There is no standard definition of the all-important term “wing nut,” so let’s provide one. A wing nut is someone who has a dogmatic commitment to an extreme political view (“wing”) that is false and at least a bit crazy (“nut”).

A wing nut might believe that George W. Bush is a fascist, that Barack Obama is a socialist, that big banks run the Department of the Treasury or that the U.S. intervened in Libya because of oil.

When wing nuts encounter people with whom they disagree, they immediately impugn their opponents’ motivations. Whatever their religion, they are devout Manicheans, dividing their fellow citizens into the forces of light and the forces of darkness.

Wing nuts have a lot of fellow travelers — people who don’t fit the definition, yet who are similarly dogmatic and whose views, though not really crazy, aren’t exactly evidence-based. You can be a wing nut on a particular issue without being a wing nut in general. Most human beings can hear the voice, at least on occasion, of their inner wing nut.

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Tempting as it must have been for Powers to write, “First they came for Fox News, and they did not speak out,” the Obama administration’s abuse of the press is nothing new. As early as 2011, the White House punished Carla Marinucci, a reporter for the ulta-liberal San Francisco Chronicle, for daring to capture an unflattering video of Obama at a fundraiser. The ridiculous claim that Marinucci had been banished from covering Obama on future Bay area visits because she was a member of the “print pool” and had violated protocol by using a video capture device was never challenged by the MSM. That is because the story was never reported by the MSM.

The James Rosen story, in contrast, has struck a nerve among left-leaning members of the fourth estate for whom the knowledge that the administration is not above seizing their email accounts is anathema. The Daily Caller has gathered up nearly a dozen tweets from Obama’s staunchest admirers. Here are several:

Ryan Lizza @RyanLizza

Case against Fox’s Rosen, in which O admin is criminalizing reporting, makes all of the other “scandals” look like giant nothing burgers.

8:23 AM – 20 May 2013

If James Rosen’s “clandestine communications plan” were illegal, every journalist in Washington would be locked up. Unreal.

— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) May 20, 2013

Howard Fineman @howardfineman

#Fox Rosen probe as bad/worse than #AP: in unprecedented move, govt says he “conspired” with leaker to get info; that’s what reporters do!

10:05 AM – 20 May 2013

Michael Hastings @mmhastings

Hey Jay @presssec Carney. If the Bush DOJ had done this to your reporters when you were Time DC bureau chief, how would you have responded?

1:20 PM – 15 May 2013 from Pico Rivera, CA, United States

Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald

Accusing James Rosen of committing crimes – for basic reporting – may be the most dangerous thing the Obama DOJ has done yet

8:23 AM – 20 May 2013

Josh Marshall @joshtpm

Just This: U cross a big line when u go from investigating journos to prosecute leakers to accusing journos of commitng crimes by doing job

10:09 AM – 20 May 2013

Matt Yglesias @mattyglesias

Wow. Obama-era leak crackdowns on journalists look worse and worse: http://m.washingtonpost.com/local/a-rare-peek-into-a-justice-department-leak-probe/2013/05/19/0bc473de-be5e-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_story.html …

11:47 AM – 20 May 2013

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On Friday, Arizona congressman Trent Franks announced he will be introducing a bill to prohibit abortions after the fifth month of pregnancy, with exceptions for when the mother’s life or physical health is at risk. NARAL president Ilyse Hogue condemned the modest restriction in a statement:

“Rep. Franks is using this bill in a shameless effort to exploit the terrible tragedy in Pennsylvania where Kermit Gosnell was just convicted of murder for performing illegal abortions that resulted in killing of infants and women. The women of America deserve better.

“Gosnell was a criminal whose activities were made possible by the very kind of anti-choice policies Franks is advancing. By cutting funding, reducing access and imposing unnecessary restrictions on safe and legal abortion, anti-choice politicians have forced women – especially low-income women – into the waiting hands of unscrupulous operators like Kermit Gosnell.

“We will fight this senseless attack and protect the rights of all women.”

Franks’s bill would ban most abortions after 20 weeks of gestation, the point at which babies can feel pain and the point at which some babies can survive long-term if born.

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Some Republicans are so excited at the thought of multiple controversies dogging the White House over the next few months (or longer) that they are already foaming at the mouth.

For example, on his syndicated radio show late last week, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee compared reports of the IRS targeting conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status to what happened in Nazi Germany.

And, of course, you knew that some conservatives and Republicans (such as Glenn Beck, Oklahoma Sen. James M. Inhofe and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann) couldn’t resist mentioning the “I” word — impeachment — almost immediately as they struggled to show their anger and contempt for President Barack Obama and his administration.

But Republicans ought to remember that they have seen this movie before, and the ending was not what they hoped for or expected.

