A brick was hurled through the front window of the Pine Avenue office [of] Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, D-Fairport.
TPM:
[I]n addition to menacing behavior toward multiple members of Congress, one protestor called Rep. Barney Frank a “faggot”, a taunt greeted by laughter from fellow protestors.We’re now getting reports that other protestors yelled “nigger” at Rep. John Lewis (D-GA).
John Lewis is no stranger to hearing that word being yelled at him in anger, but I doubt he was expecting to hear it almost 50 years after he was beaten up in civil rights marches.
Update: Via the comments, part of a photo taken today by Flickr user cjbrenchley:
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
Clearly a liberal plot meant to make conservatives look bad.
/wingnut
Mark
Rep. Slaughter is my favorite. They better catch the scumbag who did that.
MikeTheZ
But wait, Sarah Palin told me the teabaggers were part of a beautiful movement. Violence and slurs aren’t beautiful! Did Sarah lie? Also, too.
Malron
Look out for teabagger apologists to claim progressives planted those rabblerousers to make the movement look bad in 3…2…1…
Mark
and btw, is there any doubt how these unAmerican Republicans hate democracy? Majority rules, minority rights. These cowards can always dish it out, but they can never take it.
gwangung
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist: Much like the church bombings of black churches during the civil rights era was the product of a crazed Negro….
General Egali Tarian Stuck
I’m sure it was just another ACORN undercover mission to ratfuck Michelle Malkin. Chew on that image for awhile.
batgirl
Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.
I have CNN on for some crazy reason and Wolf Blitzer is having Scott Brown on followed by Michael Moore. This is frakkin’ balance?
[turning off the tv now]
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@gwangung: Absolutely. After all, liberals are the real racists.
Apparently we’re the real homophobes, too.
Which is why we’re working so hard to shovel all the money from hard-working Real Murricans to the hands of teh ghey and teh dark.
demkat620
I take it back, completely. Sorry god.
This is not worth Boehner’s tears.
Fuck these people.
Brick Oven Bill
Clearly a liberal plot meant to make conservatives look bad.
gbear
@Malron:
Over at Huffpo, a comment at 5:50 says that they’re only acting like Code Pink and The Black Panthers, so there.
They are hopeless, clueless, and pointless.
robertdsc
And all this over providing health care for millions of Americans. The mind reels.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@batgirl: Felix and Oscar of politics. Maybe Moore will wear a Che T shirt and really shake up the vibes. CNN is a septic tank and Wolf Blitzer the leach line.
Citizen_X
Check out this Huffpo report. Rep. Cleaver got spat on by a protester. And there’s a couple of people wielding signs that say, “WARNING: If BROWN can’t stop it A BROWNING CAN.” With a helpful picture of a gun to make it clear.
Fucking fascists.
Violet
I wonder if there’s video of any of it. It’s a little harder to deny it when you’re on video.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
David Broder and I think none of this would have been a problem if only President Obama and the Democrats had made greater efforts to reach out to Republicans in the name of bipartisanship.
Linda Featheringill
Those incidents were really, really ugly. And so was the incident with the fellow with Parkinson’s.
Since these people tend to be religious, I have a question for them:
What exactly are you getting in return for putting your very soul at risk?
“As ye do to the least of my brethren, you do also to me.”
Did you sell your birthright for a mess of pottage?
[non-religious people should just ignore this post]
freelancer
This is all just more evidence of how unhinged and prone to violence liberals are in their efforts to slander their opponents. Just like on Election Day 2004 when Moveon.org activists slashed the tires on President Bush’s limousine. (a for real anecdote related to me by my favorite wingnut aunt.)
It’s like their life-essence is sustained by hatred and bullshit.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@demkat620: Don’t you think it”s a little extreme to give up the fuck word, and for a whole year. Jeebus, I’d be afraid of sprouting wings and going for Harp music, jonesing that long.
Neutron Flux
@demkat620: I read your promise as based on 216 ayes, and that Boner tears would be an effect, not a cause.
Zam
Dude I got called a n*gger today, and I’m white. Seriously some guy called me a n*gger while canvassing for Feingold today, I’m guessing he meant we are somehow slaves or something like that. These people are pissed off, and I still have no actual idea why.
Citizen Alan
I know John mocks the idea of the Overton Window, but I think we’re seeing a real-time example of it with the Teabaggers and with Glenn Beck. Even as the Teabaggers exhibit more and more of the early characteristics of the Brownshirts, Beck insists that it is the Progressives instead who are following the Nazi playbook. I think the real reason Beck is pushing this idiotic meme is so that when the Teabaggers go full-bore fascist (complete with snazzy uniforms and indiscriminate violence), anyone on the left who dares to call them fascists will be ignored.
demkat620
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: Yes, hence the take back. ETA: You see I didn’t even last 24 hours.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: And fuck David Broder.
mai naem
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I agree with you and David Broder. The Dems should have reached out to the Republicans more, with a rattlesnake in hand.
gbear
@batgirl: I’ve read that CNN also covered the racist and homophobic teabagger taunts too. I looked for a link but not very hard.
eemom
Good — let these scum reveal their true colors for all the world to see.
Awhile ago I saw a big fat bumper sticker on a truck that had the words YOU LIE! over an imitation of the Obama campaign logo.
May they all burn in the acid of their own toxic hatred.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@demkat620: LOL
eemom
@Zam:
“These people are pissed off, and I still have no actual idea why.”
Neither do they.
Tomlinson
Capuano and Tierney from Mass both came out as yes.
