Via an emailer I learned of this story [Warning: really upsetting pet picture at the link. Here’s the unillustrated Politico (sic!) piece on the same subject.]
Here’s what happened: Jake Burris, campaign manager for Ken Aden, who is a Democrat running for Congress from Arkansas 3rd district, came home last night with his four kids. One of the children got to the front porch first, and found the family cat dead, its head bashed in, and the word “Liberal” scrawled on its side.
And no, my wingnut friends, this is not one of those “both sides do it,” moments.
I could go on and do some windy speculating about the nature of right wing politics as a traditionalist reflex in the face of implacable and (life-by-life) incomprehensible technological, economic and social change.
But really, all I can think is that these folks are sick, and dangerous, and need to be out of politics as fast as we can get them gone.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Portrait of Mademoiselle Julie Manet with her cat, 1887.
dmsilev
I read about that a little earlier. Words fail me, except for one: Evil.
Violet
This is horrible. What kind of cretins do this kind of thing? I hope they catch them and lock them away.
Add this awful act to Mitt’s tying the family dog on top of the car, and it’s pretty easy to start painting Republicans as animal abusers.
eric
sounds like a terroristic threat made against someone to impact an American election. I say let the FBI go at it. Fascism for me, not for thee…i guess, but i don’t care.
JoyceH
Womack (the opponent incumbent) has a dad who owns a radio station – they’ve been giving out names and home addresses of Dem campaign staffers on the air, with the tag ‘watch your back’. That’s incitement – they wanted this to happen.
Zifnab
I’m not sure how that is to be accomplished. These people aren’t really politicos. They’re conspiracy theorists and sociopaths who use party affiliation to justify their actions. The only way you get these people “out of politics” is to convince the GOP that associating with sociopaths and conspiracy theorists isn’t good for their agenda.
And given the current trend of political climate… well… good luck with that.
The Moar You Know
You’re asking a group of people who invented the term “collateral damage” to give a shit about what one of their own brownshirts did to a cat.
Not going to happen. As far as they’re concerned, the fucking cat had it coming.
eric
@The Moar You Know: had the cat been carrying a concealed firearm, then it could have protected itself, but that would have offended Burris’ liberal sensibilities.
Woodrowfan
I confess I’ve been wondering if I should put an Obama 2012 sticker on my car, or a sign on my lawn. The RW hatred is getting so heated. I used to have an Obama sticker and had people scream at me in traffic and in a fast-food drive-thru line, and leave hateful threats in notes on my car. I worry that if I have lawn signs again that someone will do something to our dogs or cats.
Walker
@JoyceH:
Does this fall under RICO then?
HelpThe99ers
“Out of politics” barely scratches the surface. “Behind bars” is a more appropriate location for anyone who would inflict cruelty like this onto any creature: animal cruelty is a pathway to violence against people:
MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson
I’ve seen a trend of this kind of thing happening more over time, at least, judging by the incidents people have reported at various liberal/left blogs. Horrible as it is, I don’t think this will be where it stops. We’ve got a lot of right-wing crazies who really have very tenuous links to reality and believe that God wants them to take their country back, plus a ton of weaponry. That’s an extremely volatile combination.
beltane
To me, conservatism represents the criminal element in any society. Their professed love of Law & Order stems from the fact that, if not for the law, they themselves would commit every sort of transgression imaginable. While most of them refrain from acting on their natural impulses until the green light is given, some of them, like the the perpetrators here, cannot contain their urges.
In my Dante-esque vision of eternal punishment for these creeps, I’d douse them in pig blood and lock them in a cage with a hungry lioness. Metaphorically, of course.
Warren Terra
@JoyceH:
This is pretty amazing. Do you have a link? Even if no atrocities had resulted, that sort of pandering to fears of vigilante partisan nuttery would be completely beyond the pale. Now that something has happened, those broadcasters need to be excoriated – and those who are responsible for airing those addresses should never work in broadcasting or politics again.
nitpicker
Countdown to a conservative blogger claiming this is a “false flag operation” in 4…3…2…
joeyess
My cat, Iggyfigadoo, once nipped the finger of my neighbor that lives 2 doors down. He called animal control and they came and put Iggy in jail for 10 days. At my expense. I went down to see this bite and found it to be not only not a bite, but it didn’t even break the skin. Furthermore the wound in question was on the inner part of his middle finger, suggesting to me that Brian had been grabbing Iggy’s head. we argued a bit and I explained to Brian that he was now Iggy’s godfather in the neighborhood. If anything happened to Iggy I would blame Brian. Brian then proceeded to argue with me on this point of coming procedure and found out quickly that I had long ago lost my temper. I beat Brian in his own driveway in front of his mother. Didn’t have to go to jail because I assured Brian that if I did I’d be right back at his door to do it all over again the moment I got out. I went 6 kinds of Joe Pesci that night. And Iggy only went to jail.
I can’t imagine what I would do to these people if I caught them.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson:
It’s gonna end in a successful assassination at this rate, isn’t it? It’s not something I really want to believe, but jesus….
Cris (without an H)
I gotta admit, this is exactly why I am seriously considering not posting an Obama campaign sign this year. I support the President and would like my NW MT teabagging community to know that we are here, walking among them.
But I have two little kids and two cats. I have no trouble imagining somebody shooting their .22 at my house to teach me a lesson about what kind of flag I choose to fly.
And this is self-censorship! I haven’t received any threats, nor do I know anybody who has (though our area does have a history of political intimidation). But still I feel it would be safer to remain silent.
As they say to the kids in preschool, that’s not okay.
Martin
I can never keep this straight. Is killing someone’s cat and scrawling ‘liberal’ on it in blood an example of Hayekian or Burkean conservatism? Someone ring up Sully, I can never keep that shit straight.
mistermix
Let’s not forget that Obama yelled at Bo for peeing on the White House carpet once. Same thing, nothing to see here, move along.
mechanical jacobin
This is as fucked up as a thing can be, but as far as I can tell, this person is just deranged, plain and simple. I hate when conservatives paint with blanket statement about liberals or Muslims after some psychopath shoots up an army base, so I’m gonna try to not do the same here. As much as I believe this particular type of insanity exists almost exclusively on the right.
Martin
@Cris (without an H): Well, I’m in for a sign again. My teatard neighbor was foreclosed on. Who says there isn’t justice in the foreclosure market?
mechanical jacobin
This is as fucked up as a thing can be, but as far as I can tell, this person is just deranged, plain and simple. I hate when conservatives paint with blanket statement about liberals or Muslims after some psychopath shoots up an army base, so I’m gonna try to not do the same here — even if do also believe that this particular type of insanity exists almost exclusively on the right.
jackmac
Through 22 years in my house and five presidential elections, we’ve always had yard signs and bumper stickers on the car. Not this year. Caution and safety come first. I don’t want to run any risk of wingnut damage, pets being hurt or, God forbid, my kids or spouse threatened or harmed.
El Tiburon
Liz Lemon eats meat all the time while I am sure Alec Baldwin condones testing harmful perfumes on Obamas, I mean monkeys.
So there is really nothing to see here at all people. You are just trying to change the subject due to all of the Newtmentum.
LBJ was a big hunter. And do you think Michael Moore got so enormous by eating sprouts?
joeyess
Oh. Brian and I don’t talk. At all.
beltane
@Martin: Good question. Did they ring any Burkean bells as they murdered the cat or was it all a show of Hayekian modesty?
Such fancy terminology Bobo and Sully use to gloss over the inherent thuggery of conservatism.
MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
What I fear is that we shall see vigilante groups targeting vulnerable people like the Democratic staffers whose names and addresses were publicized to the wingnuts in their local area for purposes of intimidation.
wrb
@Warren Terra:
warning- picture of corpse at link: http://bluearkansasblog.com/
Trakker
While I’m very certain most on the right would be horrified by this act, the fact remains that the right has spent decades demonizing liberals to the point where many on the right do not believe we are legitimate citizens like them but are an evil enemy, and if bad things happen to us we have only ourselves to blame.
To them we’ve spent the last 50 years forcing them to accept voting rights for African Americans, the end to Jim Crow, women’s rights, abortion, gun laws, environmental regulations, and gay marriage on them, right? If some of our pets get bashed to death or abortion doctors get shot, what did we expect Real, God-Fearing, Patriotic, Americans to do?
I just wish we had more outspoken politicians who defend liberalism, and defend the idea that government has a legitimate role in our lives. I’m SICK of feeling like a pariah in my own country.
joeyess
@mechanical jacobin: But the perps scrawled “liberal” on the cat. This isn’t some nebulous act of a lunatic. It’s a political act of an ideology that has lost it’s mind.
FormerSwingVoter
Play time is fucking over.
Every Republican owns this. Every single fucking one of them. Every politician, every media hack, every conservative voter. They have built a world rooted only in their own impotent, shrieking rage, and they will not stop until everyone to the left of Reagan is dead. Anti-liberalism is all they have – it is their entire reason for being.
Every single right-wing institution in this country needs to be razed to the ground. As long as someone somewhere can describe themselves as “conservative” without an overwhelming amount of shame, our work is incomplete. It can’t be. Every single vestige of conservative power in this country Must. Be. Destroyed.
These people are without worth. It’s time we stopped pretending otherwise.
TooManyJens
Jesus Christ. Our cat died peacefully of kidney failure last May, and my daughter is still taking it kind of hard. If she’d had to see something like this, I’d be looking for blood.
MikeInSewickley
I put this into another thread prior – sorry. I am so glad this is now a thread on its own.
“He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.”
–Immanuel Kant
I really think we are getting to some kind of tipping point where civil discourse goes the way of guns, knives, and caning people we disagree with. If Newt wins the nomination, folks, it is going to be nuclear winter on civil discourse.
I really am beginning to fear for the ability of our country to act as one and the social fabric of America when crap like this happens. I know – what about all the things that happen to people over the years? Of course that disgusts me to no end. But to use pets to make a point like this is like using the handicapped and mentally ill as props.
When does it stop??
TooManyJens
@Trakker:
This comment should appear in bold type on every article about this incident and others like it. This is exactly right.
JoyceH
Steve Womack, the incumbent Republican congressman whose dad’s radio station has been airing the names and addresses of his opponent’s campaign staffers, has a Facebook page – go over there and tell him what you think of these tactics; you won’t be alone.
