LANSING – Republican Congressman Dan Benishek (MI-1) told a public forum in Petoskey “I think oil companies pay their fair share (of taxes).” (Petoskey News Review, August 24, 2011)
“How out of touch is Benishek?” asked Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer. “Doesn’t he know or care that in 2009 Exxon Mobil paid no taxes to the U.S. government? Doesn’t he know that despite record profits in the tens of billions of dollars oil companies are still receiving $4 billion a year in taxpayer subsidies?”
“I am sure Benishek knows he has received nearly $50,000 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry (opensecrets.org),” continued Brewer. “Perhaps that is why he defends their low or nonexistent taxes and excessive taxpayer subsidies in the face of their record profits.”
“The people of the 1st District deserve better than Benishek who is nothing more than a shill for Big Oil, one of his biggest contributors,” said Brewer. “They deserve a Member of Congress who will stand up to Big Oil, not defend them.”
Gov. Rick Snyder's job approval ratings continue to languish as Michigan's unemployment rate rises and discontent with politics in general grows.
According to the August survey by the Lansing firm EPIC-MRA, 62 percent disapproved of the job Snyder is performing as governor, the highest since taking office in January and up from 57 percent in July.
According to the survey of 600 voters Aug. 13-16 released today, 33 percent approved of the job he was doing. Both the positive and negative numbers in EPIC's poll have been fairly consistent dating to early May as his budget and tax overhaul was being approved in the Legislature. Since then, voters remain unconvinced it was the right thing to do.
When those plans were introduced in February, 32 percent approved of the job he was doing, but only 37 percent disapproved.
A greater percentage of those surveyed, however, like Snyder personally as 42 percent regarded him favorably. An equal percentage regarded him unfavorably. In January, his favorable to unfavorable spread was 59 percent to 8 percent.
About 69 percent of Democrats surveyed don't like Snyder and 19 percent do. Among Republicans it's the opposite - 69 percent like him, 14 percent don't. Self-described independents are evenly split.
EPIC pollster Bernie Porn said voters are skeptical that business tax cuts will improve the state's economy and don't care for either the 2012 cuts in state aid to education or the increased taxes on retirement income that take effect Jan. 1.
Unless there is swift and sure job creation that can justify those unpopular changes, Porn said Snyder's numbers are unlikely to climb. "He's captive to what's happening in the economy."
When asked about his poll numbers, Snyder says that personal meetings with residents suggests the public is more supportive than the surveys say.
Motor City Liberal Comment: Hey Motor Times, Republican Michigander and Blog Prof look on the bright side Rick Scott saved your guy from being the governor with lowest approval ratings among newly elected governor.
The Republican polled show how hypocritical these S.O.Bs are, these were the same people screaming about Graholm now support the things they accused Graholm of doing because the person whose driving the jobs out of the state has an R after his name.
In an interview that aired Sunday night, President Bush told National Geographic Channel’s Peter Schnall that after 9/11, he didn’t want to blame intelligence agencies for failing to predict the attacks.
“At some point in time in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, I thought about why didn’t we know this?” Bush recalled.
“I knew we needed to figure out what went wrong to prevent other attacks but I didn’t want start the finger pointing and say to our intelligence communities, ‘You fouled up. You should have caught this. Why didn’t you know?’”
On Aug. 6, 2001 — more than a month before the attacks — Bush received a presidential daily briefing entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”
“Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US,” the briefing said. “Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and ‘bring the fighting to America.’”
“FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.”
The day after receiving the report while vacationing on his ranch, “Bush seemed carefree as he spoke about the books he was reading, the work he was doing on his nearby ranch, his love of hot-weather jogging, his golf game and his 55th birthday,” according to The Washington Post.
On at least two other occasions in August 2001, CIA Director George Tenet also reportedly briefed Bush on terrorist threats.
Watch this video from National Geographic Channel, broadcast Aug. 28, 2011.
Believing that the upcoming 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 is best memorialized in crayon, Really Big Coloring Books, Inc. is publishing a new coloring book entitled “We Shall Never Forget 9/11: The Kids’ Book of Freedom.” In offering kids the option of coloring the Twin Towers burning, mourning survivors, or the Navy SEALs shooting Osama Bin Laden, publisher Wayne Bell insists that “the doodles represent patriotism,” a “simplistic, honest tool” to “help educate children on events on 9/11.” But many Muslims describe it as, in a word, “disgusting.”
