Did You Hear About The Terrorist Attack In Arkansas?

There is no other way to describe this in a way that is factually accurate than to call it what it was, domestic terrorism...

In the final moments of their lives, West Memphis Police Department veterans Brandon Paudert and Bill Evans encountered Thursday an old white Plymouth Voyager minivan carrying 16-year-old Joe Kane and his 45-year-old father, Jerry R. Kane -- a man who unbeknownst to them harbored extreme anti-government views. He also had a record of previous trouble with police and a philosophy, which he credited to the Bible, of applying overwhelming violence to "conquer" foes.

Increasingly surreal revelations Friday about the Kanes gradually led to a late-evening confirmation by Arkansas State Police that Jerry Kane of Chester, Ohio, and Joe, of unknown residence, were indeed the dead suspects they believe killed Evans and Paudert -- the son of the town's chief of police.

The Kanes later wounded Crittenden County Sheriff Dick Busby and Deputy Chief W.A. Wren in the conclusive shootout at Walmart in which father and son were killed.

snip

In the YouTube video he said, "You have to kill them all. So what we're after here is not fighting, it's conquering. I don't want to have to kill anybody, but if they keep messing with me, that's what it's going to have to come out. That's what it's going to come down to, is I'm going to have to kill. And if I have to kill one, then I'm not going to be able to stop, I just know it."

snip

Material on the website promoting Kane's foreclosure-advising business displays classic rhetoric experts say is associated with anti-government groups. Topics discussed on the site include microchips inserted into people's bodies, plots involving the H1N1 vaccine and the contention that U.S. dollars don't constitute real money.

"It's a classic Patriot or Sovereign Citizen website,'' said Mark Potok, director of the nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center.

In that YouTube clip about the "rogue" IRS agent, in which Jerry described his view of the proper use of violence, his son is shown laughing and offering to deal with the agent himself: "If you pay for the bat, I'll take care of the problem." Later, the son describes his view on violence: "They drew first blood. You are self-defending."

Im going to go out on a limb and say most folks didn't even hear about this incident. I mean after all it didn't happen in Times Square in New York City. It happened in middle America where all the "patriots" supposedly live. But I will say this much, people had better start paying attention. These crazy right wing extremists are only going to get worse especially with jack ass fearmongerers steadily fanning their flames.

Hopefully at some point the mainstream media will catch up and we won't be having to mourn the death of any more police officers at the hands of these assholes.

Congressman Clyburn Ain't Scared Of You Muthafukas!

Over the weekend when the Tea Baggers were hurling racial epithets and spitting on members of Congress, Jim Clyburn came out and said that basically he is not easily intimidated at all. I love his spirit of defiance in the face of all this dangerous and inflammatory rhetoric but I hope that he never has to prove his courage again like he had to back in the 60s.

Danger!

The right wing terrorists are getting riled up and Republicans are steady egging them on...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Rachel On The Extremist Fringe Of The GOP

These people are gearing up for a war and the mainstream media is still sticking their head in the sand as if they are going away. Thankfully we at least have Rachel Maddow calling them out.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Have You Heard Of The Oath Keepers?

If not then you really should read this post over at Mother Jones. Then distribute it to everyone you know. Then contact your local newspaper and ask them if they are aware of this group. Then contact some national media and ask if they are aware of the group.

Its time for our media to get its got damn head out of the sand and recognize that the fearmongering on the right is radicalizing people in a way that is fucking dangerous to the rest of us in this country!

How To Attack Right Wingers Over Climate Change

The next major initiative on the agenda as far as I can tell after health care reform is climate change legislation. Now it is apparent that in order to be a right winger or a right wing candidate for public office and win the hearts and minds of the idiotic base of the Republican Party, you basically have to reject science and deny climate change. You also have to play up the bullshit non scandal email scandal dubbed "Climategate" that recently went down. But I want to focus on where the origin of this denialism comes from, and how progressive Democrats can attack right wing candidates without offending a certain segment of the population and still making them look like fools.

You see when you listen very closely to politicians who claim the climate change denialism mantle there is one central place where they are coming from in their opposition to any notion that global warming comes from man made sources. And that place is evangelical Christianity. Well rather a perverted version of evangelical Christianity whereby humans can not possibly do anything to affect the fate of the earth because everything is in God's hands. Now most regular Christians do not see the world this way. Yes we believe that Jesus will return one day to bring us all to heaven and yes I understand that lots of people think that is crazy talk. But there isn't anything anywhere in the Bible about human beings not being able to hasten the second coming of Christ. So that is the first principle to know but its actually the death blow best held onto until the end of the argument with a right wing climate change denialist.


The best way to engage them initially however is to go on the attack right away. Don't get caught trying to defend accepted science as it doesn't need defending and any effort to do so will only serve to make you look defensive. What you want to do right away is establish the aforementioned "why" this particular politician doesn't believe in climate change. If they won't come out and say it right away then you should pointedly ask them if it has to do with their religious beliefs. That will put them on the defensive and they will absolutely feel the need to over play their own religious faith and pimp their Jesus cred and pretty much try to hang you with it. You should allow this without interruption and just allow them to ramble on for a bit and then continue with your deconstruction.

Once you have made them admit that their denialism is grounded in their faith and the belief that God is in control then its time to hit them with the killer hypotheticals. Now not all hypotheticals and analogies are equal and some are better for right wingers than others, so let me offer a few up for you to use.

Oil Spills

There is a certain former governor of a certan northern state that just so happened to have been impacted by a major oil spill by Exxon. Well that was one of many oil spills but the one that made the most noise. And so the question when dealing with that person or another person who hails from a coastal state is this:

If you believe that human beings can not affect our environment because God is in control, then do you also believe that if there is an oil spill somewhere off the coast of your state that it should not be cleaned up? If the idea is that God will fix climate change or global warming then why not take the same tact when it comes to something like an oil spill?

Nuclear Waste

If you happen to be dealing with a politician who lives in an area where there is a nuclear plant somewhere nearby then your question should be phrased thusly:

Are you willing to open up your area/county/city/state to nuclear waste dumping so we can expand our nuclear capabilities? If not, why not? Surely you can't be worried about the damage to the environment. Won't God take care of that just like climate change?

Hunting/Endangered Species
If the politician denying climate change hails from a state with a lot of hunting and or is a big NRA person then you can hit them this way:

How do you feel about hunting seasons? Why exactly should we have hunting seasons? Why can't Americans go and kill whatever animals they want to kill whenever they want to? Surely there won't be any impact to their numbers. I mean we aren't powerful enough to make a have a major effect on our environment are we?

This would also be a good time to ask them about endangered species, specifically one endangered species in particular:

As you know one of our great American symbols, the bald eagle, has been on and off the endangered species list in years past. Are you in favor of allowing people to go hunting for bald eagles? If not, why not? Why should sportsmen be deprived the opportunity to bag something as beautiful as a bald eagle? Surely it can't be because of their numbers. Remember, you said human beings aren't powerful enough to affect our environment, so according to you no matter how many bald eagles are killed won't God just create more of them?

I would almost pay someone to use that line of attack just to see the right wing politician damn near burst a blood vessel with anger. You know how much they love linking a bald eagle to FREEDOM!!! My advice would be to be careful though because some of them might want to fight you over this line of attack lol

Now, obviously those statements could still backfire at least initially because they will come off as condescending toward's their faith. I say WILL instead of MIGHT because the proper way to deliver those lines are as condescending as possible. You want to piss them off and challenge them on their faith and get the on the defensive. You ESPECIALLY want them to attack you and your faith once you go there with them. Because then its time to pull out the death blow.

When instead of addressing your hypothetical analogies, which most of them won't, they instead pound their chest about their faith and then wag their fingers at you to accuse you of not having any, then its time to calmly and respectfully ask them to quote anywhere in the Bible where it says man can not affect the environment. Then ask them to quote anywhere in the Bible where it says man can not hasten the end of the earth. Remember, calmly and patiently.

