The Young Turks: We Love Louise Mensch because She Is a Batsh*t Crazy Conspiracy Theorist

Remember Louise Mensch? She was a Tory MP over here, who appeared several times on TV before giving it all up to move to America. She was one of those, who regularly spouted outrageously stupid, uninformed, bigoted drivel. I’ve reblogged a number of articles from other left-wing bloggers taking apart her opinions to show them for the nonsense they are. One of the funniest critiques had a rough diagram of her face with an open mouth with an ‘X’ across in red, surrounded by a red border and captioned ‘Gobsh*te’ as an appropriate warning.

In this clip from TYT Politics, The Young Turks’ Michael Tracey talks about how he loves Mensch, because she has effectively abandoned reasoned political commentary to drone on about her weird conspiracy theories, and so is effectively discrediting the Republicans and the establishment media from within. He states that she had begun her political career as a propagandist for Marco Rubio. I think Rubio’s a Republican politico of the stripe that went into vapours about how Obamacare was a depraved Marxist plot to destroy American healthcare and thought that conditions should be made even worse for the unemployed and those on welfare. Which shows just how unpleasant Mensch’s own Conservative opinions must have been when she was an MP in Britain.

Now she’s given up trying to talk up Rubio, and has instead appeared on various chat shows telling America that just about everything and anyone she doesn’t like is part of a nefarious conspiracy by Putin. According to her, Andrew Breitbart, the head of the news agency that bears his name, was assassinated by Putin because the Russian president wanted his company to be taken over by Steve Bannon. She accused Glenn Greenwald, the respected left-wing journalist, of working for Putin and smeared his paper, the Intercept, as the Ivancept. She even accused Bernie Sanders of working for the Russians. This is nonsense, of course, but somehow she’s being taken seriously by a number of mainstream TV shows. She appeared on Bill Maher’s show the other night, when the comedian and news commenter gave her a very credulous reception.

Taylor loves her, because she is so bonkers that she’s unintentionally discrediting that part of the American political spectrum, just as the warm welcome she’s been given on TV shows by hosts, who really should know better, is also unintentionally discrediting their shows. The lesson here is: the mainstream media just broadcast paranoid bilge, like Louise Mensch. Go to the Internet and The Young Turks and other sites like them for proper, informed news and opinion.

Mensch has clearly taken over the massive Russophobia of the corporate Democrats, and their obsession with blaming the leaks about their own corruption on Russian intelligence. There isn’t much proof of this, and WikiLeaks themselves said they got the information from a disgruntled insider, not from Putin’s minions in Russian intelligence. I’ve put up a piece on here commenting on an article in Counterpunch, which reported how the Corporatist Democrats, the Washington Post and a very unpleasant group of racists and eugenicists accused a series of left-wing reporters and news organisations of being Russian propagandists in receipt of this information, without any proof whatsoever. It seems Mensch has simply taken this lies and expanded them until it seems she thinks that Putin is responsible for everything she thinks is wrong about American politics.

Now that she’s finally joined the ranks of the conspiracy theorists, we can start speculating how long it will be before she ends up like Alex Jones, babbling about how the global elites that control the world a really extradimensional satanic reptoid aliens, and that Hillary Clinton is a demonically possessed cyborg, who is part of a vast paedophile conspiracy. It’s the next step in this kind of madness.

And perhaps we also owe America an apology for exporting her over there, and thus wrecking American politics just that little bit more. Sorry, America.

Louise Mensch and American Republicans Demand War with Iran

Mike over at Vox Political has this piece reporting an article in the Canary commenting on the latest frenzy of sabre-rattling and jingoism from former Tory MP and full-time airhead motormouth, Louise Mensch: http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2016/01/15/this-renowned-tory-wants-to-blunder-into-full-blown-war-with-iran/. Yesterday, an American ship strayed into Iranian waters and was duly captured. Its crew were later released. According to the Canary, the American military ain’t bothered by the incident. They’ve said it was a genuine mistake. So, from their point of view, it’s ‘My bad, no problem, guys!’

