The GOP Platform Takes Another Step Towards The Conservative Dream Of Selling Off The National Parks

Suggested reading for Cliven Bundy's pet congressman

In his seminal book, The Progressive Revolution: How The Best In America Came To Be, Mike Lux listed some of the achievements of the progressive movement in this country, achievements that often took years of struggle against conservative forces doggedly serving the interests of great wealth and entrenched, established power. "If you look at our country’s long history," he wrote, "from the days of the first stirrings of our revolutionary impulses against Britain to today, progressive leaders and progressive movements have moved this country forward in the face of bitter-- and frequently violent-- opposition from reactionaries and defenders of the status quo. Consider the major advances in American history:

• The American Revolution
• The Bill of Rights and the forging of a democracy
• Universal white male suffrage
• Public education
• The emancipation of the slaves
• The national park system
• Food safety
• The breakup of monopolies
• The Homestead Act
• Land grant universities
• Rural electrification
• Women’s suffrage
• The abolition of child labor
• The eight hour workday
• The minimum wage
• Social Security
• Civil rights for minorities and women
• Voting rights for minorities and the poor
• Cleaning up our air, our water, and toxic dump sites
• Consumer product safety
• Medicare and Medicaid

Every single one of those reforms, which are literally the reforms that made this country what it is today, was accomplished by the progressive movement standing up to the fierce opposition of conservative reactionaries who were trying to preserve their own power. American history is one long argument between progressivism and conservatism.

The striking thing about this long debate is how much the arguments that have occurred are repetitive over time, in terms of their rhetoric, constituencies, philosophy, and the values they represent. From generation to generation, the conservatives who oppose reform and progress have used the same kinds of arguments over and over again.

Notice what Mike has right between the progressive vs. conservative battle to emancipate the slaves and the progressive vs. conservative battle to move towards guaranteeing food safety for consumers: the progressive vs. conservative battle to establish the great American national park system. Hard to believe but the conservatives fought against it like enraged animals. They-- conservatives, not Republicans, did back in the mid-1800s and they still are today. Watch simple-minded and vision-free Republican former congressman Cliff Stearns (FL) in the video below advocating "selling off some of our national parks."



The whole idea of national parks has been credited not to politicians but to artists and writers like George Catlin, James Fenimore Cooper, Henry David Thoreau, Thomas Cole and Frederick Edwin Church who helped transform the concept of the wilderness as a challenge that had to be overcome to an appreciation for unspoiled nature and spectacular natural areas. The first instance I could find of the political adoption of this attitude led to the create of Yosemite in 1864 when Congress passed a Abraham Lincoln signed a land transfer premised on the valley being "held for public use, resort, and recreation... inalienable for all time." Republicans, of course, have devolved tremendously since Lincoln and Cliff Stearns represents them far better than Abraham Lincoln. After Yosemite, Yellowstone and then Mackinaw were established as national parks but conservatives fail to see government's role in holding America's heritage in trust from one generation to the next. Although Stearns and his right-wing crackpot colleagues wanted to sell off Florida’s Everglades National Park, it is directly responsible for almost 2,400 jobs and $140 million a year in visitor spending. Nationally, the park system is responsible for over a quarter million jobs and $31 billion dollars annually. Conservatives imagine a string on Starbucks along the rim of the Grand Canyon would be more productive.

Richard Pombo (R-CA) was defeated in California for several reasons but his constituents were more than aware that he was advocating selling off the national parks to mining companies when they replaced the powerful committee chairman with political unknown Jerry McNerney in 2006. This year the Republican platform is demanding the federal government immediately start disposing of federal lands on behalf of the anti-park fanatics and the anti-government militias. The crackpot party's platform: "Congress shall immediately pass universal legislation providing a timely and orderly mechanism requiring the federal government to convey certain federally controlled public lands to the states. We call upon all national and state leaders and representatives to exert their utmost power and influence to urge the transfer of those lands identified." The Koch brothers paid a fortune to have that in the platform.

Most of the tea party maniacs and extremists who stand for selling the national parks are in deep red districts filled with brainwashed zombies who have no capacity for critical thought, like Rob Bishop who has Pombo's old job as House Natural Resource Committee chairman. His R+27 district gave Obama a mere 20% of the vote and Bishop could sell everyone's children and probably get reelected. Jason Chaffetz, another Utah nut case, is just as anti-national park-- and has an even redder district! They're not going anyplace. Nor are some of the other of the worst privatizers like Don Young (R-AK), Doug LaMalfa (R-CA), Paul Cook (R-CA)-- who's sprawling desert district includes Death Valley National Park, the Mojave Wilderness and National Preserve, Inyo National Forest, the White Mountains Wilderness area and is precariously close to both Yosemite, Sequoia National Park and the John Muir Wilderness-- Raul Labrador (R-ID) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ). But there is one who looks likely to lose his seat-- the Cliven Bundy-coddling congressman, Cresent Hardy.

Rep. Hardy is a member of FLAG [the Federal Land Action Group] and introduced H.R. 1445, which would prohibit the Department of the Interior from acquiring new public lands that would be managed by the National Parks Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, or the BLM, unless the federal budget is balanced. As a practical matter, the bill would prevent the U.S. government from being able to protect Civil War battlefields from development or guard against the building of private mansions on private inholdings within national parks.

Rep. Hardy introduced two amendments that would add loopholes to the Antiquities Act: H. Amdt. 597 to the most recent appropriations bill and H.  Amdt. 345 to the defense authorization bill. He has also cosponsored three other bills that would alter the Antiquities Act, as well as one bill focused on land seizure.

Unfortunately for Hardy, he's in a nice blue-leaning district and his opponent is an accomplished, popular and much-admired state senator, Ruben Kihuen, very much not an admirer of Hardy's vigilante friends and law-breaking fanatics. "For too long, big oil companies and polluters have determined our environmental policy in this country with an army of lobbyists.," he told Nevada voters. "We cannot afford to allow big polluters to put profits above the health of our families and our planet. We must act now to stop climate change and protect our environment for the generations that follow. Congressman Cresent Hardy seems to take his conservation cues, particularly on land management, from his good friend Cliven Bundy. That’s not the type of leadership Nevada needs. I am proud of my 94% lifetime rating from the Nevada Conservation League. In the legislature, I championed bills to increase the percentage of our state’s energy that is produced by renewable energy, and I have been a long-time advocate for protecting our public lands such as Basin and Range and Gold Butte." He promised to "be a voice for keeping our public lands in public hands and push for a funding increase in our land and water conservation fund to protect America’s great places." Please watch this incredible Ken Burns documentary on the national parks and consider making a contribution to Ruben's campaign by tapping on the thermometer on the right.

Rick Snyder Hasn't Been Arrested And The Bundy Gang Is Still Terrorizing Oregon, But Tamir Rice Got His

In 2009 I wanted a peaceful, unstressed vacation. I went to Bali, which fits that bill perfectly. For excitement, though, I brought Dave Neiwert's then brand new book, The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right, which isn't so much about Hate Talk Radio per se as it is about the gradual transformation of mainstream conservatives to full blown fascists and all the steps that lead in that direction. Neiwert wrote how the conservative movement had become "a precursor to fascism," which he defines as "explicitly antidemocratic, antiliberal, and corporatist, and it endorsed violence as a chief means to its ends. It was 'revolutionary' in its fervor, yet sought to defend status quo institutions, particularly business interests. It was also, obviously, authoritarian." Sound at all familiar? No, this isn't going to be another post about Herr Trumpf or Ted Cruz. I just noticed a Washington Post report by Neiwert about the outbreak of Bundy-family domestic terrorism in Oregon. His premise was exactly what I said the day the standoff began: Not punishing the Bundys for the Nevada standoff led to the occupation in Oregon.

