Posted 9:49 AM by Scoobie Davis

Priceless!
Jim Rutz, the columnist for WorldNetDaily who thinks that soybeans cause gayness, thinks the Democrats are "weird."

Posted 1:42 AM by Scoobie Davis

The Moonie Media and Hillary: The Chickens are Coming Home to Roost

When I was doing online research for yesterday's post on Chris Matthews and the Moonie media, I came across some information that is pertinent to better understanding the recent Moonie smear of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama by the Moonie-owned Insight magazine. I discovered that in the late 1990's, Hillary Clinton made an unwitting deal with the devil--the consequence of unforgivable cluelessness.

A Trip to the Land of Wingnuttia
In order to put Hillary's colossal strategic blunder in its proper context, it is necessary to take a quick trip to the Land of Wingnuttia (right-wing talk radio, Fox News, NewsMax, Old Time Gospel Hour sermons Amway rallies, etc.). The standard narrative by the wingnut media is that Hillary is a ruthless operative who will do anything--including murder--to those who get in the way of her quest for power. Limbaugh was the champion of this view during the Clinton presidency--touting what is known as the Clinton Body Count. Roger Ailes also suggested that the Clintons were responsible for bumping off political foes or allies that became expendable (BTW, Ailes will be receiving a First Amendment award from the RTNDF). Jerry Falwell filled his coffers by selling tapes accusing the Clintons of being involved in drug smuggling and murder. Richard Mellon Scaife paid several operatives to weave fantastic tales about the Clintons' diabolical activities. This was also the theme of Richard Poe's book about Hillary and internet wingnuts.

This wingnut media used a variation of this narrative during the 2004 campaign. Limbaugh told the dittoheads that Hillary was trying to make sure that the Democratic presidential nominee didn't win so that she could be the nominee in 2008 and that any nominee who got in the way would face the same fate as Vince Foster. A watered-down version of Limbaugh's absurd narrative was picked up by Chris Matthews and others in the mainstream media. It continues to this day; before he interviewed Insight magazine's Jeffrey Kuhner, Sean Hannity referred to Hillary's "hit team" that was out to get Barack Obama.

These wingnut narratives are not only paranoid and loony, they completely miss the point about Hillary. Far from being the power-hungry and Machiavellian political tactician, Hillary doesn't seem to grasp elementary concepts of political strategy. She doesn't know the score.

Hillary's Lame Approach to the Moonie Media Apparatus in the Late 1990's

I recently found out about a fateful 1997 conversation between Hillary and one of Moon's operatives, Josette Sheeran Shiner, then the managing editor of Moon's Washington Times (at the time, Shiner was no longer a Moonie--at least that 's what she claims). When Hillary met Shiner at a function in 1997, Hillary suggested to Shiner that the Times start carrying Hillary's syndicated column. According to Shiner, "Hillary said to me `Hey--I want you to think about running my column!'" As a consequence, the Times began running Hillary's column.

Analysis of Hillary's Approach: I believe it is best to judge Hillary's actions in terms of what each party received in the transaction: What Hillary received: compensation from the Washington Times for running her column. What Shiner and the Moonie media apparatus received: legitimacy that money couldn't buy. Moon's media operatives already had much of the GOP in their hip pocket. For a Democratic First Lady to give her imprimatur to their rag must have thrilled Moon and his operatives. Hillary gave a big wet one to the quasi-newspaper that was fanning the flames of the Whitewater non-scandal (Shiner bragged to the Moonies about the Times' huge role in this). It was a complete rout for Moon. Hillary unwittingly became one of Moon's "secular conscripts" (click here and scroll down to the addendum).

The Hillary/Shiner chat led to the most lopsided exchange since the Brock/Broglio trade. Such an unequal relationship is hardly surprising; Steve Hassan, a former Moonie and expert on destructive cults, has pointed out that the modus operandi of cultists is to create an unequal relationship between themselves and their victims. For Hillary to express her wants and her need for acceptance to a cult operative like Shiner is the hallmark of appalling political ineptitude. With the recent smear by Moon's Insight magazine, Hillary is paying a price for it. I doubt that Hillary will ever learn--witness her recent cozying up to Murdoch. Let's face the facts: Hillary doesn't have a clue.

How Hillary and the Dems Should have Dealt with the Moonie Media Apparatus in the Late 1990's
Ten years ago, Hillary and national Democrats could have done a few simple things that would have made a big difference:
1) They could have refused to grant one iota of legitimacy to Moon or his media operatives. Hillary should not have befriended Shiner at the event in 1997. Neither Shiner nor any Moon operative is Hillary's friend.
2) They could have demanded that members of Congress follow up on the report from the Fraser Committee hearings of the late 1970's that Moon and his agents violated American law regarding immigration, foreign agents registration, taxes, charity fraud, etc.
3) When Nansook Hong's book on her ordeal with the Moon family was published in 1998, Congressional Democrats could have directed the INS to do an investigation of Hong's charges (read more about Hong's charges here).
4) They could have gone on the offensive with Republicans and members on the right who took money from Moon or his media operatives. Moon has spent $3 billion just on the Washington Times. Democrats could have made them pay a huge price for that support.
5) They could have taken James Whelan's lead and used the power of the subpoena to demand that Moon answer following questions: (1) Where did you get your money? (2) What are you spending it on? and (3) Why are you spending it on these things?

Had these steps been taken, not only would Hillary not have to be bogged down with the latest Insight smear but the political landscape would be entirely different. The Moonie media apparatus is an important component of what David Brock called "the Republican noise machine" (Brock's Media Matters documented this regarding the Madrassa smear). Had the above actions been taken, the Moonie media apparatus would have been seriously hamstrung--if not completely destroyed.

