'Tea' is for terrorism

When even the most ‘legitimate’ voices of the right validate dangerously unhinged anti-government rhetoric — DUCK! 

 

By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN  |  April 8, 2010  |  Recommended By 2 People

 

Tea for 10,000? A re-loading Sarah Palin takes aim at Boston Common. By Chris Faraone.

 

A year ago, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) produced a memo outlining the growing threat posed to this country from right-wing extremists. It compared the situation to that of the early 1990s — which culminated in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168. (The threat did not end with that event: the DHS memo revealed that, for years later, law enforcement continued to disrupt “multiple terrorist plots linked to violent right-wing extremists.”)
The DHS assessment was restrained but clear in warning that economic conditions, combined with President Barack Obama’s election and other factors, were creating fertile recruiting ground for extremists. “Lone wolves and small terrorist cells embracing violent right-wing extremist ideology are the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States,” the report concluded.

Although not stated, the timing of the report — dated April 7 — was almost certainly no accident, according to those who follow right-wing extremism. It was meant, they speculate, to heighten law-enforcement awareness ahead of the April 19 anniversary of the Branch Davidian tragedy in Waco, Texas — a common target date for extremist acts, including the Murrah bombing.

Now, a year later, as we approach the same dangerous date, things have only grown worse. The Southern Poverty Law Center has documented a rise in militia and “patriot” groups. Mother Jones and the Progressive have described well-armed, conspiracy-soaked extremist groups like the Oath Keepers, which exist on the edges of the conservative movement. The FBI last month arrested nine members of the religious Hutaree militia in Michigan, accused of plotting mass murder of law-enforcement personnel. And passage last month of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act triggered people to throw bricks through Democratic office windows and send death threats to elected officials, prompting extra security measures for not only members of Congress, but even the nonpartisan Senate Parliamentarian.

The April 15 Tax Day Tea Parties will undoubtedly ratchet the anti-government rhetoric even higher — followed, incredibly, by large pro-gun demonstrations on the hyper-charged 19th itself. (Organizers say they are commemorating the Battle of Lexington.) One of those events, near the nation’s capital, features among its speakers an Alabama militia member who called for the brick-throwing, and who later explained it as a warning to Democrats about the likelihood of greater violent resistance — “a thousand little Wacos,” as he put it.

Given all this, it would almost be surprising if there are not any “lone wolves” or “small terrorist cells” preparing to strike.

The fact is, there are millions of Americans who genuinely believe — based on information they receive every day from television and radio, and from elected officials and “respectable” organizations — that we have an illegitimate (by virtue of his foreign birth) presidential usurper, installed to power through a fraudulent election, who, with his Marxist allies in Congress, are running an unconstitutional government and pushing our nation irreversibly on a path to a secular, despotic regime.

Refusing to distinguish
 
When the DHS memo was leaked last spring, conservative and GOP leaders did not take it as a cautionary warning to tone down their rhetoric and distance themselves from extremists. Instead, they reacted with outrage, claiming that the government was painting all conservatives as potential threats.

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Read more: http://thephoenix.com/Boston/news/99670-tea-is-for-terrorism/#ixzz0kd5dhOsI

Let The Sun Shine In......

What;s Going On Is The Last Male Wasp.......

Blast At Time; time that is quickly running out for his power over anymore. 

The Anti-Obama billboards going up in Atlanta are more than "disgusting" and "pathological."

They're also "racist."

What we're witnessing is nothing less than an explosion of paranoia being expressed by a certain class of people -- namely conservative White Anglo-Saxon Protestant males -- who are freaking out not only because a black man is president, but more importantly, the growing realization that WASPs will lose their majority status by the middle of this century.

Loss of majority status for WASPs means an inevitable loss of power and privilege. This has been made certain by the Census Bureau's disclosure late last month that Latino births will outpace WASP births in the U.S. within two years.

No wonder the radical "white nationalist" movement has gone totally bonkers over abortion; it's hardly a secret that the greatest number of abortions performed in this country have been performed on white women -- and that it's white women who have been the greatest users of contraceptives.

This has resulted in a net decline in the white birth rate, while the Latino birth rate has been steadily increasing and the black birth rate has remained constant (The white birth rate in Europe has fallen far more steeply, forcing many European governments to liberalize their immigration policies to cope with a growing labor shortage).

