Here we go...

Just to show that my cynicism knows no party, I find it fascinating that all of a sudden we have bomb materials allegedly coming into this country just as the TSA is rolling out full-body scanners at Newark Airport -- a place I'm going on Sunday. (For the record? I'll take the pat-down, thank you very much. When you have hospitals who have trained staff who can't get the radiation dosage right in CT scans, do you really want to trust your health a bunch of semi-skilled TSA agents with a radiation-emitting machine? I don't.)

But assuming all this is NOT utter horseshit (and that may be a big assumption), after reading some of the breathless coverage of "The Thwarted Terrorist Attack™", I figured I'd take a gander around among the denizens of wingnuttia and find out how they were going to invert the situation such that a warning of an attack paid heed by a black Democratic president and thwarted puts us at peril, while a warning ignored by a white Republica president who doesn't want to be bothered while on vacation and which results in the deaths of 3000 people is somehow keeping us safe.

Of course the first place one goes when embarking on such an adventure of wading into this fetid cesspool is the endorser of the murderous Ilario Pantaro, Little Pammy Geller, who does not disappoint, claiming that "Obama is very much part of the problem." (I guess because he actually worked to stop the thing, unlike her Texas dimwit hero.)

Over at Lucianne.com, commenters who would call anyone crazy who believed in the Reagan "October Surprise" are already insisting this is one.

Liz Cheney is already out there blaming Obama. At the same link, Donald Douglas is confused because Obama is calmly informing the public instead of sitting like a deer in the headlights in a third-grade classroom and then flying all over the country all day. For this bunch, thwarting a terrorist attack makes you weak, but allowing one to happen and then talking tough makes you a tough guy. Calmly assessing a situation makes you weak, running around like a chicken without a head is toughness. That is Republican Reality -- the kind of reality that used to be limited to crazy street people and that guy who used to post ads in the Village Voice who claimed that he was killed by alien death rays and replaced by a CIA double.

Oddly, the Freepers aren't even on this yet. I guess they aren't as ingenious as Pammy in coming up with ways to argue that stopping an attack makes you a traitor while sitting by while one plays out makes you a hero of Outer Wingnuttia.

No Christian terrorism? Guess again

How about THIS religion of hate:

Federal authorities have charged South Rowan High School graduate with conspiring to bomb a North Carolina clinic where abortions are performed.

Justin Carl Moose, 26, of 93 Mary Circle, Concord, was arrested Tuesday morning in China Grove by the FBI, according to information provided by the Department of Justice and court documents.

He is charged with providing information related to the making, use or manufacturing of an explosive, destructive device or weapon of mass destruction to a person Moose believed was planning to bomb a North Carolina clinic. Authorities did not identify the clinic.

According to an affadavit accompanying a criminal complaint, Moose provided detailed instructions to a confidential FBI informant who told Moose he wanted to bomb a clinic where a friend’s wife was planning to have an abortion.

The affadavit alleges Moose used Facebook as a platform to advocate violence against women’s health-care clinics where abortions are performed and the people who work there.

[snip]

The affadavit says that starting Jan. 19, Moose made numerous statements “advocating the use of violence in order to affect his ideological and political beliefs. The majority of these postings relate the issue of abortion and the murder of abortion providers.”

One posting on Aug. 22 was “List of death camps with address’ Do with it what you wish.” The affadavit says that post referred to a list of abortion clinics throughout the nation.

Another post, on Aug. 3, provided a link to a website that authorities say contained a recipe for making explosives. In a post the next day, the affadavit says, Moose warned advised readers how to use the explosives without harming themselves.

On Aug. 23, the affadavit says, Moose posted this:?“To all the feds watching me:?You can’t stop what is in motion. Even if you bring me in, my men will continue their mission. Furthermore, I?will not go peacefully. Do you really want another Waco?”

The affadavit says the Facebook page also contained four videos, including one called “Hey Man Nice Shot,”?which the affadavit calls “a tribute to individuals who had murdered abortion clinic doctors.”

FBI?agents also looked at Moose’s MySpace account, the affadavit said, and found pictures including those of a young girl holding an assault rifle and others that appear to show “some of the basic elements of an improvised explosive device.”

After obtaining a search warrant, the FBI got access to private messages on Moose’s Facebook account, the affadavit says. In one, Moose wrote, “If there’s any good that I?do, I?give the glory to my father God. And if there’s any bad I?do, well I guess I?can take credit for that :) As far as I’m concerned nothing is off limits to stop abortion. Anything and everything goes.”

In another private message, he wrote: “...there was an experience that made me a militant... My entire life has centered around the art of making war. Destruction is what I?know best... I realize that the Holy Spirit has been preparing me to teach and lead others... Over the next few weeks (or months...) I will be writing down all that I have learned over the years concerning destructive devices, sabotage, covert operations, and survival skills.”

This heinous act was not committed by Muslims

Also via Blue Girl:

A man apparently bent on destroying the police headquarters in McKinney was shot and killed this morning after spraying the building with bullets.

Police say 29-year-old Patrick Gray Sharp drove a Ford F150 pickup pulling a trailer to the station and set it on fire in an apparent attempt to draw people out of the building. Inside the trailer, police said, were wood chips, roadside flares, gasoline, and ammonium nitrate fertilizer, the type used in the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.

"He had a plan. He was executing his plan," McKinney Police Chief Doug Kowalski said at an afternoon news conference at which he confirmed Sharp's identity and talked about the unusual nature of the attack.

Live from the intersection of Hate Avenue and Ignorance Lane

Climate scientists are receiving death threats -- which escalate every time Rush Limbaugh opens his piehole:

Climate scientists in the US say police inaction has left them defenceless in the face of a torrent of death threats and hate mail, leaving them fearing for their lives and one to contemplate arming himself with a handgun.

The scientists say the threats have increased since the furore over leaked emails from the University of East Anglia began last November, and a sample of the hate mail sent in recent months and seen by the Guardian reveals the scale and vitriolic tone of the abuse.

The scientists revealed they have been told to "go gargle razor blades" and have been described as "Nazi climate murderers". Some emails have been sent to them without any attempt by the sender to disguise their identity. Even though the scientists have received advice from the FBI, the local police say they are not able to act due to the near-total tolerance of "freedom of speech" in the US.

The problem appears less severe in the UK but, Professor Phil Jones, the UEA scientist at the centre of the hacked email controversy, revealed in February he had been receiving two death threats a week and had contemplated suicide. "People said I should go and kill myself," he said. "They said that they knew where I lived. They were coming from all over the world." The third and final independent review into the issues raised by the hacked UEA emails is due to be published on Wednesday when Sir Muir Russell presents his panel's conclusions.

Professor Stephen Schneider, a climatologist based at Stanford University in California, whose name features in the UEA emails, says he has received "hundreds" of violently abusive emails since last November. The peak came in December during the Copenhagen climate change summit, he said, but the number has picked up again in recent days since he co-authored a scientific paper last month which showed that 97%-98% of climate scientists agree that mankind's carbon emissions are causing global temperatures to increase.

Schneider described his attackers as "cowards" and said he had observed an "immediate, noticeable rise" in emails whenever climate scientists were attacked by prominent right-wing US commentators, such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.

"[The senders] are not courageous people," said Schneider. "Where are they getting their information from? They just listen to assertions made on blogs and rightwing talkshows. It's pathetic."

Schneider said the FBI had taken an interest earlier this year when his name appeared on a "death list" on a neo-Nazi website alongside other climate scientists with apparent Jewish ancestry. But, to date, no action has been taken.

"The effect on me has been tremendous," said Schneider. "Some of these people are mentally imbalanced. They are invariably gun-toting rightwingers. What do I do? Learn to shoot a Magnum? Wear a bullet-proof jacket? I have now had extra alarms fitted at my home and my address is unlisted. I get scared that we're now in a new Weimar republic where people are prepared to listen to what amounts to Hitlerian lies about climate scientists."

Meanwhile, back in reality:

A sobering new report warns that oceans face a "fundamental and irreversible ecological transformation" not seen in millions of years as greenhouse gases and climate change already have affected temperature, acidity, sea and oxygen levels, the food chain and possibly major currents that could alter global weather.

The report, in Science magazine, doesn't break a lot of new ground, but it brings together dozens of studies that collectively paint a dismal picture of deteriorating ocean health.

"This is further evidence we are well on our way to the next great extinction event," said Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, the director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland in Australia and a co-author of the report.

John Bruno, an associate professor of marine sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the report's other co-author, isn't quite as alarmist, but he's equally concerned.

"We are becoming increasingly certain that the world's marine ecosystems are reaching tipping points," Bruno said, adding, "We really have no power or model to foresee" the effect.

The oceans, which cover 71 percent of the Earth's surface, have played a dominant role in regulating the planet's climate. However, even as the understanding of what's happening to terrestrial ecosystems as a result of climate change has grown, studies of marine ecosystems have lagged, the report says. The oceans are acting as a heat sink for rising temperatures and have absorbed about one-third of the carbon dioxide produced by human activities.

Among other things, the report notes:

* The average temperature of the upper level of the oceans has increased more than 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past 100 years, and global ocean surface temperatures in January were the second-warmest ever recorded for that month.

* Though the increase in acidity is slight, it represents a "major departure" from the geochemical conditions that have existed in the oceans for hundreds of thousands if not millions of years.

* Nutrient-poor "ocean deserts" in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans grew by 15 percent, or roughly 2.5 million square miles, from 1998 to 2006.

* Oxygen concentrations have been dropping off the Northwest U.S. coast and the coast of southern Africa, where dead zones are appearing regularly. There is paleontological evidence that declining oxygen levels in the oceans played a major role in at least four or five mass extinctions.

* Since the early 1980s, the production of phytoplankton, a crucial creature at the lower end of the food chain, has declined 6 percent, with 70 percent of the decline found in the northern parts of the oceans. Scientists also have found that phytoplankton are becoming smaller.

Volcanic activity and large meteorite strikes in the past have "resulted in hostile conditions that have increased extinction rates and driven ecosystem collapse," the report says. "There is now overwhelming evidence human activities are driving rapid changes on a scale similar to these past events.

"Many of these changes are already occurring within the world's oceans with serious consequences likely over the coming years."

There is going to be a time, and it's not long off, when these idiots insisting that climate change is either nonexistent or not caused by anything we do, will be faced with the reality that our profligate ways over the last fifty years have doomed us to a world of hunger and instability. And even then, Rush Limbaugh will tell them it's all imaginary -- from the comfort of his guarded, gated mansion.

Dispatch from Idiot America

Memo to Russell Hesch: Dexter Morgan is a FICTIONAL character:

A 73-year-old Michigan man and his son who lives in Colorado have been accused of sending U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak a letter threatening to spill the blood of the congressman and his family for his vote in favor of the health care reform legislation in March.

In 2007, a letter from Hesch was published in the Ogemaw County Herald in which he criticized Stupak for his support of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Supporting Pelosi was akin to voting to “abandon the American concept of victory over our enemies and to emberace defeat,” the letter states.

“In light of America’s enemies joyfully embracing and encouraging you and Pelosi along with the entire Democrat Party…do you intend to continue to support position that can only be regarded as seditious at best?”

The letter is signed, Russell J. Hesch, LTC USA (Ret), and several West Branch area officials and residents said today he was well known and mostly respected within the community.

