Month: April 2010

Your Daily Domestic Terrorist

by digby

Larry Eugene North

A man accused of dropping more than 30 explosive devices into mailboxes and other locations across east Texas did so out of anger toward the government and was acting alone, federal authorities said Thursday.

Larry Eugene North was indicted Wednesday on charges of possessing an illegal firearm or destructive device. Authorities said they would evaluate whether to pursue more charges.

Authorities believe North is responsible for planting 36 devices between Feb. 5 and Wednesday, said Robert R. Champion, an agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Authorities previously said they had found at least 16 explosive devices, including five pipe bombs.

“These devices, over 30 in number, have caused fear in this community nothing short of domestic terrorism,” prosecutor Brit Featherston said. “Today that fear stops.”

[…]

No injuries or explosions resulted from the devices. At least half were found in mailboxes, while others were in assorted locations such as the front yard of a business and a cemetery, officials said. The spate of discoveries kept people on edge for weeks in east Texas, a region recently hit by a series of church arsons…

Champion said North’s apparent anger with the government stems from a court dispute, but he didn’t have any details.

“We know he did not particularly care for the U.S. government,” the ATF agent said.

The indictment accuses North of possessing a pipe bomb on or about March 23 — the same day one was found in a mailbox near a woman’s home in the small community of Laird Hill, about 115 miles east of Dallas.

Of the 36 devices planted, the final 10 were pipe bombs, Champion said.

“The ones yesterday we felt were ready to go at any time,” he said, noting they had a fuse but no timer…

The first reports of incendiary devices in mailboxes involved bottles containing flammable liquids and wicks, authorities said. Devices resembling pipe bombs then started turning up, which raised the sense of danger felt by 27-year-old Longview resident Robert Ziemba. One pipe bomb was found in a mailbox on a busy street in Longview.

“With pipe bombs, you never know,” Ziemba said. “It could be in your backyard. It could be in your neighbor’s backyard. You don’t know where it’s going to be.”

Imagine if he were Muslim…

Update: He is disabled and in a wheel chair. No word on whether or not he received disability from the despised federal government, but it’s fairly likely. He also has some emotional problems, according to his lawyer, and is going to be given a mental evaluation to determine whether or not he can help with his own defense.

I’m not surprised that mentally unstable people are trying to blow things ups. They’ve always been around. It’s just that right now, all they have to do is turn on Fox or the radio to hear a whole lot of angry voices egging them on, so it’s becoming more common.

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Voyeur Club

by digby

“I knew that we’d be buddies when I met her when she said, ‘Drill here, drill now.’ And then I replied, ‘Drill, baby, drill’ and then we both said, ‘You betcha!'”
— former half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, on meeting Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.)

I think I finally understand why Republicans frequent lesbian bondage clubs.

via

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The Other Neo-Cons

by digby

Governor Bob McDonnell’s lame “apology” for declaring confederate history month without mentioning slavery makes me laugh. This is the very definition of the Atwater dogwhistle, cruder than anything we’ve seen in quite some time and it says something about where our politics are at the moment.

Sure, he backtracked but it’s “out there” and now he gets to portray himself as a victim of the totalitarian left for merely standing up for his region’s historical legacy. Poor aggrieved fellow, suffering once again at the hands of those who simply hate him for his freedom.

If he really wants to fetishize his heritage, fellow southerner Ed Kilgore reminds him of the century of Lost Cause mythology which these confederate types never seem to celebrate with quite the same fervor. It’s not hard to see why:

It would be immensely useful for Virginians and southerners generally to spend some time reflecting on the century or so of grinding poverty and cultural isolation that fidelity to the Romance in Gray earned for the entire region, regardless of race. Few Americans from any region know much about the actual history of Reconstruction, capped by the shameful consignment of African Americans to the tender mercies of their former masters, or about the systematic disenfranchisement of black citizens (and in some places, particularly McDonnell’s Virginia, of poor whites) that immediately followed. A Neo-Confederate History Month could be thoroughly bipartisan. Republicans could enjoy greater exposure to the virulent racism of such progressive icons as William Jennings Bryan and Woodrow Wilson, not to mention Democratic New Deal crusaders in the South like Mississippi’s Theodore Bilbo. The capture of the political machinery of Republican and Democratic parties in a number of states, inside and beyond the South, by the revived Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s, would be an interesting subject for further study as well. Most of all, a Neo-Confederate History Month could remind us of the last great effusion of enthusiasm for Davis and Lee and Jackson and all the other avatars of the Confederacy: the white southern fight to maintain racial segregation in the 1950s and 1960s. That’s when “Dixie” was played as often as the national anthem at most white high school football games in the South; when Confederate regalia were attached to state flags across the region; and when the vast constitutional and political edifice of pre-secession agitprop was brought back to life in the last-ditch effort to make the Second Reconstruction fail like the first. Bob McDonnell should be particularly responsible, as a former Attorney General of his state, for reminding us all of the “massive resistance” doctrine preached by Virginia Senator Harry Byrd in response to federal judicial rulings and pending civil rights laws, and of the “interposition” theory of nullification spread most notably by Richmond News Leader editor James Jackson Kilpatrick. Any Neo-Confederate History Month would be incomplete, of course, without reference to the contemporary conservative revival of states’ rights and nullification theories redolent of proto-Confederates, Confederates, and neo-Confederates.

McDonnell left out slavery for obvious reasons. He left the century after the civil war out of his declaration for the same ones.

