According to a report in Think Progress, a Democratic Congressman was allegedly physically assaulted at a town hall meeting. This story is breaking and there are few details at this time. I will update this diary as more information is gathered.
As lobbyist-run groups encourage conservative activists to "rattle" members of Congress at local town hall events, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), the president of the freshman Democratic class has revealed that "at least one freshman Democrat" has already been "physically assaulted at a local event." Connolly warned that conservative groups had taken things to a "dangerous level"
Diarist Rashaverakover at Daily Kos reminds us how committed leading Republicans are to these extremely angry and disruptive town hall meetings in which no discussion or dialogue is possible.
MSNBC's Keith Olbermann smacks down the obstructionist Republicans and Blue Dogs who are getting major contributions from the health care industry.
PBS pointed out that the health and insurance industries are spending more than a million, 400 thousand dollars a day, just to destroy the "public option" - the truly non-profit, wieldy, round-up and not round-down, government, from helping you pay your medical bills with about a billionth of the recklessness with which it is still paying Halliburton and its spinoffs to kill your kids.
And much of this money is going to, and through, Republicans.
But that's the real point tonight.
Not all of it is going through Republicans...
According to an article written in the Houston Chronicle this morning, John Cornyn, John McCain and Mitch McConnell met with a group of doctors at the Texas Medical Center in Houston. John Cornyn is apparently on a mission to destroy health care reform by misleading and scaring doctors and patients, alike.
According to Cornyn, the evil doer is a non-existent single payer option.
"This is where the government option is a competitor but the government's not exactly a fair competitor," said Cornyn, of Texas, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, which is considering health care reform proposals. "It's an 800-pound gorilla that has the capacity to undermine other competitors. We want to make sure we don't do anything to crush the kind of innovation that has led to cures and happier and healthier lives in Texas and around the world."
Dude, the only thing destroying innovation and cures are the crippling costs imposed by for-profit driven health care insurance companies.
The federal government agencies (i.e. the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Health etc.) and private foundations provide grants that fuel much of the innovation and cures. Is John Cornyn suggesting the public option will automatically become single-payer and federal grants will no longer be awarded to research faculty and doctors? The public option means no more federal funding for research?
If he is suggesting this he is both a fool and a liar.
Nate Silver over at fivethirtyeight made a very interesting observation in his article about Tim Geithner and the bank bailout.
At the end of the day, a great deal of the debate between liberals and conservatives is about how to apportion wealth. It seems so banal to talk about it that way, and so we put all sorts of window dressing on it, but that's really what it's all about. But on this issue of the banking crisis -- and to a lesser extent this was true of the stimulus -- there is a much larger delta on the aggregate amount of wealth that the United States stands to gain (or lose) than on how that wealth is distributed. Over the next 6-18 months, the outcomes for everyone from the top of the economic ladder to the bottom rung are very strongly correlated.
Hats off to the banal and obvious.
We have always known the Republicans traditionally embrace the belief that the rich deserve to get richer. If the rich get richer everyone will benefit b/c the wealthy will toss a few cake crumbs down to the not-rich and voila! we will all be dancing in the golden paved streets together. As far as I am concerned this ideology should be called Trickle Down Voodoo Arts. Unfortunately it is glaringly apparent to most of us how this Republican black magic works. It is for, by and of the rich.
If we think of Republican lawmakers' collective behavior through this very difficult financial period we can see how all of their posturing, grandstanding, pontificating, temper tantrums, clown acts and faux rage over the stimulus package is all about fighting to maintain the Trickle Down status quo.
Though ten days have elapsed since Barack Obama won the 2008 landslide Presidential Election, with a little help from formerly and so-called Confederate strongholds such as Virginia, North Carolina and Indiana, the Republican leadership and its members, especially in Texas, continue to reel in total disbelief, shock and denial.
How did this happen!?
But, but, but, I thought we had created a Permanent Republican Majority! Our fearless leader and former Hammer Tom Delay and Spin Master in Chief Karl Rove promised! Our very own W. said he had a mandate when he won by a handful of votes in 2004. What on earth happened!?
The GOP has apparently been asleep while the twenty-first century made its debut along with its cutting edge technology, and a 24/7 information cycle that can be rather unforgiving. In other words, it is far more difficult for liars to lie to and mislead voters nowadays, despite all of the GOPs highly paid masters of spin and hate talk radio hosts.
