Amanda Terkel writes,

Yesterday, hate radio host Rush Limbaugh talked about the volcanic eruption that’s affecting air travel over much of Europe, saying it was “God speaking” in response to the passage of health care.

Somebody send God a map.

The New York Times asked a number of political analysts and historians to give their impressions of the Tea Party movement. With the exception of The Usual Corporate-Sponsored Hackery (TUCSH?) dished up by Steven Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute and Amity Shlaes of the Council on Foreign Relations, the responses provide some good insight.

Alan Wolfe acknowledges that the Tea Party movement vindicates Richard Hofstadter.

Michael Lind wrote,

Pitchfork-wielding populists like William Jennings Bryan they are not. They are more like the affluent members of the Liberty League who vilified President Roosevelt in the 1930s — a sullen, defensive mobilization of the Have-Somes who dread the Have-Nots. The Tea Partiers put the “petty” in petty bourgeoisie. They are disgruntled conservative Fox Republicans.

Alan Brinkley:

This is a profile that matches other highly motivated protests over many decades — the supporters of Joseph McCarthy, for example, in the 1950s. Today, the target is not communism, which is no longer a major issue for the right (although “socialism” appears to have taken its place). But what seems to motivate them the most is a fear of a reduction in their own status — economically and socially.

See also comments from Rick Perlstein, Paul Butler, Lorenzo Morris, and Bob Moser.

Having spent the bulk of the past two days finally facing up to taxes (3 hours preparing tax forms, 29 hours stewing about preparing tax forms), I am now ready for the annual walk to the post office to get it over with. So how’s it going with you?

I’m way behind with a lot of other work, so for now I’m just going to briefly note a couple of things:

A blog post titled Do women today have more libertarian freedom than in 1880? caught my attention, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what anything in the post has to do with the “libertarian freedom of women.” It appears to be a discussion among a bunch of men having to do with some abstract notions of government coercion that have no connection to the genuine concerns of women.

Abortion, for example. A remarkable percentage of libertarians I have seen are anti-choice, which suggests that they are not at all opposed to government coercion as long as it’s someone else being coerced. Nebraska just passed a law that would ban elective abortions and many non-elective abortions after 20 weeks’ gestation. Exceptions are made for a woman’s imminent death or “substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.” However, if a woman discovers at 20 weeks’ gestation that her baby will be born with anencephaly, too bad. She has to carry the doomed infant to term.

Seems to me this law is a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, which permits states to ban elective abortions after 23 weeks’ gestation (time of earliest possible viability), but gives doctors more discretion to decide which abortions are medically indicated.

Another provision that was just signed into law in Nebraska requires that all women seeking abortion get a physical and mental health evaluation. This law hasn’t gotten nearly as much attention as the other one, but seems to me it will impact a lot more women, making all abortions in Nebraska more costly and burdensome. It also reeks of Big Government Patriarchy, especially the mental health part. Just don’t hold your breath waiting for libertarians to care.

Also: The Great Minds of the Nation continue to evaluate the Tea Party movement. I swear no one has ever gone to such lengths to plumb the depths of the American Left, even in the glory days of the New Left counterculture, ca. 1969. Anyway, the New York Times published an article about another new poll:

The 18 percent of Americans who identify themselves as Tea Party supporters tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45.

They could have saved their polling money and just asked me. I would have told them that.

Steve M has looked at the data more closely than I have, and notes that the Tea Partiers on the whole seem to be content with being Republicans. This contradicts their own rhetoric, but they are less likely than the general population to want a third party. They also deeply dislike Congress except for their own congress critters, who are all exceptions to the rule.

Digby notes that they buy into Republican Party propaganda about who’s to blame for the economic downturn:

Here’s an interesting factoid that tracks with my intuition about these people: they blame George W. Bush and Wall Street far less for the economic situation than the rest of the country does. They hold Obama and congress mostly responsible. But then, if you listen to wingnut gasbags and FOX news crazies all day, that’s what you would think.

