...whenever the right pulls out ACORN to try to discredit anything, they have automatically lost the argument.

Labels: assholes, fear and loathing, fearmongering, Fox News, hack journalism, right-wing hatemongers

Pennsylvania's Office of Homeland Security thinks this man is a terrorist

Actor Mark Ruffalo has been placed on a terror advisory list by U.S. officials after organizing screenings for a new documentary about natural gas drilling.

The "Zodiac" actor arranged showings for "GasLand" earlier this year and voiced his concerns about the practice in relation to the national water supplies.

But his efforts to raise awareness and demand a stop to natural gas drilling reportedly attracted the attention of officials from Pennsylvania's Office of Homeland Security - and he recently discovered it had landed him on a terror alert watchlist.

Labels: fearmongering, You can't make this shit up

First, the Cordoba House is deliberately, expressly, and unequivocally intended to stand for the diametric opposite of what the 9/11 attackers believed.  It would stand for inclusion, reconciliation, and understanding across faiths and cultures.  In fact, in many ways, the Muslim founders of the Cordoba House (and its imam) are the sorts of people that bin Laden and his adherents hate most, because they are seen as traitors to the radicals' beliefs and cause. Founders and supporters of the Cordoba House are cosmopolitan and modern. The community center itself will contain many earthly luxuries and pleasures, and the initiative behind it seeks to promote harmony between Islam and the West, including human rights for women. Its founders (and location) actively embrace multicultural, multi-sectarian, quintessentially modern New York City, and many of its proponents have happily lived in Southern Manhattan for decades.

The Cordoba House, in other words, is not only blatantly separate and distinct from the identity and ideology of al Qaeda and the 9/11 terrorists, it is a direct repudiation ("refudiation," as demanded by Sarah Palin) of them. So the only way that someone could ever confuse the Cordoba Initiative with radical, militant Islam is if that person thought that Islam itself is inseparable from terrorism or terrorist sympathies (or had been misled by demagogues to believe the Cordoba House aligned itself with radical Islam). And, incidentally, if a very small handful of radicals who call themselves believers in a religion can cause that religion to stand for the terrible things the radicals do and believe, then, well, Christianity apparently stands for the murder of doctors, the preachings of David Koresh, the beliefs and deeds of Tim McVeigh, the goals of the Huntaree militia....

Second, the site of the proposed Cordoba House is not "at" or "on" Ground Zero. When considering whether the location of a supposed provocative act is essentially inseparable from the initial tragedy, we have to take all contexts into account - not just physical location, but the nature and characteristics of the area.  As many others have pointed out, the Cordoba House imam has been a member of the community since long before 9/11, as have many other Muslims. I used to work in Tribeca before 9/11, just a few blocks from where the Cordoba House would be built, which is itself two blocks from Ground Zero. One of my favorite places to eat for lunch was a place called the Pakistani Tea House.  It had amazing, inexpensive curries and a robust clientele of Pakistani cab drivers. Right in the shadow of the building Other Muslims would one day destroy!

Labels: bloggers, fearmongering, Islam, wingnuttia

The press loves the boogeyman story because it makes them feel like crusaders for freedom and allows them to make common cause with macho right wingers. It's far more exciting than dull stories about losers who don't have jobs --- you can see the exhilaration coming off of them in waves. They love it.

Case in point, Chris Matthews, who is ready to force everyone to be cavity searched in the ticket line:

Matthews: You know what when we get on an airplane, we give up all kinds of checks we don't do by just walking down the street. I think we give up a certain amount of rights just getting on an airplane and I think you've got to recognize that your safety is tied up with everyone else on that plane's safety and anybody else that gets hit on that plane. You don't own the right to be on that plane because you're getting on an airplane so you do have to yield some civil rights...And by the way, Cliff, you know it and I know it, they're going to get smarter and smarter and sooner or later they're going to get all kinds of people to do their dirty work for them. They're the enemy. They're going to use any means they can to get us. They're out to kill us. Let's be as smart as they are because they are already smart.

Run fer yer lives!

