Roy Blunt ignores Teabaggers

Given that Dede Scozzafava has withdrawn from the NY-23 Congression race (she had been pressured to leave by teabaggers because she wasn't crazy enough for the GOP), it is now official that Roy Blunt completely ignored the teabaggers call to endorse conservative candidate Doug Hofmann.  As I wrote last week, Dana Loesch and Bill Hennessy claimed at a press conference that they were "coming for Blunt" and that he had until last Friday to make a statement.  Roy Blunt never made any statement and for all practical purposes completely ignored the teabaggers hyperbolic and empty threats. Blunt's primary opponent Chuck Purgason donated money to Hoffman and challenged Blunt to do the same, but the teabaggers "principles" apparently only extend so far and they never bothered to mention Purgason.  I'll have more on what Blunt's dismissal of the St. Louis teabaggers means for their "movement" and their "principle" in an upcoming post. 

PushBack Greatest Hits

Seems like a good time to review some of the easy pickins that have been the focus of this blog for the past three months:

Most seriously, we broke the story that Gateway Pundit (Jim Hoft) linked to race-baiting videos from White Supremacist sites on multiple occasions and refused to de-link the supremacist youtube channel even after being told about it.

We've documented numerous, numerous, falsehoods and ridiculous statements from radio host Dana Loesch.

We noticed Bill Hennessy triumphantly announcing a guest on the Daily Show who, errrr, wasn't really a guest on the Daily Show.

We've documented teabaggers who don't know the difference between public options and single-payer, but are still vehemently, reflexively against anything Obama supports.

And we've documented as the teabaggers continuously try to mislead their readers despite all evidence to the contrary.

It actually would be quite easy to write more, but there's just not enough time in a day to catch all of the lies and propaganda that come out of their sites.

A peak inside Gateway Pundit's noggin

If he was capable of feeling shame, Rush Limbaugh would have been very embarrassed recently by the fact that he reported a satirical story on President Obama as true.  The basic idea of the story was that President Obama had written a thesis in which he claimed that he had some serious problems with the constitution.  As mentioned above, the story was in fact satire, and though Rush eventually acknowledged this fact, he refused to apologize.  

After seeing this incident unfold, local looney Gateway Pundit (Jim Hoft) decided he needed to write a blog post warning his readers about evil libruls who will try to trick them into believing their satire.  When the author of the original satire piece emailed Hoft telling him that the story was clearly marked as satire, check out Hoft's hilarious response email:

Matthew- Obviously, your satire is not clearly marked or Michael and Rush would not have linked.

Jim

I find this to be a truly revealing look into how Hoft thinks (or rather, how he approximates thinking). He starts out from the assumption that Rush Limbaugh must be right.  All other evidence must conform to this brute truth of the universe or else it is immediately rejected.  If Rush said that the sky was purple, and Hoft looked up and saw that it looked blue, he would conclude that Marxists had surgically altered his vision while he was sleeping.

And, of course, Hoft's assumption that Rush could not possibly make a mistake was about as wrong as any belief could be.  Michael Leeden, the right-wing blogger who wrote the post that Rush cited, himself admitted that he missed the tag on the blog post that said "satire" (BTW, GP does mention this in an update, but is apparently oblivious to the fact that it contradicts his previous assumption).  

I wonder how Hoft will integrate this into his belief system?  Marxists holding Leeden at gunpoint?  Implanted mind-control microchips?  Whatever it is, we can be sure that Rush Limbaugh must not have made a mistake.

Time for Dana Loesch and Bill Hennessy to, in their own words, "put up or shut up"

Dana Loesch and Bill Hennessy were outside of St. Louis City Hall yesterday demanding that all elected officials in the GOP denounce Republican Candidate Dede Scozzafava in the NY-23 House of Representatives race.  Though Scozzafava was selected by voters in the primary, wingnuts around America hate her because she is too moderate for their tastes, and they have urged "real Republicans" to support independent candidate Doug Hoffman.  

Loesch and Hennessy, as you can see here, held signs that said, "GOP: Put up or shut up" at the rally.  In fact, Loesch said (24:35 in the below video), that she was giving Missouri Representatives Roy Blunt and Todd Akin "until the end of the day" to release a statement against Scozzafava or else, "we are coming for you."  She also said earlier (19:00) that if they didn't have the brass to do "what's right," then, "we will vote you out!  We will come at you with so much heat, you won't even know how to handle it!"  Here's the video

Well, Friday has passed and neither Roy Blunt nor Todd Akin released any statement about the NY-23 race.  Let's see if the St. Louis Tea Party really stands by their stated convictions, or whether they are all bluster and no bite.  In their own words, let's see whether they "put up or shut up."

Your "movement" just might be in trouble if....

...you have to write blog posts about how you are NOT collapsing:

Just sayin.

MOPNS doesn't know difference between public option and single-payer

MOPNS, or as I like to call it MORPS (the Missouri Republican Propaganda Service) is apparently competing with "OMG, SEIU employees work for SEIU!!" Jim Durbin for the most inane 'scandal' of 2009, in a field already crowded by hyperventilating teabaggers.  Yesterday, MOPNS claimed that Governor Jay Nixon stated that "healthcare" would not be in the final federal bill "in the world I live in."  Pretty darn scandalous, right?  Except when you realize that Nixon was talking about a single-payer healthcare system (one in which only the government provides healthcare insurance and private companies are abolished), and that single-payer hasn't really been seriously discussed in congress since this whole debate started.  The whole discussion right now is whether there will be a government run public option in the final bill, not single-payer, and the fact that MOPNS thinks Nixon's comment was scandalous is pretty strong evidence that the writer doesn't even understand what the debate is about.  

I don't think MOPNS is alone.  Wingnut blogging about this subject generally shows that they literally don't grasp what the actual conversation is about.  They routinely conflate Baucus's bill with Obama's plan and every other plan, and seem to think that every one of them is a single-payer plan.  Unfortunately, for most wingnuts, actually doing some research beyond listening to Rush Limbaugh is just too much to expect.

Hilarious! Man Interviewed at "Liberal Media Bias" Protest is a Birther!

Local wingnuts held a rally outside of KSDK shrieking about how the mainstream media has a horrific liberal bias that is, of course, destroying America.  And in beautiful, hilarious irony, the teabagger interviewed for the story is a birth certificate conspiracy theorist who questions whether Obama was really born in the United States.  

Doug Edelman, a local right-wing activist, was quoted in the article version as well as the video as saying, "The so called major media, mainstream media has universally misconstrued, mis-reported, unreported, under reported, mislead and deceived the american public with their reporting in general."

But if you look at Mr. Edelman's blog, you will find that he repeatedly questions whether Barack Obama was actually born in the United States and promotes lawsuits about whether Obama is actually eligible to be president, delcaring, "If there is any doubt in your mind as to the constitutional eligibility of Barack Hussein Obama to serve in the office of President of the United States under Title II, then you have a constitutional duty to withhold your electoral vote." Edelman has also proclaimed, BTW, that "Joseph McCarthy was right!!!" about communists hiding under every rock, just waiting to take over the U.S.

Yup, if you are legally insane and believe that Obama is a secret Muslim born in Kenya as part of a plot to take over the United States, I can see why you'd think the media has a liberal bias.  

A look inside twisted minds...

Here are a sampling of comments from Jim Hoft's blog regarding the news that Republican Senator Olympia Snowe helped vote a health care reform bill out of the Senate Finance Committee. I apologize in advance for how offensive some of the comments are, but I think it's useful to see just how irrationally angry Hoft's followers are and how quickly they turn to obscene personal attacks on people who deviate even slightly from far-right ideology.

OMG, Snowe. What a useless piece of shit.
myna | 10.13.09 - 12:14 pm | #

Time to drive this leftist bitch out of the GOP.
snake eater | 10.13.09 - 12:23 pm | #

Snowe is an 'enemy inside the wire' of the Republican camp. Why doesn't she just switch over to the Democrats.
IOpian | Homepage | 10.13.09 - 12:28 pm | #

Time for you to go, Snowe.

