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.

June 16, 2030

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.

"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.

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."

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.

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]

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:

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:

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

The New York Times and dagblog's own Larry Jankens reported today on the recent growth of the "states' rights" movement among right wing militants and Tea Party activists opposed to big government. The states' rights supporters are known as "Tenthers" for their veneration of the 10th Amendment, which reserves for the states all powers that the Constitution does not explicitly grant to the federal government.

Readers, I apologize for my slow posting lately. I've been hunkering down to work on my upcoming book, How Bill O'Reilly Saved Christmas. But I'm popping my head up briefly to announce my first piece of press, a blog article at the Washington Post.

After their slam dunk with anti-tax kamikaze Andrew Joseph Stack, liberals hoped to rack up more political points with another right-wing act of terror. When the news broke of a gunman loose in Washington, breathless liberal bloggers and political email spammers burst into action.

According to blog enthusiast cheneyMUSTdie, who subscribes to over 1500 blogs and frequently posts the same comment on each of them: "OMG TEH WINGNUTS ARE KILLING AGAIN!!! THIS IS AWESOME!!!!!!"

What is the most persecuted demographic in the nation? It's not the blacks, the Jews, or the Hispanics, and certainly not the gays. One victim stands out in the gruesome annals of discrimination: the Beauty Queen.

The latest sacrifice to the bottomless hunger of the gay liberal hate monster is Miss Beverly Hills, Lauren Ashley. Ashley simply quoted an innocent line from the Bible: