The end result of the right-wing violence movement

Let’s talk about the “violence movement” on the right. Let’s assume that they truly believe everything they’re saying about the government taking over their lives. It’s not true, of course, but let’s run with their assumptions for a minute.

Conservative blogs are running the violence angle. Hardcore blogs like Conservative Yankee are suggesting "[H]ave a swing" at "your Congressman". CY owner Bob Owens says “Jackasses" who call health care a right "deserve to be drawn and quartered."

His blog comes within a hair’s breadth of advocating treason: “I have some hope that the courts will respond favorably to the many states suing to eradicate this unconstitutional scheme… The thought of the morally-required alternative is almost too much to bear.”

Glenn Beck speaks of “armed insurrection”, “get your gun” and being the conservative equivalent of a Jewish Nazi hunter, a “progressive hunter”.

Erik Erickson asks "At what point do the people ... march down to their state legislator's house, pull him outside, and beat him to a bloody pulp?"

These people are advocating turning on their fellow American citizens. Not because they’ve been denied the right to vote (they haven’t), not because they’ve been denied the right to petition or assemble (they have legally done both frequently), not because they have been enslaved (they have not, despite their protests, which just show they don’t understand slavery or hyperbole).

They’re proposing turning their fists and their guns on fellow Americans because they lost an election, because there is a black man in office and because they lost a contentious vote in Congress.

What other reasons can there be? George W. Bush was appointed to his first term, not elected, and once in office he stripped away rights with the blessings of conservatives. He eliminated posse comitatus, opening the door to federal troops being used as domestic law enforcement – martial law. He weakened the Great Writ of due process. He allowed the government to spy on its own citizens without a warrant.

They didn’t cry a word of dissent when their rights were truly removed. It’s only now, once they’ve lost a fair vote after a fair election, that they cry oppression.

If they're serious about arming for a revolution (and cutting gas lines, etc...), their only option is to start eliminating their “enemies”. I know it sounds over-the-top and hyperbolic, but they don't need arms to vote. They're obviously talking about going past the political process.

How does this work? History gives us a roadmap for how this usually proceeds.

I’d guess that they first go after the government. Actually, I don't guess. The right-wing blogosphere has openly said it. They'd go after members of Congress who voted yes on health care. Drag them into the street and shoot them. Beating them will do no good, it will only harden resolve. They must be killed. Shot in the street. What happens to spouses and children?

Then what? Kill the President? I’d think they’d have to. If this is really a revolution, the king must die. Be very careful here. If you’ve followed this far, you now stand on the precipice of treason, if you already haven’t crossed it.

Then what? Round up members of the media who disagree with them? Are the Olbermanns and Maddows and Schultzes taken out and shot as well? What about the scholars, intellectuals, professors, artists and poets who disagree?

What about ordinary dissenters from your movement, like me? My dissent from your beliefs is what has led us to this place. You can’t possibly allow beliefs like mine, as dangerous to the nation as they are, to resurface, could you? I must be removed.

If I am to die, will I be given a trial first? On what grounds? I’ve broken no law. I’ve only voted, petitioned, and advocated. Under the Constitution you claim to love, what laws have I broken? If I am to be imprisoned for being a progressive dissenter, do I get a fair trial first? Can you risk my acquittal? Perhaps a military tribunal would be better.

Would they allow free and fair elections? Would a progressive be allowed to run? Would they allow the progressive to actually win, or would a popular progressive be assassinated before they could capture a fair vote? Would the vote just be rigged?

It would now seem that our Patriots have established a puppet government, one comprised of only those they’ve allowed to live. Those that agree with them and will be controlled by the mob. Puppets. Cantor, Boehner, Palin.

What next, you ask?

Then they run the government. What kind of government? I don't know, but what we've seen is not democracy, it's mob rule. Would they adhere to the Constitution? While I'm sure they'll claim otherwise, I’d say no. If they were Constitutionalists they’d have worked the ballot box, not the chambers of their guns.

What we appear to be left with is a totalitarian regime.

I am sure that any Patriot who has read this far is saying “no, no, no, that’s not what we’re about, we’re Constitutionalists’”. The language you’re using, the ideas that the most extreme among you espouse, say otherwise. History has shown us this path, over and over and over. You don’t speak of armed revolution without meaning to seize power, eliminate enemies and install the rules you have been otherwise unable to obtain by free and fair elections.