Pointing out that Muslims are already dealing with an environment of increasing Islamophobia, Michigan Council on American Islamic Relations representative Dawud Walid noted that “nearly all of the mentions of Muslims in the book are accompanied by the words ‘terrorist’ or ‘extremist.’” Indeed, the page depicting a Navy SEAL aiming at bin Laden cowering behind is veiled wife reads “Children, the truth is, these terrorist acts were done by freedom-hating Islamic Muslim extremists. These crazy people hate the American way of life because we are FREE and our society is FREE.” Bell’s response? “The truth is the truth“:
“Little kids who pick up this book can have their perceptions colored by those images … it instills bias in young minds,” said Walid. He says that some of the narrative and photos aren’t even correct, noting that Bin Laden wasn’t hiding behind a wife when he was shot.
Bell stood by the book as an “honest depiction”.
“The truth is the truth,” Bell said, adding, “It’s unfortunate that they were all Muslim and that’s the part people want to erase … I don’t know what else you can call them.”
Noting that one page depicts a woman mourning with a cross chain dangling from her neck, Walid says “Muslims mothers lost sons too.” He also noted that he’s not an advocate of showing children violent images — a sentiment that many military families share. Shariah Gibbs, a military spouse in Germany, said “This should not be a coloring book.” Another said, “I would not buy a coloring book [about 9/11]…To me, coloring books should be fun….this is not!”
It is important to note that Bell has published other coloring books on topics “from dinosaurs and zoo animals to African-American leaders, President Obama, superheroes of the Bible and even the Tea Party.” He even said that, if asked to print a book reflecting positive images of Muslim Americans, “I’d print it tomorrow.” To which Walid said, “Well, I’m asking him to do it right now.”
Bill Nye “The Science Guy” found himself in the tough position Monday of explaining science to Fox Business guest host Charles Payne.
Payne began the Freedom Watch segment by pressing Nye to prove that Hurricane Irene was caused by global warming.
“I don’t think the word proof is what you are looking for,” Nye told Payne. “Evidence or result of? Yeah.”
“Here’s the thing though, Bill,” Payne said. “Ever since Katrina, we heard that the hurricane season is going to be more devastating and it was apocalyptic and the end of the world. And the reality is we haven’t seen that. So, how can Newsweek say this is a new normal? Is this irresponsible or is there any science behind that?”
“Well, there’s a lot more science behind it than saying it’s not,” Nye flatly stated. “But that aside, that’s only six years. In geologic times or in terms of climate events, that’s not very long.”
“The world is getting warmer, everybody. The world is getting warmer… Do we not agree the world is getting warmer?”
“I have no idea,” Payne admitted. “Someone told me it’s one degree in the last hundred years and I’ll take their word for it.”
The Fox Business host then changed the subject to Al Gore’s suggestion that climate change deniers need to be confronted just as racists were confronted during the civil rights movement.
“[Gore is] very passionate about it,” Nye explained. “As the world has become smaller — this is to say that as communication has become better and better, and we get to know each other better, we all travel all over the world. It’s routine to get on a plane and go to Asia and come back. As we get to know each other, we realize we are all one species; we are all the same human. But in tribal times, the importance of your tribe was so great that you were afraid of other tribes.”
“If someone from New England has sex with someone from Papua, New Guinea, you get a human. You don’t get anything else. So, racism is scientifically not especially compelling. If you learn the science of it, you let go of it. And when you learn the science of climate change, in my opinion, you will find it quite compelling and you will want to do something about it rather than pretend it doesn’t happen.”
“We brought you on because we knew you could connect the dots,” Payne interrupted. “Although the route you’ve taken is still confusing some of the viewers.”
Watch this video from Fox Business’ Freedom Watch, broadcast Aug. 29, 2011.
