Odds & Ends

This is pretty much what I've been saying. Certainly explains why the right wing hates the census so much:

Read the census data that have been coming out over the past couple weeks and you're compelled to a stark conclusion: Either the Republican Party changes totally, or it has a rendezvous with extinction.

What the census shows is that America's racial minorities, aggregated together, are on track to become its majority. The Republican Party's response to this epochal demographic change has been to do everything in its power to keep America (particularly its electorate) as white as can be. Republicans have obstructed minorities from voting; required Latinos to present papers if the police ask for them; opposed the Dream Act, which would have conferred citizenship on young immigrants who served in our armed forces or went to college; and called for denying the constitutional right to citizenship to American-born children of undocumented immigrants.

If the Republicans have a long-term strategic plan, it seems to derive from King Canute, who commanded the tide to stop.

Related:

In the first month of the new legislative season, they have introduced a dizzying number of measures on hot-button issues in statehouses around the country as part of what amounts to a full-throttle mission to repeal, restrict and repress.

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

As Reuters pointed out this week, in the midterms, “Republicans gained nearly 700 state legislative seats and now have their largest numbers since the Great Depression, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.”

...

As MSNBC and Telemundo reported recently, at least 15 state legislatures are considering Arizona-style immigration legislation. If passed, four of the five states with the largest Hispanic populations — California, Texas, Florida and Arizona — would also be the most inhospitable to them.

Also related:

Tucson — The leader of an anti-illegal-immigrant group was convicted Monday in a home invasion robbery that left a 9-year-old girl and her father dead in what prosecutors said was an attempt to steal drug money to fund the group's operations.

A Tucson jury found Shawna Forde, 42, guilty of murder in the May 2009 killings of Raul Flores, 29, and his daughter Brisenia at their home in Arivaca, a desert community 10 miles north of Mexico.

See, civilian trials of terrorists work just fine.

Meanwhile, back in Texas:

The Senate measure generally would restrict college financial aid to students already receiving it, just like the House. The Senate version holds out hope for some additional financial aid funding.

The Senate draft would put more money into public education than the House but still fall $9.3 billion short of current school funding formulas that pay for items, such as projected student enrollment growth and projected decreases in school district property values. It would include some funding for other education programs slashed in the House draft.
...
The measure would not cover the number of people expected to enroll in Medicaid through the next two years, and it would slash Medicaid reimbursement rates to health care providers.

The bill filed by Ogden would cut public safety and criminal justice, including community supervision and parole programs, though less than the House proposal.

But at least Slick Rick has his priorities right.

"This is business as usual for Rick Perry instead of focusing on the real emergency, our state's budget crisis, he is trying to distract us with divisive partisan issues," explained Kirsten Gray, communication director for the Texas Democratic Party. "It is obvious that Rick Perry is only concerned with becoming a GOP celebrity than with working for every day Texans."

Some in attendance at Saturday's rally agree with Gray like San Francisco transplant Peace Washington Costanzo, who dressed up as the Statue of Liberty and stood on the steps of the Capitol.

"I don't understand why we have to waste time with such issues as this," said Costanzo. "There are so many more pressing issues, closing schools."

Costanzo said she feels a woman has a right to choose what happens medically with her body also told KXAN she loves life.

Bills similar to this one have been introduced in the past by Senator Dan Patrick.

What makes this bill different is that Perry has now deemed it emergency legislation meaning the bill must be dealt with by state legislators in the first 60 days of the new session.

I wonder who gets to pay for the sonograms?

No, Both Sides Don't Do It.

This:

In fact, there is no balance—none whatsoever. Only one side has made the rhetoric of armed revolt against an oppressive tyranny the guiding spirit of its grassroots movement and its midterm campaign. Only one side routinely invokes the Second Amendment as a form of swagger and intimidation, not-so-coyly conflating rights with threats. Only one side’s activists bring guns to democratic political gatherings. Only one side has a popular national TV host who uses his platform to indoctrinate viewers in the conviction that the President is an alien, totalitarian menace to the country. Only one side fills the AM waves with rage and incendiary falsehoods. Only one side has an iconic leader, with a devoted grassroots following, who can’t stop using violent imagery and dividing her countrymen into us and them, real and fake. Any sentient American knows which side that is; to argue otherwise is disingenuous.

