The Teabag Scott Brown Movement has begun

Operation Purity Marches On:

A Republican organization that backed Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) with independent expenditures and fundraising assistance says it will work to defeat Brown in a Republican primary next year in order to protect the party's brand.

Scott Wheeler, who heads the National Republican Trust PAC, said the group never expected Brown to toe a consistently conservative line, given his home state. But Brown's vote for the New START Treaty with Russia in late 2010 was a bridge too far, Wheeler said.

"We believe the Democrats' policies are destroying the country. Why let them take a Republican vote with them? If we're not going to have at least a symbolic vote against some of this garbage, then let's make the Democrats take the blame for it. It's their policies," Wheeler said in a Friday interview. "I say, no more Republican hostages."

Tea Bag 'em. Tea Bag 'em all, I say.

I'll say that this is sure is a lovely group of friends and associates that Scott keeps. But you dance with the ones that brung you so they say and with any luck Brown’s dance card will by full next time around.

I do have one suggestion from this teabag-esque group, I think they should try to get Christine O’Donnell to move to Massachusetts and run against Brown. Sure she’s lost two senate races, but I hear the third time is the charm.

Wingnut Welfare Recipient Michael Barone Commits Malpractice…..

…..or in the wingnut-O-sphere, what is known as telling your readers what you think they want to hear.

Barone has been known to refer to the President as a “Thug” and is also a recipient of the Bradley Prize, a 250,000 cash grant, for lifetime achievements in wingnuttery, and he has some dire electoral forecasting to report for the President.

Mr Barone's column amounting to Malpractice or Wingnuttery, take your pick, tells us that by using 2010 election results, the GOP is poised for a big victory in 2012 and Obama for defeat.

What Mr. Barone does not tell his readers is that there was high voter turnout in the 2010 midterm for demographic groups favoring the GOP and low turnout for demographic groups which favor Democrats. Voter turnout in the 2012 presidential election is not likely to reflect the demographic results in 2010 but rather more like the 2008 Presidential election. Different elections, different electorates. And this goes unsaid. Mr Barone is comparing apples to oranges.

Our zany friend’s prediction may turnout to be correct in two years, however the next election will likely be decided by unemployment and the economy. If both are improving, the President is likely to be re-elected. If they are not, a generic Republican Challenger other than reality show performer Sarah Palin, has an excellent opportunity.

It really wasn’t that hard to explain, Michael. But on the wingnut welfare circuit, I guess you have to earn your keep. I have to remind myself from time to time not to hate the winger, but rather to hate the game.

In Real America why not teach Creationism in the Schools?

That is what Republicans in Oklahoma are set to do: Teach evolution and Creationism in Science Class.

Creationism, as a quasi-religious, quasi-political ideology, first starts getting traction as a backlash to reforms enacted during the progressive era e.g., sending kids to school and exposing them to science and the like. It arose, I believe, as a backlash to the tremendous social and political changes (modernity) folks were experiencing.

Seems like some folks are still fighting against modernity in the 21st Century and apparently you can find a mess of them in Oklahoma.

The other Day of the Bill Maher Real Time program, Representative Jack Kingston from the Great State of Georgia appeared on the show and said he did not believe in evolution. You can make fun of the guy, sure. I guess he never learned any better. If you get your science in Sunday School and the public schools are asleep at the switch, it is not surprising to see a mess of Jack Kingstons out there in the world.

The one thing you can hold against Mr. Kingston, is that despite the disadvantages of his youth, he has not since taken the opportunity of the privileges he holds as a congressman to become familiar with subjects as basic as Evolution. As a legislator he has a fiduciary duty to act and vote on his constituents’ behalf in an informed manner. He has failed to do this and has failed his constituents.

The Toomey Plan

That the Plan being hatched by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA).

Pat Toomey, a freshman Senator who just sneaked into Washington D.C., on a republican tsunami that wasn’t quite large enough for fellow Party darlings Sharron Angle, Christine O’Donnell and Ken Buck, has a plan:

New Republican legislation in the House and Senate would force the U.S. government to reroute huge amounts of money to China and other creditors in the event that Congress fails to raise its debt ceiling.

"I intend to introduce legislation that would require the Treasury to make interest payments on our debt its first priority in the event that the debt ceiling is not raised," Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) wrote in a Friday Wall Street Journal op-ed.

If passed, Toomey's plan would require the government to cut large checks to foreign countries, and major financial institutions, before paying off its obligations to Social Security beneficiaries and other citizens owed money by the Treasury -- that is, if the U.S. hits its debt ceiling.

That’s right pay the Red Chinese before paying Red Blooded American Senior Citizens their Social Security checks. Great Idea Senator. If you thought senior citizens were mad about imaginary death panels or imaginary socialism, wait until Toomey snatches their social security check.

Folks in Pennsylvania voted for the fella’, I guess that had their reasons.

In which Sarah demonstrates her Gravitas:

Quote of the Day – Sarah in a Flame War with the National Enquirer

"Look at this recent b.s. about Todd being all caught up in this prostitution ring in Anchorage.

"Heck. all they needed to do was to ask him, 'hey, Todd, have you been hanging out with hookers in Anchorage'?"

Sarah Palin responding to MEAN and low down Lamestream Media rumors that her husband Todd is embroiled in a sex scandal with a massage therapist

Personally, I would have expected her to blame Obamacare for the incident. I mean if it has imaginary death panels, why not scandalous massage panels as well? Sarah really missed an opportunity to blame the President, here, in my opinion.

Duck Rule: If it Walks like a Duck and Sounds like a…….

