Well, Maybe A Black 'Sovereign Citizen' Will Get People's Attention

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

We've discussed so-called "sovereign citizens" -- those newly revivified remnants of the militia/Patriot movement of the 1990s who believe you can declare yourself free of the federal government by filing a bunch of pseudo-legal documents saying so -- quite a bit here, particularly the threat of extreme violence they represent, embodied most recently in the case of Jerry and Joe Kane, the traveling Patriot-scam salesmen who gunned down two police officers in Arkansas.

But it's kinda strange: Even though these cases would attract huge amounts of media attention had they been committed by, say, someone of the Muslim persuasion (you know there would be nonstop coverage on Fox), scarcely anyone has paid attention to these violent crimes, at least in the media.

And there's an important thread here: Not only were Jerry and Joe Kane "sovereign citizens," so were Scott Roeder, the assassin of George Tiller, and James Von Brunn, the Holocaust Museum shooter.

So I was keenly interested when WSB-TV in Atlanta reported on a "sovereign citizen" in Georgia who has been apparently playing with the same Patriot scam that Jerry and Joe Kane were selling: moving into foreclosed homes and claiming them as your own.

If you watch the video, and the others Kane left behind, you'll see that the scheme he was selling entailed creating "strawman" companies that would enable a "sovereign citizen" to then claim ownership, by virtue of their sovereignty (often defined in divine terms), of whatever properties they set their sights upon. As one account noted:

Seminars of this type usually teach that each person has a real self and a “corporate self” that is a fabrication of the government, and that banks cannot legitimately lend money that belongs to their depositors.

“It’s mumbo jumbo; it’s magic words; it’s abracadabra,” Ms. MacNab said.

We're seeing, as I mentioned, this scam showing up in places like Seattle and Montana and California, too.

But what's remarkable about this "sovereign citizen" is that he's African-American. This is at first remarkable because "sovereign citizenship" is typically a product of racist-right organizations that preach racial separation -- 99 percent of the sovereign citizens in America are white.

But there are in fact some black-supremacist organizations such as the Black Nuwaubians who similarly truck in these kinds of conspiracy theories (which, like the white supremacists', ultimately blame Jews for all their ills). And all you have to do is listen to this fellow ramble on for a little while to realize that he's very much of this vein.

Now, if anything will get the attention of mainstream media -- and particularly the folks at Fox (Megyn Kelly, I'm looking at you) -- it's a black man indulging in this kind of rhetoric and behavior.

One can only imagine the horrified faces of the Fox anchors as they describe how this fellow has been moving into foreclosed homes and claiming they're all his! Why, hasn't he heard about white people's work ethic?

And you know the names of any of the white extremists who created and sold this Bizarro World belief system will never cross their lips.

The Harder Tea Partiers Try To Prove They're Not Racist, The Less Interested Their Base Becomes. Hmmmmm.

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Geraldo Rivera sent one of his Fox crews out to cover last week's "Uni-Tea" event in Philly -- you know, the one that was pretty much a total disaster in terms of turnout and meeting the objective, which was to demonstrate how non-racist the Tea Party really is.

Pretty hard to make that case when nearly all of the 200 or so who showed up were lily-white, as even Geraldo's reporter suggests. What he neglected to mention, however, was how puny the turnout was.

Maybe the black turnout was so poor because Andrew Breitbart was a headliner. And maybe the general turnout was so light because most of the speakers were refugees from one of those excruciating Glenn Beck "let's talk about race with black conservatives" episodes.

Their schtick, which is getting a bit shopworn by now, was duly stenographed by the AP:

The black members said the racism that has been attributed to the tea party movement came from outsiders who infiltrated the groups to discredit their work and it should be rejected.

"These people do not oppose Barack Obama because of his skin color. They oppose him because of his policies," said Lloyd Marcus, a spokesman for the group.

Simon Maloy notes, of course, that the whole "infiltrator" paranoia among Tea Partiers is pretty hilarious. It's gotten to where all a real infiltrator has to do is show up and start accusing other Tea Partiers of being infiltrators.

Eric Boehlert observes that events like this actually point to a movement in state of decay:

Optimistic organizers, who boasted that their website had attracted 2 million hits during the run-up to the big rally, predicted a crowd of 3,000-4,000 people for the Philadelphia event. And they had every reason to be confident. After all, right-wing celebrity Andrew Breitbart, fresh off his Shirley Sherrod star turn, was scheduled to speak at the event, which was held on a gorgeous summer day in downtown Philadelphia on Independence Mall, where throngs of tourists would already be milling around. So it made sense, as Talking Points Memo reported, that organizers had 1,500 bottles of water on ice to hand out for the throngs who descended on the rally to cheer the Tea Party message.

But how many people actually showed up last Saturday for the national Tea Party rally?

One local report put the number at 300. That’s right, 300, or less than one-tenth of the expected turnout. In fact, it’s possible more people showed up in Philadelphia last week to commemorate the opening of the new Apple computer store than showed up at the nationally promoted Tea Party rally featuring Andrew Breitbart.

Oh, and if those black folks want to find some racism? All they have to do is head over to the Tea Party Nation website and log onto the forums, where they can discuss the "Horrors of Illegal Immigration":



[H/t Jamie]

Stephen Piggott at Imagine 2050 observes:

In the beginning, the main issues for the Tea Partiers were big government and government spending, but as time goes on the issue of immigration has turned into a focal point for the movement.

One faction of the Tea Party that is not afraid to associate with nativism and xenophobia is the Tea Party Nation, led by Tennessee lawyer Judson Phillips. Earlier this week, the Tea Party Nation sent out an email to its 35,000 members asking them to post their “horror stories” about undocumented immigrants.

The group has set up a new message board forum specifically for its members to post these stories. The email told supporters to post any pictures/videos that show “illegals or their supporters doing outrageous things (like burning the American flag or putting the Mexican flag above ours, or showing racist posters.)”

The bulk of the forum is dedicated to establishing the criminality of Latino immigrants -- even though, in reality, immigration is associated with a decline in crime rates.

In other words, these Tea Partiers are all too happy to demonize a target minority group with demeaning stereotypes: the classic description of racism.

Funny that these black conservatives are willing to look the other way when it comes to racism directed at someone other than African Americans.

But then, their turnout last weekend should have been their biggest clue.

I'm not so sure I agree with Boehlert that events like the one in Philly mean the Tea Parties are now a spent movement. I suspect that the Tea Parties will start drawing big crowds again when they can get back to the red meat that their crowd craves: defending "white culture" and white privilege, reviving the Patriot movement and playing to the nativists. Look for the immigration debate especially to draw out the worst.

But when the purpose of the event is to prove they're not racist (by featuring a bevy of black speakers), well, that's kind of stepping on their underlying message, isn't it? No wonder it got that kind of turnout.

O'Reilly Blames Obama Failures On Racial Politics -- Then Blows Up When Right-wing Race-baiting Is Pointed Out

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Bill O'Reilly's opening "Talking Points Memo" last night was an almost crystalline exhibition of the reason the "post racial politics" now popular with American liberals -- including President Obama -- is an abject failure: because it utterly fails to take into account the intransigence and base irrationality of the American Right.

Naturally, when one of his guests -- Caroline Heldman of Occidental College -- had the audacity to point out the right's "racial fearmongering machine", he went ballistic on her in an overt attempt to deny the existence of the very tactics he was indulging.

See, according to BillO, President Obama is losing popularity with white Americans because they perceive his insistently non-racial economic-uplift program in insistently racial terms -- and he's popular with blacks because they do too.

He tried to describe this in terms that absolves whites of racializing the issues, and blames blacks and minorities for it instead:

Let's take the white situation first. According to the polls, most white Americans don't like the huge expansion of the federal government. They also oppose the big spending increases that the president has imposed. It's simple. White Americans fear government control. They don't want the feds telling them what to do, and they don't want a bankrupt nation.

... But black America has a totally different view. For decades, African-Americans have supported a bigger federal government so it can impose social justice. A vast majority of blacks want money spent to level the playing field, to redistribute income from the white establishment to their precincts, and to provide better education and health care at government expense. So the African-American voter generally loves what President Obama is doing.

As for Hispanic-Americans, 54 percent now support Mr. Obama, but that is down nine points since April. The social justice component is there as well.

There's no question that there are now two Americas. The minority community continues to believe that society is not completely fair to them, and they want a huge government apparatus to change that. And while the white community may sympathize with the minority situation, they apparently believe that more harm than good is being done to the country with the cost of social justice programs.

