When you’re wrong, you’re wrong and it’s always best to face up to the facts and just admit it. Here goes: I was wrong, very wrong… I was OH SO WRONG about Glenn Beck in my post yesterday. I said that Beck was getting boring. Running out of steam. That his rants were getting repetitive.

In a word: HAH!

Oh, man, I really blew it, didn’t I? Turns out that there was merely a brief lull in the monkeyshines. Beck was just tuning up the orchestra before unleashing the grandest, most fucked-up (not to mention “supernatural”) conspiracy theory that he’s yet come up with in that fetid, rancid, over-heated little brain of his.

Last night’s broadcast, well, Glenn Beck made a fool of me.

Watch in disbelief as Beck uses information gleaned from a new crackpot Christian prophecy book called The Islamic Antichrist. Embraced by the batshit crazy WorldNet Daily crowd (natch), The Islamic Antichrist posits the theory that the Mahdi, the end-times Islamic redeemer/Messiah who Muslims believe will come to Earth to rid it of evildoers, the tyranny of kings and despots and, of course, the infidels, is in fact, the same fellow Christians call the Antichrist. (Their good guy = our bad guy. Makes sense so far, right? Except that the Koran says the Mahdi works WITH Jesus, keep that in mind and there is already a direct Muslim equivalent to the Antichrist known as Masih ad-Dajjal, “the deceiving Messiah,” although this character doesn’t actually appear in the Koran itself).

Within Islam, the Mahdi is often conflated or considered to be synonymous, with the 12th Imam (see Twelvers), who is prophesied to set up a worldwide Caliphate. The Islamic Antichrist, written by a guy calling himself “Joel Richardson” (apparently a pseudonym to protect him from seeing a fatwa put on his head—DO watch this video for more on this ass-clown) does appear to have some valid points (the Christian eschaton and the Islamic end-times stuff do have many parallels), but Beck being Beck, he takes what are in fact, “facts” about supernatural holy books from over a thousand years ago (interpreted by a fanatical modern day believer, of course) and then turns around and PARADES THESE “FACTS” ABOUT SUPERNATURAL PROPHECIES AS “CURRENT EVENTS ANALYSIS” ON WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE A “NEWS” NETWORK and not the fucking 700 Club. It would really be stretching it to call a book like The Islamic Antichrist, “non-fiction,” if you take my point, so what value would a “fact” about fiction (or a religious holy book, both are the same to me) have? It’s an empty calorie for most people. For Glenn Beck, it’s a motif whistled by his good old prophetic buddy Joel that he can turn into a conspiracy theory symphony of small-minded (albeit brilliant) religious bigotry that is positively Wagnerian—by way of Jack Van Impe—in its scope.

Fuck me… he’s good! It was a new, fresh low for Fox News, but a triumph, a tour de force, for Glenn Beck, personally.

Incorporating Biblical (and now Koranic!) “prophecy” into a wild-eyed, bughouse crazy conspiracy theory is EXACTLY the trick Beck needed to really draw the faithful back into his drama and shore up his ratings in the middle of a big dip. My hat is off to him: Glenn Beck, you are a MAESTRO of weaving together paranoia, bigotry, misrepresentation of history and wacko religious beliefs, and although the sight of you turns my stomach, I will say this: You are a genius showman. A genius. Your schtick is fucked up, corrosive to American civic life (or what’s left of it because of people like you) and I hope you’ll be raptured soon (on camera, if you can swing it). Still, as a person raised in a family of West Virginia born-agains who all vote Republican (and don’t even know why), I now have a grudging respect for your immense talents.

You’re an artist. No, an artiste! But you are no political scientist, Glenn. On that count you’re not much better than a tinfoil hat-wearing Ham radio conspiracy theorist living alone in a trailer somewhere in the Nevada desert with a cache of automatic weapons, saving his pee-pee in mason jars, but boy oh boy are you a master at coming up with plot-lines that Tim LaHaye, Hal Lindsay and Jack T. Chick would envy and turning it all into a personal fortune on prime time America tee-vee!  When it comes to taking crazy, fucked-up religulous bullshit and making it sound plausible for an audience of low IQ dolts who should be asked to take a test in critical thinking skills before they vote (or are issued a driver’s license), you are DA MAN!