I am not saying this guy is a Tea Party Patriot, but he fits the profile:

California man arrested with explosives outside Dearborn Islamic center

Dearborn - An ex-Army veteran from California who is accused of driving to Metro Detroit's largest mosque with a trunk full of explosives is behind bars after being charged with making a terrorist threat.

Roger Stockham, 63, is charged with one count of a false report or threat of terrorism and one count of explosives-possession of bombs with unlawful intent after Dearborn police arrested him Monday outside the Islamic Center of America, one the largest mosques in North America.

Stockham, a resident of Imperial Beach, Calif., is being held on a $500,000 cash bond. He will be in court on Friday for hearing on the charges before 19th District Court Judge Mark Somers.

FBI special agent Sandra Berchtold confirmed today the FBI is investigating an incident referred to the federal agency by Dearborn police.

Police said Stockham was in possession of class C fireworks, a 15-year felony, when he was arrested Monday outside the center. The terrorism charge is a 20-year felony.

On his MySpace page, Stockham said, "Proud of my kids. Happy with how much I've lived. Ready for it to be over, but have a policy I contend with often: So long as I am alive, I can't play dead."

And Glenn Beck’s viewer demographic has just been reduced by one, because where this is guy is likely headed, he ain't gonna have a chance to watch any Foxnews and at 63 years old, he probably ain’t gonna have anymore opportunities to cause mischief.

Quote of the Day: Money talks and you know what walks

"There's no limit to the amount of spending we're willing to cut. The American people want us to cut spending; they don't want more stimulus spending."

John Boehner (R-OH) on "Foxnews Sunday" today.

Good luck with this one. You may be willing to cut spending. However you've been asked about a thousand times to name the type of things you'd cut and have not been able to do it.

Name one thing, Boehner. Otherwise, we suspect you ain't serious.

My suggestion is to go after Women-Infants and Children's programs. Prenatal care for poor folks is really freeloading when you think about it, John. The infant mortality rate in America is high, yes, but if those folks would exercise more personal responsibility in their lives it wouldn't be so. Right? Besides it's not as if many folks care about the unborn and the newly born.

Question for Boehner: if you eliminate Women-Infants and Children's programs is that kinda like a death panel? Maybe.

Fox Geezer Syndrome

Apparently, Conservatives have become aware of this debilitating affliction:

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been keeping track of a trend among friends around my age (late thirties to mid-forties). Eight of us (so far) share something in common besides our conservatism: a deep frustration over how our parents have become impossible to take on the subject of politics. Without fail, it turns out that our folks have all been sitting at home watching Fox News Channel all day – especially Glenn Beck’s program.

Used to be I would call my mom and get updated on news from the neighborhood, her garden, the grandchildren, hometown gossip, and so forth. I’ve always been interested in politics, but never had the occasion to talk about them with her. She just doesn’t care.

Or didn’t. I don’t know when it happened, exactly, but she began peppering our conversation with red-hot remarks about President Obama. I would try to engage her, but unless I shared her particular judgment, and her outrage, she apparently thought that I was a dupe or a RINO. Finally I asked my father privately why Mom, who as far as I know never before had a political thought, was so worked up about Obama all the time.

“She’s been like that ever since she started watching Glenn Beck,” Dad said.

Richmond Ramsey, pseudonym of an executive who lives and works in Blue America blogging with other RINO's and dupes at the heretical FromForum

Join the Club, buddy. Living and working in Red America, I can tell you that Fox Geezer Syndrome is flourishing here to. But this is just the Foxnews business model. And its working according to the business plan quite nicely. Its a feature - not a bug.

But one word of advice, if your ever want a cut of the action generated on the wingnut welfare circuit, you can't write stuff like this:

The popularity of vigorous rage merchants like Beck and Olbermann are not a sign of our political culture’s vitality, but rather its decadence. We live in a time and place that puts high value on emotion, and that views emotions as self-validating. To feel something is thought by many to be sufficient evidence of its truthfulness, or at least its authenticity.

Astute observation. Of course this is the reason why so many conservatives support Sarah Palin. Solidarity with Sarah is definitely sign of decadence. It could also be one of the signs of the apocalypse. I guess that's why Foxnews sells so many ads touting Gold as a great investment. It could some in handy if you know what happens.

Michele Bachmann gets a do over

In life there are no second acts or something like that. Fortunately for Michele Bachmann this is not necessarily so.

Last night she go a second chance:

[video]

On second thought, I think this is a Mean Spirited Coastal elitist picking on Poor Michele and the Patriotic folks making up the Tea Party.

However, she did do a better job than Bachmann, so maybe it's OK.

Dispatches From the wingnut-O-sphere – Powerline Blog Edition

I was watching the Foxnews on election day 2008 when this story broke. I remember thinking "is this the best they got - an old timey group from the 60s? Surely they coulda done better than an imaginary black panther menace."

Oh well, go with what you know, I guess. Panthers are known to work some older folks up still. Speaking of which, here is your daily dose of Stupid:

The corruption of the Department of Justice under Barack Obama and Eric Holder is one of the saddest of many sad stories that have emerged from the Obama administration. Under Obama, the Department has been politicized to a degree this country has never experienced; certainly not in its modern history.

Yesterday the Civil Rights Commission released its final report on its investigation of the New Black Panthers case. That case presented the question--seemingly not a difficult one--whether it is permissible for political partisans, at least one of them an official of the Democratic Party, to wield weapons and make threats outside a polling place on election day for the purpose of deterring members of an opposing political party from voting.

Yet it seems that Barack Obama and Eric Holder approve of such threats of violence and want them to continue in the future, as long as the clubs are wielded on behalf of the Democratic Party.

[...]

The Obama Justice Department, in other words, is both racist and lawless.