My own belief is that President Obama is well-intentioned, but if the wild spending continues, this country will be gravely damaged. As far as social justice is concerned, strict oversight on fair rules, but not the imposition of expensive entitlements, is the answer.

The USA is the strongest country on Earth because of self-reliance and the industry of honest, hardworking people who don't want to be told how to live. Independence and self-reliance is what has made this country great, powerful and generous.

O'Reilly tries to claim here that white Americans' rationale for turning against Obama is purely a policy-based one -- but it also hinges on a rationale that is almost purely racial, namely, that Obama's "social justice" programs such as health care reform, are perceived as handouts to minorities. Indeed, O'Reilly's rationale for the steady black support for Obama is that minorities must perceive them as that too.

Nevermind, of course, that health-care reform not only is utterly color-blind in nature, it also was designed not to cost taxpayers. Nevermind that the only "spending" programs Obama has embarked upon have been either bailouts for the financial and auto sectors or a stimulus package that likewise was specifically colorblind in nature.

Nonetheless, this is the self-serving racial narrative that the Right has constructed about Obama: He is secretly a black Marxist/Muslim radical whose every social initiative is dedicated to creating "social justice" handouts for minorities at the expense of white people -- but whites' resistance to his programs is purely a matter of their opposition to big government and taxes that pay for these handouts (to people who of course do not deserve it). If anybody's being racist, it's those parasitic black people who want the handouts to keep flowing out of white people's pockets.

What's clear is that even though Obama has explicitly eschewed pursuing race-conscious policies -- promoting, instead, the "universal uplift"/rising-tide-lifts-all-boats thinking popular with "post-racial" liberals -- those policies are regardless perceived in racial terms by white conservatives.

As Tim Wise puts it in has incredible new book, Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity:

With regard to President Obama's agenda on health care, for example, there is evidence that many whites may perceive his efforts in racialized terms, no matter how universal the rhetoric with which he has tried to sell them, and no matter that he has specifically eschewed any discussion of, or focus on, racial disparity in health care per se. ...

So, according to polling data from late 2008, whites with above-average levels of racial resentment toward blacks were less than half as likely as those with below-average resentment to support health care reform ...

In keeping with that notion, another study has found that a high level of racial bias against blacks is directly correlated with opposition to President Obama's health care proposals, boosting opposition among whites by about a third relative to those with low prejudice. ...

The question then, for proponents of colorblind universalism is this: if the white public, due to years of conditioning, perceives race-neutral public policy in race-specific terms -- as some form of racial handout, and thus as something to be opposed -- what is the political benefit to be derived from sticking with the rhetoric and policy agenda of post racial liberalism?

Moreover, in the face of this kind of disingenuousness -- a conservative white bloc that perceives every Obama move in racialized terms, while denying adamantly that it opposes Obama on racial grounds, instead insisting that minorities are the folks indulging in racism -- hiding behind the soothing rhetoric of post-racial liberalism is tantamount to abject surrender. As Wise explains:

That right-wing leaders are so willing to deploy -- and the public so willing to accept -- racist rhetoric and other invective aimed at stoking white resentment and fear, even against a president who almost never discusses race at all, suggests the likely inadequacy of post-racialism as a paradigm for fighting racial inequities. The rhetoric of racial transcendence so critical to advocates of post-racial liberalism -- which has already been shown to rest on a foundation of untruth, given the reality of persistent racism -- cannot possibly drown out the hateful and often unhinged rantings of those insistent on painting the president as an anti-white bigot. ...

To refuse to fight back, far from disarming these forces of bigotry or depriving them of a point of attack, has done nothing to blunt their efforts. Indeed, it may have emboldened them. It may, in the end, amount to little more than universal disarmament.

Certainly Caroline Heldman understands this. As she told O'Reilly:

Heldman: Well, I don't think the story is about black Americans. I actually think it's about the precipitous plunge of white Americans. And I think it's important to keep in mind that, had only white Americans been voting, had they voted in the last 2008 election, then we would have President McCain.

And what we've seen is an historic drop. And I think what we really see at work here is a Republican racial fearmongering machine, the most recent example of which is Shirley Sherrod. And also the Tea Party rhetoric of getting rid of "gangster government" ...

O'Reilly promptly denounces this as "the far left view" and thus "completely absurd, completely insane." His other guest, Chris Metzler of Georgetown -- who actually penned a book attacking Obama on the basis of post-racial politics -- likewise heatedly denied that race had anything, anything to do with this ... even though O'Reilly's "Memo" was built on the rationale that white Americans perceive Obama's "social justice" initiatives, such as health-care reforms, as just more handouts for minorities.

They keep tying themselves up in knots trying to come up with a rational explanation for their deeply irrational -- and ultimately, yes, racist -- hatred of this president. It's not working, as Caroline Heldman expertly demonstrated.

Glenn Beck's Final Swan Dive Off The Deep End: President Obama Reminds Him Of Lucifer

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Just when you thought Glenn Beck couldn't make himself into more of a complete cartoon figure, he goes and tops himself.

This is one for the ages. Dana Carvey couldn't have done a better Church Lady impression.

No wonder so many conservatives are penning pieces about how embarrassing it is to be a conservative these days.

This guy is the Face of the Conservative Movement in 2010. Watch 'im and weep, kiddies.

Pam Geller Insists She 'Loves' Muslims. Too Bad They're Also The Enemies Of America

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Wingnut Extraordinaire Pam Geller of Atlas Wanks has been all over the TV networks the past couple of weeks, telling anyone who'll listen why New York City should deny a moderate Islamic group the right to build a mosque near the site of the 9/11 attacks.

Geller: This is patently untrue. I love Muslims. The Ground Zero mosque is an offensive insult, it's a stab in the eye. I have no problem with mosques across the city. But we're talking about history, and Islamic history, of building triumphal mosques on the cherished sites of conquered lands.

Sooooo ... does Geller actually think that New York City is a land conquered by Muslims?

She continues on with a rant describing the Muslims building the mosque as dangerous, conniving jihadis and "tied to terrorists" -- though of course her evidence for that is wafer-thin.

But really, does Pam Geller "love" Muslims? I suppose -- in the same way a dog loves a rag doll he's chewed to shreds, or a sadist adores the whipping boy chained up down in his dungeon.

After all, we're talking about someone who regularly describes Muslims as "the enemy" of America (particularly when President Obama refuses to go down that road). Someone who believes it's a simple truth that "moderate Islam does not exist".

The other day, another TV anchor -- this time from Russia TV -- asked Geller some far more difficult questions, directly challenging her disingenuous attempts to claim she "loves" Muslims:



Geller's squirming was well earned ...

Palin Agrees With Hannity That 'Wimpy' Obama Is 'Not Taking A Strong Stand'. But That's Because He's A Hard-core Ideologue. Eh?

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Sarah Palin's very proud of her idiotic "cojones" jibe at President Obama last Sunday, and went on Sean Hannity to crow about it some more last night:

HANNITY: Yes, it's amazing to me. I wonder -- and tell me this is separate and apart. I think on national security issues and some other issues like immigration a willingness to really take on a controversial issue, do you think over time the narrative that the president is wimpy is going to take place?

PALIN: I think he's quite complacent and I think he's over -- in over his head and I think he has poor advisors surround him and I think he's really influx kind of when it comes to what his governing philosophy actually is. Some of this though is a result of he not having much experience and then a complicit media, and maybe some voters who chose not to allow him to be vetted very closely.

It's a combination of things that's resulting in a president who's not taking a strong stand on those things that are the will of the people. Obviously the will of the people is to enforce the laws that we have on the books.

HANNITY: Yes, but you know, Governor, I've tried to make this observation as many times as I can. It seems that -- you know, I know we are supposed to have government of, by, and for the people. That's what I -- that's what I always understood.

But this administration -- Democrats in particular -- right now seeing it's government by and of and for Obama. And by that I mean, you know, look at where the American people are on immigration. Look at where they are on health care.

Look at where they are on deficit spending. And then look at the Obama administration's positions. They seem at odds and a willingness to be at odds with the American people so often.

Is it ideology? Is it a lack of sophisticated political knowledge? What do you think it is?

PALIN: It's ideology and it's a commitment to what he had set out to do as a candidate. Barack Obama. And that was to fundamentally transform country.

So wait, which is it? Is Barack Obama a lousy president because he's a wishy-washy leader who doesn't really know which way to go? Or is it because he's a hardcore radical ideologue who refuses to budge or compromise or try to work with Republicans?

