I'm sure you've seen the video of Blue Dog Etheridge basically assaulting probably a couple of Breitbart-flunkie-wannabe jackasses. I'll never trust anything that Breitbart releases unless we got the entire video--unedited, but still there is no defense for Blue Dog Bob's behavior. He released a statement about it and apologizes for his outburst.

"I deeply and profoundly regret my reaction and I apologize to all involved," Etheridge said. "Throughout my many years of service to the people of North Carolina, I have always tried to treat people from all viewpoints with respect. No matter how intrusive and partisan our politics can become, this does not justify a poor response. I have and I will always work to promote a civil public discourse."

Glenn thinks he should be charged with a crime. I'm all for it. (Recently I had a close encounter with a conservacreep whose name appears in the original article which I'll discuss at a later date.)

Brad Woodhouse makes a good case that motives matter especially when right wing hatchet men are most likely behind it, but since Blue Dog Bob took responsibility for his actions, Woodhouse's response doesn't negate the crime. Maybe he could go for jury nullification if Brad is the defense attorney and Blue Dog Bob was on trial, but GGreenwald would know more about that. I picked the idea up from a great documentary called Terror's Advocate that we reviewed here on C&L and also Law & Order type shows--which I also love--delve into that tactic. My initial reaction was satirical and I wondered if Blue Dog Bob's inner conservative lashed out, but there is never any excuse for violence when a politician is being approached with or without some form of video camera or recorder.

Digby writes:

This idea that politicians, regardless of party affiliation, are allowed to assault citizens who ask them questions is beyond the pale, no matter who the questioner is. It's a tough gig, I know, but they chose it and they have to be answerable to the people. Even if one of them is an Andrew Breitbart stooge (which this kid probably wasn't, btw.)

But it should be noted that this kind of thing is hardly unprecedented and it never gets prosecuted. Recall Mike Stark questioning George Allen?
--
This Etheridge incident is disturbing. But it's just the latest in a long line of incidents in which people are physically assaulted for asking questions of politicians.

Wasn't it Ari Fleischer who said "watch what you say?" These guys mean it.

It's happening more and more in our society on a whole. Digby reminds us of the tasering at a Kerry event which wss sickening and more recently we had the tasering of a fan running onto the field of a Phillies game and the fans cheering for more.

Do you see a pattern developing?

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I guess now we can just call Fox News Channel "the Militia Station."

Glenn Beck has been espousing his belief in "New World Order" conspiracy theories since at least 2007, when he was hosting Birch Society leaders on his CNN Headline News show.

But for the most part he's kept quiet about it since he moved over to Fox News, except for that little outburst last November.

But more recently, he began espousing his paranoiac beliefs back in April on his radio show, warning that "a New World Order" and "global government" are "being cobbled together today". He's intimated this on his Fox show, but never came out and just said it until yesterday.

On Tuesday, he promised us he was going to spend the next day showing us how "they" are building a "New World Order" because, ostensibly, "they're saying it."

So what is his evidence, finally revealed in all its breathless glory Wednesday? Well, mostly a lot of red-meat speeches for liberals. Nothing about global governance. Quite a bit about global cooperation and international law, that sort of thing.

Mostly you've gotta love Beck's recitation of things he supposedly got "right" -- such as his prediction that taxpayers would wind up "bailing out the unions", which he now claims just came true in the form of Sen. Bob Casey's "Create Jobs and Save Benefits" Act. But even Republicans are calling out this baldfaced lie.

It's like deja vu all over again: I felt like I was watching a militia leader from the 1990s all over again. It was all there: The thin, almost nonexistent evidence. The paranoiac hyper-interpretation of benign government activity. The repeated assurances to the audience that they were being proven right by the day's events. And the overarching belief that a Democratic president was planning to bring "America as we know it" to an end, crushed by a "New World Order" global government. The only thing missing was a reference to the United Nations.

If you want to see for yourselves, I've edited a couple of videos out of my archives for you to make the comparison and contrast all on your own. I think you'll be amazed by the similarity.

