The first interviewee is a Beckbot. The next one wants liberals boiled to death.
Nah, Tea Tantrumers aren't psychos at all. Just one big, touchy-feely, grassrootsy, values-lovin', tax-hatin', Beck-grovelin' family:
kpominville—April 17, 2009 — Despite the fact 95% of Americans just received the largest tax cut in American history, a parade of the easily manipulated gathered in St Clair Shores, Michigan on Wednesday because the crybaby pundit Glen Beck told them to.
The first woman was holding a sign that read: "Honk if you support the constitution" so I stopped and asked her exactly what she thought was threatening the constitution."
Imagine if these people got their wish and shoehorned their candidates of choice into the White House and Congress. I wonder how they'd feel once they realized they were being used and discarded like the naive trash that they are.
By the way, when will the media begin to refer to the sickest among the Tea Baggers as terrorists?
On November 22, 2009, The Tea Party Express landed in the High Desert Community of Barstow, CA after a nation wide tour that started in South Carolina. This poorly organized, poorly attended event was held in a public park but that didn't deter one teabagger from threatening to kick my ass for using my camera to take this video including his threats. Guns, global warming denying, Christian claims, eco terrorism, and mostly a whole lot of lunacy all wrapped in the American flag.
Larry Halstead just contacted me and added this (slightly paraphrased):
I took my two older sons, 12 and 13 with me, which could have gotten me charged with child endangerment. [Laffy Note: For those who may not realize, he's kidding; that was a joke].
The crazy lady, Nancy Dittman, had previously tried to infiltrate our Democratic club posing as Independent.
Robert Vassuer, who threatened to assault me before he crowned me "President of the Democrat Party" is a previous president of the local GOP club, a shrill tool who tries to impress by always attacking me in newspapers, city council meetings, etc. He's a huge coward that would never had done that, but was pumped up from rally. He got so close his nose touched my lens as he tried to get the mob mentality going against me. His wife saw that and dragged him away before he was arrested.
The speaker, Kevin, is @TheBlackSphere who started in on me on Twitter, started calling me a pedophile and got his followers to do the same for hours (his public strategy for anyone who says tea bagger, but it could cause the loss of my 5 adopted kids plus my reputation). I plan to sue.
What a compassionate, patriotic crowd.
Thank you, Larry, for sharing this with us, and helping to expose the Tea Baggers for who and what they are.
UPDATE: Blog Radio Show where Kevin exposes his own sick, perverted, damaging strategy to attack anyone who uses the word "Tea Bagger" by calling them a Pedophile, here.
Kate Glass/Gloucester Daily Times A stockpile of weapons and ammunition was found at the Bridge Street home of Gregory Girard on Tuesday night. / Staff Photographer
Need more proof of how HateSpew McSmileyFace inspires her followers? Why, here's some now:
The Massachusetts man charged this week with stockpiling weapons after saying he feared an imminent "Armageddon" appears to have been active in the Tea Party movement, and saw Sarah Palin, who he said is on a "righteous 'Mission from God,'" as the only figure capable of averting the destruction of society.
As we reported yesterday, Gregory Girard, a Manchester technology consultant, was found with a stash of military grade weapons, explosive devices including tear gas and pepper ball canisters, camouflage clothing, knives, handcuffs, bulletproof vests and helmets, and night vision goggles, say police. They believe Girard, who pleaded not guilty at his arraignment, was "preparing for domestic and political turmoil," and feared martial law would soon be imposed.
Girard's wife said her husband had recently told her: "Don't talk to people, shoot them instead," and "it's fine to shoot people in the head because traitors deserve it."
I have studied the "National Security Force," which is Obama's name for the secret police force he is creating. I have read the new law that gives them the right to operate as an extension of the DoD, carrying firearms, and executing search warrants, executing arrest warrants, and the like. Needless to say, it's a secret police force of some kind, and it appears likely to be created from inner city youths.
So much for that folksy keepy America-y safey thing, eh Sarah? And about that swell suggestion of yours to let the Tea Tantrumers go leaderless... mob rule is so much more preferable. At least Girard had enough lethal weapons for nearly everyone.
Oh, but sharing them would be veering smack dab into socialism. Never mind.
