Pat Robertson (Wingnut for God), Pete Hoekstra(R-MI), Chuck 'Pulling the Plug on Grandma' Grassley (R-KS), Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Sarah Palin (Celebrity)…..all have something very much in common.

Rachel Maddow explains…..

Bashing Muslims is back in vogue…..not that it ever fell out of favor within the more imaginative far right winger groups. But I find it remarkable that 2 GOP Senators think al-Qaeda "sympathizers" now work for the U.S. Justice Department. AG Eric Holder found it remarkable too…and worthy of a guffaw.

Having already alienated women, blacks, and Hispanics…I guess the only group left for xenophobic Republicans to offend is the .6% of Americans who are Muslim.

Do we absolutely have to retrace the ugliness of the Joe McCarthy red scare days? Can't Republicans learn anything? Ever?
____________________

But if you can believe it……the new Muslim McCarthyism in the Republican Party is mild in comparison with the mighty moral warriors of the American evangelical kind.

The new "take it to Jesus" slogan for the evangelical nuts in America is Psalms 109.

Here's the new bumper sticker you can buy from zazzle.com…..

What would a person praying for President Obama on the basis of Psalms 109…be praying FOR?…..

8May his days be few;

may another take his place of leadership.

9May his children be fatherless

and his wife a widow.

10May his children be wandering beggars;

may they be drivend from their ruined homes.

Those righteous Bible believing Christians who pray FOR Obama on the basis of Psalms 109 would be praying for him to be dead and his two young girls to be homeless, wandering beggars.

These are the same folks who call the Prince of Peace and Love their Master and Saviour.

Shucks…it's all just good funnin'…..

ABC….

For many, the slogan is just a humorous way express disapproval for President Obama. It's been tweeted and retweeted by Obama critics with messages like "too funny" and "an excellent prayer for America."

See? In the minds of evangelical followers of Jesus, it's just "too funny" to pray for Obama to be dead and for Obama's children to be homeless. Humorous.

But it's those American Muslims who are threatening our nation.

Jesus.

On August 12, I wrote this….

The "rage" is not over government spending….or tax rates…..or deficits….or any of the flimsy excuses laid down by oh-so-serious conservatives and libertarians.

The rage, the passion has been caused by the man, now the president, Barack Obama. He is a black man. He is a Democrat. And that's what the bust-ups of health reform town halls are all about.

It won't matter what the issue, policy or topic is……the rage we've seen from before the election, the rage we see at the Tea Parties, and the rage we see at the town hall bust-ups…..will be repeated over and over BECAUSE…..America elected a black Democratic president.

It really ain't that complicated.

Yesterday, Digby reminded her readers about this from one of President Chuck Grassley's town halls….

President Barack Obama is a fascist.

This and other assertions flew through an emotionally-charged town hall meeting conducted by Sen. Chuck Grassley Monday in Pocahontas.

"The president of the United States, that's who you should be concerned about. Because he's acting like a little Hitler," said Tom Eisenhower, a World War II veteran. "I'd take a gun to Washington if enough of you would go with me."

And then Digby channels The Reverend….

Why is it that these people keep alluding to shooting Obama all the time? (And why doesn't anyone give a damn?) Are they so far gone that they really believe that potential government spending requires them to start shooting? Seriously, nobody's taxes have gone up. Nobody's. The recession was already a year old when Obama took office and Bush spent a huge surplus on tax cuts for rich people which these fools all applauded like trained seals.

So they are not very convincing when they try to say that their violent rhetoric is based upon some abstract fear of deficits and socialism. Nothing that Obama has done so far can possibly justify the wild-eyed, slavering, full blown lunacy we are seeing at these town halls.

The simple truth is that they are all a bunch of self-centered, childish sore losermen who refuse to accept that a Democrat won the presidency. And for at least some of them, the fact that a black Democrat won the presidency has obviously sent them around the bend. They are in the grip of a powerful reckoning in which it turns out that most Americans don't actually agree with their cramped worldview. Hence the crack-up.

That is exactly right.

However, 4th estate representatives just can't see it. Check this out from McClatchy's Steven Thomma in today's Beacon Journal…

"Finger pointing and yelling at town hall meetings this summer are signs of a country that's been building toward a boiling point for several years, stressed by a quickly changing economy, a flood of immigration and threats at home by terrorists.

It's a land at turns frustrated and irate at a government that led its people into an unpopular war, proved itself inept at helping its citizens in a disastrous hurricane, presided over a historic economic collapse, then went on a spending spree that could commit the country to decades of crushing debt."

