A Time for Change

What a cute dog!!!  However, when the Dog Whisperer, Cesar Milan, saw the video, he thought they were going to need a lot of help!!  Oh well, maybe Cesar will drop by.

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more about “Countdown video : Obama silences his …“, posted with vodpod

I wrote a sort of hooray post about how the Navy did a great job and congratulated President Obama as well.  I had read that he was meeting with officials and working behind the scenes.  In his understated way, he was being a good manager.  We now know that he had some 17 meetings and gave the go ahead to kill the pirates not once, but twice. The first response that I received to my jubilant post was to the effect, what did Obama have to do with this?  I suppose the military is just operating on its own against the pirates?  Oh, that would have been like under George Bush.  Well, that is not Barack Obama’s syle.

Conservatives who were so quick to jump on the tired old talking point that Democrats are no good with military action (where did that come from?  FDR and Truman did a good job!), and ended up with egg on their face.Gloria Borger of CNN wrote a great opinion piece about how Newt Gingrich criticized Obama early and then had to begrudgingly admit that it was handled well and decisively:

The president played it cool — in fact, pitch-perfect — as it turns out. We now know that while he was saying little in public, he was completely engaged. He sent his secretary of state to warn the pirates publicly — while the president privately held more than 17 briefings on the matter and made sure the bureaucrats at all agencies were working together (no small task).

And finally, he gave an unambiguous order — to shoot if the captain’s life was in peril.

And when it was all over, as a top administration official told me, Obama “didn’t wrap himself around the bravery of those military seals.”

Indeed, he commended the captain, the SEALs, called for multilateral efforts to stop piracy — and went on the next day to give an economic speech. Indeed, this aide adds, “He’s not about to put on a flight suit on an aircraft carrier and declare mission accomplished.”

Not his style, they say.

But what about the style of say, Newt Gingrich? The former House Speaker — often mentioned as a possible presidential contender in 2012 — decided to Twitter his inner thoughts on the pirates in real-time.

Last Saturday: “Obama is making a major mistake in not forcefully outlining the rules of civilization for dealing with pirates. We look weak.”

By Monday, after the safe rescue of the captain, Gingrich was, er, a tad more laudatory: “The Navy seals did exactly the right thing in rescuing the American captain. President Obama did the right thing in allowing the Navy to act.”

A grudging kudo, if there ever was one.

I’ll say.  The truth is that when it comes to the hard core right wing, President Obama cannot do anything well.  Every action he takes no matter how small is overly scrutinized. I actually read that he broke a “campaign promise” when he got the puppy for his family from a breeder instead of the humane society. The author ignores the fact that it was a rescue dog from another owner and the Obamas are going to make a contribution to a shelter.

It’s never enough!

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Even if the media is ignoring the growing threat of right wingnut extremism, CNN online the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) has definitely taken notice.  Read that. R-I-G-H-T-W-I-N-G extremism.  Not left wing.  I hear all of you who say there is a problem on both sides, but to fluff off what is going on in this country with a wave of the hand, saying both sides do it is just akin to burying your head in the sand.  The DHS report is entitled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and recruitment” and you can find that here. It is a sobering look at what we have been discussing at A Time for Change for months.

We are talking about domestic terroism here and not the make believe kind that Sarah Palin talked about during the run up to the general election, this is the Timothy McVeigh sort of domestic terrorism.  So while many right wingnuts worry about the Taliban and al Qaeda, some focus should turn to the irresponsible direction in which the conservative media is taking people who are susceptible to believing that their “entertainment” is the real deal.  Not funny.  If something does happen, I would be the first to call for Glenn Beck to be charged for inciting and promoting violence.

Here’s a list of links discussing right wing hate, nuttery and the uptick in violent gun shootings on A Time for Change if you are interested in this subject.  

