

So yesterday, to further demonstrate his skepticism, he invited on his Fox News program a fellow named Dan Miller, who runs the Texas Nationalist Movement. As you can see, he provided two full segments of the show to an interview that most kindly could be called “credulous,” and less kindly would make a crude reference to teabagging.

And indeed the Teabaggers’ Parties was an important topic, because Beck raised it himself at the end:

Beck: You actually believe the Tea Parties are, um, are the “gateway drug” to secession. Is that true?

Miller: Well, I think that’s definitely the case for a lot of folks. Because, you know, the Tea Parties have been about venting frustration and anger with what’s going on in Washington, D.C. And what we’re seeing here is a lot of people are looking for solutions, and the solution for Texas is Texas, independence.

Beck: Unbelievable.

Well, it’s nice of them to admit that the Tea Parties in fact have been a prime recruiting ground for all kinds of extremist right-wing belief systems, most notably those arising from the “Patriot” movement of the 1990s.

Nice one.

Finally, I must leave you with a terrifying piece of news, that pretty much sums up the current desperately sad state of the Republican party:

It’s really striking how much more popular Sarah Palin is among Republicans than just about any other GOP figure. She really rules the GOP!

Take a look at her latest numbers in the new Pew poll (click to enlarge):

Palin is just crushing other GOPers in popularity among Republicans, with 73%, leading runner-up Mitt Romney by 16 points. And that’s in spite of all Romney’s recent Mittmentum.

That’s right. The most popular Con in the party is the one who can’t even string a coherent sentence together.

No wonder Glenn Beck feels secure playing with pink Barbie houses and the Cons feel great blackmailing the government for nuclear weapons while railing against an overwhelmingly popular health care reform option. If 73% of your base thinks Palin’s the great white hope, you can be pretty well assured they’ll let you get away with anything.

Too bad for the Cons that the base ain’t big enough to sustain them in national elections…

Happy Hour Discurso
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Happy Hour Delay

Due to the vagaries of training and long calls, Happy Hour’s delayed today, my darlings. I’ll post as soon as I get home. From the brief glance I got at the political news, there’s just too much burning stupid for mere skimming.

In the meantime, remember to get your COTEB submissions in to [email protected]. Don’t make Captain John upset by missing the boat.

Happy Hour Delay

I Should Say Something Witty, Profound and Insightful About Current Events…

Instead, I give you Boxing Kitteh:

Because while my body came back from vacation, my desire to blog about serious shit is still loafing in the sunshine with a prickly pear vodka in its hand, that’s why. (And yes, the stuff is delish. If you’re ever in AZ, have some.)

If it makes you feel any better, I’m signing off to make fajitas and read Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel. If that’s not serious, I don’t know what is. It could signal a return to blogging about the Really Serious Issues shortly.

Or just drive me back into the loving arms of ICanHasCheezburger.com. Oh, look! There’s an awesome Fox Affiliate Fail!

I Should Say Something Witty, Profound and Insightful About Current Events…

Sarah Palin Word Salad Bar

I’m catching up on all the blog reading I missed whilst gallivanting around Arizona. I spent tonight on Canadian Cynic, where I came across the link to this exercise in agony. I feel so sorry for AKMuckraker, who actually subjected himself to 17 minutes’ worth of Palin. At least I got to pause and go look at LOLcats when my brain started seeping out my ears:

So Ronald Reagan spoke to us then with us here in our hearts is where he reached us, and that’s where he won the arguments and then, this was, this was the good part, we the American people through him, we imposed our will on Washington, and that is the way it’s supposed to be.

(I think that sentence may get the “Word Salad Award.”)

Our government is supposed to be working for us, we are not to be working for our government. It’s our will to be imposed on them. (applause) He captured our hearts so he could affect positive change by what he did. He focused on our kids, on our children, on their future, on the future of America. And when he fought socialism and any sort of tyranny that he knew would ruin us, he stood strong on his knowing that the framework through which he believed that positive change that framework for our kids, it was freedom.

