When will we stop the false-equivalency and admit the right wing has become increasingly violent? When someone dies?

The American media have been playing the "both sides are equally radical" card since the 2009 Town Hall fiasco. Every time someone on the right says something outrageous, they go looking for a similar quote from the left, often not finding it. So they do the next best thing: try to compare two actions that are not equal, but in an effort to appear non-partisan, equate them anyway.

False equivalency.

Recently, Howard Fineman published a piece on Huffington Post trying to equate an assault with a comedienne making a barbed quote.

Even though [Arianna Huffington is] backing Jon Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity," and even though I now work for her, I had dismissed the event this Saturday on the Mall as self-indulgent, time-wasting comedy.

Until now.

The reason is that I watched two videos: one, of a thug named Tim Profitt pressing his shoe onto Lauren Valle's skull; the other, of Joy Behar calling Sharron Angle a bitch who's going to hell.

That was enough.

Seriously Howard? Joy Behar making a rude comment is exactly the same as an assault where someone gets thrown to the ground and stomped on by a group of men because of her views?

Really? That's the same?

The left has taken heat over the recent firing of Juan Williams from NPR, saying that they're stifling his freedom of speech. What's been ignored in NPR's ham-fisted handling of the dismissal is that he wasn't fired for the content of his comments per se, but because he had repeatedly violated NPR standards prohibiting analysts from engaging in partisan discussion.

"Infringement of free speech", the nabobs of the right cry, completely misunderstanding the meaning of the first amendment it's protection of speech.

However it's become plainly obvious that this has moved beyond words; the right has gotten violent. Consider the following:

1) Tim Profitt's curbstomp assault on a protester at a Rand Paul rally.

2) Charles Wilson, sentenced to prison for threatening to kill Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), was, according to his relatives, "was under the spell that Glenn Beck cast".

What happened later with Charlie is something I think I can understand. He became basically housebound due to illness and his small world became even smaller. His brother got him a computer and he was able to stay connected with family. And he watched television and found Glenn Beck.

3) 72-year-old Victor Philips was arrested for allegedly assaulting a 23-year-old activist protesting about 40 feet from the entrance to Dino Rossi's Republican campaign office in Washington state.

4) Richard Poplawski, the man accused of gunning down three Pittsburgh police officiers, was a big fan of FOX News host/right-wing cult leader Glenn Beck.

5) The white supremacist charged with the deadly shooting at the national Holocaust museum last year originally wanted to kill White House senior adviser David Axelrod, Time magazine reported Thursday.

James von Brunn, who died in January in a prison hospital awaiting trial, reportedly viewed Axelrod as a priority target who was easier to reach than President Obama.

"Obama was created by Jews," he wrote, according to Time. "Obama does what his Jew owners tell him to do." (Fox News)

6) Andrew Stack crashed his airplane into an Austin, TX, office building where nearly 200 employees of the Internal Revenue Service worked, leaving behind a rant against the government, big business and particularly the tax system.

7) The moderator and the organizer of an Illinois congressional debate who were criticized for not allowing the Pledge of Allegiance to be recited said they have received death threats and plan to go to law enforcement authorities to file complaints.

Each also blamed Fox News host Glenn Beck for stirring up opposition to their work by criticizing the incident and attacking them by name on his Fox News program, which they say has sparked an increase in hateful e-mails and phone calls since then.

"Our webmaster has stopped forwarding the e-mails to me because they have become so ugly," said Jan Czarnik, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Illinois, which sponsored the Oct. 20 forum in Evanston. "I am getting death threats and I am taking it to our local FBI. There are postings on Fox News' Facebook page that include threats on my life." (Media Matters)

8) Law enforcement authorities are investigating the discovery of a cut propane gas line at the Virginia home of Rep. Tom Perriello’s (D-Va.) brother, whose address was targeted by tea party activists angry at the congressman’s vote for the health care bill.

