Bachmann: Obama “First Post-American President”
Mar 13, 2010 Michele Bachmann, Michele Bachmann Crazy Counter™, Republican tinfoil hattery, Teh Wacky™, The Teabag Terror, health care reform
Craig Stellmacher at TheUptake.org caught Bachmann’s bill-killing rally. Bachmann says “some have called Obama the first post-American president” about 90 seconds in.
Watch her eyes for prolonged blinking as she gets really crazy:
Word-salad garnished with nontroversy: “Obama…Pelosi…Reid…They don’t represent us…right now.” Because there was no election in 2008, or because elections do not have consequences? Congress has, in fact, voted on the bills and will now hold further votes on them in perfect legal order. The Constitution does, in fact, allow Congress to levy taxes (“mandate”) and appoint enforcement officers (IRS), and such laws are, in fact, binding. Either the representative from Minnesota lacks a basic understanding of civics, or she’s encouraging sedition.
The “post-American president” line invokes John Bolton. Having ripped the words from their context, “some” is a cowardly little word here that lets her invoke all the birther-deather-Van Jones nonsense without having to.
But what I find most offensive is the statement that health care reform
will be the first post-modern legislation where words mean absolutely nothing.
When it comes from the lips of a Christian fundamentalist, the term “post-modern” rarely refers to aesthetic movements. Rather, it has come to mean “secularism” (or “secular humanism” as they used to call it in the 1980s). It is a sophistry, a straw-man argument appearing exclusively in the mental construct of the paranoid universe.
And it is an abuse of the English language so foul as to curdle my rhetorical blood.
H/t to The Uptake; Craig Stellmacher is teh awesome.
Peace Through Superior Firepower
Mar 5, 2010 Eliminationist Rhetoric, Teh Ugly™, The Paranoid Universe, The Teabag Terror
Orwell said that pistols and rifles were inherently democratic weapons. What he meant by the statement is that a pistol makes a five-foot tall female state trooper as deadly as anyone else.
So when the guardians of democracy come under fire, it’s nice to know they don’t play:
The shooter walked up to the checkpoint at the Pentagon’s subway entrance in an apparent attempt to get inside the massively fortified Defense Department headquarters. “He just reached in his pocket, pulled out a gun and started shooting” no more than five feet away, Keevill said. “He walked up very cool. He had no real emotion on his face.” The Pentagon officers returned fire with semiautomatic weapons. (Emphasis mine)
We’ve had an amateur 9/11 and an amateur anthrax scare at IRS offices and now a random shooter at the Pentagon. But there’s no domestic right-wing terror problem.
Does it take a mass-casualty incident to convince us hate takes courage from such treatment? But never mind: this asshole is dead and a don’t feel a bit sorry for him.
And yes, he was apparently a true-believing libertarian. Who…wait for it… who tried to take on the Pentagon with a handgun.
He knew exactly what he was doing; he was rational, but full of irrational self-justifications. His conscious decision to take on a heavily-guarded government building is the description of a suicide mission. That is often the case with Lone Wolf attacks: the first rule of dealing with suicidal people is that they also tend towards homicide.
There is a reason why McVeigh checked out.
Zombie Outrage
Mar 4, 2010 The Teabag Terror, The Teabagger Fail, Zombie Outrage™
Politico got a copy of a GOP memo we weren’t supposed to see:
The most unusual section of the presentation is a set of six slides headed “RNC Marketing 101.” The presentation divides fundraising into two traditional categories, direct marketing and major donors, and lays out the details of how to approach each group.
The small donors who are the targets of direct marketing are described under the heading “Visceral Giving.” Their motivations are listed as “fear;” “Extreme negative feelings toward existing Administration;” and “Reactionary.” (Emphasis mine)
Fear, loathing, and mindless reaction. The GOP understands their base perfectly well and panders accordingly.
What they don’t realize is that these zombies will bite them first, and hardest.