Are my arguments out of line? Since writing this post about why the Democrats are chumps for not going after Moon, I've thought about it for hours and I haven't thought of a single good reason for Democrats or progressives to grant an iota of legitimacy to Moon or his media outlets. I haven't thought of a single reason why Democrats shouldn't try to have Moon deported. I haven't thought of a single reason why Democrats shouldn't make a huge stink about the GOP cozying up to this deranged cult leader. I mean, let's get real, people. In a poll of Americans that ranked 155 famous people based on likeability, Moon finished 154 out of 155. What have Democrats been waiting for? For Moon to bypass number 155 (Charles Manson) before they lay a glove on him? Please, if anyone out there can think of one good reason why my strategy isn't sound and why Hillary's isn't completely bogus, then please e-mail me at scoobiedavis77@yahoo.com and let me in on it. Please, help me out on this. Is my head screwed on straight on this one?

Thanks again to Moonboots for his help on this column.

UPDATE: Was Josette Shiner lurking on this web site? Also, someone from the Vatican was checking out this post.

Posted 6:25 PM by Scoobie Davis

For Jack Chick Fans
An Ebay auction of an original version of the Chick tract "Somebody Goofed" had a final auction price of $309.00.

Posted 1:42 AM by Scoobie Davis

How the Moonie Media Apparatus Bought Chris Matthews’ Soul for a Pittance

"[Jack] Welch sincerely believed that all liberals were phonies. He took great pleasure in "buying their leftist souls", watching in satisfaction as former Democrats like Russert and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews eagerly discarded the baggage of their former progressive beliefs in exchange for cold hard GE cash."(quote found via Mercury Rising).

Being someone who follows the media, I knew that Welch had an influence on Russert's political views. I didn't realize he got his rocks off by buying the souls of people on the left. I seriously doubt that Welch reads this blog, but if he did, he might be sad to find out that Chris Matthews's media whoredom cherry had been popped a long time before he was supposedly corrupted by Welch. By the time Welch got to Matthews, Tweety's soul had been bought and paid for by Sun Myung Moon for a pittance.

Sometimes I wonder which is worse: someone who never had principles (e.g., Karl Rove) or someone who once acted like a human being and then lost his way when the price was right. When I look at the Moon controversy, there are a number of people who initially took a principled stand against the anti-American megalomaniac but who changed their tune because either, 1) Moon dumped billions of dollars to help the American right; or 2) because they wanted to line their pockets.

An example of the former is former Senator Robert Dole. In the 1970's, Dole was justifiably troubled about Moon's activities and his attempts to corrupt the American political system. In 1976, Dole held a public forum in Washington in which survivors and the families of victims of the Unification Church spoke about their nightmarish experiences with the cult. In February 1979, Dole held congressional hearings on the threat of cults in which discussion of Moon's pernicious activities were a prominent feature. Carlton Sherwood, a prominent paid apologist for Moon, credits Dole with setting into motion the investigations that led to the imprisonment of the cult leader for tax evasion:

For all practical purposes, this one letter [that Dole sent to the IRS calling for the investigation of the Unification Church's tax exemption] set into motion all subsequent events which, five years later, would result in the conviction and imprisonment of Moon." (Inquisition: The Persecution and Prosecution of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, pg. 53)

That all changed in the 1980's. After attempts to evangelize America in the 1970's were an abysmal failure, Moon pretty much figured that his messianic vision didn't play in Peoria (or anywhere else in the United States) so he kept a low profile and dumped a few billion dollars into a right-wing media empire. Apparently, Dole knew which way the wind was blowing because he let bygones be bygones and lent Moon credibility by appearing at the Messiah's "Tear Down the Cross" Washington prayer breakfast in 2003.

Moon and his underlings have covered their bases with a two-pronged media strategy: 1) Subverting journalism by becoming part of the media with the Washington Times, UPI, and Insight magazine; 2) Undermining media independence with Moonie front groups that give large conference fees to mainstream journalists. The 1992 Frontline documentary on Moon addresses this:

Narrator: Besides paying for his own media, Moon sought to influence legitimate press outlets. One vehicle was the World Media Association.

[Moon's right hand man Bo Hi Pak]: " And the founder is Reverend Moon, who is deeply concerned for the world media, particularly in the battle against communism all over the world; who sees that the role of the media is so vital and so important for the salvation of our civilization."

Narrator: The World Media Association sponsors all-expense-paid conferences and junkets for journalists all over the world. As Bo Hi Pak told public station KQED in 1984, the Unification Movement used the association as a weapon for a larger crusade.

Pak: "But is a total war. Basically war of ideas. War of mind, the battlefield is the human mind. This is where the battle is fought. So in this war the entire thing will be mobilized, political means, social means, economical means and propagandistic means, and basically trying to take over the other person's mind. That is what the third world war is all about--the war of ideology."

The upshot is that the Moonies received journalistic legitimacy by becoming part of the media and by transferring vast amounts of money to the media elite through Moonie front groups. One of those corrupted by this easy Moonie money was Chris Matthews. To Matthews’ credit, when the Moon-owned Washington Times was established in 1982, Matthews--who was then the assistant to then-Speaker Tip O'Neil--refused to grant the Times any legitimacy by not credentialing their operatives (reporters). Matthews quipped at the time, "We work hard enough responding to legitimate press inquires" It was a principled move.