I am really wondering what Lynch thinks is going to happen to him. His constituent base has got to be hugely union, between South Boston, Quincy and Brockton.
Mark S.
After this passes, I think the Dems should immediately take up immigration reform. Even David Broder would then have to admit the obvious fact that the majority of teabaggers are racist assholes.
rob!
Its people like that that make me wish Obama was half as much of a dictator as they say he is.
Internment Camps are like cars–depends on how you use them!
mai naem
It can’t be 216 votes. It needs to be 217 or 218 so that this December, wingnuts all over the country can’t say Rep. X was the one vote that made a difference.
Mike Kay
@Linda Featheringill:
the more things change, the more they stay the same.
The southern segregationists and the klan were hyper religious, and they would firebomb black churches, including killing 4 little girls in Birmingham.
Martian Buddy
@Malron: Obviously the work of ACORN thugs.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Zam:
Neither do they. To the extent that I can emotionally disengage from all this, which is hard given how they’re fucking up, quite literally, the entire world, it is fascinating to watch Republicans use these neo-know-nuthins in their (the GOP’s) quest to give more power to the “Eastern Bankers” these people (the TeaBaggers) think they’re fighting. I saw a column yesterday from a wingnut, Paul Greenberg IIRC who claims to be a libertarian, that the reason there’s so much talk about the deficit now, as opposed to under Bush, is because the bailout ‘woke up’ the virtuous American people.
mcc
Doesn’t really seem to be working though.
Cain
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
I was reading the Oregonian today, and there was, lo-behold a not particularly approving article about Beck, Malkin who was attacking an 11 year old boy because he said lack of healthcare had killed his mother. So like CHIP Malkin and others have been attacking the boy instead of acknowledging there might be a problem. When a society cannot even talk about an issue without attacking the person you have a society in decline. The boy was strong though. Good kid.
Oregonian is full of letters expressing a lot of anger towards republican and the overall character of the American people. I think we’re seeing a shift in perception towards republican. Yesterday there was an editorial by the head of the Republican party calling out on of their own because they voted for tax increases. Basically he put his constituents and good governance over party line so he needs to be kicked out. Most people voted for the tax increases but it is the same old fear rhetoric.
Read if you want, but you’ll probably have your day ruined. Asshats.
cain
freelancer
@Zam:
They want their country back. Personally, I let them have it for one day last Wednesday, out of sympathy, but I showed up on Thursday to collect, and the whinging started.
(For the record, I’m white and half-Irish. Me ma’s name is McGargill. That said, every weekend is St. Paddy’s day for me, so if the Protestants want to play dress-up one day out of the year and not incorporate pumpkins into the charade, I’ll leave them to it.)
Get your earplugs and kevlar out. Tomorrow is gonna be really. Fucking. Loud.
Mike Kay
@Citizen Alan: no sane person watches beck.
Lisa K.
Tells you something about their characters that teabaggers in charge King and Bachmann and Pence have not come out and denounced these tactics. I think they are probably hoping for a full scale riot, although I am not sure how they think that does them any good.
gbear
I wonder if I can get one of these for my car by monday morning?
(edit: the Cafe Press ‘you may also like’ selection process is incredibly tone deaf)
Litlebritdifrnt
I said this in various places, but you guys do know how this is going to play out in the rest of the world right? I mean it isn’t like the rest of the world has a negative view of the US as being an uneducated, redneck, racist cesspool of ignoramuses, you really think this kind of story is going to help with that? The tea partiers have absolutely no idea what they are doing to the impression of their country on the world stage.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Citizen_X: I hope there is video of that. The video of the Parkinson’s guy being harassed got like 2500 Diggs .. people were disgusted!! More people need to see the Right exposed as the cancer they are.
mcc
@Mark S.:
If you’re serious about this you might want to know about the March for America, scheduled (unfortunately) tomorrow. The main event is in DC but there will be branch marches across the nation. I know there’s one local to me but I don’t think if I’m going to make it.
JenJen
Rep. Clyburn: “I heard people saying things today I’ve not heard since Mar 15th, 1960 when I was marching to try and get off the back of the bus.”
That was first reported by Luke Russert, who was actually doing some excellent reporting on the incidents from the rally today.
These kinds of incidents, like the one in Columbus with the man who has Parkinsons, just illustrate something we’ve all been saying her for months now: The Teabagger Movement has nothing to do with spending, deficits, or Health Care Reform.
I imagine, if it hasn’t started already, we’ll hear many cries from the right about how none of this ever happened, and if it did happen, the racists in the crowd were ACORN/SEIU plants. What we won’t hear is any kind of acknowledgement or denouncement.
ETA: I see @Malron already had this thought. Any minute now…
lamh31
Best comeback to the racist teabaggers from Rep James Clyburn when reporter asked him if it made him nervous!
Tea Party Protests: ‘Ni**er,’ ‘Faggot’ Shouted At Members Of Congress
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Litlebritdifrnt:
If they care at all, they’re glad. That weird American xenophobia that wears European scorn as a badge of honor and makes stars out of any Brit with attitude and an accent who wants to come here and call us fat and stupid, from Simon Cowell and Gordon Ramsey to Hitchens and Sullivan.
rob!
Even after all this, I still can’t kinda believe there isn’t ONE Republican in the entire fucking party who doesn’t think this is bad, and would have the guts to come out and say “Okay guys, I know you’re angry, but violent threats are not acceptable. Period.”
Or is it possible they are all that bad?