[snip]

FBI Special Agent Travis Lloyd, in a court affidavit, said Russell Hesch provided authorities a signed statement last Friday indicating he had written the threatening letter to Stupak and sent it to his son in Colorado with instructions to mail it from Denver so it couldn’t be traced back to either of them.

The letter was sent in an envelope that said “Stupak family” and was titled “Your Vote for National Health Care.” In it, the author accused Stupak of having “sold your sole (sic) to the devil.”

“Actions and decisions carry consequences,” it went on to say, naming Stupak’s wife and son by name. It then referenced the Showtime show “Dexter,” in which a police employee is also a serial killer, murdering those he believes should die.

This is the same kind of mindset that thinks Sarah Palin is winking at them and that George W. Bush would be a good buddy to have. It's a mindset that thinks Jack Bauer is real; a mind so limited that it thinks there are people living inside their TVs.

The Day in Crazy

Today's crazy comes from new Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle, who has taken the lead over Sue "Chicken" Lowden. Angle, an avid tea partier, has all but threatened assassination of the President by one of her frothing, mindless minions (emphasis mine):

"We're called as Americans to be vigilant to protect our liberty," she said in a recent interview. "At some point in each of our lives, we're called to service to defend and protect our Constitution."

In Angle's eyes, the country is under attack and she's willing to go to battle.

"What is a little bit disconcerting and concerning is the inability for sporting goods stores to keep ammunition in stock," she said. "That tells me the nation is arming. What are they arming for if it isn't that they are so distrustful of their government? They're afraid they'll have to fight for their liberty in more Second Amendment kinds of ways?

"That's why I look at this as almost an imperative. If we don't win at the ballot box, what will be the next step?"

What indeed. Why don't you tell us, Sharron? We're all ears.

"All these Tim McVeigh wannabes here"

Watch as Sean Hannity's audience applauds him calling them "Tim McVeigh wannabes" -- as if that's a GOOD thing.

In case you've forgotten, or are too young to remember, this is what Tim McVeigh, the angry punk that the teabaggers who now control the Republican Party regard as a hero did:


But wingnuts don't want to see this photo, nor do they want to think about the outgrowth of their racist white supremacist insanity. Instead, they come up with this:

Catherine Crabill, a homeschooling mom and realtor who says "our Second Amendment rights were to guard against tyranny" and believes that the U.S. government was responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing,  is challenging incumbent Republican U.S. Congressman Rob Wittman.

[snip]

When contacted by the Washington Post in 2009, Crabill also defended remarks she made 15 years ago about the Oklahoma City bombing being orchestrated by the U.S. Federal government. Crabill was a member of "a militia known as the New Mexico Citizens Action Association", and had told the Washington Times "this heinous act of violence was the work of our government," which will "use it as an excuse to aggressively attack the growing militia movement across the country."

[snip]

"But Crabill also reiterated her view yesterday that the U.S. government was behind the Oklahoma City bombing, saying her views found support in a report by retired Brig. General Benton K. Pardin arguing that on the April 1995 bombing could not have happened without the assistance of internally placed demolition charges. She said the idea of her own government deliberately killing its citizens seemed farfetched even to her until the tragedy at Waco and the violent confrontation with Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge in the 1990s."It would have been unbelievable if we hadn't seen [former Attorney General] Janet Reno destroy all those innocent people in Waco," Crabill said."

Gun control has been taken completely off the Democratic Party's list of issues. Barack Obama has said ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about wanting to take people's guns. But every time there is a Democratic president, these people go absolutely bonkers, even though it was George W. Bush, after the 9/11 attacks, who presented the greatest threat to Americans' freedom to say what they want, do what they want, go where they want.

When the Oklahoma City bombings occurred, the militia movement was regarded as fringe. Now it has taken over the Democratic Party and a good chunk of the mainstream media. Fox News is essentially the network of the Aryan Nation and the militias. A man who was once regarded as a domestic terrorist is now held up as a hero by a television talking head.

We are in serious trouble.

Remember this?

Remember how all the Usual Suspects freaked out when in April 2009 the Department of Homeland security issued a report on the threat of right-wing extremism?

DHS/I&A assesses that a number of economic and political factors are
driving a resurgence in rightwing extremist recruitment and radicalization activity.
Despite similarities to the climate of the 1990s, the threat posed by lone wolves and small
terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years. In addition, the historical election of an African American president and the prospect of policy changes are proving to be a driving force for rightwing extremist recruitment and radicalization.

[snip]

Rightwing extremists are harnessing this historical election as a recruitment
tool. Many rightwing extremists are antagonistic toward the new presidential
administration and its perceived stance on a range of issues, including immigration and
citizenship, the expansion of social programs to minorities, and restrictions on firearms ownership and use. Rightwing extremists are increasingly galvanized by these concerns and leverage them as drivers for recruitment. From the 2008 election timeframe to the present, rightwing extremists have capitalized on related racial and political prejudices in expanded propaganda campaigns, thereby reaching out to a wider audience of potential sympathizers.

[snip]

Most statements by rightwing extremists have been rhetorical, expressing concerns about the election of the first African American president, but stopping short of calls for violent action. In two instances in the run-up to the election, extremists appeared to be in the early planning stages of some threatening activity targeting the Democratic nominee, but law enforcement interceded.

Of course now that has changed, with calls for vandalism of Democratic offices, death threats against Democratic legislators, open calls for killing those who disagree...

Perhaps the right wing freakout at the time was because those who were even then fanning the flames of violence knew it was spot-on accurate. It just took time for what the DHS reported a year ago to reach critical mass.

Domestic terrorists can get a slap on the wrist -- if they are right-wing domestic terrorists

In Kansas, a terroristic murder may be punishable by only five years in prison -- if the murder is a wingnut misogynist zealot:

Jury selection begins Monday in the trial of Scott Roeder, who is accused of killing a Kansas doctor known for performing late-term abortions.

