Right-wing violence? I blame Obama (in part)

No, I don't blame former President Barack Obama for being black, unlike the wingnuts who started getting butt-hurt — and potentially violently butt-hurt — over that as soon as he took office if not before.

I DO, though, blame him for singing Kumbaya with Republicans in Congress and conservative thought leaders behind them, even on this issue. I DO blame him for pretending to be, or naively or stupidly hoping and wanting to be, the nation's first "post-racial" president.

That's even after George Zimmerman of my snarking on Cesar Sayoc the mail bombing suspect (claiming there was a real "false flag" and an aged-out on booze and drugs Zimmerman did it) , had confronted and fatally shot Trayvon Martin. Even then, Obama tried to pretend this away, at least in public, with Kumbaya pixie dust. Continued after his re-election in 2012, even though he was full of crap.

The potentially violently butt-hurt? Obama's Department of Homeland Security warned about that in his first year in office. And a year ago, the author of that report, Daryl Johnson, in a non-gloating way, said "I told you."

That 2009 report was prescient. It said that some right-wing groups would recruit based on Obama as a black president. It said that others with anti-Semitic leanings would blame Great Recession housing foreclosures and such on "Jewish elites."

What happened? Caving to those conservatives and the right-wing talking heads propagating the message, Homeland Security threw Johnson under the bus and then did nothing about his warnings. DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano originally stood by the report, though caving on the part that talked about recruiting of veterans. The same Obama who threw Shirley Sherrod under the bus without a second thought surely pushed her to do that, and more. The same Obama who threw ACORN under the bus by signing what I and many others said then was an unconstitutional bill of attainder?

And, it wasn't just Obama himself. His last Homeland Security head, Jeh Johnson, passed up the chance to call Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof a domestic terrorist, per this long, in-depth New York Times piece.

Others picked up on Daryl Johnson's report, like the NYT, during the Bundy standoff in Oregon. Some Congresscritters at that time asked Dear Leader to revitalize Johnson's old office within DHS, which he did not.

And, at least in potential, Johnson was right on the ex-veterans. Numerous stories have reported how the Army has lowered its recruiting standards as the War on Terra grinds on. That includes lower standards for things like gang affiliation histories, etc.

Oh, and most American terror-related violence is by right-wing political extremists. It's well ahead of both left-wing political extremist violence AND Islamic terrorist violence in the U.S.

Says who? Says the Anti-Defamation League, which has reason to play up Islamic terrorism if anybody does. Seventy-four percent of such violence was committed by right-wing groups in 2007-16. (And, on Islamic extremism, that stretch of time includes the Fort Hood shootings, which arguably would fall into that.

And it continues. The Kroger killings in Kentucky? May be a hate crime.

And, as I type, the shootings at Tree of Life Synagogue reportedly by an anti-Semitic winger. And, yes, it appears Robert Bowers is indeed that. Even if, as reported, he didn't vote for Trump, his "my people" ethno-nationalism, like that of Sayoc, had the ground for its growth, and the lowering of norms to lead him to do it, all fertilized by Trump — and unchallenged by Obama.

Oh, finally? Speaking of false flags? The false flag of "Bernie Sanders equivalency" over James Hodgkinson is also untrue, as he also had some sort of political interest in Ted Cruz AND Bernie Sanders never incited violence against conservatives or the media at campaign events, which Trump has clearly done.

Despite all of the above, though, federal law enforcement agencies have still devoted little work to gathering intelligence on right-wing extremists.

The real real problem was Preznit Kumbaya believing one can deal rationally with people who have no intention of operating that way in the first place.

This piece from The Walrus, a Canadian mag, tackles some of that. It references an American academic, presumably a social psychologist or similar, talking about "affective polarization." Yep, that's the ticket. Remember that in psychology, "affect" means "emotions." 

Remember that David Hume said that reason the passions need always to follow the passions. By passions, he meant not the rage of some modern Americans, but deep-seated emotional values and drives. Hume did say that such passions, after stimulating thinking, should be reviewed in light of that thinking. While Hume didn't address modern ideas of the subconscious, in general, the passions align with that less than truly conscious self we think we have. (A naturalistic understanding of Hume's take on free will, per the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, is vital here. Understanding at least basics of Hume's moral philosophy in general also helps. And modern philosophers who dismiss Hume as an outdated psychologist or similar do so at not just their own peril, but at damage to what Hume still has to teach.)

This is why liberals like Arlie Russell Hochschild get it wrong with "listening tours." Conservatives, at least in today's America, don't do that, and leftists with enough brains before going down that road are smart enough not to do it, but for different reasons than conservatives.

(The Canadian piece ain't perfect, though. It laments Canada's dependence on the American economy, and specifically mentions tar sands oil. It says nothing about getting off its dirty oil addiction. Nor does it ask if Trump's NAFTA 2.0 and Canada's tweaks to its dairy price system will piss off Quebecois.)

