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Words you're not likely to see again here, but kudos to the West Virginia Tea Party people for calling out Republican gubernatorial candidate Larry Faircloth for his racist and sexist jokes at one of their events. Ry Ryvard at the Daily Mail has the story:
The leaders of an Eastern Panhandle Tea Party group are claiming former state lawmaker and current GOP gubernatorial candidate Larry Faircloth made a racist and sexist remark about President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
Terry and Larrice Craver, the co-founders of We the People of Hampshire County, said the group hosted a candidate forum April 29 in Romney that three GOP candidates attended.
"While Mr. Faircloth was giving his opening comments, he chose to tell a racist, sexist 'Joke,'" the couple said in a Monday email obtained by the Daily Mail. "This offended several people, some laughed, most gasped, and one man stood up and walked out and made the statement 'You're all nothing but a bunch of bigots' on his way out the door."
The Tea Party cofounders attempted to get Faircloth to publicly apologize, but he refused.
Faircloth defends his racism to Ryvard.
He added, "We've been tiptoeing around the president."
Our very own Shelley Moore Capito, R-2d, is a terrible representative. A member of the lockstep Right in the U.S. House of Representatives, Ms. Capito voted for the Ryan Plan to Kill Medicare (RPKM), consistently supports gutting the EPA, dismisses climate change, and generally does the bidding of her corporate owners.
By Republican standards, a perfectly acceptable politician.
And yet ... Berkeley County delegate Jonathan Miller (R-53d) has announced that he's going to run for Congress next year!
As you can see, he manages to get through the whole speech without ever mentioning Capito's name. And he wraps himself in populism ("I'm running because I'm tired of seeing Washington politicians put themselves before you," for example), while including a dig at health care reform to make sure that folks know he hates Obama.
A look at his official bio on the House of Delegates site turns up some interesting stuff:
- Member, National Rifle Association (no surprise there);
- Martinsburg-Berkeley County Chamber of Commerce (ditto no surprise);
- Berkeley County Farm Bureau (appropriate);
- American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), The Heartland Institute (*this one's interesting - see below);
- The Cato Institute (rightwing "unthink" tank);
- The Club for Growth (another rightwing "unthink" advocacy group);
- Americans for Tax Reform, Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council (ah, Grover Norquist, who wants to make government so small it can be drowned in a bathtub ... I guess he thinks no one will remember Jack Abramoff).
* ALEC is the legislative clearinghouse that writes "model" legislation on such topics as union-busting, a la Wisconsin governator Scott Walker.
Shelley has been a loyal foot soldier for corporate America. Do you think she's wondering what the hell else she has to do to prove that she's just as willing as the next guy (or Jonathan Miller) to destroy America in the furtherance of unfettered greed?
We've heard that call even from the Tea Party faithful... Now the administration is going to examine ways to screw more gently with Medicare and likely Social Security than the Republicans as they attempt to demonstrate to the country that they too can be tough like the loser Paul Ryan in exploring every possible way to cut expenses. Check this article out in the Washington Post.
Contrasting the president’s approach with what Republican leaders have put forward, Plouffe said Obama will use a “scalpel” and not a “machete” as he seeks to preserve funding for education and other areas he considers crucial to the country’s long-term economic success.
Still, Plouffe said Obama is committed to doing more to slash the fast-rising cost of Medicare and Medicaid, to roll back George W. Bush-era tax cuts for those earning more than $250,000 and to even discuss changes to Social Security.
For Obama, the political stakes are high. He will be trying to convince voters concerned about the growing debt that he is serious about cutting government spending and Democratic allies that he will protect key government programs, while also working to ensure spending is not cut so much that it impairs economic recovery.
