By the time you read this, Mitt Romney may have released his tax returns. Let’s hope not.
The real reason Mr. Romney is being pressured to release his tax returns is because his fellow GOP presidential candidates, his hateful critics and crazy Demoncrats live to wage class warfare against him for being successful. This is so very wrong.
There is this toxic, anti-American idea that has surfaced that financial success is something that should be questioned, maligned and condemned and is somehow malicious. This is dangerous and dumb.
Nugent has been wrong every time he’s commented on GOP presidential contenders. Around a year ago he found Donald Trump intriguing. Months later he endorsed Rick Perry. These sallies went well.
If I were a betting man I’d almost tempted to take the position that you’ve no chance to be President when Ted Nugent attempts to ride to the rescue because a rival is winning by painting you as a corporate vulture.
If you’re a later-comer and don’t understand my references to Ted as “Howard,” it’s from the a character in The Treasure of Sierra Madre.
Ted Nugent likes to shovel piles of insults into his columns at the WaTimes. I like insults, particularly people who are good at them. One of the true pleasures in life is the flattening clever putdown.
But Ted, while easy with the character assassinations and slurs, has only a limited vocabulary.
inebriated idiot, bureaucratic village idiot, high-ranking government bureaucratic idiot — all in the same paragraph, the last two in the same sentence
bureaucratic idiots at ATF, bureaucratic punks — in the same sentence
bureaucratic punks, terminally brain-dead — in one sentence, next graph
Rocker and hunter Ted Nugent plans to sue the Department of Natural Resources over its order declaring swine used at special hunting ranches to be an invasive species. Nugent, who owns the Sunrise Acres Ranch near Jackson, claims that the invasive species order was illegally issued and is being illegally enforced. Nugent cited a loss of business through immense stress and hardship because of the DNR’s public campaign to unlawfully enact and enforce the order. A hunting ranch in Negaunee has also filed a notice of intent to sue on the issue. The DNR will begin actively enforcing the order in April. The order is legally effective, but the department delayed enforcement to allow the facilities time to remove swine.
The public servants administering public schools nationwide do not create jobs when they hire teachers. All in your imagination.
The US national security apparatus and its public servants do not hire hundreds of thousands of civilians to staff its intelligence, staffing and logistical services.
Anyway, we know Ted Nugent is a terrible writer, an embarrassment. I would ask his high school English teacher, if still alive, if he was better as a student.
But embarrassments are often rewarded well in America just because they are a convenient. Kurt Vonnegut, an excellent author and writer, built entire works of fiction on this kind of cynicism in the national identity.
One piece of advice often given to people who struggle to write well: Write about what you know.
Notably, Ted has never written even the slightest about that which he does best: play guitar.
Perhaps he has threatened to do so and I have overlooked it. And perhaps he will actually write a book about playing guitar some day rather than repeating, like a trained parrot, some trash from the church of Republican extremism.
Ted Nugent is a busy guy. Ever since he became an accidental hot-selling author (I’m not gonna call him a writer; anyone who has read Nugent’s bits excerpted here knows he has no talent there), Howard has worked it to cultivate his image as a motivational speaker for the extreme right.
It should be no surprise that there’s an audience for this in the heartland shires of the land. Down through human history there’s always a crowd to enjoy seeing others tied to a post and whipped and those who recommend such treatment as proper. Particularly in hard times.
And now Ted is scheduled to provide the inspiration at a GOP “Lincoln Day” event in Springfield, Illinois.
In choosing Nugent, organizers will without doubt accomplish their goal of raising money and packing the house. Nugent may be many things, but he is never boring. Given this platform to speak his mind to a friendly audience, Nugent is sure to provide a moment that will endure for years in Springfield’s political lore.
But the local GOP also is taking a risk in making Nugent the voice of one of its most significant annual events.
Right now on the national stage, the GOP is fighting against an image of a seriously splintered party. Twice in 2011, Congress ground to a halt when the House appeared unable to control its most extreme faction.
Nugent clearly is part of at least one of those factions — the gun rights absolutists — and his overall shtick may not play well with more traditional conservatives.
We’ve always enjoyed Nugent’s outspokenness in the newspaper’s direct dealings with him …
Much of what makes Nugent so entertaining is his unwillingness to self-censor.
