Rep. Louis Gohmert is that crazy relative that comes to family dinners and hisses under their napkin about "those people" and how they're "ruining America." Except Gohmert is in Congress, and isn't as easily dismissed as Aunt Gert at the end of the evening.

Via RightWingWatch, this little gem:

The FBI, on the same token, they have brought as you know what the Dallas federal court and the fifth circuit court of appeals identified as the two largest Muslim Brotherhood front organizations in America, CAIR and ISNA, and so you know they have been working with them, they have been advised by CAIR. They finally suspended their so-called partnership with CAIR but you have Muslim Brotherhood members who have advised the FBI and have been telling them things that just simply make it virtually impossible to properly and adequately investigate and defend this country. The job they did was really amazing considering the fact that they have purged their lexicon of any words that Muslim Brotherhood advisers have told them that they find offensive.

Oh, dear God. WTF is he talking about, you ask? If you want to slither down the rabbit hole of right wing insanity, try a Google search on Dallas FBI + CAIR. The results are conspiracy and Islamophobe sites, top to bottom. No hate is too small to include in those results. So don't try to figure it out that way.

Going straight to the source reveals a story more mundane but no less bizarre in how people like Gohmert have reacted to it. CAIR has a page dispelling the Internet nonsense flying around that Gohmert and Bachmann spew like it was fact. Here's what they say:

CAIR's work with law enforcement was highlighted by the Congressional Research Service, the non-partisan institution which works for the U.S Congress, in its 2010 report American Jihadist Terrorism: Combating a Complex Threat:

• "The [2010] story of the five men from the Alexandria, Virginia area...became public when the Council on American-Islamic Relations got their families in touch with the FBI after the five left the United States without telling their families." [CAIR note: This case is cited in numerous sources as a core example of the American Muslim community working with law enforcement.]

• "Posing as a new convert, Monteilh arrived at the Irvine Islamic Center in 2006 wearing robes and a long beard, using the name Farouk al-Aziz. Monteilh had a criminal record that included serving 16 months in state prison on two grand theft charges. Members of the Islamic Center of Irvine were reportedly alarmed about Monteilh and his talk of jihad and plans for a terrorist attack. The local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations reported him to the Irvine police and obtained a three-year restraining order against him." [CAIR Note: It was later revealed the Monteilh was an FBI informant.]

CAIR has long worked to improve Muslim community relations with law enforcement, a CAIR press release issued in October of 1998 is the earliest record we have of CAIR meeting with FBI representatives. Despite this, in 2008, FBI offices contacted many CAIR chapters stating that they were suspending some ties between the Washington-based civil rights and advocacy group and FBI field offices.

This action was apparently taken in relation to issues laid to rest in Internet Disinformation #6.

The actions "laid to rest" relate to the trial of the founders of the Holy Land Foundation, originally based in Richardson, Texas. It was a funding stream for Hamas and other terrorist organizations, and the government named nearly every pro-Islam charity in the country as unindicted co-conspirators in 2007 as a trial tactic:

In August 2007 Newsweek reported, "According to one senior law-enforcement official (who asked not to be named talking about an ongoing case), the listing of ISNA, CAIR and other groups as 'unindicted co-conspirators' was largely a tactical move by the government." (Newsweek, 8/08/2007) A June 2008 ACLU press release also reports, "The prosecutor also acknowledged that the public labeling was simply a 'legal tactic' intended to allow the government to introduce hearsay evidence against HLF later at trial."

Those are facts which were litigated all the way up to the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, but that won't stop Moonbeam Gohmert and his sidekick Loonie Bachmann from saying something different in order to make us all afraid that the FBI is really a bunch of seekrit Moooslim terrorists ready to blow the whole damn country up.

Paul Kevin Curtis, the man suspected of sending ricin to President Obama, Senator Wicker and several other Mississippi politicians, was released from custody and all charges dropped on Tuesday after no evidence of ricin could be found anywhere on the premises of his home or vehicle.

When the news broke of his release, I wondered how the right wing would process it, given that they were reveling in the news that Curtis was a Democrat who sported a bumper sticker saying "Christian and a Democrat." It didn't take more than a few minutes for Gateway Pundit to unashamedly post this headline:

But now the plot thickens. Via TalkingPointsMemo, an emerging story of a frame by former GOP candidate J. Everett Dutschke:

On Monday, Curtis’ lawyer, Christi McCoy, said she believed Dutschke could have been responsible for mailing the letters noting he had argued with Curtis over email.