Police and prosecutors say Mr. Roeder walked into the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita last May 31 and shot Dr. George Tiller once in the head.

Mr. Roeder has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. But in phone calls from jail, he has told news organizations that he killed Dr. Tiller -- an act he said was justified to protect unborn children.

In a pretrial hearing Friday, Kansas Judge Warren Wilbert said he might allow the defense to present evidence that Mr. Roeder acted in defense of others -- in this case, fetuses -- whom he believed to be under imminent threat. The judge said he would make that call as the trial proceeded, on a witness-by-witness basis.

"He said it's probably a very tough burden for us to meet, but he didn't rule it out," said defense lawyer Mark Rudy, adding that he was satisfied with the ruling.

Judge Wilbert also said he was open to the defense presenting evidence that Mr. Roeder might be guilty not of first-degree murder, which carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison, but of the far lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter, which carries a sentence of about five years.

It is conservatives who are emboldening the enemy

It's out there. It's very, very faint right now, but it's trying to get louder. That sound you hear is the recognition, even among some in the media, that screaming "The terrorists are gonna getcha!" is not exactly the way to project strength and courage in the face of a threat. Getting a boner over an attempted terrorist attack for political gain is not the way to show how much you love your country. Hoping for another attack because you think it'll help you regain power is what traitors do, not what patriots do. Jonathan Alter advocates that Barack Obama meet with Dick Cheney -- not to find common ground, but to tell him in no uncertain terms that his remarks are traitorous and to shut the fuck up. Chris Matthews chastises Politico for serving as the official media outlet of Cheney's ravings. And the more unhinged the right gets, the more they look like fearmongers and less like national security experts...and the more their lust for absolute power demonstrates that they WANT terrorists to succeed. They WANT death on a mass scale here in this country. They WANT these things because they think it will bring them back to power.

Who's emoboldening terrorists? Who's egging them on? It isn't liberals and it isn't President Obama. It's the very right wing that fancies itself to be the "real patriots":

As I noted yesterday, it is true that one of the goals of terrorism is to elicit a wild over-reaction from the target government, resulting in greater publicity and a larger pool of potential recruits for the terrorists’ cause, and so any response has to be balanced against that. But the idea that “the strategic goals of al Qaeda” are better advanced by more security theater at American airports than they were by, say, inducing the United States to invade and occupy two Muslim countries and engage in a global campaign of kidnapping and torture, is just ridiculous on its face.

But this is largely beside the point, because conservatives like Kristol, Hume, and Doan aren’t genuinely (or at least primarily) interested in analyzing threats and policies to deal with them, they’re interested in promoting a specific, and politically advantageous, narrative about the nature of those threats. And apparently, the possibility of those threats serving as Al Qaeda propaganda is a price they’re willing to pay in order to achieve that political advantage.

And that's what nutballs like Peter King and Jim DeMint and the rest of these assholes need to be told...repeatedly....everytime they open their idiotic pieholes.

Meet Your Republican Party, or I can't believe the Democrats are going to lose seats to these people next year

This is what happens when you listen to Rahm Emanuel, Mr. President -- or worse, if you yourself believe that the way to enact change is to capitulate to a political party that does this:

“Health care costs have soared,” Herger said. “But I will oppose a public option with everything I have.”

Speakers included several opposed to Obama holding up copies of the Constitution and asking Herger to show where it says Congress has the right to be involved in health care.

Herger said the federal government does have a limited role to play in health care noting, “We do lots of things that are not in the Constitution.”

“There are things we can do with health care, as long as the government is not running it,” Herger said.

One speaker said he could trace his ancestors back to the Mayflower and said “they did not arrive holding their hands out for help.”

“I am a proud right wing terrorist,” he declared to cheers.

Herger praised the man’s attitude.

“Amen, God bless you,” Herger said with a broad smile. “There is a great American.”

Yes, folks, that is the Republican Party -- a party that defines "great Americans" as people who proudly identify themselves as "right wing terrorists."

If Tim McVeigh were alive today, he would be as welcomed into Republican arms as Not-Joe the Not-a-Plumber is. Because to today's Republican Party, this:


...is the work of "great Americans".

(h/t)

Monday Big Blue Smurf Blogging: What They Said

Today's honoree: Melissa, who writes a letter to President Obama.

Money quote:

This was a terrorist act, one in an ongoing campaign against Dr. Tiller, who was one target among many in a bigger campaign against women and the people who provide abortion services and safe havens for them—but no one in our government will call it terrorism. There are, in fact, a lot of things that don't get called terrorism in this country, but few of them approach the breadth of the long-term, flagrant campaign of intimidation, harassment, exhorted violence, attempted violence, actual violence, and murder of abortion providers and abortion-seeking women.

Still, our government is unwilling to call this orchestrated, overt, unapologetic campaign against women and their healthcare providers terrorism, even as increasing numbers of doctors say offering the legal service to their patients is not worth the risk—the very definition of effective terrorism. Even as physician champions of women's right to choose are murdered in cold blood. Even as "pro-life" groups openly celebrate his death and take the position that he deserved it.

[snip]

Your statement, upon hearing of Dr. Tiller's death, was that you are "shocked" and "outraged," that you believe: "However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence." Mr. President, if you had been paying the slightest bit of attention to the realities of the front line of the fight to protect women's bodily autonomy, you would not be shocked. This wasn't even the first attempt on Dr. Tiller's life; it was the merely the first successful one.

