Do You Consider Barr More A Crime Fighter Or More A Crime Spree?

Yesterday, Wall Street Journal reporters Aruna Viswanatha and Sadie Gurman wrote that Barr told Justice Department prosectors that he wants protesters charged with sedition. Wikipedia defines Sedition as "overt conduct that tends toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent toward, or resistance against, established authority" and reminded it's readers that "in 1940, the Alien Registration Act, or 'Smith Act,' was passed, which made it a federal crime to advocate or to teach the desirability of overthrowing the United States Government, or to be a member of any organization which does the same. It was often used against communist party organizations. This Act was invoked in three major cases, one of which against the Socialist Worker's Party in Minneapolis in 1941, resulting in 23 convictions, and again in what became known as the Great Sedition Trial of 1944 in which a number of pro-Nazi figures were indicted but released when the prosecution ended in a mistrial. Also, a series of trials of 140 leaders of the Communist Party USA also relied upon the terms of the 'Smith Act'-- beginning in 1949-- and lasting until 1957. Although the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the convictions of 11 CPUSA leaders in 1951 in Dennis v. United States, that same Court reversed itself in 1957 in the case of Yates v. United States, by ruling that teaching an ideal, no matter how harmful it may seem, does not equal advocating or planning its implementation. Although unused since at least 1961, the 'Smith Act' remains a Federal law"... There was "a brief attempt to use the sedition laws against protesters of the Vietnam War. On 17 October 1967, two demonstrators, including then Marin County resident Al Wasserman, while engaged in a 'sit-in' at the Army Induction Center in Oakland, California, were arrested and charged with sedition by deputy US. Marshal Richard St. Germain. U.S. Attorney Cecil Poole changed the charge to trespassing. Poole said, 'three guys (according to Mr. Wasserman there were only 2) reaching up and touching the leg of an inductee, and that's conspiracy to commit sedition? That's ridiculous!' The inductees were in the process of physically stepping on the demonstrators as they attempted to enter the building, and the demonstrators were trying to protect themselves from the inductees' feet. Attorney Poole later added, 'We'll decide what to prosecute, not marshals.'"

Sounds like something Barr would just love to be involved with, right? He "told told the nation’s federal prosecutors to be aggressive when charging violent demonstrators with crimes, including potentially prosecuting them for plotting to overthrow the U.S. government, people familiar with the conversation said. In a conference call with U.S. attorneys across the country last week, Mr. Barr warned that sometimes violent demonstrations across the U.S. could worsen as the November presidential election approaches. He encouraged the prosecutors to seek a number federal charges, including under a rarely used sedition law, even when state charges could apply."

Barr also told John Kass at the Chicago Tribune that "There’s no more secret vote with mail-in vote. A secret vote prevents selling and buying votes. So now we’re back in the business of selling and buying votes. Capricious distribution of ballots means (ballot) harvesting, undue influence, outright coercion, paying off a postman, here’s a few hundred dollars, give me some of your ballots. You know liberals project. All this bullshit about how the president is going to stay in office and seize power? I’ve never heard of any of that crap. I mean, I’m the attorney general. I would think I would have heard about it. They are projecting. They are creating an incendiary situation where there will be loss of confidence in the vote. Someone will say the president just won Nevada. 'Oh, wait a minute! We just discovered 100,000 ballots! Every vote will be counted!' Yeah, but we don’t know where these freaking votes came from." What a crime fighter!!

Prohibited Acts by Nancy Ohanian

Except when it comes to... crime. Yesterday Pam Martens and Russ Martens asked at Wall Street On Parade What Happened to the Criminal Case against Goldman Sachs at Barr’s Justice Department? Is Barr a criminal himself? Anyone who even scratches the surface can have here no doubt about it. Many members of the Trump Regime need to be tried and sentenced to very long terms in prison-- and no one who's name isn't Trump (or Kushner) more so than Barr.