Yes, everything must have the worst possible connotation, especially when it comes to religion and/or race. This poor kid:
A Taunton father is furious his eight-year-old son was sent home from school and required to undergo a psychological evaluation after he drew a stick-figure picture of a crucifixion.
It started on December 2, when the boy's second-grade teacher at the Maxham Elementary School asked the class to sketch something that reminded them of Christmas.
The boy, who has special educational needs, had recently gone with his family to see the Christmas display at the LaSalette shrine, a Christian retreat in Attleboro.
He drew what appeared to be a crucified Jesus Christ with X's covering his eyes to signify that he had died on the cross.
He then told the teacher that the person he drew on the cross was himself.
The teacher was concerned it might be a sign of violence and she contacted school officials.
And yes, race was brought up as a factor:
"As soon as he said that that was him on this cross (sleeping) – red flag! She ran with it! Touchdown! I got 'em. I'm gonna have him evaluated, there's something wrong with this minority kid. We gotta get in his mind."
"I'm sick of using the race card, but being a black man, I feel that I'm racially discriminated, me and my child."
Angry protesters and strong supporters are clashing inside and all around a health care reform town hall meeting in Downtown Tampa. The meeting which was scheduled to begin at 6:00 at the Children's Board of Hillsborough County drew hundreds of people who quickly began to overwhelm staff and event organizers at the front entrance.
As the building filled to capacity, angry protesters stuck outside began to scream, yell, and chant. At one point, those trying to get inside began banging on windows as Tampa Police officers quickly spread out guarding all entrances.
10 Connects photojournalist Kevin Carlson, currently inside the meeting reports at least one fist fight breaking out inside. [...]
Democratic Congresswoman Kathy Castor and State Representative Betty Reed were hosting the event.
UPDATE 7:13pm
Police on bullhorns are trying to break-up the crowd outside the building on 1002 E. Palm Ave. [...]
Anticipating problems at health care forums, Florida Democratic Party Chair Karen Thurman released the following statement today:
"Throughout the summer, we have been reaching out to Floridians to engage in an important debate on the future our health care system. We have heard story after story from people who are struggling to get the care they need. "Recently, their thoughtful discussions are being interrupted by angry mobs - well funded and organized by Washington special interests - attempting to drown out the voices of the hard-working Floridians who are desperate for health insurance reform. These groups are not concerned about Americans' access to quality heath care, but are extreme ideologues, only interested in 'breaking' the President and thwarting the change Americans voted for last November."
This was inevitable. First we had a Maryland Democratic representative hung in effigy, now this:
[...] Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), the president of the freshman Democratic class has revealed that “at least one freshman Democrat” has already been “physically assaulted at a local event.” Connolly warned that conservative groups had taken things to a "dangerous level":
“When you look at the fervor of some of these people who are all being whipped up by the right-wing talking heads on Fox, to me, you’re crossing a line,’ Connolly said. ‘They’re inciting people to riot with just total distortions of facts. They think we’re going to euthanize Grandma and the government is going to take over.”
This is the Rushpublic party and their corporate fauxroots thugs "rattling" anyone who they don't agree with. Civil discourse is out. Violence, rage, and hostility are in. If this is how they treat their fellow Americans...
We have a serious problem here, and somebody better get it under control before it's too late.
From one of our friends in Iran: "Everyone is so energized and pumped up but no one knows how it will all end so enthusiasm and anxiety are inseparable and unavoidable. The city is burning with equal doses of energy and rage and thugs who look like they've been unleashed from the city jail roam the streets wielding sticks and batons. The contrast between the civility of yesterday's mass protest and the brutality of the thugs (they don't even deserve to be called police or security) is almost unbearable. We cannot decide whether to rejoice or despair. "
A Demotix reporter has been arrested and had his camera seized in Iran.
The contributor, who submitted videos from the streets of Tehran to Demotix, contacted us late last night after being released from custody by police. His camera, car and ID card were seized by police, and he was told to report back to police today, 17 June, to be handed to a judge.
While in custody, he was led by officials to believe that were he to be found guilty as a spy, he could be executed.
He said, “Just pray for me. Ten years ago in ‘Koye daneshgah’ [Tehran University] I was arrested, and it's a nightmare for me to repeat my memories...”
