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So I caught this poll on Facebook earlier: “Should the creator of the ‘Should Obama be killed poll’ be arrested poll.” Presently, 19.5% of respondents have chosen to self-identify as “racist dumbasses in favor of lynching.”

Reading over some of the rationalizations for the irrational “Should Obama be killed?” poll on this new poll, I decided to create a “which right-wing mouthpiece should be tortured?” poll. Within the hour, one of the very same rationalizers posted this:

They can dish it out, but they can’t take it.

Since Facebook has, indeed, pulled my poll, I’ve gotten a new one.

Yesterday, the Washington Times reported on a porn problem at the National Science Foundation. Complete with the all-caps “EXCLUSIVE,” the article gained some notice in the wingnuttosphere:

Employee misconduct investigations, often involving workers accessing pornography from their government computers, grew sixfold last year inside the taxpayer-funded foundation that doles out billions of dollars of scientific research grants, according to budget documents and other records obtained by The Washington Times.

The problems at the National Science Foundation (NSF) were so pervasive they swamped the agency’s inspector general and forced the internal watchdog to cut back on its primary mission of investigating grant fraud and recovering misspent tax dollars.

The implication, of course, being that government workers are all a bunch of porn-watching freaks and the government isn’t taking the problem seriously (because, of course, government is the problem). Which brings me to the Securities Exchange Commission report from last October:

[Investigators] uncovered evidence that an employee who was still in his probationary period had used his SEC laptop computer to attempt to access Internet websites classified as containing pornography, resulting in hundreds of access denials. The OIG investigation also disclosed that this employee successfully bypassed the Commission’s Internet filter by using a flash drive.

Yes, the Bush-era SEC was so busy looking at internet porn (and running their private businesses from their government offices) that they had no time to prevent an economic meltdown. There were also two NASA employees facing prison time for downloading child pornography to their computers in 2007. What’s new about this?

Pornography is an endemic part of the internet; that doesn’t go away even when you don’t work for the government. Indeed, private corporations have dealt with this problem for years. It affects every sector of the economy: in July 2007, Consumerist.com caught Geek Squad copying porn from clients’ computers. The explosion of mobile platforms has multiplied the problems. One study in the UK found that seven out of ten firms have a major problem with employee porn consumption at work.

Yet how many private companies publish the results of their efforts to bust employees for looking at porn on company time and bandwidth? Better yet, how many take calls about it from the Washington Times?

News for wingnuts: inviting someone to vote in favor of presidential assassination is the same as inviting someone to assassinate the president, the latter act being illegal.

The same is true for John L. Perry’s column, now taken down from the conservative Newsmax site, calling for a military coup against the Obama administration. MediaMatters has retained most of the offensive post:

There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America’s military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the “Obama problem.” Don’t dismiss it as unrealistic.

America isn’t the Third World. If a military coup does occur here it will be civilized. That it has never happened doesn’t mean it wont. Describing what may be afoot is not to advocate it.

That Perry cannot name any sources is a sign of wishful thinking masquerading as inside information. But the last statement is patently untrue: in describing his scenario, Perry does indeed militate for its fulfillment:

Will the day come when patriotic general and flag officers sit down with the president, or with those who control him, and work out the national equivalent of a “family intervention,” with some form of limited, shared responsibility?

“Sitting down with the president or with those who control him” is a classic application of the third law of paranoia: “THEY are all in it together.” It’s a neat way of rationalizing the irrational by hinting that Obama is the puppet of…well, pick your favorite: Bilderbergers, subterranean shapeshifting reptiles, the Bavarian Illuminati, etc.

Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.

Problem: Obama was elected through the Constitutional process. There is no such Constitutional process for military coups; I defy any wingnut to find it in our founding documents. And when, exactly, did we need “nation-building” in America?

Military intervention is what Obama’s exponentially accelerating agenda for “fundamental change” toward a Marxist state is inviting upon America. A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama’s radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible.

Did you catch that? Obama is bringing it on himself. Transference of guilt. “A coup is not an ideal option, but…” But what? It’s better than green energy and a public option for health insurance?

Unthinkable? Then think up an alternative, non-violent solution to the Obama problem. Just don’t shrug and say, “We can always worry about that later.”

In the 2008 election, that was the wistful, self-indulgent, indifferent reliance on abnegation of personal responsibility that has sunk the nation into this morass.

Of course, said coup would be decidedly anti-republican because military rule is the very definition of fascism. Authoritarianism dressed up in patriotic fervor is still authoritarianism. There’s nothing “mainstream” about this proposal.

Indeed, Perry’s entire thesis can be summed up in the two words “Obama problem” — that is, the Constitutional, democratic election of Barack Obama is such a blow to Perry’s vision of America that we must destroy the Constitutional, democratic process and replace it with fascism.

Dan Riehl gets a hat-trick: three awards in three days. Blowing a dog-whistle for the loony right, he complains:

It isn’t the substance that matters with these morons, it’s the appearance of being … well, retarded as far as the rest of the country is concerned. Eventually some other idiot will come along and go to court and say, well, if Berkeley is doing it, shouldn’t everyone!!! At which point, they’ll be told to shut up, sit down and go back to their natural wool macrame, or whatever else it is the dolts do when they aren’t wasting time running their dumb-assed yaps to the annoyance of the sane people left in the world. I fear we’re running out. (Emphasis mine)

Running out of…what? Riehl doesn’t say. Editing fail on top of wingnuttery.

