Thursday, August 13, 2009
Right-wing bloggers at annual conference admit to being ‘outgunned’ by progressives.
By Amanda Terkel
ThinkProgress and nearly 2,000 other progressive bloggers and activists are currently in Pittsburgh for the annual Netroots Nation conference. Speakers at the event include White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, Gov. Howard Dean, and President Bill Clinton. But also going on in Pittsburgh is the RightOnline conference for conservative bloggers:
The RightOnline conference starting tomorrow morning at the Sheraton Station Square will have about a quarter of the 2,000 attendees at the liberal conference in the convention center, and only about 20 speakers to the 400 at Netroots. …
Right-wing activists know very well they are being out-gunned by the left online, which is precisely why they are holding the conference. They held the first RightOnline convention in Austin, Texas, to coincide with last year’s Netroots Nation meeting there, too.
Erick Erickson from RedState said that on the right, the focus has been “on punditry as opposed to activism.” “It has been focused on bloggers trying to be the next Rush Limbaugh or the next columnist, not on urging readers to call members of Congress or go to tea parties,” he added.
For ‘Death Panels’ Before She Was Against Them? Palin Endorsed End Of Life Counseling As Governor
By Lee Fang
In recent weeks, right-wing groups have been pushing the myth that health care reform will somehow kill seniors. One of the most high profile voices pushing this lie has been Sarah Palin, who claimed President Obama will institute bureaucratic “death panels.” Today, again on her Facebook page, she continued the attack. Though some Republicans have rebuffed this absurd, inaccurate notion — like Johnny Isakson (R-GA), who called such talk “nuts” — others, like Newt Gingrich, have piled on to agree with Palin.
However, on April 16th 2008, then Gov. Sarah Palin endorsed some of the same end of life counseling she now decries as a form of euthanasia. In a proclamation announcing “Healthcare Decisions Day,” Palin urged public facilities to provide better information about advance directives, and made it clear that it is critical for seniors to be informed of such options:
WHEREAS, Healthcare Decisions Day is designed to raise public awareness of the need to plan ahead for healthcare decisions, related to end of life care and medical decision-making whenever patients are unable to speak for themselves and to encourage the specific use of advance directives to communicate these important healthcare decisions. [...]
WHEREAS, one of the principal goals of Healthcare Decisions Day is to encourage hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, continuing care retirement communities, and hospices to participate in a statewide effort to provide clear and consistent information to the public about advance directives, as well as to encourage medical professionals and lawyers to volunteer their time and efforts to improve public knowledge and increase the number of Alaska’s citizens with advance directives.
WHEREAS, the Foundation for End of Life Care in Juneau, Alaska, and other organizations throughout the United States have endorsed this event and are committed to educating the public about the importance of discussing healthcare choices and executing advance directives.
Though this proclamation is now deleted from the Alaska governor’s website, it shows that Palin’s current fear-mongering is purely political. Palin is not the only conservative leader completely flip-flopping on this issue. Merely months ago, Gingrich too endorsed end of life counseling. At a conference in April of this year, Gingrich said advance directives can “save money” while also helping to “decrease the stress felt by caregivers.”
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Grassley Endorses "Death Panel" Rumor: "You Have Every Right To Fear"
BySam Stein
One of the three Republican senators working on a bipartisan health care bill perpetuated a particularly outrageous untruth about the legislation on Wednesday.
Appearing at a town hall in his home state of Iowa, Sen. Chuck Grassley told a crowd of more than 300 that they were correct to fear that the government would "pull the plug on grandma."
"There is some fear because in the House bill, there is counseling for end-of-life," Grassley said. "And from that standpoint, you have every right to fear. You shouldn't have counseling at the end of life. You ought to have counseling 20 years before you're going to die. You ought to plan these things out. And I don't have any problem with things like living wills. But they ought to be done within the family. We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma."
Watch:
In making his remarks, Grassley becomes the latest in a string of GOP lawmakers to jump on a myth about the health care legislation produced by the House of Representatives. The most infamous statement was made last week by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who declared that the President's health care plan would set up a "death panel" to determine whether or not to euthanize her son with Down Syndrome.
The Iowa Independent was the first to report Grassley's remarks. The Huffington Post was able to obtain audio from an attendee at the event.
On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs hit back at Palin for her death panel remark, saying that the former governor had given out "information that I think many of you all pointed out was wrong." The House bill would require Medicare to cover voluntary consultations between individuals and their doctors about end of life care, including whether or not to write a living will. Several Republican lawmakers have endorsed the idea in past legislation.
Limbaugh pushes claim that swastika at Rep. Scott’s office was ‘fake’: ‘I don’t buy this.’
