One of my favorites on Twitter, TheGarfoose (his real name is Dirk Hayhurst, and information about his wonderful book The Bullpen Gospels can be found here), tweeted this to me today:

Need you to explain what politics are for me bc they seem a lot like preaching/marches/prophecy?

My answer, in 140 or less, was this:

No idea … Mostly sniping, smears, prayer, fearmongering v communic, construct solutions

TheGarfoose:

Based on your definition, politics sounds a lot like my grandparent’s church. They’re lovely folks when not sending you to hell.

Now you know why I adore Dirk. But I digress…

To explain more fully, this is the new normal for politics:

Pff, doesn’t anyone teach these people how to be effective? What, your people acting like idiots and having to be pulled from a town hall meeting reflects bad on us how? And zooming in on Steny Hoyer and John Conyers holding hands in unity like they’re some secret couple? Really? Anyone else hear a little “Comfortably Numb” in the chorus? (P.S.- Money making idea for anyone willing to attend the next Teabagger get together: Set up a a SPF 30/45 sunscreen booth close to the event, they need it.)

Taegan has this quote up:

“People are angry in a way that I have never seen them before.”

– Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), quoted by Politico, predicting a “tsunami” in the midterm elections.

Gee, hmm, let’s think. Why would that be, John the Flipper? Sure, part of it is the state of the economy, among other things. We’re all worried, frustrated, and wish our various predicaments would change overnight. But it takes time to undo all the horrific policies that were put in place by BushCo.

But why are people this angry? This vociferous? This hostile?

Who, who, who could have riled everyone up like that? Who in the world were boisterously harassing candidates at town hall meetings?  Who disrupted presidential speeches? Who tantrumed like a toddler on the House floor?  Who whipped up a frenzy, creating a mob mentality? Who stopped listening and started shouting “No!” over public officials’ attempts to communicate?

Who is taking pride in doing all of the above?

–Sarah Palin

–The Tea Party

–John Boehner

–Joe Wilson

–FreedomWorks

–Americans for Prosperity

–Patients United

–Pete Sessions

This was only a partial list. I’m leaving, so I didn’t have time to go into all the examples of nastiness that I wanted to.

For once McCain was right about something: People are angry in a way I’ve never seen them before. There used to be civility; now there’s unbridled, aggressive, crude, disrespectful, coarse madness.

Christine O’Donnell is from Delaware, and she is running for U.S. Senate. She seems like a hands-on kind of gal… well, except for this, via Jezebel:

Honestly, this was a difficult read, only because of all the angst it brought out in me. Even as someone who deals in this crap day after day, reading about it sequentially just highlights what exactly they are up to, and it’s damn well scary. Vividly written, with just enough snark to keep you sane. Below is the moment that Will states is probably what started it all. Get it now, read it now, and get ready to fight in November. BTW, I got my first ever (in 18 years with this phone number) call from the GOP tonight, and the kid really tried. Rallying cry? “NO SUPPOENAS FOR ISSA!!!”

“You people are killing America.”

“… gun in hand!”

WE’RE killing America?

Frank Rich:

Last Sunday the site was Lower Manhattan, where they jeered the “ground zero mosque.” This weekend, the scene shifted to Washington, where the avatars of oppressed white Tea Party America, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, were slated to “reclaim the civil rights movement” (Beck’s words) on the same spot where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had his dream exactly 47 years earlier. [...]

There’s just one element missing from these snapshots of America’s ostensibly spontaneous and leaderless populist uprising: the sugar daddies who are bankrolling it, and have been doing so since well before the “death panel” warm-up acts of last summer. Three heavy hitters rule. You’ve heard of one of them, Rupert Murdoch. The other two, the brothers David and Charles Koch, are even richer [...] But even those carrying the Kochs’ banner may not know who these brothers are.

The country will be in for quite a ride should these potentates gain power, and given the recession-battered electorate’s unchecked anger and the Obama White House’s unfocused political strategy, they might. [...]

You can draw a straight line from the Liberty League’s crusade against the New Deal “socialism” of Social Security, the Securities and Exchange Commission and child labor laws to the John Birch Society-Barry Goldwater assault on J.F.K. and Medicare to the Koch-Murdoch-backed juggernaut against our “socialist” president.

Only the fat cats change — not their methods and not their pet bugaboos (taxes, corporate regulation, organized labor, and government “handouts” to the poor, unemployed, ill and elderly). [...]

The other major sponsor of the Tea Party movement is Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks, which, like Americans for Prosperity, is promoting events in Washington this weekend.  [...] FreedomWorks received $12 million of its own from Koch family foundations. [...] The Kochs surely match the in-kind donations the Tea Party receives in free promotion 24/7 from Murdoch’s Fox News, where both Beck and Palin are on the payroll. [...]