Bottom line: What's going on is the WASP male's last, angry blast aimed at stopping that which he cannot stop -- the browning of America and the inevitable demise of WASP male hegemony.

This is what New York Times columnist Frank Rich meant in his column last Sunday.
SKEETER SANDERS FOR BUZZFLASH

Let The Sun Shine In......

We Are All Either Teabaggers or Communists

I am absolutely speechless. 

These folks really bear watching by anyone who can stand it.

By Eli Saslow
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 26, 2010; A01



IOWA CITY, IOWA -- He had no plans to throw bricks, issue death threats, spit in faces or scream racial slurs. But Randy Millam, 52, intended to make a scene, so he woke up early Thursday morning to prepare for President Obama's visit.

Millam sat at his kitchen table in Lowden, Iowa, with 14 Sharpie markers and a piece of foam board, working to condense a year of frustration into a 3-by-3-foot catchphrase. "Chains We Can Believe In," he wrote, drawing the communist hammer and sickle on the poster's top left corner. Then he grabbed an American flag, inserted batteries into a megaphone bought on the cheap for $25 and guzzled a 24-hour energy drink. Just as Obama took off in Air Force One for Iowa City, Millam loaded into his muddy Ford Fusion and drove 50 miles across the cornfields of eastern Iowa.

"The president just about declared war against the American people last weekend," he said. And it is a war Millam intends to fight.

Millam's resolve Thursday was reinforced by the sense that he was taking part in a movement -- a rising tide of anger, fear and vitriol in the wake of the health-care overhaul signed into law by Obama this week. Millam joined a chorus of discontent surrounding the president's visit: a warm-up protest Wednesday night, a greeting party of protesters waiting at the airport and hundreds more with plans to chant outside the downtown arena while Obama spoke. In the hours before he left for Iowa City, Millam watched reports on Fox News Channel about vandalism at Democratic offices and visited a Web site of the conservative "tea party" movement, where he was inspired by a Thomas Jefferson quote about how bloodshed might be necessary to protect a country from tyranny.

"I'm not ready for outright violence yet. We have to be civil for as long as we can," Millam said. But, he added, "we are watching the infrastructure of this country crumble under our feet. The government doesn't want to hear us. We have to make them listen."

With that as his goal, Millam arrived in Iowa City wearing an "Army Dad" T-shirt and a cap inscribed with the words of the Second Amendment. He parked his car and joined a crowd of about 300 protesters, who carried signs that addressed most of Millam's frustrations. "America's Disastrous Economy," read one; that was the economy that had contributed to him losing a job on the assembly line at Kraft Foods a few years ago and had left him unemployed since. "Insane Overspending!" read another; that was the overspending that made him fear for the futures of his two teenage children: a high school honors student and a daughter who recently enlisted in the military. "Obama Lies!" was the reason he no longer trusted government, stockpiling firewood and bricks and starting his own vegetable garden. "ObamaCare," was what he considered the final insult to the Constitution. Even though he has health insurance through his wife's job, the politics of the past few weeks confirmed his fears about the direction of his country and gave him a "locked-and-loaded focus."

He walked to the front of the protest crowd and lifted the megaphone to his mouth.
"Fellow patriots," he bellowed. "We are standing outside the arena right now because the president controls the crowd, controls the message, controls the people of this country. That is not freedom! That is not democracy! That is not the America I grew up in!"

The demonstrators cheered and began to gather around Millam, and two police officers came to stand nearby. "If you're going to deny me my constitutional rights, you can arrest me," Millam told the officers. Then he leaned into the megaphone and started shouting again.

"I got news for you, Barack," Millam said. "You can't blame everything on Bush anymore. You either are the president, or you're not. We've got 17 percent real unemployment. Home sales are at historic lows. . . . And now the most pro-choice president this nation has ever elected is forcing us to have health care. Every single person's body in this whole country belongs to the government now."

Millam swayed from side to side, waving the American flag and catching his breath. He was silent now, but the crowd continued to swell around him. Tommy Leforce, a 19-year-old student at Cornell College in Iowa, tapped Millam on the shoulder and asked for the megaphone. "My dad is unemployed right now," Leforce shouted, "but this government is more focused on what their political party wants instead of what Americans need."

Another person took the megaphone: "I want nothing to do with Washington, D.C."

Another: "It's communism!"

Another: "Obamunism!"

