“There was a shooting at a political camp, which sounds a little like the Hitler youth, or, whatever. I mean, who does a camp for kids that’s all about politics. Disturbing,”

We should thank him because – ignoring the American Legion’s Boys State and Girls State summer camps, which have provided civics leadership to such alumni as Neil Armstrong, Tom Brokaw, Bill Clinton, Mike Huckabee, Michael Jordan, George Pataki, Jane Pauley, Harry Reid, and even Rush Limbaugh since 1935 – his incendiary and ignorant comment allows us to shine a light on a far more disturbing phenomenon.

Tea party groups are holding their own camps this summer, where children and young people are being indoctrinated with anti-social and scarcity-based beliefs. Take this Florida camp.

The [Tampa 912 Project] hopes to introduce kids ages 8 to 12 to principles that include “America is good,” “I believe in God,” and “I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.”

The teaching methods at the “Tampa LIberty” camp, run by one Jeff Lukens, were obviously devised by people who stayed up all night getting in touch with their inner mean bastard.

Children will win hard, wrapped candies to use as currency for a store, symbolizing the gold standard. On the second day, the “banker” will issue paper money instead. Over time, students will realize their paper money buys less and less, while the candies retain their value.

“Some of the kids will fall for it,” Lukens said. “Others kids will wise up.”

Another example: Starting in an austere room where they are made to sit quietly, symbolizing Europe, the children will pass through an obstacle course to arrive at a brightly decorated party room (the New World).

Red-white-and-blue confetti will be thrown. But afterward the kids will have to clean up the confetti, learning that with freedom comes responsibility.

Still another example: Children will blow bubbles from a single container of soapy solution, and then pop each other’s bubbles with squirt guns in an arrangement that mimics socialism. They are to count how many bubbles they pop. Then they will work with individual bottles of solution and pop their own bubbles.

“What they will find out is that you can do a lot more with individual freedom,” Lukens said.

I don’t even want to meet the kids who emerge from this paranoid, miserly nightmare of a camp but I bet when they grow up, they will look a lot like Glenn Beck and Michelle Bachmann.

— Glenn Beck, on his syndicated radio show, equating the scene of Friday’s massacre at a summer youth camp on the Norwegian island of Utøya with the Nazi Party’s youth wing.

Just in time for vacation planning!

Part 2 follows:

First that dog gets rescued in Japan and now this? What a world!

Glenn Beck’s talk show is being dropped by the Fox News Channel after sinking in the ratings and suffering financially due to an advertiser boycott…

Beck was a quick burn on Fox News Channel. Almost immediately after joining the network in January 2009, he doubled the ratings at his afternoon time slot. Fans found his conservative populism entertaining, while Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert described Beck’s “crank up the crazy and rip off the knob” moments…

Ailes: ‘Half of the headlines say he’s been canceled. The other half say he quit. We’re pretty happy with both of them.’

Beck said that he went to Roger Ailes, Fox News chairman and CEO, in January to discuss ways they could continue to work together without the daily show.

“Half of the headlines say he’s been canceled,” Ailes said. “The other half say he quit. We’re pretty happy with both of them.”

Beck said he noted on his show Tuesday that “how many times can I tell the (George) Soros story,” referring to the liberal donor that Beck has made a target of attacks.

“We felt Glenn brought additional information, a unique perspective, a certain amount of passion and insight to the channel and he did,” Ailes said. “But that story of what’s going on and why America is in trouble today, I think he told that story as well as could be told. Whether you can just keep telling that story or not … we’re not so sure.”

More than 400 Fox advertisers told the company they did not want their commercials on Beck’s show. Beck’s advertisers were dominated by financial services firms, many touting gold as an investment.

Ailes dismissed the financial impact of the boycott but expressed some frustration with it.

“Advertisers who get weak-kneed because some idiot on a blog site writes to them and says we need to stifle speech, I get a little frustrated by that,” he said.

