Summary: a conservative underpants-gnome attacks Long Beach veterans who’ve criticized the Iraq war: The Nation has, with remarkable simultaneity, published this great story on how the right-wing smear machine actually works. Turns out it involves something called “e-mail,” a kind of electric letter, it seems.

Anatomy of a conservative attack dog
In any other circumstance, police harassment of an American gun owner and war vet would become a conservative fable, burnished into a action-packed tale of liberal bureaucrats feasting on the body of a true hero, evidence of American weakness and the triumph of feminism. But Adam Kokesh, a gun owner [...]

They might be trolls, maybe
You dig into a story expecting something big. On this one, I guess, I was digging for a giant of local conservatism and discovered a mere troll. Turns out Raoul Deming is real–maybe surreal–and that he lives somewhere on the East Coast and that, sure, he’s just a museum piece somebody [...]

Why do Bush backers hate Iraq War vets

Following Raoul Deming’s admonition that we Google Iraq Vets Against the War to discover the roots of their conspiracy to overthrow America, I’ve dug slightly deeper into the Adam Kokesh story. Turns out the Marines are, as Deming suggests, upset with Kokesh–but only because he wore his military [...]

Angry guy attacks Iraq war critics in, like, 7 comments
Steve Lowery is better at harvesting nuts than this thing. His recent post on the decision to ban Iraq War critics from Saturday’s Long Beach Veterans Parade brought anti-antiwar critic “Raoul Deming” to thedistrictweekly.com. Deming writes, “Thank God Long Beach stood up for our [...]

The Justice Department changes course (maybe)
Normally, news that the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department is enforcing a civil rights law wouldn’t be surprising, but things are different in the Bush years. So when McClatchy news discovered that the Civil Rights Division has actually taken the first steps to uphold a 1993 voting-rights law, [...]

So we aren’t that effective when it comes to nation-building. But who is? And “keeping peace” around the globe didn’t turn out to be such a great idea. But don’t forget about American Ingenuity, the efficient, barrier-blasting power that emerges–as dependably as any force in physics–when you pair unfettered minds with a [...]

The real danger to America is bad reporting, not the Iraq War

Last night’s Daily Show featured ex-Bush press handler and Fox News anchor Tony Snow. At one point, Snow told show host Jon Stewart that the media have treated the president too harshly. Really? asked Stewart, who, like most of us, believes the media have [...]