There are and will always be wack-jobs at the fringes and Idaho has a history of harboring nut cases. Having said that, your attempt to link this wacko to "mainstream" Republicans is bogus. I don't love Repubs, but the ones I hang around with at work are only interested in lowering the capital gain tax rate or eliminating the estate tax or privatizing Social Security or reforming immigration to allow access to cheaper foreign workers. None of them are interested in "empowering" right wing anarchy. You can't blame the mainstream Repubs for this nut any more than you can blame mainstream Dems for people that try to blow up military installations in the name of "peace".

"And they're not out of mainstream Republican thought or the mainstream Republicans would be doing something to end it rather than empowering it."

Total bullshit, Carla. And extremely judgmental, if you ask me. Basically, you're accusing me of that kind of mindset when you make that assertion. Not fair.

Some of these groups are more Constitutionalists than Republicans, and why give them attention? They represent less than 1% (if that) of the conservative thought. They are NOT the folks who represent most in the Republican party. By giving these idiots attention you empower them.

Give me specific and numerous examples of mainstream Republicans empowering people to shout "assisinate Obama" or "take a shot" at the President? McCain? Hatch? Walden?

I'm used to the brash and in-your-face comments that you make here, but you've taken it one step too far, in my opinion.

Carla, you're full of it on this one. I suggest you back off as many responsible conservatives have already decried this.

Of course, unless, what you REALLY want is a modern day Civil War. Go back and re-read some of the historical accounts leading up to Succession. There were plenty of Yankees and Abolitionists baiting the South into taking their ultimate action.

Personally, I grow weary of the lame attacks on Carla by the same group of individuals who disregard the facts and the importance of her reporting. Why, I wonder, are these folks immune from reasoning?

Language precedes actions. Hopefully, thought precedes language. When, I wonder, will we see evidence of it here by these pathetic critics.

Where do I get my right-wing asshole tag?

I don't understand -- some Republican candidate jokes about hunting down the President, and it's somehow bad form to suggest that maybe other Republicans ought to, like, suggest this isn't acceptable?

I guess there is a part of the world where not only can Republicans do no wrong, but it's wrong to suggest they might.

Kurt, I don't want a civil war. Blue Oregon, ammong other venues, reminds me daily that there is no reconciliation. We want different laws, different governmental forms...different countries.

I was born in Oregon. My ancestors migrated here in 1847 over the Applegate trail. Once I loved this country, but no longer. I want out. When Confederacy II is founded, I'll move there in a hearbeat, but I wont want war with the US, let it die for natural causes and the sooner the better.

Not only are they stoking these "protests", they're doing so by empowering extremists from the fringe.

Um, Jason....this asshole is running for office as a, you know, REPUBLICAN. Not a Constitutionalist, whatever the hell that is. A REPUBLICAN.

Yo Old Ducker, my first instinct is to say, Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Then I realize that's awfully ungenerous and spiteful on my part.

Then I think, well, secession and some sort of pseudo-Christian, white-ruled, authoritarian state is what 25% of the American population actually wants, and I'll be damned if I'll let the US become that state, so good riddance.

Then I think about the prospect of having a nuclear-armed band of militaristic, pseudo-Christian authoritarians living on the border and making territorial demands, because secession, 2010 edition, would not be some sort of clean north/south geographical separation. The birthers, deathers and eliminationists may be especially prominent in the South, but they're distributed all over the US.

Then I think about the rational, reasonable folks I know who grew up in the birther/eliminationist heartland. (Of course, they left those places for some reason.)

So I don't know what's best. As simplistically comforting I might find the don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out approach to be, I cannot see how this can occur without complete chaos.

Civil war in the 19th century United States was put off repeatedly by dint of Congressional "compromises" that permitted slavery in certain territories annexed to the US, by enacting the Fugitive Slave Act, and so on. But mechanisms like that don't exist any longer (thank Gawd).

I conclude that we have to work out some way to get along. I just don't want getting along to mean that the 75% who aren't birthers and eliminationists are constantly giving in to demands of the 25% who are.

Joel, u can define the Confederacy any way you wish, neither you nor anyone who thinks like you will be living there.

I am not a christian and certainly not a warmonger. I'm afraid it will be up to your country to carry the banner of imperialism because I'm quite certain the Confederacy will be content to keep all of it's military recources on it's own turf. Gotta keep an eye on those yankees, you know...