The voting electorate obviously appreciates the raw reality of the Bush Administration, its Republican rubber stamps and what all of the above have visited upon the people. Bush Republicans drove the economy straight into the sewer. The Republican Party has siphoned off the national treasury. It has likewise stolen our 401K plans, homes and jobs.
The people have spoken. We have fired most of the bums, but alas, in Texas there is more than a bum or two who are in dire need of tossing in 2010.
Thanks to his brilliant grassroots efforts, his exhaustive and skillful community organization talents, President Elect Barack Obama has pulled off a landslide Election. Through his exhaustive campaign in which he elicited the support of thousands of volunteers, his extraordinary discipline, his tireless, never ending hard work, the severe lack of sleep, the sacrifice of his personal and family life, and despite the attacks and the attacks and the attacks and the misinformation and the misinformation and the blatant media bias, the bias, the bias, and the appalling regional ignorance, the ignorance, the ignorance, and the hate talk, the hate talk, the hate talk, somehow, despite all of the symbolic and vociferous right wing smearing and screaming, finally the majority of Americans heard through the deafening clamor and voted for truth, hope, change and a return to normality.
The president-elect won overwhelmingly among blacks, Hispanics and voters under the age of 30. He made inroads among important swing groups, including Catholics, suburbanites, political independents, even veterans. He won in the Midwest, where Mr. Kerry had lost. He even made small gains among groups that typically have been solidly Republican - whites, conservatives, Southerners, regular churchgoers.
And, according to the The Politico, the most affluent voters were key to Obama's win.
Thankfully, for the entire planet, the last eight years of the Republican Dark Ages and Reign of Financial Terror have crashed and burned, hopefully forever.
"The McCain campaign has made impressive strides over the last week of tracking." I am not exactly sure what Republican pollster Bill McInturff means by impressive strides. According to the Gallup Daily tracking poll since October 20th Senator Obama has not dropped below 50% in the poll and Senator McCain has not risen above 43%.
This morning on MSNBC McInturff pushed the idea that the majority of undecided voters, which is between four and eight percent, will break for McCain.
It's Monday, and that means it is time for another edition of the Texas Progressive Alliance Weekly Round-Up. This week's edition is compiled by Vince from Capitol Annex.
Four years after it endorsed George W. Bush for president, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram has wised up and endorsed Barack Obama for president.
This endorsement represents a healthy contrast to the helter-skelter reasoning the Dallas Morning News presented the week before in its ill-thought-out endorsement of John McCain (which was disgraceful at its base for its failure to address the huge issues presented by McCain's sad choice of Sarah Palin to be his running mate).
More below.
I have to admit I have been admiring Palin's taste in clothing, especially the red leather jacket she wore the other day. Thanks to recent news reports now I know why I've been paying attention to her wardrobe. Palin's outfits have been created by the finest designers in the world of haute couture. Sigh. Guess I'd better forget about ever owning that red leather jacket unless I can find a knock off at Chico's.
Sarah sure has exquisite taste in clothes. Price seems to be no limit when someone else is footing the bill. And like "Joe the Plumber" who is not a plumber, Palin does not like to pay her fair share of taxes, either.
Another grim lesson I have learned from Republicans who are running for office is that when they demonize something or something or attack someone for doing something they should not be doing, chances are the Republican is doing the very thing they are hyperventilating about.
Lately Sarah Palin has been stomping across the so-called red parts of America in her $600 a pop high heels and $12,000. suits while attacking Barack Obama whom she calls a socialist b/c he wants to redistribute the wealth. Duh, isn't that what taxes are supposed to do? Never mind.
According to Palin, Obama wants to steal money from the small business owners like Joe the Plumber who is not a plumber, nor does he own a business, and give it to other Americans who are very likely fake or anti-American.
The truth of the matter is Sarah Palin is the real socialist. Aside from the $150K wardrobe handout, as the governor of oil rich Alaska Sarah taxes the oil companies and transfers the revenues to her and the people of Alaska.
Senator John McCain has served his country but he has not served veterans. McCain has consistently said that he supports veterans, but his record shows that he has consistently not supported veterans.
(Way to demonstrate your aloofness from your readers, DMN. - promoted by boadicea)
It's a shame that where I live lacks an editorial board capable of making well-thought-out decisions when it comes to presidential elections.
