By PAUL KRUGMAN

Back in April, there was a huge fuss over an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security warning that current conditions resemble those in the early 1990s — a time marked by an upsurge of right-wing extremism that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Conservatives were outraged. The chairman of the Republican National Committee denounced the report as an attempt to “segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration” and label them as terrorists.

But with the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic, closely followed by a shooting by a white supremacist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the analysis looks prescient.

…click here to read more @ New York Times

I’ve always been amazed at how people who are supposedly passionate about “the unborn” have no problem whatsoever with capital punishment and the murder of abortion doctors, third world dictators or Iraqi citizens. It goes to the heart of that flexible morality I’ve always had a problem with, and is at the heart of why I stopped considering myself a Christian when I was young. Either all life is sacred or none of it is. Your arguments against abortion are meaningless if you also believe it’s fine to kill a rapist by lethal injection. Killing a 40 year old man is a late term abortion, any way you look at it.

So I’ve never put much stock in the arguments of nutjobs like Randall Terry,  founder of Operation Rescue, who practically danced with glee upon finding that abortion doctor George Tiller had been murdered.

“George Tiller was a mass-murderer,” Terry, who is a fiery voice for the American Taliban (the Religious Right) said in response to the murder. “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.”

…click here to read more

I wasn’t going to write about the latest manufactured scandal that has the Far Right all in a tizzy. After all, these people are always in a tizzy. After a while you just don’t know which of their loony objections to write about. I figured the Conservative Far Right would be gearing up to block the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court and might be focusing mostly on that. But they’re busy little bees over there in La La Land, desperately looking for other things to be outraged about, and apparently they’ve hit upon something.

Following closely on the heels of the Obama Dijon mustard scare is news that President Obama made good on a promise that he made to the First Lady during the presidential campaign, and took her to NYC to see a Broadway show. The President and the First Lady jetted to New York Saturday afternoon, rode a government helicopter into Manhattan, and had dinner at the critically acclaimed Blue Hill restaurant. Then they went north to Times Square, where they saw “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.” After the show, the Obamas took a motorcade down Sixth Avenue. Thousands of onlookers waved and cheered as the couple headed home to the White House.

…click here to read more

It’s probably no surprise to anyone, but I’ve been reading rhetoric from the Republicans that has put me in a fighting mood. Mostly, I’m getting tired of how maggots like Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh are going after Gen. Colin Powell. While Right-Wing Neo-Con nutjobs might not be able to conceptualize this fact, most of the normal people in the middle of American political ideology are pretty damned patriotic. We love our country. We are tired of being derisively labeled “Liberal” because we don’t believe in perpetual war, institutionalized programs of survival of the fittest, or giving rich people free rein to rape and pillage the economy. We’re tired of being labeled “un-American” if we don’t believe in these things. We’re also sick of seeing good, decent, respectable men and women being tarred and feathered by the Republican propaganda machine.

People like Gen. Colin Powell.

What did it for me was hearing that a corpulent drug-addict like Rush Limbaugh was essentially calling Gen. Powell a traitor. Whether he meant that in a larger sense or whether he meant that he was a traitor to the G.O.P. is irrelevant. To hear a maggot like Rush Limbaugh impugn the reputation of one of our most decorated war heroes, a shrewd tactical general possessing a stellar intellect and a deep love for his country, is grounds for a good old-fashioned ass-whipping where I come from. You don’t question the integrity of a well respected man unless your own reputation is above reproach. To suggest that “Rush Limbaugh’s integrity” is anything but an oxymoron is laughable.

…click here to read more

I’ve been listening to Dick Cheney’s recent claims that the Bush Administration was justified in doing anything and everything that it wanted to do, including the torturing of detainees. While my initial reaction was to wish that Dick Cheney would just shut the hell up and go away, I now think it’s good that Cheney himself won’t let the country move on from the Bush Administration. He’s forcing Americans to take a hard look at the questions and issues which necessity has forced President Obama to try to quietly sweep under the rug.

