Some Thoughts For Your Afternoon

- Now that Arizona is all about being a "white/English" only state in many regards, they having been going after courses that simply study other ethnicities. This is a clear reminder that conservatives have absolutely no desire to learn about the world around them but instead favor ignorance.

- Is anyone else ready for someone to do some fact checking of Zev Chafet's new book about Rush Limbaugh? I'm thinking that there's more than a healthy dose of textual hand-jobbery going on with this one. After all, Limbaugh's not going to invite a guys to his home that's going to write and honest and revealing book about him.

- Rand Paul thinks that answering legitimate questions from an actual journalist is torture? This doesn't surprise me, as conservatives have always attempted to compensate for their lack of accountability and lack of basic understand of how this country works in the 21st century by claiming there's this malevolent left-wing media bias.

- Everytime I hear conservatives claim that the entire country should follow Arizona's example of handling "immigration", I'm often reminded of the classic saying of "be careful what you wish for". Seems that now "anchor babies" are being targeted by the law. Guess which prominent conservative blogger/pundit is an anchor baby - Michelle Malkin. Someone should really press her on this aspect of Arizona's draconian stance.

- Whenever I hear a reactionary conservative talking about the alleged problems with the "constitutionality" of a piece of legislation, the more i'm inclined to think they are just opposing this to oppose it or they are so outside the pulse of modern America that they are wanting to sound far more educated on the Constitution than they really are. Dick Armey is no exception to this rule.

- The IFC media project series airs tonight with a special called "War, Fear, Greed, and Disaster". Max Blumenthal has a great segment in it that is not to be missed. If you're lucky enough to have IFC in your cable package, be sure and check this out tonight at 8pm EST.

Armed And Misleading

Having grown up in a family where using and owning guns was somewhat of a tradition ( I personally own two shotguns - one hand-made by my grandfather - and two rifles ) I can understand the sporting aspect of it as well as the "self-defense" side of it. However, I don't believe that everyone needs to own one.

I hold this belief for several reasons. I'll put aside the fact that felons have lost the right to own firearms are a part of their punishment by law, but some people don't have the training or the mental capacity to own firearms.

This didn't stop sellers at several gun-shows from allowing people that couldn't possibly pass background checks to buy guns.



New York City Mayor Micheal Bloomberg reports

Our investigators told the private sellers that they "probably couldn't pass a background check" -- and at that point, the seller should have sent them away. Because even private sellers are prohibited by federal law from selling to those who they have reason to suspect could not pass a background check.

Instead, 19 out of 30 private sellers made the sale.

Also, earlier in the year, Max Blumenthal attended gun shows in California and Nevada and showed how the reactionary Right, militia groups, and nazi "enthusiasts" are using these shows to not just pedal their wares, but push their ideological message.



So what is the answer to preventing some "lone-nut" from injuring or killing someone after they have purchased a gun illegally? What can be done to ensure that the hate-speech that is being literally channeled into our homes, our cars, and our places of employment each and every day doesn't trigger some unstable individual who has purchased a firearm illegally from injuring and killing someone? Is the answer to take away every gun from every home in the nation. Absolutely not. But there has to be some sort of reform to the process with which gun-shows operate. Because they are arming people who are potentially dangerous.

Hot Teabagger Action Live On Camera

Another fine piece of video journalism from Max Blumenthal.



This is so indicative of the apparent lack of intelligence within the tea-baggers.

One of the greatest parts is when the obese woman said that her health was great and she didn't need insurance because she had doctors in her family. I nearly lost my ability to breath for about 4 minutes I was laughing so hard.

Max Vs. The Marksmen

Max Blumenthal, one of my favorite bloggers and journalists, girds his loins and heads out to a California gun-show.



Max's "Defend Frisco" t-shirt is classic.

If there is one thing that the reactionary, righ-wing population is good at - no matter what state you are in - is claiming that "liberals are going to take everything away".

