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The Right Hook, a weekly segment which covers the machinations of the right wing, from the Republican Party to the Tea Party Patriots, and beyond. By Chris Bennett

In the large and still widening wake of the shootings in Tucson, AZ, three moderate Republicans are calling it quits. Republican District chairman Anthony Miller this week announced his resignation. Two other district officials are resigning with him. According to the L.A. Times, Miller, who is black, is resigning after months of threats and racially charged comments made to him by Arizona tea partiers, also known as the New Vision Republicans. The source of the controversy is that last Fall, Miller supported Sen. John McCain’s re-election rather than the tea party candidate J.D. Hayworth who is even further to the right of McCain. Recently, in Lake Havasu, AZ, as Miller walked into a crowded room, one tea partier said “There’s Anthony. Get a rope.” And, at a campaign meeting in Kingman, a man shaped his hand into the form of a gun and aimed it at Miller. Regarding his resignation, Miller said “I love the Republican Party, but I won’t take a bullet for anyone.”

And conservative talk radio hosts, already on the defensive about their hate-filled rants, cannot seem to help themselves from spewing more violent rhetoric. Bob Durgin, of WHP580 in Harrisburg, PA accused “the liberal media” of using the Tucson shootings as an excuse to attack Glenn Beck and Sarah “Blood Libel” Palin. Durgin, speaking of the supposedly left-leaning New York Times said “Somebody ought to burn that paper down. Just go to New York and blow that sucker right out of the water.” This is a textbook case of how right wing bloviators such as Beck, Palin, and Durgin incite murder. Note the use of the phrase: Somebody. As in: somebody else, somebody other than me, somebody . . . mentally unstable perhaps . . . somebody like Jared Loughner.

Meanwhile, the new Republican and Tea Party controlled U.S. House of Representatives, Steve King of Iowa continued his opposition to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed last March. In an interview with Human Events, King said the entire health care package was driven by the Democrats “irrational Leftist lust for socialized medicine.” King is a co-sponsor of the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.” But, the Associated Press reports that, even among Republicans, there is decreasing support for repealing health care. Republican support for repeal has gone from 61 percent to 49 percent since the elections. But, King is also worried about the health of our “individualism.” Says King, the “Democrats are creating dependency, and we are trying to save individualism.” But according to the Department of Health and Human Services, up to 129 million Americans have pre-existing conditions which may prevent them from obtaining health insurance. So, it’s not about saving our individuality, but about saving ourselves from the range of ailments which are part of the human condition. And anyway, Rep. King already has a nice taxpayer funded health care plan for himself and his family. So, for the rest of us, Lusting after health care– is the only decent thing to do.

And, the Pentagon’s lawyer, Jeh C. Johnson claims that Rev. Martin Luther King would “understand” today’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. At a commemoration of Dr. King’s legacy, Johnson said “I believe that if Dr. King were alive today, he would recognize that we live in a complicated world, and that our nation’s military should not and cannot lay down its arms and leave the American people vulnerable to terrorist attack.” Dr. King railed against the United States’ war in Vietnam and especially the use of napalm to kill Vietnamese. Johnson even went so far as to put the U.S. military in the role of Good Samaritan in the parable quoted by Dr. King. The Good Samaritan was the person who fearlessly stopped to help an injured man on the Jericho Road. Today, in Afghanistan, injured civilians lying on the road are likely to have been bombed by U.S. unmanned drones.

the Right Hook– Reality Based News and Views.