WOULD YOU TRUST SOME PATHETIC LOUDMOUTH LIKE RUSH LIMBAUGH, who has made no secret of his desire to whip up contempt for President Obama so that the voters will "see the errors of their ways" in Indecision 2010 and go back to voting Straight Republican pro Deo, patria et familia?

You may want to reconsider, especially considering what Media Matters for America has uncovered over the First 100 Days of Change We Can Believe In from The Oxycontin Bull's lips (and there are actual audio clips available, as well as transcripts, in case Mr. Limbaugh starts disputing the claims), via Media Matters' Weekly Roundup:

Given all the outrageous comments and attacks of the last 100 days, Media Matters had a hard time choosing the worst media moment and asked our readers to decide. The winner was Rush Limbaugh's comment, "We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles ... because his father was black."

Indeed, Limbaugh has spent the first 100 days of Obama's presidency repeating and elaborating on his claim that he wants Obama to fail, as well as attacking Obama for being "angry" and accusing him of wanting to "destroy" the United States of America. A review of his falsehoods and attacks illustrates his commitment to personally leading the charge against anything and everything Obama does as president:

• Day 3: Setting a disturbing tone for the next four years of his attacks, Limbaugh says: "We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles ... because his father was black."

• Day 7: Limbaugh says that getting the "truth" out about Obama is "gonna be an epic battle, as Saddam Hussein said. Saddam Hussein Obama said."

• Day 21: In an all-too-common moment of self-aggrandizement, Limbaugh declares of Obama's first few weeks in office: "I've crashed the honeymoon. ... I've hijacked it, in fact."

• Day 25: Limbaugh declares: "I want the stimulus package to fail. ... I want everything he's doing to fail."

• Day 29: Demonstrating his deep disdain for Democrats, Limbaugh says of calls for "bipartisanship" in fixing the economic crisis: "Should Jesus have made a deal with Satan?"

• Day 39: Limbaugh throws Republicans under the bus: "The dirty little secret ... is that every Republican in this country wants Obama to fail, but none of them have the guts to say so. I am willing to say it."

• Day 40: Limbaugh speaks at the CPAC conference in Washington, D.C., thrashing Obama and the Democrats in front of a fervent crowd. Limbaugh says: "How did the United States of America become the world's lone superpower, the world's economic engine, the most prosperous opportunity for an advanced lifestyle that humanity has ever known? How did this happen? And why, pray tell, does the president of the United States want to destroy it?"

• Day 42: Responding to comments from RNC chairman Michael Steele that Limbaugh's rhetoric was "incendiary" and "ugly" - comments Steele would later walk back--Limbaugh says of Steele: "Why do you claim that you are leading the Republican Party when you are obsessed with seeing to it the President Obama succeeds?"

• Day 58: Limbaugh claims that "everybody in the White House is in over their heads in fixing" the economic crisis and says those in the White House are "perfectly timed, perfectly programmed, perfectly educated to destroy capitalism ... and they're in the process of doing it."

• Day 64: Limbaugh says of Obama: "He's taking away freedom incrementally each and every day."

• Day 66: A poll claiming Americans think Obama will raise taxes yet still support him provides Limbaugh an opportunity to bash Obama and display some sexism: "They know he is lying through his teeth and they still support him. It just means this, what women have always known: 'Cheat on me, just don't tell me about it.' "

• Day 67: Limbaugh issues a pseudo-apology for saying that: "[W]hile my closing comment yesterday was certainly a comment containing a large element of truth, it still perhaps was inappropriate and so for that, I apologize." Yet, later in the show, Limbaugh returns to the rhetoric, saying of Obama: "He's a cult leader. Battered liberal syndrome. 'Cheat on me, just don't tell me.' "

• Day 70: Limbaugh says: "Based on what we've seen with General Motors and the banks, if he fails, America is saved. Barack Obama's policies and their failure is the only hope we've got to maintain the America of our founding."

