Where Have I Heard That Before?
Via Sullivan, this Tom Maguire quote about the benign DHS report:
Uh huh – the problem with this DHS study is not that they are threatening extra-Constitutional surveillance and interrogation of people; it is that they are coming very close to attempting to criminalize non-violent political dissent. That is deeply problematic even if they do it with all the proper warrants.
The last time we went down this “criminalization of dissent” road, it was the defense trotted out during the DOJ hiring affair. Before that, it was reeled out to defend the US attorney firings. And before that, it was during the Valerie Plame affair. I’m prepared to call bullshit.
The DHS report does nothing of the sort- it isn’t criminalizing dissent, it is merely pointing out what we all know to be true- in this time of economic unease and with the ascent of an African-American President, right-wing extremism is something we should be concerned about. That isn’t even remotely near the same thing as the DHS making it illegal for K-Lo to compete with Jonah Goldberg for the stupidest right wing talking point of the day or for Michelle Bachmann to see if she can outdo herself every day.
In fact, as you can tell, both are still completely free to do just that.
Trackbacks & Pingbacks
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[…] At issue is I apparently forgot to include Sullivan’s link to Maguire in the blockquote in this post I made the other day about the fauxtrage regarding the DHS report. […]
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[…] Maguire via John Cole via Sully: Uh huh – the problem with this DHS study is not that they are threatening […]
It feels really weird to defend DHS.
John Cole said:
Shorter: It’s OK when Democrats do it.
Let me make it bumper sticker simple for the brain dead RW pundits et al who dont understand the point of the DHS report
The government is going after the Tim McVeigh’s NOT the Tim LaHaye’s
Got it…end of story……
John Cole
Its worth pointing out that the DHS report was based on a 2008 FBI report
http://mediamatters.org/items/200904160006?f=h_top
.
Oh and the title of that FBI report?
.
"White Supremacist Recruitment of Military Personnel since 9/11,"
John. Stop reading Sully. If not for your own sanity, then do it for us, the readers.
Forget about all of this other crap, it’s time they investigated the means used to make the right-wingers forget the years 2001-2008.
You had me at ‘Tom Maguire’.
@Wisdom:
A picture of your screen-name belongs in the dictionary under ‘Irony’.
-dms
DHS is still a stupid idea, but criminalizing dissent is the latest wingnut reason to hit the fainting couch. You might want to ">throw the Texas governor into the mix:
It appears Perry got that part wrong as well. The reporter did some homework and had this:
But then no one could have known that a Republican governor of Texas wouldn’t do his homework (or maybe just couldn’t do it.)
BTW go read Matt Taibbi’s latest takedown of the teabaggers. He’s got some choice words for Malkin:
@Fencedude:
Some horrendous and scary abuse of power is probably coming out re: Chertoff’s DHS. Right? That’s been the pattern.
Either that or Napolitano is to Obama as Reno was to Clinton, in right wing loony land. Poor thing. I like her.
Wisdom, as a troll, you suck.
Wait… Conservatives have racist tendencies? Since when?
Shocked I tell you, SHOCKED!
@Wisdom:
Don’t be an idiot. You can do better than that.
@Dennis-SGMM: Shock treatment. Just take one black guy with a funny name, elect him President and Bzzzzzt! The air is heavy with the smell of fried grey matter.
I’d be a lot more sympathetic to Tom Maguire’s argument if we hadn’t had various right-wing extremists in the 90s that performed such acts of "non-violent" dissent as blowing up a Federal building and blowing up abortion clinics.
This report that they’re blathering on about is nearly non-controversial from what I’ve been able to read. It amounts to "be on the lookout for crazies who are plotting the next Oklahoma City". Thats it. The thing that Maguire and Malkin and all the rest who are shreiking their heads off about this should ask themselves is "why do I read this and think ‘they’re talking about me’?" They’re not talking about you, you egocentric jackasses. They’re talking about people who are going to use violence as a form of dissent. It’s their fucking JOB to find these people (who, in our world today, are known as terrorists) and stop them. Preferably after they’ve done enough illegal stuff to get them convicted but before they actually kill anyone.
I’m not one to defend DHS – wasting our goddamn time and money on stupid color-coded systems for "terror alerts" and issuing stupid Orwellian rules on liquids on planes and other nonsense has not exactly made me their number one defender. But get real – we have a history of right-wing terrorism in this country that dates back to at least the formation of the KKK. Our law enforcement agencies SHOULD be paying attention to those folks, instead of wasting their time monitoring non-violent pacifists like the Quakers.