For Thomma, it's all just one big grab bag of frustration and resentment towards government. Even though no town hall bust-ups with crazies bearing guns was ever witnessed during the last administration, no nationally organized parties of protests over a Republican controlled federal government doubling the national debt in 8 short years were ever held, or even considered,…..to Thomma, recent conservative expressions of bitter hatred and rage over health care and spending under 8 months of Obama is all part and parcel of the same American distaste and frustration with government, which periodically and with no comprehensible pattern, just randomly appears on the national scene.

Clueless is not the correct word to describe Thomma's purposely dishonest piece of rubbish. Look at how he tiptoes around, hoping the reader won't notice what he's doing….

"This anger is more focused on the federal government, a resurgence of the hostility toward the government that started with Vietnam in the 1960s and Watergate in the 1970s, faded in the 1980s, resurfaced in the early 1990s and then faded away again."

See….the hippies who thought the federal government shouldn't recklessly murder 58,000 U.S. soldiers…..for no reason,…..those who wanted to see the second most lawless president in American history held accountable for his lawlessness…..were simply a piece of the whole. The whole being that Americans typically are frustrated and angry at their government. Nothing unusual.

But that frustration and anger…."faded in the 80's, resurfaced in the early 90's and then faded away again", says Thomma…..without providing any context whatsoever. In the 80's America saw Republican presidents, but in the 90's we had President Clinton, then in the 00's when we had another Republican president, public anger "faded again."

That's the story, Mr Thomma. During Democratic presidents, conservative ragers, the same ragers who slumber during Republican presidents, you know, are angrily awakened. That's the story. Not that Americans are, you know, randomly enraged at government in undetectable cycles.

Thomma, like most Village writers and conservative commenters, simply cannot tell the truth about the reality staring all of us in the face.

In modern history, when Republicans have been elected president, very little mass displays of rage and vicious, hatefilled anger was ever organized on a national basis against the government. During the 90's and now once again with Obama, the uncontrollable rage has returned.

The message of this madness is simple, as Digby and I have clearly outlined. A Democrat has been elected president, a black man with progressive solutions for America's future. A future that conservatives have never wanted any part of…..ever.

Thus, the manufactured rage.

Extra credit: The "Kraut" puts on his most cynical hat and taunts all those who think health care reform can be accomplished in America. An article which features the bastardly, bitterness of Mr. Krauthammer, the Very Serious Journalist whom the AB Journal dearly loves.

Fox's Glenn Beck calling President Obama a racist.…

First 60 seconds….

Beck asserts that Obama has "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture." After being reminded that Obama has numerous white staffers, Beck contradicted himself, stating, "I'm not saying that he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem," before going on to state, "this guy is, I believe, a racist."

Fox's Glenn Beck with Frank Luntz…..

Beck repeats what the Obama White House has called the town hall jihadists who have been blowing up local town hall meetings so constituents can't ask questions or have questions answered by their congressional representatives.

Beck…."right wing extremist, desperate Republicans, angry mobs, the mob, manufactured anger, astroturf, Brooks Brothers Brigade."

Luntz…."It's character assassination, that's what it is….and it was something that was learned under the Clinton administration."

Beck…."I have said vicious things, that's different from an administration coming out and saying these kinds of things. You have an official endorsement of this kind of thing, it's dangerous in this country."

Luntz…"This is what happens when there is no accountability. Republicans are so weak in Washington that it is so hard for them to hold the Democrats accountable and the American people are legitimately afraid. They're scared that they're going to lose their freedom. They're losing their economic freedom over the past six months and now they're afraid that they're going to lose their freedom over health care. That's what generates this passion….."

If you came close to hurling after listening to these two fumbducks, don't be alarmed, that's a normal reaction.

Frank Luntz is a focus-group f*ck who provided the Republican Party just the right focus-tested words to use over and over to help defeat health care reform. Focus-tested words that would scare people….focus-tested words, like egg-foo-yong farts, that when repeated often enough, would foul-up the entire health care reform process. Kind of a word terrorist…is what the punk Luntz is….and he is paid handsomely for deceiving the public for the sake of the powerful.

Glenn Beck is simply a wussy. A sissy-ass punk who likes to dish it out, like any sissy-ass punk likes to do…..but just like any sissy-ass punk would also do, Beck can't take it when those he insults personally call him on his bullsh*t. Remember, the health care reform wreckers are promoted, endorsed and supported by sissy-ass punks like Beck, and the propaganda horse, the FOX network, Beck rode in on.

Yes, yes, a bucket of putrid bile, like Beck, has the right of free speech….yada, freaking, yada……but people like Beck who want to exercise their f*cking free speech rights need to stand up like real, you know, men…..not like sissy-ass punks whining that their panties are now bunched because that mean black president Obama has called bullsh*t on all his lying, anti-democratic, town hall trashing friends.

