Republican Terrorists

Looks like Obama isn’t the only one who “pals around with terrorists”. Unlike Obama, Republican extremists running for president gloat about being supported by terrorists.

Cruz touted an endorsement from Troy Newman, president of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, who stated, “the United States government has abrogated its responsibility to properly deal with the blood-guilty. This responsibility rightly involves executing convicted murderers, including abortionists, for their crimes in order to expunge bloodguilt from the land and people.”

 In 1988, Cheryl Sullenger, now Operation Rescue's vice president, was convicted along with her husband for their part in a failed plot to blow up an abortion clinic.

Cruz and Huckabee attended a conference hosted by pastor Kevin Swanson. “Tiller killed 60,000 babies, so that’s 60,000 dead babies and one dead abortionist," Swanson said on his radio show. "So, let’s just say, the abortionists are still ahead on this one…People tend to get their comupance [sic], and that’s precisely what happened to Tiller the Killer."

Thank Bill O'Reilly for that little Fatwa meme.

 "I say, tonight, we punish Planned Parenthood. I think it’s time that abortion doctors should have to run and hide and be afraid for their life." Christian evangelist and former pastor Joshua Feuerstein, the man known for his insane video that accused Starbucks of "hating Jesus" by removing winter icons, like snowflakes and ice skaters from red winter coffee cups.

How many more of these evil extremists are out there?

There’s your American Taliban, and American ISIS, American Jihadists calling for the deaths of fellow Americans who break no laws. Fatwas in America? IOKIYAR, after all.

This is the dark face of evil and terror in Right Wing American Christianity.

What does this Right Wing terrorism look like from their victims’ perspective, or at least the ones still alive?

How Radical Right Wing Christian terrorism works:

Bryn Greenwood, a woman who worked at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Kansas has posted a list of all the different ways she and her coworkers were terrorized by Christian Extremists during the 3 years she worked there explains.

I worked at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Kansas for 3 years. My coworkers & I were subjected to the following acts of terrorism:

Gasoline was poured under our back door & ignited 4 times. Twice while the clinic was occupied, causing patients to be evacuated.

Butyric acid (used as a stink bomb) was poured under our doors & into ventilation system so many times I lost count. Clinic evacuated.

We received hundreds of phone calls, threatening to torch our clinic & to kill the "murdering whores" who worked there.

3 times someone drove by at night & shot out our windows. Picketers stood on the sidewalk & harassed employees as we swept up broken glass.

Our clinic didn't perform abortions. We did well woman exams, pregnancy tests, dispensed birth control, & treated STIs.

Our clinic offered free & low cost services in a low income neighborhood, but every day the "pro-life" movement tried to frighten us.

The goal was to make us afraid to come to work, to make us quit, to make us close the clinic. That's terrorism. That's how terrorism works.

And her facility didn’t even provide abortions…

Theocracy, Indoctrination, and the Cult of the Red Card

I suppose the context for the ad was about right. Republican Presidential debate moderator Neil Cavuto began, “First off, Dr. Carson, to you. You say you are in favor of a tax system, I guess akin to tithing, sir, with a flat tax rate of up to 15 percent because you said, if everybody pays this, I think God is a pretty fair guy. So tithing is a pretty fair process. But Donald Trump says that is not fair, that wealthier taxpayers should pay a higher rate because it's a fair thing to do. So whose plan would God endorse then doctor?”

The debate score is Theocracy 1, Democracy 0. These are the clowns who want to run the show. What could possibly go wrong?

Burning democracy at the stake requires ever more far Right political indoctrination. And the ad poured more fuel into the flames.

The ad targeted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the independent agency created by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law and tasked with enforcing consumer protection rules as recourse to the unaccountable actions of Wall Street.

The CFPB was portrayed as a sinister government office of bureaucratic automaton workers “controlling your decisions", denying “those who need help the most, and mercilessly stamping “DENIED” on loan applications.

The American Action Network ( Mission: To promote “center-right” solutions to our nation’s challenges) ran a TV ad attacking the CFPB during the GOP debate , featured red banners on the wall depicting Senator Elizabeth Warren and CFPB Director Richard Cordray as literally red tinged communist dictators.

When an organization of corporate/Wall Street shills admits to being “center right” we know how extreme they really are.

Elizabeth shot back:

“So… Can we talk about that ad that just ran during the  GOP Debate where I look like a Commie dictator? Wall Street has a problem: They know the CFPB is working, and it’s incredibly popular with the families it helps. The CFPB has forced the big financial companies to return more than $11B to people they cheated on credit cards, mortgages, etc. Thousands of dollars on a TV ad is nothing compared to the money the big banks save if their GOP buddies go after the CFPB. Wall Street knows if they soften CFPB support, the GOP will feel better undercutting the agency in closed-door deals. So here’s my message to Wall Street & their GOP buddies: we’re ready to fight back to protect the CFPB.“

Will we ever see the McCarthyism of their propaganda subside? No. Here’s why. 

