Elephant Stampede -- A Message from Congressman Raul Grijaiva

Elephant Stampede

March 29, 2011

From Rep. Raúl Grijalva:

If you have ever seen a herd of elephants on the run, then you know what a destructive force they can be. They move fast, they are out of control, and they usually have no idea where they are headed.

This is exactly what is going on in Washington today. With our nation in crisis, the Republicans’ stampede away from their responsibilities as elected officials is trampling America’s working families. While watching out for their corporate buddies and ultra wealthy donors, the GOP is trying to repeal health care reform, leaving millions of people at the mercy of the insurance companies. And with unemployment nearing 10%, the GOP sees fit to cut back on jobless assistance.

As elected officials, we are tasked with ensuring that government represents all the people and works for all Americans. But the GOP and their No Jobs agenda are intent on doing all they can for their wealthy friends, and then shutting government down.

What is more important?

Creating jobs to get America moving forward or promoting wedge issues and cutting funds for public radio and women’s health services?

Ensuring millions of people have access to affordable healthcare or letting the insurance companies and Big Pharma run rampant and unregulated?

Preserving the natural beauty of the Grand Canyon or mining for uranium and polluting the crown jewel of our National Parks system?

A Rampaging Bull in a China Shop Can't Do Nearly as Much Damage as a Herd of Out-of-Control, Stampeding Elephants!

A Message from Congressman Anthony Weiner About the Republican Sharks

March 25, 2011 --

From Congressman Anthony Weiner:

Let me tell you something about these Republicans: the only way to deal with them is to stand up and face them head on.

Just look at the stunts they’ve tried to pull since taking the Speaker’s gavel: cutting off funding for teachers, ramming through a bill to defund NPR and repealing health care reform.

Now, they’re trying to let the same banksters and corporate criminals that got us into this economic mess off the hook by tearing away at Wall Street reform.

The Conservative Fear and Smear Campaign Against Obama's Health Reform Legislation -- A Galaxy of Lies

From Media Matters for America -- March 23, 2011:

"All Of Us Will Be Slaves" And Other Health Care Predictions That Haven't Come True

In the year leading up to and following the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the right-wing media engaged in a campaign to spread fear about what could happen if health care reform passed. One year after the health care reform was signed into law, Media Matters looks back at the most egregious attempts by the right-wing media to scare the American public into opposing the legislation.

Beck: "This Is The End Of Prosperity In America Forever ... The End Of America As You Know It." Telling his radio audience, "You must not allow this to pass," Glenn Beck stated in November 2009 that "they're going to get past that 60-vote barrier. And they'll get there by people like [Sen.] Joe Lieberman, who's a reasonable guy and has good intent. You'll get past it by people like that, who say, you know what? Look, we got to be reasonable; we have to have a debate. And then Harry Reid will go for the 51 count and he'll pass this thing. And it will be a nail in the coffin of America." Beck added: "You must -- must get on the phone in your districts. You must wake everybody up you know. This is the end of prosperity in America forever if this bill passes. This is the end of America as you know it." [Premiere Radio Networks, The Glenn Beck Program, 11/19/09]

Beck: "[T]he Fundamental Transformation Of America Is Complete." On his radio program, Glenn Beck said: "Not only are they doing health care, but they are doing education in this same bill. Education and health care." He added: "It is overwhelming the system. And I'm telling you, if this bill passes -- health care and education all in one bill -- if this passes, the fundamental transformation of America is complete. There's no going back from this point. It must not pass." [Premiere Radio Networks, The Glenn Beck Program, 3/15/10]

Moore: "This Is A Dark Day For America If We Pass This Bill." Discussing the market reaction to passing the health bill, The Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore said on Fox News: "I think personally -- I think that the markets have always thought for the last year and a half that eventually this day would come. And I think, by the way, this is a dark day for America if we pass this bill." [Fox News, America's News HQ, 3/21/10]

Beck: "The Health Care Bill Is Reparations. It's The Beginning Of Reparations." On the July 22 edition of his radio show, Beck claimed that "none of [Obama's] bills are about what he says they're about. The health care bill is reparations. It's the beginning of reparations...the medical schools will get more federal dollars if they have proven that they are putting minorities ahead." [Premiere Radio Networks, The Glenn Beck Program, 7/22/09]

DEMOCRACY WILL COLLAPSE AND BE REPLACED BY SOCIALISM

Quinn: "If They Pass Health Care ... That Is The End Of The Republic." On the January 5 edition of The War Room, host Jim Quinn said: "Ladies and gentlemen, you have to understand that we are at a critical and pivotal moment in the history of the United States. If they pass health care, government health care, that is the end of the republic. That is the final nail in the coffin of the individual free human being. Once they own your body, they own everything. Once they can withhold health care from you, because you're too old, because you're too sick, or maybe 'cause they just don't like you -- did you ever think about that?" [Clear Channel, The War Room with Quinn & Rose, 01/05/10]

Beck: If Health Care Passes, We Will Lose "The Democratic Party To The Socialists." On his March 19, 2010 Fox News program, Beck stated: "If this passes, I think it makes the election of people like Lindsey Graham, who are the compromise with big government, darn near impossible, because you can't tone this one down. You've got to pull this back by strong constitutionalists. Don't we -- if this passes, don't we lose, really, the Democratic Party to the socialists? And the Republican Party either has to be, you know, real federalists, real people that understand controlled power, or you are going to have a third party?" [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 3/19/10]

Hannity: "If We Get Nationalized Health Care, It's Over; This Is Socialism." In November 2009, Sean Hannity said, "When you look at the extreme czars, and you look at Barack Obama, and you look at the Barack Obama that portrayed himself one year ago as a very different candidate, you know, why -- I feel like I have been vindicated. I was excoriated for saying he is far more radical than people know. You know, what do you see about him? Do you think he is far -- do you think he's a socialist? Do you think he's -- because I think this is -- if we get nationalized health care, it's over. This is socialism, and that's a kind word." [Fox News, Hannity, 11/2/09]

THERE WILL BE REVOLUTION AND/OR INSURRECTION

Quinn: "You Are Going To See Insurrection. You're Going To See An Uprising." On January 13, 2009, Quinn predicted that "if they pass this thing, you are going to see insurrection. You're going to see an uprising. People are just not going to take this. I mean, your taxes are going to go through the roof. It's going to be a bloodbath when people find out how much this is going to cost and for the first four years, they're not going to get anything." [Clear Channel, The War Room with Quinn & Rose, 1/13/10]

Quinn: "The Response" To Passing Health Reform "Will Be Insurrection." On his February 16, 2010 show, Quinn said Democrats are "so close to an all-encompassing, all-controlling paradigm here by which the government literally owns your body" and that "if they have to die in the fight, they will die in the fight. This is about establishing from now on and forever a socialist state in America, ripping the Constitution to shreds which progressives have hated for over 100 years. This -- they're so close. They ain't giving it up." Quinn concluded: "The response to this, if they do it, will be insurrection." [Clear Channel, The War Room with Quinn & Rose,2/16/10]

Progressives/Democrats/The Government Will Control Your Life

Beck: President Obama Will Be Able To "Control Every Aspect Of Your Life." In March, 2010, Glenn Beck "warn[ed]" that if the bill "passes, the country is in real dire trouble." He went on to say: "The pieces that the president needs to control every aspect of your life, to fundamentally transform America, will be finished. He'll have them all," adding: "If health care does not pass, warning, those on the left are going to become violent." [Premiere Radio Networks, The Glenn Beck Program, 3/5/10]

Limbaugh: Democrats Will Regulate "Every Aspect Of Our Lives." Rush Limbaugh stated in November 2009: "People have been either unwilling to accept or unwilling to believe just how radically left the current Democrat Party is. There is nothing remotely Democratic about this bunch. There is no democracy going on here." He added: "They don't care what we think ... because they don't think we have the power to stop them. And when this passes, they will have even more power, regulating every aspect of our lives because they believe in their minds and hearts that we have no competence whatsoever to lead our own lives and make our own decisions." [Premiere Radio Networks, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 11/20/09]

Beck: "If You Can Be Deemed Someone Who Maybe Shouldn't Have A Baby, They Can Have Their People Come In." Beck said on the March 16, 2010 broadcast of his Fox News show: "You know and I know in this 2,300-page bill that includes education, the control that this government has is endless. They will -- if this passes, they will control every aspect of your life." Beck further said: "They will be able to -- there is places in here that if you can be deemed someone who maybe shouldn't have a baby, they can have their people come in. The government is in our homes on this." [Fox News, Glenn Beck, 3/16/10]