The national corporate media discourse…..and I'm being as serious as an embolism……has never been so clusterf*cked-up. As far as deceit and propaganda go, in my opinion, we have successfully surpassed the old propaganda glory days of the Soviet Union.

We have become a dishonest nation from the top down, full of sissy-ass punks who lead the assault on truth by plotting to deceive Americans…..and all for the sake of America's wealthiest.

It's sickening.

UPDATE: RNC Chairman, and sissy-ass punk with a big mouth, Michael Steele, joins the whiny ass titty baby (WATB) chorus….

Paul Krugman on Thursday….

Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.
…..

And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased.

On February 16, 2009, 4 months ago, I wrote a blog posting entitled, "A Grave And Gathering Storm?" The post reflected on the July 2008 killing spree by Jim Adkisson in a Knoxville Unitarian Universalist Church. I included this question in that posting….

I am a free speech enthusiast…after all…I'm a blogger. At the same time, is it possible that the thuggish speech and printed word of our nation's fringe dead-enders on the right could actually be fomenting violence? Is this something we should be concerned about, especially in light of a Democratically led government?

Here are a few comments from that post….

Da King…
Sometime your posts are just wildly inaccurate and stilted. Other times they are wildly ignorant. This one falls into the latter category. One nutjob goes off, and you're ready to blame the entire conservative movement for it. BIG FAT "DUH" for the Rev for this one.

larry d…..
Just because some violent crackpot is right about several issues doesn't mean his methods are correct.

And of course the line of thinking the Reverend is chasing would work very well when comparing American libs with Middle Eastern terrorists.

Da King…
And for a political left that continuously calls Republicans "racists," and says Republicans "hate the poor," and "only care about the rich," etc, it takes a real lack of self-awareness to even bring this subject up.

On February 23, 2009, I posted a blog entry entitled, "Glenn Beck's 'War Room' Inciting Violence". The blog post included a video piece from Beck's cable program. I referred to sections of that video, here is one example….

At the 1:50 mark, "tax revolts….this is gonna' be violent….cities will resemble Dodge City, gangs who control, motorcycle marauders…."

At the 5:00 mark, in Beck and FOX's "light scenario"….Glenn asks, "I don't think we would head for an American revolution, we'd head for a French Revolution." Beck's guest, at the 5:50 mark, references the second amendment (militia gun ownership rights), "weaponry to defend themselves, as a last resort, against a tyrannical government." "A tyranny of incompetence….I think that, ultimately, is what our country is facing." Beck adds, "don't get me wrong, I am against the government,…and I do think they have been betraying the principles of our Founders." "Do the soldiers come in, and do they fight with the people? What does the Army, what does the military do?" Guest, Michael Scheurer, "I don't think the military is going to shoot on the American people." Beck…"People are training for civil unrest all over this country."

I asked this question at the end of the blog post….

Is it time for FOX News to be confronted for their inciting of violence in America?

Some comments from that blog post…

larry d….
How is it inciting violence? Does Beck tell people they should take up arms?

Da King…
Rev asks, "Is it time for FOX News to be confronted for their inciting of violence in America?"

That's the real WTF. Yeah, let's kill free speech for those FoxNews people.

With all due respect, this is an idiotic post.

Da King…
Today, I heard Glenn Beck was number one in his time slot, after being on FoxNews for only one month. Beck has more viewers than CNN, MSNBC, and CNBC combined. There must be a lot of people who agree with what he's saying.

And there still wasn't any call to violence by Beck. That contention is still nuts

On April 6, 2009, I constructed a blog post entitled, "GOP Media Has Blood On Their Hands". The post followed on the heels of three Pittsburgh police officer killings by a young man who was motivated by phony conservative rhetoric about the newly elected President Obama's desire to confiscate guns from Americans. Here are some of the responses to that blog….

larry d.
At first it seems deplorable to use the tragic deaths of three law enforcement officers to make cheap political points, but I suppose it's as good an excuse as any to crack down on Americans' right to free speech.

Such is the world we live in under the leadership of the present administration, I guess.

Christopher
This is some of the dumbest stuff I've ever heard of…unfortunately its typical from the far left.

No, don't blame the guy who took a weapon and shot people, blame the people who are commenting on the current administrations disdain for gun ownership.

Then on June 1, 2009, following the assassination of Dr. George Tiller, I wrote this….

These are the people Napalitano's Homeland Security report warned us against….and the far right howled over how they were being singled out in some kind of political witchhunt.

Now a good man, one of three remaining late-term abortion doctors in the country, has been executed by a member of the American Taliban.

I've blogged extensively on the role the conservative movement and it's corporate media partners have been playing in stirring up domestic acts of violence.