They are convinced of the righteousness of their beliefs. They now have the internet and 24/7 Right Wing/Republican corporate media reinforcing these beliefs.

The first Big Lie required to support the propaganda is also what all cults do. They tell their people to trust no source of information but their own. They incessantly re-brand corporate media as "liberal media".

"Trust us, not the evil liberal media".

Once that indoctrination is set, the rest is all downhill. The far Right propaganda machine now has immense control over what their believers think.

They are of a belief system founded on far Right ideology intended to divide our citizenry and support entrenched economic interests. While liberals are concerned with global corporatism, inequality, corruption, the environment, living wages, and suppression of democracy, conservatives are targeted for "mobilization of resentments" to blame and scapegoat minorities and liberals, and other "Southern Strategy" style methods perfected by team Nixon. "The 'takers' are stealing from you! Obama is coming for your guns! Liberals hate America!" 

They are induced to feel threatened by too many voters, constitutional public safety nets and health care, and the democratic process of elections and representation.

The program has been a smashing success. Many Americans now see their fellow citizens through this formula:

Liberals/Unions/Teachers/Journalists = Democrats = Socialists = Communists. And they all hate America and want to take away the freedoms of "good Americans". 

This is the operating equation of their ideology that is needed to gain support for draconian law enforcement, wars of choice, tax cuts for the rich, special deals for corporate “persons”, de-regulation of Wall Street and planting corporate shills in regulatory agencies.  All who oppose this agenda must be branded as communists.

The goal of the equation is to implant the final factor into the minds of their cult. Liberals/Unions/Teachers/Journalists = Democrats = Socialists = Communists = Blame.

Once this indoctrination is set, the accusations, blame and scapegoating follow.

It follows the classic political methodology of fascism and results in growing resentments, anger, and hate for fellow Americans.

The followers cannot see this of course, because they assume their moral superiority is immune to extremism, and wealth reflects virtue. The financial elite should be entrusted with writing the rules, and all those “takers” who disagree are “anti-American”.

Such beliefs cannot be held without a gnawing sense of fear that becomes inseparable from all that resentment and anger.

As studies have shown, the amygdala, the primitive fear and emotion center of the brain, is more active in conservatives.

Is it any wonder why the legions of the Far Right are such an angry, resentful mob?

This is by design, as well as circumstance. 

"Party of the Future"

Marco Rubio lectures us on American exceptionalism, traditional values, and the future:

“And so here's the truth: this election is about the future, and the Democratic Party, and the political left has no ideas about the future. All their ideas are the same, tired ideas of the past.”

Palm Beach Post columnist Frank Cerabino remarked, “So let me get this straight, 'party of the future' wants to go back to gold standard, keep mining coal, and fight more in MidEast".

Indeed.

Let's not forget eliminating public safety nets like Social Security and Medicare, handing the programs over to corporate cronies, more tax cuts for the rich, deregulation of Wall Street, and corporate polluters having their men inside regulatory agencies.

Their future would grant more rights to zygotes than women, less rights for gays, and more restrictions on voter rights.

These failed "tired ideas of the past" are the key to the Republican Party's  noble vision of the future, an Orwellian nightmare of permanent war by an expanded police state of Gilded Age inequality, anti-union, low wage slavery, in a democracy-crushing corporatocracy.

Yeah, “freedom”.

Short and Simple

Divine right of wealth has replaced divine right of kings.

As global corporatism takes over the planet, the howling masses on the far Right cry, "Socialism!"

"Freedom!" they howl, as they rig elections, suppress voters, and cheer the demise of democracy.

As Obama pushes for corporate written trade agreements, he is still called a Marxist by the low information, and loudest, voters.

Since 9-11 more Americans have been killed by terrorist Right Wing extremists than by the Muslims they hate.

George Carlin was right. This country is finished.

It Can't Happen Here?

As the bright 14 year-old Ahmed Mohamed learned in Texas, “Inventing while Muslim” can get you interrogated, arrested, and taken to a detention center for a mug shot and fingerprinting. The “not racist” and “not paranoid” Texas bigots show us how well FOX and the GOP have conditioned fearful Americans with their nativist indoctrination. 

Twit of the Tundra Sarah Palin blamed the kid, of course. "Right. That's a clock, and I'm the Queen of England."

Mission Accomplished by hate radio and FOX(R), “making America great again”, step by step, or would that be goose step, by goose step?   

Thankfully sane Americans have invited him to the White House, for tours of universities, and even offered scholarships to get him out of Bumpkinville TX. God bless America for having a few kind hearted and rational non-Republicans left.

Meanwhile other “good Americans” are showing their “Not fascist” hate.

This exchange came during a post-debate rally in Rochester, N.H., during a Q&A with Trump.  Trump pointed at a man in the audience saying, "Okay, this man. I like this guy."

"We have a problem in this country, it's called Muslims," the man said. "We know our current president is one. You know, he's not even an American. Birth certificate, man."

"Right," Trump said, then adding with a nod of his head: "We need this question? This first question."

"But any way," the man said. "We have training camps, really.. where they want to kill us."

"Uh huh," Trump said.

"That's my question: When can we get rid of them?" the man said.

Trump responded: "We're going to be looking at a lot of different things. You know, a lot of people are saying that, and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there. We're going to look at that and plenty of other things."

Trump, of course, either agreed with the bigot, or lacked the moral aptitude to tell him he was wrong. At least John McCain showed us the common decency that Trumps lacks, when he corrected a stupid woman who expressed her fear of “Obama the Arab Muslim”.

You don’t have to be a racist bigot to be a Republican, but they sure do have a lot of them, don’t they? The fact the GOP won’t condemn these nuts says all we need to know about that party. As if they haven’t shown enough contempt for America by their loyalty to the Kochs and Adelson over the people, and  service to Wall Street over Main Street, and last but not least, their fawning to the Israeli far Right and shared lust for war with Iran.

This is the “exceptionalism” from the “We want our country back” crowed of ignorant and hateful neo-fascist Americans.

And like the fascists before them, they will blame ethnic groups they hate, and of course liberals, for all the evil in the world. Fascists always have their scapegoats, don't they?

This group, as with all racists and thugs, see none of the evil within their own hateful cult. They are the “good Americans” of our fascist sub-culture, who are only becoming bolder in their ignorance and hate.

American fascism is deliberately nurtured before our very eyes. Hell, yes, it can happen here. 

About Those "I" Countries

 A note to our friend. This turned out to be a bit wordy for way down a comment thread.

My dear TP, a man of common sense.

I just got back from my favorite summer camp in the woods. You’d love it. It was a friend’s deer camp with river access and trout pond. I toasted you with Wild Turkey while wild turkeys scratched the leaves around us. What a weekend.  But I’m mostly recovered now.

You left me a message while I was out.

Oh dear…

For the record, Bush's "war of aggression" would have been just that, if it would have been based on lies. It wasn't. It was based on mistaken assumptions, however.

Do you really think that a culture that worships death is afraid of annihilation?

The left's hatred of the Right and their perceived boogeymen in the military and the MIC are causing them to appease our enemies in a manner that would make Neville Chamberlain blush. 

This is more regurgitation of FOX/Limbaugh…Sigh. Please, cite some source apart from the sort mentioned for such claims. Remember even the New York Times parroted Cheney.  

Can you not keep returning to that hateful drivel? There’s that “Left’s hatred” lie again. I hate lies and that one is a  whopper. Such false accusations reflect the hate of the accuser, not the accused.

Is this a result of the constant fear in the hearts of conservatives? You do realize fear mongering was, and is, a specialty of the neocons? They WANT war. Their lust for war is obvious in their meme, “Men go to Baghdad, real men go through Tehran”. This is a cult, buddy. Learn to question them.

We understand, in your view, Ike was one of those exemplifying the “left’s perceived MIC boogeymen”. When a Republican president and leader in WWII is a “leftist”, that’s a sure sign of koolade intoxication.

Please try to understand this. The left distrusts the defense industry as engineers of foreign policy, as well as corporations dictating domestic environmental, labor and trade law. This is not “hate”. This is common sense my friend.

If you understand a corporation is not a person, then you have an inkling of how we see the picture. Leave the Limbaugh/FOX “Liberals hate and envy” lies out of it. It is projected hate.

I’m at a loss to understand your satisfaction with unending  war ignited by “mistaken assumptions”. This, sir, for the record, would be the fatal flaw of the worst kind of leadership. The needless war of aggression gave Iraq a civil war, gave Iran their best ally, and fired thousands of Iraqi soldiers who turned to ISIL.

Then the flawed leadership was re-elected.  Maybe this could be expected from a culture that worships death?

For the record, “mistaken assumptions” is only in the Bush/Neocon record. The historic and journalist record has authentic and documented recordings of their lies, you know.

You seem far less forgiving with Obama’s “mistaken assumptions”, despite Bush’s drastically higher body count.

I agree Obama has his share of mistaken assumptions, or betrayals of democracy and Constitution. I hope it isn’t hate clouding your judgment. Maybe as you say, he is such a fool. How’s that go? “Fool me once, won’t get fooled again”.

The thousands of American and uncounted thousands of Iraqi dead seem to indicate a death worship closer to home. Just saying what it looks like to some of those living among evil ones.

The US NEVER apologized for blowing almost 300 innocent Iranians out of the sky. I guess that’s what Iranians can expect from the US culture of death worship that their far Right religious leaders are agitating about.

With Israel holding a nuke over Iranian heads, while the American military surrounds them, is it a wonder Iran has their hard liner conservatives doing their best to terrify them? What on earth would give them reason to say they can’t trust America? I mean, really.

These are the Iranians who agree with you, the Republicans and Netanyahu on dumping international diplomacy.

To your eyes, international diplomacy is “Rewarding their terrorism by removing sanctions and allowing them to keep certain nuclear capacities”.

The words “allowing them to keep” betray the fact they are conceding most of their centrifuges. There will be international inspections. What do we have now, besides more threats and war? We hear endless demonizing by the stupid comparisons to Chamberlain and Hitler. 

Do you think this lame propaganda from those with no answer deserves consideration?

Iran, like the USSR did, supports resistance groups opposing US allies or puppets.. Escalating this is the wrong thing to do. We didn’t need to nuke the USSR, another “empire of evil” we were taught to fear.

This is not the time to surrender to the neocon war agenda again.

I feel a twinge of pity, not hate, my friend, for those who drink the Cheney/neocon koolade so deeply. What is it that disconnects someone from: “Saddam has ties./connections to al-Qaeda” and “trains al-Qaeda in deadly gases”, and “nukular” aluminum tubes, and Cheney’s “pretty much confirmed” Prague fiction. All of this was presented as fact, not assumptions. Not even “maybe”. No sir.

These were verifiable lies in 2003 , old buddy. Honest to God.

Their words are still there to see. Do you remember this famous Bush lie? “Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so.”

Don’t worry, the court HE ordered is still on the job.

I’m curious how that lie is viewed by the Bush/Cheney apologists.

British Intelligence noted this:

Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.

At some point evidence and reason should be considered. Beliefs without examination, and faith in Bush/Cheney, or any leaders, are dangerous and cultish.

It was very easy for Americans to believe the warmongering. Corporate media were salivating for big ratings, and dutifully did their part in frightening Americans into thinking Saddam had something to do with 9-11. MSNBC even kicked Phil Donahue off the air for asking the wrong questions. This political correctness amounted to censorship for serious dissent. Liberals were called traitors for daring to call out the lies.

The Neocons and voices of Neoliberalsim are barely challenged by our corporate media. Why? It is more profitable not to. Both would be thoroughly discredited by evidence, fact and reason. Will it take another Bush and another war for this to sink in? Probably not. 

Misplaced faith in those with mistaken assumptions will ALWAYS lead to destruction.
  

I will wait and greet you with open arms as we share the values and efforts at conserving what matters. Something got lost behind the cloud of Neocon propaganda, corporate “Free speech” and “dark money” from billionaires.

Remember government of, by and for the people? 

Closure?

Well, I'll be....

Thank you Gov. Nikki Haley.  

150 years after the war that began in Charleston, your announcement today to finally rid the state capitol grounds of the flag of the slave state rebellion may begin the closure we need as part of the long healing process. 

The feelings for the Confederate battle flag seemed as divisive as the war itself. The fact the flag has been embraced and flown by racist extremists has finally sunk in. 

Let the descendants of Confederate soldiers privately fly it in commemoration. That is fitting.

What is clearly NOT fitting is for a state to fly it over the descendants of slaves and over their appropriate objections. 

The removal of the flag is a small, but not insignificant, consolation for the recent church massacre.

I hope the terrorist thug can see this event from his cell, and know that his evil plan had backfired.

It's not justice, but it represents a people's united revulsion against the racist and his slaughter of innocents.

Let this be fair warning to the rest of the racist sociopaths around the country. We reject your hate, your racism, your ignorance, and your entire un-American cult of evil. 

What Is The Problem?

Just in case anyone is wondering if my recent posts were about gun control as the solution to the wave of violence that has become the new "American Exceptionalism", let me be clear.

The problem is not merely the readily available weapons for those who shouldn't have them. It is about the far Right culture of hate, incessantly scapegoating and demonizing peaceful fellow Americans.   

The hate cult of the far Right blames liberals and blacks for almost every problem. They are as tenacious in their scapegoating as the fascists of the previous century were. Instead of Jews and Communists, the subjects of their hate are liberals and African Americans. 

The Radical Right Bubble Cult is a cauldron of racism, authoritarianism, and hate. 

The deep racism that lurks in the hearts of so many Americans is nurtured by the far Right. Everyone knows blacks and liberals are the targets of their hate. The Right Wing Terrorists have told us so in their own words. 