This isn’t good enough for the Repugs by far, and the usual suspects have worked themselves into a frenzy demanding Obama bomb them back into the Stone Age. The pro-war party naturally includes the usual recidivists like Tom Cruz. Cruz is almost as bad as Trump in his hatred of Muslims, but it more concealed about it. And in some of his proposed policies, he’s actually worse. He also has absolute no clue about affairs in the Middle East. He got very huffy with a group of Middle Eastern Christians he was addressing a few years ago, when they responded very badly when he started telling them they should support Israel. He really didn’t know that, although they’re Christians, the people to whom he was talking were also the indigenous peoples of the Middle East, Arabs and Assyrians. They share the comment resentment towards Israel across the Middle East as a modern settler state. Moreover, Christian Palestinians in Israel are monitored and have suffered discrimination by the Israeli authorities. They’ve also been attacked by their Muslim compatriots as collaborators. So the Christian population of the Holy Land has declined from about 25 per cent to 1 per cent.

As for attacking Iran, this would be a monumentally bad move. The article in the Canary, to which Mike’s piece is linked, list a number of very good reasons why attacking Iran would be a very bad idea. Not least is the fact that any attack in Iran would be countered by more military force and determination than the other campaigns in the Middle East, and would result in a nightmarish war would that would last for many, many years.

Iran is the Shi’a state, and so is the leader and protector of region’s Shi’a Muslims. Any attack on Iran would provoke the rest of the Shi’a into hostilities against America. The result would be that America and the West would end up fighting everyone in the Middle East, with the Israel and Turkey. As Shi’a, the Iranians are also the enemies of al-Qaeda and ISIS, who under the command of the Saudis have targeted and massacred Shi’a in Iraq and Syria as ‘rejectionist heathens’. By attacking Iran, America would be deliberately alienating and provoking a potentially useful ally.

Of course, the Republicans also hate Obama for what they consider to be his betrayal of America by signing a deal on nuclear power with Iran. If you listen to them, Obama has allowed the Iranians to develop nuclear missiles. A year or two ago they were running ads against the President’s negotiations with the Iranians, frightening Americans with pictures of America suffering a nuclear attack. In reality, Obama’s deal has actually ended any Iranian programme to develop a nuclear weapon, while still leaving them space for the peaceful development of nuclear power.

This is particularly a blow to Netanyahu, who was also trying to scare everybody with the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran, using pretty much the same scare tactics that were used in the ‘dodgy dossier’ about Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction that could be deployed within 45 minutes. Netanyahu claimed that Iran was only a year away from building an atomic bomb. This was absolute rubbish, and senior Israeli generals and intelligence officers said so.

Netanyahu would like a war with Iran, because of the Iranian regime’s poisonous hatred of Israeli and its very ostentatious support for the Palestinians. The American Republicans publicly share these sentiments. But the reality is more likely it’s another, grubby attempt to nick their oil. Back in the 1950s, the Americans and Britain overthrew the Iranian Prime Minister, Mossadeq, after he dared nationalise the Iranian oil industry. This meant the seizure of the property of Anglo-Persian Oil, now BP. The oil industry was renationalised by the Iranians, who have made the date of this a national holiday. And while Iran is keen to sell its oil and other industrial products, it won’t allow foreigners to invest or own Iranian industry.

This has driven the plutocrats berserk. Forbe’s has place the country very high up in its list of countries lacking ‘commercial freedom’. Which seems to mean in their case, countries that won’t allow mega-rich multinationals to buy up their firms.

This is the real reason Cruz and the other Republicans want a war with Iran. It’s about more than American pride and jingoism, though that’s also one of the powerful drivers. It’s about more than defending Israel. It’s the same reason America and his poodle, Bliar, invaded Iraq: oil, and the seizure and looting of whatever industries and companies Haliburton and the rest of the American multinationals think worth getting their mitts on.

Bush at the beginning of the Iraq invasion convinced himself and his fellow Neocons that somehow, the American and western forces would be hailed as liberators by the Iraqi people. As events have shown, that has manifestly failed to occur. The result has been a further destabilisation of the country, along with the radicalisation that has spawned ISIS. The same would happen again if America went to war with Iran.