Some comments…

Quidpro…
Life and politics would be so much more orderly if we could just banish the thoughts and speech of those with whom we disagree.

You have made your position clear Reverand. You are in favor of banning the free speech rights of those who criticize positions which you advocate. Apparently, this applies even when the criticism is factually true.

Da King…
The hate speech hardly all comes from the right, and some of it isn't hate speech at all, such as this observation I will make right now – late term abortion is murder. That isn't hate, it's medical fact. Aborting 6-8 month old fetuses that are viable babies cannot be objectively categorized as anything other than murder.

Quidpro…
Hate speech drips form virtually all of your posts. Do you really believe that your fascist behavior advances your goals?

On June 11, 2009, 2 days ago, at All Da King's Men, following up on the most recent domestic terrorist killing at the Holocaust Museum, Mr. King wrote this…

A racist like James von Brunn is a person advocating for his collective, white people, over the interests of others. Racism IS identity politics, and it's not right-wingers who are it's primary practitioners. That comes from the other side.

…scumbags like James von Brunn are always labeled as right-wing extremists. I don't get it. Maybe it's because the ones doing the labeling come from the left. I don't know.

And the comments….

Tory Bug…
I don't understand how liberals or conservatives can take a single act of insanity, committed by a single person, and turn it into an indictment of either conservatism or liberalism.

Da King….
Extremists can be found under any political persuasion, but you're going to have to provide me with some examples of "Republicans…welcoming…militant conservatives into their fold" before I will accept that.

I just think it's helpful to see this discussion in a broader, more panoramic way. I'm not drawing any conclusions in this review. I encourage readers to do that for themselves.

Scanning the insanity….

Lest a new earworm begins gestating in the tone deaf ears of corporate media slugs and conservative "faith basers"…..

NY Times…

….President Obama’s agenda, ambitious as it may be, is responsible for only a sliver of the deficits, despite what many of his Republican critics are saying.
…..

About 7 percent (of the projected deficits) comes from the stimulus bill that Mr. Obama signed in February. And only 3 percent comes from Mr. Obama’s agenda on health care, education, energy and other areas.
If the analysis is extended further into the future, well beyond 2012, the Obama agenda accounts for only a slightly higher share of the projected deficits.

Already, in wingnut world media, it's questionable whether George W. Bush and Richard Cheney were ever President and Vice-President. The Bush Amnesia Syndrome is beginning to settle in. Newt Gingrich's speech the other day is a prime example…..if you hadn't known better while listening to Newt, you would have never known that the Terror Twins ever occupied the Oval Office for 8 years.

Before long, the "created reality" narrative will be that Bill Clinton left a surplus and Barack Obama frittered it all away, leaving us with eternal deficits. It won't be true, naturally, as the Times piece demonstrates…..but then, since when was truth a prerequisite for spinning a conservative narrative?

_________

Speaking of spinning….

Yesterday's Holocaust Museum attack by an extremist-right white supremacist, coming on the heels of the assassination of an abortion doctor by the extremist-right domestic terrorist, Scott Roeder, has left Republicans and their lapdogs scrambling.

The 88 year old Museum shooter and the nutjob, Roeder, both were acting on political ideology. Roeder, there's no question, wanted to stop a doctor from continuing his legal profession….a legal profession that Roeder could not tolerate.

James von Brunn dedicated his life to KKK-style hatred, bitterness, and violent acts because he, like those baited by the Republican Party's "southern strategy", hated the notion of a segregated America and the creation of what KKK'ers call a "mongrel race."

Both of these domestic terrorists were acting on deeply twisted POLITICAL beliefs.

But watch Mike Rogers (R-MI) spin out a counter-narrative. Beginning at the 4:45 mark, Rogers, hoping to direct the finger-pointing away from POLITICAL IDEOLOGY, much of it deeply held by conservatives, as the reason these tragedies happen….

Rogers spins….

"If you realize the last time he (von Brunn) tried to do something at the Federal Reserve (1981), it was because interest rates were climbing. So, he had some financial stress in his life…this is another time in his life where he had financial stress, it pushed him to that point, and led him to act on all the feelings that obviously he had expressed on his website."

Tweety plays along with Rogers' distraction….

"There's a lot of stress out there, and a lot of anger about the failure of our establishment, our government, for failing to protect us from this economic calamity."

Starting at the 8 minute mark, Rogers begins spinning like a washing machine….

"Anytime you have that much stress on people's economic well-being, at anytime in our history, we've seen a spike in violent behavior.

Now, the Muslim, the converted Muslim who was radicalized in prison who attacked and killed our U.S. soldiers was IDEOLOGICALLY driven….I'm not sure I would put that in the same category (as von Brunn and Roeder). He was passionately and ideologically driven based on his conversion to radical Islam.

