Month: October 2010

Nothing to see here, nothing at all

by digby

Amanda Terkel has a nice primer on all the right wing violence that’s sprung up during this campaign which includes all the incidents you know about and some you may not.

But this surprised even me:

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, last year, hate groups stayed at record levels, and “anti-immigrant vigilante groups” soared by nearly 80 percent. The largest, jump, however, came from so-called “patriot” groups, made up of militias and other groups that distrust the federal government and believe its plotting to impose a “one-world government.” Those rose 244 percent in 2009, going from 149 groups to 512.

I can’t even imagine what 2010’s brought. I suspect that it will calm down once we get a legitimate right wing Republican majority and president as the founders intended. But it’s always possible that someone will get impatient.

And why is this happening?

Potok attributes the rise to three factors: 1) The change in racial demographics in the country, with Obama as the apotheosis of this fact, 2) anger over the rough economy, and 3) the mainstreaming of “demonizing propaganda and conspiracy theories,” encouraged by the likes of Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.)

That’s much too shrill. Everyone knows that there is no racial component to any of this and that Glenn Beck and his cronies are just speaking out for an oppressed minority. Besides, until somebody blows up a building or beheads someone, there no reason to get all paranoid and silly.

Still, it’s interesting on a sociological level, don’t you think?

.

Turning out every last fascist

by digby

It looks like the Republicans aren’t taking the Nazi vote for granted this time:

House Minority Leader John Boehner will campaign this weekend with Rich Iott, the Ohio Republican congressional candidate who found himself embroiled in controversy several weeks ago when photos surfaced of him dressed in a Nazi SS uniform.

The Iott campaign confirmed to the Huffington Post that the two will appear together at the Lucas County Republican Party headquarters. It is, if nothing else, a risky stop for Boehner to make just days before the election.

Iott’s chances at winning the seat were seemingly downgraded after photos of him dressed in Nazi garb surfaced. But Boehner’s visit suggests that Republicans feel the seat is within their grasp. Iott claimed that he was merely partaking in a historical reenactment and not out of latent sympathies for the Third Reich. Still, his candidacy became somewhat symbolic for the extremities of the GOP.

Boehner, through it all, stood by his fellow Ohioan. The House Minority Leader declined to return the campaign funds he had sent to Iott. The campaign swing on Saturday is, however, a step towards an even fuller embrace of Iott’s candidacy. A spokesman for Boehner did not immediately return a request for comment, but the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee did.

“Not only has John Boehner recruited, embraced, and financed a disgraced Nazi enthusiast running for Congress, but now Boehner is pouring gasoline on the fire by throwing a campaign rally for him,” said DCCC spokesman Ryan Rudominer. “Thumbing his nose at our nation’s veterans, women, and people of the Jewish faith, all the while refusing to stand up for basic American values in order to try and win an election, apparently this is what Boehner meant when he said, ‘We’re not going to be any different than what we’ve been.'”

Keep in mind that Iott is not just your friendly neighborhood Nazi re-enactor. He truly believes the Nazis were fighting for freedom. (And I think you know who and what they wanted “freedom” from.)

But Boehner has a responsibility to turn out every single fascist in America and he’s going for it. (And anyway, he’s just following in the footsteps of the great GOP strategist James Baker, who famously said “fuck the Jews, they don’t vote for us anyway.”)

.