(Wait…..no….maybe it was that one)

Today the things that some in Washington would do to take away our freedoms, it’s absolutely astounding, and we would do so well to look back on those Reagan years as he championed the cause for freedom and then he lived it out as our president – cheerfully, persistently and unapologetically. Reagan knew that real change and real change requiring shaking things up and maybe takin’ off the entrenched interest thwarting the will of the people with their ignoring of our concerns about future peril caused by selfish short-sighted advocacy for growing government and digging more debt, and taking away individual and state’s rights and hampering opportunity to responsibly develop our resources, and coddling those who would seek to harm America and her allies.

(Nope. It’s definitely THAT one!)

Good thing we’re not at a real salad bar, because I’d be lobotomizing myself with a fork just to make the pain stop.

As Lulu said:

Just think, boys and girls — the Republican brain trust (and I use the term very loosely) actually believed this was someone capable of being one rather feeble heartbeat away from the presidency.

Scary, huh?

That’s the exact thought that haunts my nightmares. Especially since these flaming fuckwits still think “Palin for President!” isn’t a sick fucking joke. I guess she blinds them with bullshit.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find a jelly mold for my poor melted brain. I’m hoping it’ll reset overnight…

Sarah Palin Word Salad Bar

Our Vulcan President

Ladies and gentlemen, the evidence that Barak Obama is, in fact, a Vulcan, despite his penchant for flashing beaming grins.

Exhibit A, which is evident in his every speech and appearance, and thus needs no link: his preternatural calm.

Exhibit B: His ability to flash a Vulcan salute.

And Exhibit C: His response to inane questions about public plans driving private plans out of business:

I believe it was David Jackson, from USA Today, who suggested to the president this afternoon that a public health care option would “drive private insurance out of business.” I thoroughly enjoyed the Obama’s response.

“Why would it drive private insurance out of business? If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care; if they tell us that they’re offering a good deal, then why is it that the government — which they say can’t run anything — suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That’s not logical…”

Pure Spock, that is. And you know something? It’s fantastic to have a Vulcan in charge, especially after the last eight years of Tweedledum and Tweedlevil.

Others have compared Obama’s remarks to Spock, but none of them created a clip. This means that instead of filching one, I had to create my own:

Live long and prosper, Mr. Sp – er, President.

(Tip o’ the shot glass to WavCentral.com and the unwitting fools at MediaResearch.org, who respectively supplied sound and image.)

Our Vulcan President

We Be Deploying Soon!


Captain John Pieret be looking for a few good Elitist Bastards for this month’s voyage of the HMS Elitist Bastard. I know it be short notice, but I also know that most o’ ye haven’t been on vacation, so ye’ve got plenty o’ Elitist Bastardry lying about yer blogs. Get those links in to [email protected] by end o’ day this Friday, the 26th o’ June. Let’s ensure Captain John sails wi’ a full ship.

We Be Deploying Soon!

Happy Hour Discurso

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

Another day, another ridiculous hissy fit from the right:

I guess it was obvious that there’d be a flap surrounding Nico Pitney’s question at the White House press conference this afternoon, but that doesn’t give this “story” merit. Here’s the latest:

Some reporters and right wing bloggers are accusing the White House of “coordinating” a question with The Huffington Post at today’s press conference, suggesting this shows the White House cozying up to a lefty news outlet.

The White House, however, says No Dice. White House officials tell me they didn’t ask the Huffington Post reporter, Nico Pitney, what his question would be, and didn’t know what Pitney would be asking.

Of course not. For all the speculation about “coordination,” there’s even less here than meets the eye.

Let’s talk a little about this process. Sometimes, presidents call on specific journalists because they know, not what the question will be, but what the subject matter is likely to cover. At one of his press conferences, for example, Obama called on a reporter from Stars & Stripes. Did the president know what the question was going to be? No. Did Obama know it was likely to have something to do with U.S. troops? You bet. And why is that? Because that’s what Stars & Stripes covers.

I know these poor fuckwits are having a hard time digging up real controversies to whine about, but the level of dumbassitude’s getting a little high. They might want to ease off before even the craziest conservatives notice they’re full of shit.

