When I joined the Red State Strike Force, I began receiving emails from Newsmax as well. And I have to say that Newsmax emails make Erick Erickson sound like Thomas Jefferson. Here’s a taste of one of the articles they were pushing:
The Coming War with Iran: 6 Days in Hell!
Newsmax Magazine’s blockbuster issue has major cover stories, including an exclusive special report by Newsmax contributing editor and Iran expert Kenneth R. Timmerman, “Six Days to War,” which lays out the scenario likely to unfold if the U.S. and Iran go to war.
[….]As the Bush administration ratchets up the pressure, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs says the military option is still on the table and warns Iran that the U.S. can launch massive strikes using Navy and Air power.
There’s a lot of problems with this article, but let’s just pick on this one: the article is dated January 31, 2009 and writes “As the Bush administration ratchets up the pressure”. Mostly, though, I just like the picture.
Here’s some of the other important issues we’ll see in the next issue of Newsmax:
* Michael Savage mulls candidacy.
* Michael Jackson may convert to Islam.
* Reverse mortgages are often a smart choice.
* China bans adoptions to the obese.
* Rich Little: Don’t knock Bush.
* Dr. Laura: A great marriage isn’t hard work.
All of this makes me ponder Don DeLillo’s classic question: were people this dumb before television?
Comrade Stuck
I’m just glad someone else receives Newsmax emails so I don’t have to. You are a brave soul Dougj.
John O
If you know the DeLillo quote like you seem to, you must at all costs read D.F. Wallace’s "E Unibus Pluram," in the classic compendium, "a supposedly fun thing I’ll never do again," to get about 6 levels deeper than DeLillo ever could think about getting where it comes to the influence of TV on Us.
You’ll thank me. I promise.
Also, I had to read it several times to get it, but it was worth it.
FoxinSocks
Maybe they’re so in denial about Obama winning the election that they’ve convinced themselves George W. Bush changed the constitution and was elected to a third term.
Jon H
From that list of upcoming features, I can only conclude that Newsmax’s readership is mostly older than dirt.
That’s the only audience for whom reverse mortgages ever make any sense (and then only rarely and definitely not after getting advice from NewsMax), and the elderly are the only audience who give a crap about Rich Little nowadays.
Joshua Norton
Since they write the same crap over and over again, it’s obvious they’re recycled January ’08 stuff and changed the date to ’09.
And someone really make them face the fact that Bush is gone. No matter how much they don’t want to admit it.
Johnny Pez
Yes, but back then there was no internet, so the only way of exposing their dumbosity to large numbers of people was to convince a magazine or newspaper editor to let them.
Joshua Norton
And what, pray tell, is/was Michael Savage mulling running for? He lives in Marin County in Northern California. He has about as much chance of being elected to any office as Reagan has of coming back for a 3rd term.
NonWonderDog
OOOOOooooooh, it’s like one of those extreme-close-up photo quizzes!
My guess: Improved Hawk SAM in front of a silkscreened cloth poster of Khomeini. The ogive is fairly distinctive.
Mnemosyne
Is that Khomeni? And hasn’t he been dead for, like, 15 years?
What are we supposed to be afraid of, that the zombie Khomeni is going to conquer the US by eating our brains?
JGabriel
DougJ:
We voted Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover into office all before television.
Yeah, we were always this dumb.
.
Warren Terra
Can we get John to post a piece speculating about Peak Dumb, too?
Rommie
I just thought of an idea: Maybe Matt Millen should have been named the RNC boss, so he could bury the Republican Party IN THE CORE OF THE FRAKKIN’ EARTH. He has expertise in the subject.
Conservatively Liberal
If dumb was oil we would never run out of fuel. We may run out of fuel but we will never run out of fool(s).
You think that matters to the GOP? Reagan is dead and they still talk about him, and they LIKE him. Imagine how it is with someone they hate!
passerby
Wow.
May I be candid? How can those of you who follow this madness maintain any sanity?
Why do you willingly subject yourselves to this kind of zombi-ism?
I recognize that there is ignorance in the world. But why do you all feel the need to support it by feeding it?
Curious.
Change is coming that will leave this kind of behavior in the dust. I’m for independent thinking. We should recognize bullshit when we see it.
Chuck Butcher
A right winger of my blogging acquaintance subscribed my email to that nutrag, I read a couple for laughs and then followed the unsub instructions and what it looked like to me was an address grabber, so it is just on my junk mail file.
I can take an ideological slant or even agenda, but complete stupidity wears after a bit.
passerby
@Chuck Butcher:
I understand. Someone has to follow teh stoopid. But, as someone else mentioned here before, why visit sites that are clearly propagandist at best and just plain stoopid at worst?
Then, featuring them as the current "isn’t this ridiculous?", join in and pile on in the "people are so stupid" approach…it’s just so schoolyard.
We know the non-thinking, sheeple tactics. Let’s outsmart them.
Prediction: The RSSF will be "wrong" and "absurd" all the time.
Johnny Pez
Somebody has to document the atrocities. Once wingnuts have gone the way of the dodo, we’ll have to rely on the written record to convince future generations that there was too such a beast as a wingnut.
wilfred
They’re not going anywhere. War mongering pieces of shit have been with us forever and only the dead have seen the end of them.
Conservatively Liberal
I will be right here mocking them every single misstep of the way. Ignoring stupidity like that on the right is done at your own risk. When you take your eyes off of the fools is when they get you. People will see them for their stupidity as long as someone is rightfully pointing it out and openly mocking them to draw attention to it.
Ignoring fools who desire power over your life and the lives of others is even more foolish.
kommrade reproductive vigor
You know, we put stories in overset all of the time and of course WAR WITH IRAN is one of the fReichtard’s favorite evergreens, but this is just bizarre. Looks like we’ve got proof that the vast Right Wing Noise Machine is just a poorly designed computer program.
