"MAGA Bomber" - A Portrait of a Growing Segment of the GOP

When the first pipe bombs sent to CNN and prominent Democrats who are constantly targeted by Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Trumpenführer, began to be discovered, many on the right - think Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, et. al. -  claimed they were a "false flag operation" backed by liberals. Indeed, Der  Trumpenführer twisted reality into claiming that he was the victim, not the addressees on the bomb-containing packages.  They had no evidence, of course, but nowadays, evidence and facts are devoid for what passes for news and discourse on the right.  Deliciously, when Fox News tried to secure the rights to use a photo of Cesar Sayoc's van covered with pro- Trump and anti-CNN and liberal stickers, the couple who had taken the picture replied they "won't allow you guys to use it [the photo] because you aren't a reliable source of what's going on in our country today. Sorry!"  Now, as facts about Sayoc have emerged, as disturbed as he is, he is a portrait of the core base of the GOP: inspired by hatred and extremism and blindly eating up Trump's lies.  A piece in New York Magazine looks at the right's crumbling and dishonest effort to disavow Sayoc and the causation of Trump rhetoric that he subscribed to whole-heartedly.  Here are article highlights:

Rush Limbaugh, the most influential conservative talk show host in the country, and a man whom Republicans made an honorary member of the 1995 freshman class in recognition of his role in helping them win the House majority, explained recently that the still-anonymous bomber could not be on the political right. “Republicans just don’t do this kind of thing,” he explained. “From the Haymarket riot to the Unabomber, bombs are a liberal tactic,” added Ann Coulter.

The discovery that the person suspected of mailing bombs to various figures Donald Trump has described as enemy threats is in fact a Trump-supporting Republican has necessitated a change in emphasis. Whereas before conservatives insisted the bomber’s method told us everything we needed to know about his ideology, now they insist it tells us nothing at all about his ideology. “Crazy person attacks Republican Congresspeople: blame the crazy. Crazy person sends bombs to Democrats: blame the Republicans,” tweets right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro, whose analysis was recirculated by Donald Trump Jr.

It is of course true that the overwhelming majority of Republicans are not violent. . . . . Nonetheless, the relationship between the two parties and violence is not symmetrical, and the fact that alleged bomber Cesar Sayoc had a strong identification with Trump and his partisan message is not a coincidence. The Republican Party encompasses an extremist fringe that nurtures violence in a way the Democratic Party does not.

Political violence — when it is attached to political ideology at all, as opposed to simple mental illness — is associated with Manichean, paranoid, illiberal thought. That is a description of a large and steadily growing wing of conservative politics. . . . . Sensible conservatives roll their eyes at this sort of nuttery, but by this point in history, such modes of delusional thought have gained such deep inroads in the party that purging them is a hopeless task.

Even figures as deranged as Limbaugh have long since found themselves outflanked by even more deranged minds like Alex Jones, who has received respectful attention from President Trump, himself an avid conspiracy theorist. Trump has praised a member of Congress for assaulting a reporter; pardoned ranchers who inspired a right-wing militia attack, the right-wing conspiracist Dinesh D’Souza, and lawless authoritarian racist Joe Arpaio; literally today, at an event in which he was attempting to project some measure of dignity and decorum, Trump invoked a far-right conspiracy theory by attacking George Soros as a “globalist” and chuckling appreciatively at an audience member shouting “Lock him up!”

The left certainly has illiberal, paranoid modes of thought. The difference is that the left-wing version resides outside the boundaries of two-party politics, because the Democratic Party is fundamentally liberal not radical. . . . . The street-fighting cult antifa lies outside of, and is primarily hostile to, Democratic politics. Left-wing violence from the 1960s likewise came out of radical groups who viewed the Democratic Party with contempt.

The Republican Party, on the other hand, has followed a course that has made its rhetoric amenable to extremism. Republican radicalism enabled the rise of a conspiratorial authoritarian president, and that president has expanded the bounds of the party’s following farther out to the fringe. It is getting harder and harder to distinguish the “normal” elements of conservatism from the “kook” parts. That some of those kooks would resort to violence is not an accident but a statistical likelihood. Trump’s party is a petri dish for diseased minds.

Decent, moral people ought to be embarrassed to admit they are Republicans.   The fact that people don't speaks volumes about them and none of it good.

Michael Cohen and the Busting of the Trump Crime Family

Things didn't go well yesterday in court for Donald Trump's consigliere, Michael Cohen - or by extension, Trump himself.  Efforts to quash the evidence seized in the raids on Cohen's office, home and hotel room failed and the federal judge overseeing the case reject White House demands that Trump attorneys be the first to be allowed to review the materials.  Also taking a hit was Trump cheerleader and fake news disseminator Sean Hannity who was identified as another Cohen client.  Despite Hannity's dissembling, one has to wonder what he really engaged Cohen to undertake on his behalf given the cesspool like nature of most of Cohen's "fixing" for Trump and at least one other well heeled Republican hypocrite.  A piece in Talking Points Memo focuses on why Cohen could be Trump's Achilles heel.  Here are highlights:

The most shocking-but-not-surprising aspect of James Comey’s account of meeting Donald Trump is the ease with which he drew upon his experience prosecuting organized crime. Meeting Trump, he told George Stephanopoulos, “I had a flashback to my days investigating the Mafia, La Cosa Nostra.” Trump’s leadership style eerily tracked that of the mob bosses he had studied. “There’s an expression in the Mafia — there’s a distinction between a friend of yours and a friend of ours. A friend of yours is someone on the outside of the family, a friend of ours, an ‘amica nostra’ is the way they talked about it in Sicilian, is part of the Family, capital F.”