Count us among those “idiots on blog sites.” And thanks to all our “idiot” readers — and you know who you are — that called for the boycott. Would you like to join us in our chicken dance?

I stumbled on this video (thank you, K.Q.) after reading Buck’s recent posts on new deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and Florida Gov. Rick Scott, along with other authors writing about man-made disasters.

Camp makes an excellent point. We think these things up, but we never plan adequately for the downside.

*Yes, that was an intentional oxymoron.

Transcript of complete segment from Glenn Beck’s show on the Republican Party’s Fox network in June:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VAN JONES, FORMER WHITE HOUSE ADVISER FOR GREEN JOBS: I think that when we look back to the history of the Obama administration and look back at the history of our progressive movement, that this week will mark a historic inflection point when progressives decided to be progressive again in this country. I think something shifted this week.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: Yes, it has. It has. This is an ominous statement coming from a revolutionary. Please go to GlennBeck.com and look up “STORM: Reclaiming Revolution.” This is his organization. He is in this. From a revolutionary.

I’m sorry but when did the Obama administration not be progressive? Excuse me? They were normal? We have seen progressives. We haven’t seen the actual spooky progressives yet. I think you are about to. Something has changed this week. He’s right.

But what the politicians don’t understand, the ones who have co-opted these revolutionaries and brought them in the process, is they are dangerous. Why? Why? Well, because a lot of them have called for violent revolution in the past and they never distanced themselves from it.

You cannot co-opt and lie to people who believe in something. Why is Ahmadinejad dangerous? Well, because he says he wants to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth, OK? The press and the politicians — “Oh, he’s just saying that.”

Why do they say that? Because nobody in the press and nobody in Washington actually believes a damn thing, except their own image. That’s it. This man is a twelver. Look it up. Do you know what it is? It’s a revolutionary so dangerous that the Ayatollah Khomeini banned twelvers.

OK. Here’s the Ayatollah Khomeini, who is a revolutionary — he says stay away from these guys. They’re spooky. He didn’t co-opt them because he understood they believed in the 12th Imam coming back, and the way to bring the 12th Imam back is wash the world in blood.

There are politicians like the Ayatollah Khomeini who will do revolution for power. And then there are people like this who are mad men. I never thought I’d say we better learn something from the Ayatollah Khomeini, but here it is.

The media and the politician have all of this wrong. In every single walk of life — you want to know why TV doesn’t reflect you? You want to know why Washington doesn’t reflect you? Because they don’t understand, from the radical revolutionaries to the Islamic extremists — and yes, DOJ, they do exist — to the Tea Party movements.

Just because you in Washington and you who are so out of touch with life in the media, just because you don’t believe in anything doesn’t mean nobody else does. We do. You know why you’re confused by this show? It’s because I believe in something. You don’t.

Tea parties believe in small government. We believe in returning to the principles of our Founding Fathers. We respect them. We revere them. Shoot me in the head before I stop talking about the Founders. Shoot me in the head if you try to change our government.

I will stand against you and so will millions of others. We believe in something. You in the media and most in Washington don’t. The radicals that you and Washington have co-opted and brought in wearing sheep’s clothing — change the pose. You will get the ends.

You’ve been using them? They believe in communism. They believe and have called for a revolution. You’re going to have to shoot them in the head. But warning, they may shoot you.

They are dangerous because they believe. Karl Marx is their George Washington. You will never change their mind. And if they feel you have lied to them — they’re revolutionaries. Nancy Pelosi, those are the people you should be worried about.

Here is my advice when you’re dealing with people who believe in something that strongly — you take them seriously. You listen to their words and you believe that they will follow up with what they say.

Didn’t we learn that lesson from Usama bin Laden? I heard his warning in 1998. I said on the air at the time, listen to him. We didn’t listen. We didn’t listen to the revolutionaries in Germany, the revolutionaries in Russia or Venezuela or Cuba — no, no, no. They all have one thing in common. They have all called for revolution.

They want to overthrow our entire system of government, and their words say it. Why won’t you believe it?

