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HOLLYWOOD AND THE CIA — Film historian Ed Rampell details Hollywood’s entangled relationship with the CIA and the Pentagon; HOUSES OF THE DEAD: Nancy Kurshan exposes the cruel human rights offenses taking place inside America’s vast gulag of Control Unit Prisons; BROTHERHOOD OF SUMMER: David Macaray charts the history of the most powerful union in the US: the Baseball Players Association; TAR SANDS COME TO AMERICA: Steve Horn explains how the Keystone Pipeline debates have diverted attention from Big Oil’s other plans to transport Alberta’s oil into the US. PLUS: Jeffrey St. Clair on CONSTITUTIONAL ENTROPY; Mike Whitney on HOW THE BANKS TARGETED BLACKS; Chris Floyd on THE RISE OF BRITAIN’S TEA PARTY; Kristin Kolb on THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE; Kim Nicolini on the FILMS OF WILLIAM FRIEDKIN; and Lee Ballinger on POETS VS. THE ONE PERCENT.

February 12, 2013

Wango Tango on the Hill

Ted Nugent’s State of Disunion

by DAVE MARSH

Ted Nugent is slated to make a live appearance tonight at the State of the Union speech, arriving as a guest of his Congressman, Steve Stockman, who recently announced he was pursuing impeachment of the President. Presuming Ted shows, and presuming the Secret Service lets him in despite Ted’s avowal that he’ll be 20 pounds lighter from leaving his guns at home, how many other people in the room do you figure:

1) Are currently on federal probation (stemming from a 2012 plea agreement for illegal hunting)?

2) Have been vetted by the Secret Service after making open threats against the life of the President who is giving the speech?

3) Have been accused–without refutation–by Courtney Love of having sex with her when she was 12 years old? (Nugent, by the way, would have been 28.)

4) Openly proclaim not only that the Southern traitors should have won the Civil War but that the only “real Americans” are “working hard, playing hard, white motherfucking shit kickers” ?

This is to say nothing of Nugent’s other bigoted sexist, racist and homicidal pronouncements which will, it apparently goes almost without saying, be shared by a significant number of attendees. (In 2007, Nugent was the final act at Texas Governor Rick Perry’s black tie inaugural ball. Nugent ignored the dress code, appearing in a cutoff Confederate flag T-shirt while shouting out racial insults at the Spanish-speaking help. Gov. Perry, previously known rock-wise for frequently hosting actor Russell Crowe’s stunningly mediocre band 30 Odd Feet of Grunts, defended Nugent afterward.)

Nugent’s appearance is even more odd given that he proclaimed during the election that if Obama was re-elected he’d be “either dead or in jail.” Or maybe it’s his ghost who’ll fill the seat?

DAVE MARSH is co-editor of Rock & Rap Confidential, one of CounterPunch’s favorite newsletters, now available for free by emailing: rockrap@aol.com.