An aide to the congressman confirmed to POLITICO that a line to a propane tank behind his brother's home near Charlottesville had been sliced. (Politico)

Now, if we want to have this "both sides" argument, then show me 8 incidents of serious left-wing violence in the last 20 months. Show me, because these aren't the only 8, they're just the most prominent.

When are we going to stop pretending that both sides are equal? Does someone else have to die? How many? Right wing violence is out of control.

Let's blow up Fox News' voter fraud tipline

Fox News has set up a voter fraud tipline to alert them of suspected voting by unintimidated democrats voter fraud.

I think we should get as many people as possible to (e)mailbomb them. One, it will be fun. Two, it will overwhelm them, making it harder to gin up stories.

Here's one good entry to start with. Perhaps add in George Soros or ACORN, just to make Hannity's head explode.

voterfraud@foxnews.com



Image via Gawker

DJ Andy Reid and the QB Auto-Tune Shuffle

Dear Tim Profitt, you bitch-stomping manly man *guest commentary*

by the future Mrs. Archimedes

Dear Tim Profitt,

Did we date once? You seem a little—ah—mature for me, but then again, the camera makes everyone so larger than life.

Ah, Tim, if only I’d done a better job of sharing the lessons you taught me! We chicks should really know by now what mouthing off will get us, right? After all, you see how that whole 150-year-campaign for suffrage is working out for us, don’t ya?

Hey, look, I get it. If Lauren had done something better with her time last night, you wouldn’t have had to leave a sneaker mark somewhere around her temples. (I do hope that they were kinda new sneakers and you didn’t wear them while wading in manure….oh wait….never mind.) Silly girl! She seems like one of those bookish types, what with those glasses and all, but she could always try a hobby, like stamp collecting.

Now, I know that people are appalled that you thought that she looked dangerous. It’s the glasses thing, completely. After all, she is a 23-year-old with short hair….oh yeah….a BOY cut. She may not even BE a chick, or she may be one of those girls who like girls, and you know, what they do in private is their business but REALLY, they’re not women like our MOMS were women. If everyone was more realistic about this whole thing it would put this violence-towards-women thing completely in perspective.

But hey, Tim! I see that you kicked in $1900 for Rand. Pretty sweet that you have that kinda cash to invest. Times have been good to you, I see. I like a man who’s a big spender, Tim. I wouldn’t worry too much about this little incident….keep dropping dough like that and the women will be ALL OVER YOU.

Hugs,
Bootsie

Here's the guy who stomped a woman's head at a Rand Paul rally posing with.... *gasp*

MSNBC

The volunteer with Rand Paul's Republican U.S. Senate campaign who stepped on the head of a liberal activist and pinned her face to the concrete said Tuesday the scuffle was not as bad as it looked on video and blamed police for not intervening.

His name is Tim Profitt and here he is with Rand Paul.



This sounds a lot like Joe Miller's Goon Squad illegally detaining a reporter two weeks ago.

Is this the America the Tea Party envisions?

Ken Buck doesn't believe in separation of church and state; inadvertantly solves deficit problem

Huff Post

Colorado Republican Senate candidate and Tea Party favorite Ken Buck last year said he "strongly" disagrees with one of the bedrock principles of American society: the separation of church and state.

"I disagree strongly with the concept of separation of church and state," said Buck at a forum for GOP Senate candidates last year.

EXCELLENT! If this is now the accepted view, then it goes both ways. We can tax churches on their land and buildings and generate hundreds of millions in new tax revenue.

THANK YOU! Ken Buck, financial wizard.

Obama and Dems poll numbers shoot up.... DISASTER LOOMS! AIIIIEEEEEE!!!!!!

In the latest Newsweek poll, President Obama's job approval ratings have jumped, crossing the 50% mark. The poll shows his approval rating at 54%, with a 40% disapproval rate.

Further, although neither party in Congress gets favorable ratings, Democrats in Congress have a 10% approval advantage over the GOP - 41% to 31%.

