Tom Coburn

Frank Rich:

[Tom] Coburn is a Republican senator from Oklahoma, where 168 people were murdered by right-wing psychopaths who bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. Their leader, Timothy McVeigh, had the Jefferson quote* on his T-shirt when he committed this act of mass murder. Yet last Sunday, when asked by David Gregory on “Meet the Press” if he was troubled by current threats of “violence against the government,” Coburn blamed not the nuts but the government.

“Well, I’m troubled any time when we stop having confidence in our government,” the senator said, “but we’ve earned it."

After the OK bombing, Coburn tried to weaken anti-terrorism legislation, claiming that fear of American government was a "far greater" fear than that of terrorism.

* "The tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,"  the same quote referenced by sign held by machine-gun-toting rightwinger at recent Obama appearance.

"I am a proud right-wing terrorist."

Washington Monthly:

Rep. Wally Herger (R, CA): "Our democracy has never been threatened as much as it is today" by healthcare reform. At the same town-hall meeting:

Audience member: "I am a proud right-wing terrorist."

Rep. Herger: "Amen, God bless you. There is a great American."

Perfectly legal

Another armed protester spotted outside an Obama event. Not content with the loaded pistol worn by this wimp last week, this fellow adds an AR-16 assault rifle to the ensemble. "What he is doing is perfectly legal", the police officers following him around reassure us. "If we need to intervene, we will intervene at that time."

And another AR-16 has been spotted at the same event, apparently in the hands of a man ranting about socialism.

People protesting the slaughter of American troops and Iraqi civilians wore t-shirts bearing anti-war slogans to Bush town halls and were ejected by security. People protesting the provision of health care to more Americans wear military-grade lethal weapons to Obama town halls and are not ejected.

This reflects interestingly on the Presidents involved: hardcore, militaristic President Bush is too much of a coward to allow someone wearing an embarrassing t-shirt in his presence; 'soft', liberal President Obama is followed around to his speaking engagements by heavily armed enemy fanatics -- some bearing signs advocating his assassination.

UPDATE: Make that three.

MSM

This really isn't 'venting' -- it's truly clearheaded and excellent advice (emphasis added):

Obama isn't saying the right thing. He should be saying, "Stop lying." Or maybe he should send Biden out to say it. That's probably the best thing.

I'm not basing this on some misguided sense that being aggressive is what's required. Rather, I'm basing it on how the MSM works. They report what politicians say. And they don't fact check them. That's the system -- maybe you don't like it. I don't like it either. But it's not changing any time soon.

This reminds me of an idea I read somewhere a few weeks ago about combating the town hall disruptions by playing the national
anthem over the PA system whenever anybody starts shouting down the speakers -- either the disruptors shut up and stand with their hands on their hearts, thereby losing their momentum, or they continue to shout, which gives the MSM an easily-digested meme: "people disrespecting the national anthem".

Both ideas involve very simple, straightforward actions that (1) need no simplification and (2) provide short, simplistic, reductive soundbites. The MSM eats this sort of stuff up. In contrast, the WH recently unveiled a web site to combat the insanity, which as far as I can tell was designed specifically to be ignored by the MSM. The site looks like an example of the legal tactic I've seen in  movies of responding to a request for information from the opposing legal team by shipping them forty-six boxes of documents. The information they want is in there somewhere, and nobody can say you're withholding information.

Grassley

The Democrats are "negotiating" health care reform with Republican Chuck Grassley, who embraced the 'death panel' insanity and recently insisted he was not in fact negotiating with Democrats.

Now he's flogging Glenn Beck's work: Think Progress » Grassley brings Glenn Beck’s book to town hall meeting to ‘pass it on.’

Here are examples of Beck using Hitler/Nazi references, and here (Flirting With Fascism on CNN Headline News) is a useful collection of links to other Beck activity, such as threatening American Muslims with internment in concentration camps and calling the father of an American beheaded by terrorists a "scumbag".

Here he is expressing his loathing for families of victims of the 9/11 attacks:

you know it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims' families? Took me about a year. And I had such compassion for them, and I really wanted to help them, and I was behind, you know, "Let's give them money, let's get this started." All of this stuff. And I really didn't -- of the 3,000 victims' families, I don't hate all of them. Probably about 10 of them. And when I see a 9-11 victim family on television, or whatever, I'm just like, "Oh shut up!" I'm so sick of them because they're always complaining. And we did our best for them.

Democrats are working closely with Chuck Grassley, a fan of this guy. How can anyone believe them to be serious about any sort of reform, or anything? And by Democrats, of course, I include their leader, Barack Obama.

Spitting in the face of Holocaust survivors

Every time someone compares Obama or health care reform or end of life counseling or any other element of America in 2009 to Adolf Hitler or the Holocaust or Germany in the 30s or Nazi euthanasia programs (or whatever), that person is saying to every victim of Hitler and the Nazis that being forced out of your home with fifteen minutes notice, marched to the railway station carrying your family heirlooms on your back, loaded into a cattle car, transported for several days with no food or sanitary facilities, unloaded at an extermination camp, dragged screaming from your children and family, being forced to perform slave labor until you drop from exhaustion, then being herded into a moist shower room, having pellets of Cyclon gas dropped into your midst, and dying more quickly then you would have in a dry room because your jailers have determined that people in moist environments die more quickly because their pores open and absorb the gas more effectively, that all this is no worse than living in America in 2009 under a Democratic majority.

This opposition cannot be appeased.

Krugman:

“I am in this race because I don’t want to see us spend the next year re-fighting the Washington battles of the 1990s. I don’t want to pit Blue America against Red America; I want to lead a United States of America.” So declared Barack Obama in November 2007, making the case that Democrats should nominate him, rather than one of his rivals, because he could free the nation from the bitter partisanship of the past.

Some of us were skeptical. A couple of months after Mr. Obama gave that speech, I warned that his vision of a “different kind of politics” was a vain hope, that any Democrat who made it to the White House would face “an unending procession of wild charges and fake scandals, dutifully given credence by major media organizations that somehow can’t bring themselves to declare the accusations unequivocally false.”

Emphasis added. I strongly recommend the entire article.