Just look at that face. What does it tell you? When we at HUSTLER look at it, we see the kind of guy who was bullied in high school and a loner in college. No friends, male or female—especially not female. Actually, political consultant and Fox News commentator Frank Luntz looks gay. Not macho gay, more nebbish gay. It’s what we call the Karl Rove Syndrome: the need to pay back your former peers for all the shit you got while growing up.

Like Rove, Luntz has figured that one out. He’s intent on making life as miserable as possible for everyone in the 99%, and he can do it thanks to his gift for propaganda. Luntz is probably the Republican Party’s single most important strategist. That’s because he is a master at using language—or should we say perverting language?—to sway America’s voters. For example, he changed the term inheritance tax to death tax. Why? Because he recognized that the words death tax stirred resentment in people, unlike inheritance tax.

During a 2003 interview on the PBS program Frontline, Luntz declared, “Eighty percent of our life is emotion, and only 20% is intellect. I am much more interested in how you feel than how you think.” Of course he is. If people think about the issues, they’ll see that the Republicans are out to screw the average working-class American. The way around that is emotionally loaded words that obscure the truth. Can you say “Orwellian”? Luntz can.

In fact, Luntz actually redefined the word Orwellian, which traditionally describes pretty much the kind of thing that Luntz does: redefine reality, making what’s not real seem real. But Luntz, keying in on George Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language,” has cooked up a totally different meaning: “To be Orwellian is to speak with absolute clarity, to be succinct, to explain what the event is, to talk about what triggers something happening…and to do so without any pejorative whatsoever.” Can you say “evil”?

Yes, Luntz is evil. If he’s not, then the word evil has no meaning at all. Luntz is the guy who convinced the George W. Bush Administration to use the term global climate change instead of global warming because it sounded less alarming. This was, you understand, all part of the GOP’s strategy to convince people that the issue of global warming was still being debated among scientists even though Luntz, the strategist, knew “the scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed.” In other words: Fuck the planet and obstruct climate science. That’s evil, isn’t it? It’s certainly dishonest.

Dishonesty adheres to Frank Luntz like dog shit to a shoe. In 1996, his dubious methodology caught the attention of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), which asked to see some of his polling data. Citing client confidentiality, Luntz refused.

Here’s how Diane Colasanto, then AAPOR president, responded: “We understand the need for confidentiality, but once a pollster makes results public, the information needs to be public. People need to be able to evaluate whether it was sound research.”

The National Council on Public Polls censured Luntz “for allegedly mischaracterizing on MSNBC the results of focus groups” he’d conducted during the 2000 Republican National Convention. In September 2004, MSNBC dropped Luntz from its planned coverage of that year’s Presidential debate when Media Matters released a letter outlining Luntz’s GOP ties and questionable polling methodology.

More recently, Luntz was given the 2010 PolitiFact Lie of the Year award for convincing Republicans to use the term government takeover when referring to healthcare reform. (FYI: PolitiFact is a Pulitzer Prize-winning factchecking Web site.) Luntz knew that in the public’s mind, government takeovers are evil— something dictators do. By applying that pejorative term to Obamacare, Republican lawmakers were reasonably successful in avoiding a discussion about what the bill really sought to accomplish: health insurance for all. (The healthcare program wasn’t to be run by the government in any case; the insurance companies would retain control but be better regulated.)

In a memo to the GOP discussing Obama’s plan to create jobs, Luntz wrote: “It is tempting to counterattack using facts and figures. Resist the temptation. … The President’s language works because it speaks to a series of individual proposals that common sense suggests will lead to job creation.” In other words, deceive the public. Stay away from those pesky facts. Lie.

Today Luntz, through deception and lies, continues his efforts to help the GOP wield power in Washington. One of his main targets is the Occupy Wall Street movement, which he’s admitted has him “so scared” that he’s “frightened to death. They’re having an impact on what the American people think about capitalism.” So Luntz has coined some new terms with which to frame—or should we say obfuscate—the Republicans’ argument.

Here are some of the most glaring examples: Instead of government spending, Republicans refer to government waste. Instead of rich, they say job creator. Instead of Wall Street, they say Washington. This last switcheroo is very instructive. It’s actually Wall Street that controls our government, but Luntz and his fellow pro-Big Business right-wingers would have you believe the precise opposite is true.

