Wingnuts: socialist/Commie/fascist/Nazi Edition

Atrios sees that Matt Drudge Rules Their World

And they are powerless.

Whatever the merits of politics by hissy fit, it's almost impossible for a left wing hissy fit to penetrate our media. It rarely happens, even when it's a hissy fit about torturing and killing people. Perhaps especially then.

Benen: PREPPING FOR HEALTH CARE REFORM NULLIFICATION...

Following up on an item from July, there's at least a chance that policymakers will eventually agree on a health care reform bill, and the landmark legislation will become law later this year.

At which point, right-wing state lawmakers will begin their efforts to block reform before it's implemented. Far-right Republicans have already taken steps in that direction in Florida and Texas, and Georgia is going down the same road. (via Zaid Jilani)

A group of Republican state senators on Thursday said they want to amend the state's Constitution in an attempt to stop Democrats in Washington from enforcing health care reform here.

Sens. Judson Hill (R-Marietta) and Chip Rogers (R-Marietta) were joined by about half a dozen colleagues to unveil their plans. The resolution would be introduced when lawmakers return in January.

The proposed amendment would, Hill and Rogers said, would allow Georgia to invoke the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.... Hill and Rogers argue that the health care reform bill being debated in Congress would violate the 10th Amendment and that their state amendment would protect Georgia from having to participate in any federal reform.

Proponents added, later in the day, that Georgians would still be able to get Medicare and Medicaid. It's this other government intrusion in health care they don't think is unconstitutional. Initially, Judson Hill was asked if Medicare should be considered illegal, and he said he wasn't sure.

Chip Rogers added that he supports Medicare, but not government-run health care like "our friends in Canada" have.

About one in three Georgians lack health care coverage. Some state representatives want to make sure it stays that way.

Josh Marshall: Times Change

TPM Reader JF's lament ...

How long did it take the right to go from: "if you criticize the President you are a traitor" to "School children should not trust the President."

Benen: IT'S COME TO THIS...

In 1988, then-President Reagan spoke to students nationwide via C-SPAN telecast. Among other things, he talked about his positions on political issues of the day. Three years later, then-President Bush addressed school kids in a speech broadcast live to school classrooms nationwide. Among other things, he promoted his own administration's education policies.

President Obama wants to deliver a message to students next week emphasizing hard work, encouraging young people to do their best in school. The temper tantrum the right is throwing in response only helps reinforce how far gone 21st-century conservatives really are.

This is no small, isolated fit, thrown by random nutjobs. The New York Times, Washington Post,LA Times, AP, and others all ran stories this morning about the coordinated national effort to either keep children at home so they can't hear their president's pro-education message, or demanding that local schools block the message altogether.

A Republican state lawmaker in Oklahoma said, "As far as I am concerned, this is not civics education -- it gives the appearance of creating a cult of personality. This is something you'd expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein's Iraq." Fox News personalities have adopted the same line, calling a stay-in-school message from the president "cultist" and reminiscent of "North Korea and the former Soviet Union."

I can appreciate there's a question of whether the Department of Education erred in the wording of one sentence in the supplementary materials. It's reasonable to think officials should have been more cautious.

But that's not what this is about. The administration not only edited the supplementary materials, but has offered to make the text of the address available in advance, just so everyone can see how innocuous it is. It's made no difference. Conservatives don't want school kids to hear a message from their president. Those who claim superiority on American patriotism have decided to throw yet another tantrum over the idea that the president of the United States might encourage young people to do well in schools.

This is what American politics has come to in 2009.

Michelle Cottle had a good item on this, calling conservatives' behavior "disgraceful."

...Obama is the leader of this entire nation. It doesn't matter if you voted for him -- or even if your head threatens to explode every time you think about him. He is the president, and, as such, it's a big deal that he's speaking directly to students about the importance of education. (Not teachers unions, you hysterics.) And, whatever one's party registration, the idea that any child should be kept home from class purely so their parents can make a political statement about an apolitical speech is appalling. Is the idea that we should shelter children from any contact with or knowledge of any president we personally dislike? Maybe, during the years our preferred party is out of power, we should just pretend that the president doesn't exist. That's a healthy way to run a democracy.

Admittedly, Obama is smooth. But he ain't smooth enough to wipe away an entire childhood of conservative teachings with one quickie speech about (all together now!) working hard in school. Buck up, all you deep-red wingers: Make the kids watch Glenn Beck afterward if it eases your anxiety. Have them genuflect before a poster of Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter. But don't be so paranoid about what might happen if they're briefly exposed to the sinister charms of a liberal president that you drag them down into your foxhole of craziness.