These nabobs seize on any straw in a windstorm to bash Obama. It's pretty pathetic, really -- except, of course, that one of them is about 90 percent likely to be a major Republican candidate for the presidency in 2012.

Karl Rove Claims Bush Didn't Blame Clinton For The '01 Recession. Oh Really?

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

It was pretty amusing watching Karl Rove and Neil Cavuto yesterday talking at length on Cavuto's Fox show about how Democratic senators played a key role in the passage of the Bush tax cuts back in 2001 without bothering to point out the obvious -- and stark -- contrast with their Republican counterparts in 2009.

They were trying to build a case for Democrats to support continuing the Bush tax cuts, but all they really did was remind everyone exactly why Democrats have no reason to play ball with these a-holes any longer: they will never compromise and work together with President Obama and Democrats to pass anything, and never will. Immigration reform is not going to be any different than health care was.

Along the way, Rove made this amusing claim:

Rove: Look, one of the reasons, one of the reasons President Bush never went out and blamed his predecessor -- first of all, it's not his style -- but also, he felt that that would simply poison the political atmosphere. And that's what the American people want. They want the president to muscle, to take responsibility for what's happening on their watch, and not spend all their time castigating their predecessor.

No one makes you want to emit low mordant chuckles quite like Lyin' Karl. Jon Perr has the actual record:

While the NEBR determined the George W. Bush's first recession actually began in March 2001, the history of U.S. GDP shows that the traditional definition of recession - two straight quarters of GDP decline - was never met during either the last year of the Clinton presidency or the first of Bush's tenure:

Undeterred, the Republican Party and its echo chamber have for years continued to perpetuate the myth that President Bush "inherited a recession" from Bill Clinton. As Media Matters detailed, the sound bite was introduced before George W, Bush even took the oath of office. On December 3, 2000, Dick Cheney told Tim Russert "I think so" when asked if "we're on the front edge of a recession." Within days, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich ("the Bush-Cheney administration should be planning on having inherited a recession as the farewell gift from Clinton") and House Majority Leader Dick Armey ("this new president may inherit a recession") followed suit. By August 2002, Mitch Daniels, Bush's head of the Office of Management and Budget, announced on Fox News:

"He [Bush] inherited that recession from the previous administration. Case is closed."

Predictably, the drumbeat from the Bush team was reproduced with zero distortion from the always reliable media. While Fox News' Sean Hannity made the argument during the November 2002 mid-term election "this president -- you know and I know and everybody knows -- inherited a recession," CNN made the case for him two months earlier. On September 18th, 2002, CNN's John King announced, "That's why the president, in almost every speech, tries to remind voters he inherited a recession." Five days later, his colleague Suzanne Malveaux regurgitated the same line, reporting, "[Bush] took up that very issue earlier today, saying -- reminding voters that the administration inherited the recession."

Bush was still blaming Clinton for his own economic malfeasance as late as 2004.

Indeed, as we pointed out previously, Bush loooved to blame Bill Clinton for just about everything:

In 2002, he blamed Clinton for the recession.

Also in 2002, for the mess in the Middle East.

In 2004, for manufacturing job losses.

Also in 2004, for a shortage of flu vaccine.

In 2005, for "running from terrorists" and generally causing 9/11.

In 2006, for Bush's own failures in containing North Korea.

In 2008, for the soaring deficit.

Oh well. Rove knows full well that he can go on Fox, blatantly lie, and no one will call him on it.

Harry Reid On The Dred Scott Republicans: 'They've Either Taken Leave Of Their Senses Or Their Principles'

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Those Dred Scott Republicans who want to do away with the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship are sure being ever so helpful when it comes to reforming our immigration laws.

They won't approve any plan creating a path to citizenship for the 12 million or so immigrants who are here illegally because, according to Republicans, that's "amnesty." Of course, they also agree that we can't round up and deport 12 million people. But any plan with a citizenship path -- regardless of how many penalties you throw at the immigrants, including heavy fines -- means Republicans will denounce it as "amnesty."

And what do they propose to fix the problem? Why, amend the Constitution, of course. Why, what could be simpler?

And the best part is: Their proposal to amend the 14th Amendment to throw out birthright citizenship wouldn't even solve an identifiable problem -- except a fake "anchor baby" scare that exists only in the fevered imaginations of paranoid white nativists.

Sen. Harry Reid and the Democrats understand this. So do some conservatives. And so yesterday Reid replied to the senators like Lindsey Graham and Jon Kyl, who think "anchor babies" are a major threat facing the nation, by reading from an op-ed by onetime Reagan/Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson:

The authors of the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed citizenship to all people "born or naturalized in the United States" for a reason. They wished to directly repudiate the Dred Scott decision, which said that citizenship could be granted or denied by political caprice.

They purposely chose an objective standard of citizenship -- birth -- that was not subject to politics. Reconstruction leaders established a firm, sound principle: To be an American citizen, you don't have to please a majority, you just have to be born here.

Reid then paraphrased Gerson by observing of his Republican colleagues, "They've either taken leave of their senses or their principles.

As you can see in the video above, even some Fox News anchors and reporters are not so certain it's such a sound idea.

But the best part of all this is, as we explained when Russell Pearce proposed such a law for Arizona, the entire enterprise is predicated on the notion that, as Pearce put it, we'll never solve the problem of illegal immigration if we don't cut off the great big incentive of having "anchor babies" here.

But this is a sick joke. Surveys of undocumented workers have made indelibly clear that they don't come here to have "anchor babies," or to get our free health care, or any of the other fantasies harbored by nativists: they come here for jobs.

Moreover, there's no serious benefit to be had from having your child be born a citizen -- because under American law, you can be deported anyway, and in fact thousands of parents of American birthright-citizen children are deported every year: 100,000 of them over 10 years, to be precise.

There is an exemption available: After the immigrant parent has been present for no less than ten years, he or she may apply for Cancellation of Removal if he/she can prove ten years of good moral character and establish that deportation would create an exceptional hardship to her citizen child. There is an annual cap of 4,000 on the number of illegal immigrants who can be granted such relief, and for the past several years the government has not even reached that cap.

Pearce is creating a boogeyman that doesn't exist -- just as he did in waving about drug-gang crimes as an "immigration" problem in pushing SB1070.

And this boogeyman is scary brown babies. That takes a special kind of chutzpah.

How Craven Is The Beltway Village? WH Press Corps Awards Front-row Seat To Fox

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Bill O'Reilly was all giddy last night about the news that in the wake of the seat-shuffling that followed Helen Thomas' departure from her front-row seat at White House press conferences, Fox News has managed to nab a front-row slot (the AP was awarded Thomas' coveted spot).

BillO even implied that he'd be coming down and making things rough on Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. Ho ho ho ho hah.

But as Lynn Sweet's report notes, Fox was awarded the spot over two other superb news organizations: NPR and Bloomberg. Indeed, both are at least legitimate news organizations and not the brazen propaganda outlet that Fox News has become.

If you want a clear example of just how openly Fox now propagandizes, check out the house ad it was running all day yesterday, touting speculation about what strategy is most likely to hurt Democrats and help the GOP:



Fox has been able to get away with being a propaganda organ while pretending to do real "news" because of the cowardice of real working journalists, who have simply failed in their supposed role as the profession's "internal policing" mechanism.

This was exemplified, really, by the White House press corps' craven surrender to Fox's campaign to get that front-row seat, even though every working journalist in that room knows that at the end of the day, even a semi-decent guy like Major Garrett has to answer to Roger Ailes. Every one of them knows, too, that Fox churns out right-wing propaganda as a 24/7 operation.

But they will never do anything about it.

I was reminded, incidentally, of the old seven techniques of the propagandist, identified back in the 1930s:

· Name Calling: hanging a bad label on an idea, symbolized by a hand turning thumbs down;
· Card Stacking: selective use of facts or outright falsehoods, symbolized by an ace of spades, a card signifying treachery;
· Band Wagon: a claim that everyone like us thinks this way, symbolized by a marching bandleader's hat and baton;
· Testimonial: the association of a respected or hated person with an idea, symbolized by a seal and ribbon stamp of approval;
· Plain Folks: a technique whereby the idea and its proponents are linked to "people just like you and me," symbolized by an old shoe;
· Transfer: an assertion of a connection between something valued or hated and the idea or commodity being discussed, symbolized by a smiling Greek theater mask; and
· Glittering Generality: an association of something with a "virtue word" to gain approval without examining the evidence; symbolized by a sparkling gem.

