The "Mob" And Bombs (UPDATED)

It looks like members of neo-fascist demagogue Donald "Rump" Trump's far-right cult are going from "lock them up," to "blow them up": "Explosive Device Found In Mail Sent To the Clintons."  A suspicious package sent to President Obama was also intercepted by Secret Service officials around the same time.  Just days before, progressive philanthropist and bogey man of the right wing George Soros was the target of a bomb found in his mailbox in suburban New York.

When you hear Republicans talk of a "mob," you should visualize the brown shirts at his rallies being motivated to try to assassinate Rump's political foes.

UPDATE:  Looks like they went after another one of Rump's "enemies of the people state," CNN:

Scene outside CNN NY HQ right now. #NYPD Bomb squad here. @CNNnewsroom pic.twitter.com/avUVaSKDRu

— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) October 24, 2018

UPDATE II:  The package sent to the CNN New York Headquarters was specifically addressed to former CIA Director John Brennan.  The Florida office of former DNC Chair / Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz also appears to have been targeted.

UPDATE III:  More explosive devices reported (the one found at Wasserman Schultz's office was originally sent to former Obama AG Eric Holder, with a Wasserman Schultz return address).

9,999,950 "Patriot" No-Shows In D.C.

The blog Raw Story has had the most extensive coverage of the wingnut wingding that was supposed to have drawn "10 to 30 million patriots" to Washington, D.C. yesterday to make public idiots of themselves overthrow Osamabama's gubmint tyranny and install "tribunals" of right wingers to run the nation….all Constitutionally, of course.  Well, the "patriots" must have gotten lost on their way to D.C., because the turnout wasn't enough to fill a Cracker Barrel store.  Not to worry:  a twitter site has been set up to 'splain the massive flop:  #AmericanSpringexcuses.  It's hilarious.  Rachel Maddow also took a swing at the seditious saps on her program last night.

While we can mock the pathetic turnout and mindlessness of people who think they're defending the Constitution by overthrowing the Government elected under the Constitution, it's disturbing that this level of ignorance and rage has grown exponentially since America elected its first African-American president.  We can laugh, but we can't ignore.

(photo:  They'll need a smaller gubmint to overthrow)

What a Day for a Daydream

This is ours today:

What if Barack Obama finishes his tenure with nothing more than the kind of minor and mid-size controversies that beset any president? Can you imagine the pain conservatives will feel if we arrive at January 2016, Obama boards Air Force One for one last trip home to Chicago, and this was all there was? If there was no impeachment, no super-scandal that would stand alongside Watergate and Iran-Contra, no public reckoning for the endless crimes they imagine he has committed? Just picture them watching Obama smile and wave, his two terms done, with much to be proud of and his reputation intact, while they sit before their televisions, white-knuckled fists crushing tricorner hats into shapeless, defeated clumps of torn felt and cardboard, all that rage undiminished and unredeemed.

Custom-made for a day-dreamin' boy...

Rep. Paul Broun Townhall: "Who's Going To Shoot Obama?"

Rep. Paul Broun (New Confederate Party/GA) is one of the most far-right members of Congress, but even so it was surprising when a wingnut cracker (and fan, no doubt, of Boo Hoo Beck) got up at Broun's town hall meeting this past Tuesday and asked, "Who's going to shoot Obama?", and Broun didn't denounce the crackpot. (We should also note the town hall audience of mental defectives laughed after the question was asked.) Broun is now furiously trying to backpedal and claim he was too stunned by the question to respond forcefully. Oh, yes, and they notified the Secret Service -- after the fact. Riiiight!

Sunday Morning With Frank Rich

The New York Times' columnist Frank Rich reflects today on the simmering violence in our political arena. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords foreshadowed the violent act done to her back in March 2010, referring to the now infamous "crosshair" symbols, saying "they've got to realize there's consequences to that action." As Rich notes, no one listened to her at the time. He says:

"This isn’t about angry blog posts or verbal fisticuffs. Since Obama’s ascension, we’ve seen repeated incidents of political violence. Just a short list would include the 2009 killing of three Pittsburgh police officers by a neo-Nazi Obama-hater; last year’s murder-suicide kamikaze attack on an I.R.S. office in Austin, Tex.; and the California police shootout with an assailant plotting to attack an obscure liberal foundation obsessively vilified by Beck.