So what is the problem, if not gun control?

The problem is tolerance. 

For too long moderates, conservatives and liberals have tolerated the open hate from the far Right.

As I said previously, there is a great institutionalized evil upon our land that desires this mentality. Who feeds into this hate and paranoia? Who is intent on dividing us?

FOX News and talk radio have been working nonstop as propagandists for the far Right. They wrap their hate in the flag as they hoist their Bibles in arrogant certainty of their moral superiority.

I have to wonder if these authoritarian thugs hate Blacks and liberals more than ISIS. They seem to go out of their way to spew more venom in our direction.

And speaking of the threat of radical Muslim terrorists, Let's compare that threat to the threat from the radical American Right.

Before 9-11 the deadliest terrorist attack on the country was committed by a Right wing, anti-government Christian. It happened in Oklahoma City.

McVeigh admitted to holding the "core beliefs" of a Christian.

Since 9-11, who do you suppose has killed more Americans, Muslim extremists or Right wing extremists?

A recent New York Time article has some answers.

Despite public anxiety about extremists inspired by Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, the number of violent plots by such individuals has remained very low. Since 9/11, an average of nine American Muslims per year have been involved in an average of six terrorism-related plots against targets in the United States. Most were disrupted, but the 20 plots that were carried out accounted for 50 fatalities over the past 13 and a half years.

In contrast, right-wing extremists averaged 337 attacks per year in the decade after 9/11, causing a total of 254 fatalities, according to a study by Arie Perliger, a professor at the United States Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center. The toll has increased since the study was released in 2012.

Other data sets, using different definitions of political violence, tell comparable stories. The Global Terrorism Database maintained by the Start Center at the University of Maryland includes 65 attacks in the United States associated with right-wing ideologies and 24 by Muslim extremists since 9/11. The International Security Program at the New America Foundation identifies 39 fatalities from “non-jihadist” homegrown extremists and 26 fatalities from “jihadist” extremists.

- From The Growing Right-Wing Terror Threat

The hate from the radicalized far Right is not only destroying what democracy we have left, but it poses the greatest domestic terrorism threat to Americans.

This rabid ideology is dangerous, criminal in intent, and should not be tolerated any longer.

Unfortunately we can’t count on corporate media to focus on this. They are under the thumb of corporate interests who’d rather not expose the threat that emanates from the fringes of the Republican Party base.

These radicalized extremists claim to be conservatives. They are not. They are as radical as any extremist can be.

Where is the "personal responsibility" on the Right, to disavow the "take our country back" and the "Liberals hate America" crap, to cease the endless accusations, demonization, blaming and scapegoating? 

While liberals say there are other ways and ideas, the far Right attacks them personally, and as a group, and offer neither solutions nor compromise . Liberals and blacks have been literal targets for their hate. 

Look at the frickin' body count!! Do conservatives see this as a necessary human sacrifice to sustain some sick view of American Exceptionalism? 

Where to start? How about that damn flag that adorns the terrorist's car and still flies over the State House in South Carolina?

Who really thinks that symbol represents any good will or equality for African Americans? 

We’ve often heard from the Right, “Where are the Muslim moderates speaking out against the extremists? 

Let me turn it to them and now ask, Where are the conservative voices against extremists of the far Right? Can we count them on more than one hand?

They are either with them or against them. What are we to presume by their silence?

Why?

I posted yesterday's piece a day too soon. It didn't take long for another act of domestic terrorism by "Second Amendment Remedy". 

Now in Charleston South Carolina we have yet another church massacre by the crazed hate cult of the American radical Right.

"I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go." – Right Wing terrorist Dylann Roof, according to survivors.

I'll say it again.

What's wrong with this picture? Who feeds into this hate and paranoia? 

Remember that incident in a Universal Unitarian Church in Tennessee when a right wing terrorist killed and wounded the parishioners for being "liberals"? Adkisson even wrote a manifesto urging the ideological murder of every liberal. He immersed himself in the writings of Hannity, O'Reilly, Savage and other right wing extremists. 

How much human sacrifice is enough? 

There's not much an individual can do, except to call out the hate and ignorance that so often perverts Americans into seeing other Americans as the enemy.

There is a great institutionalized evil upon our land that desires and nurtures this mentality...as the flag of the American slave states proudly flies over the State House in South Carolina...


Post Script:

I would add this.

"I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go." 

If either God or the voices in his head told him to do this, he would be delusional and psychotic.  Otherwise he's likely a homicidal racist and terrorist. If not psychotic, his lack of regard for human life and suffering would present him as a sociopath at minimum. The "taking over our country" bit is standard rhetoric of the far Right and hate groups who have demanded, "We want our country back", since Obama took office.