By
Yesterday, ThinkProgress noted that the Weekly Standard’s John McCormack legitimized fringe claims that the swastika found at Rep. David Scott’s (D-GA) office was “fake” by asking, “isn’t it more likely that this act of vandalism was committed by one of Scott’s supporters?” On his radio show today, Rush Limbaugh pushed the same idea, declaring, “I don’t buy this. This is too politically convenient.” “I think the Democrats are doing this themselves,” said Limbaugh. Listen here:
Earlier today, Scott told CNN that his office also received a fax with a picture of President Obama made up as the Joker that had a swastika on his forehead.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Geico pulls its ads from Glenn Beck’s Fox News show.
By
Fox News host Glenn Beck has been under fire in recent weeks for his comments that President Obama is a “racist” with “a deep-seated hatred for white people.” Since ColorOfChange called on its members to urge Beck’s advertisers to drop his show, three advertisers have pulled out. Today, ColorOfChange announced that Geico Insurance is joining them: “On Tuesday, August 4, GEICO instructed its ad buying service to redistribute its inventory of rotational spots on FOX-TV to their other network programs, exclusive of the Glenn Beck program,” said a spokesperson for GEICO Corporate Communications in an email to ColorOfChange.org. “As of August 4, GEICO no longer runs any paid advertising spots during Mr. Beck’s program.“
Weekly Standard: It’s ‘likely’ that the swastika at Rep. Scott’s office is a ‘fake hate crime.’
By
This morning, Rep. David Scott (D-GA) discovered that someone had spray-painted a swastika on the sign at one of his district offices. On Twitter, various right-wing observers immediately began speculating that it was a staged stunt. Now, Weekly Standard writer John McCormack has legitimized these fringe perspectives:
In recent years self-inflicted hate crimes have come into vogue among certain citizens on the right and the left.
Of course sometimes “hate crimes” are real (for example, this spring a College Democrat desecrated crosses at George Washington University with graffiti and condoms). It’s possible that a neo-Nazi actually vandalized Rep. Scott’s offices. But given the fact that the Nazi imagery so neatly dovetails with the left’s smearing of health-care protesters as fascists, isn’t it more likely that this act of vandalism was committed by one of Scott’s supporters?
Scott’s press assistant Jennifer Wright was “taken aback — but mainly amused” by the Weekly Standard’s accusation. “Personally I think it’s funny that he thinks a David Scott supporter put the swastika on the sign,” Wright told TPM, “especially given what’s been happening in the media with the Congressman.”
Update Bill Nigut, the Southeast Regional Director of the Anti-Defamation League, put out a statement calling the swastika at Scott's office was a "frightening display of bigotry and ignorance that should not be tolerated by a democratic society."
Right-wing global warming deniers protest Clean Energy Summit.
By
Yesterday, the Center for American Progress Action Fund hosted the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, a gathering attended by Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Harry Reid, Steven Chu, Hilda Solis, and many other experts. Unsurprisingly, right-wing protesters – many of whom are global warming deniers – also gathered at the venue. The Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson interviewed some of the protesters to get a better understanding of their views. One said President Obama is an “Anti-American Arab” who “is not a natural-born citizen.” Many others said that global warming is a hoax, that Obama is a man of divided loyalties and questionable associations, and that the country is headed toward socialist decline. Watch it:
Rep. Blackburn pushes false myth that health reform will ‘diminish’ Medicare benefits.
By
Republicans have been trying to defeat health reform by scaring seniors that their Medicare benefits will be cut if the bill passes. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and House Minority Whip Eric CantorFrank Luntz-approved talking points before making this statement: (R-VA) have made the false argument in recent weeks. Today, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) repeated the myth in a phone interview with Memphis’ ABC affiliate. She offered a host of vacuous,
Our seniors are saying, look don’t diminish Medicare. We have been paying into Medicare. That is pre-paid for us. It’s been coming out of our paycheck for 40 years. And they don’t want that Medicare to be diminished.
Watch it:
Of course, it’s ironic that conservatives who have long argued for killing Medicare are now proclaiming to be the protectors of it. “Nobody is talking about cutting Medicare benefits. I just want to make that absolutely clear,” President Obama has said. The health reform bill would not “diminish” Medicare benefits. “To the contrary, reform would simply eliminate waste and unnecessary subsidies to insurance companies.” In addition, The Gavel notes several provisions in the House bill that strengthen Medicare:
Phases in completely filling in the “donut hole” in the Medicare prescription drug benefit (where drug costs are not reimbursed at certain levels), potentially savings seniors thousands of dollars a year.
Eliminates co-payments and deductibles for preventive services under Medicare.