So what more can we say about someone who makes his living by deceiving people? That Luntz is a pathetic excuse for a human being? Yes, without a doubt. That he is responsible for the corruption of our political process? He’s certainly one of the people responsible. That he’s a douchebag? Absolutely. Most of all, however, we see Frank Luntz as a man who has betrayed the very precepts of the democracy he lives in.

We see him as a traitor.

from HUSTLER Magazine October 2012

Hey, Billy boy, it’s been a while. The last time you graced this page was in 2003. We’re shocked that we let so much time go by. After all, you still have your show on the Fox News Channel. And it’s not as if you stopped being an asshole. In fact, you are clearly a bigger asshole than ever. Still, it might have taken us a bit longer to get back to you if it weren’t for your idiotic position regarding the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Florida resident Trayvon Martin.

First you complained about the public outcry that it took so long for the shooter, George Zimmerman, to be arrested. Then you attacked the victim by asking, “Is there anything wrong with knowing that he was suspended three times from school?” Really, Bill?! Using Martin’s scholastic records as possible justification for his shooting? Just how stupid are you?

The facts are clear: An unarmed African- American kid was gunned down by a selfappointed neighborhood watchman who pursued his quarry despite being instructed not to do so by a police dispatcher. Zimmerman shot and killed an innocent person. Nothing changes that, not even if Martin had burned down his school.

Then, Bill, there was your defense of Geraldo Rivera’s statement that “I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman.” We’ve searched our files, and we can find no record of a hoodie ever being indicted for murder. Of course we get your Fox News colleague’s point: Black people shouldn’t wear hoodies—ever!—because they’re black! Only white people can get away with wearing them because, according to you and Rivera, white people don’t look like “wannabe gangsters” when they wear hoodies. That’s not just stupid, Bill. That’s downright racist.

But enough about your pathetic comments on the Trayvon Martin tragedy. We have ten years’ worth of O’Reilly stupidity to catch up on, starting with Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University law student who was called a “slut” and “prostitute” by Rush Limbaugh (another stupid asshole).

Fluke originally made the news by testifying at a House Democrats’ steering committee hearing, where she expressed her support of mandatory health insurance coverage for contraceptives.
Republicans, on the other hand, were arguing that employers should not have to include contraception as part of their health insurance policies.

That’s where you came in, Bill. You (falsely) surmised that Fluke was advocating the government should pay for her birth control so she could have sex. (Full disclosure: HUSTLER believes the government should pay for women’s contraception so they will have sex with us.) You went on to suggest that if the government pays for a woman’s birth control, it should also pay for a man’s football equipment and gym membership…because they both ultimately relate to health.

That’s too ridiculous to comment on. In 2005, you first stated that Dr. George Tiller, who provided legal abortions at a clinic in Kansas, was “guilty of Nazi stuff.” You also referred to him as “Tiller the Baby Killer”—over and over. At the time, we thought you were inciting your loony audience to commit murder. Indeed, the gunman who ultimately assassinated Dr. Tiller in 2009 was exactly the kind of right-wing loon your show appeals to. Like many across the land, we blame you for his death, Bill.

You want to challenge that? Well, here’s another incendiary remark you made regarding the pro-choice doctor: “If the state of Kansas doesn’t stop this man [Tiller], then anybody who prevents that from happening has blood on their hands, as the Governor [Kathleen Sebelius] does right now.”

Remember that quote? Or how about this one? “No question Dr. Tiller has blood on his hands, but now so does Governor Sebelius. She is not fit to serve, nor is any Kansas politician who supports Tiller’s business of destruction. I wouldn’t want to be these people if there is a Judgment Day.”

In our opinion, that sure sounds like inciting violence. But if you think we’re wrong, let us give you an example of how an audience can be indirectly encouraged to take action.

We know you are paranoid about your wife having affairs with other men. In fact, you have been accused of pressuring the Nassau County [New York] Police Department into investigating whether or not she was cheating on you. We are therefore encouraging any of our readers who come across Mrs. O’Reilly to give her a friendly smile. Apparently she could use a relationship outside a marriage that, we assume, she finds unfulfilling.

Get our point, Bill?

Finally, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention your 2004 mix-up with former Fox News associate producer Andrea Mackris, who sued you for sexual harassment. She claimed that your repeated sexual overtures and numerous phone calls to her home created a hostile work environment.