"If," he wrote, "authorities let anti-government protesters get away with breaking the law, they'll keep doing it." And he doesn't mean protesters picketing and marching with signs and chanting. He means armed-to-the-teeth domestic terrorists trying to get their way through armed rebellion. Ammon and Ryan Bundy, sons of that same Cliven Bundy who instigated an armed standoff in Nevada in 2014, are the ringleaders of this little reprise.

So why do federal officials once again find themselves in this position-- awkwardly wringing their hands in hopes that the radicals’ demands and willpower will erode with a little time and cold weather? And facing the same cast of characters who humiliated law enforcement officials less than two years ago?

The answer, to a large extent, lies in that Nevada canyon where Bundy’s compatriots aimed their weapons at the federal agents and police officers who had come to enforce a court order requiring the confiscation of the ranch’s cattle, after Bundy refused for years to pay federal grazing fees for using public lands. When those guns were brandished, multiple violations of federal and state law occurred: It is a felony to point a weapon at a law enforcement officer and a federal felony to take aim at a U.S. government agent.

And yet there were no arrests that day. Moreover, despite the FBI’s assumption shortly afterward of the investigation into weapons use at the Bundy ranch-- along with vows to hold the people responsible for the standoff fully accountable-- no meaningful action has yet been taken against anyone involved.

That includes, of course, Cliven Bundy himself (who still hasn’t paid the fees and fines he owes the government) and his sons-- who have now turned up in Oregon, threatening again to take over public lands, in defiance of the local community and the wishes of the people on whose behalf they’re ostensibly protesting, all in pursuit of their campaign to destroy the federal government’s ability to administer land policies.

Bundy explained his rationale, such as it is, in a press release shortly before the occupation began: “The United States Justice Department has NO jurisdiction or authority within the State of Oregon, County of Harney over this type of ranch management. These lands are not under U.S. treaties or commerce, they are not article 4 territories, and Congress does not have unlimited power.”

The men leading the protest believe in an arcane interpretation of the Constitution that radically limits the reach and scope of the federal government-- in their alternate universe, the county sheriff is the highest authority, while the feds are limited to regulating overseas trade and waging war. Derived from the racist swamplands of far-right extremism, their version of “constitutionalism” reflects a paranoid culture in which government officials are believed to be trading away Americans’ freedom on behalf of a nefarious New World Order that seeks to enslave all mankind.

If federal law enforcement authorities had taken their roles as stewards of the rule of law seriously, many of these players would be facing justice in federal courts right now, instead of opportunistically raising hell out in poverty-stricken rural areas. Certainly, there is no small irony in the fact that the tepid response from federal authorities demonstrates how little resemblance they have to the tyrannical thugs the Bundys say they are. But it also shows how just that accusation, when wielded by white conservatives, can cause federal law enforcement to back down.

...There should have been a number of arrests after the nonsense at the Bundy ranch. That there were none not only emboldened these right-wing radicals-- and encouraged them to believe that their bizarre misinterpretation of the Constitution has some legitimacy-- but, in the case of the Bundy brothers, directly empowered them to carry on as they did before.

“We believe these armed extremists have been emboldened by what they saw as a clear victory at the Cliven Bundy ranch and the fact that no one was held accountable for taking up arms against agents of the federal government,” said Heidi Beirich, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project.

The failure of federal law enforcement to adequately respond to this kind of threatening behavior has also become a source of low morale in agencies the Bundys and their ilk like to demonize, such as the BLM and the Forest Service. This is particularly the case among federal field employees, who, according to those I’ve spoken with, are encountering increasing incidents of radicalized (and armed) “patriots” claiming that the agencies have no jurisdiction on federal lands.

That’s not to suggest that federal law enforcement should respond immediately with tactical units and guns blazing. That approach was attempted in the 1990s at two armed standoffs with far-right extremists-- at Ruby Ridge in northern Idaho and at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas-- to disastrous effect. Those incidents inspired a fresh wave of far-right radicalism (including the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995) and were seen by many on the right as omens of looming government oppression.

It’s understandable that federal law enforcement might be reluctant to act precipitously after those disasters. A failure to act in any way whatsoever, though, invites more of the same and certain escalation, as the Oregon standoff demonstrates.

The brass back in Washington and agents in field offices throughout the West should look back to a different, less infamous siege from 20 years ago, one that offers a more helpful model for responding to these situations. In 1996, a group calling itself the Montana Freemen-- which operated a number of money-making scams and made armed threats against county officials in Jordan, Montana-- similarly defied the federal government in an attempt to create its own homeland out on the prairie.

It took 81 days to wait them out, during the harsh Montana winter and into the muddy Montana spring, but rather than rush in, as in Waco and Ruby Ridge, FBI negotiators eventually persuaded all the people inside the Freemen compound to surrender peacefully. Several of the chief perpetrators wound up doing extensive federal prison time for a variety of bank, wire and mail fraud charges, as well as for making threats against county and federal officials.

There can be a middle ground between the bloodshed of Ruby Ridge and Waco and the tacit acceptance of what’s going on in Burns. We know from how the FBI handled the Freemen that federal authorities are perfectly capable of bringing extremists who brandish weapons and threaten government employees to justice without creating martyrs or worsening the situation. Somehow, in the intervening 20 years-- and amid the changes in administrations along the way, not to mention personnel and law enforcement philosophies-- that lesson got lost.

Federal authorities in the Justice Department and elsewhere have seemingly made a tactical decision to avoid confronting right-wing radicals, though their rationale has never been made clear. Maybe they fear backlash from a conservative media pack that has made efforts to track and confront right-wing extremist terrorism difficult, if not impossible, for federal law enforcement agencies (thanks in no small part to the nonsensical uproar that arose in 2009 over a Department of Homeland Security bulletin regarding recruitment and terrorist violence among right-wing extremists). But no one from any federal agency has come forward to explain their inaction, and in the meantime, people like the Bundys are taking exactly the wrong lessons from it.

What’s become abundantly clear in Oregon is that federal agents made a horrific mistake in failing to enforce the law after the Bundy ranch showdown. They are paying the price for that failure now. Maybe it’s time they remembered that it’s possible to stand up for the rule of law without breaking it.

If Ted Cruz Is A Real Conservative, Why Isn't He In Burns, Oregon With That Engraved Shotgun Of His?

Right-wing terrorist Ammon Bundy loves showing off his taser "wounds"

What are we to make out of this episode of domestic terrorism in Burns, Oregon? Maybe Ammon Bundy's crackpot father should have been dealt with more like the law deals with terrorists in places other than Nevada? He still owes a million dollars to the American taxpayer and his lenient treatment-- to put it mildly-- seems to have enabled the even crazier son (we'll get to what precisely "crazy" means in a moment). A little background: Ammon Bundy and a few pals, armed and ready to kill or be killed, according to their own words, took over a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service building 30 miles from Burns in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Saturday to protest that two local ranchers were given jail sentences that they feel are too long. Bundy admits having planned this and he unsuccessfully tried recruiting some local folks as well. All schools in Harney County are closed while the terrorists are holding the building.

