Ted Nugent is a real piece of shiiite--work. The uptick in conservative-movement circus clowns and carnival barkers has risen past flood-level heights. But it's sickening to listen to a draft-dodging phony make a mockery out of the very serious business of military suicides.

Media Matters:

In an appearance on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' radio show, NRA board member Ted Nugent blamed the epidemic of suicides among veterans and active duty military on frustration with President Obama for supposedly "violating" the Constitution.

Nugent, who has appeared on Jones' show several times, told the host that the military is frustrated with Obama for "violating the oath that they're dying for," which is leading to an unprecedented increase in suicides. Nugent went on to describe the Obama administration as "treasonous" and also characterized the president as a "groomed America hater."

On Sunday, Nugent will appear at the NRA's Annual Meeting for an event titled "Freedom Is Not Free - Repaying Our Debt to Heros [sic]" which is billed as a tribute to "those who gave all to utilize our precious freedoms as provided by the ultimate sacrifices of the US Military warriors and their families."

There's a lot of data on the rise in military suicides in the last few years, but suicides have been a big problem since the start of the Iraq war and conservatives wackos somehow forgot to even mention the topic, for fear it would look bad for Dubya. And then we have Ted "They'd call dead people before me" Nugent, who has the gall to make these claims after reveling in his draft dodging ways for so long.

Smoking Gun

With the Vietnam War raging, young Ted Nugent was not so anxious to bear arms in defense of his country.

The 64-year-old musician, now a vocal gun advocate and member of the National Rifle Association’s board of directors, avoided toting around an M14 thanks to a series of military deferments that allowed him to dodge the draft, according to Selective Service System records.

Theodore Anthony Nugent first received a high school 1-S deferment in February 1967, when he was 18. After briefly being reclassified as available for service, Nugent got a 2-S college deferment when he enrolled in Oakland Community College in Michigan.

In August 1969, Nugent took his draft physical and was rejected for service. He was classified as 1-Y, indicating that he was qualified for service only in time of a national emergency. The 1-Y classification was usually issued to candidates saddled with significant medical or mental issues.

In interviews, Nugent has provided varying accounts of how he avoided a seat on a troop transport to Southeast Asia. In a 1977 High Times interview, he claimed to have stopped bathing a month before his draft physical, adding that he showed up for the exam with pants “crusted” with urine and feces. “I was a walking, talking hunk of human poop,” recalled Nugent.

Now of course he refutes the poop comments, but never took back these words.

In his High Times interview, Nugent recalled his glee at evading the chance to defend his country (though he mixed up the 1-Y and 4-F deferments). “And in the mail I got this big juicy 4-F,” he said. “They’d call dead people before they’d call my ass.”

Who knew that seeming double-centenerian Pete Domenici was such a player? None of us, it turns out, until the former longtime Senator of New Mexico recently admitted to an extra-marital affair with a colleague's [Senator Paul Laxalt of Nevada] daughter, which produced a now-thirty-something son.

Domenici is certainly not the first politician to suffer from Strom Thurmond Disease. You may remember the late Senator Thurmond, he of the presidential campaign in 1948 based on the segregation of the races - something he couldn't personally accomplish with the hired help in his own household (let's call it an Early Schwarzenegger). Just two weeks ago, at the age of 87, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, his bi-racial child who could not acknowledge her father publicly until his death in 2003, passed away herself. Just another sad story of conservative hypocrisy, and in Thurmond's case, one of many dalliances with women not his wife for the "family values"-spouting, Lost-Cause romantic.

This is not to say this kind of thing doesn't happen on the Democratic/liberal side. (I have two words for you. John and Edwards.) Yet, the difference is that like most Republicans, Domenici was all too concerned what was going on in our private lives if we were gay, a woman, or a President being impeached in the 1990s over an affair. He was a moral exemplar, you see, who was so pristine and pure you'd think he brought the Ten Commandments down from the mountain. He could deign to lecture us all, including then President Bill Clinton.

Continue reading »

If the National Rifle Association (NRA) were not so dangerous to the physical health and general welfare of the people of the United States, they'd probably qualify as some of the most unintentionally hilarious people on the planet. Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.

Take executive vice-president of the NRA, (the suspiciously French sounding) Wayne LaPierre. If you started from scratch and constructed an (at least theoretical in his case) human being, you couldn't find a better movie villain. A man who foams at the mouth when fetishising about guns on national TV, attacks sitting Presidents in terms usually reserved for dictators and inaugural-lip syncers and has the look of a howling mad member of Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice's gang from Dick Tracy - replete with the beady eyes, vestigial rage and bad posture.

