US Predator Migrates to Israel, the King and I, Michelle Bachmann Again

Paul Krugman
Lawrence Wright
Christiane Amanpour

"Unless something changes drastically, we’re looking at many years of high unemployment."  - Paul Krugman

All of the news headlines are about the New York and New Jersey elections tomorrow, and that Hamid Karzai has been anointed King because his opponent withdrew from the run-off election, saying that there is no way an honest election can happen, but for others to still believe in the process... The pressure will be on Karzai to get his government in shape, weed out corruption, and try to keep people in the army and police longer than it takes to train them...

So I have to dig a bit deeper to find news of the weird, and the NY Times doesn't disappoint. A right wing wacko immigrant from the US to Israel has been arrested for murders and terrorist type attacks that took place over the last 12 years. Israeli Intelligence is first rate, but it seems their police is a bit slow on the uptake: "The Israeli police said Sunday that they had arrested a 37-year-old American immigrant, a West Bank settler, and charged him in an array of killings and terrorist attacks over the last 12 years, including the murders of two Palestinians, the bombing of a leftist Israeli professor’s home and the maiming of a 15-year-old boy who belongs to a community of Jews who believe in Jesus.


The suspect, Jack Teitel, a father of four and a computer technician and Web site designer, was born in Florida, the son of a military dentist. He went back and forth between Israel and the United States starting in the 1990s, immigrating here in 2000. His parents followed a year later and live in a different West Bank settlement."

“This investigation has exposed a dark and dangerous world where human life was lost and people were injured against a background of ideological extremism,” - Dodi Cohen

Once again we are embarrassed by an Ugly American, who smuggled guns from the US into Israel, and has had a long history of attacking police officers, attacking Palestinians, ranting against gays and authorities who guaranteed their rights, and attacking those who disagreed with him with pipe bombs and even going after a 15 year old kid by planting a bomb in a traditional gift basket during Purim... Its thought that the lenient atmosphere that allowed his actions for such a long time was coddled by the rise of right wing politicins who are sympathetic to his views. "According to most news media - he is a militant, a freedom fighter, a resistance against the occupation." It is an unfortunate result of how extreme right wing views poisons the mind and causes violent acts, as we have seen so amply in the United States.

“We are horrified by the fact that there are elements of Israeli society, Jews who feel justified in taking the lives of other Jews because of their beliefs,”-- Mother of 15 Year Old Victim

not quite freedom of speech...

The King of Thailand, who was born in Boston, has been in the hospital for over a month and nobody has seen him. This is causing anxiety because he is considered to be the top representative of the Buddha. He is also the longest reigning monarch, going on 55 years. It is against the law to make disparaging remarks about the King. One story that is told to every person visiting Thailand, is that one day a falang got into an argument with a tuk tuk driver over the fare. He took out some baht notes, with the picture of the King on them, ripped them in half, and threw them at the driver. The tourist was arrested for defacing an image of the King and spent some time in the Bangkok jail...

So it should come as no surprise that two people were arrested for trying to manipulate the local stock market by spreading rumors of the King's health, which triggered a slide in stock prices: "Suttichai Tienbhodhi, a captain in Bangkok's crime suppression division, said the pair had been charged with "feeding untrue information through a computer system which undermined the security of the nation." Two accounts made a lot of money from the slide, one at Credit Suisse in Hong Kong, and another at UBS in Singapore. Sounds like Triad financial fever...

"Strict laws in Thailand make comment on royal matters extremely risky. His health is a sensitive topic in financial markets because he is seen as the sole unifying figure in a politically polarised country with a long history of coups and upheaval." Personally, I love Thailand and have spent many months there. No, I didn't go as a sex tourist, I went there after touring China with my tai chi teacher, one of the watershed moments of my life. I witnessed a lot of corruption, saved a drunken Aussie from getting beaten up, and saw how everyone revered the King. I even ate at his favorite hole in the wall for pad thai. But it is bizarre how rumors about the royal family can affect the country's economic health, and that people are sent to jail for it. It's the Land of Smiles through Clenched Teeth...

