Right wing domestic terror

It's getting scarier and scarier to live in our country every day, especially if you are a liberal talking head, politician or outspoken person.  The truth is that for all of the conservative talk of Muslims coming to behead us, and illegal immigrants streaming over the southern border to rape and murder our women and children, there are far more threats within our own borders from right wing extremists.  We're talking neo-Nazi, fascist, white nationalists -- the kind of right wing white terrorist that luckily was caught last week before he could carry out the murders he was planning--of prominent liberal media figures like Chris Hayes and Ari Melber; or elected leaders like Elizabeth Warren, Richard Blumenthal and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

But not only was this dude, an active member of the U.S. military, stockpiling weapons.  He was also stockpiling performance enhancing drugs that would make him 10 times stronger and--get this--would cause him to not have any remorse about killing innocent American people.  Let that sink in.  He was searching Google for things like "Trump impeachment civil war" and "do Supreme Court justices have security detail" and "where do members of Congress live?" 

You couple that with other terrorist attacks like the killing of 11 Jews in a Pittsburgh synagogue last fall, or of the mass shooting at a black church in South Carolina or a shooter gunning down five people at the Capital Gazette newspaper offices.  Or a white nationalists running over a liberal protester with his car in Charlottesville, or the Trump rally-goer who sent pipe bombs to Maxine Waters, George Soros and other prominent liberals.  There has been so much more of this in recent years in our country that it's impossible to list each incident.  Yes, there was the Bernie supporter who shot at a bunch of GOP lawmakers, critically injuring congressman Steve Scalise, but that was an exception to the rule, even though it was just as heinous as the other crimes we mentioned.

While it's true that our country is more divided and partisan than ever, conservatives will have you believe that there is more violence being perpetrated by left wing extremists and illegal immigrants than by right wing extremists.  But that could not be further from the truth.  This article in The Independent from last month maps it out: 

Every terrorist murder in the US last year was linked to right-wing extremism, according to a new report.  

At least 50 people were killed by an attacker connected to right-wing extremism in 2018, an increase of 35 per cent from the previous year, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found. 

The rise means nearly three-quarters of extremist murders in America in the past decade can be linked to right-wing domestic terrorism, more than three times as many as those committed by Islamists.

Our current president has been stoking the fires of right wing nationalism, as have members of Congress like Steve King and Matt Gaetz, and as have right wing media types like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Tucker Carlson.

And the worst part of all of this?  Nothing is being done about it.  Trump does not give a happy monkey fuck about it.  Most of these extremists are Trump loyalists, and the more he heaps inflammatory rhetoric about gang murders and the press being the enemy of the people, the more of a license he gives these right wing nuts to act out on his behalf. 

So when Trump talks about making America great again, he means "make America into a right wing utopia where there is a cleansing of or locking up of non-white, non-Christian, non-straight liberals, and where only conservatives can break the law and get away with it."

For the rest of us, we have to live in fear because of them.  And that's as anti-American as it gets.

Stop with the 2020 coverage already

hey everyone.  It's been an while since I posted here and actually just renamed my blog from Loud and Proud Liberal to G-man Politics.  I did this in part because I hadn't posted since May 2017 and because I realized I am not a loud person.  Like not even a little.  I also realized that the posts I did were stream of consciousness about my thoughts on Trump and the state of our country, and with those thoughts already out of the way I'm going to re-focus on topics one by one. 

Which brings me to the 2020 horse race that is going on already.  I get it.  This is how it's usually done, and most of our country is looking forward to getting Orange Julius out of the White House.  Also, no one has to get out of Hillary's way this time. 

I'm not even complaining about the candidates who are announcing their ambitions, because most are very qualified and bring a lot to the table.

What pisses me off is that an election that is almost two years away is taking news coverage away from the fact that the country is burning down around us.  I don't want Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, or Cory Booker doing anything besides the job they currently hold, which is, you know, kind of important right now. 

I'm not naive, I realize these candidates spend half or more of their days asking people for money.  That's the way the game is played now, but it fucking sucks.  It's why we have money wearing a name tag that says "Free Speech."  It's also counterproductive and stupid because these (in this case) senators should be concentrating on governing, and saving our country from the right wing inferno that is engulfing our lives. 

Just once I want to turn on MSNBC without a little pop-up ad that says "TONIGHT: Rachel Maddow one-on-one interview with (insert democratic presidential candidate)."   There are real crises right now--like climate change, lack of affordable health care, income inequality, crumbling roads and bridges, child refugee camps in Texas, and did I mention our president and two-thirds of republicans in Congress are quite literally doing the bidding of Russia? 

I just don't want to hear about 2020 until 2020.  Living in a constant election cycle is dangerous to democracy when there are real world problems happening around us.  Enough already.