Media Matters points out how conservative commentators such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Michael Savage like to use rape metaphors when discussing progressives or progressive policies.

Right-wing media are very quick to claim progressives are "raping" Americans:

Beck: "People in New York, you're being raped by your government -- raped." On his November 19 radio show, Beck stated:

BECK: When the people lead, the leaders will follow. And we're building life boats, because, right now, you know it to be true -- and I'm hearing it in New York. People in New York, you're being raped by your government -- raped. California, how are you doing it, man? They just took an extra 10 percent withholdings from you, as a forced noninterest loan. Get the hell off my land. My gosh, how are you doing it?

Well, I'm seeing it in New York. People are just starting to see now what has been done to them in the last six months here in New York. And they're starting to look at it and say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. What the hell -- look at how all of this is adding up?" Well, that's what's going to happen as a collective in this country. I don't how long it's gonna take. It may take three months, six months, a year -- I can't imagine.

Beck: "We're the young girl saying 'No, no, help me,' and the government is Roman Polanski." Discussing health care reform on the November 16 edition of his Fox News program, Beck stated:

BECK: America has spoken clearly, consistently. We don't want this. And for the first time in history, we don't think it's the government's place to give it to us. ... We are -- excuse this analogy, but I feel like it's true -- we're the young girl saying "No, no, help me," and the government is Roman Polanski. In the end, I think we're all going to be cowering in France.

Beck: Health care reform is "good old socialism ... raping the pocketbooks of the rich to give to the poor." On his July 21 Fox News program, Beck stated:

BECK: President Obama has his massive $1.5 trillion health care plan. It's hogging up the news cycle. The Republicans and, you know, a lot of people are starting to say, "Isn't this socialist, here? I mea, this is pretty crazy." The answer to me on that one is really easy: Yep, it's good old socialism -- you know, pretty much raping the pocketbooks of the rich to give to the poor. I think that's socialism.

Limbaugh: Obama ordered his "pay czar" to "rape" bailed out executives. On his October 22 broadcast, talking about Kenneth Feinberg, who was appointed to oversee executive compensation at financial firms that were still holding funds authorized under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, Limbaugh stated:

LIMBAUGH: I think everything about this story, this "pay czar," is blockbuster. It is -- I mean, it's late-night comedy gold. Everything about the story is a lie. ... Every detail about this story has to be a lie. I refuse to believe that Obama didn't know what Feinberg was doing. In fact, the truth probably is Feinberg's following orders. Feinberg is following orders and I guaran-damn-tee you Obama said: "You get up there and you rape 'em. And you make 'em poor. And you make 'em pay. And you let 'em know. Just don't tell 'em that I knew anything about it."

Limbaugh: "Get ready to get gang-raped again, folks." Discussing health care reform on his June 29 broadcast, Limbaugh stated:

LIMBAUGH: Well, isn't this good? Get ready to get gang-raped again, folks. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she will not give the public a week to review the final text of a health care reform bill before it's voted on later this year. And Harry Reid has also declined to commit to giving the public a week to read and consider the final health care bill, despite Obama promising that all legislation would be up for five days on one of his stupid websites where everybody could read it.

In his "about me" section, "SoldatAMG" describes himself as a "Sergeant in USMC stationed at Camp Lejeune. I recently returned from my 3rd trip to Iraq. I fight every day to stem the tide of multicultturalism and to ensure that my children have a better world. SIEG HEIL!" -- Stars and Stripes

Why, it feels like only yesterday that every right-wing talker on the planet -- from Michael Savage to Greta Van Susteren -- was denouncing the Department of Homeland Security for supposedly "smearing our veterans" by issuing a bulletin for law-enforcement officers warning that right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis intended to recruit members of the military and returning veterans.

Well, we've already seen just how prescient the bulletin actually was -- after Richard Poplawski, Scott Roeder, and James Von Brunn all proved its point.

Now Stars and Stripes is reporting on just how far, indeed, neo-Nazis have infiltrated our military ranks:

It is Facebook for the fascist set, and the typical online profiles of its members reveal expected tastes.