In the other instances (Roeder, von Brunn), are people who believe their political beliefs aren't being listened to or acted upon by the establishment and all the other pressures in your life. And again, if you do the profiling, you'll find that they had financial stresss, they had other stresses, they've reached that boiling point. Whatever it is, it may be mental illness, in many cases it may not be. They could be as rational as you and I."

Radicalized Muslims are driven by their extreme ideology to commit violent acts. Notice how Rogers deceptively mentioned that in the Muslim-shooting-U.S.-soldiers case, the shooter was radicalized "while in prison"…..and obvious shoutout to those fearmongers who don't want to try detainees "on U.S. soil."

However, according to the Republican, Rogers, who offers no evidence at all that Roeder or von Brunn acted out of economic frustration, being "radicalized" by decades of hate-filled political ideology against blacks, Jews, and abortion doctors shouldn't even be considered….."I'm not sure I would put that in the same category."

Right wing media have been overdosing on hate-speech and violent-revolutionary language since before Obama became president. Von Brunn, like many of the extremist conservatives who reject America's first black President, embraced the ridiculous notion that Obama isn't a U.S. citizen. Was von Brunn "radicalized" by right-wing media?

Right wing media have been overdosing on hate-speech and violent-revolutionary language since before Obama became president. Roeder, like many of the extremist conservatives who reject America's first black President, embraced the notion that Obama believed in "killing babies." Was Roeder "radicalized" by right-wing media?

The murders by von Brunn and Roeder, if you are to believe GOP spin, were not "ideologically" driven. It should go without saying that Mike Rogers (R-MI), and those who will most assuredly repeat Rogers' spin, have no credibility.

Later on Countdown, reporter Pete Williams, explained, "The Holocaust Museum is one of the most threatened buildings in Washington."

American Jew-haters, American Holocaust deniers….much like Iran's Ahmadinajab….embrace far-right, ultra-conservative IDEOLOGY.

The spin, which surely will become conventional wisdom, will be that all this violence is because of economic frustration.

And what Digby said.

Rachel Maddow puts Dr. George Tiller's execution by known domestic terrorist, Scott Roeder, into it's proper perspective, while Rachel's guest, Dr. Warren Hern, rightly explains why Tiller's killing was an American political assassination, not a random violent act.

Hern's comments are essential….they start at about the 5 minute mark.

One of slain Dr. George Tiller's collegues, Sarah Hill, describes the life work of the doctor and the tragic cases and situations that led women to seek his services.

The fringe elements of the so-called Christian right have been hotbeds for breeding America's domestic terrorists for decades. The breeding ground for terrorists, the training camps for domestic jihadists, are found within American religious organizations. That's where the hate is seeded and watered. The extreme evangelical right in America is becoming harder and harder to distinguish from any other terror group determined to change America through domestic violence.

Recently, an American imam was sentenced to 65 years in prison for his financial support of alleged Muslim terrorist groups. In America, those who support Christian hate groups, hate groups who spin out dangerous jihadists, like Scott Roeder,……are rewarded with tax deductions for their financial support.

The unhinged elements witnessed during the Palin campaign and at the recently held Tea Parties….are the same unhinged elements who occasionally spin off a dangerous jihadist.

But just like with the torture discussions, if it's Americans doing it, and not Muslims, it's all justified. The concept of American exceptionalism in the braincells of evangelical nuts translates into some bizarre messianic nationalism…..where the United States has been raised up to act uniquely for god.

Needless to say, if killing is required to get god's work done, if violent jihad works in forwarding god's will, if domestic assassination of specific individuals is what god would want….then, by definition, it is the right and proper action to take.

There's nothing new in any of this. American terrorists declare active jihad whenever a Democrat sits in the White House. For American jihadists who embrace Jesus, torture, and killing abortion doctors, electing a Democratic President is the "trigger" to begin carrying out their terror plots inside the U.S.

This lunatic fringe element inside the U.S., typified by the lunatic, Randall Terry, should be declared a dangerous terrorist organization by the U.S. government. The cold, bastard, Fox media talking heads who provoke this lunatic fringe should be perp-walked for inciting violence. But these two lawless elements in American society will hide behind their fig leaf free speech and religion rights…while at the same time, they defend premeditated and egregious illegal actions of violent terrorism and torture.

The ends justify the means….and after all, it's all being done for the sake of Jesus.

Not all Americans opposed to abortions are domestic terrorists. In the same way, not all Muslims who are opposed to America's imperialistic interventions into Arab and Muslim countries are international terrorists.

Just as there are those within Muslim lands who radicalize young, vulnerable Muslims through repetitive messages of jihad against the west….so too, there are those within America who radicalize fringe Americans through repetitive messages of jihad against abortion providers.

