Ted Nugent’s fans are what Paul Fussell called ‘bottom-out-of-sighters,’ people so light in the wallet absolutely no one was interested in advertising products to them.
Fussell used it in reference to roller-derby on Saturday morning television back in the late-Sixites and Seventies in his book, Class.
Denver Westworld ran a photo essay on Ted’s fans at RedRocks amphitheatre. It’s here and worth the momentary laugh.
Reads the news weekly: “When this male Ted Nugent fan was asked about the recent investigation by the Secret Service into the Nuge regarding some controversial comments Nugent made about President Obama, his response was, ‘It’s bullshit! He [Ted Nugent] lets the FBI train on his property.’”
Yeah, the Green Berets, too. Would you believe … the local chapter of Boy Scouts of America? Well, would you believe … two guys using a metal detector to find buried old coins?
It’s also worth noting Ted’s notoriously teetotal and prone to bagging on users of spirits. So it’s fitting the only venues he plays are those where the fans are encouraged to smell strongly of drink.
Like old roller-derby, Ted’s fans also don’t buy anything except the occasional concert ticket. They don’t buy records. They may go for an occasional T-shirt.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports two of the members of the gang will likely go to trial. Two have already accepted pleas on conspiring to acquire weapons and silencers.
Lawyers representing Ray Adams, 55, and Samuel Crump, 68, gave no indication at Tuesday’s federal court hearing whether they would seek a plea deal weeks after the two other men charged in the plot pleaded guilty to weapons charges and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
Adams and Crump are charged with conspiring and attempting to make a biological toxin called ricin.
Adams’ attorney Barry Lombardo said “no, no, no” when asked if his client is pursuing a plea deal. Crump’s lawyer Dan Summer declined to comment …
A ricin conviction sends them to jail for a long time.
The Georgia Ricin Beans Gang was too incompetent to make ricin. And any notional plan to push castor powder out of a car speeding along the highway was laughable. In no way would it have worked.
However, the paradox is a tough one. No one ever walks in the US on a ricin charge, no matter how incapable or foolish they are.
No American defense lawyers have ever been able to argue such a case and win before a jury. While it has been done one time in England, it would be an eye-opening first here.
Crump had memorized the recipe for the poison, prosecutors said, and Adams had the know-how to make it as a former government lab technician. The men were arrested just days after authorities say they discovered evidence they were trying to extract ricin from castor beans at Adams’ north Georgia home.
The attorneys for the two men, though, have said the government’s charges are overblown.
“The government doesn’t have a strong case. Surely there was talk about ricin, but it was ridiculous,” Summer said at an earlier court hearing. “It was like an old man in the stages of senility talking out of the side of his mouth.”
Yes, it certainly was ridiculous. However, thanks to the war on terror, such a fact will likely be disregarded.
And Jesus told the masses in North Carolina: “Tolerate not the Sodomites for they are like vermin, infectious, and will make you into a homo, too.”
And the masses listened.
Background: Last week I asked Mark Smollin to make me a cover for a fake book — The Compleat Sayings of American Jesus.
With my suggestions he came up with the above and a word balloon that needed filling.
I told him to use one of the first “sayings” published last week here. It had to grab with that special kind of nastiness one has come to expect in the white vote in the south and much of the heartland. It also had to have a quality that would immediately buzz off the same pismires because they never see themselves in such a bad light, viewing what they’re doing as defending something special instead of what it actually is — using law, truth determined by majorities and rampant ignorance to pick on people they hate.
What was the citation from yesterday? Yes, here it is, with regards to a country in a state of fail: “Comedy thrives; indeed writers are hardly needed to invent outrageous events.”
Today’s double dose:
Just how unpopular is President Barack Obama in some parts of the country? Enough that a man in prison in Texas got 4 out of 10 votes in West Virginia’s Democratic presidential primary.
The inmate, Keith Judd, is serving time at the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution in Texas …
Brown, [a West Virginia electrician who voted for the jailbird], went to the polls Tuesday with his 22-year-old daughter, Emily. She planned to vote for Judd too until she found out where Judd has been living.
“I’m not voting for somebody who’s in prison,” she said.
She was certain about one thing: “I just want to vote against Barack Obama.”
American Jesus told the masses in West Virginia: “Even the lifetime criminal has more virtue than a socialist Muslim from Kenya.”
Just breaking:
And American Jesus said, in a press conference from Charlotte, NC: “Malum est dux qui est infecta homosexualitas” or “Evil is a leader who is infected with homosexuality.”
