You all know the drill. The recent vague and controversial DHS report on right-wing extremism, the cover of which DHS might just as well have put on the Republican Party platform. The endless puerile teabagging jokes from the fourth estate’s finest, giggling into their microphones like ten-year-olds who just found a tittie mag.
CNN reporter Susan Roesgen even called a Tea Party “anti-government and anti-CNN” when her pro-government handout rant to a Tea Partier was rudely interrupted. Ms. Roesgen took particular offense at a sign of Obama with a Hitler moustache. “Why be so hard on the President of the United States though with such an offensive message?” the offended Ms. Roesgen asked.
Yet in 2006, Ms. Roesgen was perfectly comfortable with this Satan/Hitler Bush mask, jokingly calling it a Bush ‘look-alike.’ I guess it all depends on which POTUS you’re hard on. Right, Suzie?
And therein lies the rub. Dissent was SO patriotic not so long ago, wasn’t it? Dissent against war, dissent against torture, dissent against wiretapping, dissent against Gitmo, dissent against rendition, dissent against government abuse of power. In fact, now-Secretary of State Clinton was quite vocal on the matter back in the day:
“I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic. And we should stand up and say we are Americans, and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration!”
Right On, Hillary! You Go, Girl! Why is that all different now? I thought she said any administration. Heard plenty of cheers then. Only jeers now. Why is that? Wouldn’t be a double standard, would it?
Example. If President Bush and Karl Rove targeted private citizens like Al Franken and Michael Moore with the power, authority, consent and political weight of the White House, the death camp talk from the Left wouldn’t have been far behind. It never was anyway, but especially in that case. There’d certainly be plenty of ‘left wing chatter’ on the Internet rehashing Nixon’s Enemies’ List.
Yet President Obama and Rahm Emmanuel did that very same thing to Rush Limbaugh. Yawn. And now we find that NSA intercepts of Americans have skyrocketed in recent months under the Obama Administration, and well beyond limits set by Congress. The NSA called it “an over-collection of domestic communications in America.”
Over-collection on whom, exactly? DHS-declared extremist threats? Or ‘right wing chatter’? Funny. I never saw the term ‘left wing chatter’ used in any government report. In fact, the term ‘left wing chatter’ isn’t even in the DHS report on possible left wing cyber attacks! How bad is that? In fact, the only other place I’ve seen that term used by the government is for ‘chatter’ on Al Qaeda websites.
I know I’m going to hear it from Lefties now: “See how we felt under the BusHitler?” Um, no, I don’t. What weren’t you free to say? That Bush engineered 9/11 and murdered 3000 innocent civilians to start a war? That you wanted Bush and Cheney dead? That you wanted the Iraq War to fail? We can’t even say we want Obama to fail without it being a federal case with talk of censorship!
Actually, more than talk.
Wouldn’t be the first time. What have we come to, when freedom-championing Liberal Democrats pass petitions around in Congress to shut up the most popular radio talk show host in America? One thing it definitely says: The Old Patriotism is out, and the New Patriotism is in.
Talk of shutting up Rush, even from the White House. Sorry. We had to deal with Air America, KOS and HuffPo. Your turn. And I really hate sore winners who try to change the rules in mid-game. Like issuing a national security report that covers the opposition party’s entire platform, and is so vague we can even be snitched out to the police for political thought. Sound familiar?
This DHS report doesn’t quell paranoia. It fuels it. And it ain’t paranoia when every law enforcement agency in the country now has DHS guidelines on Right Wing Extremism so broad, individuals who oppose abortion, illegal immigration, even the federal government itself, are suspect.
It’s one thing for Hillary Clinton to call us a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy out of spite. Quite another for the Department of Homeland Security to do so officially on paper.
I’m getting a very creepy feeling, people. It’s like the government, the press, and the freedom-championing American Left, who now rule supreme, see their big chance and are now looking to silence the Right once and for all through ridicule, demonization, even intimidation through official government reports to law enforcement.
Unnamed individuals with views that don’t adhere to the present government’s on abortion, illegal immigration, even the Second and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution, are called out in the DHS report. Makes me wonder who the real extremists are here.
In short, dissent is now unpatriotic. Tea Parties are being falsely linked to White Supremacy and neo-Nazi groups by both the press and Members of Congress. Public demonstrations against high taxes and spending, which reporters ridicule and call ‘anti-government.’ A member of the press calling a peaceful public protest ‘anti-government’ while spouting government policy?
