On Saturday night, when Mother Jones staffers tweeted a report that riot police might soon sweep demonstrators out of the Wisconsin capitol building—something that didn't end up happening—one Twitter user sent out a chilling public response: "Use live ammunition."
From my own Twitter account, I confronted the user, JCCentCom. He tweeted back that the demonstrators were "political enemies" and "thugs" who were "physically threatening legally elected officials." In response to such behavior, he said, "You're damned right I advocate deadly force." He later called me a "typical leftist," adding, "liberals hate police."
Only later did we realize that JCCentCom was a deputy attorney general for the state of Indiana.
As one of 144 attorneys in that office, Jeff Cox has represented the people of his state for 10 years. And for much of that time, it turns out, he's vented similar feelings on Twitter and on his blog, Pro Cynic. In his nonpolitical tweets and blog posts, Cox displays a keen litigator's mind, writing sharply and often wittily on military history and professional basketball. But he evinces contempt for political opponents—from labeling President Obama an "incompetent and treasonous" enemy of the nation to comparing "enviro-Nazis" to Osama bin Laden, likening ex-Labor Secretary Robert Reich and Service Employees International Union members to Nazi "brownshirts" on multiple occasions, and referring to an Indianapolis teen as "a black teenage thug who was (deservedly) beaten up" by local police. A "sensible policy for handling Afghanistan," he offered, could be summed up as: "KILL! KILL! ANNIHILATE!"
With Tea Party legions now confronting the Public employee crowds at the State Capitol I offer Stone's Rule # 37 as follows:Yeah, those kindergarten teachers are real thugs.
"Always mount your protest or picket sign on a good solid piece of wood. Comes in handy as a bat if some union goons wanna scuffle."
FAKE KOCH: What we were thinking about the crowds was, planting some troublemakers.
WALKER: We thought about that. My only gut reaction to that would be, right now, the lawmakers I talk to have just completely had it with them. The public is not really fond of this.The teachers union did some polling and focus groups.
It's unclear what Walker means when he says he "thought" about planting some troublemakers, but it seems fair to ask him for clarification.Keep in mind that these are not hot-headed Tea Partiers mouthing off at Townhall meetings. These are elected officials and top level operatives. I have no doubt that liberals speak this way from time to time as well. But they certainly don't seem to take the kind of pride in it that these people on the right do.