Not that Rush Limbaugh is the King of Calm or anything, but I can practically hear his veins bulging out as he spews a litany of completely irrelevant invective about how President Obama is a child of the '60s and therefore believes in tearing down the country because of the "ill-gotten gains" of formerly great American leaders who established America as an "exceptional nation."

You'd think perhaps such a rant was precipitated by some new policy proposal by the President, right? Actually, no. It was brought on when a caller asked why Republicans treat this President with unprecedented disrespect.

Whatever you may think about yesterday's scheduling scuffle, there has never been similar behavior from any Speaker of the House toward a request from the President to speak before a Joint Session of Congress. I happen to think it was not all that smart to intentionally step on the Republican debate (though others disagree), and I also happen to think the media blew it way out of proportion because it inconvenienced them, forcing them to possibly choose one over the other. But whatever any of us think, I sort of doubt the idea of him undermining the very fabric of America is part of that overall thought pattern.

But for Rush Limbaugh, it clearly is. He bases his argument on this truly odious column by Shelby Steele in today's Wall Street Journal:

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a hundred times: President Obama is destroying the country. Some say this destructiveness is intended; most say it is inadvertent, an outgrowth of inexperience, ideological wrong-headedness and an oddly undefined character. Indeed, on the matter of Mr. Obama's character, today's left now sounds like the right of three years ago. They have begun to see through the man and are surprised at how little is there.

Yet there is something more than inexperience or lack of character that defines this presidency: Mr. Obama came of age in a bubble of post-'60s liberalism that conditioned him to be an adversary of American exceptionalism. In this liberalism America's exceptional status in the world follows from a bargain with the devil—an indulgence in militarism, racism, sexism, corporate greed, and environmental disregard as the means to a broad economic, military, and even cultural supremacy in the world. And therefore America's greatness is as much the fruit of evil as of a devotion to freedom.

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Untangling the hairball of right-wing non-profits is a job worthy of the DuPont family genealogist. First cousins, second cousins, intermarrying, charities that aren't really charitable, you name it, you'll find it in the dark recesses of the back pages of federal disclosures. But if you look long enough, and take the time to get to know the various families and their incestuous patterns, a picture emerges. If I had Glenn Beck's blackboard I might be able to even illustrate it, but since I don't, I'll just use pictures.

Up to now, most of the focus on funding has been on Koch Industries, and rightly so. You should all download and read this comprehensive report by the Center for American Progress. It gives a great high-level overview of their political and business dealings.

But the Koch family is only one of several just like them. They're not on the Dow Jones exchange, and if you aren't living in their state or within their direct sphere of influence, you won't really be aware of what they're doing. There's no better state to begin to shed light on them than Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, the descendants and keepers of the Bradley Brothers' legacy - Lynde and Harry - are who you need to know if you want to get ahead in state and/or national conservative politics.

Wisconsin's Conservative Powerhouse

A 2004 report prepared by the National Committee on Responsible Philanthropy (NCRP) about the conservative funding network ranked the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation second on their list of top conservative funders, with the Sarah Scaife Foundation at the top. That was 2004. Like Fred Koch, Harry Bradley was a founding member of the John Birch Society. The asset value of the Bradley Foundation skyrocketed after the Allen-Bradley Co. was sold to Rockwell International Corp. in 1985. The report also notes that Wisconsin was third in a list of top recipient states for conservative philanthropy.

Bradley Foundation Grants

The 2004 NCRP report listed total foundation grants from 1999-2001 as $38,858,118. For the years 2007-2009, total Bradley Foundation grants were $98,154,552, a 252% increase.

The president of the Bradley Foundation is Michael Grebe. From the NCRP report:

Grebe views Milwaukee as a "laboratory" in which it generates and funds various public policy programs that ultimately serve as models for national programs. School choice and welfare reform have been longstanding issues of interest to the Bradley Foundation, and its work on these issues began at the local level but continues at the state and national levels.

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I went on Countdown last night to chat with Lawrence O'Donnell -- who was filling in for Keith Olbermann -- about Bill Clinton's remarks the other day about the never-ending bloodlust of the "vast right-wing conspiracy".