Remember how Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, talked about 9/11 being America's chickens coming home to roost? Well, this is some of Obama's chickens coming home to roost. Just.Another.Politician.™

IOKIYAR, Jan Brewer division

If, say, N.Y. Gov. Eliot Spitzer had done to George W. Bush what Ariz. Gov. Jan Brewer did to Barack Obama today, you know how much the shit would hit the fan among Rush Limbaugh and all the other nutbars.

Simply uncalled for, in public, something like this.

And again, the nutbars claim they've not lowered the level of discourse in the country.

Michael Reagan concern trolls for daddy's legacy

No surprise here. Michael Reagan, Ron's eldest and apparent legacy-preserver, is horrified by half-brother Ron's claim that old man Reagan may already have been developing Alzheimer's symptoms back in 1984, and that his befuddled performance in his first presidential debate against Walter Mondale reflected that.

Now, of course, there's no way to prove Ron's claim. And, it could be that Reagan was suffering another age-related problem besides Alzheimer's, including, perhaps, another dementia.

That said, the general idea I don't find unbelievable at all. Iran-Contra, certainly, looks like Reagan's actions and mindset were influenced in some way.

As for Ron talking about it now? Well, you Reagan centenary wingnuts, it turns out Nancy's OK with Ron talking, too.

As for Reagan having secret surgery while president? It's possible. It would be a lot harder to pull off than it was for Grover Cleveland in 1893, but it's possible.

Wingnuts, trying to vilify Dupnik, ignore "law and order"

On the NYT's Opinionator op-ed, Tobin Harshaw ponders the role so far in the Jared Loughner case of Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, with extensive quotes from leading wingnuts on how incompetent he was with Loughner.

To that, I say:

The winger numbnuts, despite being all "law and order," apparently are too stupid or too vile to distinguish between the bailiwicks of the Tucson PD and the Pima County Sheriff's Office. Assuming the Loughner house is inside Tucson city limits, that's all Tucson PD biz unless it invites the Sheriff's Dept. to help. Ditto for Pima Community College, if its police department is in fact "sworn" peace officers.

Jason Loughner - nature via nurture

Several years ago, evolutionary psychologist and biologist Matt Ridley wrote a book called "Nature via Nurture." It took by pleasant surprise those of us who considered him a Pop Ev Psycher, but that's another story.

The title, and the idea that genes shape direction in our lives, including our mental states, but come nowhere near to hidebound destiny, applies well to Jason Loughner, the alleged attempted assassin of Gabrielle Giffords.

It does appear Loughner is mentally ill, in some degree.

Loughner was apparently enraptured with lucid, or "conscious" dreaming.

And, his mental state got worse in the past year, yet another friend notes.

It even appears he had some dabbling in occult-type issues.

That's the nature part.

So, he could have had all sorts of belief systems as his mental illness developed.

The belief system he apparently DOES have?

That's the nurture, and it appears right-wing influenced.

Showing how irrational movements can influence even those further beyond the rationality pale, Loughner may have had some connection with, and being influenced by, American Renaissance, a white supremacist group. At the same time, the Mother Jones story linked above about lucid dreaming references a Loughner acquaintance as saying his mother is Jewish.

Also per the Fox story linked immediately above, the rest of Loughner's family didn't totally impress the neighbors, either. The story doesn't say much about the family beyond "loners" with a cluttered yard, but, if they had political beliefs outside the mainstream, that will come out, too. I find it interesting that the family has commented very little on their sun, even before retaining any counsel that they may have.

Still no further word on a possible accomplice; if there is one, I would be VERY quiet, were I the head of American Renaissance.

And, The Daily Beast also notes that, even if Loughner is clinically mentally ill, the influences on that troubled mind seem to come pretty much from the far right. And, it's not just the Sarah Palins, it's the wingnuts posting comments on stories like this that reflect the problem.

A "mainstream conservative" like Ross Douthat doesn't fully get this issue right with his apparent attempt to play the equivalence card.

Paul Krugman DOES get that right, including quoting Pima County, Ariz. Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, who said:

(I)t’s “the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business.” The vast majority of those who listen to that toxic rhetoric stop short of actual violence, but some, inevitably, cross that line.

And, since Douthat pulls out Oswald as counterintuitive to shoot JFK in wingnut Dallas circa 1963, let's go to Krugman again, to refute the "equivalence":

And there’s a huge contrast in the media. Listen to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, and you’ll hear a lot of caustic remarks and mockery aimed at Republicans. But you won’t hear jokes about shooting government officials or beheading a journalist at The Washington Post. Listen to Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly, and you will.

Very few on the left espouse violence even in a rhetorical sense today, compared to the right.