Powerline Blogger John Hinderaker wailing about super scary black panthers and racism against white folks pervading the Government.

It has to be tough being a winger. These days it means being a victim - about just about everything.

Neither the Bush Administration nor the Obama Administration saw it necessary to make a National Incident over a half witted fool standing outside a democratic precinct with a stick during the 2008 election. Did this character keep democrats away from the polls that day? Did he threaten or intimidate anyone trying to cast a ballot? No. He was cartoon character for the local police to deal with as they saw fit.

But some folks can't accept that.

I know that larger numbers of wingers has complained in the past about activism at the Civil Rights Commission for pushing issues at the margins.......in support of advancing civil rights and equality under the law. Now that the same sort of wingers are complaining that there ain't enough activism at DOJ pushing issues at the margin against black folks. Looks like these folks want to use the power of the federal government to prove a point, rather than to pursue justice.

This is really stupid. Of all the things to whine about - the government ain't activist enough of all things. I thought so-called conservatives were against this type of government action - blowing something out of proportion just to prove a point.

I suspect that wingers like this fella' Hinderaker, have a decision to make. Are they gonna take a couple a deep breaths, stand on their own two feet and decide its time to start acting like an adult. Or are they gonna keep playing the part of a perpetual victim and cry racism when they don't get their way? Its called personal responsibility, folks. It's time to step up and put away childish things.

Oh well, what can you do about these wingers? You can't live with 'em - can't round 'em up and ship 'em off to immaginary FEMA Camps using the President's secret gestapo-like marxist and/or fascist police force, either. There used to be a time when men were men and acted like it. But those were the olden days and I guess them days are gone.

[h/t] Rep Paul Broun (R-GA) and Powerline Blog

Powerline Blogger bids Adios to the Internets

Well actually he’s sticking to the English language. But, yes, the Powerline Blogger named Paul is getting out the game. At least that’s what he says, for now.

As I posted yesterday, it turns out that it is an Occupational Hazard to hold both extreme views and work for an employer that caters to a diverse public. When push comes to shove, I bet his firm’s bottom line was calling the shots. While I am not in favor of punishing folks for what they say on their own time, it is understandable here.

Say you were in the feed and seed game selling your wares to farmers. It wouldn’t be a good idea to spend your free time writing stupid blog posts about how un-American you thought farmers were. Just not a good idea.

The same appears to be true here. It ain't a good idea (or polite) to say mean things about Native Americans (and folks from Mexico) when your firm is trying to woo tribal business. I hear those Casinos can turn a fair profit. Just not a good idea.

There is always the wingnut welfare circuit.

Tea Party Express - still a fixin' to ‘Bag’ Orrin Hatch (get it – ‘bag’)

Dave Weigel Reports:

While Senator Orrin Hatch is certainly a very kind and decent man who is well-liked by his peers, he has also been a politician who has at times gone with the will of the entrenched political establishment instead of the will of the voters of his state.

There is great excitement and energy amongst Utah tea party activists about the prospects for a constitutional conservative candidate to step forward and offer an alternative to Senator Hatch in 2012. If and when that should happen, we here at the Tea Party Express will evaluate those candidates.

Our evaluation process will be identical to that which propelled us to support Mike Lee’s challenge to Utah’s other establishment Senator, Robert Bennett. And one can expect us to continue to proudly support constitutional conservative challengers just as we’ve already done with Sharron Angle, Joe Miller, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Christine O’Donnell.

These are the candidates we here at the Tea Party Express support – these are the kinds of candidates that the people of this great tea party movement support.

~Amy Kremer Tea Party Express

My advice to Orrin is to declare war on spending. All spending. There should be no more Free Lunches in America, including school lunches. Start there. Clamp down on the free loaders.

A step in the right direction?

No one quite knows all the causes of the unrest in Tunisia, now spreading to Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East, or how this will all end, and whether this seemingly middle-class revolt dovetails to the 2009 demonstrations in Iran and the Cedar Revolution earlier in Lebanon. But while Islamists may eventually hijack the popular outrage against authoritarianism, both secular and Islamic, for now one thing is at least clear. There will probably be no such popular violent unrest in Iraq where an elected and popular government is legitimate and where violence comes from small numbers of anti-democratic forces seeking to impose an intolerant dictatorship of some sort.

Victor Davis Hanson, Pointy Headed College Professor and NRO Writer (and probably an Elitist, too)

I thought he was a Neoconservative. How can he not know what is going on in a far away land of folks with a strange and exotic culture? I thought Neocons knew everything and had perfect knowledge into all stages of societal development. Perhaps I was wrong. Maybe Neocons don’t know everything. That part about the Iraqi government being popular sounds a little suspect, too. Learn something new everyday, I guess.

Dispatches form the wingnut-O-sphere – Time to give up America?

A winger of the Hardcore of Variety weighs in on the President's State of the Union speech:

When the applause had died down and the softly glowing screen of the teleprompter faded to black, the echoes of the Leninist cadences of Obama's State of the Union address, "We must out-educate, out-compete, and out-innovate the rest of the world", "We have broken the back of the recession" and "We can't win the future with a government of the past" suggest that we are now living in a land without history.

[…]

Soviet leaders rinsed their mouths with talk like this to assure their citizens that the future was moving forward on schedule. Now Obama is spitting their mouthwash out all over the country.

But don't worry, comrades. We're winning the future. History is on our side.. This is not a State of the Union address. It's a State of the Soviet Union address.

~ Right Wing Blogger Daniel Greenfield

I suspect this fellow should have written “Alternative History” instead. So let’s unpack this. Why should taxpayers invest in their Nation’s future. Some folks are against it, like fella’ quoted above. However them folks have seemed to have forgotten this Nation’s history.