Like Iraq, Iran is a mosaic of different ethnic minorities. 51 per cent of the population speak Farsi, modern Persian. Other ethnic groups include Kurds, Various Turkic-speaking peoples, peoples speaking languages related to Persian, and Arabs in the West of the country. The Kurds have been fighting a war with the Iranian government to have their own, autonomous homeland since the 1970s. There have also been jihads by the Turkish peoples, after the government began seizing their land to give to Farsi speakers. If central government in Tehran was shattered, the result could be another bloody mess of ethnic conflict and cleansing such as has occurred in Iraq.

And all so that big oil can get its hands on yet another country’s supplies.

Cruz and co. are ignorant stooges for the big corporations. Mensch is also, though in this case I wonder if some of it’s the result of all the E she was trying to get her colleagues to take when she was a shop assistant in the 1980s. These people have nothing to offer the world except more blood, pain and suffering, all so that big business can once again boost their profits.

They should never be allowed anywhere near public office. Boot them out.

The Young Turks: US Senator Blames Heroin Addiction on Disability Benefits

Okay, this is another video from The Young Turks across the Pond. I’m reblogging it here, because the attitude of the Republican senator, who made this stupid speech is exactly the same as the Conservatives over here. It’s so similar that I wonder how long it’ll be before Ian Duncan Smith, Katie Hopkins, Louise Mensch or some other Tory rentagob makes precisely the same argument in parliament, or in the pages of the Sun or the Mail.

The Republican senator, Tom Cotton, gave a speech to the right-wing Heritage Foundation arguing that disability benefits should be abolished because they act as a disincentive for the disabled to get jobs. He stated that disability benefits encourage increasing numbers of people to stop working to go on them. Eventually there comes a point, according to Cotton, where the sheer number of people on disability benefits drives companies away from an area. Without the prospect of work, the people then turn to drugs like heroin.

The Turks’ Ana Kasparian points out that the heroin epidemic in America isn’t due to disability benefits. It’s due to the pharmaceutical companies putting pressure on doctors to overprescribe massively oxycotin. When this drug then becomes unavailable, those who have become addicted to it then try to self-medicate with heroin.

The Turks’ other anchor, Cenk Uygur, states he has some sympathy with Cotton, on the grounds that if benefits are paid at a rate above that of normal wages, most reasonable people will try to go on them instead. But he argues that isn’t the reason why Cotton has made this argument. Cotton is talking about the depressed communities in the Appalachians – the ‘Rust Belt’. These communities have been hard hit by the decline of the American manufacturing industry. Unlike Pittsburgh, the Appalachians haven’t been able to boost their economy with the introduction of new technology. So Cotton is attempting to divert attention from industry’s inability to create employment in the area by blaming the people themselves for their problems.

Uygur and Kasparian also start talking about the double standards the Repugs adopt when talking about drug addiction amongst White and Black communities. When it comes to White communities, they’re much less harsh and start to pretend to feel the pain of those communities suffering from it. ‘Cause those people aren’t Black. They also do so because many of the politicos’ own families are addicted to something unpleasant. To properly demonise something, they have to pretend it’s foreign. Uygur states that in the 1920s, when the US outlawed cannabis, they renamed it ‘marijuana’ in order to link it mentally with Mexicans. As for the corrosive effect of the pharmaceutical industry on American politics, the industry is the largest political donor.

The Tories share Cotton’s attitudes to disability. They too are determined to stop people claiming it, along with other benefits. As for the pharmaceutical industry, this is one of the problems that come with privatised medicine. So if the Tories get rid of the NHS, we’ll suffer the same phenomenon over here. And the Heritage Foundation has influenced British politics. Very many of the Tories on the extreme Right-wing of the party, like one Paul Staines aka Guido Fawkes, have been part of sections of the party, that have links to the Foundation and similar right-wing organisations. Cotton is saying what a fair number of Tories are thinking, and what they’d like to say if they could get away with it.

Zelo Street: Louise Mensch Bullies 17 Year Old Girl

Doc Hackenbush’s Threat Advisory Graphic: When on Twitter, be on Mensch Alert.