First, here's John Trochmann, leader of the Militia of Montana, giving his durable "Enemies: Foreign and Domestic" lecture, complete with Beck-like diagrams and charts, at a gathering in 1995:

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Next, here's Col. James "Bo" Gritz -- at one time, David Duke's running mate on the 1992 Populist Party presidential ticket, and then himself the 1996 Populist Party presidential nominee -- giving a speech on the New World Order at a 1998 "Preparedness Expo" in Puyallup, WA:

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At the time, Gritz, like Beck, was an apocalyptic Mormon convert who had been gradually drawn into far-right extremism. He is now a full-fledged member of a Christian Identity church.

I'm sure you'll see more than just a familial resemblance here.

Which raises the question: How did a supposedly "mainstream" news organization get into the business of militia-movement extremism?

I was flipping the channels last night and I came across an ad for one of those Barbara Walters "10 Most Fascinating People" specials, and this year she included Glenn Beck on her list.

What is ABC thinking? They only feed into his lunacy and make him go more insane by the minute. His nuttiness does hurt America. When did being a lunatic become interesting, Barbara? Sure, Bill O'Reilly is jealous, but who cares?

This is why our media are so screwed up. They take a far right-black helicopter extremist and tell Americans that he's interesting, No, he's dangerous. Just check out his role in Richard Poplawski's deadly outburst.

Shame on Barbara and shame on ABC.

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The FOX News gasbags were all up in arms over the Dowd column and hey, you can always count on the All Stars to justify all wingnut behavior, no matter how hideous it is.

I can't believe Maureen Dowd's column garnered this much attention, but it has and is forcing Fox to try and dispel the charges of racism. Stephen Hayes should look at the background of Joe Wilson before he says it's disgusting to bring race into his outburst. Mr. Confederate flag was only showing his true colors.

Transcript via an email from Bob Fertik:

Bret Baier: Don't you have to be careful when you level the charge?

It's such a blunt object, when you say "racism" is a big charge.

Stephen Hayes: There is absolutely zero evidence that saying You Lied to the President of the United States had anything to do with race whatsoever and it is a disgusting smear for anybody to suggest that.

It is a sad day when a columnist in the NY Times can just imagine that

somebody is saying something, literally putting words in her mouth. She

prefaced the statement by saying "fair or not I heard him say 'You Lied

Boy.'" That's not fair. As a journalist, you can't imagine people saying things, you have to criticize them based on what they actually say and he didn't say this ...

Krauthammer: The accusation of racism is a sign of desperation by

people who know they are losing the national debate and they want to hurl the ultimate charge in American politics.

This is dealing from the bottom of the deck and I agree that it is a

disgusting tactic. It's done as a way to end debate. The minute you call someone a racist the debate is over, you don't continue. Accusations of racism are the last refuge of the liberal scoundrel.

As for Maureen Dowd imagining a word that wasn't said, in my previous

profession I saw a lot of people who heard words that weren't said. They were called patients and many of them were helped with medication. The reason she won't be and others who are hurling the accusation is because it's a deliberate attempt to change the subject and discredit the opposition with unprovable and unproved ad hominem.

Juan Williams is pretty useless as usual. However, he did manage to knock down Bret Baier's stupid attempt to find equivalency between the people who questioned George W. Bush's legitimacy -- who did so for legitimate reasons, considering Bush actually garnered fewer votes than Al Gore -- and the "Birthers" and other conspiracy theorists attempting to undermine Obama's.

But the whole discussion was a classic Village exercise in self-protection. If you're not seeing racism on display in this country now then, you're not looking very hard.

Yes, some of the protests are by right wing Americans who didn't vote for Obama, but there are far too many zealots seriously going bonkers over the race issue. Let's face it: All these Nazi and Hitler signs are a way to be racist, but without putting color into the mix. It's just as odious, I might add.

As the House prepares to take up a resolution of disapproval over Rep. Joe Wilson’s outburst during last week’s appearance by President Obama to a joint session of Congress, the wingnuts have found what they claim to be “hypocrisy” on the Democrats part.

This video is from 2007 when Rep. Pete Stark was saying how Bush lied:

Now let’s go back to the current event. The Democrats asked Joe Wilson to apologize on the House floor for his outburst and he flat out refused. It was that refusal that led to this motion.

What happened with Pete Stark? Well something the wingnuts aren’t willing to admit, yet I found out on HotAir – a rightwing blog:

Boehner introduced a censure resolution this morning knowing that the Democrats would have to kill it and symbolically line up on Stark’s side, which they did. That was enough for Pelosi, evidently: after he initially refused to apologize, after the fight-fight-fightin’ nutroots very predictably made it a point of pride that he not apologize, the good congressman has duly considered the Speaker’s rebuke from Friday and … apologized.

So the minority party introduced a resolution of censure, which was killed. But that didn’t put an end to it, Stark ended up doing the right thing and apologizing to the House and President. Wilson is refusing to apologize to the House.

Of course even Hot Air is now jumping on the “hypocrisy” bandwagon. (Note to Captain Ed – check out your own archives first!)

If there is any hypocrisy here, it is on the part of Republicans. They wanted to censure Pete Stark, but couldn’t do it since they were in the minority (remember – elections have consequences). But when it comes to Joe Wilson, they are circling the wagons. They haven’t pushed him to apologize on the House floor, but the Democrats did and he refused.

Also let’s remember what the motions are. The Republicans wanted to censure Pete Stark. That’s the second highest level of punishment in the House, with expulsion topping it. For Joe Wilson, the Democrats are wanting a resolution of “disapproval”, which is the most minor disciplinary action in the House – essentially a slap on the wrist.

So thanks wingnuts for proving that the House’s reaction to Wilson is proper. Hell they are actually letting him off easy. It’s Wilson who is refusing to play by the rules.

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You know, for a guy who says he's sorry for having called President Obama a liar, South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson has a funny way of showing it. Since he basically continues to call the president a liar.

Wilson exposed himself and the modern conservative movement as the idiots they are when he yelled at President Obama during his address to Congress. I was listening to a NY-based sports talk show hosted by Mike Francesa, who is a Republican, and he even mentioned the outburst on his show. He said that he's always been interested in presidential speeches and he's never seen anything like that in his life before and thought it was outrageous.

So it's not just the blogosphere or political news shows that have expressed their disdain for Wilson's outburst. It is all over the country, among all kinds of sensibilities.

For a man like Wilson, there's only one TV show he'd rather be on to try and defuse the situation. And that would be "Hannity." So when he went on last Friday, he basically set the tone for what has followed: He explained that he apologized, but he still believed Obama was not telling the truth.

After Hannity downplayed Wilson's outburst and and after Wilson said that the WH had put it behind them, they went on the attack. No need to bring up an embarrassing event like that, so Hannity went right into his usual hit-piece television and attacked health-care reform. He renewed the bogus claim that health care reform would cover illegal immigrants so that Wilson could attack the president after he called him a liar.

Hannity: Are illegal immigrants covered in this bill?

Wilson: In fact they could get insurance, they could get the benefits, they could get the subsidies and the reason I know this is I serve on a committee where ewe considered amendments and then I foll lowed the amendments on other committees, the energy and commerce, on weighs and means and I noticed that the democrats had defeated the amendments that would provide for enforcement and the verification of citizenship and so when the president said this I knew what he was saying was not accurate, I do apologize for speaking out, but what was said was not accurate.

Wilson was talking about Section 246 in one House bill---HR3200, but even if it's not spelled out in that bill, there are four others, and the House and Senate have to get their bills together first and then head into conference to come up with the final bill. So Wilson was completely out of line for calling the president a liar even by his own logic. Heather and David explain more about this here. (By the way, Mark Williams is one of the most vile people in America.)

The NY Times dispels the Republican lie that Joe Wilson is promoting in an op ed:

Mr. Obama didn’t lie. The bills before Congress declare illegal immigrants to be ineligible for subsidized benefits. It is impossible to imagine any final bill doing otherwise. Mr. Wilson was a boor, but some Republicans still insist that he was right because the bill doesn’t ensure that the undocumented have no insurance.

Time for a reality check. Illegal immigrants are here. They are not eligible for Medicaid, but many still get sick and many get care, often in emergency rooms. The current proposals would likely not stop them from using their money to buy coverage through an insurance exchange, without subsidies. Just as they can do now.

Should we take a harder line? Force people to prove citizenship in emergency rooms? That’s illegal, for good reason. Make verification requirements so onerous that not a single illegal immigrant slips through? Very expensive, and not smart. It would be highly likely to snag deserving citizens — like old people who don’t have their original birth certificates. And besides, we’ve tried that: A House oversight committee reviewed six state Medicaid programs in 2007 and found that verification rules had cost the federal government an additional $8.3 million. They caught exactly eight illegal immigrants.

In the case of an epidemic, like swine flu, should illegal immigrants go untreated so they can infect legal residents and American citizens? Hard-line Republicans insist that they will fight for citizenship verification. They could, in theory, get the country to spend whatever it takes to do that and proudly report back to their voters. But there is a line beyond which antipathy to the undocumented can be damaging to those voters’ health, not to mention the federal budget. Mr. Wilson and his admirers seem to have crossed it.

Teabaggers would rather the country go broke by requiring emergency rooms to make people prove citizenship before receiving treatment, but that's teabagger logic for you.

It's just like the logic that says you apologize for calling someone a liar by calling them a liar all over again.

It looks like someone might have an anger management problem...

My Left Nutmeg:

According to sources familiar with the event, the outburst began after Officer Randy Cooper informed a staff member that he could not bring a tour through a lower west front door that has restricted access. One source said that after Cooper informed the staffer that the family could not enter through the door, the staffer called Shays and tried to have the officer speak with him. When the officer refused, Shays himself came down to the post and proceeded to "scream obscenities" at Cooper before touching his nametag to read it in the rain and storming away.

Update: Other recent acts that might have caused a neutral observer to question Shays' mental state have included attacking NASA scientist James Hansen in a committee hearing, literally screaming at the widows of Blackwater contractors who had died in Iraq in a committee hearing, and dismissing Abu Ghraib as a "sex ring" and not torture, among others.

How much you want to bet this won't get nearly the airtime as Cynthia McKinney's outburst last year?

UPDATE: It looks like Shays has apologized.  According to the Guardian, Shays was trying to meet with a family of constituents, not give them a tour.

The Spy Who Billed Me: An outburst of indifference has greeted the announcement by office of the Director of National Intelligence that the year-long study on the use of industrial contractors by the intelligence community was not going to be released.  The number and use of industrial contractors was suddenly a matter of 'national security.'

raw story: Join the 'REAL ID' Revolt

Locked Out: The lack of gender and ethnic diversity on cable news continues.  Related: Somebody get this woman a writer

KnoxViews: Phony Fred

TomPaine: Montana has recently been the central front in the war on the middle class, and the onslaught Big Sky country experienced shows that this fight could be coming to a town near you.

New and improved Martini Revolution...go look!

via Jesus General

It's about kindergarten criminals, tasers, choke holds and Florida justice:

Read the following from the Tallahassee Democrat and I think you'll see what I mean:

A 5-year-old girl was arrested, cuffed and put in back of a police cruiser after an outburst at school where she threw books and boxes, kicked a teacher in the shins, smashed a candy dish, hit an assistant principal in the stomach and drew on the walls.

The students were counting jelly beans as part of a math exercise at Fairmount Park Elementary School when the little girl began acting silly. That's when her teacher took away her jelly beans, outraging the child.

Minutes later, the 40-pound girl was in the back of a police cruiser, under arrest for battery. Her hands were bound with plastic ties, her ankles in handcuffs.

"I don't want to go to jail," she said moments after her arrest Monday. read on

You can't make this stuff up!

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Click here: Windows media player while our other server is down!

Jack Burkman, a Republican strategist wants President Bush to chop the heads off of moderate republicans so Christian conservatives can rule the party! In another outburst from the Christian right, there is a fight brewing for control of the Republican party. Already CC's are unhappy with Bush. Will the moderates give way to the evangelicals?