Trump's Big CON: The Donald is a Russian Agent, CONt. Part 6 (AKA the GOP Coverup)

Another MUST READ, the Washington Post, Republicans are desperate to protect Trump from Mueller. But will their strategy work?, which states in full:

"In their desperate attempt to protect President Trump from the Russia scandal and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, sizable portions of the Republican Party have returned to a place they know well. It’s the home of intricate conspiracy theories, where nothing is as it seems and the most mundane pieces of information are proof of sinister machinations so shocking that any tactics are justified in order to expose them.

It’s a place where only those willing to believe the most outlandish and ludicrous tales are able to grasp reality and where the truth is a hundred times worse than you think. It’s a madhouse, and they’re moving right in.

As bizarre as this all sounds, there’s a logic to it. If these Republicans can convince the public not only that Trump and those around him did nothing wrong but also that he’s the target of a malevolent conspiracy, then nothing that Mueller or any news organization reveals needs to be believed. It can all be cast aside as fruit of that poisonous tree, no matter what the facts might say.

But will that strategy work? I’d argue that it will work to save Trump from impeachment but won’t work to protect him from the political fallout this November and in 2020.

First, let’s take a quick tour around the fever swamp. The first object of Republican fascination is a memo attacking the FBI that Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), chair of the House Intelligence Committee, has been circulating. Though Democrats describe it as an absurd collection of tendentious talking points, conservatives have begun a #ReleaseTheMemo campaign (with the help of Russian social media bots) in the hope of attracting as much attention to it as possible. They seem to believe that once it is made public, everyone will realize that the entire Russia investigation is a sham. Spoiler alert: They won’t.

Then there are the text messages sent by an FBI agent and an FBI lawyer — given to Congress by the Justice Department — that reveal that the two of them didn’t think particularly highly of Trump. This has been spun out into the preposterous idea that the FBI is the center of a liberal conspiracy to destroy the president, with the mundane words exchanged by the two employees plumbed for evidence of the dark forces at work.

In the latest twist, members of Congress found a text that made reference to a 'secret society,' which of course couldn’t have been a joke, since everyone knows secret societies all go around talking about how they’re secret societies. This one, Republicans are convinced, was organized inside the FBI to bring Trump down.

'It’s more than bias, but corruption at the highest levels of the FBI and that secret society,' said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). 'We have an informant that is talking about a group that were holding secret meetings off-site. There is so much smoke here, there is so much suspicion.'

Johnson did not mention whether the Illuminati or Dumbledore’s Army might have been involved, but oh boy are the conservative media eating it up. 'It may be time to declare war outright against the deep state and clear out the rot in the upper levels of the FBI and the Justice Department,' thundered Fox Business’s Lou Dobbs.

It is absolutely no surprise that Republicans, including members of Congress, have found their way to lunatic conspiracy theories on the Russia question. That’s because it’s what they always do. They insisted that Barack Obama was a Kenyan-born Muslim enacting a carefully laid plan to destroy the United States. They convinced themselves that Bill Clinton ran a drug-running operation out of an Arkansas airport and had dozens of his political adversaries murdered. They decided that Hillary Clinton and John Podesta were running a child sex ring out of a D.C. pizza restaurant. The president they revere has gushed praise on conspiracy radio host Alex Jones, who has said that 9/11 was an inside job and the massacre at Sandy Hook was staged with child actors.

Not all Republicans tumble down these rabbit holes, but there will always be substantial numbers of the Republican electorate, Republican media figures and Republican elected officials who do. Whether they actually believe this stuff isn’t really the point. To repeat, the purpose is to convince the public that anything that comes out of the Mueller investigation can be discounted and disbelieved, no matter how incriminating it seems.

Will people believe that? Some will. Fox News viewers get it hammered into their waiting eyes every night. Rush Limbaugh’s listeners get a daily education in the sinister plans of the deep state. Breitbart readers learn from Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) that it all ties together: 'If you don’t think that Fast and Furious, if you don’t think that Benghazi, for the lack of accountability, if you don’t think the IRS and the unmasking are tied together with the weaponization of our Department of Justice and political advocates, think again.'

All that amounts to an insurance policy against impeachment. Because in order to stave impeachment off, you don’t have to convince all Americans that Trump is innocent of whatever charges Mueller raises. All you have to do is convince enough Republican members of Congress that their constituents (i.e., Republican voters) won’t stand for it. Those members of Congress might or might not think it’s all a liberal deep state conspiracy, but if they think their constituents believe it, they won’t support impeachment no matter what gets revealed.

But there’s a critical limitation to that strategy. It might keep Trump from getting impeached, but it won’t keep Republicans from getting crushed in November’s midterm elections. In fact, it may make a wave election more likely, by making Democratic voters more angry and appalled and therefore eager to turn out to vote. And it won’t help Trump get reelected, either. The more unhinged Trump’s defenders look, the more voters in the middle who took a risk and gave Trump a shot may regret it.

But all that’s too far in the future for the Republican conspiracy theorists. They have one goal now: protect Trump from Mueller. They might not succeed, but they’re going to go to any length to do it."

Countdown to Fools Day, Bwahahahaha!!!!

UPDATE V:   After enumerating the 64 pages of the delusions and lies, Arduini asks [beginning on page 61, presented in a different order] Pastor Truthiness aka Huckster and Con Man and Sheriff Joe’s Scooby Doo gang ould be so "consistently, comprehensively and unapologetically wrong"?

Do they beleve what they say?  If so, it "would not reflect well on their intelligence, but then again neither of them has ever demonstrated any but the most ordinary of intellectual gifts. Zullo is demonstrably one of the worst investigators in the history of the profession. And without the technological help of the Internet, Gallups would still be just an obscure southern pastor of only the 2 nd largest SBC congregation in the little town of Milton "

Is it "an expression of fundamentally racist impulse[?] This is not to say that all Birthers are racists, or more specifically that either Gallups or Zullo are racist. Certainly, there has been next to nothing in their statements, writing or actions that betray an obviously racist motivation. But they embrace enthusiastically the contention that Obama is somehow 'other.'"

Or have:

"Gallups and Zullo together have simply been engaged in a scam[?] It is a suggestion certainly worthy of consideration. “Send money” had been one of the most consistent components of their message since the earliest moments of their collaboration, and recently Mike Shoesmith has been compelled to explicitly deny that accusation. But even before the first Cold Case Posse press conference, Zullo was cashing in via an eBook published for sale on Amazon. His excuse for immediately getting his hands caught in that particular cookie jar was that the media had refused to cover the press conference, and so an alternative way to get the story out was required. This is difficult to reconcile with the fact that the eBook was actually already on sale before the first press conference had even taken place.

Cormac Herley, a computer security expert at Microsoft Research, wrote a paper in 2012 explaining why the Nigerian Email Scams are so pathetically obvious to the average person.  Using an approach called “signal theory” he mathematically analyzed the con but with an important new insight. He decided to look at the con from the perspective of the scammers rather than that of the victims. He realized that it cost them next to nothing to spam the world. But to make real money, they needed to be able to efficiently tell the difference between the 'true positives' ( those who would get sucked in deeply enough to send a significant amount of money ) and the 'false positives' ( targets who might seem like suckers at first, but who later got suspicious and bailed out early before they paid off). 'False positives' were expensive. They wasted time and resources that could have been more profitably spent on the 'true positives.'

In short, the Nigerian Email Scams are deliberately stupid specifically to filter out even those with only the tiniest bit of common sense, and to insure that those responding were already identified as complete idiots.

It is difficult to listen to a Gallups broadcast without suspecting that this is also his intent. Seriously… 'universe shattering?' 'Deeper and deeper, darker and darker?' 'Tons of  evidence is piling up,' but 'I’m not at liberty to tell you' what it is?  Scores of 'VIPs are on board,' powerful people with 'unlimited financial resources' and 'standing' to 'move this forward to congressional investigations' or 'criminal prosecutions,' but I can’t tell you who any of them are?

What rational person could listen to months of such elaborate and melodramatic gibberish and not run for the door? The argument that this has been nothing more than an elaborate grift designed to separate the most credulous and vulnerable of Birthers from their retirement checks is not without merit."