Private Eye now has a column, where it collects advertising snippets and soundbites from celebrities boasting that something-or-other ‘is in their DNA’. I don’t know whether the Sun’s got in there yet, but whatever it’s editors claim is in their genetic makeup, it’s pretty clear that a large chunk of their genome is sheer thuggishness and bullying. Zelo Street has posted an article on Louise Mensch’s sneers and petty spite on Twitter directed against June Eric-Udorie, Sun Pundit Bullies ANOTHER Teenager . Mensch, the former Tory MP and columnist with the Scum decided to attack Eric-Udorie on behalf of the Torygraph scribbler, Julia Hartley-Brewer, who appears to have a lost a debate to Eric-Udorie. The piece begins

Those who look in regularly on Zelo Street may remember the way the Murdoch Sun harassed Abby Tomlinson of Milifandom fame earlier this year, turning up not only on her doorstep, but that of her Grandma. This was followed up with characteristically obsessive bullying from (thankfully) former Tory MP Louise Mensch, who gave every indication of enjoying using her position to harangue a 17 year old girl.

And to no surprise at all, Ms Mensch is now at it again. After the Telegraph’s tedious pundit Julia Hartley Brewer found that a debate she had attended had turned out not necessarily to her advantage, she used the bully pulpit afforded her by that paper to tell anyone still reading of “My thoughts after an evening spent debating ‘Is feminism the new F word’. Deep sighs all round”. The subject of her ire was clear.

Hartley-Brewer was particularly exercised by the fact that she got lectured on feminism by a 17 year old girl, and took pains to make sure the on-line readers of her blog knew it was Eric-Udorie.

So, what compelling counterarguments did Hartley-Brewer and Mensch marshal to rebut Eric-Udorie’s? Well, as far as I can, absolutely none. Just sneers about her age, and snooty dismissals of her arguments. Apparently, Eric-Udorie was preaching ‘moronic fauxminism’. Other sneers include telling her that she’s part of ‘generation snowflake’, and that if she can’t stand the pressures of debating in public, she could always try ‘club Penguin’.

You can read the whole long list of sneers yourself on the original article at http://zelo-street.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/sun-pundit-bullies-another-teenager.html.

Everything about Hartley-Brewer’s and Mensch’s responses screams that it comes from butthurt, bruised egos. They are, after all, mature adults, who’ve appeared on TV. Julia Hartley-Brewer was last seen, if I recall correctly, on Have I Got News For You, where they quizzed her about her unflattering comments about Corbyn. Surprise! Surprise! You’d hardly expect that from a writer for the Torygraph. According to Zelo Street, Eric-Udorie has written for the Groaniad and the Staggers. This is a spectacular achievement, as she’s only 17. Journalism is now extremely competitive, and it’s extremely difficult to get taken on as a writer at the nationals, from what I understand. So Eric-Udorie is clearly an extremely intelligent young woman. And obviously too intelligent for her detractors, who have been reduced to name-calling and peevish comments instead.

As for Louise Mensch, before she became a Tory MP, according to Private Eye, she worked in a record shop, where she was known chiefly for writing bad poetry and trying to get the rest of the staff to try Ecstasy. I know everyone has start off somewhere, and a lot of teenagers and people in their twenties have literary ambitions that exceed their ability at the time. You can’t really blame her for that. But you can criticise her for bullying a teenage girl, who’s shown a bit more intelligence than she ever will.

More Material for the Grotty Squalid Picture Show, Alias Daily Mail – the Musical!

Just to prove that writing songs satirising the Daily Mail isn’t confined to people on Youtube, and outraged pop singers, I’ve found a few more pieces in which actors, journalists and celebrities express their utter contempt for the Mail.

The Mail doesn’t only run extreme Right-wing stories attacking immigration, the Left, the welfare state and single mothers. It is also known for regularly trying to scare everyone to death with articles about how just about everything under the sun will give you cancer. Here’s Russell Howard, the stand-up man from Keynsham, spoofing this aspect of the Heil’s journalism.

That’s at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4abk9fd_lR4.

And here’s Steve Coogan talking about why he chose the Daily Mail as Alan Partridge’s favourite newspaper because it has the requisite pomposity and little Englander bile Newsnight, with Paxo and Louise Mensch.

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That’s at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvGVCKIvwL4.

Have I Got News For You, the BBC’s long-running satirical, also attacked the Daily Mail’s hypocrisy in printing stories about paedophiles, while at the same time also running admiring articles commenting on the appearance of underage, teenage girls.

That one’s at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKzgDBumCr0.