Yeah, pretty much.

As predictable as night following day

Timeline of violent rhetoric & action over the last 2+ years. Tell me again how "both sides do it"?

Read the whole list if your stomach can take it. They know exactly what they're doing. That Pilate brand hand soap won't work any better now than it did 2000 years ago.

What the Rest of Us (Including Fox Anchors) See...

Update II:

A total of 33 Fox advertisers, including Walmart, CVS Caremark, Clorox and Sprint, directed that their commercials not air on Beck's show, according to the companies and ColorofChange.org, a group that promotes political action among blacks and launched a campaign to get advertisers to abandon him. That's more than a dozen more than were identified a week ago.

When we see Glenn Beck. I defy anyone to find & post equivalent incitement coming from a nationally broadcast commentator on the left.
Color of Change Petition here.

Update
Apparently the "fans" took the call to non-violence with a grain of salt:

One photojournalist said that a fistfight broke out inside the building, reports WTSP.

Many of the hundreds of protesters said that they had been inspired by a conservative activist group promoted by Fox News host Glenn Beck and some received emails from the county Republican party, according to the St. Petersburg Times:

Instead, hundreds of vocal critics turned out, many of them saying they had been spurred on through the Tampa 912 activist group promoted by conservative radio and television personality Glenn Beck. Others had received e-mails from the Hillsborough Republican party that urged people to speak out against the plan and offered talking points to challenge supporters.

Let's see what ol' Glenn has to offer...






Even Fox anchors think he's an idiot.


Here's some nice doublethink. Just one act of violence will get my show cancelled ruin the republic. Pay no attention to the acts that have already occurred...
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...And Then There's This

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/06/15/neo_nazis_army/index.html

The lax regulations have also opened the military's doors to neo-Nazis, white supremacists and gang members — with drastic consequences. Some neo-Nazis have been charged with crimes inside the military, and others have been linked to recruitment efforts for the white right. A recent Department of Homeland Security report, "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," stated: "The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned, or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today." Many white supremacists join the Army to secure training for, as they see it, a future domestic race war. Others claim to be shooting Iraqis not to pursue the military's strategic goals but because killing "hajjis" is their duty as white militants.

Soldiers' associations with extremist groups, and their racist actions, contravene a host of military statutes instituted in the past three decades. But during the "war on terror," U.S. armed forces have turned a blind eye on their own regulations. A 2005 Department of Defense report states, "Effectively, the military has a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy pertaining to extremism. If individuals can perform satisfactorily, without making their extremist opinions overt … they are likely to be able to complete their contracts."

Right Wing Terrorists and the Talking Heads Who Egg Them On

(If you don't want to plow through this whole post, just read this from the U.K. paper The Guardian. It's a great analysis of these developments.)

Funny how "law and order" right wingers abandon regard for the law or even the U.S.A itself when they lose an election.

Let's review:
There's James G. Cummings

BELFAST, Maine — James G. Cummings, who police say was shot to death by his wife two months ago, allegedly had a cache of radioactive materials in his home suitable for building a “dirty bomb.”

Dirty Bomb? That's huge news! A terrorist in our midst! Do you remember when this was all over the news? No? That's because it wasn't.

Wonder what James' problem was...

The FBI report also stated there was evidence linking James Cummings to white supremacist groups. This would seem to confirm observations by local tradesmen who worked at the Cummings home that he was an ardent admirer of Adolf Hitler and had a collection of Nazi memora...She also said that Cummings was “very upset” when Barack Obama was elected president.

Then there's Richard Andrew Poplawski:

No longer obscure, the 22-year-old is charged in the worst police shooting in the modern history of Pittsburgh. No one is calling his actions anything but pointless.

"He was really into politics and really into the First and Second amendment. One thing he feared was he feared the gun ban because he thought that was going to take away peoples' right to defend themselves. He never spoke of going out to murder or to kill," said Edward Perkovic, who described himself as Mr. Poplawski's lifelong best friend.