When you speak of armed revolution, you speak of overthrow. In 1776, it was to remove the rule of a king who had denied Americans the rights of speech, assembly, and petition. A king who had taxed them without letting them vote.

You, however, already have these rights. Your rights have not been abrogated. This Congress and this President were freely and fairly elected. The health care and stimulus votes in Congress were done openly and conducted by established rules.

You’re mad that you have been outvoted.

I know you’ll argue (mostly misquoted) polls. We can argue polls, but regardless, Congress is not bound to govern by polls.

If this totalitarianism that is the logical conclusion of your statements is not what you want, then what is the goal of those statements? What other end do you see?

I hope that some of them will read this and say, “No, you’re wrong, this is not what we want”. Good. I hope so. I have to ask: then what is the point of this talk of armed violence? You have your rights, so what else is it that you want?

Is it to get by force what you couldn’t attain by election? If not, how else do you propose to get what you want? Once you speak of revolution and guns, you have by definition abandoned the electoral process. What else could be the point?

If this is not the end you seek, then tell me – what other end do you see by advocating violent armed revolution against a government that has not violated your rights, that preserved your rights to assemble, petition and vote?

This is madness.

Oh no you dit'unt - an incredible linked list of GOP hyperbole, hypocrisy and hatred

An open letter to conservatives - this is an amazing must-read. "You have to start by draining the swamp"

Cantor deliberately lied about gunshot reports

Add this one to the "lying hypocrite" file:

Responding to increase violence, and threats of violence, from the right, Eric Cantor tried to engage on some "me too". He claimed that a bullet was shot at his window this week, apparently hoping to blunt some of the charges that the heated rhetoric his party helped create spilling over into actual violence.

Unlike the severed gas line at the home of the brother of Rep. Tom Periello (whose address had been posted online), this story doesn't hold water. Richmond police say the bullet that hit a window of Republican Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor's office had been randomly fired skyward.

Random gunplay. Not a purposeful attack.

DailyKos

It hit a window in the building in which Cantor has an office (the bullet didn't hit his office) -- it is clear that Cantor willfully misled the media this morning. Cantor and his office knew that they were not targets of the shooting, but they claimed otherwise to score political points.

Gawker

Let's just get the obvious arguments out of the way first: liberals are not the ones carrying firearms to angry public demonstrations. In fact, liberals are not attending angry public demonstrations, because right now liberals don't actually have anything to be angry about. Liberals just won! Why the hell would they be angrily threatening anyone?

It's the pissed-off raging teabaggers who are furious with the Republicans right now, for failing to stop the thing they promised they would stop.

Sorry Republicans, I know playing the victim is the one thing you guys love doing even more than attacking actual victims of things like hate crimes and economic disadvantages, but no one wants to shoot any of you.

This smacks of the Ashley Todd story. She's the girl who said an Obama supporter cut her face because of a McCain sticker.

Of course, it turned out to be a hoax and a lie to distract from the heated rhetoric that was building up on the McCain/Palin side during the campaign.

Cantor needs to retract his statement and strongly condemn the threats of violence spawned by the climate that his party has helped to create. But that won't happen. What are, to most people, wingnuts are called something else by the GOP: their base.

Yes We Can't

Fox Excuse Machine: the right trivializes, questions, dismisses threats of violence

Media Matters

Amid reports that several Democrats in Congress have been the targets of death threats, racial and anti-gay epithets, and have had their offices vandalized for their votes on health care reform, several Fox News personalities have been quick to first condemn the threats but then immediately make excuses for the threats. Others have appeared to dismiss the seriousness of the threats.

Doocy: "So why are people angry? Maybe because they didn't want this bill?"

Kilmeade: "Are Democrats using" threats of violence "to their advantage to marginalize Republican opposition?"

Carlson agrees it's "disappointing" that Democrats are making threats so public and says "they should just stop discussing it all together."

Beck: Obama is "poking and prodding" people to commit violence. ... "They need you to be violent. They are begging for it."

Hannity: "So do you think that this is just an effort to smear conservatives?"

Cupp: Democrats "want us to feel sorry for them that they've gotten a couple of ... angry voicemails."

Fox Nation: "Are Threats Really Elevated, or Are Dems Playing Politics?"

Fox Nation: "Was Tea Party Story a Racial Rant or a Set Up?"

Charles Krauthammer: "I'm sure a lot of this is trumped up. ... You are always going to have a kook and a nut here and there."

Stephen Hayes: "This happens all the time," "counterproductive" for GOP to condemn them again.