Once they are done fuming and yelling and screaming you just calmly state that there is no where in the Bible where you will find such passages. And that the politician's stance on climate change is blatantly at odds with whichever hypothetical analogy you used previously. Then you bring it home by saying something to the effect that "We all agree that when" (earlier hypothetical) "happens then we should" earlier hypothetical "to make sure that our impact doesn't have terrible consequences to our environment, well addressing climate change is no different. If it makes sense to clean up an oil spill/be careful with nuclear waste/impose hunting seasons/prohibit hunting of animals on the endangered species list then it should be obvious to all that we should also address our impact on climate change. Just like there have been permanent reprecussions from oil spills/chernobyl/eradication of whole species of animals because we waited too long to act to protect the environment from man made harm, the same will be the case if we continue to put off addressing the effects of climate change which are now staring us in the face"

Now you don't want to get too preachy about it, but you do want to make those points. And here is how you bring it home. You profess your own faith, and you say that as you see it there is nothing contradictory about being a good Christian and also believing in climate change. On the one hand you have seen (insert beautiful scenes in nature that you have personally experienced, the more the better) which are evidence of God's amazing abilities. But on the other hand seeing those things give you even more determination to make sure that we do not ruin what God has provided for us. It is your solemn duty to as a Christian and as an American that we do not squander our God given natural resources, one of them being our climate which makes our world liveable.

What you have just done, in an understated manner, is basically accuse your right wing opponent of not being a good Christian because they don't care about the environment, but hey let the audience figure that part out.

Well, that is my political advice for the end of the year. Hopefully someone will see it somewhere and put it to good use. Or not.

Merry Christmas everyone, hope you have a great holiday season!

Is Virginia Going To Elect A Bigot?

Not if the Washington Post has anything to say about it...

Real Talk

Title of Gawker post: Let's Just Say It: We're Scared Someone's Going to Try to Kill Barack Obama

Its what we are all thinking but few actually say out loud so go check it out.

Some Nobody

I would venture to say that 99% of Americans don't have a clue who Michael Savage is. But evidently he has carved out some kind of niche right wing hate audience on the radio. And because MediaMatters has been documenting his hate speech evidently he decided to threaten them, kinda standard fare for right wing extremists these days. Well evidently MediaMatters isn't intimidated at all.



MediaMatters does great work and I am very happy to see that they won't allow anyone to use fear tactics on them.

They Can't Handle The Truth

Shepard Smith apparently doesn't give a damn what wingnuts say about him for speaking truth to power:

At various points on his Fox News program, the anchor Shepard Smith irritated Rush Limbaugh, teased Glenn Beck and grilled Samuel J. Wurzelbacher (a k a Joe the Plumber) over his attacks on President Obama. But it was not until he forcefully confronted the topic of hateful e-mail — some from Fox’s own viewers — that he drew fire over his approach.

On June 10, Mr. Smith was in the middle of three hours of coverage of the killing at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, in which officials identified an elderly anti-Semite as the killer. He then mentioned a prior warning by the Department of Homeland Security about right-wing extremist groups and connected that to the angry e-mail messages he had been receiving.

“When a crazy man has walked into a Holocaust museum and shot the security guard, maybe that’s an appropriate time to warn people: you’ve got a crazy person in your life, keep an eye on him,” he said in an interview in his Manhattan office last week.

snip

“It is the reporting of this news organization that Barack Obama is a citizen and he is not a Muslim,” Mr. Smith said, touching on a subject — Mr. Obama’s birth status — that has animated conspiratorial discussion in conservative circles, from relatively obscure far-right Web sites like Atlas Shrugs all the way up to the loudest mainstream conservative voice, Mr. Limbaugh.

Without specifically addressing Mr. Limbaugh (whom he said he enjoys), Mr. Smith said: “An unreasonable comment to me is beginning with a statement that is contrary to fact and moving on from that premise: ‘Barack Obama is not a citizen; he is a Muslim looking to take down the nation.’ When you begin with that premise, you are out of bounds.”

He said he was trying to counter “an ideological base” that argues: “The president is illegitimate. The country is off the rails. It’s been hijacked.”

snip

Then there was Mr. Smith’s confrontation with Mr. Wurzelbacher. Mr. Smith pressed him on his claim that a vote for Mr. Obama would be a vote for the death of Israel.

“I just want to make this 100 percent perfectly clear,” Mr. Smith said, closing the interview. “Barack Obama has said and demonstrated repeatedly that Israel will always be a friend of the United States, no matter what happens once he becomes president of the United States. His words. The rest of it? Man, some things; it just gets frightening sometimes.”

He also argued against the imprisonment without trial of the terrorism suspect Ali al-Marri, and memorably banged a desk during another debate, saying: “We are America; we don’t torture. And the moment that is not the case, I want off the train.”

These positions have hardly endeared him to the conservative base. Mr. Limbaugh criticized Mr. Smith after the e-mail episode; so did Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs, who called him a “pompous elitist” and said on the site that he should be fired.

Whatever the criticism from outside, Mr. Smith said that, inside Fox, there is no conflict: “Relations in the building are perfect. Roger is 100 percent supportive.” And he said he continues to be “very happy at Fox.”

Like I have said in the past, I will never be a fan of FoxNews, but Shep at least gives them one person who, for the most part, shoots straight.

Will the Mainstream Media Stick Their Heads In The Sand Again.

News has just come in that George Tiller, a doctor who performed abortions in Kansas, was murdered today as he headed into church.

WICHITA - George Tiller, the Wichita doctor who became a national lightning rod in the debate over abortion, was shot to death this morning as he walked into church services.

Tiller, 67, was shot just after 10 a.m. at Reformation Lutheran Church at 7601 E. 13th, where he was a member of the congregation. Witnesses and a police source confirmed Tiller was the victim.

No information has been released about whether a suspect is in custody.

Homicide detectives and Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston have arrived at the church.

Members of the congregation who were inside the sanctuary at the time of the shooting were being kept inside the church by police, and those arriving were being ushered into the parking lot. Witnesses are being transported downtown for interviews and other members of the congregation are slowly being released from inside the sanctuary.

Tiller has long been a focal point of protest by abortion opponents because his clinic, Women's Health Care Services at 5701 E. Kellogg, is one of the few in the country where late-term abortions are performed.

Protesters blockaded Tiller's clinic during Operation Rescue's "Summer of Mercy" protests during the summer of 1991, and Tiller was shot by Rachelle Shannon at his clinic in 1993.

Now for some odd reason when a situation like this happens and its obvious that a right wing extremist was involved the mainstream media decides to leave that little bit of information out. They never seem to want to make the connection between extreme elements on the right wing of the country and domestic terrorism no matter how obvious it is. You saw it with the right wing cop killer in Pittsburgh and you saw it with the right wing cop killer in Florida. While the local coverage had tons of information about the perpetrators right wing extremist pasts the national mainstream media tended to avoid that subject all together.

And in the meantime people continue to lose their lives to these assholes.

Alternate Universe

I don't need a DHS report to tell me that right wing extremism is growing in this country. These people are living in a FoxNews, right wing radio bubble and they are looking for a fight with the government. Conservatives can keep their heads in the sand and act like these people aren't dangerous, but they better keep in mind that a bullet doesn't have anyone's name on it. When these people go on a rampage it could just as easily be a conservative that gets shot as it might be a liberal.

Another Glenn Beck Fan?

Joshua Cartwright was in the Army reserves and he was "deeply disturbed" about President Obama winning the election last November and he was also convinced that the government was out to get him. Over the weekend Joshua Cartwright shot and killed two police officers before being killed himself by the police. The question is will the mainstream media actually start paying attention to this pattern of recent cop shootings? Or will they continue to keep their heads in the sand and act like the right wing pundits aren't ginning up this kind of anger and mistrust for the government that is contributing to these tragic events? Will anybody ask if Mr Cartwright was a FoxNews fan and or a fan of far right wingnut websites? I hope before any more police officers' lives are put in jeopardy the media starts being responsible and take a look at the common threads behind these incidents.

Wingnut Flame War!

I was trolling memorandum a few weeks back and noticed the flame war between Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs and the rest of the wingnutosphere. To put it bluntly, I was shocked shitless because the people he was warring with were long time allies of his. At that time the bone of contention was his criticism of Glenn Beck and his dangerous rhetoric and antics. Well now Dave Weigel has published an article about what's behind this flame war and damn its some powerful stuff!

But in the early days of Barack Obama’s presidency, LGF has become better known for the various fights it picks with many on the right — including conservative bloggers, critics of Islamic extremism, and critics of Islam in general who used to be Johnson’s fellow travelers.
Johnson has blasted Fox News host Glenn Beck, promoting a video from a Beck-inspired party that shows conservatives ranting about evolution and arguing that “this turn toward the extreme right on the part of Fox News is troubling, and will achieve nothing in the long run except further marginalization of the GOP.” In response to the news that the Department of Homeland Security was watching for increased right-wing extremism — something that most of the conservative blogosphere, like most Republicans, responded to with angry ridicule — Johnson pointed to the recent arrests of right-wing terrorists and criticized bloggers for buying into “distorted claims” about the DHS report. When Obama genuflected before King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Johnson found archival video of President Bush bowing to take a medal from the King and urged conservatives to turn down their “hyperventilating nonsense.”

This has the blogger’s peers asking themselves the same question, over and over: What the heck happened to Charles Johnson?

“I don’t think I’ve changed,” Johnson said. “I’ve always been pretty independent. This is something I’ve really tried to put out there on my blog. I don’t consider myself right-wing.”
It sounds strange coming from a blogger who played an underrated role in forcing CBS News to back down from its 2004 story on President George W. Bush’s Texas Air National Guard service, and whose first reaction to Obama’s election in November — after a quick post congratulating him — was to note that the Muslim Brotherhood, “the world’s largest jihadist organization,” was pleased.

Johnson supported Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2008, but he spent some of the campaign attacking anti-Obama conspiracy theorists, and he rejected the idea designs were malicious, rather than merely naive. Johnson worries, in conversation and on his blog, that his old allies have been duped by far-right European political parties and have bought into wild attacks on the president that discredit their own causes.

“I don’t think there is an anti-jihadist movement anymore,” Johnson said. “It’s all a bunch of kooks. I’ve watch some people who I thought were reputable, and who I trusted, hook up with racists and Nazis. I see a lot of them promoting stories and causes that I think are completely nuts.”

Johnson’s disgust with the terrorism-focused conservative blogosphere has had a traumatic effect on a dogged and dogmatic community of bloggers and scholars. When Johnson began blogging about Islam and terrorism after 9/11, he inspired untold other supporters of an aggressive war on terror to start their own Websites, link up, and push back against “Dhimmitude” — organizations and foreign policy decision makers that were “soft” on terrorism. Now, some of his followers have started blogs that track Johnson’s “madness,” while a video that portrays Johnson as Adolf Hitler going mad in his bunker makes the rounds.

“He’s the reason I started blogging,” said Atlas Shrugs editor Pamela Geller, a New Yorker who says she was “mugged by Sept. 11″ and started reading LGF for news and fellowship. “I wrote birthday messages to him. I respected and admired him.”

Robert Spencer, the director of JihadWatch and the author of the bestselling, “Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam,” had an established career as a critic of militant Islam before he met Johnson. “But right after 9/11, he was the only one out there reporting on this,” Spencer said. “He built my Website. I learned how to blog from reading his stuff.”

