DOWNLOADS: (878)

PLAYS: (1559)

Embed

Harry Reid has to be delighted with the outcome of the Republican primary in Nevada. After all, the onetime frontrunner, Sue Lowden, finally drowned in a sea of chicken feathers and psychotic denials.

In her stead, the winner was Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle. And as TPM's Justin Elliott and Evan McMorris-Santoro reported this morning, Angle is also a fan of the Oath Keepers:

Back in April, Angle told TPMDC she was a member of the Oath Keepers at a press gaggle in Washington. On Monday, we decided to call Angle's campaign to confirm her relationship to the group. Angle's husband, Ted, picked up the phone.

"We support what the organization stands for," he told us. "Sharron does."

Members of Oath Keepers -- whose motto is "Not on our watch!" -- subscribe to a 10-item declaration affirming that they will not, for example, force citizens into detention camps or invade a state "that asserts its sovereignty and declares the national government to be in violation of the compact by which that state entered the Union."

.... Angle's relationship with Oath Keepers hasn't been on the media radar, but she made a little-noticed attempt to woo the group's members at a speaking event last fall, Rhodes told TPMDC Monday.

Rhodes said the event with Angle was organized after she reached out to the Southern Nevada chapter of Oath Keepers. It was held in a clubhouse in Las Vegas. She spoke and "we asked her some pretty tough questions" -- about Hurricane Katrina, gun laws, and the Iraq War, says Rhodes.

"She's got a pretty good track record of being a pretty sincere Constitutionalist," Rhodes tells TPMDC, adding that Oath Keepers does not endorse candidates.

As Elliott and McMorris-Santoro point out, among the things the Oath Keepers believe is that high-ranking officials are secretly plotting to round up conservatives and place them in concentration camps.

But that's not all. C&L was one of the first news entities of any kind to report on the Oath Keepers, and we have a rundown on the things that they believe -- and by extension, beliefs that Angle apparently endorses:

Rhodes and Whittle are eager to portray the core of the Oath Keepers' creeds -- the "ten orders" they "will not obey" -- as involving merely ordinary rights that everyone naturally would stand up for, and in a way, that's true. But only deeply paranoid people would believe there is any reason to be concerned that these rights violations might be looming.

Here they are:

• 1. We will NOT obey any order to disarm the American people.
• 2. We will NOT obey orders to conduct warrantless searches of the American people.
• 3. We will NOT obey orders to detain American citizens as “unlawful enemy combatants” or to subject them to military tribunal.
• 4. We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a “state of emergency” on a state.
• 5. We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty.
• 6. We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.
• 7. We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext.
• 8. We will NOT obey orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people to “keep the peace” or to “maintain control."
• 9. We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies.
• 10. We will NOT obey any orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances.

You may also recall Justine Sharrock's superb in-depth report on the Oath Keepers for Mother Jones:

Oath Keepers is officially nonpartisan, in part to make it easier for active-duty soldiers to participate, but its rightward bent is undeniable, and liberals are viewed with suspicion. At lunch, when I questioned my tablemates about the Obama-Hitler comparisons I'd heard at the conference, I got a step-by-step tutorial on how the president's socialized medicine agenda would beget a Nazi-style regime.

I learned that bringing guns to Tea Party protests was a reminder of our constitutional rights, was introduced to the notion that the founding fathers modeled their governing documents on the Bible, and debated whether being Muslim meant an inability to believe in and abide by—and thus be protected by—the Constitution. I was schooled on the treachery of the Federal Reserve and why America needs a gold standard, and at dinner one night, Nighta Davis, national organizer for the National 912 Project, explained how abortion-rights advocates are part of a eugenics program targeting Christians.

Even more potentially problematic for a would-be United States Senator is the Oath Keepers' view of the role of federal authorities -- which, it seems is taken straight from the Posse Comitatus, a white-supremacist anti-federal movement that dominated the extremist right in the 1980s:

The Oath Keepers are similar to the tea party crowd in that they often disagree what their movement represents. While bred from the libertarian spirit that courses through the West, the Oath Keepers don't have a formal structure beyond the vague principles outlined in the 10 orders.