How does this figure in the midterms? It's too early to say, but it seems that Democrats and progressives are starting to engage. Given the steam that the Tea Party has had, they've gained a significant media presence but it seems too early to translate that into wins, especially in districts where Tea Party candidates are going down to the wire with the crazy, and in many cases, upping the ante.

Sept. job numbers: more private sector jobs in 2010 than in 8 years of Bush/Cheney

Cesca

The September jobs report was just released and demonstrates that America is on a far slower path to recovery than anyone originally predicted. Despite this, the shedding of government jobs cloaks a glimmer of hope: more private sector jobs have been created this year than during the entire Bush administration. Read that again: 2010 has had more private job creation than during the entire 8 year tenure of George W. Bush.

This is the 9th straight month of private sector job growth in the midst of a devastating recession that has put a serious strain mostly on the poor and middle class. There has been a total of 863,000 private sector jobs created in 2010, exceeding the total created under the Bush/Cheney regime.

In no way am I saying that these numbers are great. What I am trying to figure out is why Americans, who say they're going to vote GOP because of jobs, don't understand that this preisdent IS creating jobs? Why don't they understand that Obama has cut the deficit by over $100 million in 2010, in the middle of a recession?

Obama has created more jobs in 2010 than Bush did in EIGHT YEARS. He has cut the deficit more in one year than the last Republican administration ever did. That has to count for something. But it doesn't seem to, and here are three thoughts as to why:

1) Americans don't seem to understand that before you can heal a wound, you have to stop the bleeding. The stimulus and other actions that Obama has taken have stopped the bleeding. That is, and always was, goal number one.

Our "instant culture" of I-want-it-now doesn't give us the patience to see this through. We're tryintg to work our way out of the worst economic situation in 80 years, one that took 10 years to create, and we expected it done in 12 months.

We're unrealistic.

2) The GOP noise machine drowns out the facts.

3) Issue number 3 is that the Democratic party sucks at getting the message out. From our media wing to our leadership, there's no "there" there. The GOP has John Boehner, Sarah Palin and Eric Cantor. The Democrats have Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. Reid and Pelosi are incredibly gifted legislators - especially Pelosi - but they can't communicate with middle America.

Add to that a huge right-wing media machine that's unable to be embarrassed and willing to engage in massive intellectual fraud and hypocrisy on a giant scale and it's not hard to understand how they're selling a message of fear and hate to a scared populace.

We're a nation with a raging case of Teh Stupidz.

The Tea Party/GOP noise machine

Watching Bill Maher last week, he confronted his guest, St. Louis Tea Party radio host Dana Loesch guest with the following indisputable facts, all of which she denied were true or claimed were in dispute:

1) the stimulus cost less than the war in Iraq. Her response: "those numbers are in dispute"

2) the stimulus contained almost $300 million in tax cuts that were demanded by Republicans who then opposed it. Her response: "no it didn't"

3) the stimulus saved 3 million jobs. Her idiotic response was "then why is unemployment still at 10%?" to which John Legend responded (barely concealing his disgust) that without the stimulus, unemployment would be at 13%. Loesch responded that that was in dispute.

4) the bailouts worked, it saved GM and millions of jobs, and we got our money back plus some, making a profit. Her response: 'why does the government get to decide who survives?'. She sidestepped the truth that didn't support her assertions and asked her question in a manner that suggested that saving a million jobs is somehow worthy of derision.

Interestingly enough, she got upset when Maher used the term "teabagger" (even though the teabaggers are the ones who called themselves teabaggers first), yet she had no problem, and Maher raised no objections, when she used the backhanded-slur "Democrat party".

This illustrates the fundamental problem with debating the functions of government in this Tea Party era: they have no sense of truth or fact. It's all subjective reality. Present them with numbers from the CBO and they'll scream that those are "government numbers" and therefore ought not to be trusted. Present them with fact and they'll sidestep, or cry conspiracy, or deflect ('remember 30 years ago when...'), or just scream "lamestream media... AIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!!".