Limits cost-sharing requirements in Medicare Advantage plans to the amount charged for the same services in traditional Medicare coverage.
Improves the low-income subsidy programs in Medicare, such as by increasing asset limits for programs that help Medicare beneficiaries pay premiums and cost-sharing.
Friday, August 07, 2009
SS Nazi sign carried at town hall protest
From Raw Story
Right wing pundits are mocking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for claiming that there are protesters "carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on healthcare."
The wizbang blog calls it a crock.
While it's possible the top House Democrat might have been misinformed (due to non-specific media reports) about a swastika, the following sign written with Nazi lettering, spotted at a Congressman Lloyd Doggett event, has been widely reported on liberal blogs and in the mainstream media.
DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse referred to the sign in a recent statement, as Brian Beutler reported for TPM.
"The right wing extremists' use of things like devil horns on pictures of our elected officials, hanging members of Congress in effigy, breathlessly questioning the President's citizenship and the use of Nazi SS symbols and the like just shows how outside of the mainstream the Republican Party and their allies are," Woodhouse said.
The Atlantic's Mark Ambinder noted that a Democratic party strategist had emailed a YouTube clip that sported the sign (which can be seen below). The New York Times' Opinionator blog noted Ambinder's column, and quoted the sign paragraph.
Yesterday, Roll Call reported,
Van Hollen predicted that the groups’ more dramatic tactics — which have included the display of Nazi signs, a hanging effigy of Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-Md.) and a tombstone bearing the name of Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) — will “backfire in a big way” because their aim is to keep citizens from having a conversation about health care.
The San Francisco Chronicle is also reporting that "traditionally sleepy town hall meetings have become rowdy shout-fests across the nation, including Northern California, with opponents hanging members in effigy and mocking them with Nazi and devil imagery in an effort to derail discussions of health care."
Minnesota's Star Tribune reports,
Remember the Tea Party protests from earlier this year? Those same groups appear to have shifted to the health care front, armed with talking points, with horns painted on politician's pictures and, in at least one case, a sign with a Nazi "SS" logo.
In addition, at another town hall held in Worcester, Massachusetts, Democratic Congressman Jim McGovern, the Telegram reports, "was likened by an attendee to Josef Mengele, the Nazi officer who performed experiments on concentration camp survivors."
While some Republicans continue to mock Pelosi for her "I see swastikas" comment, not every conservative dismisses the possibility that it has happened.
Last night, Fox's Bill O'Reilly said, "They say it's easy to stack any town meeting with anti-Obama zealots, and it is, it is. You can do that through the Internet. You can say let's get out there, let's disrupt. I don't know if you have ever given a speech where they have far-left nuts in the audience and they go wild and scream and disrupt. This, that, and the other thing. How do you know that these people disrupting these meetings are legitimate folks?"
Thanks to a Huffington Post reader, a swastika picture surfaced Thursday afternoon, taken at "a protest last week outside the Fort Collins office of Rep. Betsy Markey (D-Colo.)"
Sam Stein writes, "A woman protesting Democratic plans for health care reform was captured holding up a sign of a Swastika, with the president's name below it, encircled and crossed out by a red line. The implication is that Obama is a Nazi -- though the culprit, in this case, added a question mark next to his name, as some sort of caveat."
The picture can be viewed at this link.
Also today, Media Matters notes that conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh has ratcheted up the nazi rhetoric.
Two examples posted at Media Matters include:
"[T]he Obama health care logo is damn close to a Nazi swastika logo."
"Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate"
Limbaugh's likening of the Obama health care logo to a swastika has led to an online rush to compare the two.
As The Times Online's Hattie Garlick notes, "'obama health care logo' remains one of the hottest search terms on Google."
In fact, Friday morning, two of the top five results on Google's Hot Trends for USA are related to it. The name of the blog Limbaugh promoted for advancing the Nazi logo figure comes in at #5 on the list: Sweetness and Light.
On Thursday, Media Matters remarked, "In reality, Obama's logo incorporates the caduceus -- the ancient symbol for medicine. If Sweetness & Light want to say that looks Nazi-ish, fine, but that's more the fault of Hippocrates than Obama."
Newsweek's Conspiracy Watch also labeled the comparison "pretty lame."
Meanwhile, health care reform opponents didn't leave the Nazi gear home when they went out to protest Thursday night.
"Two members of the audience at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) town hall meeting in Denver, Colorado, on Thursday -- including a toddler in a stroller -- were bedecked with images equating Barack Obama's policies to Nazism and the president to Hitler himself," Sam Stein reports for Huffington Post.