It is a pure coincidence, but a revealing one, that Comey’s story has come out at the exact same time that Michael Cohen has emerged as a first-tier, and perhaps pivotal, figure in the prosecution of Trumpworld. Cohen has called himself Trump’s consigliere and is the most palpably moblike character in Trump’s orbit. . . . . The investigation of Cohen, in particular, will reveal just where along that continuum the truth lies.

One of the ways in which Trump’s business closely resembles organized crime is that, because it relies so heavily on morally and legally dubious business ventures, its human-resource strategy de-emphasizes qualifications and relies heavily on loyalty. Or, to put it differently, a person’s willingness to engage in, and keep one’s mouth shut about, Trump’s dubious activities is the most important qualification.  This explains why Trump is not known for hiring bright young minds from leading business schools and relies so heavily on his children, as a mafia boss would. It also explains why he retained the legal (or quasi-legal) services of Michael Cohen, a graduate of the worst law school in the United States.

It was immediately evident that the FBI raid on Cohen’s home and office posed a major and novel threat to Trump.  . . . . the instant reaction may have understated things. Cohen has involved himself in a wide array of shady activities, ranging from business deals involving Russia and/or underworld financing sources to paying off women Trump had sex with or sexually harassed.

There is no question that Trump would pardon Cohen of any federal charge. But that still leaves many open channels through which Cohen’s troubles could implicate Trump. One is that physical evidence seized from Cohen could implicate his boss. Reportedly, Cohen kept recordings of his conversations, and legal mistakes like this are the sort of risk you run when you scour America’s worst law schools for talent.

A second risk is that Cohen might be vulnerable to prosecution for state crimes — and remember, a president can only issue pardons for federal crimes.

Trump has run his business like a mafia operation because maintaining secrecy is the paramount value. Despite the vast trove of public access to Trump’s endless public statements and colorful marital life, a huge amount of his work remains shrouded in secrecy, from his ties to La Cosa Nostra in the New York real-estate world to his casino business in Atlantic City, to his overseas business dealings and the tax returns he refuses to disclose. Mueller’s investigation probably will not result in the literal end of Trump’s presidency. (That would require 67 Senate votes to impeach, a highly improbable outcome.) But it will probably reveal whether he has run his business merely like a crime family or literally as one.

How Racist Extremists Are Hijacking the GOP

I have maintained for some time now that the GOP is be coming a racist party and that the increased racial animosity is being derived from "pro-family" groups which are not only anti-gay, but also anti-black, anti-Hispanic, anti-immigrant. The list goes on and on. The toxic racist attitude of the pro-family crowd and the professional Christians is really nothing new and can be traced back to well before the 2000 election. However, the combination of the election of Barack Obama as president and increases in the recognition of gay rights seems to have pushed some of the haters over the edge. Hence the Department of Homeland Security's release of a report showing that right wing extremists groups are increasing in numbers. There are some interesting points on this whole issue on a blog called The Loop. Here are some highlights:

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In the past several years, the line between the far right and the racist fringe has blurred. These days, it is hard to distinguish between the two. Cultural conservatives are not just welcoming the wing nuts into their camp, they are making obvious overtures to mobilize them. They are intentionally alienating moderate Republicans. And they are shamelessly regurgitating hateful and dangerous propaganda, most of which originated on the fringe.

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Last week, the Department of Homeland Security released a 10-page report warning the nation’s law enforcement community about fringe groups and attempts they have made to recruit returning U.S. veterans. The report indicates that more than 200 veterans are also a member of various racist groups. DHS, along with the Southern Poverty Law Center, a progressive, nonprofit group that has monitored racist, fringe groups since 1981, say the fringe movement is growing. The number of them crept up to 926 in 2008, compared with 888 in 2007.

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“(Cultural conservatives) are injecting poison into the national dialogue, whether they mean it or not is completely besides the point,” Potok said. “This is not a debate we are having. These are just nuts on the far right, and they are being given an incredibly huge platform. And they are doing a lot to buddy up to the radical fringe.” This radical fringe has not been this active since the militia movement of the '80s and '90s. The last time there was a cultural flare-up like this, we ended up with Waco, the Oklahoma City bombing and Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph.