• Day 80: Limbaugh uses the kidnapping of an American sea captain by Somali pirates to attack Obama and the Democrats: "Piracy is rebounding precisely because of the American left and the European left's lack of intestinal fortitude--gonads, if you will." He later added: "The Democrat Party--enemies of America are friends of the Democrat Party."

• Day 84: Following the rescue of the sea captain, and after previously bashing Obama for his handling of the situation, Limbaugh says he "was confident this was going to get settled. It was going to be resolved on way or the other way and regardless how, President Obama was going to be given credit for it."

• Day 85: Limbaugh predictably reacts to the leaking of a Department of Homeland Security report on "right-wing extremism" distorting the conclusions of the report, claiming Obama and DHS head Janet Napolitano are "extreme partisan radicals and they're ready to go war with a domestic enemy - conservatives - that they consider to be a greater threat than Iran, than China, than North Korea."

• Day 86: Limbaugh steers his listeners toward empathizing with right-wing extremists by falsely claiming that "Obama's DHS report" called "every mainstream conservative a right-wing extremist."

• Day 88: Limbaugh reacts to the Obama administration's release of previously classified Justice Department memos detailing interrogation techniques that were authorized to be used on detainees by claiming: "[I]f you look at what we are calling torture, you have to laugh." He went on to assert: "I just slapped myself. I'm torturing myself right now. That's torture according to these people."

• Day 91: In a comment emblematic of Limbaugh's frequent linking of Obama with Marxist and socialist leaders, Limbaugh asks: "Do you realize that Obama and [Venezuelan President Hugo] Chavez have more in common than they do not?"

• Day 100: Limbaugh gives Obama a "D" for his first 100 days, saying "We gotta allow room for more failure, cause it's gonna get worse."

There should be little doubt that for the next three years and nine months, Rush Limbaugh will continue his daily assault on President Obama. Limbaugh's attacks on President Bill Clinton in his first couple years in office were credited with helping Republicans take control of the House in 1994. If Obama does fail--and the rest of America with him--Limbaugh will deserve the credit he will be all too happy to accept.

With that in mind, perhaps it was time to ask this self-righteous "Truth Detector" to, in the immortal words of Hank Greenspun, founder and publisher of the Las Vegas Sun in taking Joseph McCarthy to task for his anti-Communist excesses, "show us your facts!"

Especially considering that most of Mr. Limbaugh's target audience, for the most part, is "poor white trash"--socioeconomically marginalised, ignorant, lacking realistically-marketable job and career skills, all the more vulnerable to major socioeconomic dislocation and change and too easily open to such suggestions and influences which may, unwittingly, prove dangerous to the best interests and Greater Collective Good of the Nation.

Even if the trope of True Patriot Love in All Thy Sons Command is used to sugar-coat the message of hate--@ least early on, as seems to be the case of late among white-supremacist groups pushing "race pride" and "love of race" as come-ons to the Great Unwashed seeking answers to highly-complex questions.

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MEANWHILE, ONE APPROACH WHITE SUPREMACISTS WILL LIKELY BE USING AS A RECRUITMENT TOOL WILL BE "LECTURES" by what are advertised as being White Christian Refugees from South Africa "fleeing imminent racial and religious persecution from a Communist-influenced regime" in Dutch-accented English, presenting what amounts to highly-glowing paeans for the apartheid regime's treating whites as "privileged" and "entitled as of Divine Right" excusing the likes of the Voortrek and the Boer War as much as apartheid, which was to be seen as the Final Perfection of Civitas Dei on Earth according to a Calvinist worldview.

The accounts in question, it turns out, being all too heavily scripted or otherwise coached, especially when the Milli Vanilli approach is resorted to (as in having the stock speech recorded on CD and the speakers essentially lip-synching the same, unaware that one false move could mean that the jig will explode in the faces of all involved).