Apparently, Matthews thinks that there is some Koranic law that requires all attacks against America to take place on an airplane. If some terrorist with imagination succeeds in a mall or on a bridge will we have to submit to profiliong and screening there too? Sounds like it.(And if he thinks these would-be terrorists like Richard Reid and Abdulmutallab are super criminals, no wonder he's petrified.)

Labels: Chris Matthews, Dick Cheney, fearmongering, hack journalism, wingnuttia

One last thing: Bush should consider pardoning–and should at least be vociferously praising–everyone who served in good faith in the war on terror, but whose deeds may now be susceptible to demagogic or politically inspired prosecution by some seeking to score political points. The lawyers can work out if such general or specific preemptive pardons are possible; it may be that the best Bush can or should do is to warn publicly against any such harassment or prosecution. But the idea is this: The CIA agents who waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and the NSA officials who listened in on phone calls from Pakistan, should not have to worry about legal bills or public defamation. In fact, Bush might want to give some of these public servants the Medal of Freedom at the same time he bestows the honor on Generals Petraeus and Odierno. They deserve it.

Labels: fearmongering, idiocy, neocons, William Kristol

But there is another rendition of the story of modern conservatism, one that doesn't begin with Goldwater and doesn't celebrate his libertarian orientation. It is a less heroic story, and one that may go a much longer way toward really explaining the Republican Party's past electoral fortunes and its future. In this tale, the real father of modern Republicanism is Sen. Joe McCarthy, and the line doesn't run from Goldwater to Reagan to George W. Bush; it runs from McCarthy to Nixon to Bush and possibly now to Sarah Palin. It centralizes what one might call the McCarthy gene, something deep in the DNA of the Republican Party that determines how Republicans run for office, and because it is genetic, it isn't likely to be expunged any time soon.

The basic problem with the Goldwater tale is that it focuses on ideology and movement building, which few voters have ever really cared about, while the McCarthy tale focuses on electoral strategy, which is where Republicans have excelled.

[snip]

McCarthyism is usually considered a virulent form of Red-baiting and character assassination. But it is much more than that. As historian Richard Hofstadter described it in his famous essay, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics," McCarthyism is a way to build support by playing on the anxieties of Americans, actively convincing them of danger and conspiracy even where these don't exist.

[snip]

Republicans continue to push the idea that this is a center-right country and that Americans have swooned for GOP anti-government posturing all these years, but the real electoral bait has been anger, recrimination and scapegoating. That's why John McCain kept describing Barack Obama as some sort of alien and why Palin, taking a page right out of the McCarthy playbook, kept pushing Obama's relationship with onetime radical William Ayers.

And that is also why the Republican Party, despite the recent failure of McCarthyism, is likely to keep moving rightward, appeasing its more extreme elements and stoking their grievances for some time to come. There may be assorted intellectuals and ideologues in the party, maybe even a few centrists, but there is no longer an intellectual or even ideological wing. The party belongs to McCarthy and his heirs -- Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Palin. It's in the genes.

Labels: fearmongering, McCarthyism, right-wing hatemongers

...John McCain -- speaking in New Mexico -- delivered one of the ugliest, nastiest, most invective-filled personality attacks a major candidate has ever delivered, blatantly designed to stoke raw racial resentments and depict Obama as a Manchurian candidate funded by secret Arab Terrorist sources -- a truly unstable and hate-mongering rant filled with lines like these, delivered with an angry scowl to screaming, howling, booing throngs, while Cindy McCain stood behind him shaking her head in disgust at each fact she heard about the Black Terrorist daring to challenge her husband:

I don't need any lessons in being honest with the American people, and if I did, I wouldn't seek it from a Chicago politician. . . . There's much we don't know about Senator Obama. For a guy who has authored two memoirs, he's not exactly an open book. Who is the real Barack Obama?

It's as if somehow the usual rules don't apply, and where other candidates have to explain themselves and their records, Senator Obama seems to think he is above all that . . . His campaign had to return $33,000 in illegal foreign funds from Palestinian donors, and this weekend, we found out about another $28,000 in illegal donations. Why has Senator Obama refused to disclose the people who are funding his campaign? Again, the American people deserve answers.

