Alaska's GOP-controlled House just passed a bill which, if passed by the Senate and signed by the governor, would make it illegal for federal law enforcement officers to enforce federal gun laws.

ADN:

In a chamber dotted with female legislators wearing new camo scarves, the state House on Monday passed a gun measure that is wildly popular among the GOP-controlled Legislature even though it raises serious constitutional issues.

House Speaker Mike Chenault, R-Nikiski, is the prime sponsor of House Bill 69, which passed 31-5 on Monday after a lengthy and impassioned debate.

It declares that guns and ammunition possessed by Alaskans are exempt from federal gun laws. It also subjects federal agents to felony charges if they try to enforce any future federal ban on semi-automatic weapons or ammunition or enforce any new federal requirement for gun registration.

A legal opinion from a legislative lawyer said the measure likely is unconstitutional. When federal and state laws conflict, the U.S. Constitution declares that federal law is supreme, legislative counsel Kathleen Strasbaugh wrote in a Jan. 30 memorandum.

They don't care that it's likely unconstitutional. In fact, their response was to say "they had a duty to stand up for Second Amendment rights and won't bow down to the Federal government on this."

Democratic Representative Andy Josephson delivered a passionate rebuttal:

Mr. Speaker, we decided in 1955 to submit a state constitution. We joined the team. Our star is on the flag. I see it there. We didn't have to do that. We demanded it. We implored our 48 sisters, because Hawaii wasn't admitted yet, our 48 brothers and sisters, let us join this great team. And, you know, I care greatly about my state. but I'm very proud to be an American. Very proud. And for the court to say an administration law is constitutional, it is. I think this is successionist talk. That's what i think it is.

Yes, it is secessionist talk. It's nullification, which is not a legitimate way to stand against something you don't agree with. Nullification has been tried throughout the ages, from the Civil War to Jim Crow laws to Obamacare.

This is the Republican party of the north and the south today. They're vile, and violent, and waiting for a reason to start another war, only this time it will be over one black man, instead of millions.

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What's really amazing about this segment is how seriously Uma Pemmaraju of Fox News talking head takes this whack-a-doo. It's really something.

For those who don't know him, Cary Wise and his fringe, nutball organization are promoted on right-wing hate sites like Stormfront (not going to link, Google it). Yet he's treated with the utmost respect on Fox, as some kind of credible figure.

So please, can we stop with the MSNBC/Fox News comparisons?

Can you imagine a the leader of an organization dedicated to overthrowing the US government and replacing it with a Marxist dictatorship being granted a similar interview on MSNBC? I can't either.

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Last week Glenn Beck scoffed at the notion that he had been promoting the notion of state secession, somehow overlooking the fact that he had in fact been promoting the notion of state secession.

So yesterday, to further demonstrate his skepticism, he invited on his Fox News program a fellow named Dan Miller, who runs the Texas Nationalist Movement. As you can see, he provided two full segments of the show to an interview that most kindly could be called “credulous,” and less kindly would make a crude reference to teabagging.

And indeed the Teabaggers’ Parties was an important topic, because Beck raised it himself at the end:

Beck: You actually believe the Tea Parties are, um, are the “gateway drug” to secession. Is that true?

Miller: Well, I think that’s definitely the case for a lot of folks. Because, you know, the Tea Parties have been about venting frustration and anger with what’s going on in Washington, D.C. And what we’re seeing here is a lot of people are looking for solutions, and the solution for Texas is Texas, independence.

Beck: Unbelievable.

Well, it's nice of them to admit that the Tea Parties in fact have been a prime recruiting ground for all kinds of extremist right-wing belief systems, most notably those arising from the "Patriot" movement of the 1990s.

Because there were some noteworthy aspects to this interview that went unmentioned on the air:

-- The Texas secession movement in fact has long been the most significant arm of the far-right "Patriot movement" in that state since the 1990s, when it was responsible for various armed standoffs with law-enforcement authorities and a range of domestic-terrorist acts.

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We blew the lid off of Texas Gov. Rick Perry's outrageous and treasonous statements regarding the secession of Texas from the union.

All the insane talk coming from the Limbaugh National Convention is spreading into the fabric of the entire GOP. Listen to Texas Gov. Rick Perry say:

Perry: Texas is a unique place. When we came into the Union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that.

We got a great Union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it, but if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what may come out of that.

Media Matters recently released some very disturbing information about Perry:

Media Matters Action Network released a memo outlining Texas Governor Rick Perry's ties to a Texas secessionist group whose former leaders are responsible for numerous acts of domestic terrorism. "From bomb threats, to kidnapping, to planning attacks using biological weapons, the Texas Nationalist Movement has a long violent history that cannot be ignored," Media Matters Action Network Managing Director Ari Rabin-Havt said. "Governor Perry should be ashamed of his association with these domestic terrorists."..read on

Very disturbing indeed.

John Sharp is running in Texas against Perry and although I don't know much about him, he's not taking Perry's secessionist comments lightly.

During WWII my father was shot in defense of the greatest country on earth and I proudly wore the uniform of a United States Army Reserve officer. So I'm offended when it become acceptable for anybody to talk about Texas leaving the Union.

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Sarah Palin was really good at talking out both sides of her mouth during her interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer today. No sooner had her utterly phony pledge to "aid" the Obama administration going forward come out of her mouth than she said this:

PALIN: Well, I still am concerned about that association with Bill Ayers. And if anybody still wants to talk about it, I will, because this is an unrepentant domestic terrorist who had campaigned to blow up, to destroy our Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol. That's an association that still bothers me.

And I think it's still fair to talk about it. However the campaign is over. That chapter is closed. Now is the time to move on and to, again, make sure that all of us are doing all that we can to progress this nation.

Keep us secure, get the economy back on the right track, and many of us do have some ideas on how to do that and hopefully we'll be able to put all of that wisdom and experience to good use together.

BLITZER: So looking back, you don't regret that tough language during the campaign?

PALIN: No, and I do not think that it is off-base nor mean-spirited, nor negative campaigning to call someone out on their associations and on their record. And that's why I did it.

Funny thing about that: When Max Blumenthal and I dug up her multiple associations with far-right extremists in Alaska -- people who fomented for Alaska's secession, indulged in militia-organizing activities, fawned over Bo Gritz, and whose leader was murdered in an explosives deal gone bad -- and when CNN aired that information, here's what we heard from the McCain campaign:

CNN is furthering a smear with this report, no different than if your network ran a piece questioning Senator Obama's religion. No serious news organization has tried to make this connection, and it is unfortunate that CNN would be the first.

It's kind of hard to tell just exactly how discussing the record of Palin's conduct in public office, enabling and collaborating with far-right extremists, is somehow similar to the bogus claims that Obama is Muslim, or has anything at all to do with Palin's religion.

But Palin clearly has a double standard when it comes to bringing up "associations."

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Protesters at an event in Austin, TX yesterday just took the vile rhetoric we've seen on display this August one extra step:

"the protesters had Larry Kilgore, a “Christian activist” and candidate for governor who has endorsed executions for homosexuals; Debra Medina, a Ron Paul Republican and a slightly-less long-shot candidate for governor; and Melissa Pehle-Hill, yet another fringe candidate and a member of a self-appointed “citizens grand jury” investigating Barack Hussein Obama, aka Barry Soetoro."

Kilgore captured the sentiment of the mob. (video here)

“I hate that flag up there,” Kilgore said pointing to the American flag flying over the Capitol. “I hate the United States government. … They’re an evil, corrupt government. They need to go. Sovereignty is not good enough. Secession is what we need!”

“We hate the United States!"

Just a lone nut, I guess. Except the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, flirted with the secessionists a few months ago. He didn't attend this protest, which I guess is a positive step.

But this has increasingly become the Republican base. A group of people who feel completely justified in chanting "We hate the United States!" I seem to remember being told that I hated America and I was "on the other side" and "in league with the terrorists" because I didn't agree with an unnecessary, illegal and ultimately disastrous war. I don't have tape of myself from every day in that time, but you can trust me that I never chanted "We hate the United States" in front of a state capitol building.

Note, too, the lady who used the phrase, "the tree of freedom is occasionally watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots," a quote from Thomas Jefferson, often misappropriated by extremists and the Patriot movement. Timothy McVeigh was wearing a T-shirt that bore this inscription when he was arrested for murdering 168 people in Oklahoma City.

What the report reflects is a reality that law enforcement trying to deal with domestic terrorism in America must confront: Their subjects are thoroughly American; many of the people drawn into these movements are, if anything, "hyper-normal." Their version of "patriotism," for instance, is so extreme that they actually hate not just their government but their fellow citizens -- in essence, their country: because, you see, it has been "perverted" from its original purposes.

The hyper-normality is a kind of intentional camouflage. The Patriot movement, and militias in particular, were a very specific and intentional strategy adopted in the 1990s by the white supremacists and radical tax protesters of the American far right -- and the whole purpose of the strategy was to mainstream their belief systems and their agendas. The tactic was to adopt the appearance of normal, "red-blooded" Americanism as a way of pushing out the idea that their radical beliefs are "normal" too.

In the process, they often adopted time-worn "patriotic" sayings and symbols, such as the "Don't Tread On Me" flag Beck wears, as their own -- though with a much more menacing meaning. If you've seen that flag at an Aryan Nations compound, as I have, you never quite look at it the same.

This is why the meaning of Thomas Jefferson's quote above is quite different for them than it is for you and me. To all outward appearances, it is just an expression of avid patriotism. But to a Patriot movement follower, it means something potentially deadly.

Patriots who use the symbols of American history while claiming overtly to hate America. This would be something good to ask Dave Neiwert about on Tuesday night in LA.