One of the badges of the stupid right wing bigot, in other words virtually all of the modern Republican Party, is the pass around e-mail joke.
It begins something like this:
Over five thousand years ago, Moses said to the children of Israel, “Pick up your shovels, mount your asses and camels, and I will lead you to the Promised Land.”
Nearly 75 years ago, (when Welfare was introduced)Roosevelt said, “Lay down your shovels, sit on your asses, and light up a Camel. This is the Promised Land.”
I was startled to get this in my e-mail on Monday. I patiently explained to the friend who’d sent it that I knew he’d probably received it in e-mail from one of his Republican friends, someone not even around when FDR issued in the New Deal.
The e-mail ends with an attack on Muslims in Pakistan. Between slurs on those on welfare, a complaint about too much taxation and Obamacare, plus a blanket condemnation of Muslims as suicide bombers, it contains all the sweets the Tea Party loves.
I did a quick Google search and it’s published in lots of places. They all have one thing in common: They’re chat boards and sites for right wing or Tea Partiers who believe it’s hysterical. It also goes well with the idiot wish to wave or display the Gadsden flag so that everyone knows how patriotic you are.
The people who pass it don’t see themselves as bigots. They really do believe it’s a bit of smart wordplay, not something dreadfully dull and telegraphed.
It’s like Rick Santorum’s wealthy sugar-daddy, Foster Friess, on television laughing and smiling at what he thinks is a fine attempt at humor – that women practiced contraception by holding an aspirin between their knees — while everyone else sees someone who’s just sprouted a third eye on a stalk.
It also indicates big differences in the brains of right-wingers and progressives.
I never get jokes in e-mail from my progressive friends. It never happens. All I get from progressive groups are solicitations to contribute or alerts when Occupy Wall Street is planning something in my area.
However, the right wing mind works in lockstep. They religiously use e-mail lists of friends to pass things around. They immediately go viral, having a quality hitting all the right buttons, one in which the recipient always feels his world view reinforced by the like-minded.
Coulda always canceled and saved himself the extra grief.
I’d say get well soon, Ted, but you’d all know I’m not sincere. “And have many more,” now that’s a different matter.
This is another one that’s going to hurt Ted in the wallet. It’s one thing to be vile on-stage in some dive bar or casino in the hinterland, in a camera phone video uploaded to YouTube. It’s quite another to tell a woman off camera, in a fit of rage, that you’ll ‘fuck’ her for family-oriented network television.
Everyone will get a chance to see — finally — what Ted’s really like.
And as more and more people see it they’ll be having second thoughts about Ted’s fitness as entertainment at the county fairs. They won’t be buying that bunk about taking deathly sick children on their last fishing trips. In fact, they’ll be appalled by the thought of Ted with their children.
On Loyalty National Lickspittle Day, we rededicate ourselves to the common good, to the cornerstones of liberty, equality, and justice more vigorous bootlicking and to the unending pursuit in the unbending pursuit of a more perfect Union of leaving things just the way they are, never getting anything done, except for odious and empty stuff like this.
In order to recognize the American spirit of loyalty and the sacrifices that so many have made for our Nation ass-kissing, apple-polishing and brown-nosing, the Congress, by Public Law 85-529 as amended, has designated May 1 of each year as “Lickspittle Day.” On this day, let us reaffirm our allegiance to the United States of America, our Constitution, and our we display our founding true values.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 1, 2012, as Lickspittle Day. This Lickspittle Day, I call upon all the people of the United States to join in support of this national observance …
US history is filled with powerful companies and agencies breaking the law to discredit and destroy popular movements that threaten their interests. And so today comes news of powder hoax mail sent throughout NYC, timed to coincide with legitimate May 1 protest.
Three new envelopes containing suspicious white powder were sent to New York City banks and news organizations on Tuesday, along with notes suggesting the sender sympathizes with the Occupy Wall Street’s Day of May 1 protests, police said.
A total of ten letter-sized envelopes were sent over the last two days, and at least some contained an identical note saying “This is a reminder that you are not in control” and “Happy May Day,” police spokesman Paul Browne said …
Five envelopes were sent to Wells Fargo, while one was sent to J.P. Morgan, and another to Citicorp. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp was also targeted, with one envelope addressed to the Wall Street Journal and a second “possibly” addressed to Fox News, police said.
Another letter, addressed to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, was processed at city offices at 100 Gold Street, and not at City Hall, police said.
