Limbaugh Loves Nazi Talk; Goes Homophobic On Barney Frank.

"How To Talk To Town Hall A-Holes" By Barney Frank.

Is Gun Totin' A-Hole William Kostric Enjoying His 15 Minutes To Inflame?

I noticed a visitor to my blog today from forum.freestateproject.org. The visitor landed on my post about the gun nut at yesterday's Obama town hall meeting in New Hampshire.

When I clicked over to that site, I saw what may be comments by Kostric (under the name "Keyser Soce.") That name stood out because "Keyser Soce" also appears on his MySpace URL, and the poster writes, "I've gone viral," before posting numerous links to blogs--like this one--that posted video of his appearance with Chris Matthews yesterday. There are also comments referring to "sales and some public speaking experience."

BTW, "Keyser Soce" might be a misspelled homage to "Keyser Soze," the ruthless underworld character from The Usual Suspects.

The Free State Project bills itself as "an effort to recruit 20,000 liberty-loving people to move to New Hampshire."

(Cross-posted on Daily Kos.)

Chris Matthews To William Kostric: "You're Carrying A Goddamn Gun At A Presidential Event!"

William Kostric is the asshole who brought a loaded 9mm gun to President Obama's town hall meeting in New Hampshire today. He's a Ron Paul disciple originally from Arizona and relocated to New Hampshire because it's a "live free or die" state.

So the Wild, Wild West wasn't wild enough for him.

Kudos to Chris Matthews for hammering away at him and asking him why "...you're carrying a goddamn gun at a presidential event!"

Here's Kostric's MySpace page.

I hope his 15 minutes is up and that I never see his sorry ass again.

Zeitgeist Heist.

AZ Dem Gabrielle Giffords' Meet 'N Greet: Attendee Drops Gun.

Welcome to the wild, wild West. Apparently there's no need to check your firearm at the door.

From the Arizona Daily Star:

Southern Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has a new loyal following — but not the one she probably hoped for when she ran for office in 2006.

Conservative activists, opposed to the Democrats’ health care proposals, are jumping at the chance to confront the second-term Democrat and vent their frustrations.

But for now Giffords is not interested in engaging with people her staff says are using “manipulation” and “racism” to spread their message.

“Yelling and screaming is counterproductive,” she told the Sierra Vista Herald at a Congress on Your Corner event last week. There, one visitor dropped a gun at the meet n’ greet held in a Douglas Safeway, her staff says.

That has aides, who called police to the event, concerned for her safety.

“We have never felt the need before to notify law enforcement when we hold these events,” said spokesman C.J. Karamargin.

Such activists are showing-up at Democratic events coast to coast, including a recent one held by Northern Arizona congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick.

But the leader of the Tucson movement, Trent Humphries, a former legislative candidate, says Giffords is lying. He says his followers have no intention of hurting her. And they’re not racists, he said.

“Nobody is threatening Gabby,” Humphries said. “But she does need to get in front of her constituents and answer to her constituents.”

Her staff says she’s done that.

Before this organized movement against Democrats started, Giffords held a health care town hall early this summer that drew more than 1,000 people. And just this month she held a tele-town hall, with 5,000 invited guests from her district on the line.

I Googled "Trent Humphries." Surprise, surprise, surprise! He's a teabagger, promoting the Glenn Beck-inspired, Freedom Works-sponsored 09.12.09 March on Washington. And packing heat at a grocery store meet 'n greet is cool with him...

Anti-Health Care Reform Activist Asks For Donations To Pay Dubious SmackDown Tab.

A right-winger claims to have gotten his ass kicked outside a health reform town hall meeting, then asks for donations to pay for his alleged injuries. Seriously.

Do wingnuts sense irony?

From Washington Monthly:

Over the last few days, a conservative activist in St. Louis named Kenneth Gladney seems to have become something of a cause celebre in far-right circles. Depending on which version of events you choose to believe, Gladney either initiated or was involved in a scuffle at a town-hall event late last week.

At least one prominent conservative blogger said Gladney was "brutally attacked" by SEIU members outside the event. After watching the video, there's ample reason for skepticism. Gladney was, in fact, pulled to the ground during the fracas, but he seemed to bounce back up quickly, and is seen walking around soon after without any obvious injuries. His attorney has argued that Gladney was beaten during the fight, but there's nothing in the clip to support that.

Gladney later went to the hospital, claiming to have sustained injuries to his "knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face."

Yesterday, about 200 conservative activists held a protest outside the SEIU office in St. Louis. Gladney was there -- bandaged and in a wheelchair -- as a featured guest. Some of the activists held signs that read, "Don't Tread on Kenny." Reader R.D. alerted me to this tidbit in the local news account of the protest:

Gladney did not address Saturday's crowd of about 200 people. His attorney, David Brown, however, read a prepared statement Gladney wrote. "A few nights ago there was an assault on my liberty, and on yours, too." Brown read. "This should never happen in this country."

Supporters cheered. Brown finished by telling the crowd that Gladney is accepting donations toward his medical expenses. Gladney told reporters he was recently laid off and has no health insurance.

And then there's the overheated rhetoric from the right, via Media Matters:

Mary Katharine Ham wrote up an especially excited write-up at The Weekly Standard about the vicious union thugs and how Gladney was severely beaten. The only mistake Ham made was including a YouTube clip of the incident; a clip that pretty much undercuts the entire tale of run-away union violence.

Go watch the YouTube video. (Or, the "shocking video," as Power Line hypes it.) The first thing you notice when the camera starts rolling is a union member already sprawled out on the ground with somebody standing over him. No explanation of how he got there (pushed, shoved, punched?) and Ham couldn't care less. Then yes, Gladney is pulled to the ground by somebody wearing a union shirt. (At the :06 mark.) But instead of Gladney being beaten and punched, as his attorney describes, and instead of union "thugs" standing over him and threatening him, Gladney bounces right back on his feet in approximately two seconds and the scuffle ends.