*snort*
That was beautiful prose on America’s immigrant hating anchor baby.
Great news, OLC memos to be released.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.....-released/
The DHS sucks, but after reading about McVeigh, Elohim and the rest of the right-wing nuts in this country, I am glad that the crazies are being monitored. I doubt they can be stopped if they want to do something terrible, though.
Also, while I am reluctant to use this line of reasoning, if the DHS came out with a report that said that Muslims in America were being recruited by extremist groups, would the GOP be the first to praise the report in a "SEE? SEE? I TOLD YOU!" sort of way?
Just remember, when Palin was directly asked during the campaign by Brian Williams if blowing up abortion clinics was terrorism she did not answer the question.
When these teabaggers get together and contribute $100,000,000 to the ACLU, I’ll consider whether their professed concern for the 1st Amendment might be sincere. Until then, their long and vile record of cheering the suppression of dissent compels me to call propagandistic bullshit.
@gwangung:
That’s pretty typical of his comments, so I doubt it.
It also sounds like Tom DeLay bitching about the "criminalization of politics".
Well we all know it’s not the Neo-Nazis and other loud right wing nuts you have to worry about, it’s the quiet ones like the Quakers. The real dangerous types are always the peaceful quiet ones.
@sgwhiteinfla:
Let it drop.
Smell the smoke from that gun, motherfuckers.
Levenworth or bust.
@Wisdom: Joined the ACLU yet?
@NonyNony:
Right.
To me it works like this: The people whinging about "criminalizing dissent" are the same people who would cry "Negligence!" if something tragic happened (a la Timothy McVeigh and OKC) and we hadn’t looked at this possibility.
These are people who only understand the gotcha aspects of anything, big or small. F- ck them. Due diligence requires this look at the possibilities.
Fortunatley, now we have a president who won’t look at a warning like this and then sneer "Okay, now you have covered your asses." We fired that sumbitch in November.
Aside, if the edit comment thing isn’t going to work, why don’t you guys just turn it off? Get it fixed and then turn it back on.
It does not work correctly, at all.
Tea Parties draw over 250000, and not one smashed window at a Starbucks.
Janet and Barack are going to have their hands full.
@ John Cole:
I’m all for freedom of speech, but damn….. that’s tempting.
@The Grand Panjandrum:
Dude….. that was uncalled for.
This coming from the same group who said the war protesters should all be rounded up, sent to Gitmo and/or shot. Cry me a river, wingnut whackos.
Oddly enough, Fox News’ Shepard Smith debunked all the hysteria on his show:
http://crooksandliars.com/davi.....icking-tea
@Wisdom:
250000 in nearly 400 locations.
Call me when they manage to get half that many people in one place at one time.
Also you seem to not understand the difference between a protest and a riot.
That wouldn’t even make a decent small city Gay Pride celebration. In fact you get more wingnut whackos than that at Gay Pride celebrations.
Maybe if their corporate sponsors pay for a few hot chiseled dudes in leather they’ll draw bigger crowds next time. Now that they know what "teabagging" REALLY means.
Yeah, and no federal buildings were blown up either.
Congratulations wingnuts.
Good thing no oppressive government was in place before Obama to consider liberal and leftist protest some sort of dangerous criminalized dissent such that Quakers and vegans were spied on, protesters were corralled into distant "free speech zones" away from the targets of their protests, journalists were arrested despite their media access passes, and protesters were arrested and investigated for possible terrorist connections.
Good thing that no liberals or lefties were screaming repeatedly for the last 8 years that the right wing worship of Executive authority and unwarranted surveillance would someday be in the hands of a non-right winger.
And it’s not like the same DHS also just recently completed a simultaneous study of the forms of possible left-wing extremist movements and violent threats.
No, no, no, this is all just about Black Hussein Arafat Hitler Stalin Mao Pol Pot Obama X silencing Rush Limbaugh from telling da troof and the people really committed to freedom are right wingers who screamed for the last 7 years YOU’RE EITHER WITH’US OR AGIN’US.
I know this is off-topic, but there’s a very timely and important article by serious conservative writer George Will about the evils of jeans.
@Fencedude: Sugar Land, Texas (the old town of Tom DeLay’s) was pretty jumping. It’s no small thing to get several hundred folks together for a political protest. Most political maneuvering in that town is as closed-door and exclusive as possible.