To Matthews' discredit, when he had the chance to pocket Moonie money by according the Moonie media apparatus undeserved legitimacy, Matthews took the money. Fast forward to 1989 (after Matthews left government service and was Washington Bureau Chief of the San Francisco Examiner). The Unification Church paid Matthews $2500 to speak at a conference for the Moonie front group, the World Media Association. Mathews' descent into media whoredom is recounted by James Whelan, the former editor of the Washington Times (who resigned as editor of the Times in 1984 after Moon reneged on his promise not to impose his sectarian agenda on the Times) at a conference that addressed cults and the media (click here and watch 57:35 to 1:00:25 for Whelan’s take on Matthews). To show how Matthews did a complete 180 regarding the Moonie media, the Washington Times--the rag that Matthews had previously dismissed as pseudo-journalism--began running Matthew’s syndicated column in the 1990's. Matthews was a consummate media whore by the time he met up with Jack Welch.

Addendum: James Whelan on journalists who are paid to go on Moonie junkets (click here and go to 1:09:37)

They (the Moonies) are subverting our political system. They're doing it through front organizations--most of them disguised--and through their funding of independent organizations--through the placement of volunteers in the inner sanctums of hard-pressed organizations. In every instance--in every instance--those who attend their conferences, those who accept their money or their volunteers, delude themselves that there is no loss of virtue because the Moonies have not proselytized. That misses the central, crucial point: the Moonies are a political movement in religious clothing. Moon seeks power, not the salvation of souls. To achieve that, he needs religious fanatics as his palace guard and shock troops. But more importantly, he needs secular conscripts--seduced by money, free trips, free services, seemingly endless bounty and booty--in order to give him respectability and, with it, that image of influence which translates as power.

Tomorrow: How making nice with the Moonie media was an unmitigated disaster for Hillary Clinton.

Posted 11:48 AM by Scoobie Davis

Partied Out
I meant to post today but I'm recovering from last night's party and I have another one tonight. I will post Sunday or Monday. In the meantime, listen to this hilarious clip a friend sent me from Phoenix's KZZP.

Posted 12:58 PM by Scoobie Davis

David Boies is in Da House!
Last week, I mentioned the new class action lawsuit (the papers were filed January 10) against Amway/Quixtar and some of the kingpin distributors (notably Bill Britt who was featured in the Dateline NBC story) for being an illegal pyramid and over the tools scam. I should have read closer. I just read today that the attorney for the plaintiffs is David Boies. This ought to be good.

Posted 8:40 PM by Scoobie Davis

Exclusive: Editor of Moonie-Owned Magazine Engages in Thinly-Veiled Call for Muslim Extremists to Assassinate Barack Obama
The smear of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama by the Moonie-owned Insight magazine is just the latest example of Moonie smears against Democrats (Robert Parry has a list, click here also). Clinton spokesman described the situation as "an obvious right-wing hit job by a Moonie publication that was designed to attack Senator Clinton and Senator Obama at the same time." The smear was to falsely suggest that Obama had a radical Muslim upbringing and was supposedly concealing his past. The story is a double whammy in that it attributes the smear to Hillary Clinton's campaign. Robert Parry called it "a strategy of slime and divide straight from the textbooks of a spy agency like the CIA."

But the smears by Insight's editor Jeffrey T. Kuhner on Sean Hannity's radio show today were even more nefarious. Kuhner gave the Moonie party line. First, he denied that Moon or the Unification Church has anything to do with the operation of Insight magazine. In response to Wolfson's comment about Insight being "a Moonie publication," Kuhner made the following statement,

First of all, the fact that our owners are the Unification Church is irrelevant. It's religious bigotry. It's disgusting. We don't go on about the Washington Post's ownership or the New York Times' ownership. Our owners have nothing to do with our publication whatsoever. So the impression somehow that we are conducting religious séances here, it's just part of this liberal smear.

REALITY: Moon has dumped over $3 billion dollars into his media empire which includes the Washington Times, Insight, and the UPI wire service. Although church officials downplay their role in their media projects, Moon gives his followers a different story. For instance, in 1989, Moon told members of the Unification Church's Leadership Conference something different. Straight from the Messiah's mouth:

So please take spiritual dominion in your states. You can proclaim spiritually to the government leaders, "I am the elder brother, you are the younger brother." Teach them what you have learned. I invited many congressmen and senators to come to conferences to be educated. Though they may not proclaim openly, many of them support me. Through the Washington Times, Insight magazine, and The World and I, I have been preparing the foundation for you to influence America. . . I am building up a media center, including a television studio and a wire service. Why? Because I want to be rich? No--to educate Americans in God's truth.

More disturbing were Kuhner's statements that appear to be a thinly-veiled attempt to incite radical Muslims to kill Obama. I have listened to the tape of Kuhner's comments several times and it seems as if he wants Muslim fanatics to go after Obama. Decide for yourself. Early in the interview, Kuhner told Hannity:

They [The Obama campaign] didn't know how to handle this story. What it tells me is: A) They are not ready for primetime. More importantly, they know the Muslim issue is something they can be hurt on. And Sean, the point I want to stress to you and all your listeners, and I think this is the $64,000 question. The radical Islamic fascists that we are now fighting in Iraq and across the Middle East, if there is one thing that they champion again and again is that they believe is that once you are born as a Muslim, you must remain a Muslim for the rest of your life and if you convert from Islam to Christianity, that is apostasy and you must be killed and beheaded. To me, the issue here that begs to be answered is: was Obama raised as a Muslim? Is he considered by his father to be a Muslim? If he was considered by his father to be a Muslim, it doesn't matter what we think. What matters is that the radical Islamists in the Middle East will consider him an apostate and will ask for his beheading. That's a question that the liberal media doesn't want to touch but it's one that needs to be addressed.