David Corn relays this report from a "reliable witness" inside Iran:
...HAS HIT THE FAN...TOHID SQUARE ON FIRE, PEOPLE ARE CHANTING, ALL ALONG SATTER KHAN STREET CHAOS, THEN SUDDENLY QUIET, PEOPLE EATING ICE CREAM, ETC., THEN MORE CHAOS, ROCKS, FIRE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREETS, CHANTS CHANTS CHANTS AND IT IS NOT YET NIGHT...TEHRAN IS ON FIRE TONIGHT... [...]
There are also clandestine videos being released on YouTube and elsewhere, most of them shot on cell phones, showing the beating, tear gassing, and shooting of protestors. This one, sent to us by an Iranian reporter, reportedly shows how the Ahmadinejad regime prepared stacks of fradulent ballots before the election even began:
How Bush 2000 of them.
At least one Iran watcher in Washington has a dark view of what lies ahead. Daniel Brumberg, acting director of the Muslim World Initiative of the US Institute of Peace, tells Mother Jones:
The regime seems to have an effective plan for quelling the protests. I think they will prevent any major mobiization inthe streets. All Khatami allies, clerics and lay, will be purged, forced to confess on TV that they are agents of the US. Welcome to Stalinism with an Islamist flavor: Iran moves to dictatorship. Sorry to be so grim, but that is my guess.
Read the rest of this really terrific, albeit disturbing, article here.
By GottaLaff Whether or not this was a politically motivated incident is still unknown, based on this report. But if this nutcase was yet another right wing extremist, or simply someone who escaped from a rubber room, both contribute to the recent uptick in the number of domestic terrorist incidents.
Spreading any message using violence-- no matter whose-- just doesn't say, "Join us. Join the cause. We're here for you. Peace, love, and unity is, you know, so Obama ago." But what it does do is influence those who are on the edge. It needs to stop.
Center City employees and shoppers were given quite a scare this morning by a man who was ranting and wielding a knife for nearly an hour at 8th and Market streets, police said.
What they didn't see was the hand grenade that police later recovered from his bag. [...]
When police arrived, they saw the man threatening passers-by with a large army knife. Authorities detained the man and found a hand grenade inside a camouflage backpack he wore, Little said. [...]
The grenade was later determined to be a practice round.
The man, who has not been charged, was taken to Pennsylvania Hospital for psychiatric evaluation.
This kind of stuff is contagious, like the plague.
At one of the many "Tea Party" protests, this one in Cleveland, not a single participant believes that President Obama was born in the US. Numerous McCain Palin voters, even the organizer, refused to say Barack Obama was born in the US.
The following is a very astute post and should be required reading for anyone who doesn't get (and even those who do) exactly what is behind the so-called Tea Parties.
We can make all the "teabagger" jokes we want (And I am not suggesting we stop... I sure won't. I live for the Rachel Maddows and Ana Marie Coxes, among others.), but the underlying motives, per the lengthy copy-and-paste below, are hateful, racist, and dangerous. Think: John McCain's/Sarah Palin's 2008 election crowds on crack:
Many white supremacists report planning to attend Tea Parties or already have and some are looking for a way to recruit into their White Nationalist movement. There’s an awful lot of Tea Party chatter among these folks. Why doesn’t the media cover this angle? Here’s a telling and typical comment from Stormfront.org:
Ladies and gentlemen, I think every WN needs to not only attend the April 15th Tea Party nearest you (I’m going to the Alamo in San Antonio) but then stay involved and help provide leadership to this movement.
I believe that this is the white revolution we’ve been waiting for.
It doesn’t look what we expected but this is it.
I’ve seen probably 50 videos on TV showing previous marches and what strikes me is that the participants are all WHITE. It stands to reason . . . we’re the ones being taxed to support Affirmative Action, Welfare and other worthless social programs. It’s our tax dollars going to ACORN and supporting the 12 million illegals swarming into our neighborhoods.
I would urge news media and citizen journalists covering the tea parties to scratch below the surface to get at the rotting racist underbelly of these protests and ask revealing questions like these top five:
“How do you know Obama is a socialist?”,
“Do you believe Obama’s presidency is a conspiracy by the Jews and Blacks?”,
“Who do you think Obama takes his orders from?”,
“Is Barack Obama an American citizen like you?”,
“How do you feel about having a black president in the White House - what’s the worst that could happen?”
