Earlier today, kat68 published an excellent diary on certain hard-right pseudo-Christian weirdos sending a not-so-coded message calling for violence against President Obama (as originally exposed by Rachel Maddow) and putting it on a number of merchandise items. Apparently these weirdos have a very strange fellow traveler...
I am talking about p u m a p a c . o r g (deliberately not linked), where I found the following pearl (I got a screengrab in case if it gets shut down or disappered into the memory hole)...
Okay this weather is ridiculous. Print this out, stick it to your refrigerator. Or buy a bunch as stocking stuffers. They’re pretty freakin’ hilarious (via dances, natch):
Barack Obama
Psalm 109:8
www.pumapac.org
This image is clickable if you want to see a larger version. The verse that this sticker refers to (and the following verses) are...
8 Let his days be few; and let another take his office.
9 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
10 Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
11 Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labor.
12 Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children.
(quoted from the KJV Bible). The scriptural interpretation of these verses clearly shows that the fundies used them not just out of context, but opposite to it, but that's not the point of this diary.
The same outfit also had a bunch of stuff for sale on Cafe Press, with the same "message" and the p u m a p a c . o r g logo. You cannot buy any of this stuff any more (thank you very much, Cafe Press, for acting responsibly!), and in case the thumbnails get taken down, I took another screenshot... Again, this is clickable for a larger version.
The WHOIS information (click through to see it) on the owner of the domain is extremely unhelpful, it's listed as belonging to "p u m a p a c . o r g Private Registrant," so I am seriously at a loss as to who runs this thing. Notably, it was registered on June 3, 2008 (the last day of the Democratic primaries that year, no?).
From a cursory examination of the site, it appears to be run by people who still cannot get over the primary wars (a.k.a. the P.U.M.A.s). The myspace page of the same name leaves a similar impression (interestingly enough, Sarah Palin is a friend). Opensecrets.org has nothing on a PAC by this name, nor does the FEC website.
Now, I honestly don't know what's going on here - it can be some formerly Democratic person completely gone off the deep end, or it is a false-flag op. My gut feeling says it's the latter, but I have no evidence. In any case, this nastiness is out there, and I think our community could do something about it.
UPDATE. As Nellcote notes in one of the comments below (with henry porter providing supporting info), p u m a p a c already made an appearance on Daily Kos, and it is indeed run by a person (D a r r a g h M u r p h y) gone, how shall I call it politely, completely unhinged after the Democratic primaries of 2008. I am quite saddened by this revelation, but not entirely surprised (though it still could be a false-flag op, with the TV appearances of the founder done by Karl Rove wearing some makeup). Now, should we do anything about the Psalm 109:8 vile meme propagated from the associated website? Their death-threat wares are now banned by Cafe Press, what else can we do? And should we even bother?