That describes Fox News' daily "news" operations to a T.

More here on these techniques. The details in particular describe Fox.

Glenn Beck Preaches Nonviolence. Oh Yeah, He's Just A Regular Friggin' Gandhi

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

To hear Glenn Beck yesterday on his Fox News show, you'd think he was just a regular frickin' Gandhi:

Beck: Let me make this very clear. You and I have to have a special relationship, because -- we'll show you tomorrow what these people are doing to the media and how they're infiltrated into the media. It's amazing. So you're not going to get the truth about me except here. And that's just not a big enough number in America.

So you and I have to have a straight conversation from time to time. Here's one of them:
There are crazies on both sides of the aisle -- left, right, up, down, doesn't matter -- they're crazy! Crazy people are part of society. But there is one side that has a history of terror and violence -- orchestrated history of terror and violence! And it's about to [e]merge its ugly head again.

No one has preached on TV or radio more than me that violence is not the answer. The reason why I've been doing it so long is because I was telling you about the financial collapse two years before anybody else. When I preach about it, and I say, listen, you've gotta batten down the hatches, you have to be a good person, you have to get right with God, you've got to get back to church, because trouble is coming.

When I say that, the leftists and all their media organs -- they all speculate, 'Why would Glenn Beck have to say that, unless his crazy viewers weren't one push away from a shooting spree?' Well, I say that for the exact same reason that Martin Luther King said that.

Obviously, Glenn's a little sensitive about the violence thing these days because, after all, one of his nutty fans shot two Oakland cops this week en route to a planned terrorist attack on one of Beck's favorite scapegoats, the Tides Foundation. And he obviously thinks that piously declaring his opposition to violence will give him the fig leaf he needs to cover his fat ass.

At one point in the rant, you even think he's going to come clean:

But there is one side that has a history of terror and violence -- orchestrated history of terror and violence! And it's about to [e]merge its ugly head again.

But no. He's actually talking about the radical left -- the radical left of the 1960s, mind you -- and not the radical right of the 1990s and 2000s.

Because there is indeed one side with a very recent and indeed current and ongoing "history of terror and violence" -- and that would be the radical right. Yesterday we pointed out three other recent cases involving right-wing extremists, all inspired to some degree by Fox News: Jim David Adkisson in Knoxville, Scott Roeder in Topeka, and Richard Poplawski in Pittsburgh. But that's just touching the tip of the iceberg, one that goes back to The Order, Timothy McVeigh, and Eric Rudolph. And it includes, just in the past year alone, James Von Brunn, who walked into the Holocaust Museum and opened fire; Joseph Andrew Stack, who flew a plane into an IRS building; John Patrick Bedell, who walked into the Pentagon and opened fire; and Jerry and Joe Kane, two "sovereign citizens" who gunned down two police officers in West Memphis, Arkansas, and wounded two others before being mowed down themselves.

Funny that whenever those cases erupt, Glenn Beck simply writes them off as "crazies" instead of the right-wing political terrorists they clearly are. And then wrings his hands and warns that violence isn't the answer.

And what's really funny is that you'll notice Beck preceded this entire vow of anti-violence with a long rant demonizing and smearing progressives as being part of a faction that is out to destroy America. This is of course classic eliminationist rhetoric -- something that Glenn Beck has come to specialize in the past year, particularly in his attacks on progressives.

As I explain in The Eliminationists:

The history of eliminationism in America, and elsewhere, shows that rhetoric plays a significant role in the travesties that follow. It creates permission for people to act out in ways they might not otherwise. It allows them to abrogate their own humanity by denying the humanity of people deemed undesirable or a cultural contaminant.

At every turn in American history—from Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda’s characterization of the New World “barbarians” as “these pitiful men … in whom you will scarcely find any vestiges of humanness,” to Colonel Chivington’s admonition that “Nits make lice!,” to the declarations that “white womanhood” stood imperiled by oversexed black rapists, to James Phelan’s declaration that Japanese immigrants were like “rats in the granary”—rhetoric has conditioned Americans to think of those different from themselves as less than human. Indeed, their elimination is not just acceptable, but devoutly to be wished and actively sought.

Moreover, Beck's rhetoric has a long history of being violent in nature and encouraging violence, as Media Matters' researchers explain in some detail:

Violent rhetoric is a staple on Beck's shows

Beck pours gasoline on "average American," asks, "President Obama, why don't you just set us on fire?" On his television show, Beck claimed to be imitating Obama while pouring liquid from a gasoline can -- which he later stated was water -- on an actor portraying the "average American." Beck said during his demonstration: "President Obama, why don't you just set us on fire? ... We didn't vote to lose the republic."[Fox News' Glenn Beck, 4/9/09]

Beck portrays Obama, Democrats as vampires, suggests "driv[ing] a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers." On his March 30, 2009, Fox News show, Beck aired a graphic portraying Obama and Democrats as vampires and said: "The government is full of vampires, and they are trying to suck the lifeblood out of the economy." Beck then suggested "driv[ing] a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers." Beck returned to that imagery on his January 19 radio show, warning listeners that progressives are "vampires" who now have a "taste of blood" and are "gonna start getting more and more violent."

Beck talks about "put[ting] poison" in Pelosi's wine. In 2009, Beck's Fox News show featured a segment in which Beck said the following to a woman wearing a mask of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

BECK: So, Speaker Pelosi, I just wanted to -- you gonna drink your wine? Are you blind? Do those eyes not work? There you -- I want you to drink it now. Drink it. Drink it. Drink it.

I really just wanted to thank you for having me over here to wine country. You know, to be invited, I thought I had to be a major Democratic donor or a longtime friend of yours, which I'm not.

By the way, I put poison in your -- no, I -- I look forward to all the policy discussions that we're supposed to have -- you know, on health care, energy reform, and the economy. [Glenn Beck 8/6/09]

Beck: "To the day I die, I am going to be a progressive hunter." Telling his listeners that they "are going to learn so much on Friday," Beck compared himself to "Israeli Nazi hunters" and commented: "I'm going to find these big progressives and, to the day I die, I'm going to be a progressive hunter." He added:

BECK: I'm going to find these people that have done this to our -- you know, to our country, and expose them. I don't care where -- I don't care if they're in nursing homes. I'm going to expose what they have done and make sure that the people understand, because our Constitution, our republic -- if it survives -- it will only survive because the people are waking up and through the grace of God, because we are that close to losing our republic. [The Glenn Beck Program, 1/20/10]

Beck: "Grab a torch." Asserting that politicians are addicted to spending, Beck stated: "When do we ever run those who are bankrupting our country and literally stealing our children's future out of town? Grab a torch." [Glenn Beck, 1/6/10]

Beck suggests Obama is "trying to destroy the country" and is pushing America toward civil war. While discussing the ongoing controversy over Arizona's immigration law, Beck told his listeners that "we are being pushed" toward civil war and that Obama is "trying to destroy the country." [The Glenn Beck Program, 5/19/10]

Beck's advice to Liberty grads: "Shoot to kill." During his May 15 commencement speech at Liberty University, Beck told graduates that they "have a responsibility" to speak out, or "blood ... will be on our hands." His advice for graduates (as well as his daughter) included "shoot to kill."

Quoting Jefferson, Beck warns about "rivers of blood." On his Fox News show, Beck quoted a letter by Thomas Jefferson warning " 'if they lose freedom' -- he's speaking of us, future generations -- 'if they lose freedom, there will be rivers of blood.' " Beck continued in his own words, "Boy, I hope that's not true, but I can tell you there will be rivers of blood if we don't have values and principles." [Glenn Beck, 5/14/10]

Beck: "I fear a Reichstag moment, a -- God forbid -- another 9-11, something that will turn this machine on." During an interview with Newsmax.com in which he discussed opposition to Obama's Federal Communications Commission policies, Beck said: "I fear an event. I fear a Reichstag moment, a -- God forbid -- another 9-11, something that will turn this machine on, and power will be seized and voices will be silenced. God help us all.'' [Newsmax.com, 10/7/09]

That's really just a sampling. Go check the whole long, exhaustive list. Because that alone will tell you why Beck's lameass little fig-leaf covering -- "But I preach nonviolence!" -- deserves just to be laughed right out of the room.

