What rightwing domestic terrorism?

“You may call tyranny a mandate or you may call it a tax, but it still is tyranny and invites the same response. If we refuse to obey, we will be fined. If we refuse to pay the fine, we will in time be jailed. If we refuse to report meekly to jail, we will be sent for by armed men. And if we refuse their violent invitation at the doorsteps of our own homes we will be killed — unless we kill them first. … I am on record as advocating the right of defensive violence against a tyrannical regime.”— Mike Vanderboegh, the ex-militia blogger…recently predicted that if the Supreme Court declared the health care reform bill to be constitutional, it would lead to violent insurrection against “government tyranny.”

Your Second Amendment right to bear arms gives you no right to use violence against those you disagree with.

Not racist though

On a related note, this was overheard at a Tea Party rally this weekend: Ozark Tea Party board member Inge Marler considers this joke an “ice breaker:”

A black kid asks his mom, ‘Mama, what’s a democracy?’
‘Well, son, that be when white folks work every day so us po’ folks can get all our benefits.’
‘But mama, don’t the white folk get mad about that?’
‘They sho do, son. They sho do. And that’s called racism.’

After her joke was reported, Marler told the Baxter Bulletin she’d stop using it. Audio of the speech can be heard here.

Just for the record: More white people are on welfare than black people.

image: early-onset-of-night

Classy bunch up there in Montana

At a GOP convention in Montana this weekend (where Newt Gingrich was the featured speaker), Raw Story reports on a proud display of something labeled “Obama’s presidential library” in the parking lot of the venue: a wheeled outhouse, riddled with fake bullet holes [which] contained a fake birth certificate for Barack Obama… stamped “bullshit.” Graffiti on the outhouse read “For a Good Time,” and listed fake numbers in reference to first lady Michelle Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Montana Republican Party Chairman Will Deschamps said, “It’s not something I’m going to agonize over.”

The outhouse was also a Republican float in the Memorial Day parade.

Arbitron: Rush Limbaugh’s ratings have fallen 27% to 40% in key markets

The Limbaugh Ship of Fail is slowly sinking.

Rush Limbaugh’s ratings have dropped sharply in several major markets following the firestorm over his comments about Sandra Fluke, Politico reports. […] Politico’s Dylan Byers got an early look at the latest ratings report from Arbitron:

The conservative radio host’s ratings fell 27 percent in the key 25-54 demo in New York City, 31 percent in Houston-Galveston, 40 percent in Seattle-Tacoma, and 35 percent in Jacksonville, according to a selection of the March 29-April 25 Arbitron ratings provided by an industry source.

Sources told Byers that it was possible that a bubble has burst: Limbaugh saw a spike in listeners due to the controversy, and now those people have stopped tuning in. Limbaugh’s ratings were also up in other markets, such as San Francisco.

Rush Limbaugh Ratings Drop In Several Big Markets

Is anyone surprised that Mitt Romney couldn’t “stand up” to to a town hall audience member?

We already know that Mitt Romney is too easily pushed around by his base — but that’s why they’ve chosen him. Today, he failed the ‘personal courage’ check once again:

An awkward moment occurred at Mitt Romney’s town hall event in Cleveland, Ohio on Monday when an audience member, in the process of asking him a question, asserted that President Barack Obama should be tried for treason. Romney remained silent during the question-and-answer session, only to say that he “of course” did not agree with the sentiment while greeting voters after the event.

[…] Shortly after the event, Romney appeared on CNN, where he was asked about the incident. “I don’t correct all of the questions that get asked of me,” he said. “Obviously I don’t agree that he should be tried.”

Read: Sam Stein: Barack Obama Accused Of Treason At Mitt Romney Town Hall

Some would say this is a typically spineless, namby pamby Romney response. Others might say that he lacks basic human morality, and that his current level of political two-dimensionality has nothing to do with an absence of internal courage — he’s just blank and empty, like a sociopath.