Tea Partiers may share the Kochs’ detestation of taxes, big government and Obama. But there’s a difference between mainstream conservatism and a fringe agenda that tilts completely toward big business, whether on Wall Street or in the Gulf of Mexico, while dismantling fundamental government safety nets designed to protect the unemployed, public health, workplace safety and the subsistence of the elderly.

Yet inexorably the Koch agenda is morphing into the G.O.P. agenda, as articulated by current Republican members of Congress, including the putative next speaker of the House, John Boehner, and Tea Party Senate candidates like Rand Paul, Sharron Angle, and the new kid on the block, Alaska’s anti-Medicaid, anti-unemployment insurance Palin protégé, Joe Miller. [...]

Do any of the Fox-watching protestors at the “ground zero mosque” know that Fox’s profits are flowing to a Obama-sympathizing Saudi billionaire in bed with Murdoch?

But despite all this, sadly, as Frank Rich suggests, President Obama isn’t fighting back.

Much more here.

Via.

“The City of D.C. is catering to the August 28th Glenn Beck Tea Party event”, say my Twitter buds, NickBach and RebelLeft.  Here’s a screen shot that was sent to me by Rebel, and whaddya know! They’re right:

I’ve heard of hospitality, but this is pushing it. More like enabling.

Of course, there is that thing called money.  Catering to visitors is par for the course. Then again, I don’t consider Glenn Blech and his gang visitors. More like infiltrators.

H/t: nickbach, rebelLeft

My impassioned 72-year-old Twitter pal, who goes by the name 42bkdodgr, would like to share his feelings about fear mongering, smear tactics, hatred, and obstruction . I am more than happy to oblige.

But first, a personal note from 42bkdodgr:

Many of you may wonder why I chose to use the “ 72 year old friend” as the introduction to my Special Comments. I selected the moniker so readers could see that from my age and life experiences I give a different perspective to the issues of today.

Now for his Special Comment:

Ashamed

I am ashamed by what is happening in our country.

I’m ashamed that we have a political party that has nothing to offer but fear and hate, so it creates chaos on non-issues such as “death panels” and having a “Cultural Center and Mosque near the 9/11 site”.

I’m ashamed that we have a political party that boasts it believes in the Constitution, then does everything to rip it and tear it apart; by wanting to change the First, Fourteenth, and Seventeenth amendments, because they don’t meet their ideology.

I’m ashamed that one of the purported leaders of a political party has no understanding what the First Amendment means.  A person who feels she can say whatever she wants without being criticized. A person who believes if you criticize her you are infringing on her freedom of speech, yet doesn’t understand that railing against those who criticize her, she is infringing upon their First Amendment rights.

I’m ashamed that we have a political party who thinks its more important, during our worst economic times, to block or delay everything that would improve or help the lives of the American people that the President or Democrats in Congress propose.

I’m ashamed that a political party would vote NO on practically every bill, even on ideas they previously supported, only because the president has adopted them.

I’m ashamed we have a political party where its more important to make the president look bad than do what is best for the country.

I’m ashamed that we have a news network that purports itself to be “Fair and Balanced”, then does everything to demean and spread misinformation about  our president, while openly supporting the Republican Party and Tea Baggers.

I’m ashamed at what has happened to the civility in this country during the last 18 months. We can thank Rush, the right wing media, especially the “Republican Fox New Network” for this.

I’m ashamed that the right wing likes to treat our president as “not one of us”, with their outrageous accusations that he wasn’t born in the USA and that he is a Muslim, when evidence proves they are wrong.

I can go on and on about what makes me feel ashamed or embarrassed about what is happening in our country, but one thing I do know, we are destroying our country from within and doing Al-Queda’s work.

I am ashamed, but still very hopeful, that Americans who truly believe in the principles of the Constitution and for what it stands will reject the fear and hate being spread, as they have done in the past, and move this country to a better tomorrow.

Many thanks again for another thorough, relevant piece, 42bkdodgr. You often say what many of us are thinking and feeling, and we thank you for your unique perspective.

Today’s Bonus Quickie, courtesy of Dickle Me Armey and Matt Kibbe:

The tea party movement has blossomed into a powerful social phenomenon because it is leaderless—not directed by any one mind, political party or parochial agenda. [...]

But let us be clear about one thing: The tea party movement is not seeking a junior partnership with the Republican Party, but a hostile takeover of it.

Mr. Armey, a former House Republican majority leader, is chairman of Freedomworks. Mr. Kibbe is president and CEO of Freedomworks.

A hostile, mindless, leaderless phenom.  Yep, that just about sums it up.

That was today’s Bonus Quickie. Will you still respect me in the morning?