I am pleased to hear that they are again looking at increasing taxes as a way to solve our deficit problem expecially since such a large part of our deficit is a direct result of the Bush tax cuts. All of these so called deficit hawks just don't seem to realize that each and every wage earner now pays the social security and the medicare tax on the first $106,800 of their income. Right now social security brings in more than goes out. I agree that the day is coming when more will be going out than comes in. The answer is tgo raise the top amount for contributions to social security and medicare, The sainted Ronald Reagan and our own Bill Clinton certainly had no problem doing this back in 1983 and 1993 respectively.
It is obvious to me that the answers our leaders seem to come up with eventually take away from those who can least afford the loss of benefits that come from what they continually refer to as entitlements.
It is also very obvious to me who the entitled are and they certainly aren't those making less than $106,800 per year.
Every day that goes by with budget and debt ceiling talk by the pundocracy and the government proves to me that we had all better make sure that 2012 reverses the gains made by the republicans in 2010.
None of this discourse would be so crtitical if more of the Democratic base had voted in 2010. We need to be sure that we all support Democrats from the President on down in 2012, and not make the mistake so many made in 2010. The entire Democratic base needs to show up on election day and do all they can to insure that folks like Ryan, Paul and their ilk don't get elected in 2012. I don't have any idea who the Republican candidate for President will be, but as Carnacki has frequently said... think about how bad things would be for us all if Raese had been elected to the Senate last November.
Imagine what it would be like with Donald Trump, Michelle Bachman or Sarah Palin as President because we didn't support Democrats. The clock on 2012 is clicking now.
It looks like the GOP is attempting to drive our country towards programs that would privatize social security and change medicare to a voucher system. As we all know they have to some degree of success managed to get many folks to believe that the deficit has been caused by greedy school teachers, firemen, unionized job holders, postal workers or anyone that has a normal middle class income, decent health insurance, and retirement programs. A good example of this mentality is in this letter to the editor of the Bluefield Daily Telegraph that can be read by clicking here.
Remember when the residential carriers drove their own vehicles to their route, delivered part of it and picked up the next section of their route in a storage box on the corner? The drop off in the storage boxes was done by one person in one truck. Now, every carrier has a vehicle where they drive a block and deliver and drive another block and deliver again. It would be nice to know how much money is wasted each year by the postal service on all of these vehicles. Oh, and they are being paid union wages, which are much higher than the normal wages paid most jobs.
Like I said, it’s all about greed.
Those of us that are over 65 and are already receiving social security checks and medicare would continue to receive those benefits while everyone else will be forced into the no win proposals I mentioned above. Using current logic it won't be long before senior citizens now over the age of 65 will also be characterized as greedy selfish folks who are the cause of the massive deficit created by republicans over the last 12 years.
Personally I think medicare is a pretty decent program even though the cost of part B and supplemental policies continue to rise. Be assured that Social Security will never replace a normal working wage for anyone, but it is a welcome addition if your house and car are paid for and you have income from other sources.
I find it hard to believe that the republican party can find anyone who is a true member of the middle class to support their marriage with the tea party and the one percent of our population that seem to be calling all the shots. The next congressional election can't come soon enough, and we had better get ready to work harder than we ever have to achieve some sanity in our government.
My country is dear to me. I love her ever so much. For me, patriotism is as Adlai Stevenson said so eloquently, "...not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime." The moniker Patriot, is too commonly applied and, unfortunately, like the name of Almighty God, is commonly invoked by those with a political agenda- commonly a political agenda that has nothing with either patriotism or Christian Godliness. I am, I believe, both a christian and a patriot. Thus, I take offense to grandstanding invoking either patriotism or the name of God. What follows below specfically deals with patriotism and those who use that word for a political agenda.