They say the sheriff is at the top primarily because he is the highest elected law enforcement agent in the land, directly responsible to the voters, and argue the Tenth Amendment gives the voters all power not expressly given the federal government under the Constitution.

The movement has gained traction, including in dozen or more sheriff's races around the West from Orange County, Calif., to the northern border.

"It is time for the sworn protectors of liberty, the Sheriffs of these United States of America, to walk tall and stand up for our Constitution and Bill of Rights," proclaimed Larimer County, Colo., candidate Carl Bruning in his campaign literature.

Someone will have to ask Sharron Angle if she believes that her local sheriff has more real authority under the Constitution than a United States Senator.

Among other things.

DOWNLOADS: (802)

PLAYS: (3074)

Embed

Sure, Paul may still have to live down "Silly Love Songs." But little moments like these remind us of the puckish rebel of his youth:

McCartney ended the evening taking a baseless cheap shot at former President George W. Bush.

“After the last eight years, it’s great to have a President who knows what a library is,” McCartney quipped.

Republicans seem to have forgotten that The Beatles always had a way of poking fun at conservatives -- and they never were compelled to hold their tongues, either.

Which is why Mr. Tanning Bed, John Boehner, immediately put up a big whine:

“Like millions of other Americans, I have always had a good impression of Paul McCartney and thought of him as a classy guy, but I was surprised and disappointed by the lack of grace and respect he displayed at the White House,” Boehner told HUMAN EVENTS. “I hope he'll apologize to the American people for his conduct which demeaned him, the White House and President Obama.”

Not to mention that it also gave John Boehner a big fat opportunity to completely humiliate himself. Again.

You know, we keep hearing from conservatives that we liberals have no sense of humor. They mostly tell us this when they make jokes about rounding us up in concentration camps or directing terrorist attacks our way. But even the most prim-lipped liberal knows better than to be this dumb.

Gotta wonder what Boehner will do if McCartney declines to apologize. Maybe he and his fellow House Republicans can burn Beatles records on the South Lawn or something.

DOWNLOADS: (869)

PLAYS: (11280)

Embed

We first noticed Marine Sgt. Charles Dyer, aka "July4Patriot," back in March, when we ran one of the first reports on the "Oath Keepers" bloc of the Tea Party movement -- an organization devoted to recruiting military and police-force veterans into a Patriot-movement belief system predicated on a series of paranoid conspiracy theories, especially the notion that the federal government intends to begin rounding up citizens and putting them in concentration camps.

Dyer played a prominent role in connecting the Oath Keepers to the Tea Party movement, speaking at a July 4 Tea Party rally in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. And he's been involved in organizing militia "maneuvers" in Oklahoma.

Dyer cropped up again in the news -- this time in the police blotter for allegedly raping a 7-year-old girl:

An ex-military man has been arrested on charges of rape of a child and forcible sodomy.

Charles Alan Dyer, 29, of Marlow, was arrested Tuesday afternoon by Stephens County Sheriff’s deputies, said Sheriff Wayne McKinney. Dyer served in the United States Marines in Iraq.

Oh, and guess what police found when they searched his home:

During the search the sheriff’s deputies noted several firearms and a device believed to be a Colt M-203, 40-millimeter grenade launcher, a complaint filed in the United States District Court of Western Oklahoma by Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco Special Agent Brett Williams said.

As the story from KAUZ-TV notes, Dyer had a history of making bizarre claims in his videos -- as well as violent fears of being arrested.

“We come home and those bastards want to talk about how we’re domestic terrorists and a threat to this country. It makes me so angry,” said Charles Dyer, who has been accused of committing rape.

... More incriminating evidence against Dyer has surfaced in a YouTube video. The video shows Dyer, a former U.S. Marine, talking proudly about domestic terrorism. “Join the military?”, said Dyer. “Depends on what you want to do with it. Me? I'm going to use my training and become one of those domestic terrorists that you’re so afraid of from the DHS reports.”