All the while, the "white trash" expected to embrace such displays of overzealously manufactured emotion in the name of Racial Honour and Pride aren't expected to know that the whole is a sham, Pavlovian conditioning to prepare the would-be sheeple for "advanced instruction" as reveals the actual (and, hence, sinister) intent of such exercises.

The which should be watched for, and challenged just in case.

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MEMO TO SUCH WHO MAY BE TAKING HYDROXYCUT FOR WEIGHT LOSS OR BUILDING MASS, per the Food and Drug Administration: Please stop using Hydroxycut products immediately, thank you.

This in response to reports of possible liver damage and jaundice (in @ least four cases, resulting in deaths) from certain active components in Hydroxycut, which is derived largely from citrus fruits.

No wonder the public is as guillable as it is--and Phineas T. Barnum's remark about "there's a sucker born every minute" being oh so true all the more in such Interesting Times as these.

A TIP OF THE GIMME CAP TO SKIP TUCKER (AS IN SKIP'S HOUSE OF CHAOS) for giving us what may be the most ideal logotype for the Republican Party (as above), considering its prevailing mindset and mentalities probably dropping hints of weird and/or unwholesome associations.

Including, methinks, such involving the Dregs of Society--alcoholics, drug addicts, sex fiends and maniacs, gamblers, chronic and habitual spendthrifts, undischarged bankrupts, the lot.

And as if that weren't enough, expect the GOP to resort to Ponzi-scheme behaviour in the fundraising department, in the stylee of the infamous "Foundation for New Era Philanthropy" a few years back.

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NEWS WHICH THE SCAREMONGERING CROWD IS SURE TO EXPLOIT FOR ALL IT'S WORTH, ESPECIALLY HERE IN THE "MORALLY SUPERIOR" UNITED STATES: Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai announcing that the Zimbabwean Government is, for all purposes and intents, bankrupt.

Even after printing banknotes with a (theoretical) value of Z$1 trillion as could barely buy a loaf of bread.

(And expect racists, white supremacists and the Archie Bunker/Alf Garnett crowd to exploit the news as "evidence" that blacks are "racially and morally incapable" of holding positions of power and authority, and seek "by whatever means necessary" "a disproportionate share of power and control" in a drug-inspired dream world insisting that only White Low Church Christians are "entitled as of natural right" to asserting power and authority.)

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EQUALLY WEIRD, COME TO THINK OF IT, ARE THE RESULTS OF A JUST-RELEASED PEW CENTRE SURVEY suggesting that Low Church Christians in particular were likely to support the use of torture as a "pre-emptive" measure to prevent Notorious Terrorist Attacks--and the more sadisto, the better.

No wonder the likes of Low Church Christians are all the more likely to rely on Fox Prolefeed for their--well, prolefeed--and watch sadistically-violent ultraviolence in films and television (24 in particular). That, and regarding homosexuals to be Freaks and Travesties of Nature worthy only of travelling freak shows making the circuit of county fairs in certain less-enlightened parts of the country where Low Church Christian teachings and their articles of faith are likely to hold high carnival.

Not to mention Poverty, Fecundity and Stupidity being held up as "virtuous" notwithstanding objections to pornography thanks to Low Church Christian thought prevailing.

NO WONDER THE POLICE TRADITIONALLY DISTRUST THOSE WITH KNOWN POLICE RECORDS as credible witnesses to notorious and infamous criminal acts, deeds and exploits, even as informants.

Case in point, from the ConWebBlog, an adjunct of ConWebWatch:

An April 30 NewsBusters post by Brad Wilmouth runs to the defense of Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx, who in a speech on the House floor called the claim that the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard was a hate crime (Shepard was gay) a "hoax" and insisting it was merely a robbery gone bad. Wilmouth cited a 2004 segment of ABC's 20/20 which, in Wilmouth's words, "made a credible case that Shepard was targeted by Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson not because of anti-gay sentiment, but because McKinney was high on methamphetamines, giving him unusual violent tendencies as well as a desire for cash to buy more drugs." The main proponents of this claim are the killers themselves.