Terrorism is terrorism. And it works. Americans have been kept so scared over Islamic extremism that they now willingly embrace the wickedness of human torture and gladly hand over many constitutionally guaranteed rights without even a whimper.

American abortion providers, terrorized by members of the American Taliban over decades, have been scared away from their legal and necessary professions to the point now where abortions, in many states, are almost impossible to obtain even though they are legal.

For extremists, whether Muslim or American, the end justifies the means. If cold-bloodedly killing people advances the cause, it is acceptable, nay, desired.

Randall Terry, of Operation Rescue and Terri Schiavo fame, had this to say yesterday….

Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue states, "George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God. I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller's killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name; murder.
"Those men and women who slaughter the unborn are murderers according to the Law of God. We must continue to expose them in our communities and peacefully protest them at their offices and homes, and yes, even their churches."

And this gem….

"I believe George Tiller was one of the most evil men on the planet; every bit as vile as the Nazi war criminals who were hunted down, tried, and sentenced after they participated in the 'legal' murder of the Jews that fell into their hands. But even Mr. Tiller – like other murderers – deserved a trial of his peers, and a legal execution, not vigilantly justice."

Insert the name, George Bush, in place of George Tiller, and Terry's rant has very little to distinguish itself from an Ayman al-Zawahiri video or audio message. Like I said, terrorists are terrorists.
…….

Here's a significant confession from one of the founders of a political movement which has, 30 years later, spun off a full-fledged American terrorist organization. Listen to what Frank Schaeffer, former anti-abortion rights extremist, says about American terrorist teevee. This clip is the most revealing piece I've seen in years…it's best to watch it in it's entirety, however, for those pressed for time, the essential part begins at the 6:20 mark….

The American Taliban, just like the Islamic Taliban, speak for "god", and regard "god's law" as primary and man's law as secondary. The American Taliban, just like the Islamic Taliban, considers national and international law an impediment to their political ends, and therefore violates those laws by whatever means necessary, up to and including executions.

Finally, I'll again state for the record that everyone who is opposed to abortion in America is not a domestic terrorist or a domestic terrorist sympathizer. Just as all Muslims are not Islamic extremists nor supporters of Islamic extremism.

After 9-11, some Americans felt the need to scold all Muslims for what they perceived to be a lack of Muslim denouncements of extremism. Some Americans blasted all Muslims for their unwillingness to openly denounce the actions of a few Islamic extremists.

The same dynamic applies to all those in America today who oppose abortion. Will abortion opponents openly denounce American terrorism, like they encouraged Muslims to openly denounce Islamic terrorism?

Remember this?

April 15, 2009, Foxnews.com…

The government considers you a terrorist threat if you oppose abortion, own a gun or are a returning war veteran.

That's what House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said Wednesday in response to a Department of Homeland Security report warning of the rise of right-wing extremist groups.

Smith, who said the report on "right-wing extremism" amounts to "political profiling," said that DHS is "using people's political views to assess an individual's susceptibility to terror recruitment." He joins a growing chorus of protest from irate conservative groups that are protesting the report's findings.

And now this from yesterday….

With one bullet, a gunman ended the life and the controversial career of abortion doctor George Tiller, killing him as he stood in the foyer of his church Sunday.

For years, abortion foes tried to put Dr. George Tiller out of business. One of the few American physicians who performed late-term abortions, he was targeted by violent extremists as well as principled opponents.

In 1986, his clinic was bombed. In 1991, it was blockaded for six weeks. In 1993, he was shot in both arms. In March, Kansas prosecutors tried him on charges of breaking an abortion law; he was acquitted. In May, vandals cut wires to security cameras and made holes in the roof of Tiller's clinic, Women's Health Care Services, a fortified single-story building where abortion foes keep daily vigil. Link

The domestic terrorist alleged to have executed Dr. George Tiller yesterday, Scott Roeder, has this background….

Police also obtained a photo of the suspect, who had a prior conviction for criminal use of explosives, which was overturned on appeal, according to court records

Roeder appears to be a full fledged member of the American Taliban. The same American Taliban that wantonly killed and maimed other Americans on American soil the last time we had a Democratic president.

The bitter savagery and hatred of the far right extremists over abortion….

Warren Hern, a Colorado physician and close friend of Tiller who said he was now "the only doctor in the world" who performed very late-term abortions, said Tiller's death was predictable.

"I think it's the inevitable consequence of more than 35 years of constant antiabortion terrorism, harassment and violence," he said. "I get messages from these people saying, 'Don't bother wearing a bulletproof vest, we're going for a head shot.' "
……

Eventually, his clinic evolved from family practice to abortions. At his trial, Tiller testified that over the years he and his wife had taken into their home about 10 "young girls . . . so they could have a safe place to continue their pregnancies." He also said that his patients were sometimes followed to their hotels and that members of his staff were picketed at their homes.