While we’re on the subject of outrageously stupid manufactured controversies, let’s make note of the fact that while the birther movement is rabidly stupid, Congressional reps who fall for the birther dumbfuckery are an order of magnitude more rabidly stupid:

Rep. Bill Posey’s (R-FL) bill aimed at casting doubt over the citizenship status of President Obama appears to be gaining momentum within the Republican Party. The bill would require candidates for President to supply their birth certificates to the Federal Elections Commission to be eligible to run. Placating fringe elements of the right-wing movement who refuse to believe that President Obama was born in America, Posey himself has refused to say if he believes that the President was born in Hawaii.

Though initially it appeared he had little support, Posey eventually gained Rep. John Culberson (R-TX), Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-TX), Rep. Robert Goodlatte (R-VA), and Rep. John Carter (R-TX) as cosponsors. Last week, Rep. John Campbell (R-CA) also signed on as a sponsor of the bill, while Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) said that he would support the bill if it reaches the Senate.

Speaking to the Texas-based Chad Hasty radio show yesterday, Neugebauer explained his support for the “birther” movement:

Q: So you believe the President is a US citizen?

NEUGEBAUER: You know I don’t know. I’ve never seen him produce documents that would say one way or another.

Where’s Neugebauer been living, under a box in his backyard along with all the other crazy conspiracy theorists? Obama’s produced documents. Factcheck.org’s produced documents. He’s a better-documented citizen than I am, for fuck’s sake.

I think it’s time for Neugebauer to produce proof he’s an American-born citizen, wouldn’t you say? Just for s & g.

Cons are losing a remarkable amount of cred among the public recently, most likely due to the continued rabid insanity they’ve displayed. They’re losing ground in ways none of us thought they could:

Does anyone else find this number from the internals of the new Washington Post/ABC News poll just stunning?

Who do you trust to do a better job handling the threat of terrorism — (Obama) or the (Republicans in Congress)?

Obama 55%

Republicans in Congress 34%

A year ago, when the conventional wisdom held during the campaign that terrorism was a weak point for Obama, would you have predicted that he would come to hold a 21-point lead over the GOP on the issue?

Hoped, yes – predicted, no. Good to see my fellow Americans waking up and smelling the coffee, there. That’s gotta strike fear in the hearts of the Cons.

Things like this probably won’t help them regain credibility in most citizens’ eyes:

Today, former TP member Judd Legum reports that the Republican Women of Anne Arundel County, “one of Maryland’s most prominent Republican organizations,” has launched a vicious attack on President Obama. Featured prominently on the front page of the group’s website is a letter from RWAAC President Joyce E. Thoman, who explicitly equates Obama with Hitler:

Obama and Hitler have a great deal in common in my view. Obama and Hitler use the “blitzkrieg” method to overwhelm their enemies. FAST, CARPET BOMBING intent on destruction. Hitler’s blitzkrieg bombing destroyed many European cities – quickly and effectively. Obama is systematically destroying the American economy and with it AMERICA. First the banking/investment industry, next private enterprise (GM and Chrysler) and now HEALTH CARE. And he is working on grabbing more of the American economy with his environmental extremism!

When a “prominent Republican organization” starts sounding like the whackiest of whackaloons, you know the party’s in deep shit. The majority of people usually back away when they’re faced with foaming-at-the-mouth batshit insanity. Hell of a way to rebuild a political party, innit?

And then you have one of their great white hopes for a 2012 comeback acting like some lunatic in a bad midlife crisis movie:

By late last night, after news outlets picked up on the fact that no one seemed to know where South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) has been since Thursday, the governor’s office issued a statement hoping to “clarify” matter. Sanford, his aides said, is hiking the Appalachian Trail and is completely fine. Nothing to worry about. Mystery solved. Move along, nothing to see here.

But, when looking at the details of the story, and watching how various explanations evolved yesterday, the story of the disappearing governor appears more, not less, bizarre.

Remember, early on, the governor’s wife conceded that she doesn’t know where her husband is, but said Sanford needed some time away “to write something.” The governor’s office said he decided to “recharge” after the legislative session, and has decided to “work on a couple of projects that have fallen by the wayside.” A few hours later, that version of events changed, and the governor is now “hiking.”