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Feel The Rush

by digby

Rush says that people like the man who threatened Nancy Pelosi are justified because they are “mad” and “worked up” at “being raped” by their government.

The man lived in subsidized housing in San Francisco — which has universal health care that covers people like him. I wouldn’t call that “rape.” In fact, I’d call it kindness, but I suppose to someone like Rush kindness is a sort of rape.

I do wonder, though, why Rush is always so concerned about being raped, and being told to “bend over and grab his ankles” and the like. (Of course, he also characterized the Abu Ghraib abuses as “blowing off steam” so he has some rather eccentric views about rape and sexual abuse in any case.) But one thing is clear — he’s obsessed by these violent sexual images and seems to be extremely stimulated by the idea of sexual assault. Indeed, he sees the whole world through that lens. As with Beck, I have to wonder about his audience. Do these men all feel they are being raped too? And does it excite them the way it excites Rush? Someone should do an investigation.

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Crack-up

by digby

Neiwert says Beck is getting worse, and it’s true:

Teabagger leader Pam Stout told Letterman “he makes me think.” He makes me want to call for a restraining order.

I don’t know what to think about this guy. But considering that he made 32 million last year, whatever he’s doing seems to be very profitable so I can’t exactly blame him for doing it. The question is why anyone is buying it. He literally sounds like a madman.

And his influence over these teabaggers can’t be underestimated. He really is their intellectual leader. Which explains a lot.

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Moving In

by digby

For those of you who have an interest in internecine Democratic politics this article by Ryan Grim and Arthur Delaney about the power struggle within the party between the progressives and the Blue Dogs is fascinating stuff. It discusses at length the fight for the public option in the House and the influence of the progressives inside and outside the process throughout. Many lessons to be learned.

Of course this is the version set forth by those recounting the story, so it’s probably a good idea to keep just a little bit of skepticism in the back of your mind as one always should do with a story like this. Everyone has reasons for relating things the way they do. But as someone who followed this pretty closely, albeit from outside the beltway, this certainly tracks with what I know of the way the caucuses work and accurately describes many of the dynamics to which I was privy.

It’s an awesome piece of journalism. Kudos to Grim and Delaney.

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New Development

by digby

I would appear that the forced childbirth industry has been doing some focus groups and found out that people don’t respond well to the idea of granting full human rights at conception. So they are changing it to “at biological development” which is designed, I’m sure, to evoke thoughts of ultrasound images of healthy fetuses in the 38th week.

Too many people became complacent over the last year or two that the social conservatives had been routed and would never come back. Others believed that the teabaggers had usurped them on the right and so they wouldn’t have any backing. This is a fatal error. They are always around, always plugging away at their agenda, no matter what. It’s an industry. And it always has customers.

Tim Wildmon, by the way, is the son of the infamous Donald Wildmon. It’s also a family business.

h/t to RP

Kewl Kids

by digby

I got the funniest e-mail today with the header “Join The Cool Kids Table” (which was funny in itself.)

Here’s what it says:

Don’t get left out of The Politics Online Conference! You know what it feels like to read the news about an awesome event and think to yourself “Why didn’t I go to that!”

Reserve your spot today.

Meet the Founder of Ustream, Joe Trippi, The Owner of The Roxy in Hollywood, Mark McKinnon, CNN’s John King and many more.

(Plus, there will be video games and an amazing happy hour).

(Thank god for the happy hour.)

Granted, I’m not a cool kid (or a kewl kid) but I have spent quite a bit of time in online politics these past few years. And with the exception of John King, Trippi and a couple of other people I hadn’t heard of any of the participants or this conference. Turns out it’s been around for a decade. Go figure.

Is there an alternate internet I know nothing about?

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Brokeback Tweety

by digby

He just don’t know how to quit him:

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Daddy’s Getting Madder

by digby

When will they learn that if they’d just stop winning elections and passing legislation that Republicans don’t like, this wouldn’t be happening? If Nancy Pelosi hadn’t made this man mad he wouldn’t have had to threaten her. She has no one to blame but herself:

A California man angry about health care reform allegedly made threatening and harassing phone calls to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, including at least one call in which he got through and spoke to her directly, law enforcement officials said.

Gregory Lee Giusti, 48, was arrested Wednesday at his San Francisco home, said Joseph Schadler, spokesman for the FBI’s San Francisco office. Schadler would not disclose the charges against Giusti, saying they were under seal until his first appearance before a federal magistrate, scheduled for Thursday.

The arrest came a day after a Washington state man was arrested for allegedly leaving threatening voicemails for U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, and as other Democratic lawmakers have faced vicious verbal attacks over their support of the historic health care overhaul.

Several federal officials said Giusti made dozens of calls to Pelosi’s homes in California and Washington, as well as to her husband’s business office. They said he recited her home address and said if she wanted to see it again, she would not support the health care overhaul bill that since has been enacted.

One official said the man is believed to have spoken directly with Pelosi at least once.

And you guessed it:

Rose Riggs, a neighbor of Giusti in a public housing complex in the city’s Tenderloin district, said she saw two plainclothes and two uniformed officers take him away in zip-tie cuffs. Riggs, 62, said Giusti was known for engaging in heated political debates with others in the building…

Sister Lorna Walsh, community operations manager of the Mercy Housing complex where Giusti lives, said he had lived in the subsidized housing for almost 10 years. She would not comment further

How much do you want to bet that he had subsidized health care too?

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