The Trump administration:

For all the talk about 'populism', what really imbues this White House is nationalism. But not just nationalism in a general sense which can have positive, communitarian aspects. It is a hateful and aggressive nationalism based on zero-sum relationships and a thirst for domination and violence. These are dangerous people.

From feminism, Fukushima, reading to exploding manure. Which reminds me... and Trump.

What you read matters more than you think.

One way to identify potential mass killers: domestic violence and grievances against women.

Women activists around the world.

My new hero, Mary Beard.

A doctor who sees how climate change is affecting our health.  Records shattered.

Climate change in a nutshell: Heatwave leads to ice cream theft, flying cockroaches and exploding manure

Radiation Along Fukushima Rivers Up to 200 Times Higher Than Pacific Ocean Seabed

Pakistani doctor saves a Christian patient and has to flee for his life to the US.  Where Muslims are hated. Welcome to America.

Are we in a rerun of the 1930s?

What forced-birthers are like.

The making of Donald Trump.

Says it all

And then some.

Do we really need to list why we despise Dick Cheney?

Because even those who cheered him on during his reign of terror seem to have woken up.

But if you are interested....

(An aside... I've never been really clear when to use awakened, woke, awake etc.... so this was fun to find.)

Update: Robert Sheer takes a whack at the Cheney ego.

Right here in River City!

Troubletown:

This is so hilarious

Can't you take a joke?



Ha ha ha ha....

Enough already!

You, sir, are a douchebag.

Shut up shut up shut up!1!

Or you will get stomped, handcuffed, threatened, and wrestled to the ground. All because teabaggers love God, the Constitution, and free speech....

Update: waterboarded....

Thank god for Rachel Maddow

Via Pandagon.

It gets better

If you have time for only one thing today, watch this.

Wasn't there another religious leader named Jones

Who did really horrible things in the name of the Lord and got a lot of people killed?



Remember how it turned out he was a ego-bloated pseudo-messianic psycho who just wanted to get people to follow him off a cliff to show how powerful he was?

God has nothing to do with your stupidity and your frantic wish for a Holy War to fill your coffers, sir. And you are putting our soldiers in danger.



Thanks a whole fucking lot for making the world even more dangerous.

Arizona

Purging anyone brown from the state:

Maybe lawyers can restore the integrity of the Constitution, a document that forbids states like Arizona and towns like Freemont from fueling diasporas with their own immigration policies.

But what can lawyers do about jackals always tracking the immigrant's dusty footprint?

What do we do about the pregnant 31-year-old woman who was the target of another U-turn stop because of a faulty license-plate light on the back of her car? She was slammed into the hood of her vehicle when she did not readily consent to a search for non-existent narcotics. A U.S. citizen of Latin descent, she clearly remembers being told: "I can be an asshole if you're going to be a bitch."

What would you tell the 17-year-old child, an American, who was followed into a gated community on her way home from school? When asked for identification, she produced a valid Arizona driver's license. The officer insisted upon further proof, claiming he was required by law to get more documentation.

Though she speaks perfect English and knew the law wasn't scheduled to go into effect until this week, she was frightened half to death. She allowed the officer to tail her another couple of blocks to her home, where she retrieved her passport for inspection.

Each of these crude assaults upon dignity happened without benefit of SB 1070. Each happened to an American.

While Jan Brewer, state Senator Russell Pearce (1070's author), Barry Wong, and Joe Arpaio sport conservative mufti, this is neither a right nor left issue. The feckless few, Goddard, Giffords, and Mitchell, are not without incriminating shadow.

Historically, America attacks immigrants, only embracing the foreigners long after the Yankee has pummeled them to within an inch of their ethnicity. Progressives and those who should know better have their place in this roll call of sulfurous shame.

And the result?:

Area businesses also say they're seeing the effects of people leaving the state.

Steve Salvato, manager at the family-owned World Class Car Wash, just around the corner from Belleview Street, said business is down 30 percent. Salvato said the car wash relies mostly on Hispanic customers and points to the new law for the recent decline in business.

"A lot of people have just packed up and moved," he said, adding that a strip mall across the street used to be bustling on weekends. "Now it's like a ghost town."

A nearby Food City grocery store reports a 20 percent to 30 percent drop in business.

While the Obama administration is deporting more illegals than Bush ever did:

In a bid to remake the enforcement of federal immigration laws, the Obama administration is deporting record numbers of illegal immigrants and auditing hundreds of businesses that blithely hire undocumented workers.