• Media Matters On Obama Derangement Syndrome
• Rachel Maddow: Right Wingnuts Go Teabagging
• Glenn Beck’s Radical Dittoheads
• Hate Talk and the Radical Right; The House of Cards
• Maddow Rips Spencer Bacchus’ McCarthy-like List
• Rachel Maddow Calls Out Right Wingnut Lies
• Glenn Beck Pours “Gas” On Guest
• Reagan’s Revolution: Stoking White Racism
• Colbert’s Threatdown Is Hysterical
• GOP Representative Keeps McCarthy-Like List
• Another GOP Lie: Obama Most Divisive President
• Stewart: Right Wingnuts Are Just Sore Losers
• Olbermann: Pittsburgh Killer Inspired by Glenn Beck
• Right Wingnut Limbaugh Encourages Free Speech
• No One Is Restricting Anyone’s Rights
• Poplawski Was A Right Wingnut
• Right Wingnut Revoluton Chatter Is Not Harmless
• 3 Police Officers Dead and Others Injured in Pittsburgh
• Colbert Takes On the Delusional Right Wingnut Glenn Beck
• Right Wingnuts, Talking Heads, Intolerance and Webrage
• Atlas Shrugged Off the Right Wingnuts
• Michelle Bachmann Has Been Listening to the White Album
• Another Right Wingnut Lunatic: Neal Boortz
• Right Wingnut Incitements to Violence Are Being Acted Upon
• Glenn Beck is An Ignorant Opportunist
• Obama Birth Certificate Lawsuit Deemed “Frivolous”
• Right Wingnut Chatter About Overthrow of US Government
• Paranoia Over Obama’s Birth Certificate Will Not Fade
• “Republicans Unhinged”
• CPAC Sponsor Linked to Hate Group
• “White Heat”: The Racial Backlash After Obama
• Sean Hannity Is Totally Irresponsible and Un-American
• Is The Republican Hate-Base Growing?
• Right Wingnuts Threaten Assassination And Civil War
• Christian Right Wingnuts: “God Hates Fags” & Everyone Else But Us
• You Are Republican If…
• Those Who Can Do, Those Who Can’t Persecute
• Tennessee Republicans Join Lawsuit Challenging Obama Birth Certificate
• Killing Liberals, It’s No Joke
• Republicans Look to the Taliban As Their Model
• Michelle Malkin: “Oh, If I Only Had A Soul”
• Cro-Magnons Among Us
• Sarah Palin and Her Religion: Can She Be Elected?
• Obambi.com – A Right Wingnut Racist Spew of a Blog
• Team Sarah and Other Right Wingnuts In Trouble
• Greta’s Fox Crazies Are Out In Force & Unmoderated
• Ex-Employee Murders Dog Out of Revenge
• Angry Man Shoots Talker During Movie on Christmas
• Sarah Palin: The Heir to McCarthy?
• Another RNC Racist: Chip Saltsman
• TeamSarah.Org: Sarah Palin’s Groupies Accept Incitement to Murder as “Free Speech”
• Internet Hate Voiced Against Obama by Palin Supporters

The Huffington Post has collected some of the right wing, conservative reaction about the government’s report.  Malkin uses words like “piece of crap report” and “My b.s. detector went off the chart, and yours will, too.”  That must be one wampum BS meter.  Have you read her blog?

People like Malkin, and even Lou Dobbs on CNN tonight, just sweep the report under the rug as if it were not true when the conservative media and Faux psycho-tainers like Glenn Beck are ratcheting up the hate rhetoric.  No joke.  Just take a look at the links above.  It’s over the top people.

I guess the conservative media will not be satisfied until there is another Timothy McVeigh.

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I previously posted about Spain considering legal action against members of the Bush administration. Scott Horton reports in The Daily Beast that decision has been made and Spain will go forward with indictments of  ”former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and five top associates over their role in the torture of five Spanish citizens held at Guantánamo.”   You can read that story here.

What an embarrassing moment for our country.

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These Tea Party crowds have been reported by the New York Times to be a rather loose collection of mixed nuts. The complaints range from conspiracy theorists over President Obama’s birth certificate (“Is it real”) to just calling the President names.

…at the park gazebo, the green lawn was rumbling with grass-roots anger. Actually, its grass-rootiness was highly debatable. What were the citizens angry about? The stimulus? Not really, said one organizer. He had problems with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Laws impeding capital formation. “Indict Charlie Rangel,” said a sign. “Lowlife Obama!” roared a man in the crowd, causing giggles.

Was this about Wall Street? Evil automakers? Greedy lenders who pillaged Long Island with predatory housing loans? No, no and no. It was not about fixing unbridled free-market capitalism, but ensuring its glorious restoration. Mostly, it was about tax cuts.