Later in the conversation, Kuhner told Hannity:

But as to the Muslim issue itself, we are working on a follow-up story. Here's what we found, I think, so far—I think we can viably say: it seems that Obama has been, to some degree, downplaying his Muslim background. It doesn’t mean that he attended a madrassa. It doesn't mean he’s some kind of--he was raised as a radical fanatic but he was raised, to some degree, as a Muslim. He did attend a Muslim school. It was not as secular a background as he claims. And I think there was some affiliation with Islam when he was young and I think he needs to come clean on that. And what I think is disturbing to me, and to be fair to the Hillary camp, is: why is Obama deliberately trying to downplay his Muslim background? What is he embarrassed about? What is he ashamed of? There's nothing wrong with being raised as a Muslim. You know, he converted to Christianity. What's the problem here?

REALITY: Kuhner wants to have it both ways. One the one hand, Kuhner claims, without any evidence, that Obama was raised as a Muslim and that Obama had concealed this fact and that he shouldn't be ashamed of his supposed Muslim upbringing. Kuhner made this claim right after he said that if Obama had been raised as a Muslim, he will become the target of reprisals by Muslim extremists because he is now a Christian. To top it off, Kuhner blames the whole thing on Hillary.

While I found Kuhner's comments repulsive and shocking, I was not surprised. The Unification Church is less of a religion than it is a political movement. Sun Myung Moon’s current allies of convenience are members of the American political right--especially the Bush family. Moon's ultimate goal is a one-world theocracy in which Unification theology is the prevailing philosophy and every human being is a brain-dead Moonie; God help those who get in the way of Moon or his allies. Parry succinctly outlines Moon's demented plans for America:

Though The Washington Times dubs itself "America's Newspaper," Moon has declared in speeches to his followers that his goal is "the natural subjugation" of the United States and its people under his theocratic rule. . . For Americans who resist and try to maintain their individuality, he has vowed that they will be "digested."

The talk about those who resist Moon's vision is no anomaly (quick note: Bush the Elder once called Moon, "the man with the vision."). Moon recently told followers, "The Last Days are coming to America. Be careful. Those that oppose [Reverend] Moon will perish."

In Moon’s Manichaean (and deranged) worldview, because Obama is opposed to Moon’s current allies (i.e., the Bush Family), he then is an agent of Satan and not fit to live.

Note: Thanks to Moonboots for help with this post. . . I will postpone my post on Chris Matthews for tomorrow or Saturday.

UPDATE: Jeffrey Kuhner and Sean Hannity: two peas in a pod. I did a little more research on Kuhner and I wasn't surprised. In the wake of 9/11, Kuhner was a part of the Clinton Georgetown Speech Smear (Here's what Kuhner wrote). This is hardly surprising considering that the smear originated with Washington Times operative Joseph Curl. Even though the smear had been thoroughly exposed as such (even Opinionjournal.com's James Taranto retracted his criticism of Clinton on the matter), Slanthead included it in his book Let Freedom Ring (click here and scroll down to the seventh paragraph).

Other recent posts on Sun Myung Moon and the Moonie media:
1. An Open Letter to Chris Hansen of Dateline NBC regarding Moon's sexual misconduct
2. Why the Democrats are chumps for not taking on Moon
3. An eclectic post on Moon
4. Two Moonie-Funded Universities on a List of Worst in Higher Education
5. Parallels between the Moonies and Amway

Posted 3:00 PM by Scoobie Davis

Big Post Later
I was listening to Jeffrey T. Kuhner, editor of the Moonie-run Insight magazine, on Sean Hannity's radio show today. I hope Media Matters or Crooks & Liars can provide the entire audio of the exchange. I'll include excerpts of the transcript on a post later tonight.

Posted 4:42 PM by Scoobie Davis

For Thursday
An underreported instance of media whoredom by Chris Matthews and what makes it utterly repugnant.

Posted 11:10 AM by Scoobie Davis

Sitemeter Stuff
I'm going to be busy for the next couple days so I don't have the time to do any serious posting. For the past few months, I've been going to my Sitemeter stats and recording some keywords that people have been using on search engines to get to this site. It's not pretty. There are some strange people out there. Just a few examples of search engine searches that led to this site:

topless buckeye babes
hooters boxing
amway quixtar gay
Sean hannity is sexy
Michelle Malkin is a two bit whore
sean hannity family pictures
tammy bruce nude
Anita Barone nude pics
spanking that chinese ass
ann coulter presbyterian
Nigerian whores
Dr. Laura nudes
Democratic women who like to date Republicans
picture of pat caddell
bare breasted beauties
online quick notes for lion boy
hot Republican babes
bitchin cowgirl
spring break sex

Quick note: I've added additional material to the addendum of my post on the success of the Google bomb against Amway/Quixtar. Check it out--especially the audio tape of Amway bigwig Larry Winters.

Posted 1:57 AM by Scoobie Davis

An Open Letter to Chris Hansen of Dateline NBC

Dear Mr. Hansen,

First let me congratulate you on your hard-hitting investigation of the "tools" scandal in Amway/Quixtar (quick note: a follow-up would be great) and your most famous investigation series, "To Catch a Predator" which deals with sexual predators who attempt to lure underage teens on the Internet.