Johnson has turned hard against Spencer and Geller, attacking the former for joining a “genocidal Facebook group,” while referring to the latter as a “shrieking lunatic,” and labeling both of them “hatebloggers.” Johnson now points to Geller’s posts about Barack Obama’s heritage and her quest to fund a headstone for the victim of a Muslim honor killing as proof that “the woman is deranged.” Other bloggers in the movement have been purged from Johnson’s blogroll or pilloried on the site, never to be mentioned again. The most successful sites that arose in LGF’s wake, including Gateway Pundit, Gates of Vienna, and Brussels Journal, are also on the outs.

snip

Johnson’s former allies can pinpoint the month, if not the moment, when he started to turn on them. In October 2007, some of the leading terrorism-focused conservative bloggers flew to Belgium for a Counterjihad Summit sponsored in part by the Center for Vigilant Freedom (now the International Civil Liberties Alliance), an outgrowth of the LGF-inspired blog Gates of Vienna.

“It was the best conference I ever went to,” remembered Geller. But the summit included members of Vlaams Belang, a controversial Belgian political party that criticizes Islam and Shariah law, and had been attacked within the Netherlands for its connections to extremism and racism. Johnson went to work exposing this, and the attendees reeled from the negative attention.

“He chose to portray the Brussels Conference as evil and he unconscionably slandered the people who attended,” said Dymphna, one of the editors of Gates of Vienna. Baron Bodissey, the other site editor (both editors use pen names), worries that Johnson “did serious damage to the American blogosphere’s view of European nationalists who oppose the EU, even those who have no anti-Semitic tendencies.”

“Not only that,” said Bodissey, “he made it harder for certain American anti-jihad groups to raise funds if they failed to repudiate his designated ‘fascist-enablers’ like us.”

Johnson is unapologetic about his actions. While he was attacking the attendees of the Counterjihad Summit, he was also blasting Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) for taking money from, and being photographed with, the owner of the extremist Web site Stormfront.org.

“Some people at that summit in Belgium were not people we should have been associated with,” Johnson said, pointing out that since 2007 the terrorism-focused conservative bloggers have become supporters of Dutch politician Geert Wilders , who wants to outlaw Islam in his country. “Some of these people outright want to ban Islam from the United States, which I think is crazy, completely nuts. That’s not something we do in this country. These people will outright defend banning the Koran or deporting Muslims. That’s popular with the Geller/Spencer crowd.”

snip

Some of Johnson’s former allies experienced a decrease in traffic numbers when he started attacking them, but they all now feel they’ve recovered from the break. “LGF tried to destroy my reputation so I wouldn’t have the access I have to my sources in law enforcement and academia,” said Spencer, “but that hasn’t happened.”

Geller has rebounded with increased prominence — she was a guest on the Fox News show “Red Eye” last week — and she said she has survived the “besmirching” of her reputation and she now fills the information-spreading role that Johnson once did. “I get my stuff from people on the inside,” she said, “from people in Europe. I field 800-900 emails a day. We all depend on our readers for these tips. That’s where Charles was getting his stuff. And now he’s cracked and he’s not getting that anymore.”

Johnson brushes off that kind of criticism. LGF is his site, and if it has to name names and shame the people who are debasing the movement against extremist Islam, he’ll do it. “I’ve definitely seen an uptick in craziness since the election,” he sighs. “Well, I don’t know if Geller got crazier. She always was nuts.”

As enjoyable as it was the read that article, and believe me I enjoyed it a lot, I feel the need to point out that when Charles Johnson is the voice of reason for the wingnutosphere you know that they have all totally jumped he shark. Such is the state of right wing bloggers.

Secretary Napolitano Stands Behind DHS Report On Right Wing Extremism

And good on her for that1

Quick Hitters

There is a report out that Rahm Emanuel is getting tough with the leaders of Israel with respect to a peace deal. If true this is a very encouraging sign that it will actually get done this time. Money quote.

"Any treatment of the Iranian nuclear problem will be contingent upon progress in the negotiations and an Israeli withdrawal from West Bank territory,"

Breaking news is that President Obama's DOJ has decided to release the OLC torture memos. Thats GREAT news.