... “I’m certainly not going to be hiding from my command anymore. I’m not hiding from ATF. Not hiding from FBI. Any organization. If they want to come get me I’m not going to be afraid,” Dyer said.

“Patriots, we are not overpowered. If we united under one banner and fight for our children’s liberity and the constitution, our resolve is invincible to any standing army,” Dyer said.

GossipBoy is reporting that the rape victim was a close family member. They also report that Dyer had been in touch with a fellow militiaman linked to explosives dealing, and that when bomb-sniffing dogs searched Dyer's home, they indicated explosives had been stored there recently.

Meanwhile, unsurprisingly, the folks at American Resistance Movement -- a group Dyer was also prominently involved in -- are claiming that Dyer was set up, and the girl who accused him was "programmed" to do so. Accordingly, they've set up a "Free July4Patriot" fund, with a little button on their front page so you can donate.

Also, Dyer's YouTube page remains active.

Every movement attracts its freaks. But the Patriot movement attracts an inordinate number of them -- and particularly people with a pedophilia problem. (I can list at least 10 different prominent figures in the Northwest's Patriot movement in the 1990s who had a history of being charged with abusing and abducting children.) Evidently, being a pedophile leads to resentment of the government -- probably for its desire to lock you away.

We'll reserve judgment on Dyer's guilt or innocence for after the trial. But let's just say that the predictable claims that he's been arrested as part of a government plot to silence him are not exactly compelling in this case.

[Thanks to Susie for her help with this post.]

DOWNLOADS: (829)

PLAYS: (1959)

Embed

Rep. Sue Myrick, the crazy Republican from North Carolina, is an Islamaphobe's Islamaphobe. She's been at it since Day One, bashing Muslims and concocting paranoid theories about their nefarious intentions. Who can forget the time she wondered whether there was something to all those strangely accented people who run the nation's convenience stores?

Now she has fresh meat for that grill, torn straight from the pages of WorldNetDaily:

A group of House Republicans is calling for an investigation into whether a leading American Muslim advocacy group tried to "spy" on congressional offices by placing interns on key security committees.

Rep. Sue Myrick, North Carolina Republican, cited an internal January 2007 memo in which the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) discussed placing Muslim interns on Capitol Hill to "focus on influencing congressmen responsible for policy that directly impacts the American Muslim community."

As Steve Benen explains, this is classic right-wing paranoia -- mixed with its usual underhanded criminality:

The book Myrick, Shadegg, Broun, and Franks are relying on was published by WorldNetDaily, a radical fringe website that recently "reported" that the Obama administration is considering Nazi-like concentration camps for dissidents.

The book's co-author's son pretended to be Muslim to infiltrate the not-so-nefarious organization as an apparent intern. (Put another way, "the dastardly plot to plant Muslim interns as spies on the Hill was uncovered by an intern acting as a spy.") The book's co-author's son alleges that CAIR -- an entirely legitimate, mainstream advocacy group, that is not "connected to" terrorists -- is secretly plotting, using fake interns as pawns in some elaborate scheme.

So, do Myrick, Shadegg, Broun, and Franks know of any intern/spies CAIR has sent to Capitol Hill? Actually, no, but they heard about this book and want an investigation anyway.

Honestly, I get the sense that some of these guys are getting dumber as time goes on.

As for "infiltration" of CAIR, the man who pretended to be a Muslim and an intern apparently took as many documents from the organization as he could during his time there, and discovered that the lobbying group intends to do "ordinary lobbying work on Capitol Hill." When Myrick, Shadegg, Broun, and Franks released an internal CAIR "strategy" document yesterday, they unveiled "a fairly straight forward public relations and lobbying strategy."

Media Matters has more context. Think Progress has details on the criminal aspect of it all:

Now, CAIR has filed a criminal complaint against the authors of the book, alleging that the memo they are using to attack CAIR was stolen. Indeed, Sperry was interviewed by Radio America yesterday and admitted that the planted intern “collected whole boxes of evidence marked for shredding” and took documents that “he felt he needed to preserve as evidence [of illegal wrongdoing].” ...