That Lapierre's little gaggle of government-fearing, 1970s-Death-Wish-obsessing miscreants actually claim they're trying to increase people's safety can almost make your sides hurt from the hysterics, as it carries with it the legitimacy of Manti T'eo giving lectures on Nigerian bank swindles.

These are the guys who released an iPhone app for kids as young as four to shoot at coffin-shaped targets on the one-month anniversary of the Newtown Massacre. That little high-capacity-magazine of brilliance has probably jetted them right past Applebee's on the sliding scale of public-relations brilliance, up next to Alex Rodriguez.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (94)

PLAYS: (672)

Embed

Nugent, the laughable lizard buffoon of gun country nation who thinks he's Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor rolled into one, has been pulled off the Discovery Network.

While Discovery has described Ted Nugent's Gun Country as a "one-hour special," Nugent claimed that Discovery "want[s] to do it as a regular feature." Nugent has also said the show would help him advance his view in the "culture war."

The episode of Ted Nugent's Gun Country that aired in October showed Nugent shooting a scimitar-horned oryx, an animal extinct in the wild, and using a .50-caliber Browning armor-piercing machine gun to blow holes in a steel door used by a team of "preppers" to protect their armory.

From FoxNews.com:

Discovery Channel's popular reality show about a family of gun makers, "American Guns," came under intense scrutiny in the wake of Friday's mass shooting at a Connecticut grade school, with people flooding the show's Facebook page calling for its cancelation.

"I know you all have to make money but would Discovery Channel PLEASE consider ceasing to broadcast the show in the U.K.? Sadly your program makes buying/owning guns seem fun, glamorous, even normal," wrote one. Another tweeted, "Dear Discovery Channel: it's not appropriate showing the program American Guns now!" Another weighed in: "With Discovery shows like 'Sons of Guns', 'American Guns', 'Ted Nugent's Gun Country' etc it's not surprising how guns r seen as acceptable."

It seems the critics may have been heard.

A Discovery rep told FOX411 that "American Guns" - which is out of production and not currently broadcasting new episodes - has been canceled and will not return for a third season. This comes as something of a surprise given its growing popularity. The show had a 50 percent ratings increase for its second season premiere, and one of its stars, Renee Wyatt, recently said she would "definitely" be interested in returning for season three. The rep, however, would not link the show's cancelation to the Connecticut school massacre.

According to the Discovery website, another of the network's gun-oriented programs, Sons of Guns, has no scheduled upcoming episodes.

UPDATE: After this post was published, Raw Story reported that Ted Nugent won't return to Discovery "in any form or fashion." A Discovery spokesperson told the outlet that while Ted Nugent's Gun Country didn't draw high ratings when it aired in October, the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, also played a role. The spokesperson also denied Nugent's claim that Discovery had been working on a Nugent series consisting of at least a dozen shows a year.

It's illuminating to see a draft dodging miscreant like Nugent actually compared lefties to 'varmints.'

Suck on this, Ted.

The right-wing's daily Two Minutes of Hate is being directed on Twitter today at Bob Costas. Why? Because he dared to say on national television that, contrary to what wingers and glibertarians been saying for decades, guns actually do kill people.

This has predictably led gun fetishists like Ted Nugent to tweet a great deal of stupidity. As far as I can tell, around half of these SRWTs are just calling Costas names -- and the other half (including Nugent's) are of the A NAIL FILE CAN KILL YOU SO SHOULD WE OUTLAW THOSE TOO COSTAS?! variety.

What isn't in dispute is the following:

A) Countries with lots of guns have lots of gun-related deaths.
B) Countries without lots of guns don't.

But...but...freedom!

On Wednesday, the Discovery Channel ran a one-hour special on guns that stars a fanatic who threatened to kill President Obama and other officials and was investigated by the Secret Service in April. In 2007, the Discovery Channel’s new star wielded two machine guns while yelling, “Obama, he's a piece of s--t. I told him to suck on my machine gun.” Then, raising up one the guns, he said, “Hey Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch.” 

Discovery’s new star is "Motor City Madman" Ted Nugent, who ominously warned in April that he would “either be dead or in jail by this time next year” if the president wins re-election. He then compared Obama and Clinton to a coyote that needs to be shot and called on his supporters to chop off Democrats’ heads in November. After those remarks were publicized by this blog, he was investigated by the Secret Service and commanders at Fort Knox cancelled his scheduled show there, citing his “public comments about the president of the United States.”

