The furor over the Islamic center near Ground Zero has led many to conclude that the right wing has rediscovered its passion for Muslim-bashing, and some predict more to come. But what strikes me most about the recent outburst of Islamophobia is its exceptionality. Nine years after 9/11, the once preeminent obsession of American foreign policy and Republican politics had been all but forgotten. Even the attempted bombing of Times Square failed to generate much rage from the right. [Read more]

Some Democrats have cheered the success of right-wing extremists in the Colorado primaries yesterdays. They have a point. Republican gubernatorial nominee John Maes, who called Denver's bicycle program a "well-disguised" plot to destroy the "personal freedoms" of Denver's citizens by transforming the city into "a United Nations community," will now split the crazy vote with famed xenophobe Tom Tancredo, who blamed immigrants for electing "a committed socialist ideologue" to the White House. If Tancredo stays in the race, Democrat John Hickenlooper will likely sail into the governor's house. [Read more]

Late Saturday night, the California Highway Patrol stopped 45-year-old Byron Williams as he sped towards San Francisco. Wearing a bullet proof vest and armed with three guns, Williams opened fire on the officers. After a 12-minute firefight, CHP troopers subdued and arrested Williams. [Read more]

In response to the relentless demands of millions of adoring readers, I've decided that it's time to break my media silence about the status of the book.

After an eight-month effort that has been simultaneously grueling and exhilarating, the book is nearly finished. I completed the manuscript at the end of June and have been racing through the revisions since then. In a few weeks, it will be all over but the rhapsodic reviews. The book is still on schedule to come out in mid-October. [Read more]

Call me Israel. I am not a large man; I survive by wit and grit. I am a good man, and I fear no one.

Do not judge me. My childhood was a nightmare grimmer than you, who grew up in comfort and security, could ever imagine.

I escaped to the land of my ancestors. It was hot and dry and barren--but it was my birthright, my promised land. The men of that district were strangers to me--sullen, bitter, and resentful. When I arrived, they tried to kill me. They were large and strong but stupid and gutless. I cut them bloody until they fled howling. They now know the taste of my lean fury and do not challenge me. [Read more]

A New York Times article today expressed concern that governments around the world are enacting austerity measures too soon, recalling that FDR's premature tax increases and spending cuts in 1936 snuffed a shaky recovery and pushed the country back into depression. Paul Krugman has repeatedly made the same point in his columns. [Read more]

June 16, 2030

Twenty years after President Barack Obama vowed to fight the massive underwater oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico "with everything we've got for as long as it takes," the U.S. government has formally surrendered to the spill. In a brief ceremony on a Louisiana hilltop overlooking a sea of black ooze, President George Prescott Bush signed a peace treaty that conceded almost 500,000 square miles of U.S. territory to the oil spill's dominion, including fishing and mineral exploration rights for the entire Gulf Coast. [Read more]

Two weeks ago, my co-bloggers urged the American government to press Israel to end its blockade of the Gaza strip. I was skeptical that American pressure would be effective. One universal truth of sovereign nation states is that no one appreciates self-righteous foreigners telling them what to what to do, especially self-righteous foreigners with their own tainted records. Prime Minister Netanyahu will not lose any elections by standing up to Obama, but he might lose his coalition if his hard-liner constituents think he's a sucker. [Read more]

"Get the hell out of Palestine...Remember these people are occupied, and it's their land."
-- Helen Thomas, former journalist of the White House Press Corps

Their land. What does that phrase mean? I understand what it means to purchase a piece of land. You sign a deed, and you own the property, just as you might own a car, shares of stock shares, or a poodle. If someone steals your land, your car, your stock, or your poodle, it is an injustice. [Read more]

On June 4th, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) released an audio recording of a radio exchange between a flotilla ship and the Israeli Navy in which an unidentified crew member of the Mavi Marmara shouted, "Shut up, go back to Auschwitz!" Another unidentified voice with a distinctive Southern drawl explained to the Israeli Navy, "We're helping Arabs go against the US. Don't forget 9/11, guys."

The audio proves that the protesters were not peaceful human rights activists after all but rather Nazi-sympathizing, anti-American evil terrorist types. [Read more]

I've written a couple of posts recently about the phenomenon of right-wing projection. Projection is a Freudian concept according to which people project their own feelings of hostility onto the targets of their hostility. It is a psychological defense strategy that enables people to disown their feelings of hatred and intolerance by attributing them to the people they hate. [Read more]

In light of Tea Party favorite Rand Paul's overwhelming victory over the Republican establishment candidate Trey Grayson in Kentucky yesterday, it's worth taking a brief trip with the Ghost of Republican Past back to the first of many conservative purges in the modern era.

[CUE PSYCHEDELIC FLASHBACK TRANSITION] [Read more]

As if its draconian immigration law weren't sufficient to demonstrate Arizona's profound appreciation for its Latino minority, the state has just enacted a second law to make the point. The new law prohibits Arizona schools from teaching "ethnocentric" courses that:

1. Promote the overthrow of the U.S. government
2. Promote resentment toward a race or class of people
3. Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group
4. Advocated ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals

(The law threatens to eliminate popular courses like, "Future Marxist Revolutionaries of America" and "Torturing White People, Yes You Can!") [Read more]

If you harbor any doubt about the racist undercurrent driving right-wing immigration concerns, listen to Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh knows his audience, and when he discussed Arizona's immigration law on Monday, he gave them the red meat, or rather the black-and-brown meat, that they were looking for: [Read more]

Having grown tired of sending links about my book to friends, I decided to set up a facebook fan page for my book, How Bill O'Reilly Saved Christmas and Other Right-Wing Persecution Fantasies, where I can collect relevent links, pictures, events, rants, and Republican concern trolls. [Read more]

Who loves a Tea Party? A recent NYT/CBS poll punctured a couple of myths about the makeup of today's paranoid right-wing activists.

Myth #1. Tea Party supporters are motivated by economic anxiety [Read more]

Today's New York Times explored the topic of trash incineration, an increasingly popular method of waste disposal in Europe. These are not your daddy's incinerators. The new "waste-to-energy" plants filter pollutants and produce electricity. Cities can save landfill space, avoid expensive trash transport, and produce alternative energy at the same time. While incineration does release CO₂ into the atmosphere, it produces less CO₂ than would be released by allowing the trash to decompose in a landfill, not to mention the fossil fuels burned during transportation. [Read more]

Erick Erickson, the founder of political blog RedState.com, which CNN calls "the preeminent right of center community online," has threatened to drive off census workers with a shotgun if they ask him how many times he flushes the toilet and other highly classified information.

  [Read more]

Last summer, a number of advertisers boycotted Glenn Beck's FOX News show after he accused Obama of being a "racist" with a "deep seeded [sic] hatred for white people or the white culture." Since then, Beck has avoided overt race-baiting, focusing instead on Obama's affection for Marxism, progressivism, fascism, totalitarianism, and many other unsavory "isms," not to mention a few unpleasant "y's" like oligarchy, tyranny, and the Democratic Party. [Read more]

Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) is desperately fighting off an election challenge from MSNBC host, Rachel Maddow. Though Maddow insists that she has no interest in running for Senate, Brown is not deceived by her evasions. After alerting donors to the Maddow threat in a fundraising letter, he aggressively challenged her alleged non-campaign on the airwaves, vowing, "With all due respect, I'm going to continue to fight and do my job and work hard to do just that. And, er, bring her on. I don't care." [Read more]