What have we come to as a nation?
Good question. I’m keeping my eyes peeled, people. You should too. For any more government issue insanity like DHS’ Right Wing Extremism report which, though not as severe as Hitler’s Night and Fog Decree, is just about as broad. Or the Fairness Doctrine, which is less fairness and more doctrine, and could even regulate web content. Just like Iran and China do. Feeling better now?
And that’s just on top of their usual insanity.
I can at least take comfort that the outrageous DHS report on Right Wing Extremism has made strange bedfellows of Michelle Malkin and Rolling Stone. Hope Springs Eternal. And to all reasonable Lefties everywhere (I know there are a few), please stop asking us why we weren’t protesting this stuff for eight years, and just look at why the hell we’re protesting it now, okay?
Our bad! You happy? Actually, I better watch it now. I already have one strike against me.
I’m a Vet, you see. I could go either way.
Actually, I will go one step further. President Obama, liberal Democrats and non-extremist left wingers (I know there are a few) need to grow much thicker skins politically, before they start drifting into dangerous political waters themselves. Bush didn’t give one hoot about Michael Moore, Al Franken or Air America, even when Randy Rhodes simulated his assassination on the air.
Yet Rush seems as dug under the collar of President Obama, Rahm Emmanuel, liberal Democrats and Lefties as a bloodthirsty tick. Sorry, but Bush had his ticks, too. They all did. Every last POTUS there ever was. Goes with the territory. It’s called free speech and democracy. Deal with it.
You have a lot more important business to attend to than Rush Limbaugh and Tea Parties. Besides, even if you did manage to get Rush off the air, think of all the tax revenue you’d lose. Not very smart.
And could sombody please tell CNN’s Susan Roesgen to either report the news or get the hell off the air? We already know what the government’s position is. That’s why we’re OUT there!
Peter Maas you ain’t, lady.
THIS JUST IN: Radio talk show nuke Michael Savage, along with the Thomas Moore Law Center, is suing DHS for civil liberties violations over the RWE report. They may have grounds. The DHS Civil Liberties Division objected to the broad language of the RWE report, but DHS issued it over their objections anyway. How’s THAT for our stalwarts of liberty guarding the gates?
Starting to look more like foxes in a chicken coop. I hope the heat keeps pouring on President Obama and Janet Napolitano until she has to resign. She’s earned that heat. Unlike those she so broadly called out in her official report.
Speaking of heat, here’s DHS. Here’s the White House. Here’s Congress.
Credit where credit is due. This is from an ACLU blog. Take friends where we can get ’em.
“If these “intelligence” reports described recent crimes and the people who perpetrated them, there would be little problem from a civil rights perspective, and it could actually be helpful to the average police officer.
‘Instead, they have followed a “radicalization” theory popularized by the NYPD (PDF). That theory postulates that there is a “path” to terrorism that includes the adoption of certain beliefs, and political, religious, or social activism is viewed as another step toward violence.
‘Actual empirical studies of terrorism conducted in the Netherlands and Britain refute this theory, but the idea that hard-to-find terrorists can be caught by spying on easy-to-find activists appears too hard to resist to U.S. law enforcement.”
On that note, you all need to know about regional DHS Fusion Centers. There’s 58 of them around the country. Update: 70. Many are privately run. They were originally set up by DHS after 9/11 as local anti-terrorism information processing centers, but there are signs now they’re being politicized well beyond that scope. Just like DHS with their report. And with our tax dollars. $250 million worth.
Feeling good yet? If not, how about this nugget from Big Janet herself, who called fusion centers, many of them operated privately through grants, “the centerpiece of state, local, and federal intelligence-sharing for the future.” For what right now look like political profiling centers. Great.
Former FBI agent Mike German, now with the ACLU, also has a different take than Big Jan.
“We’ve built this network, and nobody’s policing it,” says Mike German, a former FBI agent now with the ACLU. “Nobody knows exactly what each fusion center is doing. … Even the best fusion centers operate under a cloak of secrecy.” Part of the problem, German says, is that fusion centers fall in a “no-man’s-land” between federal and state governments.
‘Such ambiguity can lead fusion centers to pick and choose which rules apply to them. A 2007 study by the Government Accountability Office found that one-third of all fusion centers reported a lack of guidance on the proper handling of information, including privacy and civil-liberties concerns.’
Gives the term fusion new meaning. Well, an old one, actually. FYI. Need To Know. It all figures in.
Good Night and Good Luck.
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