Argle Bargle Morble Whoosh

Holy cow. Sarah Palin sounds like she's been nipping into the ol' Rushbo 151 again, hasn't she? With a side of Peggy Noonan's Magic Dolphin Helpers.

Reminds me of Frito Bugger the evening he hung out with Tim Benzedrine. And the funniest part is watching Megyn Kelly, nobody's fool, trying to maintain her composure and put a nice face on all this.

This is classic Palin, right up there with the Great Turkey Massacre.

Bob Cesca has a transcript.

Seattle Metro’s Refusal to Run Anti-Jihad Ads By Geller Group Sparks Lawsuit

Pamela Geller and her far-right Muslim-bashing organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, have announced they are striking back at “Sharia Enforcement” by suing the city of Seattle. Or someone.

In a press release earlier this week headlined “We Are Suing the City of Seattle,” Geller heralded the lawsuit by claiming that transit authorities in Seattle had refused one of the AFDI’s incendiary advertisements for their buses.

However, the lawsuit AFDI filed this week is actually against King County’s Metro Transit Authority, not the City of Seattle -- a much smaller entity fiscally and geographically than King County.

“Twelve years after the 9/11 jihad terror attacks, it has come to this: we have to file suit to fight against jihad terrorism, and the media calls us a ‘hate group’ for doing it,” Geller’s press release said.

As the release notes, the dispute revolves around a series of ads the AFDI purchased to appear on the sides of Metro buses. They featured mug shots of 16 “Faces of Global Terrorism” – all Arabic or black men – and all of whom are highly unlikely to be making appearances in Seattle anytime soon.

Previously, Metro had allowed the AFDI to run anti-Palestinian ads on some buses in response to similar ads run by pro-Palestinian groups. And it had run ads nearly identical to the “Faces” billboards when they were sponsored by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in June 2013. The JTTF, however, voluntarily removed those ads after U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Seattle, wrote a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller expressing concern. McDermott said the ads would “only serve to exacerbate the disturbing trend of hate crimes against Middle Eastern, South Asian and Muslim-Americans.”

Geller’s press release explains: “But then the leftists and Islamic supremacists complained that the ads were ‘Islamophobic,’ and they came down – and now  Seattle is refusing to allow my group, the AFDI, to put them back up. This is sharia compliance.”

Jeff Switzer, a spokesman for Metro, declined to comment on the pending litigation but said the ads were refused because of Metro’s longstanding policy of refusing ads if they are have false and misleading statements, demeaning or disparaging content, or material that might lead to service disruptions.

Cross-posted at Hatewatch.

Oath Keepers Pushing Oregonians to Resist Gov’t Concentration Camps

A statewide organization of conspiracy-peddling Oath Keepers has been gaining traction in small-town Oregon by convincing a series of county-level officials that they need to speak out against the enactment of the National Defense Appropriations Act by passing official resolutions defending the constitutional rights of their citizens.

Among the concerns that these county officials cite is the alleged threat, raised by the Oath Keeper activists who promote these resolutions, that federal authorities are planning to round up American citizens and incarcerate them in concentration camps.

The resolution passed by the Klamath County board of commissioners on Sept. 24, for example, warned that “Whereas Klamath County is not a ‘battlefield’ subject to the ‘laws of war’,” the county commission was declaring that “it is unconstitutional, and therefore unlawful for any person to … arrest or capture any person in Klamath County, or citizen of Klamath County within the United States, with the intent of ‘detention under the law of war’ … or subject any person to targeted killing in Klamath County.”

Most of these resolutions are the handiwork of Tom McKirgan, who heads up the Oregon chapter of the Oath Keepers from his home in rural Coquille. He first convinced the Coos County commissioners – after months of activism – to pass a resolution in late July opposing the NDAA because of its supposed violations of the Fourth Amendment’s requirements for due process. (The national Oath Keepers organization also promotes NDAA-related conspiracy theories on its website.)

McKirgan has been working in tandem with activists from the state chapter of People against the National Defense Authorization Act (PANDAA) to promote the resolutions. And while PANDAA’s portion of the presentations have remained within the realm of the rational concerns about civil liberties related to the bill, when the Oath Keepers have spoken up, it has veered into the wildly conspiratorial.

