The Taser Shot Heard ‘Round the World…

Probably most people do this. I tend to get my news and commentary exclusively from a few bookmarked sites, chosen because they don’t often pressure-test my cerebral arteries. Because I’m an anarchist whackjob and am capable of becoming enraged by writers on both of the points on the political spectrum that most people acknowledge, it’s a short list. I don’t normally care what the gasbags from either MSNBC or Fox have to say about anything. Might look them up for purposes of ridicule, but that’s about it.

But this morning I lay in bed thinking, “I wonder how the rest of the country is taking that business in Nevada?”

A search of MSNBC netted exactly zero items. Didn’t happen, apparently. Searching Politico got me a grand total of one. Title? Get a load of this: “Feds release all cows gathered during Nevada roundup”. It seems they were concerned for the safety of the protesters, so they relented out of kindness. That’s all you need to see, move along.

The comments on that item are priceless:

These right wingers are nuts, and on the wrong side. Public land is land owned by ALL of us, just by being born American. This letting private entities use what belongs to all of us and letting only the private entities profit from it and not letting the taxpayers decide who gets to use the land and not letting the taxpayers profit from its use needs to come to an end.

I have a childhood memory that may actually mark the beginning of my life as a political whacko, and it relates directly to the comment above. Some guy grabbed my arm and said, (I am not making this up)

“Hey, you can’t be here. This is public property!”

That’s a brow-furrower to a 7- or 8-year-old kid. Aren’t I the public?

And how upset the righties NOW get about “free speech zones”. They didn’t seem too upset by them when George W Bush’s administration was putting anti Iraq war protesters in them. When he appeared at LSU to speak at a graduation when he was President, we were put in a taped off “free speech area”, away from where he was speaking. Where was your outrage THEN righties?

Um…well, that fellow’s kinda got a point, except the protest wasn’t about the “first amendment area.”

Foxnews.com didn’t have anything on its home page but there were several articles, even mentioning militia involvement without making fun or trotting out the “terrorist” word. Treatment there was fairly complete and even-handed, and it’s only the meanness in me that believes their tone would be different if the administration were being run by republicans.

For word on domestic terrorism, I was directed to a piece published by this group I never heard of, (I am still not making this up:) “Americans Against the Tea Party.” They actually had a couple of articles on the matter, one titled “Federal Government Caves to Right Wing Terrorists At Bundy Ranch,” and I just knew it would be good. By which I mean, entertaining. Curiously, this far-far-really really far-left group also lays the blame for the backdown on … Harry Reid.

Kornze is a protege of our own Harry Reid, himself a Mormon Nevadan like Cliven Bundy. Word has been that Kornze finally decided to remove the cows from Federal property in order to set up a solar power station, championed by Harry Reid. It was likely pressure from upstairs, rather than weapons from the field, that changed his mind on the matter. Fact is, Harry Reid probably didn’t want his name attached to the biggest civilian massacre in US history right before election season. The fact that they were and are classifiable as terrorists, and the fact that Bundy’s new kingdom is federal property, seems to have lost out to the power of election season.

As far as I can tell, that Chinese solar plant story originated with Alex Jones so I haven’t put any credence in it. But here’s a bunch of people who probably think Fidel Castro was too right-wing for their taste, and they’re spreading the same story.

Here’s another AATTP story, blaming the whole mess on…

…are you sitting down?

!!!YES! The Koch Brothers^tm did it!!!

Two affiliates of the Koch-backed group Americans for Prosperity are working overtime to promote the cause of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who has made violent threats against the federal government and garnered the support of insane militiamen from across the nation.

So this is an incident for which both Harry Reid and his nemesis the Koch Brothers^tm are to blame. Okey Dokey.

God, I love this country! We not only never agree on anything, we all have different definitions for the same words!

This may well remain interesting for quite some time.