Will teabaggers riot when healthcare passes?
It seems like a reasonable question at this point. I’m hoping the Capitol police have a plan for the hour, perhaps as early as 8 p.m., when healthcare passes the House. Couldn’t the same crackpots who would spit on a Congressman and carry signs threatening gun violence at least in theory be expected to lose it when the moment of truth is upon them? These people have been whipped up into such a frenzy, I’m not sure even Michelle Bachman could control them. Not saying it will happen, but it is a worry … Members of Congress, especially Black and Hispanic members, should request extra security when leaving the Capitol tonight.
Related: John Boehner tells his members to behave like grown-ups when healthcare passes. Sad that he had to do that.
Two healthcare hooligans were arrested today. They were part of a group the WaPo described as overwhelmingly “white and over 50.”
And NOW is mad at President Obama over that executive order.
Rubio’s crowd is an ugly bunch **UPDATE:** Hispanic lawmaker hit with racist slurs, too
Who does Marco Rubio want to be today?
UPDATE: The Plumline reports an Hispanic lawmaker, Rep. Ciro Rodriguez of Texas, was also subjected to racist taunts at the “Code Red” rally. While Rodriguez is Mexican-American and Marco Rubio is Cuban-American, is the fact that tea partiers also appear to have gone after a Latino lawmaker enough to get Rubio to respond? Tick tock …
ORIGINAL POST: Along with the latest news of racist, homophobic behavior by tea party members, who form the core of Marco Rubio’s support base (along with birthers, anti-immigrant types and people who want to privatize Social Security and Medicare), came a report from NBC News’ Luke Russert that some of the healthcare hooligans in the crowds that turned the walk to the Capitol into a gauntlet, were actually sporting Marco Rubio buttons. And while there’s no evidence that any of these specific people did the spitting or the cussing, as South Florida Daily Blog points out, this proves, once again that this particularly ugly branch of the tea party movement, as ugly as they continue to be, are Rubio’s crowd. He chose them, and they chose him. We all await Mr. Rubio doing what other Republicans did today: denounce the shameful behavior of his supporters, and speak out against turning the debate over healthcare into a piti re-enactment of the ugliest moments in America’s racial history. Of course, not all Republicans did the right thing. Read more
Sorry, tea party hooligans, healthcare will pass tonight
Thank you, Madame Speaker
I’d like to thank the dumb, throwback teabagger who shouted “kill the bill, then the n–ger” at Congressman John Lewis, the 1940s era neanderthal who spat on Rep. Cleaver (and the goons who laughed about it,) plus the idiots who thought they could intimidate Jim Clyburn and Barney Frank, neither of whom seem to scare easily, with juvenile racial and sexual orientation slurs (deny it all you want, Airians, it happened.) More than anyone in this year-plus long debate, you guys have convinced me that this healthcare bill, which up to now I’ve been pretty lukewarm about, really is important civil rights legislation. It must be, because you’re against it in such a base, violent, racist way, as if the bill was bussing black children into your neighborhood, rather than providing even the likes of you with access to decent healthcare. Good job. Now live with the fact that once again, you’ve lost, and America’s better angels have won, because in the end, America — the concept of it and thankfully, often the reality — is better than you. Read more
The healthcare ‘code red’ protests: Jon Voigt, gun violence threats, and the n-word **UPDATED**
Protests then and now: John Lewis arrested in non-violent protest in Alabama in 1963; tea party protesters hold signs threatening gun violence over healthcare reform in 2010.
Another day in the life of the astroturf tea party “movement,” as news reports of today’s “Code Red” protests in the Capitol, which were attended by members of Congress including Michelle Bachman and Jim DeMint, include the madman has-been actor who spawned man-stealing hussy Angelina Jolie, ”Dancing with the Stars” alum and future felon Tom Delay, some nuts carrying signs apparently threatening to start shooting people if healthcare reform passes, and bunch of losers who called civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis the n-word. Well, at least they didn’t mock anybody with Parkinson’s disease, at least not today …
UPDATE: the teabagger protesters also reportedly called Barney Frank a “f–got,” prompting laughter from their fellow “we the people.” And you thought the tea party movement had a future … But wait, there’s more …
UPDATE 2: CNN reporter Dana Bash witnessed/heard some of the epithets herself. Video at the bottom of the post. …
UPDATE 3: The Huffpo reports that a second black lawmaker was spat on, and House whip James Clyburn said protesters tried to “intimidate him”:
A staffer for Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) relayed word to reporters that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-M.D.) had been spit on by a protestor (the protestor wasreportedly arrested by Capitol Hill police). Rep. John Lewis (D-G.A.) a hero of the civil rights movement was called a “n—-r.” And Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a “faggot,” as protestors shouted at him with deliberately lisp-y screams. Frank, approached in the halls after the president’s speech, shrugged off the incident.
But Clyburn was downright incredulous, saying he had not witnessed such treatment since he was leading civil rights protests in South Carolina in the 1960s.
“It was absolutely shocking to me,” Clyburn said, in response to a question from the Huffington Post. “Last Monday, this past Monday, I stayed home to meet on the campus of Claflin University where fifty years ago as of last Monday… I led the first demonstrations in South Carolina, the sit ins… And quite frankly I heard some things today I have not heard since that day. I heard people saying things that I have not heard since March 15, 1960 when I was marching to try and get off the back of the bus.”
“It doesn’t make me nervous as all,” the congressman said, when asked how the mob-like atmosphere made him feel. “In fact, as I said to one heckler, I am the hardest person in the world to intimidate, so they better go somewhere else.”