It's great to hear that for the first time since it endorsed LBJ in 1964, the Houston Chronicle endorsed a Democrat for president-- Barack Obama. It also is great to hear that a second major Texas newspaper-- the Austin American-Statesman-- endorsed Obama as well. That newspaper endorsed George Bush both in 2000 and 2004.
When it comes to the Dallas Morning News,well, no such luck. Not only did the newspaper continued its tradition of backing Republicans for president by endorsing John McCain, it came up with one of the shoddiest lines of reasoning ever seen in an editorial endorsement, displaying a "Public Be Damned" attitude in the process.
More below.
This has been a very long election cycle that started almost two years ago. As an outside observer, while cruising alongside this very long and winding road in politics, I have to say I have learned an awful lot about so many things. I have seen inspirational and electrifying candidates and I have witnessed some mighty disingenious and dishonest ones.
The political pundits informed me about their notions of political history and demographics. I did not know another state of Alabama existed between Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania. Nor did I know New Hampshire is the Alabama of New England. I think it was Joe Scarborough who informed me about the coastal regions of Alabama, Mississippi and some of northwestern Florida. This area is known as The Redneck Riviera.
I had to scratch my head a few times when Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan would refer to working class "ethnic whites" in the northeastern U.S. Then my memory took me back to a 1970's sitcom called All in the Family whose central character was Archie Bunker, a bigoted white working class guy who lived in Queens, NY. Archie must be the guy they are talking about, I thought. Archie referred to his fictional Polish-American son-in-law as "Meat Head" and "Pollock." He had other choice names for his daughter and son-in-law's ethnically and/or racially mixed friends as well. The creator of All in the Family had intended for the show to be a comical satire but this was lost on much of the viewing public.
I never knew a place like Wasilla existed nor did I know there is fringe political independent parties scattered across the U.S. from Wasilla, Alaska to Georgia (that would be U.S. Georgia) that want to secede from the U.S.
I learned a lot about narratives, closing the deal, pie, orange juice, coffee, hair styles, make up, gender, age, one's disposition, mavericks, mavericky, SNL, non-mavericks, a family in Texas who are the true Mavericks, Joe Six Pack and Joe the plumber who is worried about the 250K he saved to buy his boss's plumbing company. Since I have a brother-in-law in Ohio who is a plumber I called him to ask if he had socked away 250K in his piggy bank. Karl the real plumber in Ohio asked me if I was on drugs. Next I learned that Joe is not a plumber and Joe's first name is Sam. I also learned that there is a pastor in Alaska who will perform witch exorcisms. I learned the straight talk express alternates between a virtual hate talk express and/or lying express, depending upon on McCain's polling numbers and his and his campaign mangers' mood swings or the media spin cycles.
Tonight Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain take the stage for the second time, and less than a week after the Vice Presidential debate. The debate tonight also takes place during a period in which the Obama campaign has made significant advances in several key swing states, and the McCain campaign has pulled out of Michigan and has been spending a significant amount of time in Republican stronghold states such as Florida.
John McCain and Sarah Palin can't talk about the economy and so their campaign has descended into one of the lowest rings in hell. Indeed, their campaign has sunk to such a degree that it would be laughable were it not so dangerous and downright un-patriotic.
Sarah Palin, McCain's attack wolf, has been on the campaign stump trying real, real hard to paint Senator Obama as a terrorist by association. Sarah-the-heels-are-on-and-gloves-are-off Palin obviously didn't realize when she arrived in national politics that everything she says will actually be fact checked by the media and others. And because heaven help us Palin is on the ticket for the highest offices in the land, journalists are also doing their own vetting of Sarah Palin, something John McCain obviously did not bother to do.
If Obama is guilty by association b/c he knows someone who participated in domestic terrorism when Obama was eight years old, what does that make Sarah Palin whose husband was,until very recently, a member of the Alaska Independent Party? The extremist Party wants to secede from the U.S. and its leader said he hated America and its flag. Sarah Palin apparently approves his message b/c she addressed the Party's Convention in 2008.
(The video and original diary posted on Daily Kos was created by Jed Report.)
Update: Raw Story reveals deeper connections between Palin and the AIP than formerly revealed. Also, Salon.com has an extensive article published on Palin and the AIP.
I see Alaska has its own coterie of Rush Limbaugh styled wackos. Check out the AIG's leader.