But that quality also is where the risk comes in for the local party. Some of what Nugent says isn’t so benign …
And that’s a rather large, if gentlemanly, understatement. To its credit, the newspaper links to a column written by one its local pundits, published a earlier.
Back in 1990, when the forced-segregation apartheid system was still the law in South Africa, Nugent managed a 40,000-acre ranch used for bow hunting, according to a 1990 Detroit Free Press article.
“(A)partheid isn’t that cut-and-dry,” he was quoted as saying in that article. “All men are not created equal.
“The preponderance of South Africa is a different breed of man,” the quote goes on. “I mean that with no disrespect. I say that with great respect. I love them because I’m one of them. They are still people of the earth, but they are different. They still put bones in their noses, they still walk around naked, they wipe their butts with their hands.”
As a columnist for the Washington Times, one Nugent target has been unions.
In a column posted Sept. 2, he wrote, “Labor unions have not sustained labor but rather have destroyed it” by forcing “unrealistic and unsustainable wages and benefits on businesses.”
If he were to say that in Springfield, he might get some agreement. But many current and retired state workers in the crowd might not love to hear what he wrote about their affiliation.
“Public-sector employees typically enjoy higher pay, more benefits and more time off than private-sector employees,” he wrote. “This is unconscionable and is yet another example of the fleecing of the taxpayer by our elected officials and labor unions, which are joined at the hip.
“Public-sector employees should be banned from joining a union, paid a wage commensurate with the private sector and provided with the same benefits as their private-sector peers. Only a goon would think otherwise.”
Here, none of this is eye-opening. And readers will no doubt note that Ted is a little late today with the weekly WaTimes Fireball Express of calumnies and slurs on the many internal and external enemies of our nation.
“We wonder if Nugent’s appearance will do more toward bringing new people into the party and shoring up unity or disenfranchising longtime party faithful who already are nervous about where the party — locally and nationally — is headed,” muses the Springfield paper.
It’s one hundred bucks for dinner and Ted. Seventy five for dinner, Ted and a personal handshake in the meet-and-greet line. That’s a joke.
Ted Nugent Howard wasn’t always a raging libertarian/ GOP shoe-shiner who regularly spouts get-off-my-lawn black bile about kids, the president, unemployed people, way too many others and social safety-net programs.
In the inescapable, common-sense world to which producers of America are hopelessly addicted and in which they proudly reside, compensation is determined by dreams, work ethic, skill, knowledge, ability, expertise, level of effort and, last but not least, results. Put that in your merciless pay pipe and suck on it till you drop, Occupiers.
Employees who lack these most basic of work characteristics are tossed out on their lame rears in short order, as it should be …
It’s part five of five where a young Ted reclines and chats, looking and sounding a lot like the “hippies” he regularly damns and condemns in his many political columns now.
During the interview Ted and the interviewer gently laugh about the Soupy Sales show, also done in the studio.
“I’m not deep into politics, mind you,” Ted says.
“It’s a groovy place we’re livin’ in here,” he adds, near the finish.
Groovy.
According to Chuck Eddy, the interviewer is “Dave Dixon, co-writer of Peter Paul and Mary’s ‘I Dig Rock and Roll Music‘, and a big deal on Detroit underground rock stations in the early ’70s.”
Many have surely noticed that a lot of the current US doesn’t really support the way A Christmas Carol or It’s a Wonderful Life turned out. Sure, everyone pays lip service to these stories. But if people were honest with themselves, surely a lot would admit a sneaking desire to see a Xmas movie where Scrooge laughed off the grim reaping spirit of Christmas future and Tiny Tim was dead of consumption by Xmas day.
In 2011 you could pitch a comedy TV series on the two really talented and fun guys in Robin Hood, Sir Guy of Gisbourne and the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Ted Nugent is Dickensian. His inability to rally any significant fan base among the young, in direct proportion to his success as a shoeshiner for old white man radical right and extreme wealth makes him perfect material for any modern approach to the material.
One of the things associated with Dickens’ Victorian London is the burning of coal and soot of it everywhere.
(A year later an explosion at one of Blankenship’s mines killed 27, an incident which most probably will eventually see criminal charges levied against former Massey Energy executives.)