Favorite book: “Mein Kampf.”

Favorite movie: the Nazi propaganda film “Triumph of the Will.”

Interests: “white women.”

Dislikes: “anyone who opposes the master race.”

But there’s one other thing that dozens of members of newsaxon.org, a white supremacist social networking website, have in common: They proudly identify themselves as active-duty members of the U.S. armed forces.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, the Montgomery, Ala.-based watchdog group that tracks extremist hate groups, has compiled a book containing the online user profiles of at least 40 newsaxon.org users who say they are serving in the military, in apparent violation of Pentagon regulations prohibiting racist extremism in the ranks.

The military has been shrugging this off. So the SPLC is going to take the matter up with Congress:

On Friday, the SPLC will present its findings to key members of Congress who chair the House and Senate committees overseeing the armed forces and urge them to pressure the Pentagon to crack down.

“In the wake of several high-profile murders by extremists of the radical right, we urge your committees to investigate the threat posed by racial extremists who may be serving in the military to ensure that our armed forces are not inadvertently training future domestic terrorists,” Morris Dees, SPLC co-founder and chief trial counsel, wrote to the legislators. “Evidence continues to mount that current Pentagon policies are inadequate to prevent racial extremists from joining and serving in the armed forces.”

Added Mark Potok, editor of the Intelligence Report, a magazine produced at the law center: “The Pentagon really has shrugged this off and refused to look at this in any serious way.”

We've been reporting on this trend for some time now, and have discussed especially the ramifications of this development.

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NPR turned their camera to the audience instead of the senators involved in crafting legislation and asks readers to "name that lobbyist."

When 22 senators started working over the first health care overhaul bill on June 17, the news cameras were pointed at them -- except for NPR's photographer, who turned his lens on the lobbyists. Whatever bill emerges from Congress will affect one-sixth of the economy, and stakeholders have mobilized. We've begun to identify some of the faces in the hearing room, and we want to keep the process going. Know someone in these photos? Let us know who that someone is -- e-mail dollarpolitics@npr.org or let us know via Twitter @DollarPolitics.

This is pretty cool. They aren't doing a Michael Savage on them, but pointing out how much the Health Care Industrial Complex is invested in what happens with health care reform.

This is comedy gold.

From the May 18 edition of Talk Radio Network's The Savage Nation:

SAVAGE: And yet here in America, I've had some people come to my aid. They see the bigger picture. They're not like [Bill] O'Reilly; they're not like Limbaugh, who's the biggest disappointment of all. Limbaugh has turned out to be the biggest phony of all of them, all of them. Amongst all of them, he is the biggest fraud. Rush Limbaugh is a fraud. When he was accused of the drug usage, I supported him. But that man is a one-way street. It's all about him. He's in it for nobody but himself.

Talk about a big pay-per-view gate. Let's see a head on fight between the Savage Nation and the Dittoheads in the Thunderdome.

I actually think the UK was wrong to ban Michael Savage from their shores no matter how whacked out he is.

Britain on Tuesday published its first list of people barred from entering the country for allegedly fostering extremism or hatred, including Muslim extremists, a right-wing American radio host, an Israeli settler and jailed Russian gang members.

The U.K.'s law and order chief, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, said she decided to publish the names of 16 of 22 people who have been banned by the government since October so others could better understand what sort of behavior Britain was not prepared to tolerate.

Popular American talk-radio host, Michael Savage, who broadcasts from San Francisco and has called the Muslim holy book, the Quran, a "book of hate," is on the list. Savage also has enraged parents of children with autism by saying in most cases it's "a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out."

It's their country, so you'd think a conservative like Savage would leave the choice up to them, because they are taking personal responsibility for their own welfare, right? Isn't that what he preaches? Anyway. I don't agree with them, but when he asks Hillary Clinton for help, well, that's insane.

