Terrorism kills, and Barbara Boxer is worried about the weather.
And that's why, to this day, America is cursed with lunatics like Pat Robertson.
Republican flack (and full-time Palin apologist) Matthew Continetti:
Like a lot of people, as soon as I got my copy of Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue," I immediately thought of the German literary critic Hans Robert Jauss.
In the wake of the death of one census worker under mysterious circumstances, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) went on Fox News last night to warn the country about evil census employees, implying that child molesters and rapists will be coming to our doors in April 2010.
This despite Senate testimony from GAO Executive Director of Strategic Issues Robert Goldenkoff that the Census Bureau is well aware of past problems screening potential employees and has implemented a new double-check system for fingerprints (even the linked Fox News article admits as much).
Okay, I know the GOP wants to discredit the census, the better to be able to cry foul if the new population numbers/distribution redistrict them out of a few safe Republican seats in Congress. Not to mention the man-reactions they get from criticizing any and every thing the Obama administration does. But this guy is basically inviting the public to break the law -- at the least by refusing to participate in the census and at most by meeting the workers with force. Sounds like he's channeling crazy Michelle Bachmann (R-MN).
He needs to stop, now, before someone (else) gets hurt.
President Obama woke this morning to the news that he had been awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize. I heard it on the radio on my way to work, and honestly my first reaction was, "Huh?" It seems a bit early to give him the award, although I wouldn't be at all surprised if he earned it ten or twenty years down the road.
It's difficult to see this as anything other than a finger to the eye (excuse the non-peaceful imagery) of the Bush administration and its "my way or the highway" approach to diplomacy. The rest of the world, or at least the Nobel Committee, is hopeful that we're on a new and more productive path, and I'm right there with them. Here's a good spot to express my ongoing love and admiration for our Secretary of State. She is an amazing woman!
Anyway, anything that irks both the Taliban and our own homegrown wingnuts* can't be all bad. Congratulations, President Obama! Here's to a better and more peaceful future for all of us.
****
*I'm not going to link to Free Republic, but the term "turd" was used early in the game. I quit reading at that point.
Let history show that on September 9, 2009, this country and everything it stands for was brutally and verbally attacked by radical terrorists whose visceral hate for Americans knows no bounds, and who have infiltrated every level of government. Although the hand of peace has been repeatedly offered to these people, they have now proven they have no sense of human decency and cannot be reasoned with. In order to prevent future attacks on our soil, we must not rest until they are rooted out and brought to justice, wherever we find them.
They discussed pros and cons, and the fact that Rice is retired and that the injury was to a relatively unimportant finger on his non-dominant hand. Still, the doctor tried to talk Rice into reattachment. "He disagreed with that plan," Carraway-Bowman said. "He left the tip of his finger with us and he went home."William "9.75-Finger" Rice knows that a pinky finger (pink is just a shade of red, after all) is only useful for Harvard-educated liberal-socialist elites to stick out while they toast Osama Bin Laden with cups of green tea.
I'm afraid Steve is right about why the right is winning the spin war on the town hall thuggery:
The last two election cycles were fun, but for decades we were told that right-wingers and Republicans are "normal," even when they engage in racist attacks or blow up federal buildings, while liberals and Democrats are dirty hippies who don't go to church and eat arugula and use four-letter words in public. That ingrained notion doesn't go away overnight, or even in a few years. And the right-wing/corporate noise machine knows just how to tap into it.But there's another problem here (apart from the fact that nobody took my advice): as long as the conflict is between 'people' and 'politicians', people are going to instinctively side with 'people', even to the brink of physical violence. If it were clearer that this is a conflict between 'people' and people--that the thugs aren't just getting in the face of 'politicians', they're actually trampling all over the right of other people to be heard--I think the polling would be very different. As it is, though, the people who are getting shut out of the process (not just supporters, but non-crazy people with legitimate questions) are virtually invisible in all of this.
Shorter Sarah Palin: "Let's progress the prevention of free-market efforts to protect life!"
Update: As Kevin Drum points out, Sarah Palin really did write and the Washington Post really did publish this op-ed on Cap-and-Trade that omits any mention whatsoever of the concept of global climate change.
That line pretty neatly sums up reaction among the Freeper-types dominating comment to Peggy Noonan's column on Sarah Palin this morning over at the Wall Street Journal. So you can skip the comments (as enjoyable as they are if you have the time and inclination), but do not miss the column.
Teaser line:
In another age it might not have been terrible, but here and now it was actually rather horrifying.That is not a "Shorter," folks. That's the genuine Noonan. From there she gets up close and personal with a whole cast of GOP charlatans and mythmakers like John Fund and Russ Douthat.
Hicks and nitwits all over this great nation are grieving tonight for Sarah Palin's political career. Or, no, wait, they're happy. Yeah, that's it, they're happy:
Reached by CNN at her farm in the Shenandoah valley, Mary Matalin, a top Republican consultant, called Ms. Palin's move "brilliant" although she said she was initially taken aback by the news. But she seconded the notion that the governor's decision was smart in the sense that it will free her up [to do stuff...and things and whatnot].Of course. Conservatives are celebrating...[enunciate here]...because conservatives are celebrating!
[...]
Ms. Matalin joked that despite her own initial inside-the-Beltway reaction of surprise, shoppers at her local WalMart in the Shenandoah would be whooping "hoo-rahs" because of Ms. Palin's continued popularity among conservative voters.
While there is still some hysterical hyperventilation on the right over the "First Terrorist Attack Since 9/11", they seem to have dialed it back some as of this morning. Which is so unlike them.
And I can't help but wonder if maybe it was because the guy used a gun.
If a few angry losers want to kill people, they're not going to get it done with whacked-out plots to blow up Sears Tower or the Brooklyn Bridge. They can get it done using guns. Thanks to the extraordinarily lax gun laws in most states in this country, they can kill a whole lot of people with guns.
(In the case of George Tiller, of course, they didn't have to kill a lot of people; one was enough to make their point.)
Pointing that out--as they do, inadvertently, when they call the murder of Private William Long "terrorism"--does not serve the interests of the gun fetishists.
Responding to a new low from Andy McCarthy (he thinks Judge Sotomayor isn't qualified to be on a jury), John Cole muses: "I wonder when McCarthy will get around to asking her about her birth certificate."
Commenter Dennis obliges with a link to this:
By the way, has anyone bothered to vet Sonia Sotomayor's birth certificate?Well, no.
Or will she be the first illegal alien nominated to the Supreme Court by the first illegal alien to serve as president?
A sampling of wingnut reactions to the first-ever nomination of an Hispanic-American to the Supreme Court:
The co-executive director of the Miss California Organization has confirmed that the organization paid for Carrie Prejean's breast implants just weeks before the Miss USA pageant. Yes, that's this Carrie Prejean. Miss Prejean, who believes in "opposite marriage", is all about following what she sees as God's will in that regard. So why would she flout God's will for her body by getting breast implants?
And now the ungrateful child is ducking her funders...
Carrie is still involved in a media frenzy, sparked by her controversial response at the Miss USA pageant, and Shanna [Moakler] claims the young woman has been avoiding responding to her Miss California bosses. “We’ve tried really hard [to get in contact] and she keeps referring us to her mother and her PR person,” Shanna claimed.
In, um, honor of tomorrow's mass teabagging:
via Paul the Spud at Shakesville; cross-posted at Birmingham Blues
2nd UPDATE: Here's another link to the audition tapes. Don't know how long it will be working.
UPDATE: I see NOM has yanked the Rachel Maddow video off YouTube, but I'm quite sure it will turn up again.
In more than one sense of the phrase. The National Organization for Marriage (no, I'm not linking; feel free to Google if you must) released a scare ad this week in which actors played the parts of various oppressed people whose lives have been devastated because they are no longer permitted to discriminate against gays and lesbians. The finished product was bad -- a combination of ridiculously overblown rhetoric and unconvincing line readings -- but the audition tapes were...well, they were just horrendous. I have no idea where NOM (maybe the funniest acronym ever!) got these people, but -- trust me -- I would look like Meryl Streep if I went up against them.
NOM was unhappy when the audition tapes hit YouTube, and its minions have been busy scrubbing them. It's embarrassing when the whole world can see that you couldn't get any real actors to show up for your casting call.
Unfortunately for NOM (but good for us), Rachel Maddow captured some of the most egregious moments last night.
More...
And if the audition tapes weren't funny enough, the parodies are a hoot.
NOM, you done messed with the wrong people. Seriously.
videos via Pam
You just can't make up this stuff: Beck: Stem-cell research will lead directly to the search for a new ‘master race.’
Just keep marching off that cliff, guys. Beck and Hannity and Limbaugh all say it's okay, and they wouldn't lie to you.
Dave Noon wonders
What the fuck is "nuanced" about a call for stimulus in the form of tax cuts?John Hawkins has the answer:
The most radical, and effective, thing we could do for the economy right now is this: Stop collecting all forms of Federal business, income and payroll tax. EVERY PENNY OF IT. RIGHT NOW.That tax cut stimulus sure looks nuanced now, doesn't it, Dave?
Gasp! Yes, I said it, and I meant it. Go on an absolute, 100% Federal tax holiday. That’s a real shot in the arm that would suddenly inflate the economy by a solid $1.5 trillion or more per year.