Among the dire warnings these commissioners heard during the process were allusions to the Oath Keepers’ oft-stated belief that the NDAA creates the legal pretext for federal authorities to begin rounding up right-wing citizens and placing them in concentration camps, or that they might begin labeling Tea Party leaders “enemy combatants” and start assassinating them. At times – particularly in Klamath County – it seemed some of the commissioners shared those fears.

The same warning showed up on the Oath Keepers website in a discussion of the Oregon successes around the NDAA issue. A commenter named “D. Bertrand” explained: “One reason for the NDAA, (or maybe two reasons) is because, at some point in the near future, a massive round-up of any particular group and/or activists/journalists, would be so many that DUE PROCESS would be virtually impossible and would clog the legal system. The other reason would be … These massive arrests would be un-constitutional without legal probable cause, and a violation of 1st and 4th amendment rights, therefore….they will just go for it !!”

“Bertrand” then explained that, out of eight levels needed to reach that dire stage, “we are currently at Level Five,” adding: “Unfortunately, most Americans slept through Levels One thru Four and the NDAA is creeping through the back-door. Oregon Oath Keepers, and California, are going head to head with the NDAA. If when the NDAA goes live…that means WE ARE IN A WAR.”

McKirgan has weighed in on local issues in the Coos County area with a similarly conspiratorial perspective. When local night-sky watchers in the coastal town of Bandon promoted an ordinance to regulate residents’ lighting, he warned in a letter to the editor: “This is another avenue exploited by the [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service] to greatly expand their ulterior motive of turning the entire Coquille Valley into a massive mosquito bog unfit for human habitation.”

At an Oath Keepers gathering in Reedsport, he warned: “We are living under a soft form of martial law.” He also dismissed President Obama’s authority: “Obama is not a president,” he said. “He is nothing but a communist trying to usurp his power and bring us under the United Nations banner.”

“We’re trying to nullify, actually the Constitution nullifies it, we’re trying to reject and repeal section 1021 and 1022,” McKirgan told the Reedsport City Council. “Oath Keepers is not a militia. We are an organization of education. We reach, teach and inspire others to follow the oaths of office that they swore to uphold the Constitution. This is an unconstitutional act that places America on the battlefield, where everybody inside that battlefield are subject to the rules of military law.”

However, both the Reedsport and the Coos Bay city councils did turn him away in his efforts to get them to similarly endorse his conspiracy theories. But McKirgan has turned his sights to other precincts, with Douglas County next on his list, he says. And he promised: “We have other counties in our cross hairs.”

In the meantime, the Oath Keepers may not yet be calling their operations militias, but they are functionally becoming one: President/founder Stewart Rhodes recently announced that Oath Keepers were “going operational” with the formation of “Civilization Preservation Teams.” Last week, the organization announced it was forming an “honor guard” at the nation’s war memorials to prevent their closures during the government shutdown.

Cross-posted at Hatewatch.

Gun-Rights Group Wants to Make Sandy Hook Anniversary 'Guns Save Lives Day'

Ah, nothing like the gun nuts, keeping it classy:

A national Second Amendment group based in Bellevue has decided to sponsor “Guns Save Lives Day” on Dec. 14 — the anniversary of last year’s mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn.

The 650,000-member Second Amendment Foundation, which announced the event Thursday with the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and DefendGunRights.com, has not yet decided what it will entail. But Alan Gottlieb, the president of the group, said the goal is to show “there’s a good side of guns.”

“People every single day use guns to save lives,” Gottlieb said. “We don’t think anybody should have been a victim at Sandy Hook, and we don’t think anybody should be a victim in the future.”

Gottlieb estimated that some 200 gun-rights groups from all 50 states would participate in the event.

“Quite frankly, we don’t want the gun prohibition lobby to own that day,” he said. “So we’re starting early.”

Critics blasted the event as disrespectful.

Cheryl Stumbo, a victim of the Seattle Jewish Federation shooting on July 28, 2006, said that if gun-rights groups tried to sponsor a similar event on July 28, it would feel like “a slap in the face.”

“It’s an attempt to blame victims, and it shouldn’t be tolerated,” said Stumbo, the sponsor of a 2014 initiative campaign to require background checks for all gun sales, not just those by licensed dealers.

Gottlieb's group is probably the second-most influential gun-rights outfit in the United States after the NRA. It's also one of the more radical: In the 1990s, Gottlieb was closely associated with the "Wise Use" movement and its leader Ron Arnold, and the two of them were involved in militia organizing in the Northwest.

Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.