Undermining the conservative hysteria over the new DHS report that cautions law enforcement about right wing extremists and their efforts to recruit war veterans is the fact that it was based on a 2008 FBI report entitled

"White Supremacist Recruitment of Military Personnel since 9/11,"

Bennie Thompson, a Democrat trying to join in on the conservative hyseria over the DHS report should be mindful of his past statements about right wing extremism.

“DHS must reassess the threat posed by right-wing domestic terrorists and revise its long term planning to address this risk,” the report warns. It adds that “the risk posed by right-wing extremists” should prompt DHS to “give higher priority to this threat.”

Congressman Peter King went on Morning Joe to decry the DHS report and say that in contrast he says they never put out any advisories on Muslims because their would be a public outcry (don't know what planet he's living on) so my question is will he denounce his colleague fellow Representative Michele Bachmann's false and libelous comments aimed at Congressman Keith Ellison that were made purely based on the fact that he is a Muslim.

Surprise Surprise, the New York Times is reporting that not only has the NSA been overstepping it's bounds with respect to wiretapping U.S. Citizens,they also targeted an unnamed U.S. Congressman


Spencer Ackerman and Greg Sargent are trying to figure out which Congressman it was.



Glenzilla PWNS Congressional Dems who backed FISA last year including then Senator now President Obama. I found it insightful that many of the leading Democrats said flat out that they were voting for it on a political basis so that the Republicans wouldn't have a talking point to use against them in the elections last year. It goes to show how powerful the Democrats find the Republicans' messaging and how that fact can imperil honest debate over policy that might be harmful to the country.


On the other hand the Republicans don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to any faux outrage associated with the the revelations about FISA at all.



Texas Governer Rick Perry says secession is on the table. I say have at it hoss.


Sheppard Smith is the only person even remotely worth watching on FoxNews.


Bill O'Reilly lacky "producer" Jesse Watters is a punk ass bitch who can dish it out but can't take it.


And finally Cenk Uygur talks about Hulk Hogan quoting Chris Rock when it comes to OJ Simpson. "Im not saying he shoulda did it, but I understand!"



I hope that brings everyone up to speed. Ill be back later.

Well Lets Just Nuke Everybody Then...

I am a Christian and I make no apologies for that, but I have learned throughout my life that not all Christians are made equal. There is nothing in my bible that tells me to reject science, and yet fundamentalist/evangelical Christians routinely reject even the most basic scientific truths. Now its one thing to have those views as your personal views, its another thing ENTIRELY to govern that way as an elected official. Check out Congressman John Shimkus from Illinois and his views on global warming as influenced by......the Bible.





A few questions have to be asked, first and foremost how does THAT guy get to be on the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment? And if this is a guy who believes that humans can do NOTHING to end the world, is that really someone we want as an elected official? Think about what he is saying here and how it applies to his world view. In his world I would presume that a nuclear war wouldn't be so bad because surely the Lord wouldn't allow the world to end that way. Never mind the fact that many different species of animal have literally gone extinct and don't exist anymore anywhere on the planet, I am sure this guy thinks we should drill for oil everywhere because hell nothing that we do matters to the environment evidently. If God wants polar bears to live then they will live, right?

I am struggling to try to understand how some of the clowns who are in Congress got elected to their office. If this guy was on a street corner shouting the same things he said in that hearing he would be dismissed as a kook and possibly given a mental health evaluation by the cops. But because he is in Congress for some reason we have to take his views seriously. And its not like he is a special case, his esteemed colleague Michele Bachmann isn't any better and the list goes on and on. To be honest with you I don't see a difference between their version of Christianity and terrorists version of the Koran. They both are perverting a religion for their own means and gain. At some point we are going to have to point out this extremism for what it is and reject these people. We can't afford to have them in position to lead our country over a cliff all so they can up their fundamentalist/evangelical cred.

(h/t Benen)

Its Time To Show Michele Bachmann To Her Padded Cell

Seriously, this chick has totally gone off the deep end. If some idiot ends up doing harm to their fellow man because of something she said we need to call for her expulsion from Congress and possible criminal prosecution. Free speech is one thing, yelling fire in a crowded theater quite another.