But even now, no one — not his wife, not his staff, not his security detail — seems to know exactly where Mark Sanford is, and no one from his family or administration has actually spoken to him. His spokesperson’s statement last night conceded that his office is clueless as to his exact whereabouts.

“I apologize for taking so long to send this update, and was waiting to see if a more definitive idea of what part of the trail he was on before we did so,” said Joel Sawyer, the Republican governor’s spokesman. Sawyer added that he will update the public on Sanford’s specific whereabouts as soon as he knows them.

South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer (R) called Sanford’s office yesterday afternoon and demanded an “immediate phone conversation with the governor.” That didn’t happen.

“That request was denied because the governor’s chief of staff does not know where the governor is, and has not communicated with the governor since he left South Carolina last Thursday,” Bauer said. “I cannot take lightly that his staff has not had communication with him for more than four days, and that no one, including his own family, knows his whereabouts.”

But hey, at least he [allegedly] finally called:

Joel Sawyer, communications director for the governor’s office, then said the governor had been on the Appalachian Trail. Sawyer said staffers heard from Sanford on Tuesday morning and the governor plans to return Wednesday.

Sawyer said the governor is surprised by all the attention.

Really? The chief executive of a state runs off without telling anyone where he’s going, taking a vehicle full of weapons with him, and is last seen at an airport 80 miles from the trail he’s supposedly hiking, turns off his phone, and goes completely missing, and he’s surprised people wonder what the fuck happened to him?

If he’s one of the rising stars of the GOP, the GOP is well and truly fucked.

Happy Hour Discurso

Dems Start to Ask, "What Fucking Bipartisanship?"

This is good:

Something fairly interesting happened today. It doesn’t mean we will get a public health insurance option to compete with the insurance industry, but it doesn’t exactly hurt. Apparently some Democrats thought that if they only watered down such a public option to nothing, they would get that vaunted bipartisan support, and everybody could go back to their districts and claim they did something when they in fact would have done nothing. But as those of us who have been observing this have known for some time, these aren’t your father’s Republicans, or your grandfather’s, or any other relative. They are the rump conservative party, openly hostile to using government for any means other than profit-taking, and preferring to tell their constituents “good luck” instead of making any tangible difference to their struggles. And somehow, Democrats just discovered this.

Some Senate Democrats have considered nixing the public option proposal in order to win Republican support for the bill.

Schumer’s role is important because he had been acting as an intermediary between liberal Democrats and moderates who are trying to strike a deal on the issue with Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee. Of the five House and Senate committees working on health care, Finance is the only one that appears to have a chance at reaching a bipartisan agreement.

Schumer said Finance Republicans had rejected several proposals designed to beef up the suggested nonprofit insurance co-ops. These included setting up a national structure for the co-ops, $10 billion in government seed money, power to negotiate payment rates to medical providers nationwide and creation of a presidentially appointed board of directors.

The Democrats tried to basically bury the public option as long as they could get any manner of support for the weak substitute. And the Republicans wouldn’t budge. Like in 1993, their mission is to kill health care reform, period. Why anyone would think that any alternative would be true is beyond me, but Senate Democrats obviously needed to play Tic-Tac-Toe with the computer endlessly until they realized what a strange game it all is, and that “the only winning move is not to play.” Ezra Klein comes to the same conclusion.

Republicans, (Schumer) suggests, are standing lockstep even against efforts to create a private co-op system that could offer an alternative to for-profit insurance. Their concern with the co-op plan is not that the government would be taking over the health-care system. It’s that the current insurance providers would face unexpectedly aggressive competition in the marketplace. Which raises an interesting, and potentially clarifying, question: Are Republicans in this to preserve the healthy functioning of a competitive private market or preserve the profits of the currently dominant insurance companies?

Wonderful to see what they actually mean by “free market,” innit? It’s never been about the supposedly free market: it’s all about letting their business buddies rake in the big bucks, free of the fear that either the government or co-ops will provide actual *gasp* competition. Add to that a heaping helping of Con determination to force Obama to fail no matter how badly that fucks the country, and you can clearly see just how bipartisan Cons are willing to be.