By force if necessary.
itsallverbatim | Homepage | 10.13.09 - 12:30 pm | #

Someone needs to put that ugly bitch out to pasture and win her seat. What a fucking traitor.
Anonymous | 10.13.09 - 2:27 pm | #

Did that POS every have a townhall meetin? I'd drive out of state just to go to her townhall meeting.
Anonymous | 10.13.09 - 2:27 pm | #

Every time I look at her, I'm reminded of Lilith, Frasier Crane's ex-wife off of Frasier.

Cold chills.
ChrisP | 10.13.09 - 2:36 pm |

This is how the far right deals with dissenting opinions.

There's a fraud at the White House! Either that or Gateway Pundit doesn't know what he's talking about

Little Green Footballs, a blog that broke with fellow Republicans because of the party's blatant racism and intolerance, wrote up a funny story about a fake right-wing "outrage" over how a painting in the White House was a "fraud."  Actually, it was an artistic response to a different piece.  Artists do that sometimes.

But since Michele Malkin said it, Jim Hoft was sure to follow.  It's safe to say that when Republicans start complaining about the White House's art choices they have gone fully into "kitchen sink" mode.

Wedge Politics FAIL #3: Who hates liberal bloggers?

At this point, it's pretty obvious that Dana Loesch got some kind of memo or was on a conference call where she was told to stop repeating the same right-wing drivel she's been spouting the last four months and instead try to think up creative ideas for splitting the coalitions that helped Democrats to win the last election.  She first tried to drive a wedge between the White House and the LGBT community, then between working people and unions, and finally she's claiming that the White House hates liberal bloggers.  Of course, there's absolutely no reason to believe that the quote about liberal bloggers actually represents the views of the White House, so Loesch is wrong yet again.  What's more interesting, however, is that there was such a dramatic shift in her rhetoric in just a single day.  This seems to be a hint of the Republican strategy for the 2010 elections.

Wedge Politics FAIL #2: Dana hearts Unions...or does she?

I wrote earlier today how Dana Loesch was trying to play wedge politics with the LGBT community despite her earlier postings suggesting that "gay culture" was responsible for the castration of the American male.  Well, she wasn't just restricting her blatant attempts to try to split the left to the LGBT movement.  Today, she also claimed that she's always been on the side of the working person and that the only reason she and her fellow teabaggers oppose unions is cause the bosses make too much money.

Funny, then, that she so openly mocked unions with the apparent ironic term "teh youyins" for protesting Whole Foods, a company that is well-known for its extreme union-busting tactics, and whose CEO recently wrote that health care was a privilege not a right.  

Not only that, but she has in the past implied that being around union members was dangerous, repeatedly uses the term "union thugs," and claims that Wal Mart is really the best place to work if it weren't for that durn union propoganda.  Yes, a true friend the working people, that Dana Loesch.  It's totally not that she's trying to split up the progressive coalition that kicked the right-wing's butt in the last election! 

Wedge Politics FAIL

Our favorite wannabe hipster Dana Loesch is trying out a new strategy today of trying to show that, hey dudes, she's totally cool with all kinds of people and tea parties are really for EVERYONE.  Just forget all of that union-bashing and homophobia of the past from the right-wing; that was all just a story made up by the liberal media.  So how's it working out for her?

There you have it.  Because no one has been a bigger champion of the "GLB community" than Dana Loesch.

Update: Jim Hoft wouldn't pull race-baiting video from racist, anti-semitic group, but youtube did!

Earlier, I wrote about how Jim Hoft (aka Gateway Pundit) linked to a race-baiting video from a  white supremacist group and refused to take down the video after repeated requests from his commenters.  Or, to be more precise, here's the full timeline:

1.  Jim Hoft originally linked directly to the white supremacist group Council of Conservative Citizens while presenting the video.

2.  After being challenged in the comments, he made it look like he removed the link, but actually moved it to a different spot (see update #2 in the link).

3.  After being further challenged, he removed the direct link altogether, but still kept his link up to a youtube channel of the anti-semitic, white supremacist KillTheCensors.  

