AZ Fires Caused by Aliens?

The ongoing “Wallow Fire” in Arizona is already the largest in state history. John McCain has claimed that the fire was started by undocumented immigrants. Why not? It is worth more political points than carbon emissions. (The U.S. Forest Service said there is no evidence that immigrants had anything to do with the fires).

In related news, Sarah Palin blamed the Arizona fires on Obama, telling Arizonans living near the fire not to retreat, but to reload. However, her daughter Bristol blamed Cindy McCain and her daughter Meghan, who she believes set the fires for the insurance money (so they could purchase more Louis Vuitton luggage). Glenn Beck blamed the fires on gay teachers who he claimed set the fires in order to distract the public from the homosexual agenda they were pushing in Arizona classrooms. Mel Gibson blamed Oksana Grigorieva, who he called a bitch in heat (the heat being the source of the fire). Benjamin Netanyahu blamed the fires on Hamas rockets launched indiscriminately into Israel, while Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the fires never happened. Obama said that we just need to move forward and that he was willing to work with both sides to get there.

Class War Escalates—Use Live Ammo On WI Protesters

Image by Chris Huggins (Toronto G20 Protest)

 On Saturday, a Mother Jones staffer tweeted that riot police might sweep workers out of the Wisconsin Capital building. In response, Jeff Cox, a deputy attorney general, for the state of Indiana tweeted, “Use live ammunition.” He also called the demonstrators “political enemies” (which they are, but what’s wrong with that?) and “thugs” (which he obviously is).

Image by underclassrising  (Greek Protester)

It should come as no surprise to anyone that such violent statements would be made publicly by a government official. We’ve been hearing them for years from some religious leaders, anti-immigrant activists and Tea Party activists. Sharon Angle, for example, suggested using “2nd amendment remedies” should Tea Party efforts fail in Congress, while Sarah Palin infamously called on her followers to “reload” rather than retreat. Many executives would not shed a tear if there were a few casualties on the labor side in the class war (it certainly doesn’t seem to matter to the bosses at Coke, in Columbia, or Chevron, in Nigeria) so why not here? After all, it’s a small price to pay to keep wages low and profits high.

Cox’s statements are only noteworthy in the context of Gov. Scott Walker’s explicit threat to use the National Guard on protesters AND his active preparation for such an assault (See “General Strike,” paragraph 3). In the interest of full disclosure, Cox is a loose cannon, known for making all sorts of ludicrous, vitriolic remarks. He once said that Planned Parenthood could help themselves if they performed retroactive abortions and he compared the SEIU to Hitler’s Sturmabteilung. Nevertheless, in this climate of fear and paranoia, it only takes one Jared Loughner to get inspired by such rhetoric and then go on a self-righteous rampage that, in the middle of a mass demonstration, could end up being far more deadly than the recent massacre in Tuscon. On the other hand, it only takes orders by one right wing governor for the National Guard to open fire on striking workers, as has happened so many times in U.S. history (for a partial list of examples, please see “The Violent Demise of Unions.”)

Sarah Palin: Proof That K-12 Education is in Crisis

In his state of the union address, Obama called this our Sputnik moment, referring to the massive infusion of federal funds into math and science education following the launch of Sputnik so that we could humiliate the USSR in the race to the moon. The fear we were losing the cold war led to the National Defense Education Act of 1958, the first large-scale federal involvement in K-12 education. And today, Obama is playing on fears of losing high tech jobs to China, India and South Korea.

In typical Palin fashion, she not only misunderstood the metaphor, thinking that Obama was suggesting we emulate the Soviets with a lot of state funding and suppression of free enterprise, but she actually believed that the Sputnik program was what felled the super power, 34 years prior to its actual demise through bloated military spending and failed occupation of Afghanistan.(A better criticism would be that the U.S., like the USSR, has a bloated military budget and a failed occupation of Afghanistan).

                                     Palin’s WTF Moment

Palin and Loughner vs The Jews

Politicians have denounced the Jared Lee Loughner You-Tube video as lunatic nonsense. However, according to journalist Justine Sharrock, who reports on militias and other right wing fringe groups, Loughner’s video sounded very similar to the rants of the Sovereign Citizens movement. This group, which has an estimated 300,000 followers, believes the government is illegitimate. And many are willing to kill in their war against it. They have retaliated against judges, IRS agents and cops, primarily through “paper terrorism,” that is, by filing bogus liens against them, though some have also shot cops. Terry Nichols (one of the Oklahoma City bombers) was a sovereign.

Sovereign citizens refuse to follow government laws, even traffic laws or carrying a drivers license. They refuse to pay taxes or permits, including gun permits. They believe that social security numbers make us slaves to the government. The movement really took hold in the 1990s, but is making a comeback today due to the vitriolic rhetoric of shock jocks and Tea Party politicians, which share many common themes with the philosophy of the Sovereign movement.

