It may sound funny to describe our current political moment as a truce. But I’m beginning to think that is the best way to describe it. Not a partisan detente, mind you. Far from it. The bitterness and acrimony and crazy are as high and likely higher than ever.
But if you look closely, a truce it is.
This is Ted Cruz’s top speech writer and communications advisor. Because one unarmed man can break out of or take over a US Navy warship, no problem …
We’re likely keeping Benghazi terrorist on a ship instead of GTMO, a secure facility that’s made for this http://t.co/WRzD2CaXYR
— Amanda Carpenter (@amandacarpenter) June 17, 2014
After the Bundy militia confrontation earlier this year the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) started removing identification from their vehicles because of rising climate of incitement against the agency on the radical right. Now another far-right anti-government radical has shot a BLM agent in California. Dylan Scott has the story.
ICYMI: For all the talk about partisan antagonism and fisticuffs, we’ve actually in the midst of a Long Truce in our national politics.
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The Obama regime’s propaganda about “the video” sparking the attack on the Benghazi compound was so pervasive it even convinced the guy who led the attack. You heard that right. Ahmed Abu Khatallah, the ringleader of the attack that killed four Americans in September 2012, told others at the time he was motivated to attack the compound “to take revenge for an insult to Islam in an American-made online video.”
When the latest gun/stand your ground type law goes under the name of a “Make My Day” law, you know the results are going to be great.
‘Sovereign citizens’ are strange folks. What’s fascinated me most about them is the weird mix of anarchism and formalism. On the one hand, their angle seems to be that they are totally laws to themselves. No one has any rightful claim to authority over them. And, not surprisingly, they’re really into guns. On the other, they’ve got all the these weird concepts and titles that are pretty deeply rooted in the intricacies of the American state. So they’re ‘constitutional Sheriffs’ or ‘statutory Attorney Generals’. In the latest example of far-right violence against federal officials we’ve got Brent Douglas Cole shooting a BLM official and also claiming he’s “statutory Attorney General of the United States.” Our Dylan Scott delved into the crazy to figure out just what that is supposed to mean. Read the story here.
In case you hadn’t heard, Republicans want to shut down the government again.
This emerging battle on the Hill over the new carbon emissions regs from the EPA really bears watching. You now have a group of Republican senators saying they’ll consider shutting down the federal government this fall to block the new regs. That’s on the usually more moderate Senate side.
It’s hard to figure the political upside for the GOP of a government shutdown right before the midterm elections. Could Democrats and the White House get so lucky?
“If Republicans want to repeat their government shutdown play to protect the profits of big polluters, they’re placing a pretty risky bet,” a White House official tells us.