I wonder what it is about Obama that allows "the usual rules not to apply" to him? McCain also repeatedly claimed that the fault of the financial crisis lies with Democrats who (despite controlling no branches of Government) forced banks to give mortgages to poor people who couldn't afford them (which, as we've seen, means minorities) and that Obama "aided and abetted" these practices. What are typically Rovian attack themes disseminated underneath the surface are being unleashed in their naked, unhidden form. As Marc Ambinder just put it with real understatement: "Sen. Barack Obama is, Sen. McCain said in New Mexico just now, a mystery, a liar, complicit in the economic crisis and an unaccomplished naïf, at all the same time."

There are 30 days to go before this election is over. What we're seeing explode in front of us are both the devastating fruits of eight years of unchallenged right-wing rule under the Bush/Cheney administration and the tactics of a desperate, dying, rotted movement descending further and further into the sewer in order to cling to power. The more they unmask themselves this way, the more smashing will be their defeat, the longer their banishment will be.

Labels: fearmongering, John McCain, Republicans, wingnuttia

Sen. John McCain and his Republican allies are readying a newly aggressive assault on Sen. Barack Obama's character, believing that to win in November they must shift the conversation back to questions about the Democrat's judgment, honesty and personal associations, several top Republicans said.

With just a month to go until Election Day, McCain's team has decided that its emphasis on the senator's biography as a war hero, experienced lawmaker and straight-talking maverick is insufficient to close a growing gap with Obama. The Arizonan's campaign is also eager to move the conversation away from the economy, an issue that strongly favors Obama and has helped him to a lead in many recent polls.

"We're going to get a little tougher," a senior Republican operative said, indicating that a fresh batch of television ads is coming. "We've got to question this guy's associations. Very soon. There's no question that we have to change the subject here," said the operative, who was not authorized to discuss strategy and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Being so aggressive has risks for McCain if it angers swing voters, who often say they are looking for candidates who offer a positive message about what they will do. That could be especially true this year, when frustration with Washington politics is acute and a desire for specifics on how to fix the economy and fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is strong.

Robert Gibbs, a top Obama adviser, dismissed the new McCain strategy. "This isn't 1988," he said. "I don't think the country is going to be distracted by the trivial." He added that Obama will continue to focus on the economy, saying that Americans will remain concerned about the country's economic troubles even as the Wall Street crisis eases somewhat.

Labels: fearmongering, John McCain, sleaze

On a website he calls ExposeObama.com, Floyd G. Brown, the producer of the "Willie Horton" ad that helped defeat Michael Dukakis in 1988, is preparing an encore.

Brown is raising money for a series of ads that he says will show Barack Obama to be out of touch on an issue of fundamental concern to voters: violent crime. One spot already on the Internet attacks the presumptive Democratic nominee for opposing a bill while he was an Illinois legislator that would have extended the death penalty to gang-related murders.

"When the time came to get tough, Obama chose to be weak. . . . Can a man so weak in the war on gangs be trusted in the war on terror?" the video asks.

Though crime has taken a back seat in the presidential race to the war in Iraq and the economy, some Republicans think that Obama is vulnerable on this issue and hope to inject it into the campaign.

Obama and the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, have some sharply different views on crime, but the job of president has little to do with day-to-day law enforcement.

Brown and GOP strategists say such ads stimulate a debate on crime and punishment and may provide a window into the morality of a candidate.

Labels: fearmongering, Republicans, scumbaggery

In what one FBI spokesman described as "almost an annual ritual," the bureau has obtained uncorroborated intelligence indicating al Qaeda would like to strike shopping malls during the holiday shopping season, two law enforcement sources said Thursday.

Those sources confirmed there is intelligence dating back to August that al Qaeda would like to attack malls in Los Angeles, California, and Chicago, Illinois.

The FBI's information is contained in an intelligence report and is intended for law enforcement and intelligence partners.

"There is no information to state this is a credible threat," FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said in a statement.

The information is being shared "for situational awareness," he said, and the FBI is reminding people to "remain vigilant and report suspicious activity to authorities."

A spokesman for the FBI's Chicago field office, Ross Rice, stressed the intelligence came "from an uncorroborated source and it's non-specific."

Rice said there was no mention of particular malls in Chicago and Los Angeles that might be the focus of a threat. And he added that "it's almost an annual ritual" for information to come to light about mall threats at holiday shopping time.

