Cenk Uygur Comes Out of the Woodwork

I'm old enough to remember ratfuckers. They appeared, as if from nowhere, during the 1972 election year - young Republicans, mostly college students, trained to look and act like young Democrats of the day (the forerunners of today's EmoProg Puritopians), to infiltrate the offices and campaigns of the major Democratic Presidential contenders with the one aim of delivering Richard Milhouse Nixon the weakest possible Democratic candidate for the Presidential election of that same year.

They achieved their goal. They infiltrated the campaigns of Edmund Muskie, Henry Jackson and others, played their practical jokes and dirty tricks and effectively handed the nomination to George McGovern, whose disorganised and uncompromising campaign, run by people who, four years previously, were found in the streets of Chicago virulently protesting the Democratic convention of that year, resulting in the biggest defeat of a Democratic candidate in the history of the party. McGovern lost 49 states, carrying only Massachusetts (by dint of having Sargent Schriver, a Kennedy inlaw, on the ticket) and the District of Columbia.

The entire face of the Democratic party was altered after that. McGovern's campaign manager, Gary Hart, set about changing it from a party which fought for union rights and for the working class and working poor into a bi-coastal cocktail party comprised of educated elitists who had nothingn in common either with labor history or the working class. Most shunned the poor. All were idealists. When it turned its back on the Southern and Midwestern rural working classes and the Rust Belt unskilled workers and their unions - as soon as Hart proclaimed these people herd followers and "little Hubert Humphreys", the stage was set for a Republican takeover of the South and the rural Midwest and all points inbetween by the Republican party, thanks to the idealogical purity of Gary Hart and the ratfuckery, developed by Donald Segretti and enhanced and strengthened in subsequent years by two of Segretti's most apt students, Lee Atwater and Karl Rove.

You might say, along with Hart, who began so earnestly but ended in a welter of sordid "Monkey Business", that Atwater and Rove are responsible for what the modern Democratic Party is today.

Ratfuckery has reached a new level of sophistication. Coincidental to its further rise was the advent and enhancement of cable and internet media political discourse - the celebrity political pundit, or the Professional Left, along with the 24-hour news cycle - and the election of the first African American President.

Progressives sought love and comfort in the Leftwing writings and commentary of various pundits during the dark years of the Bush Administration, and - especially after Bush's second election triumph - many more talking heads emerged ... Many who had, until recently been practicing, full-on Republicans, themselves.

Seems there was a buck or two to be made proseltysing to the Progressives, and it might be mete to divide and conquer their intent in true Segrettian fashion, but via the media this time. After all, these poor souls were crying out for representative media voices in the Wilderness to counter Fox News.

Ceny Uygur was one of those ratfuckers. A failed corporate lawyer and neocon with an enhanced opinion of himself and an ego as fat as his broad ass.

He, along with the likes of Arianna Huffington and Ed Schultz, all former virulent neocons, sought to tap into the low information end of Progressive voters - young people and disaffected Left Coastal unreconstructed middle class types who yearned to be hippies again (or even for the first time) who either had forgotten how to think critically along the way or who had never learned. Suffice it to say, these people knew nothing and understood little about the way the government functioned.

They bought into the myth that Bush was a dictator, and when Barack Obama was elected, they assumed he'd be the dictator of their dreams, from the Left. The fact that many never listened to a word he uttered on the campaign trail was revealed in their early discontent and foot-stamping. Instead of listening to what he said, they projected their own ideals on his tabula rasa and hissyfitted when they thought he'd betrayed them.

Cenk, like the big stink that he is, tapped into that, furthering the myths they wanted to believe, encouraging their misguided misapprehensions with further and deliberate untruths about the President, his powers and what he actually could do. No one ever stopped to think how much a President's actions are enhanced or hampered by the Congress which serves him. Far easier to blame the man in charge, especially if he's black.

Let's see, during the course of the past three years, Cenk's been the man who has called the President a "moron," who has written opinion pieces where he openly derided the President as being stupid, who openly equated the President as being on what he perceived as the same idiot level as George Bush for what Cenk reckoned as the President's "betrayal" of all the public sector protesters in Wisconsin.

As early as February 2011, Cenk penned an opinion piece for Daily Kos, whose proprietor happens to be - surprise surprise - not only an ex-Republican but one who was a ward boss for Henry Hyde (he of the Hyde Amendment infamy), wherein he accuses the President of being a Republican. Projection much?

When MSNBC showed a rare glimmer of common sense and kicked Cenk's lard ass out the door of 30 Rock, he took to the airwaves, from Current (his present home) to CNN, whining that it was "Obama's fault" that he was sacked.

For these people, everything is always "Obama's fault."

It was because of the incessant, unrelenting and unwonted criticism of the President (and, by extension somewhat, of the Democratic party) made by Cenk and others of his unprincipled ilk, that low-information Progressive voters - yes, there are dumbasses on the Left too - and others accustomed to instant gratification stayed away from the polls in 2010, even cheering the defeat of most of the Blue Dog contingent in the House, never thinking past their second brain cell that these Blue Dog Democrats were replaced with the worst sort of Tea Party Republicans, whose low intellect rivalled their own and whose tail would wag the Congressional dog.

Thanks to Cenk ("Obama is a moron")Uygur, Ed ("Don't vote") Schultz and Queen Ratfucker Omnipotent of Medialand Arianna ("Obama just isn't that into the middle class") Huffington, we now have the Do-Nothing Congress with the lowest approval ratings in history and the ability to achieve jack shit on a stick.

But then ... that's all Obama's fault.

Cenk is at it again today, in what has become the newest mouthpiece of Rightwing ratfukery The Huffington Post. He's exhorting Progressives to vote against Obama in Iowa. And though Cenk's canny enough not to mention him by name, it's all too obvious that he's pointing his sheeple in the direction of Ron Paul, because this ill-thought and misbegotten diatribe is all about - you guessed it - civil liberties.

Look, I'm not saying civil liberties aren't important. They are, but they're being used cynically as a straw man by asshat pundits who know better as a distraction from the fact that Paul is a blatant racist, a liar whose stories about his racist past (and even present) are inconsistent, and who's also a hypocrite of gigantic proportions. Civil liberties about freedom of speech and property rights (a fine old Atwaterian dog whistle)are one thing, denying a woman civil liberties over her reproductive rights is another entirely. I wonder if Cenk, like Ron Paul, thinks education is not a right? That almost sounds elitist.

Here's his beef (jerky):-

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is a crime against our constitution. It allows for the indefinite detention of US citizens by the military inside the US -- without a trial. It's one of the worst laws ever passed in the US and it passed with nary a peep of opposition. I'm positive that a huge percentage of the population is not even aware of it, partly because the establishment media didn't even bother covering it.

But it appeared for a while that the one guy fighting against it was President Obama. I was incredibly encouraged by that. I shouldn't have been. It turned out at the end that he was threatening to veto the bill because he wanted it to have even more executive power, not less.

Spot the blatant lie in that. Are there no libel laws in America?

But there's more:-

This president has been a disaster for civil liberties. Every time I think about the fact that he used to be a constitutional law professor, I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. Indefinite detentions, summary executions of US citizens abroad without a trial, warrantless wiretapping and much, much more. All of the things we were outraged Bush did -- and then some. Honestly, it makes me feel a little sick that I voted for him. At least, I could say that I fought tooth and nail against Bush.

And civil liberties abuses are the tip of the iceberg in disappointment with this president. Then there is the comedy of financial reform which doesn't reform a damn thing. There are the zero prosecutions of the top bankers who destroyed our economy through their fraud, took our money and now spit in our face with it. There is the extension of the Bush tax cuts. There is the cave in on nearly every negotiation (the payroll tax cut being the exception that proves the rule (by the way, he "won" on more tax cuts, a profoundly Republican idea). His crowning achievement of healthcare reform was a proposal originally written by the Heritage Foundation. There isn't a Republican idea that President Obama didn't want to cuddle with and adopt as his own.

(snip)

And to be honest, I'm really disappointed that he does not have a primary opponent. This country is dying for someone who is going to take on the establishment. Who is that going to be on our side -- Barack Obama? On that, I know whether to laugh or cry. Every time I think about the idea that President Obama might be against the establishment, I laugh and laugh and laugh. There is never been a guy who was this enamored with the establishment. If he had wrestling nickname it would be The Establishment.

(snip)

I would have loved a progressive alternative, but apparently we are not going to get one (except for Rocky Anderson running on the Justice Party ticket). Primaries are the perfect place to send a message without taking away votes in the general election. But it didn't happen because the Democratic establishment says we must fall in line because we wouldn't want to hurt the agenda of the president. The agenda of the president sucks and is deeply Republican. I'd love to at least get him to reconsider that agenda for a second.

OK, let's deconstruct these lies here a bit. Cenk starts this gaggle of lies by channeling his own interpretation of the NDAA. Cenk's a lawyer, and I appreciate that; but I also know that lawyers can also lie in one of two ways and sometimes both: they open their mouths, and they take advantage of a static computer screen which allows them to write anything. And Cenk's done both. In fact, he's done three things, because not only is he issuing lies from his foul mouth, he's issuing even fouler lies by talking out of his even more fouler ass.

Well, I know a lawyer too - one of the honest variety who, from time to time, freaks Glenn Greenwald's mind out so much he has to go hide in the closet with his possums and cry. So you can read here very accurate interpretation of the NDAA here and even moreso here. And for even more proof that Cenk's whipping up a passel of lies, the divine Milt Shook debunks Cenk's spin here.

Now this: There are the zero prosecutions of the top bankers who destroyed our economy through their fraud, took our money and now spit in our face with it.

Financial regulation breathed life again via the Dodd-Frank Bill, written by two top-ranking Democrats in the Senate and the House. Was it the best bill? No. Could it be better? Yes. But they had to write the kind of bill which would pass both Houses, particularly the Senate - and, face it, that was not going to be easy, with the likes of Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman and Mary Landrieu. And when Dodd-Frank passed, the Democrats didn't have the fabled 60 votes for cloture, so the bill had to be watered down enough to enable one of the three remaining Republican moderates - the two Maine senators and Scott Brown of Massachusetts - to support it.

As for prosecuting the bankers, as the President, himself, said a couple of months ago, what the banks did was immoral, but it was by no means illegal - and that fact was down to deregulationary legislature signed by Ronald Reagan and the Big Dog, himself, Bill Clinton. In fact, it's more Clinton's fault because he signed the law that repealed Glass Steagall and enabled the mortgage bubble to expand and burst.

And this: There is the extension of the Bush tax cuts. There is the cave in on nearly every negotiation (the payroll tax cut being the exception that proves the rule (by the way, he "won" on more tax cuts, a profoundly Republican idea).

What more proof does anyone need that Cenk and the rest of the Professional Left grifters are out of touch with real people's realities. The tax cut compromise effected in 2010 resulted in a plethora of benefits achieved in exchange for the working class, the unemployed and the working poor - the sort of people the Professional Left and many EmoProg Puritopians never consider because these people are not the sort with whom they want to be associated. Besides, such association might give then cooties of the brain.

Funny, how the leading pundits on the Right thought this a singular coup for Barack Obama. Charles Krauthammer certainly understood the magnitude of Obama's achievement in this compromise.

Barack Obama won the great tax-cut showdown of 2010 - and House Democrats don't have a clue that he did. In the deal struck this week, the president negotiated the biggest stimulus in American history, larger than his $814 billion 2009 stimulus package. It will pump a trillion borrowed Chinese dollars into the U.S. economy over the next two years - which just happen to be the two years of the run-up to the next presidential election. This is a defeat?

If Obama had asked for a second stimulus directly, he would have been laughed out of town. Stimulus I was so reviled that the Democrats banished the word from their lexicon throughout the 2010 campaign. And yet, despite a very weak post-election hand, Obama got the Republicans to offer to increase spending and cut taxes by $990 billion over two years. Two-thirds of that is above and beyond extension of the Bush tax cuts but includes such urgent national necessities as windmill subsidies.