Stein notes, "In one image, a young man with a shirt that reads 'Hitler Gave Great Speeches Too' is photographed making what looks like a Hitler salute."
In a video posted on YouTube, the 16-year-old Alaskan told Talk Left's Jeralyn Merritt that he opposed the plan because this is America not Canada.
More on the anti-Pelosi demonstration can be found at Mike Stark's Firedoglake blog posting.
M.C.L comment: The right has finally lost their lids, remember back during the Bush era the right wing media would attack anyone if they said anything negative about Bush, the Dixie Chicks almost got their careers ruined by the right, Joe Scarborough bragged for weeks about getting Danny Glover fired from his phone company endorsement. Freedom of speech for the most part during Bush's term was restricted but now since the letter after the president's name changed from (R) to (D) the right wing media found a new respect for freedom of speech so much so they encourage fake tax protest that look like KKK rallies, wanting the president of the united states to fail and sending their followers to Democratic representatives' town hall meetings just to cause trouble. I wish these people that go to these events because they were prompt to by Rush, Hannity, Malkin and Beck just admit that they're mad because the President of the United States is a black man. They may out themselves as racists but at least their it's honest, because the stuff they're raging against they either have it i.e. medicare which is a government program or they supported it in the Bush administration i.e over the top government spending.
‘I don’t give a f*ck about Michelle Malkin,’ Meghan McCain Tweets
Months after feuding with Ann Coulter, Meghan McCain, the media’s favorite new go-to for quotes, appears to be at war with another prominent conservative female pundit. Even if the lady doth protest by Twitter.
Thursday afternoon, Michelle Malkin was asked during a chat at Politico’s The Arena by moderator Fred Barbash, “Who would you say is the most insightful liberal political figure or commentator out there right now? Who is a conservative political figure of commentator who you think needs to shut up?”
“Hmmm…interesting question,” Malkin replied. “On the right: Less Meghan McCain. On the left? Tommy Christopher is an honest lib.”
Apparently, folks began Tweeting Meghan McCain about the Malkin insult.
So, the daughter of the 2008 Republican presidential candidate Tweeted back, “chill people, I don’t give a fuck about @michellemalkin.”
In March, Malkin wrote that the “trouble with Meghan McCain” was that - like her non-ideological father - she “inherited the notion that playing the ‘maaaaverick’ imparts her with moral authority and credibility as a fresh voice for the GOP.”
After getting f-bombed via Twitter, it’s doubtful that Malkin will raise her opinion any.
But some conservative followers of McCain on Twitter aren’t pleased with her choice of words.
“Now that is a disgusting thing to say….I just stopped following you..,” a user named sdelaurier Tweeted.
Quillspiller Tweets, “If you really didn’t give a f____ about Malkin, you wouldn’t have cussed.”
On the other hand, a few on the left, apparently, are Tweeting support.
“I’m a Democrat proudly (for social reasons), but if more Republicans were like you, it’d be hard for me to stay Dem,” a user named kmhollan Tweets, while a user named aeligature notes, “Well, @michellemalkin would have all Muslims thrown in internment camps. How can you take her seriously about anything?”
Fox News directs viewers to town halls hosted by Democrats.
By Earlier today, Fox News publicized the time and location of “gladiatorial” town halls hosted by Democrats — but not Republicans. With “heated” and increasingly confrontational town halls now dominating news coverage, Washington correspondent James Rosen announced he had “obtained a large Excel spreadsheet showing the schedule of town halls for Democratic members of Congress.” Rosen reported the time and location of several town halls, including those for Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA). To explain why Fox wasn’t reporting on town halls hosted by Republicans, Rosen assured viewers that if he “had the spreadsheet for the Republican members,” he would “share” that as well:
Media Matters for America’s Jamison Foser was able to turn up a list of Republican town halls with a quick Google search: “Well, I like to help FOX out when I can, so here’s a list of town halls that includes Republicans.”
FreedomWorks VP Refuses To Try To ‘Calm Down’ Angry Protesters At Health Care Town Hall Meetings
By
FreedomWorks, an industry-backed right-wing group led by former GOP congressman Dick Armey, has been heavily engaged in organizing conservatives to ambush Democratic members of Congress supporting health care reform at town halls across the country during the August recess. Its “astroturf” campaign is designed to present the appearance of wide-spread public discontent with health care reform, but the reality is that the town halls have become forums for disruption, extremism and even violence.
Last night on MSNBC, FreedomWorks Vice President Max Pappas boasted about flooding congresspeople’s town hall meetings and “blowing them apart.” “We have about 400,000 on-line members who we can contact with an e-mail database that we have, send them information about when the town halls are, give them briefings on the health care reform plans,” he said.