As you would expect, Fox News was on-air pouring gasoline on an already explosive situation and one of their regular contributors, crackpot Deneen Borelli, either didn't understand what was happening or was purposely lying to stir up an incident. "What people need to understand what is going on in Oregon, it is really an overgrowth of government. Government gone wild is outreach of government. You have these individuals who are trying to save their property, save their ranch because the overrun of government is not doing that. Government own as substantial amount of property in the west. These individuals were trying to save their property." Not just incoherent, but devoid of facts, utterly and completely. Fits the ideology but wrong page in the talking points. That's Fox! Yesterday, Kasich, who has heard of Oregon, claimed in Des Moines that he hadn't heard anything about a standoff with the right-wing terrorists. Maybe if they had turbans...

Last time the Bundy family decided to try a little armed insurrection, they were supported by Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Dr. Ben, Mike Huckabee and Herr Trumpf. Trumpf was on with Sean Hannity while the Cliven Bundy insurrection was in full swing, saying "I like him, I like his spirit, his spunk and the people that are so loyal… I respect him... He’s in a great position to cut a great deal and I think that’s what he should do." Can't wait to see what these 5 clowns have to say about Oregon. So far they're all ducking the questions. Now about the explanation of "crazy" I promised... [Oh, wait.... we have an UPDATE: Cruz said "naughty, naughty... no violence please before the election." Actually, what the Texas dipshit said was "Every one of us has a constitutional right to protest, to speak our minds. But we don't have a constitutional right to use force and violence and to threaten force and violence on others. And so it is our hope that the protesters there will stand down peaceably, that there will not be a violent confrontation." I wonder if Trumpf takes the opportunity to bury him in Iowa now.]

Buzzfeed reporter Mary Ann Georgantopoulos shared a documents from a Bundy lawsuit against the government. It's virtually impossible to read this stuff and come away thinking these are sane, rational people. Here's a taste:

Barack Obama was not a natural born citizen therefore he has no authority to take over peoples land under imminent domain. Mr. Obama blackmailed and covertly threatened Donald Trump with building code regulation violations, property tax fraud, illegally operating offshore tax havens for betting with Federal indictments unless he shuts up and stops the Birther movement because Mr. Obama fears he will be exposed for his covert and sinister ties to Iran’s Hezbollah network.

The suit claims "all Americans are in danger" and demanded investigations into the "atrocities" committed by "these orgie, sex deviants." These are the lunatics Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Trumpf were championing. The suit also claims, somewhat bizarrely, that the Benghazi attack was "implemented so George Bush could somehow feel vindicated for 9/11." I'm sure it all makes sense if you watch enough Fox News and Alex Jones, preferably at the same time, although the strangest part of the suit was a claim by Bundy that President Obama invited him to the Oval Office and forced him to perform oral sex on Sunny and Bo, the Obama family's dogs. No, really: "Mr. Obama has portrayed himself as hope and change, the only hope he gave me was gay rights with dildo enhancements. Thank you Mayor Rob Ford and Philadelphia Parole officer Agent Fletcher they give a good warm tickle when performing tooth extracts on my genital area. Mr. Obama is a a phycosomatic [sic] sex freak. Mr. Obama had me and agent Fletcher perform oral sex on Sunny + Bo in the Oval office.

Bundy thinks he's a whistleblower and warned that if his claims aren't brought to light, America will "be the new Africa and are [sic] citizens will be sleeping in tents and washing clothes in puddles by 2022 while China donates rice to us on a camel drone from Pakistan why we are celebrating Kwanza with pet turtles." Sounds perfect for a Trumpf or Cruz cabinet secretary.

Rep. Donna Edwards, the candidate Blue America endorsed for the open Maryland Senate seat, looked a little more deeply into this incident of domestic terrorism and violent extremism than Ted Cruz did. Labeling this "Radical Mormon Terrorism" isn't going to do anything to solve this, although it's the Republican way to view this kind of reactionary violent outburst. Like many in Congress, Donna said she is "deeply troubled." But then she started looking at the asymmetry of the response from law enforcement. Keep in the back of your mind how the Cleveland police responded to 12 year old Tamir Rice playing with a toy gun compared to how law enforcement is dealing with these heavily armed insurrectionists. Donna:

"Since the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement, activists protesting the deaths of an unarmed 18-year-old on a city street or the tragic death of a 25-year-old in the back of a police van, have been referred to variously as 'thugs,' 'criminals,' and 'drug users.' To the contrary, most of these protests and protesters have been peaceful, and organizers have sought and obtained permission to peaceably assemble in exercise of their Constitutional rights. But in Oregon, a group of armed men illegally occupying a federal building have been referred to as an 'armed militia,' or simply 'occupiers,' as though that behavior is acceptable in a nation of laws. What is happening in Oregon is not protest sanctioned by the Constitution, it is lawbreaking.

"Our nation's press has a long history of shining a light on tough truths and asking tough questions. At this moment, the media have a responsibility to avoid language that paints these armed militants in a positive light. They are breaking the law. Moreover, the media do great injustice to our Constitution by equating that lawlessness with the legitimate exercise of Constitutional rights by unarmed citizens who have come together to peacefully protest an end to violence in cities like Ferguson, Baltimore, and elsewhere. One could not imagine a group of armed black men taking over an unoccupied federal building in one of our nation's cities as they have in Oregon. It is time to tell that tough truth.

"These moments cry out for leadership-- by political leaders, the media, and the public. It is time for those of us who value our Constitution to end that silence."

And by leaders, Blue America isn't looking at partisan hacks, whether Ted Cruz, and Mike Huckabee or visionless humbugs like Chris Van Hollen and Chuck Schumer. Think about helping to elect Donna to the U.S. Senate. We need her point of view there as well as her passion, energy and sense of Justice.

Ammon Bundy always sports a Black Lives Don't Matter insignia

UPDATE: Grijalva Resolution Against Armed Insurrectionists

This afternoon Raúl Grijalva will be introducing a congressional resolution condemning the illegal armed occupation of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, calling on the Bundy people to put down their weapons and surrender to law enforcement officials immediately (without the "let's make a deal" bargaining Trumpf has suggested in the past). Grijalva: "This is not a romantic instance of Western self-reliance or an excusable moment of heated rhetoric. This is armed occupation of public property by people who have threatened deadly force. No one should play the game of publicly wringing their hands at these criminals' tactics even as they cheer on their 'message,' least of all Congress. The refuge is public land bought and paid for by the American people for public benefit and enjoyment. No one is entitled to demand it for themselves or steal it by force. I call on every one of my colleagues to support this resolution and work closely with responsible people in their home districts to make sure this isn’t repeated."

Crackpot Utopia: The Year in Republican Crazy, Part 8

• Things to come: Forward into the past! (11 Presidential Dream Tickets)
• Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 9: Former republican VP nominee Paul "Crazy Eyes" Ryan
• Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 10: Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association


You Can't Make This Stuff Up Dept.: On FOX "News" for March 3, "America's Mayor" makes known his preference for Vladimir Putin over President Obama: "Putin makes a decision, and he executes it, quickly. . . . That's what you call a leader." (See Presidential Dream Ticket #2.)