I actually share your disdain for GOP militarist christian whack jobs, but I can tolerate them. The militaristic part will fade and they wont compel me to attend their churches. What we share is more important than what divides us, namely a small and weak central government ruled by a constitution, not judges or oligarchs. We will be free. You can have the police state, green or othewise.

Hey Joel, please cite your sources for the figure stating that there are up to 25% in the US population who are either birthers or eliminationists, or both.

Like Old Ducker I am neither. Like Aold Ducker, I hope for a smaller, less intrusive centralized government.

75%? You're awfully full of yourself with that SWAG figuring. Since when is 52% of a 64% turnout 75% of the population, especially when about 12% of that population doesn't even belong here?

Personally, I find liberal musings about conservative daydreams of civil war quite funny for the breathtakingly stupid stereotyping that comes in the comments made by liberals.

Among the more laughable assumptions:

1) It would be a stand up fight and not a guerilla campaign. Tanks, jets, and unlimited budgets won Vietnam right? 2) That 100% of the military would stay loyal to a bunch of civilian jackasses most of the career officers do not respect in any other than a formally required way. 3) That should such come to pass that it'd be over quickly, (the same faulty assumption the North had in the last civil war.) 4) That a theocracy, or white oligarchy, is the widely desired endgame in the event of a civil war movement. The "lunatic fringe" on the right is just as kaleidoscopic as the lunatic fringe of the left. Certainly that's what the Stormfront types would want, but most "real" conservatives would be happy with a return to actual federalism and a shackled central government.

Imagining a federal government almost wholly concentrated on foreign affairs and preserving national sovereignty--through not entering various UN sponsored treaties and actually controlling its borders--is a far more common conservative dream than the baseless racialist charge that we want an old school apartheid state. There is hardly anything sinister about a strictly limited central government to a non-socialist.

There is valid populism on the right on several issues that is routinely ignored by Democratic politicians. Being dismissive or condescending on many of those issues actually exacerbates the "problem" with the right that you are far too eager to perceive.

People are people. If teabaggers and such are egged on by corporations and right-wing foundations, well then, so too are "liberal activists" by their own set of beneficiaries.

Or maybe, just maybe, there are genuine activists on either side that savvy money players capitalize upon for their own ends? Nah, that would be humanizing the enemy.

Kurt accuses Carla of wanting to reprise the extremists' provocation of the secession of southern states because she reports the reckless hate-speech of a conservative. That is a rank turning of history on its head. Perhaps the historic parallel Kurt is reaching for is his sympathy for a movement to defend an industry that profits from treating people as chattel, such as the current "health care" industry treats us.

oh ed, the only retort I can come up with is "Go Pound Sand" That's because I am laughing too hard.

Even a cursory read of my posts reveals that I am for Health Care Reform, just not for the public option or the single payor. I have yet to drink that Kool-Aid.

Nice try, now go back to drawing on the wall with your feces.

"I've been paying attention since around 1967, and what's new here is that the innuendo, fearmongering and hate speech is specifically being pushed by elected representatives and Party leadership."

Interestingly, in an interview awhile back Joe Scarborough said that as a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment, he wanted to tell the folks who show up at congressional or presidential town hall meetings with guns that they are hurting the movement.

Points for Joe! As often as I might disagree with him, he deserves credit for this.

I don't believe that Olympia Snowe supports such nonsense, but what about Enzi and others from this end of the country?

Anyone who hates broadbrushing shouldn't do it here. If Michael Steele has not spoken out, he should as RNC chair. But to say every elected Republican must make a public statement about this before Labor Day is the same sort of stereotyping many of us hate when Republicans have demanded that every Democrat speak out against something.

Clueless people like this scare away moderates.

When wingnuts get too overt, there is a backlash. Maybe the Democrats can find someone to run against him on a law and order platform--the incumbent was joking about threatening the President. That is a crime.

Had this idiot ended his message with "just a joke", he might have gotten away with it. But the 2nd sentence could and should have serious repercussions. Esp. in Idaho.

I find these comments deeply and richly ironic.

For eight years now, ever since September 11, 2001, virtually every Muslim in America was held personally responsible by the right-wing for the tragic events of that day. Muslims were asked to repeatedly denounce the extremist, terroristic actions of a small group. If Muslims did not do so, they were said to be actively aiding and endorsing acts of terrorism.