Glenn Beck's Radio Rwanda Schtick Is Transforming Fox News Into An Organization That Promotes Domestic Terrorism

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

It was a little amusing that Fox News contributor Wayne Simmons this weekend attacked WikiLeaks as "a terrorist organization that uses the First Amendment of the United States to hide behind."
Talk about projection -- for anyone associated with Fox News.

Because Glenn Beck has made it perfectly clear on his Fox News show this week that he has no intention whatsoever of backing down from his demonization and scapegoating of the Tides Foundation on Fox, even after one of his TV acolytes, ginned up by Beck's repeated smears and attacks on Tides, engaged Oakland police in a massive shootout that wounded two police officers, en route to a planned terrorist attack on Tides' Bay Area offices that no doubt would have left a number of innocent people dead had he not been apprehended beforehand.

Indeed, all this week he stepped it up: For much of the week, he pretended that the shootout hadn't even happened, refusing to even mention it in segments featuring Netroots Nation panel remarks in which the planned terrorist attack was the de facto context. On Wednesday, as you can see above, he continued to smear Tides' work by claiming it promotes an ideology identical to that held by the Weather Underground. Then on Friday, he made up his own "facts" in order to compare it to a sniper shooting in Oakland that had no known political component.

Make no mistake: Glenn Beck has been inciting acts of terrorist violence, and the Byron Williams case clearly establishes it -- even though it is far from the first such case. It in fact was preceded by several similar cases in which the dehumanizing rhetoric, scapegoating and conspiracist smears promoted by Fox clearly played a powerful role in the violence that ensued:

-- Jim David Adkisson's shooting attack on a Knoxville Unitarian church. Adkisson left behind a manifesto that repeated numerous right-wing talking points generated by Fox commentators and specifically cited a Bernard Goldberg book. His library at home was stocked with books by Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage.

-- Richard Poplawski's shooting of three Pittsburgh police officers, because he believed a conspiracy theory that President Obama intended to take Americans' guns away from them, and he reportedly believed the cops had arrived to carry it out. Poplawski, a white supremacist, liked to post Beck videos about FEMA concentration camps to the Stormfront comments board.

-- Scott Roeder's assassination of Dr. George Tiller. Roeder was heavily involved in Operation Rescue and avidly read its newsletters -- which featured weekly pieces from Bill O'Reilly, including several attacking Tiller as a "baby killer" -- and its website, which liked to feature O'Reilly videos attacking Dr. Tiller. Indeed, O'Reilly had indulged a high-profile and unusually obsessive (not to mention vicious) jihad against Tiller, resulting in 42 such attacks on Tiller, 24 of which referred to him generically as a "baby killer."

The Byron Williams case was functionally a shot across Fox News' bow: a warning that it is playing with extreme fire by allowing Beck to recklessly demonize specific targets and to inflame his audience against them by imputing the most extreme and nefarious motives to them. In the case of Tides, Beck has been claiming all along that they are trying to "brainwash your children" -- a charge that always raises extremely visceral reactions.

If Fox allows this continue, then eventually someone -- someone who eats, breathes and lives Fox News, as so many right-wingers do these days -- is going to succeed. Eventually, someone is going to walk into (or drive up to) the offices of some group that Beck has singled out as being part of a nefarious progressive "cancer" that is "destroying America" -- whether it is the Tides Foundation, or the ACLU, or the SEIU, someone at MSNBC, or from ACORN -- and shoot the place up or set off a bomb.

And then not just Glenn Beck, but Fox News and all its affiliates, are going to have blood on their hands. And there will not be any hiding it or pretending otherwise.

Beck wants to pretend that all he's done is "discuss" the Tides Foundation -- but in fact he's consistently portrayed them as nefarious key players in the progressive "conspiracy" to "destroy America from within", and he's cast them in a particularly slimy role: propagandizing your unsuspecting children. Is it any wonder someone decided to "take them out"?

We can talk until we're blue in the face about how profoundly irresponsible Fox and Beck are being. But matters have reached the point now that it is necessary to call them all out as an organization that is aiding and abetting domestic terrorism.

It must stop.

It's important to understand that the conspiracism with which Beck smears groups like the Tides Foundation is, as Chip Berlet explains, a powerful form of scapegoating:

Societal outbreaks of conspiracism are a distinct form of scapegoating in the political arena rather than an outcome of a paranoid psychological pathology. In conspiracist discourse, the supposed conspirators serve as scapegoats for the actual conflict within the society.

... By blaming a small group of individuals for vast crimes or simple evil, conspiracism serves to divert attention from the institutional locus of power that drives systemic oppression, injustice and exploitation.

As explained by Frank P. Mintz:

"Conspiracism serves the needs of diverse political and social groups in America and elsewhere. It identifies elites, blames them for economic and social catastrophes, and assumes that things will be better once popular action can remove them from positions of power."

Right wing conspiracist scapegoating not only identifies and blames elites, but also identifies and blames alleged subversives and parasites from groups that have relatively lower social or economic status. This is the classic producerist stance. Conspiracist allegation can also be used to attack the status quo by outsider elite factions seeking power.

Remember the scapegoating role played by electronic media in the Rwandan Genocide:

Due to high rates of illiteracy at the time of the genocide, radio was an important way for the government to deliver messages to the public. Two radio stations key to inciting violence before and during the genocide were Radio Rwanda and Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM). In March 1992, Radio Rwanda was first used in directly promoting the killing of Tutsi in Bugesera, south of the national capital Kigali. Radio Rwanda repeatedly broadcast a communiqué warning that Hutu in Bugesera would be attacked by Tutsi, a message used by local officials to convince Hutu that they needed to protect themselves by attacking first. Led by soldiers, Hutu civilians and members of the Interahamwe subsequently attacked and killed hundreds of Tutsi.

At the end of 1993, the RTLM's highly sensationalized reporting on the assassination of the Burundi president, a Hutu, was used to underline supposed Tutsi brutality. The RTLM falsely reported that the president had been tortured, including castration of the victim (in pre-colonial times, some Tutsi kings castrated defeated enemy rulers). From late October 1993, the RTLM repeatedly broadcast themes developed by the extremist written press, underlining the inherent differences between Hutu and Tutsi, the foreign origin of Tutsi, the disproportionate share of Tutsi wealth and power, and the horrors of past Tutsi rule. The RTLM also repeatedly stressed the need to be alert to Tutsi plots and possible attacks and called upon Hutu to prepare to 'defend' themselves against the Tutsi.

After April 6, 1994, authorities used the RTLM and Radio Rwanda to spur and direct killings, specifically in areas where the killings were initially resisted. Both radio stations were used to incite and mobilize then give specific directions for carrying out the killings.

Glenn Beck is taking Fox down that road. It's time for the network to pull the plug before a lot of people get hurt.

Beck Lies About Oakland Cop Sniper, Claims Innocence In Inspiring Shooter Who Targeted Tides Foundation

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

We knew Glenn Beck was going to deny any culpability for his role in inciting a right-wing nutcase named Byron Williams, who got into a shootout with Oakland police officers last week when they pulled him over en route to his planned attack on the San Francisco offices of the Tides Foundation and the ACLU. After all, Beck always cries, like his conservative cohorts, that eeeeevil libruls are just trying to "silence" him whenever he incites acts of violence.

Personal responsibility? That's for liberals and black people, we guess.

But his denial yesterday on his Fox News show went beyond mere cries of "bloody shirt!" -- though it contained that, too. What he attempted to do was claim some kind of equivalence and another Oakland incident involving shots fired at the police -- even though the claim is just nakedly false:

The next thing is, they're painting people into terrorists -- painting people into dangers.
Um, you know, we had a sniper in, um, Oakland, California, trying to kill police. At the same time we have another guy who appears to be against the Tides Foundation, uh, and he goes down and he's going to try to kill people at the Tides Foundation. I'm tied to the Tides Foundation in this story because, quote, how scary is this? We have searched all the television records and Glenn Beck is the only host that spoke about the Tides Foundation in the past year. That's terrifying.

But I'm tied to that. But nobody's even talking about the sniper from the left trying to shoot the police officer.

So where do you stand on violence?

Let's parse this carefully, because it's important to understand just how deep Beck's mendacity is here.
First, let's be clear that no one is "painting" Glenn Beck as a terrorist -- and there should be no question, frankly, that Byron Williams fully intended to be a terrorist.

More significant, though, is the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever that the sniper case in Oakland involved any political motive at all. As you can see from the Oakland Tribune report, this appeared to be largely a case of someone who was angered by a police drug bust, or simply hated cops. That stands in direct contrast to the Williams case, which was unmistakably motivated by political hatred.