On December 6 of last year, four reporters at Bloomberg News signaled that the U.S. Department of Justice was close to a settlement of its criminal investigation of Goldman Sachs in the 1MDB matter. The reporters wrote as follows:

“The Justice Department and other federal agencies, in internal discussions held in recent weeks, have weighed seeking penalties between $1.5 billion and $2 billion, the people said. That’s less than what some analysts have signaled Goldman might have to pay. While a settlement could be announced as soon as next month, the terms could change before a deal is finalized…”

The terms, indeed, seem to have changed. It’s now more than 9 months since that article was published and there hasn’t been a peep out of the Justice Department about criminal charges against Goldman Sachs. According to the Bloomberg report, Barr has “directly immersed himself in the case.”

Both Barr and the Deputy Attorney General, Jeffrey Rosen, hail from Kirkland & Ellis, one of the primary law firms representing Goldman in the matter. Barr was “Of Counsel” to Kirkland while Rosen worked at the law firm for 29 years.

1MDB is a sovereign wealth fund in Malaysia. Goldman raised over $6 billion in bond offerings for the fund. According to the Justice Department, $4.5 billion of that was “misappropriated” and used “to fund the co-conspirators’ lavish lifestyles, including purchases of artwork and jewelry, the acquisition of luxury real estate and luxury yachts, the payment of gambling expenses, and the hiring of musicians and celebrities to attend parties.” Bribes and kickbacks were also allegedly made. Goldman made more than $600 million in fees from the bond offerings.

In July, the Malaysian government settled the case against Goldman Sachs for $3.9 billion. Another law firm representing Goldman Sachs is Sullivan & Cromwell. On June 19, Barr released a statement announcing that Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Attorney (i.e. top federal prosecutor) for the Southern District of New York (where Goldman Sachs is headquartered), would be “stepping down.” Barr said President Trump would be naming Jay Clayton, the sitting chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, to fill the slot. Clayton hails from Sullivan & Cromwell.

The problem was, Berman had not agreed to “step down”; he said so publicly, and was, in reality, being ousted by Barr in the midst of numerous key criminal cases being handled by his office.

The fallout resulted in 65 professors and faculty from Barr’s alma mater, George Washington University Law School, releasing a letter the following week stating that Barr’s actions “have undermined the rule of law, breached constitutional norms, and damaged the integrity and traditional independence of his office and of the Department of Justice.”

On the same day that letter was released, June 23, the New York City Bar Association sent a letter to leaders in the House and Senate calling for Barr to resign. The letter, which included the signature of the President of the Board of Governors of the National Bar Association, Alfreda Robinson, said that Barr’s actions “form an overwhelming public impression of an Attorney General whose primary loyalty is to the President who appointed him, not to the American public or the rule of law.”

There is little likelihood that Clayton will be confirmed by the Senate for the post. Both Senators from New York, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, have said they will not give the greenlight to Clayton’s nomination. Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has said he will not move Clayton’s nomination forward without the approval of those two Senators, following a longstanding policy of the Judiciary Committee.

That’s welcome news. As we previously reported, Sullivan & Cromwell was involved in making some of the luxury purchases on behalf of the alleged looters of 1MDB, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Two of Goldman’s senior bankers, Ng Chong Hwa (a/k/a Roger Ng) and Timothy Leissner, have already been indicted for “conspiring to launder billions of dollars embezzled from 1MDB,” and “paying bribes to various Malaysian and Abu Dhabi officials.” Leissner pleaded guilty in the matter. Roger Ng’s trial has been delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The U.S. Attorney’s office that prosecuted the case against the Goldman Sachs’ bankers is the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. Quietly, on the eve of the July 4th weekend, Barr also removed the U.S. Attorney in that office-- Richard Donoghue. He is to become the Deputy to the Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen at Main Justice.

Rather than allowing the second in command of the Eastern District to take over, as Geoffrey Berman had demanded of Barr in the Southern District of New York matter, Barr announced on July 10 that Seth DuCharme, who had been working at Main Justice, would become Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York office. DuCharme was sworn in the same day that Barr made the announcement.

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.”