Yet here we have a bunch of conservatives who are totally unwilling to denounce the extremism and threats of violence, threats of murder. When Carla pointed out these threats, the conservatives commenting here immediately felt the need to attack Carla. Not one of them has yet distanced themselves from the extremists.

Which proves Carla's point - that Republicans are more interested in using the extremists to score points against Democrats and liberals than they are interested in reining in violent extremism.

I am not interested in reining in anyone. If people cross the line from free speech into criminality, law enforcement should rein them in.

Or is that too "KGB" when the jackboot is on the other foot? If only the "right wing" had a monopoly on political violence, your solutions to it would no doubt come easy.

Kurt we're even now, both having had a good laugh! You served up a softball, I knocked it out. No disrespect.

The lack of denunciation is precisely the point. These are not "fringe" who are expressing the desire to murder the president. They are the base of the Republican party, that's why there is no push back from the so-called GOP leadership. When school bus loads of children are chanting to assassinate the president, you know what they are getting in their households. There was no push back either for the GOP Congressional Rep. Lynn Jenkins who talked about raising up a new "great white hope" for the Republicans. It's reminiscence of the white school children in parts of the segregated South who cheered on news of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Such a legacy to be proud of.

As for the "Old Ducker". I think you will fit right in with the values of the Confederacy. GOP Gov. Rick Perry has talked about secession from the Union. I never understood how those who worship the traitorous Confederate flag of slavery could claim to be loyal Americans. I guess it's clearer now, they really aren't when they want to kill the president who was duly elected under the constitution and when they fantasize about seceding from the Union.

It's been a matter of party loyalty that GOP candidates had to worship the confederate flag, so perhaps that is the solution. The GOPers can move to the South and re-establish a plantation economy based on slavery. What glory days!

Bill, if or when the Confederacy is re-established, its' economy would soon be so robust that you and about 100 million other statists would be trying to migrate legally or illegally. Unfortanately for you, and unlike yours decrepit country it will protect it's borders. As your economy crumbles to 3rd world status (I know, you will blame us because we left you with all that debt, haha), the last laugh will truly be ours. Maybe at that point, your ideology will die off and you will finally see the light.

But that would probably be giving you too much credit.

If you are not with us you are against us... Both Dems and Repubs are becoming mirror imaged caricatures. They are both becoming a joke that is more scary then funny. We need more than two political parties.

@ Old Ducker " If or when the confederacy is re-established...."

Need anyone say more.. Go ahead, join up with Rick Perry and wave your confederate flag around. I'd say you have entered the intergalactic rubber room and I'll leave you to your devices. Meanwhile I might recommend starting out on 3 mg. of Risperdal and titrating upward from there as symptoms persist.

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing - Edmund Burke

I know there are very many good men and good women in the GOP. I await for them to step forward and say or act in opposition to jokes made about assassinating the President.

Remember when people were arrested for wearing anti-Bush t-shirts (none of which, to my recollection advocated violence)?

Give Ted Piccolo AKA I Am Coyote his commentating privileges here. Last thing I read on his blog (NW Republican), his BO commentating privileges were taken away, but I do not know when. I would love to see him retort over here as he is so self righteous over on his blog with his stupid little "moonbat rules."

Having I Am Coyote would liven up the conversation and would allow dissenters to his point of view to collectively own him.

Please, give Ted Piccolo back his commentating privileges. We are waiting with our linguistic sniper rifles and brass knuckles.

Old Ducker wrote: "Joel, u can define the Confederacy any way you wish, neither you nor anyone who thinks like you will be living there."

Why do I get the feeling this confederacy exists only between your ears OD? Boats' too, I should believe.

Old Ducker wrote:

"if or when the Confederacy is re-established"

I've no intention of ceding the USA to the left.

Worldwide, the left is losing ground daily as the lefty ZPGers refuse to replace themselves.

In Europe, unfortunately that means the Muslims will soon be the majority.

But in America, it will be conservatives.

I would certainly never call something intended to be a new constitutional republic a name as hackneyed as the "Confederacy" and all of the baggage that brings.

ha ha, here's the missing comedy link. thanks guys!

Boats, call it what you will as long as the intention is the same...to correct the errors contained in the Constitution that have helped result in the present mess. Maybe its good we have another century and a half to get it right...I doubt the Confederates anticipated the abuse of the commerece clause.

By any name, secession is the best solution. States who seceed unburden future generations from a mountain of debt they have zero responsibility over, so you see, its for the children. With the possession of nuclear weapons, there is no chance the yankees will invade with intent to conquer but I wouldnt rule out the possibility of US state terrorism against the free states.

