Fake Outrage = Fauxtrage

The predictable right-wing pearl clutching over a Dept. Of Homeland Security report about extremist groups has put my bullshit meter into overdrive. The fact that the report was initially requested by the Bush Administration, although the Malkintents refer to it as the “Obama report,” was my first clue.

The fact that they completely ignored this January 26, 2009 report on left-wing extremists was my second clue.

But, facts be damned, this is a made-for-prime-time, right-wing talking point, neatly manufactured and packaged by the conservative echo chamber to reinforce the stereotype that Democrats/liberals hate the troops, Obama is gutting the military, and ZOMG we’re all gonna diiiiiiieeeee!!!!!!!11!!1!

So why the hell DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano is apologizing, when no apology was necessary, is beyond me. Have you people not been paying attention for the past eight years? At all? No?

Here is the predictable pattern of these things: Drudge, Malkin, Reynolds et. al. get in high dudgeon over some imagined slight, Rush and the Fox-heads flog it mercilessly, Democrat apologizes, and it’s all filed away in the collective unconscious as another case of liberals behaving badly. So what have we learned, people?

Here are the facts of the story, which Napolitano or one of her underlings could easily have trotted out. From the memory hole, 2006:

A decade after the Pentagon declared a zero-tolerance policy for racist hate groups, recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed "large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists" to infiltrate the military, according to a watchdog organization.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist and right-wing militia groups, estimated that the numbers could run into the thousands, citing interviews with Defense Department investigators and reports and postings on racist Web sites and magazines.

Give the Bush Administration credit for doing the requisite follow-up with its own report--begun last year!--to determine what impact this may have on domestic security.

Does it mean all veterans are racists or white supremacists? No. Does it mean serving your country in the military makes you susceptible to hate group indoctrination? No.

Does it mean anyone even said any of those things?

No.

It’s all just manufactured, more Kabuki theater for the gasbags to chew over, and people in the Administration and Democratic Party in general need to quit apologizing for the right-wing’s insistence on getting their facts wrong and spinning lies.

What’s that famous quote from Adlai Stevenson? “I’ll stop telling the truth about Republicans when they stop telling lies about Democrats”? Something like that.

Anyway, it’s time everyone got a clue. Stop empowering the lies and the lying liars who tell them, Democrats.

Don't Tread On Him

File this one under "a picture is worth a thousand words": tea party protester flies his freak flag ... from his Porsche.



(h/t, dogdad @ Kos)

Tea Pot D'oh

Hopefully this will be my last Tea Party post, but I just had to share Jon Stewart's skewering of yesterday's Tea Parties.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Tempest in a Tea Party
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American Morans 3

Oh, conservatives. Do you not own a dictionary?



More wacky tea party pictures here, including one event that had a guy dressed up as Jesus.

Um, guess they forgot that whole "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" bit.

Major Cojones At The FL Tea Party

This would be my friend Sinfonian, taking the open mic in Pensacola. Watch as the realization that he’s not spouting Limbaugh talking points slowly dawns:

Tea Party Twitters From The Left

Funny stuff.

From San Francisco, Joan Walsh Twitters:

homeless city hall regular shakes head, "8 years of Bush and NOW y'all out here?

From Washington, D.C., AnaMarie Cox Twitters:

Ultimate irony with the DC tea party: we in Washington actually are taxed without representation

From Pensacola, Sinfonian Twitters:

now marching down to bay to dump tea. Oh, 1 spkr said we're in this mess bc of US acceptance of abortion.

And the winner is a tweet from jshecket, not sure where he's from, I think Columbus:

Hey #teaparty, yes you are in the millions but Obama won without any of your votes. What do you plan for #2010 and #2012?

Yes, that is the question, isn't it?

Hey Tea Baggers: Even CNN Is Laughing At You

A Mad, Mad Tea Party

So, today is tea bag day.