There’s no doubt that the three controversies — Benghazi, the IRS and the Associated Press — play into the GOP’s hand by raising questions about “big government.” They give Republicans an opportunity to challenge the administration’s truthfulness and to argue for a check on the president during his final years in office.

While the president hasn’t been implicated directly, that certainly doesn’t eliminate the political risk for the White House or for Democrats over the next few month or possibly all the way to next year’s midterm elections.

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So-called “pedal pubs” are popping up in more than two-dozen cities across the country. And in some of those places, riders can sip on an alcoholic beverage while sitting across a bar from fellow cyclists.

What exactly is a pedal pub? USA Today reports they are sort of like a modern day trolley meets the Flinstones. Up to 16 riders sit across from each other, using peddles underneath their seats to slowly power the quadracycles across city streets. A driver sits at the front of the vehicle, steering it along to its next destination.

“It’s like being in a parade,” bachelorette party attendee Jen Johnson told the paper. Her friends rented one in Madison, Wisconsin and used the vehicle as part of a pub crawl. Or, in this case, they embarked on something more akin a bar bike, pub pedal, or drink drive. Regardless, “We’re smiling, they are smiling,” she said of how their pedal party was received by onlookers.

In Wisconsin, it’s still against the law to actually drink while on one of the pedal pubs, although there is an effort to repeal the ban. But in some states, it’s perfectly legal to ride and imbibe.

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Republican politicians and activists can barely contain their glee at the simultaneous eruption of three major controversies about the Obama administration.

Conservatives are at a low boil over the administration’s dissembling about its actions after the attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. The public is concerned about the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service. And even liberals are outraged by the administration’s heavy-handed investigations of leaks to the news media.

Finally, many Republicans think, the tide is turning against the Democrats. Republican strategists — and the few conservatives on Capitol Hill who were in Washington during the Clinton years — are less excited. They fear that the party is about to repeat the mistakes it made in 1998.

More severe weather is in the forecast for parts of the central United States already reeling from powerful tornadoes this week.

The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., says golf ball-sized hail, powerful winds and isolated, strong tornadoes could strike areas of Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma on Tuesday. The area at risk does not include Moore, Okla., where dozens of people were killed in a monstrous tornado Monday.

Severe weather warnings extend through most of the central United States, with conditions ripe for large storms from Michigan to Texas, reports meteorologist Larry Mowry with CBS affiliate KTVT in Dallas.

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A student’s bid to become associate vice president of diversity and inclusion at Northwestern University was derailed last Wednesday over accusations that his status as a white heterosexual male would make it impossible for him to perform the position’s duties.

The Wednesday hearing began with student senator Jesse Seitz reportedly asking the nominee, Stephen Piotrkowski, how he could possibly interact and serve a minority community as a white male.

Piotrkowski reportedly attempted to appeal to the Student Senate on the grounds that he identifies as a religious minority and has a lesbian sister, but it was to no avail.

After about thirty more minutes of questioning, the Senate voted to block Piotrkowski’s appointment.

Ian Coley, a student on the Associate Student Government Diversity and Inclusion Committee, later said white heterosexual males are not qualified to hold the position of associate vice president of diversity and inclusion.

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Democracy is in peril: That is an emerging theme of the liberal left’s response to the Obama scandals. The argument misses the point, no doubt deliberately. What we are witnessing now is not a crisis of democracy but a crisis of authority. The administrative state, in thrall to a decadent cultural elite, has lost the consent of the governed.

“After a week of scandal obsession during which the nation’s capital and the media virtually ignored the problems most voters care about–jobs, incomes, growth, opportunity, education–it’s worth asking if there is something especially flawed about our democracy,” declares the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne.

He goes through a partisan litany of complaints–”a radicalization of conservative politics, over-the-top mistrust of President Obama on the right, high-tech gerrymandering in the House and a Senate snarled by non-constitutional super-majority requirements”–but makes no mention of the abuses of power by the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department. He does hint at Benghazi, in his concluding paragraph, but only to pooh-pooh it.

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DAVID GREGORY: Bob Woodward, you’re no stranger to these kinds of controversies in Washington. How has the administration handled this, this past week?

BOB WOODWARD: Well, first of all, I mean people are making comparisons to Watergate. This is not Watergate. But there are some people in the administration who have acted as if they want to be Nixonian. And that’s a very big problem. I think–

DAVID GREGORY: And how?

BOB WOODWARD: Well, I think on the whole Benghazi thing, you look at those talking points. And I mean the initial draft by the CIA very explicitly said, “We know that activists who have ties to al-Qaeda were involved in the attack.” And then you see what comes out a couple of days later, and there is no reference to this. This is a business where you have to tell the truth. And that did not happen here. (Meet the Press, May 19, 2013)

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