Quinn: Health Care Reform Is "All About Limiting Your Rights." On January 12, Quinn said about the health care reform bill:

[It is]all about limiting your rights, trust me. It's all about limiting your rights. Yep, wait until what you love starts to impact on their system. That's right. Wait until what you love, whether it's the Second Amendment, or whether it's riding a motorcycle, whether it's being a gay man and engaging in gay sex, which is demonstrably -- at least some of it is -- a rather unsanitary act in many cases, and it could impact on our health care system. Now, I can't imagine the health care system coming after a preferred group, at this point, like gays, but you know what? Sooner or later, when the money starts to run out, they are the government after all, and you're not. [Clear Channel, The War Room with Quinn & Rose, 01/12/10]

Limbaugh: "Obamacare" Will "Smother The Individual," Is "Aimed At Robbing You Of Your Humanity," And "All Of Us Will Be Slaves." In September, 2009, Limbaugh asserted that Democrats' goal in passing health care reform is "to smother the individual," and that it's "aimed at robbing you of your humanity and forcing you to bow down to the state. If you feel sick, you need a procedure, need a prescription, you're going to be thinking about the government." Limbaugh claimed that "you are going to be relying on government for your survival," and that people will "need permission from the government" to have treatment. He continued: "It's not going to be a matter of whether you can or cannot pay. It won't be a matter of whether you have coverage or don't have coverage. What'll matter is that all of us will be slaves; we'll become slaves to the arbitrary and inhumane decisions of distant bureaucrats working in Washington where there's no competition, nobody you can go to if you don't like what you hear from the bureaucrats that you have to deal with." [Premiere Radio Networks, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 9/30/09]

Limbaugh: Health Care Reform "Is The Entrée To Controlling Every Aspect Of Your Life." On the May 13, 2009 edition of his show, Limbaugh claimed "If they get national health care, it is the entree to controlling every aspect of your life, because they will be able to say and attach every behavior to some health malady or health risk." [Premiere Radio Networks, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 5/13/09]

Limbaugh: If Health Care Passes, "The Concept Of Individual Freedom And Liberty Will Have Been Obliterated." On the June 3, 2009 edition of his show, Limbaugh claimed:

Here's the real problem with nationalized health care, and I made a big point of this in my interview today with Sean Hannity, which was about 40 minutes. It's going to air two parts tonight and tomorrow on his Fox News Channel show at 9PM ET. If the Democrats get national health care, the concept of individual freedom and liberty will have been obliterated. [Premiere Radio Networks, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 6/03/09]

Limbaugh: The Legislation Allows The Government "To Have Access To Your Bank Account." On the August 27, 2009 edition of his show, Limbaugh said: "If this bill passes, I'm glad you asked the question. They're going to have access to your bank account... They're going to have digital online access to your bank account. I mean there are hideous things in this piece of legislation." [Premiere Radio Networks, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 8/27/09]

Hemmer: "Could People Be Going To Jail For Not Owning Health Insurance?" On March 19, Fox News host Bill Hemmer said: "The mandate would tell Americans you've got to buy health insurance, if not you could be fined, and I guess eventually that could lead to prison. I mean, this -- the way you understand it right now, could people be going to jail for not owning health insurance?" [Fox News, America's Newsroom, 3/19/10]

Progressives/Democrats/The Government Will Control All Your Health Decisions

Restating The President's Remarks As Though "He Were Telling The Truth," Limbaugh Asserted: Government Won't Take Over Health Care, It'll Just Control It Entirely. During a September 2009 broadcast, Limbaugh pretended to show how one of Obama's speeches on health reform "if he were telling the truth, would have gone." Limbaugh said:

We're only cutting over $500 billion from the already bankrupt program because there are other people, apart from our seniors, who need health care, too. Everyone has to sacrifice, particularly mom and dad, granddad, grandmom -- but they won't mind. That doesn't mean, of course, that we're going to ration care. We would never do that. We love our seniors. ... And what's all this talk about the government taking over health care? More fear-mongering by the special interests. No, what's going to happen is that we will oversee the insurance companies to make sure they don't cheat and rip you off. That's right. The same politicians and bureaucracy that stole trillions from the Social Security trust fund to pay for ever more spending -- and the same politicians and bureaucracy that stole trillions of dollars from the Medicare trust fund -- will use their carefully honed skills and experience to ensure that the private insurance companies treat you fairly. [Premiere Radio Networks, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 9/10/09]

Siegel: "Under ObamaCare, Guidelines Will Quickly Become Mandates." In a November 2009 New York Post column, Marc Siegel wrote that the new mammogram guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force mean that "under ObamaCare, guidelines will quickly become mandates, and patients will routinely face the choice of paying hundreds of dollars out of pocket or accept higher risks of cancer. It will take government bureaucrats years to admit mistakes, if they ever do -- and by that time thousands of women will have needlessly gotten sick or even died of cancer." He also stated that "All the major 'reform' bills create lots of new panels and other bureaucrats empowered to 'suggest' things doctors shouldn't do -- and even to penalize doctors who order 'too many' tests." [New York Post, 11/19/09]

You And/Or Your Grandmother Will Die

Palin Suggested That Under "Evil" Democratic Health Care Reform, "My Baby With Down Syndrome Will Have To Stand In Front Of Obama's 'Death Panel.' " On August 7, 2009, Fox News contributor Sarah Palin suggested that under health care reform, "my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel." From Palin's Facebook page:

The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

Health care by definition involves life and death decisions. Human rights and human dignity must be at the center of any health care discussion. [Sarah Palin Facebook post, 8/7/09]

Malkin: Health Care Reform "Puts A Discount On The Lives Of Elderly People." Discussing AARP's support for health care reform on the July 30, 2009 edition of Fox & Friends, Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin stated, "The AARP just held a tele-town hall supporting Obama on his health care takeover plans, and this is at odds, it seems to me, with the best interests of millions of AARP members, given that that health care plan puts a discount on the lives of elderly people and would result in the redistribution of health away from the elderly and the infirm to other special favored interests and patients." [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 7/30/09]

Limbaugh: Bill Will "Hasten" Granny's Death. After airing audio clips of Obama saying, "I don't think we're going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately" and "I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care plan," Limbaugh stated on the March 19, 2010 broadcast of his show: "Yet he's out there saying, 'Oh, these people are throwing every scare tactic in the world; it's a government takeover of health care; granny is gonna die.' It is a government takeover of health care and granny is gonna die. Granny always dies at some point -- we all do. It's gonna be hastened under this bill. And it is a government takeover. They're lying through their teeth." [Premiere Radio Networks, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 3/19/10]

Morris Said He Was "100 Percent Positive" Obama Will Create Panels To "Curb Medical Care To The Elderly." On the March 3, 2010 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, Fox News contributor Dick Morris said what Obama "has in mind is curbing medical care to the elderly," and that he's "going to set up a panel" to determine treatment. Morris said he's "100 percent positive" this will happen. [Fox News, The O'Reilly Factor, 3/03/10]

Cal Thomas: The Government Will Deny Care To "Granny" Because "She's Costing Too Much." On March 20, 2010, syndicated columnist Cal Thomas said on Fox News: "There has been more baloney sold in Washington today than is available at your local supermarket. The president says they're not going to pull the plug on granny. No, but they will deny her care because she's costing too much and she's too old." [Fox News, America's News HQ, 3/20/10]

Cal Thomas Claimed Health Reform "Is An Outrage" And "A Sham"; "Euthanasia Is Coming."On the November 21 edition of Fox News' America's News HQ, Thomas said the health bill is "a triumph of the humanistic, atheistic philosophy. Instead of being endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, those rights are going to be taken away by bureaucrats who will decide whether you get a hip replacement or a heart bypass, based on your age and your ability to pay more taxes." He continued:

It is an outrage. It is a sham. Euthanasia is coming. You can call them death panels. That's exactly what they're going to be. We are going to really be sorry for this, but, unfortunately, when the guy in the white robe comes to give us our little pill, as President Obama told ABC, the 100-year-old woman who wants to live must get in order to make it equal for everybody and not to spend so much, it will be too late. [Fox News, America's News HQ, 11/21/09]