Read also, Slate, The GOP’s Grifter Problem, Why the Republican Party attracts provocateurs, faux martyrs, and grifters in droves, which notes " the energy of the conservative movement—and thus the Republican Party—is geared toward these people. If you want money and attention, you could do worse than become a conservative provocateur. Right-wing resentment—stoked by impossible promises and harnessed through donations—built a fortune for Glenn Beck, a political career for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and a burgeoning media empire for the late Andrew Breitbart. . . it's hard not to see the whole operation as a perpetual swindle."

UPDATE IV: Since shortly after Birther's Fool Day, "Frank Arduini has posted a compiled, footnoted version of his series of articles on Carl Gallups at SCRIBD", which begins:

"At the most granular level [Gallups] embraces as true every absurd Birther ‘fact’ no matter how long ago it was utterly debunked. His more comprehensive theories are simultaneously erroneous on their own and mutually contradictory when considered together. His pronouncements on the issue have progressively escalated in urgency and absurdity over the months and years, and yet the outcomes have never once changed. Every deadline he sets is missed. Every prediction he ventures ends up being wrong. Every accusation he makes proves false. Every promise he makes crumbles to ash in the mouths of his rapt Birther flock.

But only long enough for him to rinse and repeat. "

The 64 page article is a complete timeline of the delusions and lies promoted by Sheriff Joe’s Scooby Doo gang and Pastor Truthiness aka Huckster and Con Man.

On page 26, the much claimed 'universe-shattering' evidence is revealed -- a Sherrif who attended the The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) in May 2013 and a closed session "limited to 'sworn law enforcement officials' and 'congressmen' . . . to provide a 'FULL criminal disclosure' of the 'new information' that Zullo claimed to have accumulated over the year since the Posse’s first press conference:

[P]osted to his FaceBook account (with what was for him a typically casual attitude towards grammar, spelling, capitalization and syntax) that:

here’s what I was told, VIA cold case possie , 1) bozo isn’t American nor was he born in Hawaii, 2) they believe he’s Saudi , 3) their not his real parents, 4) Russia is involved, 5) it wasn’t an accident he’s president, 6) bill ayers and the weather underground are involved, 7) Kenya played a roll, Hawaii state officials did the birth certificate, he has several other names , not just the ones the public knows about, 9) he don’t exsist in the usa until the age of 5.....10) WERE ALL F*CKED "

Enjoy a good laugh at our dear Pastor!  But anybody who believes this really is a fool!!

UPDATE III:  After another show "promising universe-shattering disclosures, but providing nothing but 'any day now,'" Pastor Truthiness aka Huckster and Con Man 'threw the birther web sites under the bus', complaining of "the amount whining, complaining and false information and flat-out fabricated information that continues to spill out of the birther movement." [A great example of the pot calling the kettle black.]

Read Obama Conspiracy Theories, Gallups turns on birthers: calls them "whiners".

Soon after, "a firestorm of commentary erupted" and was then erased, but not before it was copied.

Read Obama Conspiracy Theories, Triple-scrubbing the birthers.  

Then watch What Birthers Believe, to understand the warped racist Birther thinking that "Barack Obama was intentionally conceived to become president and destroy America."

And read Obama Conspiracy Theories, CCP Universe-shattering evidence revealed, which notes:

It is common for people who believe one conspiracy theory to believe others, and as far as I am concerned, it is no stretch whatever to connect the random dots weaving Obama birtherism into the well-established traditions of the John Birch Society, theories of the International Communist Conspiracy, black helicopters and UN Agenda 21. If the world woke up to a vision of being controlled by a secret elite, where wars, disasters, and calamity were all controlled by hidden hands, where even the President of the United States was a puppet fiction, wouldn’t that truly shatter the universe?

Conspiracy theorists have a hard time coming to grips with rejection. They feel that anyone with moderate intelligence, courage, and honesty will inevitably agree with them. Perhaps this is why Mike Zullo and Carl Gallups set goal after goal involving VIPs that are getting on board, only to be unable to deliver. Perhaps they expected that meeting with a VIP equaled convincing them—but that just didn’t happen.

I hope Zullo comes out with his universe-shattering information, because it would make him even more of laughing stock, and we could all go home."

And because revealing the so-called "universe-shattering information" would make Pastor Truthiness aka Huckster and Con Man a laughing stock even to 'Gallups' gullibles', it will always be "any day now". 

UPDATE III:  For all the Birther Fools, call Pastor Truthiness aka Huckster and Con Man, and ask him to reconcile the following Bible verses with his numerous lies:

Proverbs 12:22 (KJV): “Lying lips are abomination to the Lord: but they that deal truly are his delight.”

Proverbs 15:14 (KJV): “The heart of him that hath understanding seeketh knowledge: but the mouth of fools feedeth on foolishness.”

And when he attempts to bolster his credibility on legal issues by claiming to that he is "a former Florida law enforcement officer", ask him why his name is not in a  database of past and present Florida law enforcement officers.

UPDATE II:  Today is the last day, or not.  Tomorrow, Birther Fool's Day, we will know who the fools are.

Bwahahahaha!!!!

UPDATE:  A radio talk show host -- a "man who got rich making multiple false claims", "promis[ing] to reveal the things 'They Don’t Want You to Know About', a clever marketing strategy that makes it seem as if The Powers That Be are suppressing information you need" and that "the government constantly [was] trying to suppress the truth, with nefarious figures involved in a vast conspiracy" -- was held in contempt of court, fined $37 million, and sentenced to 10 year in prison.

"He also claims to be a victim of this conspiracy himself, with the government trying to keep him from telling people what’s really going on", which he knows because he gets “information from a secret group . . . Of course, since they’re a secret group, he cannot reveal the identities of the people in it or much else about it.”

No, it wasn't the Pastor Truthiness aka Huckster and Con Man, or anyone else from the "Sheriff Joe’s Scooby Doo gang", at least not yet.

Read Slate, Kevin Trudeau: Quackery Promoter Jailed for Contempt, which notes that "[s]kepticism and critical thinking are tiring. They’re exhausting. The battles against pseudoscience, against the attacks on reality, against the erosion of the ability to make rational decisions…they never end. There is always more nonsense out there, more outrageous claims that fly in the face of reality. And what’s worse is how often it’s the same thing again and again."

This is a continuation of the Birther Bwahahahaha!!!!, the growing laughter at the Birther delusions.




Birther Fool's Day is the first day after the month that the universe 'shattered', as promised by the "Sheriff Joe’s Scooby Doo gang"to 'Gallups' gullibles' on 'fellatio Friday' in mid-December (the 'universe-shattering' twist was being promoted elsewhere in late November).

It is no coincidence that Birther Fool's Day is April 1st.

Try to contain your laughter, if you can.

Bwahahahaha!!!!

UPDATE X:  Thank to RC Radio Blog, there is a timeline of some of the many claims and promises made by the "Sheriff Joe’s Scooby Doo gang" to 'Gallups' gullibles' on 'fellatio Friday', read MCSO Cold Case Posse Timeline.  

And as Obama Conspiracy Theories summarizes: 

"One year ago today, Zullo and his posse said through Carl Gallups, 'We will be gaining an audience with some VIPs from around the nation… we have some attorney generals and some congressmen who have said that they would perhaps speak with us; and one congressman in particular WANTS to meet with us….'

And all through this time we’ve seen 'person of interest,' 'enormous,' 'block buster,' 'definite plan of action,' 'full steam ahead,' 'there will be new revelations,' ' this isn’t speculation any more,' 'breathtaking,' 'indisputable proof,' 'you won’t believe the bombshells,' 'explosive evidence,' 'shocker,' '[Arpaio] will do something after the election,' and 'surprises are coming.' In January 2013 we learned that due to unfortunate circumstances, the Cold Case Posse turned to the far-superior 'Plan B.' With plan B 'full steam ahead' we learn about 'absolute forensic verification' and that they are in 'total law enforcement perspective' mode again with a 'definitive plan of action now in the works,' 'gaining audience with some VIP’s,' 'powerful things could begin happening,' 'possible that something monumental will occur,' 'real progress over the next several months (this was a year ago),' 'undeniable evidence,' and last April, 'the investigation is over.' With the completion of the investigation, Zullo concluded, 'we’re in the driver’s seat.' Then, 'information breaking' about VIP’s, 'hopefully by mid-summer (last summer),' 'light at the end of the tunnel,' 'possibly mid–summer,' 'three to six month window is still very plausible,' 'the evidence is mounting up,' and 'it will be universe shattering.'