Exemplary of this fact, but certainly not alone, are the self-styled "Tea Party Patriots." This organization of everyday people draws their name from the famous tea party of the American Revolution. As they are a socio-political movement whose primary political agenda is to see radical changes in federal laws relating to taxes in America, they believe, wrongly, that the invocation of references and images of the American Revolution is acceptable and suiting. They, however, forget, ignore, or simply don't know that the Tea Party in Boston Harbor was not directly a protest against taxation but rather, specifically and most importantly, it was a protest against taxation without representation. Frankly, it is the latter two words of that phrase that are most important. The American colonists wanted representation in the English Parliament, and felt that it was unfair of the Crown to tax them without the precondition of representation being met. Thus, their argument was not against taxes but against the lack of representation. I suggest Glen Beck and Sarah Palin read a history book.
Today, no one in the United States is taxed without representation. Our constitution outlines that to every state shall be accorded two senators, and that likewise, each state would have seats in the House of Representatives according to their population. The senate and the house comprise what we collectively call our bicameral legislature, or to use British terminology, our parliament. Thus, to style their movement's name from the Boston Tea Party is absurd and misleading. The espoused and enumerated causes of the "Tea Party Patriots," have nothing to do with the cause of those responsible for the Boston Tea Party. As ignorant, and maddening, as their use of the term "Tea Party" is, I am most offended by the use of the moniker "patriot." I am reminded of the words of George Washington, "Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism."
The term patriot should never be used in a partisan fashion. Further, their use of iconic symbols of our nation's revolutionary heritage, such as the "Don't Tread on Me" flag is offensive beyond my meager ability to articulate. To apply the moniker patriot to their cause, they are, simultaneously, applying the moniker of unpatriotic to all who disagree with them. I, for one, could not disagree with their slighted, skewed, and illogical political agenda more. However, I love my country as much as any person breathing or dead. Rather than rant of my dislike of these people, I have instead applied my youthful vigor and love of country to disproving every propagandized, uninformed, and frankly stupid tenant of their so called, "Contract with America."
(More below the fold well worth reading. Carnacki)
I worked on Capitol Hill for a long time, and I do not consider myself naive about the inner workings of Washington. But even I was surprised by two revelations this week exposing the amount of money the oil industry is spending to buy political influence.
The first eye-opener came from recently released lobbying numbers. The OpenSecrets blog reported that the oil and gas industry poured $174 million into the political system in 2009. That's eight times more than the green groups.
What did the oil and gas industry get for its money? A handful of Senators who blocked all attempts by the Senate to pass a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill that would have made fossil fuel industries start cleaning up their global warming pollution.
This week's second revelation made that difference abundantly clear. Jane Mayer wrote an investigative piece in the New Yorker about the brothers David and Charles Koch who run Koch Industries -- the biggest corporation you've never heard of -- and who have spent more than $100 million on anti-government causes.
Koch Industries owns oil refineries and 4,000 miles of pipeline, and was named one of the top 10 air polluters in the nation in a 2010 UMass-Amherst report. The Kochs' political donations are often aimed at promoting their libertarian views, but they also directly benefit their own profit margins. They have donated millions of dollars to nonprofit groups that fight environmental regulation and seed doubt about climate science. In fact, a Greenpeace report called them a "kingpin of climate science denial." And though green groups tend to paint ExxonMobil as the worst of the worst when it comes to lobbying against climate legislation, Koch outspent even ExxonMobil.
One of David Koch's pet projects is the group Americans for Prosperity, a group he founded and funds but positions as a grassroots movement. An ad for one of its training sessions for Tea Party activists says, "The voices of average Americans are being drowned out by lobbyists and special interests. But you can do something about it."
But when Americans for Prosperity hosts at least 80 events protesting climate legislation, is it really acting in the interest of average Americans or the interest of oil industry donors?
When it funds an attack ad against Representative Betsey Markey from Colorado because she supported climate legislation last summer that would have brought 30,000 jobs to her state, who is it benefiting?
And when the group pledges to spend an additional $45 million before the midterm elections, is that money really coming from grassroots activists, or from deep corporate pockets? These fat cats pretend to fraternize with the ordinary folks who dangle tea bags from their tri-cornered hats, but, in fact, they are just using activists to put a populist face on their industry agenda.