I’ve said pretty much all I need to say about the tea baggers here, here, and here. The tea parties are hardly a “grassroots” effort, even less so since they've been promoted (not covered) shamelessly by Fox News and the rest of the organized conservative media over the past month. That is undeniable, even if you buy the “movement’s” authenticity, even if you believe that news that these events are the brainchild of GOP consultants and PR firms is all liberal propaganda.

But there’s no doubt that the people showing up at tomorrow’s events are sincere in their protest. I am just not sure what, exactly, they are protesting. There seems to be some ire over the bailouts, which everyone conveniently forgets began with President Bush last September. And there seems to be the usual dissatisfaction over taxes, though I have little patience for anyone angry over a plan to raise taxes for the rich to where they were under President Clinton.

I guess people are just angry, and with the economy in a tailspin, that’s natural. What we have here is a political elite trying to harness that anger, channel it in a direction favorable to their cause, which is to return themselves to power. Considering that this party represents the rich and powerful elite, Big Oil and Big Pharma and Big Business, I find it all rather .... pathetic.

We’ve got full-blown cognitive dissonance going on here, and it’s got most of the country scratching their heads in puzzlement. Here’s Matt Taibbi to explain it all for you:

This must be a terrible time to be a right-winger. A vicious paradox has been thrust upon the once-ascendant conservatives. On the one hand they are out of power, and so must necessarily rail against the Obama administration. On the other hand they have to vilify, as dangerous anticapitalist activity, the grass-roots protests against the Geithner bailouts and the excess of companies like AIG. That leaves them with no recourse but to dream up wholesale lunacies along the lines of Glenn Beck’s recent “Fascism With a Happy Face” rants, which link the protesting “populists” and the Obama adminstration somehow and imagine them as one single nefarious, connected, ongoing effort to install a totalitarian regime.

This is not a simple rhetorical accomplishment. It requires serious mental gymnastics to describe the Obama administration — particularly the Obama administration of recent weeks, which has given away billions to Wall Street and bent over backwards to avoid nationalization and pursue a policy that  preserves the private for-profit status of the bailed-out banks — as a militaristic dictatorship of anti-wealth, anti-private property forces. You have to somehow explain the Geithner/Paulson decisions to hand over trillions of taxpayer dollars to the rich bankers as the formal policy expression of progressive rage against the rich. Not easy. In order to pull off this argument, in fact, you have to grease the wheels with a lot of apocalyptic language and imagery, invoking as Beck did massive pictures of Stalin and Orwell and Mussolini (side by side with shots of Geithner, Obama and Bernanke), scenes of workers storming the Winter Palace interspersed with anti-AIG protests, etc. — and then maybe you have to add a crazy new twist, like switching from complaints of “socialism” to warnings of “fascism.” Rhetorically, this is the equivalent of trying to paint a picture by hurling huge handfuls of paint at the canvas. It’s desperate, last-ditch-ish behavior.

I think I liked the Righties better when they were “Going Galt.” Remember that? Yeah, I didn’t think so. That sure didn’t last long, and neither will this teabag street theater.

Is That A Klan Hood Under Your Desk Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

Seriously, Fox 61 of Chattanooga, WTF? (Click on image to enlarge.)


(h/t, FARK)

Mourning The Imminent Death Of The GOP

Dear Republican Party:

I know you and I have some serious policy differences but I also want you to know that I really do appreciate the concept of a robust opposition party. I think it is crucial to create serious debate about the issues that face this nation.

So it’s with great sadness that I mourn your passing as a substantive contributor to the national dialogue. You guys have stepped over the edge into Crazyland and I can’t help but think the nation suffers as a result.

There are so many real issues that you guys could be challenging President Obama on, important stuff such as the state secrets flip-flop, for example. But that’s not what we get from you guys. No, we get stupid shit like this. Sadly, I have no hope for any serious dialogue coming from the opposition.

I’m not just talking about right-wing blogs like Red State; let’s face it, blogs can get away with being a little looney. But come on, Rush Limbaugh supposedly has an audience of 20 million; that’s not fringe, that’s mainstream.