Before we hear one word about Obama being tried for ‘treason’ from RWNJ teahadists at Republican townhalls, it seems to me that the entire world is still waiting for Bush and Cheney (and the rest of that Administration) to be charged with war crimes and sent before the Hague. Operating outside the constitution? Let’s talk about it. In chronological order.

Sunday Bible lessons from Ayn Rand

image: paxamericana

Up until last week, Paul Ryan was Rand’s biggest fanboi:

“I just want to speak to you a little bit about Ayn Rand and what she meant to me in my life and [in] the fight we’re engaged here in Congress. I grew up on Ayn Rand, that’s what I tell people.”
“I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are, and what my beliefs are.”
“It’s inspired me so much that it’s required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff. We start with Atlas Shrugged. People tell me I need to start with The Fountainheadthen go to Atlas Shrugged [laughter]. There’s a big debate about that. We go to Fountainhead, but then we move on, and we require Mises and Hayek as well.”
“But the reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.”
“And when you look at the twentieth-century experiment with collectivism—that Ayn Rand, more than anybody else, did such a good job of articulating the pitfalls of statism and collectivism—you can’t find another thinker or writer who did a better job of describing and laying out the moral case for capitalism than Ayn Rand.”
“It’s so important that we go back to our roots to look at Ayn Rand’s vision, her writings, to see what our girding, under-grounding [sic] principles are.”
“Because there is no better place to find the moral case for capitalism and individualism than through Ayn Rand’s writings and works.”

MITT AND MRS. MITT meet the wingnuts, allow their rings to be kissed:

The attendees came from numerous conservative sites and right-of-center publications, including National Review, Daily Caller, American Spectator,Washington Examiner, Human Events, RedState, Right Wing News, Powerline, Townhall, Ace of Spades, RiehlWorldView, White House Dossier and PJ Media. RNC chairman Reince Preibus also attended. — HuffPo

HOW DYSFUNCTIONAL is the Republican party that their nominee needs to get the approval of a guy who says vaginas remind him of play-doh and a guy who is afraid of imaginary black people. Ladies and gentlemen, the GOP Base. — John Cole

I CAN SEE him having to meet with the crew from NRO or even Human Events. But, god help us, this guy? Or this guy? Corndog and Buttmissile from Minnesota? These are the people you have to charm to be the Republican nominee? If this meeting wasn’t held in a belfry, I’m going to be the most disappointed guy in town. – Charles P. Pierce

Maybe if we as a country fought as hard for universal healthcare (to include mental health) as we do for our Second Amendment rights, these kinds of typically American acts of violence would someday be not so typically American.

What rightwing domestic extremists? JT Ready: border vigilante, white supremacist, baby killer

On that shooting in Arizona (not surprisingly) yesterday which left five dead, TPMreports:

Longtime white supremacist and border vigilante JT Readysaw himself as part of a war that few others would fight. He amassed weapons. He donned a uniform. He formed his own brigade of volunteers to walk alongside him as he hunted what he described as “narco terrorists” flowing across the Arizona-Mexico border.

On Wednesday, reports out of Arizona said Ready died, not at the hands of drug runners, but with his own gun during a mad rampage inside a suburban home just east of Phoenix. Along the way, the reports said, he took the lives of four other people, including a toddler.

The Arizona Republic reported the victims were Ready’s girlfriend, her daughter, the daughter’s boyfriend and the daughter’s 18-month-old baby. Ready still somehow managed to use the event to blame immigrants even after his death. A posting on his Facebook page appeared hours after the massacre took place.

“Reports are unconfirmed that a cartel assassination squad murdered JT Ready and several of his friends and family this afternoon in Gilbert Arizona,” the posting said. “This page’s admin will keep you updated of the situation as soon as possible.”

TPM called Ready’s cell phone late Wednesday, but a message on the other end said the line had been disconnected or was no longer in service.