America is a nation that was built through public-private investments in infrastructure.

America and her taxpayers and public servants built the internet this way. It's the internet that gives this fella' the opportunity to share his thoughts with the multitudes instead of the small number of folks finding their way into his parents’ basement. The government invested in information technology and private industry took it up and look where we are today. There are millionaires, yes, and there’s wealth, yes, and there is a new form of communication for all to enjoy. Yet some folks would tell you that this ain’t no good.

Here’s another example. The interstate highways made it possible for folks to move out from the crowded cities and into the countryside. With a car and the highway under your wheels and with a tank of heavily subsidized gasoline, folks are able to realize tremendous amount of freedom. The government built ‘em and then private industry produced the products that folks enjoy today. While maybe the gasoline shouldn’t be subsidized so heavily, try taking away folks’ freedom and their cars and see what happens. Nope the interstate highway system was a good thing. And don't let fella's telling you we can't do big things again.

There are a lot more examples. America built the Panama Canal, opening lanes commerce up for development. Before that, we had the intercontinental railway and before the railway it was the Erie Canal. Each was financed through public private funding measures and each lead to tremendous economic growth. I’d hate to think what the American South would look like today without public investment of the past decades. Mississippi, for instance, would likely still look like the third world nation today that it was before the public investment in infrastructure, education and health care.

Nope, investment in the Nation’s future worked in previous centuries and I reckon that public investment in Country’s future ain’t necessarily a bad thing for the 21^st Century.

But what is a bad thing is the number of folks that keep telling people not to dream big. I just get tired of hearing how the Nation is in decline; that America can’t do this and she can’t do that; that things ain’t gonna get any better and that your children can’t have a life as good as yours. I got no place for such talk. Now I know that some folk just ain’t ever gonna cott’n to anything touched by the government, but them folk just don’t seem to understand American History. But maybe we can fix this by investing a little more in education. It is worth a try.

Adventures from the wingnut-O-sphere…..

,,,,,,,Powerline Blogger Busted – Money Talks.

When I first turned on the Tucson Memorial Service, I saw Dr. Carlos Gonzales offering what turned out to be a traditional Pascua Yaqui prayer for the victims, survivors and their families of that shooting. I turned to my wife at that time and said something like: this is going to make at least one of the nutters freak out.

I don’t recall what Dr Gonzales or any of the others reading BIBLICAL scripture said during the opening portion of the program, but none of it should have bothered anyone given the setting. After all there was a Native American on stage, holding a feather and talking about something other than Jesus. And while nobody should’ve been offended and was I certain someone would be. And that guy was Powerline Blogger Paul Mirengoff who wrote some pretty mean things the next day calling the prayer ugly in a since deleted (but not before I read it) post.

Now these wingers say some pretty mean things all the time about religions and folks they don’t like or why some groups of people should not be allowed to build community centers within 800 miles of ground zero and so on. So this really is not new. But what makes this example different is that Powerline Blogger Paul is one of the Honchos at some DC Insider Law Firm, Akin Gump (not related to Bubba Gump), that does business with high powered clients. And specifically, I am talking about Akin Gump’s “thriving Native American” practice representing Native American interests in Land Use Policy, Casino’s and the like. With the almighty dollar sign at stake, one of the Partners at Akin Gump went into full damage control:

As an enrolled member of the Onondaga Nation; as an attorney who has dedicated his life and law practice to the representation of Indian tribes, tribal organizations and tribal interests; and as a partner in the American Indian law and policy practice at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, I was shocked, appalled and embarrassed by a recent Web posting by another Akin Gump partner, Paul Mirengoff, who posted on his personal blog an insensitive and wholly inappropriate criticism of the use of a Yaqui prayer as the invocation to the recent memorial service held in Tucson, Arizona. As soon as I and the firm became aware of this posting, the firm took immediate action to deal firmly with this unfortunate situation. Accordingly, Bruce McLean, chairman of the firm, issued the following statement: “We sincerely apologize for the blog entry posted by Akin Gump partner Paul Mirengoff on his personal blog, powerlineblog.com. Akin Gump is neither affiliated with, nor a supporter of, the blog. We found his remarks to be insensitive and wholly inconsistent with Akin Gump’s values. Mr. Mirengoff regrets his poor choice of words and agreed to remove his post.”

I noticed Paul apologized and removed the offensive post a little later in the day.That was good. But now we know that this was likely not because Paul had a come to Jesus moment, so to speak, on his own, but rather due to the almighty dollar.

What is odd is why Powerline Blog get any traction at all in the media. Its authors are educated but so indoctrinated in conservative ideology that they scarcely are able to add any original commentary to current events. I guess it is for anthropological purposes, I guess.

[h/t] Rightwingwatch

I am pretty sure that this ain’t the reason

There are things you know. There are things you know you don't know. And there are things that you don't know that you don't know:

Revolution, like the flu, can be contagious.

In 1968, the American civil rights movement inspired similar movements in Ireland, in Paris and across the globe.

We are seeing such a movement in the Middle East.

Of course, it started in Iran last year, where it was suppressed violently by the ruling elite.

But at the beginning of this year, Tunisian democrats — perhaps inspired by the American Tea Party, perhaps inspired by the failed Iranian revolution — said in no uncertain terms: This is bullshit.

[…]

Technology, poverty and anger at the ruling class are conspiring to create revolution in 2011, much like they did in 1848.

Revolution is in the air, and it can be very contagious.

GOP Beltway Insider and Erick Erickson basher, John Feehry

I’ll buy the technology, poverty and anger line, but I’m drawing a line of death on portraying the Tea Party as the intellectual father of this political unrest in Northern Africa. As far as I know none of these protesters have been seen carrying signs excoriating Government involvement in Medicare.