Tradition, Family, Property and … Torture

by digby

This is from the “they aren’t actually torturing heretics and Muslims into converting, so don’t you dare compare them” file:

In recent days, the media has turned its attention to Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas — not for her troubling ties to right-wing extremist groups, but for her bizarre demand for an apology from the woman who accused her husband of sexual harassment more than a decade ago. Yet Mrs. Thomas’ Tea Party think tank, Liberty Central, promotes the causes of groups that take pride in intolerance, including one right-wing Catholic group, Tradition, Family and Property, whose founder declared the Spanish Inquisition “the most beautiful page in the history of the Church.“

[…]

Thomas has added to the “Friends of Liberty Central” page on her think tank’s Web site a plug for Tradition, Family and Property, a virulently anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-democratic Catholic group founded in 1960 in opposition to Brazilian land reform.TFP has long enjoyed ties to the far right in American politics, including the International Freedom Foundation, which existed primarily as an American front group for the apartheid regime in South Africa during the Reagan years, according to researcher Richard Bartholomew, and was once led by convicted felon and former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. But TFP is better known for its role in promoting and supporting authoritarian regimes in South America. Here’s Bartholomew:

TFP played a role in the 1964 coup in Brazil, and in Uruguay it allegedly received explosives from the Brazilian military attaché that were used to attack communist installations. The editor of TFP’s Chilean magazine, Jaime Guzmán, became chief ideologist for General Pinochet’s regime.

If TFP’s activities on behalf of torturers and anti-democratic forces weren’t enough to give one pause, there’s its status as a cult. TFP is an all-male organization that finds its recruits among adolescent boys, whom it trains in the use of the combat regalia of the Middle Ages — maces, crossbows, and the like — according to the late Penny Lernoux’s 1989 book, People of God: The Struggle for World Catholicism. The medieval games in which the boys partake are so brutal, Lernoux reported, that one recruit told her his arm had been broken three times in the exercises.

There is no reason in the world to be alarmed that the slightly “erratic” wife of a US Supreme Court justice is leading a well financed, far right political group that openly affiliates itself with these people. None at all. Carry on.

This is from Adele Stan’s latest at Alternet.

.

Which Side Has The Goon Squad?

by digby

I’ve been told that it’s very bad form to be hyperbolic about the Tea Party and that it’s especially bad form to apply analogies to their behavior that might suggest they are anything but good God fearing Americans with legitimate grievances.

So I won’t. I’ll let the Lousiville Kentucky Courier Journal do it instead.

The ugliness outside a U.S. Senate debate in Lexington Monday night was not a mere act of incivility. It was a violent assault.

It was the kind of thuggish intimidation you expect against a political protestor in Tehran today or a civil-rights marcher in Birmingham in 1963. It has no place in an American election today or ever.

Rand Paul supporters knocked down an anti-Paul activist who was trying to get her picture taken with Paul as he and Attorney General Jack Conway arrived at KET for their last debate.

A man identified as a Paul campaign volunteer from Bourbon County used his foot to push the woman’s head into the concrete. Video of the assault is being watched around the world.

The Paul campaign condemned the attack, disassociated itself from the volunteer who stomped the woman’s head and called on activists “on both sides” to avoid “physical altercations of any kind.”

The problem with the Paul statement is that only one side, his side, resorted to violence.

We keep hearing this is the year of the angry voter. But what motivates people to physically assault a woman who’s carrying a political sign they don’t like?

Certainly not respect for the Constitution, which enshrines the right of all citizens to express their opinions without fear. Not a belief in the rule of law. Not common decency.

Some members of Paul’s Tea Party issue paranoid warnings that President Barack Obama and Democrats are totalitarians out to impose Marxist control over our country.

But look which side produced the goon squad.

It was disappointing that the president gave a lukewarm response when asked about this. I suppose he can’t risk getting into another Louis Gates controversy by expressing an authentic opinion but still, there was a whiff of “both sides need to calm down” which is mildly annoying when only one side is producing goon squads.

.

Trolling For The Cyborg Vote

by digby

… and no I’m not talking about Joe Miller’s hired security.

Naturally, the Texas Oil men sponsoring the proposition are cheating.

It should go without saying that Californian’s should vote no on 23. It yet another big oil money con designed to keep California from entering the 21st century and having any chance of getting out of the hole we’re in.

.