Wingnut Truckers Vow to Bring 3,000 to D.C., But That's Looking Dubious at Best

Those angry right-wing truckers are still promising that at least 3,000 of their number will be showing up in Washington, D.C., this weekend to bring traffic along the Beltway to a grinding halt as part of a protest of what organizers call “the blatant disregard of our Constitution”.

It’s not so clear, however, whether the protest organizers will be able to deliver on those promises. Some of the participants appear to be backing out – or at least tempering their rhetoric – and the protest so far appears to be, as a conservative Washington Times columnist put it, “disorganized and confusing.”

Much of the confusion was spawned by a leading participant named Earl Conlon, a Georgia trucker who earlier told U.S. News and World Report that the protesters intended to arrest President Obama and members of Congress. A couple of days later, he told a Washington Post reporter that the whole thing was a hoax and that he wouldn’t be showing up there after all.

However, Conlon was never one of the organizers of the event. That title belongs to Zeeda Andrews, a former country singer who appeared on Glenn Beck’s television show this week to explain that indeed the protest was proceeding according to plan. At the protest’s Facebook page, Andrews and other participants dismissed the Washington Post story as disinformation ordered by the Obama administration.

Andrews told Beck that she had 3,000 “RSVPs” from other truckers for the protest. She also urged non-truckers to participate by refusing to buy anything on the weekend.

However, Andrews’ credibility is probably not much greater than Earl Conlon’s, considering her own lengthy history of dubious pronouncements. As Ben Dimiero at Media Matters explored at length, Andrews has a considerable record of imbibing in bizarre conspiracy theories.

That includes her belief that President Obama is actually Osama bin Laden in disguise, as she described in a YouTube post: “He is alive call me crazy but, Osama Bin Laden is our President Obama do your research,” she wrote. “The CIA has been preparing for this since he was a boy. They have same height, bone structure, hands and ears both are left handed the Osama face was created by Hollywood. The fox is in the hen house.”

The report also demonstrates that Andrews has a history of posting racially incendiary material, including photos suggesting the Obama is a secret Muslim, to her Facebook page. Among her “likes” are a variety of conspiracy theories, including so-called “chemtrail” theories positing that passenger jets flying across American skies are secretly poisoning or drugging the population.

Also, as we noted earlier, the truckers’ protest is employing radio host Pete Santilli as one of their chief media spokesmen; Santilli is perhaps best known for wishing on the air that he could shoot Hillary Clinton in the vagina. As RightWingWatch notes, Santilli angrily denounced Earl Conlon’s threat to arrest members of Congress, saying the truckers only were demanding the impeachment of President Obama.

But on Wednesday, as Media Matters reports, Santilli called for violence if the trucker protest fails. Santilli referred to a group militiamen who dub themselves “Three Percenters” – that is, a tiny faction willing to take violent action – in the rant: “If we do not rise up this week, peacefully, there is going to be Three Percenters who I will also join, to make it not so peacefully. That's what's going to happen,” he said.

“Okay, our country will be saved. There is a select few of us, we'll call them Three Percenters that will take the next logical step to stop our domestic enemies. It will be stopped, I'm going to say this, this is not a threat. We will defend our nation to the absolute death.”

Cross-posted at Hatewatch.

Arizona Lawmaker’s Call for Constitutional Sheriffs Has Radical Roots

An Arizona legislator recently made headlines by comparing President Obama to Adolf Hitler as she decried the closures of national parks within her district, part of the ongoing federal shutdown. She posted the following on her Facebook page:

Barton later defended the Obama-Hitler comparison, telling the Arizona Capitol Times that she believes the president is “dictating beyond his authority,” citing gun-control legislation and Obamacare as examples: “It’s not just the death camps. [Hitler] started in the communities, with national health care and gun control. You better read your history. Germany started with national health care and gun control before any of that other stuff happened. And Hitler was elected by a majority of people,” she said.


But while the inapt comparison may seem outrageous (the claim about gun control under the Nazis, for one, is entirely bogus), Barton’s plea to call out “Constitutional Sheriffs” to nullify the authority of federal park rangers is even more interesting, and certainly more revealing.

Those “Constitutional Sheriffs” that she hopes can “revoke” the power of federal authorities are actually participants in a far-right antigovernment “Patriot” movement effort — descended from old Posse Comitatus teachings — to enlist the sheriffs of America in the belief that individual county sheriffs are the highest law of the land and possess the power to nullify and even arrest federal authorities.

