Posted on 08/23/2009 5:13:22 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Scripps Howard columnist Ann McFeatters, "Lynch-Mob Mentality Stirs Health-Care Debate":
Americans are flocking to town-hall meetings, screaming and shouting down nonplussed legislators, brandishing guns and throwing around false rumors as if they were hand grenades. [...]
Do we not want to make the best of this brief window of opportunity to make changes aimed at benefiting millions, bringing down costs and helping small businesses?
Syndicated columnist Gene Lyons, "The Lunatics Are No Longer on the Fringe":
It's not possible to reason with people peddling grotesque and preposterous lies, bargain with people who are screaming, or negotiate under threats of violence.
It's not a professional wrestling exhibition, it's our democracy. Persons whose behavior would get them thrown out of a Rolling Stones show should be removed by security. Period.
Media columnist Michael Wolff, "The Nutters Are Coming to Get You":
They've always been here. But the nutters are surfacing in a way and to a degree that is finally catching the agape attention of non-nutters. It is not only the ferocity of their anger that is surprising, but the focus of it: this birth certificate stuff, the death panel business, the tea bags, and the apparently heartfelt belief that the end of America is upon us. [...]
This might also be called demographic rage. It isn't shared across the social and economic spectrum. It's limited to…well, the stupids.
Tides Foundation Chair Melissa Bradley, "Speaking Power to Truth":
As progressive ideas like green jobs become mainstream, the right is clearly threatened. Their falsehoods and perception warping is intensifying. So what do we do? Basking in our infamy can be fun, but it's time for the vast left wing conspiracy to link arms, step into our power and fight back. There's been a significant change in our ability to influence the public agenda, and just because we are in power, doesn't mean that our work hasn't diminished. In fact, we all need to pick it up several notches to reverse the erosion of rights that has gone on for the past 30 years.
Gawker's John Cook, "GOP: Pay No Attention to Our Crazy Supporters Who Want to Kill Obama":
These death threats aren't threats—they're challenges. They're attempts to inject into the public debate the sense that violence is a legitimate response to political defeat. As someone in the blogosphere whom we can't presently recall wrote yesterday, the appropriate response to a president who advocates rounding up the elderly and sending them before death panels is—if it seems like he's on the cusp of achieving that goal—to kill or rebel against him. And each publicized call for Obama's death adds to the public perception that we've reached a decision-point about whether it's time for killing. Every sign—even if the bearer is merely an angry loon who could never get close to Obama—is an inducement to someone who is willing to try. It's a message to fellow travelers, a signal that they are not alone in their rage, a promise of glory to come if they actually manage to get the job done. As we said before, there are always people who want to kill the president. The question is how many give it a shot. And the more of these signs there are in the background of Fox News' live report from some town hall in Missouri saying that someone should give it a shot, the more people actually will. And the more people that give it a shot, the more likely someone is to hit the jackpot.
And today's right-of-center commentator who concurs? David Frum, "The Reckless Right Courts Violence":
Nobody has been hurt so far. We can all hope that nobody will be. But firearms and politics never mix well. They mix especially badly with a third ingredient: the increasingly angry tone of incitement being heard from right-of-center broadcasters.
The Nazi comparisons from Rush Limbaugh; broadcaster Mark Levin asserting that President Obama is "literally at war with the American people"; former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin claiming that the president was planning "death panels" to extirpate the aged and disabled; the charges that the president is a fascist, a socialist, a Marxist, an illegitimate Kenyan fraud, that he "harbors a deep resentment of America," that he feels a "deep-seated hatred of white people," that his government is preparing concentration camps, that it is operating snitch lines, that it is planning to wipe away American liberties": All this hysterical and provocative talk invites, incites, and prepares a prefabricated justification for violence.
And indeed some conservative broadcasters are lovingly anticipating just such an outcome.
Plenty of hyperlinks in Frum's original. Yesterday's race war headlines here.
Yeah, nary a word when their own kind was saying all sorts of things and protesting and interrupting, screaming, yelling, slandering . . .
I couldn’t help but notice the contrast at last week’s TH meeting with Pete Sessions . .the conservatives, neatly dressed well behaved. The Obama types with the stupid looking shirts, frumpy, dorky, uneducated lowlifes. The difference was obvious.
