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
Earth to wingers: the GOP thinks you’re nuts (and they’re living large off your money)
So this past Friday, I had the craziest conversation, with a right wing tea party/9-12 movement guy from Miami. He called me after I emailed a few tea party people in South and Central Florida to get their reactions to the now-infamous RNC memo screeching about “socialism” and separating Republican donors into two categories: fear-based, “reactionary” small donors, and ego-driven, tchotchke-mad big givers. (If you still haven’t read the presentation, here it is.) The tea party guy, who I won’t name to keep from embarrassing him, really didn’t answer my question (the question being: “what’s your reaction to the RNC presentation…?”) but instead launched into about a 30 minute debate with me, during which he asserted that: Read more
Take THAT, reality! Ron Paul wins CPAC straw poll
If CPAC is the future of the “conservative movement,” bring it on. The convention that supposedly defines right wingery, and which is supposedly going to remake the big spending, Middle East invading Republican Party into something much more “conservative” was a masterstroke of incoherence. Read more
Palin to tea parties: pick a side
Sarah Palin makes her pitch to bring the tea parties to heel. Not surprising after she took $100,000 to sell GOP boilerplate and talk up Ronald Reagan at the tea party convention, but probably not what the purportedly “independent” movement wants to hear.
A tea party, patriot movement convergence?
Hm … The New York Times has a fascinating, extensive piece on the convergence, at least in the American northwest, of the “tea party movement” and something that has popped up (armed) at various locations where the president was speaking last year (and during the 1990s when Tim McVeigh became its most infamous face) … the militia or “patriot” movement. Read the article, and if you’re in South Florida and used to listen to the talk radio show I used to do, tell me if this doesn’t sound a lot like my second co-host, Andre, right down to the food and gun stockpiling, Ron Paul devotion, and federal reserve conspiracy theories …
Alternet connects more dots, including to the paranoid, highly compensated fantasies of Glenn Beck. Now simmer down, folks — I’m not saying everyone who calls themselves a member of the tea party movement falls into the “patriot movement”/Resistnet/Alex Jones/Andre Eggelletion category, and these are still very disparate groups (here in Florida, I have yet to come across two that are connected to each other.) But it does seem like the groups are starting to converge ideologically, just as the Republican Party is sucking up whatever parts of it they can, and various interest groups, not least of which being Sarah Palin’s political plotters, are grabbing for a piece of the action. At the end of the day, I think some of these people are simply Libertarians, and I continue to wonder how much longer they stay in the fold …
Meanwhile, in the WSJ, Thomas Frank sees a different convergence, with the Abramoff/Armey/astroturfers, although I think these are pretty well known out there by now.
Orange alert: Boehner to speak at Orlando ‘tax day tea party’ event
John Boehner to Wall Street: 'show me the money!'
CORRECTED: Is this the merger of the tea party movement and the GOP that Michael Steele is hoping for, or a window into how the tea party movement plans to shape the Republican Party in 2010? A Florida group has announced that the senior Republican in the House of Representatives, Minority Leader John Boehner, will speak at an April 15 “tax day tea party” event in Orlando. Organizers made the announcement in a press release today. If confirmed (D.C. offices re-open Tuesday,) that would be Boehner’s second go round with a tea party group (thanks to David Weigel for the correction.) And Boehner has said that there is “no difference” between the tea parties and the GOP, although many in the movement beg to differ. (The full press release is below)
The rally, organized by the Orlando Tea Party (not affiliated with the ersatz “Florida Tea Party,”) led by a group of local talk radio hosts who do a show called “Tea Party Patriots Live,” will also feature Rep. Steve King of Iowa, most famous recently for suggesting that Haitians in the U.S. be deported to help their countrymen in the aftermath of the January 12 earthquake. That the Orlando tea party event is drawing this high level of attendee is noteworthy, not just because it calls attention to the organizational level of this particular tea party group, but also because of the possible level of coordination it indicates exists between tea partiers, many of whom are “no party affiliated” or Libertarians, and the GOP. Read more
Rubio racks up more tea party support, takes Orlando straw poll
Senate candidate Marco Rubio wiped the floor with Charlie Crist at a Florida tea party straw poll in Orlando on Saturday, coming in a distant third to Rubio and a Libertarian candidate. Organizer Phil Russo estimated that 1,000 people showed up to “hob nob” with candidates in the freezing (stop laughing, northerners!) 50 degree temps, and get involved in the political process. The Orlando group seems pretty well organized, and is practicing much more traditional politics than some of the wackier TPM outfits, although it remains to be seen if Rubio will embrace the endorsement, or if they’ll eventually be overrun by the circus freaks.
The partiers also preferred Paula Dockery (a tea party favorite) to Bill McCollum. Then again, is there anybody out there who prefers Bill McCollum? The results of the weekend straw vote: Read more
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