In the wake of Hurricane Irene, which caused billions of dollars in damages up and down the U.S.’s eastern seaboard, House Republicans are callously claiming that any aid to victims of the disaster needs to be offset by budget cuts elsewhere. The savings favored by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) would come from cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and first responders.
However, if House Republicans get their way, not only will recovering from the effects of Hurricane Irene be more difficult, but so will monitoring incoming hurricanes in general. As the Associated Press noted, the House Appropriations Committee has approved cuts to funding for “hurricane hunters” — military planes that fly into hurricanes in order to measure and track them:
Hurricane hunters – which are flying into Irene’s eye to feed forecasters vital information about the storm – could face big funding cuts under a budget proposal moving through the U.S. House.
Rep. Kathy Castor, a Democrat from Florida, wrote House Speaker John Boehner on Friday asking for a reversal of proposed cuts to the program under a bill that passed the Appropriations Committee. She said if the cuts go through, it would amount to a 40 percent drop in funding for hurricane hunter flights out of MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa. [...]
Hurricane hunter planes fly directly into the storm to measure wind speed, barometric pressure and other data that the National Hurricane Center then uses to formulate its forecasts.
The cuts passed by the Appropriations Committee would take funding for these flights downfrom $29 million to $17 million, despite the fact that the flights help save a substantial amount of money.
Due to data from the hurricane monitoring flights, forecasts are 30 percent more accurate. Since it costs $1 million per coastal mile for evacuation and preparation when a storm approaches, every mile that is not evacuated yields substantial savings for taxpayers. Estimates put the savings due to monitoring flights at $100-$150 million per storm, far outstripping the $29 million budget dedicated to the hurricane hunters.
“[The] hurricane hunter program is worth its weight in gold,” said Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL). “They have gotten such accuracy in prediction, not only the strength of a hurricane but exactly its track. You cut back on those kinds of expenses, and that is really cutting off your nose to spite your face.” “These are very significant cuts. It would be a harmful step backward, just when hurricane predictions are improving,” added Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL), who has pledged to propose an amendment restoring the cut funds when the GOP’s appropriations bill comes to the House floor.
showing selective concern for the number of white men killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan took his white man’s grievance road show to the Laura Ingraham program today, where he lambasted the Obama administration’s effort to hire more minorities to the civil service. He complained that, if anything, there are too many people of color in the federal bureaucracy as it is. Saying minorities are “inordinately overrepresented” in the civil service, Buchanan said there’s “affirmative action for women, for Hispanics, and for blacks, but none for white males.” The oppressed majority’s numbers “are diminishing, dramatically,” he warned. Listen here:
In fact, racial minorities and women are underrepresented in the federal civil service.
Freshman Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) has decided against holding public town halls during the August recess, instead choosing to hold community meetings at coffee shops throughout the district. The coffee meetings, however, have not been publicly listed on Herrera Beutler’s Congressional web site, nor has the schedule been made available for the press.
Herrera Beutler’s office claims five meetings have been held but that they aren’t listed publicly because “a coffee shop can only accommodate so many people.” But Herrera Beutler’s constituents are upset that she isn’t holding public town halls, The Columbian reports:
“I’d love to talk to her about the debt limit,” said Jan Watson, a high school teacher in Rochester. “I’d like to have her listen to people. In a town hall, when somebody asks a question and the person responds, you can get a real good fact check by the groans. That gives a real indication that your comment isn’t quite right or isn’t reflecting the community.”
Watson said she encourages her students to attend politicians’ town hall meetings so they can experience democracy up close.
“The real underlying reason this congressional district has not seen public meetings is that the congresswoman is aware enough of the real world to understand that Congress, in general, is not held in high esteem,” said Tom Shofner of Kalama in an email. “If we add to that her allegiance to the far right, … she just doesn’t feel at home any more in this area, I think.”
The only other meetings Herrera Beutler has held are telephone town halls, but constituents are not invited to call in to those. Instead, they receive a phone call on their home phones asking if they have a question. “If you are home and pick up the phone, you can participate,” Herrera Beutler’s spokesperson said. The representative, however, provides no notice for when the calls may come.