Manipulating other people's fears about the economy when you are a billionaire -- I would call that the depth of cynicism. But considering those billionaires are getting in the way of climate solutions, clean energy and green jobs in America; I have to instead call it dangerous.
On June 26, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 219-212 in favor of HR 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES). Only eight Republicans - we'll call them the "Enlightened Eight" - voted "aye." These Republicans were Mary Bono-Mack (CA-45), Mike Castle (DE-AL), John McHugh (NY-23), Frank LoBiondo (NJ-2), Leonard Lance (NJ-7), Mark Kirk (IL-10), Dave Reichert (WA-8), and Christopher Smith (NJ-4).
Republicans voting for cap and trade in the year of the Tea Party? You'd think that they'd be dumped in the harbor by now. Instead, they're all doing fine. In fact, to date, not a single one of these Republicans has been successfully primaried by the "tea party" (or otherwise). Instead, we have two - Castle and Kirk - running for U.S. Senate, one (McHugh) who was appointed Secretary of the Army by President Obama, and five others - Bono-Mack, LoBiondo, Lance, Reichert, Smith - running for reelection.
Rep. Lance actually was challenged by not one, not two, but three "Tea Party" candidates. One of Lance's opponents, David Larsen, even produced this nifty video, helpfully explaining that "Leonard Lance Loves Cap & Trade Taxes." So, did this work? Did the Tea Partiers overthrow the tyrannical, crypto-liberal Lance? Uh, no. Instead, in the end, Lance received 56% of the vote, easily moving on to November.
Meanwhile, 100 miles or so south on the Jersey Turnpike, Rep. LoBiondo faced two "Tea Party" candidates - Donna Ward and Linda Biamonte - who also attacked on the cap-and-trade issue. According to Biamonte, cap and trade "is insidious and another tax policy... a funneling of money to Goldman Sachs and Al Gore through derivatives creating a carbon bubble like the housing bubble." You'd think that Republican primary voters in the year of the Tea Party would agree with this line of attack. Yet LoBiondo won with 75% of the vote.
Last but not least in New Jersey, Christopher Smith easily turned back a Tea Party challenger - Alan Bateman - by a more than 2:1 margin. Bateman had argued that "Obama knows he can count on Smith to support the United Nations' agenda to redistribute American wealth to foreign countries through international Cap & Trade agreements and other programs that threaten our sovereignty." Apparently, Republican voters in NJ-4 didn't buy that argument.
Across the country in California's 45th District, Mary Bono-Mack won 71% of the vote over Tea Party candidate Clayton Thibodeau on June 8. This, despite Thibodeau attacking Bono-Mack as "the only Republican west of the Mississippi to vote for Cap and Trade." Thibodeau also called cap and trade "frightening," claiming that government could force you to renovate your home or meet requirements before you purchase a home. Thibodeau's scare tactics on cap-and-trade clearly didn't play in CA-45.
Finally, in Washington's 8th Congressional District, incumbent Rep. Dave Reichert has drawn a Tea Party challenger named Ernest Huber, who writes that Cap and Trade "is widely viewed as an attempt at Soviet-style dictatorship using the environmental scam of global warming/climate change... written by the communist Apollo Alliance, which was led by the communist Van Jones, Obama's green jobs czar." We'll see how this argument plays with voters in Washington's 8th Congressional District, but something tells us it's not going to go over any better than in the New Jersey or California primaries.
In sum, it appears that it's quite possible for Republicans to vote for comprehensive, clean energy and climate legislation and live (politically) to tell about it. The proof is in the primaries.
We often hear that history repeats itself and I'm convinced that the recent development of the Tea Party movement bears a striking resemblance to Jim Crow. In both cases the rich and powerful developed a strategy that pitted the poor and working masses against each other. They used fear and hatred to divide and conquer people, thereby destroying any challenge to their power.