“Real American” Values and Personal Responsibility

The recent shooting at a Dallas police headquarters offers a disturbing glimpse into the crazed hate cult of the American Right.

After James Boulware was convicted of domestic violence his child was taken by Child Protection Services and placed in care of his grandmother.

Since the police were the ones carrying out the action, Boulware became very angry with them.

We all know what can happen when we add anger plus weapons and mix with untreated mental illness.

 Apparently Texas won’t confiscate guns from those with mental illness and domestic violence convictions.

It seems some of the mental illness and anger were inherited from the shooters father.

When interviewed, the father told us who was really to blame.

Yup. It was all the liberals’ fault.  Big surprise.

James Boulware Senior explained.

“I knew he was angry at police, he blamed them for taking his son. I tried to tell him the police didn’t do it. The police were doing their job to enforce the laws. If you want to get to that, you’ve got to go back to the liberal people that put these laws in place, to where CPS and all can grab kids.”

When asked, “Why didn’t he get some help?”

“Where? Where does a white male get help?”

And there it is. The perfect snapshot of the American Right, wrapped in white male victimhood while scapegoating liberals.

FOX Nation on display. They’ve done their job well.

There’s your gun-totin' personal responsibility and freedom for ya.

And there’s this tale of another "good guy with a gun"... until he isn't:

“An Iowa mall cop — with a Facebook account loaded with open-carry and right-wing memes and photos of multiple weapons — is under arrest for shooting and killing a fellow mall worker because she filed sexual harassment complaints against him.”

Samples of his “Gun-toting Constitution loving American” facebook gun nuttery are posted at Raw Story .

America, land of the "Second Amendment Remedies".

George Carlin was right. This country is finished.

What? A Republican Lie?

These days we are witnessing the real Obama, showing his true corporatist self. He has joined the rest of his Republican majority in pushing a secret corporate written trade agreement and the fast track authority to make it law of the land. 

As he submissively follows the will of Republicans and their "Golden Rulers", (those with the most wealth make the rules,) it should make me despise Republicans a bit less.

But Nooo. 

Obama's shilling for the elites isn't enough to stop Republicans from calling him a commie and telling lies about him. Vipers will be vipers. 

Scott Walker is playing the same old dishonest bald faced lying game the Republicans mastered, and cannot exist without employing.

This time the Ayn Rand zombie and Koch sucker is making up lies and attributing them to European leaders. 

“I heard that from David Cameron back in February earlier when we were over at 10 Downing. I heard it from other leaders around the world. They’re looking around realizing this lead from behind mentality just doesn’t work. It’s just not working.”

Yeah, the European leaders are using GOP propaganda terms like "leading from behind".

Right, as if the Chicken Hawks Bush and Cheney led the charge into Baghdad.

“The Prime Minister did not say that and does not think that,” a Downing Street spokesperson told TIME.

As noted in the famous Downing Street Memo that proclaimed Bush's war in Iraq was based on intelligence "fixed around policy", the Republicans just love to lead by lies.

And why not? Americans are stupid enough to have believed Saddam was in cahoots with al-Qaeda. They have proven, and will prove again, they will be led by lies.

George Carlin was right. This country is finished. 

Quote of the Day

Thank God we have the Republican Party as our guardians of decency and pillars of  'family values" morality.
==

If I understand the history correctly, in the late 1990s, the President was impeached for lying about a sexual affair by a House of Representatives led by a man who was also then hiding a sexual affair, who was supposed to be replaced by another Congressman who stepped down when forced to reveal that he too was having a sexual affair, which led to the election of a new Speaker of the House who now has been indicted for lying about payments covering up his sexual contact with a boy.

Yikes.
- Orin Kerr 
==

(Yes,  they were all supporters of the Defense of Marriage Act.) 

The Cotton Mouth

This Memorial Day weekend we have the media circus abuzz with the “If we knew then what we know now” revision and whitewashing of the Bush/Cheney cartel’s invasion of Iraq.

The Republican presidential wannabes are all about blaming the “failure of intelligence” instead of the failure of the Bush Administration to examine any facts counter to their war mongering propaganda.

Remember, just before the invasion, 70% of Americans were duped into thinking Saddam was involved with 9-11 and had “connections to al-Qaeda”. Bush’s own lie in quotation marks. 

Tom Cotton proclaims, "We should not be ashamed of the war we conducted in Iraq." 

No shame in telling lies to agitate for war, right? 

Obviously, the entire Republican Party has no sense of shame whatsoever. 

“What a leader has to do is make a decision, at the moment of decision, based on the best information he has. George Bush did that in 2002 and 2003…” 

Right. The best cherry-picked, stove-piped false information from discredited and outdated sources mixed with “Mushroom cloud” and WMD fear mongering. 