Dutschke denied any involvement in the ricin case in an interview with a local newspaper, though he admitted he spoke with FBI agents on Thursday and allowed them to search his home. TPM spoke with Dutschke Tuesday shortly after the news of Curtis’ release.

“I’m alive,” Dutschke said when asked how he was.

Dutschke expressed disbelief when told of Curtis’ release.

“What did you just say?” he asked.

We repeated that Curtis had been released.

“You’re kidding me,” said Dutschke. “For what?”

We told him we were unsure and asked whether he knew if officials were still investigating him in the case.“I really can’t answer that question at this exact second,” he said.

Dutschke then said he had to go. Subsequent attempts to speak with him were unsuccessful. Less than an hour later FBI agents arrived at Dutschke’s house and he told local reporters on the scene they were there to question him.

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Because no "concern" about the Obama family is too petty for the Breitbart crew, they published the first daughters' spring break location to make the case that White House tours are being cancelled while the girls vacation in high style. No, I won't link to it, nor will I mention where they're staying, but it's clear they want to suggest that the Obama girls are living the high life -- while other children are deprived of their White House tour.

As Media Matters reports, there is a generally understood rule that journalists do not disclose the location of the children of presidents when they're not with their parents, because their security should not be placed at risk.

The Washington Post's Paul Farhi reported at the time that this is part of a longstanding and informal agreement between successive administrations and the White House Correspondents' Association, and that "traditional news organizations have long abided by such arrangements":

Presidential administrations have long been protective of the first family's minor children, and reporters in Washington have mostly observed the taboo on stories or photographs of them outside official and semi-official events. The ban on such coverage has existed through many administrations by informal agreement with the White House Correspondents' Association, which represents the interests of journalists who cover the president.

But Breitbart's Matt Boyle disregarded such tradition and related security concerns when he posted an "exclusive" report on Breitbart.com detailing where the Obama daughters were vacationing for spring break. Boyle said that the White House declined to comment and that the Secret Service told him they don't "confirm or deny trips for anyone under the agency's protective detail, including Sasha and Malia."

These small considerations are considered trivial to the Breitbots, who are very, very determined that we all become outraged over the very idea that Sasha and Malia might have a spring break like normal children. They resent the fact that the girls do have a security detail, all the while whipping up the outrage that makes it necessary. Funny how that works. I don't recall right (or left) wing media outlets dogging the Bush daughters like that.

God forbid conservatives should actually be held accountable for their lies. Michele Bachmann, who has a history of saying the most ridiculous, outrageous things about President Obama and who holds herself up as a high and mighty holy roller, has some real problems with the truth.

When CNN confronts her, she dodges and feints and ultimately runs. In the process, she looks like the liar and fool she is. Via Mediaite

For Tuesday night’s “Keeping Them Honest” segment, CNN host Anderson Cooper turned to Dana Bash‘s encounter with Rep. Michele Bachmann who, asked about comments she made about President Obama enjoying a lavish lifestyle at the taxpayer’s expense, repeatedly dodged the questions and “literally raced away.” Bash was “speechless.”

“A new book is out talking about the perks and the excess of the $1.4-billion-a-year presidency that we’re paying for,” Bachmann said in the speech. “And this is a lifestyle that is one of excess.” She added:

“Now we find out that there are five chefs on Air Force One. There are two projectionists who operate the White House movie theater. They regularly sleep at the White House in order to be readily available in case the first family wants a really, really late show.”

Bash sought to confront her about those comments — which got four Pinocchios from theWashington Post — and found herself chasing after the congresswoman. “She literally raced away from our Dana Bash,” Cooper remarked.

Gee, I wonder why. It's one thing to drop BS on stupid CPAC attendees, and quite another to actually have to answer for it. The day she is booted from Congress will be a day of celebration for me. She's just clinging to Sarah Palin's heels for the Worst Conservative Woman ever.

Oh, wingnuts. If only you could possibly understand how insane you sound. The newest recycled craze is hysteria over Muslims taking over the United States, but honestly, this one tops some of the weirdest of the weird.

Via Right Wing Watch:

End Times fanatic Rick Wiles of TruNews on Friday hosted notorious anti-Muslimactivist Steven Emerson to discuss how the Muslim Brotherhood is coming to power in the US and around the globe. Emerson alleged that members of Congress, specifically Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) are “in the pocket” of Islamist groups which are using “stealth jihad.”

WTF, people? Did Frank Gaffney inject another round of cash into your can of crazy?