For the last decade powder hoaxing has evolved into a niche national sport. Those who are caught at it do serious jail time. There is a constant dribble of powder-laced letters going to local and federal government offices, officials, celebrities and media outlets. Notoriously, when caught, powder hoaxers are never — that’s never — on the side of the left or from any cause deemed even remotely progressive.
They are invariably garden variety right-wing extremists, crazies, gun nuts, or ex-jail birds.
This on the same day morning news was clogged with announcements over the arrests of five “anarchists” planning to bomb a bridge over the Cuyahoga in Ohio.
Early news stories indicated the “anarchists” were not capable — one talked of making bombs from bleach. And the FBI delivered unto them the usual packs of fake implements, whereupon they were arrested.
“The suspects had bought fake explosives and placed them near the bridge Monday.” reads one report. “The suspects were arrested after 9 p.m. Monday …”
“The local Occupy crowd said they were a part of their operation, but have now distanced themselves,” the piece added.
Just in time for May 1, the day of nationwide protests by Occupy.
Coincidence? Sending a message? Or news conveniently aimed at discrediting a nationwide group engaged in legitimate protest?
It is not a secret the FBI’s counter-terror intelligence operation includes infiltration and communications intercepts.
It’s early history, as depicted in Tim Weiner’s history of the agency, Enemies, shows its principal operation was counter-intelligence against domestic groups, prominently American labor during a time of great inequality, protests in the streets, and a subsequent growth of Communist Party membership. J. Edgar Hoover made it his business to smash the Communist Party in the US, as well as anyone even remotely associated with it. And so the FBI did.
Jumping forward decades, prior to 9/11 the FBI had allowed its counter-terror intelligence operation to evaporate. Al Qaeda brought it back out of necessity, the agency rebuilding its domestic spying to root out terror plots in the United States. In pursuit of that end it now has many assets to bring to bear on all manner of domestic groups suspected of harboring terrorists or simply causing what is viewed as unacceptable and troublesome unrest.
This does not mean the FBI is setting up Occupy Wall Street. But it would be naive to think it has not heavily infiltrated the group.
And the diffusion of counter-intelligence operations into the private sector has resulted in an infrastructure of various corporate security services vended back to local and government entities, all done under the banner of protecting the homeland during the war on terror.
The world’s biggest banks are working with one another and police to gather intelligence as protesters try to rejuvenate the Occupy Wall Street movement with May demonstrations, industry security consultants said …
After evictions and arrests from Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park to London that began last year, the movement against income inequality and corporate abuse will regain strength, said Brian McNary, director of global risk at Pinkerton Consulting & Investigations.
He works with international financial firms to “identify, map and track” protesters across social media and at their assemblies, he said. The companies gather data “carefully and methodically” to prevent business disruptions …
Banks cooperating on surveillance are like elk fending off wolves in Yellowstone National Park, he said. While other animals try in vain to sprint away alone, elk survive attacks by forming a ring together, he said.
Banks are like beautiful and nice forest elk protecting themselves from the nasty wolves, the Occupy movement.
Consider the warped sentiment in that.
Prior to the creation of the FBI, the Pinkertons were America’s foremost para-military counter-domestic terror corporate police force.
From Tim Weiner’s Enemies:
“Four nineteenth century presidents had turned to the nation’s most powerful private police force, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, as an instrument of law enforcement, a source of secret intelligence and a tool for political combat … The agency’s founder, Allen Pinkerton, had run espionage operations during the Civil War and helped create the Secret Service for President Abraham Lincoln. Its detectives served steel and railroad barons by spying, breaking strikes and cracking skulls to defeat labor organizers … They did not shrink from breaking the law to uphold the law …”
In my old neck of the woods, Pennsylvania, Pinkerton, at at the behest of the Reading and Lehigh Valley Railroads, was famous for infiltrating the Molly Maguires, an armed group of Irish-American coal miners who rebelled and struck back against employers during a time when labor vigorously fought business. The Maguires were subsequently destroyed.
Did you know Islamic subversion is infiltrating the highest levels of US government?
Today, Bill Gertz of the Washington Times published the claim that Hillary Clinton might be associated with it, all revealed in a course offered by Cult of Electromagnetic Pulse Crazy and Islam-o-phobe Frank Gaffney.
Gaffney’s a birther. And a great deal of his current business is centered around the alleged security threat of shariah-law permeating the US justice system.
Islamists linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and similar groups are working to undermine the U.S. government through “civilization jihad” aimed at imposing Islamic law rule in the United States.
That is the conclusion of a new 10-part online video course produced by the Center for Security Policy (CSP), a Washington think tank, that was made public Tuesday.