Sore Winners

by digby

Since I wrote a GOTV post over on Kos I’ve been inundated by right wing emails and comments saying many silly things today. This is one of the most intelligent ones:

So the tea party is coming to take our country by electing candidates who want a smaller country and less communists and academics in our government? Wow…you raise a good point. This must be stopped. We must continue to allow incompetent morons to have more control over our lives….

Do you suppose they know what communism is?

This is actually more representative:

WANT TO SAVE AMERICA? THEN ON NOVEMBER 2, 2010, DON’T VOTE FOR ANY RACISTS POLITICIANS, NO LIBERAL ANTI-CHRIST JEWS, NO ANTI-AMERICAN MUSLIMS, NO RACISTS LATINO’S, ANOTHER WORDS…………….DON’T VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT!

He forgot the commies and the professors but i suspect it was implied.

Look for them to get even angrier and more incoherent once they’ve won. It’s just how they roll.

.

Wingnut Synergy

by digby

From Kyle at Right Wing Watch, I find out that “journalist” and frequent CNN and Sunday morning roundtable guest David Brody of the Crhsitian broadcast network has an message for his audience:

When it comes to politics, I’m not a big fan of CW (conventional wisdom). After all, Hillary Clinton—not Barack Obama—would be President today if CW ruled. Joe Biden would have cleaned Sarah Palin’s clock in the 2008 vice presidential debate if CW had held true. It didn’t.

Now comes word from the CW experts, better known as the mainstream media, that Christians and the tea party just don’t go together.

Their reasoning goes like this: The tea party movement cares only about fiscal issues, so Christians should take their social issues and go play somewhere else. News flash for the CW crowd: Wrong again. Strike three. You’re out.

The tea party movement is the perfect place for Christians to lobby for biblical values and priorities, and many Christians seem to know that.

I have traveled across this great land and flocked to tea party events and rallies. Who do I see showing up? Conservative, Bible-believing Christians. A seat at the table is reserved for this key voting constituency because, as strategist and leading evangelical Ralph Reed tells me, “If you protect marriage and you protect life, but the federal government is destroying our future through a $20 trillion debt, that threatens our future just as much as moral decay does.”

[…]

Start marching to a tea party near you. There’s a seat waiting.

Let’s not kid ourselves any more about this, ok? This is just Conservative Movement 2.0. And this time they’ve let loose the Birchers and the racists.

.

For Thee But Not For Me

by digby

It’s quite interesting that so many of the tea party candidates are having “unauthorized” people who ask them questions arrested (or restrained and assaulted by their followers) when it was just a year ago that this was how they instructed their own people to behave at political meetings:

This morning, Politico reported that Democratic members of Congress are increasingly being harassed by “angry, sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior” at local town halls. For example, in one incident, right-wing protesters surrounded Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY) and forced police officers to have to escort him to his car for safety. This growing phenomenon is often marked by violence and absurdity. Recently, right-wing demonstrators hung Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-MD) in effigy outside of his office. Missing from the reporting of these stories is the fact that much of these protests are coordinated by public relations firms and lobbyists who have a stake in opposing President Obama’s reforms. The lobbyist-run groups Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, which orchestrated the anti-Obama tea parties earlier this year, are now pursuing an aggressive strategy to create an image of mass public opposition to health care and clean energy reform. A leaked memo from Bob MacGuffie, a volunteer with the FreedomWorks website Tea Party Patriots, details how members should be infiltrating town halls and harassing Democratic members of Congress:

– Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: “Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive with your questions and follow-up. The Rep should be made to feel that a majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience, opposes the socialist agenda of Washington.” – Be Disruptive Early And Often: “You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.” – Try To “Rattle Him,” Not Have An Intelligent Debate: “The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions.”

The memo above also resembles the talking points being distributed by FreedomWorks for pushing an anti-health reform assault all summer. Patients United, a front group maintained by Americans for Prosperity, is currently busing people all over the country for more protests against Democratic members. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), chairman of the NRCC, has endorsed the strategy, telling the Politico the days of civil town halls are now “over.”