I snark about this, but what these people are doing is quite dangerous, and it fits with the NRA's campaign to throw a nationwide hissy fit about any limitations on gun rights whatsoever. Muslims are the new Commie, with the added bonus of being brown, which appeals to the nativists and Klan members. But hey, fear is fear, and right now they need fear stoked up high in order to get people distracted from reasonable gun limits like universal background checks and the like.

This particular segment feels creepily like the McCarthy days. Look who they're blaming:

He also claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood has “penetrated virtually all institutions in the United States, wittingly or unwittingly,” including the federal government, news media, entertainment industry, book publishers and academia, as they back the group’s “ultra-fascist ideology.”

That certainly sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Meanwhile, a FrontPageMag reporter infiltrated the Muslim Student's Conference last month and ended up with absolutely nothing to report. Instead of simply saying so, he offered a theory:

And, politicizing and organizing that younger generation in campus groups and strengthening their sense of community as Muslims, strengthening their campus activism, that’s all, that’s a very important goal because it radicalizes them and it steers them toward further radicalization down the line. So, yeah, it's all about capturing the hearts and minds of the young.

Dick Durbin, Keith Ellison, and the Muslim Brotherhood, bringing jihad to a neighborhood near you? Do you think these people really believe the nonsense they spew, or is it just a cynical effort to keep everyone afraid and submissive?

Oh, Pat Robertson. How dare schools teach children facts in order to keep them from being soaked in right wing crazy? But I think it may be going too far to say there's some kind of "librul plot" to use public schools like a gulag, don't you?

Pat thinks teaching kids anatomical facts and basic personal safety is a crisis:

Pat Robertson reacted to the news that Chicago public schools will teach kindergarteners “the basics about anatomy, reproduction, healthy relationships and personal safety” by claiming it is “one more of the liberal initiatives to force their point of view” on others.

“You see we believe in America, in freedom, in free choice, free enterprise, freedom; but the liberals, the progressives so-called, they want to enforce their point of view and have people in lockstep accepting what they want,” Robertson said.

He then went on to say that liberals are using public schools just like Communists in Russia and China used prison camps: “If people won’t accept it, the Russians were willing to put them in gulags; the Chinese have been willing to put them in prisons. Here in America, the liberals think they’ve got them in school and they want to indoctrinate them and force them into a mindset that is contrary to what their parents believe.”

Of course, Robertson ignores the fact that parents can opt out in Illinois because that would completely wreck the whole rant about how liberals are locking their kids up in public schools in order to indoctrinate them.

Also, Pat? How do you feel about the conservative movement to end child labor laws? Because under the definition of "gulag", work is a key component.

Snark aside, we all know what Robertson is really doing is furthering the TeaBircher campaign against public schools in order to break the teachers' unions and also make sure our children live in a perpetual state of ignorance where man roamed the earth with dinosaurs and climate change doesn't exist. When you set aside the first wave of revulsion, the agenda becomes crystal clear. I wonder how Pat Robertson feels about being a tool of billionaires and oligarchs?

Gosh, the Republican Party is succeeding so much with their "rebranding effort" that they can't seem to find anyone to run against Ed Markey for John Kerry's Senate seat. Well, I take that back. There's this guy, the Blowhard named Dr. Keith Ablow, who makes a career out of offering bogus, junk-filled Freudian analyses on Fox News.

You might remember him from other posts here on C&L, like the one where he offers ridiculous explanations for President Obama's normal, even mainstream policy choices by suggesting the president is working out his frustrations at being abandoned by his father. Or this one, where he profiled Media Matters' David Brock, calling him a self-hating narcissist. There's this one, too, where he calls for Vice President Biden to be examined for dementia. Or, you might make a judgment just on the basis of one single fact:

He actually co-wrote a self-help book with Glenn Beck.

Yes, this is the guy who has expressed an interest in running for John Kerry's seat.

But wait! There's more!

In Georgia, Rep. Paul Broun is widely expected to announce his candidacy to replace Senator Saxby Chambliss. Yes, THAT Paul Broun. The one who laughed off a constituent's comment about who would shoot the president. The same Paul Broun who boycotted and trolled the president's State of the Union address in 2011 after saying he wouldn't attend because President Obama would "spew venom," who compared progressives to Al Qaeda, who wanted to lower, not raise the debt ceiling in 2011, who wanted a "Year of the Bible" in order to school the nation on President Obama's sins, and the very same one who gets star billing on Jon Perr's Republican Confederacy of Dunces.