According to DC law, the authors could be guilty of conspiracy to commit theft with a “bias-related crime” specification, meaning that they could face up to 15 years in prison if the stolen document is deemed to have a value of $250 or more, or only 270 days if it is deemed to have less value.

Glenn Greenwald has more.

DOWNLOADS: (1430)

PLAYS: (2978)

Embed

Sean Hannity hosted not one but two whole segments last night devoted promoting the new book by Jerome Corsi -- godfather of the Swift-Boating of John Kerry -- titled America For Sale, which is basically an extended black-helicopter-style conspiracy tome straight out of the Patriot movement of the 1990s, updated for the new century.

This is a classic case of conservatives mainstreaming extremist ideas. I haven't read all of Corsi's book yet, but it differs very little in ideas and content and overall thesis from the kinds of books you could buy at militia-meeting tables in the '90s.

I haven't yet found whether Corsi decided to include his recent reportage for WorldNetDaily detailing the nefarious Obama conspiracy to round up conservatives and imprison them in concentration camps. Hannity managed to not bring up that point last night.

But yes, that's what Corsi wrote:

Text:

The proposed bill, which has received little mainstream media attention, appears designed to create the type of detention center that those concerned about use of the military in domestic affairs fear could be used as concentration camps for political dissidents, such as occurred in Nazi Germany.

Funny, I still have a Militia of Montana book that outlines this very same nefarious plot being concocted by Bill Clinton.

As Steven Thomma explained for McClatchy:

In truth, Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., has proposed a bill that would order the Homeland Security Department to prepare national emergency centers — to provide temporary housing and medical facilities in national emergencies such as hurricanes. The bill also would allow the centers to be used to train first responders, and for "other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security."

Of course, Corsi and Hannity aren't the only ostensibly mainstream conservatives peddling this paranoiac fearmongering: So is Michelle Bachmann, among others:

"There is a very strong chance that we will see that young people will be put into mandatory service," Bachmann told a Minnesota radio station.

"And the real concern is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums."

It's also cropping up quite a bit at Tea Party gatherings. That's where you find outfits like the "Oath Keepers," whose organization is built around resisting citizen roundups.

Why, exactly, does Sean Hannity so avidly promote Jerome Corsi and his conspiracy theories anyway? Look at his record:

Continue reading »

PFAW:

There are many unanswered questions about the tragic hanging death of Bill Sparkman, a US Census Bureau employee, in rural Kentucky. But one thing is clear. Right-Wing leaders like Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and media outlets like Fox News have whipped up hysteria and paranoia over the 2010 Census.

Mr. Sparkman's untimely demise may or may not have been the doing of an anti-government fanatic, but it’s clear that the Right is creating an environment that is hostile to Census workers and the Constitutionally-mandated Census.

A steady stream of conspiracy talk by Beck, Bachmann, and others on Fox News has legitimized and propelled conspiracy theories among many everyday Americans who are now terrified of their own government. Talk of rounding up dissidents into concentration camps and nefarious plots by ACORN to steal Congress has fed anti-government sentiment, which could boil over at any moment.

This should be an important wake-up call to those national outlets that have employed fear in pursuit of ratings.

It's amazing to me that the party that presided over the biggest growth in government are now stark raving loons over aprogram that has been in place since 1790. Of course, it could be a classic case of Freudian projection, where they project exactly the kind of fascist tendencies in their own little heart and they panic at someone else being able to use the information the way they would if they have a chance. Or perhaps it's the very scary notion of information and facts that has their collective knickers in a bunch. God forbid we actually know that there really aren't 40 million illegal immigrants in this country, what could those wingnuts use to fear monger? Or that thanks to GOP policies, wages are down across the country? Or that those comfortably gerry-mandered seats in the House should actually be changed to the disadvantage of the GOP? [[Shudder]]

Facts are scary things to those wingnuts.