We know that particularly because of the information from Williams' mother about his motives:

She said her son, who had been a carpenter and a cabinetmaker before his imprisonment, was angry about his unemployment and about "what's happening to our country."

Williams watched the news on television and was upset by "the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items," his mother said.

... She said she then checked the locked safe where she kept her guns, all legally purchased and owned, and found that they were also missing.

Janice Williams said she kept the guns because "eventually, I think we're going to be caught up in a revolution." But she said she had told her son many times that "he didn't have to be on the front lines."

And how did Byron Williams come to choose the Tides Foundation as a target? What television show did he watch that made him think the Tides Foundation was an evil entity worthy of being shot up and terrorized.

Well, as Beck openly admits -- and as Media Matters explains in detail -- there was only one show that did so -- Glenn Beck's.

Moreover, Beck is being disingenuous in the extreme to describe his role in this as merely "talking about" the Tides Foundation -- he viciously (and groundlessly) demonized them as an organization intended to "destroy capitalism", a "Trojan horse" engaged in "indoctrinating children" and "warping your children's brains" with the idea that "capitalism is evil", the "nastiest of the nasty," a bunch of "far left radicals" who are "infiltrating" and "failing capitalism" so they can "destroy it."

These are all utterly false and base smears, of course. But if you were a violent and gullible right-winger prone to anger, you probably would be inspired by this kind of rhetoric to try to take them out. Which fits the description of Byron Williams to a T.

As we've said about Beck previously:

Because we believe in freedom of speech and freedom of thought, there will probably always be haters like Richard Poplawski among us. Inevitably they will be driven by fear: the fear of difference. Because to them, difference of any kind is a threat.

And what we know from experience about volatile, unstable actors like them is that they can be readily induced into violent action by hateful rhetoric that demonizes and dehumanizes other people. And thanks to human nature and those same freedoms, we will certainly always have fearmongering demagogues among us. But the purveyors of such profoundly irresponsible rhetoric need to be called on it -- especially when they hold the nation's media megaphones.

Tragically, it's becoming increasingly clear that both Beck and Fox News have no intention whatsoever of stopping this profoundly irresponsible behavior. Which means that he's going to continue whipping up violent, unstable nutcases with his scapegoating and demonization.

Which means that someday, someone is going to finally succeed in a violent attack on one of his targets. Someday, there will be a lot of people killed by one of Beck's eager acolytes. Someday, he won't be able to hide behind his whining that eeeevil libruls are trying to "silence" him. Someday, it will be unmistakably clear to everyone exactly what he has been doing. Someday, he will be finally, irrevocably, disgraced.

We will all be in mourning that day. But it seems that until then, he will never stop.

Tea Partying 'Patriots' Ginning Themselves Up For A Shooting War -- And GOP Politicians Are On Board

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Nicholas Phillips at the Riverfront Times takes note of this YouTube video from a Tea Party/Patriot movement outfit calling itself Don't Tread On Me, which apparently is planning a movie documenting the "Patriot uprising" against President Obama and the eeeeeeevil Marxist/socialist/fascist Democrats.

Among the featured guests on the video are a couple of Missouri Republican House legislators: Rep. Cynthia Davis, who you may remember for her proclamation that "hunger can be a motivating force", which is why we shouldn't give kids school lunches; and Rep. Brian Nieves, who got some attention earlier this month for his goofy political demanding Obama and Muslims "leave us alone".

The theme of the video is that eventually, "patriots" are going to have to take up arms against the eeeeeevil Democrats. Nieves, for instance, intones:

Thirty years from now, somebody's going to ask you what you did during the patriot uprising.

Davis adds:

We're drawing the line in the sand and saying, 'This is our territory.'

But hey, those Tea Partiers are just normal, sane people who only want to advocate for fiscal restraint. Right? Right?

Digby has more.

Right-Wing 'True Patriot' Bank Robber Got Away With $86,000 He Gave To 'The Cause'

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

When I first heard this story about a farmer from Port Townsend -- on the other side of Puget Sound from Seattle, the area where The Egg and I was set -- who had embarked on a bank-robbing spree, I was moderately intrigued. After all, rural hardship is often closely involved in these cases.

Michael Fenter

But it turns out that wasn't the case at all: Michael Fenter wasn't hard up for money to keep his farm afloat. Indeed, he didn't keep or spend any of the $86,000 he got away with: he gave it away, apparently to a right-wing Patriot organization or something very much like it.

This information was buried, actually, in the Seattle Times story by Maureen O'Hagan:

Calling it "one of the most perplexing cases" he's ever considered, U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle sentenced Fenter on Monday to 10 years in prison, and ordered him to make restitution to the banks. He walked away with $86,000 from the first three robberies, and that money has never been accounted for.

...

During the robberies, Fenter told bank employees that he was angry about the government bailout of banks. He said he was taking the money to give to people who needed it, according to court documents — though when asked about it by authorities he declined to provide details.

Upon his arrest, he said his name was "Patrick Henry," a Revolutionary War-era governor famous for his "Give me liberty or give me death!" speech.

One Bank of America employee said at Friday's sentencing hearing in Tacoma that she thinks about the robbery everyday and her heart races.

"He's a terrorist," she said.

...

As for the question why? Fenter said robbing banks wasn't to get money for himself or his family. Instead, he did it because he was a "true patriot." The money, he said, went to fund that cause.

"What I am for is real justice, real truth, and real accountability within our system of government," he said. "The money was used and is probably currently being used to get to the truth."

He did not make clear who was using the money — though he emphasized it was being used in a "peaceful" way. Nor did he say what, exactly, he hoped to learn.

I think it's funny that Fox News spends so much time whipping up hysteria over scary black people.
Because there sure as hell are some scary white people out there, ya know?

Jan Brewer's Fearmongering Is Destroying Arizona's Economy -- But Hey, It Wins Votes

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and her misbegotten immigration law, SB1070, may be popular with Arizonans looking for a handy scapegoat right now, but they may not be so popular a little down the road, after they've completely destroyed what's left of the state's economy.

KPHO-TV in Phoenix, for instance, found that her fearmongering about "headless corpses" was driving tourists away from the state in droves:

Veronica and Richard Schultz have owned the guest ranch for the past 14 years. The operation’s close proximity to the border used to be a selling point for guests. Now, it’s more of a repellent.

“We’ve definitely lost guests and we've had guests call us. We’ve had friends call us from all over the country and say, ‘Hey, are you safe?’” Richard Schultz said.
Between the economy and boycotts related to Arizona’s tough new immigration law, SB 1070, tourism in the state is down 10 percent.

The Shultzes said state politicians are not helping matters. Every day on cable news, anchors and reporters are discussing an invasion at the border, headless bodies in the desert or a rash of kidnappings.

During this election cycle, Arizona politicians are touting the potential dangers of illegal immigration. Gov. Jan Brewer is one of the loudest voices.

She has made several statements to the national media, the validity of which CBS 5 Investigates could not confirm. The governor told one media outlet that almost all illegal immigrants are bringing drugs across the border. U.S. Border Patrol officials said that statement is false.

Brewer also said law enforcement officials have found decapitated bodies in the desert. Calls to all of Arizona’s border county medical examiners revealed no decapitated bodies have been reported to them.

You've also gotta love how, when asked about her rhetoric in the segment above, Brewer simply fled. She must be getting her lessons in media relations from Sharron Angle.

Then there was the LA Times piece reporting how Latinos are fleeing the state in droves -- and how it's killing businesses:

No one has measured the effect of SB 1070 on businesses, or the number of immigrants it has prompted to leave Arizona. But merchants say the repercussions are clear — not just in how it's prompted many families to leave the state, but scared others enough to curtail their regular activities.

"The economy's already bad, but on top of it [SB 1070] is like a bullet in the head to us," said Osameh Odeh, 35, whose Eden Wear clothing store was empty one recent afternoon. "People don't come out of their houses anymore."

Of course, we not only predicted this outcome, we reported on its early manifestations already awhile back. You know the political price for this may be a steep one -- considering that wrecking the economy is not usually a popular outcome. Even Judge Bolton's ruling, staving off the law's enactment, can't prevent these outcomes.

And it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people.