4.  However, after being repeatedly asked to remove the link to the white supremacist youtube channel by commenters and fellow conservative bloggers, he refused.  He also was shown to have linked to the Council of Conservative citizens on previous occasions.

But even though Jim Hoft is not willing to do right, at least youtube is.  I noticed on the page today that the video Hoft linked to had been removed:

Curious as to why this would be, I did a search on youtube for Hoft's friend KillTheCensors, and came across this anti-semitic comment:

(the video this comment was under, BTW, was a video claiming that Detroit's economic downturn was entirely due to the fact that there weren't enough white people living there now)

And when I clicked on KillTheCensors user name, I found out that the account had been disabled:

It's good to know that at least youtube won't support blatant racism, even though the most influential blogger in the St. Louis Tea Party movement does.

Gateway Pundit Punk'd by Bill Ayers

Jim Hoft (aka Gateway Pundit), is so blinded by his hatred of Obama that he will literally believe any negative thing said about the president without hesitation.  This can be slightly annoying for those sane people unfortunate enough to occasionally read his screeds, but can also lead to hilarious results.

For an example of the later situation, consider Hoft's recent post where he begins by linking to an article claiming that Bill Ayer's "admits" that he was the Ghost Writer for Obama's book Dreams From My Father to a conservative blogger.  As any sane person would suspect, Ayers was having some fun at the wingnut's expense.  He responded similarly to a question from the National Journal by saying, "Here's what I'm going to say.  This is my quote.  Be sure to write it down: 'Yes, I wrote Dreams From My Father.  I ghostwrote the whole thing...And now I would like the royalties."  He also responded to a follow-up from the Daily Beast by writing, "You've all lost your minds.  Best of luck in the twilight zone."  

I guess that's as good a name as any to call the fantasy world where Jim Hoft lives.

Dana Loesch Continues to Mislead While Other Teabaggers Correct Her

Dana Loesch recently wrote a post about how Mall Security was apparently called at a recent "buycott" in New Jersey.  Loesch originally didn't notice that Daily Show Correspondent Wyatt Cenac was in the pictures*, and of course immediately decided that security was called as an act of brutal government oppression against the teabaggers.  In fact, she claimed that the owner of the strip mall was a "major donor to the Democratic Party," implying that this was an act of oppression by those mean old Dems.

However, even leader of the St. Louis Tea Party Bill Hennessy surprisingly admitted that this is simply not accurate.  Hennessy, after originally making the mistake of assuming the Loesch would actually research her claims, updated his post to note that the owner of the strip mall actually had bundled between $50,000 and $100,000 for John McCain last election, and nothing for Obama.  Loesch of course has not corrected her misinformation, just as she hasn't corrected previous information even after learning it's false.  By the way, this new information also raises the possibility that the conservative mall owner sent mall security over because he didn't want to see Whole Foods mocked by the Daily Show.  This of course would still be acceptable under the IOKIYAR rule that Loesch diligently follows.

* One last interesting side note.  Though I have pointed out Loesch making misleading or blatantly false statements on a number of occasions, she never responds to the evidence or corrects her falsehoods.  Which is why it's so funny that the second I suggested in a tweet that Loesch might not be "hip," she immediately updated her blog post with a response.  Pretty protective of that "hip conservative" image I see.  I guess it shows where her priorities are if she can't stand being called "unhip" but has no problem with spreading falsehoods pretty much every day of the week.

St. Louis Tea Party PAWNED by Daily Show! -Updated Below-

The leader of the St. Louis tea party "movement," Bill Hennessy, lost even more credibility with his followers last night after he repeatedly told tea party members to watch the Oct. 5 Daily Show where he claimed a St. Louis tea party member would be the guest.  Hennessy repeatedly stated that Gina Loudon (the creator of the "buycott" of Whole Foods that started in St. Louis) would be interviewed by Jon Stewart and begged his readers to "make it the most watched show ever."  The only problem: Loudon wasn't on the show, and in fact is going to be the subject of a Daily Show segment, not a guest.  