Here is a portion of your remarks, which were allegedly caught on tape: “So anyway, I’d be rubbing your big boobs and getting your nipples really hard, kinda kissing your neck from behind…and then I would take the other hand with the falalfel [sic] thing, and I’d put it in your pussy.”

To top things off, according to Mackris, you even threatened her, warning, “If any woman breathed a word, I’ll make her pay so dearly that she’ll wish she’d never been born. I’ll rake her through the mud, bring up things in her life and make her so miserable that she’ll be destroyed.” Since it’s widely believed you settled with Mackris (some say to the tune of $20 million), we have to assume her accusations were true. If so, that makes you a pig as well as an asshole.

Wow! You know what, Bill? Given all of the foregoing, we’re the real assholes for having waited so long to take another shot at you.

LESSONS FROM THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS

In the beginning was the Word…of one Joseph Smith Jr., founder of the controversial religious denomination commonly known as the Mormon Church. To this day, adherents revere Smith as a prophet who formulated The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ from ancient text inscribed on golden plates.

When 2012 Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney avows, “My faith is the faith of my fathers; I will be true to them,” the fathers he invokes are Joseph Smith and Smith’s successors.

In many authoritative biographies—namely those not written with the blessing of the Mormon establishment—Smith comes off as both a goodnatured grifter and a dangerous sociopath. According to ex-Mormon Kay Burningham—author of An American Fraud: One Lawyer’s Case Against Mormonism -the religion “was founded on deception and continues to build upon that deception.” She also asserts that Mormonism’s founders— Joseph Smith Jr. and family—“were opportunists driven to create an organization where they could acquire the social status and financial resources that they lacked.”

The story starts in 1823 when, as Joseph Smith Jr. proclaimed, an angel told him where to find sacred golden plates buried in a hill in upstate New York. However, according to Smith, it wasn’t until 1827 that he was allowed to extract the plates and begin translating what was engraved on them: a chronicle of God’s dealings with the descendants of a lost tribe of Israelites inhabiting the Americas from 2200 B.C. to 421 A.D.

Smith was mighty pleased: He had discovered God’s word, and he would bring the good news to the world. Witnesses say the religious zealot used seer stones to translate what was inscribed on the golden plates. However, skeptics suggest that Smith—a semiliterate farm boy schooled in the soaring language of the Bible—concocted The Book of Mormon out of his own fervid imagination.

This was no small achievement. Smith was a smart guy, and he had a family schooling in the art of cheating the gullible. His father, Joseph Sr., had been repeatedly charged with currency counterfeiting in Vermont in the 1820s. Joseph Jr. himself was hauled into court in the northeastern United States on multiple occasions. He was described in an 1826 New York legal proceeding as “a disorderly person and an impostor.”

According to historian Fawn Brodie, one of his preferred cons involved the help of his brother Hyrum. While visiting a neighboring household, Hyrum would secretly hide a valuable heirloom. When, days later, the victim complained that the prized object was missing, Hyrum came to the rescue. He volunteered his brother Joe Jr. to show up— for a small fee—and put “magic stones” into a hat. Joe would then put the hat over his face and stare into the stone-filled darkness to see where the lost item was—the location of which his faithful brother had already provided.

Smith said his ethical rule was, When the Lord commands, do it. This was convenient, as it was decreed by Joseph Smith that the Lord would only communicate with—you guessed it—Joseph Smith. Early on, he spoke of receiving a divine message about “plural marriage.” The Lord commanded that all Mormon men should take multiple wives and establish the tradition of polygamy. Smith’s wife at the time was skeptical.

The Mormon sect grew throughout the 1830s and 1840s, and so did the controversy. Land theft, bank fraud and cattle rustling were alleged. Historian Will Bagley describes what happened when the Mormons were forced to flee westward and resettle: “After stirring up a religious civil war in Missouri and being exiled to Illinois, Smith founded a kingdom on the Mississippi at Nauvoo, Illinois. Having secured a charter that made him ruler of a city-state and a wealthy land developer, Smith raised a private army, made himself

America’s first lieutenant general since George Washington and began seducing women and barely pubescent girls with an abandon that would make Bill Clinton blush.” Mormon converts began to look askance at sainted Joe, and today their accounts read like those of cult escapees. “When I embraced Mormonism, I conscientiously believed it to be of God,” a disaffected convert wrote in 1831. “I now know Mormonism to be a delusion.”

