Republican Obstructionism Turning To Naked Right-wing Violence?

Now that Alaska voters have gotten to know what Joe Miller really is all about-- self-serving corruption mixed with bizarre and authoritarian extremism-- he's fallen to the back of the pack, behind Democrat Scott McAdams and write-in sore loser Lisa Murkowski (also corrupt and reactionary but not as bizarre and authoritarian). The handcuffing and kidnapping of a reporter doesn't fit in with too many people's idea of a freedom and liberty and "Don't Tread On Me" agenda.

Similarly, after taking a hit for running an Aqua Buddha ad that a DSCC consultant persuaded skeptical Kentuckians was a good idea, Jack Conway is bouncing back-- and big-- on the heels of a repulsive display of jackbooted thuggery by a Rand Paul staffer (see video below). Yesterday the Lexington Herald-Leader published a chilling editorial, "Thuggish Behavior Stains Kentucky."

The ugliness outside a U.S. Senate debate in Lexington Monday night was not a mere act of incivility. It was a violent assault.

It was the kind of thuggish intimidation you expect against a political protestor in Tehran today or a civil-rights marcher in Birmingham in 1963. It has no place in an American election today or ever.

Rand Paul supporters knocked down an anti-Paul activist who was trying to get her picture taken with Paul as he and Attorney General Jack Conway arrived at KET for their last debate.

A man identified as a Paul campaign volunteer from Bourbon County used his foot to push the woman's head into the concrete. Video of the assault is being watched around the world.

The Paul campaign condemned the attack, disassociated itself from the volunteer who stomped the woman's head and called on activists "on both sides" to avoid "physical altercations of any kind."

The problem with the Paul statement is that only one side, his side, resorted to violence.

We keep hearing this is the year of the angry voter. But what motivates people to physically assault a woman who's carrying a political sign they don't like?

Certainly not respect for the Constitution, which enshrines the right of all citizens to express their opinions without fear. Not a belief in the rule of law. Not common decency.

Some members of Paul's Tea Party issue paranoid warnings that President Barack Obama and Democrats are totalitarians out to impose Marxist control over our country.

But look which side produced the goon squad.

This follows similar behind the curtain look at right-wing violence and authoritarianism. In their books Over The Cliff by Dave Neiwert and John Amato, and American Taliban by Markos Moulitsas the anti-social, violent-- including murderous-- behavior of the far right is shown to be an integral piece of the right's vision for where they plan to take the country. It's as much a part of their greater vision as it was to Hitler's... and the Taliban's. From Rich Iott (Boehner's Nazi buddy), Allen West (a Florida thug who thinks hanging out with a drug-dealing motorcycle gang is cool), Sharron Angle's threat of a "Second amendment solution" if she isn't elected and Texas GOP House candidate Stephen Broden's similar "armed insurrection is on the table" comments, to the violent attacks on Raul Grijalva's office and the sickening violent attacks on women by Republican candidates like David Rivera and Tom Ganley (not to mention the Rand Paul Bourbon County coordinator), only a fool could deny the American right is headed right down the same road as the German right headed down in the 1930s. Tuesday Digby warned about it quite eloquently at Daily Kos as part of an attempt to remind complacent and impatient progressives that a disappointing friend, which is probably a fair characterization of Obama, is far preferable to a deadly enemy hellbent on mayhem and destruction. (Obama may not be the "fierce advocate" gays had reason to believe would finally be occupying the White House, but-- let's be real-- he's not Virginia Foxx, Michele Bachmann, Steve King or... Clint McCance.)

Although the vast majority of Americans would like to see the Republicans work in harmony with Obama-- which, for better or worse, is exactly what Obama would like as well-- Boehner, Miss McConnell and Pence have all indicated clearly that their only priority is to sabotage Obama and obstruct his attempts to work for ordinary American families and the good of the country. To them he isn't and will never be a legitimate president and they do not care how much damage they cause people in their jihad against him. In fact Miss McConnell, when not consumed with trying to clean up for Rand Paul and his brownshirt thugs in Kentucky, went so far as to blurt out that "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president. Our single biggest political goal is to give [the Republican] nominee for president the maximum opportunity to be successful."

The one teababgging extremist who is guaranteed a Senate seat-- since he'll represent a theocratic state with only the most tenuous of ties to anything remotely resembling a democracy-- is far right kook Mike Lee. And he's already pumping up the idea of a right-wing government shut down.