But listen, I am not a neoconservative, so I can’t tell for certain (not knowing anything about Tunisia) what caused the spread of this unrest in that part of the world. If you want a quick and easy answer, ask a neoconservative because they’ll have one for you.....about anything.

But one thing I am sure about, is that these people (see below) ain’t the intellectual fathers behind what's going on in Africa and the Middle East:

These folks as inspiration to the Political Unrest in Northern Africa or the Middle East? Definitely not. I know that I know this one. I know it.

As to the actual causes and inspirations of the demonstrations over there, I am going with this as an Known -Unknown. I don't know it and I am aware of this fact.

This Feehry seems like a decent fella' when he's sticking it to Erickson, and I approve of that. And I am not trying to imply that he's a Neocon or anything as unseemly as that, One shouldn't do that in polite society.

However, I am pretty sure about this one and our friends above (scroll up) weren't involved.

UPDATE: Yep. I was right about the Neocons. Some of 'em are already acting like they understand everything going on over there.

UPDATE: One Picture of Tea Party Pictures above is might be of sneaky counter protesters. Guess which one? I've added a really tricky one.

UPDATE: I've reformatted the pictures. Should work now.

Poor Sarah just Refudiated the Argument that Reagan won the Cold War

It is “a W.T.F. moment”, as Sarah puts it.

Turns out Ronald Reagan’s defense build up in the 1980s didn’t cause the collapse of the Soviet Union as so many wingers will tell you. Though many believe it to be gospel, it’s entirely false. There was a different reason behind the collapse of the Evil Empire.

It was JFK’s space race that did them in. They just couldn’t keep up in the race to the moon and bankruptcy followed…..in 1991.

Congrats goes the President Kennedy for winning the cold war.

Thanks for clearing this up Sarah.

[video]

Jay Leno is MEAN spirited and may hate REAL America

Now this is just plain MEAN:

"Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann now under fire for claiming the Founding Fathers eliminated slavery. And Sarah Palin -- oh, she is upset. 'Oh, sure another female Republican out there, trying to steal the dumb-ass vote.'"

Jay Leno from the comfort of his Lamestream Media Studios

And another Elitist Talking Head takes a cheap shot against Poor Sarah and the crazy lady from Minnesota.

Why are people so mean to Poor Sarah, now? Only a couple of years ago, many of the same folks taking low down cheap shots at her would say nary a harsh word about her. They loved her then as she loves real America today.

I wonder what changed.

More Details Emerge in MLK day Bomb Plot

The Bomb was laced with Rat Poison

A bomb maker mixed chemicals with shrapnel in what law enforcement officials say was a weapon designed to inflict maximum injuries during last week’s Martin Luther King Jr. march in downtown Spokane.

Tests are being conducted to determine the type of chemical and whether it made the bomb potentially more deadly, Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said Tuesday.

“I know the bomb had some kind of chemical material inside, but we are still trying to figure out what kind. All we know there is a substance,” Knezovich said. “If there was an added dimension, it added to the lethality of it.”

Knezovich said early talks indicated the chemical could have been a compound used in common rat poison. Rat poison has been added to bombs in the Middle East for the stated purpose of acting as an anti-coagulant – which inhibits the ability of bleeding wounds to clot.

[...]

Within the past decade rat poison reportedly has been mixed into bombs. Israeli security officials, for example, suspected Palestinian militants of lacing shrapnel with rat poison because of its anti-coagulant properties. Officials believed the intent was to cause wounded survivors of bombings to bleed profusely from their wounds, although the effectiveness of the method has been called into question.

A common rat poison sold in the United States, for example, is made from warfarin. The compound also is used in medicine to treat harmful blood clots.

Officials indicate the presence of Rat Poison was likely an overt act to either make wounds more difficult to treat or to sow more fear. Either way the FBI is referring to this as an act of Domestic Terrorism.

Mitt Romney wants to be President Really Bad

Here’s the Rhetoric:

"President Obama knows where he wants to go, but he has no idea how to get there.

Under President Obama's economic leadership, more Americans have lost their jobs than any time in modern history.

The on-the-job economic education of the President has cost American families almost a trillion dollars in failed stimulus schemes and, unfortunately, he's still failing the course. Rhetoric, however soaring, does not put pay checks in pay envelopes at the end of the week. You can't build a high speed rail system fast enough to outrun the President's misguided regulations, higher taxes or lack of focus on jobs. Hopefully he is learning. American families are depending on him."

Here's Reality:

Notice the job growth after the stimulus? Jobs growth is starting.

If Bush were president, Romney would be calling this type of job growth a great Bush Boom. But this in not the case so Ol' Mitt is gonna say the opposite.

Dispatches from the wingnut-O-sphere – Erickson Sputniks

President Obama wants to take the Country back to the 1950s?

That is what the RedState Blog Honcho wrote today on his blog via the internets. It's the talk about investment in the nation's infrastructure that he doesn't seem to like.

Now I think a blogger complaining about government investment in infrastructure (like the internet) is kinda Stupid. It’s kinda funny at the same time because without the internet who would read his posts? But I don’t think it was meant to be funny. So I’ll go with Really Stupid.

Here is you daily dose of stupid:

As much as the Democrats caricature the Republicans as hell bent on driving us back to 1950’s style culture, Barack Obama is hell bent on driving us back to 1950’s style economics where people work for large corporations that subsist on government program subsidies and the employees all belong to unions. In the history of the United States, that world view is very recent.

Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs — none of these people needed government subsistence to innovate. They did it on their own. And those, like Jobs, Gates, and others that built off of government inventiveness, the inventiveness on which they built off of came from technological advancements in national security and war — an area of the budget the President is willing to cut.

Barack Obama’s speech was a terrible speech. The only saving grace for him is that it will not be remembered by the American public. Paul Ryan had much more substance and, surprisingly enough, Michelle Bachmann had the best speech of the night with both style and substance.

All and all, Barack Obama’s “sputnik moment” should stand in American history for a great buildup without delivery. Barack Obama did not jump the shark; he sputniked.

RedState Blog Honcho and Lamestream Media Elitist Erick Erickson “sputniking”

Of course the Government created the internet.

Taxpayers paid for it and benefited from it. Folks like Gates and Jobs have gotten rich, true. But it was government investment that spurred the creation of the internet. Which, by the way I’d be remiss not to point out, led to RedState Blog and Erickson’s new Lamestream Media persona. And without RedState Blog and the government investment that made it happen, odds are that Erickson would still be yelling at clouds and writing angry letters to the editor of the local Macon, Georgia newspaper raging about communist infiltration on the local school board or some other such non-sense.

But if we are going back to the 1950s, as Erickson says, I guess the first step would be to raise the top income tax rate back up to 90% where it was during the 1950s. We could balance the budget really quickly that way, which is something that our teabagging friends profess that they want to do.

Poor Erickson. This is what life inside the bubble does to a fella’.

Dispatches from the Rebellion

Looking Back 150 years on this day in history, Louisiana voted in favor of secession joining South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi.

The NYT has this to say:

And those who expect the people of this country to sit down quietly and see this free Republic prostrated in the dust, -- its liberties overthrown with its Constitution, -- its power defied and its flag disgraced, -- the fairest portion of its territory severed from the Union, -- a great Slave Empire planted on its Southern section, -- aiming at nothing but the extinction of every lingering vestige of humanity from millions of men, -- grasping the whole tropical continent and dedicating it forever to the dominion of the most absolute and infamous system of human Slavery the world has ever seen, --prostrating all our commerce, all our national growth, all the instincts and impulses of an ambitions, aspiring civilization at the feet of this one idea, abhorrent to the heart and the conscience of the world -- have much to learn of the temper of our people and of the spirit of the age in which they live. If the Southern States have more power, more wealth, more courage to do and to endure, and a better cause to fight for, than the North, they may, after five or six years of war, establish their independence and compel us to recognize it. If not -- not.

Yep. That prediction turned out to be about right.

Notice the belief reflected in this passage proponents of slavery intended to push slavery southward through South America. This was a common and not unwarranted assumption.

Dangers of the Wingnut Welfare Society

Foxnews, a generous provider of Wingnut Welfare, may be delaying the start of the 2012 GOP Primary.

Why?

Purged Republican David Frum has the inside dope:

Once a candidate declares, they will be obliged to resign their jobs as media commenters. Media Matters calculates the value of airtime devoted to Fox commenters Huckabee, Palin, Gingrich, and also John Bolton and Rick Santorum at $55 million.

That does not include the value of whatever fees are paid those commenters.

A lot has been said about the role of Fox in 2012. One effect could be unexpectedly perverse: a late start.

Priorities I guess.

I suspect that on some level Frum is disappointed that he can’t get a piece of that action. However he may be right in discovering yet another harmful effect of the Wingnut Welfare Society on our Nation.

Some day, my friend, we will end wingnut welfare as we know it and set these poor souls free to enjoy the magic of the Market. Until then, these poor trapped and hopelessly dependent folks deserve our empathy. Some day it will end. Soon, perhaps. Soon.

Gingrich calls for the END of the EPA

So much for Clean Air and Clean Water. He's targeted drinking water before, why not try again.

According to Newt Gingrich the EPA has become:

“a tool of ideologues to push an anti-jobs agenda that would never survive the scrutiny of the American voter.”

Instead of an EPA, Newt would create an Environmental Solutions Agency which would work directly with polluters The Free Market to foster innovation “to create a cleaner environment through smarter regulation.”

Poor Newt. It has to be tough being Newt - So much vitriol so many targets. How do you choose?

But really now, he seems totally unaware that we tried this already. It wasn't very long ago either. It was called the Bush Administration.

Words of Wisdom from the Tea Party Caucus

Quote of the Day

“The president talked about all the investments he is going to make, which I understood to mean more spending. That’s not what the American people want to see. All the areas he mentioned – transportation, education, innovation – can do good for people. “But it’s not a question of how much can we buy with an endless pool of money, it’s a question of whether we have the money to spent on these problems and whether the federal government should be funding them to begin with.”

Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah)

This is a good place to start and a good suggestion by Tea Party Activist, Mike Lee. Now that I think about it, encouraging a dialogue with Tea Party Activists like Senator Lee is a good thing.

What is the proper role of government? Should it fund the big ticket items like infrastructure (roads, bridges, energy transmission) – things that benefit the public as a whole? How about clean air and safe drinking water. Or, perhaps, should the state whither away, as some of those within the Tea Party Protest movement advocate? Senator Lee, for instance, questions the constitutionality of child labor laws. A nation state without a role in regulating child labor would have a weak government indeed.

To me, the answer it is quite clear. The nation cannot meet the challenges of the future with 50 sets of laws on biotechnology, cloning, nanotechnology, the next generation of nuclear and green energy development, and the like – not to mention the international framework over these issues. The world is too complex to turn back the clock to a time where child labor laws were unconstitutional. The federal government, using experts within these respective fields, is the appropriate place to face these challenges. And yes, in many instances, the federal government should be funding investments in the Nation’s future. This position, was a key tenet in Whig Party doctrine in the 1800s before it merged into what became the Republican Party.

