Bill O'Reilly apologizes for ridiculously tiny percentage of his apology-worthy career.

###

We've all had this kind of social media experience, like a punch in the gut.

###

Not that Mylie's performance wasn't gross, but Rush has been jerk twerking for decades.

###

Someday in the not-so-distant future, people enjoying the security of affordable health insurance will look back on Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare and wonder WTF was wrong with those people.

###

Right-wingers are confused about so many things. Here's one of the most basic.

###

Patri-idiots have always been with us, but now they control the Republican Party.

###

Homophobic right-wingers may want to reconsider their rhyming "Adam and Eve" catch phrase.

###

Republicans keep ordering the same junk food and wondering why the country won't get healthy.

###

Fox News: The most "fair and balanced" propaganda corporate Republican money can buy.

###

More Louisiana Republicans blame Obama over Bush for Katrina response problems. #Facepalm.

###

Go ahead and do a Google image search for "Obama Hitler." But be sure to have a barf bag handy.

###

The First Family got a new dog. Potential Fox News report: "Does Obama hate cats? We report. You decide."

###

It really does get better ... check out these poll numbers on marriage equality.

###

Happy Sunday! I'm thankful that we live in a country where our Constitution protects religion from government AND protects government from religion.

###

The 2012 election was fantastic, and even our dog Libby is looking forward to 2014 and 2016.

###

Republicans blame both parties the same way Snooki blames all the Kardshians.

###

This is why we can't have nice things.

###

Ignorance and arrogance

###

Donald Trump is still a birther. And he's still invited to be on TV and considered a Republican presidential candidate. How pathetic.

###

Wrapped in Extremism

My monthly column for my hometown newspaper, the Daily Hampshire Gazette.

Back in 2009, a friend saw a tea party rally on Fox News and asked me, “Where did these crazy people come from, the John Birch Society?” She was joking, but like all the best jokes, this one was grounded in reality.

Wrapped in the Flag, a new book by Claire Conner, chronicles her life as the daughter of parents who were immersed in extreme right-wing politics as founding members of the John Birch Society in the 1950s to the present.

Conner combines her insider perspective and detailed research to illuminate the “Birchers,” as they were known. The organization was founded in 1958, when Conner was a teenager, and grew directly from Joe McCarthy’s paranoid accusations that Communists were infiltrating the United States government. Birchers focused not on the reality of Communism in the world, but on fabricating Communism where it didn’t exist. Most famously (and most ridiculously), they accused moderate Republican President Dwight Eisenhower of being a Communist sympathizer.

In addition to seeing Communists lurking in every shadow, Birchers were virulently opposed to immigration, homosexuality, civil rights, Social Security, public education and pretty much any government action to help American citizens. They espoused devout Christianity and adherence to the Constitution (or their own twisted versions of Christianity and the Constitution). 

They revered big business and the wealthy while dismissing unemployed and poor people as victims of their own laziness. And they believed that the constitutional concept of “we the people” applied primarily to white male property owners.

When Conner saw the tea party reaction to the election of President Obama, she recognized the same forces that propelled the John Birch Society and their related right-wing compatriots. History repeats itself — a cliché to be sure, but an accurate one. Unfortunately, in American politics, people have trouble remembering the last administration, let alone events five decades ago, so Conner’s book is particularly welcome.

As a memoir, Wrapped in the Flag combines coming-of-age and dysfunctional-family motifs. Conner traces her own life from childhood to maturity as she reacts to what can only be described as her parents’ political insanity. These parents make her both a pariah in school and a frustrated adult who tries her best to care for them as they age, despite their continuing tone-deaf attempts to convert her to their extremist views as they accuse her of being a brainless liberal. 

Conner also presents her own political journey from dipping a toe into supporting right-wing candidates to anti-abortion activism and anti-gay leanings to a left-of-center moderate whose views ultimately grow from her experiences as a parent herself.

As a work of political history, Wrapped in the Flag is at its best. She takes us on a true-life expedition into the fever swamp world of wingnuttery. Extreme views seem to go hand-in-hand with extreme personalities, and her parents definitely are extreme personalities — as are the many other Bircher family friends whom Conner writes about, including such infamous figures as Birch founder Robert Welch, white supremacist Revilo Oliver, anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly and failed presidential candidate John Schmitz. She’s even privy to some certified gun nuts and stunning “family values” sex scandals, showing how little the world of right-wing politics has changed in 50 years.

Most important, Conner does her readers the essential service of showing the connections between the John Birch Society and today’s equally extreme right-wingers, many of whom have wiggled their way into the mainstream of American politics far more than their Bircher antecedents.

People like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Ron and Rand Paul, Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz, most of the tea party, and just about everyone on Fox News would be right at home attending one of the Conner family’s living room Birch meetings to wail about the impending destruction of America at the hands of those filthy liberals. 

Ultimately, American commonsense prevailed over the Birchers and other extremists of that era. Wrapped in the Flag is a cautionary tale that warns us to follow suit and reject those who would lead our nation on a disastrous rightward lurch.

###

This is what "stand your ground" in Florida should be.

###

Happy Sunday, everyone! Today is the day of the Jesus in the Bible, not the imaginary one created by Republicans to further their agenda.

###

Memo to Fox News: Dishonest propaganda isn't journalism or patriotism.

###

Oldie but goodie: Clueless Craig T. Nelson and clueless Glenn Beck perfectly embody right-wing confusion about the role of government.

###

If I had a nickle for every crazy lie told about Obamacare, I could fund a pretty nice Friday afternoon pizza party for a large office.

###

It's a shame that a Republican treating President Obama with basic decency and respect is news.

###

Do Republicans have a chance to repeal Obamacare? Ask Lloyd.

###

Fox News: "Making up crap since 1996."

###

Happy 52nd birthday to President Obama! It's nice to have a president who can still laugh after years of unhinged personal attacks against him.

###

Sunday morning thought: Follow the teachings of Jesus, not the right-wing fake version of Christianity.

###

Some states hate Obama so much they want to leave the union and form their own country: Cutandrunistan.

###

The pill kills? No, in reality, access to contraception reduces abortion. Well, that's if you live in reality.

###

NC Governor McCrory keeps up with NC legislature's craziness and incompetence

###