Napoleon
Interesting, the local news (Clev., Oh) did a story on how 4 Oh Congresscriters announced yes today and they ran a tally of how many votes there were, yes, no, no to yes and undecided, as if they were talking about all OH votes without saying they were only talking about Dem votes. It is as if the whole stories unspoken premise is that Rep will not vote for it. My gut feeling is that is in a way a good thing. People are waking up to the party of no.
Zam
@freelancer:
I’m working on that life myself.
Lisa K.
@lamh31:
I wish about 100 more of these dickless Democrats felt the same way. There is no reason on the face of the planet this should have to have been so hard.
Lisa K.
@rob!:
Now, that is a sincerely dumb question. Of course they are all that bad.
Svensker
@Litlebritdifrnt:
They revel in being thought of as ignoramuses by the rest of the world. That proves how great they are.
Violet
Rep Zach space switches from Yes to No. Link.
Does Nancy have enough votes that she can now afford to let a few Reps in tough districts switch to No? Or does this make things much harder for her?
Litlebritdifrnt
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Sadly you are absolutely correct. They are that stupid.
Montysano
“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” — Mahatma Gandhi
Nick
@Violet: Space appears to be opposed to the Cadillac tax…what this sounds like to me is Pelosi let him go and allowed him to oppose the bill from the left…unions are not going to abandon someone opposed to the Cadillac tax if the bill passes anyway.
Martian Buddy
@Litlebritdifrnt: They don’t care what the rest of the world thinks of us–in fact, raising the question would be likely to provoke a “hurr hurr fuque France” rant.
scav
@Litlebritdifrnt: Teabaggers scorn the rest of the world unfortunately. And that’s when they can be convinced the rest of the world exists other than an inert painted backdrop designed to illuminate the superiority of “The American Way ™”. The more the rest of the world hates the U.S., the more correct they judge themselves to be. Think how trolls enjoy abuse — same thing.
Svensker
@rob!:
I asked a Repub friend who was actually marching in the Capitol today about that sign and he said, “Well, it’s not coming to that…yet.” WTF? Yet?
Their manhood is weirdly wrapped up in this shit.
arguingwithsignposts
Fascists. Lying *asshole* fascists.
Violet
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Oh, they don’t care. AMERICANISTHEGREATESTCOUNTRYEVER. Why does it matter what any other country thinks of us? That’s pretty much the attitude. They really don’t care. If they think about it at all.
mr. whipple
@Violet:
It gives more power to the remaining Stu-pac members.
F-ing Space.
Dood won by 20 pts and has millions in his reelection campaign. Others in Ohio stepped up in much tougher districts, he stepped out. A-hole.
scav
@Litlebritdifrnt: On the upside, listening to next weeks The Now Show might be an absolute howl.
PsiFighter37
I’ve said it from the beginning, the whole teabagging movement is about conservative white people being unable to handle a black man being president.
El Cid
I expect all of you to be mature and not to taunt any Republicans or TeaTards come Monday if HCR passes tomorrow.
***
I’m lying. I want 32,000,000 phone calls to every single right wing talk show consisting of variants of “OBAMA JUST SHOVED HIS HUUUUUUGE PACKAGE DOWN YOUR THROATS HA HA HA HA YOU LIKE APPLES, HOW YOU LIKE THEM APPLES” and so forth.
Shinobi
Been trying to get through all day, no luck.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
This is only the beginning. Red states and their leaders are seeing themselves as backed into a corner and will lash out accordingly.
State tenther laws will start and the rage virus will ratchet up day by day. Bigger and meaner and armed rallies will surge as will militia ranks.
And pretty soon all of them will want their very own War Wagon with a mounted 50 cal machine gun to protect themselves from perceived enemies within.
Cap and Trade will fuel the fire to white hot, and immigration reform will let loose the dogs of Zombie Confederates, and then things will start to get really bad.
If Obama was white, this would still happen on a 7 out of 10 scale. As it is, the insanity will get set on rock and roll and stay there for the foreseeable future.
Palin will declares Obama POTUS presnit non grata, Glenn Beck won’t stop crying and Malkin will bleed from her ears.
And then the 2010 campaign gets in full swing with Halliburton funded adds telling us Obama is Saddam’s first cousin twice removed. Liz Cheney will bite the head off a chicken on Fox News Sunday, and Bloody Bill will sneer himself into traction.
Jane will team up with Grover and spawn the Anti Christ, and Debbie Schlussel will become a liberal democrat making Atlas Juggs produce another music video that finally kills the music dead as Elvis.
Welcome to The Funhouse.
Cain
@PsiFighter37:
I’m afraid this is all about racism. Poor fools. They’d rather the country go down in flames (if they don’t already think that) than be able to deal with a black president. The next one should be a black jewish woman.
cain
JenJen
Barney Frank, to NBC’s Shawna Thomas:
Love that last line. Go get ’em, Barney.
madmommy
Jesus H. Christ. These people are just beyond the pale, and the worst part is I am related to a whole gang of them. Not that they’d burn a Saturday at a protest, but spew the nonsense, forward the idiot emails and parrot the party line-they’re all over that!
Is it too much to hope for that they vote will be held early in the morning? Just get it over with before the wingers have had a chance to rub the sleep from their eyes. Instead I forsee an entire day of complete insanity, and it will be a miracle if someone doesn’t get hurt. Or worse. These people scare the crap out of me, and they should scare anyone with more than two functioning brain cells.
Litlebritdifrnt
@scav:
I suppose the fact that my sister is black makes my family more sensitive to the thing, my mother and my sis regularly tell me “how on earth could you live with such people?” as if I am living on Mars, surrounded by aliens. When my sis and her family were planning on coming over here to visit me one year her DH expressed a genuine concern that an inter-racial couple would not be welcome here in the South. I assured them that they would be fine, but with the stuff coming out today, I am not sure that I would be able to assure them.