Sedition, Secession... Right Wing Dogs Are Not Giving Up No Matter What The Polls Say

Please watch the Bill Moyers video above. We're going to talk a little about it in a moment. But before we do, I want to remind you who Paul Ryan is. If you had just landed from Uranus or Neptune and perused the Beltway media, you would come away thinking Ryan is a "serious" and "thoughtful" mainstream political leader. He isn't. He's a phony, a fraud and a film flam man, just like Paul Krugman has been pointing out for years. And now he's leading the House Republicans in a dangerous game of chicken with the economic well-being of the entire world. While Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was acknowledging that “You can blame us [Republicans], we’ve overplayed our hand, that’s for damn sure," Eric Boehlert tweeted that "If you think GOP is unpopular now wait until they default and gut every retirement fund and every college saving plan in America." You may not have to wait long-- not if Ryan and his deranged and desperate colleagues keep up the game-playing. When the House Republicans met in conference Friday, Boehner and Cantor "began the meeting trying to prepare their troops for the likelihood that they would have to adopt a deal cut in the Senate. Both leaders explained that the White House is no longer willing to negotiate with the House, that McConnell and Reid were talking, and that a bipartisan agreement is likely to emerge that will need the House’s approval.

But instead of absorbing this painful reality, some rank-and-file Republicans grew visibly excited about the prospect of opposing such a deal, said one person in the room. This defiance was fed by Ryan, who stood up and railed against the Collins proposal, saying the House could not accept either a debt-limit bill or a government-funding measure that would delay the next fight until the new year.

According to two Republicans familiar with the exchange, Ryan argued that the House would need those deadlines as “leverage” for delaying the health-care law’s individual mandate and adding a “conscience clause”-- allowing employers and insurers to opt out of birth-control coverage if they find it objectionable on moral or religious grounds-- and mentioned tax and entitlement goals Ryan had focused on in a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.

Ryan’s speech appeared only to further rile up the conservative wing of the GOP conference, which has been agitating the shutdown strategy to try to tear apart the health-care law.

With such fervor still rampant among House Republicans, there was bipartisan agreement in the Senate that Boehner’s House had lost its ability to approve anything that could be signed by Obama into law. Republicans decided the Senate must act first, hoping that the pressure of the Thursday debt deadline would lead to the House passing the measure even if it meant just a small collection of the GOP’s House majority joined with the Democratic minority to approve a deal.

“At this point, they have dealt themselves out of this process. They cannot agree among themselves,” Durbin said. “And that makes it extremely difficult to take them seriously.”

This might be a good time to mention that though Ryan has no opponent yet in his 2016 reelection race-- Rob Zerban is likely to announce he's running again next week-- and though the DCCC gave him immunity last year and is likely to give him immunity again this year (unless Pelosi fires Steve Israel as head of the DCCC), Ryan is more vulnerable to defeat than ever. Even with no opponent, new PPP polling shows him leading an unnamed Democrat 48-46% when voters are made aware that Ryan voted for and backs the Tea Party government shut down. And that brings us back to the ever-prescient Bill Moyers. Did you watch the video?

"Republicans," he reminds us, "have now lost three successive elections to control the Senate, and they've lost the last two presidential elections. Nonetheless, they fought tooth and nail to kill President Obama's health care initiative. They lost that fight, but with the corporate wing of Democrats, they managed to bend it toward private interests… Despite what they say, Obamacare is only one of their targets. Before they will allow the government to reopen, they demand employers be enabled to deny birth control coverage to female employees; they demand Obama cave on the Keystone pipeline; they demand the watchdogs over corporate pollution be muzzled and the big bad regulators of Wall Street sent home. Their ransom list goes on and on. The debt ceiling is next. They would have the government default on its obligations and responsibilities.

When the president refused to buckle to this extortion, they threw their tantrum. Like the die-hards of the racist South a century and a half ago, who would destroy the union before giving up their slaves, so would these people burn down the place, sink the ship. …At least, let's name this for what it is: sabotage of the democratic process. Secession by another means." And Republicans are hearing this kind of seditious and secessionist talk from many of the media outlets they go to for their opinions. Crackpot right-wing blogger and Georgia secessionist, Erick Erickson, sounded on Friday like he's ready to fire on Fort Sumter.