Crackpot Utopia: A dream world as envisioned by republicans; a manifestation or expression of the deranged, warped alternate universe inhabited by republicans, at least in their minds. See also: Bachmannism, Boehneresque.

by Noah

1. Things To Come: Forward Into The Past!

In the last installment of "Crackpot Utopia," I went on about how the 2016 Republican Primary Freak Show has already begun in 2014 with the absolute nuttery of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a man who is so highly thought of in republican minds that he is considered presidential material and was once even given the honor of presenting the annual on-air rebuttal to President Obama's State of the Union speech.

Did you think that the last presidential election cycle's republican primary season was the biggest freak show you'd ever seen? Well, it seems that this event gets freakier every time, as many of the old faces, and some new ones, start jockeying for position.

Since it's already begun, I've decided to take the leap and take a guess at what the Crackpot Party and their media allies will be touting as their Ideal Republican Presidential Tickets and Slogans!

Are the following really all that far-fetched? Are they ravings of a fantasist, perhaps? Well, to understand crazy, it helps to adopt a bit of crazy and try to put your mind in the crackpot mode, so . . . always remember that to the republican mind, what you are about to read is completely rational and logical. These people are thought quite normal and are perfectly acceptable candidates for Leader of the Free World -- if and when you look through republican eyes. In fact, to republicans these Dream Tickets are the inevitable wonderful result of the entire 6000 years of human history.

Presidential Dream Ticket #1: Palin-Zimmerman
"Straight-Shootin' Common-Sense Solutions"


Begone, Joe the Plumber (already designated Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 5)! Now Sarah will team up with an even more appropriate "Country First"-er, George Zimmerman.

Sarah and George -- perhaps America's two biggest attention whores on one ticket! Secession meets "stand your ground." Nice conflict, eh? First campaign stop will be Jefferson Davis State Park in Kentucky. Last campaign stop will be the loony bin, if they don't kill each other first, although once they get an endorsement from O.J. Simpson, their campaign will be toast.

Presidential Dream Ticket #2: Vladimir Putin-Vlad the Impaler
"Bare-Chested Men of Action!"


Meet the man behind Dracula: Vlad the Impaler.

Think about it: Who better represents republican feelings toward gays and poor people? So many repugs, especially those on FOX, adore Putin; Rudy Juliandrews is on record as wishing he was our leader instead of President Obama. Yeah, I know that neither of the fine republican icons on Dream Ticket #2 was born in the U.S.A., but republicans will use their belief that President Obama wasn't either as a twisted precedent. The problem with Vlad the Impaler being dead for centuries? It's the thought that counts.

Presidential Dream Ticket #3: Cheney-Cheney
"Have a Heart? No, Really, Have a Heart?"


Smile, Dick 'n' Liz! Oh, you are smiling?

It's Dick and Liz! No, not Burton and Taylor. Something else entirely, and much, much crazier.

Presidential Dream Ticket #4: Bush-Bush
"Had Enough?"


Where's Marvin? L-to-r: Neil Bush, George W. Bush, "Poppy" George H.W. Bush, and John Ellis Bush (aka Jeb)

Jeb and either Marvin or Neil, the brothers behind the scenes. Could Jeb win Florida if all those crackers found out his real name isn't Jeb? More importantly, do countries and empires commit suicide? Yes, they do. Such things have been going on at least since ancient Egypt, the Romans, and a myriad of European monarchies. If America were to elect another son of America's biggest crime family, then history will have repeated itself yet again. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Be forewarned.

Presidential Dream Ticket #5: Santorum-Mr. Rogers
"It's a Good Day in the Neighborhood!"

Rick and… does Mr. Rogers even have a first name? [Yes, it's Fred. -- Ed.] Can you tell them apart? I have to be honest. I can't. The only thing is that I've never heard Mr. Rogers talk about banning contraception. Imagine them in matching sweater vests replete with those nifty Seal of the Office of… badges. Can you say "Good morning Mr. President"?

Presidential Dream Ticket #6: Kelly-Hannity
"Santa's white; Jesus is white; anyone that matters is white"

Why not two of FOX's leading white supremacists, Megyn 'n' Sean? Is that a winning slogan or what? Such a ticket is the dream of the old, white "Get off my lawn" set. Expect former L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling to contribute big racist bucks to this one!

Probably Hannity won't like playing second fiddle to one of them female critters. But Republicans generally will be able to forgive the fact that Megyn Kelly is of the female persuasion and enjoy fantasizing of her baking nice warm cookies in the big white house. The party has proven that they will occasionally accept nonwhite males as long as they are even more out-to-lunch than the usual insane republican. Her "I'm a victim" card-playing is also just the kind of thing that tugs at the strings of their blackened hearts.

This ticket is also the logical end game of years of FOX insanity. For Hannity, with his audience dying off and his ratings spiraling down to earth like an old biplane with a dead engine, there's likely to be a job hunt coming soon. If he doesn't get the VP gig, he'll be left with a choice of cutting ribbons at Chinese auto factories or forming a cruise line called KKK Kruises and burning crosses on the high seas for the rest of his deranged, hate-filled days.

Presidential Dream Ticket #7: Hannity-Bundy
"Let Me Tell You About the Negro!"


Stephen Colbert sings "The Ballad of Cliven Bundy": "His land belongs to you and me. That's what he told Sean Hannity." (The video segment is below.)

Not to pick on Hannity too much, but actually I don't think that's possible. I have to say I'd rather see large birds picking at him in the hot sun of Death Valley instead of me, but why wait for that?

This already-paired ticket is a natural and may appeal to more Republicans than the team of Sean and Megyn, for many reasons, not the least of which is that Megyn Kelly is a, well, you know, as I said, one o' dem woman critters. Not to worry, in the republican house there are many racists. That Hannity and Bundy share a mutual love for the ages that even surpasses Cranky McCain and Lindsey Graham will help with party fanatics, but, even more than that, pairing a barely closeted white supremacist with the "Let me tell you about the Negro" guy should be downright inspiring to rebubbacans everywhere!



Presidential Dream Ticket #8: McConnell-Graham
"Let's Dress Up, America!"

Yeah, Ol' Cranky McCain will be the jealous, fuming odd man out in this triangle as Mitch walks down the aisle with Lindsey, but he'll always have the memories of those wonderful nights of Palin's pillow talk about secession and her bomb-making secessionist buddy Joe Miller.

Presidential Dream Ticket #9: Cruz-Perry
"Texas Squared!"

None other than the brilliant Glenn Beck regards Ted Cruz as the next Ronald Reagan. You can't get a better endorsement than that! Sure, most republicans would rather just dig up the real Reagan and reanimate him. After all, zombies are hot these days. As to putting Perry on the ticket? Well, if you're a repug, why not? Republicans like David Carney, top adviser to then-candidate (now-Texas Gov.-elect Greg Abbott) thought Abbott's opponent, Harvard-educated lawyer Wendy Davis, was "too stupid to be Governor." So they must think Perry is a genius who was elected and reelected to the position.

Presidential Dream Ticket #10: Robertson-Robertson
"Who's on Top?" (this one is interchangeable)

The only question: Would Duck Dynasty's Phil, who says among other things that AIDS was sent from God as a punishment, and also believes the old republican chestnut about being gay being the slippery slope to bestiality, be the top, or would geezer Reverend Pat be? (Republicans sure seem to spend a lot of time thinking about sex with animals, don't they?)