"Whites Only" and "Coloreds" are the signs we think of when someone mentions Jim Crow. But who were the targets of Jim Crow? Most people believe the targets were blacks, but actually significant targets of those repressive laws were the poor white masses. Jim Crow laws were not instituted immediately following the Civil War, but at a critical time when wealthy and powerful Southerners were feeling threatened.
Historian C. Vann Woodward writes in his book "The Strange Career of Jim Crow" "The segregation of the races was really a political stratagem employed by the emerging Bourbon interests in the South to keep the southern masses divided and southern labor the cheapest in the land."
During the post-civil war period poor whites were paid unbearably low wages, but if they complained the plantation and mill owners simply threatened to hire newly freed slaves, a group of people they could pay even less. By pitting the poor whites and newly freed slaves against each other the southern plantation owners were able to enforce the near-starvation wages.
Toward the end of the Reconstruction era the Populist movement was developed that began to unite poor whites and former slaves. Rev. Martin Luther, Jr. described what happened next, "The leaders of this movement began awakening the poor white masses and the former Negro slaves to the fact that they were being fleeced by the emerging Bourbon interests. Not only that, but they began uniting the Negro and white masses in a voting bloc that threatened to drive the Bourbon interests from the command posts of political power in the South."
The southern aristocracy was threatened by this voting bloc and realized they must develop a strategy to end this. In response to this threat they established the white supremacy doctrine, which was enforced through the establishment of Jim Crow laws. Through Jim Crow they were able to separate whites and blacks, thus eliminating the opportunity for these two groups to build an electoral base that would challenge the wealthy Southerners' ability to control the masses.
Let's be clear about why the Populist movement had to be destroyed. If the poor masses, both black and white, united they had the potential to build enough power to threaten the power structure of the South. White supremacy and Jim Crow were the tools that were used to keep both groups poor and powerless.
As Rev. King further explained, "That's what happened when the Negro and white masses of the South threatened to unite and build a great society: a society of justice where none would prey upon the weakness of others, a society of plenty where greed and poverty would be done away, a society of brotherhood where every man would respect the dignity and worth of human personality."
So what relevance does Jim Crow have in 21st century America? Rev. King provided these four descriptions of Jim Crow:
1. A Populist movement was built that united former slaves and poor whites.
2. The movement developed a voting bloc that threatened to drive aristocratic interests from political power.
3. A counter movement was developed in which the needs of poor whites were of no consequence.
4. Through the counter movement's command of mass media they revised the doctrine of white supremacy. They saturated the thinking of poor white masses with it.
What if we substituted the first point with: A presidential movement was built that united a broad cross-section of Americans? Then ask yourself: Did that movement develop a voting bloc that threatened to drive aristocratic interests from political power? Has a counter movement developed in which the needs of poor whites are of no consequence? Through the counter movement's command of mass media have they revised the doctrine of white supremacy? Have they saturated the thinking of poor white masses with it?
I clearly see the Tea Party as the 21st century version of Jim Crow. We need to understand, though, that while white supremacy and racism are the tools of both Jim Crow and the Tea Party, the real purpose of these counter movements was/is to keep the masses divided and permit wealthy aristocrats to retain their power.
Rev. King often reached out to poor whites he met, even the jailers after he had been arrested. In recalling one of those times he tells the story of what he said to his white jailers, "Now you know what? You ought to be marching with us. You are put in the position of supporting your oppressor, because through prejudice and blindness, you fail to see that the same forces that oppress Negroes in American society oppress poor white people."
Do people who are suffering because of today's economic conditions have a right to be angry, angry because they fear losing their job, home, maybe even their families? Of course they do and we must reach out to those who are suffering. Am I advocating standing up at a Tea Party and trying to "educate" people? Absolutely not. But there are thousands of people in West Virginia who are scared, legitimately scared, and we must develop strategies to reach out to them, hear their stories and provide solutions besides hate and fear.