Pappas was on C-SPAN this morning, and a Republican veteran called in and asked Pappas to “to tell these people to wrap it down.” “We Republicans already have the image of being owned by corporate America. Now we’re getting the image of being owned by wild red-neck America,” the caller complained. But Pappas refused his request, claiming he doesn’t “have the power” to calm down his troops:
PAPPAS: We don’t have the power to control how many people turn out or how they behave there. All we really do is facilitate their participation by letting people know when these town halls are and giving them information about the issues that are going to be discussed The passions are so deep about this issue that we can’t send out an email that says “calm down.”
Another caller who claimed to be from the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) — a group that claims the U.S. is a European country and was founded by a “longtime white-power activist” — praised Pappas. “I want to salute you, you’re a true patriot,” he told Pappas, who later urged the CCC member to join FreedomWorks. “[I]f the caller wants to join FreedomWorks, it’s free. You can sign up on our website and we’ll keep you up to dated on what’s going on on Capitol Hill,” he said. Watch it:
Transcript:
CALLER: Hey Max I want to salute you, you’re a true patriot. I belong to a small group out here [in Indiana] called Council of Conservative Citizens and once you get out of the major cities and you get out into the Midwest you realize that the average American just wants to go to work, work hard, be patirotic, pay his bills and hope that the government stays out of his way. What’s happened over the last six, eight months isn’t just a progression of the Democratic Party. Mr. Obama is way passed Democrat/Republican, it’s a socialist view that the government can take care of everybody. […]
PAPPAS: And if that, if the caller wants to join FreedomWorks, it’s free. You can sign up on our website and we’ll keep you up to dated on what’s going on on Capitol Hill. […]
CALLER: As a true Republican, — or, you say you got the power to get these people out through emails. I call on you and challenge you to send an email today to tell these people to wrap it down. We Republicans already have the image of being owned by corporate America. Now we’re getting the image of being owned by wild red-neck America.
You look at these crowds, I’m looking at one of them right now, evidently most of these people are on Medicare at the same time, you see no minorities there, you see no blacks there, no hispanics there. That’s the groups we gotta get back in our Party.
It’s just like, I tell friends of mine, I’m a 100% disabled veteran, 73 years old on the VA, which y’all identify as socialistic, it’s a socialistic system. Most of my friends are on Medicare which according to you and your group is a socialistic system.
I tell my friends, or tell people, strangers I meet some of the things I know about our Party they say, “Where’d you hear that?” I say “Oh Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh.” They laugh at me, they laugh at me. Everybody thinks that these Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannities and all these radio talk show people who hold all this power, they’re the joke of the average American. They’re nothing but jokes. This new guy, what’s his name, I can’t even remember his name he’s over there on Fox News, he comes on at 5 o’clock, he’s a mad man!
PAPPAS: We don’t have the power to control how many people turn out or how they behave there. All we really do is facilitate their participation by letting people know when these town halls are and giving them information about the issues that are going to be discussed The passions are so deep about this issue that we can’t send out an email that says “calm down.”
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Your request is being processed... Glenn Beck's Obama "Racist" Comments Cost Him Advertisers
Huffington Post | Peter Drivas
Fox News' Glenn Beck is feeling the consequences of his controversial comments on the July 28 episode of "Fox and Friends," when he said that Barack Obama was a "racist" who had a "deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture."
According to TVNewser, Beck advertisers Proctor and Gamble, Lawyers.com and Progressive Insurance have all pulled their ads from Beck's 5PM ET show. This comes in the wake of groups like ColorOfChange.org's efforts to get companies to distance themselves from Beck.
Fox News told TVNewser that the advertisements were simply moved to other time slots on Fox News, and thus had no effect on the network's revenue (which, incidentally, was a bright spot in News Corp's otherwise dismal earnings).
Watch Beck's original comment's here.
Tampa Town Hall On Health Care Reform Disrupted By Violence
From Hufington Post
Police officers were called to calm down an unruly crowd outside a health care reform town hall meeting in downtown Tampa, Florida on Thursday evening, according to local news reports.
Angry protesters screamed, yelled and banged on windows as officers hurried to guard the entrances to the facility, where U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor was trying to discuss the various health care reform proposals being debated in Congress. One photojournalist said that a fistfight broke out inside the building, reports WTSP.
Many of the hundreds of protesters said that they had been inspired by Fox News host Glenn Beck and a conservative activist group, according to the St. Petersburg Times:
Instead, hundreds of vocal critics turned out, many of them saying they had been spurred on through the Tampa 912 activist group promoted by conservative radio and television personality Glenn Beck. Others had received e-mails from the Hillsborough Republican party that urged people to speak out against the plan and offered talking points to challenge supporters.