Michael Savage, who has since expressed his outrage at the decision. “It is demented,” Savage said. “I want my name off of that list and I want a letter of apology from this [British Home Secretary] Jacqui Smith.” Now it appears that Savage is seeking help from an old nemesis: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The San Fransisco Chronicle’s Rich Lieberman reports that “[l]awyers for Savage are formally asking [that] she call on the British Government to withdraw its ban.” It’s interesting that Savage is now turning to Clinton for help, considering what he has had to say about her in the past. Some examples:

– “Hillary Clinton, the most Godless woman in the Senate.”

– Regarding one of Clinton’s speeches: “That’s rubbish. That’s Hitler dialogue. Goebbels would be proud of you, Hillary Clinton. I know Mao Zedong would have been proud of you.”

– “[Clinton has] destroyed the war effort against terror. And if, God forbid, a suitcase bomb goes off you’ll know who to blame.”

– On Clinton’s run for the presidency: “[She would] stir up a race war, a civil war in the country to get that hag, that harridan elected.”

Savage also once suggested that Clinton had something to do with the death of John F. Kennedy Jr. so she could run for U.S. Senate in New York.

The venom directed at Hillary from talkers like Savage is despicable, but I do find it ironic now that he's actually asking her to intervene on his behalf. How miserable does it make him feel that he has to seek out Hillary for help. Hahahahahahaha.

Digby has a nice line about it: People In Hell Want Ice Water, Too.

It's all about the company you keep...

The government published a blacklist on Tuesday of people recently banned from the country including a Hamas lawmaker and a Jewish extremist, as well as anti-gay protestors and a far-right US talk show host.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she decided to publish the "name and shame" list -- which identifies 16 people banned since last October -- for the first time to clarify what behaviour Britain will not tolerate.

"I think it's important that people understand the sorts of values and sorts of standards that we have here, the fact that it's a privilege to come and the sort of things that mean you won't be welcome in this country," she said.

"If you can't live by the rules that we live by ... we should exclude you from this country and, what's more, now we will make public those people that we have excluded," she told the GMTV broadcaster.

Ouch. That's gotta hurt. Michael Weiner Savage is up there with fellow hatemongers Fred and Shirley Phelps, as well as a former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, two Russian skinheads responsible for 20 racially motivated murders and -- I'm sure this is just killing Weiner Savage -- several Muslim clerics accused of whipping up hate and fomenting terrorism within the Muslim community. Full list here.

Weiner Savage had a predictably snide response and is planning on suing...someone. (link goes to WorldNetDaily)

"Darn! And I was just planning a trip to England for their superior dental work and cuisine," he recalled thinking.

"Then it sank in," he told WND, "and I said, 'She said this is the kind of behavior we won't tolerate? She's linking me with mass murderers who are in prison for killing Jewish children on buses? For my speech? The country where the Magna Carta was created?'"[..]

Savage said he wants top First Amendment attorneys to represent him "in a major international case."

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One of the main takeaways from the phony controversy over the DHS' bulletin on right-wing extremism was the self-revealing way that mainstream conservatives attempted to obliterate from public view the very real existence of the ongoing threat to their well-being from right-wing extremists.

Why the frantic effort to obscure this reality? Because they know the ideological and associative distance between far-right extremists and mainstream conservatives has shrunk dramatically over the past 10 years. They dread the consequences of what will happen when the real ugliness starts to break out.

The Ugly Storm has been gathering for awhile. We've been reporting regularly on the increasing activities of far-right extremists, particularly the anti-Obama racism rampant throughout much of this contingent. Of course, it doesn't help when mainstream conservative media are fanning those flames, either. And it seems like it's getting close to an outright explosion.

My friend Max Blumenthal went to a gun show in California and emerged with the above video and the following report:

Fueled by the screeds of radio hosts Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, and the lesser-known but increasingly influential online conspiracist Alex Jones, many gun-show attendees I spoke to were convinced Obama planned to usher in a Marxist dictatorship. They warned that the president’s power grab would only begin with mass gun seizures. “If Obama takes away our guns,” a young, .45 pistol-toting man from Reno told me, “it’s just a step into trying to take away everything else.”