Limbaugh: "Human Beings Will Die Earlier Than Normal" Under "Freedom Killing" And "Life Threatening" Health-Care Reform. On the November 9, 2009 broadcast of his show, Limbaugh said the "whole bill is about death" and "rationing." He continued: "It is the single greatest tool the government will have to regulate every aspect of behavior. This is a freedom killing, and it is going to end up being a life-threatening bill. Human beings will die earlier than normal, earlier than necessary because of this bill. There will be bureaucratic institutions, bureaucracies, which will make decisions on who gets treated and what kind of treatment they get, and who doesn't get treated." [Premiere Radio Networks, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 11/09/09]

Baker Warned That Health Reform Would Lead To Euthanasia For Overweight People. Guest-hosting The Glenn Beck Program, Chris Baker suggested on November 9, 2009 that health reform will lead to overweight people going to jail or being put to death: "Sir, you're overweight. What? Yes, sir, you are overweight, we're going to have to require you to lose weight. And if you don't lose weight on your own, we're going to send you to a fat camp and make you lose the weight. And if you still don't lose the weight, then you know, we're just going to have to ... put you in jail. And if you don't lose the weight in jail, sir, I don't know what else to do. Maybe some end-of-life counseling might be good. I mean, I remember a woman that got -- that was greased by Dr. Kevorkian because she was fat." [Premiere Radio Networks, The Glenn Beck Program, 11/09/09]

Limbaugh: When You Turn 65, "Hello Death Panels." In October 2009, Limbaugh told a caller that it's "not good" that she's 50 years old. According to Limbaugh:

[I]f they get it done -- it will not be implemented until 2013 so that Obama will not face a revolt in the 2012 elections. And then when it gets implemented in 2013, you'll still have your private insurance. It's going to take a number of years to force the insurance companies out of business and to force people onto the public option. They're not going to be able to wave a magic wand and have this done overnight, but it will happen. And let's say it happens -- well, Obama's target year, he said it might take 10 to 15 years to totally wipe out private insurance. Now, they're going to try to do it sooner than that, and they might succeed, but 10 to 15 years makes you 65, and 'Hello, death panels.' [Premiere Radio Networks, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 10/27/09]

Quinn: The Government Will Be Able To "Commit A Violent Assault On Your Body." Referring to the Obamas, Jim Quinn said in February, 2010 that "Bolshevik Barbie and our marginally documented president" want "the power to control your body and your life. That's what they want and that's what this is. And if the government can consult a chart that says, 'I'm sorry, you're a little bit too old and a little bit too sick and the protocol for what you've got now isn't approved by the government anyway because it's experimental or it's too expensive -- if you were a little younger, maybe. But we can't give you that, but we can give you a pain pill.' " Quinn added: "Giving the government that power is allowing the government to commit a violent assault on your body -- a violent assault on your most precious possession, which is your life." [Clear Channel, The War Room with Quinn & Rose, 2/26/10]

Boortz: "Obama's Health Care Plan Is Going To End Up Killing People." On the June 17, 2009 edition of his radio show, Neal Boortz claimed "Obama's health care plan is going to end up killing people...especially among the ranks of the elderly, there's going to be people who die." [Cox Radio Syndication, The Neal Boortz Show, 6/17/09]

Hannity: A Government Rationing Body Will "Tell Women With Breast Cancer, 'You're Dead.'" On the June 19, 2009 edition of his Fox News show, Sean Hannity claimed "we're going to have a government rationing body that tells women with breast cancer 'you're dead,' it's a death sentence." [Fox News, Hannity, 6/19/09]

Johnson Jr: Health Care Reform Is "The Government Deciding Who Will Live, Who Will Die." On the June 25, 2009 edition of Fox & Friends, guest host Peter Johnson Jr. claimed a line from a health care town hall by Obama referencing evidence based treatments "was the most disturbing quote of the night. President as social engineer, president as bioethicist, the government deciding who will live, who will die. You're too old, you're too young...Is that what this plan is about? To save money by killing old people?" [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 6/25/09]

Johnson Jr. Claimed Health Care Reform "A Subtle Form Of Euthanasia." Fox News legal analyst Peter Johnson Jr. said on the July 27, 2009 edition of Fox & Friends: "Some people are saying, well, this is a health care reform; other people are saying -- maybe me -- that this is a subtle form of euthanasia. And when you start looking at the proposals, you say, 'God, what's happening?' One of the proposals, Section 1233, talks about advanced care planning consultations. And that's a fancy term where a doctor goes to you every five years once you're 65 -- or more if you're chronically ill -- and explains to you the benefits of so-called palliative care, of not giving active treatment." Johnson later added, "The hospital room becomes the waiting room -- you know, do not go gently into that good night." [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 7/27/09]

The American Health Care System Will Be Destroyed

Fox Cites IBD Poll To Claim "Hundreds Of Thousands" Of Doctors "Would Think About Shutting Down" If Health Care Passed. In September, 2009, Several Fox News figures, including Neil Cavuto, Bret Baier, Morris, O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Steve Doocy highlighted an Investor's Business Daily/TIPP poll which found that "[t]wo of every three practicing physicians oppose the medical overhaul plan under consideration in Washington, and hundreds of thousands would think about shutting down their practices or retiring early if it were adopted." However, according to statistician Nate Silver, the poll was "simply not credible," and Fox News itself acknowledged that the poll was "not scientific." [Fox News, 9/17/09]

Limbaugh: Senate Health Bill Will Lead To "250 Million Uninsured." On his March 8, 2010 radio show, Limbaugh claimed Democrats' "plan" in passing reform is to institute a "single-payer" system and that "there is no public option in this, but that's how they're going to get there." Limbaugh also predicted that the health bill would "just destroy private insurance as an option" and "lead very quickly to government-only insurance." Limbaugh continued: "Only idiots would have health insurance under this deal, only blooming idiots. There is literally no reason to have health insurance -- none. ... They say there's 30 million uninsured now, try 250 million uninsured, and every one of them paying a fine to the government for not having insurance." [Premiere Radio Networks, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 3/08/10]

Limbaugh: "Health Treatment Will Get Worse" Because Health Care Reform Is Really About "Rais[ing] Taxes At Every Turn In Your Life." On the May 13, 2009, edition of his show, Limbaugh claimed health care reform is "not going to be about providing health coverage because if it were, they wouldn't do this. Health coverage is going to become less and health treatment is going to get worse. What this is about is being able to raise taxes at every turn in your life, at every step of your life." [Premiere Radio Networks, The Rush Limbaugh Show, 5/13/09]

Kilmeade: Reform Will "Devastate" Health Care Research And Innovation. On the August 13 edition of his radio show, Brian Kilmeade responded to a caller asking about the effect of the bill on "medical research and stem cell research." Kilmeade claimed it was a "great question and we know the answer. The answer is devastate it. It will take the entrepreneurship and the industrialness [sic] out, and the creativity out of the biotech business." [Fox Radio Network, Brian and the Judge, 8/13/09]

Don't Let Republicans Destroy America

From Senator Harry Reid -- March 24, 2011:

We should be trying to put Americans back to work, not trying to put public radio out of business.

Attacking labor unions….waging war on women’s rights…defunding NPR....repealing health care reform. The anti-worker, anti-woman, anti-Obama Republican agenda just proves that their priorities are seriously out of whack. How is any of this supposed to create jobs?

Senate Democrats are fighting back each and every day. Republicans are trying to force through their extreme agenda faster than you can say “Koch brothers.”

I’m not satisfied with playing defense. Democrats are ready to move this country forward by investing in our future –- rebuilding our infrastructure, improving our schools, and focusing on innovations that will create not just jobs, but entire industries.

And a year after President Obama signed health care reform, we’re unwilling to let Republicans put health insurance companies back between you and your doctor.

Latest Poll: Obama Will Trounce Any Republican Opponent in 2012

From The Washington Post -- March 23, 2012:

2012: Obama runs ahead in generic Pew poll

By Peyton M. Craighill

President Barack Obama runs ahead of an unnamed Republican opponent by 47 to 37 percent among registered voters in a new poll from the Pew Research Center. The poll also finds former governors Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee as the most likely candidates to fill that Republican slot.

Before rolling out the data too far, a few caveats. The election is more than a year and a half away. And without a named opponent in a horserace question, the true electoral choice is obscured -- hence a large 16 percent report being undecided.