I'm angry because you have been admonishing pro-choice advocates to respect the views of anti-choice activists, despite the fact there is very good reason not to afford a modicum of respect for a viewpoint that would force women to relinquish control over their own bodies to the state. I'm angry because you don't seem to get that both sides of this "debate" aren't equal, and it's not just because one side contains mainstream organizations who tacitly encourage the murder of doctors.

Funny how the people who had canniptions about Hillary Clinton's role in the Clinton White House are silent on the subject of Todd Palin

When I see Todd and Sarah Palin on television, she's the flashy one. She's the one with the lunatic gleam in her eye; the Greg Stillson figure; the apocalyptic nutjob who thinks that if she can just get power and do what's necessary to get Jesus to return, she'll get a free upgrade to a balcony suite with a minibar and concierge service in Hotel Heaven. Todd, by comparison, doesn't look like quite as crazed as his wife does; he's just your garden-variety vindictive thug.

I guess that part of the IOKIYAR rule is that when the spouse is a man, sharing an elected office to which he was not elected is perfectly OK as well. But Todd Palin is one nasty piece of work, as Bill Boyarsky reveals:

A fascinating picture of Todd Palin's influence in Alaska's capital is provided in the report of a legislative investigation that concluded that Gov. Palin unlawfully abused her power in seeking the firing of a state trooper once married to her sister. The report, released Friday, also criticized Palin for allowing Todd Palin to push hard for the dismissal of Trooper Mike Wooten.

Wooten had been married to the governor's sister. Their divorce was messy. So, apparently, was Wooten's career as a trooper. He had been accused of illegally shooting a moose, drinking beer in a patrol car and using a Taser gun on his stepson. He was disciplined before Palin became governor and was allowed to remain a trooper.

When Palin took over, the Wooten case was high on the family agenda, with Todd Palin leading the effort to get rid of the trooper. As Associated Press writer Mike Apuzzo put it in his story on the report, Todd Palin had "extraordinary access to the governor's office" and he "used that access to try to get [Wooten] fired."

His target was Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan, who said he lost his job because he refused to fire Wooten.

The report, by investigator Stephen Branchflower, a retired state prosecutor, shows how Todd Palin operates.

Monegan's secretary, Cassandra Byrne, said that on Jan. 4, 2007, she received a phone call from the governor's office. An aide told her "the First Gentleman would like to have a meeting with Commissioner Walt Monegan. At the time, I was not familiar with the term 'First Gentleman.' So I kept asking 'Who?' and she eventually said 'Todd Palin.' I said, 'Oh, OK,' so we set the time and the place which was the governor's office in Anchorage. "

Investigator Branchflower said that when Monegan arrived there he was directed into the governor's office. Todd Palin, wearing a business suit, was alone, waiting for him. "Mr. Palin was seated at a large conference table and invited Mr. Monegan to sit," the report said.

Monegan said, "What I recalled was Todd sitting there. He had three stacks of paper in an array in front of him" dealing with the Wooten case. One was from the Department of Public Safety, under which Alaska state troopers serve.

Monegan told Branchflower that he got "the impression that Todd was not happy with the investigation [that the department had made before disciplining Wooten].

"He told me that he [Wooten] just got a few days off [suspension] and didn't think that was enough. And this guy shouldn't be a trooper."

Describing Todd Palin, Monegan said, "I saw someone who was somewhat animated. Not certainly out of control but he was passionate about how he was addressing the issue.

"And my impression was that he was venting. I mean there was a complaint, the troopers investigated it and that they had come up with a conclusion and that he was not happy with the conclusion."

The telling vignette shows Todd Palin's position in the governor's office. Dressed in a business suit, seated behind a big conference table with state documents in front of him, he tried to tell the state's top cop how to do his job.

I wonder what the people who scream out at Todd Palin's wife's rallies that Barack Obama should be killed for being a terrorist would think if they knew that the First Dude only left tha Alaska Independence Party when it became potentially politically embarrassing for his spouse. They'd probably think it's OK. Because after all, terrorism is only terrorism when it comes from the left. Right-wing terrorists are "pro-lifers" and "freedom fighters."

And Sarah Palin gets a free pass

I guess the mainstream media are jerking off to televised images of Sarah Palin too. How else do you explain the obsession with Barack Obama's passing acquaintance with someone who was a radical 40 years ago, while Sarah Palin's far more recent and far closer involvement with people who are avowedly anti-American goes ignored?

Robert Kennedy Jr. writes about Sarah 'n' Todd's affinity with the Alaska Independence Party:

But if McCarthy-era guilt-by-association is once again a valid political consideration, Palin, it would seem, has more to lose than Obama. Palin, it could be argued, following her own logic, thinks so little of America's perfection that she continues to "pal around" with a man--her husband, actually--who only recently terminated his seven-year membership in the Alaskan Independence Party. Putting plunder above patriotism, the members of this treasonous cabal aim to break our country into pieces and walk away with Alaska's rich federal oil fields and one-fifth of America's land base--an area three-fourths the size of the Civil War Confederacy.

AIP's charter commits the party "to the ultimate independence of Alaska," from the United States which it refers to as "the colonial bureaucracy in Washington." It proclaims Alaska's 1959 induction as a state "as illegal and in violation of the United Nations charter and international law."

AIP's creation was inspired by the rabidly violent anti-Americanism of its founding father Joe Vogler, "I'm an Alaskan, not an American," reads a favorite Vogler quote on AIP's current website, "I've got no use for America or her damned institutions." According to Vogler AIP's central purpose was to drive Alaska's secession from the United States. Alaska, says current Chairwoman Lynette Clark, "should be an independent nation."

Vogler was murdered in 1993 during an illegal sale of plastic explosives that went bad. The prior year, he had renounced his allegiance to the United States explaining that, "The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government." He cursed the stars and stripes, promising, "I won't be buried under their damned flag...when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones home." Palin has never denounced Vogler or his detestable anti-Americanism.