As you will learn on “Founding Fridays(sic),” this Friday, we’re talking about James Madison. Here is what you will learn. The revolution of 1776 was a picnic compared to what the revolutionaries of today would like to do. It’s not a lot of fun. Usually, millions of people die.

But I’m glad to see our politicians will co-opt those people so they can have power. Fundamental transformation. It’s what America is going through right now. And the progressives, the Marxist revolutionary progressives are still not happy. I’m going to show you the beginning of that civil war inside the Democratic Party, next.

Piven

the CCR asks that Ailes distinguish between First Amendment rights, of which they are “vigorous defenders” and an “intentional repetition of provocative, incendiary, emotional misinformation and falsehoods [that place that person] in actual physical danger of a violent response.”

Beginning in September of 2010, Glenn Beck started branding Piven, a distinguished professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, as an “enemy of the Constitution.” Piven, well known for advocating for the organizational rights of the poor and encouraging voter registration, has since received threatening phone calls and letters, and has become the subject of many death threats left open to the public on Glenn Beck’s website, The Blaze.”

The CCR letter cites many of the incendiary quotes from Beck in reference to Piven. Beck compares Piven to the Hutaree militia, infamous for violent threats against government and law enforcement workers, and equates her calls for social movements to “terrorism.” On December 31, a headline on The Blaze read, “Frances Fox Piven Rings in the New Year by Advocating Violent Revolution,” further stating that “violence has always been Piven’s preferred method of collapse.”

The Center for Constitutional rights details a backlash through some of the many violent quotes on Beck’s website. Examples include, “Maybe they should burst through the front door of this arrogant elitist and slit the hateful cow’s throat,” “We should blow up Piven’s office and home,” and “I am all for violence and change Frances: Where do your loved ones live?”

The letter states that the “threats must be taken seriously by Fox News,” and that “Professor Piven’s life could well be at stake.” It further asks that Mr. Ailes “order an immediate investigation into this, and insist on a speedy and fair resolution which will stop the Fox and Beck generated threats on Professor Piven.”

The Center for Constitutional Rights should not hold its breath waiting for Ailes to investigate Glenn Beck. Ailes and the Republican Party are fully aware of what Beck is doing.

Sadly, the best that can be expected from CCR’s letter to Ailes is that it serves as a marker that can be produced later, should the worst happen to Dr. Piven, to prove that Ailes and the Republican Party’s propagandists at Fox had been warned.

Many of his seemingly random statements—on “grammar,” “the ratifications,” “the new currency,” and more—echo the teachings of the “sovereign citizen” movement, a right-wing school of thought alleging that Americans have been surreptitiously stripped of their God-given rights.

These are not random parallels, as I discovered in reviewing Loughner’s YouTube videos. In multiple instances, he uses the precise talking points sovereign-citizen theorists teach via a thriving cottage industry of books, websites, bogus legal companies, and seminars; one popular theorist, David Wynn Miller, told the New York Times that Loughner has “probably been on my website.”

If you go to Miller’s web site, good luck. It’s as indecipherable as Loughner’s question to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the one he is thought to have fixated on to the point of justifying his future actions: “What is government if words have no meaning?”

Playing with words and punctuation is a large part of what the sovereign citizens are all about.

The sovereign citizen movement argues that if you closely study the Constitution, you can prove that federal laws are illegitimate—leaving you free to choose not to, say, pay taxes or follow traffic laws. In their view, the minute you get a Social Security number or driver’s license, you enter into a contract giving up your sovereignty. (Several sovereign-citizen adherents have told me that home births are popular in the movement for this reason.) To become a sovereign citizen, you retroactively withdraw from this contract. Some also argue that you aren’t bound to government contracts if you sign documents in red crayon or use lowercase lettering, alternative punctuation for your name (say, “Justine,,, Sharrock”), or add the letters “TDC” for “under threat, duress, and coercion.”) There are myriad theories on how to prove your sovereignty in a court of law, with plenty of experts willing to help—for a fee.