But some clues emerge. Obama’s advantage is similar to former president George W. Bush’s and better than former president Bill Clinton’s at comparable times in their presidency. In April 2003, Bush ran ahead of a generic Democrat by 48 to 35 percent. In March 1995 Clinton was in a more tenuous position at 29 percent to 33 percent for a generic Republican, with 20 percent preferring an independent candidate.

The Latest Un-American Republican Scandal in Wisconsin

From Daily Kos -- March 23, 2011:

Wisconsin Republicans say the state is too broke to pay for teachers, but they just gave the 26-year-old mistress of a union-busting Republican Senator a state job with a fat raise. It's a classic Republican scandal filled with hypocrisy, cronyism, and their special version of "family values."

Here's the story: Last year, Wisconsin Republican state Senator Randy Hopper left his wife to live with a young Republican political operative. Last month, as Governor Scott Walker unveiled legislation calling for deep cuts in state workers' salaries and collective bargaining rights, Hopper's mistress was hired by the state on the advice of Scott Walker's cabinet as a "communications liaison." Further, her salary is 35% higher than her predecessor's.

Randy Hopper is one of the most vulnerable Republicans facing recall. He is a freshman, and only won his seat by 163 votes. A poll conducted by Daily Kos and PPP shows Hopper losing to a generic Democrat 49%-44%.

Nancy Pelosi Comes to the Point

From Nancy Pelosi -- March 21, 2011:

Do you know what House Republicans have done to create jobs since claiming the Majority three months ago? Nothing!

However, they’ve found time for votes to restrict access to reproductive health care, take teachers out of our classrooms, nurses out of our hospitals, and even to defund NPR. All told, Republican cuts would destroy 700,000 jobs.

A Message to America from Governor Howard Dean

From Governor Howard Dean -- March 19, 2011:

Last December, when President Obama made a deal with Republicans to continue the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, I said there was no shared pain in the agreement. I called it the easy way out for everybody. And I emphasized it's not fiscally responsible in addressing the deficit, the biggest long-term threat to America.

Now, Republicans are pushing for well over $50 billion in cuts to the budget, which would result in the loss of 700,000 jobs nationwide according to leading economists. They won't even consider cutting the $53 billion the Republicans have used to subsidize the oil industry or eliminating projects out of the defense budget that even the Pentagon says it doesn't need and doesn't want. Instead, they want cuts on everything from local law enforcement to community health centers, from food assistance to low-income women, infants, and children to rural development investment. And of course, they made it clear over and over again, that cutting Social Security benefits must be on the table.

Republicans have gone from being fiscally irresponsible to morally reprehensible in only a few short months. Their goal appears to be the death of civil society by 1,000 cuts.

It's time for Democrats to stand up and hold their ground. Republicans in Congress can't balance the budget on the backs of the poor and middle class -- there must be shared sacrifice.

This approach to shared sacrifice is backed up by the support of the American people. A recent Washington Post poll shows the vast majority of Americans believe the best way to reduce the deficit is through a combination of spending cuts and increased taxes on America's most wealthy.

But it's not about polling. It's about responsibility. If there is one thing we've learned from years of Republican misleadership, it's that you just can't trust Republicans with your money.

Republicans don't know how to balance budgets. They never have. I've balanced budgets. I did it as Governor for 12 straight years. I'm not the only Democrat with a strong fiscal record. Republicans like to forget that the last President to balance the budget and create a surplus was Democrat Bill Clinton.

Democrats can get the job done as long as we stand up for what we believe and never back down.

Republicans Are Creating a 2011 Recession for Political Gain By Passing Massive Spending Cuts Which Suck Jobs Out of an Already Weak Job Market

From The Washington Post -- march 17, 2011:

Are Republicans winning or losing on the continuing resolution?

By Ezra Klein

“Republicans claimed a huge mandate, over-reached and will now have to scale back their ambitions,” writes Brian Beutler. “Viewed in isolation, it looks like a huge cave. But viewed over a span of months, they achieved much larger policy gains than a party in their position should, and Democrats have themselves to blame for that.”

This roller coaster has a few loops and twists left before Republicans seriously scale back their ambitions, and I think one of them might be a government shutdown. Nevertheless, Brian is right to say that Republicans are likely to get a lot more in the way of spending cuts than anyone — including the Republican leadership — initially expected. The eventual narrative might suggest they buckled, but the numbers will say otherwise. They’re ultimately going to secure huge and unwise spending cuts this year, even if the cuts aren’t quite as huge and quite as unwise as they’d hoped.

On issues where a productive outcome is necessary and desired by both sides — spending bills backed by the threat of government shutdown, the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, the debt limit — that metaphor makes more sense. In the case of the 2011 continuing resolution, Republicans entered with a maximalist position ($100 billion in cuts) and Democrats entered with a compromise position (some undefined number of cuts). The outcome of this, if I had to guess now, is that Republicans will lose on the politics — polls show them slipping quickly — and win on the policy. And if I were a congressional Republican, that’s exactly what I’d do, too. Plus, you have to ask what it really means to lose some support in March 2011: Because elections are ultimately decided on the state of the economy and these spending cuts are going to suck jobs out of an already weak labor market, Republicans are probably making their jobs easier in 2012, even if that’s not how they’re thinking about it.

The Right-Wing Is Trying to Destroy America's Children

From Media Matters for America -- March 16, 2011:

Right Wing Gins Up Hysteria Over Obama's Initiative To Curb Bullying

Right-wing media figures are demagoguing an Obama Administration initiative to combat bullying and harassment, likening it to "big brother" and "Facebook stalking" of students. In fact, the initiative is an effort to assist schools and parents in preventing and dealing with bullying and harassment, which is estimated to affect as many as 13 million students each year.
Media Conservatives Freak Out, Stoke Fears Of "Big Brother" To Vilify Anti-Bullying Initiative

The Daily Caller: "Fed Instructs Teachers To Facebook Creep Students." The Daily Caller reported on an Obama Administration initiative to combat bullying and harassment in schools, which was laid out in a letter from the Department of Education. From the article, headlined "Fed instructs teachers to Facebook creep students":

Education Department officials are threatening school principals with lawsuits if they fail to monitor and curb students' lunchtime chat and evening Facebook time for expressing ideas and words that are deemed by Washington special-interest groups to be harassment of some students.

There has only been muted opposition to this far-reaching policy among the professionals and advocates in the education sector, most of whom are heavily reliant on funding and support from top-level education officials. The normally government-averse tech-sector is also playing along, and on Mar. 11, Facebook declared that it was "thrilled" to work with White House officials to foster government oversight of teens' online activities.

The only formal opposition has come from the National School Board Association, which declined to be interviewed by The DC.

The agency's threats, which are delivered in a so-called "Dear Colleague" letter," have the support of White House officials, including President Barack Obama, who held a Mar. 10 White House meeting to promote the initiative as a federal "anti-bullying" policy.

The department's re-interpretation expands legal risks for schools beyond those set by the Supreme Court in a 1999 decision, said a Dec. 7 NSBA statement. The court decision, which interprets several federal laws, says schools are liable for harassment that school officials know about and that "effectively bars" a student's access to an educational benefit.

Following the discovery of "harassment," officials may have to require mandatory training of students and their families, according to the Ali letter. "The school may need to provide training or other interventions not only for the perpetrators, but also for the larger school community, to ensure that all students, their families, and school staff can recognize harassment if it recurs and know how to respond... [and] provide additional services to the student who was harassed in order to address the effects of the harassment," said the letter.

Facebook is developing new features that will make it harder for principals to miss episodes of online "harassment," and so will increase the likelihood of government action against the teenage users of Facebook and other social-media. "We're adding a unique feature, developed with safety experts, that lets people also report content to someone in their support system (like a parent or teacher) who may be able to address the issue more directly,' Facebook declared Mar. 11. "It is our hope that features like this will help not only remove the offensive content but also help people get to the root of the problem," the company statement declared.

The remedies being pushed by administration officials will also violate students' and families' privacy rights, disregard student's constitutional free-speech rights, spur expensive lawsuits against cash-strapped schools, and constrict school official' ability to flexibly use their own anti-bullying policies to manage routine and unique issues, said the NSBA letter. [Daily Caller, 3/16/11]

Beck Responds To Anti-Bullying Initiative: "Get Off My Land." On his radio show, Glenn Beck said:

The DOE is also saying that when the Principal reports it, then the bureaucrats will decide whether or not the student, the student and the parents, or the community need to go through some sort of class so the harassment or the sexual harassment or the racist comments can stop.