It’s definitely a sea change when a rally like that would even be considered in a highly conservative right wing bastion town. They usually look down their noses at that kind of thing.
It’s not the coming out of the "Silent Majority" by any stretch, but it is a reversal of attitudes. The GOP is getting much more energized than it was under John McCain.
@Joshua Norton:
No you don’t. You’re confusing guys passing by on the street throwing slurs to people who specifically show up to counter-protest.
This was, for conservative activism, a bigger thing than we usually see.
@Wisdom:
250k at 400 locations? Hell, that’s not a good turnout for a well promoted forklift rodeo.
Considering that "Conservative Activism" is very nearly an oxymoron, yes, it was in fact relatively impressive.
Still a complete drop in the bucket, comparatively. Especially considering how much airtime it got on the run-up
Which makes me wonder all over again why you have Maguire on your blogroll, John. I’ve never known him to promote honest discussion about anything, and the comment section over there is a real cesspool.
I think those are fair statements to make. And if they build on this and not remain defensive, smug and self-satisfied, it might mean something.
Too many wingnuts are crowing that this showing tops anything ever done by the left–which is patent nonsense.
What strikes me about these Tea Parties is that there is no coherent message coming from them.
I defy any pol to take one of those tea parties and turn it into any definable political action.
"I hate to pay taxes!" is not exactly something that is going to resonate with people who are worried about their jobs and their health insurance and hoping that somebody can get things back on track.
Especially when the cost of stimulus is less than the cost of doing nothing, in terms of revenue over time.
Grover Norquist’s insane dream is in big trouble.
Why, yes. Yes they are. When 0.8% of the population gathers together for poorly defined protests with an incoherent message, that is DEFINITELY cause for the President to lose sleep at night.
Asshat.
250,000 people, out of the total US population of 304m comes out to… let’s see, carry the one… .00008% of the population.
Yup, lot to worry about there.
Methane will energize a corpse too, briefly.
ok, either Krista or I messed up the math. (this is why I’m a lawyer)
(edited, I apparently can’t read today)
@Zifnab:
One thing that I’m sure helps is the fact that it is a deliberately unfocused message. It’s people’s chance to vent at …oh, "the left," Democrats, that Kenyan in the White House, taxes, and the general unfairness of their lives.
A woman who passed me on her way to the local teabagging event was telling her friends, "I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it any more!" Indeed.
By the way, here are the pics I took on a brief stroll through the teabagging party in my town. I also posted ’em on a late night open thread, but those threads move fast.
@Wisdom: Hey the Tea Bag didn’t outdraw American Carol in its first weekend and it was in less theatres, but it was a noble effort to gather together everyone on your side for a day. And the fact that such huge numbers gathered in so many different locations without any violence (well I think there was one punch thrown in Philly) is a testament to the age of the crowds.
I smell WIN! for conservatives, or should one say, people who were protesting the horror of deficit spending, the black hitler, social security, medicare, Amtrak, etc. because not all of them were actually conservatives.
But you should check your numbers as Fox was promoting a events in over 700 cities. Maybe the real number was more like 300,000 teabaggers. W00t!
To be fair to the wingnuts, it’s hard to stay on message at protests. I saw a fair amount of off-message signs at anti-war protests, everything from freeing Mumar (or whateverhisname is, the copkiller in Philly) to legalize hemp to 9-11 twoofers…
On the other hand the anti-war protests were protesting a real war, the teabaggers were protesting non-existent tax hikes..
@Zuzu’s Petals:
Agreed. T. M. is consistently dishonest.
Calling for secession, revolution, behind enemy lines & uprisings does not count as non-violent.
Fuck the Bachmanns with a spiked metal dildo and move on.
Especially considering the hypocrisy — these are the same people who always dismissed the anti-war protesters as a small bunch of rabble-rousing hippies who weren’t at all representative of actual public sentiment.
The teabaggers made up a tiny fraction of the numbers that the anti-war protests had. And yet, they’re the ones who are representative of this giant grassroots movement that should be causing the President a great deal of alarm?
@Zuzu’s Petals:
Dang.
Here’s the link:
Teabags Across America (Sacramento Version)
h/t Rachel Maddow
Apparently the difference is all in how much news-time they get.
Also, DFH only count as 1/10000th of a "Real American" or something.
Of course Tom didn’t complain about "criminalization of dissent" when protesters were preemptively arrested in St. Paul last August.