Tea Partiers, of course, are distancing themselves from Loughner, but not from the vitriol. Sarah Palin issued an unapologetic and inflammatory statement yesterday telling media and pundits they “should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the hatred and violence that they purport to condemn.” Aside from the anti-Semitic and provocative nature of her rant, it was an attempt to make it seem like she was the victim, rather than the provacateur. She even went so far as to pretend that her comments were peaceful and legitimate:  “When we ‘take up our arms,’ we’re talking about our vote.’” Of course you are, Sarah, and of course all your angry, gun-toting followers understand that.

Despite Palin’s violent rhetoric, there are important distinctions between Tea Partiers and Sovereigns. While Sovereigns, and Loughner, share some ideas (and enemies) with the Tea Party movement, they openly support the demise of the U.S. government, whereas Tea Partiers believe they are acting to save it. Loughner’s act, according to Sharrock, was distinct from most other Sovereign acts of violence (Nichols excluded), which have tended to be in “self-defense” (e.g., shooting back when getting stopped for a traffic violation). And it was distinct from the typical behavior of Tea Partiers, which tends more toward hysterical press conferences and public rants. The connection is that the rhetoric of many Tea Partiers, Sarah Palin included, has become more violent and aggressively anti-establishment, paralleling that of right wing groups, like the Sovereigns and targeting many of the same public figures, including Gabrielle Giffords and Judge John Roll, thus creating a sense of legitimacy for those like Jared Loughner, who are crazy enough to turn violent threats into action .

Arizona Assassinations Tied to Reactionary Right

The mainstream media are portraying Jared Lee Loughner, the 22 year old who critically wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, as a lone wing nut. They are distancing themselves from the liberal bloggers who are trying to connect his act to the Tea Party movement and other conservatives. They’re not even particularly keen on reporting Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, who blamed the shooting on the “political vitriol” from the right wing and who called Arizona the national center of bigotry.

The problem is that his assassination spree was premeditated and his victims we’re specifically targeted, not only by him, but by numerous ultra-right organizations, while his actions had indeed been egged on by conservatives, including Sarah Palin.  The Department of Homeland Security has linked Loughner to American Renaissance, an anti-government, anti-immigrant, and anti-Semitic organization that advocates white supremacy and racial separation. One of his victims, Judge John Roll, was the subject of hundreds of death threats in 2009. He had been vilified by right-wing talk shows for his role presiding over a case brought by undocumented immigrants against a local rancher.

Giffords was Jewish, which would be reason enough to make her a target of anti-Semitic groups. However, she had also just recently beat a Tea party candidate, Jesse Kelly, another violent wing nut who had organized an event encouraging people to join him in firing M16 assault rifles to “help remove Giffords from office.” Furthermore, during Giffords campaign, right-wing protesters would carry signs with the slogan “It’s time to reload,” a thinly veiled reference to assassination. When Giffords warned that people “have got to realize there are consequences,” Sarah Palin responded on Twitter with, “Don’t retreat, reload.” In conjunction with the rifle crosshairs on her website, it’s difficult to not to see Palin as a deliberate provocateur who was well aware of the potential for political violence.

Older Americans Are Sabotaging Our Children's Future

Older Americans are sabotaging young people's future, according to YouthFacts author, Mike Males. Youth today express for greater tolerance and community ideals than their parents and grandparents generations, while older Americans exhibit increasing racial and religious bigotry, material selfishness, drug abuse and criminality.

• Take the issue of gay rights, for example, where 18-29 year-olds in Alabama are more supportive of gay marriage than seniors in Massachusetts.
• Or mixed marriages, where only 36% of whites over the age of 65 would be o.k. with a family member marrying a person of a different ethnicity (compared to almost 100% support by those born after 1980).
• Or greed, where 60% of seniors oppose slower growth in their retirement benefits in order to avoid higher taxes for younger generations
• Or misbehavior, where Americans over the age of 45 abuse drugs and commit crimes at a higher rate than any generation ever, according to FBI crime statistics

Gavin Newsom and Sarah Palin Agree: Parents Are the Deciders

llyn_hunter

What do Gavin Newsom and Sarah Palin have in common? They both believe that parents are the deciders, at least when it comes to fattening their children on junk food.

Palin was recently in Pennsylvania accusing them of being a “Nanny State run amok.” Her solution: stuff the poor deprived children of Plumstead Christian School with her wholesome mamma bear cookies. Poor Palin didn’t realize that the private Christian school would be exempt from PA’s new public school nutrition rules, or that the new guidelines did not ban cookies.

Thomas Hawk

Newsom, who moonlights as a purveyor of quality fine foods and liquor, recently vetoed a local San Francisco ordinance that would ban fast food outlets from giving away toys with their junk food, saying "Parents, not politicians, should decide what their children eat."Newsom also recently vetoed the San Francisco liquor tax which was supposed to help defray city expenditures on alcohol related injuries and illness. Ironically, Newsom has had both a history of alcoholism and corrupting minors. 

Mayor Newsom Trying to Eat a Microphone