Listen to Paul Broun for ten minutes or so and the only point of confusion will be whether he is a Bircher or a Klansman. It's possible he's both. Yes, he is preparing to run for Saxby Chambliss' Senate seat.

In Iowa, wingnut Steve King is gearing up for a run at Tom Harkin's Senate seat. Yes, once again, THAT Steve King. The same guy who thinks workers are commodities, who empathized with the guy who flew his plane into the Austin, Texas IRS office, who considered the Hate Crimes Act a "pedophile protection act", who had no problem with the idea of a revolution similar to the one in Czechoslovakia in 1989 here in the United States, and who defends his racist remarks by admitting he just wants to see "if the pot comes to a boil."

Yes, these three are leading off the parade of wingnuts for open Senate seats in 2014. They do seem to have one thing in common: they're all spewing the Birch Society nonsense theories and mixing it with some serious race-baiting and hate.

On the wingnut but not a complete hater side, Geraldo Rivera is snuffling around a run for the Senate in New Jersey. Gee, Rivera and The Wingnuts would make for some interesting times on the Senate floor, but the country would be a shambles by the closing act.

However, Rachel Maddow has one thing wrong in her report above, where she maintains that Karl Rove wants to push these people out. As Jed Lewison points out, the Rove organization poured $400,000 into Steve King's race against Christie Vilsack in 2012 and bragged about it, not that they had much to brag about overall in 2012. Rove doesn't reject these candidates; he embraces them.

It looks like Eric Cantor and the TeaBirchers just got a fresh supply of lipstick, and they're smearing it all over that same old pig.

[h/t Media Matters]

This makes me happy in a weird, off-kilter kind of way. Boss Rush is all over comprehensive immigration reform, declaring that "it's up to [him] and Fox News" to stop immigration reform, before it's too late. It makes me happy because anything that makes Fox News look worse to people who don't pay much attention is a good thing --and plenty of Fox viewers aren't in love with Rushbo.

It also makes me happy because for once, we're on offense instead of defense. Between the president's gun control proposals, comprehensive immigration reform, climate change and tax reform, Rush is going to exhaust his audience trying to keep them outraged over it all. That means we might actually get some things out of the Congress that we wouldn't if they all had to focus on one thing, like they did with the Affordable Care Act.

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Frank Luntz wants everyone to believe the 2012 epic failure of the Republican Party and the current low opinion of Republicans in Congress is all about their language. If only they had used different language, he argues, they wouldn't be regarded as lower than cockroaches by the American public.

Take, for example, the debt ceiling fight unfolding right now. In the world according to Luntz, the debt ceiling battle has been lost already by Republicans because they keep referring to it as a hostage (they don't). Luntz writes:

But they need a new language to communicate their ideas effectively; it starts with abandoning ugly phrases such as “a hostage you might take a chance at shooting” to describe budget negotiations. And Republicans need to stop expressing a willingness to shut down the government if they don’t get their way on the debt ceiling. Americans don’t want a government shutdown — for any reason.

What language does he suggest? When it comes to the debt ceiling, he doesn't suggest anything, which suggests he may be telling Republicans to quit playing that tired game and just pass the clean increase just as previous Congresses have done since there was a debt ceiling to raise.

On other issues, here are his suggestions.

• Instead of smaller government, they should talk about more efficient and effective government. The former is ideological language of the 1980s; the latter is practical language of today.
• Instead of tax reform, talk about making the IRS code simpler, flatter and fairer. Speak to what people really hate about the code: its complexity.
• In addition to cutting spending, they must talk about controlling — not capping — it. What angers Americans more than how much politicians spend today is how much more they know Washington will waste tomorrow. A “cap” can be lifted, but “controls” are constant.
• Instead of entitlement reform or controlling the growth of Medicare and Social Security, talk about how to save and strengthen these programs so they are there when voters need them. After all, they paid for them.
• Better than discussing economic opportunity and growth, Republicans should talk about creating a healthier and more secure economy. Everyone benefits when economic health is restored. And while economic opportunity would be nice, security is a necessity.

In other words, Frank Luntz is instructing Republicans to start agreeing with President Obama, who has used every single one of these phrases in recent speeches. When you read that list, surely you heard the president's campaign speeches about protecting and strengthening Social Security and Medicare, or making the tax code simpler and fairer?

Like Peggy Noonan, Luntz is telling Republicans to start acting like Democrats and deal with the very real issues at hand. Like Democrats. I'm not sure Republicans actually get that yet.