Surrender should not be an option. This fight has been and remains about Obamacare. A Republican Party fretting over polling should consider that polling will rebound in their direction with a victory. The GOP should also consider that some of the negatives in the polls are from their own side angry at their reluctance to actually fight the good fight.

Republican leaders who have never wanted this fight have tried at all costs to avoid fighting it. They have tried to wrap the continuing resolution into the debt ceiling then into a grand bargain.

Conservatives should keep the fight squarely on Obamacare.

What is most eye opening is that the Republican leaders have grown so detatched from their base that they will willingly push a medical device tax repeal on behalf of K Street lobbyists while ignoring the very people who actually vote for them.

Republicans reeling from polls should consider what the reaction of their base will be if they have gone this far and surrender with nothing-- or with only a sop to special interests on K Street.

The path forward is simple. Keep the debt ceiling and continuing resolution separate... The GOP should have this fight and make this case. It is sellable. The only problem is the GOP leadership does not want to sell it. They’d rather surrender and shift blame to conservatives.

Speaker Boehner has previously said he would stop doing back room deals with the White House. He should do as he said. He should keep the government closed until Democrats agree to delay Obamacare.

It's not as dramatic as my proposed wingnut treason trials, but Sara Robinson thinks we should be prosecuting sedition

I'm thinking firing squads for the treason convicts,

but hanging works too. Or maybe stoning?

"It's time to confront the sobering fact that the entire right wing -- including the GOP establishment, which encourages, endorses, and echoes these sentiments almost every time its officials appear in public -- is now issuing nearly constant invitations to criminal sedition. They're creating a climate and using language that lowers their base's inhibitions around violence -- and irresponsibly eggs on the handful of sociopaths in their midst who are already primed to kill. They've given their newly-expanded corps of flying monkeys permission to brandish their guns in public, empowered their militias, promised them glory, and are now telling them explicitly which targets to hit."

-- Sara Robinson, in "None Dare Call It Sedition"

Sedition: Crime of creating a revolt, disturbance, or violence against lawful civil authority with the intent to cause its overthrow or destruction

-- Brittanica Concise Dictionary,

as cited by Sara R

by Ken

My own impulse, in the face of the pervasive right-wing campaign to bring down the government, would be for the DoJ to begin preparing dozens of treason indictments, so that the trials can get going and in a week or so we can get on to the first of the executions. Or if we labeled them "enemy combatants," could we just turn them over to military tribunals and save even more time?

I was figuring on getting through maybe five treason trials a day. But tribunals, without breaking a sweat, ought to be able to process, say, 25 guilty verdicts a day, no? Plus, it would give the Obama people a chance to call attention to the roll-out of their latest new (wink-wink) "just the same as the Bush regime" policy.

My plan calls for starting with the 15-20 most loathsome crackpots in the Senate and 40-50 in the House. Not all Republicans, of course. The interest of bipartisanship, the noblest political virtue to which Americans, or leastwise liberals, can apparently aspire, dictates that a generous sprinkling of the most odious Dems be included. I'm thinking firing squads would be picturesque, but I could see the case for hangings. Ooh, wait, how about stoning? Followed by purification of the carcasses in bonfires, with free hot dogs and marshmallows for all.

(I bet we could get a quick signoff from the Roberts Court that none of these methods constitutes either cruel or unusual punishment with just a little trick: Slip them a case where it appears it's liberals who are going to be offed. Can't you just see Smirking John's piggy little eyes simply light up at the prospect?)

For better or worse, Sara Robinson -- one of my favorite writers -- is not only smarter than me but more, er, judicious. However, she's deadly serious about the appropriateness and urgency of getting some legal proceedings going. The crime she wants to see prosecuted is one we haven't heard much about recently: sedition.

In an important new piece posted both on the Campaign for America's Future blog and AlterNet, Sara writes:

[I]t's time to openly confront the fact that conservatives have spent the past 40 years systematically delegitimizing the very idea of constitutional democracy in America. When they're in power, they mismanage it and defund it. When they're out of power, they refuse to participate in running the country at all -- indeed, they throw all their energy into thwarting the democratic process any way they can. When they need to win an election, they use violent, polarizing, eliminationist language against their opponents to motivate their base. This is sedition in slow motion, a gradual corrosive undermining of the government's authority and capacity to run the country. And it's been at the core of their politics going all the way back to Goldwater.