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“There were folks like David Duke around back then. The difference between (people like him) and people like Glenn Beck or Bachmann is that (the latter) don’t normally make explicit appeals on a racist basis,” Potok said. “Are they worse? One can definitely make the argument they are worse. With someone like David Duke, no one takes him seriously. But there are a lot of people out there taking Glenn Beck seriously.”

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A few weeks ago, it became very apparent exactly who is taking Beck seriously. In early April, 23-year-old Richard Poplawski, a huge fan of Beck and someone who had been associated with various white supremacy groups, wore a bulletproof vest as he waited for Pittsburgh police officers to enter his home. When they did, he opened fire, killing three of them.

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The conservative movement has grown so far to the right right, they are now kissing cousins with the racist fringe," [Steve] Rendall [of Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting] said. Both Sean Hannity and Beck have routinely had guests who were overtly anti-Semitic and racist. And the fact that the media and the Republican Party are both in shambles right now has exacerbated the affiliation.

Fundie Obsession With Men Kissing

In the wake of the Academy Awards last week, it has been interesting to watch/listen to the fundamentalists have the vapors and convulsions over Dustin Lance Black's and Sean Penn's acceptance remarks and - oh, the horrors - scenes of men kissing at the awards ceremony. Personally, I think part of the phenomenon is that the fundies believe (or want to believe) that if gays are eliminated from public view, somehow we will just go away and that despite scientific and medical knowledge to the contrary, we will stop being born every day of the week - even into fundamentalist families. One of the high profile unhinged is Sean Hannity at Faux News who seems way too fixated to me on the issue. As GLAAD has reported, Hannity recently lamented:

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They keep showing the scenes of men kissing. And I'm thinking do we have to expose our children to more and more sex, more and more violence, you know, more and more controversy?...Listen, I'm just more sensitive. If it's going to be a family event, you know, and you want to -- you can't watch a lot of programs now because of the adult content. We're robbing these kids...of their childhood. We're over-sexualizing them at younger and younger ages.

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All kinds of straight sex is apparently fine, but the second two guys lock lips, the world order is somehow threatened. Just to set the record straight, GLAAD looked at the number of kisses shown during the Awards program and found that only 3 scenes of male to male kissing were televised out of a total of 17 kissing scenes. Thus, I'm not sure how 3 kisses amounts to "they keep showing" scenes of men kissing. Here's a video clip that GLAAD put together - you decide whether the scenes are "adult content" - my advice to Hannity is to get over it. We are here, we are citizens, and we're not going back in the closet no matter how much some would prefer that we do so.

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Far Right Extremist Rants do Breed Violence

Back in July, 2008, I commented on the shootings at the at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. The shooter was one Jim D. Adkisson who read far right rant literature such as: "The O'Reilly Factor," by television commentator Bill O'Reilly; "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder," by radio personality Michael Savage; and "Let Freedom Ring," by political pundit Sean Hannity. Adkisson pleaded guilty to murdering two church members on Thursday and received a sentence of life without parole. What is particularly chilling, however, is the fact that Adkisson shows no remorse and released a four page manifesto (it can be found here) urging other right wing extremists to engage in violence.

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I am all for free speech, but at some point the constant message of hate generated by far right commentators and the Christianists becomes an incitement to violence and individuals like Adkisson are induced to embrace that message and engage in violence. The almost weekly stories of violence against gays are a direct product of constant stream of denigration and scapegoating that is put out by those proclaiming that "the gay agenda" and similar rot is "threatening the family" and similar untruths. At some point those like Ann Coulter, O'Reilly, James Dobson, Tony Perkins, et. al, need to be held accountable for the trash they put out. Here are highlights from the Knoxville News:

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“The future looks bleak,” the ex-soldier lamented. “I’m absolutely fed up! So I thought I’d do something good for this country — kill Democrats ‘til (sic) the cops kill me.” With what he believed to be his last pen strokes, Jim David Adkisson urged other suicidal soldiers against the “liberalism that’s destroying America” to leave their own trail of carnage behind. “I’d like to encourage other like-minded people to do what I’ve done,” Adkisson wrote. “If life ain’t worth living anymore, don’t just kill yourself. Do something for your country before you go. Go kill liberals.”

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He will spend the rest of his life behind bars for killing Greg McKendry, 60, and Linda Lee Kraeger, 61, after opening fire with a sawed-off shotgun inside the church where more than 200 people were gathered to watch a children’s musical. He admitted wounding six others.

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After lamenting the ills of liberalism and Democrats, Adkisson explains why he specifically targeted TVUUC, which he once attended with his now-ex-wife. “Don’t let the word church mislead you,” he wrote. “This isn’t a church, it’s a cult. They don’t even believe in God. They worship the God of secularism. … The UU church is the fountainhead, the veritable wellspring of anti-American organizations.”

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In his manifesto, Adkisson deemed his rampage part “political protest” and part “symbolic killing.” “This was a hate crime,” he wrote. “Liberals are a pest like termites, millions of them … the only way we can rid ourselves of this evil is kill them in the streets, kill them where they gather.”

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No doubt Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, James Dobson and Don Wildmon are proud of the results of their handiwork.