Alaska: not just a caribou freezer

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About Jane Harman in an Obama Administration

by Linda Milazzo

Pointer’s opinion leads to another conclusion at the end of this article.

The idea that the author of the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act will work with Obama is a scary one.

According to the local Los Angeles newspaper, The Daily Breeze, California Congresswoman, Jane Harman, a blue dog conservative Democrat, is up for a high-level intelligence position in the Obama administration. The positions being considered are CIA Director, Director of National Intelligence, and Secretary of Homeland Security. If this speculation becomes fact, and Harman is appointed overseer of the freedoms of the American people, the people's freedoms are in deep trouble. Conservative Democrat Harman consistently legislates against participatory democracy and against personal freedom.
The most egregious example of Harman's disregard for participatory democracy is HR 1955 -- the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007" -- a frightening bill she slipped in the House for passage just over a year ago. HR 1955 is very anti-dissent, very anti-freedom and so McCarthy-like in its establishment of citizen review Commissions. Fortunately, its Senate clone, S 1959, has not yet come up for a vote. Unfortunately, Mrs. Harman was so covert when sneaking in "1955" that no citizens could lobby to stop it in the House.
Here is a passage from an article I wrote on "1955" which describes Jane Harman's assault on our freedoms::
"On October 23rd [2007], Congress voted to stifle Americans' right to dissent when it passed House Resolution 1955, the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007," sponsored by California Congresswoman, Jane Harman. In sanctioning the ambiguous definitions for "homeland terrorism" contained in this bill, Congress equated American participatory democracy to American "homegrown terror." The First Amendment is under assault:
H.R. 1955 DEFINITIONS:

(1) COMMISSION -- The term 'Commission' means the National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism established under section 899C.
(2) VIOLENT RADICALIZATION -- The term 'violent radicalization' means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.
(3) HOMEGROWN TERRORISM -- The term 'homegrown terrorism' means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.
(4) IDEOLOGICALLY BASED VIOLENCE -- The term 'ideologically based violence' means the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual's political, religious, or social beliefs. Despite the ambiguity of the language in H.R. 1955, it still passed the House by an overwhelming 404 to 6 -- rammed through by Jane Harman, under the guise of deterring another American mass murderer like Timothy McVeigh."

There is ample proof Jane Harman intentionally slid this undemocratic legislation past her Congressional colleagues to conceal from them how extreme an assault on freedom it would be. According to her colleague, Henry Waxman, Harman's bill had been placed on the "suspension calendar for non-controversial bills." In other words, Mrs. Harman casually slipped in a bill that could declare anyone in America a terrorist based on the vaguest definitions and then she just asked everyone to sign on. Even activist-friendly Maxine Waters signed the bill before she ever read it.

Pointer reads in the quoted definitions of terrorism sustaining contrasts with activism or participatory democracy. The keyword is “violence”. In other words: violent activism is or can be a form of terrorism in the reading of this law and Pointer agrees with that.

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What Does not Kill The Far Right, Only Makes Them Crazier

For the last eight years, we've observed Karl Rove's non-reality based universe in which logic was entirely abandoned in lieu of whatever reality the administration invented in order to serve its ridiculous policies and to mask its glaring nincompoopery. Intellectually dishonest at best -- destructive and criminal at worst.
This didn't end on Election Day.
Since their thumpin' last week, the far-right has pushed the crazy to eleven and snapped the knob clean off -- an opening salvo of twisted hackery portending an insane four-to-eight years of attacks on the Obama administration. If the last seven days have been any indication, the far-right is shaping up to make the 1990s seem quaint -- even erudite by comparison. That which used to be your basic, off-the-shelf intellectual dishonesty has grown into, as Digby pointed out recently. full-on intellectual violence.
Intellectual violence. While not a new term, it perfectly defines what we're seeing now: accusations and smears that so severely confound logic they literally attack -- violate -- reality and the human intellect. It's like a berkzerker dervish of argumentative elbows and fists indiscriminately flailing around, thwacking anything in its orbit, so much so that constructing a counterpoint is literally painful, "Why the hell am I trying to debunk this?! Ow! My head. Aw hell, I need a drink."
The "Impeach Obama" Facebook groups, for example. No, I'm not making that up. They're real and there's a constant variety of disgruntled far-right Republicans joining up every day. And, to our total lack of surprise, they're not ashamed in the slightest to post comments like this one:

"Damn dems stole the election like they always do. GOD wanted McCain and Palin in the White House. That's why it's called THE WHITE HOUSE."