Miller, a former tool and die welder, declares himself a “plenipotentiary-judge” and writes his name :Judge: David-Wynn: Miller. How this gets him off from paying taxes I couldn’t say, but Glenn Beck would no doubt be envious of the hairpin logic involved.

Before FOX News, etc. gets their hands on Sharrock’s research and twists it beyond recognition, do yourself a favor and read the whole article. If the right can figure out a way to give us Loughner they will, but with these findings, that will be harder to do.

• Rude Pundit: Hey Right Wing, How’s That Ginning Up the Masses Thing Working for Ya Now?
• Giffords: Palin Put Crosshairs on District, So Must ‘Realize There Are Consequences to That Action’
• Palin Issues ‘Sincere Condolences’ on Facebook After Rep on Her ‘Target’ List Was Shot in Head, Scrubs Website

For those of us following the coverage of the mass shooting aimed at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords who are sick of the false equivalency arguments (”But what about Daily Kos?”), the bending over backward denials (”They were surveyors marks, not gun scope sights”), and pleas by the right not to rush to judgment (like they do with every ginned up news cycle concerning the NPRs and Van Joneses of the world), The Rude Pundit offers some relief. He is calling out the same folks as the sheriff of Pima County did — those who earn a living inflaming the American people.

He goes one further, though, by including the viewers and listeners and readers who indulge those leaders, who drive up their ratings, and who ultimately pay their salaries. And if you are among them, The Rude Pundit leaves you nowhere to hide.

Following are excerpts from what could have been called, “Dear Right-Wingers: We Reject Your Every Attempt to Evade Blame” but which is, instead, the much better titled, “Dear Right-Wingers: You Are All Muslims Now.”

How you must have heaved in relief when you saw that it would be quite easy to portray Jared Lee Loughner as a raving psychopath, an effort that’s helped a great deal by the apparent truth, which is that Jared Lee Loughner is a raving psychopath…

Now, ah, yes, now, lovely right-wingers, you could defend yourself. You could work yourselves into a huff about how unjustly you were accused of driving this obviously disturbed individual into an act of calculated, cold-blooded violence. But that’s because you’re sitting there in your shit-filled underpants, thinking, “I don’t believe in violence. I don’t approve this. I hope the government doesn’t try to crack down on us.”

So, welcome, assholes, because you are Muslim now.

How does it feel to stand in Muslim shoes today? Because, right now, yes, you are being treated like suspects. You are being treated like you are guilty of the crimes that are committed by the deranged in your number. Sure, you may think, you can spout all the blood-filled, gun-toting, war-flogging rhetoric you want against citizens of your own country. But those are just words, you know? You can’t, you know, be held accountable for the actions of a few. And, gosh, it’s just wrong to lump you all together, to stereotype you all as criminals in waiting. Like, you know, you have done with Muslims since September 11, 2001.

Here’s the deal, though. The vast, vast, vast majority of Muslims decry not only acts of violence, but the rhetoric of it, too. The vast, vast, vast majority of right-wingers not only stay silent as conservatives shoot at targets with their opponents’ names or initials on them, talk about revolution and violence, and accuse Democrats of getting ready to put Americans in forced health care camps. No, you embrace your extremists assholes and anoint them your idiot queen…

So, yeah, yeah, cowering motherfuckers, Jared Lee Loughner was monkeyfuck insane. He wandered in the fringes of conspiracy theories and wallowed in the stinking pit of his own mad brain fluids. You can comfort yourselves and have a shaky drink to that.

But you know what, you ridiculous worms? At the end of the day, the Rude Pundit supports your right to say your stupid shit. And it’s ironic that Giffords read the First Amendment during the House’s big show last week of reading the Constitution. Free speech ain’t a free pass. It never, ever comes without responsibility. You wanna spout crazy, violent shit? You wanna talk about end times and revolution, Glenn Beck? Then man up and know that some people will take you seriously, even if you are just a joke.

Please click over to the complete post.