There is no reality with them, other than the shifting constructs of the day-to-day. Yesterday they were supporting Juan Williams and complaining (erroneously) that his First Amendment rights were violated. Yet when real First Amendment rights are being violated by Joe Miller's hired goons illegally detaining a reporter for asking questions of the candidate, they claim that the reporter deserved it.

How does one debate a group of chronically lying hypocrites?

Bravo Mr. President. Obama reaches out to bullied gay teens: it gets better

Things like this remind me why I love this man and why I'm still inspired by him.

The gun industry has no oversight? Really? It polices itself? Does that seem like a good idea?

CNBC has an article about problems at the Remington Firearms Company. It seems that their signature weapon, the model 700 bolt action rifle may have a defect that the company has known about for 60 years.

A 10-month investigation by CNBC has found that at least two dozen deaths and more than 100 injuries have been linked to the signature product of an iconic American company.

The Remington Model 700-series rifle - with more than 5 million sold - is one of the world’s most popular firearms. Famous for its accuracy, the rifle is now the target of a series of lawsuits claiming that it is unsafe and susceptible to firing without pulling the trigger.

Of course they claim that there's nothing wrong. Few companies will admit to a design flaw in a product. That's not unusual. But over 60 years, there's bound to be a paper trail and the stunning part is what it would have cost Remington to fix the flaw-that-doesn't-exist-but-has-been-alleged-for-decades.

The documents reveal that on at least two occasions, the company considered – and then decided against – a modification of the original trigger design intended to eliminate inadvertent discharges. One of those proposed fixes would have cost Remington 5.5 cents per gun, according to the company’s own calculations.

5.5 cents. They declined to spend less than 6 cents per rifle to ensure that their weapons would be safe. 5.5 cents was too much to protect lives.

So the government will step in, right? Right?

Wrong.

(F)rom the very beginning, the company looked at ways to fix its bolt-action rifle, even contemplating a nationwide recall. But on more than one occasion, Remington decided against a recall.

And it turns out that decision is Remington's, and Remington's alone.

For most products – cars, toys, food, even BB guns - the government can order a recall. In 2010, for example, the Eagle 5 Rifle crossbow made by Master Cutlery was recalled after regulators found it could fire, without pulling the trigger, when the safety is switched off.

But the Consumer Product Safety Commission cannot recall guns. Nor can the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms or the Justice Department.

Guns hold a special place in American life - and American law, says Dallas attorney Jeffrey Hightower.

“Remington polices itself,” he said. “The gun industry polices itself.”

A federal law, passed in 1976 and upheld repeatedly in court, specifically bars the government from setting safety standards for guns, because of the Second Amendment.

While some estimates now say that the cost is as much as $100 per rifle, I'd be interested in seeing the new calculation. Even accounting for super inflation, 5.5 cents in 1960 isn't $100 now.

This is a wonderful repudiation of the Tea Party and their 'get the government off my back' mentality. This is why the Tea Party is wrong when it claims that regulations aren't necessary. This is a perfect example of an unregulated company doing exactly the wrong thing - or more correctly, behaving like a business.

There's nothing wrong with a business behaving like a business, but let's not pretend that business interests always coincide with public interests. They don't.

Remember why we came out in '08, and ask yourself if you'll really be better off with a GOP majority

We need to take a serious look back at the absolute disaster that was the Bush Administration and the mess that it created - a mess that we're still trying to deal with today.

This leads to a question for the progressives like Jane Hamsher and FireDogLake that spent the summer leading a charge against the president because he didn't go far enough... do you really think that rallying the troops against Obama has had a positive effect? Do you think that the causes that you care about are going to benefit from the GOP surge? Do you really think, now that the Bushies are on their way back in to power, that Obama is "just like Bush"? Do you think that you'll make gains under a GOP Congress?

To the middle... watch and remember. And think.