Even Joe Scarborough asked, "Where are all the GOP leaders speaking out against this kind of hysteria?" They are, alas, nowhere to be found. As John Cole explained, "The entire party has been taken over by crazy people."

Scarborough blasts right-wing conspiracy theories

September 03, 2009 7:57 pm ET by Media Matters staff

From Joe Scarborough's Twitter page:

John Cole: By Whatever Means Necessary

At some point, even the dim bulbs in the media (and maybe even Rahm Emanuel) will figure out that all the Republicans want to do is destroy Obama. Period.

*** Update ***

We are getting closer:

There is some historical precedent for presidents speaking to students in nationally televised addresses. President George H. W. Bush did so in 1991 and President Ronald Reagan even talked politics with students in 1988.

Nonetheless charges from Republican officials that President Obama is seeking to indoctrinate students—unsupported by any real evidence—have been flying.

That is about as close to the “L” word as we will get in the “he-said, she -said” era of modern journalism.

Krugman: A strange madness

Since I have decent Internet access for a couple of hours, let me weigh in a bit on the craziness sweeping America.

Joe Klein reports on a town hall meeting where people think that Obama has larded the government with communists. Bizarre — but I’ve been getting equally bizarre claims in much of my mail. And what’s striking is the intensity.

I’ve mentioned before that my hate mail has reached levels I haven’t seen since 2004 or so. But back then, the hate was in a way understandable. People like me were questioning Bush’s bona fides as the great protector against terrorism, were claiming that he deliberately misled the country into an unnecessary war. Those were strong charges, and in a way you could understand that people who idolized Bush (believe it or not, there used to be a lot of them) were upset.

But now I get spitting, incoherent rage over articles on, um, health care economics or macro modeling. What enrages people so much about these pieces? Usually, it’s impossible to tell — in fact, I often have the sense that the enraged correspondents haven’t read the things at all. But that’s OK — they know that I’m corrupt, a liar, a Nazi, and have been spewing my evil in my writings.

The point is that whatever is driving all this doesn’t have anything to do with the realities of what I, or, much more important of course, Obama say or do. Obama could have come in proposing to pursue an agenda identical to Bush, and he would still be a socialist/Commie/fascist, with those of us who don’t see it that way lying Nazis ourselves.

Something is going very wrong in the heads of a substantial number of Americans.

Benen: SOON, HE'LL SEE CONSPIRACIES IN CLOUDS, TOO...

Apparently, the "oligarh" is capable of influencing public art projects that were created before he was born. Yes, Glenn Beck now believes President Obama has the power to inspire through time.

Keith Olbermann did a nice job last night highlighting, and ridiculing, the Fox News lunatic's latest conspiracy theory. This time, the subject of Beck's obsession is artwork in Rockefeller Center created 30 years before Barack Obama has born.

It's a little hard for sane people to understand, but Nicholas Graham summarized the argument: "[John] Rockefeller was an early American progressive, which actually means he was a communist, and they have connections to the fascists. And we know this because Rockefeller left clues to his true legacy with these communist art pieces which are hidden in plain sight, and since we have people in our own time who call themselves progressives they must actually be communists (possibly fascists?)."

Throw in some references to Benito Mussolini and President Obama encouraging young people to do well in school, and you have, well, a peek into the mind of a disturbed television personality.

My favorite part: Beck shares his art-interpretation conspiracy theory and concludes, "This makes sense."

Sure it does, Glenn. Sure it does.

Think Progress: Broun says Obama is trying to establish an ‘authoritarian government.’

The Athens Banner-Herald reports that Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) told constituents during a meeting of the Morgan County Republicans Wednesday that he thinks Obama and Democratic leaders are planning to establish an “authoritarian government” through the use of a national police force, gun control, and controlling the press:

Broun, R-Athens, apparently has not changed his belief that President Obama may be a fascist since he made similar remarks in Augusta in November and then in an Associated Press interview.

He told a meeting of the Morgan County Republicans on Wednesday night that Obama already has or will have the three things he needs to make himself a dictator: a national police force, gun control and control over the press.

“He has the three things that are necessary to establish an authoritarian government,” Broun said. “And so we need to be ever-vigilant, because freedom is precious.”

This isn’t the first time Broun has made these outrageous charges. Last month he told constituents that Obama’s “socialistic elite” are planning to “declare martial law” to turn the U.S. into a dictatorship.