The Times added:
The spectacle at the Children's Board in Ybor City sounded more like a wrestling cage match than a panel discussion on national policy, and it was just the latest example of a health care meeting disrupted by livid protesters.
The Tampa Tribune reports that some protesters carried racist caricatures of President Obama and added details of more fights and scuffles:
Several of the protesters' signs bore an image of Obama with his face painted as the Joker, an image that drew protests of racism locally when it appeared on a Web site thought to be associated with the Pinellas Republican party.There were at least two scuffles between protesters trying to enter and organizers manning the doors.
One of those involved in a scuffle, Randy Arthur, of Oldsmar said he was injured by those manning the doors and said he would file a police report... Randy Arthur, who owns an air conditioning service company, later talked to police officers, his knit shirt ripped and a few scratches visible on his chest. "They slammed him into the wall,'' Kathy Arthur said.
Here is video of the health care forum.
Contrary to Steele’s Claim, State GOP Are Actively Promoting Town Hall Mobs
Yesterday in an conference call that ThinkProgress took part in, GOP Chairman Michael Steele told reporters that neither the national Republican party nor any state Republican parties are promoting town hall disruptions:
STEELE: I had nothing to do with that, I did not encourage that. And we’re not encouraging people to be angry I mean to the point of being nasty and brutish and ugly. That’s not what this is about. There’s no upside for the Republican Party or the people involved to do that. Now some people, you know, that’s how they express their frustration, that’s how they express their frustration. But that’s not something deliberately coordinated by me or any one state party.
Unfortunately, Steele’s statement isn’t true. This past weekend, Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) was harassed by right-wing protesters who refused to have a civil dialogue with the Congressman. The front page of the official website of the Texas Republican Party prominently features and endorses the incident. The website headline reads, “Doggett Fields Softballs“:
If you click on the picture, it links to a video of the incident, which is hosted by the Texas Republican Party’s official YouTube account, txgoptv. At the conclusion of the video, the words “Produced by the Republican Party of Texas” pop up alongside a legal disclaimer that proclaims the video was paid for the by the Republican Party of Texas.
The Texas GOP’s endorsement of these tactics joins remarks by Sen. John Coryn (R-TX) that the “fear” and “anger” of Americans over health care reform present “real opportunities” for the Republican Party.
The Texas GOP isn’t alone in encouraging the mob protests, though. On a blog post titled “Here’s to Mob Rule,” Connecticut GOP chairman Chris Healy yesterday listed off the times and locations of several health care town halls. In the post he wrote that “one perrson’s [sic] mob is another person’s concerned’s citizen’s group” and remarked that if members of Congress “get upset because people are shouting at them, maybe they should listen.”
ThinkProgress has contacted the both the Texas and Connecticut Republican parties for comment, but we have yet to recieve a response.
CNN’s Rick Sanchez leaves Rick Scott fumbling to justify his health care corruption.
By
CNN’s Rick Sanchez ripped into Conservatives for Patients’ Rights founder Rick Scott today over his anti-health care reform advocacy efforts. Sanchez pointed out that Hospital Corporation of America/Columbia Hospital Corporation, which Scott founded, was charged with defrauding the government for more than a decade and had to pay the government a record $1.7 billion. “Some would argue, and it would be hard to say they’re wrong,” said Sanchez, “that you would be the poster child for everything that’s wrong with the greed that has hurt our current health care system.” Scott responded by pointing out that other companies also had to pay fines, which Sanchez responded was exactly the reason health care reform was so necessary:
How much more wrong can you be than what you just said? Not only is your company screwed up — and you just admitted to it — and you’re saying, look at all the other companies, they did the same thing! That doesn’t sound to me like a sterling system that we have, does it?
Scott became so desperate to defend himself that he tried to say the fines were paid after he left the company (even though the charges were from while he was there) and insisted, “No one went to jail.” Watch it:
Scott also said that the American public should “love” what his company has done for health care. But Scott didn’t start his hospital business for the sake of improving the quality of care in 1987, but rather wanted to “do for hospitals…what McDonald’s has done in the food business.”