And here we are two years later with none of this having come to pass. The VIP’s never materialized, what arguments that were released were shot down, and the Reed Hayes report remains unreleased. For the past two years we have seen nothing but publicity and promises from the Cold Case Posse. It’s pretty pathetic."

The so-called Pastor is just another huckster and con man. 

UPDATE IX:  Tomorrow begins the month the universe will 'shatter', as promised by the "Sheriff Joe’s Scooby Doo gang"to 'Gallups' gullibles' on 'fellatio Friday' in mid-December (the 'universe-shattering' twist was being promoted elsewhere in late November).

From Obama Conspiracy Theories, Birther apocalypse:

In less than 24 hours it will be the month of March, when Mike Zullo and Carl Gallups will strap on their swords, Obot Cleaver and Fogbow Basher, hitch up their boots, and come for the Obots. Leading their birther army, they will slash and burn everything that crosses their path, and no supporter of Obama shall escape retribution as birthers shatter the universe in their righteous fury.

Any day now.

And Jared Daniel Dent is ready, saying on Februaury 27:  "Come on march. 3 more days, come on sheriff Joe, Mike Zullo, and CCP release the findings. Come on America Snap out of the trance, strap up your boots and get outside and kick some Obot . Stop letting Obama loving democrats trendy's walk all over you, um up, look me up on face book, Im in VA, and I dont give a about a morally bankrupt society of zombies threatening me or mine, because I walk the walk, There only one man in that mob destined to take you out and you are destined to take him out , You go through the mob to meet him and cut down all others like blades of grass until you cross and the take meet your fate, Im sure you men and women could take out at least 20 obots apiece.."

I wonder if he and others will ask for refunds on April 1.

UPDATE VIII:   The "Sheriff Joe’s Scooby Doo gang" denies writing the letter to the Delusional Dentist, but the comments are informative none the less.

Read Obama Conspiracy Theories, Gallups, Taitz talk: Glass half full, or half wrong?

Also check out Obama Conspiracy Theories, The debunker's guide to Obama conspiracy theories.

UPDATE VII: Now the "Sheriff Joe’s Scooby Doo gang" claim to have "the most incredible, universe-shattering thing you’ve ever heard!", which will finally be disclosed on March 19.  So the Delusional Dentist has been asked to "stand down with regard to your ongoing court cases, which appear to have already run their course, you must admit. I cannot overstate the importance that your cooperation will bring to the disclosure of this essential information."

In response the Delusional Dentist said:"there were multiple promises from Mr. Gallops and Mr. Zullo before, everyone expected a criminal case against Obama to be officially submitted by Sheriff Arpaio to the DA, AG, US Attorney and Judiciary Committee of Congress before the election, it did not happen, even though Sheriff Arpaio had according to his own admission a 100% evidence of Obama using fabricated IDs. I do not know what earth shattering announcement you are planning to make next month, on March 19. Even if you make some announcement, it is just that, an announcement."

Read http://www.orlytaitzesq.com/?p=446381. 

A big difference between the the huckster and his con man and the Delusional Dentist is that she allows and responds to comments, which include:

They want the "stand down because they’re not getting as many donations as they used to.  And nothing earth shattering is coming out in March or April or May or June or July…"

"They have had PLENTY of time and chances to reveal anything that they might have. They have nothing!!!"

If they indeed have something bigger than the BC and the SSN, why would it matter if you continued what you are doings?"

"Zullo and Arpaio have been saying this chit for months and have revealed nothing.If they had anything why are they with holding it until march 19. They are simply using it to to get all the money they can.I live in Alabama and about 3 months I began getting mails from Arpaio wanting money."

"[I]t makes no sense to do what they ask, no sense to voluntarily dismiss ongoing cases".

"I thought Obama was the world’s number one liar, but this guy Gallups is awfully close. What the hell is he raving and ranting about and if it’s so earth shattering why wait until March 19th? He sounds like some ancient seer reading an animal’s entrails and predicting a cosmic event on a certain day."

"I have been waiting to see how Zullo and co were going to weasel out of their promise to deliver universe shattering information in March.  They know full well that Dr. Taitz is not going to drop anything and when they do not release any information (because they have none), they will blame it on Orly Taitz and claim that Taitz is the hold up and that if it were not for her and her cases they would be able to release the Universe Shattering information that would have brought down the Obama Presidency. WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP !!!!!"

"The sheriff, Zullo, and the minister are trying out for late nite TV comedy show of their own!!! Ha, Ha, Ha,"

"Zullo,Gallups and Sheriff Joe have their fans so caught up in their con for donations that they will believe anything that they say without explanation and they know it. Look we are talking about people who every three or four months say that they have devastating information that will bring down Obama but just can not reveal it at this time. They then chose an arbitrary date a few months from the announcement that they have information that they will reveal the information. When the date comes, they then make up an excuse why they can not release the information along with a request for more donations and a promise to release information even more devastating than the information that they promised but failed to release the last time and then when the new date comes they start the same con all over again. This has been going on ever since they became involved in the Birther issue and I see no end in sight to it."

Read also Wonkette, Here Is Your Birther Slap Fight, Starring Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Minions And Super-Heroine Orly Taitz, which stated: "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod WHAT COULD IT BE? We want to be shocked and awed and emasculated and universe-shattered by your news. Tell us, Reverend Carl!"

Comments for this article include:

"I am 1,000,000% certain that these jerks are 10,000,000% batshit insane."

"Trouble in paradise- looks like the circle jerk is running low on KY and everybody is getting rubbed a little raw".

"I'd be worried about this universe-shattering news, on account of I live in a universe, but it's painfully obvious it's nowhere near the universe these nincompoops inhabit, so I say rock on."

"This looks very bad for Obama's 2016 reelection chances."

"This Rev Gallups fellow writes in a way that we would, to mock him with satirical hyperbolic versions of wingnut communiqué. Is he... using our weapons against us?"

"I knew it! OBAMA IS AN ET, and a socialist/communist/nazi ET planted by the UN as part of Agenda 21. It all fits together."

"Proof that Obama is a lizard person!! I always knew it was true! All Hail our new overlords, the Lizard People!!!"

They had zero chance before, but the new evidence will change that by 10,000%"

You know you've got a problem when you've lost credibility with other birthers!

UPDATE VI:  Still waitin' for that 'universe-shattering twist' in the Obama birth certificate probe, first predicted and promised to 'Gallups' gullibles' on 'fellatio Friday' in mid-December (the 'universe-shattering' twist was being promoted elsewhere in late November) by the huckster and his con man.  

In the meantime:

"Seeing hidden connections and causes is a key element of conspiracy thinking. But that logic is a common fallacy with a Latin name: post hoc ergo propter hoc (Latin for "after this, therefore because of it"). Because the human mind seeks connections, people often mis-attribute causes, thinking that "B happened after A did, so A must have caused B." It makes sense, and it’s often true, but not always. It’s like saying 'roosters crow before the sun rises, so the roosters must have made the sun rise.'

Taken in extreme, this type of thinking can result in clinical paranoia. The 'Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,' the so-called bible of psychiatry, notes that in paranoid disorders 'The persecutory delusions may be simple or elaborate and usually involve a single theme or series of connected themes, such as being conspired against, cheated, spied upon, followed, poisoned or drugged, maliciously maligned, harassed, or obstructed in the pursuit of long-term goals. Small slights may be exaggerated and become the focus of a delusional system…. Common associated features include resentment and anger, which may lead to violence.'"

Remind you of anyone?

Read Discovery News, Why Conspiracy Theories Provoke Violence.

UPDATE V:  Still waitin' for that 'universe-shattering twist' in the Obama birth certificate probe, first predicted and promised to 'Gallups' gullibles' on 'fellatio Friday' in mid-December by the huckster and his con man.  

Don't hold your breath.

In the meantime, "[a]nother multi-million-dollar bill comes due this year for Sheriff Joe Arpaio's reckless antics in Maricopa County, Arizona. And that's why more taxpayers may finally be asking: Who keeps voting for this guy, anyway?"

Read The Atlantic, As 2014 Begins, Toll Rises for "The Most Expensive Sheriff in America".

