Despite the complete and thorough debunking of the media’s attempt to link common political discourse with the actions of a deranged lunatic in Tucson, one Congresswoman is taking politically correct rhetoric to ridiculous lows (h/t Michelle Malkin ).
Continue reading …Lee Fang of Think Progress was able to surprise David Koch after the swearing-in of his newly-minted House of Representatives last week for this impromptu man-on-the-street interview . The interview is posted in three parts, but Part One captures just how arrogant, uppity, and callous this man is. The other guy is Tim Phillips, who desperately tries to become a human shield for that most dangerous thing of all: the interview. You have to watch the video to really catch the ebullience Koch has for his new Congress. He’s nearly beside himself with joy. TP: Hi sir, I’m Lee Fang. I’m with the blog ThinkProgress. I’m just asking what you’re expecting from the new Congress under Speaker Boehner? KOCH: Well, cut the hell out of spending, balance the budget, reduce regulations, and uh, support business . PHILLIPS: Hey David, Lee here is a good blogger on the left, we’re glad to have him–TP: Just a quick interview. Are you proud of what Americans for Prosperity has achieved this year? KOCH: You bet I am, man oh’ man. We’re going to do more too in the next couple of years, you know. TP: What are you planning on doing. What are your goals? KOCH: I just told you what we hope the Congress will do and AFP is going to support that. TP: I’m curious to know, Mr. Koch, are you proud of what the Tea Party movement and what they’ve achieved in the past years– KOCH: Yeah. There are some extremists there, but the rank and file are just normal people like us. And I admire them. It’s probably the best grassroots uprising since 1776 in my opinion. This interview was done long before the events of Saturday unfolded. But Koch’s casual toss-off of the “extremists” in the Tea Party is telling, particularly given the strenuous denials we’re all hearing now. Like the way his ‘grass roots’ characterization seems to affirm astroturf as an organic thing, at least in the mind of David Koch? And hey — it’s totally fine with Koch to have an extremist or two in the mix as long as the whole thing is dag-gone grassrootsy and populated with “normal people like [him].” Funny thing. I haven’t met even one single normal person in my entire life who is also a billionaire who spends millions and millions trying to defeat political opponents. But that’s just me, I guess. Let’s consider those few “extremists”. We have extremist Sharron Angle, with her ” 2nd Amendment remedies .” Then there’s “extremist” Sarah Palin, loading and reloading. Then there’s lower-profile but still destructive extremists like Dana Loesch and Bill Hennessy . If this video isn’t bone-chilling and visceral evidence of extreme speech and views, I’m not sure what is. Maybe David Koch wants to rethink his characterization of them as grass roots. I’m more inclined to think of them as “dry brush”. The kind that ignites and destroys everything in its path. The rest of Fang’s interview can be viewed here and here .
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David Sirota calls this Steve Almond essay the best take he’s seen on the Giffords shooting and it’s hard to disagree. “What happens when a large and well-armed portion of our citizenry can no longer apologize?” Almond asks. “When humility becomes another form of humiliation? Their heroes exhort them: Never retreat. Reload.” We won’t ruin the essay by summarizing it. Just go read the damn thing. Steve Almond on The Rumpus: The more hysterical reactions will come from those who feel themselves implicated, who fear the great con of their professions exposed. They will react with absurd rituals of denial, as if, after all their violent agitation, they are the ones being fired upon, the victims of some vast and unending conspiracy. This operatic indignation is what I meant when I spoke, a few months ago, about the American descent into a shame culture. It has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with the capacity for moral self-reflection. What happens when a large and well-armed portion of our citizenry can no longer apologize? When humility becomes another form of humiliation? Their heroes exhort them: Never retreat. Reload. Read more Related Entries January 6, 2011 Washington Loves a Paradox January 5, 2011 The House of Professors
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enlarge Getting a little too close to home in 1954 Click here to view this media Under the heading of “never say never”, an unprecedented attack took place on Capitol Hill during a session of Congress on March 1, 1954. A group of Puerto Rican nationals opened fire from the gallery, spraying the floor of the House of Representatives in a hail of some 30 bullets. Five Representatives were shot and seriously wounded in the attack before the Nationals, Lolita Lebron, Rafael Miranda, Andres Cordero and Irving Rodriquez were arrested. It served as an unpleasant wakeup call to those who felt the Halls of Congress and elected officials were immune to acts of violence. Something which, no doubt makes it all that much more apparent today. And something which, sadly is taken for granted in 2011.
Continue reading …Ralph Reed came out over the weekend with his defense of Tom DeLay . It comes to this: He was only trying to elect Republicans. Is that a crime? Evidently a jury thought so. Mr. Morally Superior “Christians-for-Hire” Reed says DeLay is a victim of political vendettas and inconsistent laws. He forgets that whether or not they “did it all the time”, it was illegal in Texas to accept corporate contributions for state campaigns. That’s all. But here’s his defense. You be the jury: I was chairman of the Georgia Republican party in 2002, so I know first-hand that the practice of exchanging soft and hard dollars was both commonplace and legal at the time; it was practiced openly by both parties. Indeed, a commodity-like national market of corporate and personal funds operated among state and national party committees, with soft money traded for hard money (which was harder to raise and therefore more valuable) at between 50 and 75 cents on the dollar. If DeLay’s operatives made any mistake at all, it was being too good at negotiating: They exchanged the funds dollar-for-dollar.This even exchange enabled prosecutors to later claim the funds were “laundered.” But money laundering requires an underlying crime. There was nothing illegal about supporting state House candidates with the funds so exchanged, and the transaction was reported publicly by both DeLay’s state committee and the RNC. It takes some real balls to write something like this about a time where Reed was actively selling out the Christian Coalition to Jack Abramoff for kickbacks which were laundered through non-profits. If there were even a little bit of fairness in the world, Ralph Reed would be serving a tougher sentence than Abramoff instead of painting himself as the hero of moral conservatives and champion of the likes of Tom DeLay.