WSJ repeats FDR-Depression lies

You know, the standard lie that he didn't get us out of the Depression.

Fact? In his first term, the unemployment rate was cut almost in half. Then, in his second term, when he listened to Wall Street nattering about balancing the budget, and abandoned "stimulus" ideas (listening, Obama?) unemployment went back up and the economy fell into recession.

As for the claim that postwar tax cuts stimulated the economy? Here's the info that Hillsdale College (BIG conservative red flag) professor Burt Folsom presents:
Income tax rates were cut across the board. FDR's top marginal rate, 94% on all income over $200,000, was cut to 86.45%. The lowest rate was cut to 19% from 23%, and with a change in the amount of income exempt from taxation an estimated 12 million Americans were eliminated from the tax rolls entirely.
Thoughts ...

First, this ISN'T "supply side as practiced today. By percentage of drop, and with income baselines subject to taxation being shifted, this was definitely targeted at the lower end of the scale in a way that would give today's GOP apoplexy.

Second, Folsom ignores things like federal mortgage guarantees, the GI Bill making sure many ex-soldiers were college students and not newly-unemployed, and more.

Contra Mr. Folsom, what really "runs on" is the myth that FDR had nothing to do with ending the Depression.

So much for ‘high-unemployment old Europe’

Can we finally put this hypercapitalist rightist American myth to rest? Here’s the reality: Topping things off, “hard to fire people” German is two percentage points lower in unemployment than the US. The UK is also lower; France is even.

Beyond that, this is comparing apples to oranges, in several ways.

First, European countries don't calculate unemployment the same way the US does. I don't know about today, but, a decade ago, Germany counted you as unemployed if you were working for a temp agency, even if it was full-time work. (At that time, Manpower was the single largest employer in both the US and the Federal Republic, since you work for the temp agency, not the company with which it is contracting.)

Second, due to the amount of people the US incarcerates for drug crimes, and the amount of people it pays to arrest them, try them, keep them incarcerated, etc., we'd have even higher unemployment without our draconian drug laws.

Third, many European countries have "universal service" upon graduation from high school, or the equivalent thereof. This is military service for many who do not conscientiously object, etc. It doesn't count as employment. In the US, with its professional army, though (please, not "all volunteer," its "professional") the men and women in uniform count as employed. Right now, if we weren't fighting multiple wars in a recession, we'd have even more unemployment.

So, actually, it's not that unemployment in "old Europe" is the same or a bit lower than here; if you compare apples and apples, it's probably a lot lower than in the high-unemployment USofA.

The US unemployment rate hitting 10.2 percent underscores this even more.

AP fact check on healthcare undercuts ’wingers

More succinctly than the Washington Post’s Ceci Connolly, the AP shoots down not only ’wingers’ “euthanasia” claims but a bunch of other conservative bloviating on national healthcare.

So, if you have any conservative friends, this is the handy-dandy story to send to them.

WaPost finally covers ’wingers euthanasia scare

Only a couple of weeks late to the scene, the Washington Post and Ms. Healthcare Industry Suck-Up Ceci Connolly finally run a story about the right-wing PR machine’s “government-driven euthanasia” scare story on national healthcare.

That said, it is better than some of her work; she explicitly notes that both the AMA and AARP support such a provision.

“These are important discussions everyone should have when they are healthy and not entering a hospital, so they are fully informed and can make their wishes known,” said association President J. James Rohack. “That’s not controversial; it’s plain, old-fashioned patient-centered care.”

In other words, more obfuscation of the type that gets people to believe Medicare is not a government program.

Astroturf anti-health groups plan more tea parties

Democratic Congressmen, including, or especially, “Blue Dogs,” had better man up when home over the August recess. Led by two Astroturf lobbying firms, America’s Health Insurance Plans and others, again deceiving the malleable-minded who probably think Medicare is not a government insurance program, will try to give national healthcare the coup de grace. And, since similar-minded groups used forged faxes to try to kill Waxman-Markey, everything is fair game for them.

Next question —will Obama disavow this, and how long will it take if he does?

'Tea parties' NOT a 'second revolution'

A second revolution?

You have Tax Day, when you have already incitement-ready people (see Rick
Perry and secession and nullification demagoguery; also see Andrew Jackson
and his threats 180 years ago to hang people like Rick Perry, including
South Carolina's governmor).

I'm sure on some other day crowds would be lower.

Second, what's your alternative? After all, you're the type of folks who
supported the financial system dereg that got us to this situation in the
first place.

So, what's your positive solution alternative?

Lincoln, when pushed to fire McClellen, asked Congressmen, "With whom?" Told
"anybody," he said he had to have "somebody."

And, don't give me "let the markets work."

They don't.