More details from TPMDC, which reports a third black lawmaker, Rep. Andre Carson of Indiana, heard someone shout at Rep. Lewis: “kill the bill, and then kill the n–ger…” and that mobs of tea partiers used sheer numbers, and video cameras, to intimidate Capitol police. Also in the TPM report, Barney Frank criticizes fellow lawmakers who took part in today’s protests, for not speaking out on the hooliganism.
UPDATE 4: Irony – President Obama quotes Lincoln in “emotional” closing argument to Dems. Read more
Wasserman-Schultz: House will vote on fixes first
The Huffpo has the update on the new, no-”deem and pass” version of how healthcare reform will be voted on in the house:
2:39 PM ET — Debbie Wasserman-Schultz: How the vote tomorrow will work.Debbie Wasserman-Schultz says what will now happen is first a vote on the reconciliation package followed immediately by a vote on the Senate bill. They had wanted to do this all along, she said, but thought they had to do Senate bill first. The parliamentarian has now ruled it’s ok to vote on the ‘fixes’ to the Senate bill BEFORE actually voting on the Senate bill itself.
And this earlier in the day, on the “Stupak situation”: Read more
Bill McCollum is wasting your time
What does this guy do all day?
Bill McCollum is Florida’s attorney general, and he wants to be the state’s next governor. So why is he wasting his time, and the state’s time, joining fellow wingnut A.G.s in threatening fruitless lawsuits over healthcare reform instead of doing his job? It’s not like McCollum hasn’t got anything to do, between the veritable criminal enterprise his party is running here in the sunshine state, with Republican lawmakers padding their lifestyles with donor money and then hiding the evidence, the soon-to-be-revived “leadership” slush funds (cue the grand juries!) … and the endless parade of corrupt public officials being taken down by the feds, and occasionally, by the always late to the party state attorneys. The only thing, in fact, that McCollum has paid attention to during his tenure, or at least pretended to on television, is cyber crime. That’s it. That’s his legacy. Commercials saying Bill McCollum cares about cyber crime. The rest of McCollum’s time is spent sniping over federal legislation he has nothing to do with anymore, because, and this is important, Bill, he isn’t in Congress anymore.
And this guy is ahead in the polls? Forget what’s the matter with Kansas. What the hell is the matter with Florida?
UPDATE: Changes to the vote procedure means that as of today, there’s no “deem and pass” to sue over in the healthcare vote. What to do, what to do, what to do …
Jon Stewart’s brilliant Glenn Beck parody: conservative libertarians
“They left off the “y” because they didn’t want you asking that question …” Watch it, and I dare you not to love it:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Conservative Libertarian | ||||
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Healthcare countdown
The Huffpo has the rolling whip count … The Hill has one too … btw count Florida’s Alan Boyd (a previous “no”) as a “yes.” That makes four no-to-yes flips today (the others are Engel of NY, pro-life Ellsworth and Boccieri of Ohio)
Obama gave his rousing closing argument today, in advance of a possible high noon vote on Sunday, and the theme was patriotism.
Meanwhile, the consequences of voting no appear to be growing more dire than the consequences of voting yes. Rep. Mike Acuri, who needed all the union help he could get to win his upstate New York seat the last go-round, won’t have it this time, but he will have a third party challenger, thanks to his decision to vote against the bill. SEIU isn’t playing around.
Harry Reid is promising to revisit the public option in the Senate in the coming months, but Alan Grayson is still pushing his own bill.
Did Republican leaders, including John Boehner, circulate a fake memo to try and embarrass Democrats on the healthcare “doc fix?”
Marco Rubio creates an opening for Kendrick Meek
One of these people should thank Marco Rubio.
Marco Rubio’s troubles — his penchant for spending donor money to pad his lifestyle and PAC money to hire his family members as “couriers” — plus his unwillingness to man up and address the issue publicly, have done what most people, myself included, thought was next to impossible just a few short months ago. He has made it possible for the Democrats to pick up Mel Martinez’s old Senate seat, despite the fact that their front-runner, Kendrick Meek, barely registers in terms of statewide name ID. That’s the conclusion Markos Moulitsas has come to, based on the latest Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll, which finds that while 57 percent of respondents (and 47 percent of Democrats) in the poll had no idea who Meek is (he’s a Miami Congressman, btw…) the Congressman (the Washington guy, no less…) has the lowest unfavorable ratings (18%) of the three major candidates, including Rubio (36%) and Gov. Charlie Crist (45%), while Crist loses the primary to Rubio in the Kos poll by 28 points. That matches the findings in two push-button polls (which aren’t the most reliable things…) and while the Kos poll is a wee bit hinky (only 600 respondents, 5 percent MOE in the primary samples…) the trend lines in it can’t be missed, and they are these: Read more
Morning clicks: run away Rubio, Kos flips on Crist-Meek
It’s a late morning here in ReidReport land. I’m getting ready to head out to Channel 2 to tape a segment of “issues,” but before I go, here’s a bit of what’s going on in the sunshine state:
Rubio on the Run: this Daniel Ruth op-ed on Marco Rubio’s duck and hide response to his credit card and family employment plan with other people’s money is worth it just for all the different ways he messes with Rubio’s political title. On the substance, the bottom line is that Marco is taking a page from the Sarah Palin playbook: when scandal calls, don’t answer the door; hide under the bed and stock the foyer with pre-screened, adoring fans.
Meanwhile, if the problem is politicians treating donor money like their personal slush fund, why is the answer to bring back even more political slush funds?
Here’s something you don’t see every day: the Meek campaign forwarding around a post from the Daily Kos. Read more
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