The thing the kept going through my mind, though, as I watched this (other than wondering what Kirk Cameron thought of it all) is that Beck really seems to be setting himself up to become the next Salman Rushdie by explicitly welding Islamaphobia with Christian Eschatology in an insecure time. Who knows, maybe that would be appealing to his pathologies and his oft-admitted martyr complex?
 

 
There’s no way around it: Glenn Beck is just getting dull. Yesterday’s pulseless rant against Google is the lamest Glenn Beck clip I’ve yet seen. Fuckin’ Google??? How can he expect to reverse the nearly 50% loss of his audience with banal rants like this one? If Beck’s not incendiary, he’s nuthin’ and this is just limp. You can tell that he’s only reading off a script here. Even he doesn’t believe his own bullshit. The dots he’s supposedly connecting wouldn’t impress the dumbest people in his audience. And this whole George Soros thing? Give it up, dude, you’re getting no traction with it. Tides Foundation? Van Jones? Where is the rage, Glenn Beck? Have you lost your mojo, but good? It’s like someone nailed your shoe to the floor. Now you just walk around in circles, repeating the same nonsense each day.

Yup, dude needs a new schtick soon or he’s headed for the scrap heap. Who’d want to watch someone say the same shit day after day after day, like Beck does? Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert can’t get much mileage from Beck when he’s this dull. If even his detractors stop caring, where will Beck be a year or two from now? (Dancing With the Stars, perhaps? Raptured? Let’s hope!). Even an audience comprised of a bunch of dummies needs a little spice.

Glenn Beck’s act is feeling really long in the tooth. He’s petering out. Remember Joe Pyne and Morton Downey Jr.? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. I think the trajectory of their careers is what fate has in store for Beck, too. He’s got a novelty act and novelty acts simply get tired after a few years.

Why doesn’t Fox News just go straight to the source and replace Beck with Alex Jones, I wonder?
 

Yes, I know that this image is photoshopped.

As expected, the “immigration panel” at the annual Conservative Political Action Committee conference delivered in spades. Chock-full of zany pronouncements about people whose ethnicity, they, the people making them—the rich, white, Fox News-watching Christian people attending CPAC—have no understanding of, or have never personally come in direct contact with that often, themselves. Whilst not as neanderthal or freaked out as your typical Tea party rally, it didn’t let me down. And remember, these pitifully ignorant folks parading themselves around as “experts” on immigration and race at CPAC, are the “intellectuals” of the movement!

From Right Wing Watch:

If there is one message to take away from CPAC’s panel on immigration, it’s that White America is in serious jeopardy and may soon succumb to immigration, multiculturalism, and socialism. The panel “Will Immigration Kill the GOP?” featured former congressmen Tom Tancredo (R-CO) and Virgil Goode (R-VA), Bay Buchanan of Team America PAC, and special guest Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA). The group Youth for Western Civilization sponsored the panel, and its head Kevin DeAnna was also a panelist. Youth for Western Civilization is a far-right group that regularly criticizes affinity groups on college campuses, especially those that represent black, Hispanic, LGBT, Native American, and Muslim students.

Tancredo, a star among anti-immigrant activists, started the event by claiming that he wasn’t bigoted against Latinos and that the majority of Hispanic Americans support him and favor Arizona’s draconian SB-1070 law. “I have a lot of people who have Hispanic last names who support me,” Tancredo told the jam-packed room, “I speak for most Americans.” The former congressman, who in 2010 received just 37% of the vote in his bid for governor of Colorado, claimed that the GOP should embrace his nativist politics because immigration is the “ultimate economic issue,” and even claimed that Hispanics supported him over his Democratic opponent, Governor John Hickenlooper.

Responding to a questioner who believed that Democrats would drop their support of immigration reform if immigrants were stripped of their right to vote, Tancredo said that even immigrants without voting rights still pose a grave danger to the country.

“No more of this multiculturalism garbage,” Tancredo said, adding that “the cult of multiculturalism has captured the world” and is “the dagger in the heart” of civilization.

Not to be out done, Goode maintained that immigration in general “will not only kill the GOP but will kill the United States of America.” He went on to say that Democratic politicians support undocumented immigration only in order to introduce “socialized medicine” and gain future voters. The Virginia firebrand maintained that the majority of Americans favor his fervently anti-immigrant views, and wanted every state to emulate Arizona’s SB-1070. He asked, “Who could really be against doing away with birthright citizenship?”