No shame in that, right? 

Cotton added, "There are lessons we can learn from the early days of the Iraq war. One is that we clearly should be more critically analytical about our approach to intelligence assessments." 

In other words, there’s no shame in starting a war without being “more critically analytical about our approach to intelligence assessments”.

Got it, Tommy boy.

Time to excuse Bush, and blame Obama.

"The indictment of President Obama's policy is much worse than the purported indictment of President Bush's policy because everyone questions if we had known then what we know now," 

Cotton said. "It's hard to analyze hypotheticals in history; I'm confident that the world is a better place and the world is a safer place with Saddam Hussein removed from power. . .President Obama, for political reasons, knowing what he knew then, still made the decision to withdraw all our troops from Iraq."

The Cotton Mouth ignores the fact that the withdrawal of forces was demanded by Iraqis, and signed by Bush in the status of forces agreement. Republicans would rather blame Obama, of course. 

"We should not be ashamed of the war we conducted in Iraq," he said. "The troops won the war in 2007 and 2008 and 2009."

So now “winning” is equated with no shame. 

What did we win again? 

Iraq has been in a state of civil war since Saddam’s removal. The Iraqis are not better off. 

The Iraqi military was defeated, but now they are the backbone of ISIS thanks to Bush and his stooge Bremer for disbanding their military. 

Better blame Obama for that too. 

Cotton Mouth wants us to believe the world is better off with ISIS, I guess.

The Cotton Mouth is a treacherous and venomous viper. The water moccasin snake is far less dangerous…and dishonest.

The Republican vipers now want war with Iran. If allowed into the White House, they will assure we have more wasted lives to mourn in future Memorial Days. 

No shame in that, right?

"State of Journalism"

Thanks, Digby:

Here's a tweet from Judith "Cheney's NYT WMD Parrot" Miller to James "ACORN Pimp" O'Keefe:

 "I sit down with James O'Keefe and talk about the state of journalism today"

 From one giant of new American "journalism" to another.

In one tweet, we have the state of journalism today, exemplified by the FOX-hole of lies, propaganda, and filth.

After all, they're the experts, amirite?

Among Other Indicators...

“…The moment the politicians start saying they are in denial of what the scientists are telling them, of what the consensus of scientific experiments demonstrates, that is the beginning of the end of an informed democracy.”  - Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson

Republican Jesus

Republican Jesus says anything Republicans want him to say.

Republican Jesus hates anyone Republicans want him to hate.

Republican Jesus says, "Verily, the GOP is the way, the truth, and the life".

Republican Jesus says, “Thou shalt not bake cake for gays”.

Republican Jesus says, “No more food stamps and ‘free stuff’ for the poor”. 

Republican Jesus says, "Thou shalt hate Liberals, for they are commies".

 Republican Jesus says, "Thou shalt further hate Liberals, for they hate America".

Republican Jesus says, "Thou shalt hate Obama, for he is a Marxist Kenyan."

Republican Jesus says, "Thou shalt further hate Obama, for he is the 'Anti-Me'". 

Republican Jesus says, "Blessed are the greedy, for they shall take all they desire".

Republican Jesus says, "Blessed are the Koch brothers, for they have inherited wealth".

Republican Jesus changed his mind about serving Mammon.

Republican Jesus changed his mind about the rich getting into Heaven.

Republican Jesus changed his mind about "rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s”.

Republican Jesus desires more tax cuts for the Rich to fulfill Saint Ronnie's "Prophecy of the Sacred Trickle Down".

Now Republican Jesus wants war with Iran.

Nifty cult they have there.

The Great "Lie Off"

FOX(R) is picking a fight with Jon Stewart just before he leaves the Daily Show. 

The fools. All they have is their glaringly false "fair and balanced" take on what Stephen Colbert coined as "truthiness", that is, what you feel to be true, not what's supported by any kind of facts.

Stewart also has their number, though. Last night he had this to say about them:

“They purport to want to fix things, but conservatives are not looking to make education more rigorous and informative, or science more empirical or verifiable, or voting more representative, or the government more efficient or effective. They just want all those things to reinforce their partisan ideological conservative viewpoint. Because in their minds, the opposite of ‘bad’ isn’t ‘good.’ The opposite of ‘bad’ is ‘conservative.’ The opposite of ‘wrong’ isn’t ‘right’ — it’s ‘right-wing.’”  - Jon Stewart

Nailed it. Truer words have never been said of the Radical Right Bubble Cult. 

He showed clips of FOX(R) Republican hosts whining and accusing him of deceptively editing videos to make them look like liars. (Projection, anyone?)

So to settle the score, Stewart challenged FOX (R) to a “lie-off”. 

What fun! 

“To start off, here are 50 of yours in a six second Vine,” Stewart said 

 50 Fox News lies in 6 seconds.

“Plenty more where that came from. We only have a 22-minute show,” Stewart added

Once again we learn the fundamental truth famously proclaimed back in 2006 at a failed President's White House Correspondents Dinner . 

"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." -  Stephen Colbert

Sniping Crybabies

First point. Clint Eastwood has won the Academy Award, just not this year. He won an Oscar each for Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby.

It wasn’t enough that “Hollywood liberals” nominated Eastwood’s film American Sniper for best film, and in several other categories as well. It even won an Oscar for sound editing.

But who cares? “Good American” con-servatives are pissed off. (Yeah, what else is new?)

They pouted and whined all over Twitter.

Here are some samples of their classy reactions:

@theacademy can suck a dick really it's rigged! Bradley Cooper deserved his Oscar for playing Chris Kyle & American Sniper gets pimped!

As an American, I feel snubbed by the snubbing of American Sniper for best picture #Oscars2015

American Sniper snubbed. Libtard hollywood cocksuckers. You should be in an ISIS cage. #Oscars2015

American Sniper should've been awarded every oscar it was nominated for because of the sacrifices Chris Kyle gave to our country

The Oscars are a sad joke, very much like our President. So many things are wrong! – Donald Trump

AMERICAN Sniper snubbed by liberal hwood Predictable. #CluelessOscars – Sean Hannity

A great movie American Sniper loses because camel fucking towel headed assholes will get upset the filthy things that they are – William

Yes “William”, along with Hannity and Trump, clearly shows us what kind of assholes really get upset over movies not awarded Best Picture. 

Exception to the Rule

By most indicators, and opinions, our democratic representative republic is on the down slide. As a rule, things aren't getting better for most Americans. Both the Left and Right seem to sense this, but for different reasons, of course.

Those on the Right will say we are being destroyed by “Big Government” regulations, social programs and safety nets. The GOP is now attacking Social Security, food stamps, minimum wage and unemployment compensation. Republicans are pushing to further unleash Wall Street from rules and oversight. Their base is also furious with marriage equality and their perception that we are losing our “values” as a nation.

Democracy and equality seem off their radar as part of those values.

Most Americans disagree, and again, as with the GOP takeover of the House, most Americans voted for a democrat senator. Such are the anti-democratic flaws of gerrymandering and disproportionate representation in both Houses.

Those on the Left say our nation is being destroyed by deregulated capitalism, militarism, militarized law enforcement, and the surveillance state. They see the corporatism built by corporate “personhood” and the dominance of  their “free speech” money. They see corporate written trade agreements becoming law of the land. This has done more for trickle up wealth and off-shore jobs than for the American people. Both parties are playing this game.

The divide and conquer tactics utilized by the economically powerful have been a great success. Both major parties are largely bought and paid for, as a rule.

This brings us to a curious exception to the rule.

Before 9-11 and the fear-mongering behind the “war on terror” shook Americans from reason and judgment, the war on drugs was doing the same damage to our basic freedoms.

Besides the futility and brutality of the war on drugs, we saw the encroachments on civil liberties through “no-knock” laws, passive acceptance of intrusive random drug testing, and more frightening of all, civil asset forfeiture. Law enforcement was granted the power of “legal” piracy. They could take your money and property without proof of wrongdoing. All they had to say was they suspected the money or property was related to drug dealing.

It is an outrage that has nothing to do with justice. That’s what police states do.

So as a rule, the police state is expanding. Now a curious and welcome exception to the rule is unfolding. Voices from diverse perspectives are joining the effort to end the piracy.

Two dozen civil liberties activists, legal specialists and Capitol Hill staffers from across the political spectrum convened Thursday to discuss reforms for civil asset-forfeiture laws, which allow local and state police to take cash and property from Americans without proving a crime has occurred.

Representatives of the Institute for Justice, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Bar Association, the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation, along with congressional staffers from both parties, strategized on possible legislative remedies to curb abuses.

Imagine that. Addressing blatant corruption and injustice by law enforcement has become a common cause.

Now it has come to this:
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Friday barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without proving that a crime occurred.

Holder’s action represents the most sweeping check on police power to confiscate personal property since the seizures began three decades ago as part of the war on drugs.

But what about the elected officials?

Last Friday, Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), along with Reps. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) and John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), signed a letter calling on Holder to end Equitable Sharing.

A rare and stunning glimpse of bi-partisan sanity. 

Take a picture; it won’t last.

Unfortunately states still have asset forfeiture laws. The fact the revenue largely goes to a general fund instead of the law enforcement agencies is some disincentive for abuse.

It’s amazing what can happen when both sides see an issue unclouded by propaganda and corporate PR. This is what real progress looks like.