Obama said, correctly, on Wednesday that 'a simple lack of civility' didn’t cause the Tucson tragedy. It didn’t cause these other incidents either. What did inform the earlier violence — including the vandalism at Giffords’s office — was an antigovernment radicalism as rabid on the right now as it was on the left in the late 1960s."

Keep in mind that, leading up to the 2010 elections, the rage on the right was focused on defeating Obama's legislative proposals and individual members of Congress. Now, as they gear up for the 2012 Presidential election, it will be on the man they've vilified and depicted as a usurper, as the emblem of everything they despise -- culturally, politically and racially. So if you think they'll "tone it down," think again.

"What? Us Promote Violence?"

While we're watching the right wing scrub websites and desperately trying to sell the tale that "both sides" engage in violent rhetoric and gun play, it's worth remembering, here and here, the recent past.

Quote of the Day

"Few cared when The Boston Globe reported last fall that the Secret Service was overwhelmed by death threats against the president as well as a rise in racist hate groups and antigovernment fervor. It’s no better now. In a cover article last month, Barton Gellman wrote in Time that the magazine’s six-month investigation found that 'the threat level against the president and other government targets' is at its highest since the antigovernment frenzy that preceded Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995." -- Frank Rich in today's New York Times. Read it for a fuller picture of the rage on the right and its consequences.

Imagine

Tim Wise wants us to play a little game he calls "Imagine if the tea party was black." (After playing Tim's game, another game suggests itself to us, one we would call "Imagine if the media were doing their job.")

The Fruits of Fux's Labor

The U.S. Attorney for Western Washington has charged a 64 year-old right winger with threatening to kill Sen. Patty Murray over her vote in support of the health insurance reform bill. The wingnut called Sen. Murray's office multiple times after the legislation passed, and threatened her, saying on one occasion, "I want to (expletive) kill you."

The right wing media, and Fux in particular, spent the last 14 months stoking the anger of their right-wing audience with blatant lies and misinformation straight from health care industry and Rethug talking points. Boo Hoo the Hoot Beck and Heil Hannity endlessly trumpeted how health insurance reform was the beginning of socialist totalitarianism and the end of America, and were actively both promoting and covering tea bagger rallies meant to create the impression of a grass roots movement. Some of the more extreme cases have started to act out the paranoid visions painted by the Fux propagandists. How long before one of them breaches the law enforcement cordon, and actually harms a public official?

Frank Rich Hits It On The Head - Again

It wouldn't be Sunday without a superb analysis by the NY Times' Frank Rich. This week, he sums up the past 2-plus years of right wing hysteria, its antecedents and its prospects. Must read.

This Franks Is A True Weenie

Far right-wing nutcase Rep. Trent "Beans &" Franks (Rethug-AZ) appeared at the hatefest called "How to Take Back America" conference, a collection of right-wing malcontents and racist loons who apparently want to "take back" (with guns if necessary) "their country" ( which would exclude blacks and other minorities). Saying that the President was "an enemy of humanity," Beans & Franks went on to demand that the President show his birth certificate, and to declare that Obama's position on abortion (which is moderate, actually) was "insane."

OK, we will acknowledge that Beans & Franks is an expert on insanity, but going the "birther" route? Looking for a date with Orly Taitz, are we? Not with that mug, Beans.

(photo: Beans & Franks learned as a child that kissing a hot stove wasn't the ticket to Hollywood)

"The Return of Right-Wing Rage"

There's an op/ed getting a lot of play around the blogs today, and rightly so. It's by the WaPo's Rick Perlstein reminding us why progressives should never be surprised by right-wing rage, particularly after they lose power to the Democrats. And why we shouldn't be surprised by the media's collusion. Here it is.

Related issue: how long before Fred Hiatt Froomkins Perlstein for his apostasy?

Frank Rich on Beer and Birthers

It's always a pleasure to read the NY Times' Frank Rich. His focus today is on the "conversation on race" that the Gates episode and subsequent "beer summit" was supposed to engender. What is really going on, as Rich explains, is that it's exposing "racial and nativist panic", especially among the tony Tories (eg., Wee Willie Kristol, the blue bloods at National Review, the Fux Nutwork gassers, etc.-- in other words, the Rethuglican establishment), who are fond of stoking fears using white working-class "surrogates" (pawns) like "Joe" (not his real name) "the Plumber" (not his profession) and the New Haven firefighters, with whom they have nothing in common, to advance their reactionary worldview.