One of the leaders of the “Constitutional Sheriffs” campaign is longtime Patriot movement figure Richard Mack (who counts Safford, Ariz. — Rep. Barton’s home — as his own childhood hometown). His efforts to enlist law-enforcement officers in the conspiracist worldview of the Patriots and militias dates back to the 1990s, but is also credited with helping to spur the movement’s recent resurgence. In addition to his own Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, Mack is also prominent in the Oath Keepers movement.

Rep. Barton also has a history of far-right activism. Her page at the website of the Arizona House of Representatives trumpets her mid-1990s activism in the so-called “Sagebrush Rebellion” — an antigovernment land-rights movement popular in the West in the 1980s and ’90s — and says she was “an elected officer in People for the West, a land-rights group.” This latter organization was a major player in the so-called “Wise Use” movement, which in the 1990s became a fertile recruitment ground for the Patriot movement and efforts to organize militias.

The notion of the supremacy of the local sheriff originated with the Posse Comitatus movement, a radical anti-Semitic organization, fueled by conspiracy theories and race hatred, that sought to dismantle the federal government and its civil-rights institutions. The Posse laid the groundwork for various Patriot-movement organizations in the 1990s, including the Montana Freemen and Richard Mack’s own early organizations.

Rep. Barton so far has not responded to the SPLC’s queries regarding her promotion of the “Constitutional Sheriffs” and its Patriot movement agenda.

Cross-posted at Hatewatch.

Truckers' Protest in D.C. This Weekend to Demand Obama Impeachment

A group of politically right-oriented long-haul truckers is attempting to organize a day of protest in Washington, D.C., wherein they essentially bring all traffic around the nation’s capital to a grinding halt by creating traffic jams on the “Beltway” system surrounding the city.

The only problem with the protest – scheduled for the coming weekend of Oct. 11-13 – is that it isn’t exactly clear what the truckers are protesting, nor is it clear what will meet their demands. It appears, though, that they expect Congress to impeach President Obama, overturn the congressionally approved health care reforms, and to disband the Department of Homeland Security.

The only aspect of the planned protest that is clear is that it is fueled by conspiracy theories regarding President Obama and fears about an imminent economic collapse. And it is being promoted by “Patriots” and radio-show hosts with a history of far-right agitation.

One of the would-be participants told U.S. News and World Report that the truckers intend to inspire the masses to force the arrest of President Obama and members of Congress.

The chief organizer of the “Truckers Ride for the Constitution” is a former country music singer named Zeeda Andrews who created a website and Facebook page for the campaign earlier this summer, and it has been gradually building momentum with the help of right-wing radio hosts.

Andrews’ website details the “demands” of the truckers in a somewhat oblique fashion, presented as a list of paranoid fears of supposed “unconstitutional” behavior by the government. Indeed, the list of demands begins: “Long before he was president, Barry Soetoro, aka Barack Obama, was already plotting with others, to overturn the Constitution for the United States.”

It then goes on to list a variety of offending actions – including emissions regulations for trucks in California, and a lack of truck parking (“More truck stops have went out of business because of this administration’s economic impact,” the manifesto reads). Among the actions the truckers appear to believe are unconstitutional are the Affordable Care Act, the National Defense Authorization Act, and the Patriot Act, since the truckers insist the Department of Homeland Security is an “unconstitutional” entity.

It also claims the Obama administration is violation the War Powers Act by “exposing, and administering experimental, psychotropic, mind altering drugs for control over soldiers during secret, clandestine operations.”

Andrews told U.S. News and World Report that among the actions that Congress could take to prevent the “shutdown” by the truckers would be the impeachment of President Obama. But not all of the participants agree.

"We are not going to ask for impeachment," a Georgia trucker named Earl Conlon, who claimed to be in charge of logistics for the protest, told the reporter. "We are coming whether they like it or not. We're not asking for impeachment, we're asking for the arrest of everyone in government who has violated their oath of office." Among those he expected to see arrested are former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California.

One of the most avid supporters of the protest is radio host Pete Santilli, who recently joined up with fired Pennsylvania police chief Mark Kessler to cohost a Patriot-movement radio show. He hosted Andrews on his show recently to promote the protest, promising to “shut Washington down.”

On that program, Andrews made clear that the purpose of the protest was to warn Americans that the government was conspiring to bring down the nation’s economy. “They are going to crash the economy, there’s no doubt about that,” she said. “That’s what they’re planning.”

