Not very many people seem to have caught the drift of this recent Glenn Beck rant, which was noted at Media Matters for its classic Beckian illogic, with the Mad Hatter declaring that if we can't use Hitler analogies in "logical conversation," then "We are going to be a society of gas chambers!"

What he and his sidekick were talking about, though, was comparing the Obama administration to Hitler and the Nazis in the event the president decides to simply invoke the 14th Amendment and raise the debt ceiling by executive order. Because then, you see, he would just be a dictator.

This is the narrative that's gradually building on the Right as a counter-narrative to the obvious point that if Obama uses the 14th Amendment to raise the debt ceiling, it will be because Republicans in Congress failed to act. No, instead, it will be because he is intent on seizing dictatorial powers.

And for that, they will then argue, he must be impeached.

Andrew Sullivan lays it out:

Here's the scenario. The House GOP pushes for completely unserious Boehner plan (including a balanced budget amendment) that they know will be vetoed; they then filibuster the Reid plan in the Senate, forcing Obama to invoke a 14th Amendment executive prerogative, which they will then turn around and impeach him for.

Far-fetched? I hope so. But every time you think you have reached the end of Republican extremism, they manage to move further out of the solar system.

It's not really that far-fetched, considering that Republicans have been mouthing the I-word with great lust for some time now. Last we heard, they wanted to impeach him over Libya.

If he resorts to the 14th Amendment, they are already lining up to impeach him. Right-wing talk-show host Mark Levin said it explicitly two weeks ago:

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If Barack Obama attempts to destroy the Separation of Powers doctrine, if he intends to seize Congressional power when it comes to borrowing and spending despite the plain wording of Article 1 Section 8 Clause 2. In other words if he’s going to violate his oath of office…then he needs to be impeached.

…

Should he attempt to seize explicit Congressional power, we’ve got to make a case that we don’t like dictators in this country and that we will not accept dictators in this country. There’s not even a colorable argument that can be made that justifies the President of the United States seizing for himself the authority to “borrow money on the credit of the United States.” And should Chuck Schumer continue to urge this and should the President do it, then Chuck Schumer should be expelled from the United States Senate when the Republicans take it back over as they will.

We already know that Republicans believe it's smart political strategy to destroy the economy so that it can be blamed on Obama. They're willing to throw the country into economic ruin just in the hopes that it will work to their political advantage.

And if the president stops them? They will make him pay.

Methinks Levin has been reading Jonah Goldberg. How else can you explain his attempt the other day to claim that "liberal historians" have it all wrong, and that the Ku Klux Klan was never a right-wing organization.

Levin: You see, the left tries to write the history for this nation. And the left does that because it wants to encourage people, incentivize people, to move left. To support some kind of a statist agenda. Not the Klan's agenda, but the radical left's agenda -- which, in the end, are pretty similar, frankly. In the end it's all one big circle that meets at a point. Tyranny is tyranny, however it's dressed up. You have tyrants who wear suit and ties, and you have tyrants who wear goofy white uniforms.

Well, as we explained to Jonah, the 1920s Klan was the very epitome of right-wing politics in America, and it has remained so ever since:

The Klan was about much more than mere racism, which was more an expression of its larger mission -- enforcing, through violence, threats, and intimidation, "traditional values" and what it called "100 percent Americanism." It was essentially populist, certainly, but there was no mistaking it for anything "progressive." The latter, in fact, was its sworn enemy.

... And it is not as if the Klan has gone away since. In the ensuing years, it has remained the implacable enemy not merely of civil rights for blacks, but for any minority, including gays and lesbians. Its activities have remained associated with violence of various kinds, including a broad gamut of hate crimes committed against every kind of non-white, or non-Christian, or for that matter non-conservative.

In the recent past, it has revived its nativist roots by becoming vociferously active in the immigration debate, openly sponsoring anti-immigrant rallies at which the Klan robes have come out ...

Indeed, you can look around the Web at various Klan websites, if you care to give them the traffic, and see that this is still the case. For example at Thom Robb's Knights of the Ku Klux Klan site, a page is dedicated to their agenda.

Here it is. See if this looks like a "radical left" agenda to you:

The recognition that America was founded as a Christian nation.

The recognition that America was founded as a White nation.

["America was born as an extension of White European heritage. Those who formed the very ideals that we cherish such as freedom of speech, trial by jury, innocent until proven guilty, free enterprise, etc. were of White European heritage. All of the early laws of the United States from its very inception restricted citizenship to White people and all of the early charters, laws, compacts, etc were signed into effect by White people."]

Repeal the NAFTA and GATT treaties.

Put America FIRST in all foreign matters

Stop all Foreign Aid Immediately

Abolish ALL discriminatory affirmative action programs

Put American troops on our border to STOP the flood of illegal aliens

Abolish all anti-gun laws and encourage every adult to own a weapon

Actively promote love and appreciation of our unique European (White) culture

Outlaw the purchase of American property and industry by foreign corporations and investors.

Drug testing for welfare recipients

Repeal the Federal Reserve Act.

Balance the budget

Rehabilitate our public school system.

A flat income tax should be introduced to allow for the funding of community, state and federal projects.

Abortion should be outlawed except to save the mother's life or in case of rape or incest.

We support the death penalty for those convicted of molestation and rape

We support a national law against the practice of homosexuality

["This is a Christian nation and the Bible condemns homosexual activity and the perversion of our society which it encourages."]

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I had to slow down posting for a few days since my nerve damage kicked up, but Dave and I will be over on Daily Kos at 4pm Pacific to do a live chat about our new book, OVER THE CLIFF with the great SusanG. She also interviewed us as part of the chat.

Sadly, No! documents how wingnut welfare queens like Mark Levin sell their books.

Disappearing from The Corner with the usual sound effect of Archie Bunker’s toilet flushing, and with the familiar lingering odor of Bay Rum and sock feet on the ottoman, it’s legal expert Mark Levin.

You know, we would LOVE for. . .oh, let’s say Dahlia Lithwick for instance, to question Mark Levin — the right-wing talk radio zealot and wingnut welfare author, the character who used the National Review to falsely claim that he had nominated Rush Limbaugh for a Nobel Peace Prize — about his knowledge of the Constitution, let alone Supreme Court decisions.

The Limbaugh Code: The New York Times best seller no one is talking about
By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Friday, April 1, 2005, at 6:21 PM ET

[...]

I use the word “book” with some hesitation: Certainly it possesses chapters and words and other book-like accoutrements. But [Mark R. Levin's] Men in Black is 208 large-print pages of mostly block quotes (from court decisions or other legal thinkers) padded with a foreword by the eminent legal scholar Rush Limbaugh, and a blurry 10-page “Appendix” of internal memos to and from congressional Democrats—stolen during Memogate. The reason it may take you only slightly longer to read Men in Black than it took Levin to write it is that you’ll experience an overwhelming urge to shower between chapters.

It gets more scathing from there. Luckily, Mr. Levin is also a financial expert.

They make the case as do so many of us that conservative authors like Levin use the wingnut welfare system to finance their intellectually barren arguments and books. That's why it's important to support 'Liberal Authors' who don't use the Ctrl+C keyboard short cut as their primary research tool and if you can: Buy this book.

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On his show yesterday, Glenn Beck decided to finally confront Anthony Weiner's investigation of his Goldline scam -- in predictable Beck fashion:

Step A: Frame such attacks in a paranoid light -- "They're out to destroy me because I speak the truth to you!"

Step B: Double down on the scam by promoting it directly on the show.

Yet as Rep. Weiner noted:

"It is not surprising that Glenn Beck is attempting to deflect from his behavior in promoting Goldline," Weiner told Yahoo! News in a statement. "But the facts are clear. Goldline rips off consumers and Glenn Beck helps."

In the report (on Weiner's House website as a PDF), Weiner charges that Goldline "grossly overcharges" for coins and makes false claims about gold being a good investment. Goldline touts gold as a more solid investment in this economic climate.

The report says the gold retailer has entered "an unholy alliance with conservative pundits" — among them Beck, Fred Thompson, Dennis Miller, Mark Levin and Laura Ingraham — to "promote Goldline by playing off the fear of inflation."

"What we have found, by looking through the public records, is that very often they use their public programs to advocate purchasing gold, and then immediately, advertisements begin for Goldline," Weiner said in a news conference Tuesday.

As Will Bunch notes, Mother Jones just published a months-long investigation of the practices of Goldline and its gold-industry cohorts, and the results aren't pretty:

The price of gold has increased 133 percent since the beginning of 2006, yet many Goldline customers say they have lost money on their purchases after discovering—as Richardson did—that they had badly overpaid for their gold coins. Richardson is one of 44 people across the country who have filed complaints against Goldline with the Los Angeles BBB in the past three years; customers have also griped about their dealings with the company on message boards such as Ripoff Report and PissedOffConsumer.com. Regulators in Missouri have sanctioned the company for pressuring an elderly couple to liquidate their other investments to buy overpriced coins.

The Federal Trade Commission received 17 separate complaints about Goldline's sales tactics between early 2006 and May 2010, according to information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Many of those stories mirror Richardson's.