The poor get extra helpings of hardship and pain and Ted Nugent can be reliably counted on to tell us it’s all their own fault, a consequence of the alleged shit choices they make. Like being born into poverty. The time to have made your first good choice toward a life of plenty was when swimming down Pap’s penis at the moment of climax. Go back!
As we near Christmas, his new column at the WaTimes is in character.
The majority of people who are poor in America are poor because they knowingly have made poor decisions … Being poor is largely a choice, a daily, if not hourly, decision. If you decide to drop out of school, fail to learn a skill, have no work ethic or get divorced, a life of poverty is often the consequence.
At one point Nugent recommends the churches get more involved in helping the poor. Of course, they do. But it was only a year ago Nugent was doing the Dickens trip, too, hating on the church after Thanksgiving and suggesting the Vatican give up some of its swag.
Roughly 50 percent of all Medicare costs are spent in a person’s last six months of life. When a person is terminally ill or without hope of getting better, forcing taxpayers to keep them alive isn’t fair. If the terminally ill individual or his family wants to keep him alive for as long as possible, then they should pay for it, not taxpayers … Last time I checked, churches have a few billion dollars worth of gold, silver, jewelry, art, real estate and other assets. Maybe they could use some of it for such compassionate causes. Maybe not.
In this bit from November, a year back, Nugent not only went after the Catholics but also called for hospice care for the dieing to be ended. Medicare pays for the six months of such support, as those who have loved ones or close friend fall into the clutches of an incurable disease, like cancer, painfully know.
Nugent is one of the lousiest writers one could hope for, perfect for our times. Not only a wretched stylist, more importantly, he is devoid of any human warmth or empathy. Paradoxically, he papers over this failing with a regular clumsy implication that he’s a person who actually cares.
The Washington Times is the ideal venue for him, a Dickensian publication for DC. These days it attaches promotions to buy precious metals, or the consulting services of those who advocate for the hoarding of gold and silver to the end of Nugent’s columns.
And it does not surprise at all that a winning political idea for the current GOP is the torn from Oliver Twist suggestion that poor children be janitors of their schools so as to cultivate good work habits and the avoidance of crappy life choices that will make them forever poor. Of course they should.
A lucky winner of a raffle at TedNugent.com gets an all-expense paid weekend hunting with Ted on his ranch in Crawford, Texas. The second place prize is two weekends hunting with Ted on his ranch in Crawford. No, not really — I just made it all up.
When not hoping for the role of “Howard” in a remake of the Treasure of Sierra Madre, Ted curses the stinky young hippies to keep himself in the good graces of the 1 percent.
You don’t need to search the Internet far to read story after story of the Occupy stooges committing crimes, fighting the cops, destroying personal property, stinking the place up and engaging in other noble expressions of First Amendment rights. I find that beautiful – priceless, actually. Only human cockroaches spotlight themselves.
While I don’t condone violence, watching the cops pounce on and pepper-spray a few Occupy stooges and then drag the dirtballs off to jail in shackles is good for my conservative soul and gold for my sense of humor. Everyone needs at least one hearty laugh every day.
You have to admit that watching a stinky, dirty hippie being dragged off to jail is as funny watching James Brown drive across railroad tracks on the rims of his pickup truck …
“Where are the protests by today’s unemployed and underemployed young people?” he asked. “Why aren’t they demanding answers to fundamental questions about their future?”
Now that they’re here, he hates them and wants them pepper-sprayed.
He’s also offended on the grounds of cleanliness. Yes, the homeless and those who camp out often do not smell rosy.
And now he’s a bitter old man — Nugent turned 63 this week — cursing “stinky hippies” and “human cockroaches” because he thinks they’ll fill a bag with excrement, put it on his porch and set it on fire.
Yes, people, especially young people, have a right to be angry, and the smart ones are focusing their anger on President Obama, Rep. Barney Frank, former Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, and other anti-free-market socialists … The president is losing the support of educated young people in droves.
Of course, the uninspired, uneducated, unskilled and stoned have been conditioned for generations to expect something for nothing …
Instead of busting their humps working two or three jobs, they have time to protest on Wall Street …
Smart people know that [Mr. Michael Moore[ and [Miss Roseanne Barr] represent a fringe movement of people who are poor because they have made a lifetime of poor choices … Stinky hippies, generational slaves to Fedzilla and the transparent entitled are the problem, not the solution.