Let me tell you something - you monitor and you have a principal come to my child and say, "We saw what you wrote on the internet at 8:52 from your bedroom last night, don't you dare come to my kids, you come to me, and I will deal with it. Don't you dare come to my children when they are not in school and tell them jack. Don't you dare come to me and tell me I need some sort of sensitivity training because my kid did something, and may I just point out where my property line is. If you dare try to come to my house and tell me that I have to go to a sensitivity training class because someone else's kid wrote something else in their off time on Facebook that now the White House is monitoring, get off my land. Never. Never. Can you imagine? [Premiere Radio Networks, The Glenn Beck Program, 3/16/11]

The Blaze: "Big Brother? Feds Order Schools to Monitor Kids Facebook Posts & Lunchtime Chatter." Glenn Beck's website, The Blaze, blasted the story with the following headline:]

America Live: Principals Will Be "Forced" To Monitor Students' Facebook Accounts.

But The Department Of Education Is Just Assisting Schools And Parents In Preventing And Dealing With Bullying And Harassment

FACT: Bullying Affects As Many 13 Million Students Every Year. From a March 10 White House Press Release:

Every day, thousands of children, teens, and young adults around the country are bullied. Estimates are that nearly one-third of all school-aged children are bullied each year - upwards of 13 million students. Students involved in bullying are more likely to have challenges in school, to abuse drugs and alcohol, and to have health and mental health issues. If we fail to address bullying we put ourselves at a disadvantage for increasing academic achievement and making sure all of our students are college and career ready. [WhiteHouse.gov, 3/10/11]

FACT: The DOE's Letter Simply Lays Out Possible "Prompt And Effective Steps Reasonably Calculated To End Harassment" After It Has Already Occurred. From the DOE's Office for Civil Rights Dear Colleague letter on October 26, 2010:

When responding to harassment, a school must take immediate and appropriate action to investigate or otherwise determine what occurred. The specific steps in a school's investigation will vary depending upon nature of the allegations, the source of the complaint, the age of the student or students involved, the size and administrative structure of the school, and other factors. In all cases, however, the inquiry should be prompt, thorough, and impartial.

If an investigation reveals discriminatory harassment has occurred, a school must take prompt and effective steps reasonably calculated to end the harassment, eliminate any hostile environment and its effects, and prevent the harassment from recurring. These duties are a school's responsibility even if the misconduct also is covered by an anti-bullying policy, and regardless of whether a student has complained, asked the school to take action, or identified the harassment as a form of discrimination.

Appropriate steps to end harassment may include separating the accused harasser and the target, providing counseling for the target and/or harasser, or taking disciplinary action against the harasser. These steps should not penalize the student who was harassed. For example, any separation of the target from an alleged harasser should be designed to minimize the burden on the target's educational program (e.g., not requiring the target to change his or her class schedule).

In addition, depending on the extent of the harassment, the school may need to provide training or other interventions not only for the perpetrators, but also for the larger school community, to ensure that all students, their families, and school staff can recognize harassment if it recurs and know how to respond. A school also may be required to provide additional services to the student who was harassed in odrer to address the effects of the harassment, particularly if the school initially delays in responding or responds inappropriately or inadequately to information about harassment. An effective response also may need to include the issuance of new polices against harassment and new procedures by which students, parents, and employees may report allegations of harassment (or wide dissemination of existing policies and procedures), as well as wide distribution of the contact information for the district's Title IX and Section 504/Title II coordinators. [DOE Office for Civil Rights Dear Colleague Letter, 10/26/10]

FACT: Facebook Is Simply Enabling Users To Report "Harassing Online Comments" To Facebook And To "Easily Ask For Help From Someone They Trust." In a March 10th statement, Facebook announced "a new way of reporting content on Facebook that allows people to notify a member of their community, in addition to Facebook, when they see something they don't like." The statement continued:

We encourage people on Facebook to use the report buttons located across our site to let us know if they find content that violates our terms of use so we can take it down. But taking down harassing online comments won't necessarily help people solve the underlying problem in the offline world. Social reporting is a way for people to quickly and easily ask for help from someone they trust. Safety and child psychology experts tell us that online issues are frequently a reflection of what is happening offline. By encouraging people to seek help from friends, we hope that many of these situations can be resolved face to face.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his Family Profit frim Supreme Court Decisions which Destroy America

Dear Justice Thomas:

As an Associate Justice, you are entrusted with the responsibility to exercise the highest degree of discretion and impartiality when deciding a case. As Members of Congress, we were surprised by recent revelations of your financial ties to leading organizations dedicated to lobbying against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We write today to respectfully ask that you maintain the integrity of this court and recuse yourself from any deliberations on the constitutionality of this act.

The appearance of a conflict of interest merits recusal under federal law. From what we have already seen, the line between your impartiality and you and your wife's financial stake in the overturn of health care reform is blurred. Your spouse is advertising herself as a lobbyist who has "experience and connections and appeals to clients who want a particular decision -- they want to overturn health care reform. Moreover, your failure to disclose Ginny Thomas's receipt of $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, a prominent opponent of health care reform, between 2003 and 2007 has raised great concern.

This is not the first case where your impartiality was in question. As Common Cause points out, you participated in secretive political strategy sessions, perhaps while the case was pending, with corporate leaders whose political aims were advanced by the [5-4] decision on the Citizens United case. Your spouse also received an undisclosed salary paid for by undisclosed donors as CEO of Liberty Central, a 501(c)(4) organization that stood to benefit from the decision and played an active role in the 2010 elections.

Given these facts, there is a strong conflict between the Thomas household's financial gain through your spouse's activities and your role as a Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. We urge you to recuse yourself from this case. If the U.S. Supreme Court's decision is to be viewed as legitimate by the American people, this is the only correct path.

We appreciate your thoughtful consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

ANTHONY D. WEINER
Member of Congress

Conservative Videographer James O'Keefe III Turns Lying and Distorting into an Art Form

From NPR On-Line --- March 14, 2011

Elements Of NPR Gotcha Video Taken Out Of Context

By DAVID FOLKENFLIK

Footage posted online last week by conservative activist James O'Keefe III captured NPR's chief fundraising official, Ron Schiller, disparaging conservatives and the Tea Party and saying NPR would be better off without federal funding.

Fueled in part by the attention given the video by the conservative Daily Caller website, an 11 1/2-minute version of O'Keefe's hidden camera video ricocheted around the blogosphere Tuesday.

It mortified NPR, which swiftly repudiated Schiller's remarks and in short order triggered his ouster along with that of his boss, NPR CEO Vivian Schiller, who is no relation to Ron Schiller.

A closer review of those tapes, however, shows that many of Ron Schiller's most provocative remarks were presented in a misleading way.

'There Are Two Ways To Lie'

O'Keefe's tapes show Ron Schiller and his deputy, Betsy Liley, at an upscale cafe in Georgetown for lunch in February. They meet with two men posing as officials with an Islamic trust. The men are actually O'Keefe's associates — citizen journalists, he calls them.

O'Keefe also posted a two-hour tape that he said was the "largely raw" audio and video from the incident so people can judge the credibility of his work.

The Blaze — a conservative news aggregation site set up by Fox News host Glenn Beck — first took a look late last week and found that O'Keefe had edited much of the shorter video in deceiving ways.

"There was certainly a lot there for conservatives and people of faith and Tea Party activists to be bothered about — but we felt like that wasn't the whole story," said Scott Baker, editor in chief of The Blaze. "There were a lot of other things said that may have been complimentary to conservatives and to people of faith and Tea Party activists in the same conversations."

Broadcast journalist Al Tompkins said he was initially outraged by what he heard in that first, shorter video by O'Keefe. Tompkins now teaches ethics at the Poynter Institute, a journalism school in St. Petersburg, Fla.

"What I saw was an executive at NPR expressing overtly political opinions that I was really uncomfortable with," Tompkins said. "Particularly the way the video was edited, it just seemed he was spouting off about practically everything."

But Tompkins said his mind was changed by watching that two-hour version.

"I tell my children there are two ways to lie," Tompkins said. "One is to tell me something that didn't happen, and the other is not to tell me something that did happen. I think they employed both techniques in this."

