Vile, Vile, Miss 'American Bile'...

Robert Reich, in his post "American Bile," explores the raw anger, the ad hominem hostility, the obscene, profane and personally insulting language one encounters in today's American society, especially in the political context. He concludes:

I’m 67 and have lived through some angry times: Joseph R. McCarthy’s witch hunts of the 1950s, the struggle for civil rights and the Vietnam protests in the 1960s, Watergate and its aftermath in the 1970s. But I don’t recall the degree of generalized bile that seems to have gripped the nation in recent years.

...

... we increasingly live in hermetically sealed ideological zones that are almost immune to compromise or nuance. Internet algorithms and the proliferation of media have let us surround ourselves with opinions that confirm our biases. We’re also segregating geographically into red or blue territories: chances are that our neighbors share our views, and magnify them. So when we come across someone outside these zones, whose views have been summarily dismissed or vilified, our minds are closed.

...

No kidding. When someone on the radical Right makes shit up and throws it, sometimes every five minutes or so, who's going to be able to correct every instance of deliberate falsehood, let alone mitigate the effects of quickly spreading innocent misunderstandings? Lies and even nonmalicious errors simply can't be combated quickly enough. To try or not to try? That's a damned good question

Michele Bachmann Tells Us Exactly How She Would Influence President Obama: 'Spanking'

Who knew Bachmann was that kinky! From Perry Stein at TPM:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) had some strong words Monday for President Barack Obama's use of executive orders, specifically in the immigration battle, warning that the GOP should focus on giving the president a "spanking" through his "checkbook."

"He has a perpetual magic wand and nobody’s given him a spanking yet and taken it out of his hand,” Bachmann said in an interview with WorldNetDaily. “That’s what Congress needs to do, give the president a major wake-up call. And the way we spank the president, we do it through the checkbook. We have the power of the purse. The most powerful body in Washington D.C. is the United States House of Representatives, of which I'm honored to be a part.”

She continued, asking "what is wrong with us that we would give the president ten cents to fund Obamacare?"

So... does the President carry his checkbook in his vest pocket or his hip pocket? Either way, Bachmann's suggestion makes her sound pretty kinky to me... that kind of treatment of a president by a congresswoman should probably be discouraged!

(TPM has video at the above link.)

A Third Of Americans Think Armed Rebellion Will Be 'Necessary' Within A Few Years? Really?

Sahil Kapur of TPM:

Poll: 29% Think Armed Rebellion Might Soon Be Necessary

Picture via The National Memo

Three in 10 registered American voters believe an armed rebellion might be necessary in the next few years, according to the results of a staggering poll released Wednesday by Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind.

The survey, aimed at measuring public attitudes toward gun issues, found that 29 percent of Americans agree with the statement, “In the next few years, an armed revolution might be necessary in order to protect our liberties.” An additional five percent were unsure.

Eighteen percent of Democrats said an armed revolt “might be necessary,” as compared to 27 percent of independents and 44 percent of Republicans. Support levels were similar among males and females but higher among less educated voters.

[tables of stats]

...

Oh, good grief. Give me a break. "Necessary"? Any word on whether they think this contemplated armed rebellion might be possible?

It seems highly likely to me that the US military will continue to follow the president's orders, and any president... including this one... will order any armed rebellion put down, and the US military will not be defeated by a disorganized group of middle-aged fat balding men toting their rifles of which they are so proud. Sorry, guys, it ain't gonna happen! Give it up before you end up looking really, really stupid, not to mention really dead. There may be armed groups in the world that could defeat some units of the US Army under certain limited circumstances... but frankly, you aren't among them. The first crowd control vehicle deployed would send you packing forthwith. Take your toys and go home before you hurt someone, most likely yourself.

The End Of Science In America?

Paul Krugman:

...

Like others doing similar exercises — Drew Linzer, Sam Wang, and Pollster — Nate[ Silver]’s model continued to show an Obama edge even after Denver, and has shown that edge widening over the past couple of weeks.

This could be wrong, obviously. And we’ll find out on Election Day. But the methodology has been very clear, and all the election modelers have been faithful to their models, letting the numbers fall where they may.

Yet the right — and we’re not talking about the fringe here, we’re talking about mainstream commentators and publications — has been screaming “bias”! They know, just know, that Nate must be cooking the books. How do they know this? Well, his results look good for Obama, so it must be a cheat. Never mind the fact that Nate tells us all exactly how he does it, and that he hasn’t changed the formula at all.