Winky's "Farewell"

If only it was her farewell... but unfortunately, thanks to her hard-core nut base and the media who love to cover train wrecks, we'll be seeing more of Winky in the coming years. Check out her intemperate, rambling, incoherent farewell remarks, wherein she slams the media ("stop making stuff up") and certain Americans (who are "suggesting American apologetics [sic]"). This dumbass will continue to be a target because she makes herself one by her stupidity and boorish behavior. No wonder the nut base loves her so - she's one of them!

(Image: Daniel Kurtzman, About.com)

Frank Rich on the "Obama Haters"

Frank Rich adds to the growing focus on the Obama-hate message that's been emanating from the Fox Nutwork and other right-wing media. Maybe the "mainstream" media networks and print will start covering this too? (Nah!)

Nowhere To Hide

As we noted yesterday, Rethuglican boss Pills Limpballs and other right wingers are attempting to divert attention from the fact that Holocaust Museum shooter James von Brunn was a rabid right winger himself. Now, we see that far right website FreeRepublic initially scrubbed von Brunn's rantings on their website about President Obama's citizenship. The "birthers" can be found on far right blogs and holding signs at any right wing rally, from the teabag demonstrations to Rethuglican/secession rallies. They've become a fixture on the far right, and they're proof that an angry segment of the population will never accept an African-American as President.

The attempt to alter reality involved another wingnut killer, Scott Roeder, who killed Dr. George Tiller, and whose hate speech had appeared on the website of the anti-choice Operation Rescue, but was later deleted by the group. But with so much evidence that the wingnut media is pouring gasoline on the fire, they can't hide their role in the violence.

Who's the Biggest C**ksucker?

Here's today's competition:

1) Poot Gingrich telling a Rethug fundraiser that Obama's economic policies have "already failed."

2) Jon Voight telling the same fundraiser that Obama is a "false prophet" whom the Rethugs need to beat in order to free the nation from "this Obama oppression."

3) Frank Gaffney in the Washington "Moon" Times saying Obama was essentially the first Muslim president and that "there is mounting evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself."

Tiny wingnut fists of fury!

Limpballs' Rage and Racism

Rethuglican leader Pills Limpballs is going all out in his rage against President Obama. Not content to "hope that he fails," TPM notes that Mr. Bouncy Bouncy (as Keith Olbermann calls him) is attacking him in racial terms ("a half-black, half-white human being") when discussing the President's global sense.

It's strange that the Villagers, who seem to regard Pills as a voice of reasonable conservatism, can't bring themselves to rip this bigot a new one, even after Limpballs refers to the mainstream media as "state-run media." It's decades beyond when the mainstream media should worry about being labeled "liberal" -- which they are decidedly not -- by far right wingers hoping to intimidate them into more favorable coverage. It's time to call this true racist out.

Shooter Had Broad Wingnut Beliefs

As we learn more about Dr. Tiller's alleged killer, Scott Roeder, it's clear that his radical beliefs covered more than just the issue of reproductive rights. According to USA Today, via TPM, Roeder was a classic wingnut of the Tim McVeigh variety, who called himself a "citizen of the Republic of Kansas," who refused to pay Federal taxes, and who is reported to be a member of Freemen, a right-wing militia group. Roeder's beliefs are not far from those of right wing Rethuglicans hinting about secession and pandering to the types of groups that the Department of Homeland Security warned about in their report in early April.

Also getting greater attention is the flagrant demonizing of Tiller over several years in the wingnut media -- prominently the Fuxed News Channel's Bill O'Liely, who continually referred to "Tiller the Baby Killer" and likened his work to that of Nazi death camps. As the investigation continues, we'll see whether Roeder was ultimately provoked to violence by any of these slimy voices.

"The Bailout is a Bargain"

In today's Wall Street Journal (!) on-line, David Weidner makes a strong case for why, regarding the Wall Street bailout, the teabaggers were getting their Depends in a knot for no reason (btw, we don't assume that the bailout was the main reason the cranks were teabagging; more like general anti-Obama rage). If they didn't have this to cry about, you know it would be something else (the fascist takeover of America, the re-education camps, the DHS alert on right-wing extremist violence, etc., etc.). Waaaaa!

(Photo: teabagger not (?) acting his age)