Sacramento, Calif.-based digital forensic consultant Mark Menz also reviewed both tapes at my request. He has done extensive video analyses for federal agencies and corporations.

"From my personal opinion, the short one is definitely edited in a form and fashion to lead you to a certain conclusion — you might say it's looking only at the dirty laundry," Menz said. He drew a distinction between that and a compressed news story.

O'Keefe's 'Investigative Reporting'

On Sunday, O'Keefe told CNN's Howard Kurtz that his use of hidden cameras is in the finest traditions of muckraking journalism.

"Journalists have been doing this for a long time," O'Keefe said. "It's a form of investigative reporting that you use to seek and find the truth."

O'Keefe said on CNN's Reliable Sources that his sting was inspired by NPR's decision to drop longtime news analyst Juan Williams last October after Williams made comments on Fox News about Muslims.

"The tape is very powerful," O'Keefe said. "The tape is very honest. The tape cuts to the core of who these people are."

But 26-year-old O'Keefe's own record is checkered. His takedown of the community organizing group ACORN relied on undercover videos that the California state attorney general's office concluded significantly distorted what occurred. Last May, O'Keefe pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor after an attempted video sting at the offices of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA).

'A Big Warning Flag'

In the review of the NPR tapes, O'Keefe's edited video triggered criticism right from his introduction. He ominously describes the phony Islamic group, saying that its website "said the organization sought to spread the acceptance of sharia across the world." (Shariah is Islamic law based on the Quran, although there are wide disparities in how different Muslim sects and cultures interpret what that entails.)

On the tape, Ron Schiller is then shown and heard creased with laughter, saying, "Really, that's what they said?" In reality, as the longer tape shows, that laughter follows an innocuous exchange as Schiller and Liley greet the two supposed donors at their table.

"That to us was a signal that they were trying to condition the person watching the piece to feel as though there was assent to these ideas," said Scott Baker of The Blaze. "That was a big warning flag."

Tompkins said O'Keefe sought to portray the fundraisers as though they would do anything to appease donors.

On the shorter tape, for instance, one of the fake donors is heard assailing a "Zionist" influence on the media — and Liley, NPR's senior director of institutional giving, is heard responding affirmingly.

The O'Keefe associate posing as potential donor Ibrahim Kassam says NPR is "one of the few places that has the courage to present it [fairly]. There's kind of a joke that we used to call it National Palestinian Radio."

Some laughter follows. But the shorter tape does not include Ron Schiller immediately telling the two men that donors cannot expect to influence news coverage.

"There is such a big firewall between funding and reporting: Reporters will not be swayed in any way, shape or form," Schiller says on that longer tape, in one of several such remarks.

Tompkins found that meaningful, noting that Ron Schiller was a fundraiser, not an official affecting the newsroom.

"The message that he said most often — I counted six times: He told these two people that he had never met before that you cannot buy coverage," Tompkins said. "He says it over and over and over again."

Confusing The Context

In addition, several times the donors seek to goad Schiller and Liley into making inflammatory statements about conservatives or Fox News personalities, and they deflect them. At one point, Liley explains that she attended Purdue University, which she describes as a conservative and respected research university, and that people there relied on Fox to get much of their news.

Menz, the digital forensics consultant, by analyzing time stamps, concluded that many of Schiller's remarks in that shorter video are presented out of sequence from the questions that were posed.

"For me, in my background, it immediately puts things into question," Menz said. "You really don't know what context these were in, what was going on in the 20 minutes before and after this question was asked."

Take the political remarks. Ron Schiller speaks of growing up as a Republican and admiring the party's fiscal conservatism. He says Republican politicians and evangelicals are becoming "fanatically" involved in people's lives.

But in the shorter tape, Schiller is also presented as saying the GOP has been "hijacked" by Tea Partyers and xenophobes.

In the longer tape, it's evident Schiller is not giving his own views but instead quoting two influential Republicans — one an ambassador, another a senior Republican donor. Schiller notably does not take issue with their conclusions — but they are not his own.

Fueling The Public Broadcasting Funding Debate

Upon their release last week, O'Keefe's videos gave fresh life to the push by Congressional Republicans to strip federal funding for public broadcasting. In the shorter video, Schiller appears to be saying that NPR would do just fine without federal dollars, though some stations would go dark. On the longer tape, it's clear Schiller says it would be disastrous in the short term.

Tompkins said O'Keefe's editing is repeatedly and blatantly unfair.

"Except for a couple of unfortunate forays for political opinion, I think that Ron Schiller actually did a fairly remarkably good job of explaining how NPR works and what you can and cannot expect if you contribute money to the NPR Foundation," Tompkins said.

Blaze editor Baker said he emerged from analyzing the tapes with a surprising degree of respect for the professionalism of the two NPR executives, Ron Schiller and Betsy Liley.

"I think if you look at two hours in total, you largely get an impression that these are pretty — they seem to be fairly balanced people, trying to do a fairly good job," Baker said.

In recent days, several influential journalists have written that they regret giving O'Keefe's NPR videos wider circulation without scrutinizing them for themselves, given his past record and some of the objections that the Blaze first raised. They include Ben Smith of Politico, James Poniewozik of Time magazine and Dave Weigel of Slate.

"The speed at which the media operates when a video comes out is a problem," Weigel said Sunday. "I mean, the rush to be the first to report on a video — and, let's be brutally honest, the rush is to get traffic and to get people booked on [cable TV] shows to talk about it — and that nature leads you to not do the rigor and fact-checking that you would do in other situations."

Late Sunday night, NPR Senior Vice President Dana Davis Rehm wrote in an e-mail that the videos unfairly present several innocent comments by Ron Schiller and Liley as inappropriate.

"No one should be surprised based on O'Keefe's record that the video was heavily edited with the intention of discrediting NPR," Rehm said.

Alan Grayson Blasts The Tea Party

March 11, 2011:

Did They Die In Vain?

On May 4, 1886, in Haymarket Square in Chicago, the public rallied peacefully in support of 40,000 workers in Chicago who had gone on strike, to win the right to organize. The police attacked, and eight died.

On July 6, 1892, in Homestead, Pennsylvania, 3800 workers went on strike, to win the right to organize. Three hundred hired and armed goons attacked them. Five people died.

On April 20, 1914, in Ludlow, Colorado, 1200 coal miners went on strike, to win the right to organize. The Colorado National Guard attacked their shantytown, and burned it to the ground. Nineteen people died. Two women and 11 children were asphyxiated, and they burned to death.

Here and around the world, many people have fought and died, so that you and I would have the right to organize.

And so that 250,000 public workers in Wisconsin would have that right, too.

This is not exactly a new idea. Six months after the Ludlow Massacre, President Wilson signed the Clayton Act, prohibiting the prosecution of union members under Antitrust Law. That was almost a century ago.

Two decades later, during the Franklin Roosevelt's first term as President, he signed the National Labor Relations Act into law. It protects the right to organize. That was over 75 years ago.

The right to organize also is a fundamental principle of international law. Over 150 countries have ratified the "Right to Organize" Convention, an international treaty. It was adopted in 1949, over 60 years ago.

So why are we even talking about this, 11 years into the 21st Century?

Because the teabaggers want to "take back America." They want to take it back, all right – take it all the way back to the 19th century. When there was no right to organize. When people worked for a dollar a day. When grown men competed against children for jobs. When women were barred from most jobs entirely. When you worked until you died.

Not to mention slavery.

I want to see an America that is healthy and wealthy.

They want an America that provides cheap labor to our corporate overlords. An America where the middle class is chained by debt.

We didn't ask for this fight. But we have no choice except to fight back. For the survival of the middle class in America. For us, for our children, and for our grandchildren. And so that the victims in Haymarket, in Homestead and in Ludlow did not die in vain.

As Cardinal Spellman said 45 years ago, "it is a war thrust upon us, and we cannot yield to tyranny."

I'm ready to fight for what's right. What about you?

Courage,

Alan Grayson

The Republican War Against America

Top 10 Worst Things about the Republicans' Immoral Budget

The Republican budget would:

1. Destroy 700,000 jobs, according to an independent economic analysis.

2. Zero out federal funding for National Public Radio and public television.
3. Cut $1.3 billion from community health centers—which will deprive more than 3 million low-income people of health care over the next few months.

