The ATP documents/meth house story is not going away

By Dan Brooks in lying 1 Comment

An image from ATP’s press release about how transparent they are

Last night, Frontline aired its half of the Pro Publica story about documents found in a meth house suggesting that American Traditions Partnership coordinated with the Republican Party. ATP has been particularly active in Montana, suing to force the state to comply with Citizens United v. FEC in 2010 and, now, pursing a suit to overturn campaign contribution limits. ATP does not have to disclose its donors to the FEC, because ATP is not a political organization. As they helpfully explain in their press release, they’re a grassroots education nonprofit. One of their educational publications, for example, is the Montana Statesman, a website that just happens to run only articles about how awful various Democratic candidates are. The Statesman bills itself as “Montana’s oldest and most trusted news source.”

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Arkansas GOP candidate advocates death penalty for children

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government 3 Comments

Totally different from Sharia law

I assume that the title of Charles Fuqua’s book—God’s Law: The Only Political Solution—was his second choice after he discovered that the phrase “final solution” was taken. Fuqua is a former Arkansas state legislator whose hits include calling for the expulsion of Muslims from the United States and noting that both followers of Islam and liberals want “violent, bloody revolution.” Now he’s running for the Arkansas legislature again, despite the fact that his aforementioned book calls for legalizing the death penalty against rebellious children. He’s also getting funding from the Arkansas Republican Party and prominent US Representatives, despite the fact that his book et cetera. And he’s against abortion, despite the fact that his book etc. You can do it with anything! Insane excerpt after the jump.

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See the film that turned the whole world stupid

By Dan Brooks in Church People 3 Comments

By now have you heard about the wave of asshole behavior sparked by The Innocence of Muslims, a fourteen-minute quote-unquote trailer for a movie that probably does not exist but nonetheless insults the one true religion. In Egypt, Libya and now Yemen—so all the best countries, really—the film sparked violent protests and attacks on US consulates. In the back seat of his solid gold train, it revealed a glitch in Mitt Romney’s programming that causes him to ignore the arrow of time. Then everyone went nuts, including a suspiciously large number of anonymous Republicans. Amid all this meshugas, though, the American press has forgotten to ask the one question that’s really important about The Innocence of Muslims: is it any good?

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Friday links! Second best team in Tampa edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 6 Comments

The Republican National Convention has blown out of Tampa with a whoosh of salt air, leaving behind it only litter and fact checkers. By all accounts, it was a fine affair that Combat! blog covered not at all. I don’t go in for political kabuki. I only like political Noh, on which the RNC verged several times. A bunch of crazy stuff happened in Florida this week, and none of it was true. Super PAC and campaign operatives stayed in the same hotel, not coordinating at all. Paul Ryan blamed Obama for a bunch of stuff that happened before he was president, and Clint Eastwood did a ventriloquist act with no dummy. Also, a Montana man was killed while impersonating Bigfoot, in what for now seems to be an unrelated story. At this point, though, I woud believe anything.

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A strange writ from the Daily Caller

By Dan Brooks in Being Cool 1 Comment

You don’t need to point at it, sir.

I put little stock in the interpretation of dreams. I also reject the notion that people say what they really think when they’re drunk, that Freudian slips are bursts of honesty, and that the true mind of the Republican Party is expressed at its fringes. The Tea Party and Infowars.com do not tell us what conservatism has been thinking all along. They tell us what we have been thinking of conservatism all along. Like dreams, the communications of America’s resurgent right are notable for their disconnection from reality, not their insight into it. If you would like to glimpse a veritable Neverland, check out Mark Judge’s call for conservatives to embrace rock and roll. It is two years old and utterly irrelevant, like your recurring nightmare about getting an erection during swim lessons, but it is affecting nonetheless, like same. Insane quote after the jump.

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