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.™

Boston blasts show depths of #wingnut #racism

There's no other way to put it, starting from when the wingnut New York Post made its claim a Saudi national was a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing, something that was hugely wrong.

Two days later then, other wingnuts claimed said Saudi was facing deportation. But, a Saudi facing deportation is NOT the one who was interviewed as a witness at the hospital (who never was a "suspect"). In this case, the wingnuttery extended to at least one member of Congress.

That all didn't stop the New York Post from doubling down on anti-Mooslim racism with more non-suspects. (And Rupert Murdoch from lying about it.)

However, actual still photos and the video immediately below show one of the two actual potential suspects is pretty damned Caucasian looking.



Meanwhile, could be plenty of non-Mooslim angles as far as possible suspects.

An anti-abortion terrorist, like Eric Rudolph at the Atlanta Olympics?

Or a white supremacist like Tim McVeigh at Oklahoma City?

Or a lone nut like the Unabomber.

But, this isn't all about organized wingnuts. On the original non-suspect, a bystander tackled him because "he looked suspicious." Did he look suspicious? Or did he look foreign? Or Mooslim? 

And, sometimes, the wingnuttery is just focused on the Democratic party. But, did you know that Barack Obama, the Democratic president of the United States, is an African-American?

So, we also get stuff like this.

The doorknobs are out in full force on Kenneth Curtis's arrest for mailing the ricin letters.

Now some  wingnuts are asking if the mainstream media is going to "hide" the fact that an obviously mentally ill man who mailed the ricin letters is a Democrat. (So far, no pix of him in blackface.)

Yes, because one's political affiliation causes paranoid schizophrenia. If true, then Chris Mooney would have schizophrenia to add to a second book on Republican brains.

This is one issue where Obama himself should be singing Kumbaya.

But not all Democrats.

Only half-joking — why doesn't somebody liquor up JoePa Biden and get him to deliver a stemwinder about this? It's what's needed. 

And, now we know who the real suspects are.

As for the real suspects, let's not we the people jump to too many conclusions yet, either. Contra Boston's police commissioner, if by "came here," he meant they emigrated to the U.S., I doubt either of the brothers came here to commit terrorist acts a decade ago, when the younger was just 9 years old. Hardly "sleeper cell" material. Theoretically, big city police departments of modern America are a step or two advanced beyond "Untouchables" days, but sometimes, I still wonder.

Beyond that, I have used the word "anomie" about people like this. They become disillusioned, detached, and feel separate. Cults and sects of all sorts (Scientology, anybody) prey on people like this. Many of said sects, it's true, aren't violent. But they all operate on similar principles Scott Atran wrote a book in part about reaching out to people like this, before they become radicalized Muslims.

That said, in Chechnya, how much of the terrorism is Islamism, and how much of that is the Islamic equivalent of caesaropapism, Islam being used in the service of nationalist separatism? 

 And, related to that, isn't the word "terrorism" often politicized? Tea Partiers go ape shit when Boston Tea Party participants are described as being, in part, terrorists, even though it fits, at least from the British Crown's point of view.

At the same time, as Daily Kos reminds us, arguably, a neolib like Dear Leader could have gone nutbar with drones had he had a hankering. And claimed it was all legal.

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.

Is Lincoln-Obama like Revere-Palin?

Yes, this is the latest wingnut bullshit, that what Barack Obama said about Abraham Lincoln is as historically ignorant as what Sarah Palin said about Paul Revere, as a Human Events blog claims.

The reality? As I emailed back:

First, to equate this to Palin on Revere is ridiculous and you know it.

On the legislation issues, presidents can indeed “mobilize.” Lincoln did so, especially with follow-ups to the initial [railroad] act; history records his multiple conversations with Oakes Ames. Lincoln did push for the Morrill Act, too.

On the transcontinental railroad and its finances, it doesn’t get built – period – without the triple federal subsidy of direct payment, alternating land-grant sections, and federal backing for railroad bonds.

You, sir, are either historically clueless yourself, more of a hack than you’d like to admit, or a mix of both. (They’re not mutually exclusive.)

