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 …
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?”
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
Healthcare CBO score released with good news for Dems
From the New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn:
Democrats in the administration and Congress have agreed on a set of amendments to the Senate health care bill. And, according to House leadership, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is certifying that the amendments will reduce the deficit. That should fulfill the parliamentary requirements of the reconciliation process, satisfy the demands of many nervous Democrats, and clear the way for the House to vote on health care reform. Read more
Morning clicks: orange is the new bank, Stupak vs the nuns, Charlie advises Kendrick
If it’s Thursday, it must be time for an orange alert! John “moneybags” Boehner had some sage advice for his banker friends when he spoke before an enthusiastic crowd at an American Bankers Association “government relations” (that’s lobbying to you) summit: “don’t let those little punk staffers take advantage of you and stand up for yourselves.” Yeah, bankers, fight the power! Boehner plans to try and stall Wall Street reform in the House for at least a year.
Well that went well … President Obama finally appeared on one of Fox’s “news” programs … and a hockey game broke out.
Meanwhile, back in the sunshine state, Charlie Crist has some advice for Kendrick Meek that he’s offering purely for effect since he knows Meek won’t take it, and really what’s the point? He’s urging the Miami Democrat to vote against the healthcare bill (as if). He even wrote Kendrick a letter about it! Well, at least it makes Charlie sound more “Republican,” meaning devoid of policy solutions but loyal to the “party of no” strategy, which should please, well … no one who hates Charlie Crist. Good work!
The vote in question will probably happen Sunday, after the 72 hour waiting period Speaker Pelosi has called for following release of the bill’s CBO score. Read more
Alex Sink’s got a business plan for Florida … Bill McCollum: not so much
In the Florida race: ideology vs. substance
In his never-ending quest to become the worst political candidate in Florida history, Bill McCollum continues to ignore a pivotal issue in the up-coming governor’s race: Florida. I mean he literally has nothing to say about Florida, the state he presumably wants to govern. You get the feeling he’d rather be back in Washington, co-sponsoring legislation that let’s Wall Street destroy the country and voting himself taxpayer-funded pay raises so that he doesn’t have to “sacrifice the lifestyle to which he has become accustomed,” rather than rambling around the governor’s mansion, doing boring stuff like figuring out how to dig Florida out of the ditch his party has driven the state into. It’s almost as if McCollum isn’t really running for the job he truly wants …
Meanwhile, on the other side of the ledger … Alex Sink has released her business plan for the state. Personally, I’m a big fan of the b-plan idea for governing. It has worked wonderfully for my favorite mayor, Shirley Gibson of Miami Gardens, and helped that city get on track fast (it still has issues, but is doing a damn site better than much older cities and areas with similar issues and demographics.) And releasing a business plan emphasizes what voters will probably like most about Sink: that she is a smart, pragmatic businesswoman who can finally turn around Florida’s faltering economy and 11.9 percent unemployment (while not emphasizing what they will probably like least: that the business she used to be in was banking.) Overall, gotta give Team Sink an A on this one. Shows she and they are on the ball, and focused on the topics that are most on everyone’s mind: jobs and the economy. As for Bill Keep bleating on about that healthcare bill you no longer have anything to do with because you’re not a friggin member of Congress anymore. Knock yourself out. It’s very becoming, in an irrelevant sort of way. Read more
Getting to ‘yes’: Dennis Kucinich will vote for healthcare reform
One by one, the “kill the bill” Democrats (myself included) have walked back from the precipice, deciding that dumping the president this early in his term would take the party down in a giant, ugly cataclysm of electoral failure, leaving Republicans free to take over Washington, repeal Medicare, privatize Social Security, impeach Barack Obama (they’ll come up with the crime later), reinstate torture, and maybe even invade Iran. Well, ok maybe it’s not that dire (yet) but anti-mandate liberals are definitely walking back, including Howard Dean, Keith Olbermann, Markos Moulitsas and now, Dennis Kucinich, who announced this morning that indeed he will vote for the reconciliation bill, even without the public option. Watch:
…to which the ever-mannerly Obama says, “thank you.” This is an important move for Kucinich, who takes a potential primary issue off the table (clearly, he didn’t have the stomach to become the Ralph Nader of helathcare.) And it gets Mother Nancy one step closer to 216, and maybe more, since Kucinich’s switch will provide cover for other liberal House members who might have held out for the public option. FDL’s whip count has it razor close, but a go if no other Dems switch to “no.”