Palin's husband Todd remained an AIP party member from 1995 to 2002. Sarah can be described in McCarthy-era palaver as a "fellow traveler." While retaining her Republican registration, she attended the AIP's 1994 convention where the party called for a draft constitution to secede from the United States and create an independent nation of Alaska. The McCain Campaign has reluctantly acknowledged that she also attended AIP's 2000 Convention. She apparently found the experience so inspiring that she agreed to give a keynote address at the AIP's 2006 convention and she recorded a video greeting for this year's 2008 convention. In other words, this is not something that happened when she was eight!

So when Palin accuses Barack of "not seeing the same America as you and me," maybe she is referring to an America without Alaska. In any case, isn't it time the media start giving equal time to Palin's buddy list of anti-American bombers and other radical associates?

My guess it's because William Ayers allows the Republicans to continue to fight the 1960's wars, both cultural and military, all over again, in perpetuity. What's interesting is that William Ayers doesn't feel the need to fight them over and over and over again; only the Nixonian/McCain side does.

I'm surprised it took this long

Sarah Palin has finally jumped the shark:

And while we're on the subject of "palling around with terrorists," do you think Tom Brokaw will ask John McCain why, if Sarah Palin is so concerned about patriotism, she's supported the work of the secessionist Alaska Independence Party?

And if Camp Grandpa is so concerned about terrorists, why has John McCain refused to protect women and doctors against American religious extremist murderers?

McCain and his aging prom queen running mate want to talk about domestic terrorists? Bring it on, assholes.

A terrorist attack on U.S. soil

There has been another terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

It was committed by Americans:

Baboucarr Njie was preparing for his prayer session Friday night, Sept. 26, when he heard children in the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton coughing. Soon, Njie himself was overcome with fits of coughing and, like the rest of those in the building, headed for the doors.

"I would stay outside for a minute, then go back in, there were a lot of kids," Njie said. "My throat is still itchy, I need to get some milk."

Njie was one of several affected when a suspected chemical irritant was sprayed into the mosque at 26 Josie St., bringing Dayton police, fire and hazardous material personnel to the building at 9:48 p.m.

Someone "sprayed an irritant into the mosque," Dayton fire District Chief Vince Wiley said, noting that fire investigators believe it was a hand-held spray can.

According to fire dispatch communications, a child reported seeing two men with a white can spraying something into a window. That child was brought to the supervising firefighter at the scene.

Take a look in the mirror, America. Do you like what you see?

Do you feel "safe"?

When we look back upon the George W. Bush years in this country, the notion of "keeping Americans safe" has been the mantra used by this Administration to justify any number of policies and practices that make a mockery of that for which this country is supposed to stand. Whether it's using lies about weapons of mass destruction to justify an unnecessary war that's about family grudges and oil greed, or mass surveillance of Americans, or creating "free speech zones" far away from where our leaders can see them, or bellicose fist-waving at Iran, the justification for every crime, every travesty committed by this bunch of criminals has been "Our job is to keep you safe from the terrorists."

But there are many kinds of terrorists, as we now see.

On December 9, 1994, the United Nations adopted resolution 49/60 ("Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism"), which defined terrorism as:

Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them.

I'd say that under this definition, the entire mortgage/lending scam that has put the global economy on the brink of collapse qualifies as international terrorism, wouldn't you?

We've been conditioned to think of "feeling safe" as a function of how close swarthy Middle Eastern men are to us on a day-to-day basis. But sometimes terrorists wear starched white shirts and pinstriped suits and appear on CNBC every day.

Do you "feel safe" these days? Do you feel safe in your job? Do you feel safe that your invested money is going to not even necessarily grow, but even be there when you retire? Do you feel safe that you're going to be able to keep your house, no matter when you bought or how much equity you have? Do you feel safe about your future?

I know I don't.

Part of the national psyche of the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks was this constant, gnawing sense of dread, that It Might Happen Again. Of course these fears were fed by the Bush Administration, with its color-coded alerts and its press conferences to reveal dire threats that had no basis in truth, and its talk of drone planes and killer cows and crop dusters and poisoned pens. But while the Bush Administration and their Congressional lackeys were scaring the bejeezus out of Americans, they were silently picking our pockets to stuff even more into their own, which were already bulging with cash from the Bush tax cuts. And when Americans started to realize that their wallets had a few less George Washingtons in them, the Republicans created the Immigrant Boogeyman; as if the guy who climbs on your roof to clean your gutters is the reason you don't have a middle management job anymore. The Bush years have been characterized by fear -- fear and loathing.

And now here we are. Millions of Americans are going to lose their homes. Millions more are losing their jobs and millions more will continue to. Those who managed to put some money away for retirement because God knows we can't rely on Social Security to be there are finding that 30% or more of the value of their accounts has disappeared.

There are many ways to be terrorized. Islamic radicals may have terrorized us seven years ago. But our own government, and the titans of the financial community, took over where they left off.

OK, then, did HE choose the targets -- or did someone else?

Pardon me if my Spidey-sense starts tingling just a little bit with this news:

A top U.S. biodefense researcher apparently committed suicide just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax mailings that traumatized the nation in the weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a published report.

The scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who worked for the past 18 years at the government's biodefense labs at Fort Detrick, Md., had been told about the impending prosecution, the Los Angeles Times reported for Friday editions. The laboratory has been at the center of the FBI's investigation of the anthrax attacks, which killed five people.

Ivins died Tuesday at Frederick Memorial Hospital in Maryland. The Times, quoting an unidentified colleague, said the scientist had taken a massive dose of a prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine.

OK, let me first ask this; How did he get a massive dose of prescription Tylenol with codeine? Anyone who's ever been prescribed codeine in any form knows that you only get the bare minimum that you need.