Under George W. Bush, these extremists only got two of the three radical Supreme Court Justices appointed that they needed to take away a woman's right to her own reproductive choices. The last two elections have left Republicans swirling down the drain and the extremist right knows that ending Roe at the level of the Supremes…is now unlikely anytime soon. Lawlessness and violence is what these American jihadists resort to when they can't get their way through the political process.

These are the people Napalitano's Homeland Security report warned us against….and the far right howled over how they were being singled out in some kind of political witchhunt.

Now a good man, one of three remaining late-term abortion doctors in the country, has been executed by a member of the American Taliban.

I've blogged extensively on the role the conservative movement and it's corporate media partners have been playing in stirring up domestic acts of violence.

GOP Media Has Blood On Their Hands, Propaganda Fueled Crime In Pittsburgh, Glenn Beck's "War Room" Inciting Violence,

In A Grave And Gathering Storm, I asked these questions….

" is it possible that the thuggish speech and printed word of our nation's fringe dead-enders on the right could actually be fomenting violence? Is this something we should be concerned about, especially in light of a Democratically led government?"

Also read Professor Huhn's blog on this topic today.

More here about Roeder and Operation Rescue.

Continuing yesterday's blogging on the Pittsburgh cop killer.

post-gazette.com….

Richard Andrew Poplawski was a young man convinced the nation was secretly controlled by a cabal that would eradicate freedom of speech, take away his guns and use the military to enslave the citizenry

"He was really into politics and really into the First and Second amendment. One thing he feared was he feared the gun ban because he thought that was going to take away peoples' right to defend themselves. He never spoke of going out to murder or to kill," said Edward Perkovic, who described himself as Mr. Poplawski's lifelong best friend.

Now, I wonder where Mr. Poplawski got the idea that the government wanted to take everyone's guns.

Could it be the NRA?

Could it be the president of the NRA?
Wayne LaPierre, president of the NRA, said this last November….

he thinks President-elect Barack Obama will “break his promise” to protect gun rights.

I wonder if the Pittsburgh cop killer got his ideas from talk radio.

Believing most media were covering up important events, Mr. Poplawski turned to a far-right conspiracy Web site run by Alex Jones, a self-described documentarian with roots going back to the extremist militia movement of the early 1990s.

THIS Alex Jones…..

The Fox emcee, Judge Napolitano, says this as he introduces his program, "Freedom Watch"…..

"In this show, we talk about what the government has done to take your liberty and property away."

At 8 minutes in, "the great Alex Jones" hocks his new video, "The Obama Deception". According to Jones, the radio person who the Pittsburgh cop killer listened to regularly, President Obama is revealed in the video as being "controlled by the very banks that did the bailout". The video explains "what his (Obama's) program for gun confiscation is", "what his (Obama's) agenda is for forced national service", "what his (Obama's) agenda is to bankrupt this country and bring in total police state control."

Let's see….the Pittsburgh cop killer "feared the (non-existent) Obama gun ban that's on the way." The NRA president thinks Obama will "break his promise" to protect gun rights. The radio jock the cop killer listened to says Obama has a "program for gun confiscation."

Coincidence?

3 days before Mr. Poplawski started killing Pittsburgh cops, The Pittsburgh Tribune printed a story about the boom in gun sales since the November election.

"Gun owners see a definite swing toward stricter gun laws, if not confiscation of firearms altogether," said Buddy Savage, owner of Braverman Arms on Penn Avenue in Wilkinsburg. "His voting record is 100 percent anti-gun. That's where all of this is coming from. People are buying now while they can."

At Anthony Arms on Lebanon Church Road in West Mifflin, store clerk Leo Yacomelli said gun sales are up 25 percent.

For some customers, it's not whether Obama will enforce restrictions, it's when, Yacomelli said.

Listen at the one minute mark to what one of the Pittsburgh cop killers' neighbors said….

"One man who is disgruntled about President Obama wanting to take away his illegal weapon that he should not own. It's just so senseless."

What's really senseless is the phony propaganda from the right which, apparently, riled up the Pittsburgh cop killer in the first place.

But see?….it's the left wing socialists, armed with the obvious facts, who are "loony"…

Balloon Juice….

And, of course, when you point out that certain individuals with all their talk about “revolution” and “armed insurrection” are inciting this kind of behavior in unstable people, you will get howls of protest about the 1st Amendment and what not. Sure, crazy people do crazy things. But that doesn’t make it responsible to encourage them, which is what a lot of really foolish people are doing right now for purely political reasons.

Kos from DailyKos….