Hennessy first writes (on Oct. 2), "Gina will be a guest on Jon Stewart (Comedy Central) on Monday.  Don't miss it!  Make this the most watched program in Comedy Central history."

Then, the next day, he claims, "Gina Loudon, intellectual property owner of the Buycott, will be Jon Stewart's guest on The Daily Show on Comedy Central at 10:00 p.m...Let's make sure Gina has a HUGE victory to report."  

Finally, on Monday, the day of the the supposed show where Loudon would be a guest, Hennessy again claims, "DON'T MISS GINA ON THE DAILY SHOW AT 10:00!!! She will have a fascinating story to tell Jon Stewart."

But of course the actual guest on Monday's program was Sarah Vowell, and if you watch the full episode you'll see that Loudon is nowhere to be seen.  Furthermore, you can see in the pictures that Loudon sent Hennessy that Wyatt Cenac was at the Buycott filming a segment for the show, no doubt for future ridicule.

So to sum up, Hennessy begged all of his followers to make Monday "the most watched episode in Comedy Central history" believing that Loudon was going to be a guest.  Considering that the numbers at tea party events have been dropping dramatically lately, I think the teabaggers might want to consider replacing Hennessy as their official leader.  

Update: I initially wrote that Loudon must have been fooled about being a guest.  However, an interview posted Monday on Jo Mannies' blog reveals that Loudon already knew that the interview was with Cenac and that it wouldn't be airing on the 5th.  This raises the question, "Why was Bill Hennessy so uninformed?"  Didn't he talk to Loudon?  The guy seems to be pretty out-of-it to be called the leader of the local tea party movement.

Dana Loesch Just Hates Talking About People's Personal Lives, Unless She Doesn't Like Them

In a post a while ago, wingnut radio host Dana Loesch claimed that, "I don't like getting involved in people's personal lives, talking about their children, et al. (note: I think she means etc.) because it's a tool of the left and I have an aversion to their tactics."    Cause she's one of those new hip conservatives, you know, and not one of the old fuddyduds who led the moral majority crusade against Bill Clinton.  She then, of course, proceeded to spread a ridiculous rumor about Robin Carnahan's personal life.

Today she shows yet again how much she just hates the very idea of talking about people's personal lives by talking about David Letterman's personal life.  I don't have any particular sympathy for Letterman, but Loesch is starting to approach Glenn Beck-like levels of self-contradiction.

Local Conservatives Rejoice that American Loses the Olympics

Local conservatives shout (in unison), "No no no, not God Bless America.  God D*&% America! That's in the Bible!"

Here's a video of American's for Prosperity (the tea bag astroturfers) applauding when then find out that America has lost the bid for the Olypics:

And all the local crazies agree. Dana Loesch, Bill Hennessy, and Jim Hoft all celebrated the fact that the U.S. lost the Olympics to Brazil, because we all know that it's totally cool to root against America when there's a Democratic President.

Jim Hoft was by far the funniest.  He criticized Obama for spending too much time meeting with Olympics officials, and also for not spending enough time with Olympics officials.

Not content with linking to white supremacists, Gateway Pundit now links to Wingnut Truthers as well

Jim Hoft, also known as Gateway Pundit, was recently caught linking to white supremacist websites, though unfortunately not for the first time. Apparently he's really trying to endear himself to the right-wing neonazi militia movement, because he's now linking to truthers as well. No, not the 9-11 truthers, but rather a special brand of right-wing conspiracy theorists who claim that there was a "secret third terrorist" in the Oklahoma City Bombings who was actually from, get this, Iraq. Of course, the reasoning goes, no terrorism could really come from white right-wing extremists. It must have been masterminded by some dark-skinned "Islamists" from across the world. And the claim that the secret third terrorist is from Iraq even more of a fantasy for the right-wingers since it implies that maybe the Iraq War was justified after all.

Here's the post where Jim Hoft links to Bob McCarty.

And here's one of McCarty's wingnut truther rants.

Jim Hoft sure seems to like those right-wing extremists.