The day was dark already, but the atmosphere became foggier and more indistinct with each new speaker. It all seemed to boil down to a battle of good nouns against evil nouns.

“Liberty, yes! Tyranny, no!”

“Keep your socialistic dance! We don’t want to live in France!”

The organizers, backed by Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey, are trying to keep the loons at bay.  That means that the anti-immigration crowd are not welcome.  I can’t imagine why.  They seem like such a nice crowd.  

According to the Anti-defamation League, Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee (ALIPAC), led by William Gheen, is the “largest anti-immigrant group in the country”. The ADL says that ALIPAC led by Gheen is “a xenophobic anti-immigrant group…publicly branding undocumented immigrants as murderous criminals and disease carriers”.

In a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center, William Gheen makes a habit of using “nativist aphorisms” like “Call me old fashioned, but people should be able to shop at Wal-Mart without worrying about catching [t]uberculosis.”

Other fringe tea partiers are worried about Texas’ secession from the US to form the “Republic of Texas.”  Elected Republicans have wanted to speak, but according to the Huffington Post, they were turned down so that the Plaintiff in an Obama birth certificate suit and a man who called for an uprising against the duly elected President could speak.  That is none other than the infamous bitter bob,  Alan Keyes.  They would not allow Michael Steele to speak though, the Chairman of the Republican National Committee.

The Republicans started it, promoted it through the Republican News Network, Fox News, and now as it spins out of their control toward the ever  nuttier right wing, the question is how embarrassed will they be?  This is what Nobel Prize winning Paul Krugman has to say on that:

Republicans have become embarrassing to watch. And it doesn’t feel right to make fun of crazy people. Better, perhaps, to focus on the real policy debates, which are all among Democrats.

But here’s the thing: the G.O.P. looked as crazy 10 or 15 years ago as it does now. That didn’t stop Republicans from taking control of both Congress and the White House. And they could return to power if the Democrats stumble. So it behooves us to look closely at the state of what is, after all, one of our nation’s two great political parties.

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But everything that critics mock about these parties has long been standard practice within the Republican Party.

Thus, President Obama is being called a “socialist” who seeks to destroy capitalism. Why? Because he wants to raise the tax rate on the highest-income Americans back to, um, about 10 percentage points less than it was for most of the Reagan administration. Bizarre.

But the charge of socialism is being thrown around only because “liberal” doesn’t seem to carry the punch it used to. And if you go back just a few years, you find top Republican figures making equally bizarre claims about what liberals were up to. Remember when Karl Rove declared that liberals wanted to offer “therapy and understanding” to the 9/11 terrorists?

Then there are the claims made at some recent tea-party events that Mr. Obama wasn’t born in America, which follow on earlier claims that he is a secret Muslim. Crazy stuff — but nowhere near as crazy as the claims, during the last Democratic administration, that the Clintons were murderers, claims that were supported by a campaign of innuendo on the part of big-league conservative media outlets and figures, especially Rush Limbaugh.

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Going back to those tea parties, Mr. DeLay, a fierce opponent of the theory of evolution — he famously suggested that the teaching of evolution led to the Columbine school massacre — also foreshadowed the denunciations of evolution that have emerged at some of the parties.

Last but not least: it turns out that the tea parties don’t represent a spontaneous outpouring of public sentiment. They’re AstroTurf (fake grass roots) events, manufactured by the usual suspects. In particular, a key role is being played by FreedomWorks, an organization run by Richard Armey, the former House majority leader, and supported by the usual group of right-wing billionaires. And the parties are, of course, being promoted heavily by Fox News.

But that’s nothing new, and AstroTurf has worked well for Republicans in the past. The most notable example was the “spontaneous” riot back in 2000 — actually orchestrated by G.O.P. strategists — that shut down the presidential vote recount in Florida’s Miami-Dade County.

So what’s the implication of the fact that Republicans are refusing to grow up, the fact that they are still behaving the same way they did when history seemed to be on their side? I’d say that it’s good for Democrats, at least in the short run — but it’s bad for the country.

Make fun of these things if you will, like I did above, but Paul Krugman is dead right.  It is bad for the country, but what can we do, the Republicans just don’t seem to care.

That is the loudest statement the Republicans have consistently made.

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