DOWNLOADS: (1433)

PLAYS: (3285)

Embed

Lou Dobbs has always been unrepentant in the face of proof of his many journalistic misdeeds. So it is not surprising that, in the face of a concerted campaign to have CNN remove him as one of its major news anchors, Dobbs defiantly embraces conspiracy theorists who argue, among other things, that President Obama is planning to round up conservatives and incarcerate them in concentration camps, and who feature pro-secession articles on their websites.

Dobbs's irresponsible brand of journalism besmirches the credibility of an organization like CNN. Which means that it needs to choose between preserving its fast-eroding integrity, or sacrificing it on the altar of Dobbs' ego.

America's Voice is stepping up its campaign to have Dobbs removed this week with a series of ads and other measures intended to increase the public pressure on CNN's executives to act.

Dobb's mainstreaming of extremist beliefs and provably false "facts" simply cannot go on if CNN wants to be considered a responsible mainstream news organization:

White nationalist conspiracy theories flow seamlessly from vigilantes and extremist web sites to Dobbs and back again. Watch just a couple of episodes and you'll see how he throws around the term "criminal illegal aliens" with the spite and frequency of a mid-century Southern politician using the N-word. In Dobbs’ world, immigrants are disease ridden criminals who kill cops and are plotting for revolution. Bogus claims that immigrants are bringing a new wave of leprosy to America might be taken with a grain of salt on Fox - but on CNN, it’s news.

Perhaps to quell the criticism, CNN is airing a new mini-series in October called, "Latino in America." The network is in heavy promotion mode, sending the show's host, Soledad O'Brien, around the country to drum up interest.

Yeah, well, nice PR segments never quite wash the bad taste out of your mouth after having to swallow Dobbs' nightly broadcasts of immigrant-bashing.

The movement to challenge CNN to drop Lou Dobbs Tonight is growing. Dozens of local and national advocacy organizations are standing together to take the fight to CNN. Media Matters with DropDobbs.org, Presente.org and dozens of Latino groups with BastaDobbs.org, and Democracia Ahora with TellCNNEnoughisEnough, have all launched excellent campaigns against Dobbs. And groups like the National Council of La Raza have chronicled Dobbs’ extremism through websites like WeCanStopTheHate.org.

Our new campaign to get Dobbs off the air will hit CNN both on the air and online. In addition to the TV ad, we’re running online ads and targeted ads on Face Book. You probably won’t see them unless you work for CNN or Turner – we’re asking Anderson Cooper, Soledad O’Brien, Wolf Blitzer and others how they feel about promoting and enabling Dobbs and his unrelenting campaign of immigrant bashing.

The real question is, what else does Dobbs have to do to get fired? He called Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst a "public service," perpetuated the birther conspiracy, has congratulated the Minutemen, and just last week was honored by the anti-immigrant group FAIR - designated a Hate Group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

It's time that CNN executives and the other "talent" at CNN deport Dobbs to Fox or talk radio where he belongs. He doesn't deserve the CNN seal of approval. Until CNN deals with its Lou Dobbs problem, any attempt to reach out to Latino audiences will be pure hypocrisy.

You can donate here.

DOWNLOADS: (1807)

PLAYS: (4106)

Embed

Back when I was first blogging in 2003 or so I had a few civilized exchanges with Jon Henke, but we never could agree regarding my ongoing thesis at Orcinus -- namely, that ideas, agendas, talking points, and memes in general regularly migrated from the extremist right in America into mainstream conservatism. (This, as it happens, is also the core thesis of my book The Eliminationists.)

Sometime after I posted about the 380th example of this Henke stopped commenting (in apparent disgust) and I hadn't heard from him since.

But he certainly made some waves last week when -- clearly, and appropriately, disgusted by Jerome Corsi's bizarre piece in WorldNetDaily suggesting that President Obama was preparing concentration camps to round up and imprison his conservative critics -- Henke urged his fellow conservatives to disassociate themselves from WND in every way possible.

Henke continues to contend that the continuum between far-right wingnuts like the WND crowd and mainstream conservatives -- what I have described as "the transmission belt", with WorldNetDaily playing a significant media role for many years -- remains small indeed. That is what he did in his otherwise standup appearance on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC program last night.