Indeed, in their minds, average Americans opposed to the Obama agenda would be herded into FEMA-run concentration camps by a volunteer army of glassy-eyed liberal college graduates. “When they start imprisoning Americans, and people start seeing that we’re the enemy, then that’ll make it hot,” predicted one Antioch-based young man sporting a button for former Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul. “People talk about a revolution,” the young man continued, “an armed revolution. I think police crackdowns on individuals will tip the scales.”

More than a few gun dealers and attendees echoed the young man’s seeming enthusiasm for armed revolt. One Contra Costa, California-based gun dealer named Rich predicted during an otherwise casual off-camera conversation that “some nut” would assassinate Obama within one year of any Democratic attempt at gun-control legislation. While the prospect of organized right-wing violence against the federal government seems far-fetched at this point, the paranoid rhetoric I documented suggests the militia movement that organized against President Bill Clinton’s policies during the 1990s could experience a dramatic resurgence by mobilizing resentment against Obama.

The gun-show crowd is more the "Patriot" contingent of far-right extremism: obsessed with guns and conspiracy theories, yet capable of paranoid bursts of extreme violence by "lone wolf" actors.

Yet we're also seeing a similar upsurge in outright white-supremacist organizations. Newsweek also has a report on this trend from Eve Conant:

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Keith Olbermann, on Countdown last night, brought the whammy down on the wingnut talking heads at Fox (and the rest of the conservative media as well) for their ongoing attempts to blame immigrants for the spread of the swine flu from Mexico:

Well, yes, you are a racist. Exactly how does that apply, though, to the people who the Centers for Disease Control confirmed actually carried the Swine Flu from Mexico to the U.S., a group of Catholic school students from New York City, who spent Spring Break in Cancun. Uncontrolled Catholic immigration, open borders for private school kids reckless?

Anyway, unswayed by the facts, the Republican echo chamber tried to stir the American melting pot with a classic recipe of hate and fear.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I thought that this line, though, was very ironic, this morning in one of the articles I read about surveillance at the Mexican border. You thought we had an immigration problem, well now we might actually want to prevent the sick people from crossing over the border.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chaos in Mexico; from earthquakes to Swine Flu, will it mean more illegals heading for the U.S.

GLENN BECK, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Does anybody wish maybe we could control the border just a little bit at this point.

SHEPPARD SMITH, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Everybody is e-mailing, going the illegals are bringing it across the border. Relax.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Tonight, Swine Flu spreads from Mexico to the United States. Is this the latest border crisis.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The U.S. is not currently testing travelers from Mexico. But customs officials are wearing protective clothing.

MICHAEL SAVAGE, “THE SAVAGE NATION”: Illegal aliens are carriers of the new strain of Human Swine Avian Flu from Mexico. Is this a terrorist attack?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some, though, say the solution is to close the border.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now talk that we should even close the border?

BECK: If this is so important, why haven‘t we closed the border.

NEAL BOORTZ, “THE NEAL BOORTZ SHOW”: There‘s the bio-terrorism angle. What better way to sneak a virus in this country than to give it to Mexicans.

This kind of talk -- directly associating the targets of a "drive them out" campaign with disease -- is classic eliminationist rhetoric. It's not surprising that it's bubbling up out of Fox News' fetid cauldron, either.

Tom Allison at Media Matters put together a first-round look at some of the ugliness:

-- Savage declaring that Mexicans "are a perfect mule -- perfect mules for bringing this virus into America."

-- Michelle Malkin warning that the pandemic was the product of "uncontrolled immigration."

-- Beck warning that the pandemic will create a crush of people trying to flee north across our border.

And that's just scratching the surface. As Eric Ward at Imagine 2050 observes, some of the nativist right's more inflammatory figures were saying even uglier things.