If I had a chance to speak to Frank Luntz face to face about this article, I'd tell him it's not merely language, and it's cynical to say it is. Pretty language has to be backed up with some solid policy ideas. Paul Ryan says he wants to strengthen Medicare all the time and preserve it for future generations. Then Paul Ryan puts forward his proposal, which kills Medicare and hands its future off to private insurers, which gives them far more power than they deserve to have while taking it away from the sick, disabled and elderly.

It isn't mere language that is a problem here. I can call that brown thing over there on the grass canine excrement but if anyone goes over and examines it, it's still dog sh*t and if you step in it and get it on your shoes your shoes will stink and no one will let you come inside before you take your shoes off and leave them far away from the back door. Luntz can call Paul Ryan's Medicare-killing proposal "strengthening Medicare", but it still carries the stench of a dog turd attached to his shoe.

When Luntz says Americans are angry about spending, he forgets what spending they're angry about. They're not angry about spending on Americans; they're angry about spending on bank bailouts and wars that no one wanted in the first place. They're not angry about spending on the elderly; they're angry about giving rich people such a huge and loophole-ridden tax code that they pay less than 15 percent while the rest of us pay whatever we owe, which on average is higher than their 14 percent.

If Republicans head out from their retreat with the intention of papering over what they do and have been doing with less incendiary language, they will still be the same monumental failures they've been for the last four years, because people are not that stupid. They know the smell of dog crap on someone's shoes when they smell it.

Nevertheless, there is one suggestion Luntz makes that Republicans should heed.

Beyond fiscal policy, Republicans need to revamp their messaging on other issues. For example, the tragic school shooting in Newtown, Conn., offered Republicans a chance to discuss public safety — a more personal issue than “crime” — on a human level. That hasn’t happened, but it still can. Most people agree that there is a middle ground between gun-control hard-liners, who see every crime as an excuse to enact new laws, and the National Rifle Association, which sees every crime as an excuse to sell more guns. The Second Amendment deserves defending, but do Republicans truly believe that anyone should be able to buy any gun, anywhere, at any time? If yes, they’re on the side of less than 10 percent of America. If not, they need to say so.

Yes, they need to say so and they need to put some action items behind that say-so. No more kowtowing to the lunatic fringe who thinks a war should break out over reasonable gun safety laws. It is high time for Republicans to stop allowing the blood of their fellow Americans to wash over them every time some nut with an assault weapon decides to make some kind of a statement and step up.

On that score, they should listen, and so should any Democrat who still thinks the NRA has any hold over them.

This segment with Piers Morgan is precisely why I called Breitbrat Ben Shapiro a twerp. At the ripe old age of 28, he has all the answers and thinks he's the smartest guy in the room. He's perfectly comfortable calling someone a bully for disagreeing, and worse yet, claiming they're standing on the graves of the children who were killed at Sandy Hook in order to score political points. That's something a twerp says to get someone to try and start a fight with them.

As much as I am not usually a Piers Morgan fan (because he was mean to kids when he was a judge on America's Got Talent), in this case, I actually wish he had let some of that meanness show. However, he still did a pretty good job defusing the "on the graves of the children at Sandy Hook" when he suggested the erstwhile Mr. Shapiro tell Gabby Giffords how she and her husband are dancing on the graves at Sandy Hook, too.

Bullies dancing on the graves of little children

In this first segment, Shapiro serves a little whine about how Piers and the liberals "bully" anyone who doesn't agree. Ben, old boy, I can't help it if facts have a liberal bias that will snap your head back like you've been punched. When Piers enumerated the last several mass killings and forced you to admit they were committed with an assault rifle, you may have felt bullied, but if you were, it was because facts have a way of shattering illusion.

Shapiro, undeterred, argues that more murders take place with guns than assault weapons, and smirkily asks Piers why he doesn't care about as much about Chicago's children killed with handguns as the children killed with assault weapons.

Screw that, Shapiro. You don't think we'd like to limit handguns? Well, I would. But that's chasing after unicorns. We aren't so stupid that we think there's a prayer of a ban like that. I'll take reinstatement of the assault weapons ban as a start, rather than none at all. Piers was having none of it too.

That didn't stop Shapiro from making that leap and claiming that the "left" wants an outright gun ban. Screw the constitution, just ban them all! That's the caricature of the left Shapiro tries to pass off on the audience.

But wait, there's more.

Shapiro is getting ready to play the "government tyranny" card. Strange how that card only gets played when a Democrat is in the White House, isn't it? And of course, it plays straight into the wingnut fears and paranoia about how that scary black dude in the White House is going to emasculate the entire country by taking away their guns -- and then...what?

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