But Wilmouth overlooks a couple things conflicting with such a conclusion, which, as we've detailed, has been embraced by right-wingers in an effort to oppose giving hate-crime protections to gays.

First, McKinney attempted a "gay panic" defense during his trial. Second, he has given multiple, conflicting accounts of what happened the night of Shepard's murder. Third, he's a convicted felon and a murderer--not exactly the most trustworthy guy.

As a Wyoming police detective who worked on the Shepard case said: "Only three people know what really happened that night.... One of them is dead and the other two are known liars and convicted felons--murderers."

Further, as the Matthew Shepard Foundation has stated, the ABC report omitted the contents of McKinney's in-custody interview a few days after Shepard's death. That transcript shows "an un-rehearsed and unemotional anti-gay account of the events before, during, and after leaving Matt tied to the fence," according to the foundation.

We've detailed how numerous right-wingers have chosen to trust a convicted felon and murderer rather than examine all the facts of the Shepard case. Add Wilmouth to the list.

But then again, remember that the Nazis were teaching German schoolchildren in their time never to trust Jews with the truth just as they wouldn't trust a fox on the heath. Not to mention condoning the publication of children's picture books depicting Jews in the vilest and most disgusting forms known (one particularly memorable scene from the book--titled, ironically enough, The Poison Mushroom--depicted a Jewish child molester offering candies to schoolchildren on their way home).

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IF YOU GET INFORMATION PACKETS FROM CERTAIN COMPANIES PUSHING GOLD AS A "SAFE INVESTMENT" IN THE FACE OF WHAT THEY CLAIM IS "IMMINENT SOCIOECONOMIC COLLAPSE," expect to wind up on the mailing lists of extreme anti-Semitic and bigot groups using "patriotism" as cover for their nefarious excesses within measurable distance.

Especially so the sort fond of advertising on right-wing talkback radio shows in paranoid contexts.

Making it even more galling: The lack of clear and compelling privacy policies on the part of such companies selling "investment grade" gold coin @ inflated prices--only it turns out being lead ingots purchased on the cheap @ the Monongahela Metal Foundry's Liquidation Sale and sprayed with cheap gold paint such as you can find @ any auto-supply store--and the want of an "opt-out" option vis-a-vis mailing lists offered for resale and exchange.

IF I MAY EXPLAIN THE DELAY IN POSTING TODAY'S ITEM, READERS, YOUR CORRESPONDENT WAS RATHER BUSY WITH A FEW THINGS as sidetracked him for the first of the month.

Not just the usual about paying the rent, but also getting some supplies like air freshener, stationery, printer ink cartridge refills and spray-on sunblock.

That last one being delayed, it turns out, by an afterlunch replacement of the tube in the front tyre of my bicycle, as somehow went flat--and, to make it a little safer (hopefully), having a substance called Slime added to both front and rear tyre tubes to (in theory) create a "preemptive" seal against future punctures and flats which can only serve to delay things on the bicycle (and, by extension, make things a little frustrating).

So: Any of you bloggers had any experience with Slime or similar products as a tyre sealant as is worth discussing in the comments section?

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DEFINITELY DESERVING OF THAT ANNUAL LIST OF WORDS, PHRASES AND EXPRESSIONS "BANISHED FROM THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH" issued annually by Lake Superior State University of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan in the inter-holiday slow-news period would have to be that "bend over, grab the ankles" platitude of a certain Rush Limbaugh used in connexion with certain actions involving the Obama Administration.

Such, if you ask me, is little more than allusion to sodomy or homosexual acts generally, never mind The Oxycontin Boar claiming to be a defender of morals and decency on his radio programme.

