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The National Rifle Association and the assorted far-right gun nuts who make up the gun lobby, as we recently pointed out, really are creating an extremely problematic environment for any post-election America in which Barack Obama has won re-election -- because, thanks to their fact-free and irresponsibly inflammatory attacks on Obama, they've once again convinced a significant segment of the American populace that Obama is secretly plotting to take their guns and their freedoms away.

On the ground, this is playing out in predictably unhealthy ways too -- namely, as the SPLC's Hatewatch recently noted, through skyrocketing weapons and ammo sales:

A hard-hitting propaganda campaign unleashed this year by Wayne LaPierre, executive director of the National Rifle Association, may be convincing Americans that President Obama will crack down on gun ownership if he’s re-elected and becomes a lame duck.

Skyrocketing sales of guns and ammunition, along with some shortages due to stockpiling, are reported by many U.S. shops.

“People are worried about a second Obama presidency,” Simon Wallace, sales manager at Merchant Firearms in Phoenix told Hatewatch. Merchant is one of many gun shops that started seeing demand increase around the first of the year. There are shortages of all types of weapons and ammunition, Wallace said.

One sign of the current panic is the number of FBI background checks for prospective gun owners. The background checks hit an all-time high in 2011 – about 16.5 million. In the first four months of this year, according to the FBI, there were about 6.3 million checks – on track to shatter last year’s record.

... “There’s a lot of free-floating fear,” Molchan said in an interview with Hatewatch. “At one end of the spectrum, you have the survivalists and the stockpiling.”

The problem is particularly acute in places like Texas and Arizona, but it's happening nationally. Naturally, this is cause for celebration by the folks at Fox:

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Despite being booted from his opening gig at the Army concert for his inflammatory and eliminationist rhetoric toward President Obama, Ted Nugent is unapologetic and claims to have the support of the Romney campaign for his particular flavor of free speech.

Via John Aravosis at AmericaBlog, Nugent's claim of encouragement by the Romney campaign:

Ted Nugent, after a Secret Service investigation, a canceled Army concert and an outpouring of criticism, said presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney's camp "expressed support" for the controversial comments he made about President Obama last month at the annual National Rifle Association meeting.

The no-holds-barred Texas rocker told CBS' "This Morning" that Romney's campaign told him to "stay on course" and not to tone it down after Nugent said he will "either be dead or in jail by this time next year" if President Obama is re-elected.

"I got the sensation it was, not from Mitt himself or Mrs. Romney, stay on course Ted, freedom of speech is a beautiful thing," Nugent said in the interview, which aired Friday morning.

Now if this were false, one might expect the Romney camp to firmly deny they said such a thing. But they didn't deny it, choosing instead to release the same non-statement they released when Nugent first spewed his nonsense at the NRA convention:

"Divisive language is offensive no matter what side of the political aisle it comes from," Romney's spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in the statement. "Mitt Romney believes everyone needs to be civil."

So if Ted Nugent says it civilly, then it's totally all right with Romney? This is the problem with Mitt Romney and it will continue to be the problem with Mitt Romney. He is so afraid to actually take a stand on anything from his gay foreign policy adviser to a rogue supporter who now believes he has a blessing from the Romney camp to spew even more unpleasantries into the news cycle that he cowers behind a milquetoasty kind of "ewwww, divisive language" statement.

I have a confession to make. There was a time in the not-too-distant past where I believed civil conversations could be had between liberals and conservatives. The past three years have cured me of that misperception. Even Barack Obama, with his love of bipartisanship and civility stood firm on the issue of race and actually bothered to deliver a speech that called out those who were using his race (and his pastor) to score political points.

Yet Mitt Romney just continues his meander down the pathways of non-committal pandering in the hopes that it will get him elected. I would suggest that if he were elected, he would reveal himself to be the guy who thinks Ted Nugent's remarks were just fine. In fact, I could see him clapping Nugent on the back and telling him to keep up the good work. He just won't do it now. He's running for office, after all!