The Army has standards, Discovery apparently doesn’t. That reminds me, I’ve been hearing a lot of people complain about Honey Boo Boo, which plays on Discovery’s TLC. Say what you will, but at least she never threatened to kill the President. The same cannot be said of Nugent, star of Wednesday night’s one-hour special – Ted Nugent's Gun Country.

In the video above, you can watch some highlights of Nugent’s violent rhetoric and his new Discovery special.

Nugent is best known – to the extent that people still know him at all – as a hard rocker from the ‘70s. He was crazy then, and time has not been kind to “Uncle Ted.” From a reality TV perspective, so far so good.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (93)

PLAYS: (1758)

Embed

That video is from Ted Nugent's 2011 appearance on Piers Morgan's show. He very specifically says that President Obama can suck the barrel of his gun on that particular appearance. With a bit of a smirk and self-important shrug, Nugent also declares himself the next Sam Kinison.

There are many more notable Ted Nugent moments. The one in May of this year where he raged against the commies in this administration, the one in July where he expressed his wish that the South had won the Civil War, and the one in 2007 where he called HIllary Clinton a worthless bitch, which echoes the sentiment he speaks above are but just a few examples of his hateful, ugly, threatening right wing speech.

He's got a right to say those things, but I do not understand why the Discovery Channel would glorify such a foul-mouthed, self-aggrandizing piece of excrement. And yet, they are, according to Media Matters. From the press release:

In Discovery Channel's all-new one-hour special TED NUGENT'S GUN COUNTRY, premiering October 10th at 10PM E/P, viewers will get an inside look at American gun culture through the eyes of staunch second amendment defender Ted Nugent.

Meet Nugent's family and visit his sprawling Spirit Wild ranch just outside Waco, Texas, home to many species of big game that freely roam the meadows and pastures. An avid hunter and conservationist at heart, Ted has his eye on the herd of scimitar-horned oryx that have bred far faster than he anticipated. Knowing the land can't support the booming population, he plans to thin out the herd - and that sends him on a mission. He needs the right firearm and right ammo to get the job done. For that, it's a trip to top-grade firearms maker LaRue Tactical.

Nugent gets his hands on their new OBR PrediTAR .308 rifle and gets a lesson on the finer points of the weapon from renowned military sniper trainer Todd Hodnet. Ted's highpoint of the day: a 1,000 yard target that, when he hits it, causes a massive explosion that even he didn't expect.

On hunt day, Ted and his son Rocco set out at dawn to track their elusive prey and put his new weapon to use. Hours pass without any sign of the crafty antelope. But the father-son duo comes up with a plan and eventually their patience pays off. A firm believer that no animal goes to waste, Ted prepares a festive meal at the ranch that includes guests from Wounded Warriors - his way of giving back to those who fought on behalf of the country he loves so much.

Someone's going have to explain to me how "thinning the herd" involves a gun that explodes targets 1000 yards away. But even more, someone needs to explain to me why an "I love mah gun" special featuring Ted Nugent blowing away targets with his son and hanging out with Sean Hannity's charity is something worth broadcasting at all, much less on the Discovery Channel.

My kids are old enough to not even watch TV anymore. If it's not on YouTube, they don't see it. But for those of you who might actually think the Discovery Channel has content worth watching, you might want to think again, and keep the kiddies busy doing something else.

You know, for a group that loves to whine about the liberal entertainment industry being so unfair to openly conservative artists (because Kelsey Grammer, Alice Cooper, Tom Selleck, Gene Simmons, Jon Voight and Adam Sandler are really hurting for work, aren't they?), they sure do embrace the least appealing specimen in Ted Nugent. Really, he is just a disgusting piece of work on so many levels: misogynistic; loud- and foul-mouthed; gleefully selfish and self-interested, he's only too happy to tell you what nauseating lengths he went to dodge the draft in Vietnam and avoid a statutory rape charge with his underage girlfriends. And that's not even touching his clearly Freudian over-compensation obsession with firearms.

This is not a decent human being; this man is the frontrunner in the race to the bottom of conservative Americans. For the life of me, I can't imagine seeking his endorsement, yet Mitt Romney did so. So the question must be asked: will Mitt Romney disavow this latest bit of slime from the mouth of the Motor City Madman?