Sara wants to be clear that we understand what sedition is. Advocating violent activity: legally protected though extremely dangerous. Planning and of course participating in such activity: sedition.

People who promote subversive ideas, no matter how dangerous those ideas might seem, are completely protected under the First Amendment. Even calling for the overthrow of the government is protected (though not benign, as we'll see later, because it creates justification, permission, and incitement to seditious acts). That's why the conservatives have been safe -- so far. It's only when those people start actively planning and implementing a government rebellion that it turns into criminal sedition.

Fortunately, there are hardy loony-watchers -- like the folks at the Southern Poverty Law Center -- who have become skilled at divining where the line is crossed, whether it's in terrorist or far-right-insurrectionist movements.

These escalating armed demonstrations, accompanied by belligerent sloganeering, are a clear signal that these folks are done talking -- and, worse, have already decided that democracy is futile, and taking up arms is the only appropriate response to the threats we now face. They're carrying weapons to scare us weak-kneed girly libs into submission, and to show us they mean business. Growing up in gun country, I was taught at my daddy's knee that when someone says they're going to shoot you, it's always smart to take them at their word and handle yourself accordingly. Right now, I think that's good advice for anybody in America who considers themselves a member of the reality-based community.

Sara points out that the revolutionaries have even been provided with a convenient target list by that pathetic scrambled-brained loser Bernard Goldberg, with his book listing the "100 people who are destroying America." "He was writing a target list with seditious intent," she says.

From a legal standpoint, though, sedition is a tough charge to prove in court. A successful prosecution in the Hutaree case would be the first such case made to stick against American right-wing groups.

[B]ut the first step in stopping sedition is making sure everybody knows exactly what it is when they see it. And that means calling out the S-word every time we see the conservatives defiantly flinging their hands and feet out over that line to score a few cheap political points.

And the immediate challenge is to force the people who are manipulating and trying to take advantage of the crazies, whether for personal or political gain, to face up to what they're doing.

If this is just political grandstanding to energize the base, they're playing with fire, and they need to bring this incendiary campaign to a screeching halt. Right now. This Mickey Mouse pussyfooting around, play-acting at sedition is criminally dangerous chickenshit politics that puts the short-term needs of the Republican party ahead of the long-term viability of the American democracy they've sworn to uphold. In case the party leaders haven't noticed, their base has taken them as seriously as a heart attack -- and they're genuinely making ready for armed revolt.

On the other hand, if they're actually serious about seditious rebellion against the US government, then let them stand up, follow through, and face the charges. They're either Americans, committed to working in good faith within the democratic process to create our common future; or else they're seditionists in intention or fact -- and thus enemies of the state, plain and simple.

For the good of the country, we cannot continue to let them have it both ways. They need to choose whose side they're on: America's, or their own.

I was intrigued by the story Howie passed on earlier of that archloon Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn confronting just this distinction at an ugly town hall meeting back home, where he wound up lecturing the crowd on civility and defending Nancy Pelosi. As Howie put it, "Coburn stared the teabaggers in the face and was mortified to see the gross ignorance and overblown bigotry."

Score one small victory. The only thing is that, crazy as Senator Dr. Tom is, his craziness has never taken the form of fomenting violence. On the scale of craziness, it turns out, he's a moderate.


"STOP THE PRESSES" HEADLINE OF THE DAY:
BIG AL "MUMBLES" GREENSPAN REJECTS CRITICISM!

Courtesy of the New York Times today:

Greenspan Rejects Criticism of Policies at Hearing

Because Big Al (aka "Mumbles") is widely known for his invariably thoughtful consideration of reasoned criticism of his judgments.

With regard to Big Al's testimony before the financial-meltdown commission, CAF "Our Work" blogger R.J. Eskow writes in his assessment, "In the Dark: A Good Prosecutor Would've Pinned Greenspan Down":

It was almost anticlimactic when the power failed during the final fifteen minutes of Greenspan's appearance. The light had left the room long before then.

#