Local Fox Reporter Attends Town Hall And Finds ‘Some Attendees Admit They Don’t Live In The District’
By Last night, Rep. Gene Green (D-TX) hosted a rowdy town hall meeting to discuss health care reform. Fox’s local Houston affiliate reporter, Duarte Geraldino, reported that he talked to the participants and found that “some attendees admit they don’t live in the district.” How did they get there? Geraldino noted “an internet campaign” by far right activists urging their allies to attend and heckle Democratic Representatives. Geraldino then aired a clip showing one participant acting disrespectfully towards Rep. Green. “Pay close attention to the man behind the congressman,” Geraldino says in this clip, “he seems to have forgotten the part about respect.” Watch it:
The crowd was so disrespectful that one frustrated attendee said he had come to the town hall with the intention of giving Rep. Green “a really hard time,” but changed his mind because he was fed up with another man who was “screaming behind my head for the last hour.” The attendee continued, “This is a free country, but I think there’s a certain degree of respect” required. “I won’t be quiet! I won’t sit down! And I won’t let this happen on my watch,” responded the angry conservative activist. Watch it:
During the town hall, one conservative activist turns to his fellow attendees and asks them to raise their hands if they “oppose any form of socialized or government-run health care.” Almost all the hands shot up. Rep Green quickly turned the question on the audience and asked, “How many of you have Medicare?” Nearly half the attendees raised their hands, failing to note the irony.
At another point, a small business owner who supported health reform asks the audience how many people in this room “do not have health insurance of some kind.” Only one hand seemed to be raised. “I think the people who are objecting,” she noted, “are the people who have insurance.”
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
North Korea Orders Release Of Euna Lee, Laura Ling During Clinton Visit
From Huffington post and the AP
BREAKING: MSNBC reports that North Korea has ordered the release of the two American journalists detained there. The announcement comes during former President Bill Clinton's surprise visit to North Korea. He reportedly met with Kim Jong Il and the two journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, earlier on Tuesday.
MORE FROM AP:
SEOUL, South Korea — Former President Bill Clinton met Tuesday with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il on the first day of a surprise mission to Pyongyang to negotiate the release of two Americans, holding "exhaustive" talks on a wide range of topics, state-run media said.
Clinton "courteously" conveyed a verbal message from President Barack Obama, the official Korean Central News Agency said in a report from Pyongyang. Kim expressed his thanks, and engaged Clinton in a "wide-ranging exchange of views on matters of common concern," the report said.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, however, denied Clinton went with a message from Obama. "That's not true," he told reporters.
Clinton was in communist North Korea on a mission to secure the freedom of Americans Euna Lee and Laura Ling, reporters for former Vice President Al Gore's Current TV media venture who were arrested along the Chinese-North Korean border in March and sentenced in June to 12 years of hard labor for illegal entry and engaging in "hostile acts."
His landmark visit, which was not announced in advance by North Korea or the U.S., comes at a time of heightened tensions between Washington and Pyongyang, foes during the Korean War of the 1950s, over the regime's nuclear program.
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North Korea in recent months has conducted a nuclear test and test-fired an array of ballistic missiles in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, with Washington leading the push to punish Pyongyang for its defiance.
It's only the second visit to Pyongyang by a former U.S. leader. Jimmy Carter traveled to North Korea for talks with Kim's father, Kim Il Sung, in 1994 in a groundbreaking meeting during a time of similar tensions.
Clinton's meeting with Kim would be the notoriously reclusive North Korean leader's first with a prominent Western figure since Kim reportedly suffered a stroke a year ago, sparking questions about the future of the nation he controls with absolute authority.
Kim, said to have a taste for fine wines and fancy gourmet food, also is believed to suffer from chronic diabetes and heart disease. The man who once sported a noticeable pot belly has appeared gaunt and gray in recent months.
Though Clinton was in North Korea on a private basis, his visit was treated by North Korea as a high-profile visit, with senior officials – including Kim Kye Gwan, the vice foreign minister who serves as the country's chief nuclear negotiator – meeting him on the tarmac.
Footage from the APTN television news agency showed the arriving Clinton exchanging warm handshakes with the officials and accepting a bouquet of flowers from a schoolgirl.
Kim later hosted a banquet for Clinton at the state guesthouse, Radio Pyongyang and the Korean Central Broadcasting Station reported.
Photos in state-run media of the visit showed Kim, with a broad smile, standing next to a solemn-looking Clinton. The two also posed with Clinton's party in front of a mural, and another picture showed the men and others seated around a conference table.
Though Clinton does not hold office, his stature and good relations with Pyongyang could yield positive results, analysts said.
"This is a very potentially rewarding trip. Not only is it likely to resolve the case of the two American journalists detained in North Korea for many months, but it could be a very significant opening and breaking this downward cycle of tension and recrimination between the U.S. and North Korea," Mike Chinoy, author of "Meltdown: The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis," said in Beijing.
There was no word in state media on the status of Clinton's negotiations to secure the release of Ling, 32, and Lee, 36. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton last month urged North Korea to grant the women amnesty, saying they were remorseful and that their families were anguished.