Obama isn't coming for anyone's guns. The NRA won that battle years ago and the Democrats have long since moved on. Yet the eliminationists carry on, whipping their readers and listeners into a frenzy of panic and fear, and as a result, four little girls (and a young woman) don't have dads tonight. And I fear today was just the beginning.

Conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan….

Many of us have worried that the heated, apocalyptic rhetoric of the anti-Obama forces might spill over at some point into violence in the hands of individuals prone to lashing out. We now have what seems to be a clear instance of that and three dead police officers. One wonders whether Fox News or the Second Amendment fanatics will chill it out a little. And then one realizes who we're talking about.

Finally, the six week old words of Eric Boehlert……

…it's obvious that faced with the new Obama presidency, the Republican Noise Machine has already lost all perspective — has gone totally loco — and it's only February

I suspect the unvarnished hate directed toward Obama, the radical rhetoric behind it, and most especially the overnight delivery used to proclaim it, is unprecedented for our modern politics.

And by enthusiastically endorsing Limbaugh and his crowd, Republicans must accept — must take ownership of — the radical hate speech that defines the Noise Machine.

This is the same "Noise Machine" that the Pittsburgh cop killer listened to and from which he based his conclusion that Obama and the Democrats, despite NO empirical evidence, were coming to take his guns.

Now three cops are dead.

The GOP Noise Machine frenzied-up Americans in 2002-2003, using the Bush-Cheney lies-and-fraud campaign as a backdrop, to spread the total falsehood that Iraq posed a dangerous threat to America. Over 4200 American soldiers are now dead because of those lies.

Now, the GOP Noise Machine, once again using totally false information about Obama's imminent confiscation of guns, has incited one of their listeners, one who believed the lies, to kill three Pittsburgh police officers.

February 16th, from The Reverend…

"I am a free speech enthusiast…after all…I'm a blogger. At the same time, is it possible that the thuggish speech and printed word of our nation's fringe dead-enders on the right could actually be fomenting violence? Is this something we should be concerned about, especially in light of a Democratically led government?"

For the sake of today's post, I'm setting aside the New York Post's police-shooting-of-monkey cartoon…..which was printed after my post about conservatives, particularly in wingnut media, fomenting violence.

Instead, let's consider Fox News' Glenn Beck's new program War Room, February 20……this is the teevee sceen disclaimer to Beck's new show…

WARNING
Topics discussed on today's program may be disturbing to some viewers. The views expressed in this program are not predictions of what WILL happen, but what MIGHT happen. The panelists have been asked to think the unthinkable. Viewer discretion is advised.

I encourage everyone to take the time to watch this 8 minute piece from FOX's new Beck led "War Room" program…….

Beck opens this way…"this is the war that is possibly coming to our shores"…."we are not predicting that these things will happen, we are asking, could they happen? And what do we do IF they happen?"

But Beck also says this…."We're wargaming different scenarios. We are not predicting that these things will happen….But it's interesting, we were talking in the middle of the break that most of the people on the set…really think these are light scenarios. These are the bedtime stories. We're just asking what we would do IF they did happen."

At the :35 mark comes the "light scenario" for 2014, that Beck, and FOX, are, of course, "not predicting"….."Anger and discontent at home, many Americans are feeling disenfranchised, people are isolated from their political leader (WTF), internet connects like-minded people (ditto WTF), the "Bubba effect"–a rise in individual militias."

At the 1:25 mark, according to Beck and guests, the "light scenario", predicted for only five years from now, includes tax rates of 80-90%, perhaps even 95%. At the 1:50 mark, "tax revolts….this is gonna' be violent….cities will resemble Dodge City, gangs who control, motorcycle marauders…." Seriously? "Motorcycle marauders?", can I hear a big round of What The F*ck?

At the 5:00 mark, in Beck and FOX's "light scenario"….Glenn asks, "I don't think we would head for an American revolution, we'd head for a French Revolution." Beck's guest, at the 5:50 mark, references the second amendment (militia gun ownership rights), "weaponry to defend themselves, as a last resort, against a tyrannical government." "A tyranny of incompetence….I think that, ultimately, is what our country is facing." Beck adds, "don't get me wrong, I am against the government,…and I do think they have been betraying the principles of our Founders." "Do the soldiers come in, and do they fight with the people? What does the Army, what does the military do?" Guest, Michael Scheurer, "I don't think the military is going to shoot on the American people." Beck…"People are training for civil unrest all over this country."

This talk, these scenarios, are, according to Glenn Beck, the "bedtime stories"…the "light scenarios" of what's just 5 short years away here in America. But Beck isn't, naturally, "predicting" anything.

Is it time for FOX News to be confronted for their inciting of violence in America?