Tom: If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about. I heard that shit from your kind incessantly since 9-11. I really don’t give a crap about how you feel now that you’re hearing it.
CNN had a protester on who kept screaming that "Obama was a Fascist!" When he was pressed to explain why he was claiming Obama was supposedly a fascist, he couldn’t make any further sensible argument than to scream "because he is!".
The peasants are revolting!
They certainly are.
@Woodrowfan:
True. But in this case the unfocused rage seemed to be the intent of the organizers.
For instance, when they tried to promote protests just against the stimulus ("Porkulus!") package a couple of months ago … not much of a turnout.
According to Nate Silver (i.e. "Wisdom’s" link) teh teabaggers drew 3,000 people in Cincinnati yesterday. Then candidate Obama drew between 10 and 15,000 in the same city in October, 2008. He drew 20,000 in Cincy in November. So what have we learned here today? Well, I’ve learned that Barack Obama is 5 to 7 times more popular in a traditionally GOP-leaning area than a bunch of wingers too stupid to realize that the president’s policies are designed to help them. I doubt that "Wisdom," and those like him learned anything at all.
Lets be fair here – they want good PR. Even Fox News would have abandoned them had they come out and announced what they really wanted to say – which is "I hate having a n***** in the White House".
But they have done many things wrong and they know it.
That’s why they’re worried.
@liberal:
Something I admired about Cole in his days as a Republican – even though I wasn’t commenting then – was his interest in an honest discussion of the issues. Not saying there weren’t opinions, but he kept it honest.
Hey wait a damn minute!
Didn’t the right just say that we are overreacting to the economic situation …. that the malls are packed?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm…….
@Michael G:
I like how he still managed to work Burke into it there at the end. Burkean Blue Jeans for all! Next week’s column: "T-shirts of Satan."
If you divide the number of protesters by the number of things they were protesting you get about one hundred protesters per issue.
Aren’t these the same people who wanted the NTY editor executed for a puff piece on Cheney’s vacation home (with Secret Service permission)?
Yes, they are.
So says George Will.
Fine, if somebody will pay my $750 a month dry cleaning bill, I will dress like Fred Astaire every day.
Jeans are ubiquitous because they are sturdy, and they are wash and wear. Not because people are silly.
In fact, for $1500 a month in dry cleaning stipends, I will dress like Grace Kelly.
@Wisdom:
Yeah, it was all ponies and puppies yesterday.
@Woodrowfan:
Sorry for yet another “our nutcases aren’t as bad as their nutcases” argument, but at least at left-wing protests the off-message signs don’t go all the way to internal contradictions. They’re unfocused so they don’t accomplish much of anything, and varying flavors of revolutionaries wind up arguing with each other about whether capitalism has to fall before sexism, but they all would agree with each other that both laissez-faire capitalism and sexism are bad.
Here, though, they seem to be objecting to the budget deficit just as loudly as to taxes. This would be like people with “Free Mumia” signs standing side-by-side with people with “Fry Mumia” signs.
And double that to stop? :P
Nonsense. If jeans were good enough for Katharine Hepburn and Princess Diana, then they’re certainly good enough for me.
But, I’d hate to offend George Will’s sensibilities, which appear to have been frozen sometime around 1957, so the next time I run to Wal-Mart for some toilet paper, I’ll be sure to wear a day dress with a torpedo bra, a girdle and stockings, and a fur coat. And a hat.
Who the fuck is he, Andy Rooney? He, Andy, and John McCain should get together and have a "get off my lawn!" party.
Shorter Will: These jeans DO make my ass look fat.
@Bill Teefy: FTW!
@Krista:
Great, I will have the visual with me the rest of the day here at work.
Kinda OT, kinda not. First I heard about this was when it was advertised on the Glen Beck radio show earlier this week. Scary.
Mr. Will, if you wish me to dress like Grace Kelly, I implore you to apply your clearly superior mind to the issue of orthopedically correct high heel shoes. My podiatrist and I are both of the opinion that my wearing high heels on a daily basis is asking for trouble, what with my weak arches and ankles.
WTF? I mention a foot doctor and orthopedics and get moderated?
Sign me up as giving a shit when they start conducting illegal surveillance and arrests of right-wing protesters. That is, assuming they can find enough right-wing protesters to spy on and arrest.