Herrera Beutler isn’t the only member of Congress to avoid town halls during recess, particularly as Republicans seek to avoid answering for the political brinksmanship that nearly caused the country’s default and led to a downgrade of America’s credit rating. Representatives have avoided scheduling events, only to relent under protest from constituents, while others have charged attendees to ask questions, banned recording devices, and put constituents who have asked questions before on a watch list.
Herrera Butler has only held two town halls since taking office in January, but her campaign assured The Columbian that more were coming. But as of the article’s publication, no future events have been scheduled.
Glenn Beck is promoting the organization of a far-right Israeli extremist who has ties to the late Rabbi Meir Kahane's terrorist Kach movement.
Yesterday, Beck held a pro-Israel event near the Temple Mount, which is sacred to Muslims, Christians, and Jews. It's the place where the first and second Jewish temples once existed and where the Islamic Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque now stand. Shortly before the event, Beckbroadcast a brief feature about the mount, which discussed plans by "religious Jews" to "build a Third Temple" there. Beck's broadcast promoted the work of an organization called the Temple Institute.
Watch:
NARRATOR: Plans are now underway to build a Third Temple. Groups like the Temple Institute in Jerusalem are preparing the necessary vessels and garments in accordance with Jewish Law. A new generation of Levite priest is being trained for Temple service. And a two million dollar menorah, covered in 95 pounds of gold, stands at the ready. Although Muslim holy sites currently dominate the Temple Mount, religious Jews agree the Temple will be rebuilt here. The only question is whether it will happen before the Messiah comes, or after.
What exactly is the Temple Institute? According to its website, the Institute "is dedicated to every aspect of the Biblical commandment to build the Holy Temple of G-d on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem. Our short-term goal is to rekindle the flame of the Holy Temple in the hearts of mankind through education. Our long-term goal is to do all in our limited power to bring about the building of the Holy Temple in our time."
The Jerusalem Postdescribes the Institute as "a once-marginal organization that has been gaining increasing prominence." According to a January 25, 2000, piece published in Ha'aretz, "most" of the Institute's members are "extreme right wing."
The founder and head of the Institute is Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, who, according to according to theJerusalem Report, "ran for Knesset on Meir Kahane's racist Kach party ticket in 1981, and has argued that Jewish law does not allow Christians or Muslims to live in the Land of Israel." Ariel was apparently quite close to Kahane. According to a 1990 Jerusalem Post article, Ariel "served as No.2 to Kahane in the early '80s" before Kach was banned from Israeli elections. Ariel was seen as a potential "spiritual successor" to Kahane.
In his book, The End of Days, historian Gershom Gorenberg explained that among the aims of the Kach party "was making sexual relations between a Jew and an Arab a capital crime" and that "the party's eventual goal was the expulsion of all Arabs from Israel and the occupied territories." According to Gorenberg, "Kahane's small group of aggressive followers splattered Jerusalem walls with posters demanding that Israel 'erase the mosques form the Temple Mount.' "
In 1983, Israeli police broke up an alleged plot by armed Kahanists and other extremists to forcibly seize the Temple Mount. According to Reuters, "Police said the group was inspired by Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, who [in 1982] was involved in nationalist resistance to the Israeli withdrawal from Sinai." According to a March 12, 1983, Washington Post article, some of the alleged conspirators were arrested at Ariel's home:
Jerusalem police, alerted in advance, last night broke up what they described as a well-organized attempt by orthodox and militantly nationalistic Jews to take over and establish a "settlement" on the Temple Mount, a site holy to both Jews and Moslems in Jerusalem's Old City.
[...]
Police officials said some of those arrested included followers of Rabbi Meir Kahane. ... Some of those arrested, including the soldiers, were armed with automatic weapons in preparation for the takeover attempt, police said.
[...]
About 10 Jewish youths were arrested initially, reportedly near the entrance to a blocked passageway through which they apparently hoped to tunnel to reach the Temple Mount. Most of the others were rounded up at the Old City home of Rabbi Israel Ariel, a Kahane ally who was the rabbi of Yamit, the last bitter holdout Jewish settlement in the Sinai, which was returned to Egypt last year under the terms of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.
Kahane, who is in New York, was quoted by Israeli radio as saying he had no advance knowledge of last night's move on the Temple Mount but that he "welcomed" it.