4. Cut nearly a billion dollars in food and health care assistance to pregnant women, new moms, and children.

5. Kick more than 200,000 children out of pre-school by cutting funds for Head Start.

6. Force states to fire 65,000 teachers and aides, dramatically increasing class sizes, thanks to education cuts.

7. Cut some or all financial aid for 9.4 million low- and middle-income college students.

8. Slash $1.6 billion from the National Institutes of Health, a cut that experts say would "send shockwaves" through cancer research, likely result in cuts to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's research, and cause job losses.

9. End the only federal family planning program, including cutting all federal funding that goes to Planned Parenthood to support cancer screenings and other women's health care.

10. Send 10,000 low-income veterans into homelessness by cutting in half the number of veterans who get housing vouchers this year.

Representative Peter King's Hearings Fuel Conservative Ignorance and Anti-Muslim Bigotry

From The Washington Post -- March 8, 2011:

Rep. Peter King's hearings on Islamic radicalization: Fuel for the bigots

By Richard Cohen

Unlike Moses Herzog, the eponymous character of the Saul Bellow novel "Herzog," I do not feverishly compose mad letters to public figures and sinister government agencies (the IRS, for instance). But I often yell back at the TV set. This happened Sunday when CNN's Candy Crowley asked Rep. Peter King what his hearings into Muslim radicalism are really about. "Good luck, Candy," I yelled, having asked the same question of King's staff just the day before. Here, I am sure, is the answer: The hearings are about Pete King.

King is the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. On Thursday, he will inaugurate hearings into something or other. Their official title is "The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and That Community's Response." The last part - "that community's response" - is already clear when it comes to King. The Muslim American community has taken umbrage and has demonstrated its outrage in, among other places, King's Long Island district. King thinks it is being overly sensitive.

It happens to be an awkward fact that just last month, a University of North Carolina terrorism expert, Charles Kurzman, reported a drop in attempted or actual terrorist activity by American Muslims - 47 perpetrators and suspects in 2009, 20 in 2010. This does not mean that there is no threat, but, when measured against ordinary violent crime, it is slight. In fact, the threat from non-Muslims is much greater, encompassing not only your run-of-the-mill murderers but about 20 domestic terrorist plots, including one in which a plane was flown into an IRS building in Austin. Herzog merely wrote imaginary letters.

The findings of the Kurzman study just get more and more awkward. It turns out that in exposing alleged terrorist plots, "the largest single source of initial information (48 of 120 cases) involved tips from the Muslim American community." Not only does this contradict King's implicit charge that the American Muslim community is one vast terrorism enabler, but it suggests that an outcome of his hearings will be the further alienation of this community - and less cooperation with the authorities.

King is setting a dangerous precedent. The government has no business examining any peaceful religious group because a handful of adherents have broken the law. If it did, it would be past time to look into the Roman Catholic Church, which clearly was - or maybe still is - concealing the sex crimes of priests and others. The organization BishopAccountability.org reports that "perhaps more than 100,000 children" have been sexually abused since 1950 by Catholic clergymen of one sort or another. Nearly 6,000 priests have been accused of abuse - 5.3 percent of the total active in that period. Almost none of them had a day in court, and in many cases their crimes were covered up and the offenders allowed to go on their merry way.

Congress, though, has not investigated the church, and you can bet your 401(k) it will not. The church is politically powerful and, anyway, we have a very fine tradition in this country of government keeping its nose out of religion.

In the case of the Muslim American community, there is no evidence of any centralized conspiracy involving terrorism or that Muslims are any less appalled and opposed to terrorism than non-Muslims. Not a single government official has suggested otherwise and whatever (insignificant) information is produced by these hearings will be hugely offset by the comfort they provide anti-Muslim bigots. A political insane asylum has formed in America organized around the mad conviction that President Obama is a Muslim and not therefore a real American.

This is the real damage King does. Inherent in his rhetoric and his insistence on holding his hearings is the insinuation that Islam is not American. This, of course, is what some people once thought of Roman Catholicism. The aptly named Know Nothing movement of the mid-19th century was organized around such sentiment.

Terrorism remains a threat and there is such a thing as Islamic terrorism - or, to put it another way, terrorism conducted in the name of Islam. In this country, much of the internal threat comes from a very small number of addled young men whose incompetence is often just plain awe-inspiring. They no more represent the American Muslim community than some randy priest does Peter King. As low as the standard is, Congress has better things to do.

The Conservative Plan to Destroy America

From Common Dreams -- February 20, 2011:

What Conservatives Really Want

by George Lakoff

--Dedicated to the peaceful protestors in Wisconsin, February 19, 2011.

The central issue in our political life is not being discussed. At stake is the moral basis of American democracy.

The individual issues are all too real: assaults on unions, public employees, women's rights, immigrants, the environment, health care, voting rights, food safety, pensions, prenatal care, science, public broadcasting, and on and on.

Budget deficits are a ruse, as we've seen in Wisconsin, where the governor turned a surplus into a deficit by providing corporate tax breaks, and then used the deficit as a ploy to break the unions, not just in Wisconsin, but seeking to be the first domino in a nationwide conservative movement.

Deficits can be addressed by raising revenue, plugging tax loopholes, putting people to work, and developing the economy long-term in all the ways the president has discussed. But deficits are not what really matters to conservatives.

Conservatives really want to change the basis of American life, to make America run according to the conservative moral worldview in all areas of life.

In the 2008 campaign, candidate Obama accurately described the basis of American democracy: Empathy -- citizens caring for each other, both social and personal responsibility -- acting on that care, and an ethic of excellence. From these, our freedoms and our way of life follow, as does the role of government: to protect and empower everyone equally. Protection includes safety, health, the environment, pensions and empowerment starts with education and infrastructure. No one can be free without these, and without a commitment to care and act on that care by one's fellow citizens.

The conservative worldview rejects all of that.

Conservatives believe in individual responsibility alone, not social responsibility. They don't think government should help its citizens. That is, they don't think citizens should help each other. The part of government they want to cut is not the military (we have 174 bases around the world), not government subsidies to corporations, not the aspect of government that fits their worldview. They want to cut the part that helps people. Why? Because that violates individual responsibility.

But where does that view of individual responsibility alone come from?

The way to understand the conservative moral system is to consider a strict father family. The father is The Decider, the ultimate moral authority in the family. His authority must not be challenged. His job is to protect the family, to support the family (by winning competitions in the marketplace), and to teach his kids right from wrong by disciplining them physically when they do wrong. The use of force is necessary and required. Only then will children develop the internal discipline to become moral beings. And only with such discipline will they be able to prosper. And what of people who are not prosperous? They don't have discipline, and without discipline they cannot be moral, so they deserve their poverty. The good people are hence the prosperous people. Helping others takes away their discipline, and hence makes them both unable to prosper on their own and function morally.

The market itself is seen in this way. The slogan, "Let the market decide" assumes the market itself is The Decider. The market is seen as both natural (since it is assumed that people naturally seek their self-interest) and moral (if everyone seeks their own profit, the profit of all will be maximized by the invisible hand). As the ultimate moral authority, there should be no power higher than the market that might go against market values. Thus the government can spend money to protect the market and promote market values, but should not rule over it either through (1) regulation, (2) taxation, (3) unions and worker rights, (4) environmental protection or food safety laws, and (5) tort cases. Moreover, government should not do public service. The market has service industries for that. Thus, it would be wrong for the government to provide health care, education, public broadcasting, public parks, and so on. The very idea of these things is at odds with the conservative moral system. No one should be paying for anyone else. It is individual responsibility in all arenas. Taxation is thus seen as taking money away from those who have earned it and giving it to people who don't deserve it. Taxation cannot be seen as providing the necessities of life, a civilized society, and as necessary for business to prosper.

In conservative family life, the strict father rules. Fathers and husbands should have control over reproduction; hence, parental and spousal notification laws and opposition to abortion. In conservative religion, God is seen as the strict father, the Lord, who rewards and punishes according to individual responsibility in following his Biblical word.

Above all, the authority of conservatism itself must be maintained. The country should be ruled by conservative values, and progressive values are seen as evil. Science should NOT have authority over the market, and so the science of global warming and evolution must be denied. Facts that are inconsistent with the authority of conservatism must be ignored or denied or explained away. To protect and extend conservative values themselves, the devil's own means can be used again conservatism's immoral enemies, whether lies, intimidation, torture, or even death, say, for women's doctors.