Zam
@Shinobi: Yea, I’ve tried several times today with no luck, very busy day.
freelancer
Wow, just the Beckian graphic artistry of that sign is mind-blowing. The donkey is pooping out the audacity of HitlerBama.
Sweet shit, is tomorrow gonna be fun.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
.
Bless his curmudgeonly progressive heart
Mark S.
@mcc:
I was only being a little facetious. Immigration reform is an important issue but I don’t know if this is the right time to try and tackle it. Some sort of amnesty and guest worker program has to be in the mix, and that will drive the teabaggers insane times eleventy.
Citizen Alan
@Zam:
I think it’s like this:
The Teabaggers are people who have spent most of their lives shitting on the poor, on minorities, and on everyone different from themselves. They have specifically spent the last 10 years accusing every liberal in the country of treason for the crime of not groveling sufficiently before George W. Bush. And they are now terrified that all the people that they have crapped on for so long will take revenge on them now that they are out of power.
I base this theory on a conversation I had a few months before the election with a 59-year-old highly educated attorney who was nevertheless terrified — his word not mine — by Barack Obama because it was literally inconceivable to him that a black man who became President would refrain from taking revenge on all of white America for how white America has historically treated African-Americans.
These are people who hate the poor and who cannot believe that the Democrats would provide the poor with health care without also taking health care away from the upper classes.
These are people who hate gays and who cannot believe that gays want to serve in the military out of patriotism instead of a desire to rape straight soldiers in the barracks late at night.
These are people who hate blacks and who fear Obama because they see him as Black America’s revenge on White America for everything from slavery to Jocelyn Elders getting fired.
The Teabaggers fear liberals being in charge because they know exactly how they would react after taking power if we’d been in charge for the last 30 years and treated them as abominably as they treated us.
GReynoldsCT00
@Svensker:
and in their small minds, Europeans are all liberal commies and the middle east should be destroyed. they could care less.
Elise
@Zam: They’re pissed off because the black man won.
Zuzu's Petals
No kidding.
freelancer
Methinks a tinfoil hat on this fella would make him look more sane.
jeffreyw
@Citizen__X:
I was gonna post a pic of my fucking Browning but decided it would be too damn incendiary.
You can have my health care when my body is cold and dead, bitches, if you can get through my hail of fucking lead.
Anonsters
So, um, I grew up in the Deep South, where I witnessed first hand extreme racism, to the point where Alabama state troopers had to be called out to escort high school kids away from an athletic event because they were black and being threatened with violence by country rednecks.
I, for one, will not be surprised if we see actual violence related to this. This country is so fucked up.
Cacti
Is anyone else expecting a South Park style scene where the teabaggers start trying to catapult themselves into the side of the White House?
Zam
@Mark S.: Honestly I think the best thing we can do is hit financial reform next. If we go into the election with that as the major topic of discussion it will be hard for republicans to run on stopping any reform for the industry that brought us down here in the first place.
Brick Oven Bill
Colorado Democratic Party headquarters ransacked, eleven windows smashed with hammer by…
Oh wait, never mind.
In other news;
Sticks and stones can break my bones;
But severed fingers are forever.
Talk to me when someone loses a nipple…ummm.
sukabi
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist: and if you look at the comments attached to the article at The Hill, that’s exactly what they’re claiming…
jrosen
@Tomlinson I used to live (for a long time, and still own a house) in Capuano’s district. So even though my Rep is Rothman (NJ) I called Capuano’s office and got a very short shrift from a staffer, expressed my PTDB anyway. When a wall falls down from erosion you can’t say which drop actually did the work. I feel very good right now.
Brachiator
@robertdsc:
The invisible hand of the free market would provide for all, if only teh evil Democrats would get out of the way. Look at how the invisible hand provided houses for all with not even the tiniest problem with financial markets.
Wait a minute… Let’s try that one again.
They’re concerned that health care reform will result in an expanding government intruding in their personal lives and controlling their personal decisions. You know, like checking on possible pregnancies to make sure that no woman is allowed to have an abortion, or monitoring private personal behavior to make sure that no one is living teh gey lifestyle.
Wait a minute…
TR
Maybe. Or they might just go Jim Jones on us and literally drink the Kool Aid.
arguingwithsignposts
Oh, and by the way, if it’s getting ugly, Lady Smudge is here to calm the nerves.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Citizen Alan: I would only add that a lot of them have been shit on, a lot of them are, if not poor, close to it, and Beck and Palin and Malkin and Limbaugh offer them someone easy to blame. I go back to 2004, when people who listen to Limbaugh and voted for Bush railed against Kerry as an elitist. The Bushes were the most aristocratic presidents since the Roosevelts, and there was an article before or soon after the ’04 election about how Limbaugh’s servants have a standing order to light scented candles 10 minutes before the master arrives home. But they think he’s on their side, for some reason.
arguingwithsignposts
@TR:
Oh, sure. Get our hopes up.
Dimmic Rat
The teabaggers aren’t just a bunch of racists, they also want those damn kids off their lawns.
Cain
@Citizen Alan:
Did you perhaps remind him that Obama is only a 1 generation black man from the U.S.? That his family comes from Kenya, and raised by white folks? He did not experience the 5-6 generations of slavery others have and probably doesn’t have any of the emotional luggage that comes from it? Shit the guy is an over achiever.. and for the first black president (or half black really), you need to be. You can just be better than the white guy, you have to be extraordinary.
cain
scav
@Litlebritdifrnt: My cousin, who is born here and is of mixed Caucasian ancestry, married a guy she grew up with of Filipino ancestry who was born here and one of their other childhood friends asked them if they weren’t worried about bringing a mixed race baby into the world. It’s hard not to ask questions sometimes. All I can say is, I’ve lived abroad and not found ideals of tolerance elsewhere.