And of course, our favorite Insane Wingnut plays an important role in all this:

Beck, whose various media enterprises brought in $32 million last year, according to Forbes, has a particular interest in plugging gold. Since 2008, Goldline has been one of his most reliable sponsors, underwriting his comedy tours and investing heavily in his radio show. Last year, after Beck called President Obama a racist, and mainstream advertisers bailed on his cable show, Goldline stuck by him. And its loyalty appears to have paid off. In an email, Goldline's executive vice president Scott Carter says that while its Beck sponsorship doesn't bring in the majority of its customers, it "has improved sales," which exceed $500 million a year.

... The more worked up Beck gets about the economy or encroaching socialism, the more Goldline can employ those fears in pitching their products to his audience. But in putting his seal of approval on Goldline, "the people I've trusted for years and years," Beck has gone beyond simply endorsing an advertiser.

No doubt Mother Jones will be appearing on Beck's chalkboard soon, too.

Utah Senator Bob Bennett's bid for a fourth term was summarily dismissed today at the Utah Republican Party convention. Bennett was a distant third to financier Tim Bridgewater and teabagger Tea Party darling Mike Lee.

Bennett's unforgivable Senate sins were, according to local party hacks officials, daring to consider any form of health care reform, his TARP vote and other ideological votes around constitutional issues like the flag burning amendment. Despite Mitt Romney's endorsement, party purists coalesced around the money and the tea party take-no-prisoners doctrine, respectively.

The winners

Mike Lee is the former head of Ron Paul's Utah operation, Glenn Beck darling, and Tea Party faithful. Along those lines, Lee had received FreedomWorks' endorsement along with Tea Party creator Dick Armey's personal endorsement. That PR move was further augmented with the endorsements of Mark Levin, Erick Erickson, and far-right conservative state legislators.

Yet, Mike Lee still lost to Tim Bridgewater in round two, even with all that Tea Party mojo. Who is Tim Bridgewater, other than a guy with a whole lot of money?

Tim Bridgewater is chairman and founder of Interlink Capital Strategies, a businessman and venture capitalist with ties to Neil Bush and the more mainstream faction of the Republican party. He received the highest number of votes in the second round of voting, but did not receive Tea Party endorsements.

The Utah convention exposes a deep rift slicing right down the center of the Republican Party between the hard-core Ron Paul/Tea Party group and the more traditional pro-business anti-tax group. While it appears that the more traditional conservative values are ahead by a small percentage of the party faithful, there is an unmasked canyon of differences threatening to divide the Republican Party and drive it farther to the right than it already is.

Stay tuned for the primary on June 22nd. It's probably a good idea not to count Bob Bennett out, either. He hasn't ruled out the idea of a write-in campaign, which could make things even more interesting, given the poll numbers pointing to a Bennett win in an open primary.

Update: Senator Jim DeMint has now endorsed Mike Lee, completing the Tea Party Triumvirate. Why did he wait until after Bennett had been eliminated?

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Sean Hannity interviewed Sarah Palin on his show last night, and it sounded like she was talking in a tin can, despite the pretty Alaskan backdrop. It sounded, in fact, like one of Sarah's old performances as an Alaska sports reporter; evidently a professional studio was not available.

But who cares about such niceties when you're busy accusing Democrats of violating the Constitution? Considering that the charge is not just loony but grotesquely hypocritical, standing on a soap box on a street corner might have been the most appropriate setting; a tin-can studio is a step up.

Palin claimed that the health-care reform effort was "about government control," and that the process in the House for passing it is "an unconstitutional process" being "crammed down our throats":

Palin: It's against the will of the people, it's undemocratic, it's un-American, this process. And, uh, if we don't stand up and become very enthused about calling our politicians on this, then more of this is gonna take place.

Later, Palin asks: "Is the Constitution not worth the paper it is written on, then?" Hannity natters on in agreement, claiming that the "Slaughter rule" would be challenged in court by his buddy Mark Levin.

Palin then added:

I think, Sean, that in our lifetime, this is the most undemocratic, unAmerican step that we'll have ever seen our Congress take. It's appalling, it's -- it takes my breath away that they would think that this is OK to do.

But again, we can't feign surprise. Remember, this is what Barack Obama had promised in the campaign, he said as a candidate that he was just days away from beginning the transformation of America.

Now, a lot of us love America, and we don't want to see this transformation into something that is unrecognizable, this European style of health care, in this case that we're talking about. But no, so many of us that love America and believe in what our Founding Fathers providentially had crafted for us, you know, our documents including our Constitution -- we don't agree with this fundamental transformation of America that Obama promised us. We voted for him anyway, he was elected anyway. And now Americans are kind of realizing that's what he meant by a fundamental transformation of our great country.