Writes Nezua at The Sanctuary:

The stances of those who most vocally oppose immigration today are so predictable that one could paint a face on a septic-tainted soccer ball and paste up word balloons and rest well, knowing that The Nativist Lobby point of view on any immigration-related topic will end in "deport them all" and "seal the borders" if not "round them up" and other tired ideas. And nobody reading now needs a reminder of how throughout time, both Latin America as well as all immigrants have been slurred and painted with the brush of disease by those resistant to changing demographics.

The NCLR's blog points out that this fearmongering has real life-and-death consequences:

It's unfortunate, then, that certain individuals with an obvious axe to grind are shamelessly exploiting a public health emergency for their own purposes. It's not surprising that some are implying that all immigrants are a threat to our health-that's standard fare on the hate group circuit.

Ironically, the very act of attempting to demonize and stigmatize entire groups, and even entire countries, is likely to impede these and other critical steps that the authorities are taking to protect all Americans from the spread of the flu, for example:

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guest blogged by NonnyMouse

I am a Unitarian.

That should be such a simple, insignificant statement of fact, nothing more than just another box on a census form to tick. Today, however, it feels more like a war cry.

This is a difficult post for me to write because my emotions are so knotted it's hard to make sense of what I feel. I am ashamed to admit that my first, overwhelming emotion was intense anger - not so much at Jim Adkisson, the man who walked into a Unitarian church in Knoxville and opened fire on innocent people, killing two and injuring eight more. That happens, unfortunately, with all too frequent regularity in America these days, and for a depressingly repetitive litany of reasons - depression, frustration, confused anger and overlooked or ignored mental illness. The Adkisson killings is not an uncommon event these days.

What is, however, was his target - Unitarians. Members of a church renown for its pacifism, compassion and tolerance. We welcome anyone - men and women of any colour and nationality, of any religious or ethnic background, or sexuality. We even welcome conservatives.

My anger instead is concentrated on those people who callously use such vulnerable people, stirring up their bigotry and discontent, egging them to acts of violence. People like Michelle Malkin, Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh who have made lucrative careers out of liberal-bashing. People who write things like "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder", "Let Freedom Ring," and "The O'Reilly Factor," - all literature found in Adkisson's home after the shooting. People like Ann Coulter who advocated attacking liberals with baseball bats. The hate-filled spewage from the right-wing media mavens is and should be held accountable for inciting such acts of violence and murder, those heartless, soulless, conscienceless opportunists who have gleefully participated in encouraging the Adkissons of America to take out their anger and hatred and frustration on liberals.

People died. Good people, decent caring loving people, with friends and families. They had names: Linda Kraeger and Greg McKendry, a sixty-one year old woman and a foster father who heroically sacrificed his life to save children and his fellow congregation. They had friends and family and people who loved them and will grieve for their loss.

I make my living writing, words are my stock and trade. I have no words adequate enough to express my utter contempt and loathing at this moment for every rabid talk show host and every smarmy pundit who ever espoused the killing or injury of another human being because of his or her political beliefs. If I could, I'd have every single one of them arrested as accessories to murder. The blood on their hands is not metaphorical any longer - it's real. And they know it, if the bizarre backpedalling of the Malkinesque-ilk is to be believed, so desperate to distance themselves from such actual blood and death that they can shamelessly claim Adkisson is really a liberal trying to discredit conservatives. Despicable.

The blogosphere is already ripping into that moral sickness that has so pervaded the rightwing that such acts have become not only possible, but excusable - a couple posters on the Free Republic had little sympathy for the dead; what kind of Christian church, after all, not only accepts gays but would even think of putting on a production of ‘Annie'? Grounds enough for mass murder, to that warped mindset.

But... I am a Unitarian.

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Representative Mike Doyle (D-PA) takes on Michael Savage's ridiculous comments on autism. The strongest movement yet to

get

Savage

fired

is underway.

UPDATE: (Nicole) And it's been successful, at least in the Cleveland market. Media Matters documents Talk Radio Network's impressively spinsational attempt at retroactive context to explain Savage's comments by using comments made after that misrepresented his original comments.