Peter Fonda, the star of Easy Rider, suggested to Mandrake that he was encouraging his grandchildren to shoot President Barack Obama.

“I’m training my grandchildren to use long-range rifles,” said the actor, 71. “For what purpose? Well, I’m not going to say the words 'Barack Obama’, but …”

He added, enigmatically: “It’s more of a thought process than an actuality, but we are heading for a major conflict between the haves and the have nots. I came here many years ago with a biker movie and we stopped a war. Now, it’s about starting the world.

“I prefer to not to use the words, 'let’s stop something’. I prefer to say, 'let’s start something, let’s start the world’.

This follows his braggadocio over sending emails with profanity to the White House.

"I sent an email to President Obama saying, 'You are a f------ traitor,' using those words... 'You're a traitor, you allowed foreign boots on our soil telling our military - in this case the coastguard - what they can and could not do, and telling us, the citizens of the United States, what we could or could not do'."

Here's my take. Criticize as you will. It's fine to be critical of the White House response. That's anyone's right, even public figures. But it is not fine to suggest that long range rifles should be aimed at the President of the United States, regardless of what you don't like about this country, and regardless of whether it comes from the right or the left. That goes far beyond the limits of free speech.

On this blog, we routinely criticize the right wing for making statements like this. We're outraged by it. Now we have it coming from one guy on the left, and in my estimation, that makes him just as much of a wingnut as the ones on the right. Forget patriotism. What Fonda just said was a threat and it should be treated like one.

Anyone old enough to remember how Jane Fonda was treated by this country when she went to North Viet Nam and criticized the war? She was ostracized as anti-American and unpatriotic. What Peter Fonda said went far beyond that. Far beyond.

The Tea Party Nation, via Judson Phillips, has laid down a set of ultimatums for the new Republican Congress, and all I can say to them is "good luck with that." In a very long screed to Senator Mitch McConnell and Speaker-Elect John Boehner, Phillips lays out what they expect this Congress to accomplish in the next two years. Here's a list, in their own words:

1. "[W]e want Obamacare defunded. There is no compromise on this issue and it is not negotiable."
2. "[W]e want serious reductions in spending." (No suggestions for what should be reduced, however. Philips instead falls back on the "waste, fraud and abuse" standby)
3. "[W]e must dismantle the liberal-political complex." He goes on to name ACORN and Planned Parenthood as agencies receiving Federal funding which should immediately be defunded and left for dead, as if one of them already hasn't.
4. "[I]f the debt ceiling is to be raised, this is the last time." Interesting to me that they'd concede this. It may be the most significant "demand" on the list.
5. "[T]axes must be reduced. The Bush tax cuts must be extended for everyone, made permanent..." He goes on to blather about how "small businesses" are being penalized. Small businesses like those holding companies pouring billions into Charles and David Koch's pockets? Those small businesses?
6. "[T]here can be no amnesty." A call to oppose the DREAM act and "any other effort." They seriously want to toss every immigrant out and let them all re-apply. And I thought I was an idealist.
7. "[F]ight the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. The policy has worked well for the last fifteen years. There is no reason to change." He goes on to rail against "radical leftist groups" wanting to weaken the United States military but fails to acknowledge the near-unanimous opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the DADT policy actually undermines the military far more.

And I simply must quote Mr. Phillips' closing because it is so stunningly narrow-minded and insular:

We, the members of the mainstream Tea Party movement have a lot of expectations for you in this Congress. We realize the limitations you face. But we also realize the tools you have at your disposal. America is a conservative country. We expect conservative leadership from our country.

It's going to be a very interesting 2 years. I can hardly wait to see how wingers like Phillips handle the disappointment they're sure to feel when none of this happens.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

I'm no fan of Bart Stupak (D-MI), but there's no way any Representative should be threatened the way he was. These are messages left on his voice mail, left by supposed Christians and supporters of "life".

CBS News reports:

"Congressman Stupak, you baby-killing mother f***er... I hope you bleed out your a**, got cancer and die, you mother f***er," one man says in a message to Stupak.

"There are millions of people across the country who wish you ill," a woman says in a voicemail, "and all of those thoughts that are projected on you will materialize into something that's not very good for you."

CBS News also obtained copies of faxes sent to Stupak, which include racial epithets used in reference to President Obama and show pictures of nooses with Stupak's name.

I think Stupak's injection of the abortion issue into the debate was a low-life thing to do. I support his primary challenger, Connie Saltonstall. Still, listen to the dripping hatred in these people's voices, the implied threat of their words. There is no place for this in our politics, even against those who play games with wedge issues and bow to Catholic bishops.

The thing is, in this country we elect people. We get to vote every couple of years or so. Violence is for dictatorships, not democracies. Like it or not, they're not going to turn the US into Teabagistan, no matter how hard they wish it, or how nasty they get.

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It should come as a surprise to no one that some wingnuts think it's cool to use the Bible to promote veiled threats against the President. Disgusting.

But using online personalized item sites to spread the word? Apparently this Maddow segment from Thursday had an impact in ending that. Cafepress is now following Zazzle.com and pulling the "Pray for Obama" merchandise that clearly expressed a wish for his demise. The CafePress website announced yesterday:

This morning we made the decision to remove all Psalms 109:8 designs from CafePress.

General consensus has proven that the design does point to a broader interpretation of the Psalm and thus has been deemed inappropriate for sale at CafePress.

We try to create an atmosphere of self-expression. Many of the things we encounter are not black and white, but grey. When the dialogue is civil, we want to let the larger community work things out rather than making an uninformed ruling. The dialogue has played out and common sentiment has reached agreement – this merchandise is not appropriate.

Thank you all for your input.

Transcript of Rachel Maddow's segment below the cut:

Continue reading »

The Service Employers International Union has vowed to help stand up against the GOP backed Astrobirthers who are being sent in to disrupt the town hall meetings of Democratic members of Congress. Since the union announced it's intentions, well-funded right wing groups and media outlets (see Fox News) have orchestrated call in campaigns accusing them of plotting violence against them -- one of the calls (audio and transcript in the video above) contained a not-so-veiled threat of armed violence:

One of the country's largest unions has been hit by a wave of hostile calls and even death threats from people upset with its involvement in town-hall health care debates.

The Service Employers International Union was, as one aide put it, "deluged" with calls on Friday after several conservative media outlets accused the organization of trying to assault demonstrators who had showed up to protest Obama's health care agenda. Making it even scarier for union employees, the address of the union's St. Louis headquarters was mentioned on air by conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

Callers who reached both the front desk and the communications department compared the union officials to Nazis, union aides say. On Twitter, organizers of the town hall protest urged people to take pictures and write down the license plate numbers of attending SEIU officials. More alarming than anything else, angry callers and protesters pledged to take up arms against the union. Read on...

I believe the time has come for Attorney General Eric Holder to get involved. Right wing violence is on the rise in America and the threat of bloodshed at the hands of a Fox News/GOP inspired extremist at one of these town hall meetings is real possibility.

Obama made a big speech in Lansing, Michigan, on our energy dependence and need to move away from foreign oil.

Without a doubt, this addiction is one of the most dangerous and urgent threats this nation has ever faced - from the gas prices that are wiping out your paychecks and straining businesses to the jobs that are disappearing from this state; from the instability and terror bred in the Middle East to the rising oceans and record drought and spreading famine that could engulf our planet.

In response to these challenges, Obama announced his New Energy for America plan, which includes an immediate energy rebate to Americans struggling with high gas prices, the creation of five million new green jobs, and the elimination of our dependence on Middle Eastern oil in ten years.

WaPo:

For the first time since the Spanish influenza of 1918, life expectancy is falling for a significant number of American women.

In nearly 1,000 counties that together are home to about 12 percent of the nation's women, life expectancy is now shorter than it was in the early 1980s, according to a study published today.

The downward trend is evident in places in the Deep South, Appalachia, the lower Midwest and in one county in Maine. It is not limited to one race or ethnicity but it is more common in rural and low-income areas. The most dramatic change occurred in two areas in southwestern Virginia (Radford City and Pulaski County), where women's life expectancy has decreased by more than five years since 1983.

The trend appears to be driven by increases in death from diabetes, lung cancer, emphysema and kidney failure. It reflects the long-term consequences of smoking, a habit that women took up in large numbers decades after men did, and the slowing of the historic decline in heart disease deaths.

It may also represent the leading edge of the obesity epidemic. If so, women's life expectancy could decline broadly across the United States in coming years, ending a nearly unbroken rise that dates to the mid-1800s.

"I think this is a harbinger. This is not going to be isolated to this set of counties, is my guess," said Christopher J.L. Murray, a physician and epidemiologist at the University of Washington who led the study. It is being published in PLoS Medicine, an open-access journal of the Public Library of Science.

Said Elizabeth G. Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health: "The data demonstrate a very alarming and deeply concerning increase in health disparities in the United States."

The study found a smaller decline, in far fewer places, in the life expectancy of men in this country. In all, longevity is declining for about 4 percent of males.

The phenomenon appears to be not only new but distinctly American.

Continue reading »

When it comes to scandals at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Reagan-era controversies would appear to take the cake. As Joe Conason explained not too long ago, Reagan’s HUD scandal included “politically connected Republicans criminally exploit[ing] the same housing assistance programs they routinely denounced as ‘wasteful.’”

As it turns out, Bush’s HUD scandals aren’t generating nearly the same amount of attention, but the controversies are nearly as serious.

Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson demanded that the Philadelphia Housing Authority transfer a $2 million public property to a developer at a substantial discount, then retaliated against the housing authority when it refused to do so, a recent court filing alleges.

The authority’s director, Carl Greene, contends in a court affidavit that Jackson called Philadelphia’s mayor in 2006 to demand the transfer to the developer, Kenny Gamble, a former soul-music songwriter who is a business friend of Jackson’s. Jackson’s aides followed up with “menacing” threats about the property and other housing programs in at least a dozen letters and phone calls over an 11-month period, Greene said in an interview.

Greene and his colleagues have alleged in the court filing that Philadelphia is now paying a severe price for disobeying a Bush Cabinet official. The Department of Housing and Urban Development recently vowed to strip the city’s housing authority of its ability to spend some federal funds, a move that the authority said could raise rents for most of its 84,000 low-income tenants and force the layoffs of 250 people. […]

“The secretary was determined that we turn over this land to this specific developer,” Greene said in an interview. “I refused. . . . He didn’t have the ability to remove me. So he resorted to these extraordinary measures to extract what he wanted.”

Mark Kleiman notes that Bush and Jackson have effectively turned the Department of Housing and Urban Development into “an extortion racket,” which, under the circumstances, sounds about right.

DailyKos:

Colorado representative Doug Lamborn has just made the final doo-doo step it what will be the shortest and most lackluster career the House has ever seen. Doug Lamborn's recorded threats to a pair of voters critical of his views has now reached the pages of both the Denver and Huffington Posts. Doug's local paper, the Colorado Springs Gazette, is eerily silent.[..]

Update: Here's the back story from Colorado Confidential. And here are Doug's threats, as printed by the Denver Post:

"Now there are consequences to this kind of thing, but I would like to work with you in a way that is best for everyone here concerned."

He didn't stop there, though. The message cut off before his inner Tony Soprano could kick in:

"Hello, this is Doug Lamborn again, I'm finishing up my message from a moment ago. I got cut off. It is critical that you get back to me as soon as possible on this because I'll be going back to Washington here in a few days and I have to make sure that this is resolved one way or another. And like I said I'd rather resolve this on a Scriptural level but if you are unwilling to do that I will be forced to take other steps, which I would rather not have to do."

What did the couple do to incur Lamborn's wrath? Wrote a letter to the editor of their paper denouncing his voting AGAINST stricter dog-fighting penalties. I'd say that this is a case for the House Ethics Committee, wouldn't you? Rep. Tubbs-Jones is the chairperson, if you'd like to contact them.

AttyTood:

Look, what really happened at JFK was a hijacking. A chance for the potential next leaders of the United States to talk about a) real threats from bona fide terrorists, such as the unstable situation we've fostered in Pakistan and b) other issues that actually affect the day-to-day life of most Americans, like education, was hijacked by questions based around a local law-enforcement matter.

And, as Josh Marshall and others pointed out over the weekend, this is yet another time that implausible, half-baked and unfeasible plots have been trumpeted as high victories in the war in terror, including one plan to take down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch, the plot to "blow up the Sears Tower" by losers in Miami who probably couldn't find Chicago on a big roadmap, and our own inept Fort Dix crew.

Not that it will happen, but I wish the media, from CNN to Fox to the AP to everyone in between, would go to the nearest window and yell: "All 'terrorism' is not created equal."