Mr. Poplawski's view of guns and personal freedom took a turn toward the fringes of American politics. With Mr. Perkovic, he appeared to share a belief that the government was controlled from unseen forces, that troops were being shipped home from the Mideast to police the citizenry here, and that Jews secretly ran the country.

"We recently discovered that 30 states had declared sovereignty," said Mr. Perkovic, who lives in Lawrenceville. "One of his concerns was why were these major events in America not being reported to the public."

Believing most media were covering up important events, Mr. Poplawski turned to a far-right conspiracy Web site run by Alex Jones, a self-described documentarian with roots going back to the extremist militia movement of the early 1990s.

Yeah? What else?

With Obama's election, Poplawski became convinced that there would be "federal gun bans on the way" and that the people would be rendered defenseless in the face of a police state in which the military would be used against American citizens....Once more, wild speculations about SHTF ("s--t hits the fan") and TEOTWAKI ("the end of the world as we know it") scenarios became rampant.

Poplawski bought into the SHTF/TEOTWAKI conspiracy theories hook, line and sinker, even posting a link to Stormfront of a YouTube video featuring talk show host Glenn Beck talking about FEMA camps with Congressman Ron Paul. When the city of Pittsburgh got a Homeland Security grant to add surveillance cameras to protect downtown bridges, Poplawski told Stormfronters that it was "ramping up the police state." He said, too, that he gave warnings to grocery store customers he encountered (but only if they were white) to stock up on canned goods and other long-lasting foods.

Then there's Scott Roeder - a man who killed a doctor in his church on a Sunday.

The man charged with murdering a high-profile abortion doctor claimed from his jail cell Sunday that similar violence was planned around the nation for as long as the procedure remained legal, a threat that comes days after a federal investigation launched into his possible accomplices.

Possible accomplices?

Now the news is coming out: murder suspect Scott Roeder’s contacts with Operation Rescue adviser Cheryl Sullenger (convicted of conspiracy to bomb an abortion clinic in 1988) were much more frequent than she first acknowledged. Apparently, Roeder was in touch with her as recently as the beginning of this year, when Sullenger was helping him to track Dr. Tiller’s court appearances.

Most recently, the Holocaust Museum killer:

Giving some insight into what might have driven Von Brunn to allegedly take action at the museum, acquaintance and white supremacist John de Nugent cited, as one factor, the election of President Barack Obama as a "tremendous signal of alarm" for Von Brunn. Rage among white supremacists has escalated considerably, as they view the election of a black man as a sign that white people are losing power.

So, we have a bunch of violent people who believe that Obama will take away their property and power. They also appear to think that the political or legal actions will not solve their urgent need to "stop" those with whom they disagree. And for every one who acts, how many are plotting to act?

Cowart told the FBI that Schlesselman had also talked about targeting a predominantly black school and killing "as many as he could". But it was what Cowart said next that made the feds sit up. The two men planned to culminate the killing spree with a last dramatic act: they would dress up in white tuxedos and top hats, then drive at high speed, with guns blazing, towards an individual then very much in the news. "The final thing we had discussed," he said, "was trying to assassinate Obama. We did not plan on living past that day."

Threatening to act?

Federal prosecutors have charged a man with making threats against President Barack Obama after he allegedly told a bank employee in Utah he was on a mission to kill the president.

You have all these weak minded individuals who believe that Obama is going to take their guns, their money and their power. Who could be (profiting from) giving them that idea?



Hell, the results are even scaring an anchor at Fox...

Meanwhile, you can get the image at the top of this post on a t-shirt at Cafe Press.

Unbelievable.

Chuck Norris, Texas Damage Case

Over at Crooks and Liars they have the tale of cryin' Glenn Beck and republican thought leader Chuck Norris. Turns out they go on the airwaves to fantasize about armed revolution (seeing as how they lost the election and all) or leading a new Texas successionist "movement."

Quoth Chuck:

On Glenn Beck's radio show last week, I quipped in response to our wayward federal government, "I may run for president of Texas."

That need may be a reality sooner than we think. If not me, someone someday may again be running for president of the Lone Star state, if the state of the union continues to turn into the enemy of the state.

From the East Coast to the "Left Coast," America seems to be moving further and further from its founders' vision and government. ...

I wonder what made Chuck soooooo stupid?