OK, I'll buy that the government's claim after settling with Steven Hatfull that they were "making significant progress" means they were closing in on this guy. I'll even buy that a scientist would commit suicide before going to prison for sending anthrax-laced letters to Americans. But what gets the Spidey-sense going is this: Why these targets?

A quick Google search reveals almost nothing on Bruce E. Ivins other than articles about his suicide and some research papers on post-exposure vaccination. No ties to wingnut groups, nothing suspicious -- except that nagging problem of the nature of the targets of the attacks. Not a conservative in the bunch, and all of them people or buildings associated with people vexing to George W. Bush. I'm not going to put the tinfoil on just yet, but there is a very slight odor coming from this news.

UPDATE: Richard Blair isn't afraid to don his tinfoil chapeau, and makes a compelling case that something about all this doth stinketh to high heaven.

Shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre

Yesterday I was in Manhattan interviewing, and I feel a bit as if I've been off on another planet for a few days. So thanks to the newly prolific and resurgent jurassicpork for weighing in on the shooting at a Unitarian Universalist church in Tennessee.

I'm less charitable than JP is, however. While I agree that people like Jim David Adkisson as the exception rather than the rule, and that the entire conservative movement doesn't advocate killing liberals, there is such a thing as incitement to riot. Riot needn't take the form of mobs of people running in the streets. One person can be a riot, and in this case, a one-person riot set out to kill people because their religious and political beliefs differed from his own.

When Adkisson's house was searched, they found treatises by the Usual Suspects:

Adkisson targeted the church, Still wrote in the document obtained by WBIR-TV, Channel 10, "because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country's hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets."

Adkisson told Still that "he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement that he would then target those that had voted them in to office."

Adkisson told officers he left the house unlocked for them because "he expected to be killed during the assault."

Inside the house, officers found "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by radio talk show host Michael Savage, "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show host Sean Hannity, and "The O'Reilly Factor," by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly.

The shotgun-wielding suspect in Sunday's mass shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church was motivated by a hatred of "the liberal movement," and he planned to shoot until police shot him, Knoxville Police Chief Sterling P. Owen IV said this morning.

Adkisson, 58, of Powell wrote a four-page letter in which he stated his "hatred of the liberal movement," Owen said. "Liberals in general, as well as gays."

Adkisson said he also was frustrated about not being able to obtain a job, Owen said.

I suspect that the last sentence is the real crux of Adkisson's problem, but in a season when the media drumbeat is relentless that only low-education, white working class males like Adkisson matter in the 2008 election, and equally relentless that the "presumptuous" (read: "uppity") Barack Obama can't possibly win over these voters, there is so much noise tapping into the reptilian brains of guys like Adkisson that it's hardly surpsising that one of them would decide to take his talk radio hosts literally and go out and kill him some lib'ruls.

Michael Reagan has called for his listeners to kill anyone who questions the official party line on the 9/11 attacks. Whether you agree with 9/11 conspiracy theorists or not, summary "justice" and execution is hardly the way to deal with them. But Michael Reagan is still on the air inciting violence in his listeners.

Michael Savage opines about liberals thusly: "To fight only the al-Qaeda scum is to miss the terrorist network operating within our own borders... Who are these traitors? Every rotten radical left-winger in this country, that's who." What do you think happens when a radio host such as Savage, who has been whipping his listeners into a frenzy about Islam since 9/11, when he lumps all liberals into that category? He implies that fighting them (read: killing) is a patriotic act. Savage is clearly a disturbed nut; arguably just as disturbed as Adkisson, except that Savage is paid millions of dollars to spew his bile on the air, which may keep him from shooting up a church in despair over not being able to find a job in George W. Bush's America.

For the most part, these guys whose screeds were treated as gospel by Adkisson are just blowhards. They're an arguably harmless way for the angry white working class males that Chris Matthews and David Gregory think are the only voters who matter to vent their bile at a country that is more and more leaving them behind. But when you combine the kind of scapegoating and stoking the fires of resentment that these guys do with someone who has nothing left to lose and enough guns to go out in a blaze of glory, you have what happened on a Sunday morning in a church in Tennessee, when a group of people who want nothing more than the freedom of speech and religion from which Michael Reagan, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and the rest of their ilk are profiting so handsomely.

The next time someone tells you that George W. Bush and the Republicans have kept us safe because there have been no terrorist attacks in this country since 9/11/01, remind them about Jim Adkisson, who really did want to kill Americans because he hated their freedom. And as Melissa points out, remind them also of "anthrax and copycat mailings, bombings, beatings, church fires, and attacks on women's health clinics".

More from:

Richard Blair
Sara Robinson
PhysioProf (who NAILED it early on)
Driftglass
Warren Street (who says it all in one sentence)

The forgotten terrorist attack that took place after 9/11

Funny how we'd all but forgotten about the anthrax envelopes that were received by various politicians and media figures in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. George W. Bush recently made a show of once again having interest in the apprehension of Osama Bin Laden as a means of salvaging his legacy, but frankly, I think that was just cover for the moment at the end of October when Bush lets Bin Laden out of his apartment in the White House basement. But the anthrax attacks are still an unsolved mystery -- or so goes the conventional wisdom.

Yesterday the Justice Department announced that it would pay Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, who at one point was named as a "person of interest" in the case, $4.6 million to settle a lawsuit Hatfill had filed:

Dr. Hatfill, who worked at the Army’s laboratory at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., in the late 1990s, was the subject of a flood of news media coverage beginning in mid-2002, after television cameras showed Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in biohazard suits searching his apartment near the Army base. He was later named a “person of interest” in the case by then Attorney General John Ashcroft, speaking on national television.

In a news conference in August 2002, Dr. Hatfill tearfully denied that he had anything to do with the anthrax letters and said irresponsible news media coverage based on government leaks had destroyed his reputation.

Dr. Hatfill’s lawsuit, filed in 2003, accused F.B.I. agents and Justice Department officials involved in the criminal investigation of the anthrax mailings of leaking information about him to the news media in violation of the Privacy Act. In order to prove their case, his lawyers took depositions from key F.B.I. investigators, senior officials and a number of reporters who had covered the investigation.

[snip]

The settlement called new attention to the fact that nearly seven years after the toxic letters were mailed, killing five people and sickening at least 17 others, the case has not been solved.

A Justice Department spokesman, Brian Roehrkasse, said in a statement that the government admitted no liability but decided settlement was “in the best interest of the United States.”

“The government remains resolute in its investigation into the anthrax attacks, which killed five individuals and sickened others after lethal anthrax powder was sent through the United States mail,” Mr. Roehrkasse said.

An F.B.I. spokesman, Jason Pack, said the anthrax investigation “is one of the largest and most complex investigations ever conducted by law enforcement” and is currently being pursued by more than 20 agents of the F.B.I. and the Postal Inspection Service.

“Solving this case is a top priority for the F.B.I. and for the family members of the victims who were killed,” Mr. Pack said.

But Representative Rush Holt, a New Jersey Democrat whose district was the site of a postal box believed to have been used in the attacks, said he would press Robert S. Mueller III, director of the F.B.I., for more answers about the status of the case.

“As today’s settlement announcement confirms, this case was botched from the very beginning,” Mr. Holt said. “The F.B.I. did a poor job of collecting evidence, and then inappropriately focused on one individual as a suspect for too long, developing an erroneous theory of the case that has led to this very expensive dead end.”

A top priority, eh? After nearly seven years? I don't think so.

You don't have to fashion a fedora out of Reynolds Wrap to believe that this so-called "investigation" stinks to high heaven. Especially when we look back now at seven years of the Bush Administration doing what it can to jettison those who would dare look at what it is doing -- firing U.S. prosecutors, outing CIA non-official cover operatives, putting pressure on news outlets to squelch stories -- it becomes clear that Dr. Hatfill was simply a red herring to draw attention away from something else.

If we look at who received the letters, you'd have to be an idiot to not ask any questions and to still believe that there is some Tim McVeigh-type out there that the government has not yet apprehended. After all, while there have been scares dince then, there have been no further large-scale anthrax mailings since that one episode following 9/11. But once again, here are the recipients of the anthrax letters in 2001:

1. Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. Daschle's letter was opened by an aide.
   
2. Democratic Senator and head of the Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy. Leahy's letter had been misdirected to the State Department and had been opened by a postal worker.
   
3. Robert Stevens, photo editor at the National Enquirer. A mailroom clerk named Ernesto Blanco was also sickened. The anthrax envelope was addressed to "Photo Editor", and was received in October 2001 after the Enquirer had run an article and this photograph of a falling-down-drunk Jenna Bush the previous August..
   
4. The offices of The New York Post, which would seem to be an unlikely target, were it not for these headline stories about the Bush twins that had appeared during 2001:
   
   

   
   BOOZING BUSH TWIN NEARLY IN THE CLEAR
   Deborah Orin; New York Post; Sep 7, 2001; pg. 015
   
   BUSH TWINS' BOOZE SERVER OFF THE HOOK
   AP; New York Post; Jun 24, 2001; pg. 012
   
   BUSTED BUSH BABES MAKE DIFFERENT BOOZE PLEAS
   MARILYN RAUBER Post Correspondent; New York Post; Jun 9, 2001; pg. 002
   
   REIN IN THESE BUSH LEAGUERS
   LINDA STASI; New York Post; Jun 3, 2001; pg. 002
   
   DOUBLE SHOT: BUSH TWINS BOTH NAILED
   Jordan Smith in Austin, Texas and Deborah Orin in Washington; New York Post; Jun 1, 2001; pg. 005
   
   JENNA COMES 'CLEAN': BEER-BUST BUSH KID FACES GARBAGE DUTY
   Clemente Lisi; New York Post; May 17, 2001; pg. 003
   
   DELAY IN JENNA'S BREW-HAHA
   Post Wire Services; New York Post; May 3, 2001; pg. 026
   
   W'S FATHERLY ADVICE: DON'T YOU DARE MISTREAT MY DAUGHTERS
   Deborah Orin Bureau Chief; New York Post; Jan 19, 2001; pg. 008W.'S
   Abstract: [Bush]'s warning came a day after The Post revealed that Comedy Central is doing a hasty retreat from plans to paint the Bush twins as "hot and sexy" and maybe lesbians in a new sitcom satirizing the first family.
   

   
   
5. NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw. Brokaw's letter was opened by Erin O'Connor, an assistant to Brokaw. O'Connor developed cutaneous anthrax.
   
6. Individuals who were at ABC and CBS headquarters also developed cutaneous anthrax.
   

The so-called USA PATRIOT Act, which was the first step towards the evisceration of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, was signed into law by George W. Bush on October 26, 2001.

When the many conspiracy theories related to the 9/11 attacks are brought up, someone always invokes Occam's Razor -- that the simplest answer is the best.

In the case of the anthrax attacks, the U.S. government has spent seven years chasing blind alleys and dead ends, trying to find someone who can be said to have access to weapons-grade anthrax and still be an Islamic terrorist. In the case of the anthrax attacks, the simplest answer points to an intimidation job by the Bush Administration. We've seen for seven years how intimidation works. It's silenced the media and everyone else who knows anything about the chicanery of the gang of thugs and thieves who hijacked our government on December 12, 2000. Sending the military-grade equivalent of a dead fish to those who would, or have already, crossed the Bush Administration is perfectly in character.