The “morons” are, of course, the dirty Stalinists of Berkeley. That community

would become the first city in the United States to independently try to comply with U.N. treaties on torture, civil rights and racial discrimination, if the City Council passes a measure on the issue tonight.

The measure would require the city to file biennial reports to the United Nations on how – or whether – the city meets international human rights standards. In Berkeley, that could include its record on homelessness, the achievement gap among different racial groups at Berkeley High and the presence of John Yoo, a UC Berkeley School of Law professor and Berkeley resident who authored the Bush administration’s justification for torture.

Yes, this is what makes Riehl call them “idiots” twice in one paragraph. “Them,” of course, being YOU, if you happen to think that torture is illegal and human rights are important the way John Yoo doesn’t.

The only solid fact Riehl reports? “U.N. treaties.” Yes, it’s a dog-whistle for anti-global hysteria.

My only question at this point is how Riehl shows up on Memeorandum without extreme sockpuppeting. Or a StormFront link.

As GottaLaff said last night: “I’ve had it.”

The hate speech, the threats have gotten completely out of hand. Hate is not “grassroots,” it is another word for a sin called “Wrath.” The incitement needs to stop. Now.

As GottLaff said, it’s time to tame them.

A rare win for a whistleblower. James Speegle, 43,

contended he was fired in May 2004 two days after he alerted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the torus, a vessel used to store cooling water for the Unit 1 nuclear reactor at Browns Ferry, had been painted improperly. In his initial complaint, Speegle reported the paint could crack, flake or peel, causing the inside of the vessel to rust and possibly cause the reactor’s emergency cooling system to malfunction. (Emphasis mine)

Get that? NUCLEAR. REACTOR. What does trying to prevent Chernobyl from happening in Northwest Alabama get you? A year of unemployment and $500,000 in attorney’s fees while you try to overturn the kangaroo-court decision of a mandatory arbitration judge. Speegle’s lawyer says

the Department of Labor rarely overturns rulings by its administrative law judges in whistle-blower cases.

“Fewer than 10 percent of these cases are overturned,” he said. “This is a very important victory for whistle-blowers all over America.”

For their part, Stone and Webster Construction Inc., the government contractors who did such a bang-up job of painting the torus, are

disappointed the Administrative Review Board choose to overrule the decision of the arbitrator who conducted the hearing in this case, considered all of the evidence, and ruled in the company’s favor.

No apologies for risking nuclear meltdown on the banks of a major river that empties into the Mississippi. Just “disappointment” that the case didn’t go like the other 90%.

But hey, at least they’re not ACORN with Breitbart and the Malkin Malevolence all up in their grill.

Photo from inside a torus:

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Breitbart is still trolling for Drudge and Malkin linkage with “finds” in the “Worship-like reverence” department. The following video depicts the Gamaliel Foundation, which Breitbart calls “the community organizing group that helped sponsor Barack Obama’s initial work in Chicago.”

(Wait — I thought he started with Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground? Or was it ACORN? Oh well, they’re all one giant conspiracy anyway.)

Here’s Breitbart’s, um, controversial YouTube find:

The comments on the Breitbart.tv page are fun, too:

Fine I’ll be the first to say it.

Antichrist anyone?

Just sayin.

Well, I’ll be the first to say this: NONTROVERSY. The “ceremony” here is for a fake coffin representing “the death of old ways of providing health care and pray for a new day for health care in America” — according to Breitbart’s own website.

Given that the “ceremony” depicted is an irreverent joke, how seriously can someone take the “Obama cult” complaint? If I hold a mock surgery using a t-bone steak and a mannequin, is Breitbart going to accuse me of practicing medicine without a license?

I’ve been watching this meme develop for a while. It’s an especially silly one, and clearly born of pure psychological projection. If you want to see what a “Dear Leader cult” looks like, watch this:

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GottaLaff of The Political Carnival has my nomination for a Netroots Nation award.

Here’s the story she broke on CNN:

Her readers are to be congratulated for calling the Secret Service, which has already thanked GottaLaff.

The pseudonymous blogger will now be stalked by The Malkin Malevolence, having been recognized at Salon, Washington Post and National Public Radio…

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For the first time, I am awarding this dishonor two days in a row. Dan Riehl tries to legitimize Andy Williams by mentioning he was friends with the Kennedy brothers.

“Proximity to Kennedys = CRED”

Fail.

Words fail to adequately describe this fail. This level of fail reaches new depths of meaning. It is a Capital-F Fail.

Andy Williams is a B list celebrity from the sixties. (Not exactly aiming for the “youth” market, are they?) He called Barack Obama a “Marxist” who “wants America to fail.”

This is meta-failure.

Keep going, wingnuts! You’re doing great!

Adding: In the comments, Riehl accuses me of trying to get Ann Althouse’s attention. Double fault!

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