Does it matter which Robertson tops this ticket? Either way it's "A Dynasty of Robertsons." This ticket is a match made in republican heaven and normal people's hell. Republicans consider both men to be godly and nonjudgmental men. Newtie once said of Phil Robertson:

He talks very specifically about not being judgmental toward anybody. . . . There's sections there [in his sermon] where he sounds like Pope Francis.

Duck Boy is not judgmental? Well, Newtie's cheese fell off the cracker long ago. Seeing certifiables like Rudy Giuliani, Herman Cain, and Rick Santorum get more love from republican primary voters probably pushed him off the final precipice. Not judgmental? Yeah, coulda fooled me. Here's Duck Boy preaching from the pulpit of the dark heart:



Sounds and looks more like bin Laden to me. Maybe I should just do a bait-and-switch on Duck Boy and make him run with Pat from Saturday Night Live instead of Pat Robertson. The confusion and consternation about his new running mate would make him explode.

And last, but certainly not least:

Presidential Dream Ticket #11: Rand Paul-Darrell Issa
"Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi to the End of Time!"

If this ticket wins, one day President Rand Paul will mysteriously disappear. It could happen in one of two ways. Either the presidential limo will be stolen with him in it, driven to New Jersey and pressed into one of those shiny metal cubes, or the White House will be burned to the ground, under very suspicious circumstances. Ladys and Gents, meet President Issa.


2. Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 9: Former republican VP nominee Paul "Crazy Eyes" Ryan, who has his own "Let me tell you about the Negro" moment:

We have got this talespin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work, and so there is a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with.

Oh yeah, there's a culture problem all right. It's the culture of being a republican and the innate racism that goes with that. Paul "Crazy Eyes" Ryan adheres to that old "lazy, shiftless Negro" meme. They even use it on President Obama whenever he takes a vacation. How many days a year do you and your lazy-ass, do-nothing congressional colleagues work, Paulie? Congress worked a grand total of 135 days in 2014, with no productivity to show for it. Of course, work to people like Ryan consists of badgering people for handouts of free campaign cash. They do panhandling on a galactic scale for "a living." Who the hell are you to talk, a-hole?


3. Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 10: Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association

The bottom line is that if Hillary Clinton becomes president in 2016, she will not only be our first female president, she could be our first lesbian president.

Well, yeah, I guess since all the other presidents have been men the chances of any of those particular presidents having been lesbians is way down. So, if a woman does get elected, the chances do increase somewhat.

Glenn Beck went even further with this notion of a lesbian in the Oval Office.


Sez Glenn: "Hillary Clinton will be having sex with a woman on the desk in the White House if it becomes popular."

Republicans sure get all riled up about this sex stuff. It's some sort of republican OCD thing.


TOMORROW IN PART 9: Pompous Blowhard of the Year Award: Bill O’Reilly; FOX "News" announces new spinoff: The FOX Benghazi Shopping Channel!; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 11: DiGiorno Pizza

NOAH'S 2014 IN REVIEW --
Crackpot Utopia: The Year in Republican Crazy

Part 1: Princess Liz Cheney tries for the Smoothie of the Year Award; "Miss Beck regrets" -- Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 1: Glenn Beck; and the Crackpot Party reacts to President Obama’s State of the Union speech [12/19/2014]
Part 2: Republicans wonder why normal people call them racists; Sean Hannity wants to self-deport; and the First Annual Mr. Burns Award, to ABC "shark" Kevin O'Leary [12/20/2014]
Part 3: Using fear, loathing, and paranoia to sell stuff; Arizona legalizes crack!; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 3: Bill O’Reilly [12/21/2014]
Part 4: A celebration of Michele Bachmann: Pray away the crazy?; What "War on Women"?; and the "Obama angle" on Malaysian Flight 370 [12/22/2014]
Part 5: The GOP and the kiss heard 'round the world; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 5: Joe the Plumber [12/23/2014]
Part 6: A word about South Carolina; Pat Robertson and his magic asteroid; and I'll have a pack of Twizzlers and an IUD to go, please [12/24/2014]
Part 7: And so it begins: The running of the buffoons; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 7, George Will has no idea what rape is; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 8, Rick Wiles calls for a coup [12/29/2014]
Part 8: Things to come: Forward into the past! (11 Presidential Dream Tickets); Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 9: Former republican VP nominee Paul "Crazy Eyes" Ryan; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 10: Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association [12/30/2014]
Part 9: Pompous Blowhard of the Year Award: Bill O’Reilly; FOX "News" announces new spinoff: the "FOX Benghazi™" Shopping Channel!; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 11: DiGiorno Pizza [12/31/2014]
Part 10: Newsmax -- Beyond Drudgery; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominees Nos. 12 and 13: Michele Bachmann, Kimberly Guilfoyle [1/1/2015]
Part 11: GOP and FOX whip up the hate over a POW exchange; and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 14: Iowa asylum escapee Rep. Steve King [1/3/2015]
Part 12: Arizona Republican protests busload of YMCA campers; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee(s) No. 15: the Impeachment Variations (group nomination); Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 16: NM Rep. Steve Pearce [1/4/2015]
Part 13 (and last): TV for Dummies: Sarah Palin launches her own channel; Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 17: Arizona schools superintendent John Huppenthal (rhymes with Neanderthal); and the final Crazyspeak of the Year nominee -- and also the winner! [1/5/2015]

NOAH'S 2013 IN REVIEW --
A Prayer to the Janitor of Lunacy

For listings and links, see Part 1 of this year's series.

#

The Republican Party Is Making Itself Over As The Party Of Anti-American Sedition

Many Republican Party leaders, always sensitive to their hate-fueled, paranoid base, are still clinging to their racism and bigotry. Its reflected in their policy agenda, the Ryan budget, their refusal to pass the bipartisan Senate comprehensive immigration plan (which even Boehner admits is being held back by the hate mongers in his caucus). Take this GOP thought-leader and political boss:

LIMBAUGH: You just gotta be who you are, and I think it's time to get rid of this whole National Basketball Association. Call it the TBA, the Thug Basketball Association, and stop calling them teams. Call 'em gangs. You have the Laker Gang, you have the Heat Gang, you have a Timberwolf Gang [distortions of official team names], and let 'em strap up out there, and let 'em market their CDs. Instead of selling concessions, sell CDs out there at the concession stand.

All the players get involved in this, and if a fight breaks out, hey, it's what happens! It's what happens with gangs, and if a cop gets bloodied, you know, that's a bonus for the gang member that pulls that off, and let the fans, you know, go in knowingly. They're going in to watch the Crips and the Bloods out there wherever the neighborhood is where the arena happens to be, and be who you are.

Nothing about the Donald Sterling Gang? Or the gang of heavily armed domestic terrorists and seditionists in Nevada, the Cliven Bundy Gang? His as slicking posture towards Bundy and his KKK mob won't hurt Limbaugh much. Virtually all respectable advertisers have fled his airwaves already.

[M]any national advertisers have heeded the protests of Media Matters about Rush Limbaugh. (Back in late February, we passed the two-year anniversary of Rush’s remarks about Sandra Fluke.)

