Tell Em How You Really Feel, Son!

This from John Harwood was all kindsa AWESOME!




Glad to finally see somebody in the media saying what all rational people are thinking about the idiots who don't want their kids to listen to President Obama.

(via John Cole)

A Total Lack of Self Awareness And Personal Responsibility

Now that the story about that scumbag Richard Poplawski in Pittsburgh killing 4 police officers and wounding others because, in the words of his closest friends, he feard that President Obama was going to take his guns, the reactions on the blogs have been interesting to say the least. You can go to several different conservative blogs and you won't find even the hint of responsibility. Instead with the officers' bodies not even cold yet they try to contend that the guy really wasn't concerned about Obama taking his guns but rather that he lost his job, damn what his friends said. Or you might find words to the effect that the REAL tragedy here is that the guy actually helped those dirty fucking hippie liberals in their eternal fight against the second amendment. In still other places what you will find people absolving themselves by declaring that the guy was just insane. Now this last point has actually been echoed even on some progressive and left leaning sites like Washington Monthly.

Well I am calling bullshit on all of that, especially the whole "he was crazy so its nobody's fault" meme. He may very well have been insane, but that doesn't excuse the fearmongering spouted from the wingnuts which helped to push his insanity to a violent and deadly outburst. I am as big a proponent of free speech as anybody but you can't just keep scaring people everyday and making it seem like President Obama is going to personally target them and take away their freedoms and then turn around and not bear a great responsibility when someone acts out this way. Its just the same as why you can't yell fire in a crowded theater. What it comes down to is that your speech is not and should not be protected when you use it in an irresponsible manner to put other people in danger. There can be no better example of that than this situation. Yeah Poplowski may well have been bat shit crazy without all of the 2nd amendment bloviating from the wingnuts but would he have gone out and shot police officers? Would he have went out and bought an AK47? Would he have lived his life in fear of the government personally oppressing him? I don't believe so at all.

Now I don't expect the assholes on the right to ever change their ways because even though they preach personal responsibility you rarely see them take any, however its about damned time that we on the left stop giving them free passes. When they incite violence they need to be called out for it and held accountable. When they fearmonger and it leads to a tragedy, they should be made to own it. When they preach armed rebellion and revolution and then a nutcase actually goes out and attempts some of the things they allude to then the connections have to be made. I can tell you right now that I personally am not looking forward to 4 to 8 more years of this shit. The only way to change the behavior of the right is to try to shame them. If people actually start pointing directly at them when this stuff happens instead of letting them off the hook then maybe, just maybe, they will calm all that fear mongering bullshit down. But every single time we give them a pass with that "its nobody's fault" bullshit we damn near insure that they will continue to preach conspiracy and violence and sooner or later tragedy will happen once again.

Now as for the assholes on the right who are unsurprisingly now using this incident to score political points, (yes I am looking at you, Malkin, JamieWearingFool, FloppingAces et al) what you are doing is fucking reprehensible. Its amazing how much you claim to love the military and the police but then turn around and publish the pictures of these fallen officers not to honor their memory, but to talk about what you think the left is doing or saying. Well let me explain it to you dumbasses. Nobody gives a shit about gun control right now. What we give a damn about is the fucked up things you are saying and inciting this violence. I own guns and I have no interest in repealing the 2nd amendment but by the same fucking token I don't want to be out in public and end up getting shot because some whack job has been watching too much FoxNews or reading too much bullshit on freeper and then they just go over the edge and really try to start an armed resolution. If you dickheads had any kind of respect you would tone the bullshit down. But because you are all slimy ass bottom feeding bitches I am sure you will simply continue to fearmonger and try to scare people into sharing your beliefs and put even more police officers' lives in jeopardy.

John Cole On The Tool That Is Mark Halperin

Cole takes you on a trip down memory lane. How does Halperin still have a job?

Why Im Meh About Rick Warren

John Cole over at Balloon Juice hits the ball out of the park about why Rick Warren giving the invocation at the inauguration doesn't give me the willies. Its about President Elect Barack Obama, not about Rick Warren.

I just heard Harry Knox from the Human Rights Campaign on CNN state that Barack Obama has just told gays and lesbians that they are not welcome. This is not only obnoxious and silly, but factually it is not the case:

Barack Obama and Gay Rights in Illinois:
Barack Obama supported gay rights during his Illinois Senate tenure. He sponsored legislation in Illinois that would ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Barack Obama in the United States Senate:
Every two years the Human Rights Campaign, the largest national gay and lesbian organization, issues a scorecard for members of the Senate based on their sponsorship and voting on key issues of importance to gay and lesbian citizens. Barack Obama scored 89 out of 100% in the 2006 scorecard. Here’s how HRC rated Barack Obama:

Barack Obama on Hate Crimes:
Barack Obama co-sponsored legislation to expand federal hate crimes laws to include crimes perpetrated because of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Employment Non-Discrimination:
Barack Obama supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and believes it should be expanded to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

The list goes on over at Cole's site and I think this is needed for folks to keep their perspective in all this. I am concerned about policy not symbols and Obama has already shown himself to be a friend to the LGBT movement. For people to say otherwise is actually a slap to HIS face in my opinion.