So now I need a piece of fluff to cheer me up, and dear, sweet, crazy Michelle Bachmann never disappoints: "Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who is best known for making inflammatory calls for revolution against President Obama, now has the full backing of the GOP leadership in her latest push to protest against the "tyranny" of the Obama administration.


As Greg Sargent reported, the spokesmen for both House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) supported Bachmann's call for a rally this Thursday in Washington against the Democrats' health care proposals, and her rallying cry: "If you believe in liberty, and if you're rejecting tyranny, this is it." What it is,  is she wants to lead a group of "tea partyers" through the halls of Congress, and confront everybody they meet.

"I'd love to have every one of your viewers to join me so we can go up and down through the halls, find members of Congress, look at the whites of their eyes and say, 'Don't take away my healthcare."

I'm not sure how Congress is planning on taking away anyone's health care, the reforms propose to add to health care... This may end up like the event Glenn Beck organized and didn't show up at, though Michelle is more craven than Glenn, so it will be one big photo op for her to impress the yokels back home. We'll see what happens come Thursday, be sure to check it out on Fox or ridiculed on MSNBC.
As one commenter remarked:

"Please someone explain to me how the hell they believe this bill is going to "take away my healthcare"? I need to know what the hell they are even talking about to deal with wingnuts in my own family....


Man, I'm going to have a tough time on Thanksgiving..."

here are some Glenn Beck-isms:

1. "This president I think has exposed himself over and over again as a guy who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture....I'm not saying he doesn't like white people, I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist."

2. "I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. ... No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out. Is this wrong? I stopped wearing my What Would Jesus -- band -- Do, and I've lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, 'Yeah, I'd kill Michael Moore,' and then I'd see the little band: What Would Jesus Do? And then I'd realize, 'Oh, you wouldn't kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn't choke him to death.' And you know, well, I'm not sure." –responding to the question "What would people do for $50 million?",

3. "When I see a 9/11 victim family on television, or whatever, I'm just like, 'Oh shut up' I'm so sick of them because they're always complaining."

4. "The only [Katrina victims] we're seeing on television are the scumbags."

5. "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 today."

6. "I have been nervous about this interview with you because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies. ... And I know you're not. I'm not accusing you of being an enemy, but that's the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way."

7. "Al Gore's not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization...And you must silence all dissenting voices. That's what Hitler did. That's what Al Gore, the U.N., and everybody on the global warming bandwagon [are doing]."

8. "So here you have Barack Obama going in and spending the money on embryonic stem cell research. ... Eugenics. In case you don't know what Eugenics led us to: the Final Solution. A master race! A perfect person. ... The stuff that we are facing is absolutely frightening."

9. "You have the artwork of Mussolini there, here in New York at Rockefeller Plaza."

10. "O-L-I-G-A-R-H-Y." –misspelling "oligarchy" on his chalk board while claiming he had deciphered a secret code that he said was proof President Obama was trying to create an "Oligarhy,"

Bonus Quote

"You know, we all have our inner demons. I, for one – I can't speak for you, but I'm on the verge of moral collapse at any time. It can happen by the end of the show."

Funny Quotes About Glenn Beck

"Satan's mentally challenged younger brother." –Stephen King, writing in "Entertainment Weekly"

"Finally, a guy who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking." –Jon Stewart, on the "The Daily Show"

"The comfort of today's mythical homespun aw-shucks-TV-totalitarian-Lonesome-Rhodes Glenn Beck is that everyday he gives away the essential truth that he is an idiot." –Keith Olbermann, on "Countdown With Keith Olbermann"

"Even the leather-winged shouting heads at Fox News look like intellectual giants next to this bleating, benighted Cassandra. It's like someone found a manic, doom-prophesying hobo in a sandwich board, shaved him, shot him full of Zoloft and gave him a show." -- Buffalo Beast, naming Beck in its annual list of the 50 Most Loathsome People in America