Day: October 23, 2007
Did CNN’s Rightwing Nutcase Glenn Beck Say Malibu Liberals Hate America, So Deserve Wild Fires?
Most of the 300,000 Evacuees Are from Republican Enclaves
On his radio gabfest yesterday, CNN’s resident rightwing crackpot Glenn Beck implied that because residents of Malibu, Calif., “hate America,” they were therefore unluckily suffering the loss of their homes to wildfires:
I think there is a handful of people who hate America. Unfortunately for them, a lot of them are losing their homes in a forest fire [sic] today.
Leaving aside the fact that there isn’t a “forest” within miles of Malibu, just seconds before that outrageous, though half-baked, assertion, Beck made a statement that contradicted what he was about to say:
[We’re] all one America, that just because I disagree with you doesn’t mean you hate America, and I love America. We all love America. We just disagree on how we should function…
He then contradicted himself in the same sentence a second time, saying he was not referring to Democrats but to nefarious people (liberals? terrorists?) who pretend to be Democrats:
There are a few people that hate America. But I don’t think the Democrats are those. I think there are those posing as Democrats that are like that.
Huh? It’s always dicey trying to parse logic from the ravings of an unbalanced mind, but since the fires being reported in the national news yesterday were mostly in the Malibu area, it appears that Beck’s “America haters” are Hollywood liberals who live in Malibu.
Or maybe he was referring to Muslim terrorists who are hiding out in Malibu pretending to be Democrats. (If so, they are rapidly burning through Osama bin Ladin’s fortune.)
Ironically, while the wildfires on Sunday did significant damage to the tiny but wealthy and politically liberal beachfront enclave of Malibu, the widespread and horrendous destruction that is going on now is in the politically conservative areas of inland Los Angeles County, coastal Orange County and throughout northern San Diego County, where around 300,000 people have been evacuated.
This recalls TV preacher and diamond-mine owner Pat Robertson’s prophesy in 1998 that God would destroy Orlando, Fla., with a hurricane because Disney allowed a gay group to host activities in its theme park. Instead, God smote Robertson by hurling Hurricane Bonnie directly at his headquarters in Virginia Beach that August.
Homophobic Allegedly Gay Rightwing Prime Minister Defeated in Polish Elections
The Kaczynski Brothers
So it’s not just American conservative homophobic politicians who are self-hating gays. Here’s one in Poland who was ousted by liberals this week:
“It is advisable to establish if Jaroslaw Kaczynski remains in a long-term homosexual relationship and, if so, who his partner is.”
— Head of Polish Secret Service in 1992
Poland’s pro-European Union Civic Platform party beat Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s nationalist conservatives in national elections, according to results Monday.
[Early results] showed [liberal] Civic Platform beating Mr. Kaczynski’s Law and Justice Party by nearly 10 percentage points, putting the party in a position to form a government with its preferred partner, the moderate Polish Peasants Party.
Kaczynski was outed by a Polish newspaper last year:
Poland’s second-most important newspaper, Rzeczpolita, published documents-some only recently declassified, and some that were leaked-from the files of the Polish Secret Service that discussed Prime Minister Kaczynski’s homosexuality. As part of an investigation, begun in 1992, of right-wing political parties that, the documents said, “could threaten democracy,” a Secret Service department then headed by Colonel Jan Lesiak reported, “It is advisable to establish if Jaroslaw Kaczynski remains in a long-term homosexual relationship and, if so, who his partner is.”
Kaczynski’s twin brother, Lech, is the president of Poland. The brothers have a record of anti-gay rhetoric and actions:
Within minutes of becoming Prime Minister in July [2006], Jaroslaw Kaczynski attacked gay marriage saying, “We won’t let ourselves say that black is white, we are going to protect this (marriage) foundation of social life.â€
… When serving as mayor of Warsaw, Lech Kaczyznski [the prime minister’s twin brother] attempted to ban Gay Pride marches in 2004 and 2005.
He refused to meet with the parade organizers, saying, “I am not willing to meet perverts.â€
The rampant homophobia within the government created a climate of fear and repression in Poland:
Poland’s Catholic, conservative right-wing government has members who are openly anti-gay and the health ministry has created a special committee responsible for “curing” gays, according to local media.
Deputy health minister Marek Grafowski said the ministry was also planning to identify how many people in Poland were gay and work out a set of behavioural guides to assist parents and teachers in recognising warning signs of potential “gay” behaviour.
The police have also been compiling a database on gays and the gay community in Poland which although illegal under EU law…
The prime minister’s identical twin brother, Lech Kaczynski, who is married (to a woman) remains president of Poland. His term expires in 2010.
Bush Tacks ‘Emergency’ $46 Bil onto War Supplemental – Expect Another GOP Rubberstamp
Just as surely as the Republican minority in Congress will approve this new $46 billion spike in funding demanded by Pres. Bush for the war in Iraq — an amount that would more than cover the Democrats’ proposed expansion of health insurance coverage for children — the Democrats will get blamed for it:
Setting up another confrontation with congressional Democrats over the war in Iraq, President Bush on Monday sent Congress a $45.9-billion emergency funding request for expenses related to U.S. military campaigns around the world.
The request, which comes on top of $147.5 billion sought by the administration earlier this year, pushes the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to more than $600 billion.
It is a neat trick. Too bad the Dems can’t find a way to counter it.
U.S. Security Contractor in Iraq Can’t Account for $1 Bil in Taxpayer Dollars
During the first three years of the war, when the GOP controlled Congress and the White House, there was very little, if any, accountability of the money spent by government contractors in Iraq.
Among the problems identified before the audit was suspended were duplicate payments, the purchase of a never-used $1.8 million X-ray scanner and payments of $387,000 to house DynCorp officials in hotels rather than other available accommodation.
Since the Democrats took over Congress, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction has been charged with trying to find out what happened to the billions of dollars the administration and its cronies have squandered, lost or stolen.
Unfortunately, in too many cases, the job has turned out to be impossible:
The Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) said it was forced to suspend its audit of the DynCorp contract after administration officials told investigators they had no confidence in their own accounting records.
The inspector general said the agency had not validated the accuracy of invoices received before October 2006 and described bills and supporting documents as being in disarray.
Among the problems identified before the audit was suspended were duplicate payments, the purchase of a never-used $1.8 million X-ray scanner and payments of $387,000 to house DynCorp officials in hotels rather than other available accommodation.
The inspector general blamed the problems on long-standing contract administration problems at the State Department agency responsible for the contract — the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, or INL.
“As a result, INL does not know specifically what it received for most of the $1.2 billion in expenditures under its DynCorp contract for the Iraqi Police Training Program. INL’s prior lack of controls created an environment vulnerable to waste and fraud,” SIGIR said in an interim review.
DynCorp is a private military contractor based in the Washintong suburbs that receives 96 percent of its $2 billion in annual revenues from American taxpayers.
In addition to training the Iraqi police, the company orovide security in Afghanistan and is involved in the poppy eradication program there. It was also deployed in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