Any illusions that these people are angry at Wall Street or big business needs to be dispensed with ASAP. They don’t blame the money people at all.

So, they tend to be Republican, white, male, married, older than 45, and ignorant as bread mold. I could have told them that, too.

Shawn Millerick of Now! Hampshire quotes an anonymous source (naturally) to claim that state Democrats are recruiting “liberal activists willing to attend so-called tea parties on Thursday and carry signs expressing racist or fringe sentiments.” Similar “crash the party” efforts are taking place around the country, Millerick says.

Talk about inoculation! From now on whenever some wingnut carries a wingnut sign at a wingnut rally, the other wingnuts can claim it’s all the work of “liberal activists.”

If true, it’s a stupid thing to do, for the simple reasons that (1) it does provide inoculation, and (2) when your opponents already are making themselves look ridiculous, it’s really bad tactics to get in the way.

However, unless the wingnuts can come up with some more solid evidence than “anonymous sources,” this story bears all the marks of a clever fabrication.

Update: I partly take the last comment back. According to Evan McMorris-Santoro at Talking Points Memo, some flaming idiot named Jason Levin has organized a Crash the Tea Party effort in Oregon to infiltrate the Party and push it further Right. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Oklahoma may raise a new state militia to defend itself against the federal government. I assume there are enough sane legislators in Oklahoma to prevent this from going forward, but it’s being talked about.

Frustrated by recent political setbacks, tea party leaders and some conservative members of the Oklahoma Legislature say they would like to create a new volunteer militia to help defend against what they believe are improper federal infringements on state sovereignty.

Assuming such infringements are real, haven’t these people ever heard of “courts”?

Thus far, the discussions have been exploratory. Even the proponents say they don’t know how an armed force would be organized nor how a state-based militia could block federal mandates.

This is easy. Guns are magic. All people have to do is wave their mighty guns, and all problems are solved. Never mind that the feds have guns, and tanks, and an air force, and missiles, and even nukes.

State Sen. Randy Brogdon, R-Owasso, a Republican candidate for governor who has appealed for tea party support, said supporters of a state militia have talked to him, and that he believes the citizen unit would be authorized under the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

The catch here is that “the militia” in the body of the Constitution (Article I, Section 8, paragraphs 15 and 16) is also partly under the authority of the U.S. Congress.

[The Congress shall have Power] To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

And, of course, the Second Amendment says,

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

I suspect most constitutional scholars would argue that the “well regulated Militia” mentioned in the Second Amendment is the same Militia provided for in Article I Section 8. And then there’s the matter of federalizing the Militia, which immediately puts it under the authority of the President (Article II, Section 2, 1st paragraph).

So, in theory, any militia that takes its authority to exist from any part of the U.S. Constitution could be federalized at any time, which would kind of neutralize them, I would think. (If you trace the history of the original state militias, you see that they eventually became the National Guard.)

That said, I don’t believe there is any constitutional provision that says a state may not create its own militia separate from the Militia provided for in Article I Section 8 and mentioned in the Second Amendment. I don’t know that it’s ever been done (except by the states in rebellion during the Civil War), but I don’t think there’s a barrier to it.

However, I am reasonably certain that organizing an armed force, whether by state authority or not, for the purpose of resisting federal authority is an act of sedition. And if this seditious little crew actually takes action against federal officials or employees, that is insurrection. And then constitutionally the feds could federalize all the National Guard troops it wants and send them marching into Oklahoma. Maybe they could even parachute into Oklahoma. Cool.

Tea party leader J.W. Berry of the Tulsa-based OKforTea began soliciting interest in a state militia through his newsletter under the subject “Buy more guns, more bullets.”

“It’s not a far-right crazy plan or anything like that,” Berry said. “This would be done with the full cooperation of the state Legislature.”

Not a far-right crazy plan at all. At least, not from a far-right perspective.

Update: Data show tea partiers more bigoted than general U.S. population.