Apart from being a racist, this "Impeach Obama" Facebook member is clearly the most awesome pollster in the world if he was able to sample God. I tried to submit a friend request just so I could ask him if he perchance enlisted a room of undecided cherubim for a Frank Luntz dial group.
Shortly after discovering this, I was talking with a colleague and found myself instinctively trying to form a rational argument about why the Facebook members were wrong. It began with the obvious: "He's not even the president yet!" And then, after I segued into Article II and the constitutional grounds for impeachment, I stopped myself. What in name of Randall P. MacMurphy am I doing? Arguing against this crap is like explaining to a meth tweaker that the shadow people aren't real. That's when I decided that it'd be more fun to just infiltrate one of the groups and post comments like, "The moon landing was staged!" and, "Obama is a bionic -- just like his half-aunt! I have proof!"
Then on Monday, Michelle Malkin posted an item in which she referred to the president-elect as the "overlord-elect." And on Tuesday, Congressman Paul Broun told the AP, "You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I'm not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential." Uh-huh. On the scale of probability, "Obama is a fascist dictator" is about as likely as "Broun is a Jedi Master." But it doesn't matter. Reality is irrelevant.
The obvious intention here is to cobble together an abuse of power meme against President-elect Obama, despite President Bush and Vice President Cheney having, you know, spent the last eight years consolidating executive power, authorizing torture, suspending habeas corpus, illegally invading sovereign nations, ignoring congressional investigations and eavesdropping on American citizens.
Whoops. There I go again, talking about facts and treating the crazy like it's real.
But clearly the most egregious post-election trespass came to us from John Hinderaker of Powerline. Some back story: following the president-elect's lighthearted Nancy Reagan séance remark, Michelle Malkin referred to Obama as a "classless jerk" (unlike President George W. "Those Weapons Have to Be Around Here Somewhere" Bush, of course). And she treated the séance comment as if it were part of an on-going pattern of ridiculous Obama gaffes and bloopers.
Picking up on Malkin's lead, Hinderaker wrote this week:

Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn't raise his standards, he will exceed Bush's total before he is inaugurated.

No, seriously. I didn't make that up. A popular member of the far-right intertubes actually wrote that. On a public website. That people go to and read. Every day.
Come on now. Fess up, Hinderaker, you can't seriously believe all that. I mean, I didn't think it was possible, but you succeeded in making Malkin's "classless jerk" remarks appear respectable -- even reasonable -- by comparison. Fact: not only is the president-elect one of the finest orators in modern political history, but he far exceeds President Bush in terms of intellectualism and verbal discipline. In other words, a Bush gaffe reveals an inherent lack of intellectual curiosity and a general ineptitude when it comes to, well, talking. An Obama gaffe is an isolated incident, exclusive of his ability to speak, think and reason. Nothing more.
I can't believe I even have to write that down. But that's precisely what makes these arguments so violent. They literally crush logical reality, making it almost impossible to ignore.
In a perfect world, we probably shouldn't react or to take these things too seriously, and yet we'd be making a huge mistake to ignore them altogether -- or to underestimate their efficacy. After all, there's Drudge who somehow remains a bridge between the far-right's intellectual violence and the establishment press. As we've learned throughout the last ten years, it only takes some persistent badgering and a series of red "SHOCK!" headlines for the crazy to travel by osmosis into the mainstream.
So we're in for many more years of insanity from the far-right. They're not dead. They're not as irrelevant as they deserve to be. And they certainly don't suffer from writer's block when it comes to outlandish and illogical attacks and smears.
Put it this way, if President-elect Obama so much as takes a long weekend off this August, you can bet that the far-right will crap their cages about Obama being lazy and shiftless.

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The 'First Granny' Marian Robinson

There's been a lot of speculation that Michelle Obama's 71-year-old mother, Marian Robinson, will be moving to the White House with her family in January. It would certainly be practical: Mrs. Robinson helped care for granddaughters Sasha and Malia while their parents were on the campaign trail, and the first couple's new schedule will be no less punishing. Below is an introduction to the woman America now knows as 'First Granny.'


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Meet Barack's Sister: Maya Soetoro-Ng

Barack Obama's sister has not emerged in public since the death of their grandmother two days before her brother's historic presidential election but in a post-election email to close friends Maya Soetoro-Ng said "I wept tears of joy for all of us on Tuesday. He may not be a perfect man. Certainly, he has often said that he'll likely be an imperfect president, but he is a good man, a smart man, a disciplined soul who balances temperance with determination and courage. We've made a great choice, I assure you."

Maya Soetoro-Ng was born August 15, 1970 in Jakarta, Indonesia to Lolo Soetoro, husband of Ann Dunham and step-father of Barack Obama. According to Wikipedia, she was named after poet Maya Angelou. She went to high school in Hawaii, then Barnard College in New York before returning back to Hawaii to get her Ph.D. in education at University of Hawaii. She married Konrad Ng in 2003 and they have one daughter. Maya continues to work as a history teacher in Hawaii.
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McCain on Lieberman

With friends like McCain, who needs Democrats! Last night on Leno, McCain fawned over Lieberman in a nauseating display of affection. When Leno asked McCain whether Lieberman's unbridled support for him during the election will cost Lieberman his chairmanship on the Homeland Security Committee, McCain said, "I hope not...on national security issues, he’s really, really good."

Really, really good?

Are we talking about the same Lieberman who voted against banning waterboarding and refused to say whether it consituted torture? The same Lieberman who fear-mongered about Iran, claiming the United States must bomb them because they represent an "existential threat" to Israel and the United States? The same Lieberman who has staunchly backed Bush's war in Iraq every step of the way and even linked it to 9/11? The same Lieberman who refused to investigate Blackwater or any other war profiteer, even after the mercenary firm killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Nisoor Square? (As Think Progress reveals in their detailed report, the list goes on and on.)

McCain must have meant that when it comes to national security issues, Lieberman is "really, really good" to the Republican neocons who share his hawkish views.

Lieberman has abused his power in the Democratic caucus. That's why we're asking the Senate Democratic Steering Committee to take his gavel away. You can take action by calling the Senators on this committee today and telling them that Lieberman Must Go!

MSNBC Keith Olbermann on Prop 8, Marriage and more!

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