UPDATE IV:  It's been a while since I heard Zullo on "'fellatio Friday', [where] Zullo joins Gallups to fawn over each other and grift birther bucks from Gallups' gullible audience."

Quote from The Many Lies of Mike Zullo and Carl Gallups.

Grift means to make money "dishonestly, as in a swindle." I'll let you look up that other word if you don't know what it means.

Couldn't have said it better. 

UPDATE III:  More challenges: The Many Lies of Mike Zullo and Carl Gallups is now a Facebook page.

And "Gallups blusters that he challenges Obots, and then turns off the microphone when they call him. He’s afraid."

 

UPDATE II:  After years of empty promises, some birthers are catching on to the "I Know Something You Don't Know" con.

Comments during the last week of June 2013 include:

Gallups "told us nothing new today, except that he is in touch with Zullo every day, every single day, for God only knows what reason. . . No one questioned the evidence at the Sheriff's conference, according to Gallups - I'm questioning it, because Gallups and Zullo refuse to tell anyone any details. All they do is rail on and on - yet release no data to the public."

"How can the public and Congress give full and really enthusiastic support to Zullo and the CCP when they tease us by not releasing the 'juicy' details that they've uncovered. Why are they holding back on the 90% not released? . . My advice to Zullo and the CCP is this: Lay it on us now and let the cards fall where they may. This is not the time to be playing 'I've Got A Secret'. "
"Gallups has made this about him. . . stringing it out to an uncertain date in the future makes people infuriated. I'll still give Zullo the benefit of the doubt, but as far as I'm concerned Gallups is a clown."

"Listening to Gallups is like hearing a giddy teenager talking about their first date. He's so excited to have a real person like Zullo on his show that he's verbally orgasmic."

"Whoever Mike is, the guy who did the interview, did a nice job - he let Gallups talk. That's something Gallups never allows his guests as he prattles."

"Carl Gallups is so full of shit his eyes must be brown. . . Just about every video he puts out it is always 'BREAKING' 'STUNNING REVELATIONS' 'NEW REVELATIONS' . . . Get over yourself Gallups! "

" I hate to say it, but he reminds me a mix of a side-show barker and a used car salesman."

I warned you before of the cult that is Carl, AKA C Squared.

(Although he proclaims differently, was C Squared ever a law enforcement officer in Florida?  Not according to the Sarasota Harld-Tribune.)

As for the alleged interview with the CONgressman, aren't you "tired of being played for a fool." And don't "be surprised if Stockman never does the interview." (FYI, the station has a special line for VIPs to call, the CONgressman wouldn't be given the announced call-in number.)

Remember: "if you're in the con game and you don't know who the mark is … you're the mark."

UPDATE:  As Vincent Bugliosi explains in his book on the JFK assassination, "Reclaiming History":

"The conspiracy community regularly seizes on one slip of the tongue, misunderstanding, or slight discrepancy to defeat 20 pieces of solid evidence; accepts one witness of theirs, even if he or she is a provable nut, as being far more credible than 10 normal witnesses on the other side; treats rumours, even questions, as the equivalent of proof; leaps from the most minuscule of discoveries to the grandest of conclusions; and insists that the failure to explain everything perfectly negates all that is explained."

That's the reaction to Pastor Truthiness' (formerly known as Pastor Poppins') interview last week with "[f]ormer police investigator Don Jeffrey, who investigated reports of Obama having multiple security-security numbers for Mike Zullo, finds that none of the multiple numbers reported by other birther investigators, tie back to President Obama personally."

Read Obama Conspiracy Theories, Social-security number allegations undermined by Cold Case Posse investigator.

The so-called Pastor is just another huckster and con man.  He and the other birthers have "made promise after promise that they haven't kept, they presented some evidence that was faked, their 'experts' tell stories that contradict each other from press conference to press conference, they refuse to testify under oath and blow off subpoenas, and they never actually do anything but seek media attention."

And the angry old "closed-minded, racist, rigid, old-fashioned" white men continue their "offensive, polarizing rhetoric".  

BREAKING NEWS, BREAKING NEWS! Are Gullible-Gallups and Zullo Going to Jail

UPDATE IX:  Not look good for Zullo as he finally realizes he's been play for a chump.

Read Obama Conspiracy Theories, No immunity for Zullo and Zullo plays for time.

UPDATE VIII:   What crime(s) is Zullo hiding?

Read Obama Conspiracy Theories, Mike Zullo takes the 5th.

UPDATE VII:  "In an angry rebuke, a judge on Friday ordered the U.S. Marshals Service to seize a collection of records from Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office and leveled harsh criticism at the sheriff's lawyers for failing to turn over documents that had been requested months ago in a racial profiling case.

U.S. District Judge Murray Snow's criticism centered on the agency's failure to hand over more than 1,400 identification documents in a related investigation into allegations that deputies pocketed items during busts.

The judge also focused on the agency's refusal to turn over 50 hard drives from Arpaio's secret investigation involving the judge. . .

Robert Warshaw, the official monitoring the sheriff's office for the judge, . . .

said the unit of the sheriff's office that stores evidence is a lockbox for keeping unflattering documents from public or court scrutiny. . .

Warshaw is examining allegations that members of Arpaio's immigration smuggling squad and other deputies regularly pocketed items from people during traffic stops and busts of safe houses used during smuggling. The judge has complained that Arpaio's office is conducting inadequate internal investigations of officer misconduct."

Read ABC News, Judge Chastises Arpaio's Lawyers for Withholding Records.

Imagine that ‘inadequate investigations’ by Sheriff Scooby-Doo and his gang.  Is anyone surprised?

UPDATE VI:  Were Zullo and Gullible-Gallups involved in a conspiracy to obstruct justice in Arizona?  We may soon find out. 

"[H]earings are back on schedule for the contempt proceedings against Sheriff Arpaio, and Deputy Sheridan:. That’s scheduled for September 22-25 and September 29-October 2. . .

Meanwhile the US Department of Justice moved to intervene in the Melendres case and Judge Snow granted their request for copies of the material supplied to Arpaio’s office by Dennis Montgomery. The DOJ ought to be very interested in the possibility that Montgomery absquatulated with secret CIA material, including harvested telecommunications metadata.

Right in the middle of what the Sheriff’s Office called the 'Seattle Operation' sits Mike Zullo who was one of the people babysitting Montgomery for Sheriff Joe, and involved in the email chain between Detective Mackiewicz, Larry Klayman and Dennis Montgomery that seems to contradict Arpaio’s claims under oath that he wasn’t targeting Judge Snow. This writer thinks that Zullo’s testimony is crucial in finding out whether Arpaio was up to his old tricks of investigating his enemies, and whether he lied about it to Judge Snow. Oooh, goody."

Read Obama Conspiracy Theories, Melendres case reignites: Will Zullo join Arpaio on the hot seat?

Now that DOJ is investigating, Zullo and Gullible-Gallups could easily find themselves charged as conspirators for obstructing justice in the Melendres v. Arpaio lawsuit. 

See 18 U.S. Code § 1503 and more specifically 18 U.S. Code § 1509 (Obstruction of court orders).

UPDATE V:  What proof did Montgomery offer of the CIA plot?

Can you believe 50-60 hard drives filed with recordings of the Al Jazeera network.

Read USA Today, Arizona sheriff spent $120K on probe targeting judge.

Read also the Phoenix New Times, Arpaio May Have Spent $1 Million in Pursuit to Disqualify Judge Snow.

In other words, Montgomery, a notorious scammer and con man, leveraged the biases and prejudices of his marks to convince them to pay him more than $100,000, and spend hundreds of thousands more in tax payer money.

These are the same people who are the leaders of the Birther movement.

Zullo and Gullible-Gallups, self-professed 'professionals', have been proven by their own ineptitude and stupidity, to be clowns, suckers, and bozos. They peddle lies and fear to desperate and angry people.  Zullo and Gullible-Gallups are nothing more than professional deceiver and con men.

Who would believe anything Arpaio, Zullo and Gullible-Gallups said?  Only fools!

Remember, how much time has past since the promised 'universe-shattering' revelations:


And there were the numerous other broken promises.

That sound you hear is the growing laughter at the Birther delusions.