O'Donnell was critical of Clinton for suggesting that the power of the conspiracy was less today than what he faced -- and regarding that aspect of Clinton's remarks, I agree with him. The reality, as I explained in the segment, is that the spread and reach of the really virulent wingnuttery that plagued Clinton -- the black-helicopter conspiracy theories like Mena, or the Vince Foster suicide, or the Clinton Body Count -- was largely relegated, until later in his tenure, to the fringes of the militia movement.

Obama, by contrast, is not even through his first year as president and he's already being plagued by Birthers and Tenthers and Teabaggers and Death Panels (along with, of course, the obligatory "He's Going To Grab Our Guns" conspiracies).

And it's true, moreover, the Clinton is right that the country has changed demographically since he was president, which means they do not possess the actual political power they held during much of his tenure. But they've made up for the lack of power with a much deeper reach into the mainstream. I dunno about you, but it sure looks to me like the Teabaggers are the new Patriots -- and there's a hell of a lot more of them.

Perhaps more to the point, they've already demonstrated -- by at least temporarily derailing the debate over health-care reform with wingnutty distractions like the "death panels" and the gun-brandishing nutcases showing up at health-care town hall forums -- that they continue to have an outsize influence on the national discourse. Especially because of Fox News and the rest of the mainstream media's willingness to be bullied by them -- led, as always, by the wise media poobahs of the Beltway Village.

That is -- and you can file this under the L'esprit de l'escalier Dept., since I meant to say it in this segment -- what they lack in power they've more than made up for by continuing to pull the media reins and shape the national discourse. They're able to move the media needles still -- which is, of course, the problem. The Village gives movement conservatives far more respect than they deserve, especially at this juncture, with the movement fully in the hands of nutty populist demagogues.

Glenn Beck is as popular as he is because everyone in the "mainstream" is too busy running fawning puff pieces to point out his actual extremism. No one has the guts to explain that these people are driving the Republicans over a cliff into political oblivion.

In The Eliminationists, I do talk a lot about how vicious the campaign against Clinton got to be -- and how many bridges and alliances were built between the far right and mainstream conservatives during those years as a result, particularly in the way right-wing talkers started picking up and transmitting memes from the far right.

Finally, I should add that, while I disagree with Clinton on this point, I generally agreed with the overall thrust of his recent comments, particularly his warning that the "conspiracy" (as it were) remains a potent force, capable of undermining Obama's presidency in unexpected ways. One can't help but suspect that Obama has been naive on this front -- how many times does he have to reach out to Republicans and come back with a chewed-up hand to get it? -- and I suspect Clinton intended to point out the cold reality. To which I can only add: Hear! Hear!

Think Progress does a little digging and finds a lot of right wing groups under the covers with AHIP, the health insurance lobbying association. Whoever would have suspected such a thing?

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that AHIP — the multimillion dollar lobbying juggernaut for the health insurance industry — has mobilized 50,000 employees to lobby Congress to defeat the public option. ThinkProgress has learned that AHIP’s grassroots lobbying is being managed by the corporate consulting firm Democracy Data & Communications. DDC has made a name for itself as one of the most effective stealth lobbying firms. Earlier this summer, DDC was caught by reporters using a front group called “Citizens for a Safe Alexandria” to attack the Obama administration for seeking to prosecute Guantanamo Bay prisoners in Alexandria, VA.

According to the server-information hub Domaintools.com, the AHIP grassroots outreach website AHIPAdvocacy.org is hosted on a server owned by DDC. Though DDC conceals the hosting of its other websites using a service called DomainsByProxy, ThinkProgress has obtained a list of the domains hosted on DDC servers. A review of this data shows that DDC maintains the grassroots outreach websites for large health insurance companies, but also for big tobacco and Koch Industries:

– phillipmorrisusaactioncenter.org (Altria)

– tobaccoissues.com (Altria)

– kochpac.com (Koch Industries)

– aetnavotes.com (Aetna)

– healthactionnetwork.org (WellPoint)