Oh, and I’m a Green Party voter, so I’m not saying this to defend Obama, but rather to challenge deliberate inaccuracies of people like you.

That said, wingnuts won't listen.

On this issue, contra the blogger's take on Boehner's reaction, wingnuts don't like to be reminded that the GOP is so far away from being the "Party of Lincoln" it would need a warp drive to get back to being that.

That said, the real takeaway is that this is yet more one reason why Obama as Preznit Kumbaya is deluded. And was, two-plus years ago.

Wingers' top 10 reactions to Obama 50th

What do you get the Dear Leader of the Free World, who has said that he already gave himself a special present, namely, the debt ceiling deal? (He got the ceiling, we got the basement.)

Well, here's a few options:
1. A bill for repaying the federal government from House Republicans, who insist that any White House events must be privately funded.
2. Birthers scramble to check Obama's real Kenyan Soviet Union Martian birth certificate to see if he's actually under 35 and therefore ineligible for office.
3. Glenn Beck hangs him in effigy on TV.
4. Pam Gellar, noting the Muslim lunar year, asks if his age is in solar months or lunar ones.
5. Rush Limbaugh says its a socialist plot to brainwash anybody under the age of 50.
6. John Boehner gives him a certificate for a free round of golf ... if he supports a balanced budget amendment.
7. Congressman Joe Wilson repeats his "You lie" claim as to the truth of Obama turning 50.
8. Rick Perry offers to shoot him like a coyote.
9. The Koch Bros. start the new astroturf group: "Obama: The Real Birthday Truth."
10. Michele Bachmann claims that the birthday party is a gay socialistic plot to overthrow America as we know it.

KUDOS to NBC on "godless" pregolf Pledge

Before the start of the U.S. Open golf tournament's final round, NBC ran a special video segment of patriotic images and previous tournament winners, with a Pledge of Allegiance voiceover.

One "problem," which Red State wingnuttia immediately noticed. The Pledge was the original, pre-1954, pre-Red Scare version without the added phrase of "under god."

Here it is:



Unfortunately, corporate media NBC/Comcast then felt the need to apologize for this.

Wingnuts on Wis - trolls? deliberate stupids? Slavery advocates?

OK, a Forbes blogger gives a basic thumbnail of David Kay Johnson's excellent piece at tax.com (which I originally thought was a wingnut site itself just because of the URL) explaining that Wisconsin public workers who have a pension fund it 100 percent with their own contributions.

Their own money. 100 percent. NO state $$ contributed. Period. End of story.

So, Gov. Scott Walker is wrong.

Well, in commenting on the blog, wingnuts insist because the salaries are paid by taxpayers, Walker is still right to want to cut the pension funds.

Either wingnuts have reached a new level of stupid, or they've reached a new level of trollery. Or both. They're not mutually exclusive.

Or, they want the public workers to be reduced to lower and lower pay.

Look, folks, you need to bitch at the right-wing CEOs at private sector companies who won't give you raises. Redirect your anger to where it should be focused.

Walker is high on Koch

Yes, Scott Walker, the new GOP governor of Wisconsin, is high on Koch - money from the Koch brothers, that is. The Center for Media and Democracy has details.

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.

Beyond Obama birthers to DNAers

Oy. The real purpose of these folks isn't to find Obama's alleged actual father, it's to humiliate him. The Malcolm X as Obama's father claim, if it didn't start with NYC nutbar Pam Gellar, at least got massive airplay from her. As for to whom you would compare Obama's DNA, that's easy - any black male at least 20 years older than Obama who ever got arrested. That's the "humiliate" part.

Dear Rick Perry: Andrew Jackson promised to hang ‘nullifiers’

When South Carolinians made noises about “nullifying” the federal tariff, President Andrew Jackson promised to personally lead the Army to Charleston and hang nullifiers.

So, STFU about your own “nullification” ideas, because that’s exactly what they are.

If Little Ricky Perry is for it, I’m agin it

That includes Gov. Helmethair’s near incitement to riot of Austin tea-partiers. Can’t Travis DA David Escamilla indict him for disturbing the peace?

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.