1) Is it unique to Obama, i.e. is it a phrase we’ve never heard before applied to any other presidential candidate ever or is it something we haven’t heard in recent memory? For example: elitist or drug seller.
2) Is it illogical or impossible - does the assertion plainly contradict the facts? For example: elitist, drug seller or tax raiser.
3) Is it repeated, over and over, by a desperate person whose team is falling in the polls & who adopts a wide-eyed, credulous, nodding stare pronouncing the lie slowly and precisely with a watchful eye to see if the listeners are buying it. For example: elitist, drug seller, tax raiser or terrorist.
Optional: Does the assertion cause nervousness, embarrassment or confusion among non-blacks? When other white people such as Tom Brokaw sense something wrong and start to ask questions like “Do you really believe that?”, you know for sure you’re in the racist attack zone.
Here’s the new criteria for an undercover racist attack:
1) Is it unique to Obama, i.e. is it a phrase we’ve never heard before applied to any other president or is it something we haven’t heard in recent memory? For example: he’s not an American citizen or he’s a socialist who’s planning re-education camps for young people.
2) Is it illogical or impossible - does the assertion plainly contradict the facts? For example: not an American citizen, socialist, tax raiser, re-education camps for young people.
3) Is it repeated, over and over, by a desperate person whose team lost badly in the last election & who adopts a wide-eyed, credulous, nodding stare pronouncing the lie slowly and precisely with a watchful eye to see if the listeners are buying it. For example: not an American citizen, socialist, elitist, drug seller, tax raiser or terrorist.
Optional: Does the assertion cause nervousness, embarrassment or confusion among non-blacks? When other white people such as Tom Brokaw or John Stewart sense something wrong and start to ask questions like “Do you really believe that?”, you know for sure you’re in the racist attack zone.
[...] My main concern here is that the heated rhetoric around the protests could lead to violence against African-Americans, Jews and Latinos if some Tea Party recruits go from non-violent to violent. That’s why it’s important to drag the masked racism here out into the daylight so we can deal with it and force denials from their movement leaders before certain elements become more brazen and people start getting hurt.
I share those concerns. The corporate media have concentrated on crowd sizes, jump-cut-laden visual loops, montages of hand-painted signs, endless shots of tea bag-waving protesters, and the word "taxes". Unsurprisingly, they have yet to investigate anything beyond the superficial.
While peaceful protest is perfectly acceptable and healthy, it's time to put a stop to bloodthirsty extremists who encourage and fuel blatant hostility, hatred, and outright violence.
There's a lot of talk on this board about armed revolt. I am curious what form of such a revolt the revolutionaries would prefer. I can see a few scenarios:
1. Military Coup - The military deposes the government and declares itself in charge. A junta rules until democracy can be restored, similar to what happened in Pakistan.
2. Armed Rebellion - The fed up civilian population attacks their enemies forcibly. They take to the streets, or wherever they need to go, to ultimately depose the government and install one that follows their own ideals.
3. War for secession - Individual states try to secede and perhaps ultimately must arm to do it.
[...]
Yet it seems that the ultimate paradox in any rebellion for freedom from within is that the ultimate goal is to impose the will of the rebels on everyone else through force. It seems the very foundation of representative democracy is ****tered if we accept that we exchange the the power of ideas for the power of the sword upon each other.
Nevertheless, I am still very interested in your own preferred form of revolt.
Go read the whole thing, I left out a lot. Call me crazy, but to me, this falls under the category of inciting violence. Looks like Gramm-pa McCain and Limelight Palin really got the ol' ball-o'-hate rollin', eh?
UPDATE: I've added the Countdown video and changed the blog title to reflect that.
Iraqi officials moved to quell rising tensions between rival Sunni Muslim Arab factions in once-restive Anbar province Wednesday by recounting some of the ballots that were cast in last Saturday's provincial elections, even before the official results are known.
The Independent High Electoral Commission in Baghdad said it had acted after Sunni tribal leaders accused the province's ruling Iraqi Islamic Party of rigging the vote. [...]
Many signs of voting fraud were reported. Poll workers at five centers told McClatchy that they saw Iraqi Islamic Party loyalists filling out blank ballots for registered voters who didn't show and stuffing the ballot box. In one case, a poll worker said he was asked to fill out the ballots himself.