Read: JT Ready Identified As Gunman In Arizona Massacre

No one could have predicted. /sarcasm

Maybe if we as a country fought as hard for universal healthcare (to include mental health) as we do for our Second Amendment rights, these kinds of typically American acts of violence would someday be not so typically American.

image: from Think Progress: 17 Years After Oklahoma City Bombing, Right-Wing Extremism Is Significant Domestic Terror Threat

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Political correctness is deadly: right-wing extremism is our biggest domestic terror threat

As long as the media and average people pretend that ‘both sides do it’ and decide that it’s okay for self-described ‘patriots’ to rabidly hate President Obama, Democrats, and the federal government — and as long as everyone continues to look the other way when right-wing attitudes manifest themselves publicly, in the form of open racism and / or violent rhetoric, we’ll be under threat as a society and a functioning country.

Ask yourself if the fictional right-wing, Fox “News” created, tea party celebrated ‘creeping Sharia law’ is more of a threat to our country than the very real and ongoing use of the Republican Party’s Southern Strategy. Recall Sarah Palin’s creative ‘sniper rifle symbols’ on Democratic U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and the aftermath. Think of Breitbart-protégé James O’Keefe and his ‘pimp costume’ and ACORN and the fictional Democratic voter fraud issue (as we’ve learned, Mitt Romney, the presumed GOP presidential candidate, actually committed voter fraud).

Or look at the most recent example of our politically correct, both sides do it, national discourse:

The ‘outrage’ for the right was something said by a CNN commentator about a candidate’s wife and was, in fact, entirely true. The ‘outrage’ for the left, which should be an outrage for the entire country, was a thinly-veiled threat against the life of our sitting president, for purposes of demonstrating the speaker’s Southern Strategy bona fides in front of an NRA crowd. With our history of political assassinations and attempted assassinations, should we ever take such rhetoric lightly?

While you think about which outrage received the most national attention and why, you might also ask yourself how your silence on such matters not only contributes to the escalation of ignorance in our national discourse, but encourages some Beck- or Palin-inspired Manchurian candidate to prove his ‘Super Patriotism’ in the form of action. Sort of like this guy, who has been happily expressing his right-wing ideals in court all last week:

[Anders Behring Breivik] identified as his enemy the “cultural Marxists” who he said had destroyed Norway by using it as “a dumping ground for the surplus births of the third world”. Claiming Norwegians would be a minority in their own capital “within five years”, he blamed liberal politicians for bringing about Norway’s demise with “feminism, quotas … transforming the church, schools”.

The 69 people, many of them teenagers, who died on the island of Utøya when he opened fire on the youth camp of the ruling Labour party were “not innocent”, he claimed.

“They were not innocent, non-political children; these were young people who worked to actively uphold multicultural values. Many people had leading positions in the leading Labour party youth wing,” he said, going on to compare the Labour party’s youth wing (AUF) with the Hitler Youth.

Romney’s heritage, religion, race, and ancestry: FAIR GAME

The right has endlessly talked, mocked, lied about, discussed, and made great issue of President Obama’s religious beliefs, ancestry, race, and heritage.

Shouldn’t the Republican candidate for president be up to facing the same “scrutiny”?

From The Washington Post:

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) is causing a bit of a stir with his comment that Mitt Romney’s family came from a “polygamy commune.”

In an interview with the Daily Beast on Thursday, the outspoken governor suggested Romney could identify with Latinos better if he talked about his family’s roots in Mexico.

It’s “kinda ironic, given that his family came from a polygamy commune in Mexico, but then he’d have to talk about his family coming from a polygamy commune in Mexico, given the gender discrepancy,” Schweitzer said. (Schweitzer noted that women, in particular, object to polygamy, or the practice of having multiple wives.)

[…] The truth is that Romney should be able to draw on his personal history for ammunition to fight back on issues such as the Latino vote and his image as a fat-cat businessman. But in both cases, fighting back would require reminding people that he’s a Mormon.

In much the same way that Romney doesn’t talk much about his Mexican roots because of the polygamy connection (detailed here in a great story from last year by The Post’s Nick Miroff), he also rarely speaks of his record of charitable giving — in large part, it would seem, because the vast majority of the donations went to his church.