Seamus
@Violet:
Mitt gets bit: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/16/us-usa-campaign-dog-idUSTRE80F04S20120116
Amir Khalid
@JoyceH:
How is this not an obvious incitement to violence? Didn’t anyone complain to the police when their home addresses were broadcast?
Tonal Crow
But but but but lib’rals shouted “fascist” at a Republican once!
I can’t wait to hear Rush’s excuse.
Redshift
And let us not forget that Newt Gingrich was the first Speaker of the House to tell his members that the congresspersons of the other party were not their opponents, they were their enemies, they shouldn’t even talk to them.
trollhattan
@JoyceH:
Whoa. If this isn’t provocation/intimidation I guess I don’t know the meaning of those words any longer.
We had this lovely brewhaha a few years ago; luckily, no pets were sacrificed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Pearcy_(activist)
giltay
@mechanical jacobin: No. Let’s call this what it is: political intimidation. This was not the act of some random protopsychopath; it was targeted and incited by Aden’s opponents. It was calculated to scare “liberals” in general, and Aden and his staff specifically.
This is classical intimidation. You don’t go after the target directly, you go after his family, his friends, his property and livestock, his pets. You go after the things he cares about, who are unable to protect themselves. You make the target feel helpless. You send a message, “You may be safe, but I can hurt the ones you love.”
If someone burns a cross on your lawn, don’t think for a minute that it was just the work of some pyromaniac.
Cris (without an H)
And even more: if we get threats of violence, and we respond to them as any normal person would — by involving the authorities — we’re liberal crybabies who can’t stand up for themselves, who don’t know how to fight back. (Of course, if you do fight back, you’re a Chicago-style thug.)
trollhattan
@trollhattan:
(That’s “bruhaha” –where my edit at?)
nancydarling
@nitpicker: Already happened at:
http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2012/01/23/3rd-district-campaigners-cat-killed
trollhattan
@trollhattan:
(That’s “brouhaha” –where my edit at?)
TooManyJens
@Tonal Crow:
Why would he need one? Every threat or act of violence by a right-winger happens in a total vacuum and is completely unrelated to the systematic demonization of liberals by the right. That’s what our conservative betters tell us, and since they’re not sick, destructive traitors like liberals, they must be right.
Citizen_X
Because I award these terrorist fuckers no points for creativity, I suspect they were, um, inspired by the Nazis in The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo.
Partial blame goes to the candidate’s terrorist daddy who owns the radio station. Any chance of a boycott of sponsors there? And no, “terrorist” is not even remotely overboard for the radio station. They promoted this act; they got the sort of actions they promoted
russ
@JoyceH: just did on face book tolf him to disavow cat killing and names and adress’ on radio
kerFuFFler
This reminds me of when the leader (Nigel Coleman) of a local Tea Party organization targeted democratic Rep. Perriello a couple of years ago. He published an address and encouraged people to show up at Perriello’s house and “express their appreciation” of Perrielo’s yes vote on ACA, clearly an incitement of his followers to threaten and intimidate Perriello. Turns out Coleman’s info on the address was incorrect, and so some loser ended up cutting a gas line outside Perriello’s brother’s house risking an explosion and possible fatalities.
Still an open case…. I hope they do find the cretin who killed that family’s pet!
Mnemosyne
@Amir Khalid:
Thanks to the Supreme Court, it’s perfectly legal to publish and broadcast the addresses of your “enemies,” and unless you issue specific instructions about who should be killed and how, any subsequent violence is in the “hoocoodanode?” category.
GregB
This must be a false flag. Just like when the McCain staffer scrawled the backwards B on her face because she looked in the mirror. I am willing to conclude this was a false flag effort by a literate left winger because the word liberal was spelled correctly and not:
Lie-bral or Lib-brul.
Snark off./
My Truth Hurts
I would kill a person who did this to one of my pets. No mercy, no remorse.
WaterGirl
@Cris (without an H): And that’s the whole point. Intimidation. I can understand why you feel the way you do, but when we all back down, they win.
I have always thought myself to be a non-violent person, but I think I might fin out otherwise if someone intentionally killed or injured one of my pets.
I cried most of the way through the Gabby Giffords video yesterday. The hateful right-wing bastards completely destroyed Gabby’s life as she knew it, and as far as I can tell, they have no regrets.
The party of personal responsibility has none.
JC
Is there a database of politically motivated crimes like this, over the past 5 years say?
I’m sure, from Giffords, to this, to plenty of liberal signs being ripped down, to unhinged wingnuts doing things like stepping on heads of protestors..
that there is an undeclared war on liberals.
It’s important to keep updated all things like this. so when there are 1000 crimes committed, it stays searchable and findable in a live database. This can include ‘liberal’ crimes of violence/intimidation, when those happen. Because the evidence will show, by a large margin, the violence is on the right side of the political spectrum.
The Moar You Know
Radio Rwanda.
Got your guns yet? If not, you’re just talking smack.
Davis X. Machina
Don’t. My Kerry sticker in 2004 got me a rock the size of a cantaloupe through the back window of my minivan. I find the odd cube of safety glass in the cracks of the driveway or in the glass along its edge to this day.
In a blue state (Maine), too.
otto
lemmeguesshowwingnutsrationalizethis…
False Flag! A liberal did it to frame conservatives!
Southern Beale
Thanks for front-paging this, Tom. Really, this needs to be on the news. I mean God. I never want to hear any of these assholes talk about how they’re “pro-life” and all that crap.
BruinKid
The Blue Arkansas blog can’t be accessed right now. I’m getting a “503 – Service Temporarily Unavailable” error message when I tried to go there.
Is there any other site that has verifiable evidence that Steve Womack’s father was giving out home addresses of Ken Aden staffers on the air?
Mike E
@beltane: Any idea is as good as any other to a movement conservatard. It’s a sorta plausible deniability cloak they wrap around their sociopathy.
Cris (without an H)
Everybody read this please. Especially me.
The solution, when you feel surrounded, is not to withdraw, but to reach out. We’re not alone. I don’t care how “red” your state is, the breakdown is still roughly 50-50. You have liberal neighbors, liberal co-workers, liberal business owners and yes, liberal clergy in your town.
Check out that link to Neiwert I posted earlier: when Kalispell had a right-wing demagogue giving out opponents’ addresses on the radio, one of the victims of the intimidation became one of the founders of the “Not In Our Town” campaign.
Conservatives hate to see liberals banding together, holding hands and making murals, because that’s Liberal Fascism at its worst! But it’s something we have to do.
Anyway, I guess the point is, let’s not wimp out. (Also too you can get a security camera at Costco for $200.)
Mike E
@El Tiburon: You forgot
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@My Truth Hurts: This. Right. Here.
Fucking neo-confederate BASTARDS. I’ve been wondering what I was going to do with my income tax refund, now I’m beginning to think emulating the fucking bastards and stockpiling weapons and ammo may be the smart play.
Spaghetti Lee
Anyone who thinks any right-winger will apologize for this is too optimistic. They’re all thugs, mindless vicious thugs who have no shame, no decency, no morality. They live to crush their enemies, and if a few cats get brutally murdered and a few children traumatized, so much the better. That’ll shut those libruls up!
What a fucking disgusting horrible story. I hope the fucker who did it gets caught and rots in jail and meets a few inmates who will do to him what he did to that cat.
r€nato
@My Truth Hurts: you can’t really mean that. You might beat them senseless (and if I were on your jury, I’d vote not guilty).
But, kill them? Come on. Get a grip.
Geeno
@Trakker:
FTFY
I would agree with you, but I honestly don’t believe that “most on the right” are horrified by this. “Some on the right”, I’ll allow, but most? No. I see nothing in the individual behaviors of conservatives I know or that of their leaders that would cause me to believe that “most conservatives” are horrified when things like this happen.
No one will ever be caught for this, because the people in the area (including the police) aren’t going to turn on one of their own for some whiny liberal’s cat. That’s just that.
r€nato
@Spaghetti Lee:
all of them? Every last one?
I know some right-wingers who are awful people apart from their political beliefs. I also know some right-wingers who are outstanding human beings, who just happen to have some rather disinformed views about the world around them.
I know this is an outrageous act egged on by some atrocious people who don’t believe they have responsibility for what they write and say to a mass audience, but some of the comments here in reaction to this are pretty disturbing as well.
Cluttered Mind
@beltane: I’m sure Oakeshott has some valuable insights for this kind of situation as well.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@r€nato: How about a 9mm slug to the right kneecap?
I’ve been thinking for a while that we’re right now in the middle of a “cold” civil war.
Some of these fuckers want to heat it right up.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@r€nato: I hear you, but if it were my cat and my kids, yeah, I’d have a hard time not looking for blood.
Sorry. They may not be human, but my cats are still my people. Someone who hurts them will be dealing with one seriously pissed off black Russian.
Kola Noscopy
@joeyess:
Christ.
Aren’t you all butch and fierce on the Internet.
Surreal American
I really want to snark something about Malkin/granite countertops/left-wing hoax, etc. However the cat person in me is woefully not up to the task (even more not up to it than usual).
Goddamn cowards only wish they could do that to human beings and get away with it.
Gust Avrakotos
If you want to blame someone blame the asshole that runs this site. As long as you have assholes like Cole running around voting for Bush twice, reading Greenwald (and actually believing it) and only focussing on things the Obama admin does which could easily be presented in a negative light then you get what you get.
So look at the person who runs this site all you BJ lemmings if you want to know where the problem is. Don’t blame the other side. That’s not the problem. It’s actually the solution because they will vote for their side no matter what. Unlike our side with assholes like Cole running around with his vote up for grabs to whoever can scare him more.
Kola Noscopy
@My Truth Hurts:
Are you serious?
You wouldn’t see them prosecuted and punished?
You would freaking KILL them?
And do you consider yourself a sane, liberal thinking person?
There is a big difference between FEELING like doing someone harm in an instance such as this and actually DOING it.
Spaghetti Lee
@r€nato:
Admittedly a visceral reaction. I do know some good conservatives. So I’ll just ask the question. I don’t lurk on FreeRepublic or RedState or listen to Rush, so are there people in that crowd who are horrified by this, who are saying that the craziness needs to stop? How many people are saying that the family had it coming.
I’m just thinking back to the Norway shootings, which was 80 human beings instead of one cat, and the near-universal reaction was prevaricating, he-wasn’t-a-real-conservativing, all the way down to the depths of “the kids had it coming” (Schlussel, for example). This is about as open-and-shut political terrorism as I can think of: committed on the family of a Democratic Party worker, after his name and address was broadcast on a right-wing radio station by the father of the local right-wing congressmen. If people on the right are prevaricating on this or saying the family had it coming, they’re monsters.
Spaghetti Lee
@Gust Avrakotos:
Oh, fuck off, you fucking idiot. Just take your stupid conspiracy theories and trolling and fuck off, you useless cunt.
WereBear
Like all pet lovers, I find this terribly upsetting, and it’s not just the members of the Republican Party who encourage “anything goes.” It’s the enablers among them, who aid and abet the Lone Nut when a conservative does something terrible, but find school lunches for poor children a conspiracy.
In 2009, Arkansas made certain kinds of animal cruelty a felony. The very best way to mourn this cat is for a lot of pressure to be put on law officials there… and not let it go.
r€nato
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko: I’m pretty sure your kids don’t want to have their father spending their childhood (or much longer) in prison. I’m pretty sure your kids would not be thanking you for the life of poverty you’d condemn them to by being in prison instead of working at whatever you do for a living that puts food on their table and keeps a roof over their heads.
Prison is a fucking awful, miserable, lonely, hopeless place. I love my animals too but consider this:
if some asshole were to kill my pet(s) for no good reason, he’d get, what? a couple years in prison, tops. A big fine. Shunning by the community.
You kill him in return, you’re in prison for a good deal longer. You’re likely bankrupted by legal fees. Your entire life turned upside down, just for a moment’s brief satisfaction of revenge.
The asshole who started it would actually come out way better than you in the deal.
Some guy back east was recently sentenced for killing his wife. She was psychotic, off her meds and had murdered one or two of their kids and had tried to killed the others but failed. Not the pets, the fucking kids. He came home, discovered what she’d done, and killed her.
He got something like 10 to 15 years for that.
This is all very likely hypothetical anyway. Nobody is going to kill your pets. And even if they did, you’d *feel* like killing them in return or at least kneecapping them. But you wouldn’t, because there’s little that’s more miserable in this world than being in a prison with hardened criminals and being virtually unemployable once you get out, if ever.
Stop talking like one of those people you despise.
Citizen_X
@r€nato:
What the fuck do you expect? This is animal cruelty, terrorism, and a threat to this guy’s whole family. And this isn’t even the candidate, it’s his campaign manager–not exactly A well-known person. It’s pretty hard not to imagine the same sort of thing happening to oneself. There’s no “good” way to take it.
Mnemosyne
@r€nato:
This incident should be a handy way to figure out which ones are which. The “nice” people who hem and haw and say “well, what did you expect?” or “it’s just a few lunatics” are ones you can now put into that first group, because they’re willing to excuse the killing of a political candidate’s pets.
Sorry, but if your right-wing friends aren’t outraged by this tactic, you should probably stop making excuses for them.
Cassidy
And people get upset when I call them animals.
JPL
@BruinKid: Nancydarling has a link to the Arkansas Times @44. Someone in the comments mentions hearing the addresses on the radio station.
Most of the comments on the blog are sane but be aware there are the whacko’s.
FlipYrWhig
I am really pissed off about this.
Mnemosyne
@r€nato:
Except that’s our point — if the person who did this is discovered, he wouldn’t be shunned by the community. For some people, he’d be a goddamned hero for standing up to the nasty lie-berals.
If anyone is so much as arrested for this crime, much less prosecuted, I will be astounded.
WereBear
We should get upset. Legal remedies, and not becoming but we decry, but we cannot afford this crap any more.
The Republicans hide behind their media enablers and their clumps of like-minded anonymous usernames and their fantasies of total power and their bigotry and hatred of science and the whole ball of wax.
They didn’t used to act this way. They didn’t used to be lousy neighbors and vandals and shrieking idiots. They were encouraged to let their rottenest nature hang out.
THERE HAS TO BE SOME PUSHBACK.
This election is a great time. Let them run Newt. Let everyone stop fooling themselves and get their faces pushed into what all this stupidity leads to.
Don’t let them hide from this. They own it.
r€nato
@Mnemosyne: well, I’m not going to canvass them about it and demand their official statements on this act, because my life doesn’t revolve around politics, believe it or not. I think if anyone came to me and asked me for my official statement about Chappaquidick or Jane Hamsher’s blackface incident, I’d probably look at them funny and tell them to go get some fresh air.
Mnemosyne
@r€nato:
Also, too, people are expressing such extreme levels of outrage and anger because they know there will be no penalty against the guy who did this. They know excuses will be made for him from Red State to National Review Online and he will actually be celebrated in certain dark corners of the internet.
If we had some assurance that the guy would be caught and punished, you probably wouldn’t see such an extreme reaction, but we all know there will be no penalty for him to pay.
Mnemosyne
@r€nato:
So just walk on by, no harm no foul, if the campaign manager quits after finding his pet’s bloody corpse on his doorstep, that means he wasn’t tough enough for politics?
FlipYrWhig
Can we consider a fundraising drive for Aden?
WereBear
@FlipYrWhig: What an excellent idea.
r€nato
@Mnemosyne: no, we don’t know that.
I think we can all agree Joe Arpaio is a huge dickhead. He’s also very pro-active on animal cruelty, he has a hotline for reporting it and he will arrest and charge those who commit it. He’s even gone after a local cop who left his police dog in his car during the summer.
@Mnemosyne: No. That’s ridiculous. Even a sociopath knows how he’s supposed to act publicly. The right-wingers who I think are atrocious human beings apart from their politics, even they would denounce this.
I’m saying that the world is a little more complex that it’s made out to be in blog comments. As I said above, I know people who are absolute Fox-guzzling right wingtards… who are also some of the most decent people I know. I also know a guy whose politics match up pretty well with mine, who’s an utter douchebag, a user who only called me up when he wanted something from me (I cut him loose, finally). I know another woman who’s an activist on all the right causes, who stuck up ferociously for a liberal friend of hers who killed a motorist in an act of road rage and who actually had a documented record of waving his gun at people in other, past incidents of road rage.
Peregrinus
@WereBear:
I donated $50 already. If anyone else wants to join in, feel free.
Mnemosyne
@r€nato:
Care to make a bet on it? I have $25 I could spare. I’m very confident that they’ll never arrest anyone for doing this, and even more confident that anyone who’s arrested will never spend a day in jail for doing it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne:
Heck, it’s not even the candidate’s pets, it’s the pets of his campaign manger.
They are willing to inflict pain on the children of the campaign manager of someone who dares to run against a Rethuglican.
If the Rethuglican had any honor (not to worry, he’s an honorless cur like most of them) he’d immediately call for prosecution of the individuals and offer financial compensation to the family for the loss of a beloved family pet. He’d also personally go with the children to a local shelter to find a replacement pet. He’d draw attention to how wrong this is, and how cruel and un-American it is.
But I doubt if he will. He can prove he’s not dogshit by doing this…otherwise, he’s dogshit.
pete
@Spaghetti Lee: Visceral reactions are entirely understandable. If someone murdered my pet (let alone my partner) I’d feel like killing them. Hell, someone keyed my car the other night and I felt like going scarface on them (not that I know who it was). But I’d be wrong, and I know that. I do believe in the rule of law, flawed though its implementation so often is. I know some conservatives with whom I can disagree in a polite way, and occasionally even come to some kind of compromise. I also know some radicals who are major jerks that I wouldn’t trust out of my sight. People, lots of flavors. The people who killed that cat need to be named and shamed. And, yes, I know they’re probably giggling about it. Bastards.
Mnemosyne
@Villago Delenda Est:
I doubt the Republican candidate would do that because, frankly, Republicans seem terrified of their own voters at this point, and with good reason. Didn’t at least two or three Republicans resign in Arizona after Giffords was shot because they feared their own constituents were gunning for them?
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne:
You have a point. They’re not only honorless curs, they’re cowards as well.
WereBear
@Peregrinus: I did to.
Aden’s Act Blue Page
Catsy
@JC: What do you mean, “undeclared”?
They’ve been pretty goddamn explicit about it for decades now.
brendancalling
i like that Mr. Burris noted that he has a gun and knows how to use it. I suppose it’s no politically correct to say so, but I hope he gets an opportunity to blow a few holes in the sick motherfucker that did that.
people who torture animals are simply awful people, and I do not feel a scintilla of shame about saying I hope the cat-killer gets his, and gets it for a jolly good long time.
Judas Escargot
@r€nato:
You’re assuming that a body would be found.
Kola Noscopy
@Spaghetti Lee:
Rather mysoginist, don’t you think? I like to believe that all cunts, at their core, are useful.
brendancalling
@Kola Noscopy: speak for yourself. I’d do the same.
JCT
I’m going to contribute to Aden’s Act Blue in memory of the puss. Guys, is there anything we can do to show support for the kids? How horrific for them.
Kola Noscopy
@WereBear:
Don’t let them hide from this. They own it.
You’re assuming a Dem at the top of the ticket who would aggressively push back, with all the tools at his disposal.
That’s assuming a lot.
Kola Noscopy
@Mnemosyne:
I disagree.
If the person who did this is caught I think he or she will be severely dealt with by the courts. (Note: Your assumption that the perp is male is sexist.)
The question being, will they be caught?
Calm down, your tendency toward frantic hysteria is showing. If this was the climactic scene of a disaster movie, this is where one of us would have to slap you hard to silence your shrieks.
Kola Noscopy
@brendancalling:
hahaha…nothing like having firm principles.
Villago Delenda Est
@JCT:
Yeah, the kids are who I’m most concerned about. Womack should, at a minimum, personally approach the family, offer his condolences, condemn the act, and out of his own pocket make a gesture in an attempt to this right, by taking the kids to a shelter for a new cat. It would be the honorable and, dare I say it, CHRISTIAN thing to do. It would demonstrate he’s a class act.
Also, he should take his father and that radio station to the woodshed.
sb
FWIW, from the Womack campaign:
Good on Walker and Womack but guys? Stop giving out names and addresses of Democrats on the radio. Tell the old man to put a sock in it.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Of course this was the act of a disturbed individual, someone who acted on their own impulse and who wasn’t influenced by public discourse, right? That’s the usual excuse we hear from the right; it was some crazy person and they had nothing to do with us. Wrong, the right OWNS this hateful bullshit. They own it because they incite it and then claim that they never did any such thing.