And the blogs.....

NewsBusters: "The Media's Myth of Right Wing Violence."

Confederate Yankee: "[H]ave a swing" at "your Congressman" instead

Gateway Pundit: "Suddenly the State-Run Media is Horrified that Politician's [sic] Home Addresses Are Published on the Internet."

Big Journalism's Walsh: Media "never once stops to question whether the Alinsky Party is, you know, exaggerating or even lying."

Big Government: "We doubt these threats are actually real and, certainly wouldn't condone them."

The fight continues: Weiner tells O'Reilly 'You're Making Stuff Up', Obama dares GOP to repeal

Thursday GOP hypocrisy, part 2: Tort reformers file frivilous lawsuits

Cesca

All of the attorney generals who are filing these lawsuits against the federal government and the healthcare reform mandate are wasting their time and taxpayer money. Why? Because the lawsuits will fail.

As Steve Benen so hilariously put it: they're frivolous lawsuits. Political pandering and not much else.

Funny how one of the Republican "solutions" for healthcare was tort reform. And their first move after losing is to file these ridiculous lawsuits.

Keep going, Republicans! You're special!

More GOP hypocrisy, this time while condemning violence. In other words, it's Thursday.

Huff Post (my comments in red:)

"I know many Americans are angry over this health care bill, and that Washington Democrats just aren't listening. So the anger that we've fueled for a year with talks about socialist takeovers and losing America is justified because we lost an up-or-down vote. But, as I've said, violence and threats are unacceptable. That's not the American way. Good.  About time. We need to take that anger and channel it into positive change. Call your Congressman, go out and register people to vote, go volunteer on a political campaign, make your voice heard - but let's do it the right way." Yes! Fight it out at the ballot box.

And then, after suggesting that these issues are best settled politically, Eric Cantor, Minority Whip, attacked Democrats for daring to be political.  They are, he said: "dangerously fanning the flames by suggesting that these incidents be used as a political weapon."

I get it, Republican anger at losing a fair vote is OK, but Democratic anger at being threatened with violence (and with some threats followed up on) is not.

Right.  Gotcha.

Cantor then attempted to diminish the attacks: "To use such threats as political weapons is reprehensible," said Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., who added that security concerns have been overhyped in media coverage of the debate.

What I notice is that NOWHERE do Cantor or Boehner mention that it's the members of their own party have been the ones creating this atmosphere for the last year.

The DNC has responded: "Let's be clear: calling on Republican leaders who have contributed in part to this anger by wildly mischaracterizing the substance and motives of health reform to condemn these acts is entirely appropriate."

Perrielo, whose brother's gas line was cut Tuesday after right-wing anarchists posted the wrong address, responded:


And yet, the wingnuttery continues as Rp. Louie Gohmert of (where else?) Texas called for the repeal of the 17th Amendment and suggesting taking the power to elect Senators away from the people and giving it back to the states. A direct attack on..... Democracy.



Keep going kids. This will all come back at you in November.

The Pride of Scranton: Joe Biden

via Hammerito

Cokie Roberts (rightly) compares Glenn Beck to a terrorist

"Actually, Beck is worse than a clown. He's more like a terrorist who believes he has discovered the One True Faith, and condemns everyone else as a heretic. And that makes him something else as well -- a traitor to the American values he professes so loudly to defend."
-- Cokie Roberts on Glenn Beck

Interesting insight. Similar to the post from earlier this week "The Republican party is an abusive alcoholic promising things will be different".

The real shame is that a party as great as the GOP was has sunk to such seditious levels. And not just on the fringe, because the center and the base cheer this on.

Wingnuts WAAAY off the reservation, deep end and other sanity metaphors of your choice

For the second time this week, I'm addressing the topic of the growing trend of right-wing terrorism. It's real.

Daily Beast

On the heels of health care, a new Harris poll reveals Republican attitudes about Obama: Two-thirds think he's a socialist, 57 percent a Muslim—and 24 percent say "he may be the Antichrist."

Ezra

There is a danger to the sort of rhetoric the GOP has used over the past few months. When Rep. Devin Nunes begs his colleagues to say "no to socialism, no to totalitarianism and no to this bill"; when Glenn Beck says the bill "is the end of America as you know it"; when Sarah Palin says the bill has "death panels" -- that stuff matters.