I've seen a few segments of "To Catch a Predator." I have one suggestion: devote a "To Catch a Predator" show to an investigation of a well-known sexual predator: Sun Myung Moon. What makes Moon's case particularly noxious is that not only has he not paid a price for his misdeeds, but he wields enormous influence in this country and has earned the plaudits of influential Americans--including several presidents (including George W. Bush). Moon was even "coronated" at a ceremony in the Dirksen Senate Office building in 2004. I believe a segment devoted to Moon would be a change of pace to the segments in which unknown predators are nailed.

Here are the verifiable facts: Moon illegally brought a 15 year-old Korean national named Nansook Hong to the United States to be the child bride of his drug-addicted adult son--which makes Moon guilty of rape as an accomplice. After the illegal marriage, Hong had to endure not just sexual abuse but violence from her drug-addicted "husband." The repulsive details of Hong's ordeal are in her 1998 book, In the Shadow of the Moons: My Life in the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Family. Consideration of this case would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Scoobie

Posted 11:42 AM by Scoobie Davis

The Democrats are Chumps: Two Case Studies
The next time I update my voter registration, I'm going to switch my affiliation from Democrat to independent. Don't get me wrong, I will still vote for Democrats and support Democratic candidates. It's not like I will be voting for the GOP or the Get Republicans Elected Every November Party. I believe that on the issues, the Democratic Party represents the mainstream of American society--by default (Bush's extremism has caused many centrists and even some right-of-center people to defect to the Democrats). Nevertheless, I can't remain a member of an organization of people who don't know the score.

Let me give two examples:

Case Study Number One: The Democrats' Kid Gloves Approach to Amway

I have received a lot of feedback about my recent post on Amway/Quixtar. Generally, people told me they had no idea that 1) Many of the largest Amway/Quixtar distributors are involved in an illegal tools business--that Amway co-founder Ricard DeVos admitted was "an out-and-out illegal pyramid"; and that 2) Amway and many of its kingpin distributors--such as tools scammer Dexter Yager--are a major funding source of the Republican Party as well as anti-progressive forces such as Jerry Falwell. Most people told me they thought of Amway the same as a quaint vestige of the 1970's--an odd group of people who engaged in cult-like motivational rallies. Even though the Federal Trade Commission under Bush is not doing anything about the illegal tools operation, there is a lot that Democrats could have done to address this. For one thing, they could have used the media to call for investigation of the tools business. They could have contacted U.S. Attorneys to investigate the scam. They could have used the media to denounce the scam (for instance, they could have used used the publicity from the 2004 Dateline NBC story to generate more media interest in the scandal). None of this happened because national Democrats don't know the score.

Case Study Number Two: The Non-Arrest and Non-Deportation of Sun Myung Moon

After I had written posts about Sun Myung Moon, the response was similar to what people said about Amway: they just viewed Moon as a throwback to the 70's who jumped the shark decades ago. These people had been shocked to find out that 1) Moon is currently more powerful than he ever was in the 70's by dumping billions of dollars into a reactionary media empire that is an integral part of what David Brock called the Republican Noise Machine (e.g., here); 2) Much of Moon's money that he uses to court the American right has been derived from scams such as the Spiritual Sales scam in Japan that netted Moon billions of dollars; and 3) Moon has committed immigration fraud and statutory rape as an accomplice--both crimes that are easily verifiable and make him subject to deportation.

About a year ago, I contacted the office of my House member, Susan Davis (D-CA) and requested that she direct the INS to investigate the completely verifiable claims that Nansook Hong made that Moon engaged in immigration fraud to bring Hong (then 15 years-old) to the United States to be the illegal bride of his son, Hyo Jin. I wasn't expecting a Congressional Medal of Honor but I didn't even receive a form letter from her office.

Let's suppose you're a political novice and I tell you that a friend of your political opponents is spending large amounts of money, like say $3 billion, to slime you and it turns out that the friend of your enemy is an enormously unpopular cult leader who is an resident alien who has committed verifiable crimes that make him subject to deportation. The icing on the cake of this scenario is that many prominent members of the opposition have sucked up to this megalomaniacal lowlife(click here and scroll to paragraph five). If you're a political novice and you don't respond that a good strategy would be to refer the case to the proper authorities and have the person deported and to then publicize how your political opponents curried favor with this sexual predator, then you need to get into another line of work.

This is precisely what I think about professional Democrats. They leave vast amounts of political capital on the table because they're clueless. If progressives and Democrats went after a huge fraud operations like Amway and Moon's Unification Church the same way that the right goes after Hollywood, they could move mountains.

Finally, one of the ironies of Moon is that he was sent to jail for tax evasion primarily because of the activities of a Republican, Bob Dole. Go figure.

UPDATE: Here are some videos: Here is the trailer for the documentary film The Downline Movie. . .John Gorenfeld narrates this short video of prominent politicans sucking up to Moon. Note that Pat Boone was the MC for a Moonie event; Boone has shilled for both Moon and for Amway: . . . Here's an interview with former Moonie Steve Hassan:

Additional Update: Great news! There's a new class action lawsuit against Quixtar and some of the kingpin distributors (notably Bill Britt who was featured in the Dateline NBC story) over the tools scam.

Posted 10:50 AM by Scoobie Davis

Huge Post Later Today

Posted 12:25 PM by Scoobie Davis

Christ, America Needs Mike Royko

It's been almost ten years since Chicago columnist Mike Royko died. Americans are much poorer for not having him around anymore. This is a guy who wrote with wit but also heart and balls. In 1984, when Rupert Murdoch bought the Chicago Sun-Times--the paper Royko wrote for--Royko didn't hesitate to tell the media mogul to get stuffed, saying that "no self-respecting fish would be wrapped in a Murdoch paper."

I thought of Royko when I heard that the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation was giving Fox News chief Roger Ailes a First Amendment Leadership Award.

Posted 3:28 PM by Scoobie Davis

No blogging today
Maybe tomorrow or Sunday

Posted 2:35 PM by Scoobie Davis

More on Amway/Quixtar/Alticor
A few days ago, I noticed that on the Wikipedia entry for Quixtar, someone linked to my post for Amway/Quixtar on my Google bomb blog. While the statement about my post ("One weblog has actively engaged in encouraging anti-Quixtar google bombing, claiming that Quixtar helps fund the Republican party") is accurate, it was woefully incomplete. To remedy this, I added to the explanation on the Quixtar Wikipedia page yesterday. However, someone reverted the sentence back to the original. Rather than go through a back-and-forth with someone on the Wikipedia entry, I put an update on my g-bomb entry explaining that while Amway's support for the GOP is one reason I did the g-bomb, I had more important reasons.

Posted 1:10 PM by Scoobie Davis

Posting Today and Tomorrow
I'm back to blogging. I'll have a relatively short post later today and a long one tomorrow.

Posted 11:13 AM by Scoobie Davis

Prediction
Tostitos National Championship Game: Ohio State 35, Florida 24

Blogging will be light for the next couple days--I've got work to do.

Posted 11:55 AM by Scoobie Davis

A Victory Against Amway/Quixtar/Alticor!
UPDATE: Check out my new Amway blog.

I am totally stoked! An omen that 2007 will be a great year is my discovery on New Year's Day that Amway acknowledged that the Google bomb of Amway/Quixtar I started about a year ago has been successful. Recently on the official Amway/Quixtar web site set up to counter negative (but truthful) "criticism of Amway on the internet, it mentions and links to my December 2005 call for a blogger Google bomb of the words "Amway" and "Quixtar."

This Google bomb has been a huge success. Right before I did the G-bomb, if my memory serves me, there were three critical web sites in the top ten Google search results for both "Amway" and "Quixtar". Largely because of the Google bomb, now there are eight critical sites in the top ten Google searches of "Amway" (Including the Wikipedia entry) and seven critical sites in the top ten Google searches of "Quixtar." I'm not telling you this because I'm bragging about messing with a billion dollar scam operation that funds the GOP. I'm telling you because this is a story about how a group of bloggers helped to give accurate information to prospective members of this pernicious business cult. Information is anathema to mind control cults like Amway; I and other bloggers who did the Google bomb helped to provide useful information to prospective Amway victims. The success of the Amway G-bomb is the cherry on top of a disastrous year for Amway and its attempts to subvert America (click here also).

Amway: A Hierarchy of Misery

Amway is a freakish business cult that distorts American business ideals. Founders Richard DeVos and Jay Van Andel named it Amway as an abbreviation of "the American way." The people behind this Ponzi scheme no more represent the American way than the Moonie-owned and neo-Confederate-edited Washington Times is "America's Newspaper."

Rather, Amway is a classic hierarchy of misery: an organization in which those on the top,the kingpin distributors, shamelessly benefit by standing on those beneath them (their downline). Former Amway Diamond Bo Short, who was featured on the Dateline NBC segment, once said that Amway is an army in which the troops feed the generals. What is most insidious about Amway is that the people who are recruited (and exploited) are generally good people who, when they almost inevitably fail to become wealthy, are led to believe that they only have themselves to blame--that's the prevailing theodicy of this supercilious quasi-religion.

The Dreamstealers

Nobody in Amway represents this mentality more than Amway kingpin distributor Dexter Yager (quick note: Amway uses the terms "Independent Business Owner" or "IBO" instead of the term "distributor"). Yager is one of the top distributors who makes most of his money, not from the Amway business, but by the hidden pyramid scheme within the larger Amway pyramid scheme: selling high-priced motivational tapes and seminars to his downline through his company InterNET Services Corporation and International Dreambuilders' Association/Digital Alliance(the Dateline NBC's story on Amway gives more information). As former Amway Crown distributor Leonard Hall said, "Tools in Amway organizations are a major source of income. The Amway pay plan is one of the worst in the industry so tools help make up the difference." As a consequence, Amway distributors are front-loaded with tapes and materials--which either languish in their attics or are sold on eBay for pennies on the dollar (Douglas Wead, an associate of Yager and a former special assistant to Bush who ironically coined the phrase "compassionate conservatism", discussed how cracking down on the tools scam will take money away from him and others). What is so insidious about Yager is that he makes most of his money by selling tapes, books, and seminars that tell prospective and new distributors that the real way to wealth is Amway. The victims are the IBO's (independent business owners) who want nothing more than a better life.

In addition, Yager is a virulent homophobe with a messianic complex (click here and here). According to a story in Mother Jones, Yager sent the following voice mail message to his Amway downline members:

If you analyze Bill Clinton's entire inaugural address, it is nothing but a New Age pagan ritual. If you go back and look at how it was arranged and how it was orchestrated, he talked about forcing the spring. So what they're trying to do is...force the emergence of deviant lifestyles, of a socialist agenda, and force that on us as American people.

It wasn't surprising to me that Yager has a cozy relationship with another peddler of overpriced tapes: Jerry Falwell (see Addendum for more on Yager and Falwell). Yager has contributed generously to Falwell's ministry--allowing Falwell to fraudulently sell high-priced (and worthless) tapes to his flock claiming that then-President Clinton was involved in drug smuggling and murdering anyone who got in his way (Falwell's anti-Clinton operation was enabled by the generous financial help of another hierarchy of misery: the Unification Church). Falwell, in turn, has defended Amway against critics who have been trying to expose the scam. It was a marriage made in hell.