Yes, it's too bad for Palin and Hannity that a large majority of Americans greeted Obama's promise of a "transformation". That's what elections are about, you know.

And the notion that this transformation entails abrogation of the Constitution is just laughable -- because the procedures they're wailing and gnashing their teeth about have been part of standard House procedures for years.

You sure didn't hear Palin or Hannity complaining when Republicans used these same rules willy-nilly during their tenure of complete control of Congress earlier this decade. Indeed, Republicans "set new records" in their use of the so-called self-executing rules that are now in play for health-care reform:

When Republicans took power in 1995, they soon lost their aversion to self-executing rules and proceeded to set new records under Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). There were 38 and 52 self-executing rules in the 104th and 105th Congresses (1995-1998), making up 25 percent and 35 percent of all rules, respectively. Under Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) there were 40, 42 and 30 self-executing rules in the 106th, 107th and 108th Congresses (22 percent, 37 percent and 22 percent, respectively). Thus far in the 109th Congress, self-executing rules make up about 16 percent of all rules.

On April 26 [2006], the Rules Committee served up the mother of all self-executing rules for the lobby/ethics reform bill. The committee hit the trifecta with not one, not two, but three self-executing provisions in the same special rule.

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David Frum spoke out this weekend about the reckless direction America's right-wing talk-show hosts are taking our national discourse -- embodied by the nuts bringing guns to events featuring President Obama:

Nobody has been hurt so far. We can all hope that nobody will be. But firearms and politics never mix well. They mix especially badly with a third ingredient: the increasingly angry tone of incitement being heard from right-of-center broadcasters.

The Nazi comparisons from Rush Limbaugh; broadcaster Mark Levin asserting that President Obama is "literally at war with the American people"; former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin claiming that the president was planning "death panels" to extirpate the aged and disabled; the charges that the president is a fascist, a socialist, a Marxist, an illegitimate Kenyan fraud, that he "harbors a deep resentment of America," that he feels a "deep-seated hatred of white people," that his government is preparing concentration camps, that it is operating snitch lines, that it is planning to wipe away American liberties": All this hysterical and provocative talk invites, incites, and prepares a prefabricated justification for violence.

And indeed some conservative broadcasters are lovingly anticipating just such an outcome.

Frum notes that conservatives were quick to attack a Homeland Security bulletin warning law-enforcement officers of a looming threat from right-wing extremists -- only to have those warnings come all too true:

Newt Gingrich tweeted: "The person who drafted the outrageous homeland security memo smearing veterans and conservatives should be fired."

I don't think the former speaker could tweet such a thing today in good conscience. The person who drafted that homeland security memo has gained very good reason to be worried. The guns are coming out. The risks are real.

It's not enough for conservatives to repudiate violence, as some are belatedly beginning to do. We have to tone down the militant and accusatory rhetoric. If Barack Obama really were a fascist, really were a Nazi, really did plan death panels to kill the old and infirm, really did contemplate overthrowing the American constitutional republic—if he were those things, somebody should shoot him.

Frum was on CNN's Reliable Sources this Sunday and talked about it with Howard Kurtz:

HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: Um, just before I came out here, David Frum, I read a column that you wrote for The Week magazine about people who bring guns to these town meetings or Obama events. And you really took on some on the right, on your side, so to speak -- Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity -- you talked about hysterical talk about violence, you said that we have to tone it down, we have to tone down, excuse me, "the militant and accusatory rhetoric."

DAVID FRUM: Ah, we do. We do. Because --

KURTZ: Is it fair to blame the broadcasters for this atmosphere?

FRUM: Uh, yeah, it's very -- coping with a downward trend in advertising revenues for talk radio, the broadcasters have ramped up what they are saying. When you have broadcasters saying the president is, quote, literally at war with the American people, um -- literally at war is a very serious thing, Al Qaeda is literally at war with the American people.

KURTZ: And has a deep-seated hatred for white people.

FRUM: And has a deep-seated hatred -- so it's inflammatory. And the thing that is so enraging about all this, is obviously people are getting more excited about that, than they do about the details of health insurance.

Interestingly, Kurtz a little later discusses Fox's flaming hypocrisy in backing anti-Obama protesters when previously it had dismissed anti-war protesters as "loons", something they were called out for by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show:

KURTZ: [H]asn't Fox, in fact, flipped -- some Fox hosts, I should say -- from slamming liberal protesters to defending these anti-Obama protesters?

That, in fact, is part of the bigger picture: The teabaggers are being inflamed and openly encouraged to act irrationally and disruptively by Fox News and its right-wing radio cohorts, specifically because they know that no matter how crazy they act -- even bringing guns to events featuring the president -- they will be actively defended for it, instead of exposed for the thugs they are.

Transcript below the fold:

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Mark Levin is happy now that he's got a bestseller decrying the tyranny certain to descend upon America under liberal rule, which Sean Hannity touted on his Fox News show last night. The appearance produced some plum bon mots fresh from Planet Wingnuttia:

Levin: What's going on in this country is really anti-liberty. The president is -- you know, they just put Bernie Madoff away for life. The president's policies are Bernie Madoff times a thousand. He is taking a wrecking ball to this society.

Levin evidently seems to have conveniently forgotten that Bernie Madoff was an exemplar of the laissez-faire capitalism practiced by Republicans generally and George W. Bush particularly. This is essentially accusing the person in charge of cleaning up after a demolition with having wielded the wrecking ball in the first place.

Levin also keeps referring throughout to Obama and his policies as "something foreign" and claims that he's undermining the Constitution.

Levin also claims that Obama "wants to destroy the health-care system that most of us like."

Oh really? That must be so, if your definition of "most of us" is "less than 15 percent of the population".

I suspect "us" for Levin and Hannity is their little claque of right-wing pundits and wealthy Republicans, as well as Levin's perfervid readers who've been just as eagerly drinking the Limbaugh/Beck Kool Aid.

He wraps up with this classic bit of wingnuttery:

Levin: This president has some very bizarre and alien viewpoints, ah, that were -- that, that were, you know, he was indoctrinated with, and now that I believe that he really believes in, and advances. He is a -- he is about as left wing and about as radical as anybody ever to be in the Oval Office.

Hoo boy. Talk about bizarre and alien. It must be quite the interesting view, out there on Planet Wingnuttia.

After reading this piece from Hannity's new pal, Erick Erickson, I'm really at a loss for words:

Peter, under pressure and fear, denied Christ not just once, but three times. Peter, though, feared death. The strain on Peter was great. The rest of us, though, typically fear the opinions of others.

There are those who like it when we feel guilty for associating with someone. More troubling, in the conservative movement and in the greater right-of-center coalition, there are many, many fellow traveler who would rather spend their time throwing their own under the bus than fighting the left....

....The incidents of late with Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Dick Cheney, and others is why I raise this. Putting it bluntly, were these guys on the left, their fellow leftists would at best be cheering them on and at worst silently nodding along. There wouldn’t be any on that side rushing to the nearest microphone to condemn them.... Peter denied Christ three times. Our goal should be to not deny Christ and also to not deny the valuable members of our own movement. Embracing them does not mean we embrace every word and every deed. But it should likewise mean we don’t race to the nearest microphone to condemn our own when they do something [indiscreet]. The people we should shun are the ones who are quick to throw the rest of us out for daring to stand up for our friends.

When guys like Erick resort to Biblical analogies in this way, it always raises the question in my mind: Who will be the Judas who betrays Jesus -- and in essence the entire conservative movement?

I'm sure they'll come up with someone. They're good at that.

Blue Texan at FDL has more.

I have been really enjoying this stuff, I can't lie. Watching conservative wingnut talk-show hosts attack other Republicans has been a joy. It's not only Limbaugh fighting with the GOP and then watching them come a crawling back to beg forgiveness either. They usually focus on the evil liberals and dirty f*&king hippies who hate America (people like you and me), so after I listened to this segment back in March, I knew we had won more than an election.

The infrastructure of talk radio (and FOX News) that was built to try and make America a one-party (conservative) system is now cannibalizing itself and Rush Limbaugh is the Zombie King. Mark Levin was offended by Frum's criticisms of Limbaugh in this article:

On the one side, the president of the United States: soft-spoken and conciliatory, never angry, always invoking the recession and its victims. This president invokes the language of “responsibility,” and in his own life seems to epitomize that ideal: He is physically honed and disciplined, his worst vice an occasional cigarette. He is at the same time an apparently devoted husband and father. Unsurprisingly, women voters trust and admire him.

And for the leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as “losers.” With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence – exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we’re cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush’s every rancorous word – we’ll be seeing them rebroadcast for a long time.

Levin took offense at what he considered personal attacks against the Zombie King; he wouldn't even link up Frum's columns, but did read some of it to his audience while Frum tried to debate the merits of his case. Frum's central point was that Limbaugh is taking the GOP in the wrong direction -- something that's become obvious to everyone except the Zombies like Levin.

Every slimy thing Karl Rove did before and after Bush is unraveling, no matter how much Villagers like Gloria Borger elevate Rove to godlike status:

And they haven't stopped fighting...

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