Labels: fearmongering

The Republican culture of fear was born out of the 9/11 attacks — which we are told “changed everything” because they were an “attack on America.” But when the World Trade Center was bombed in February 1993 by rightwing Islamic terrorists very like the ones who would take the towers down eight years years later, no one suggested that our response to this “attack on America” should be invading and occupying Iraq.


The Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta July 1996 was an “attack on America” — albeit by an American rightwing Christian fundamentalist terrorist. But no one suggested that we should eavesdrop on Americans and torture prisoners as a result.

The Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995, this time by another group of homegrown rightwing terrorists, was certainly an “attack on America” — in particular on a federal building and specifically targeting agents of the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. No one suggested shredding the Constitution as a result.

For most of the century after the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan, a rightwing, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant terrorist group, attacked and killed Americans with guns, bombs and nooses. But during the first nine decades or so of this unrelenting reign of terror, hardly anyone seemed to mind very much, except of course for those who were the targets of the hatred and violence.

Around the globe, millions of people endure terror attacks without cowering under their beds. The Israelis have lived with terrorism since at least the 1970s — as have the Syrians, Lebanese, Saudis and others in the Middle East. The British stood stalwart against attacks by Irish separatists for generations. In just the past decade, terrorists have attacked in Colombia, Russia, China, Egypt, Mexico, Cuba, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Pakistan, Latvia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Chechnya, Spain, Finland and on and on.

Only in the Bush era has it become acceptable for Americans to cower in fear at the same threat that others in the world face with courage or at least equanimity. Among democracies, only does the United States government deliberately encourage and inflame cowardice among its citizens.

Labels: 9/11, cowardice, fearmongering

"This is the world we live in. It's not this happy, romantic-like world where we'll negotiate with this one, or we'll negotiate with that one and there will be no preconditions, and we'll invite (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad to the White House, we'll invite Osama (bin Laden) to the White House," Giuliani said.

"Hillary and Obama are kind of debating whether to invite them to the inauguration or the inaugural ball," he added.

Labels: fearmongering, idiocy, insanity, Rudy Giuliani, wingnuttia

Consider, for a moment, the implications of the fact that Rudy Giuliani is taking foreign policy advice from Norman Podhoretz, who wants us to start bombing Iran “as soon as it is logistically possible.”

Mr. Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary and a founding neoconservative, tells us that Iran is the “main center of the Islamofascist ideology against which we have been fighting since 9/11.” The Islamofascists, he tells us, are well on their way toward creating a world “shaped by their will and tailored to their wishes.” Indeed, “Already, some observers are warning that by the end of the 21st century the whole of Europe will be transformed into a place to which they give the name Eurabia.”

Do I have to point out that none of this makes a bit of sense?

For one thing, there isn’t actually any such thing as Islamofascism — it’s not an ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn’t. And Iran had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 — in fact, the Iranian regime was quite helpful to the United States when it went after Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan.

Beyond that, the claim that Iran is on the path to global domination is beyond ludicrous. Yes, the Iranian regime is a nasty piece of work in many ways, and it would be a bad thing if that regime acquired nuclear weapons. But let’s have some perspective, please: we’re talking about a country with roughly the G.D.P. of Connecticut, and a government whose military budget is roughly the same as Sweden’s.

Labels: fearmongering, Iran

Labels: fearmongering

Undercover Congressional investigators set up a bogus company and obtained a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March that would have allowed them to buy the radioactive materials needed for a so-called dirty bomb.

The investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, demonstrated once again that the security measures put in place since the 2001 terrorist attacks to prevent radioactive materials from getting into the wrong hands are insufficient, according to a G.A.O. report, which is scheduled to be released at a Senate hearing Thursday.

“Given that terrorists have expressed an interest in obtaining nuclear material, the Congress and the American people expect licensing programs for these materials to be secure,” said Gregory D. Kutz, an investigator at the accountability office, in testimony prepared for the hearing.

The bomb the investigators could have built would not have caused widespread damage or even high- level contamination. But it still could have had serious consequences, particularly economic ones, in any city where it was set off.

