Insurrection on the Potomac: The Gun Guys Go Seditious

By GottaLaff

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash, via my buddy Mark Karlin:

The politically charged gun movement in America that began when right wing ideologues took over the NRA in the '70s (in what was called "The Revolt at Cincinnati") has been pathological from the beginning. [...]

Ironically, as pro-gun legislation is passing across the land and in Washington, the Virginia gun guy "protest" was held on National Park land that now allows handgun carrying because of a law signed by President Obama -- and most of the attendees were locked and loaded.

At both rallies, the talk was defiant and seditious, threatening [...]

There were only a few hundred gun nuts who showed up at each rally, but that was enough to get a scrum of media coverage, as compared to the barely covered 200,000 advocates who showed up in D.C. a couple weeks back to protest for a compassionate immigration policy.

The modern gun lobby -- after the political right wingers took over the NRA in a coup -- is more about white male entitlement, racism, and the false perception that a handgun would be of much value against the United States Military based on a paranoid view of the federal government. [...]

They certainly didn't protest the invasion of privacy on multiple levels under the Bush Administration.

Please read the whole thing here.

The illogic of the angry voter

By GottaLaff

A letter to the editor from the L.A. Times:

The angry voter comes in various flavors:

* The leftist who wanted Obama to undo everything the Bush administration had done in the last eight years.

* The right-winger who wanted to be able to run on a platform that blames Obama for the years of financial damage that preceded his administration.

* The person who has health insurance, hasn't (yet) been hurt by the current system and doesn't want to help pay for those who have.

* The voter who may not have liked the imperial presidency of Bush/Cheney but resents the messiness of having Congress' constitutional responsibilities returned to Congress.

* The Social Security and Medicare beneficiary who thinks there won't be any curbs on those programs unless the healthcare bill passes -- even though there will be more limitations if nothing changes and the country can't pay for the escalating entitlements.

But the solution the angry voter seems to have chosen is to return to power the party that caused all the problems Obama hasn't yet been able to fix.

Will someone explain the logic of that to me?

I sure can't.

Dep't. of What, Again? When will Sarah the Quitter quit quitting?

By GottaLaff

(AP Photo/The Tri-City Herald, Richard Dickin)

Going rogue doesn't mean going AWOL, Barbie:

Cheers erupted along the Columbia River on Thursday morning as Sarah Palin and her large family of “Rogue Runners” approached the start line for the annual Turkey Trot.

Oh boy! A chance to rub shoulders with Barbie McLipSchmutz in a running outfit, this time not leaning on the American flag!

I can just hear the murmers of adoration, smell the anticipation-induced sweat, taste the fangirl/fanboy fervor!

Both fun run participants and spectators who’d been waiting more than an hour in the bitter cold for a glimpse of the former Republican vice presidential candidate rushed to snap her picture with cameras and cell phones.

I hope every potential snapper got satisfaction this time. I mean, after that last fiasco in which Barbie abandoned her groupies, she wouldn't dare renege this time, right?

Palin had announced on Twitter that she would be running the 5K race, organized by the Benton-Franklin Chapter of the Red Cross.

However, she didn’t finish the race, opting to leave the course early to avoid more crowds at the end. About 40 minutes into the run, people gathered at the finish line to get more pictures of Palin started to learn that she was gone.

Ruh-roh. This can't end well.

Towards the end of the race, the officers asked Palin what she wanted to do. Palin decided to divert off the course and head back to their cars so the family could get to their Thanksgiving dinner, Pitts said.

Sarah the Quitter should quit while she's behind.

H/t: Williams1977 aka Gimmeabreak, Rumproast

VIDEO: Angry Wingnuts Boo Sarah Palin, Call Her “Quitter”, Chant “Sign Our Books”

By GottaLaff

Looks like Barbie McLipSchmutz is losing a few more of her already low approval ratings points:

Angry crowd shouts at Sarah Palin at her book signing in Noblesville, Indiana on November 19, 2009 after Palin quits and refuses to sign books for around 300 families that spent about 3+ hours getting wristband and another 3+ hours waiting in line to get the Palin book signed. At Borders bookstore it was announced that 1,000 individuals would be given wristbands and could get two books signed each. By the time Sarah Palin quit, there were still about 300 individuals and there families who did not get even one book signed.

Liberal media elitists the farmer and my fellow co-blogger StrangeAppar8us have been collecting hostile comments from Sarah Palin’s Facebook page over in the Rumper Room.

For a nice hefty sampling of said comments, go here.

Yes, Sarah the Quitter strikes again.

Here's part of one comment:

Jordan Harris I just spent 9 hours of my day, $40 of my hard earned money on two of your books, and took the whole day off work to watch you jump on a bus and throw a half-heated wave to the crowd you were avoiding.

I have never felt so disrespected. How can you claim that you are different? You aren’t. You are just as selfish as everyone else in Washington.

Tsk, tsk. Barbie, your true colors show more and more at every tick of the clock. Maybe when you referrred to yourself as one of the people, one of us, you were referring to how "us" behaves on a bad hair, cranky, everything-goes-wrong, hate-the-world, thinking-of-nobody-but yourself day. If that's the case, then yes, you are one of us... at our worst.