No wonder Bush calls this democracy. It so closely mirrors our own elections when he was a candidate and/or president [sic].
In another, a polling center employee said that he was ordered to leave at the end of the day so that party loyalists could fill in the ballots of voters who didn't show up.
The formal accusations of vote rigging came from Ahmed Abu Risha and other tribal leaders. Abu Risha — the Anbar head of a political movement, Iraq's Awakening Council, that grew out of a tribal group formed to battle militants — is widely credited with pacifying the province that was once a stronghold of the Sunni insurgency and al Qaida in Iraq. [...]
The city of Ramadi, at one time a killing field for U.S. soldiers who patrolled the hostile streets and deadly for residents, now is relatively calm. If Saturday's elections aren't considered credible, however, that could ignite a new round of violence. [...]
Saleh al Mutlaq, the head of another Sunni party, the Gathering of the Iraqi National Projects, said in an interview after returning from Anbar province that tribal leaders were outraged at the idea that the Iraqi Islamic Party would continue to govern there.
"Unless the electoral commission treats the complaints fairly, conflict is coming to Anbar," he said. "They cheated, and the tribal leaders will not allow them to govern them."
Security officials in Anbar braced for possible violence.
My heart breaks whenever I read stories like this. It breaks even more because I just had to say, "stories like this". There shouldn't be any:
Three young men from Staten Island, who allegedly spent Election Night looking for African-Americans to beat up after they became outraged by Barack Obama's victory, are now under federal indictment.
One victim of the group, 17 year old Liberian immigrant Alie Kamara, was beaten with a metal pipe and a police baton and still suffers from headaches and walks with a limp. Kamara's mother told ABC News, "My son didn't deserve what happened to him. ... He had to jump over a fence for his life."
The alleged ringleader, eighteen year old Ralph Nicoletti, is accused of the most heinous crime, deliberately running down a man whom he believed to be African-American as he drove with his friends through a predominantly black neighborhood.
Ronald Forte, who is actually white, was in a coma for 45 days. In a statement to the court, his mother said, "I have to take care of him for the rest of his life now. I had to leave my job to take care of my 38-year-old son because of this senseless act."
Nicoletti is considered the leader of the "Rosebank Krew" or "RBK," which is known for fire-bombing neighborhood homes and cars. He himself has an extensive history of arrests going back to the age of 14.
A woman canvassing for Obama in Wisconsin was punched in the face by a man ranting about ACORN. [...]
The silver lining is that when the woman who had been assaulted returned to Chicago, there was already a voicemail message from Barack Obama expressing his sorrow that she had had to go through such an experience.
[...] The usual gang of conservative bigmouths are inciting violence with their propaganda, and the suckers who want desperately to believe are so frustrated with the lack of believability of the propaganda that they're lashing out with violence and violent rhetoric.
Meanwhile, Obama has such a great organization that he heard about this small incident and contacted the victim before the end of the day.
I cannot begin to express my admiration for our candidate. Conversely, I cannot begin to express my abhorrence for the ignorant, stark raving mad goons on the other side.
Ed Henry is one of the more visible members of CNN's TBPNTOTV!!! in my Sunday posts. I snark at them relentlessly, but I don't think any one of them deserves this:
As Republican congressional candidate Keith Fimian warmed up the crowd at an afternoon rally with Sen. John McCain, CNN's Ed Henry was co-anchoring his network's weekend political coverage live from the press risers. Fimian was speaking about his personal accomplishments as Henry quizzed Bill Schneider, who was standing at another camera position at the rally.
A woman towards the back of the crowd angrily turned back and started yelling at Henry, asking him to stop talking during Fimian's speech. The woman grew so angry that she threw a pack of Dentyne Ice gum at Henry, which hit his back as he wrapped up his conversation with Schneider.
Henry finished his live shot and turned in the direction of the woman, who gave him the cut sign across her throat. Henry turned back, bent over to pick up the pack of gum, shrugged and shook his head as he tossed it to his producer.
Her anger might have had something to do with another unfortunate bit of timing -- an earlier live shot of Henry's had started just as the crowd of thousands began reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
It's way, way past time for Gramm-pa McCain to rein in his reptilian little gangsters. Between the hate speech and the violence, he and his Merry Band-O'-Thugs are well on their way to leaving a legacy of nothing but offensive behavior and brutality.
Grammps' reputation has already suffered immensely. He should have publicly put an end to these reprehensible acts, and has been called on to do so.
But he hasn't, and he won't. The P.O.W. powerhouse he so incessantly forces on us and so lovingly crafted is disintegrating. He's stuck with a quickly-(d)evolving loathsome image of his own making.
If you incite hatred, you get hatred... and violence:
But this one, from a reporter working on a piece for the Greensboro News-Record, stands out. He writes that he wandered to the back of a Palin event to talk to some protesters:
I sidled up to one of the Obama supporters and asked why they were there, what they were trying to accomplish.
As he was telling me a large, bearded man in full McCain-Palin campaign regalia got in his face to yell at him.
“Hey, hey,” I said. “I’m trying to interview him. Just a minute, okay?”
The man began to say something about how of course I was interviewing the Obama people when suddenly, from behind us, the sound of a pro-Obama rap song came blaring out of the windows of a dorm building. We all turned our heads to see Obama signs in the windows.
This was met with curses, screams and chants of “U.S.A” by McCain-Palin folks who crowded under the windows trying to drown it out and yell at the person playing the stereo.
It was a moment of levity in an otherwise very tense situation and so I let out a gentle chuckle and shook my head.
“Oh, you think that’s funny?!” the large bearded man said. His face was turning red. “Yeah, that’s real funny…” he said.
And then he kicked the back of my leg, buckling my right knee and sending me sprawling onto the ground.
Compare that to the calm, reasoned, peaceful attitude of the Obama campaign. A vote for Gramm-pa McCain is a vote for negativity: Negative attitudes, negative economic numbers, negative everything. Obama is his polar opposite.
It comes in an email from my friend Jeff Dearth, a media investment banker and former publisher of The New Republic. We also went to junior high and high school together in Michigan. He would not make this up. In 2005, Jeff attended a magazine industry conference at a casino hotel in Puerto Rico. (I was there, too, though not a witness to what follows.) The guest speaker was McCain. [...]
McCain’s game is craps. So is Jeff Dearth’s. Jeff was at the table when McCain showed up and happily made room for him. Apparently there is some kind of rule or tradition in craps that everyone’s hands are supposed to be above the table when the dice are about to be thrown.McCain—“very likely distracted by one of the many people who approached him that evening,” Jeff says charitably—apparently was violating this rule. A small middle-aged woman at the table, apparently a “regular,” reached out and pulled McCain’s arm away. I’ll let Jeff take over the story:
“McCain immediately turned to the woman and said between clenched teeth: ‘DON’T TOUCH ME.’ The woman started to explain...McCain interrupted her: ‘DON’T TOUCH ME,’ he repeated viciously. The woman again tried to explain. ‘DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU’RE TALKING TO?’ McCain continued, his voice rising and his hands now raised in the ‘bring it on’ position. He was red-faced. By this time all the action at the table had stopped. I was completely shocked. McCain had totally lost it, and in the space of about ten seconds. ‘Sir, you must be courteous to the other players at the table,’ the pit boss said to McCain. “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? ASK ANYBODY AROUND HERE WHO I AM.”
This being Puerto Rico, the pit boss might not have known McCain. But the senator continued in full fury—“DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU’RE TALKING TO? DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?”—and crisis was avoided only when Jeff offered to change places and stand between McCain and the woman who had touched his arm.
What is bothersome about this story, if it’s true, is only partly the explosive anger. More, it’s the arrogance.At the craps table, who cares who he is? And there’s the recklessness of such a performance in a casino full of journalists (unless McCain absolutely couldn’t control himself, which is even scarier). But this gamble paid off. Although there were published reports that McCain had gambled late into the night, which properly treated that matter as charming, this particular episode has gone unreported until now. [...]
Jeff Dearth is not an extreme partisan or an activist for either candidate. He supports Obama, in part because he is truly alarmed at the thought of the arrogant hothead he saw becoming president. (“I’d happily gamble with Senator McCain again,” he says, “but I definitely wouldn’t gamble on him.”)
Meanwhile, a former senior Bush administration official told Political Wire of at least three occasions where he saw McCain fly into a fit of rage, including one time when he got physical and actually push the person annoying him.