Freedom is defined as being your own strict father -- with individual not social responsibility, and without any government authority telling you what you can and cannot do. To defend that freedom as an individual, you will of course need a gun.

This is the America that conservatives really want. Budget deficits are convenient ruses for destroying American democracy and replacing it with conservative rule in all areas of life.
What is saddest of all is to see Democrats helping them.

Democrats help radical conservatives by accepting the deficit frame and arguing about what to cut. Even arguing against specific "cuts" is working within the conservative frame. What is the alternative? Pointing out what conservatives really want. Point out that there is plenty of money in America, and in Wisconsin. It is at the top. The disparity in financial assets is un-American -- the top one percent has more financial assets than the bottom 95 percent. Middle class wages have been flat for 30 years, while the wealth has floated to the top. This fits the conservative way of life, but not the American way of life.

Democrats help conservatives by not shouting out loud over and over that it was conservative values that caused the global economic collapse: lack of regulation and a greed-is-good ethic.

Democrats also help conservatives by what a friend has called Democratic Communication Disorder. Republican conservatives have constructed a vast and effective communication system, with think tanks, framing experts, training institutes, a system of trained speakers, vast holdings of media, and booking agents. Eighty percent of the talking heads on TV are conservatives. Talk matters because language heard over and over changes brains. Democrats have not built the communication system they need, and many are relatively clueless about how to frame their deepest values and complex truths.

And Democrats help conservatives when they function as policy wonks -- talking policy without communicating the moral values behind the policies. They help conservatives when they neglect to remind us that pensions are deferred payments for work done. "Benefits" are pay for work, not a handout. Pensions and benefits are arranged by contract. If there is not enough money for them, it is because the contracted funds have been taken by conservative officials and given to wealthy people and corporations instead of to the people who have earned them.

A Love Letter to the Deranged Westboro Baptist Bastards

From The Washington Post -- March 4, 2011:

Let Westboro Baptist have their hate speech. We'll smother it with peace.

By Romaine Patterson

When I was a child, my mother taught me that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. The first time I encountered the gay-bashing members of Westboro Baptist Church was in 1998, when they picketed the funeral of my close friend Matthew Shepard, who was beaten and left to die tied to a fence in rural Wyoming.

What most shocked me was that, even as I attended the funeral of someone who had been murdered in a hate crime, I hadn't realized how deeply some people hate.

It wasn't until I saw those neon-colored signs with their ugly words against the snowy Wyoming landscape that I understood what my community was up against.

When the Rev. Fred Phelps and his parishioners came back to Laramie the next year to protest at the trials of the men who murdered Matthew, they were in for a bit of a surprise. Several friends and I led a counter-protest, dressed as angels, silently encircling them, our huge outstretched wings blocking their vicious signs from view.

Having been face to face with the Phelps gang, my heart goes out to all the families, who, in their most vulnerable hour, have had to deal with this small band of cruel ranters.

After Laramie, it all changed. Westboro Baptist Church members realized that the more high-profile their protests, the bigger the response, so they started picketing at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. This past week, the Supreme Court upheld their right to do so. But where they go, angels have appeared as well, to form a living shield.

When Westboro announced that it would come to Tucson to parade around the funeral of 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, gunned down in January in the attack against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona Legislature hurriedly passed a law setting limits on how close protesters could be to mourners. What filled me with pride, though, was seeing another community take inspiration from our own Angel Action protest more than a decade ago, depicted in the play "The Laramie Project."

As others have across the country, people in Tucson hunted up the PVC pipe and sheets and online pattern to make the costumes, and spread their wings.

To me, the lasting legacy of our counter-protest so many years ago is the enduring power of drowning out noise with silence, of smothering hate with peace.

I understand why the father of a soldier killed in Iraq sued Westboro Baptist after members jeered at his son's funeral. It is natural to want to banish such an abhorrent spectacle so that no one else will have to endure what you did. But I agree with Wednesday's ruling by the Supreme Court, because I support free speech. I know that there were many who stood by when Phelps yelled "God hates fags" at the funerals of gays or those who died of AIDS, but who mobilized in outrage when his vitriol was spewed in the direction of our brave men and women in arms, who died protecting his freedom and ours.

Is it somehow more acceptable to protest at one funeral and not another? No. It is terrible every time it happens. And it is for that reason that the United States Constitution is blind in its devotion to free speech. We individually choose where and when to be outraged, but the law must be the same for everyone, even those we find despicable.

All these years later, while the Westboro members are still on their sad crusade, limping across the country desperate for attention, I have moved on, far from Wyoming and far from their tirades. Where I once stood silently, now I speak. I am sure there are people out there who wouldn't want to hear what I have to say, either, as a lesbian with a rowdy and foul-mouthed satellite radio show. So I cherish my First Amendment rights and support Westboro Baptist Church members having them, too.

I look around the world and see people in country after country struggling to express themselves, to be who they are, to say what they want to say. It is only here, secure in our liberty, that all voices are free to shout and whisper and sometimes send others away in disgust.

When you have a 3-year-old at home, like I do, you know what it's like to deal with someone who thinks screaming or throwing a tantrum is the answer to anything. But those of us who aren't toddlers or reality-show contestants are mature enough to know better.

All Phelps and his followers want is attention. They cheered this lawsuit that brought their cause to the highest court. They love the news stories and the controversy. It is what they want. Indifference is their greatest fear. Backs turned in silence worked great for us in Laramie. How you choose to use your voice is up to you.

As for me, I will remember those wise words of my mother: "If you can't say something nice, you better watch out for my daughter - because she is about to school you."

romaine.patterson@siriusxm.com

Let's Hear It for The Baptist Bastards!!

Mike Huckabee Joins the Republican Smear Brigade

From The Daily Beast -- March 4, 2011:

Wake Up Huck: Obama Didn't Grow Up in Kenya!

By Mark McKinnon

Mike Huckabee supposedly "misspoke" when he said Barack Obama grew up in Kenya. The potential 2012 candidate and other Obama bashers need to accept that the president was born in the U.S. and is Christian—and try to beat him with ideas, argues Mark McKinnon.

Mike Huckabee has really stepped in it. I only wish I could believe it was entirely accidental. But, boy, there sure is a lot on his shoes. People like Mike Huckabee. I like Mike Huckabee. Or, I did anyway. But just because he can be charming and self-effacing doesn't mean we should excuse him from appropriate standards of conduct and character assassination.

Mike Huckabee recently stated that Obama was raised in Kenya.

Huckabee said in an interview this week that President Obama grew up in Kenya. His spokesman tried to mop up by suggesting he misspoke and meant to say he grew up in Indonesia, which in itself is a vast overstatement and misleading. The problem is that Huckabee talked in the same breath about the Mau Mau Revolution, which happened in Kenya.

Here's what I think. I doubt most Americans have a clue about the Mau Mau Revolution, including me. But, I'm pretty sure for most folks it sounds like something extremely foreign, vaguely socialist, anti-Christian or at the very least un-American. And unfortunately, whether it was overt or not, I think that Huckabee's intent was to further sow the seeds that Obama is somehow "not really one of us...he's one of them." Take your pick and use your imagination about who "them" might be.
Huckabee's intent was to further sow the seeds that Obama is somehow "not really one of us...he's one of them."

And Huckabee didn't help his case when, yesterday, he added fuel to the fire, saying: "I have said many times, publicly, that I do think he has a different world view, and I think it's in part molded out of a very different experience. Most of us grew up going to Boy Scout meetings, and you know, our communities were filled with rotary clubs, not madrassas."

Conservative columnist Peter Wehner, a real moral force in the Republican Party, has a great idea: "How about starting today, Republicans and conservatives accept the following two propositions: Barack Obama was born in the United States and he’s a Christian. He may be wrong on a vast array of public policy issues, as I believe he is; and his animating philosophy (contemporary liberalism) may be defective in all sorts of ways. But he is not an alien, nor is he a Muslim, nor can his views be explained by Kenyan anti-colonialism. To argue otherwise, or even to hint otherwise, is irresponsible. It’s also politically discrediting."

I'm willing to do the Christian thing and forgive Huckabee. But only under one condition. That he publicly adopt the Wehner pact above and ask his fellow Republicans to do the same.

The only way Republicans will beat President Obama is with the power of ideas. If GOP candidates continue to try and smear Obama with innuendo about where he comes from, then the president will be staying right where he is for another four years. And then there really won't be any question about where his home is.