Conlon, in the meantime, appears to be promoting the classic Patriot-movement strategy of applying a “Citizens Grand Jury” – in which ordinary “sovereign citizens” can convene a jury and declare federal laws unconstitutional without court approval – to the elected officials in Washington. He told the U.S. News and World reporter that such a jury would be used to indict various liberal officials.

"We want these people arrested, and we're coming in with the grand jury to do it," he said. "We are going to ask the law enforcement to uphold their constitutional oath and make these arrests. If they refuse to do it, by the power of the people of the United States and the people's grand jury, they don't want to do it, we will. ... We the people will find a way."

However, the movement is already showing signs of fractiousness: Andrews has angrily disclaimed Conlon’s participation, warning him on the protest’s Facebook page that he has been “advised NOT to misrepresent himself as a spokesperson for this peaceful event.” One post commented: “Although Earl riled up a sensational title, he stepped out of bounds of our peaceful intent and methods. DHS would love to have a reason to use their bullets.”

Cross-posted at Hatewatch.

Leading Christian Hard-Liner Calls for Military Takeover in U.S.

Rick Joyner, one of the leading lights of the Christian Dominionist movement, recently told his television audience that democracy has failed in America, and that the nation’s only hope, in light of the looming “tyranny” of the Obama administration, is “a military takeover – martial law.”

Said Joyner: “There’s no way our Republic can last much longer. It may not last through Obama’s second term. There are a lot of people who feel that it can’t. That there are forces right now that are seeking to undermine and to destroy the Republic. There’s almost a glib and almost a joyful disregard of the Constitution and belittling of the Constitution. We can’t make it without that. It’s our foundation, our moorings. We’re headed for serious tyranny…

“I think we’ve been used in some wonderful and powerful ways by God. We’ve been one of the most generous nations in history. We’ve done so much good. And that’s why I appeal to the Lord: ‘Don’t let us be totally destroyed, please raise up those who will save us!’ And as I’ve started telling friends for a long time, no election is going to get the right person in there that’s going to restore us, because the system is so broken, so undermined right now, the whole system.

“I believe our only hope is a military takeover – martial law.”

One of the more disturbing aspects of this pronouncement is the fact that Joyner — who heads up the dominionist Oak Initiative, which seeks out “Christian leaders” and then tries to place them within the halls of government, including the military — is also a close associate of retired Gen. Jerry Boykin.
Boykin is best remembered as the general who, while helping to oversee the invasion of Iraq, told an audience that Islamic extremists hated the United States “because we’re a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christians. … And the enemy is a guy named Satan.” (Boykin also told another audience that he tracked down an Islamic terrorist successfully because “I knew that my God was bigger than his.”) More recently, he has gained attention for claiming that President Obama is secretly plotting a Marxist takeover of America through his health-care reforms.

Boykin’s is the first name listed on the board of Joyner’s Oak Initiative. He regularly broadcasts a TV program under the auspices of the Initiative, and has appeared in public and on TV with Joyner many times.



In one of these, they were joined by Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council — where Boykin in 2012 was named executive vice-president — in a discussion of how to get ordinary Christians involved in “the battle that America’s in today”, and Boykin urged them to form a modern-day Spartan army, declaring “Molon Labe” (“Come and take them”): “Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m at the point now where I am ready to say ‘Molon labe!’ to those in Washington, to those in the special interest groups that want to take my liberties, that want to rob my grandchildren of the ability to have the kind of America that I grew up in. I’m at the point where I’m saying, ‘Molon labe!”

However, even if Boykin agrees with Joyner that a military coup is what’s needed to save America, it is worth keeping in mind that it appears Boykin – who at one time was the nation’s deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence – now has very little influence within the Pentagon. He was, after all, investigated and rebuked by the Department of Defense for his remarks about Islam.  More recently, his bigoted remarks about Islam resulted in an Egyptian mob attacking Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s motorcade.

Joyner is not the first conservative to suggest a military coup as a means to overthrow President Obama. In July 2009, while discussing the military coup that had just occurred in Honduras, Rush Limbaugh semi-jokingly suggested that our own military leaders should follow suit, since Obama was “doing everything he could to ensure the defeat of the U.S. military,” later adding: “And if we had any good luck, Honduras would send some people here and help us get our government back.”


Limbaugh’s show is broadcast daily on Armed Services Radio.


Cross-posted at Hatewatch.