The Immigation and Customs Enforcement agency anticipates deporting about 400,000 people this fiscal year, nearly 10 percent above the Bush administration's 2008 total and 25 percent more than were deported in 2007. The pace of company audits has roughly quadrupled since former President Bush's final year in office.

The effort is part of President Obama's larger project "to make our national laws actually work," as he put it in a speech this month at American University. Partly designed to entice Republicans to support comprehensive immigration reform, the mission is proving difficult and politically perilous.

Obama is drawing flak from hawks who contend the administration is weak on border security and from doves who are disappointed that he has not done more to fulfill his campaign promise to help the country's estimated 11 million illegal residents. Trying to thread a needle, the president contends enforcement -- including the deployment of fresh troops to the Mexico border -- is a necessary but insufficient solution.

I'm so sorry my neglected and abused pit bull ate your kid

That doesn't reflect on me now, does it?:

Tea Partiers and others on the right are starting to distance themselves from the recent spate of violence and racism that has characterized the opposition to health-care reform.

In a letter to President Obama and Congress released yesterday, an alliance of Florida Tea Party groups called the Tea Party movement "a peaceful movement" and declared that they "stand in stark opposition to any person using derogatory characterizations, threats of violence, or disparaging terms toward members of Congress or the President."

A similar coalition in Colorado -- where the office of Rep. Betsy Markey (D-CO) recently notified police about a phone call it received threatening violence -- released a similar statement. "Tea party and similar groups across Colorado are saddened tonight to hear of threats made upon Democratic lawmakers in response to the passing their recent health insurance reform legislation, specifically ... Rep. Betsy Markey," it said.

And FreedomWorks, the Washington grassroots lobbying group that has helped co-ordinate Tea Party events put out a statement declaring "political violence is both immoral and ineffective, and will only set the movement back."

Apparently you guys haven't been paying attention to what you've been encouraging, egging on, inciting. We sure have.

I fully expect teabaggers and wingnuts to go into a tizzy of mock surprise when an elected official is shot at. But it would be really interesting to watch the reaction if such a despicable action was aimed at a Republican.

Pit bulls often turn on their own family.

*edited to fix quote

Update: Digby nails it:

They know that serious violence is very likely. They are simply inoculating themselves against the charge that it was their inflammatory rhetoric that caused it. It will be the Democrats complaining about their inflammatory rhetoric that made the teabaggers snap. If they'd just stayed quiet and not made daddy mad, he wouldn't have had to hit them.

The only thing these people should be doing is calming down their crazies. Instead they're ginning them up. Heckuva job.

Update 4/1/10: Kelly Kleiman of the blog The Reality Based Community touches on this very thing: Health care reform politics and Kristallnacht 2010.

Not being able to punch school-aged gay kids

Is being threatened by tolerance!!

Who will the poor bullies be able to threaten then? Who's thinking of THEM???

Defoxing America

By fumigating the media:

Ratcheting up the threats

An official with SEIU, which has been sending members to town halls to counterbalance the Tea Party brigade, sends over this audio of a phone call the union says it received on its central voicemail system, threatening to teach union officials a thing or two about “the Second Amendment”…



The thugs are unleashed.

How one man can change the hate-filled air waves

Read Spocko and learn.

Giving hate free rein

It's intentional.

When rightwing blowhards think all the armed crazies are on their side

They'll say anything hoping for an 'unfortunate incident' for which they will obviously be blameless.

Michael (Weiner) Savage (did you know this guy once hung out with Timothy Leary and Allen Ginsberg?!!):

Earlier this week on his radio show, Michael Savage vowed to post pictures and other ‘pertinent information’ about the staff of watchdog group Media Matters for America. In a statement during his radio show today he appeared to back off, saying only that an unidentified person was researching publicly available information such as the group’s tax filings. Non-profit organizations must file IRS form 990 and are available for public inspection.

Apparently his call for right wing talkers and fellow travelers to rise up against this media watchdog was met with a resounding silence. His attempt to push back and silence his critics appears to be a failure. It is difficult for Savage to push back against reporting that includes recordings of his own words.

Ann Coulter: Don't shoot an abortionist if you really really don't want to....



Keith Olbermann's response to Ann Coulter:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Spocko of Spocko's Brain hoists the rightwingers on their own petard.