Come to think of it: Something I'd like to hear is some station carrying Mr. Limbaugh's programme cutting those remarks short at "bend over" and instantaneously (the better to surprise and distract his loyal droogs among the Great Unwashed and Now-Unemployable in the New Economy) switch over to classic specimens of Old-Time Radio comedy (preferably with subtle tweaks in power and/or modulation levels)--or, even better still, classics of Old-Time Radio detective and police dramas (my own personal faves in this arena being Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons, Dragnet, Pat Novak for Hire, The Adventures of Philip Marlowe (as led by Gerald Mohr), Broadway Is My Beat, Crime Classics and the Sidney Greenstreet-led version of Nero Wolfe--for starters).

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THE RELIGIOPOLITICAL RIGHT AND THEIR MOST LOYAL RANKS AMONG THE GREAT UNWASHED MAY NOT KNOW THIS, BUT THE SAME CARRIE PREJEAN, Miss California USA, who's become the Poster Child for Defending the Purity and Sanctity of Traditional Marriage, is actually little more than a shill. A puppet. A tool of the homophobic community as could right now be undergoing all manner of quasi-Scientologist mind-control and "reeducation" techniques to primp her all the more into being made out as a Positive and Healthy Role Model Worthy of Study and Emulation Among Right-Thinking White Low Church Christian Youth of America.

Yeah, right--but remember that back in Nazi Germany, the Bund Deutscher Madel (the League of German Girls, the girls' branch of the Hitler Youth) and its "finishing school" of sorts, Glaube und Schoenheit (Faith and Beauty), expected young German girlhood to essentially reduce themselves to the role of floozies for any and all SS officers who asked, and in the name of an "Aryan Master Race" expected to carry onward the Fuerher's desire of the Thousand-Year Reich--marriage being seen in Nazi thinking as "antiquated" and "encumbering" towards the perfection of Racial Purity.

Not to mention the prospect of her speeches really being pre-recorded so that Ms. Prejean is basically lip-synching such, not unlike certain bad concert tours--the jinx of which could easily be up if she suddenly faints from exhaustion or the recording skips @ an especially crucual point for whipping up the emotions in Kankerdom's ranks unaware of her real intentions and strategems. (And, it turns out, deliberately.)

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LATEST SPECIMEN OF NON CAUSA PRO CAUSA GUARANTEED TO ATTRACT WHITE-SUPREMACIST AND BIGOT INTEREST WITHIN MEASURABLE DISTANCE: The BBC is reporting where British authorities hath it that the Zimbabwean Government has unleashed a major exercise in "ethnic cleansing" aimed @ scaring all remaining white farmers off their lands for eventual redistribution to good and loyal droogs of President Mugabe's ZANU-PF movement through corrupt and dishonest means.

Which, to the racist crowd, is casus belli for a "rescue operation" towards resettlement of White Christian Farmers in certain dirt-poor regions of the "morally superior" United States based on potentially insincere claims of "persecution" to try and "rebuild their honest and simple lives" by playing to crude emotions common to the mullet-head element in raising funds for the "rescue operation" as wind up being diverted @ the last moment to "more urgent and pressing needs," not otherwise identified.

In its turn, raising the clear and present likelihood of such fundraising being fraudulent by deliberate trick and design.

For the nonce, though, such appeals for funds will want to be ignored lest we have sincere and credible intentions. 

THE DILEMMAS THAT SEEM TO PLAGUE YOUR CORRESPONDENT TO THE EXTENT OF INFLUENCING THE TONE OF THIS WEBLOG could be put down, in substantial measure, to the brand of psychiatry he was made to accept through much of the 1980's in the Community Mental Health Clinic System.

A psychiatry as seemed almost right out of Nineteen Eighty Four inasmuch as it expected clients to:

• on the one hand, subordinate selfish interest to an idealised "Greater Collective Good" of the Community; and,
• on the other hand, essentially reject the evidence of eyes and ears and, instead, accept only a Sanitised, Approved Version of events.