Tom Johnson's blog

Many liberals have objected to the IRS's targeting of conservative groups, but others see nothing wrong with it, including one Kossack who asserted this week that the revenuers in Cincinnati were simply "doing their job."
 
As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

Some of America's most prominent lefty bloggers opined this week that there's just no there there regarding Benghazi. One of them, DKos founder and publisher Markos Moulitsas, claimed that delusional Republicans, desperate for anything that might discredit the "scandal-free" Obama administration, are clinging to Benghazi as if it were a life preserver.
 
As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

To many, Jason Collins's coming-out was a major sociocultural breakthrough. To one Kossack, however, true progress will wait for the day when an NFL franchise fields "an entire team of ass-kicking gays" who defeat homophobia one touchdown at a time.
 
As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

This past week, one Kossack alleged that conservatives' preferred response to the Boston Marathon bombing wasn't for law enforcement to track down the culprits and bring them to justice, but rather for mobs of their fellow right-wingers to engage in lethal violence against Muslim Americans.
 
As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

The Boston Marathon bombing wasn't carried out by Tea Party Republicans or anyone else remotely associated with conservatism, yet one Kossack declared on Wednesday that conservatives, violence-prone "conspiracy driven racist[s]" that they are, thought the bombers just might be righties.
 
As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

This past week, while some Kossacks bade Margaret Thatcher a not-so-fond farewell, others argued that the Democratic party has moved so far to the right that it would suit, say, Ronald Reagan, and even Thatcher if she'd been an American.
 
As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

Kossacks aren't merely pleased that same-sex marriage is growing in popularity; some also feel the need to at least malign its opponents and, in one jaw-dropping case, wish severe physical pain on them.
 
As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

Kossacks, of course, love to trash prominent Republicans -- freshman Texas senator Ted Cruz came in for some notable abuse this past week -- but they by no means neglect the party's rank and file and in some cases identify them as the root of the GOP's supposed madness.

As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym. Daily Kos Week in Review will return in two weeks. Happy Easter!

This year, Daily Kos seems to be paying more attention than usual to CPAC, to the extent that the site has sent one of its principal writers, Hunter, to cover the event. His posts so far have combined politics, sociology, and a bit of anthropology, as if he were saying to himself, "Who are these strange creatures called 'conservatives'? To find out, I observed them in their natural habitat."
 
As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

Regular readers of NewsBusters are by definition familiar with liberal media bias. For Kossacks, however, the concept is a non sequitur, since they consider the mainstream media to be water-carriers for corporatist, right-wing Republicans. Go figure.

As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

This past week, Kossacks cheered the televised trashing of Sean Hannity and jeered another media personality, Bob Woodward, for questioning President Obama's sequester narrative.
 
As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

Kossacks are rarely short of hostility and condescension for Republicans, but their blasts at the Grand Old Party and its members seemed especially abundant this past week.
 
As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

Kossacks had a lot to say about many of this week's major news stories, from Marco Rubio's State of the Union response to the upcoming Vatican vacancy to Republicans' stalling of Chuck Hagel's nomination.
 
As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

This past week, more than one Kossack presented righty Republicans as the walking dead, and Karl Rove, via his putatively pragmatic Conservative Victory Project, as a would-be vampire slayer. 
 
As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

We watch the Super Bowl for many reasons, one being that it gives us a break from political strife. One Kossack football fan, however, complained this week that politics -- specifically, recurring promotion of American militarism -- diminishes his enjoyment of the big game. 
 
As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

The Daily Kos gang enjoyed President Obama's lefty second inaugural address both because it affirmed their views and because they knew it would anger and annoy the right, many of whose beliefs are, one Kossack opined, "melting away." 

As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

Bloggers, like athletes, have hot streaks and slumps, and recently the Kossack known as Troubadour has been absolutely en fuego when it comes to maligning the right. Last week, Troubadour claimed that "murder-suicide massacres" a la Newtown were quintessentially conservative behavior; this week, he's back with a sequel (or is it a remake?) in which he claims that right-wingers, collectively, are "one great big nutjob with murder in mind."

As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

The Sandy Hook shootings inevitably became a salient issue in the debate over gun laws, but this past week one Kossack politicized the slaughter exponentially by alleging that "murder-suicide massacres...are the purest expression of the conservative mentality as it now exists in this country."

As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

Talk radio never has been as big a deal on the left as it is on the right, but some lefty talk hosts have found a sizable national audience. One of them, self-described democratic socialist Thom Hartmann, has been a staple in the top ten of Talkers magazine's Heavy Hundred host rankings (he was #8 on the 2012 list, just behind Mark Levin and just ahead of Glenn Beck). Hartmann's program airs live from 3 to 6 p.m. Eastern time on commercial and noncommercial terrestrial stations as well as on SiriusXM satellite radio and Free Speech TV.

Here's a rundown of Hartmann's most notable comments of 2012, listed by air date. Almost all pertain to his dual obsession with the alleged madness and depravity of today's Republican party as well as with Ronald Reagan's presidency, which Hartmann views as a ruinous turning point for America.

The NRA wasn't the only more-or-less conservative entity that Kossacks believed was partly to blame for the horrifying massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Others included the U.S. military and media figures such as Rush Limbaugh.

As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym. Daily Kos Week in Review will return in two weeks. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

In Kosland, attitudes toward conservatives range from intense but (relatively) respectful disagreement to the firm belief that those on the right are personally and politically monstrous. For example, one Kossack recently presented today's Republicans as essentially a Khmer Rouge in waiting -- "violently deranged totalitarian[s]" whose return to power would result in "genocide."

As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

You know those secession petitions that began circulating after President Obama was re-elected? Well, according to one Kossack, they're superfluous, since America's "increasingly deranged" red states already have, in effect, seceded and become "The Roviet Union, or more formally the URCR - Union of Roviet Capitalist Republikkks."

As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

In the real world, Republicans don't believe that "sex is only okay when God's forcing a woman to have it against her will," but in Kosland, such a breathtaking and grotesque allegation seems plausible, and one of the site's featured feminist writers made it this past week.

As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

This past week, two Kossacks speculated that if President Obama wins a second term, furious right-wingers might well respond with terrorist attacks and lesser mayhem. Another declared that he'd rather share a debate stage with Muppets than with conservatives.

As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

What is conservatism? Who are conservatives? For serious answers, one might consult the work of Russell Kirk, Michael Oakeshott, or Jonathan Haidt. If you seek wacky, borderline-incomprehensible assessments, however, just look below for some of what Kossacks have come up with lately. 

As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.

There are plenty of reasonable explanations for why Republicans have a hard time winning over black voters. Leave it to a Kossack to offer an unreasonable explanation: that today's GOP "looks and acts like a white supremacist lynch mob." That blogger also likens Ann Coulter to a rabid weasel and presents her as one of the leading apologists for this violently racist party.

As usual, each headline is preceded by the blogger's name or pseudonym.