I should have said bluecoats instead of yankees, its more germane.

Joe White and Boats, you might want to read Andersen's book RESET about how times are changing in this country, away from ideology and toward practicality.

Old Ducker, originally I would have included you in that first paragraph, but with your last 2 comments I find it hard to take you seriously.

Besides, secession is a lot more work than blogging is.

LT, Im just planting a seed. Its hard for americans to reach the epiphany that the US is the enemy and beyond saving but it will come, and not just from Obama care. Cap and trade will be the final nail.

Secession or tyranny is the choice. I choose liberty. I hope enough of my fellow americans do to, then we have a chance to start over, but probably not in Oregon or in the Pacific Northwest.

America, as you know it today, is finished.

Sorry.

Old Ducker, you expressed an opinion, Jim expressed an opinion.

Top 2 definitions of opinion on dictionary.com:

1. a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.
2. a personal view, attitude, or appraisal.

"America as I know it" allows both of you to express opinions, and anyone reading this to decide if they agree with either of you.

In a free country, "I believe this, you should to" is not the final word.

People are free to believe those with a positive vision over those who are just telling what they don't like.

LT wrote:

"away from ideology and toward practicality"

This is a distinction without a real difference.

Ideology is simply an explanation of WHY a specified course of action would work best.

Jeff F wrote:

"It is curious, though, that suddenly they're convinced the country has been on the wrong road for a long time -- but this opinion never got expressed until there was a Black Democrat in the White House."

What nonsense.

Have you been asleep?

Are you the only one who has not heard conservatives talk about the country going in the wrong direction for the last few decades?

Your poor attempt at injecting race into this simply betrays the bankruptcy of the liberal philosophy.

That's all you guys have left, name calling.

You can always tell when you're talking to a liberal, because their answers boil down to one of a few cliches:

a) you guys are stupid

b) you guys are liars

c) you guys are nuts

d) you guys are evil (this is the catchall for 'you guys are racists' , 'you guys want to starve children', 'you guys dont care if sick people die in the streets' , 'you guys love to start wars', etc)

I'm sorry, what was the original subject?

It's interesting that the Idaho Republicans who are now condemning Rammell are doing so because they think it makes Idaho look bad, NOT because they disagree or think it's despicable.

Joking about killing the Commander-in-Chief at a time of war? Rammell is giving aid and comfort to the enemy and clearly wants Al Qaeda to win the war on terror.

Paul wrote:

"Joking about killing the Commander-in-Chief at a time of war? Rammell is giving aid and comfort to the enemy and clearly wants Al Qaeda to win the war on terror."

I agree. As I've said before , this is no joke. He should be paid a visit by the Secret Service, and prosecuted if appropriate.

I only wish they had done so to the many who made similar comments when Bush was President. I could google lots of examples from the left of people wishing Bush dead, or joking about it.

Joe White: "I could google lots of examples from the left of people wishing Bush dead, or joking about it." Personally, I hope Cheney and his little lapdog Bush live a very long time so they can 1) see their miserable legacy in the history books and 2) be prosecuted as the war criminals they are.

please cite your sources for the figure stating that there are up to 25% in the US population who are either birthers or eliminationists, or both.

Polls have shown something approaching 25% of the population believes Barack Obama is not a US citizen.

As few of these folks are likely to have actually voted for Mr. Obama, I think we can safely conclude that approximately half of the loyal opposition (sic) is disloyal, delusional, or both.

I suspect that eliminationists are largely birthers well.

I rest my case.

P.S. Try to conceive a situation in which John McCain had won the election, and 9 months later, half of all Democratic voters were convinced that McCain was ineligible to be president by dint of being born on a military base in the Panama Canal Zone.

Joe White sez:

Worldwide, the left is losing ground daily as the lefty ZPGers refuse to replace themselves. In Europe, unfortunately that means the Muslims will soon be the majority.

OH right. The old line about "Eurabia". Given that the Muslim population in Europe is presently about 3 to 4 percent, when exactly is it that Muslims will be the majority?

Don't take my word for it.

"Demographic trends in Europe mean that a Muslim majority may emerge before the end of this century.

Will they be moderate Muslim countries, or 'convert or die' Taliban type Muslim countries?

Hey, you needn't worry, Joe White, you'll be Raptured off to be with Jaysus before those dirty Muslims take over.

no its not funny one