That was the savage "beating" the conservative blogosphere can't stop talking about?

Check it out here:

Town Hall Heat.

Those tweets--which I first saw on TalkingPointsMemo--are from a maniac in New Mexico named Scott Oskay. His call for the use of armed resistance against "ACORN/SEIU" members attending August town hall meetings on health care reform are emblematic of the paranoid hysteria emanating from the outer reaches of both conservatism and reality.

The Republican Party--weak and shedding supporters--refuses to disavow the mob mentality of its extreme right-wing fringe, which reacts like Pavlov's dog to an unholy alliance of talk radio, conservative bloggers and FOX News.

The temperature is rising, and a tiny, boisterous slice of America is confusing our age-old right of assembly and protest with something far more dangerous; a simmering rage which seems to have a strong undercurrent of racism as its flame.

Threats of violence act as an accelerant and the town halls have become engulfed.

Listen to this phone call received by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) today from a lady in St. Louis (h/t: Wonkette):

And she says, "Stop the violence?"

The SEIU--North America's largest union--supports health care reform, which sets them up as a public enemy in the eyes of the fringe. ACORN, of course, is the bogeyman the right has trotted out since they first heard Barack Obama's name.

The mobs are well-organized and have the full support of anti-reform groups funded by the health care industry and are promoted by conservative media. As the angry voices rise and town hall meetings dissolve into shoutfests and worse, legitimate debate is buried.

That's the strategy, along with cries of socialism and scaring seniors.

The United States has had a cooler-than-normal summer, but the temperature is rising.

A Glimmer Of Hope Amid Simmering Anger.

While roving bands of angry, misinformed Americans are spending August making spectacles of themselves by screaming like caged banshees about health care reform at town hall meetings across the country, there is a glimmer of hope today. Still, times are tough and it's not time to turn cartwheels of joy just yet.

From the New York Times:

The economy lost significantly fewer jobs in July than expected. Forecasters were predicting a loss of about 325,000 jobs in June. The actual loss was 247,000 — the smallest since August 2008.

The average hourly pay of rank-and-file workers, which had been flat in June, rose 3 cents in July, to $18.56 an hour. That wage is up 2.5 percent over the past year, while inflation has been roughly zero. So the average person who’s still employed has actually received a raise in the last year.

The average private-sector workweek increased by one-tenth of an hour, to 33.1. It was the first increase since last summer.

And the government said that the economy had shed somewhat fewer jobs in May and June than previously estimated.

The one thing that doesn’t deserve much excitement is what will probably garner many of the headlines: the drop in the unemployment rate. It happened only because more people stopped looking for work and were thus ineligible to be counted as officially unemployed. The share of adults with jobs actually fell: to 59.4 percent, from 59.5 percent.

So we shed fewer jobs than we have in almost a year and wages made a modest gain. At the same time, more people dropped out of the job market altogether and 14,000 people lose health care every day. Millions more are a pink slip away from losing their coverage and many are under-insured and may not even know it.

Meanwhile, the ignorance of those town hall jammers is on full display, as they howl in full-throated support of a broken status quo.

Right-Wing Rage: Amped In Tampa.

H/T: HuffPo, for calling attention to the status-quo-defending screaming herds who assembled at a town hall meeting in Tampa, FL tonight to shout-down health care debate. These recent town hall disruptions make it clear that health care foes have no intention of "discussing" anything.

From the St. Petersburg Times:

Bitter divisions over reforming America's health care system exploded Thursday night in Tampa amid cat calls, jeering and shoving at a town hall meeting.

"Tyranny! Tyranny! Tyranny!" dozens of people shouted as U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor struggled to talk about health insurance reforms under consideration in Washington, D.C.

"There is more consensus than there is disagreement when you get right down to it,'' Castor offered, immediately drowned out by groans and boos.

She pressed on, mostly unheard among the screams from the audience of more than 200.

"Tell the truth! Tell the truth!"

"Read the bill!"

"Forty-million illegals! Forty million illegals!"

Thursday's forum/near riot was sponsored by state Rep. Betty Reed, D-Tampa, and the Service Employees International Union, who apparently had hoped to hold something of a pep rally for President Obama's health care reform proposal.

Instead, hundreds of vocal critics turned out, many of them saying they had been spurred on through the Tampa 912 activist group promoted by conservative radio and television personality Glenn Beck. Others had received e-mails from the Hillsborough Republican party that urged people to speak out against the plan and offered talking points to challenge supporters.

If anybody ever wanted to torture me, they wouldn't have to resort to waterboarding. Just put me in a room with Glenn Beck supporters and shut the door.

An overflow crowd of critics was left waiting outside the building – and in some cases pounding on the meeting room doors – while health care reform activists complained that Democrats and union members were guided into the room for prime seats.

"They can't even run a meeting, and they want to run health care?,'' scoffed Kevin Grant, a Tampa printing business owner, standing near someone wielding a "Shame on you America. You sold your soul to the Devil" sign.

U.S. Rep. Castor said a strong debate is healthy but suggested that many of the protesters who have shown up at town hall meetings in recent weeks would have staunchly opposed the creation of Medicare and Social Security a few decades ago.

"The insurance industry and … Republican activists are manufacturing a lot of these phony protests,'' said Castor, who has been closely involved in the health care debate and said she won't support any bill lacking a government-run insurance option.

According the the Tampa Times, right-wing website Free Republic told its members that Castor "will be surrounded by union goons from the SEIU" who will "do their best to pick fights with you so they can get video for TV as proof that you guys are a mob. Don't let them win, but get your questions asked."

There are other videos here.