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Despite drumming up support in the form of testimony from former House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, onetime U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and his legal team have failed to ward off a jail sentence for money laundering charges. On Monday, DeLay was slapped with a three-year prison sentence in an Austin, Texas, courtroom—but it could have been a lot worse.
Continue reading …Gingrich and Norquist: We’re From The Republican Party And We’re Here To Help You Destroy Your Unions
January 10, 2011 No Comment
enlarge Newt Gingrich with Wife No. 2 in a series. Collect the whole set! By God, there’s two brand names we can trust! Grover “Date Rape” Norquist and Newt “Serial Adulterer” Gingrich, together again… You’ll notice they’re not talking about replacing those pensions with anything else, nor are they expressing even the mildest concern about what happens to the retirees who need that money. Because, after all, the real benefit of this “helpful” legislation will be to break public employees union s, who somehow persist in voting for Democrats. Another day, another act of organized theft against ordinary working people. This is what we can expect from today’s corporate parties , where regular people are so far down on the list of concerns, it’s hardly worth mentioning: Former House Speaker and possible GOP presidential contender Newt Gingrich is pushing for federal legislation giving financially strapped states the right to file for bankruptcy and renege on pension and other benefit promises made to state employees. Proponents of the measure — which include Americans for Tax Reform, a Washington lobby group that fights tax increases — said the legislation is desperately needed to clear the way for struggling states to slash costs before they go belly up, and should be regarded as a preemptive move that could preclude the need for massive federal bailouts. “It’s in the short-term and long-term interests of government workers and taxpayers to start those reforms now , rather than having to pick up the pieces after a crash landing,” ATR President Grover Norquist said in an interview. “We are working with people inside and outside of Congress on this issue,” said Joe DeSantis, a spokesman for Mr. Gingrich, whom Mr. DeSantis said is considering a bid to be the Republican presidential candidate in 2012. Yep, Joe. I’ll just bet you are — working with people outside Congress, I mean. All kinds of people!
Continue reading …Democratic Rep to Offer Legislation That Would Make it a Federal Crime to Threaten Members of Congress
January 10, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media Looks like someone has had quite enough of Sarah Palin and her eliminationist rhetoric: Shooting prompts legislation to protect lawmakers, officials : Rep. Robert Brady, D-Pennsylvania, said he will introduce legislation making it a federal crime for a person to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against a Member of Congress or federal official. Brady’s decision to offer the legislation comes less than 24 hours after a gunman attempted to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Arizona, in a shooting that claimed the lives of a federal judge, and a nine year-old girl, among others. “The president is a federal official,” Brady said in a telephone interview with CNN. “You can’t do it to him; you should not be able to do it to a congressman, senator or federal judge. “This is not a wake up call, this is major alarms going off,” he said. Brady is particularly incensed over a web posting by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin during the 2010 election in which she targeted 20 House Democrats, including Giffords for political defeat. The posting showed a map of the United States with the 20 Democratic congressional districts identified by gun sights. “You can’t put bulls eyes or crosshairs on a United States congressman or a federal official,” Brady said. “I understand this web site that had it on there is no longer in existence. Someone is feeling a little guilty.” But a Palin aide Saturday denied the web posting from the 2010 congressional campaign was designed to incite violence. Rebecca Mansour told conservative host Tammy Bruce that it was a political tool and noted it should have been removed after the November election. Brady said he is hearing that the spouses of some of his congressional colleagues, specifically the newly elected members, are terrified and questioning whether they should remain in Congress. Upon hearing the news of the shooting Saturday, some spouses attending a freshman retreat in West Virginia, were “taking their children out of the daycare,” Brady said he was told. “The spouses are in an uproar,” he said. “They are panicking.” Brady said it is now time to put an end to the hyper-charged language. Well, we’ll see if Republicans go along with it, and what’s in the legislation, but I could see something like this being abused pretty easily, depending on the language in the bill.
Continue reading …By Jonny Dymond BBC News, Tucson Continue reading the main story GIFFORDS SHOT How Giffords survived How it happened Survivors relive horror Relations with voters could suffer Four US Marshals guard the house of US district judge Cindy Jorgenson, checking the bags, identification and cars of those who draw up outside her house, a 25-minute drive from Tucson. She spent Sunday trying to work out how to deal with the court cases that her friend and colleague Judge John Roll was no longer going to be able to hear. Judge Roll was killed on Saturday, one of six fatalities of the mayhem that erupted in Tucson on what should have been a normal weekend. Cindy Jorgenson is calm and collected: she…
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Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head Saturday, on Facebook lists her favorite quote as this line from Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, … let us strive on to finish the work we are in, … to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” Sadly relevant given the day’s events, and the fate of the author of those moving words. The full text of Lincoln’s speech can be read here . The full quote, which Giffords edited for her page, is: With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. Related Entries January 6, 2011 Underwhelmer of the House January 5, 2011 The House of Professors
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