[Hmmm, just hazarding a guess here… nah. Sorry, I don’t want to interrupt—RM]

DeAnna of Youth for Western Civilization gave a much darker outlook on the success of the Republican Party, and the country as a whole. He said that the “system is stacked against” the anti-immigrant movement, maintaining that an alliance of corporate and Republican elites is preventing the party from moving farther to the right on the issue of immigration. He warned of the rising tide of multiculturalism, especially among young people. “The Left gets power from multiculturalism,” DeAnna said, and “when you lose the culture you lose the policy too.”

He also argued that the GOP is “dead” in California because of the rising population of Latinos, and said that the Democratic Party and their allies in organized labor want further immigration to strengthen their electoral clout.

Speaking as a Californian, Kevin DeAnna is certainly right on that account. But what he also doesn’t seem to realize is, that it’s not—it’s never—going to change. The GOP are the party of “no hopers” in the Golden State (just ask Meg Whitman, Steve Cooley and Carly Fiorina) and that’s going to absolutely solidify with the demographic shift. Virtually nothing that his organization wants would fly for even two seconds in the country’s richest and most populous state! [Question for Mr. DeAnna: Since you are unlikely to disagree with the proposition that California’s Latino population will continue to grow, almost assuredly outpacing the caucasian birthrate (whether these children are the offspring of legal or illegal immigrants, it doesn’t matter) what influence do you think your organization will have in the California of 2020, or 2050? On a scale of one to ten?]

But while many panelists like Tancredo and Buchanan began their speeches by saying that they were absolutely not bigoted or racist in any way, participants at the event asked many racially-tinged questions.

A questioner asked Goode how to “control immigration from the Islamic and Arab world,” and said that unless that happens there could be “more Keith Ellisons.” Ellison is a Democratic congressman from Minnesota who converted to Islam as an adult, and is not an immigrant, but Goode did write a letter to his constituents saying, “The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration, there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.”

Another questioner discussed how astounded he was that “in the northeast, majority-Caucasian communities” tend to back “support ‘amnesty,’” or at least pro-reform politicians. He asked the panelists how he could turn more “Caucasian communities” against amnesty, and Buchanan assured him that even voters in Massachusetts oppose reform efforts like the DREAM Act.

One member of the audience wondered if Congress could “defund the National Council of La Raza,” a Latino civil rights group, which he said was “just like the Ku Klux Klan.” Goode appeared to agree, and demanded that Congress end the organization’s funding. Asking if “it’s possible that [American] society devolves into South Africa,” one questioner discussed the declining population rate of “European Americans” and floated the idea of ethnic groups living separately [Emphasis added]. While he directed the question towards Barletta, the congressman ignored the question.

Evidently, while the panel’s speakers see unrepentant Nativism and immigrant-bashing as the way for the GOP’s electoral success, it mainly appealed to the CPAC attendees who feared the demise of White America and the emergence of a more diverse population. All four panelists agreed that unless the Republican Party embraces their hard line anti-immigrant stance, the GOP will become inextricably weakened and the country will dissolve into multicultural dystopia.

Although the panelists all said that it wasn’t about race, it’s easy to see why many audience members thought it was.

Newsweek editor Eleanor Clift, reporting at The Daily Beast, mentions a sign she saw at CPAC that read “Why are you a conservative?” * The most succinct response: “Because God is.” Presumably God is also caucasian, lives in a Red State and thinks Obama is a socialist. A heavenly couch potato Rush Limbaugh fan, if certain leaps of faith can be made about the big “H.I.M.” creating man in his own image and the blinkered belief systems of the CPAC attendees.

Below, Kevin DeAnna, the founder of Youth for Western Civilization talks to Justin Elliott of Salon.com at CPAC 2011. This guy was on the fucking immigration panel!
 

Above, Pat Toomey says it’s not the size…
 
Senator Pat Toomey, that rotten shit who is the new Republican Senator from Pennsylvania, tells the CPAC attendees his political philosophy in a form that they can all understand, that of a simple children’s story. Amazing. How does a scoundrel like this get elected to the Senate in a state so full of poor and working class people??? The man clearly hates the poor, they’re just “useless eaters” to him and his GOP buddies. Toomey even puts Rick Santorum in perspective! The sight of Toomey turns my stomach. He’s anti-gay, anti-poor, anti-healthcare reform, pro-gun, says global warming is nonsense, was against the Bush expansion of Medicare prescription benefits when he was a congressman and thinks that the economic meltdown should have been allowed to continue to the bitter end! (Oddly, Toomey supported DADT repeal. Go figure).

If teabagger Toomey—who should immediately stop dying his hair—had his druthers he would deregulate Wall Street and put a doctor who performs a legal abortion in prison, but when it comes to politics, he’s all for baby-talking to his base of buffoons. CPAC is going to be quite a show this year. These fucks are just tuning up the orchestra before unleashing a full-on symphony of hate. Non-haters need not apply to speak at CPAC. Her reasons are her reasons, but I have to say that Sarah Palin looks especially canny by avoiding this cavalcade of asshats.

Bonus: If you really want to make yourself retch, check out the video of Newt Gingrich’s CPAC entrance to the sounds of Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger.” What a tacky little man. You have to appreciate the brain-dead embrace of this guy by Christian conservatives. Newt Gingrich, a man who left his wife while she was battling cancer for a much hotter, younger woman, treated like a rock star by these people and not a moral pariah, which would be appropriate (the way John Edwards was shunned by Democrats). Extraordinary stuff.
 

 
Now this is good TV! Ever since I stopped giving a fuck that I live in a land of lard-encrusted intellectual midgets and learned to sit back, relax and grab a good seat for the end times reality teevee show, my life’s been so much less stressful.

Why just a few short weeks ago, I’d have been apoplectic at the sight of these moronic Iowa Republicans passing judgement on Obama’s Middle East foreign policy as if even one of these ignoramuses could find Egypt on a map. The punch line happens just before the one minute mark, when all is revealed….

Here’s an astute comment from YouTube:

This is what happens when when you fail to learn how to think critically and judge the validity of your sources of information. These people feel confident in their beliefs because they never put any real thought into them.

Arguing with such people is often fruitless, because directly confronting them usually causes them to retreat further in their beliefs. To get them to question their beliefs you would first need to improve their methods of thinking, which is not an easy thing to do.

He’s right, you can’t just snap your fingers in front of an idiot’s face and say “Wise up, dumbshit!” and expect that it will happen. Even Fox New’s Frank Luntz seems embarrassed for these people, which is saying a lot.

Bonus clip, Glennspeed You! Beck Emperor:
 

 
It is positively mind-blowing that Michele Bachmann’s favorite “hard rock” preacher Bradlee Dean (whose ministry is reportedly under investigation by the IRS) is let anywhere near impressionable children with his bizarre version of (ahem) “Christianity.” And yet he’s not merely allowed to be with children, he’s actually invited to preach to them in Minnesota public school classrooms with his shitty heavy metal band, Junkyard Prophet! Now he’s also got a radio show, apparently…

From Right Wing Watch:

Bryan Fischer’s appearance on Sons of Liberty, a Genesis Communication Network radio show, was filled with his characteristic rants about the purported ties between gays and Nazism, gays and the Obama Administration, and gays and “brainwashing” students in public schools. While such claims are nothing new coming from Fischer, the American Family Association’s Director of Issue Analysis, he was spewing out his anti-gay conspiracy theories on a radio program hosted by Bradlee Dean of the influential Minnesota ministry, “You Can Run But You Cannot Hide.”

Dean’s You Can Run has found supporters in Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and the unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor Tom Emmer. Emmer’s campaign donated to the Ministry, and Bachmann even prayed to thank God about You Can Run “for how You are going to expand this radio program, how You are going to expand their video program, their publications, how You are going to advance them from 260 schools a year, Lord, to 2,600 schools a year.”

Fischer and Dean’s show was quite a meeting of the conspiratorial minds. Dean has claimed that Congressman Keith Ellison, a Muslim, is using gay rights to topple the Constitution and introduce Sharia law, and that executing gays is “moral.”

Imagine how you’d feel finding out that Bradlee Dean had “performed” his act at your kid’s school and you had no warning beforehand? I’d be fucking furious.