Serial mouth diarrheist Ted Nugent is making another bid for attention as the grimiest link in Mitt Romney‘s endorsement chain, opining in his Washington Times column that the Supreme Court’s decision on President Obama‘s Affordable Care Act has him “beginning to wonder if it would have been best had the South won the Civil War.”

Sigh.

There is no low for Nugent; nothing that would be off-limits to say, right down to wondering if things wouldn't be better with slavery intact and the South's treason vindicated.

Your move, Mr. Romney.

DOWNLOADS: (336)

PLAYS: (731)

Embed

The National Rifle Association and the assorted far-right gun nuts who make up the gun lobby, as we recently pointed out, really are creating an extremely problematic environment for any post-election America in which Barack Obama has won re-election -- because, thanks to their fact-free and irresponsibly inflammatory attacks on Obama, they've once again convinced a significant segment of the American populace that Obama is secretly plotting to take their guns and their freedoms away.

On the ground, this is playing out in predictably unhealthy ways too -- namely, as the SPLC's Hatewatch recently noted, through skyrocketing weapons and ammo sales:

A hard-hitting propaganda campaign unleashed this year by Wayne LaPierre, executive director of the National Rifle Association, may be convincing Americans that President Obama will crack down on gun ownership if he’s re-elected and becomes a lame duck.

Skyrocketing sales of guns and ammunition, along with some shortages due to stockpiling, are reported by many U.S. shops.

“People are worried about a second Obama presidency,” Simon Wallace, sales manager at Merchant Firearms in Phoenix told Hatewatch. Merchant is one of many gun shops that started seeing demand increase around the first of the year. There are shortages of all types of weapons and ammunition, Wallace said.

One sign of the current panic is the number of FBI background checks for prospective gun owners. The background checks hit an all-time high in 2011 – about 16.5 million. In the first four months of this year, according to the FBI, there were about 6.3 million checks – on track to shatter last year’s record.

... “There’s a lot of free-floating fear,” Molchan said in an interview with Hatewatch. “At one end of the spectrum, you have the survivalists and the stockpiling.”

The problem is particularly acute in places like Texas and Arizona, but it's happening nationally. Naturally, this is cause for celebration by the folks at Fox:

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (387)

PLAYS: (956)

Embed

Despite being booted from his opening gig at the Army concert for his inflammatory and eliminationist rhetoric toward President Obama, Ted Nugent is unapologetic and claims to have the support of the Romney campaign for his particular flavor of free speech.

Via John Aravosis at AmericaBlog, Nugent's claim of encouragement by the Romney campaign:

Ted Nugent, after a Secret Service investigation, a canceled Army concert and an outpouring of criticism, said presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney's camp "expressed support" for the controversial comments he made about President Obama last month at the annual National Rifle Association meeting.

The no-holds-barred Texas rocker told CBS' "This Morning" that Romney's campaign told him to "stay on course" and not to tone it down after Nugent said he will "either be dead or in jail by this time next year" if President Obama is re-elected.

"I got the sensation it was, not from Mitt himself or Mrs. Romney, stay on course Ted, freedom of speech is a beautiful thing," Nugent said in the interview, which aired Friday morning.

Now if this were false, one might expect the Romney camp to firmly deny they said such a thing. But they didn't deny it, choosing instead to release the same non-statement they released when Nugent first spewed his nonsense at the NRA convention:

"Divisive language is offensive no matter what side of the political aisle it comes from," Romney's spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in the statement. "Mitt Romney believes everyone needs to be civil."

So if Ted Nugent says it civilly, then it's totally all right with Romney? This is the problem with Mitt Romney and it will continue to be the problem with Mitt Romney. He is so afraid to actually take a stand on anything from his gay foreign policy adviser to a rogue supporter who now believes he has a blessing from the Romney camp to spew even more unpleasantries into the news cycle that he cowers behind a milquetoasty kind of "ewwww, divisive language" statement.

I have a confession to make. There was a time in the not-too-distant past where I believed civil conversations could be had between liberals and conservatives. The past three years have cured me of that misperception. Even Barack Obama, with his love of bipartisanship and civility stood firm on the issue of race and actually bothered to deliver a speech that called out those who were using his race (and his pastor) to score political points.

Yet Mitt Romney just continues his meander down the pathways of non-committal pandering in the hopes that it will get him elected. I would suggest that if he were elected, he would reveal himself to be the guy who thinks Ted Nugent's remarks were just fine. In fact, I could see him clapping Nugent on the back and telling him to keep up the good work. He just won't do it now. He's running for office, after all!