– humanapartners.com (Humana)

– ahipadvocacy.org (AHIP)

DDC is a firm that promises “high impact” outreach programs to not only influence the grassroots, but “change attitudes for the long term.” As the Washington Post explains, DDC pays over 500 contract workers to “spend much of their day telephoning people around the country and asking them to sign letters to Congress that press for legislation.” The firm helped orchestrate “grassroots” support for President Bush’s push to privatize Social Security, and helped manage online efforts for the right-wing attack group Freedom’s Watch. DDC is headed by B.R. McConnon, a former associate of Jack Abramoff’s lobbying partners, and a former employee of the Koch-funded astroturf organization known as Citizens for a Sound Economy.

Citizens for a Sound Economy — which has also received funds from private health insurers in the past and played a critical astroturf role in killing reform under Clinton — eventually split, with one wing forming Americans for Prosperity in 2003, and another forming FreedomWorks in 2004. Both organizations, which are still funded by the Koch Industries empire, were instrumental in organizing the anti-Obama tea party protests, and have been spreading misinformation and anger at the current health reform effort. Americans for Prosperity’s anti-health reform front group, Patients United, has hosted speakers comparing the House health reform bill to the Holocaust.

Curiously, DDC servers also host anti-health reform letters from the Chamber of Commerce and Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA), as well as continual news updates about the reform debate. All three documents are under a subsection titled WellPoint.

Given the stealthy nature of astroturf lobbying firms, it is difficult to discern the extent to which DDC is managing AHIP’s efforts. UnitedHealth, another large insurer, was caught recently using a call center to direct people to a radical tea party anti-health reform protest outside of the offices of Rep. Zach Space (D-OH).

Already, the health insurance industry has flexed its muscle to water down reform. After spending millions on lobbying, advertising, and direct contributions to lawmakers, the Senate Finance Committee made a major concession allowing insurers to reimburse only 65% of medical bills (down from the 76% proposed requirement). And indeed, although AHIP has made grandiose promises of self regulation, many insurers have recently broke promises made by AHIP President Karen Ignagni. On June 16, despite Ignagni’s pledges of commitment, insurance executives from UnitedHealth Group, Assurant, and WellPoint specifically refused to “commit” to ending the controversial practice of rescinding coverage after an applicant files a medical claim.

With DDC’s stealth lobbying assistance, AHIP may well kill the public option too.

Update At the Wonk Room, Pat Garofalo reports that DDC also maintains an anti-Employee Free Choice Act website supported by the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF). The IWF, which is running anti-health reform ads, is another Koch Industries-funded front group that for a five year period operated out of the same office as Americans for Prosperity. DDC not only serves the health insurance industry, but plays a vital role for the constellation of Koch front groups.

Lou Dobbs is hardly the only right-wing pundit on the air transmitting bogus right-wing conspiracy theories. See, for instance, Sean Hannity on his Fox News show last night.

Hannity must be looking over his ratings shoulder at Glenn Beck these days, because he was cribbing from Beck, promoting the bogus far-right "constitutionalist" theories about state sovereignty Beck himself promoted a couple of months ago.

Hannity had on a couple of doofus state legislators from Nebraska who are promoting the notion of "state sovereignty" -- distinct from outright secession, but nonetheless built on a set of theories that were popularized in the 1990s by the Patriot/militia movement.

As I explained at the time:

Now, it's one thing to point out the radical origins of these "constitutional theories." But it's also important to understand where they want to take us -- to a radically decentralized form of government that was first suggested in the 1970s by the far-right Posse Comitatus movement.

They essentially argue for a constitutional originalism that would not only end the federal income tax, destroy all civil-rights laws, and demolish the Fed, but would also re-legalize slavery, strip women of the right to vote, and remove the principle of equal protection under the law.

Suffice to say that no one in this segment was particularly, um, persuasive. The only thing Hannity and his guests managed to convince anyone of was the growing reality that Hannity, like Dobbs and his Fox colleagues, has no compunction about reaching into that far-right grab bag for his nightly talking points. It's always amusing to see the critters they come out with.