And the stuff on talk radio, of course, was worse. So take the universe of people who really respect right-wing politicians and listen to right-wing media. Most of them will hear this stuff and turn against the bill. Some will hear this stuff and really be afraid of the bill. And then a small group will hear this stuff and believe it and wonder whether they need to do something more significant to stop this bill from becoming law. And then a couple will actually follow through. And one will cut the gas lines leading to house of Rep. Tom Perriello's brother after seeing a tea partyer post the address online.

And then a local Tea Party leader will write: "Oh well, collateral damage." Of course, he'll later remove the comment, when called on it.

Then there are the real nutcases at sites like Confederate Yankee who have gone as far as to suggest the military turning their guns on their fellow countrymen because of the boogeymen created by the wingnuts.

We live in a nation full of freshly-experienced combat veterans and graying patriots alike that still remember their oaths to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The taste of liberty is much sweeter for them, having been to parts of the world where such things cannot be taken for granted. Pray that we are not required to call upon their service in a struggle against our own countrymen. God protect us all if we are forced to such extremes by a power-mad clique intent on transforming citizens into dependent subjects.

I have some hope that the courts will respond favorably to the many states suing to eradicate this unconstitutional scheme, or that November's elections will destroy the Democratic majority and lay the ground for a full repeal of a bad law designed purely for one party's political gain.

The thought of the morally-required alternative is almost too much to bear.

Some of the commenters have suggested armed revolution, disclosing the home address of congresspeople who voted yes on HCR, assaulting congresspeople.... it's insane. Literally. These are domestic terrorists.

Sarah Palin is identifying legislators who voted yes on a map marked with GUNSIGHTS.

Glenn Beck is repeatedly using violent rhetoric to oppose health care.

Don't forget the noose fax sent to Congressman Clyburn, and the disgusting voicemail messages left for Bart Stupak. But the right takes one of two approaches. One, "We don't know for sure who did it. Maybe progressives did this to blame us". Or two, "This is what happens when you take our liberty, enslave us and kill America".

Lunacy.

Madness.

Criminal.

Terrorist.

There might not be a "W" in germophobe, but there is a germophobe in W

Visiting Haiti with Bill Clinton, notorious germophobe George W. Bush gets caught wiping his hands on Clinton's shirt after having shaken hands with some Haitians. Check out the WTF? glance from Bill. :13 in.

GOP hissy fit now stops all work at 2PM, halts national security meeting

This is disgusting. The GOP is behaving like spoiled, bratty 5 year olds. I hope the American public sees what kind of childish behavior is coming form the party and punishes them for this temper tantrum come November.

Huff Post

Senate Republicans fuming over the passage of health care reform are now refusing to work past 2 p.m. -- a tactic they can employ by invoking a little-known Senate rule.

On Wednesday, the Judiciary Committee was forced to cancel a hearing as was the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Jim Manley, a spokesperson for Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) addressed the matter on Wednesday: "For a second straight day, Republicans are using tricks to shut down several key Senate committees. So let me get this straight: in retaliation for our efforts to have an up-or-down vote to improve health care reform, Republicans are blocking an Armed Services committee hearing to discuss critical national security issues among other committee meetings? These political games and obstruction have to stop - the American people expect and deserve better."

Committee meetings were also canceled on Tuesday, including one on transparency in government. The Executive Director of the Sunlight Foundation, Ellen Miller was cut off during a House hearing.

More on the new poll numbers Fox can suck on

Earlier, I posted a link to some new poll numbers that Fox, after lying about HCR numbers for months, can suck on. Here's another take from Krugman

Compare and contrast:

WSJ editorial, March 19:

This is what happens when a willful President and his party try to govern America from the ideological left, imposing a reckless expansion of the entitlement state that most Americans, and even dozens of Democrats in Congress, clearly despise.

Gallup, March 22:


Actually, it’s not clear whether public opinion has changed all that much: a substantial fraction of those who disapproved of the reform did so because it didn’t go far enough. Anyway, true to form, one of the key talking points of reform’s opponents — that passing reform was an outrage because it denied the clear will of the people — turns out to be completely bogus.

Remember, the more accurate post-passage numbers won't be out until Thursday-ish. But these are the first numbers I've seen in a while that actually differentiate between those that were unsatisfied because they feared IRS agents putting down gran'ma and those who were unsatisfied because the legislation didn't go far enough.

Huzzah! Excelsior!