After watching this video, you start to wonder why Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin, Limbaugh and a host of other fringe conservatives are defending them. The preponderance of pro-WWII propoganda available for purchase tends to give off the air of - oh, what was that DHS report about......oh, yeah - right-wing extremism.

Indeed, in their minds, average Americans opposed to the Obama agenda would be herded into FEMA-run concentration camps by a volunteer army of glassy-eyed liberal college graduates. “When they start imprisoning Americans, and people start seeing that we’re the enemy, then that’ll make it hot,” predicted one Antioch-based young man sporting a button for former Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul. “People talk about a revolution,” the young man continued, “an armed revolution. I think police crackdowns on individuals will tip the scales.”

More than a few gun dealers and attendees echoed the young man’s seeming enthusiasm for armed revolt. One Contra Costa, California-based gun dealer named Rich predicted during an otherwise casual off-camera conversation that “some nut” would assassinate Obama within one year of any Democratic attempt at gun-control legislation. While the prospect of organized right-wing violence against the federal government seems far-fetched at this point, the paranoid rhetoric I documented suggests the militia movement that organized against President Bill Clinton’s policies during the 1990s could experience a dramatic resurgence by mobilizing resentment against Obama.

More from Max Blumenthal @ The Daily Beast and David Neiwert @ Crooks And Liars.

I have many friends that are gun collectors that labor under the notion that Obama and his administration are going to do all they can to repeal the 2nd Ammendment, which couldn't be further from the truth, but are no where near the same class of people featured in the video. This is why, from my perspective, conservative pundits, commentators, and talk-radio prattle-heads can't seperate the mental defectives from everyone else. These are two, completely divergent, groups. While one group enjoys collecting guns, going down to the firing range and popping-off a few dozen rounds after work, the other actively daydreams of popping-off a few hundred rounds into anyone that doesn't fit into their narrow view of America.

Blumenthal V. Ziegler

Max Blumenthal has this vry direct, very unashamed style of interviewing. He's very calm in his approach, but his questions - while delivered in a calm, rational fashion - are far more relevant and sharp than most in the media.

Here's what happens when he bumps into John "Don't Hold Sarah Palin To Any Type Of Standard" Zeigler at this years CPAC.



Max Blumenthal has more at his posting from The Daily Beast

Why the rage? Well, the roots of Ziegler’s fury lay in a series of reports I produced in 2006 about the factually challenged TV movie The Path To 9-11, in which I laid out the film’s ulterior right-wing agenda......In early 2008, I received a series of emails from someone calling themselves “Konrad Ziegler.” “I am producing a documentary on how "The Path to 9/11" got essentially killed in 2006 and I am wondering if you would be willing to do an interview with me and take a victory lap for your role in helping to create that reality,” the mysterious filmmaker, “Konrad,” wrote me in an email. Given the unusually cryptic nature of his request, I declined to respond.

When the film Blocking The Path To 9-11 appeared, my suspicions were confirmed—“Konrad” was actually John Ziegler. Variety panned Ziegler’s documentary, calling it “tedious.”

Who's Got Two Thumbs And Is Less Popular Than Jeremiah Wright?

This Guy

From the ever awesome Max Blumenthal:

Limbaugh is so unpopular that only 44 percent of Republican voters reported “warm” feelings toward him, ten points less than those who felt the same way about Limbaugh’s top competitor, Fox News’ Sean Hannity, and a full 20 points lower than Fox News itself. Yet in spite of rock-bottom favorable numbers, Limbaugh confidently declared one week after Obama’s inauguration that his power far exceeded that of the Republican Party’s top two leaders in the Senate and House of Representatives. Obama, Limbaugh roared, is “obviously more frightened of me than he is Mitch McConnell. He's more frightened of me, than he is of, say, John Boehner, which doesn't say much about our party.”

Of course, Rush would completely disagree with this.

The mere mention of his name obviously means that he has power over an entire political party.

Megalomania doesn't get much more massive than that.