And by all means, please keep on doing those Tee Vee interviews. The more we know you....

H/t: Andy Cobb

Gunning for trouble

By GottaLaff

Frommer's not alone. Good for the L.A. Times for this editorial:

Who's going to argue about the merits of the public insurance option with a wing-nut carrying the semiautomatic, civilian version of the M-16 military assault weapon?

[...] What has been threatened, though, are the very free-speech rights these gun enthusiasts claim to be dedicated to upholding.

There is a chilling effect on public debate, to say the least, when one side is carrying weapons of mass murder. [...] If Obama were discussing gun control at these events, this might actually make some sense, but what's the relationship between guns and healthcare reform? In reality, the protesters are merely seeking to intimidate their opponents and imply that if they don't get their way, armed resistance is an option. They are, in short, thugs.

[...] Gun control as a political movement is all but dead in the United States, with Democrats -- including Obama -- so cowed by the gun lobby's past success at the polls that they have lost interest in stemming the supply of firearms. That could change overnight if a right-wing extremist at a healthcare town hall loses his head and starts exercising his trigger finger along with his right to bear arms. Those who cherish the 2nd Amendment should hope this frightening trend of armed protest ends before that happens.

Guns and political rallies, which are often emotionally charged events, are a volatile combination. It would be better for everybody involved if participants left their guns at home.

D.C. delegate calls for ban on guns near Obama

By GottaLaff

(via)

When you have the hostility and boiling-over tempers that we've witnessed at political events, extra precautions become necessary. There is no reason assault weapons should be allowed anywhere near the president, especially in this new atmosphere of violence:

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) called on the Homeland Security Department and the U.S. Secret Service on Wednesday to provide tighter restrictions on citizens carrying weapons, openly or concealed, while in the vicinity of President Barack Obama. [...]

“It is clear that if the Secret Service can temporarily clear all aircraft from air space when the president is in the vicinity, the agency has the authority to clear guns on the ground that are even closer to the President,” Norton said.

But the Secret Service says that Obama was never in danger when a group of about a dozen protesters brandished their firearms outside the Phoenix convention center earlier this week where he was speaking.

Apparently, the Gun Guys were outside of the "outer-most perimeter of security". That's nice. Gosh, I feel so much better now. How's about you, the rest of the un-armed crowd?

But the Brady Campaign, a gun control group, said that these increasing instances of brandishing firearms in public could lead to escalated scenarios in the future that put the president at risk because it stretches law enforcement thin.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather our streets not resemble those of the Old West. Casual access to lethal weapons in a public setting where the gun-toters are part of an angry crowd isn't my idea of insuring domestic tranquility.

And yes, I believe in the Second Amendment. I also believe in safety first.

Miami got ugly today

By GottaLaff

Rushing, because I have to leave for work, so a copy and paste:

[W]e witnessed a near-street riot involving the exiting McCain crowd and two Cuban-American Obama supporters. Tony Garcia, 63, and Raul Sorando, 31, were suddenly surrounded by an angry mob. There is a moment in a crowd when something goes from mere yelling to a feeling of danger, and that's what we witnessed. As photographers and police raced to the scene, the crowd elevated from stable to fast-moving scrum, and the two men were surrounded on all sides as we raced to the circle.

The event maybe lasted a minute, two at the most, before police competently managed to hustle the two away from the scene and out of the danger zone. Only FiveThirtyEight tracked the two men down for comment, a quarter mile down the street.

"People were screaming 'Terrorist!' 'Communist!' 'Socialist!'" Sorando said when we caught up with him. "I had a guy tell me he was gonna kill me."

Asked what had precipitated the event, "We were just chanting 'Obama!' and holding our signs. That was it. And the crowd suddenly got crazy."

Garcia told us that the man who originally had warned the two it was his property when they had first tried to attend the rally with Obama T-shirts was one of the agitators. Coming up just before the scene started getting out of hand, the man whispered in Garcia's ear, "I'm gonna beat you up the next time I see you." Garcia described him for us: "a big stocky man wearing a tweed jacket." He used hand motions to emphasize this was a large guy. We went back to look for the gentleman twenty minutes after the incident but didn't find him.

The two Obama supporters had attempted to attend the event with tickets printed from the McCain website. Both were clad in Obama T-shirts, Sorando in a blue "Obama '08" shirt, and Garcia in a white "Obama-Biden" shirt. They were told that the event was being held on private property and that wearing the shirts or carrying the signs they would be asked to either remove the shirts or not attend.

[...]When the rally ended and the crowd spilled out, the disturbance began.

Garcia had a message for his stocky, tweed-clad threatener. "You tell that guy he can find Tony Garcia down at the West Dade library every day from 7 to 7 helping people early vote. I'll be there from 1 to 5 on Saturday and Sunday. You tell him if he wants to kick my ass that's where he can find me. Come beat me up."

Not thirty seconds later, John McCain drove by in his SUV and waved at Garcia on the sidewalk, who was happily waving his Obama sign.