Anyone who gave money to these bozos should sue!  (I think Zullo and Gullible-Gallups are stringing people along until the statute of limitations on fraud has expired.) 

UPDATE IV:  Apparently they believed their own BS.

Read Obama Conspiracy Theories,

Mike Zullo presents the "meatball hypothesis", which includes a transcript of the November 2013 Fact-Free Friday show when the Sheriff Scooby-Doo gang (including Zullo) first discussed and promised the 'universe-shattering' revelation(s) and Gullible-Gallups clearly confirms that he knew and believed the details of the so-called CIA plot revealed by notorious scammer, Dennis Montgomery;

Crazy in Arizona, which notes that with the Arpaio contempt hearing the "trunk of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s clown car is now open and all sorts of crazy stuff is coming out" and

Melendres status conference today: Judge could rule on Montgomery intervention, which notes how desperately Sheriff Scooby-Doo and his gang are trying to stop further revelations because:

"The Dennis Montgomery debacle is evidence that Joe Arpaio is gullible, and calls into question his judgment when evaluating evidence and sources, the same judgment skills he applied to Obama birth certificate claims and that ultimately led Arpaio to believe there was probable cause that Obama’s birth certificate was forged.

It could lead to more questioning relating to the Cold Case Posse, and possible revelations about money paid to Mike Zullo by the Department

Information detailing the Montgomery investigation could come to light that defines what the Cold Case Posse was actually doing, while allowing birthers to assume that they were pursuing Obama."

In summary, Zullo and Gullible-Gallups, self-professed 'professionals', have been proven by their own ineptitude and stupidity, to be clowns and suckers.

And these are the leaders of the Birther movement.

UPDATE III:  For more on 'Comrade Arpaio Stasi-like moves' and the "The Man Who Conned the Pentagon", read the Phoenix New Times, Arpaio Sought Assistance From Former AG Tom Horne's Office in Dealing With Confidential Informant.>.

The article notes that Montgomery has a "still-open superior court criminal case in Clark County, Nevada, where Montgomery was charged with multiple felony allegations from 2008 of allegedly passing bad checks."

Again, stupid is as stupid does.

UPDATE II: Pastor Gullible was very subdued on Fact-Free Friday, falsely denying he knew Montgomery, claiming the 'investigation is still ongoing, there are legal hurdles, connections and interconnections' to be made, and trying to pretend nothing was wrong. 

He also said that 'phone lines were open', but of course no calls were taken on the air.

His sycophant side-kick tried to claim the angry masses demanding release of the so-called investigation, as he has several times recently.

Of course, no dates were mentioned for any conference or news conference, because there is, and never was, anything to disclose except fraud by Pastor Gullible.

People are starting to realized that they've been had.

Anyone who donated money should sue.

UPDATE:  Also read the Phoenix New Times, Judge Snow Rips the Lid Off an MCSO Riddled With Corruption, Confirming My Reporting in the Process.

In brief, here is the story:

In August 2013,  someone sent Arpaio a Facebook message concerning an alleged 2012 conversation with the wife of Judge Snow, the federal judge assigned to the cases pending against Arpaio.  The judge's wife supposedly said that the Judge hated Arpaio and wanted Arpaio removed from office. 

Then in November 2013, Zullo and Gallups began promoting the 'universe-shattering information' that would dethrone Obama. 

That was when a notorious scammer, Dennis Montgomery, alleged "'that the CIA hacked into individual bank accounts' and that 'approximately 50,000 of them' were Maricopa County residents."  The CIA plot supposedly involved Arpaio's nemesis-es DOJ and federal judges. 

So the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office assigned several investigators to the so-called case and began "paying [Montgomery] as much as $10,000 a month . . . [and] purchased $50,000 worth of computer equipment for Montgomery."

Of course, "Arpaio was [just] up to his old tricks, attempting to conflict the judge, find dirt on him, and retaliate for adverse rulings."  Arpaio has a history of malfeasance, racial profiling, feuds with judges and County Supervisors, abuse of power, election law violations, misuse of funds, and even a staged assassination plot. 

He stays in office by scamming and swindling to birthers for money and media attention.

These so-called law-enforcement professionals fell for Montgomery's con hook, line and sinker.  (Kinda scary to think they carry guns.)  Before it was done, the investigation "cost as much as $500,000 to $1 million" of Maricopa County taxpayer money.

Of course, there never was a CIA plot, and the judge's wife never made any such statement.

Some people are just desperate to hear what they want to hear.  That is how people get conned.

So now you know why there will never be any 'universe-shattering' revelation(s). 

And that is why Pastor Gullible (our Resident Pastor-to-the-Dictators (AKA Pastor Truthiness (formerly known as Pastor Poppins))) has quit talking about his birther fantasies.

P.S.

It is hard to believe how stupid these people are.

OMG, is it true — after so many years of fantasies and delusions . . .

Will Sheriff Scooby-Doo and his gang (including Zullo and Gullible-Gallups, Arpaio’s enablers and co-conspirators) be going to jail?

What will Pastor Gullible say today on Fact-Free Friday?

Of course, I’m sure he will discuss this universes-shattering development in the investigation, NOT.

After you read the following, someone call in today and ask him to comment.

Read Obama Conspiracy Theories, Universe-shattering investigation revealed in court testimony Friday and Arpaio: perjury?

The CONspriacy Game

Xenophobic patriotism, conspiracy theories (even discussion of the secret ownership of the Federal Reserve), and a narrative of victimhood by hard-line pundits and loud political parties with ties to fundementalist religion. No, not the Republi-cons and the U.S., Islam and Pakistan. Read The New York, U.S. Is a Top Villain in Pakistan’s Conspiracy Talk.

The CONspiracy game's the same no matter the country or religion.

Birthers, Birchers, Conspiracy Theorists, Oh My!

Birthers, Birchers, Conspiracy Theorists, Oh My!

Are the inmate (birthers and Birchers, militias and nativists, racists and conspiracy theorists) taking over the Republi-con asylum? One conservative writer thinks so. Read The Washington Post, A primer on political reality.

As more evidence, and of local interest, read the Washington Post, Republican Marco Rubio is anti-Crist challenging Florida governor in Senate primary.

And remember -- be afraid, be very, very, afraid!

The Conspiracy Theories Begin

Conspiracy theories have proliferated across the web. Read a few at The Guardian, Osama bin Laden death: The conspiracy theories.

A Good Summary of the Delusions of Our Local Pastor and His Friends

"It was both a good year and a bad one for conspiracy theories and theorists. For one thing, Neil Armstrong died. That was sad for many reasons; included among them is that now he’ll never be able to reveal the secret about the moon landing. On the other hand, it was a Presidential-election year, a particularly fertile time for conspiracy theorizing. People are fixated on an enemy, and they just need to take the next step and imagine all of the diabolical things that enemy could be up to. They certainly did plenty of that in 2012. Here are twelve of the highlights of the year's conspiracy theories. For the record, none of them are true."

Read The New Yorker, 2012: The Year of the Attack of the Gay Muslim Kenyan Divorcee President.

The article is a good summary of the delusion of those like our local Pastor Egomaniacal (AKA Pastor 2+2 Does Not = 4, Pastor Dred Scott, Resident Pastor-to-the-Dictators, Pastor Truthiness, and Pastor Poppins), and his friends at WND who just can't admit that Obama was  ever elected President.

Republi-CON Insanity

UPDATE VII:  Speaking of trafficking in conspiracy theories, Glenn Beck now alleges that Grover Norquist is an Islamist and ally of the White House.

Of course, Beck has long pandered to Republi-con fear, anger and hatred. 

So many delusions, so little time to refudiate.

UPDATE VI:  "Stories of cabals and secret plots provide comfort as its power wanes" but [m]ost elected officials who traffic in conspiracy theories are too rich and successful themselves to believe in them; they deploy them opportunistically, to push voters’ emotional buttons. As Michael Tomasky wrote in The Daily Beast last week, 'The rage kept the base galvanized….The rich didn’t really share the rage, or most of them. Even the Koch Brothers probably don’t….But all of them have used it. And they have tolerated it, the casual racism, the hatred of gay people, and the rest….because they, the elites, remained in charge. Well, they’re not in charge now. The snarling dog they kept in a pen for decades has just escaped and bitten their hand off.'"

Read Salon, Conspiracy theories explain the right.