Shawna Forde And Her Killer Minutemen Had Scheduled Other 'Operations' When They Were Arrested For Murders

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

There have been some interesting developments in the bizarre and telling case of Shawna Forde, the Everett, WA, woman who led an offshoot unit of Minutemen who ran armed border patrols for patriotic "fun" and then decided to go "operational." They concocted a scheme to raid drug smugglers and take their money and drugs and use it to finance a border race war and "start a revolution against the government". They mistakenly chose the home of Raul Flores and his wife and two daughters, which had neither money nor drugs; first they shot the father in the head and wounded the mother, and then, while she pleaded for her life, they shot 9-year-old Brisenia in cold blood. (Her sister, fortunately, was sleeping over at a friend's.)

It seems the FBI got a heads-up about Forde's plans -- and did nothing about it, since the information was sketchy. But it also seems that Forde and Co. had a whole slate of violent home invasions ready to roll. From Kim Smith at the Arizona Star:

According to documents filed this week in Pima County Superior Court, two confidential informants for the FBI say they told agents in April 2009 that Forde was recruiting people to raid a house she believed was filled with illicit drugs, money and guns.

...

The documents say Forde, 42, and others were on the verge of hitting additional targets when she, Jason Bush, 35, and Albert Gaxiola, 43, were arrested on June 12, 2009.

...

Both men are described as active members of the border-defense movement who routinely camp on the border so they can spot illegal immigrants and report them to the U.S. Border Patrol.

One of them told investigators that he met Forde in October 2007 while on a mission outside Arivaca. He said that in April 2009, Forde called him, saying the other men she knew in the border-defense movement were "sissies," and she was impressed with his courage.

The informant says Forde knew rocket-propelled grenades, drugs and millions of dollars were being funneled into the U.S. through Arivaca and wanted him to help her protect the community.

Not wanting to get involved, the man told Forde to call another man.

The second man says Forde shared her intelligence with him several times in person, over the phone and by e-mail.

Once Forde made arrangements to meet with him, the second man said he deemed her serious and contacted his FBI handler, who instructed him to keep gathering information.

The two men say they and two other men met with Forde at an Aurora, Colo., truck stop in late April 2009, at which time Forde said she wanted them to force their way into an Arivaca house and get control of the occupants.

They said she told them a second team would then come in and gather up the drugs, money and weapons, which would be sold to help the Minutemen American Defense, an organization based in the state of Washington.

One of them relayed the information to the FBI a few days later. The other corroborated his account of the meeting. They were told to keep on gathering information.

Forde later called one of the men to ask if he could be in Arivaca within 18 hours, but he said he made excuses about why he couldn't. About 10 days later, they learned of the slayings.

The men said they immediately suspected Forde, suspicions they said were confirmed when Forde called an associate to help Bush, who had been shot in the leg.

Forde told their associate that Bush was shot while patrolling the desert, but they suspected Bush had really been shot during the home invasion, they told authorities.

On June 7, one of the informants told Forde in a conversation taped by the FBI that he and the other informant wouldn't be able to drive to Tucson for a few days. He also told her he didn't want to bring one of the other participants in their truck-stop meeting because he didn't trust him.

Forde replied that she did trust him and went on to say: "We can train him. We can start him on soft targets. Our hands are already dirty. We've got to know he can pull the trigger."

You can listen to the wounded mother's 911 call here:



It's not as if Shawna Forde was a renegade Minuteman, either, though she did run an offshoot (which is how the majority of Minutemen are organizing these days, the large national organizations having gone kaput). Indeed, Forde served as a spokesperson for FAIR and was closely involved with Minutemen leader Jim Gilchrist right up to the time of her arrest.

The trial this fall is going to be intensely interesting -- and deeply revealing.

Who, Me Unleash Violent Nutcases? Beck Wonders Why The Concern About The Tides Foundation -- But Doesn't Mention Shooter

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Glenn Beck was all hyped up about last week's Netroots Nation gathering in Vegas, especially the frequency with which he was mentioned. The reason, he said, was that "this was really about you" (which is, of course, one of the rhetorical devices Beck uses to get his viewers to identify with him).

He was especially struck by the remarks made by our friend and sometime C&L contributor, Color of Change's James Rucker, who has been the point person in organizing one of the most effective advertiser boycotts of Beck's program.

Beck: We're exposing the progressive agenda to the light of day. And that is what he has a problem with. Watch:

Rucker: No one knew what Tides was until Glenn Beck started -- I mean, people outside of our political world didn't know Tides, until Glenn Beck's blackboard.

Beck: Now wait a minute. We did talk about Tides. There I am -- last September. We talked about Tides! Well, why wouldn't you want us talking about Tides? Aren't they helping people? Aren't they working for social justice? Isn't that what all of your progressive friends are working towards? Why would you hide it?

Gee, Glenn, no one's trying to hide the Tides Foundation. And no one minds anybody -- Fox News included -- "talking about" them. What they object to, rather, is your scapegoating them: unleashing a torrent of violent eliminationist rhetoric, ripe with fearmongering and falsehoods, in their direction.

The reason James Rucker mentioned the Tides Foundation, in fact, was a news story Beck assiduously has avoided mentioning -- namely, the gunman in Oakland last week who targeted the Tides Foundation after watching Beck's program.

Funny that Beck seems blissfully unaware of this incident, isn't it?

Especially when, as Media Matters has explained in detail, Beck appears to be the primary, if not sole, inspiration for this violent nutcase's choice of target:

According to his mother, Williams "watched the news on television and was upset by 'the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items.'"

We don't know what Williams was watching, or that television played a role in his decision to target Tides. However, if it did, according to our Nexis searches, the primary person on cable or network news talking about the Tides Foundation in the year and a half prior to the shootout was Fox News' Glenn Beck.

According to our searches, since Beck's show premiered on January 19, 2009, Tides has been mentioned on 31 editions of Fox News programs, 29 of which were editions of Beck's show (the other two were on Sean Hannity's program). In most of those references, Beck attacked Tides, often weaving the organization into his conspiracy theories. Two of those Beck mentions occurred during the week before Williams' shootout.

On July 14, Beck said:

You believe that America is the last best hope for the free world. Boy, was I a moron for believing that. Nope, there are a lot of people that believe that we are the oppressor. This man states it. He states in this book "The purpose is to create mass organizations to seize power." Wow! That almost sounds like the Tides Foundation.

On July 13, Beck said:

Well, they have the education system. They have the media. They have the capitalist system. What do you think the Tides Foundation was? They infiltrate and they saw under Ronald Reagan that capitalists were not for all of this nonsense, so they infiltrated. Now, they are using failing capitalism to destroy it.

By contrast, since January 19, 2009, according to our Nexis search, Tides was not mentioned on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, or PBS. Not once. This search is not perfect -- Nexis does not include, for example, MSNBC's daytime coverage. But the contrast with Beck's coverage is stark.

As if to illustrate the point in yesterday's segment, Beck ruminated a little later -- inspired by Harry Reid's promise at Netroots that a public option will eventually pass the Congress -- in a way that very much sounded like he's promoting violent action:

Beck: You know, it's funny, I don't know what's going to wake your friends and neighbors up. I really don't. I don't know. Are they still saying it couldn't happen here in America? Is that what they're saying? I don't know what else it takes to wake your friends and neighbors up. But their freedoms are being lost. They're being stolen in the cover of darkness. It's like these guys are wearing an invisibility coat, or think they're wearing an invisibility cloak, and -- and everybody can see them. Like, 'Hm, no' -- your neighbors -- 'No, I can't see them.' 'But they're right there!'

I have a sense -- I have a sense that there is growing frustration in this country. I have a sense also that there are lunatics everywhere -- on the left and the right -- that have no problem killing. Because that's what lunatics like to do. The average American, I fear, is about to say, 'I give up. I give up.'

All of this -- particularly the vicious attacks on the Tides Foundation -- constitutes a classic example of eliminationist rhetoric -- something Beck has been doing for a long time, with progressives as his main target. Beck always tries to claim that he's being victimized and his free speech attacked whenever this is pointed out -- even though link between hateful rhetoric and violent behavior is a well-established one with a long and sorrowful track record.

We wondered not too long ago how long it would be before someone decided to act on Beck's eliminationist rhetoric directed at progressives. Looks like we have our answer.

Beck And His Cohost Have A Big Giggle Over Olbermann's History Lesson, Mock His Education, And Betray Their Own Ignorance

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

You can tell that Keith Olbermann scored some serious points in his special comment of last week attacking the wingnuts at Fox News, because Glenn Beck and his radio cohort, Pat Gray, spent a long, long time attacking and deriding it and giggling at it the next day.

Somehow, the doofuses at the Right Scoop concluded that this display destroyed Olbermann and made Beck look good. Watch the video and judge for yourself.