The undercover operation involved an application from a fake construction company, supposedly based in West Virginia, that the investigators had incorporated even though it had no offices, Internet site or employees. Its only asset was a postal box.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials did not visit the company or try to interview its executives in person. Instead, within 28 days, they mailed the license to the West Virginia postal box, the report says.

That license, on a standard-size piece of paper, also had so few security measures incorporated into it that the investigators, using commercially available equipment, were able to modify it easily, removing a limit on the amount of radioactive material they could buy, the report says.

With that forged document, the auditors approached two industrial equipment companies to arrange to buy dozens of portable moisture density gauges, which cost about $5,000 each and are used to read the density of soil and pavement when building highways. The machines include americium-241 and cesium-137, radioactive substances commonly used in industrial equipment. Auditors, convinced they had enough evidence to prove their point, called off the ruse before the devices were delivered.

But if they had gone ahead with the plot — which would have required extracting the radioactive materials from the machines and combining them, a job that could harm anyone in close contact — they could have built a bomb that would have contaminated an area about the length of a city block, according to the regulatory commission.

According to Russ Knocke, with the Department of Homeland Security, American Airlines security officials identified the man as an executive platinum traveler with the airline who purchased his round-trip ticket on April 19.

Knocke did not say whether the man had proper identification when he boarded the employee shuttle and passed through the employee access-only entrance.

Anthony Loynes, one of the 188 passengers aboard the flight, told CNN the pilot told passengers the plane was making the unannounced stop because the plane did not have enough fuel to make it to London.

Shortly after landing, Loynes said, security officials boarded the plane and left with a man of "Middle Eastern descent." A woman sitting next to the man was also questioned, he added.

Labels: fearmongering, incompetence, terrorism

Administration officials yesterday denied President Bush was considering a "gradual" pullout from Iraq in light of plummeting GOP support for his policies, as the New York Times had reported in Monday's edition. The AP reports the White House said Bush "is not considering a withdrawal of US forces," and the Financial Times calls the White House's message "defiant" in the face of "intensifying bipartisan pressure." The Los Angeles Times also says "the White House brushed off calls from a growing chorus of Republican lawmakers to change course in the conflict," while McClatchy runs a similar report under the headline "Bush Stays Course, Rebuffs Demand For Change."

Yet ABC World News said White House officials "are extremely worried." White House spokesman Tony Snow "will not say that on camera," but one White House official told ABC, "We are in panic mode." The CBS Evening News reported, "Senior Pentagon officials tell CBS News a debate is under way to determine what conditions must exist short of victory to begin pulling troops out of Iraq. The White House publicly denies this, but clearly political support is weakening inside the Administration."

Senior U.S. intelligence officials tell ABC News new intelligence suggests a small al Qaeda cell is on its way to the United States, or may already be here.

The White House has convened an urgent multi-agency meeting for Thursday afternoon to deal with the new threat.

[snip]

"World News" closer between Charles Gibson and Brian Ross:

Charles Gibson: The obvious question, Brian, is how hard and how specific is the intelligence?

Brian Ross: Not hard, but good. It's being taken very seriously, in connection with increased chatter, e-mail traffic back and forth, the attacks in London, and a general concern, as Secretary Chertoff said today, that summer seems to be a time that al Qaeda likes to attack.

Charles Gibson: And there's been a bunch of tapes that have been coming from al Qaeda lately.

Brian Ross: In fact, Zawahri put out his eighth tape today and says he had easy access to the Internet, and he threatened new attacks against London.

Charles Gibson: Once was the day when this intelligence came in, they would raise the level of concern going to a different color.

Brian Ross: The concern, now, by doing that and not telling Americans what they can do, where the attack is coming, serves no useful purpose.

It may be premature to conclude that Bush has lost control of his agenda, but lawmakers and strategists in both parties said that Bush's next year is much more likely to look like the fractious month of July than like the orderly march toward Bush's tax cut this spring.