Kahane's followers have been coming into growing conflict with Israeli authorities because of their increasingly militant tactics toward the Palestinians. Several of them were recently detained by police in connection with instances of shooting at Arabs in the Hebron area.
Ariel has nonetheless sought to distance himself and the Temple Institute from those who seek to use terrorism to destroy the mosques in order to rebuild the Jewish Temple. ''We don't want to blow up the mosque,'' he told The New York Times in 1989. ''Our intention is to do everything that we can within the law. We'll prepare whatever we can so that we can eventually worship there again.''
But operating "within the law" has never been a priority for the Kahanist movement. As described by the Anti-Defamation League:
The Kahane Movement consists of several extremist Jewish groups who follow the Jewish nationalist ideology of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane. In Israel, they include: the Kach Party, Kahane Chai, the National Jewish Front and G'dud Haivri (The Jewish Legion); in the United States: the Jewish Defense League, and the Jewish Defense Organization. These organizations advocate militant Jewish nationalism as a means to protect the Jewish people. In its 35 year history, Kahane's supporters have demonstrated a pattern of xenophobia, anti-Arab bigotry and violence in the U.S. and Israel.
Since its inception in 1969, members of the Jewish Defense League and related Kahanist organizations allegedly carried out a relentless campaign of violence, culminating in JDL-member Baruch Goldstein's 1994 massacre of 29 Muslims in Hebron. In 1997, the U.S. State Department officially designated Kach and Kahane Chai as "foreign terrorist organizations." The State Department noted that both groups "were declared to be terrorist organizations in March 1994 by the Israeli Cabinet under the 1948 Terrorism Law. This followed the groups' statements in support of Dr. Baruch Goldstein's attack in February 1994 on the al-Ibrahimi Mosque -- Goldstein was affiliated with Kach -- and their verbal attacks on the Israeli Government."
A 1995 ADL report describes the campaign of violence and racism in Israel and the Palestinian territories during the 1980s linked to Kahanists and Kach, including attempts to bomb the Al Aqsa Mosque. In 1982, "a follower of Kahane's Kach Movement in Israel, Alan Harry Goodman, entered the Al-Agsa Mosque ... and shot Muslim worshipers there, killing one and wounding many others. Kahane described the shooting as 'courageous' and stated that the Kach would pay Goodman's legal fees."
As explained by the ADL, Kach's support for racism and its association with violent activities led to it being banned from Israeli elections:
A year after Kahane's election to a Knesset seat in 1984, the Kach Party was officially banned by the Knesset for "inciting racism and endangering security." Kach was banned from participating in the 1988 Knesset elections, and subsequently in the 1992 elections as well. Kahane's proponence of anti-miscegenation laws which would bar sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews in Israel was but one element of his political program. Violence against Arabs and Jews with whom he disagreed was another. During his tenure in the Knesset, Kahane used his position as a bully pulpit to advocate his views, vowing that he would 'drive this country crazy' and constantly advocated the expulsion of all Arabs from Israel.
None of this apparently persuaded Ariel to cut ties with Kahane. In 2010, Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported that Ariel appeared with other Kach supporters to commemorate Kahane's assassination. Ariel pledged to "destroy" an "Ismael state" if one were established:
Hundreds of Land of Israel Movement activists and supporters of the radical movement Kach held a memorial service on Tuesday to mark 20 years since Rabbi Meir Kahane's assassination.
Kach activist Haim Pearlman, currently under house arrest after his suspected killing of four Arabs in the 1990s, was also among the participants. The wife of the 'Jewish terrorist,' Keren Pearlman, told Ynet: "Today everybody knows that 'Kahane' is not a dirty word."
The assembly was held at the Ramada Renaissance Hotel in Jerusalem, where shirts, books and other items were sold to the crowd. Speeches of the late Kahane were screened as well, while protestors went wild, clapping every time he said "Arabs out."
The founder of the Temple Institute, Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, said during the assembly: "Leaders who have ruined our country always tell us that no one can teach them how to love Israel. But this love they are referring to makes them establish an Ishmael state in Israel. If, G-d forbid, an Ishmael state will be built, we will destroy it." The crowd kept cheering him on enthusiastically.