This is, of course, reminiscent of the attack on the Bureau of Labor Statistics — not to mention the attacks on climate science and much more. On the right, apparently, there is no such thing as an objective calculation. Everything must have a political motive.

This is really scary. It means that if these people triumph, science — or any kind of scholarship — will become impossible. Everything must pass a political test; if it isn’t what the right wants to hear, the messenger is subjected to a smear campaign.

...

This strikes me as yet another manifestation of the right-wing concept of science as simply a belief system, like Catholicism or Islam or Mormonism: as though, if you don't like one "faith," you can choose another; if you are offended by one scientific theory, you can replace it, based not on whether the replacement truly describes the world we live in, but on whether it is compatible with your political outlook. It's the same situation as in any other search for truth in reality: you don't get to choose your own facts. Honest seekers across the spectrum freely acknowledge this. Right-wingers, even the ones who are not utterly nuts, do not: the facts themselves, as they see them, are subject to reshaping based on one's political philosophy.

That simply doesn't work... at all... in scientific research. You cannot "pray away" global climate change. You cannot merely assert loudly, or even pass a law in Congress, that the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe has no ongoing environmental consequences. You cannot pass a law about when human life begins, and thereby change the physiology of the process. And as Krugman reminds us, you cannot legislate underlying motivations for human economic behavior, the ones that are truly wired in, as if they were simple matters of policy. You can't make trickle-down supply-side economics "true" by fiat. You can deny Keynes until you're blue in the face, but his message will nonetheless haunt you in the real world if you ignore it.

Newton

Galileo

There have always been science deniers; this is nothing new. Indeed, before a few people in 17^th-century England, Italy and Germany framed the basics of how one does science, of the notion of a hypothesis to be tested, of experimental confirmation, of mathematical description, there was not a great deal of science done anywhere. (The age of Archimedes, c. 287 BC – c. 212 BC, mathematically enlightened and technologically clever as he was, was all too brief, and had no thread of historical succession directly connecting him with the beginnings of science as we know it.) For millennia, most people did not think in scientific terms; those who did often paid dearly for their troubles. Today's science deniers would take us back to that time. (Hey, the torture apparatuses are already in place, thanks to the political system!)

And that is the crux (!) of what is frightening about right-wing politics: the wingers wish to establish a new age of "truth" by fiat, not truth through research in scientific matters, not even political truth by honest debate among people of differing interests, but truth by reference to authority. Regular use of the argument from authority leads almost inexorably to more emphasis on the authority than the argument. Spare us, please!

According To Paul Ryan, When Jesus Was Crucified, It Was Barack Obama's Fault

Obama's bad call?

Well, maybe not that specific violation. But when a replacement pro football official made an apparently bad call (I didn't see the game) in a game involving Ryan's beloved Packers, costing them the game... Paul Ryan likened the officiating to Barack Obama. Yes, he really said this:

And you know what, it reminds me of President Obama and the economy. If you can’t get it right, it is time to get out. I half think these refs work part-time for the Obama administration in the Budget Office. They see the national debt clock staring them in the face. They see a debt crisis, and they just ignore and pretend it didn’t even happen. They are trying to pick the winners and losers, and they don’t even do that very well.

Jeebus Cripes on a crutch in a crapheap! The man is obsessed. If the proverbial butterfly in China farted, resulting in our current headlong rush toward global climate change, Ryan would blame Obama for the fart.

There's plenty to criticize about Barack Obama without resorting to this sort of thing. But at least Obama, unlike Ryan, is neither lame-brained nor demented. Voters: do not let Paul Ryan anywhere near the levers of power. Nowhere near, I tell you!

(H/T TBogg.)

The Full-Blown Bat-Doodoo Crazy Nut-Job 'Originalist' On The US Supreme Court

That would be Antonin Scalia. From a ThinkProgress transcript of a Fox News Sunday interview of Scalia by Chris Wallace on subjects related to the Aurora tragedy, Scalia hinted at the possibility that hand-held rocket launchers could be protected under the Second Amendment:

WALLACE: What about… a weapon that can fire a hundred shots in a minute?
SCALIA: We’ll see. Obviously the Amendment does not apply to arms that cannot be hand-carried — it’s to keep and “bear,” so it doesn’t apply to cannons — but I suppose here are hand-held rocket launchers that can bring down airplanes, that will have to be decided.
WALLACE: How do you decide that if you’re a textualist?
SCALIA: Very carefully.