More right wing calls for terrorism disguised as patriotism

This is terrorism, pure and simple. I know that for this nutjob, terror is something that brown-skinned people with names he can't pronounce do. However, threatening your fellow citizens with gun violence because you don't like the way a vote or a law turned out is terrorism.

It's no different than the Iraqi squads who cut off people's thumbs that were stained purple because they voted. These jackasses are no better than Saddam's Republican Guard.

This guy Vanderboegh is a dangerous lunatic. Not a patriot, not a revolutionary. Patriots protested specifically because the rule of law was not followed nor enforced. Health care passed because a majority of the freely and fairly elected Congress deemed it worthy. This mean and his "militia" are criminals. Nothing more.

Well, actually, they are something more. They're stupid and bad students of history.

Jail them for terroristic threats.

Media Matters

Authorities in Wichita and some other cities across the country are investigating vandalism against Democratic offices, apparently in response to health care reform.

And on Monday, a former Alabama militia leader took credit for instigating the actions.

Mike Vanderboegh of Pinson, Ala., former leader of the Alabama Constitutional Militia, put out a call on Friday for modern “Sons of Liberty” to break the windows of Democratic Party offices nationwide in opposition to health care reform. Since then, vandals have struck several offices, including the Sedgwick County Democratic Party headquarters in Wichita.

...

Vanderboegh posted the call for action Friday on his blog, “Sipsey Street Irregulars.” Referring to the health care reform bill as “Nancy Pelosi’s Intolerable Act,” he told followers to send a message to Democrats.

“We can break their windows,” he said. “Break them NOW. And if we do a proper job, if we break the windows of hundreds, thousands, of Democrat party headquarters across this country, we might just wake up enough of them to make defending ourselves at the muzzle of a rifle unnecessary.”

I don't know how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal

...and for once it's not Ron Burgundy

Hey Tebow... Shut Up!

Presented without comment.

Pro Football Talk

As we've mentioned once or twice, quarterback Tim Tebow's habit of openly expressing his religious beliefs could potentially rub folks the wrong way, especially in a locker room of grown men who choose to keep their beliefs to themselves, who don't share his beliefs at all, and/or who only want to hear "God bless" after they have sneezed.

We're told that Tebow already has gotten a taste of the resistance he might face at the next level.

At the Scouting Combine, the Wonderlic exam is administered to players in groups. The 12-minute test is preceded by some brief instructions and comments from the person administering the test.

Per a league source, after the person administering the test to Tebow's group had finished, Tebow made a request that the players bow their heads in prayer before taking the 50-question exam.

Said one of the other players in response: "Shut the f--k up." Others players in the room then laughed.

Jon Stewart's Best of the Teabagging

Obama on GOP's health care armageddon

From the March 23, 2010 signing





At the gathering after the bill signing:

Soylent Green is PEOPLE! Fox News and the right wings complete derangement over health care

This whole article by Eric Boehlert is well worth reading, but here are highlights.

This televised, incoherent meltdown has gone way beyond sore loserdom. Or even sore loserdom on steroids. This hasn't just been more of the usual Democrats-are-crooks type of whining that Fox News has turned into an art form since Obama's inauguration. And it's gone far beyond the usual scare tactics that the cable channel has trademarked. (Recent on-screen graphics: "Will the health bill ruin the economy?" and "Does Obamacare mean millions more jobs destroyed?")

So how did it all go so terribly wrong for health care haters?

My hunch is that over the past few months, the right-wing media, along with self-adoring Tea Party members, made the mistake of believing their own hype. They convinced themselves that not only did 2 million people take to the streets of the nation's capital last September to protest Obama (a number that was off by 1.9 million), but that "millions" more had marched coast-to-coast over the past 12 months (a number that was completely fabricated).

They fastidiously constructed their own parallel universe and convinced themselves that last summer's mini-mobs at local town hall forums had defeated health care reform. They thought their rowdy show of force, complete with Nazi and Hitler posters, and even some protesters parading around with loaded guns, had changed the debate.

Listening to Limbaugh, they thought they were dictating the agenda. Watching Fox News, they though they reflected the mainstream. And reading right-wing blogs, they thought they had killed health care reform.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong. It was the sudden and rude realization that, instead, they'd spent the past few months trapped inside an echo chamber, I think, that created the volcanic and unhinged response we've seen play out in recent days. It's the kind of childish and hysterical reaction I didn't think we'd ever witness from a major political movement.