This teachable moment has a value for those outside the system who want to push for a real public option that can use bargaining power to force competition from insurers. Because now, as Matt Yglesias says, there’s no excuse for Democrats to water down their bills in order to “seek bipartisanship” and make them durable. Republicans have revealed themselves. And given budget reconciliation and the imminent fact of 60 votes in the US Senate, Democrats have nobody else to blame. They can talk about political realities but those have essentially been voted out of existence, with respect to Republicans. Whether it’s because of health industry campaign contributions or a desire to limit competition in small, rural states, a desire to get the glory for saving policy from the brink or just an ideological disinclination, individual Senate Democrats will have the collapse of any health care reform on their hands.

And yes, I mean Democratic senators. The Republicans, with a few possible exceptions, have decided to do all they can to make the Obama administration a failure. Their role in the health care debate is purely that of spoilers who keep shouting the old slogans — Government-run health care! Socialism! Europe! — hoping that someone still cares […]

The real risk is that health care reform will be undermined by “centrist” Democratic senators who either prevent the passage of a bill or insist on watering down key elements of reform. I use scare quotes around “centrist,” by the way, because if the center means the position held by most Americans, the self-proclaimed centrists are in fact way out in right field.

If you care to paddle some “centrists,” you can go buy some Smack-o-Matic time for cheap here:

Blue America are lining up a similar pressure Campaign for Health Care Choice on Blanche Lincoln, and you can contribute to that cause at this link.

Almost as much fun as the dunking tank at the fair, innit?

As for the Con base, we saw earlier today how the one or two Latinos left in it have gotten alienated by Con hysteria. Digby points out another demographic at risk:

Meanwhile, we have other Republicans declaring war on the seniors. Evidently, they are
all a bunch of whiners who refuse to give up their precious entertainment to pay for their medication. Here’s Mark Steyn filling in for Limbaugh today:

STEYN: We’ve still got to do something to plug this little hole in the donut for the prescription drug plans for seniors. Because, heaven forbid, heaven forbid that these seniors, these seniors should have to choose between prescription drugs and Tony Danza doing South Pacific in dinner theater.

I guess they think this is a big electoral winner, but these gasbags had better watch out or they are going to lose the over 50 demographic just like they lost the under 30 demographic.

A dunking tank and a demolition derby. All we need now is some cotton candy, and we’re set.

Dems Start to Ask, "What Fucking Bipartisanship?"

Stupidity Bombs Set to Go Off Among Troops

Ed Brayton’s exposing the uber-religious freaks positioning themselves to attack our armed forces from within:

You probably don’t know who Jim Ammerman is. You should. He is the founder of an organization called the Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches (CFGC), which provides the official endorsements for 270 chaplains and chaplain candidates in the U.S. military (including the disgraced Gordon Klingenschmitt, who retains his endorsement from the group despite having been discharged from the military). Ammerman was himself an Army Colonel.

Ed demonstrates why this man should be kept away from our poor troops at all costs – they have enough explosives to deal with, and yet here they are in a minefield of utter dumbfuckery. And it does, of course, get worse:

You should also know about Maj. James Linzey, who is currently a chaplain with an endorsement from CFGC. Linzey is another conspiracy nut, as Rodda describes:

The following was the promo for one of Maj. Linzey’s several appearances on a radio show called “The Edge.”

“Major James F. Linzey; U.S. Army Officer, Chaplain, and director of Operation Freedom, exposes how the satanic forces in the U.S. Government allow illegal immigration, giving access to terrorists to invade America’s heartland. Find out the myths and lies, and how illegal immigration effects the politics, domestic issues, national security, and terrorist ring in the United States, and you can do about it. Get your questions in early. It’s going to be hot!

It’s already hot.


One of my former bookstore coworkers used to carry a can of Lysol around when he worked at one of the local colleges. He’d spray down the people who were so groovy granola they refused to bathe before he’d shake their hands. I think we should equip the troops with small portable fire extinguishers for much the same reason. When they see chaplains endorsed by CFGC, they need some means of putting out the stupid before they end up in a burn unit.

Stupidity Bombs Set to Go Off Among Troops