Romney has given more than $11 million to charity over the past 12 years, but 80 percent of it went to the Mormon Church, according to a recent Boston Globe report. So even if Romney wanted to talk about the $1.8 million that went to other causes, he would probably have to broach the Mormon issue — at least a little bit.

What if we request that Willard Romney educate us all a little better on his full family history and his religious faith: Mormonism — and by the same exacting standards and with all the careful insight, civility, and respect as was provided by the base of his own party.

In 2008, Romney calls Osama bin Ladin “Barack Obama” –

More from Romney:

“Unfortunately, possibly because of the people the president hangs around with, and their agenda, their secular agenda – they have fought against religion,” Romney said. [Feb/2012]

“I think there is in this country a war on religion. I think there is a desire to establish a religion in America known as secularism. … We are now all Catholics. Those of us who are people of faith recognize this is — an attack on one religion is an attack on all religion. It’s one more reason we need to get rid of Obamacare. It’s also one more reason we need to get rid of Obama.” [Romney, Apr/2012]

Romney’s Message: Obama’s Not a Real American | David Corn – Romney doesn’t call Obama a commie. He doesn’t question his birthplace. He doesn’t say the president is a criminal. He doesn’t suggest he’s Muslim-y. He doesn’t declare that Obama hates America or harbors anti-American views. But Romney has welcomed the backing of those who make these types of claims, and he has even courted these over-the-top Obama foes (as he did with Nugent, after the gun-lovin’, aging rocker had violently threatened Obama and Hillary Clinton). He legitimizes and exploits those who engage in Obama hate-mongering and who debase the political discourse Romney claims to care about. More important, with his own words, Romney has attempted to reinforce the notion that Obama is not truly part of the nation he leads. He has mainstreamed the Obama-ain’t-really-American meme of the right. And that is hardly civil.

At a 2008 rally in South Carolina Romney posed and held up this sign linking the two likely Democratic nominees, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, to 9/11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden. Romney responded that his critics needed to “lighten up slightly. There are a lot of jokes out there. I’m not responsible for all the signs I see.”

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Crazy Uncle Ted Nugent is going to be investigated by the Secret Service

And not a moment too soon. The ‘Nuge’ is one of these guys who likes to call himself and those who agree with him ‘we the people.’ They imagine they’re just that patriotic. Look at what Nugent said at the NRA shindig over the weekend:

From The Raw Story –

“If you don’t know that our government is wiping its ass with the Constitution, you’re living under a rock some place. And that there’s a dead soldier, an airman, a Marine, a seaman, a hero of the military that just got his legs blown off for the U.S. Constitution, and we got a president and an attorney general who doesn’t even like the Constitution,” he said, adding that the four left-leaning Supreme Court justices were “like a stoned hippy” because they “don’t believe in the Constitution.”

Sidenote: Nuge likes to brag up the military and the personal sacrifice of the service members, but Crazy Uncle Ted got a deferral from the draft, like this: (Nugent claims) that 30 days before his Draft Board Physical, he stopped all forms of personal hygiene. The last 10 days he ingested nothing but junk food and Pepsi, and a week before his physical, he stopped using the bathroom altogether, virtually living inside his pants caked with excrement and urine. That spectacle won Nugent a deferment.

Anyway, more blather from Ted:

“And if you want more of those kinds of evil, anti-American people in the Supreme Court then don’t get involved and let Obama take office again.Because I’ll tell you this right now, if Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.”

Nugent continued by urging attendees to get everyone they knew to vote for Romney and against “this vile, evil, America-hating administration” or “we’ll be a suburb of Indonesia next year.”

“We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November!” he exclaimed. “Any questions?”

In March, Nugent announced on Twitter that he had endorsed the former Massachusetts governor.

“[A]fter a long heart&soul conversation with MittRomney today I concluded this goodman will properly represent we the people & I endorsed him,” Nugent wrote.

Romney’s son, Tagg Romney, quickly praised the rocker.