I think the big thing that Dick Cheney doesn’t understand about torture is that whether or not techniques such as waterboarding yielded valuable information from detainees is a moot point. Only a man who has no firm set of morals could consider torture to be acceptable under any circumstances. You can shout all you want to that it isn’t torture if someone doesn’t die, or it isn’t torture if it doesn’t lead to organ failure, but you’re just as full of it. I have a simple equation that lets me figure out right away if something is torture, and I wish more Americans would use it. If we would consider it torture if the enemy does it to our soldiers, it’s certainly torture if we do it to the enemy. And don’t be a dumbass by getting into the semantics about whether soldiers in actual national uniforms have more human rights than terrorist operatives in blue jeans. It is the very fact that our values cannot be compromised that makes this such a great country. We cannot claim to be that shining beacon of hope on the hill if we have one set of values where certain people are concerned, another set of values for others, and the ability to switch between them at will.

…click here to read more

Occasionally a story comes along that leaves one blinking, wondering if it’s a joke or if people have finally lost their minds. Lately, though, a steady stream of ridiculous and bizarre inanities have been streaming forth from the Republicans and their Far Right supporters, and I’m beginning to wonder if they’re actually crazy. First the Republicans tried to make a family values martyr out of a half naked blonde with fake boobs. Then they whipped their base into a frenzy with the Obama Dijon mustard scare. Now they’re trying to elevate their party and regain political ground be engaging in farcical ruminations and laughable grand-standing.

One of the agenda items at a special meeting of the Republican National Committee this week is a resolution to formally rename their opposition from the Democratic Party to the “Democrat Socialist Party”. Yes, friends. That’s for real. Apparently, since they haven’t been able to remake their own image, the Republicans have decided to re-work their opposition’s. If the resolution passes, it does nothing whatsoever. It has no power. The Republicans have no authority to re-brand the Democrats as the “Democrat Socialist Party” anymore than the Democrats have the authority to re-brand the Republicans as the “Nazi Party”. So why even bother? According to the resolution, it calls “… on the Democratic Party to be truthful and honest with the American people by acknowledging that they have evolved from a party of tax and spend to a party of tax and nationalize and, therefore, should agree to rename themselves the Democrat Socialist Party.”

…click here to read more

When I first came across President Obama’s thorny Dijon mustard “scandal”, I thought it was a joke. I figured it had to be one of those fake articles from The Onion, or at least a premise for a Terry Pratchett novel. But no, my friends. There is a calamity befalling us. Americans are faced with the frightening prospect that, with two ongoing wars, the near collapse of the financial sector, unemployment at a 25 year high, and historic numbers of Americans being forced into foreclosure, our president has betrayed his country by ordering a cheeseburger with… Dijon mustard! What kind of heathen puts Dijon mustard on a cheeseburger, for the love of all that’s holy?

Well, so sayeth the Far Right, anyway. Yes. I’m serious. That’s what they’re upset about. When President Obama and Vice President Biden made a surprise lunch stop at a burger joint in Virginia last week, the President reportedly asked for a burger with “spicy” or “Dijon mustard”. Oh, no he didn’t! He couldn’t use that patriotic, Toby Keith sing-along, Sunday school picnic yellow mustard. He had to use that pretentious, elitist, Frenchy, different tax-bracket kind of Dijon mustard?!

…click here to read more

Conservative religious groups roundly criticized President Obama last Thursday for what the Associated Press called his “muted” observance of National Prayer Day. Traditionally, during George W. Bush’s administration, Shirley Dobson,  the chairwoman of National Day of Prayer Task Force, which organizes the prayer day festivities, would celebrate the day of prayer at the White House. This year, President Barack Obama said he would observe the day with a private prayer only.

Dobson said she was disappointed in the president’s decision. She said the president should understand the importance of prayer for Americans. “At this time in our country’s history, we would hope our President would recognize more fully the importance of prayer,” said Dobson.