The troubles began, of course, with Vermont Sen. James M. Jeffords's departure from the GOP, giving control of the Senate to the Democrats. But the problems are nearly as bad in the House, where moderates who supported Bush's tax cut are proving recalcitrant on other issues. They rebelled against GOP leaders on campaign finance reform and held up Bush's "faith-based" legislation over concerns about discrimination. Next week, they're likely to oppose Bush's proposal to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Siding with Bush "was easy when we were on fiscal issues," said Rep. Jim Ramstad (R-Minn.), a moderate. But things have changed as the debate moves toward non-tax issues. "I represent the people in Minnesota, and Minnesota's not Texas," Ramstad said. "That's why coalitions have to be built on some of these nonfiscal issues, like managed-care reform." Embryonic stem cell research is another issue that promises to cause Bush problems on the Hill, where yesterday Bush adviser Karl Rove was grilled on the subject by Ramstad during a meeting with a group of moderate House Republicans.

Bush's options for reclaiming the agenda are not good.

He can't make Trumanesque claims about a do-nothing Congress, because half the place is controlled by Republicans. Bush can't persuasively attack the Democratic Senate when the Republican House is causing him nearly as much grief. Alternatively, Bush could try to use the bully pulpit to rally the public to pressure Congress into action. But polls indicate that Americans are content, even complacent, at the moment and unlikely to be stirred to anger. "There's not demand on the part of the public for anything right now," GOP pollster Frank Luntz said.

[snip]

As he leaves for Texas for the month of August, the president has two options, neither one entirely attractive: fight for his agenda and risk gridlock; or acquiesce to moderates, passing laws but surrendering many of his key priorities.

[snip]

Pollster John Zogby argues that such unyielding tactics by Bush will lose their effectiveness even further in the fall as members of Congress start thinking about their 2002 reelection bids. "His first six months have been strange in that he's been a very conservative president," Zogby said. "That doesn't build a governing majority. If he continues what he's been doing, he loses ground."

Labels: fearmongering, George W. Bush, terrorism

The FBI came for me yesterday. Really.

Yesterday around lunchtime the boyfriend calls me at work. “Chica,” he says, “you should listen to this message.” He plays a message from an NYPD detective asking me to call him. I was confused, but assumed it was some sort of fundraising request. A couple of hours later I the detective and left a message. His voicemail said he was a part of the NYPD-FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force.

[As background, almost 10 years ago I worked as an investigator at the New York Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), the agency that investigates complaints against the police department. It was an interesting job and a lot of fun (all of the investigators were just out of school, which made it a little more party-like than you would think. Or perhaps a lot more). I eventually quit and went on to work on a couple of movies before going to grad school. About a month ago I got a myspace friend request from some group called ‘CCRB Underground’ and said yes. It was a collection of current or former CCRB investigators making fun of the place. I remember looking at it and trying to figure out if I knew any of them, but I didn’t. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how they knew who I was until I realized I had CCRB listed as one of the places I’d worked on my profile.]

So it did occur to me that this might have something to do with the CCRB, but I couldn’t imagine what. After a little phone tag I finally spoke with the detective. He wanted to meet up with me and ask a few questions relating to CCRB but about a current case. He was willing to come to my work or home, but wanted to do it that day. I’m not too big on having the police in my house, so I suggested the Starbucks by work. The detective said they could drive me home if I was in a hurry, and that they didn’t want to inconvenience me.

None of this made any sense, but I wasn’t especially concerned. Maybe some old investigator had some issue with the cops? There was one guy who did a lot of street theatre stuff, and another girl who had been pretty heavily involved in protesting the RNC back in ’04, and I know that the Joint Task Force was involved in that. More worried were all of my coworkers, who were horrified at the idea that I might just get into a car with strangers.

I went and met the detective. He and his partner showed me their IDs. One was indeed an NYPD Detective and the other an FBI agent. They were very friendly and asked where I wanted to talk. I said on the way home was great. We got into their car (a big one with DC plates) and the detective sat in the back with me while the g-man drove. They already knew my address. Why? Because they’d been to my house three times already. In fact, they hadn’t ever called me, they had been ringing my buzzer (which runs through the phone line and which my machine eventually picks up).

Here’s where it gets crazy.