And, predictably, Sterling is getting the same treatment from advertisers. But what about the idiot politicians who jumped on the racist bandwagon with Bundy? I doubt it will hurt racists like Greg Abbott in deep red states like Texas where most Republicans give racism a big thumbs up. Over the weekend, Hannity-- hardly a crusader for the NAACP-- asked Abbot about Bundy's ugly racist remarks, Abbott stood his ground and refused to apologize or even discuss the matter. Fellow Texas racists Rick Perry and Ted Cruz will be just fine as Bundy's most prominent political backers. Republican wing nut Congressman Paul Gosar actually drove up to the Bundy compound to make sure the racist Mormons in his R+20 Arizona district had no doubt where he stood. Rand Paul, smarter than the other neanderthals backed away quickly-- as did the Republican most likely to suffer politically for his Bundy support-- Nevada Senator Dean Heller. Jon Ralston has exposed Heller for his craven posturing on all this.

Imagine hearing these words come out of the mouth of Sen. Dean Heller, who has called Cliven Bundy’s supporters “patriots” and who did not utter a critical word about the famous rancher until he began declaiming about the history of the “Negro” in America:

“Let me first say that I do not support those who do not comply with the law. Mr. Bundy has not paid grazing fees in over 20 years, and that is unacceptable, particularly considering the number of ranchers in Nevada who hold permits and pay fees to graze on public lands. Furthermore, this case has been reviewed by a federal judge and a decision was made to remove the cattle.”

You know who that sounds like: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid  And if there is one person Dean Heller doesn’t want to sound like on Bundyville, it’s Harry Reid. But that’s what he believes, even though he has been too craven or politically opportunistic to say it.

How do I know?

Because I have obtained talking points and a legal analysis Heller had prepared for the KSNV program, “What’s Your Point,” both of which indicated that Bundy is a lawbreaker and has no firm legal ground beneath him. “Bundy has produced no valid law or specific facts raising a genuine issue of fact regarding federal ownership or management of public lands in Nevada, or that his cattle have not trespassed on the New Trespass Lands,” a summary of the case against Bundy prepared for Heller says.

I wonder why Heller did not say that. Or has not said it.

Instead the senator said on the program 10 days ago that Bundy’s defenders were not “domestic terrorists” as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called them but “patriots.” Reid, who was sitting next to him, argued with Heller’s label, saying, ‘If they’re patriots, we’re in big trouble.”

It’s unclear if Heller’s “patriots” remark was premeditated-- there’s no mention of it in the talking points, which are dated April 17, the day before the program. But Reid made the “domestic terrorists” comment less than 24 hours before the two sat down together for the interview, possibly after the talking points were prepared. (It was an inane comment either way.).

Despite the plan outlined in the talking points to start with a criticism of Bundy and his lawbreaking, Heller instead offered a tribute to the "patriots" and then assailed the BLM for its putative overreach, even as his documents pointed out that the armed “militia types” were the “most dangerous aspect of the standoff.”

…The documents unmask Heller as someone willing to ignore facts and research his own aides have given him to genuflect to the worst elements of his party. That he and his fellow travelers such as Sean Hannity and Alex Jones have received their swift just desserts as Bundy’s ignorant racism pours out with his every utterance only makes his “patriots” comment more egregious. Heller was willing to enable Bundy and his band of “patriots” without regard to the consequences, even though he clearly knew before he appeared on the program that Bundy and his followers were in the wrong.

…If you want to know where Heller stands on other issues-- or where his staff says he should stand-- the document is worth reading-- and comparing to what he has said and will say on these issues.

After the What’s Your Point interview, which ended at 1 PM on that Friday, Heller’s aides scurried to whisk him out of the studio and away from prying journalists. “I have to get him to the airport in 11 minutes,” his aide Jack Finn said.

In their haste to ensure Heller did not make any more unscripted comments, someone left behind the packet with the talking points and the legal analysis. One other piece of paper was in there, too:

A Southwest Airlines boarding pass, showing his flight didn’t leave for another two hours.

And not all domestic terrorists are lurking in rural Nevada. Cliff Schecter just braved the NRA Convention in Indianapolis, a den of anti-American sedition and treason potential far more serious than what's going on at Cliven Bundy's compound. His report-- Preparing for War in Indianapolis: Inside the NRA Plot to Terrify America-- would probably horrify most normal Americans.

Through the entrance to the hall were rows, probably a dozen of them or more, each filled with one booth after another of salesmen hawking their wares, going on for as far as the eye could see. The NRA had a banner outside the convention center describing it as “9 Acres of Guns & Gear,” and for once it wasn’t exaggerating.

As I entered the room, directly in front of me were T-shirts for sale with assault weapons on them, bearing the likenesses of former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, President Obama and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Two coastal Jews and an African-American from Chicago-- what’s known in Alex Jones land as “The Trifecta.” As I moved past the T-shirts, two guys walking past me looked back, and one chuckled. “Bloomberg,” he said, and shook his head.

Military-style weaponry of every kind occupied almost every inch of the terrain to my left and right as I began the long trek down each aisle. Not your father’s hunting rifle, for the most part—although there were a few of those here and there-- but the kind of arms you use to start a war. Fifty-caliber rifles, which can take down small aircraft. Assault rifles-- rebranded “sporting rifles,” in case your sport might be decimating a small village under a minute. High-capacity magazines of the variety used in so many recent massacres at malls, schools, and universities.

…[The NRA] has embraced this new mission to militarize the streets of America with zeal, scaring the bejesus out of its most faithful adherents with ghost stories about preparing for the breakdown of civilization, to destroy any faith they might have in our democracy or our first responders. You’re all alone, in their telling. Just you and the one thing that’s always faithful: your gun.

…The NRA’s executive vice president of the and foaming mouthpiece, Wayne LaPierre, made this crystal clear during his stump speech at the convention. Here is a sliver of what Good Time Charlie had to say to the assembled:

“We know, in the world that surrounds us, there are terrorists and home invaders and drug cartels and car-jackers and knock-out gamers and rapers, haters, campus killers, airport killers, shopping mall killers, road-rage killers, and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids, or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse the society that sustains us all,” he said.

LaPierre, of course, is never held responsible for this rhetoric, even though it is not too much of a stretch to say that its repetition in all of the NRA’s magazines, radio show, emails, newsletter, speeches, on Fox News, and on right-wing talk radio and beyond clearly contributes to the killing everyday American citizens and members of law enforcement.

Nor do members of Congress with close NRA ties who scare the populace and encourage sedition face any consequences. That includes board member Rep. Don Young (R-AK), who took the stage with radical militia leader Schaeffer Cox in 2011 and signed a declaration in direct contravention to the oath he swore to the United States government, of which he is a member. It read:

“Let it be known that should our government seek to further tax, restrict or register firearms…thus impairing our ability to exercise the God-given right to self-defense that precedes all human legislation and is superior to it, that the duty of us good and faithful people will not be to obey them but to alter or abolish them.”

Criminal crackpot Cliven Bundy is lambasted for failing to use established GOP code words for his racist slurs

Oops, wrong Bundy. This isn't famous criminal crackpot "Cliven" Bundy, it's famous shoe salesman Al Bundy -- no relation, as far as I can tell. Never mind.

"The reason [Bundy] was embraced by so many on the right is that he was their kind of people, One of Us. . . .