Liars all. Every fucking one of them who use this weak excuse, they LIE.
The right will always say that these acts are by deranged individuals who have nothing to do with them because to do otherwise is to face reality, they feed hate and incite violence against others to achieve their aims. They love violence, they embrace it as a winning strategy because they have nothing left to offer America other than division and devastation. Nothing. All they want to do is take, take, take and take. They leave little behind, blaming people of color, liberals, the poor and destitute for the wreckage they have wrought upon us. They have sown the seeds of division and hate in their Conservative Victory Garden and they have staked their future on the crops.
The right attracts people who are inclined towards using violence against others because as far as they are concerned, if you vote right then everything you do is excusable. All that the right cares about is that they get the votes to win elections. No matter how reprehensible the individual, if they vote right then that’s all that matters. It’s all about winning to them, even if everyone else ends up losing, they care about nothing else. They’re going to keep inciting violence and denying it, as always, because it’s their strategy. Terrorism works, that’s why they hate it when it’s used against our country. It’s fine and dandy when it’s ‘their team’ spreading the terrorism but woe to any furriner who tries the same, then it’s time to rain doom on them! But if it’s one of their supporters who performs a terrorist act then they excuse it as the actions of a lone, deranged wolf.
No, it’s a wolf in wolf’s clothing. Republican brand wolf clothing.
Though this incident is horrible we all know that things like this (and worse) are going to keep happening because the Republicans need to win and it’s the only path they see to winning.
They have nothing else to offer us, nothing but a destitute America divided by hate and filled with political violence.
It’s their winning formula because it’s all they got left.
Judas Escargot
@Kola Noscopy:
You’re so cute right now. I wish I had a camera.
Jason
@JoyceH: If that’s true, we should be doing more than posting to facebook — that’s incitement to violence, and harrassment of campaign workers, and the FCC and the FEC should be informed. Bloggers should also be pushing the MSM to report on this.
PIGL
@Kola Noscopy: absolutely.
(I mean, I know mine are hollow words, but I mean them. I might not have the ironmongery or the balls to pull the trigger, but I would cheer anyone who did).
Someone who would stomp a cat would kill a child, would burn down the house where a family slept, would rape a pregnant mother in front of her family and then cut the foetus from out her womb before killing them all. Would track down the union organisers, torture them to death and leave the remains in a ditch to be seen by all passers by.
And what is more, they are itching to do it. This will escalate as long as they get away with it. These people need to be put down, or the reign of terror will come. They can be put down in two ways: the authorities descend like a thousand tons of bricks (which can not happen in the USA), or their victims resist effectively before the killers get too organised. Do you think the USA is immune from death squads? Think again.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@r€nato: a few hours and a couple of ales later, yeah, you’re right.
brendancalling
@Kola Noscopy:
you do NOT know me.
you have NEVER met me.
you know NOTHING about my principles.
So, unless you can read minds, kindly take this conceit that you know what my principles are an shove them STRAIGHT UP YOUR TROLL ASS.
you’re probably the person that killed that cat.
Peter
I know exactly how little violence accomplishes. I know how pointless anger is, most of the time. (Not all. Most.) I’m against the death penalty. I feel that a lack of empathy is one of the greatest ills we face as a species.
And yet, I’m only human. There’s something about the connection we form with our pets that bypasses reason. Consequently, the thought of someone doing to one of my pets what someone did to Ken Aden’s reaches straight into my hindbrain, finds the button marked “MURDEROUS RAGE”, and PRESSES IT AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN.
To any posters above clutching their pearls at the reactions being expresses here: just shut up. This is not a time for reason and your attempts to demonstrate how much more rational you are are not fucking welcome.
Mnemosyne
@Kola Noscopy:
Yeah, it’s just like when we were all shocked and horrified about a little intergenerational sex that everyone knows kids don’t think twice about unless someone tells them it’s bad for a 60-year-old to have sex with a 10-year-old.
We really should all just calm down and accept that pet torture and child molestation aren’t really all that bad if we just look at them the right way.
brendancalling
by the way, if anyone’s intersted, I have a lovely kitty named Buster on the front porch who wants a home. Already socialized, loves to cuddle, needs to be neutered and I’ll pay half.
we call him buster because he’s black and white like buster keaton, and he also had a (now healed) busted leg. 1 year old, small for his age, cuddle-bug. Philadelphia PA area.
Gust Avrakotos
@Spaghetti Lee: Can you be more specific? Which side of this debate are you on? Do you think Cole is a piece of shit or an asshole? We gotta work on your communication skills. Perhaps more swear words.
Chris
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Yeah, and these are the same people who claim that all 1,500,000,000 Muslims on the planet Earth are directly linked to 9/11 and should all have to take some sort of loyalty oath and/or denounce al-Qaeda… and when they do exactly that, simply pretend they didn’t so they can keep peddling their hatemongering shit. And these are the same people who hold every one of us “liberals” responsible for the actions of communist regimes on the other side of the world that we don’t even share any belief with.
So you know what? They don’t get to say that. When the mob that rallied against the “Ground Zero Mosque” has learned not to profile and generalize, I’ll consider cutting them a break on their own terrorists. Until then, fuck em.
Chris
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
Well, it’s not for lack of trying. Death threats to the White House went up several hundred percent after Obama took office, and that’s not the only kind of right-wing violence whose numbers went up.
@Trakker:
I hear you. Man, do I hear you.
Chris
This thread appears to be mostly dead, but…
@giltay:
I’m curious. If that actually happened – if you actually did bring back explicit Ku Klux Klan terrorism (cross-burning or worse, like lynching) aimed at prominent liberals and other Enemies Of The People – what would happen next? Would it lead to a backlash from a public that finally felt that the right wing fringe had gone too far, or would it lead to a revival by making the fringe feel that it’s finally safe to be an open Klukker again?
Svensker
@JoyceH:
His page is offline….:)
slippy
@Chris: The 1960’s were over 40 years ago. It is impossible to put minorities back in a can, especially since most of the people wanting to Kluk openly, as it were, are getting old. They will be kind of isolated, and far, far outnumbered in this day and age. I think most of America has outgrown this infantile bullshit, and I think we are witnessing the dying gasps of a self-assured movement that is almost a disease that we just have to get over by letting all the Olds die. I hate to be ageist here, but it seems like this particular transition in our history is pitting the mores and attitudes of an elder generation far more sharply against their kids than at almost any time in the past. We’ve had technological progress for years and an opening view of the world, but if you think about the Leave it to Beaver fantasy that seems to dominate most of what the Teatards want to take us “back” to, it is a bubble where Manifest Destiny and white privilege were still assured, and we imagined ourselves extending a somewhat paternal hand down to the lesser races and very gradually making them acceptable partners in our civilization. Instead, minorities and people with un-WASP lifestyles have been too “pushy” in demanding real social change, and on top of all of that we are in danger of wildly upsetting the economic applecart on some of the more comfortable segments of society, who have long been accustomed to being first equaling a permanent state of leisure and wealth. The upending of our social hierarchy that instant, world-wide communication by every voice that can manage a phone connection or better has only started to tear through almost every facet of our social order, and the people who are going to be brought down to earth are freaking the fuck out.
So, that was probably better an essay than a comment, the point being that the Teabaggers’ racism is a major turn-off to the majority of Americans. They have fallen in popularity the more their racism has become evident.
Kola Noscopy
@brendancalling:
Damn. You caught me.
Actually, since you’re the frothing rage monkey issuing death threats, I think we know who’s more likely to kill a cat.
Kola Noscopy
@Peter:
In other words: “Leave me alone while I spew stupid, violent shit about how much of a killer I am on the Internet.”
You can write all the grotesque, psycho, fantasy vigilante shit you want. Just don’t expect not to be abused for it.
Kola Noscopy
@Mnemosyne:
Well, if you say so.
Cheap, self righteous outrage on the Intertubes feels good in your private places, doesn’t it? Glad to see you indulging so regularly. Keeps you off the streets.
My Truth Hurts
@r€nato:
No, I mean that. I would try to find them and put them down and suffer the consequences. I am not saying it would be the right thing to do, but it would be justified in my mind. Someone who would do that to my harmless domesticated animals over our differences in politics has abdicated their humanity and will find no sympathy from me.
I am not trying to talk tough or sound psycho, I just really think that would be my reaction. Just like if someone senselessly murdered a family member.
But of course I can’t really say for sure I would do that or even find out who they were, that’s just my gut reaction.
My Truth Hurts
@Kola Noscopy:
Yes I am serious.
No they would not be prosecuted or punished to my satisfaction. Justice is not about fairness and hardly brings survivors closure.
Yes, kill them dead.
I am very sane and very liberal but I am a human being capable of being broken. I do not know for sure what I would do and I hope I never have to find out, but that is my gut reaction.
Yes there is a difference between thinking and doing and right now all I’ve done is think about it. Hopefully I will never be put in a position were I might consider acting on it.
My Truth Hurts
Also, too, Hitler.
/thread
Paul in KY
@Woodrowfan: I’ll have my fucking sign out. Proudly. I wouldn’t advise anyone to harm my animals because of my political affiliation.
That would be a mistake.
horse dave
Donated just to piss off the wingers who committed this act and those who incite them.
Pococurante
@Kola Noscopy:
You are such a dear.
Pococurante
$50 to his [email protected]horse dave: Same.
Anna_CA
We have a Siamese kitty. When we (mixed race couple) moved to our “humble” neighborhood, the locals were having none of it. One day our Siamese (collared, ID) went missing and we knew one of the nieghbors had her. When we heard faint kitty howls of anguish by night, I lost it, I took every piece of crockery and threw it against the 3 fences, crashing them, screaming at the top of my lungs what I would do to the entire family if they hurt her. A door opened, and she fled back. Never been the same funny outgoing kitty since but she is alive. Over the past 2 years we’ve had to call the local police to respond to a number of hate base activities, but they would not make arrests, in fact, they’d say what do you want us to do. These are the sons of the same folk that do this to us. What can I say, I lit a candle and prayed for the soul of Jake’s sweet kitty, and try to remember that hate and monsters come in all sizes, colors shapes religions and political orientations. If that someone had killed my kitty that night, all bets would be off. 7 billion ppl on the planet and the world has a duty to permanently remove anyone who does this to a family pet.