Suck on these poll numbers Fox

Fox, who has been lying for MONTHS about poll numbers "showing" 76% of Americans oppose health care has yet to comment on this:

USA Today

Americans by 9 percentage points have a favorable view of the health care overhaul that President Obama signed into law Tuesday, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, a notable turnaround from surveys before the vote that showed a plurality against it.
By 49%-40% those surveyed say it was "a good thing" rather than a bad one that Congress passed the bill. Half describe their reaction in positive terms, as "enthusiastic" or "pleased," while about four in 10 describe it in negative ways, as "disappointed" or "angry."

The largest single group, 48%, calls the bill "a good first step" that should be followed by more action on health care. An additional 4% also have a favorable view, saying the bill makes the most important changes needed in the nation's health care system.

Suck it, Fox.

The market tanks on health care

Or not.

Fox Business

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 43.91 points, or 0.41%, to 10785.89, the Standard & Poor's 500 gained 5.91 points, or 0.51%, to 1165.81 and the Nasdaq Composite picked up 20.99 points, or 0.88%, to 2395.40. The FOX 50 added 3.04 points, or 0.36%, to 843.19.

Like the bill or not, Wall Street closed at its highest level since Oct. 2008 on Monday as the House’s historic health-care vote removed a huge cloud of uncertainty that had been hanging over the markets.

Media Matters

This doesn't pass the smell test. Because is Fox Business, along with its Wall St. sources, really claiming that stocks rose on Monday regardless of what investors thought about the historic passage of health care reform? Are they really suggesting that if investors, as well as big business and corporate America, hated health care reform that stocks still would have gone up simply because everyone was happy with "clarity"; with closure?

I don't buy it. If big business actually thought reform was going to cripple the economy and was the first step towards socialism, which is what some Fox News pundits have been claiming, then the market would have cratered 300 or 400 points. Easy.

If the bill was really a "disaster" for business, as CNBC's Jim Cramer claimed last week, the markets would have responded an in obvious manner. Instead, the Dow went up.

This is where the GOP is 2 days after health care

Mike Pence discussing health care on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.



* crickets *

From son to father, a note for Teddy: "Dad, the unfinished business is done."

West Wing Report

Rep.Kennedy left a note on his father's grave: "Dad, the unfinished business is done."(Photo: John Dicker)

Biden drops the F-bomb

Congratulating the President on the passage of health care, Biden says "This is a big fucking deal".



Press Secretary Gibbs follows it up:


I love Joe Biden.

Amazing victory: How far we've come in health care since Scott Brown

Krugman

Just one more reminder of what a victory Obama and Pelosi pulled off: here’s the Intrade price on passage of Obamacare from the aftermath of the Massachusetts election to actual success:

The Moment: 216 in the White House

So cool.

Congrats Rush, your drug abuse and obesity are no longer pre-existing conditions

Rush Limbaugh

"It's the same thing with preexisting conditions. No preexisting conditions? The liberals keep talking about automobile insurance companies. What happens to you if you have an automobile policy, you're driving around, and you have an accident and you do a lot of damage? Hey, guess what? You are a higher risk. Your auto insurance premium goes up, right? Why shouldn't that happen with health care? Why shouldn't it? (whining) "It's not fair? No, it's not fair!" Well, it won't now. It won't now."

Bob Cesca

Damn right it won't now. So should you ever find yourself without a job, your drug abuse, your impotence, your deafness, your obesity and, yes, your ass cyst will not prevent you from attaining affordable health insurance. You heartless, racist douchebag.

MORE Republican health care hypocrisy

Huh. Damn. Republicans are now trying to use unelected, activist judges to overturn the rule of law of the People's House.

I thought they were against all that. Oooooohhhhhh......, I see, they're against it when it doesn't benefit them. That's called being a..... ummm.... oh yeah - hypocrite.

Washington Examiner

Many states, already including Virginia, Idaho, South Carolina, Texas and Florida, are ready to file suit as soon as one of their citizens is compelled to purchase insurance. The Obama Justice Department may end up facing 38 state attorneys general in the battle over whether or not Americans can be forced into the system.

The Moment

via Ed Henry (CNN)

Conservative blogger calls for Obama assassination

via Jezebel

If progressive protesters were smart asses, they'd be playing this

Dave Weigel

For you, Senator Kennedy.

Bush speechwriter: Health care defeat is our fault and our Waterloo

Former Bush 43 speechwriter David Frum takes a hard, fair and sobering look at today's expected passage of President Obama's health care reform.

Several admissions:
1) This is a Waterloo alright, for Republicans.