"When conservatives looked at Bundy, they saw not just a white guy, but also a cowboy, and that particular brand of character who waves an American flag while fighting the American government (in his case by stealing public property). And they saw lots of guns, which also told them he was their kind of people. Everything about him told them he was their kind of guy."

-- Paul Waldman, in his "Plum Line" post yesterday,
"Cliven Bundy and the perils of identity politics"

by Ken

Last night I promised that I would keep thinking to see if I had anything to say about criminal crackpot Cliven Bundy, who at least for this week is serving as Sean Hannity's No. 1 Favorite Criminal Crackpot. Of course the story may have lost some of its, er, edge now that, as noted on today's Washington Post "Headlines" e-mails:

(The story is here. For the record, already last night I chronicled the headline: "Rand Paul and other Republican leaders back away from Bundy." OMG, Rand Paul is a Republican "leader"?)

Still, some of the most important questions remain not only unanswered but unasked. Most important, of course, is the question no one dares to ask: What the hell kind of name is "Cliven"?

Then there's the question of whether "Cliven" is related to famous Cold Warrior brothers McGeorge and William Bundy, or to famous serial killer Ted Bundy, or to famous shoe salesman Al Bundy. I'm afraid ya got me. (However, a connection to Atlantic Canada's famous Bay of Fundy, with its famous monster tides, seems highly unlikely.)

Finally there's the question of what "Cliven" did that was really so wrong. Fortunately the Borowitz Report is all over this one:

April 24, 2014
REPUBLICANS BLAST NEVADA RANCHER FOR FAILING TO USE COMMONLY ACCEPTED RACIAL CODE WORDS
Posted by ANDY BOROWITZ


WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) — Republican politicians blasted the Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy on Thursday for making flagrantly racist remarks instead of employing the subtler racial code words the G.O.P. has been using for decades.

“We Republicans have worked long and hard to develop insidious racial code words like ‘entitlement society’ and ‘personal responsibility,’ ” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky). “There is no excuse for offensive racist comments like the ones Cliven Bundy made when there are so many subtler ways of making the exact same point.”

Fox News also blasted the rancher, saying in a statement, “Cliven Bundy’s outrageous racist remarks undermine decades of progress in our effort to come up with cleverer ways of saying the same thing.”

WELL, THERE IS ANOTHER QUESTION
THAT'S WORTH ASKING ABOUT "CLIVEN"

And in fact, as I pointed out last night, that worthy young sage Alexandra Petri asked it in a washingtonpost.com post of hers yesterday, "Cliven Bundy’s awful views should not be news":

You know that it is a slow week for news when the big story is that a man who thinks he should be allowed to let his cattle graze harmoniously for free on protected federal lands might have some racist opinions. What? Why do we care about his thoughts on race? Why, for that matter, were we listening to him in the first place?

In an even moderately sane world, I would say thank you, Alexandra, that really says it all, next case. After all, this is a man who initially became a celebrity for knowing less than nothing about: state and federal law, the Constitution, and land use, and by breaking the law both by abusing protected land and stealing the grass his cattle grazed. I would not just hope but expect that the appropriate authorities would apply the appropriate remedies, and if the criminal wacko were to try to use violence to prevent the application of the law, then if there were no other way of resolving the situation, his stinking, worthless carcass should have been blown to kingdom come -- along with those of any conspirators in this criminal violence.

Say, do you remember the days when right-wingers at least pretended to be the bedrock upholders of law 'n' order? Now it seems that as long as your mind and heart are made up of pure right-wing scummery, you have a champion in Sean Hannity and the other reptilian scum of his ilk.

But if for no other reason than the reach and influence of because of that reptilian ilk, I'm afraid we can't calim to live in a society of even minimal sanity. And since this is a society where there are media hooligans who can be counted on to make a celebrity of a pile of psychotic filth like "Cliven," there doesn't seem to me any way he can be simply ignored.

As Amy Davidson notes in a newyorker.com post today, "Cliven Bundy's Slavery Delusion," in which -- God bless her -- she takes on the filthy task of actually answering the truly evil as well as psychotic filth "Cliven" has spewed in his racial rants (as reported, crucially, by NYT pro Adam Nagourney):

Bundy is not just a fringe character: he has had the support of Greg Abbott, the Republican nominee for governor in Texas, and Senator Rand Paul, of Kentucky. Too many conservatives have been charmed by the notion of a cowboy singing the anthem on horseback and threatening to turn guns on bureaucrats. They can’t just proclaim themselves stunned here.

And no, as Amy notes parenthetically, the whackjob politicos can't just take it back -- not without owning up to their wrongdoing in jumping on the criminal-crackpot bandwagon.


SORRY, BUT NO, THE RIGHT-WING POLS 'N' NOISE
MACHINISTS CAN'T SIMPLY "NEVER MIND" IT

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank has a great post up this afternoon, "Bundy saga reveals the risk of cozying up to extremists," in which he charts some of those GOP "never mind"s (links onsite)

[C]onservative figures who had celebrated [Bundy's] cause rushed to distance themselves from him.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who had condemned the federal government’s attempt to enforce court orders against Bundy: “Offensive.”

Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), who had declared Bundy’s followers “patriots”: “Appalling and racist.”

And Sean Hannity, who had led a Fox News campaign that made a hero of Bundy: “Beyond repugnant.”

"Bundy boosters are right to be appalled," Dana goes on, "but they should not be shocked."

The anti-government strain of thought that Bundy advanced has been intertwined with racist and anti-Semitic views over several decades. Not all people who resist the authority of the federal government are motivated by race, of course, and not all racists are anti-government. But there is a long symbiosis between the two.

Dana does some useful surveying of some of the more notorious cases in point of that long symbiosis, stretching all too actively into the here and now. Toward the end of his piece he reminds us that "Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) on Tuesday said the federal government was “using the jackboot of authoritarianism to come against the citizens.”

By Thursday, Cruz’s office was calling Bundy’s racism “completely unacceptable.”

And yet completely unsurprising.

ONE OBSERVATION THAT REALLY RESONATES WITH ME . . .

. . . was made yesterday by Paul Waldman in a "Plum Line' post, "Cliven Bundy and the perils of identity politics." It grew out of a question Paul posed, "Why on earth did any Republicans get behind [Bundy]?"

You could say it was reflexive anti-government sentiment; anybody who’s fighting the feds is OK with them. But that’s not really it. As a number of people pointed out [links onsite], if Cliven Bundy were black, he wouldn’t have become a right-wing hero, with all the loving coverage on Fox News and hundreds of gun-toting government-haters traveling hundreds of miles to brandish their weapons at his side. The reason he was embraced by so many on the right is that he was their kind of people, One of Us. And it shows the perils of identity politics.

Race is a part of that, but not all of it. When conservatives looked at Bundy, they saw not just a white guy, but also a cowboy, and that particular brand of character who waves an American flag while fighting the American government (in his case by stealing public property). And they saw lots of guns, which also told them he was their kind of people. Everything about him told them he was their kind of guy. And I’m sure if liberals had thought about it, they would have said, “I’ll bet this guy has some colorful ideas about race.” Conservatives would have protested that that’s a vicious and unfair stereotype. But in this case it turned out to be true, and how.

