Regular Folks

Filed in National by on February 17, 2010

The Tea Partiers are just regular folks.

A tea party gathering in Asotin County, Washington turned more than a bit ugly on Saturday when a featured speaker actually called for the hanging of Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash), the fourth ranking Democrat in the Senate and a vulnerable re-election candidate.

“How many of you have watched the movie Lonesome Dove?,” asked an unidentified female speaker from the podium. “What happened to Jake when he ran with the wrong crowd? What happened to Jake when he ran with the wrong crowd. He got hung. And that’s what I want to do with Patty Murray.”

He’s just practicing his freedom of speech, right?

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Opinionated chemist, troublemaker, blogger on national and Delaware politics.

Comments (90)

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  1. According the NYT article on the teabaggers they are mostly male, white, college-educated and rich (but not good spellers). They forgot to add the teabaggers’ violent fantasies against women they disagree with.

  2. anon says:

    asked an unidentified female speaker from the podium

    Err… his freedom of speech?

  3. a.price says:

    maybe it was satire…. here’s some satire

    i want to tar, feather, and light sarah palin on fire… HAHAHAHAH GET IT?

  4. pandora says:

    I’m telling you, it’s only a matter of time before these words turn into action (yes, I know they already have – Pittsburgh, Tiller). Calling publicly for a hanging? How is this not a direct threat?

  5. Joanne Christian says:

    Now c’mon. This is a stretch for me. I’m sure in context “to hang” was to lose the seat. You guys have enough ammo, you needn’t parse colloquialisms. I’m still angry about pinatas and punching bags–why not stick w/ that. It’s more substantive.

  6. cassandra_m says:

    Have you seen Lonesome Dove, Joanne?

    This is the scene the heckler is referring to. It is about 6 minutes long and not alot of metaphor there.

  7. pandora says:

    Not quite a stretch.

  8. shoe throwing instructor says:

    Tonight a cold fridgit wind chills me to the bone and piles of ugly dirty snow make me want to poke my eyes out with a stick and the tea baggers convince me once again I live in a nation full of brainless morons, wow am I ever glad i,m not young again.

  9. liberalgeek says:

    It’s alright, I guess, so long as they dig her a grave afterward, right? right?

  10. Jason330 says:

    Congressional Republicans will probably be forced to distance themselves from these violent nutbags. (Not really)

  11. shoe throwing instructor says:

    The tea baggers are actually the brains of the republican party jason. How scary is that. They should have never allowed free Wi-Fi in biker bars.

  12. Joanne Christian says:

    I was out to kid commitment. But thank you cass for exacting the Lonesome Dove perspective–it was lost on me. I’m a reader, not a viewer (honest to gosh, never saw Saturday Nite Fever, Star Wars, or Star Trek). Anyway, more reprehensible than the call to hang–was the mob mentality to see it through. THAT’S the greater shame. those who would stand by and be silent. But this guilt by association is played out everyday in politics. No one–and that goes for both sides is willing to concede an acknowledgement of a reasonable Democrat, or a judicious Republican. It sickens me that swords are drawn right out of the gate by a lousy initial next to your name. Like the days of Romeo and Juliet…it has got to change–and whether you believe Bayh or not, there is some merit in his leaving.

  13. a.price says:

    i think Bayh is a coward. he could have fought against it. instead he just runs away.
    any hoo When the Teabaggers DO try and kill someone, i hope a) they fail miserably and their target doesn’t suffer a scratch
    and b) go Squeeky Fromme style and try to call Glenn, Sean, Sarah, and M-bach as defense witnesses

  14. Joanne Christian says:

    I don’t know a.price–the guy really isn’t running….just not running. He gave it a solid try, and decided this is not the game he wants to play. I can respect that. At least he’s not just being dead wood, collecting a check.

  15. waltinseattle says:

    not as much a stretch as terrorist left wingers intimidating voters and elderly. Yes, FREE SPEECH- especially speech you are in disagreement with or find distastefl.

    Please leave it to idologes jerks like Limp Bough to parse peoples words and stick his interpretation into their mouths so as to find inconsistencies or trends he heroically uncovers for the safty of his listners. Please??? a sensical leftie? is anybody listen…..?

  16. Jason330 says:

    What the..?

  17. shoe throwing instructor says:

    The herd mentality that has developed in the teabagger movement has been a product of the media emphesis on us against them. In Mien Kaumph, hitler grouped all intellectuals and academics under the heading of soviet style communists bent on subugating the masses, thus to find the “truth” about anything they were left with only one person to turn to. Hitler himself, it should be of no surpise that the tactic still works today, people that in anyway support liberal ideals, such as affordable health care have a secret agenda that these people feel threatened by, and with a 100% corporate controlled media to keep that fear alive we are indeed facing a far mor dangerous situation than most people realize in the tea bagger movement.