UPDATE I: Why the Democrats don't take on Amway--they're stupid!

UPDATE II: Amway and the Procter & Gamble satanism scare.

UPDATE III: Another victory against Amway!

UPDATE IV: Amway and Blackwater: A Family Tradition of High Markups

Addendum: Notes on Amway and Network Marketing:
My experience with Amway distributors is that they speak in cant: "It works if you work it" and the word "job" is an acronym for "just over broke." I hate people who, if asked a question, answer with frozen smiles and robotic sloganeering. Probably the most inane Amway Quixtar slogan: "If the dream is big enough, the facts don't matter". . . If you haven't read it, read Eric Scheibeler's book Merchants of Deception--it can be downloaded for free. It's shocking and eye-opening to those not familiar with the Amway cult. . . I'm not against network marketing. I have met people who have made a substantial and honest income through MLM. What I am against is deception, mind control, and fraud--hallmarks of Amway . . . I think Chris Hansen should do a follow-up on the Dateline NBC story on Amway/Quixtar. There are a lot more Amway scandals that should be exposed. Watch the Dateline NBC segment here. . . Bill Britt, who headed Britt World Wide (BWW) and who was featured in the Dateline NBC expose, gets caught with his pants down--this is especially funny since Britt is a fundie who preaches at rallies for men to be faithful to their wives. . .Eric Scheibeler on Fred Harteis. . . Amway and Blackwater: The Marriage made in Hell. . . Apparently, some of the Quixtar kingpin distributors became unhinged because of Hansen's Dateline NBC expose; here's a priceless audio of kingpin distributor Larry Winters of Leadership Team Development (LTD) at a Quixtar rally on what to do with those meddling investigative journalists. Winters also characterized the Dateline story as a "satanic attack". . . Winters' wife Pam is the Imelda Marcos of Amway because of her "over 300 pairs of shoes". . . Hilarious extrabiblical revelation by Dexter Yager's wife Birdie at an Amway rally (note: people paid something like $90 for the rally in which this speech is given). . . Former Amway Diamond Don J. Lorencz has a succinct critique of Amway. . .The movie Go has a hilarious vignette about Amway . . .A practical reason not to buy Quixtar products: they're a bad deal for the consumer. . . Here's Pat Boone's song, "We Were Amwayed" [Warning: not for the faint of heart]. . . Yager and Former Bush assistant Doug Wead co-authored the ironically titled book, Don't Let Anyone Steal Your Dream and another of the "tools" that new Amway distributors are told is essential to success in the business, Becoming Rich: Eleven Principles of Material & Spiritual Success. . . An amusing video detailing how Amway/Quixtar products are overpriced compared to products available at retail stores. . . Here's another post on another of my victories against Amway. . . Here's a post on why the Democrats are chumps for not taking on Quixtar. . . Consequence of the tools scam: new distributors wind up with a shitload of worthless tapes and books. A case in point, some poor wretch who was saddled with $2500 worth of Amway tools tried to sell them on Ebay with a opening bid of $175 (that's seven cents on the dollar!) and didn't receive one bid. Here's a video that addresses this and takes on Yager and the tools scam:


ADDENDUM II: Excerpts from Eric Scheibeler's online book Merchants of Deception about Dexter Yager and Jerry Falwell. From Chapter 9:

Dexter [Yager] came out and spoke of many of the trials of the hard days. He launched into a talk that was like many we had heard before. Again, we had come out of desperation to hear new Diamonds talk and learn some logistics to move our business forward. Instead, Dexter delivered one of his usual stream-of-consciousness talks. He would tend to cover topics God had told him to say (God speaks directly to him), such as Hillary Clinton’s sexual preferences, Communism, Socialism, loyalty, castrating rapists, Gospel Films, Jesus, wealth, knowledge, life lessons, relationships and how many girlfriends he had in Rome, New York. Despite the fact that these meetings started with prayer, he felt comfortable using crude references to "crap" and "shit" in some of his more enlightened teachings.

A frequent topic of the speakers, particularly Dexter, during one Go Diamond weekend was a disease he had named HUB. It was an acronym that stands for Head-Up-Butt disease. Who had it? It seemed that his answer was anyone that would not agree with him, Amway, or the system. If you were a Democrat or not going Diamond, you had it. If you had a job, you had a serious HUB. It seemed to go on and on. We were so tired in those meetings. It was a bizarre scene to have a few hundred Emeralds and Diamonds who were trying to sit in rapt attention, when most all of them were fighting to stay conscious. People’s heads would be nodding as they dozed off to sleep out of total exhaustion. Some fell asleep sitting up and actually started drooling on themselves.

At one of these Emerald and Diamond meetings, Amway Diamond Bob Howard was lying prone across four chairs next to me with his arms folded across his chest. He looked like a corpse and was completely out. Birdie Yager talked about how tired she was at one of the meetings. Dexter was prodding her to speak, and she did not want to comply. They were both on stage, and he told her to go off stage and get her notes to speak. She said that she hadn’t slept in something like 20 hours.

The most bizarre of Dexter’s teachings, in my opinion, were his sex talks. Remember, as you read this, that neither the general public nor the average distributor were ever made aware of what went on at these leadership meetings. By the time people got to these meetings, they had been well indoctrinated. Also, remember that these meetings were normally started with a prayer. At one of our first few high-level leadership level meetings, very late at night, Dexter decided to share a business secret that a woman Diamond had passed on, regarding the success she and her husband enjoyed. The advice he passed on to the ladies present concerned how to relate to their husbands. The advice was to "screw their brains out." People were actually taking notes!

From Merchants of Deception, Chapter 9, Jerry Falwell speaks to an Amway gathering:

Jerry Falwell came in and spoke at an Emerald and Diamond-only meeting for Dexter. He was charismatic and well spoken, despite the picture that the media had painted of him as someone on the religious lunatic fringe. It seemed as if any of us that were going to do something good for our family, our God, or our country were going to be subject to criticism. My respect for Mr. Falwell grew tremendously as he spoke. He talked of enjoying talk shows where it was just him, Jesus, and a bunch of liberals slugging it out. He spoke highly of our Amway business leaders and the foundational principles that Amway was built upon. He described socialism as "shared poverty." We epitomized the exact opposite of that.

Posted 4:17 PM by Scoobie Davis

Amway Concedes that I Kicked Their Ass!
Probably the best New Years Day gift I received: on Monday, I found out that Amway publicly admitted that my Google bomb of its name has been successful. I will have a very long post on this tomorrow.

Posted 3:17 PM by Scoobie Davis

Woo Hoo! New Chick Tracts
"Heart Trouble" and "Fame."

Posted 10:38 AM by Scoobie Davis

Everyone is on Dope
I have a huge article that I will post later today. In the meantime, three drug videos:

1) Bush's alleged cocaine use is discussed on Fox News--via Raw Story.

2)The clip of the infamous Brady Bunch driveway scene in which actor Barry Williams (who plays Greg Brady)is stoned to the bone. Williams admitted in his autobiography, Growing Up Brady: I Was a Teenage Greg, that he was high in this scene. Far out, indeed! The video is here.

3) The trailer for Marihuana:

Posted 3:15 PM by Scoobie Davis

2006 Hypocrite of the Year: The Washington Times' Larry Elder

2006 was a year in which there was a lot of hypocrisy.  Elder, a Rush clone with a radio show in Los Angeles, writes a syndicated column that appears in the Moonie-owned Washington Times.  Late last year, I was checking out the commentary section of the Times and read this opinion piece by Elder.  The crux of the piece is that Michael Richards wrote a letter of apology regarding his racist outburst during his stand-up routine and Elder cited Richards' apology letter to create witty mock apology letters by left-of-center politicians (some famous and some obscure) for every alleged racist comment they made in the last 35 years  (even if the person had apologized for the comment decades ago--such as Jesse Jackson for his 1984 "Hymietown" remark).

Elder not only includes verified racially insensitive comments but also includes many dubious allegations and treats them as established fact.  For instance, Elder writes a mock apology letter by Hillary Clinton based on the claim by Bill Clinton's former campaign manager that Hillary called him "a fucking Jew bastard" in 1974 (Hillary denied the accusation).  Apparently in he said/she said cases, Elder believes what "he said."  Then Elder cites Scaife-paid trooper Larry Patterson's accusation that Bill and Hillary Clinton used to drop the n-bomb.  Patterson was one of the "Troopergate" accusers who didn't recant his Scaife-paid stories about Bill Clinton but who met his well-deserved karma by later being convicted of lying to an FBI agent (quick note to Elder:  if you want to know more about the way in which Scaife paid people to say and write things, next time Joseph Farah cuts you a check for writing for WorldNetDaily, sit down with him for a spell; Farah can give you the scoop).

However, what makes Elder the hypocrite of the year is that I read this column in the Moonie Times.  Where do I start on this? I know.  Let's suppose, for the sake of the argument, that 32 years ago--in the heat of an argument--Hillary actually called someone "a fucking Jew bastard"? How does this compare to the Times' owner and Emperor of the Universe, Sun Myung Moon, who said that the Holocaust was payback for the killing of Christ? (Sun Myung Moon: "During the Second World War, 6 million people were slaughtered to cleanse all the sins of the Jewish people from the time of Jesus.")  We can also look at Moon's claim that the Korean "race" is superior. 

What is enigmatic about Moon is that even though he believes that Koreans are the Master Race, for the editorial board of the Washington Times, Moon hired white supremacists for the top posts. First, there is the editor-in-chief  of the Times, Wesley "God bless the Confederate States of America" Pruden.  The Times' assistant national editor is Robert Stacy McCain and the managing editor is Fran Coombs.  Under Pruden, the Times' published a column by Samuel Francis--at least until Pruden, to his credit, fired Francis for making some really gnarly comments at a white supremacist conference (Francis was not completely out of luck because the Scaife-owned Pittsburgh Tribune-Review continued to carry Francis' column until 2004).

The Prize
When I lived in LA, I would occasionally listen to Elder (when I did something bad, I would punish myself by continuously alternating the radio dial between Elder and the John & Ken Show).  Listening to Elder, I sensed that the man has some major kundalini blockage in the root chakra area. Accordingly, the prize I am awarding Elder for being 2006's Hypocrite of the Year is the choice between 1) a gift certificate for two classes a YogaWorks in LA; and 2) a quarter ounce of commersh (hey, this is a low-budget blog and I can't afford chronic).

Posted 2:07 PM by Scoobie Davis

Hatch and Moon
A few days ago, I mentioned how Senator Orrin Hatch had a cozy relationship with the Moon family. I just found a video and added it to the post.

Posted 12:43 PM by Scoobie Davis

Back to Posting

I have a big post that I probably won't put up until tomorrow. In the meantime, check out the video of the Statue of Liberty play by Boise State in overtime with Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.