“Ted Nugent endorsed my Dad today,” the younger Romney tweeted. “Ted Nugent? How cool is that?! He joins Kid Rock as great Detroit musicians on team Mitt!”

Update (1:20 p.m. ET): New York magazine reports that the Secret Service is looking into Nugent’s comments as a possible threat on the president’s life.

Indeed, Tagg, how cool IS that? Ted Nugent! Gosh, what a super swell endorsement! Especially because he’s the guy who bragged to a concert crowd in 2007 that he told Obama to suck on his machine gun. How cool is THAT?

Listen, Tripe, or whatever your name is: Nugent plays guitar. That’s his claim to fame. And when he opens his mouth, he doesn’t even make as much sense as the homeless guy on the corner, wearing foil on his head and carrying a sign that says something about the end of the world. Also? The homeless guy probably isn’t a total dick like Nugent, and that homeless guy probably isn’t some draft-dodging, yellow elephant nutjob who buys lots and lots of guns to shoot at things that can’t shoot back. In fact, the only people on this planet who would be excited (instead of embarrassed) about an endorsement from this steaming pile of crazy is you, your family, and the semi-conscious, low information teabaggers he rode in on. Look up ‘fail’ in the dictionary — the Nuge will be pictured there.

What a group.

One of the tea party’s 2010 ‘dream picks’: Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI)

Just what our country needs: more ‘Palin celebritards‘ in political office. Steve Benen reports on a freshman Senator with no desire to actually work:

Two years later, Roll Call reports that Johnson is poised to “purge nearly his entire Washington, D.C.-based legislative team,” in large part because they expect the senator to work on legislation — and he doesn’t want to.

“He’s an interesting case study of someone who has talked more than he has listened, lectured more than he has developed relationships with his colleagues, and now he’s having a tough time because of that behavior in advancing his policy goals,” one senior GOP aide said.“It’s kind of like watching a temper tantrum by a 2-year-old in the middle of the grocery store.” […]

Sources indicated that when Johnson came to Washington, he put a staff together like “any other Senator” but quickly realized that the day-to-day grind of legislating was not his forte. Johnson said last week that he wanted more of his office’s focus to be on building an effective messaging operation.

Yes, Johnson, like all freshmen, was supposed to do the grunt work of learning how to become a real senator, but according to Republicans on the Hill, he’s decided it’s more fun to give speeches and come up with soundbites.

“Messaging” is fun; governing is hard.

This seems entirely too common in contemporary Republican politics —the challenging work of crafting legislation, assembling coalitions, trudging through the committee process, making concessions, and agreeing to compromises requires a real commitment, and for those who just want to appear on Fox News, parade around CPAC with an entourage, and feel important, there appears to be no desire to actually legislate.

Thanks, tea party. Your movement will be the marker for COMPLETE FAILURE in the history books. Republican celibritards instead of legislators: your tax dollars at “work.” It’s not like our country has any real problems that might need to be actually fixed by honest people with a brain or anything. It’s more important for you to hate Obama and the Democrats and to choose your candidates by their hatred of the same things.

Maybe Johnson is just looking ahead to his own reality show, Fox “News” contract, or the many books that could be written for him one day.

image: bartcop.com

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Why are Fox “News” viewers so misinformed? Is it them, or is it Fox?

So you’re a misinformed Fox “News” viewer — but why are you so misinformed? Turns out, it’s a little bit you (because you’re attracted to a source like Fox in the first place) and it’s a little bit of Fox itself — a political operation which pretends to be a news channel, purposely misleading it’s base viewers, telling you what you want to hear but not necessarily what you should know. In other words, you’re in your own little world of paranoia and incorrect beliefs because you like that world.

The Science of Fox News: Why Its Viewers are the Most Misinformed – Authoritarian people have a stronger emotional need for an outlet like Fox, where they can find affirmation and escape factual challenges to their beliefs.