Continuing my boycott of Politico links:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/33866.html
Zombie Sequel
Mar 2, 2010 Republican tinfoil hattery, The Teabag Terror, astroturf politics, health care reform
Maddow notes the zombie overlords’ renewed vigor:
Call It The Teabag Terror
Feb 28, 2010 Golden Memes, O'Neil's Law, Sunday Sermon, The Teabag Terror, The Teabagger Fail, alabama
Frank Rich says what needed to be said:
Stack was a lone madman, and it would be both glib and inaccurate to call him a card-carrying Tea Partier or a “Tea Party terrorist.” But he did leave behind a manifesto whose frothing anti-government, anti-tax rage overlaps with some of those marching under the Tea Party banner. That rant inspired like-minded Americans to create instant Facebook shrines to his martyrdom. Soon enough, some cowed politicians, including the newly minted Tea Party hero Scott Brown, were publicly empathizing with Stack’s credo — rather than risk crossing the most unforgiving brigade in their base.
NO ONE should condone a man who burned down his house with his wife and kids inside, drove to the airport, and flew his PRIVATE AIRPLANE INTO A BUILDING. A commercial building, by the way, with 200 innocent Americans inside it. The first floor was mostly empty, but the IRS shared the upper floors with software companies and other private businesses.
Truthers and healthers alike have latched on to the killer as a hero. Republicans are flirting with disaster when they pander to this nonsense. This blog has tracked the strange dance on America’s right for a full year; last April, I predicted this moment in the right’s new permanent revolution. The teabag terror has emerged and the Grand Old Party is in its thrall.
We have seen this movie before:
But the internal dynamics are finally coming full circle as the establishment opens fire. POLITICO has an actual scoop for once:*
“I don’t believe we should be giving [extremists] a platform or empowering them to do anything based off their conspiracy theories,” said Ned Ryun, president of American Majority, “because they give the left ammunition to try to define the tea party movement as crazy and fringy.”
The attempt “to clean up our own house,” as Erick Erickson, founder of the influential conservative blog RedState, puts it, is necessary “because traditional press outlets have decided to spotlight these fringe elements that get attracted to the movement, and focus on them as if they’re a large part of this tea party movement. And I don’t think they are.”
Problem: They ARE a large part of the tea party movement. At least, the one that’s turning into a for-profit right-wing televangelism tour. Both the Tea Party Convention in Nashville and CPAC featured special wingnut training from folks like Andy Breitbart, Orly Taitz, and the Johnny Birch boys. RedState has apparently banned the birthers, but what about the freepers?
Which brings me to this discovery:
That’s the Rush Limbaugh of Huntsville taking on Parker Griffith.
Now I’m not saying there won’t be any tea party favorites elected in November, I’d say there won’t be many; and the reason why is plain to see in the strange career of Mr. Griffith, who in the course of one year transformed from an advocate of single-payer to a right-wing zealot. He has adopted every right-wing meme but the wingnuts are not impressed. Meanwhile, his opponent only has to point to Griffith’s record of achievement in office.
Remember O’Neil’s Law: all of politics is local.
The Teabagger Fail has begun…in Alabama.
*Maintaining my boycott of POLITICO links:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33621.html
CPAC
Feb 21, 2010 CPAC, Conservative Media Lies, The Teabag Terror, The Teabagger Fail
Cheney and Liz showed up, providing the usual tortured logic. Then Glenn Beck tortured history: “progressivism,” he said in his CPAC keynote, “is eating the Constitution.” He made no mention of unitary executive doctrine.
In a room sponsored by John Birchers and filled with a high concentration of Ayn Randists, Beck called the progressive movement “designed to eat the Constitution.”
Teddy Roosevelt, who tripled the size of the US Navy in a successful bid for global economic empire, came in for special Beckian scorn once again as a “weird progressive.” The bizarre revisionism came within a veiled stab at John McCain.
Sweating from his chalkboard hustle, Beck opined 2010 would be “a very good year. But it is not enough just to not suck as much as the other side.”
A straw poll elected Ron Paul. The crowd booed. There was shouting over a gay group’s presence.
“I have not heard people in the Republican Party admit yet that they have a problem,” Beck said at his crescendo before a rapt audience. “I haven’t seen the Come-To-Jesus moment from Republicans yet.”