NOW, ALAS, WE HAVE TO TAKE A QUICK DIP
INTO (EGAD!) THE "MIND" OF SEAN HANNITY

And so, as washingtonpost.com media blogger Erik Wemple puts it in a post today: "No, Sean Hannity, you can't distance yourself from Cliven Bundy." Not, Erik says, if you don't make "the next logical move," which --

would have been to repudiate his own coverage of Bundy. But that was too far a walk for Hannity. Instead, he got into the hair-splitting business, attempting to keep alive the larger theme of his coverage, despite the unseemly comments about race from his ranching hero."

The "hair-splitting" included this assertion from our Sean:

The ranch standoff that took place out in Nevada was not about a man named Cliven Bundy. At the heart of this issue was my belief that our government is simply out of control.

Sure enough, our Sean eventually evoked Waco, another situation of which our boy has less-than-zero understanding, which seems to be a prerequisite for all of his "news" coverage, very likely because the way he has mistrained his brain excludes any possibility of actual information-processing and thought.

Erik, however, isn't accepting a "Cliven-Bundy-a-la-carte option."

Either you embrace Cliven Bundy in toto or you reject him.

Despite Hannity’s protestations, this is all about a man named Cliven Bundy. How many other Western ranching freeloaders are there who have stiffed the government for two decades with specious arguments and then rally with gun-toting protesters when the feds move in to round up his cattle?

Erik suggests that possibly our Sean "could be excused for embracing this guy, if only the signs of the rancher's unhingedness had been shrouded before this latest encounter." But this is "no sale" too. Our Sean, after all, is bragging about having been on this story for ages, long before anybody else had the courage to see this case of a Little Guy standing up to the out-of-control, overreaching federal government -- "a government gone wild today in America!"

Which means at some point he or one of his people should have done just the tiniest bit of research, made an absolutely minimal effort to discover the facts. But of course this is Fox Noise, where they puke on facts.

Still, Erik says,

All Hannity’s producers needed to do was check a certain document in the 1998 case United States of America v. Cliven Bundy. Here’s how it abridges Bundy’s stance in the case:

Bundy appears to argue in his Motion to Dismiss…that the Complaint…should be dismissed because this Court lacks jurisdiction since Article IV of the Constitution cannot be imposed upon him. Bundy claims that he is a citizen of Nevada and not a citizen of a territory of the United States, and he also quotes religious texts.

If you’re Fox News, that’s all the information you need to reach a simple conclusion: Perhaps this is a local story.

But for Fox News in general and our Sean in particular, "local story" has no more meaning than "federal case." All our Sean has to work from is a psychotically delusional image of the universe imprinted in his nonfucntioning brain by some agent of evil, and the determination to dredge up, cut up, if necessary make up, and then  eassemble any words and images he can scare up that fit his psychotic delusions.

I'm going to guess that once upon a time when Little Sean was asked what he wanted to do if he grew up, he said, "Cowboy."

#

Will Cliven Bundy Sit Down For An Interview With Rachel Maddow? What If They Allow Him To Bring Sean Hannity Along As A Body Guard?

Last week a new name started popping up on my Twitter feed: Cliven Bundy. Before I had even processed it, he was in a standoff with federal law enforcement officials over unpaid taxes and fees and Harry Reid was calling him a domestic terrorist, Sean Hannity was egging him on to start an armed rebellion and Ted Cruz seemed to be angling to get him to run on his ticket in 2016. It looked too silly/ugly/predictable to pay any attention to. So I didn't. But it didn't go away. It got louder and uglier and sillier and more predictable and right-wing imbecile Dana Loesch was already whining that poor Cliven needs better media training.

I'm not sure how old we were when Ken and I first became friends, but I'm guessing it was around 15. I asked him if he had considered writing about the Bundy crap. He hadn't. "I didn't think anyone would be eager to hear my solution, which would be to have him killed just so people would stop talking about him-- and also it would teach him a lesson. You know, it's hard even to get these criminal-crackpot types' attention, let alone teach them a lesson." I bet Hannity and some of the other Republicans who championed Bundy until he went full racist Monte yesterday, would have liked-- or at least been relieved by-- Ken's solution. No Cruz, of course; he still wants to see Rafael/Cliven presidential bumperstickers on pickup trucks in 2 years. But Dean Heller… what could that clod be thinking?

All year, the Nevada Republican senator has been trying to pull off a Susan Collins fake moderate pose, voting with the Democrats every now and then-- primarily when it didn't matter much to the wing nut base-- in the hope of looking more purple than red in a state that gave Obama back-to-back wins in 2008 (55%) and 2012 (52%)… and where only 33.7% of voters are registered Republicans. But seeing all those right-wing terrorists marching around brandishing rifles forced Heller's inner nut back to the surface. At a joint appearance with Harry Reid on Las Vegas' KSNV-TV, he proudly declared, "What Sen. Reid may call domestic terrorists, I call patriots." Oops. Heller will be working all year to get that off his shoes!

Soon after, Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) asked the Interior Department to "investigate the role of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in efforts to pass bills at the state level" that undermine federal authority over state lands and thwart the agency's duties. And that, in effect, is very much related to what Maddow's program was about last night. I urge you to watch the video up top. Grijalva: ALEC's pattern of activity raises serious questions about how changes to land management laws and regulations, especially in the Western United States, are being pushed by ALEC without public disclosure of its role or that of the corporations that fund its legislative agenda… The consequences of ALEC's positions are severe and deserving of careful scrutiny. They are entirely consistent with the position taken by anti-government rancher Cliven Bundy and his armed supporters… The ALEC vision of state sovereignty trumping long-standing federal government efforts to manage public lands has already had tangible effects on Bureau of Land Management and other agency employees' efforts to do their jobs."

So Ken wouldn't weigh in, another of our friends, though, Adam-who-watches-Fox-all-day, did. He e-mailed me this morning: "On Fox News today," he wrote, "every announcer denounced Clive Bundy when they started their shows. You should have me as your official Fox News reporter of what Fox News is saying." Oh, and The Economist weighed in too: The Rise And Fall of Cliven Bundy-- No Hero. "Bundy's charming comments… make it harder to deny that this law-breaking crank should be no one's poster boy; nor should the self-styled militiamen who journeyed from across the country to defend, at the point of assault rifles, Mr Bundy's right to trespass be hailed as heroes." Someone pass Dean Heller another aspirin.

Colbert: "Man, Hannity ate up that story so hard, 

Bundy should have charged him grazing fees."

Watchdogs like the Southern Poverty Law Centre warn of fringe ideas like those animating Mr Bundy's backers migrating "from the margins to the mainstream." This dynamic has clearly been at play in the past couple of weeks. Politicians who should know better, such as Dean Heller, Nevada's Republican senator, and Brian Sandoval, the state's mild-mannered governor, were all too quick to suggest that the story's real villains are the federal officials seeking to enforce multiple court orders against Mr Bundy, rather than the ragtag posse ranged against them. These same politicians have had to move fast in denunciating Mr Bundy's comments today.

The conservative-leaning Economist made the point that Bundy just went a little far and a little off the rails for their right-wing taste. "Bundy and his followers, energised by the spread of tea party anti-government sentiment and enabled by the echo chamber of conservative blogs and social media" seemed like a powerful wagon for politicians who complain about the size of government to hitch their stars to. Really? Let's watch and see how that works out for Dean Heller. And Rafael "Ted" Cruz.

And, of course, this story could never be complete without Colbert weighing in. Is he going to be able to do this kind of thing on the new show he's going to? Would he want to?