Syndicated columnist Gene Lyons, “The Lunatics Are No Longer on the Fringe”:
Lieing Gene Lyons as we call him here. I wouldn’t believe him if he said my house was on fire and I saw the smoke from it!
Truly unbelievable. Where did these people come from? Really...I’m stunned (and have been for the past decade) at the vile and contemptable remarks that are so common place now. The hypocrisy and lies are simply....well, unbelievable. I truly don’t get it. Call me naive or whatever you want but the question remains, where did these people come from? The hatred for this country, for fellow americans and all goodness in general, is the most disturbing part of it all.
Remember his warnings about “quiet riots - in 2007 ’
“Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Tuesday that the Bush administration has done nothing to defuse a “quiet riot” among blacks that threatens to erupt just as riots in Los Angeles did 15 years ago. “
http://hickeysite.blogspot.com/2008/03/obamas-quiet-riot-remarks-ring-bell.html
/there was a video of his ‘quiet Riot’ speech at a Black Ministers Conference in 2007 = I can no longer find it
The organized effort on the part of the WH, Congressional leadership and media to demonize people opposed to health care has really backfired. The more they yap, the more support for it drops.
They cannot be stupid enough to believe it though...If I was 65 and had paid into Medicare for 40 years, I would not want this bill, no matter my political beliefs.
I guess it depends on the circumstances:)
The fair trade for a (d)emocratic form of government were the protections afforded in the Bill of Rights.
Confiscatory taxes and debt for future generations, when based upon "redistribution" and progressive income tax in which only the top 49.99999% pay anything, is CLEARLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL under the 4th Amendment protections.
Equal protection under the law.
Remember his warnings about “quiet riots - in 2007 ’
“Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Tuesday that the Bush administration has done nothing to defuse a “quiet riot” among blacks that threatens to erupt just as riots in Los Angeles did 15 years ago. “
http://hickeysite.blogspot.com/2008/03/obamas-quiet-riot-remarks-ring-bell.html
/there was a video of his ‘quiet Riot’ speech at a Black Ministers Conference in 2007 = I can no longer find it
I think they have gone too far. Even dumb ass sheeple are waking up. Full fledged Democrats are starting to question them. Trouble is brewing in the Hive.
http://readingeagle.com/REnetImages/2009/07/30/6187897/500x500_ann%20mcfeatters.jpg
Ann McFeatters: Memo to Bush: Come clean on Iraq |
is Washington bureau chief for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The Toledo
Scripps Howard columnist Ann McFeatters has covered the White House and national politics since 1986
******
Supporters of Barack Obama will find Palin’s beguiling “hockey mom” image slightly smeared by the disclosure that in a time of economic chaos, when joblessness is rising daily, she was party to the fashion image makeover.
Would it have been better if her image gurus had gone to Goodwill? Among rank-and-file union members, absolutely. Among upper-class Republicans? Absolutely not.
supposed to be a maverick, a reformer with no patience for Washington insider games. So why would she consent to wearing designer clothing from Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman-Marcus if all she cares about is “fighting” for the “people” who are struggling to make ends meet?
How do we know who the real Palin is if she’s abandoned her Alaska clothes for clothes made by people with unpronounceable names at unimaginable prices? Is she being manipulated by political consultants? If so, she’s not a very good maverick.
They say she’ll give the clothes to charity, which means taxpayers will pay for them. The Palins are known for taking large tax deductions for clothes they give to charity. But if she becomes vice president, what would she wear? Would she be happy returning to fleece jackets and jeans and her own suits?
When the economy is uppermost on everyone’s mind, Sarah Palin seems a little callous to be sanctioning the spending of a small fortune on clothes she’ll wear only for a few weeks.
By Ann McFeatters
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Obama watch on Martha’s Vineyard
By Ann McFeatters
So our lawmakers, exhausted from weeks ...
Obama with his daughters Malia, left, and Sasha during a family vacation in Martha’s Vineyard
******
President Obama can’t seem to catch a break. He’s heading to the island. ... By Ann McFeatters
All they have left to redistribute is poverty and misery. It ain’t sellin. Tricle up poverty is not what they tought “chang” was.
“The Lunatics Are No Longer on the Fringe” - They are running the government.
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