Fixed version:
I too think Bill Teefy nailed it @ 72. Will tried a pair of jeans on, looked at himself in a three-way mirror, burst into tears, and went home and wrote that column.
The fact that fashion advice is being handed out by someone who needs only a propeller beanie to complete his own look is yet further proof that irony has died, been cremated, and had its ashes stomped into the ground.
Were these not the same whingenuts that spent so much time, lo those years ago, suggesting:
Dissent (anti-war) = "aid and comfort to the enemy" = treason
Don’t bother answering; I know the answer already. Obviously, they don’t.
If the report had been about Muslims and/or brown people we would not have heard a peep from the right.
@TenguPhule:
Do I hear Five Thousand?
That Will article is a real winner:
Let’s just leave aside that this is coming from a guy who wears bow-ties. His idea of "juvenile" seems to be "new-fangled stuff that I don’t understand." Christ, Fox has been running animation for adults for over twenty fucking years, and this bozo goes on about it like King of the Hill was a show of goofy animals teaching lessons about sharing. Then he suggests that universal suffrage is evil, and that franchise should be granted based on the voter’s hobbies.
Just come out and say it, Will. You want to go back to allowing only property-owning white males to vote. You hate the popularity of jeans because you want strict delineation between the high-class worthies and the low-class shit workers. How can you tell them apart by immediate sight if the classes aren’t wearing their proper uniforms?
Fucking wanker. And this is America’s favorite pundit! Puke.
You’re either With Us or You’re With the Terrorists. Make up your mind, neo-Confederate tax whiners.
@Jrod:
Fuck you Will, fuck you.
Also jesus, what a way to an entire segment of the population, dumbass.
John,
You yourself just made a very stupid response.
The DHS report does nothing of the sort- it isn’t criminalizing dissent, it is merely pointing out what we all know to be true- in this time of economic unease and with the ascent of an African-American President, right-wing extremism is something we should be concerned about.
As if no other person in America could have dissenting thoughts other than somebody right or leaning right, and as for the African-American part you are, what I would call a wingbat.
Sure, it’s just a coincidence that the right-wingers ramped up the crazy after a black guy got elected. It’s not like the US has a long history of race-based terrorism.
It’s a DHS report, not a DHS musing on various possibilities which may or may not occur. It’s a report on violent threats, not dissent. Maybe you should learn to read before you try to write.
@SLKRR:
Bell Bottoms for the Burkean Bells!
.
Jrod,
Maybe, just maybe you don’t know how or why such assessments are made. It is well beyond your scope so I won’t embarrass you. Your mom told you not to touch the stove, it is apparent you did not listen.
The right was complaining the entire Bush administration about spending. The Bush spending was above and beyond, the Obama administration is beyond absurd and leads not to a fix but to an ownership.
A retard like you talking about what’s beyond my scope is fucking hilarious. Using that as an excuse not to back up any of your poorly defined points is just typical.
Your lil’ lungs is too small to hot box with me, son.
The right was complaining the entire Bush administration about spending.
Well, I guess if you restrict the scope to "spending on anything even peripherally related to center or left favorites" (e.g. education).
But spending in general? Not so much
Maybe, just maybe you don’t know how or why such assessments are made. It is well beyond your scope so I won’t embarrass you.
Please enlighten us as to how or why such assessments are made, since you apparently work for I&A.
But I understand your skepticism in general, because it’s patently obvious that all the complaints about the Islamocommunofascist, not-born-in-America, where’s-the-white-wimmin-at, antiChrist known as Barack HUSSEIN Osamabama have been coming from the left.
And besides, Teh One has had 87 DAYS!!2!, and the Economy still isn’t fixed, so I’m a-gonna go protest my tax cut!
Etc. etc.
[…] Maguire via John Cole via Sully: Uh huh – the problem with this DHS study is not that they are threatening […]
@JWW:
Really? The right was complaining about how we blew $1T in Iraq and Afghanistan, or about how the military budget even apart from the wars exploded under Bush’s watch?
@Zuzu’s Petals:
I came to this blog after JC’s "conversion" (IIRC, it was the Schiavo nonsense), but many people have mentioned this, and the level of honesty is still there.
Next step: "It was that illegal discrimination by the DHS and DOJ that made them blow up government buildings and shoot ATF agents."
– Orwell got it wrong. Room 101 is empty.
[…] At issue is I apparently forgot to include Sullivan’s link to Maguire in the blockquote in this post I made the other day about the fauxtrage regarding the DHS report. […]