The briefing-style educational video, “The Muslim Brotherhood in America: The Enemy Within,” features lectures by CSP chief Frank Gaffney.
The video includes a detailed section on “Team Obama” that identifies six people working close to or inside the Obama administration that the course says are linked to the Muslim Brotherhood or similar Islamist groups through numerous front organizations.
They include Rashad Hussein, special envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation; Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton …
It’s a bit unfortunately hilarious in its psychosis because Huma Abedin — a trusted assistant of Hillary Clinton, is Anthony Weiner’s much put upon wife.
Weiner, if you’re a Euro-reader and do not recall, was the Democratic Rep. who saw his career ended for sending someone else not-his-wife a picture of his pecker.
Many years ago Bill Gertz was an investigative journalist who often pried interesting information from the warren that is the US intelligence community.
Over the years Gertz has also been responsible for vaporware/dept. of fiction journalism on electromagnetic pulse.
Today was no exception:
Military officials say the threat of electromagnetic pulse weapons in future warfare is growing …
A military source tells Inside the Ring that Russia has already developed battlefield EMP weapons and used them in combat.
During the early 2000s, Russian military forces fired an EMP mortar round that deployed a small metal-coated parachute. As it floated to earth, the EMP energy burst was reflected downward by the underside of the parachute and also spread by the cords attached to the shell. The result was a cone of anti-electronic energy that disrupted all electronics within its area.
The mortar was used by Russian forces to attack hand-held cellular telephones used by Chechen rebels …
It features a long argument by Craig Medred stating the Nugent was either lying about what he knew of Alaskan hunting regulations — ignorance being the reason he claims to have broken the law, or is a “coward” for claiming fighting a misdemeanor case in court would have bankrupted him.
Medred goes on to reason that Nugent may have instead chosen not to fight the case because he was looking at a potential felony conviction under the Lacey Act. A felony case would have ended his career, at least in the short term.
It’s a nuanced argument, as well as one that condemns Nugent in no uncertain terms. It is also very fair.
Excerpted:
And here is how Nugent spun [his ifnration] all that to Handguns [magazine]:
“Just like in California, to fight the corrupt system would have bankrupted me, taken me away from my life support careers for God knows how long, and I don’t trust our court system. This Alaska charge was an unintentional technical violation of an unprecedented, never-before-heard-of law, only in the southeast region of Alaska, where if your bullet or arrow shows any sign of hitting a bear, then your tag is invalidated. I still can’t find anyone who has ever heard of such a regulation, even amongst lifetime Alaska resident hunters, guides and outfitters, even the judge in Ketchikan stated on record during the court hearing that he had never heard of such a law. I was blindsided by this, and to my knowledge, the only person to ever be charged under this bizarre regulation.”
“The corrupt system?” “An unprecedented, never-before-heard of law?” “Blindsided?” “A bizarre regulation?”
Anyone who truly believes these things fights the charge in court, or he is a coward, no two ways about it. And trust me, I’m not blowing smoke. I once spent thousands of dollars fighting the Alaska Railroad in court because of a “bizarre regulation.”
So [Nugent is] either a coward who backed away from the fight or he’s a liar when he says he violated a “never-before-heard-of law, only in the southeast region of Alaska, where if your bullet or arrow shows any sign of hitting a bear, then your tag is invalidated. I still can’t find anyone who has ever heard of such a regulation …”
He hasn’t looked very hard. I found a fair number of Alaska hunters who have heard of the regulation. Some of them are suspicious Nugent himself knew of the regulation. It was, they say, big talk among bowhunters at the time of enactment.
[The wounded-bear-as-bag-filled] law is awfully hard to enforce. Either your hunting buddies have to rat you out, or you have to save some video showing exactly what you did, which was apparently the case with Nugent. He saved the evidence that he broke the law. And he broke the law. And if he broke it knowing he was breaking it and then shipped the bear hide out of state, then the Feds can potentially slap a felony Lacey Act violation.
Nugent did not get charged with a felony. He settled with the Feds for a misdemeanor Lacey Act violation. Whether he was threatened with a felony charge nobody is saying. But if I was Nugent, and I was threatened with a federal felony charge, I would be afraid — very, very afraid. Nugent has some foundation when he says “I don’t trust our court system.”
Reads like the writer has come very close to the truth of the matter. The article, again, is here.
Threatening the President is also a felony and that is why Ted Nugent received a visit from the US Secret Service the same week he pleaded in the Alaska case.