Fellow liberals — listen up. President Obama and the Democratic Party are looking great going into 2012. Don’t let the media or our opponents on both the right and the faux left discourage you, that is their goal. The media wants every election to be close, it increases their ratings and we all know that is the only thing they care about anymore. Journalism, shmournalism! And of course the Teapublicans aren’t even living in the same reality as the rest of the country, they are running around chasingphantom problems that don’t really exist and holding prayer rallies.
As I always remind myself heading into an election year, 95% or more of the American people don’t pay a damn bit of attention to what is happening in politics until the conventions and debates start up. Sure, the hard core party folks are engaged in the primaries, but we knowhow many people actually vote in the primaries. The real fun doesn’t start until next summer, when people will begin to pay attention. Most everything that happens until then, will never even be seen or heard by that 95% of people who are going to work, playing softball, going to the beach, camping, going for bike rides and just hanging around the porch talking about bullshit. More of these people are aware of what Snookie did in Italy than anything that is happening in Washington.
So I say to you fellow liberals, don’t get bogged down in the heat of the moment. Don’t let current perceptions and media generated memes get you down or affect your motivation. We have an ace in the hole, President Barack Obama. Anyone who doubts his political abilities is fucking stupid, if you ask me. And when you consider all the stupid shit the Teapublican’s have done over the last 2 and 1/2 years that will be used as ammunition against them — once the campaigns get rolling in earnest, it’s going to be fun as hell to watch. The President has given us a taste of it in the last few weeks, but wait until he gets going.
When people try to get you to play the negative meme game or the “woe is me, I didn’t get my pony game” — be polite, cite some facts, some accomplishments, but mostly stay positive and remember that if the pundits were right, President George H.W. Bush would have served a second term.
As most of the East Coast hunkers down to wait for Hurricane Irene, radio host Glenn Beck wants them to see the storm as a blessing.
“Warning! Warning! We are headed for global disruption in food,” Beck proclaimed on Friday. “I asked you two weeks ago, how many warnings do you think you’re going to get, and how many warnings do you deserve? … This hurricane’s that is coming through [is a warning] … for anyone who’s in the East Coast and has been listening to me say, ‘Food storage! Be prepared!’”
As Mediaite explains, “Beck has been talking up the need to stockpile supplies due to what he sees as a coming ‘global disruption in food.’”
Last October, however, Business Insidercommented on the commercial relationship which appears to be behind Beck’s crusade for food preparedness. “You may have heard about Beck’s relationship with Goldline International, which urges people to buy gold and stay safe from the supposed inevitable devaluing of the dollar,” the website noted. “Now meet Food Insurance, which sells survival kits of freeze-dried food and other items to help people live from two weeks to 12 months, depending on the plan purchased (and post-apocalyptic conditions). Beck has promoted the company’s products, is featured prominently on the company’s website, and a banner ad for the company, bearing Beck’s image, was spotted on his website Monday.”
Beck is no longer with Fox News, but his passion for food preparedness appears to be as strong as ever. “You’ve heard me say this for years. People have made fun of me,” he concluded on Friday. “If you’ve waited, this hurricane is a blessing. It is God reminding you — as was the earthquake last week — it’s God reminding you, you’re not in control. Things can happen. Be prepared!”
This audio clip from the Glenn Beck Program was posted by Mediaite on August 26, 2011.
The litany of Republican politicians willingly tethered to thedemands and direction of anti-tax activist Grover Norquist is no longer sitting well with Americans whooverwhelmingly support raising taxes on the wealthy to address the deficit. GOP freshman Rep. Chris Gibson (NY) faced a crowd of his constituents at a town hall in Millerton, New York Tuesday who demanded to know why he signed Norquist’s pledge barring any and all tax increases without consulting those he represents. “You didn’t sign this on my behalf. You didn’t ask me,” noted one constituent. “You didn’t ask me. We are your constituents, not Grover Norquist,” she added to resounding applause. Later quoting former GOP Sen. Alan Simpson who asked “Who is Grover Norquist the slave of,” the constituent asked Gibson, “By association, I would like to know who are you the slave of?” Watch it:
