Right-wingers can complain all they want about "the angry left," but "the angry right" is welcome in the White House. It's not just Ted Nugent. It's this guy:
An adviser to Donald Trump’s campaign who said Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton should be shot for treason was given a prime seat at a White House bill-signing ceremony on Friday.
Al Baldasaro, a New Hampshire GOP state representative who advised Trump on veterans issues during the campaign, sat in one of the first two rows of seats in the East Room as Trump signed a bill making it easier for the Veterans Administration to fire employees accused of misconduct.
Baldasaro, in a radio interview during the campaign, criticized Clinton for the 2012 attack on a U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, and said she should be “put in the firing line and shot for treason.” Trump later praised Baldasaro.
And then there's this Trump appointee:
Before William C. Bradford was appointed by the Trump administration to run the Energy Department’s Office of Indian Energy, he tweeted a slew of disparaging remarks about the real and imagined ethnic, religious and gender identities of former president Barack Obama, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, TV news host Megyn Kelly and Japanese Americans during World War II.
Samples:
And before anyone starts citing the latest Bret Stephens column to argue that it's Twitter that makes people write angry things, let me point out that Bradford is also a long-form rageoholic:
This would not be the first time Bradford courted controversy — except that it previously concerned a lengthy, 95-page law journal article rather than several short, 140-character-or-fewer tweets. In 2015, he resigned from his post at West Point after writing an academic paper arguing the United States should threaten to destroy Muslim holy sites in war “even if it means great destruction, innumerable enemy casualties, and civilian collateral damage.”
Bradford also called for legal scholars “sympathetic to Islamist aims” to be imprisoned or “attacked.” He dubbed such academics “critical law of armed conflict academy,” or CLOACA, which is also a term for the orifice out of which some animals defecate.
The term is ostensibly an abbreviation for “counter-law-of-armed-conflict academy;” he wields his backronym with the same sinister tones that James Bond reserved for SPECTRE.
And his target list is quite expansive:
To suppress this “fifth column”—which is his actual term for fellow academics with whom he disagrees—Bradford offers a range of options. First, he suggests introducing loyalty oaths and firing “disloyal scholars.” Next, he recommends charging them with material support of terrorism and even treason. He even suggests treating these American academics as “unlawful enemy combatants,” a legal term used to deny Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters the protections of U.S. and international law.
Shocking and extreme as this option might seem, CLOACA scholars, and the law schools that employ them, are—at least in theory—targetable so long as attacks are proportional, distinguish noncombatants from combatants, employ nonprohibited weapons, and contribute to the defeat of Islamism.
Yes, even “the law schools that employ them”—presumably places like Harvard and Yale—could be legitimate military targets. So, too, could their homes, where their families and children live. Even a journalist like myself could be a lawful military target if I happen to quote one of these professors, Bradford argues:
Further, the infrastructure used to create and disseminate CLOACA propaganda—law school facilities, scholars’ home offices, and media outlets where they give interviews—are also lawful targets given the causal connection between the content disseminated and Islamist crimes incited.
Let me say it again: This man has a job in the Trump administration.
Johnny Depp joked about a Trump assassination (and has now apologized) -- but he's not in the government. Neither is Kathy Griffin (who's lost work for her Trump death joke).
Phil Montag, a Nebraska Democratic Party official who made offensive remarks about Representative Steve Scalise, has lost his job. Al Baldasaro, by contrast, is still a New Hampshire state legislator.
There's intemperate speech on all sides -- but increasingly there's no penalty for it on the right.
Crossposted at No More Mr. Nice Blog