Inevitably, in response to that statement by a Justice on our nation's highest court, someone will undertake to try exactly that... using a hand-held rocket launcher to bring down an aircraft, perhaps arguing that it belongs to drug-runners and that "Scalia says I have the right!"

Some days, I feel like moving to another country, if I could only find one in which the weapons laws are saner. At the rate they're changing in the US, that may not be hard.

Will Walker Face Fate Worse Than Recall?

upyernoz points to a post on Cognitive Dissidence reminding us that Scott Walker's troubles may not end with his survival of the recall. Here's Capper, quoting a post by David Shuster of Take Action News back on June 2:

According to government lawyers familiar with a Milwaukee criminal corruption probe, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is now a "target" of the investigation.

The legal sources, who are not involved in Wisconsin's recall, spoke on condition of anonymity. They said Walker faces "serious legal challenges," including "a possible indictment," regardless of the election results on Tuesday.

The sources indicate Walker's status was clarified more than a week ago, allegedly following a series of requests by Walker's legal team that prosecutors publicly clear him of any wrong doing before the recall election. Take Action News reached out to Governor Walker's spokesperson for comment on this story and received no response.

I wonder about Wisconsin law: can Walker govern from prison?

UPDATE: Here's more info from the same post by Capper:

Walker, even as recently as Saturday, has denied that he is the target of any investigation and that his "high level of integrity" will be apparent when he is cleared. But that's not quite true. In fact, it's a pretty galling lie.

There is a code that US Attorneys follow that requires them to provide a letter to a person stating that they are not the target of their investigation. And word is, like they're supposed to, Walker's attorneys have been asking for such a letter for weeks. And if Walker had such a letter, he would be free to produce it and remove any doubt about his innocence once and for all.

But Walker has produced no such letter, basically because none exists.

Likewise, if Walker had done nothing wrong, he would not be required to withhold any of the 1,400+ emails that were found on the secret router. He could easily release those emails and clear his good name. But he consistently refuses to, saying that he can't, per the DA. We already know the only way he couldn't is if he had to appear before Judge Nettesheim and testified about his emails.

It certainly sounds as if something is going on...

AFTERTHOUGHT: of course, the Walker backers (hmm... "you dirty Walkerbackers!") could always buy a judge or two...

Former Rep. Huckster Hoekstra: Create A Birther Office

That's right. Former Rep., wanna-be future Sen. Pete Hoekstra (R) says the feral gummint should form a committee to investigate presidential candidates' birth certificates.

What no birther has ever explained to my satisfaction is the most fundamental question: in this day and age, why the fuck would anyone fortunate enough to have been born elsewhere have even the remotest desire to become POTUS? Maybe in the early 1950s, but... now? really? What's the draw... the salary? the benefits? the short hours and relaxed working conditions? the universal acclaim of the American people? [/snark]

Block The Vote

Over my political lifetime, I've seen all kinds of efforts by Republicans to prevent Democrats from voting. But I have to say, this one, a confrontation over the Wisconsin recall, takes the cake:

A Chippewa Falls man who repeatedly tried to block his estranged wife from driving to the polls Tuesday was hospitalized with head, neck and back injuries when she struck him with her sport utility vehicle. 

... 

The pair had been arguing early Tuesday afternoon over who she was going to vote for in the gubernatorial recall election primary, said Chippewa Falls Police Chief Wendy L. Stelter. 

... 

When Amanda Radle, 30, attempted to pull out, Jeffrey Radle, 36, stood in front of her, according to a police department statement. She nudged him with the vehicle several times. 

Each time he would "retreat and re-establish his ground," the release said. "At one point he climbed onto the hood." 

When she finally attempted to drive around him, Jeffrey Radle jumped in front of the vehicle and was hit. Amanda Radle left the scene and went to the police department to report the incident, the release said. 

"These crazy liberal nuts are always pulling this crap," said Radle's brother, Mike Radle, describing himself and his brother as firm supporters of Walker, the subject of the recall. 

...

Yes, "these crazy liberal nuts" don't like to be physically obstructed from exercising their franchise. Damn libruls anyway. [/snark]