That claim, of course, was massively undercut by Terry Krepel's follow-up reporting for Media Matters, which noted that "one of the organizations that has rented WND's mailing list is ... the Republican National Committee." With full screen shots.

Henke called upon the RNC to disassociate itself from WND, but they unsurprisingly have politely declined.

That's because, of course, the transmission belt is now the be-all and end-all of Republicans' current political strategy. The idea, much as it was in the 1990s, is to delegitimize Obama's presidency by whipping up the far right with unhinging conspiracy theories that spread into the mainstream as well. This undermining is then exploited by the "mainstream" Republicans in precisely the way we've just witnessed with the teabaggers' derailing of the health-care debate. It's deeply cynical -- not to mention dangerous -- but hey, it works.

As David Weigel's superb reporting afterwards demonstrated, the WND's pull within the Beltway Republican crowd -- and its ability to insinuate itself within the mainstream media, particularly on Fox -- is substantial indeed. Just ask Van Jones.

Henke obviously doesn't want to face up to the reality that it is his fellow mainstream conservatives -- you know, the people who should be standing up to this wingnuttery as unrepresentative of their movement -- who are actively enabling the most insane elements of the American Right. But then, he never has.

DOWNLOADS: (2072)

PLAYS: (7176)

Embed

Probably the most ironic -- no, make that flat-out bizarre -- aspect of Glenn Beck's ultimately successful campaign to force out Van Jones is that it was predicated on Jones' supposed indulgence in extremist rhetoric ideas.

This isn't just a matter of the pot calling the kettle black. It's more like the black hole calling the sunspot dark.

Glenn Beck's history of indulging in extremism -- not just turning a blind eye to its presence, but promoting it outright to an audience of millions -- is so deep and wide that whatever indiscretions Jones might be guilty of fade into total insignificance.

Of course, we're all familiar with the remarks that lie at so much of the root of this matter: Beck's outrageous claims that President Obama is a "racist" who has a "deep-seated hatred of white people", which prompted a largely succesful campaign by Color of Change to encourage advertisers to pull their support for Beck's Fox News program. But that, frankly, is barely scratching the surface.

Keith Olbermann has put out a plea for information about Beck's own background in outrageous remarks. Of course, all he probably needs to do is go through the C&L archives on Beck

Still, what Olbermann -- and everyone else wondering how to fight back from this latest round of right-wing viciousness -- should focus on is the inordinate number of times that Beck has simply promoted extremist ideas and memes straight out of the most fringe elements of the American far right.

It goes back several years. Beck, in fact, openly promoted the John Birch Society and its "New World Order" conspiracy theories frequently when he was still at CNN Headline News. As I observed at the time:

Beck is busy building a narrative that not only opens the Pandora's Box of mass public consumption of far-right conspiracism, it also portrays the most hateful and paranoid and poisonous bloc of American politics as credible and normative.

Since joining Fox in January of this year, however, the tendency has not only intensified, it's simply gone off the rails.

Most notably, Beck has actively promoted ideas, theories, and concepts taken directly from the far-right "Patriot"/militia movement, many of which in turn derive from the ugliest sector of the right, white supremacy:

-- He "war-gamed" out an apocalytpic American future in which society has completely crumbled, leaving behind a "Road Warrior" society in which militias remained the only defenders of the remnants of white society.

-- He told his audience for several weeks running that he "could not disprove" the existence of concentration camps run by FEMA in which conservatives were to be rounded up. After a few weeks of this, he finally ran a segment that in fact did debunk these claims, explaining that in reality all of the supposed "evidence" for these camps was the product of a long-running hoax that began in the 1990s with the "Patriot"/militia movement. (He then later claimed that he had done nothing to promote these theories.)

-- He ran several segments, including one on his radio show, in which he promoted the concept of the secession of Texas from the Union. A little later, he tried to pretend he didn't agree with the concept while in fact giving a secessionist the opportunity to promote his plans to Beck's audience.

-- He regularly promoted "one world government" paranoia. This included a supposed plot to put us all on a global currency controlled by the New World Order.

-- He tried to argue that the chief cause of the sour economy was the United States' reliance on a central banking system.