Last year’s CPAC conference will be remembered for Rush Limbaugh rallying the right-wing media industry to create the teabag terror. CPAC 2010 has revealed the divides within the very inner bastion of right-wing politics: the teabagger fail is happening.
Fronting the televangelistic Tea Party Inc., Sarah Palin came in third in the straw poll at seven percent, far behind Mitt Romney. There were no less than a dozen choices. Make no mistake: the tea parties are never going away, and they’ve got the Republican Party by the balls, but they can’t agree on a leader. Teh Crazy™ in the room is just too diverse for a movement that despises diversity.
Limbaugh will be remembered for wanting Obama to fail. Beck will be remembered for this line:
All we’ve heard, the Fox News host complained, is “we need a big tent. We need a big tent. Can we get a bigger tent? How can we get a big tent? What is this the circus? America is not a clown show. America is not a circus.”
Glenn Beck is a clown. His show is a circus. The circus was merely transplanted from the studio to a convention stage.
Meanwhile, all of politics is local:
Tags: CPAC
Maddow Journalism
Feb 20, 2010 MSNBC, Morning Video, The Teabag Terror, political marketing, political signage
Rachel Maddow is exactly right to focus on the propaganda. Note the appropriation of communist and Maoist iconography (and outright theft of the Obama logo!) on Sarah Palin’s book tour:
And at her Tea party Convention:
Good work by Rachel. Given the way she shocks life into MTP’s ratings whenever she’s on, you’d think she would have replaced David Gregory already.
Morning Awful
Feb 19, 2010 Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, Cessna conservatives, Eliminationist Rhetoric, Morning Awful, The Teabag Terror, terrorism
There’s a fantastic analysis at Salon about
Stack’s nemesis, Section 1706 of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which removed that protection from certain “technical personnel” — specifically singling out those who provided services as an “engineer, designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker.”
Henchman:
As part of the 1986 Tax Reform Act, that moratorium was abandoned for high-tech consultants, who then faced the same employee/independent contractor test as everyone else. High-tech consultants were targeted because there was strong evidence that they were abusing the moratorium as a tax shelter and because it fit a need to offset a separate unrelated tax change in the Act that would result in a revenue reduction.
Was Joe Stack abusing the moratorium as a tax shelter? Or was the amendment to the tax code just a naked government grab for cash from the hardworking pillars of the high-tech economy?
Yep. The Teabag Terror is here. Angry at everything and confused by the dissonance of their world-view. He was apparently an Ayn Rand-libertarian who tried to get away with a tax-dodge; when caught, he didn’t sell his airplane to pay off the IRS. Instead, he turned it into a weapon and aimed it at a public building out of spite in an attempt to kill total strangers.
It’s a story I could have written a year ago. I said this would happen.
Kinda makes me wanna shoot Glenn Beck in the head…with a hypo-grenade of Haloperidol.
Morning Awful
Feb 18, 2010 Eliminationist Rhetoric, Morning Awful, The Teabag Terror
Dear Tea Party spokesperson:
While your name is still unknown, by saying that a sitting Senator should be “hung” you have not only engaged in eliminationist rhetoric, you have managed to offend the English language. A person is not “hung,” they are “hanged.”
Thanks!
Behold The Teabag Terror
Feb 17, 2010 The Teabag Terror, The Teabagger Fail
From the New York Times comes this harrowing tale of a woman’s descent into the tea party madness, seduced by all the easy magical answers:
Urged on by conservative commentators, waves of newly minted activists are turning to once-obscure books and Web sites and discovering a set of ideas long dismissed as the preserve of conspiracy theorists, interviews conducted across the country over several months show. In this view, Mr. Obama and many of his predecessors (including George W. Bush) have deliberately undermined the Constitution and free enterprise for the benefit of a shadowy international network of wealthy elites.
I once again refer to what I said at the beginning of this phenomenon: it is morphing into something incredibly ugly that will do more long-term damage to the Republican Party than Obama. The Teabag Terror will become The Teabagger Fail. It’s a long article, and it’s disturbing to see perfectly good people so warped by fear.