By now a group of about 200 Obama supporters had stopped to watch and listen, congregating across the street from the protesters. Seven police officers stood in the middle of the road, monitoring both sides. On one sidewalk: Obama T-shirts, health-care-reform advocates, and students from the University of Iowa, one of whom held a sign inviting Obama to join him at a local bar for Thursday night's $1 you-call-it drink special. On the other sidewalk: college Republicans, middle-aged conservatives and retirees who waved homemade signs, bullhorns, doctored pictures of Obama and yellow tea party flags, which showed coiled snakes under the motto "Don't Tread on Me."

Millam looked across the street at the students and shook his head. "They don't understand that our government doesn't listen," he said. He had spent the past week calling congressional offices and the White House to tell them about his feelings on health-care reform, waiting through hold times only to reach answering machines and busy signals. Maybe he could enlighten these Obama supporters. He stepped closer to the street and raised the megaphone.

"I voted for a Democrat once," he said. "I was young once. Kumbaya and all that. Then I grew up. If you believe in freedom, you need to come to this side of the street."
Nobody moved.

"If you don't think it takes 2,700 pages to explain a health-care plan, come to this side of the street."

Still nothing.

"If you haven't given up on our Constitution, on our founders, on the hope and dream of a free country, then come to this side of the street."

Finally, one student walked across. He wore dark sunglasses and carried a poster-board sign, made moments earlier. It read: "These People are Idiots." He stood with the protesters, his sign mocking them, while he listened to an iPod.

Millam rested the megaphone on his stomach. His voice was getting hoarse, and his legs ached. He'd been shouting for almost two hours now, and some protesters were beginning to leave. "Where is Obama?" he asked. Another demonstrator told him that the president had finished his speech, entering and exiting the arena through a different entrance, and Millam snorted in disgust.

"Why does the president of the United States have to sneak in the back door to avoid seeing the real people in this country?" he shouted into the megaphone. "That's not right. That's just not right."

His words died out. The rally was over. He turned off the megaphone and walked to his car. While the president flew back to Washington, Millam drove home on the rural highways of Iowa. He wondered: What would it take to be heard, and what would he try next?

He carried the sign and megaphone into the house and stored them in the closet, knowing he would use them again.


Let The Sun Shine In......

Where was all the anger during the Bush years?

It was out here. I know I was mad as hell. The anger now is years late and trillions short, and it is stoked by the very people who allowed Bush and Cheney to get by with murder, and I do not exaggerate.

STEPHEN PIZZO FOR BUZZFLASH

Where were all these “freedom-loving” right wingers during the Bush years?
That’s a rhetorical question, of course. But one that should be asked of the morons now breaking windows and cutting gas lines, all in the name of “freedom from big government.”

Well an old gentleman from Chico, California is asking it. From what I’m told the fellow worked as a volunteer teaching retirees about Medicare and COBRA. Here’s his open letter to Republicans. Sorry, don’t know his name, but if you do, let me know. Pass it on to your favorite Republican/Tea Party member:

We had eight years of Bush and Cheney, but now you get mad? 

• You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.

• You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy. 
• You didn't get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed. 
• You didn't get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.. 
• You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us. 
• You didn't get mad when we spent $1 trillion on said illegal war. 
• You didn't get mad when over $10 billion dollars (in hard cash) just “disappeared" in Iraq . 
• You didn't get mad when you found out we were torturing people. 
• You didn't get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans. 
• You didn't get mad when they didn't catch Bin Laden. 
• You didn't get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed hospital. 
• You didn't get mad when they let a major US city drown. 
• You didn't get mad when they gave a $1.6 trillion in tax breaks to the rich. 
• You didn’t get mad when, using reconciliation; a trillion dollars of our tax dollars  were redirected to insurance companies for Medicare Advantage -- which cost more than 20% more for the same services that Medicare provides. 
• You didn't get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark, and our debt hit the thirteen trillion dollar mark. 

No, but you did get mad when the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick. Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all okay with you, but helping other Americans... oh hell no!

Let The Sun Shine In......

TeagBaggers, awesome Americans?

  I'M still threatening to leave if one hair is harmed on Obama's head!

by Meg White

Ordinarily, angry people threatening to leave the U.S. over political matters rethink their dramatic plans. I know; I was one of them.