Were any of these people arrested or assaulted? If they were, I don’t recall it.

But we’ve certainly seen that happen in recent days — to Democrats. Here’s the latest:

On Monday, Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) held a public campaign event at a local coffee shop in Louisa, VA, described as a “friendly event where voters could meet” the Congressman and Republican leader. Jon Taylor, a member of the Louisa Democratic Committee, and his wife RSVP’d to the event and showed up with a sign for Cantor’s opponent, Rick Waugh. The coffee shop owners asked the couple to leave, and when they protested, Jon Taylor was dragged out and put on the ground by three law enforcement officers. Watch:

Taylor says he feels he was “manhandled” by the arresting officers, and that “[t]he Louisa County police department was basically used by Eric Cantor’s campaign to make a political statement.” For its part, the Cantor campaign accused Taylor of disrupting an event, and blamed Waugh’s campaign. “The voters of Virginia are going to reject this thuggery,” said Ray Allen Jr., a Cantor spokesman.

What do you do with people like this? They just spent the last year and a half disrupting Townhall meetings like a bunch of crazed jackals. (They’re still doing it.) Yet if anyone (even the press) asks unpleasant questions or holds a sign they disapprove of at one of their political events, they either have them restrained by private security or arrested by the police. And that’s if their supporters don’t assault them first and then demand an apology from the protester.

This goes way beyond hypocrisy. This is a group of people who truly believe that constitutional protections only apply to them — in their minds, the founders wrote it to protect good conservative Christian people from the traitors who would challenge their supremacy.

.

Elite Institution Schmoozefest

by digby

Does this creep you out a much as it does me?

MILITARY OFFICERS TOUR JPMORGAN – JPMorgan Chase yesterday hosted about 30 active duty military officers (across all branches and agencies) from the Marine Corps War College in Quantico, Va. The officers met with senior executives, toured the trading floor and participated in a trading simulation. They discussed recruitment, operations management, strategic communications and the economy. Aside from employees thanking them for their service as they passed by, they also received a standing ovation on the trading floor. Said one officer after a senior JPM exec thanked him for his service: “We promise to keep you safe if you keep this country strong.”

And then they all went to church together prayed …

What’s the point of this? Is it some kind of program? Who’s doing the recruiting? And for what? (And the idea that JP Morgan is going to keep the country strong … well, that’s just laughable.)

.

Cheater By Nature

by digby

So reporters won the release of document proving that Joe Miller was fired from his job for using borough computers to rig an online vote. How fitting.

The documents reveal his own words:

Over the lunch hour this past Wednesday, I got on three computers (not belong to me) in the office. All of them were on and none of them were locked. I accessed my personal website for political purposes (participated in a poll), and then cleared the cache on each computer. I did the same thing on my computer. Jill asked the office what happened. I lied about accessing all of the computers. I then admitted about accessing the computers, but lied about what I was doing. Finally, I admitted what I did.

And he was rigging the poll — that’s why he needed to use three different computers.

What political project was Miller working on at the time? An organized purge of the state GOP leadership, led by none other than Sarah Palin.

When I first heard this story it sounded familiar. And then I remembered Susie Madrak’s catch from a couple of months ago:

Of course Wall Street’s most powerful company wouldn’t stoop to rigging an online poll, right? In fact, one of their spinners said the bank had “just received this information and is investigating fully”. Yeah, I think they’re going to join O.J. Simpson in looking for the perpetrators!

Around 3:41 pm yesterday, the technical team watching the vote counter on a grass root campaign’s website noticed that the “no” votes increased dramatically. A few days ago robinhoodtax.com, asked the public to vote on a “tiny” tax on bankers that would donate no more than .05% of each banking transaction to the poor. They say it would raise more than $100 billion pounds. Robin Hood’s security team said that it traced the erroneous votes to two computers, one of which is allegedly registered to Goldman, according to The Telegraph.

Republicans and Wall Street: cheaters by nature.

.