Lee, a South Korean-born U.S. citizen, is married and has a 4-year-old daughter in Los Angeles; a native Californian, Ling is the married younger sister of TV journalist Lisa Ling.
Clinton's administration had rocky but relatively good relations with Pyongyang, and both he and Gore, his vice president, had been named as possible envoys to bring back Lee and Ling. Also mentioned was New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who in the 1990s traveled twice to North Korea to secure the freedom of detained Americans.
However, the decision to send the former president was kept quiet. A senior U.S. official told reporters traveling Tuesday with Hillary Rodham Clinton that the White House would not comment on the trip to Pyongyang until the mission was complete.
"While this solely private mission to secure the release of two Americans is on the ground, we will have no comment," Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said later in a statement from Washington. "We do not want to jeopardize the success of former President Clinton's mission."
In New York, the Committee to Protect Journalists said it was encouraged by reports about Clinton's trip.
"This is welcome news and we are pleased to see movement in this case," said Bob Dietz, the group's Asia program coordinator. "The fate of these two women should not be linked to broader issues on the Korean peninsula, and to see both sides make a move toward the release of these reporters will bring some relief to them, their families and friends."
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Associated Press writers Jae-soon Chang in Seoul, Matthew Lee at Naval Station Rota, Spain, and AP researcher Jasmine Zhao in Beijing contributed to this report.
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On the Net:
Chuck Norris is a birther.
By
In a column today, actor and right-wing activist Chuck Norris wishes President Obama a “happy birthday” by challenging him to produce his “original birth certificate.” Norris says that while he finds it “a bit of a groundless stretch” to doubt that Obama was born in Hawaii, he nevertheless adds that there’s no excuse for not producing other documentation:
I’m writing you because this is no longer a matter merely about proving you meet a presidential prerequisite in the Constitution. Refusing to post your original birth certificate is an unwise political and leadership decision that is enabling the “birther” controversy. The nation you are called to lead is experiencing a growing swell of conspirators who are convinced that you are covering up something. So why not just prove them wrong and shut them up?
I agree with CNN’s Lou Dobbs, who was chastised by his own media outlet for demanding the release of your original birth certificate. Why was that such a bad request? We certainly know why Jon Klein, the president of CNN/U.S., thought it was a bad idea. He previously declared that CNN researchers had determined that your 1961 birth certificate no longer exists.
Obama, of course, has presented a digitally scanned image of his birth certificate that includes a raised seal and the signature stamp of the Hawaii state registrar. Dobbs has said that Obama might have “a document issue,” hinting that Obama might be an undocumented immigrant. (HT: Huffington Post)
M.C.L comment:
Obama should only produce his birth certificate only if Chuck Norris produce actually proof that he can act.
All In A Day’s Work: Rep. Kingston Smears The Stimulus On TV, Takes Credit For Stimulus Jobs In His District
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Last week, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) joined other Republican House members to engage in lengthy, repetitive speeches droning on about why they believe the Recovery Act has been a failure. Per instructions given by Republican Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), Republicans have been tasked with slamming the stimulus and asking “Where are the jobs?” as part of a “floor game” maneuver to slow down reform on other issues, especially health care.
On July 28th, Kingston’s press office fired off two releases bragging about a $106,901 grant for the Alma Police Department and a $138,286 grant for the Jesup Police Department in Georgia. These grants, distributed by the Department of Justice for the “hiring of new police officers, to combat violence against women, and to fight Internet crimes against children,” were fully-funded by President Obama’s Recovery Act. Nonetheless, Kingston took credit for them, calling the funds “local initiatives” unrelated to the policies set forth in Washington and a type of “tax relief” for local communities:
“We’ve seen from experience that local initiatives go a lot further toward solving local problems that policies set in Washington. This funding will provide tax relief by savings local tax dollars and, under the stewardship of Chief Livingston, will go a long way to fight crime more effectively through community policing.”
On July 28th, the same day he took credit for jobs created by the Recovery Act, Kingston took to the floor to slam Obama and the Recovery Act:
KINGSTON: Mr. President, where’s the stimulus package? Where are the jobs? [...] Mr. Speaker, this is not the change the folks in Coffee County, Georgia, can use. They need jobs.
Watch it:
Even though Kingston vigorously opposed and voted against the Recovery Act, this is not the first time he has boasted about stimulus funds for his district. In June, Kingston announced $2,707,777 in community block grant funding for the city of Savannah. Although he did not acknowledge that most of the funds came directly from the Recovery Act, Kingston declared them to be “even more important during this tough economic period.” Of the money Kingston announced, $1,121,523 came from the HPRP program enabled by the Recovery Act, and at least $733,133 was also allocated by the Recovery Act.
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