The KKK Took My Baby Away

Not that I think Sarah Palin is my "baby", nor is this post implicitly about the KKK, but the classic punk-rock track by The Ramones happened to pop in my head when I read this from Max Blumenthal:

On Wednesday, I reported for The Daily Beast that key leaders of the white supremacist movement are seeking new opportunities to infiltrate and influence the political mainstream, particularly within the Republican base. An exclusive new video, shown here for the first time, offers new evidence of their strategic push.





In the video, shot by an amateur videographer who provided me exclusive access to his footage, an unidentified staffer from one of the country’s most popular white supremacist radio programs, The Political Cesspool, is seen promoting his show’s website at an October 13 rally for Sarah Palin in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Just feet away, Randall Terry, founder of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, hands out fliers and recruits volunteers to canvas for McCain-Palin.

Though neither Political Cesspool nor Randall Terry have any known contact with the McCain-Palin campaign, their presence at the recent Palin rally presents one of the clearest portraits yet of the far right’s attempts to exploit the Republican base’s anti-Obama resentment for organizational gain.

It has become increasingly apparent that some of the more fringe elements of the Right are wanting their voices heard in this election. It will be interesting to see if McCain or Palin distance themselves or simply ignore the issue.

I'm fairly certain they won't trot out the new "face-of-the-moment" from this group - Joe The Skinhead.

Association Rationalization

One would at least think that the Republican running for the highest office in the land would spend more time discussing his plan for economic recovery.

Well, one would be completely wrong when that man is John McCain.

While he and Plain are ramping up the rhetoric regarding Obama and his minimalist connections to William Ayres, Obama is focusing on things that matter.

But, Max Blumenthal ( The Nation ) and Dave Neiwert ( the new managing editor at C&L ) did a little investigation of their own. However, it had to do with Sarah Palin. It turns out that she has "connections" of her own with the Alaskan Successionist Party:

-That Gov. Palin, when a Wasilla city council member, formed an alliance with some of the more radical far-right citizens in Wasilla and vicinity, particularly members of the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party who were allied with local John Birch Society activists. These activists played an important role in her election as Wasilla mayor in 1996.


-Once mayor, one of Mrs. Palin’s first acts was to attempt to appoint one of these extremists (a man named Steve Stoll) to her own seat on the city council. This was a man with a history of disrupting city council meetings with intimidating behavior. She was blocked by a single city council member.


-Afterward, Mrs. Palin fired the city’s museum director at the behest of this faction.


-She fomented an ultimately successful effort to derail a piece of local gun-control legislation which would simply have prohibited the open carry of firearms into schools, liquor stores, libraries, courthouses and the like. The people recruited to shout this ordinance down included these same figures, notably the local AIP representative (who became the AIP’s chairman that same year).


-She remained associated politically with the local AIP/Birch faction throughout her tenure as mayor on other issues, particularly a successful effort to amend the Alaska Constitution to prohibit local governments from issuing any local gun-control ordinances.

The entire write-up can be read at salon.com.

Whereas Obama was a member on a board of The Chicago Annenburg Challenge whose primary focus was education reform - and had multiple ties to the Republican party - Mrs. Palin had direct links and actively sought to empower a group of successionists.

So, if they want to play this game, i say let them.

Who's Really "Acting", Toby?

According to country-music "super-star" Toby Keith, Obama is "acting white":



Considering that a large portion of Keith's fanbase is more than likely made up of racist, lower-middle-class, high-school diploma carrying men and women from the South, this isn't a suprise.

What is interesting to note is the radical change in appearance that Keith took in the years before and after September 11th 2001.




Now, does that look like the "boot-up-your-ass-hard-chargin-honky-tonk-troop-supportin-rabble-rouser" that he pretends to be today?

Not at all.

Toby ( if that is his real name ) swapped his permed, innocent, country-love song persona in order to take advantage of the "post-9/11" meme of "hardcore American boy". That "Toby" exists only because his agent told him "Hey, we should cash in on all this 'patriotic' nonsense and make you into a real star. What do you say?"

Well, it's apparent what his response was.





More from Max Blumenthal at The Nation