News has just broken via the Associated Press that Congressman Bart Stupak (D-MI) will not seek re-election in the fall. This announcement has come in the wake of controversy regarding the healthcare legislation and its abortion language.
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. - Democratic Congressman Bart Stupak of Michigan tells The Associated Press that he'll retire from Congress rather than seek a 10th term this year.
Stupak has drawn criticism from opponents of the recently enacted health care overhaul after leading a bloc of anti-abortion Democrats whose last-minute support was crucial to its approval by the House
Tea party yahoo's are seeing this as a victory for them, claiming that they forced him to retire. Stupak claims otherwise.
But Stupak tells the AP the attacks didn't influence his decision and he could win re-election if he tried.
He plans to announce his decision at an afternoon news conference at Northern Michigan University.
He says he wants to spend more time with his family and start a new career after 18 years in Congress.
I would have to imagine that the threats against his family and himself over his vote for healthcare may have played a part despite his denial of it
Let's hear it for Annabel Park of Silver Spring, MD, who, when really upset by the Tea Party Movement and it's Fox News promoters, started a response movement in her living room: The Coffee Party Movement. And, wonder of wonders, it has caught on... enough so that I've added Coffee Party to my blog rolls.
C-Span has been running the videos from the Tea Party Convention in Nashville all night, and I started watching when I got up in the morning... and, believe me, this is scary stuff. I especially was taken by one Joseph Farah, who is the Founder, CEO and Editor In Chief of WorldNetDaily.
Remember when The Journal was responsible enough to challenge completely outrageous claims by those contributing letters in late September?
One-and-a-half million came to Washington, D.C., on Sept. 12 to express more than passion. Armed with the facts and fears of losing liberties, voices from more than 45 states were echoing frustrations from health care to cap and trade.
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Editor's note: Though initially reported as exceeding 1 million, that was considered to be incorrect. Depending upon the source, crowds for the recent rally in Washington have been estimated at around 70,000 for the Sept. 12 event.
Well, I do but evidently someone who reviews the letters to the editor before they are published does not.
The picture on the front page of Sunday edition of The Journal has no credit. Is it cropped to not show the empty grass? The Journal spent subscribers' money to send reporter Jenni Vincent to accompany the local group in Washington.
ABC News, who was misquoted, has asked the organizers to stop lying about the crowd size.
approximately 60,000 to 70,000 people flooded Pennsylvania Ave, according to the Washington DC Fire Department.
In another story "reporter" Jenni Vincent in the local Ogden bird cage liner:
Event organizers said Capitol Police estimated that 1.2 million people protested Saturday.
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Seventy-seven of those individuals were members of the Berkeley County-based Blue Ridge Patriots, said organizer Barb Miller.
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Delegate Jonathon Miller, R-Berkeley, said he was "amazed" at the number of people and signs in the protest.
I'd be amazed if they did not have to lie to feel better about the turnout. After all, That One had 1.8 million at the inauguration and shut down DC. After all, the Promise Keepers march fifteen years ago attracted over one million, so why not just reuse the pictures? Promise Keepers. How did that work out Sen. Ensign?
Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, the group that organized the event, said on stage at the rally that ABC News was reporting that 1 million to 1.5 million people were in attendance.
At no time did ABC News, or its affiliates, report a number anywhere near as large. ABCNews.com reported an approximate figure of 60,000 to 70,000 protesters, attributed to the Washington, D.C., fire department. In its reports, ABC News Radio described the crowd as "tens of thousands."
Maybe they were just disappointed this crowd was less than the April Tax Day protest and had to compensate. Maybe all the news is not reporting the 20 fold increase they want to claim. Those who attended the inauguration know what over one million people does to the streets and Metro in DC. And no one on the ground who lives in DC is reporting that the city was paralyzed yesterday.
This cannot stand.
UPDATE: Missing Protesters found, not by Ms. Vincent:
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