I was disappointed by the first nation-wide electoral "victory" handed to George W. Bush. But, especially after his first year or two in office, I knew he couldn't get reelected. I was so certain of this that I vowed to leave the country if he did.

Guess what? I'm still here!

Being in the midst of writing my thesis was a sufficient excuse to remain. But deep down I knew that I wouldn't abandon my country in its hour of need, no matter how dumb it looked. My parents taught me that "love it or leave it" is as stupidly intolerant as it sounds.
"Oh, honey. I was around your age when Reagan was reelected, and we thought it was the end of the world too," my mom told me at the time. "But if all the people like you leave, this country will never be like you want it to be."

Little did she know, my mother planted the seed for the tumultuous times we're experiencing today. I was convinced that the only way to save my country was to elect a president that would drive out the crazy, racist conservatives. And I'm proud to report it's working.

Of course, my sinister plan finally took root in the only place it rightfully could: the Lone Star State.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has been positioning himself as the new president of the secessionist state, which I like to call "Merica," ever since Barack Obama was elected president. Just calling him a founding father, thanks! Considering the fact that Texas isn't legally allowed to secede from the union (contrary to the beliefs of one-third of Texans), looks like Perry and his band of rebels will be taking off for Merica any day now.

Then came blowhard extraordinaire Rush Limbaugh who announced he'd be leaving (for Costa Rica..?) if healthcare passed. Buh bye, Rushie. We'll miss you. And hey, if all that socialism in Costa Rica gets to you, maybe Merica will have a nice fat time slot for you to put all your hot air in.

Of course, Rush isn't the first conservative making rebellious threats in advance of President Obama signing healthcare into law. In fact, there's been a fair amount of race baiting from the right on healthcare reform. Somehow by granting more citizens access to healthcare, doctors will all be slaves to Overload Obama. Oh, and those subsidies for low-income people to buy health insurance? Those are totally reparations for slavery. Now, the fact that those two arguments contradict each other in your mind is just evidence that you're an Obamatron.

Anyway, it's certainly not shocking that all this talk of healthcare slavery would eventually lead the right to compare our current political discourse with that of the Civil War. Or, as Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) called it on the House floor, "the Great War of Yankee Aggression" (emphasis mine):

If Obamacare passes, that free insurance card that's in people's pockets is going to be as worthless as a Confederate dollar after the war between the states -- the Great War of Yankee Aggression.

(Side note: When Broun referenced "that free insurance card," he must be talking about life in Merica, because I have never seen such a thing in ye olde U.S. of A.)

Of course, this Civil War comparison only works because the tea party movement is steeped in a colorful re-imagining of our founding fathers as God-fearing men who hated Obamacare. The many references to the Revolutionary War -- from "Don't Tread on Me" to lovingly misreading the Constitution to the ill-fated naming of the movement in the first place -- are clear attempts to align themselves simultaneously with patriotism and revolt. 

Without such a willingness to blend history with fantasy, they'd have to admit they're the losers advocating for slavery in their bizarre Civil War reenactment, or that they have more in common with British loyalists than Paul Revere.

No matter what chapter of twisted history you subscribe to, rebellion is the constant narrative. I mean really; these people embrace the term "angry mob" as a potent descriptor of their movement. It was only a matter of time before the secessionists latched on.

Broun and others invoking the Revolutionary and Civil Wars and the legally specious states' rights argument to "opt out of" the federal government's healthcare plan are simply making poorly-veiled references to their imminent departure. I was hoping by now they'd be gutsy enough to abandon their false sense of historicity and get down to actually planning their exodus. Finally, it looks like that's happening, thanks to the Aryan representing Iowa.

At a tea party rally against healthcare reform this past Sunday, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) suggested teabaggers are the "best" stock with which to make a new nation, if it, uh, should come to that. And he was sure to throw a whole mess of coded violence into his speech, so that we would all be aware that this will be no bloodless revolution (emphasis mine):

KING: I just came down here so I could say to you, God bless you. … You are the awesome American people. [...]

If I could start a country with a bunch of people, they’d be the folks who were standing with us the last few days. Let’s hope we don’t have to do that! Let’s beat that other side to a pulp! Let’s take them out. Let’s chase them down. 

There’s going to be a reckoning!

So if Perry's the future president of Merica, will the Iowa congressman be the eventual King?
There's one part where I agree with King (other than the overarching notion that these people should just get the hell out of the U.S.): I also hope it doesn't have to come down to violence. I bet King and his self-styled "angry mob" fight dirty, and I have no doubt they could "beat" my wimpy liberal ass "to a pulp," as threatened.

So what if we just reminded these conservative rebels of what they've been telling us liberals for years? This country ain't no prison. You can leave any time you damn well please.
In fact, we'll even give 'em a few parting gifts as a reward for leaving quietly (that's more than they offered Eddie Vedder, after all). I'm sure we could cobble something together with stuff we've got lying around...

Ah, here we are! These intellectually-mangled Texas text books ought to be mighty handy in teaching the young citizens of Merica the "real" version of history, science and the one, true religion. Heck, Merica can even have that war-mongering national anthem of ours. We have plenty of other options. America the Beautiful has been suggested many times as a suitable replacement. Or how about this classic?

Na na na na,
Na na na na,
Hey hey hey,
Goodbye!

Let The Sun Shine In......

A Disgusting Display By Teabaggers

Tea Party protesters reportedly spit on one lawmaker, call others ‘faggot’ and the n-word.

Today’s Code Red rally appears to be one of the most raucous Tea Party gatherings on Capitol Hill yet. In addition to protesters shouting with rage at federal lawmakers, Sam Stein reports on some more disturbing incidents:

A staffer for Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told reporters that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-M.D.) had been spit on by a protestor. Rep. John Lewis (D-G.A.), a hero of the civil rights movement, was called a ‘ni–er.’ And Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a “faggot,” as protestors shouted at him with deliberately lisp-y screams. Frank, approached in the halls after the president’s speech, shrugged off the incident.

But Clyburn was downright incredulous, saying he had not witnessed such treatment since he was leading civil rights protests in South Carolina in the 1960s.

“I heard people saying things that I have not heard since March 15, 1960 when I was marching to try and get off the back of the bus,” [said Clyburn.]

Clyburn added, “I think a lot of those people today demonstrated that this is not about health care…it is about trying to extend a basic fundamental right to people who are less powerful.” TPM, Mother Jones, and The Hill have reports of similar behavior by the Tea Party protesters.

Let The Sun Shine In......

Teabaggers turn off Independents

We can sure vouch for that! 

Goopers are digging their own graves....and possibly ours.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Tea Tantrums Backfire: Independents Turned Off, Some GOPers Worried

By GottaLaff

 

Gee, it seems them wacky, zany Tea Tantumers, those patriotic paragons of secession and racism, are embarrassing their own party. Some people never learn. Oh well:

While the anti-tax sentiment of the protests may have been sincere, the images pulled from the events have often been offensive, embarrassing, or politically problematic.
It is a development that has tripped up the GOP before. The rallies outside McCain-Palin events included some of the same bile that was seen at the tea parties: charges of fascism, terrorism and other malicious criticisms leveled at Barack Obama. And it did the Republican ticket little good in its efforts to bring moderate voters to the cause. [...]

"My own sense that is I don't see anything going on that is good for Republicans," said Doug Bailey, a longtime Republican consultant who helped co-found the centrist reform movement Unity08. "I just don't get it. [...] [A] large segment, in terms of numbers, doesn't amount to a couple hundred people demonstrating in Washington or wherever. That's a non-event ... Nobody likes taxes. So, of course, I'm sympathetic myself. I might throw a tea bag myself. But the fact is, that it is particularly ineffective for the Republican Party when it is Rush Limbaugh and the likes stirring it up. That just doesn't speak to the middle."

Of course, because the series of nationwide tea parties were geared towards a specific day (Tax Day), the political ramifications of the events seem naturally limited. "Those tea parties will be long forgotten by, oh, say tomorrow," said Stu Rothenberg, of the Rothenberg Political Report. "Do you really think that next November, when people go to the polls, the April 15 tea parties will be on their minds?"
That said, plans are in place for a next wave of protests in July. More significantly, as the

GOP continues to stake their future on a wave of populist anger at the government and economy (witness: Texas Gov. Rick Perry talking about secession), the likelihood only increases that the most vocal and offensive elements of that anger will come to personify the party.

Then by all means, keep doing what you're doing. Offending Americans is the best way to alienate them, hence, the fastest route to losing more elections. So please, be our guests: offend away.

More fun here.

Let The Sun Shine In......