Some things stand out as pretty obvious:

1. Beck really is stupid. Who else would purposely conflate Alfred Dreyfus with Richard Dreyfuss? Obviously Beck knows the difference -- the fact that he knows this is French history makes clear he knows about the Dreyfus case. (And in fact Dreyfuss made a film, Prisoner of Honor about the case -- though he actually played the attorney who obtained Dreyfus' exoneration.) If Beck thinks this kind of obscuranist humor is funny to anyone outside of the control room, he's every bit the moron he seems to think Olbermann is.
   
2. Speaking of which, Keith Olbermann did indeed graduate from an ag school -- at Cornell. Considering that Glenn Beck couldn't even make it through a single semester of college ... well, let's just say he's not exactly in any position to deride anyone else's education. (And besides, what does Beck have against agricultural colleges? Sarah Palin graduated from one too, dude.)
   
3. The Dreyfus affair was not just French history, nor even merely world history. It was one of the more significant points in history, period -- a seminal point in terms of institutionalized racism, specifically anti-Semitism, in government, and one of the most significant precursors of the Holocaust. The fact that the analogy just blows right by Beck and Gray -- them with their giggling and exaggerated rolling "r"s of Breitbart -- just shows them to be the ignoramuses they are proud of being.
   
4. Finally, we know Beck said he dried out, but are we sure? This looked more like two stoned teenagers finding everything they say hilarious when no one else does.

Beck thinks he can just laugh at his critics and everyone will just laugh along. But first he has to explain what's actually funny. Which, of course, is never very funny to anyone else.

[H/t Nicole for the input.]

Ex-Tea Party Spokesman Mark Williams Doesn't Want The Story To Be About Him. Too Late, Dude.

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Mark Williams -- having seen his Tea Party Express booted from the National Tea Party Foundation for his nakedly racist screed about "coloreds" -- went on CNN Newsroom with Don Lemon yesterday and announced he was stepping down as the TPE spokesman. In the process, demonstrated exactly why the Tea Parties cannot distance themselves from their racists within quite as easily as they'd like:

LEMON: So I want to ask you, why did you resign from the Tea Party Express?

WILLIAMS: To take the spotlight off of me. It's a movement. It's not about me. It's not about my ego. It's not about my fat head. I did succeed in getting the NAACP to the table. And by the way this tea party federation which represents exactly 40 groups out of 5,000, I was never a member of. I have no idea who they are, but they threw me out.

Hmmmm. This is most peculiar, since the press release announcing the formation of the National Tea Party Foundation in April 2009 lists the Tea Party Express as one of its founding member organizations. And I can't find any indication the Tea Party Express ever indicated that this listing was in error.

In any event, Williams then went on to explain that he was still very much a Tea Party activist:

LEMON: OK. So listen, if you say that you wanted to take the spotlight off of you, I have to ask you then why did you accept this interview if you don't want to be in the spotlight?

WILLIAMS: I weaselled on you last time. The reason why I canceled last time was because the day before David Webb went on TV and did all this nonsense about kicking me out of a group I never belonged to, I had sat down with the Urban League, the NAACP, Reverend Al and a bunch of other people and we reached an agreement to put all the rancor behind us and find common ground.

This guy Webb, looking for headlines, cashing in, whatever it was, decided he would chime in. That makes me the issue when the issue should really be America and what we're working to save.

LEMON: OK.

WILLIAMS: I am still a Tea Partier. I just don't speak officially for the Tea Party Express.

And then he demonstrated exactly the kind of racist ignorance that is embedded deeply in the movement he formerly represented:

LEMON: OK, listen, I want to go back and read this first again, because it's the first time I have talk to you. Go back and read the first part of your letter to Lincoln that you posted on your blog and then later removed. It says, "We colored people don't cotton -- we colored people have taken a vote and decide we don't cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us colored people and we demand that it's stop."

Are you still defending this as satire, Mark?

WILLIAMS: I defend the idea behind it. I certainly am upset with my sloppy execution of it. But when a group that calls itself colored people says it's against freedom and emancipation and it's against self-determination, the first thing that pops into my mind is those colored people must be speaking for some bizarre group of people that I'm not familiar with. And in people's mind, when people say they use the words colored and black interchangeably, that's in their heads.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: I think you are a smart guy.

WILLIAMS: Sure.

LEMON: And I think you know the NAACP is an historic organization which got its name 100 years ago before there was anything about colored, black, African-American. And there is some debate even among African-Americans about changing the name. But you are a smart enough guy to know that you can't use that word just like you can't call people the "N" word. You used to be able to do that. We still say the negro league when we talk about old timers in baseball, but you don't walk around calling people Negros. So why do you use that defense? It seems like your being disingenuous about it.

WILLIAMS: No. I used the name of the group and I used what they call themselves. And I used the intent behind their -- behind their resolution. And when we sat down and we agreed to put all that behind us, and I agreed on national television, by the way, on another network, that I was over the top with it, we put it behind us. And the next day this bottom feeder Webb just went and destroyed all of that and turned it into a big debate over me.

As you can see, the interview continues on in this tone through several more questions. He defends Andrew Breitbart and repeats the lie that Shirley Sherrod's audience applauded when she discussed her impulse to "act racistly".

Williams just doesn't get it. He's still utterly clueless about what his screed revealed about so much of the Tea Partiers' claims to "colorblindness" -- that it's really just lip service, window dressing for a profound bigotry.

That, ultimately, is why he remains an exemplar of the Tea Partiers' race problem -- and will for a good long time to come.

Fun In Colorado: Tom Tancredo Ditches The GOP For The Constitution Party

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Tom Tancredo seems to be on a one-man crusade to make Colorado the Wingnutopia of this year's political campaigns:

Tancredo will run for governor as American Constitution Party candidate
Former Congressman Tom Tancredo is in the race for Colorado governor, he said this morning.

“I will officially announce at noon that I will seek the nomination of the constitution party,” Tancredo told The Denver Post.

The Littleton Republican must file some papers with the Colorado Secretary of State and register as a member of the American Constitution Party, but then “he’s ready to go,” raising money, disclosing his platform and launching a website that is already put together.

Tancredo gave Republican candidates Scott McInnis and Dan Maes an ultimatum last week: Promise to get out of the race after the primary if polls showed the winner lagging behind Democrat John Hickenlooper or else he would get in as a third-party candidate.
Both Maes and McInnis refused.

Tancredo’s entry into the race is likely to split the GOP vote in the general election, giving Hickenlooper a win, said Dick Wadhams, head of the state’s Republican Party.
He blasted Tancredo after hearing the former congressman was going to get in.

“Tom Tancredo has nobody’s interest in mind other than his own,” Wadhams said. “But what do you expect from a guy who reneged on his term-limit pledge and has been running for office for five decades.”

Tancredo and Wadhams had an all-out-brawl on Peter Boyles’ KHOW radio station show this morning, screaming at each other and calling each other “liars.”

Yeah, that fits Tancredo's style. And it comes right amid the little dustup over dissing Birthers from Tancredo's good pal and GOP Senate candidate Ken Buck, for whom Tancredo has already done many favors.

Of course, we remember well Tancredo's embrace of right-wing extremism at the Tea Partiers' convention.

Now, this embrace of the Constitution Party pretty much seals the fact that Tancredo is a real extremist. Because it's important to remember -- or simply understand -- just what the Constitution Party is: fundamentally, it is the "Patriot"/militia movement's political party.

My very first awareness of the militia movement, in fact, came in early 1994 when a researcher friend showed me a promotional video (featuring a radical anti-abortion evangelist named Matthew Trewhella) that was being distributed by an outfit called the U.S. Taxpayers Party. It, and many other USTP videos and publications, explicitly urged Americans to form militias in order to fight off the "New World Order" being planned by President Clinton.

The USTP was run by a longtime far-right activist named Howard Phillips, who at one time had been a key fundraising/mobilization figure for the "Reagan Revolution" in the early 1980s. Since then, Phillips has gone completely off the rails into black-helicopter land, as embodied by his USTP.

In 1999, he rechristened the USTP as the Constitution Party. Since then, it has played home to such far-right celebrities as Judge Roy Moore, the Ten Commandments nutcase, and has reached its tendrils into the state politics of some rural states, most notably Montana. It's also been the home of such notable political candidates as Minutemen leader Jim Gilchrist, whose character we're all too familiar with.

Tom Tancredo has never faced a statewide vote. This is going to be amusing to watch.