Adam Smith invented his invisible hand out of his Enlightenment Deism
background, a metaphysic refuted by two World Wars, the Holocaust, quantum
theory, and nuclear weapons, among many other things.

Dear tea-partiers in Duncanville and elsewhere

Get a clue.

If you need one, even though this isn’t PR by Faux News, start by reading this.

Beyond that?

First, you ARE represented. If (assuming you’re Republicans) your party is out of presidential power after eight years …

It¹s called “democracy.” Deal with it.

Fortunately, nobody I talked to personally is a Ron Paul-style goldbug, although many pity partiers (a truer name for them) are.

Gold has little intrinsic value; what pricing it has is largely assigned by human greed.

You want something material to back our Federal Reserve notes? Try oil or coal instead.
As for “overtaxed”? Nobody’s increased your tax rate. Even above $250,000, it’s still only being moved back to what it was when Clinton became president and less than what it was when Reagan left office.

And, offering a constructive alternative would be better than just mentally holding your breath over alleged overtaxation.

When I was at a protest recently, I had a constructive option nationalizing banks. I didn¹t offer a vague “something.”

As for tea-party pusher Dick Armey, if his flat tax idea is so good, why did he never, ever propose a flat tax for corporate income taxes?

Answer is ALWAYS the same.

Whether rich individuals or rich businesses, flat taxes always benefit the rich.

Wingnuts hoist by Homeland Security petard – militias revival?

Glenn Beck, Mark Steyn, Michelle Malkin, and other wingers who dismissed complaints that the Bush Administration’s Department of Homeland Security targeted antiwar activists and civil libertarians the past six years now find out that …

Homeland Security is really worried about the white supremacists, Richard Poplowski conspiracy theorists, etc., as conservative newspaper organ the Washington Times reports. (Here’s the full DHS report [PDF].)

Here’s your pull quote:

Rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat.

In other words, the old militias movement, waking back up.

At the same time, the Times story notes DHS warned in January about far-left groups increasing cyberattacks in the future.

Meanwhile, Brendan Calling reminds us exactly why we, and DHS, should worry.

Hat tip to Glenn Greenwald, who notes DHS started work on this report while Bush was still in office.

Kathleen Parker in danger of losing winger magic decoder ring

Wingnut columnists and talk radio hosts have been riding Kathleen Parker’s case for a few months about not wearing a tinfoil hat when talking about President Barack Obama.

Well, citing his “testosterone under control” diplomacy in his first major trip abroad, Parker says he acquitted himself well. The nutgraf is down at the bottom, re wingnuts:

Playground wisdom holds that showoffs are usually overcompensating, and the strongest one has nothing to prove. When you're the big dog, you can afford to smile. The saber is understood.

V(ictor) D(avis) Hanson and even shriller foreign policy bloviators, take note.

David Horowitz – Obama was born in Hawaii

When a winger as wingnutty as David Horowitz actually talks sense about the Barack Obama birth certificate non-controversy, maybe other wingnuts will listen up.

Or, maybe they’ll point to Horowitz’s long-ago left-wing past and claim he’s a cyborg now being “awakened.”

Some reader comments on Jammie Wearing Fool and Little Green Footballs indicate the latter is about as likely. In fairness, though, the majority of LGF folks claim they never believed it.

Jesse Helms, no principles; L.F. Eason, principles — where are national Democrats?

Eason, a 29-year employee with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture, resigned his $65K job rather than fly a flag at half-staff to commemorate Jesse Helms:

“Regardless of any executive proclamation, I do not want the flags at the North Carolina Standards Laboratory flown at half staff to honor Jesse Helms any time this week,” Eason wrote just after midnight, according to e-mail messages released in response to a public records request.

He told his staff that he did not think it was appropriate to honor Helms because of his "doctrine of negativity, hate, and prejudice" and his opposition to civil rights bills and the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Kind of a nice contrast to top national Democrats who sat on their lips after Helms’ death while the right-wing hagiography machine worked overtime.

Update: Michael Lind attempt to do a neolib rehabilitation of Helms. And fails.

Jesse Helms, no principles; L.F. Eason, principles — where are national Democrats?

Eason, a 29-year employee with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture, resigned his $65K job rather than fly a flag at half-staff to commemorate Jesse Helms:

“Regardless of any executive proclamation, I do not want the flags at the North Carolina Standards Laboratory flown at half staff to honor Jesse Helms any time this week,” Eason wrote just after midnight, according to e-mail messages released in response to a public records request.

He told his staff that he did not think it was appropriate to honor Helms because of his "doctrine of negativity, hate, and prejudice" and his opposition to civil rights bills and the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Kind of a nice contrast to top national Democrats who sat on their lips after Helms’ death while the right-wing hagiography machine worked overtime.

Update: Michael Lind attempt to do a neolib rehabilitation of Helms. And fails.