  18. fightingbluehen says:

    Talk about paranoia….jeez
    Lighten up people,it,s just a figure of speech.

  19. a.price says:

    i guess “Final Solution” was also a figure of speech. FBH, conservative white people especially in the South have proven throughout this nation’s history that they are capable of some pretty vile stuff.

  20. fightingbluehen says:

    “i guess “Final Solution” was also a figure of speech. FBH, conservative white people especially in the South have proven throughout this nation’s history that they are capable of some pretty vile stuff.”
    Very good a.price, now you know the history of the Democrat party.

  21. I’d like a list of all the great stuff Republicans have done for civil rights since the 1960s, since they’re so proud of their record. More dishonest hackery, pretending the Dixiecrats didn’t join the Republican party after Johnson.

  22. a.price says:

    all things done in regards to civil rights by the Rs has been opposition.

  23. cassandra m says:

    Conservative white people in the South have also been known to string people they didn’t approve of from trees, too.

  24. anon says:

    The GOP position on minority advancement is “Our rich white guy platform is actually good for you too, if you could just get it through your nappy heads.”

  25. fightingbluehen says:

    Is this the what have you done for civil rights lately scenario UI ?
    Republicans were the most influential party when it came to the civil rights of blacks up to and including the civil rights movement of the sixties.
    In modern times the stance of the republican party is to treat everyone equal.
    Just because we don,t believe in quotas and redistribution of wealth doesn’t mean we don’t believe in civil rights.

  26. a.price says:

    FBH, what universe have you been living in? Republicans have openly opposed civil rights legislation. most notably the Civil Rights Act…. unless you consider that a handout.

  27. Actually, over 80% of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act, while a significantly smaller percentage of Democrats did.

    And your party continues to refer to one of those who voted against that bill (the only Kluxer to serve in that body over the last 4 decades) as “the conscience of the Senate.”

    But then again, that title may be accurate — he is the GUILTY conscience of the Democrat Party.

  28. anon says:

    Actually, over 80% of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act, while a significantly smaller percentage of Democrats did.

    And those liberal Republicans were purged by the modern conservative movement, and those Dixiecrats became Republicans.

  29. Geezer says:

    Really, do we have to go over this every single time, just because Greg keeps up his Sophist argument about who was a Democrat when? Do you treat your students to such one-sided, self-serving “reasoning,” or do you actually teach them that this is intellectually dishonest?

  30. What have I done for civil rights? During the Obama campaign I signed people up to vote, their most important civil right.

  31. anon says:

    And your party continues to refer to one of those who voted against that bill (the only Kluxer to serve in that body over the last 4 decades) as “the conscience of the Senate.”

    Senator Byrd saw the light on the road To Damascus, pal. Republicans are still Pharisees.

  32. a.price says:

    UI, did you make sure they passed a literacy/racial purity test?

  33. a.price says:

    just like the Pope is no longer a Nazi, Sen Byrd has changed his views and expressed remorse for his past life. I doubt the leaders of your lunatic wing nut party can say the same.

  34. 30 Republicans Senators stood up and proudly voted for corporations over rape victims.

    No, the only literacy test they had to pass was to be able to fill out the form.

  35. Geezer says:

    The problem for your false equivalency, a.price, is that no progressive supports Byrd. He’s a Democrat, not a progressive or liberal. Whereas asshats like you actually defend the Pope.

  36. V says:

    In response to the “Librals do it tooo!” argument I don’t think it’s the words that rile us up. It’s the likelyhood that those actions will be followed through. Frankly libral activists don’t kill people as often as conservative ones do (be they tea partiers, pro-lifers, militia members etc.). Even if that “liberal terrorists frightening the elderly” crack up there is true (which it might be, i mean we have our own moonbats) when was the last time you saw a pro-choice advocat blow up a pro-life campaign’s office? When was the last time you saw an anti-war activist shoot a soldier? It just doesn’t happen. Also, conservatives are much more passionate about the 2nd amendment, so they’re more likely to have guns. And a portion of them (not all) can be fiercely religous, seeing the violence as some kind of divine mission. This just freaks me out because i think conservatives just have a much better chance of following through.

  37. The correct answer to any criticism of Republicans is “Clenis.”

  38. fightingbluehen says:

    V said, “Frankly libral activists don’t kill people as often as conservative ones do (be they tea partiers, pro-lifers, militia members etc.)”

    Have you ever heard of the “Red Guard” ?

  39. Geezer says:

    Wow. How intellectually dishonest can you get? You’re going to drag in “liberals” (which they’re not) from other countries? You pathetic moran.

  40. cassandra_m says:

    What states in America were the Red Guard leading rallies in and fielding candidates for office?

  41. V says:

    apologies for my lack of clarification FBH. I was discussing strictly American groups. I mean if we want to drag in other countries I get to talk about all the horrors from international conservative groups right? Forced female castration to prohibit promiscuity in Africa? Women getting acid thrown in the faces for talking to a man on the street or being murdered for trying to go to school in a middle east “honor killing”? I think for this discussion it would be MUCH simpler to keep things in our own backyard.

  42. Yeah, V — when was the last time you saw a liberal Obama supporting professor shoot a bunch of minorities because they didn’t give her what she believed she was entitled to?

  43. cassandra_m says:

    And I’ll note again — when repubs get to the point in their argument about race where they say “Democrats did it first”, you know that not only have they lost their argument, but that they still don’t quite grasp what the argument is about.

    Because the other thing that Democrats did first was to become intolerant of the peddlers of racism and work to genuinely represent the issues of women and people of color. What they also did first was make it plain in multiple ways that racism was no longer tolerated in the party. And once that happened, what happened to the Dixiecrats who couldn’t get with the program? They became Republicans. Whose best successes in inclusion and Gig Tent-ism is to hold on for dear life to those racist elements in their party who wouldn’t find a political home anyplace else.

  44. And V — for you to equate American conservatives (who by and large speak out against the barbaric Islamic practices you describe) with the barbarians who engage in such atrocities against human rights (but who liberals won’t condemn because they don’t want to appear to be cultural imperialists) is rather absurd.

  45. pandora says:

    Oh, I’m sorry… did I miss the part where the professor shouted her political beliefs as she fired the gun? Sad and desperate, RWR.

  46. fightingbluehen says:

    “Wow. How intellectually dishonest can you get? You’re going to drag in “liberals” (which they’re not) from other countries? You pathetic moran.”

    I would say that Communism is as far left, liberal as you can get,and they have killed millions.
    Tell me Geezer , how that is intellectually dishonest ?

    Nice name calling.

  47. pandora says:

    And V — for you to equate American conservatives (who by and large speak out against the barbaric Islamic practices you describe) with the barbarians who engage in such atrocities against human rights (but who liberals won’t condemn because they don’t want to appear to be cultural imperialists) is rather absurd.

    But it’s okay for you to do it?

  48. V says:

    RWR – like i said we have our moonbats, but given her history of violence (she assaulted a woman at a restaurant a few years ago, and “accidentally” killed her brother years ago)and the lack of asserted political motivation (since we know it’s about tenure) i think that was just a sad case of a sick person who happened to hold liberal beliefs. I’m talking about people who expressly state they kill people based on political ideology. No one can argue that Dr. Tiller’s murderer was just a sick man who happened to love babies.

    and i only brought up those international atrocities because fbh brought up the red guard (to prove my point at how ridiculous it is to compare American conservatism/liberalism to that of other countries). We actually agree on this one!

  49. Did I miss the part where invited speakers at progressive rallies talked about killing their co-workers?

  50. a.price says:

    actually RWR, V is spot on. right down ot republican senators calling themselves a Taliban like insurgency. OR a teabagger at a rally telling a Washington state rR congressman that he is a proud right wing terrorist and the congressman saying “well god bless you”
    or the “we came unarmed” threats of violence toward the government. you people are EXACTLY like the barbarians. you are the minority and threaten violence if your demands are not met. text book terrorism…. gook luck at your military tribunal trial.

  51. cassandra_m says:

    Hey, FBH, there’s still a question for you here.

  52. a.price says:

    “I would say that Communism is as far left, liberal as you can get,and they have killed millions.
    Tell me Geezer , how that is intellectually dishonest ?”

    and Nazis (despite their misuse of the word “socialist”) is as far right as you can get. so there is THAT…. twit.

    also, Soviet and Chinese communism are NOT communism, or even leftist. if you knew ANYTHING about these things you are piss scared of, you would know they are militarized right wing bastardized versions of true communism…. which btw is MUCH different from socialism.

  53. cassandra_m says:

    And to all of the progressives answering in this thread here — stop following RWR down his rabbit hole. Make him stick to the topic at hand and do not tolerate the bullshit deflection he likes to do rather than answer the question. It is the easiest way to tie a troll up in knots.

  54. fightingbluehen says:

    cassandra said “Hey, FBH, there’s still a question for you here.”

    So I took the liberty of applying the statement globally to all liberals.
    just hang me.

  55. a teabagger at a rally telling a Washington state rR congressman that he is a proud right wing terrorist and the congressman saying “well god bless you”

    Given that the Øbama Regime had issued a report shortly before classifying conservatives as terrorists (not to mention rhetoric like yours which does the same), any intelligent individual should recognize as satirical the claim to be a “proud right wing terrorist” — and the response in such a situation is perfectly appropriate.

  56. anon says:

    stop following RWR down his rabbit hole

    I’m starting to think that some of these trolls are PAID for their trolling.

  57. cassandra_m says:

    So I took the liberty of applying the statement globally to all liberals.

    So you were wrong, then.

    Especially since what passes for liberal and conservative in this country doesn’t have alot of easy analogs elsewhere.

  58. a.price says:

    of course. i forgot about Saint Sarah’s defense of “satire” unless it is used against Saint Sarah and other right wing retards (yeah, i said it)

    In case you need a refresher, that report was started under president Bush. it found that right wing extremists pose a threat to the government because of your well documented history of violence and hate. FBH, before you throw a hissy fit because you need every detail explained to you like a child, i am talking about AMERICAN RIGHT WING

  59. cassandra_m says:

    Given that the Øbama Regime had issued a report shortly before classifying conservatives as terrorists (not to mention rhetoric like yours which does the same),

    Now this would be a LIE.

    And the kind of thing you’ve been banned for previously, RWR. And since you’ve been banned before, you will not be surprised when you find posts of yours willfully misrepresenting existing data disemvoweled.

  60. a.price says:

    surely there is a more grow up way to handle morons like RWR then taking the vowels out of his posts. I love ya cass, but you are much better when you burninate someone with facts.

  61. romeo says:

    cassy loves her Memory Hole 2.0

  62. anonone says:

    If lying gets you banned, then you should put it in the DL rules, cassandra_m. Otherwise, stop threatening people with your control-freak nonsense.

  63. Actually, cassie, it isn’t a lie. A DHS report in April, 2009 lumped mainstream conservatives and veterans in with “right-wing extremists” as potential terrorists. It is an inconvenient truth — for you, at least.

  64. Geezer says:

    “Tell me Geezer , how that is intellectually dishonest?”

    If you don’t understand how expanding the argument beyond this country constitutes intellectual dishonesty, I doubt anything I could say would open your eyes. Your behavior is typical of rank-and-file conservatives, who really seem to believe that “winning” arguments on chat boards and blogs constitute some sort of achievement — and who will do whatever necessary to achieve that “victory.”

  65. pandora says:

    Your lie, RWR, comes in the form of acting like this was Obama’s report. But you know that. You also know I stuck my neck out for you, at your request – something I’m now regretting.

  66. fightingbluehen says:

    a.price the nazis may have been right wingers even though they were socialists, but communism be it soviet style or Chinese, is as far left as it gets.

    By the way, what’s up with you guys and the name calling ? It reminds me of dogs barking behind car windows at the grocery store. Pointless

  67. a.price says:

    military dictatorships are NOT left wing.

  68. shoe throwing instructor says:

    Fighting blue hen; for your information Hitler was not a socialist, he took over a small goup in munich who called themselves the national socialist party and decided not to change the name so that as he states in Mien Kumph ” we can get socialists to come to are meetings and either change their minds or bloody their noses” Hitler dispised socialism and socialist, but he knew he could trick uninformed knuckleheads like you, and it,s amazing, how well it still works. Mien Kumph is still in print, I recommend that you read it so your posts don,t come of as foolish uninformed nonsence, you will find that quote about the party name in the book, more examples of tea bagger stupidity.

  69. Excuse me, but who was president in April of 2009? Whose appointee was Homeland Security secretary? I’ll give you a hint — it rhymes with “Yo Mama”. 🙂

    And pandora, I didn’t say that Obama himself wrote the report, or even imply it.

  70. pandora says:

    “And pandora, I didn’t say that Obama himself wrote the report, or even imply it.”

    Given that the Øbama Regime had issued a report shortly before classifying conservatives as terrorists

    Yeah you did.

    And you did it again with “Excuse me, but who was president in April of 2009? Whose appointee was Homeland Security secretary? I’ll give you a hint — it rhymes with “Yo Mama”.”

    And since you’re playing by these “rules” then isn’t it about time for you to blame Bush for 9/11? I mean, excuse me, but who was President in September 2001?

  71. I don’t blame Obama personally for the report — but I do blame his appointees who chose to let the report go forward and be released. It should have been rejected as lacking in any substance — and I say that as someone who read the report at the time it was released.

    And as for 9/11, I do place some blame on the Bush Administration for not taking certain actions to beef up airline security before 9/11. But I also blame the Clinton Administration for the same thing — the evidence was there years before Bush took office and Clinton did nothing. And from what we know of the failure of Clinton-era terrorism policies to seriously engage the terrorist threat, there is plenty of blame to be shared by BOTH administrations — just as there would have if Gore had been elected in 2000 and he had continued with his predecessor’s policies. On the other hand, I reject the notion that an intelligence briefing that said, in effect, that “al-Qaeda wants to hijack a plane or planes somewhere at some uncertain point in time so as to crash them into locations unknown” constitutes sufficiently specific information to conclude that there were 4 teams of hijackers ready to engage in the specific events of 9/11.

  72. cassandra_m says:

    surely there is a more grow up way to handle morons like RWR then taking the vowels out of his posts. I love ya cass, but you are much better when you burninate someone with facts.

    The real problem here is that there is only so many times you can have this argument with these whackos. This is NOT Delaware Politics where you basically get to create your own reality. We’ve done this conversation multiple times about this DHS report and apparently I’m the one who is supposed to forget that we settled this multiple times. Wingnut lies are fair game. Especially when they have multiple places on the web where their bullshit really is welcome.

  73. shoe throwing instructor says:

    Cassandra; You are stating a fact about the internet that makes me wish the web had never been created, they do indeed have multiple places where their bullshit really is welcome, their empty headed conclusions would be hard to verify in a library, but here there,s a virtual smorgesboard of misinformation, you could google the moon is made of green cheese and find “proof” that your theory is coreect, this has become more a tool for propoganda than a haven for truth and reason, in the end we may find we are much the worse for having this misinformation highway.

  74. pandora says:

    Talk to any doctor and one of the things you’ll likely hear is “Don’t google your condition.”

  75. Oh, Cassandra? You “settled it” and declared what reality is, and anyone who dissents from YOUR “settled version” of the truth is a liar, rather than someone who simply disagrees with you?

    I guess what you are really suggesting is that dissent is not only not patriotic, but needs to be suppressed as well.

    And by the way — look at why I brought the report up. It was not to debate the contents of the report. It was to contextualize a statement quoted by another commenter who presented it in a way that was precisely the opposite of what the speaker clearly intended when one places the statement in context. Even if I were to accept your view of that DHS report, my bringing that other understanding of it would still be appropriate.

  76. May I ask a question? Is the name of a certain Founding Father from Delaware blocked? Comments using it have been blocked or sent for moderation, and I’m a little bit confused by that.

  77. cassandra_m says:

    There isn’t another “understanding” — there is a LIE by you on a report that it suits you to try to get your victim on by.

    And this is the crux of the whole problem — you can’t just reorder the world so you can be a victim of it. Especially when it is easy enough to look at that report and tell that you are full of shit. Having to redo this shit over and over with you when you are clearly lying your ass off is simply not necessary. So when you decide to re-litigate the world through your FOX news lens, you can understand when that isn’t acceptable.

    Dissent ≠ Lying. You may be afraid that we actually know the difference. And I’ll be delighted to remind you when you see your posts disemvoweled.

  78. anon says:

    Caesar Rodney test.

  79. anon says:

    George Read test.

  80. anon says:

    Thomas McKean test.

    OK, I’d say nope.

  81. Joanne Christian says:

    Did you try John Dickinson? Henry Hudson,or the King of Sweden? I want no stone unturned.

  82. rspctfll dssnt n yr clm f nfllblt, css. nd rgrdlss f whthr r nt prtclr pnt f vw n tht rprt s ccrt, y hv t cncd tht sd pnt f vw ws th ndrlyng bss fr th sttmnt tht ws qtd, nd tht sd ndrstndng f th rprt thrws n ntrl dffrnt lght n tht sttmnt.

  83. gss smn rll hs lctd hrslf pp!

  84. Censorship is the last refuge of those insecure in their point of view.

  85. anonone says:

    Apparently all comments on this blog are now subject to censorship based not on any rules, but on the personal opinions, likes, and dislikes of cassandra_m. And this isn’t even her thread.

  86. Jason330 says:

    That’s right a1 – so suck it. Or better yet – start a liberal blog.

  87. anonone says:

    Tht’s rght – s sck t. r bttr yt – strt lbrl blg

  88. Von Cracker says:

    these fools in fervor just love to dig their own political graves now, don’t they?

    BTW RWR – not that it means shit, but that Obama-loving Socialist supporter in Alabamy shot other Obama-loving Socialist supporters – So in Retardland, I guess you’re right, it was politically motivated! You vacant vessel you! *smooch*