Apparently, being under investigation by the Secret Service doesn't worry Ted Nugent one bit, because he went on CNN's Dana Loesch's radio show and threw more poo from his cage.

"I'm a black Jew at a Nazi-Klan rally," the rock star complained to Loesch. "And there are some power-abusing, corrupt monsters in our federal government that despise me because I have the audacity to speak the truth...I spoke at the NRA and will stand by my speech. It's 100 percent positive. It's about we the people taking back our American dream from the corrupt monsters in the federal government under this administration, the communist czars he has appointed."

He's at a Nazi-Klan, rally to be sure. But..."communist czars?"

Nugent also compared Wasserman Schultz and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to "varmints."

"Varmints are sometimes clever, but they're really easy to outmaneuver," Nugent said, before calling Pelosi a "sub-human scoundrel."

Apparently, the irony of casting himself as a victim of "Nazis" while railing against sub-human communist vermin is lost on him.

Here's what needs to happen next.

Barack Obama's campaign should call on Mitt Romney to reject and denounce these recent comments. The Democrats in the House should call on John Boehner to reject and denounce these comments. Every elected Republican or GOP operator near a microphone should be asked to reject and denounce these comments. Democrats should be in front of the cameras asking why Republicans are tolerating hate speech like this in their party, and they should keep doing it until the GOP says "Uncle" and they hate the sound of Ted Nugent's voice.

That's the correct playbook. Will they run it?

The recent war over the federal budget and debt ceiling were simply the latest in a long line of skirmishes where Democrats - the self-described practitioners of "good faith" and seekers of compromise - found themselves in a pitched policy battle with recalcitrant Republicans. Right-wingers so high on radical, Randian, tea-party-brewed, Kool Aid, that anything short of dismantling the Federal Government and requiring universal tattooing of Milton Friedman where-the-sun-don't-shine was treason.

After its humble beginnings as an astroturf, Koch-Brothers-funded revival aimed at mobilizing ill-informed, reactionary, mostly older white Americans against health care reform and psychologically-constructed monsters under the bed, the tea party has become an malignant force that now holds the Republican Congressional Caucus - and with it the country - hostage.

While the Stockholm Syndrome may not have quite set in yet among all Republicans, the tri-corner-hat crowd seems to behave much like the giant Brain Bug in the movie Starship Troopers, jamming a claw into the heads of their fellow GOPers and slowly sucking out cerebral tissue until only the brainless body remains.

Most problematic, most of the tea partiers, private citizens and elected officials alike, seem to possess just slightly less understanding of the Federal budget or tax code of than say, Mater from Cars. Yet, these are the people in the driver's seat as the country heads for what might be Act II of the Great Recession, unless progressives, centrists, and others edified with high school civics adopt a new strategy to counter them.

And counter them we must, for they and their ilk are nothing new, but representative of a recurring and quite dangerous political strain that has always been with us. Their undermining of the traditions, culture, and give-and-take necessary for any democracy to function has had destructive results on free societies in the past, and taken down a Republic or three.

This is what President Obama seems constitutionally unable to grasp. That even if they are a sometimes useful foil, and (sadly) sometimes equally useful in getting him the policy results he wishes, by definition the Tea Party brigade sees any compromise as evil, because everyone to the left of Pat Buchanan is viewed as a mortal threat to their imagined perfect society, which looks a lot like Utah.

With fewer minorities. And a lot more Jesus.

None other than former Secretary of State and one-time Republican wunderkind Henry Kissinger understood this to be true. In his first book on the Napoleonic wars, Kissinger offered an almost perfect description - on the international stage - of what can happen when an entity with no interest in compromise and no problem destroying the current order gains control of major political party or country:

"It is a mistake to assume that diplomacy can always settle international disputes if there is 'good faith' and 'willingness to come to an agreement'"; in a revolutionary situation "each power will seem to its opponent to lack precisely these qualities. In such circumstances many will see the early demands of a revolutionary power as 'merely tactical' and will delude themselves that the revolutionary power would actually accept the status quo with a few modifications."

Kissinger concluded that, "Coalitions against revolutions have usually come about only at the end of a long series of betrayals ... for the powers which represent legitimacy ... cannot 'know' that their antagonist is not amenable to 'reason' until he has demonstrated [that he is not]."

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What do you get when you put a draft dodging, conservative 70's rock guitarist and a xenophobic and possibly corrupt Arizona sheriff? Dinner with Wingnuts. FOX Phoenix:

They come from two different worlds, but Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and rocker Ted Nugent do see eye to eye on the issue of illegal immigration.

That was a topic of discussion at a dinner date between the two Monday night.

The two see eye to eye on pretty much everything -- just two friends from two very different backgrounds, having dinner, and they let us crash the party.

Nugent is still known for his guitar playing, but these days his conservative politics are becoming just as well known. He's even a special deputy in the sheriff's office.

"He's a captain. If he does good we'll make him a colonel," chuckles Arpaio. Nugent was sworn in last year and since then the two have stayed in touch. Nugent was invited to dinner at Bobby Q's near Dunlap and I-17 in Phoenix, and he asked the sheriff to come along. So what does Nugent like so much about Sheriff Joe?

"How about truth and logic and the American way and doing the right thing whether it's politically correct or not. Getting the job done protecting the citizens and enforcing the law… what I just mentioned is all the right things and all the obvious common sense thing to do. And he is my common sense guy," he says.

Nugent has become well known for his support of gun rights and his distaste for some prominent Democrats. He's also heavily involved in the DARE program

.
They may come from two different worlds which would be law enforcement and music, but they carry the same ideological background. And they both like to hunt things except Joe hunts people.

Stephen Colbert abuses Ted Nugent's last column in the Washington Times which attacks American youth and calls them 'stoned on apathy.'

: Millennials sleep as their future crumbles

While I personally condemn violence of any kind, I am stunned that they are not participating more in the Tea Party, even rioting in the streets, clashing with the cops, conducting sit-ins at their colleges, interrupting political events and so on. Instead, the young people of this generation appear to be sound asleep, lethargic and seemingly unaware of how badly their generation is being royally abused by the deep-seated corruption and abuse of power in the government. They appear to be terminally stoned on apathy.

Ted is condemning violence but is calling for riots in the streets. Shockingly, Wall Street, Banks and corporations were spared his ire. See, that's who would benefit from Nugent's riots.

Young Americans were politically naive in 1960 but at least willing to be engaged. Although I remember the various protests and marches, I was either squirrel hunting or putting a sharp edge on my sonic guitar-slaying skills, having not awakened to my “we the people” duties quite yet. Regrettably, I knew nothing about politics and, sadly, little of our nation’s history.

I lived in the 60's and 70's too and protests and riots were initiated because of the draft which forced us to be sent to Vietnam. That didn't end too well for over fifty thousand of American youths.

Meet Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy Company. Blankenship is also on the Board of Directors of the US Chamber of Commerce. In this speech above, he denies climate change, derisively refers to Speaker Pelosi, Senator Reid, and others as "greeniacs", and calls them all crazy. Watch the speech, you'll see. In his mind, "the greeniacs are taking over the world."

Massey Energy Company, Blankenship's highly successful strip-mining and mountaintop removal operation is the parent company of Performance Coal Co, where a tragic explosion occurred on April 5th. As of this writing, 25 miners have died and 4 more are still missing. Twenty-five families are without a loved one. Four more may discover they have lost someone they love too. 29 families in all, forever changed by one single, violent event in a coal mine. One single violent event in a coal mine run by a company so obsessed with profit it runs roughshod over employees' and neighbors' health and safety.

Here's something else about Don Blankenship and Massey Energy Company: Blankenship spent over $1 million dollars along with other US Chamber buddies like Verizon to sponsor last year's Labor Day Tea Party, also known as the "Friends of America Rally." Here's Massey's pitch. Note how he makes it sound like he isn't one of the corporate enemies of America.

The Friends of America Rally featured such notables as Sean Hannity, Ted Nugent, and Hank Williams, Jr., and was graced by Blankenship himself going off on a diatribe that seemed strange at the time, but has come to be commonplace these days. It concerned President Obama, Democrats, and any one who doesn't salute God, coal, and apple pie. Oh, and we're also going to 'steal their jobs,' if Hannity is to be believed.

Blankenship and Massey Energy spend millions to defend unsafe workplaces

Even while coal dust settles on nearby schoolchildren, there are lessons to learn from this disaster about Massey Energy in general, and Don Blankenship in particular.

It seems that Performance Coal's safety record is spotty, at best. From the Mississippi Business Journal:

Massey ranks among the nation’s top five coal producers and is among the industry’s most profitable. It has a spotty safety record.

The federal mine safety administration fined Massey a then-record $1.5 million for 25 violations that inspectors concluded contributed to the deaths of two miners trapped in a fire in January 2006. The company later settled a lawsuit naming it, several subsidiaries and Chief Executive Don Blankenship as defendants. Aracoma Coal Co. later paid $2.5 million in fines after the company pleaded guilty to 10 criminal charges in the fire.

Massey and Blankenship also settled a lawsuit brought by the Manville Trust in 2007 with regard to workplace safety and environmental compliance.

The Manville Trust filed the case in July 2007 against company Chairman, CEO, and President Don Blankenship and certain other current and former officers and directors. The plaintiff sought several corporate governance reforms, specifically regarding environmental compliance and worker safety. Citing several incidents involving Massey Energy, including a major federal water pollution lawsuit, penalties for two coal miners' tragic deaths and other safety and environmental compliance problems, the lawsuit claimed that a "conscious failure" by the defendants to ensure compliance with federal and state regulations and other legal obligations posed a "substantial threat of monetary liability for violations."

Keep unions out, let teabaggers in

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With all the hyperventilating hot air being spewed by the likes of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin and Erick Erickson and Ted Nugent, et. al., it might appear the tea-bagging right wing is gaining momentum. The incendiary rhetoric being encouraged and even generated by Republican politicians egging on fanatical teabaggers to translate this into real violence can’t be simply written off as trivial; such behavior deserves as much exposure to the light of media as is possible to shine on such moral cockroaches -- mostly to show how very little support it actually does have with the vast majority of the American people.

Most children tend to grow out of the Terrible Two stage where ‘No!’ is their favourite reaction to everything. But however loudly Boehner screams ‘No, you can’t! at the top of his lungs, the softer tones of hope are becoming stronger every day, on both the right and the left, in spite of the Becks and the Boehners and the tea-baggers. It is comments left in on James Poniewozik’s post with a clip of a new viral video based on Will.i.am's "Yes We Can" from the 2008 primaries that give me hope the grown-ups are finally coming back.

‘I am yet another 50 year old small business owner for whom the tea party is a scary group,’ says Donnafre. ‘We can't sit back and assume it is okay to be a silent majority.’

‘Approaching my 70th year,’ says kbsamurai, a self-professed fiscal conservative and a social liberal, ‘Mr Boehner is [the] voice of fear trying to shout down the voices of hope. I did expect to see the left praise this video. I did not expect to see avowed Republicans speak the same language.’

And: ‘I'm 65, white, male, regular at church,’ says mcr57. ‘Yes We Can!’

There it is. That one little word. Yes. With such immense power in three little letters. Yes, we did. Yes, we will again. Yes. We Can.

So you can shout ‘No!’ as loud as you like, Mr. Boehner, not many are listening to you anymore. And just as the three – count them, three – teabaggers who showed up outside of Congressman Steve Driehaus’s home Sunday afternoon were scolded by a neighbour, ‘My family lives on the street, don’t do this to his kids,’ consider this video your well-earned trip to the naughty chair.

DRUNKEN-MONKEY CRAZY EDITION

TarsTarkas.NET Blog: Resistnet Reacts Racistly. Live chat logs from the eve of HCR

43-Ideas-Per-Minute: And for the defense...part ll

Mother Jones: American Tea Party Top 40

Mad Kane’s Political Madness: Addled Threat

Halfway There: Treason! Insanity! Really!

Opinions You Should Have: Every Republican in congress calls in sick

So Verizon Wireless is one of sponsors of the Friends of America Rally this Labor Day weekend, an anti-environment, pro-coal event. Most of the other sponsors are in the coal industry and there is even a link to the National Mining Association’s anti-Waxman-Markey petition on the home page.

Credo Action wanted to know why Verizon would sponsor such a reactionary event with such polarizing figures--especially ones that have gone out of their way to foment violence. From their email:

Before we launched our campaign, CREDO Action reached out to Verizon Wireless to confirm its sponsorship of the pro-coal "Friends of America" rally. Becky Bond, our Political Director, then sent a cordial follow-up to give Verizon Wireless a heads-up that our campaign had launched. Verizon replied as follows:

"This is how our response is going over with the activists. Becky once lived in a tree for a while. At least now I know where the emails are coming from."

— James Gerace, VP of Corporate Communications at Verizon Wireless

You got that?

If you don't think that Verizon Wireless should support global warming deniers and practitioners of mountaintop removal mining, then Verizon Wireless thinks it's okay to dismiss your concerns because you must have "lived in a tree for a while."

If they're going to try to mock us for opposing right wing demagoguery, then we'll just have to make more noise.

So please take a minute to ask your friends and family to join this campaign, especially if they are Verizon Wireless customers.

Let's remember how this campaign started. Verizon Wireless apparently sees nothing wrong with co-sponsoring a rally put on by Massey Energy, the biggest violator of the Clean Water Act in history; sees nothing wrong with giving a platform to people who deny global warming; sees nothing wrong with giving the emcee microphone to Ted Nugent who famously said:

Obama, he's a piece of sh — . I told him to suck on my machine gun...Hey Hillary [Clinton] you might want to ride one of these [machine guns] into the sunset, you worthless b — ch.

Apparently these are the values and sentiments Verizon Wireless feels comfortable associating itself with. You can violate the law, pillage the Earth and publicly insult Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the most vulgar way. Verizon Wireless is fine with that. But when we express common sense concerns about environmental stewardship, Verizon Wireless thinks we're tree-hugging nuts.

You know you want to give Verizon a piece of your mind. Remember, be polite. Show more class than they have.

Poor Ted. Nobody understands him like I do. Too bad, because he's been dumped by the Waco Trib.

Just got a missive — unguided missile? — from my pal Ted Nugent saying he’s been fired by the Waco Tribune-Herald, which has new owners as of a couple of weeks ago....continue you on to read his missive.

And you can add him to the list of conservative psychos who don't understand what the First Amendment stands for.

Construct8ve, bold criticism is cool. It rocks. It can literally change the course and destiny of an individual, neighborhood, community, and nation. It is the most basic of our Constitutional rights — the 1st Amendment. Failing to criticize emboldens politicians to stay on course regardless how many icebergs are dead ahead. Political correctness is the cancer of journalism, not its cure.

America and Texas was born with a defiant streak. Those genes still flow through my veins. To request that I not criticize is to spit on the memory of those who gave birth to America. Again, I criticize where I believe criticism is due. That’s my civic job and your job as Americans. If the editor of this newspaper doesn’t like that, he will have to fire me. I will not surrender to his wrong demands.

In the words of another famous American military man, William Barrett

Travis, commander of the Alamo: God & Texas. Victory or death.

Who can forget the Alamo? He hits all the right notes this time, doesn't he? You have to read some of the comments for some real humor.