UPDATE: Jane Hamsher of FDL is not amused, and reports that Kucinich will return money raised for Democrats including him who pledged to vote against any bill without a public option.
UPDATE 2: Kucinich’s flip-flop may have also gotten him off MoveOn’s target list.
Morning clicks: healthcare ‘24′, Rubio’s unwanted attention
A new website brings back the wolf-sheep, demons not included
Happy St. Patrick’s Day er’rybody! Here’s what’s good this morning:
With the clock ticking down to the moment the House takes the plunge on a healthcare vote, Democrats in Washington have their White house talking points (which, typical of this White House, are mild mannered, lawyerly and not at all mean to Republicans) plus a new NBC News/WSJ poll that shows that just as many voters (about a third) would punish their member of Congress for voting against the bill as would punish their member of Congress for voting for it. And the poll found the public evenly split, 46%-45% on whether the current healthcare bill should or shouldn’t pass.
Meanwhile, for all the media chatter about Democrats facing a tsunami in November, Gallup finds Democrats hanging on to a slim lead among registered voters in the November horse race.
Dennis Kucinich is widely expected to launch his Big Cave on healthcare today, proving that a primary threat is a powerful thing, even more powerful than Dennis Kucinich’s lifelong ideological battle for single payer. Or maybe it was the ride on Air Force One?
Speaking of primaries, progressives/liberals are lining up behind Bart Stupak’s Democratic challenger, who Michael Moore (a Stupak constituent) endorsed on the air on “Countdown” Monday. Could Stupak jump parties and run as a Republican or Independent?
And the wingers are rolling out a new strategy to try and win over Americans to their point of view on healthcare (namely, if you can’t afford it, it sure sucks to be you…) and that strategy is: attack 11-year-old boys with dead mothers. Classy.
Speaking of wingers, why did CNN bother to put Lou Dobbs out to pasture, only to hire someone who’s even more racist and unhinged? I’m thinking Color of Change may have to switch cable targets.
Back to Florida, where Charlie Crist is questioning Marco Rubio’s “character,” and a new website is questioning Rubio’s everything else. MarcoRubioSucks.com was registered by a Miami filmmaker named Justin Routt, who seems to be coming from a conservative point of view. The site contains a rundown of Rubio’s embarrassing spending drama, plus this ALL CAPS warning to the party faithful:
YOU HAVE TO ASK YOURSELF, IS THIS REALLY THE TYPE OF PERSON WE WANT IN OFFICE?
JUST BECAUSE RUBIO SAYS HE DOES NOT LIKE OBAMA, OR THE WAY THE COUNTRY IS HEADING, IS ANTI-ABORTION, HAS PRO-FAMILY VALUES, ETC., DOESN’T MEAN HE ISN’T A CORRUPT POLITICIAN.
THE EVIDENCE PROVES MARCO RUBIO IS CORRUPT.
IF YOU CARE ABOUT THIS COUNTRY AND THE DIRECTION IT IS HEADING, DO NOT ELECT MARCO RUBIO OR YOU WILL PUT A CORRUPT PERSON IN OFFICE WHO WILL CONTINUE TO LEAD THIS COUNTRY DOWN-HILL.
There’s also a wolf dressed as a sheep on the site, but thankfully, it’s eyes are not glowing red.
Also on the web: what’s with all the suicides at Cornell?
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