Joe Klein: "There is...a pent-up anger to McCain. He seems to be concentrating so hard on trying to stay calm that he doesn't have much energy left over to answer questions in a free and creative way. He is not the sort of person, in the end, that you want to invite into your living room for a four-to-eight-year stay."
I've posted about Gramm-pa McCain's temper often. But here we have Gramm-pa's Volatile Temper for Dummeez all in one post, courtesy of "Make-Believe Maverick", The Real McCain, and yours truly:
McCain is sensitive about his physical appearance, especially his height. The candidate is only five-feet-nine, making him the shortest party nominee since Michael Dukakis. On the night he was elected senator in 1986, McCain exploded after discovering that the stage setup for his victory speech was too low; television viewers saw his head bobbing at the bottom of the screen, his chin frequently cropped from view. Enraged, McCain tracked down the young Republican who had set up the podium, prodding the volunteer in the chest while screaming that he was an "incompetent little shit." Jon Hinz, the director of the Arizona GOP, separated the senator from the young man, promising to get him a milk crate to stand on for his next public appearance.
Talk about a "short" temper. See what I did there? Didja catch that short joke? I wonder if he sits on telephone books when he goes to the Early Bird Special at Denny's. Moving on. This next part is the story our own Cliff Schecter broke in his book, The Real McCain:
During his 1992 campaign, at the end of a long day, McCain's wife, Cindy, mussed his receding hair and needled him playfully that he was "getting a little thin up there." McCain reportedly blew his top, cutting his wife down with the kind of language that had gotten him hauled into court as a high schooler: "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt." Even though the incident was witnessed by three reporters, the McCain campaign denies it took place.
In 1992, McCain got into a heated exchange with Sen. Chuck Grassley over the fate of missing American servicemen in Vietnam. "Are you calling me stupid?" Grassley demanded. "No, I'm calling you a fucking jerk!" yelled McCain. Sen. Bob Kerrey later told reporters that he feared McCain was "going to head-butt Grassley and drive the cartilage in his nose into his brain." The two were separated before they came to blows. Several years later, during another debate over servicemen missing in action, an elderly mother of an MIA soldier rolled up to McCain in her wheelchair to speak to him about her son's case. According to witnesses, McCain grew enraged, raising his hand as if to strike her before pushing her wheelchair away.
McCain has called Paul Weyrich, who helped steer the Republican Party to the right, a "pompous self-serving son of a bitch" who "possesses the attributes of a Dickensian villain." In 1999, he told Sen. Pete Domenici, the Republican chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, that "only an asshole would put together a budget like this."
Last year, after barging into a bipartisan meeting on immigration legislation and attempting to seize the reins, McCain was called out by fellow GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas. "Wait a second here," Cornyn said. "I've been sitting in here for all of these negotiations and you just parachute in here on the last day. You're out of line." McCain exploded: "Fuck you! I know more about this than anyone in the room." The incident foreshadowed McCain's 11th-hour theatrics in September, when he abruptly "suspended" his campaign and inserted himself into the Wall Street bailout debate at the last minute, just as congressional leaders were attempting to finalize a bipartisan agreement.
At least three of McCain's GOP colleagues have gone on record to say that they consider him temperamentally unsuited to be commander in chief. Smith, the former senator from New Hampshire, has said that McCain's "temper would place this country at risk in international affairs, and the world perhaps in danger. In my mind, it should disqualify him." Sen. Domenici of New Mexico has said he doesn't "want this guy anywhere near a trigger." And Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi weighed in that "the thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He is erratic. He is hotheaded."
McCain's frequently inappropriate humor has also led many to question his self-control. In 1998, the senator told a joke about President Clinton's teenage daughter at a GOP fundraiser. "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?" McCain asked. "Because her father is Janet Reno!"
Two former reporters covering McCain, one who witnessed the following events and one who confirmed the facts provided by the first, relayed it to me as follows: In 2006, the Arizona Republican congressional delegation had a strategy meeting. McCain repeatedly addressed two new members, congressmen Trent Franks and Rick Renzi, as ‘boy.’ Finally, Renzi, a former college linebacker, rose from his chair and said to McCain, “You call me that one more time and I’ll kick your old ass.”McCain lunged at Renzi, punches were thrown, and the two had to be physically separated.
There you have it, all in one place. Consider this your own, personal WikiGramm-paTemperPedia.
.jpg)