This post is a reprise of last year's remembrance, except that there's a lot more going on for the 40th. Michael Moore has a day-long livecast, you can follow slain student Allison Krause's sister Laurel on Twitter, and news media coverage is likely to be farther and wider. It's important that people also remember the events of Jackson State, a predominantly black college at which police killed 2 students and wounded 12 on May 14-15.

Today is the 40th anniversary of the anti-war protests at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. For those of you under 40, May4.org has the history recap:

On May 4, 1970 the Ohio National Guard opened fire into a busy college campus during a school day. A total of 67 shots were fired in 13 seconds. Four students: Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, William Schroeder, and Sandra Scheuer were killed. Nine students were wounded.

Although I was in the first grade on May 4, 1970, I can't forget what happened in Kent, Ohio on that day.

I was there.

Not on campus, I was in first grade. In Kent, Ohio. My father and my mother's father were both faculty members at Kent. By 1970 my grandfather had retired from the Math Department. When he retired in 1968 he was the only math professor on record as opposing the War in Vietnam.

My dad, on the other hand, was in the Art Department. Nuff said.

We were rushed home from school that day in a panic of police sirens, smoke, and confusion.

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Glenn Beck long ago went around the bend and over the cliff rhetorically. Indeed, he has gone around several bends in the past year. So it was no big surprise that his big defeat with the passage of health-care reform sent him at warp speed round yet another.

This time, it seems he went around the penultimate bend: At the end of two days' worth of ranting, he evidently concluded that the Obama administration and the cadre of evil "progressives" in government are intentionally taking up immigration reform in the wake of the health-care vote because they hope to provoke an armed insurrection.

That's not quite justifying armed revolution, but it sure is nuzzling right up next to it by giving it an excuse.

This conclusion was one he built up over two days, beginning Monday with the usual deprecations about the motives of the people who supported health-care reform:

"You always thought the bad guys always lost in the end."

"All of the pressure and the bribes went to the dirty congressmen on the left, on the Democrats."

"They [Democrats] have finally been toppled, forced to submit."

"They sold their souls for this vote."

"Well, what they've become is ruthless, amoral, ends-justify-the-means, Saul Alinskyites who will do anything, including eat their own to get what they want."

Oh, and lest anyone forget: Michael Moore is fat.

"Because the average Democrat is not the California hippie Marxist Socialist Communist Progressive, sticking flowers in the barrel, sitting around smokin' dope all day during college and talkin' about how they can destroy the evil American empire."

"America changed for me this weekend. I don't see it anymore as this television set used to show me. I mean, I never thought I would see the kind of corruption, the backroom deals, the bribes, the out and out ... scumminess ... that got us to this health-care vote."

Beck again compared it to Pearl Harbor -- and then added the St. Valentine's Day Massacre "when the Mob came in and cleaned things up"), Chamberlain meeting with Hitler, and tossed in Jimmy Carter's election (huh?) and the burning of the Hindenburg (which he said is a picture of Medicare and Medicaid). He finished:

It will be remembered as a black spot in our nation's history, it will be. It will be -- ah well, depending on who wins the war. Because those are the people that will write the history books.

What's that? War? What war would that be? We're not sure at first, but he drops a few hints later, after disparaging his opposition as Marxists, professors, dupes, and leeches:

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There have been a number of right wing protesters showing up at Democratic town hall meetings with guns over the past couple of weeks, even at events held by President Obama. Many have made note that countless people were shoved into cages called "free speech zones," or arrested at events held by former president George Bush for merely wearing anti-Bush t-shirts, yet people have been allowed to openly carry loaded weapons while protesting against Obama, for the most part without incident. How many of you have either posted or said aloud something along the lines of the following statement:

Can you imagine what would would have happened if a protester had brought a loaded gun to a Bush event?

Of course, that protester would have been tased, beaten, arrested and labeled a terrorist -- but times have changed:

Armed men seen mixing with protesters outside recent events held by President Obama acted within the law, the White House said Tuesday, attempting to allay fears of a security threat.

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said people are entitled to carry weapons outside such events if local laws allow it. "There are laws that govern firearms that are done state or locally," he said. "Those laws don't change when the president comes to your state or locality."

Not everyone agrees:

"What Gibbs said is wrong," said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "Individuals carrying loaded weapons at these events require constant attention from police and Secret Service officers. It's crazy to bring a gun to these events. It endangers everybody." Read on...

Personally, I believe it's just a matter of time before one of these gun-toting, Fox News-inspired whackjobs take a shot at the president or a Democratic member of Congress.

Norwegianity: By request

The Agonist: Whole Foods and the pox of the hippie businessman

Calculated Risk: 150 US banks on the brink of failure

onegoodmove: Glenn Beck's operation

J.M. Bell: Utah's Democraric party wants us to "celebrate" their Blue Dog, Jim Matheson. Here's an honest answer...

HOLY CRAP: God or Country...You can commit mass murder and still go to heaven...Promoting theocracy...Cowardice among 'Christian' leaders...Stranger in a strange land...Christian hearts neo-nazis....The French Revelation...Crucified...Wile E. Coyote gets saved...An exchange... It's a crime...Stuff we missed at the Creation Museum...

Well, if this doesn't paint Blue Gal as an aging hippie, nothing will.

Today is the 39th anniversary of the anti-war protests at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. For those of you under 40, May4.org has the history recap here.

Although I was in the first grade on May 4, 1970, I can't forget what happened in Kent, Ohio on that day.

I was there.

Not on campus, I was in first grade. In Kent, Ohio. My father and my mother's father were both faculty members at Kent. By 1970 my grandfather had retired from the Math Department. When he retired in 1968 he was the only math professor on record as opposing the War in Vietnam.

My dad, on the other hand, was in the Art Department. Nuff said.

We were rushed home from school that day in a panic of police sirens, smoke, and confusion.

When I got home, my mother had the front door locked for the first time in my life. "Mommy, what is happening?" "I don't know, dear." Mom not knowing, being visibly scared and shaken. Another first.

But she had the TV on and Walter Cronkite was talking about Kent. That was exciting to my six-year-old heart. I didn't see the consequences, had no idea what death was, let alone that four college students had been shot to death that day in my hometown. Their only crime was protesting their government's illegal, unilateral invasion of Cambodia.

I know, it's hard to believe a Republican president invaded a far away country based on lies and innuendo. (/snark)

The sad irony of Kent State, and what made it so explosive in terms of the "silent majority" of Americans, was that those Americans who could afford it avoided the military draft and the dangers of Vietnam by enrolling their children full-time in college and graduate school. All four students killed on May 4 were full-time students. If the war was going to kill sons (and daughters!) in OHIO? Many who were not outspoken before May 4, now said it was time to stop the war once and for all.

At my own house, a mile or so from campus, my two younger sisters, both pre-schoolers, were in their pajamas in the middle of the afternoon because my mother thought there might be an evacuation and getting the girls in their pajamas was something she "could do." They were playing making a tent with a blanket and the dining room chairs.

They do not remember that day, because it was just another day to play and make a tent.

I remember a few days later Kent was really, truly, on that proverbial "cover of Newsweek." I said to my dad:

"Daddy, before no one ever heard of Kent. Now no one will ever forget."

The University now holds an annual two-day symposium on democracy to commemorate the events of May 4.

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Some conservative ideologues play the Victim Card like a master Tex Hold Em player reads their opponents' cards in Vegas and tosses out a Joker. Sarah Palin has mastered the art of "the liberal is attacking poor little ME!"

Conservatives use this technique more as a rallying cry to their base. A way to squeeze money out of the fringes and make themselves a hero to their cause. Carrie Prejean has been trying to do just that, but her efforts are really weak.

The playbook is pretty standard. Say something racist, misogynist or homophobic which the public doesn't like and claim that you're just voicing your views and the dirty hippie liberals want to silence you from speaking your mind. It doesn't hurt to have the looks Carrie does, but it appears like she'll need some extra media training in the Conservative Whiner schtick.

She's trying to be the new star on the far right conservative circuit, but she's had a very controversial start to her run at it.

As you know, she was running for the Miss USA title, got asked about gay marriage, said she was against it and then got into a very public fight with Perez Hilton over it. She was immediately embraced by the religious right, and as she was acting as Miss California started to film commercials against gay marriage. This is a violation of her contract as Miss California, because you cannot take positions on religion and politics, but she does what most conservatives do, she played by her own rules.

In the middle of it all, topless pictures were released about her, which is no biggie, except when you want to be a leading figure in the morally superior evangelical set. Donald Trump came to her rescue and didn't fire her for breach of contract when she failed to show up for scheduled events. A firestorm erupted between the pageant people in California and Prejean, and it so infuriated Shanna Moakler she resigned.

She was finally fired by "The Donald" while she was doing a radio interview because she failed to live up to the terms of her contract.

You can see why Sarah Palin is her hero. They both love to quit. Then she brought a lawsuit against the pageant.

Now the fun really begins because she made a sex tape for her boyfriend and TMZ reported that it was this tape that got her to back down and the suit was settled.

In the above video, Hannity tries to whitewash it for her, first saying that the ex betrayed her, at which Prejean naturally smiles and says, "Yes, he did. I loved him." Her book is called "Still Standing," which is of course an attack on the media, and her thesis is that everybody wanted her to not express her views. And that, as you can see by this, video is a joke. She has never been silenced at all. She's on every TV show possible.

Her ex told TMZ that Carrie tried to get him to lie about her age so she could say it was a youthful mistake to appease the right wing Christians.

Listen, Carrie, nobody cares about your sex tape (except in a voyeuristic way) or the money you spent on fixing up your body to win beauty contests, or how many nekked pictures you took, because it's your life. Bravo, I say! Will there be Late Night on Cinemax?

She has to concentrate on her religious base because that's where her money is going to come from. If she cons them into thinking she's another "conservative victim," she'll succeed mightly in that arena.

Watching her on Larry King was also pretty funny. Larry King is the King of the softball interviews, and she picks his show to try and pull the old, "Storm off the set routine," but can't even find her microphone to rip off herself. King was trying to find out why she settled her court case -- because as we know, it looks like the sex tape made her capitulate.

In the above video, we have her then trying to pull what appears to be a preplanned stunt on Larry King for more attention.

If it wasn't planned, then, well... she's just nuts.

Transcript below:

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