No mean achievement. After all, these are the same Republicans who spent 2010 running on limited government and reducing debt. And this budget busting occurs less than a week after the president's deficit commission had supposedly signaled a new national consensus of austerity and frugality.

Some Republicans are crowing that Stimulus II is the Republican way - mostly tax cuts - rather than the Democrats' spending orgy of Stimulus I. That's consolation? This just means that Republicans are two years too late. Stimulus II will still blow another near-$1 trillion hole in the budget.

At great cost that will have to be paid after this newest free lunch, the package will add as much as 1 percent to GDP and lower the unemployment rate by about 1.5 percentage points. That could easily be the difference between victory and defeat in 2012.

Obama is no fool. While getting Republicans to boost his own reelection chances, he gets them to make a mockery of their newfound, second-chance, post-Bush, Tea-Party, this-time-we're-serious persona of debt-averse fiscal responsibility.

And he gets all this in return for what? For a mere two-year postponement of a mere 4.6-point increase in marginal tax rates for upper incomes. And an estate tax rate of 35 percent - it jumps insanely from zero to 55 percent on Jan. 1 - that is somewhat lower than what the Democrats wanted.

The fact that had the President allowed the Bush tax cuts to expire, not only would that very middle class have been worse off, we would never have achieved the repeal of DADT or the First Responders' Bill or the START treaty. If someone like Krauthammer, who's no mean intellect, can see the method in Obama's madness, then why can't the Left? The dumbass Democrats who whined about this in Congress were grandstanders of the first degree. They're politicians. But, I honestly think that the people, themselves, left to their own devices and forced to think for themselves, would have reached the same conclusion as Krauthammer (albeit more positively). Instead, they chose to listen to the corporately-endowed Professional Lefters who deliberately misinform in order to promote their own agendae.

Furthermore, the singular "triumph" Cenk accords the President for the Republican's recent cave-in, wouldn't have even been possible this year, if he hadn't compromised on the tax cuts last year.

And then this: His crowning achievement of healthcare reform was a proposal originally written by the Heritage Foundation.

Well, even Krauthammer understands what the ACA will eventually achieve:-

The left never understood that to nationalize health care there is no need for a public option because Obamacare turns the private insurers into public utilities, thus setting us inexorably on the road to the left's Promised Land: a Canadian-style single-payer system.

That's been proven with some of the ACA benefits which kicked in this year. As well, Cenk should read what one woman, who - like Cenk - spent a lot of her time criticizing what she perceived to be the President's failings, wrote in apology to the President, for how "Obamacare" provided her with insurance cover when she found herself suffering from breast cancer.

Cenk is crawling from the woodwork, along - I imagine - with numerous other friends who'll latch onto the "civil liberties deprivation" theme as a stick with which to beat the President. They'll uses the civil liberties riposte to justify their support for a Ron Paul candidacy whilst ignoring the open racism Paul espoused whilst clouding their own behind a mask of patronisation and euphemistic dog whistles. Dog whistling, like other forms of language, evolves too.

Or else, the meme will be "don't vote." As we've already seen, Bill Maher got ahead of the game in promoting this as early as September. Then Michael Moore appropriated the Occupy movement to spread the same message.

And now Cenk's building up his "uncommitted" message to send to the President. Well, we might want to think about the sort of message this bully likes to send and never lose sight of the fact that Cenk is, at heart, always a corporate whore and a Republican.

It took less than five minutes for that fabled Occupy protester to smoke Cenk and his creature, Dylan Ratigan, out in this video, where Cenk can be seen patronisingly "shushing" a man from calling his and Ratigan's bullshit. Let's remember:-



This guy had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to call the Professional Left liars to their face, and what did they do? They ran.

For those of us real liberals, this is going to be the queen mother of all political battles, because we'll be fighting on two fronts. Make no mistake: Cenk wants you willing and uncommitted - uncommitted enough to stay home. Stay home and allow a Republican victory. Either way, Cenk wins.

Or do we simply want to be ratfucked forever?