If Friday,
Then run War w/Iraq story.
calipygian
How did you miss the 2009 Sarah Palin calendar for sale at Newsmax? Its got great features like:
* More than 50 photographs of Gov. Sarah Palin and her family
* Never-before-seen photos
* 13 pages of high-quality gloss paper
* Closed dimensions: 9"x12"
* Pre-drilled hole for hanging
* Cellophane wrapped
* Produced and printed in the USA
That’s right! You get Sarah with a pre-drilled hole! Drill, baby, Drill!
And it’s cellophane wrapped!
Between the pre-drilled hole and the cellophane wrapping, theres likely to be an epidemic of autoerotic asphyxiation.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Slightly OT – I caught this via LG&M:
I’ll be glad to see the end of those damn Dr. Denton’s TV ads but I hope this doesn’t bode ill for BJ.
@calipygian: You made me break my No laughing like a hyena before 8 am rule.
Conservatively Liberal
Sounds like they have Caribou Barbie packaged and ready for the store shelf. The pre-drilled hole is a nice touch though unusual for a fundie toy. Obviously shaved, which raises even more questions…
Tattoosydney
@Conservatively Liberal:
I found this even more disturbing:
Scott
As Dave Neiwert has noted before, you can’t ignore these guys. They thrive because people think they’ll go away if you pretend they don’t exist. Neiwert has documented cases where cities tried to ignore extremists, only to have the extremists take over because no one stood up and said "This is wrong."
neddie jingo
That Ronzo was a laff riot, wasn’t he? "We commence bombing in five minutes…" Oh, my aching sides!
Conservatively Liberal
@Tattoosydney:
They would have to pay me a thousand times what they claim it is worth just to get me to look at it. RayGun was a worthless two-bit scab actor who never made a movie that was worth a shit. The only good thing he has ever done was producing Ron Jr. Everything else he did was a show and the world was his stage.
Unfortunately he got the leading role and the bad reviews still roll in to this day.
Xenos
@Conservatively Liberal: I suspect that Ron Jr. is not RWR’s natural son. Would not surprise me if it were so.
Ash Can
What, is she a divorce lawyer in RL?
Xenos
@Ash Can: She has a degree in Physiology and gives psychological counseling. In other words, malpractice as a professional business model.
John Cole
@kommrade reproductive vigor: Yar, I got one too. Means I don’t have to make a decision about renewing my contract.
I hope Sibylla and the tech folks still have jobs or are able to find work, because they are super nice. Me, I’ll prolly just throw some blogads up. More of a pain in the ass, but ehh. I will deal with it in March.
And, just like the last time, nothing here will change.
The Silent Fiddle of Nero
Who needs to look at cities? One need only point to election 2000 and the shitstorm that has ensued in Washington, D.C. since that time until… well, just recently (and we’ll be cleaning up the mess for a long time yet).
Faux News
I agree. John should buy DougJ a six pack of beer (at the very least) for reading this crap and losing brain cells.
I did love the pic though. I thought it was a pen about to poke the eye out of someone who (as already noted) has been dead for around 15 years.
Newsmax is for the 75 year old and up crowd who yell at their TV set all day long. Even at the Weather Channel (global climate change).
Keith
That’s a sale to me right there. Too many times, I’ve been burned ordering celebrity calendars where I open the box, remove the cellophane – to be fair and balanced, *most* other celebrity calendars are also wrapped in cellophane – and attempt to hang the thing only to find there is no hole for the nail/pin/hook/pinky-of-one-of-my-servants upon which to hang my calendar! Thankfully, Sarah Palin is forward-thinking enough (and committed to DrillBabyDrill) to include such a hole pre-drilled (and most likely deburred, if history is any indication)
DougJ
@krv
You have to concede that part.
p.a.
We won WW IV??!!!! Woo Hoo!!!!! Bring the boys (and girls) home.
Fulcanelli
@calipygian:
Brilliant!
Fuck, there goes my brand-new wireless keyboard. Bastard!
JenJen
Michael Savage! Right on. :-)
Just Some Fuckhead
@Ash Can: Christ, that was funny.
Feebog
We ignore these morons at our peril. Its not just that they are braindead, they lie. All. The. Time. Case in point is a post up today at Red State by Jeff Emanuel.
Mr. Emanuel takes tne new Acting Director of FEMA to task for her belated and poor response to the ice storms across the mid-west. Emanuel quoted exclusively from a Yahoo news story posted this morning that quoted an earlier AP story.
Here’s the problem. The AP story was clearly several days old. It mainly featured quotes from local officials who were obviously stretched thin. The truth; Obama declared Kentucky and Arkansas Federal Disaster Areas Wednesday evening. By mid-day Thursday FEMA was already delivering generators to provide power to hospitals and emergency shelters. A CNN story updated this morning quoted Gov. Beshear praising FEMA for their quick response.
Its not teh stupid we need to rebut, its the lies.
TheHatOnMyCat
So THAT’S why marriage has about a 25% success rate.
Just Some Fuckhead
@TheHatOnMyCat: That really depends on how yer defining success. Growing up in a fundamentalist religous culture I know a lot of people that got married so they could fuck with the Lord’s blessing. In that regard, marriage was a huge success.
The Silent Fiddle of Nero
Really, is it that high?
Keep in mind some of those successful couples really don’t get along well either and are only staying out of a sense of duty. Heck, my own sister lied to her husband for the first five years of her marriage about being a non-smoker.
TheHatOnMyCat
Wow, and I thought I had heard everything with that wooden leg story.
;0
LanceThruster
Cover story on "War with Iran" but mention of Israel is left out. I guess that must be in the body of the piece. I’m sure Mr. Timmerman has no particular bias.