Ted routinely ridicules people who went to college. He never got over not being particularly popular in Berkeley or Ann Arbor. However, he did use momentary enrollment in community college to avoid service in Vietnam through deferment.
The Alachua County Republican Party has canceled Ted Nugent’s appearance at Thursday’s Black Tie and Blue Jeans BBQ fundraiser, citing low ticket sales, which the party blamed on “Obamanomics.”
“We started hearing heartbreaking stories,” Stafford Jones, the party chairman, said of the tales he and other party officials heard when they contacted usual supporters who hadn’t purchased tickets, which cost between $65 and $125 for single tickets and $680 and $1,000 for eight-person tables.
Jones said there was more excitement for Nugent, a rock ‘n’ roll musician and an outspoken conservative, than other speakers in recent years, but people are struggling.
“The problem is that, thanks to Obamanomics and ‘trickle-up-poverty’, nobody has any money,” the party said in a statement announcing that Nugent wouldn’t be appearing. “It became evident that small business owners and working Republicans were hurting, tremendously, and simply couldn’t afford to come to Black Tie and Blue Jeans.”
In an interview, Jones said, “We’re spending billions of dollars in stimulus money that is just going into black holes — Solyndra is one.”
“In Nugent’s keynote stead will be former state Rep. Adam Hasner, a South Florida Republican who is running for the U.S. Senate and won’t be paid for his appearance …” it finishes.
Trickle up poverty is a GOP dog whistle phrase for the idea, one that really didn’t catch on (coming as it did from a Michael Savage book that didn’t sell like gangbusters), that unemployment is kind of, like, contagious. And that it’s the poor that have dragged the nation down, not Wall Street.
Therefore, from the tortured logic on display in the brief newspaper piece, the poor, Solyndra and Obama are responsible for the inability to pay pricey tickets to see a Ted Nugent rant in Alachua County.
Another unintentionally funny item from the Tennessean, this on a Stand With Gibson [Guitars] rally.
[Gibson spokespeople] also said one or two surprise guests might show up unannounced but wouldn’t give many clues as to who, other than to say it will not be Ted Nugent. (Not sure whether that was a rumor they were trying to squash or just an obvious pick for a conservative rally.) Organizers neither confirmed nor denied another reporter’s guess, Hank Williams, Jr.
Hank Williams, Jr. The reporter may have been making a not so subtle joke.
New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg stated that he’s worried that American young people will begin to riot in our streets because of their unemployment.
While the mayor and I disagree on most things, he might be onto to something here.
The rest of the column indicates he’s largely unaware of the growing protest on Wall Street — by mostly young people in the Occupy Wall Street campaign.
Nugent believes the young should riot against Obama (unsurprising, he believes everyone must riot against the president):
Young people are starting to figure out that our president conned them in the last election, claiming that he could fix everything, make the world safer, create jobs, provide for everybody, redistribute earnings, coddle the unemployed, etc …
Many of the people in the Wall Street protest are unemployed. Per se, they are not protesting the President. They are protesting at the seat of capitalism before the wizards of finance who tore apart the US and world economy in 2008 and are busy going about it again. It is the biggest and most deserving target.
Since Ted cannot figure out young Americans — he semi-regularly insults them in his column for a variety of imagined sins from playing too many computer games to being lazy — he bags on them again.
For playing too many computer games and having a liberal education:
Where are the protests by today’s unemployed and underemployed young people? Why aren’t they demanding answers to fundamental questions about their future? Why aren’t they yelling that hope and change was a con job? Why aren’t they demanding answers to the reality that their generation will be the first in the history of America not to have a future at least as good as what their parents enjoyed?
Who knows? Maybe they can’t break away from playing computer and video games long enough to look around at their condition and the condition of America. Because of the toxic, liberal education they received, maybe they haven’t figured out how America is supposed to work instead of how our president wants to transform it into something that would inspire our Founding Fathers to call for a second American revolution.
Today they forced the closing of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Find the photos of crazy mean and stupid ol’ Ted playing his acoustic guitar, perfect for use in “Tough Crowd Boogie.” Sepia-toning him was the right touch.