-- He hosted an entire hourlong segment devoted to promoting militia-derived constitutional theories about state sovereignty.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (1913)

PLAYS: (4333)

Embed

So far, we’ve had Birthers, “death panels,” a “death book,” concentration camps for conservatives, and the pervasive “Obama=Hitler” meme. And that’s just been in the first eight months of Barack Obama’s presidency.

But if you thought the wingnuts had already driven over the cliff and into the abyss, just wait. They really have just gotten started on their descent.

In a few weeks, there’s going to be a big gathering of right-wing True Believers in St. Louis, at a convention called “How to Take Back America”. Note, of course, that this is not terribly original; the Campaign for America’s Future convention for the previous five years before 2009 was called “Take Back America,” though this year they appropriately changed it to “America’s Future Now.” (Some wags in attendance called it “Got Back America.”) Given an opening and the circumstances, the wingnuts have claimed the name for themselves this year.

In any event, it promises to be something special. Guest wingnut luminaries speaking at the convention will include Rep. Michelle Bachmann, Rep. Steve King (the guy who claims that gays and lesbians wouldn't become hate-crime victims if they didn't flaunt it), Joseph Farah of World Nut Daily, and Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin (more about him shortly) plus, of course, such convention organizers as Phyllis Schlafly.

As Kyle at RightWingWatch notes, it looks to be a smashing good time, especially at the workshops, where you can bone up on such subjects as:

"How to recognize living under Nazis & Communists"

"How to deal with supremacist judges"

"How to defeat UN attacks on sovereignty"

"How to stop socialism in health care"

"How to counter the homosexual movement"

"How to stop the killings: pro-life solutions"

The video above was compiled from footage spotted by Kyle from a webcast promoting the conference.

Fundamentalist guru Rick Scarborough -- all you need to know about him is that he's an avid associate of Alan Keyes -- is featured in the first segment of the video, bemoaning the "crucifixion" of the 2008 election results. It's there mostly for the jaw-dropping amusement value.

The second half of the video is just downright weird: radio talk-show host Janet Porter, another of the conference's organizers, launches into a somewhat confusing array of conspiracy theories involving vaccines. Porter's theory is that President Obama and other nefarious types are currently trying to drum up hysteria about H1N1 flu so that they can give us a vaccine that will kill large numbers of Americans.

Seriously. That's her theory.

She even had on a woman named Jane Burgermeister on her radio program earlier this month, promoting precisely that theory:

Specifically, evidence is presented that the defendants, Barack Obama, President of the U.S, David Nabarro, UN System Coordinator for Influenza, Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO, Kathleen Sibelius, Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services, Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Department of Homeland Security, David de Rotschild, banker, David Rockefeller, banker, George Soros, banker, Werner Faymann, Chancellor of Austria, and Alois Stoger, Austrian Health Minister, among others, are part of this international corporate criminal syndicate which has developed, produced, stockpiled and employed biological weapons to eliminate the population of the U.S. and other countries for financial and political gain.

The charges contend that these defendants conspired with each other and others to devise, fund and participate in the final phase of the implementation of a covert international bioweapons program involving the pharmaceutical companies Baxter and Novartis. They did this by bioengineering and then releasing lethal biological agents, specifically the "bird flu" virus and the "swine flu virus" in order to have a pretext to implement a forced mass vaccination program which would be the means of administering a toxic biological agent to cause death and injury to the people of the U.S.

Now that is some top-shelf AAA Venusian-grade Crazy there, folks. It's almost enough to make me want to fly out to St. Louis just to witness it.

And let's not forget the high-quality advice we'd be getting. For instance, there's Gen. Boykin. Most folks remember Jerry Boykin as the general who made the war in Iraq out to be a religious crusade by "God's Army". But there's much, much more to Boykin than merely that; he also happens to be one of the chief upper-echelon culprits responsible for the atrocities at Abu Ghraib prison. And before that, he was directly involved in devising the FBI's disastrous strategy that produced the human disaster at the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco, Texas in 1993.

Who could ask for more?