Labels: fascism, fearmongering, insanity

0 minutes. Fox News opens its debate by introducing each of the 10 GOP presidential candidates with an info-graphic. But there is only so much space on the screen, so choices must be made. For instance, next to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the graphic mentions his wife and kids, but does not mention the fact that his kids don't like his wife, or him. Next to John McCain it says "Episcopalian." Next to Texas Rep. Ron Paul it says "Protestant." Next to Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney it says "Mormon." That's right. Mormon.

1 minute. Host Brit Hume says all the candidates have expressed condolences over the passing of Jerry Falwell. So now no one has to talk about him.

10 minutes. Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback is asked a tough question. "You said that you wanted to find a way for Republicans and Democrats to work together," asks Fox's Chris Wallace. "Is that any way to fight and win a war, to look for consensus among the politicians in Washington?" Brownback does the only reasonable thing, attack Democrats. "I condemn the statements of Harry Reid, the majority leader of the Senate, saying we've already lost," says Brownback, assuring GOP voters that he is, in fact, not very bipartisan after all.

[snip]

22 minutes. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee will not let McCain be the funniest guy in the room. "We've had a Congress that's spent money like John Edwards at a beauty shop," he says. The crowd loves it. The laughter is louder. Huckabee wins the joke contest

38 minutes. Wallace turns the questions to Giuliani, unleashes the rhetorical equivalent of a Gatling-gun blast. "You're pro-choice, you're pro-gay rights, you're pro-gun control. You supported Mario Cuomo for governor over a Republican. Are those the stands of a conservative?" Giuliani takes the question in stride, and does the only logical thing. He attacks Hillary Clinton. "We're looking at a race here in which the leading Democratic candidate for president of the United States has said that the unfettered free market is the most disastrous thing in modern America." Can that be true? It doesn't really matter. This is a Republican crowd. If Giuliani claimed Clinton was born on the planet Zorg, no one would bat an eye.

53 minutes. Tancredo gets a question about whether the other candidates are soft on immigration. This is his issue. He is ready to answer. But just as he does, something goes wrong with one of the Fox cameras. The screen gets a red haze over it. With his pasty face, the red light makes Tancredo look for a moment like Satan. Then the camera cuts away.

[snip]

64 minutes. Giuliani suddenly springs to life, staking out his turf as censor-in-chief. He interrupts [Ron] Paul, who has been explaining that al-Qaida attacked New York and Washington in part because U.S. military forces were based in the Middle East. "That's really an extraordinary statement," Giuliani interrupts. "That's an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq." The crowd loves it, starts applauding. "I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn't really mean that." Paul does no such thing.

74 minutes. We're back. "The questions in this round will be premised on a fiction," says Hume. No news there. Hume wants to do a role-playing game. Three shopping centers near American cities have been hit by suicide bombers. Hundreds are dead, thousands injured. A fourth attacker is apprehended and may have information about more attacks to come. The question goes to McCain. "How aggressively would you interrogate those being held at Guantanamo Bay for information about where the next attack might be?"

75 minutes. McCain answers emotionally, convincingly. "We do not torture people. When I was in Vietnam, one of the things that sustained us as we underwent torture ourselves is the knowledge that if we had our positions reversed and we were the captors, we would not impose that kind of treatment on them."

76 minutes. Giuliani tries to appear tougher than McCain. "I would tell the people who had to do the interrogation to use every method they could think of. Shouldn't be torture, but every method they can think of." It's unclear what he means, but it sounds a lot like torture. The crowd likes it. Applause.

77 minutes. Now Romney tries to appear tougher than McCain. "I don't want them on our soil. I want them in Guantanamo where they don't get the access to lawyers they get when they're on our soil. I don't want them in our prisons. I want them there," he says. "Some people have said we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is, we ought to double Guantanamo." More applause. Habeas corpus sucks!

Labels: 2008 election, fascism, fearmongering, idiocy, insanity, Republic Party

Labels: 9/11, fearmongering, Keith Olbermann, Rudy Giuliani

I think my favorite thing about the know-nothing wingnut argument is that Al Gore is said to be all hysterical on this silly little problem by the same people who are screeching like howler monkeys that the oceans don't protect us anymore and "they're" comin' to kill us in our beds! The fact that ridding ourselves of our dependence on oil might mitigate both of these problems escapes their notice.

Labels: fearmongering, global warming