The Family Research Council said Obama’s decision to not have a big White House prayer event constituted a “de-emphasis on prayer.”

James Dobson (Shirley’s husband), an Evangelical author, radio host and founder of the Conservative Christian organization Focus On The Family, said that he was “disappointed” that there was no representative from the White House during the National Day of Prayer event.

“I have not asked to meet with the president and certainly he has not asked to meet with me, but I would just like this country to remember its foundation, to remember its heritage and honor it, especially on the day set aside by George Washington in the beginning for prayer in this country,” he said. “And I would hope that that would have occurred.”

…click here to read more

Is anyone really surprised that the Fox network has stated that it will not air President Obama’s press conference on Wednesday 29th, but will air an episode of Lie To Me instead? There’s an irony-tinged joke in there somewhere, but I’m too polite to go for it. Write your own jokes. Fox makes it easy.

Naturally, most Conservatives are rolling their eyes and admonishing some folks for being annoyed over what is clearly not a big deal. I mean, it’s not like Fox has ever shown a bias against Democrats or for Republicans. They would never stoop that low, would they? No one could possibly think that at an outfit like Fox, with it’s “fair and balanced” news show, would refuse to air a Presidential Address for political reasons? It simple business, nothing more. The President of the United States is cutting into Rupert Murdoch’s bottom line, and surely any reasonable person understands that profit is more important that anything the President has to say. After all, he’s already made a couple of addresses this year. When is enough enough?

Well, I’ve tried, but I have a hard time mustering up any sympathy for Fox. I’m sorry folks, but as long as you have Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck on your payroll, it’s hard to have any credibility when it comes to refusing to air a Presidential Address. Forgive me if it doesn’t quite soothe my suspicions that you’ve pointed out that it’ll be airing on other networks, and that if I want to see it I can always change the channel.

Actually, come to think of it, I’ll do just that. I’ll change the channel for good. Sure, I avoid Fox News like the plague, but I’ve been seduced into lesser evil fare such as American Idol and, yes, even Lie To Me. I was perfectly willing to overlook Rupert Murdoch’s Neo-Conservative agenda as long as Fox’s politics were kept neatly contained within their Fox News unit. But this decision is embarrassingly political. However Conservatives might like to spin this, the fact remains that the issue is not so much that a television network has refused to air President Obama’s address, but that it was Fox that refused to do so. Anyone who believes that’s not an issue, given the networks incredible history of anti-Democratic bias, is living in a fantasy world. The next thing you know, they’ll expect us to believe that George W. Bush was one of the most popular presidents in American history. Oh, wait. They’re already working on that one, aren’t they?

Sorry, Rupert. Your fingerprints are all over this one. It’s a bit late in the game to contend that much ado is being made over nothing. You’re the one who set the tone in regard to what we expect of Fox. And you’re the one bears the responsibility for how this looks.

While it’s hardly a news story in and of itself, it’s worth noting that The Right have been passionately wringing their hands over the “Liberal intolerance” directed toward Miss California, Carrie Prejean. They’re breathlessly ranting about Freedom of Speech issues, and how Prejean’s has been trampled by the Liberal Media and those… those… QUEERS.

If you hadn’t noticed (I hadn’t), there was a Miss USA pageant underway. Someone had the bright idea of hiring an openly gay man, Perez Hilton, to be one of the judges, and he asked what should have been a fairly soft-ball question of Carrie Prejean. He asked her about her stance on same-sex marriage. Rather than peddle the question with a simple, nonsensical answer about “to each their own”, she decided a beauty pageant was a good forum to make a general statement about gays and lesbians.

“I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman,” she said on the live broadcast. “No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised.”

Needless to say, scandal erupted. Hilton was offended. Keith Lewis, co-director the Miss California competition, which Prejean won to make it into the Miss USA pageant, was offended.

…click here to read more