[…] When are people most likely to seek out self-affirming information? Hart found that they’re most vulnerable to selective exposure if they have defensive goals—for instance, being highly committed to a preexisting view, and especially a view that is tied to a person’s core values. Another defensive motivation identified in Hart’s study was closed-mindedness, which makes a great deal of sense. It is probably part of the definition of being closed-minded, or dogmatic, that you prefer to consume information that agrees with what you already believe.

So who’s closed-minded? Multiple studies have shown that political conservatives—e.g., Fox viewers–tend to have a higher need for closure. Indeed, this includes a group called right-wing authoritarians, who are increasingly prevalent in the Republican Party. This suggests they should also be more likely to select themselves into belief-affirming information streams, like Fox News or right-wing talk radio or the Drudge Report. Indeed, a number of research results support this idea.

[…] PIPA’s study of misinformation in the 2010 election didn’t just show that Fox News viewers were more misinformed than viewers of other channels. It also showed that watching more Fox made believing in nine separate political misperceptions morelikely. And that was a unique effect, unlike any observed with the other news channels that were studied. “With all of the other media outlets, the more exposed you were, the less likely you were to have misinformation,” explains PIPA’s director, political psychologist Steven Kull. “While with Fox, the more exposure you had, in most cases, the more misinformation you had. And that is really, in a way, the most powerful factor, because it strongly suggests they were actually getting the information from Fox.”

Indeed, this effect was even present in non-Republicans–another indicator that Fox is probably its cause. As Kull explains, “even if you’re a liberal Democrat, you are affected by the station.” If you watched Fox, you were more likely to believe the nine falsehoods, regardless of your political party affiliation.

[…] the Fox “effect” probably occurs both because the station churns out falsehoods that conservatives readily accept—falsehoods that may even seem convincing to some liberals on occasion—but also because conservatives are overwhelmingly inclined to choose to watch Fox to begin with.

At the same time, it’s important to note that they’re also disinclined to watch anything else… Continue reading…

It’s like a perpetual feedback loop of happy, Orwellian horseshit: Fox is anything but ‘fair and balanced,’ but as long as they tell you that’s what they are, you get to pretend that’s a valid description of your chosen news source.

If you’re happy knowing that about yourself, great. Just don’t be surprised or offended when your friends and loved ones won’t discuss issues with you anymore, or when they make the circling motion with their finger on the side of their head. As Paul Harvey would say, now you know the rest of the story.

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“Who cares? Who cares that she wasn’t invited into the club? She’s a woman! Women aren’t allowed!”

CNN contributor and rightwing shithead Erick Erickson offered his opinion on the recent debate about Augusta Nation Golf Club’s policy of not allowing women:

For years, the exclusive club has made a practice of offering an invitation to IBM’s CEO, which sponsors the Masters tournament. But on Tuesday, Augusta chairman Billy Payne refused to say if they would break from nearly 80 years of tradition to invite Ginni Rometty, IBM’s first female CEO.

“Who cares?” Erickson, who founded the blog Redstate.com, asserted on his Friday radio show. “Who cares that she wasn’t invited into the club? She’s a woman! Women aren’t allowed!”

“See, the president is trying to make everything political. President wants to have it both ways. He wants to go play at the Masters. Oh, you’re darn right the president wants to go play at the Masters, but he thinks women should be allowed, they should be members. Why must women be members of Augusta National? Why? Because it’s the last bastion of sexism. I thought the Republican Party was the last bastion of sexism and misogyny in America. Oh, wait. They nominated Sarah Palin to be vice presidential nominee.”

Erickson added: “And of course, Mitt Romney, ‘Well, I think women should be allowed too.’ At least, he’s smart enough to know that we don’t want to wade in to the war on women with Augusta. It is striking to me just how political the president wants to make everything. The war on women coming home to the Masters. Who freaking cares?”

“I would love to be a member of Augusta National one day after I get my private jet, but at the same time I don’t really care. And I don’t care that the Masters is a male-dominated event. I don’t care that women aren’t members of the Masters. Frankly, I kind of like the idea that women aren’t members of the Masters. Good lord, I don’t want to hang out at some women’s event.”

I’ll just add: WTF, CNN? Seriously.