Look at some of the nonsense you’ve brought to the table of late:

• Here’s Brit Hume, supposedly a respected Fox News anchor, calling the Obama’s dog “girly”.
• Here’s Michelle Bachmann, U.S. member of Congress, waxing hysterical over Obama bowing before the Saudi king (BTW, I don’t recall anyone on the right tsk-tsking President Bush’s "girly" lip lock & garden stroll with the same Saudi King. Just sayin’.)
• Here's Karl Rove, a former top advisor to a U.S. President, getting his panties in a wad over something Joe Biden said.
• Here’s Lyin’ Bill Kristol, editor of the Very Serious Weekly Standard, former New York Times columnist and the Washington Post’s conservative voice:

He complained to Brett Baier of Fox News on April 6, "Look . . . We have defended Muslim nations against terrorists. It would have been nice if President Obama could have said a word about the young Americans who went to Afghanistan . . . and . . . Iraq. But could Barack Obama say something that would be mildly unpopular to an audience [to] which he was speaking? No."

Somehow Kristol seems to have missed the part of Obama's speech where he emphasized that Turkey and America were fighting a common enemy, side by side, in Afghanistan. "Finally," said the president, "we share the common goal of denying al-Qaida a safe haven in Pakistan or Afghanistan. . . Turkey has been a true partner. Your troops were among the first in the International Security Assistance Force. You have sacrificed much in this endeavor. Now we must achieve our goals together." In other words, Obama said precisely what Kristol alleged that he did not.

It’s really sad to see the Republican Party--the party of Abraham Lincoln, with a history going back nearly 150 years--crumble before my very eyes.

Painful though it may be, I highly recommend Republicans read Paul Krugman’s column today. Krugman shows how when you could be serious, when you think you’re being serious, you come off looking like idiots. For example:

Thus, President Obama is being called a “socialist” who seeks to destroy capitalism. Why? Because he wants to raise the tax rate on the highest-income Americans back to, um, about 10 percentage points less than it was for most of the Reagan administration. Bizarre.

But the charge of socialism is being thrown around only because “liberal” doesn’t seem to carry the punch it used to.

True, Krugman goes on to warn us Lefties that Republicans have been crazy for a while and that hasn’t kept you from winning elections. But I have to think that the bloom is off the rose.

As you gather for your little tea parties, where you complain about “oppressive” taxes while enjoying the benefits they provide, I wonder how much longer you can withstand mocking such as this:

The day was dark already, but the atmosphere became foggier and more indistinct with each new speaker. It all seemed to boil down to a battle of good nouns against evil nouns.

“Liberty, yes! Tyranny, no!”

“Keep your socialistic dance! We don’t want to live in France!”

Before you could say “Marquis de Lafayette,” it was time to hurl tea. A man with a megaphone gave a warning about littering. Then a bagpiper led the crowd through the harbor town’s loveliest taxpayer-supported amenities, from the municipal gazebo in the municipal park, across the municipal parking lot and down the municipal dock.

The chief of the Northport Fire Department, which like many on Long Island is bristlingly equipped by compliant taxpayers with enough gear to protect small European principalities, kept watch from his official S.U.V. The Northport Police directed traffic as a search-and-rescue boat idled over by the marina. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, alerted to the possibility of tea dumping without permits, had sent two armed officers.

You know, the vast majority of Americans see these shenanigans for what they are. You’ve lost the middle, and you’ve lost the argument.

We live in an information age. You can't get away with spreading hysteria over Obama re-education camps or the coming one-world currency, and not think a large number of people aren't going to go home and hit the Google and research this stuff for themselves. Maybe not your base, that hard-core 25%, but the rest of the country, yes. So stop fooling around with the lies and conspiracy theories and get serious.

Republicans, we need you. We really do. Come back from the edge. As Krugman says, it’s just not right to make fun of crazy people. And I really don’t want to spend the next three years talking about stupid shit like whether Obama bowed before the Saudi king or if the Obama family dog is teh gaii.

Just something to think about.

Love,

Southern Beale