Best Speech of the Night!

The RedState Blog Honcho and Lamestream Media Talking Head calls it for Michelle Bachmann:

Much has been made of Michelle Bachmann’s “Tea Party” response to the State of the Union.

For days the media has been playing this up as a major conflict within the Republican Party. In fact, a number of Republican leadership aides pulled out all the stops trying to get the networks to ignore Michelle Bachmann.

Kudos to CNN for its willingness to cover the speech in full.

I must admit I was deeply nervous about the speech, but I am delighted to say I was wrong. Michelle Bachmann gave the best speech of the night.

While the President sputniked and Paul Ryan went off on some high minded rhetoric, Michelle Bachmann kept to nuts and bolds. Her speech was based on actual economic data with actual, substantive policy suggestions for change.

Paul Ryan’s speech was okay. His blood shot eyes and Eddie Munster, Jr. haircut could have used some work. But he was good. Michelle Bachmann, however, shined in an easy to understand speech with a common man touch.

~ Erick Erickson

The people have spoken. There is no other choice than to return to the 1800s and enact a Tea Party Utopia. End Medicare, End Social Security and paper money and most importantly enact a constitutional amendment banning the use of Black Helicopters in America. Erickson is right. We need to do this all right now.

THE TEA BAG RESPONSE TO THE SOTU

I just watched Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann give the official Tea Bag response to the state of the Union on CNN. David Gergen and his colleague Erick Erickson loved the Ross Perot style response complete with CHARTS!

Neither one noted that the Bachmann chart depicting Budget Deficits by year attributed the last Bush Budget to President Obama. Pretty obvious swing and miss by Mr Gergen. Erickson may have caught it, but he didn't say anything.

Anyway the debt is all Obama 's fault according to this person and nobody else, including her, had anything to do with it.

Of course Michele is crazy. Here is Bachmann saying that Slavery Ended BEFORE the civil war.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The woman is a loon.

One thing I'm sure she doesn't know.

On the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, with Union lines in peril of collapse at Cemetery Ridge, the First Minnesota Infantry was order to charge a larger confederate force to fill in a gap in the lines. The regiment rushed into the gap and held the line suffering near 90% casualties in a matter of moments. And with that sacrifice the lines held and then on the Third Day the Confederate Army was defeated and sent back south.

If the civil war was not about slavery, why did these men give their lives so readily? The First Minnesota was ordered to make a suicidal charge against a larger force. The men did so and held the line. Does Bachmann understand why someone from Minnesota would have given his life to do this without hesitation?

Why did they fight?

Bush 43 Kinfolk are MEAN

Look what they are saying in the Lamestream Media about Poor Sarah and her “blood libel” speech:

Once you're the president, you go with what you've got: your emotional intelligence, your political intelligence, your ability to think outside the box that the bubble people construct around you. When something terrible happens, the bubble is momentarily shattered and voters get a true glimpse of what the president is all about. Last night's glimpse of President Obama was reassuring.

Sarah Palin, on the other hand, made a fool of herself. She didn't rise to the moment, she missed it completely. She used it as an occasion for self-indulgence and self-aggrandizement. She dominated the news cycle until the president spoke. She was, I suspect to her everlasting regret, "part of the story."

One suspects that the principal reason for Mrs. Palin's disastrous performance is that the people who seal her bubble are inexperienced and insular; ignorant of what national politics requires and rather too proud of that ignorance. They gave her very bad advice. That she took it reflects badly on her. It says what George Will and many others have been saying privately and publicly since she was tapped by Senator John McCain to be his running mate: she doesn't have what it takes.

Bush Cousin John Ellis

First Barbara Bush and now this guy. What do you expect from a Blue-Blood, anyway?

Amongst proper society, there are two types of people. There are peers and then there is the help. These Bush Kinfolk seem to look down on Poor Sarah as not being an equal and that is just Mean……but funny so I guess it is OK.

Electing Tim Pawlenty as President would be like Raising the Flag over Iwo Jima

No Really it would.

The Former Governor of Saskatchewan has an awesome new Movie Trailer out Watch it without sound first just to absorb all the images without the added propaganda

This video could lead to an exciting new game where we compare electing Tim Pawlenty as President to some other super cool thing.

Example:

Electing Tim Pawlenty as President would be like Capitalism but even better (and without the Great Depression and people living in cardboard boxes).

Or how about:

Electing Tim Pawlenty as President would be like living in the 1950s but without McCarthyism and Lynching!

There is no end to the fun.

Quote of the Day

You know the drill: global warming isn’t happening, if it is happening then it’s not caused by human behavior, if it is caused by human behavior then we can’t do anything about it, if it is caused by human behavior and we can do something about it, then that something is too expensive, if it is caused by human behavior and we can do something about it that is not too expensive, then that something is not what Democrats are proposing. And Al Gore is fat, he flies too much, look at his electricity bill, and sometimes when he goes somewhere it snows there, which is very ironic.

DougJ via Balloon-Juice

This is a pretty good run down of the current state of denialist arguments bouncing around the wingnut-O-sphere. Usually you just get one of the 5 arguments at a time. However if the winger is good and I mean really good at the wingnuttery he'll make all the denialist arguments at the same time.

Hardcore style, man.

The closest I've seen anyone coming at the unholy trifecta was Alaska Senate Candidate Joe Miller. And Miller was definately Hardcore when it came to the teabaggery.

The Wasted Decade - Yes it was that Bad

Before The Disastrous Reign of Error of George Bush began, there was some folks who were clued into what the Future would hold. They tried to warn us the best way they knew how.