Mostly what the Mormon Church coveted was the property of converts and their free labor. Joseph Smith’s own personal secretary concluded that Smith and other Mormon leaders were “confirmed infidels who have not the fear of God before their eyes. They lie by revelation, swindle by revelation, cheat and defraud by revelation.”

Jailed on charges of treason, Smith—along with his brother Hyrum—ended up murdered by a lynch mob in Illinois in 1844. It’s not a surprising turn given the level of animosity that Mormons’ criminality had evoked among their preferred targets— the “filthy Gentiles” who disdained the upstart religion.

The Mormons fled still further west, looking for the Holy Land, their Zion, the paradise where they could settle without interference from the Gentiles. They discovered Zion in the sunblasted wilderness of Utah. That’s where the new prophet, Brigham Young, was presiding when 120 men, women and children traveling across Mormon territory by wagon train were slaughtered. This was the infamous Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857, which historians believe was sparked by an apocalyptic hysteria that the federal government was planning to invade Utah and destroy Young’s people. The apocalypse never came to pass.

By the mid-1850s,W.M.F.Magraw—a personal friend of U.S. President Franklin Pierce—would conclude that civil law in Mormon territory was “overshadowed and neutralized [by an] ecclesiastical organization as despotic, dangerous and damnable as has ever been known to exist in any country…all alike are set upon by the self-constituted theocracy, whose laws, or rather whose conspiracies, are framed in dark corners.”

Years earlier, John Corrill—a onetime prominent Mormon official and a member of the Missouri legislature—authored A Brief History of the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints. Corrill, who was excommunicated in 1839, accused the Mormon leadership of “bad management, selfishness, seeking for riches, honor and dominion, tyrannizing over the people, and striving constantly after power and property.”

Laws undermined by conspiracies and outrageous privilege coupled with unbounded greed and power-maddened mismanagement: This sounds a lot like a description of Corporate America today. Perhaps this explains why our current Mormon Moment is really about the Mormon Church’s engagement and success in the corporatocracy.

In this context, think about Mitt Romney: Here is a man who, while heading the leveraged buyout firm Bain Capital, got rich as an opportunistic “vulture capitalist” by exploiting and plundering companies built on the hard work of others. Romney indeed keeps the faith of his fathers.

———————————-

Christopher Ketcham is a New York City-based freelance reporter who has written for Vanity Fair, Mother Jones, Salon.com and many other publications and Web sites. He can be reached at CKetcham99@MindSpring.com. More of his work can be found at ChristopherKetcham.com.

You may not think of holiday shopping as a political act. Think again.

I often hear people say they just don’t care about politics, that they’re not political at all. I say to them: You live in a capitalist democracy; just about everything you do is a political act. When you voice your opinions without fear, that’s a political act. When you freely explore your sexuality, that’s a political act. When you read this magazine, that’s a political act. And when you exercise the power of the consumer, that’s a political act. These days, corporate fortunes hold more power than ever over our country’s future. As you do your holiday shopping, be aware of the power that you hold. Does the store, manufacturer or producer you’re buying from share your concern about the welfare of workers, economic fairness and the future of the planet? If not, find one that does.

American capitalism is about competition. Make sure the companies that participate in our marketplace deserve your hard-earned dollars.

As posted in Indianapolis Star

Dear Mr. Mourdock,

I am offering you $1 million in cash, to be deposited in any bank you designate in the United States, Cayman Islands or Switzerland, for proof to substantiate your statement on Tuesday, October 23, 2012, that “even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”

Please be kind enough to verify your claim for a wondering nation. I will accept for purposes of this reward any verifiable transcript of your personal conversations with God; letters, email, text messages or videos from God, or messages addressed to you from God transmitted by any third party, including the Republican National Committee or the Romney/Ryan campaign.

I assume that you would not have made this statement unless you had been authorized by God. No one who believes in God would ever use the Almighty’s name in vain. That would be blasphemy. I am eager to receive your proof and pay my $1 million reward to you. Please send evidence immediately to me.

This offer is valid until 8 P.M. (ET) on November 5, 2012.

Sincerely yours,