If you are brave enough to listen to this, have a barf bag handy. A pig-ignorant hillbilly homophobe like Bradlee Dean should be denounced, exposed and shamed as the bigoted jackass he is by the people of Minnesota. THESE TWO GUYS talking about Nazis?!?!?! (Note to Bradlee Dean if he’s reading this: Have someone smarter than you are explain the concept of “preposterous irony” to you, buddy!).

Yuck. What does it say about the state when low IQ asshats like this are not merely tolerated, but condoned—and even financially supported—by Minnesota’s establishment Republican politicians? Why aren’t Minnesota’s progressives making hay of this matter? An association with the likes of Bradlee Dean, let alone a monstrous dickhead like Bryan Fischer (I’m looking right at you Tim Pawlenty) should be, in a just and reasonable country, a reason to be ostracized and shunned, not embraced.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds
America is a bottomless pit of idiots: Meet Bradlee Dean (and hear Michele Bachmann pray for him!)

 
Crazy Christian teenagers pray for Obama (a secret Muslim, or so they heard via an ALL CAPS EMAIL, no doubt) to convert to Christianity by a laying of hands on a life-size Obama cardboard stand-up! Extraordinary! The most stunning display of superstition and ignorance I’ve seen in quite some time (not that this is any sort of accomplishment).
 

 
Via On Knees for Jesus

 
I’m perhaps a little bit late on this one, but this has to be the single funniest clip of a Tea bagger having his ass handed to him on a silver platter that I have ever seen. I snickered derisively throughout this as Hardball host Chris Matthews hangs Tea Party Express founder Sal Russo out to dry on a hook for the world to see. To be fair, Russo was cast in the unenviable role of having to intellectually defend gross misstatements of historical fact by Rep. Michele Bachman, who just makes shit up that sounds good, or that seems to bolster her other misstatements of fact, as she goes along. A tough act to follow. But he tried! What a fool he looks trying.

Russo keeps trying to maneuver it so he can repeat one of his Tea party talking points, but Matthews will have none of it. Bachmann, it’s obvious to almost anyone with an IQ over 50, is a complete buffoon and yet she is the de facto spokesperson for Sal’s organization. And he can’t make even a single valid point to defend her! It gets even funnier as it goes on and Joan Walsh really rips Russo a new one as well.

I like “Balloonhead” as a name for Bachmann, too. I hope it sticks!

Note to Russo: Matthews treated you with the respect that you deserved, which is to say: none. You might want to reconsider making TV appearances where you are called upon to defend something which is intellectually indefensible (and you even know it, beforehand!). This is what’s gonna happen anytime you venture out of the FOX News echo-chamber with your lame-o talking points, buddy. You got no game, Russo. None. Do you really need to see yourself on TV so badly that you’re willing to look this bad?

Can you imagine how Russo felt after this taping? Ouch. HIs ass must’ve hurt.

The Ultimate Collection Of Bad Michele Bachmann Quotes (BuzzFeed)
 

 
Via Joe.My.God.

 
A bunch of goofy holy roller-types confront some Hooters waitresses about their sins. Incredible. FF to 1:30 when the action begins.

Holy Preachers preach to Hooter girls who want to confront the righteousness. In this video, the Hooters girls actually come out to meet the preachers. Listen as one of them claims that her dad is a “pastor” and that she is not going to Hell because she asked Jesus into her heart! Her dad is leading her straight to Hell! What a dad and pastor he is!

 
Via The American Jesus

 
Bang… bang… Looks likes someone’s words are coming back to haunt them! Here’s a transcript of what he said on Fox News on June 9, 2010:

“I will stand against you and so will millions of others. We believe in something. You in the media and most in Washington don’t. The radicals that you and Washington have co-opted and brought in wearing sheep’s clothing — change the pose. You will get the ends.

You’ve been using them? They believe in communism. They believe and have called for a revolution. You’re going to have to shoot them in the head. But warning, they may shoot you.”

How much longer is America prepared to put up with this asshole? How can ANY company want their product associated with him and this kind of message! The man is literally advocating treason and yet he’s rewarded with millions of dollars a year and the adoration of Fox News watching nitwits?

Moral to the story: If you piss in the wind, don’t be surprised when it comes back to hit you in the face…