This is what these wise folks wrote 10 years ago this Month:

Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'

January 17, 2001 | ISSUE 43•01 ISSUE 37•01

WASHINGTON, DC–Mere days from assuming the presidency and closing the door on eight years of Bill Clinton, president-elect George W. Bush assured the nation in a televised address Tuesday that "our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over."

"My fellow Americans," Bush said, "at long last, we have reached the end of the dark period in American history that will come to be known as the Clinton Era, eight long years characterized by unprecedented economic expansion, a sharp decrease in crime, and sustained peace overseas. The time has come to put all of that behind us."

[...]

During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.

"You better believe we're going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration," said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. "Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?"

[…]

Turning to the subject of the environment, Bush said he will do whatever it takes to undo the tremendous damage not done by the Clinton Administration to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He assured citizens that he will follow through on his campaign promise to open the 1.5 million acre refuge's coastal plain to oil drilling. As a sign of his commitment to bringing about a change in the environment, he pointed to his choice of Gale Norton for Secretary of the Interior. Norton, Bush noted, has "extensive experience" fighting environmental causes, working as a lobbyist for lead-paint manufacturers and as an attorney for loggers and miners, in addition to suing the EPA to overturn clean-air standards.

Bush had equally high praise for Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft, whom he praised as "a tireless champion in the battle to protect a woman's right to give birth."

"Soon, with John Ashcroft's help, we will move out of the Dark Ages and into a more enlightened time when a woman will be free to think long and hard before trying to fight her way past throngs of protesters blocking her entrance to an abortion clinic," Bush said. "We as a nation can look forward to lots and lots of babies."

Continued Bush: "John Ashcroft will be invaluable in healing the terrible wedge President Clinton drove between church and state."

The speech was met with overwhelming approval from Republican leaders.

"Finally, the horrific misrule of the Democrats has been brought to a close," House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert (R-IL) told reporters. "Under Bush, we can all look forward to military aggression, deregulation of dangerous, greedy industries, and the defunding of vital domestic social-service programs upon which millions depend. Mercifully, we can now say goodbye to the awful nightmare that was Clinton's America."

"For years, I tirelessly preached the message that Clinton must be stopped," conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh said. "And yet, in 1996, the American public failed to heed my urgent warnings, re-electing Clinton despite the fact that the nation was prosperous and at peace under his regime. But now, thank God, that's all done with. Once again, we will enjoy mounting debt, jingoism, nuclear paranoia, mass deficit, and a massive military build-up."

An overwhelming 49.9 percent of Americans responded enthusiastically to the Bush speech.

"After eight years of relatively sane fiscal policy under the Democrats, we have reached a point where, just a few weeks ago, President Clinton said that the national debt could be paid off by as early as 2012," Rahway, NJ, machinist and father of three Bud Crandall said. "That's not the kind of world I want my children to grow up in."

"You have no idea what it's like to be black and enfranchised," said Marlon Hastings, one of thousands of Miami-Dade County residents whose votes were not counted in the 2000 presidential election. "George W. Bush understands the pain of enfranchisement, and ever since Election Day, he has fought tirelessly to make sure it never happens to my people again."

Bush concluded his speech on a note of healing and redemption.

"We as a people must stand united, banding together to tear this nation in two," Bush said. "Much work lies ahead of us: The gap between the rich and the poor may be wide, be there's much more widening left to do. We must squander our nation's hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent. And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it."

"The insanity is over," Bush said. "After a long, dark night of peace and stability, the sun is finally rising again over America. We look forward to a bright new dawn not seen since the glory days of my dad."

How did these guys know it was going to turn out this way? I guess you just had to be paying attention. That's all.

The best line, I think, is from this guy, Rahway, NJ, machinist and father of three Bud Crandall:

"After eight years of relatively sane fiscal policy under the Democrats, we have reached a point where, just a few weeks ago, President Clinton said that the national debt could be paid off by as early as 2012. That's not the kind of world I want my children to grow up in."

10 years later Mr Crandall would go on to head up his Local Tea Party Chapter and turn out to be a teabagger of the most hardcore variety. No government involvement in Medicare for him.

Global Global Warming Conspiracy Grows Ever More Globally

It just doesn't stop.

Now some Marxist sounding front called the The World Meteorological Organization is in on it trying to fool folks with their book learning, stupid charts and fancy twenty dollar words:

OUR topics this morning are global warming, evolution and feathers. Let's start with the warming. Despite a frenzied last-minute drive involving snowstorms in Europe and the eastern United States, planet Earth failed to save itself from another last-place finish in 2010: once again, it was the least cold year on record. The World Meteorological Organization announced its finding last week that global mean temperatures for the year were 0.53°C above the 1961-1990 mean, 0.01°C warmer than 2005 and 0.02°C above 1998. With the comparison having a margin of uncertainty of 0.09°C, the three years are considered tied for the hottest year on record. That followed results the previous week from NOAA, which found 2010 and 2005 tied as the hottest years ever, and NASA, which found the same thing. (They both think 1998 was a bit colder.)

The George Will "global warming has ended" moment shows up as that little dip towards the end, before it returns to trend. So, what effect will the new data have on that meme? Quite possibly none. People who tried to cast doubt on global warming in 2009 based on a few years one could isolate so that they didn't show a discernible trend will now no doubt respond that a couple of very hot years don't prove anything. Which underlines how often the conclusions one draws from data are determined by a combination of the hypotheses you're framing, and at what point you start looking.

That last sentence is the one to look at. People find what they are looking for often times whether its there or not.

So it seems that global warming is not a Hoax and there is no Global Global Warming Conspiracy made up of all the world's scientific organizations, world leaders, pointy headed researchers and bureaucrats.

[h/t] Balloon Juice