UPDATE V:  "The budget fight that led to the first government shutdown in 17 years did not just set off a round of recriminations among Republicans over who was to blame for the politically disastrous standoff. It also heralded a very public escalation of a far more consequential battle for control of the Republican Party, a confrontation between Tea Party conservatives and establishment Republicans that will play out in the coming Congressional and presidential primaries in 2014 and 2016 but has been simmering since President George W. Bush’s administration, if not before. . .

Far from being chastened by the failure to achieve any of the concessions they had sought from President Obama — primarily to roll back his signature health care law — the conservative activists who helped drive the confrontation in Congress and helped fuel support for the 144 House Republicans who voted against ending it are now intensifying their effort to rid the party of the sort of timorous Republicans who they said doomed their effort from the start."

Read The New York Times, Fiscal Crisis Sounds the Charge in G.O.P.’s 'Civil War'.

UPDATE IV:  "Every time Republicans suffer a rejection of the most right-wing items on their agenda, a significant number decide they haven’t been sufficiently crazy. That was the conclusion that many Republicans drew from the defeat of Mitt Romney in 2012. And now that Republicans in Congress have been forced to surrender in their fight with President Obama over the budget, health care and the nation’s credit, some are drawing the same conclusion."

Read The New York Times, The Insufficient Craziness Theory.

Expect more Republi-con insanity, that is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.

UPDATE III:  "On talk radio and in the conservative blogosphere, the bipartisan vote on Wednesday to reopen the government without defunding President Obama’s health care law was being excoriated as an abject surrender and betrayal by spineless establishment Republicans. But for glum and frustrated conservative voters on Thursday around breakfast tables in eastern Tennessee, in the shadow of a military base in Colorado Springs and on the streets of suburban Philadelphia, it was as much a surrender to reality as to Democratic demands."

Read The New York Times, From the Right, Despair, Anger and Disillusion.

Read also Salon, GOP’s next civil war: A demented blame game.  

UPDATE II:  "However you slice and dice the history, the strategery, and the underlying issues, the decision to live with a government shutdown for an extended period of time — inflicting modest-but-real harm on the economy, needlessly disrupting the lives and paychecks of many thousands of hardworking people, and further tarnishing the Republican Party’s already not-exactly-shiny image — in pursuit of obviously, obviously unattainable goals was not a normal political blunder by a normally-functioning political party. It was an irresponsible, dysfunctional and deeply pointless act, carried out by a party that on the evidence of the last few weeks shouldn’t be trusted with the management of a banana stand, let alone the House of Representatives.

This means that the still-ongoing intra-conservative debate over the shutdown’s wisdom is not, I’m sorry, the kind of case where reasonable people can differ on the merits and have good-faith arguments and ultimately agree to disagree. There was no argument for the shutdown itself that a person unblindered by political fantasies should be obliged to respect, no plausible alternative world in which it could have led to any outcome besides self-inflicted political damage followed by legislative defeat, and no epitaph that should be written for its instigators’ planning and execution except: 'These guys deserved to lose.'"

Read The New York Times, A Teachable Moment. 

UPDATE:  "On his radio show recently, Glenn Beck urged his listeners to 'defund the GOP.' Sarah Palin has threatened to leave the Republican Party; Rush Limbaugh calls it 'irrelevant.' The Senate Conservatives Fund has targeted mainly incumbent Republican senators for defeat. Erick Erickson, one of the right’s most prominent commentators, wonders if what's coming is 'a real third party movement that will fully divide the Republican Party.'

Conservatives have declared war on the GOP.

Tired of feeling taken for granted by a party that alternately panders to them and sells them down the river, in their view, Tea Partiers and others on the right are in revolt. The Republican Party itself is increasingly the focus of their anger, particularly after Wednesday's deal to reopen the government, which many on the right opposed. Now, many are threatening to take their business elsewhere."

Read The Atlantic, The Conservative War on the GOP.

"It happened slowly, didn’t it? The change in the Republican Party? I don’t know. Maybe it’s nostalgia. There have always been the wild, vicious voices of the right. The devil on the shoulder of the conservative movement that whispers in its ear, “burn it down, burn it down.” But those voices were to be ignored, humored, tolerated, placated, or just deceived. That was the way of things, and we were protected by the obvious: people who believe foolish things tend to be easy to fool.

Then it all changed. The Republican elite caught a ride on the tiger. But the tiger got sick of waiting for the gazelles it was promised, the gazelles that were always one election away. The tiger was hungry and angry and tired of being used and the longer it waited the more appetizing the elite on its back became. So the tiger got a radio station and a news channel. The tiger got organized and mobilized. And finally the tiger realized it didn’t need someone kicking its sides telling it which way to run and who to eat and when to eat and why it wasn’t time to eat and the time to eat would come, don’t worry, you’ll eat soon enough.

So the tiger ate its master and now here we are. . .

This moment in American political life is insane. That a group of narrow-minded zealots could push us to the brink of economic ruin, that they maintain a base of support in their frenzied, quixotic, incompetent gambit, that there is an apparatus that exists to defend this kind of nonsense—it came on us slowly but it is no less an emergency. This is broken. This cannot go on.

And if you can’t see that then it’s not just the world that’s gone mad. You're crazy too."

Read The Atlantic, How the GOP Slowly Went Insane.

Look What 'Hysterics Have Wrought': The Half-Term Gov Endorses the Franken-Trump/Trumpenstein (© NoBullU.com)

UPDATE V:  "At first it seemed too weirdly awful to be true, but there she was: Sarah Palin standing next to Donald Trump on Tuesday and endorsing him for president.

Like previously conjoined twins who had shared a brain before Ben Carson separated them, these two anti-everything, post-lamestream media instigators presented themselves as political doppelgangers, a he/she, yin-yang, sis-boom-bah political marriage of the carnival barker and the bearded lady.

Step right up! Get your tickets! Bring the whole family! Bring your anger, bring your spleen, don’t let logic intervene!

The challenge for those of us in the observation business is to illuminate what’s plainly obvious without offending those who prefer not to see. But there’s no winning once passions are engaged, and hating the messenger is a time-honored tradition. Even though it was, in fact, obvious in 2008 that Palin was out of her league, as I pointed out in a column, her fans wouldn’t hear of it. About 20,000 of them took time out of their busy schedules to send me emails expressing their displeasure. (I’ve kept them all for nursing-home share time.) The whole episode was instructive in multiple ways, but most important, it foretold a dumbing down of the GOP that eight years later may prove irreversible.

Into a blizzard of irony gallops National Review with a “symposium” of opinions from noted conservative writers saying what must be said: Trump is terrible for conservatism (because he isn’t a conservative) and that populist demagoguery and vulgarity have no place in the party. You don’t say!

The irony, which is so delicious I may skip the chocolate sauce and forgo the cherry, is that this same publication dropped my syndicated column not long after it ran my Palin column. Hoopla and all that. And now suddenly, the editors, one of whom all but telepathically dated Palin, are blind to the former governor’s charms, opposing her choice for president in the strongest terms.

One wonders only what took them so long to say what has been plainly obvious for months.

It must be difficult for some of these writers to go out on a limb like this and recognize in Trump what they were unable to see in Palin in 2008. Trump, to his credit, has managed to clarify matters for them.

Although Palin is a latecomer to this particular circus and thus not a likely factor in the magazine’s symposium edition, she does add fresh flair to Trump’s “I’m so great” monologues."

I could quote more, but read the Washington Post, With Trump and Palin, Republicans get what they deserve.

UPDATE IV:  "The arrival of Sarah Palin brings a special something to the 2016 campaign, like a little LSD added to the punch bowl. Are we watching C-SPAN, or a reality TV show, or a “Saturday Night Live” skit? It is impossible to tell without consulting the channel guide.

Ted Cruz may have secured the coveted 'Duck Dynasty' blessing. But Palin is the original and best representative of Kardashian conservatism. Her endorsement of Donald Trump was entirely devoid of policy content — a speech that did not even aspire to shallowness. It is enough that Trump is 'going rogue' and 'ticking people off' and 'media heads are spinning.'

Palin has been entirely consumed and replaced by her own bitterness against a Republican establishment she feels betrayed her and against a media that mocked her. More than anything else, she clings to resentment and rage. And her revolution, over time, has become comprehensive; not just a revolt against elites, but a revolt against syntax and taste and preparation and reason.