If I didn’t find places to laugh about parts of it, I think I’d be screaming more often than not though.
jeffreyw
@arguingwithsignposts: Looks like that little girl has grown up! Time flies…
Leelee for Obama
REPUBLICAN deficits are sacred.
DEMOCRATIC deficits are teh DEVIL INCARNATE.
You really do have to keep up.
If it’s not Dick Cheney running us into the ground, there can be no salvation. His every decision is/was pronounced by a higher power. Maybe it was Liz?
Davis X. Machina
He hates whom they hate.
Sheer tribalism.
Tony J
As one of those observers from “the rest of the world”, I’m pretty sure that the image of America would be improved immeasurably if the next Teabagger goon to shoot his mouth off got a straight right to the face from whoever he was on the recieving end.
If our own John Prescott (don’t ask) got an uptick in his approval rating for smacking a guy who just threw an egg at him, I’d imagine the next Democratic pol to deck a fat-arsed Jeermacht Scorntrooper on camera would stand a better-than-good chance of winning the Nobel Prize for Services to Seeing Good Things on TV.
sukabi
someone should find out who is printing / paying for all those signs… they are clearly NOT homemade… the last demonstration this week had signs that were produced / paid for by the RNC, but according to reports the sponsored by / paid for info was blacked out…
It sounds like the RNC is actively advocating violence against Democratic members of congress. Isn’t that against the law?
David
The Wingnut reaction would be worse if it didn’t pass — entirely different but worse.
Brick Oven Bill
Jim Jones was a San Francisco Democrat TR.
There once was a man named Ayres;
Who staged bombings sans cares;
But the people who were near;
Had nothing to fear;
As Ayres sucked at making bombs.
Anonsters
@sukabi:
Nah, the sign isn’t an incitement to imminent lawlessness. It looks more like abstract advocacy of violence.
Which is protected 1st Amendment speech.
JenJen
@freelancer:
Hell yeah, it is. :-)
Leelee for Obama
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: Somebody’s gotten into Revelation? Come’on Stuck, your’e gonna be scaring the children!
Citizen Alan
@Cain:
I tried a little, but I was just to shocked by how open he was about his admission that I just gave up. Anyway, I’m sure he was aware of Obama’s ancestry, but it didn’t matter. It was like he thought all of Black America was like the Borg Collective, except instead of “you will be assimilated” it was all about “get Whitey.”
Napoleon
@Citizen Alan:
I have to agree with this. As noted many times before, its the pure projection from the right.
eemom
@El Cid:
“I’m lying. I want 32,000,000 phone calls to every single right wing talk show consisting of variants of “OBAMA JUST SHOVED HIS HUUUUUUGE PACKAGE DOWN YOUR THROATS HA HA HA HA YOU LIKE APPLES, HOW YOU LIKE THEM APPLES” and so forth.”
Rude Pundit will be on that shit. Tee hee.
(dunno why my blockquote ain’t working)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Citizen Alan: I see things like that sign and hear stories like this and gaze all the more in wonder at the FireBaggers who say “If Obama really wanted the public option/to shut down Gitmo/whatever…”
freelancer
Semi-OT
Barney Frank, in all of his partisan glory, ftw.
Svensker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Gag. I fookin’ hate scented candles. And the idea of Rush Lardbutt swanning around with fookin’ scented candles is enough to make me hurl.
Citizen Alan
@Anonsters:
I assure you it would not have been protected speech if someone had said something comparable at an anti-war rally during the Bush administration. People who were far less provocative in their threatening remarks did hard time for it when the Bushies were in charge.
scav
Just for purposes of general sucktitude, one of the places near when I went to lycée in France voted for LePen. And meant it.
Ditto for the votes that we are nowhere near maxing out on the insanity yet.
rob!
@Lisa K.:
Hey, thanks for the oh-so-polite response! You must be fun to hang out with.
Look, maybe I’m a pollyanna–just like, you know, the President–but I just can’t believe, in the couple of hundred elected Republicans, there isn’t ONE of them that, deep down, thinks all this violent talk is horrible and wrong.
Now, whether any of them have the guts to say so is another question. But I refuse to believe that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM is that fucking evil.
And I’m not sure which conclusion is more troubling.
Citizen_X
@Anonsters:
How the fuck is that sign abstract? Because it doesn’t specify exactly which Democratic Congressmen should be assassinated?
eemom
@freelancer:
I luuuuuurves me that Barney Frank.
Now there, is a fucking Progressive.
Zam
@Citizen_X: If it uses word play, rhymes or has some other mark of a lame protest sign it’s cool. If you say I’m gonna kill you (insert name here), or tell people to kill someone then maybe not. Unless of course you are liberal and protesting the righteous war also known as Iraq, then pretty much anything you say is considered a threat.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@rob!:
I spent years waiting for Dick Lugar or Olympia Snowe or some other grown up (I think they’re the last two in the party, at least in the Senate) to speak up, but they can’t, won’t, acknowledge the straight and not very long line between these people, and Rush Limbaugh, and Glen Beck, and they party and its political strategy. And the punditocracy is committed to supporting their delusions– “Oh, they’re not really like that, they just talk and vote that way to satisfy their base”. I often wonder, if Tim Russert were still alive, would he still be bragging about how Rush Limbaugh called him ‘the most honest interviewer on TV” or whatever it was, and having Glen Beck on his hour-long cable show. I think he would.
themann1086
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist: I read some FDL commenters claiming it was a corporatist plot to discredit progressive opponents of the bill. I kid you not.
TR
@Brick Oven Bill:
Yes he was. Did I ever imply otherwise, moron?
Anonsters
@Zam:
And it’s possible that not even then would such speech be unprotected, which I suppose you’re acknowleding with the hedge, “then maybe not.”
Brachiator
@Citizen Alan:
This reminds me of a piece from the recent PBS documentary on Dolley Madison. Keep in mind that her own son turned out to be a ne’er-do-well. Paul Jennings had been brought to the White House as a slave and manservant, and was kept as a slave when promised his freedom in part because of the debts generated by Dolley’s son.
Imagine that. A former slave showing mercy and kindness to his former master.
Pasquinade
@Citizen_X
Rep. Cleaver is also Reverend Cleaver. The teabaggers are now spitting on ministers.
freelancer
@Brick Oven Bill:
You know who else utilized a lot of Brick Ovens in his day…
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@freelancer: I believe that is a bullseye.
Mike in NC
Real Americans don’t need health care. If a Real American stepped into a bear trap, they’d just cut off their foot with their Bowie knife, cauterize the stump with their trusty Zippo lighter, and the Sweet Baby Jesus would take care of the rest.
Joel
@rob!: “all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”
mai naem
@Cain: Are you suggesting Whoopi Goldberg run for president?
Zuzu's Petals
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Could you for a minute imagine John Kerry living in something like this?
Me neither.
Brick Oven Bill
That would be a man put into power by a group of homosexual social_ists wearing brown shirts freelancer.
By the way, how is that civilian security agency answering to the President that was to be just as well funded at the military that answers to the Constitution going?
Zuzu's Petals
@madmommy:
Yeah, I was thinking all the yes voters should have armed guards escort them there tomorrow. And I’m almost serious.
Comrade Mary
@arguingwithsignposts: Thank you. THANK YOU. Also? This beauty .
Anne Laurie
@Tomlinson:
Lynch is why the word trimmer is a common noun among Irish-Americans. Given his history, the question is not what he’s afraid of, it’s what he wants in return for his yes vote. And he’s feeling quite the artist now that his exquisite timing has ensured him maximum attention for minimum risk, too. (May Davis X. Machina’s furious hedgehogs tear at his manly part!)
Svensker
@Zuzu’s Petals:
Welp, I think the question of whether Rush was diddling little boys or little girls on his Caribbean vacations has been answered. No way a straight guy would live in that place. Straight up nouveau riche drag queen with bad 80s taste.
mcc
@Mark S.: Well, I do have serious questions about whether it’s going to be possible to pull off immigration reform this year (financial reform is first in line after tomorrow right?). I’m still happy to see the march happening because I think it moves the ball forward. Maybe immigration reform will be higher on the priority list after the election.
Zuzu's Petals
@Svensker:
Snortle.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Svensker: LOL.
What well-adjusted heterosexual man doesn’t dream of winning the lottery so he can recreate the set of Teh Golden Girls in his swingin’ bachelor pad?
Anne Laurie
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Tragically, the Teabaggers take pride in forcing others to treat them as incurable racists and ignoramuses. It’s the reverse side of the ‘colonial inferiority complex’ — if you’re afraid you’ll never be Good Enough, you can at least position yourself as dangerously Bad Enough. The Teabaggers (in all their aging suburban white-bread pasty glory) have positioned themselves as America’s ASBOs, strutting through the wreckage of their project bloc intimidating fellow tenants because they can’t do anything to “retaliate” against their real enemies.
freelancer
@Svensker:
My first thought was, “Jesus, if Lady Gaga and Rupaul spawned a kid, not even that person would live there”. It’s like Disney meets Liberace. Good Gaudy.
Anne Laurie
@rob!:
Those sensible Republicans are afraid of getting beaten up. And I don’t blame them — the social defectives yammering obscenities aren’t dangerous individually, but you can’t predict what will happen when they’ve got their pack behind them.
Carol
@Brick Oven Bill:
Please stop showing your age by living in the 1960’s. Ayres, Jim Jones-the last time those guys were relevant and had anybody listening to them I was in high school trying to balance in my platform shoes. Try to at least find somebody who hasn’t gone through a mid-life crisis to demonize at least.
Cerberus
@Citizen Alan:
This!
They are absolutely terrified that when they finally lose the long war to slow down progress, that the oppressed will turn around and do the same things to them as revenge.
Every oppressor group in every part of the world has thought the same and every oppressed group has mostly just moved on with their lives (though none have managed true equality, not even in countries like Denmark or Sweden).
What’s really sad is so many of the right-wing/oppressor tactics over history have pretty much relied on their oppressed being the bigger people. Especially when you get really close to the end when they ratchet up the crazy. Look at the teabagger protests or the terrorist campaign against women at clinics. They are relying on the fact that liberals and progressives will shake their heads and generally respond non-violently.
Look at Obama. If he was half the dictator they were afraid he was, they’d be dead, gone. Hell, if everyone wasn’t willing to keep doling out the rope for these people to hang themselves, they’d at least be facing trouble from the law and their all-in tactics pretty much rely on their foes not going Malcom X and deciding to defend themselves with violence or the threat of violence.
They need us to be the types who tolerate differences of opinion and are more willing to fight for someone’s right to be an asshole than to just seek to kill them or otherwise deny them rights.
Yet despite that necessity and the historical fact of the oppressed’s willingness to let bygones be bygones except for some acerbic snarking, they are still literally terrified that this time it’ll be different.
I think it’s how their two greatest flaws create for them their greatest internal hell.
That is, their biggest flaws are that they lack an ability to imagine the circumstances or life of anyone who isn’t exactly like themselves (aka their lack of empathy or imagination) and the fact that they are small-minded petty assholes who’ll gladly fuck themselves over just to “punish” some random “other”.
Thus, they assume that everyone else is a petty vindictive small-minded bastard who’d gladly knife anyone “beneath them” for a short-term gain.
We have empathy and a connection to reality so we see this as stupid, but they are literally haunted by the demons of their own reflections. Unable to imagine anyone not them, they see an entire world of assholes.
I suspect this is also why they respond so insanely to anyone “different”, because if everyone is their asshole self, the only safety is in the illusion of the homogenous. Anyone different must see the asshole in question as being the different thing needing to be destroyed.
Now add age and the slow march of progress with big signs like a black man in office. Suddenly moving into the suburbs and surrounding yourself with racists isn’t the salve it used to be. The “others” are becoming too many to really ignore and that means that they’ll be destroyed by their reflection any second now.
Bam, there’s your terrified fear of “death panels”.
If we really were like them, we would euthanize the lot of them in revenge for the many many times they’ve tried to kill us.
Like they relied on, we’re the better people, but the reflections of themselves are their own reality and they are being destroyed by them before our very eyes.
I would pity them, but as the good Captain Reynolds said, “I’m not that good of a person”.
freelancer
@Cerberus:
Shiny.
Carol
@
My first thought was, “Jesus, if Lady Gaga and Rupaul spawned a kid, not even that person would live there”. It’s like Disney meets Liberace. Good Gaudy.
It looks like all of the Presidential Suites of the 1980’s used to look. Dark Brown and white.
All the gaudiness of Versailles without the color.
Lisa K.
@rob!:
I am not. I’m a bitch. But I’m a bitch on your side.
Evil? Maybe not. But gutless, hateful, willing to play any situation, no matter how despicable, to their own political advantage? You betcha.
Tim P.
@Cerberus:
Is it that they simply can’t comprehend that others could be different, or that they just don’t want to admit to themselves that others are genuinely more empathetic/compassionate/whatever? In other words: is it a lack of raw capacity or willful self-delusion?
rob!
That’d be evil in my book.
*sigh* I’ve always tried not to think that “the other side” is nothing but evil jackasses–its reductive and too easy. But Christ are they making it hard.
Veteran, Great War of Yankee Aggression
@Mark S.:
Which is exactly why this is precisely the time to push it. There is that old line from Sun Tzu about how when your enemy is prone to rage, then it the opportune moment to poke him. the louder they are, the more they are feeling the butthurt.
Deschanel
Question: Where the hell are all those young “Generation Obama” college kids and twenty-somethings that the media credited with Obama winning now? No, seriously, where are they?
Stoned, playing video games? The Youngs, Gen Y- they were so hyped as key to Obama’s success, and they are NOWHERE when it comes to public demonstration against the Teabagger onslaught.
Is it just the media then? I dunno, I get the feeling the youngsters can’t be bothered since the election, which wasn’t that g-d long ago.
Svensker
@Deschanel:
They’re mostly too young and healthy to be very interested in health care.
Tim P.
@Deschanel:
Well I’m a twenty-something Obama voter who supports HCR.. I live in an R district so my congressman is useless and I don’t really have any money to spare for campaign contributions or to travel to DC for rallies. I do spend way too much time on this and other reality-based blogs; I keep up on all the minutia as best I can and I try to talk to whomever I can about the situation, but most people in my peer group already agree with the president’s agenda.
Cerberus
@Deschanel:
Marching, being ignored by the cameras in favor of the 12 guys in American flags that make up the laughably small teabagger protests.
There was a sit-in for ENDA, a civil disobedience action for DADT, an anti-war protest, and several marches for passing health care reform and that’s just SOME of it. None of it made much breaking headline news in favor of the teabagger tantrum because apparently the word has come in on high that a handful of geriatric racists are the big upcoming movement that represent “democracy in action”.
In short, remember how the “counter-protests” were “equal in size” to the massive anti-war demonstrations re: Iraq. See that.
But we’re used to it. Progressives, the young are always looked down upon by the media establishment. And their enemies are always raised up. Always. The media during the now famous marches by the SCLC were careful to “not take sides” and often categorized the marchers as communist agitators stirring up shit on purpose and generally downplayed the famous marches as nothing much.
In retrospect, they were given the props they deserve as the anti-war protests have belatedly been given.
Don’t worry, the kids are out there, organizing, getting the word out there. And they’re doing so on a hell of a lot more issues than this one. Right now “the kids” are setting the stage for the next 10 fights after this one and fighting any number of local battles that have been ignored for the teabagger revolution.
If you’re asking why they aren’t dropping everything and making HRC their sole concern as their marches would be as ignored as the concurrent anti-war protest, then there might be more there there. But in general, they’re the only ones really fighting the tide of evil.
Veteran, Great War of Yankee Aggression
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist:
And right on cue…courtesy jammiewearingfool
freelancer
@Deschanel:
I am Spartacus.
@Tim P.:
I too live in an R stronghold, but my district actually gave its electoral vote to O. (Which made me so fucking proud.) It doesn’t hurt to call them and let them know where you stand.
My congressman is fairly moderate for a Repub, (meaning 99% of the time he STFU and is nowhere to be found in the national discourse, aside from a really great Colbert Interview.)
He’s pretty reliable when it comes to constituent services, but he’s a party line voter. His challenger this year lives in my neighborhood, and is also my State Senator. I’ve called Terry’s office and have let them know my opinions on HCR, and that I will be supporting his Democratic challenger with actual time and effort this summer and fall. Doesn’t hurt to call.
DJEB
@Veteran, Great War of Yankee Aggression:
Based on 23 seconds of video. Convincing.
Cerberus
@Tim P.:
Damn good question. I’m not entirely sure to be honest.
In some ways, it’s one of those chicken and egg questions. A sociopathic asshole without the ability to empathize would act like that, but someone who is advocating for things that directly harm other people and relying on those views for their tribal identity would end up becoming sociopathic assholes to run away from their consciences.
Slacktvist is a good evangelical christian (I know) who has been trying to figure that out regarding the rot which began in his subculture and how it ends up twisting the very reality they either perceive or pretend to perceive. He comes down on the side of it being more training, a price of tribal identity.
I’m not entirely sure. Either way, what ends up being the case is the hell I describe. Whether they were born without empathy, failed to develop as a result of malformed childhood defenses against abusive raising environments, or deliberately shut them off either for tribal identity (such as the tribal identities that claim that imagination and empathy is of the devil) or because the pain of knowing your the bad guy is bad but not bad enough to change, the end result is the same.
However they became these shells, that’s where they have ended up. And however they may have ended up haunted by their reflections, that’s their reality now for the reasons described (empathy plus being a dick).
I have some private theories on how it gets that bad, but it’s probably a lot of reasons.
It’s a really interesting question though and probably one at the core of why so many evil bastards end up running around and why every oppressor group ends up pulling this shit every single time.
Citizen Alan
@Deschanel:
Well, to paraphrase Jon Stewart, most of them have other shit to do. A big part of why the Teabaggers are dominated by retirees is that retirees have enough free time and disposable income to spend several days a year stalking their Representatives. Generation Obama is either in class or on the job. Either way, they don’t have the resources to drive to Washington and take part in a protest march which will likely have little impact and probably won’t even get significant media coverage. Certainly not coverage as slanted and favorable as what the Teabaggers got when they first showed up.
PS – What Cerberus said, as well.
BobS
@Deschanel: Why aren’t you out getting in someone’s face? There’s a lot of enthusiasm for Obama and the Democrats on this site, but it seems to be limited to keyboards and telephones.
I find the best reason to support this bill is the fact that it pisses off so many on the right. But frankly, it’s just one of many disappointments (war, torture, rendition, Wall Street, etc.) that have left me, and probably many younger voters, lukewarm at best about this administration and Democrats generally, and therefore not to eager to pound any pavement.
I have been at rallies supporting single-payer, and would be more than happy to be in the street going toe-to-toe with ignorant fucks like the teabaggers, if this was an actual ‘progessive’ bill and if it wasn’t for the fact that Obama and the Democratic congress made it clear from the start that they could safely ignore the concerns of people like me. You know, the ones most likely to vote for them.
As far as the threats of violence, it’s occurred to me we’re ‘overdue’ for a political assassination in this country, at least by the standards of my lifetime. It wouldn’t surprise me to wake up any day and hear that one of these assholes took a shot at someone like Barney Frank, who represents the worst of all possible worlds to many of them.
Honus
You know who else alluded to a Browning as the solution to political differences? No shit, and I don’t think counts as going Godwin, it’s just historical fact:
When the Nazis achieved power in 1933, Johst wrote the play Schlageter, an expression of Nazi ideology performed on Hitler’s birthday to celebrate his victory. It was a heroic biography of the proto-Nazi martyr Albert Leo Schlageter. The line “when I hear the word culture, I reach for my gun”, often associated with Nazi leaders, derives from this play. The original line is slightly different: “Wenn ich Kultur höre … entsichere ich meinen Browning!” “Whenever I hear of culture… I release the safety catch of my Browning!”
DMD
@rob!: i’m sure there are Republicans who are freaked out by the Tea Party movement and the threat of violence, but what can they do? If they call out their own party, they’ll be primary challenged by the Club for Greed, or Erik Erikson’s Strike Farce will mail them something nasty. Best to shut up and ride the redneck wave to re-election.
jim
“Brick Oven Bill
That would be a man put into power by a group of homosexual social_ists wearing brown shirts freelancer.”
*EPIC GODWIN FAIL*
The Night Of The Long Knives – you need to Google it.
PS: more Troll Fu Fail – as anybody smart enough to feed & dress themselves already knows, fascism that co-opts aspects of soc1alism is still just fascism – you just can’t clap hard enough to bring that particular Tinkerbell to life, even with a prodigy of deceit like Beck on your side.
Uriel
@Deschanel: Can we not do this inter-generational sniping thing for a bit? It never ends well, and is pretty much the most non-constructive meme I’ve seen on this blog.
Ultimately, the real question is where is the blow back from any of Obama’s supporters of any and all ages. Its not like there’s a wealth of X’ers or boomers manning the lines either, for all the righteous indignation members of both diplay on the internets when complaining about the other.
For what ever reason, the only people who seem really fired up about all of this are a mix of up and coming racists, middle aged freaks, tripple A’s who resent their association with woodstock and septuagenarians who want to spit on black congress men and lisp at Barney Frank.
Far as I can tell, there isn’t a generation going that doesn’t have something to be ashamed of, apart from the Millennials. And that’s probably just due to the fact they can’t drive.