2) This will not be repealed. How do you take away some of these things (pre-existing conditions, kids staying on your insurance) from voters?

3) In reality, this bill is not much different from Mitt Romney's Massachusetts health care.

4) The Fox/Limbaugh noise machine, and the Palin-led lies made it impossible for Republicans to cut a deal. How do you cut a deal with someone that wants to kill your grandmother? In going all-in, Obama wins everything.

5) The Noise Machine is in it for their own ratings, which, with passage of this bill and the flames of anger they fan will ensure high ratings.

David Frum

Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for today’s expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:

(1) It’s a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November – by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.

(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.

So far, I think a lot of conservatives will agree with me. Now comes the hard lesson:

A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.

...
Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.

...
No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?

I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead.

So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.

More tea party hatred, and a defense of it from Republicans

Huff Post

A protester sitting in the House gallery just disrupted the early business going on in the chamber by screaming out: "The people have said no!" and "You took an oath." Leadership tried to gavel the members back into session and ordered the Sargent in Arms to remove the unruly man. Before he was escorted out, however, he did receive a fair amount of applause from the Republican side of the aisle.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) emerged from the House floor irate to denounce Republicans for cheering on the protester, saying that dozens were encouraging lawbreaking and making the situation dangerous for the unarmed ushers who have to wrestle out protesters in a tight space. He yelled at Roy Blunt on the House floor, telling him to get his colleagues in order. "That's why you get this kind of virulence and hatred," he said.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) came to the defense of the racists and bigots who shouted slurs at members of Congress Saturday. The Tea Party protesters shouted the ‘n’ word at African American members of Congress the ‘f’ word at an openly gay member.

Rather than condemn the anachronistic behavior, Nunes blamed the Democrats, saying that they make people do and say crazy things with their tyrannical behavior.

“When you use a totalitarian tactics, people, you know, begin to act crazy,” Nunes told C-SPAN’s Steve Scully Sunday morning when asked about the slurs. “I think that people have every right to say what they want. If they want to smear someone they can do it."

It is time to pass health care

On the precipice of history

The Republican party is an abusive alcoholic promising things will be different

From a comment on the Cesca blog. This is brilliant. And true.

The Republican party is an abusive alcoholic promising things will be different if we just ignore the bloody and bruised face and let them back in the house.

They're sorry they weren't conservative enough for the Tea Party. They're sorry they ran up trillion dollar deficits in trying to systematically squeeze New Deal programs and liquidate the U.S. government, baby.

They were just foolin' around with that whole torture thing. Just having some fun, is all. Just some frat house hazing, sheesh. They wouldn't treat human beings like animals... unless they're pickin' cotton.

Joke! Just kidding. So sensitive. They love black people. Clarence Thomas and Michael Steele are on their side. And homosexuals aren't evil abominations of nature, they're just making an evil life choice and destroying American moral fiber. And women...especially when they're in the kitchen making babies who'll oversee the cotton picking. Joking! Gosh. Really sensitive. Is it that time of the month, America?

Don't make them sorry they apologized!

...
C'mon. Give us one more chance. We can prove we'll be more conservative than Bush and Cheney(long live tax cuts!). CPAC only applauds Dick because he's old and doesn't have too many more heart attacks left. They hardly mean it.

Whatya say, baby? We're really, 'burp', sorry.

This sad little story and chapter of American history has to end with a restraining order

Fair and balanced network in one-sided effort to try to kill health care

THIS is "fair and balanced"? Ad hominem attacks, demagoguery, strawmen and the spread of outright lies? They're smearing the CBO for it's favorable score, calling it biased, when it's used the CBO to back up it's own claims before. They're even turning to Gene Simmons to criticize the bill (and promote his own health insurance company in what becomes a 7 minute infomercial).

Fox is in a desperate push to kill health care reform and the noise machine is cranked to 11. How can anyone continue to claim that this is a legitimate news source?

Racist tea baggers fit right in the Republican strategy

Benen

But by last night, a related question arose: why aren't Republicans making any efforts at all to denounce the actions of their extremist allies? Can there be any doubt that if liberal protestors, speaking out against the war in Iraq a few years ago, had engaged in these kinds of tactics, the demands for Democratic condemnations would be overwhelming?

Cesca

Maybe I'm shrill, but it's probably because the Republicans have employed Southern Strategy politics for decades and have no interest in apologizing to anyone who might be offended by such behavior.