The phenomenon of Palin raises the question: Does populism need to be anti-intellectual? . .

In this vacuity, Palin and Trump are a perfect match. They both embrace a politics of personality, a politics at war with reason. Who would go to either for advice on Medicare reform or Syria policy? In the two-dimensional politics of Palin and Trump, depth is not even a category. There is only establishment vs. anti-establishment, weakness vs. strength.

The danger of an anti-intellectual politics is that it quickly becomes unmoored from real problems and real answers. In U.S. history, anti-intellectual populism has often become conspiratorial, focusing anger against powerful and imaginary enemies: the Masons, the international bankers, the Jesuits, the munitions-makers. “How can we account for our present situation,” asked Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-Wis.) in 1951, “unless we believe that men high in this government are concerting to deliver us to disaster? This must be the product of a great conspiracy, a conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man.”

Trump rose to political prominence through the power of birtherism — a movement in which every disproof was regarded as evidence of an even broader conspiracy. But Trump also made a mark connecting vaccinations to autism. The idea is 'completely discredited' by scientific studies (according to Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) and dangerous to children. But Trump refuses to back down, asserting “the doctors lied” and the studies have been 'fudged up.'

The same is true on other issues. . .

Trump is not proposing obnoxious solutions to real challenges; he is promoting obnoxious solutions to fake or wildly exaggerated challenges. His anti-intellectualism is severing the ties between the GOP and reality. If Republicans choose to inhabit the Trump-Palin world, they will offer little of value to our own."

Read the Washington Post, Trump and Palin join forces in the war against reason. 

UPDATE III:  "I love poetic justice. This wild and wacky Republican presidential campaign deserved Sarah Palin, and now it’s got her.

Palin’s endorsement of front-runner Donald Trump at an Iowa rally this week was a master class in surrealist poetry. Geniuses of the Dada movement would have been humbled by her deconstruction of the language and her obliteration of the bourgeois concept we call logic.

The GOP candidates have been competing to see who can spew the most nonsense, but they’ll never top Palin. Not when she offers gems such as this: 'Believe me on this. And the proof of this? Look what’s happening today. Our own GOP machine, the establishment, they who would assemble the political landscape, they’re attacking their own front-runner. .?.?. They are so busted, the way that this thing works.'

Or this further excoriation of the party leadership:  [see the article for the nonsensical quote] . .

Or this elaboration of the same theme: [ditto] . .

Actually, I think the wailing from Republican grandees is more of a wordless primal scream. Palin claimed that 'media heads are spinning' at her decision to campaign for Trump, but it would be more accurate to say that 'media feet are dancing' at having such a rich source of new material.

I could quote Palin all day, but there are two substantive points about her dazzling intervention that I feel duty-bound to make. The first is political: Someday we might look back and say she was the one who pushed Trump over the top to win the nomination.

That’s not a promise, just a possibility. But Trump’s campaign draws strength from its own momentum. If he can somehow manage to sweep the early primary states, “outsider” support may coalesce behind him — and the establishment candidates may be too shellshocked to effectively respond. . .

The other substantive point I have to make about Palin has to do with a campaign speech she gave in Oklahoma for Trump the day after her endorsement. She was talking about the arrest of her son, Track, on domestic abuse charges after he allegedly fought with his girlfriend and threatened suicide by holding an assault rifle to his head.

'My son, a combat veteran .?.?. was fighting for you all, America, in the war zone,' Palin said. 'My son, like so many others, came back a bit different, they come back hardened.'

Palin said not enough was done to treat the 'woundedness' of returning veterans and charged that this failing 'comes from our own President [Obama].'

Never mind that Track Palin served in Iraq and came home while George W. Bush was president. His mother was speaking for the large segment of the GOP base that brays against high taxes and big government, yet demands more services and opposes cuts in entitlements — which doesn’t add up.

I’ve said it before: With years of foolish rhetoric, the Republican establishment got itself into this mess. There may be no way out."

Read the Washington Post, Sarah Palin takes the GOP campaign to a new low.

UPDATE II:  H/T to the Washington Post, Stephen Colbert delivers his own speech in Palin-ese. And it’s spot-on:



Colbert once again proves he's the king of satire.

And thank our lucky stars -- The Half-Term Gov and the Franken-Trump/Trumpenstein (© NoBullU.com) together in 2016, could it get any better?

UPDATE:  A must read, the Washington Post, The monumental fall of the Republican Party, which state in part:

Today’s Republican crisis was . . . engineered by the party leadership’s step-by-step capitulation to a politics of unreason, a policy of silence toward the most extreme and wild charges against Obama, and a lifting up of resentment and anger over policy and ideas as the party’s lodestars.

Many Republicans are now alarmed that their choice may come down to Trump, the candidate of a reality-show populism that tries to look like the real thing, and Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), an ideologue whom they fear would lead their cause to a devastating defeat. There is an honorable pushback against this outcome from champions of a genuinely more moderate and tolerant brand of conservatism — the columnists Michael Gerson and David Brooks among them.

But this is a battle that needed to be joined long ago (which, I should say, is a central theme of my new book, 'Why the Right Went Wrong'). A showdown was required before the steady, large-scale defection of moderate voters from the party. Now that opponents of Trump and Cruz need the moderates, they are no longer there — except, perhaps, in states where independents might cross into the party’s primaries to save it from itself.

And instead of battling the impulses now engulfing the party, GOP honchos exploited them. They fanned nativist feeling by claiming that illegal immigrants were flooding across our borders, even when net immigration from Mexico had fallen below zero.

They promised radical reductions in the size of government, knowing no Republican president, including Ronald Reagan, could pull this off. They pledged to “take the country back,” leaving vague the identity of the people (other than Obama) from whom it was to be reclaimed. Their audiences filled in the blank. They denounced Obamacare as socialist, something, as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is pointing out, it decidedly is not. Indeed, it’s rooted in proposals Republicans once made themselves.

Politicians whose rhetoric brought the right’s loyalists to a boiling point now complain that they don’t much like the result. But it’s a little late for that. Why shouldn’t the party’s ultra-conservatives and its economically distressed working-class supporters feel betrayed? At least with Trump, Cruz and Palin, they have reason to think they know what they’re getting. 'We are mad, and we’ve been had,' Palin declared on Tuesday. 'They need to get used to it.'"

"Sarah Palin, in a zany, rambling endorsement announcement filled with garbled syntax and malapropisms, endorsed presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Tuesday in Iowa. . .

In some ways the Donald Trump-Sarah Palin team is the perfect comeuppance to the far-right — including the loudest talk show hosts, the anti-immigrant propagandists, the inside-the-Beltway groups that make money from political chaos and the pols who take advantage of all of those voices, politicians like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.). The far-right did all in their power to undermine compromise, to promote know-nothingism on immigration and to root for government failure (as in the 2013 shutdown). Beltway groups, armed with score cards and vitriol, demeaned anyone but those like the Freedom Caucus, those who had no responsibility for governance and no risk of electoral defeat. . .

Palin, long after she revealed herself to be an unserious populist and the 2008 election was in the rear-view mirror, was still heralded by the far-right as the warrior against the MSM and liberal elites more generally. She was the queen bee at gatherings like CPAC. Her admirers insisted she, not Republican lawmakers trying to govern, had the pulse of the public.. .

It seems the far-right noise machine, which lacks a conservative temperament and adherence to thoughtful positions, has met its enemies — its own creations in the persons of Trump and Palin and in voters and listeners so unmoored to reality and inured to reason that Cruz’s attempt to dissect Trump’s proposals falls on deaf ears. So which is it — is Palin a know-nothing nut with no grasp of conservative principles or the Joan of Arc of the right wing? How can Cruz be preferable to Trump if so many of these voices had argued for months that Trump was right on China, the Iraq War and so much more? Oh my, what talk radio hysterics have wrought!

Read the Washington Post, Trump and Palin: Just deserts for the right-wing racket.

Read also the Washington Post, In Oklahoma, the Trump and Palin tornadoes collide.

Don't Be Duped by the Birthers

UPDATE XVII: Well, the Birthers finally got a hearing, and no one appeared for Obama, and no evidence or argument was entered into the record on behalf of Obama. Nevertheless, "a state law judge flatly rejected legal challenges that contend he can not be a candidate." Read The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Judge: Obama eligible to be Georgia candidate.

Can't wait to hear our very own Pastor Dred Scott (you may remember the infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857, which asserted that African Americans were "beings of an inferior order" who "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." That ruling declared that African Americans could never be U.S. citizens and therefore could never be President) (AKA Pastor Truthiness (formerly known as Pastor Poppins) spin this one.

Expect a missile sighting somewhere over the U.S. to distract you from the news.


UPDATE XVI: Our Resident Pastor-to-the-Dictators (AKA Pastor Truthiness (formerly known as Pastor Poppins)) is now plagiarizing lies to salvage his malicious fantasy campaign to brand Obama as an outsider, as un-American, as non-American.

First it was false claims of document layering.

Now it is a false claim of kerning.

Lest he could do would be to give credit to the Birther who first made the claim.


UPDATE XV: Our Resident Pastor-to-the-Dictators (AKA Pastor Truthiness (formerly known as Pastor Poppins)) continues with his malicious fantasy campaign to brand Obama as an outsider, as un-American, as non-American.

One specific lie, the shameful pastor claimed that after Obama released his long-form birth certificate, Wikipedia removed references to Vattel.

False! The reference was there yesterday, and remains there today. See Wikipedia, Natural born citizen clause of the U.S. Constitution, about 3/10th of the way down.

So many lies, so little time to refudiate.


UPDATE XIV: The anti-Obama conspiracy du jour, Michele Obama needs three hands for all of her jewelry.

From the The Hartford Courant via Reddit and Rick's Blog:




UPDATE XIII: Our Resident Pastor-to-the-Dictators (AKA Pastor Truthiness (formerly known as Pastor Poppins)) continues his despicable sideshow over Obama's birth certificate.

It is a shameful episode with nothing “to do with reality and everything to do with the strangeness of Obama's background - especially his race. Many Republicans refuse to accept that Obama could come from such an exotic stew and still be ‘American.’ They have to delegitimize him. So, even though the certificate of live birth first made public in 2008 is a legal document that any court would have to recognize, they demanded more.

No American president has ever been so humiliated, and those who think it has nothing to do with race are deluding themselves.”

Pastor Truthiness owes Obama an apology for continuing to stoke these coded fears about the president's origins.


UPDATE XII: After proving once again his citizenship, Trump and the birthers now try to "undermine the acceptance of [Obama's] academic credential."

"[Y]ou can work hard, play by the rules, achieve great things academically and professionally and still have people look at you as less-than, look at you as not deserving of the things you worked hard to achieve, look at you as unqualified despite plenty of evidence to the contrary because you are black." Read the Washington Post, Trump insults 'the blacks,' again.

And watch MSNBC, The Last Word, with Lawrence O’Donnell:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

UPDATE XI: Case closed? Don't be so naive.

Republi-cons will continue to create and exploit absurd non-issues "with sideshow and carnival barkers and silliness," "make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts," and vilify their political opponents.

As for the "birther" issue, why were there persistent demands never before made of any prior president? Read USA Today, Study: racial prejudice plays role in Obama citizenship views.


UPDATE X: What drives the false political belief of the birther myth, and why is it so hard to dispel? Read The New York Times, The Psychology of the 'Birther' Myth, which discusses "motivated reasoning," racial resentment, belief in silly things, a dysfunctional system, and echoes of McCarthy-type conspiracy theories.


UPDATE IX: More "GOP politicians are recognizing that . . . the birther issue . . . paints the conservative base as loony." Read the Washington Post, Have Republicans figured out Obama’s birth certificate is a political loser?


UPDATE VIII: Even the Republi-con establishment wants nothing to do with those birthers on the "nutty right" (Rove's words, not mine). Read the Washington Post, Top Republicans try to scotch birther theories.


UPDATE VII: Even Bill O'Reilly thinks it is time to refudiate the Republi-cons:

The Daily Show - Tales of Principled Behavior - Obama Birth Certificate Mystery
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

UPDATE VI: Why do Republi-cons spread rumors instead of getting to the facts? Let us ask The Great Palin what she thinks:

The Daily Show - Moment of Zen - Sarah Palin Dismisses Internet Rumors
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

UPDATE V: One bad birther conspiracy deserves another:

Did you know that Palin faked "her pregnancy with Trig, not only to cover for her daughter Bristol, but also to gain pro-life street cred with the far right." The press then "helped "to cover up the hoax, intentionally or not, by never investigating it thoroughly enough. Had journalists dug deeper, the answers were easy enough to find."

This has to be true, because it is on the internet.


UPDATE IV: Read the Washington Post, More 'birther' nonsense from Donald Trump and Sarah Palin, which "refudiates" their claims that Obama has "spent $2 million to not show his birth certificate."

The claims are "whoopers" and earn Four Pinocchios:




The article also 'debunks' other claims by Trump, which are common birther myths:

“His grandmother from Kenya stated, on tape, that he was born in Kenya and she was there to watch the birth.” False: On the tape, there was initial misunderstanding but then she said he was born in Hawaii.

“His family in Honolulu is fighting over which hospital in Hawaii he was born in — they just don’t know.” Another myth with no basis in fact.

“He has not been able to produce a ‘birth certificate’ but merely a totally unsigned ‘certificate of live birth’ — which is totally different and of very little significance.” Wrong: It is signed and has full legal significance.

“There are no records in Hawaii that a Barack Hussein Obama was born there.” Wrong again, there is plenty of evidence.

“As far as the two notices placed in newspapers, many things could have happened, but some feel the grandparents put an ad in order to show that he was a citizen of the U.S.” Oops, the information was provided by the State Department of Health — not the grandparents.

So many lies, so little time to refudiate.


UPDATE III: Maybe Obama wasn't born in the United States and maybe Palin didn't give birth to Trig,

You say cogito ergo sum, but maybe life is an illusion, and reality is a simulation.

"[W]e don't really KNOW anything, do we?" Read Business Insider, THE TRUTH REVEALED: Sarah Palin May Not Have Been Born In The USA.


UPDATE II: Some Republi-cons continue to embarrass themselves ranting about a birth certificate and clinging to a delusion that the Supreme Court might put their man in office (again). Sorry, it ain't gonna happen.

Locally we have our Resident Pastor-to-the-Dictators (AKA Pastor Truthiness (formerly known as Pastor Poppins)).

Nationally, it's the Republi-con's latest celebrity candidate, a birther. It is clear that he hasn't even read the Congressional Research Service that would agree that Obama is a "natural born citizen," (the Congressional Research Service is a part of the Library of Congress, providing professional, objective and non-partisan public policy research to members of Congress and their staffers. The writer of the memorandum is a qualified constitutional attorney who has summarized the historical and legal material with references, showing, by contrast, how shoddy the birther arguments are) (this memorandum explains why even Republi-CON Congressmen/women refuse to join the Birthers). And he hasn't talked to Barbara Nelson, who "specifically remembers his birth" because she spoke with the obstetrician who delivered him shortly after his birth.

Unfortunately, Mike tells me he's going to replay a show full of birther nonsense. He must be promoting Trump for President.

Fortunately, Trump is doing his best to discredit himself. (Read the Washington Post, Trump’s disgusting, dangerous dance with birthers.)

Don't be duped by the birthers. See PolitiFact.com, Obama's birth certificate: Final chapter.


UPDATE: His own attorney admitted that he was a "victim of an obsession." And his reward for his obsession, prison and dismissal. Read the Washington Post, Military jury: Prison, dismissal for Army birther.

"So much for the Birthers bringing down a presidency in dramatic fashion during a court-martial." Read The New York Times, Usurper in Chief?

Maybe Colonel Larkin realizes he was duped by the Birthers:

"Sobered by the prospect of a dishonorable dismissal, losing his pension and serving hard time, as well as facing a panel of military superiors in dress uniforms, Colonel Lakin said the winter had been “a confusing time, a very emotional time for me.” His shoulders slumped, he offered excuses about how he had gotten conflicting advice from lawyers — his defense was underwritten by Birthers. . .

[I]n the end, the court-martial offers one big truth: President Obama doesn’t have to show Terry Lakin anything. The colonel should have followed orders. "