I’m sure you are all shocked:
Conservatives were quick to insist that the near-riot — the first of many town-hall mobs that would dominate the headlines in August — was completely spontaneous. The protesters didn’t show up “because of some organized group,” Rick Scott, the head of Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, told reporters. “They’re mad about the stimulus bill, the bailout, the economy. Now they see that their health care is about to be taken over by the government.”
***Behind the scenes, top Republicans — including House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, Minority Leader John Boehner and the chairman of the GOP’s Senate steering committee, Jim DeMint — worked hand-in-glove with the organizers of the town brawls. Their goal was not only to block health care reform but to bankrupt President Obama’s political capital before he could move on to other key items on his agenda, including curbing climate change and expanding labor rights. As DeMint told an August teleconference of nearly 20,000 town-hall activists, “If we can stop him on this, the administration won’t be able to go on to cap and trade, card check and the other things they want to do.”
I eagerly await the folks at Reason explaining that really, the health care protesters were just advocates of limited government.
(via)
Persia
No one could have predicted some of those brawls were staged.
Sanka
Wait a second! The leaders of one political party trying to stop the agenda of the political party currently in control?!?
You’ve got to be kidding! This is an outrage! How dare everyone doesn’t just STFU and acquiesce to everything and anything the benevolent Democrats try and push through Congress!!
I knew it! It’s the Republicans fault that healthcare reform isn’t sailing through the Democratically-controlled congress….
Bastards!
MikeJ
Of course the advocates of limited government think the government should be able to wiretap you, indefinitely detain you without charge, torture you, and then execute you, but under no circumstances should the government provide you with health care.
The Saff
The Republican Party is morally and ideally bankrupt. I can’t stand Boehner, Canton, DeMint, and all their slimy ilk.
JK
Rep. Trent Franks Declares President Obama an “Enemy of Humanity”
h/t http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rep-trent-franks-declares-president-obama-enemy-humanity
Midnight Marauder
@Sanka:
Of course, that’s not what the article is focusing on, now is it?
There’s a marked difference between opposing an agenda on legitimate grounds because of ideological differences versus running around screaming about nonexistent “government takeovers,” hollow claims of “fiscal responsibility,” exhibiting shameless intellectual dishonesty, and repeatedly demonstrating just how thoroughly you have been bought and paid for by your Corporate Masters.
Unless what you were doing was all snark. But I somehow doubt that…
burnspbesq
I don’t think this sort of mindless, petty nay-saying in the service of no coherent theory of anything is what Buckley had in mind when he visualized conservatives standing athwart history saying “no.”
But as we all know the Republican Party ceased being a conservative party in any meaningful sense a long time ago. It now stands for nothing other than the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a privileged few. And their “ideas” are nothing but lies and fear-mongering.
I say to Sanka and everyone else like him: if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Get the fuck out of the way and let some adults govern the country that your party tried but narrowly failed to ruin.
Lee
John, you are going to be waiting a very long time. I have given up on the people at Reason having any sort of intellectual honesty. It has gotten so bad over there that I am starting to have doubts about Radley.
Zifnab
That’s ok. Because Eric Cantor, John Boehner and Jim DeMint represent “Real Americans!” while Obama is only interested in funneling money to the Al Gore special interest groups and crazy anti-capitalist hippies.
So when these guys organize a spontaneous protest (cognitive dissonance hats on!), they’re defending the noble yellow bellied All American bumble fuck. And it’s just a reflection of what “America Really Thinks!”
Anyone else at the Obama town halls are just quacks and propagandists and phonies.
slag
But you don’t understand. According to Marc Ambinder, the line between grassroots and astroturf is just too blurry these days. No one can find it anymore! I, for one, blame the internets. For everything ever.
And were the town bawlers wearing Brooks Brothers, or were they too afraid to get their outfits dirty?
Bastards. All of them.
Bill Rutherford, Princeton Admissions
It’s supposed to be “Democrat-controlled Congress,” Sanka. -10.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@MikeJ:
But just think of how expensive it would be to provide health care after you’ve been hounded, tortured, etc. The therapy, the physical rehab, the reconstructive surgery, etc. Dear god, the bills will be staggering – the deficit good sir, think of the deficit! You must remember at all times that the power to spend is the power to tax, and the power to tax is the power to destroy!
Xanthippas
I don’t think you guys should overlook this nugget either:
Fallows has an update where Lindsay Craig of the Manhattan Institute (McCaughey’s employer) denies that McCaughey ever worked with Philip Morris. So basically it’s the word of a tobacco lobbyist vs. a health care hack.
The Grand Panjandrum
@slag: No. This is Al Gore’s fault for inventing the internets.
BTW I’m watching Larry Craig’s replacement Mr. Crapo (I kid you not) speak against a public option.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Sanka:
There’s opposition, and then there’s dealing in bad faith. The GOP leadership is dealing in bad faith. They do not care about the substance of the policies they are opposing, they only care about obstructing any and every policy initiative coming from the Democrats. Otherwise they wouldn’t be making shit up about death panels and so-sha-list agendas.
trollhattan
Not only is it okay to lie for the Greater Good, it’s required of True Patriots, lest they allow our nation to slip into disarray, sozializm and K.A.O.S. (not necessarily in that order).
See, I’ve been practicing.
Mnemosyne
@Sanka:
Funny, I didn’t hear you defending the Democrats when they complained that Republicans were breaking Congressional rules to get their legislation passed. In fact, I seem to remember Republicans calling Democrats “traitors” if they tried to oppose any Republican legislation.
But that would make you a flaming hypocrite who’s only interested in scoring political points by pumping up the whining of your own side, and that couldn’t possibly be true, could it?
slag
@The Grand Panjandrum:
This would explain why the liberal media doesn’t like liberals. Al Gore killed the print media star.
@Xanthippas: I wonder if Dickinson is going to get Rathered.
asiangrrlMN
I, for one, am shocked that they were stupid enough to get caught admitting it. Wankers.
slag
@Grumpy Code Monkey: As with all things, the Republican mindset is to win at all cost. Lying, cheating, torturing…all noble acts when they’re done on behalf of the Republican agenda. Just ask Oliver North, G. Gordon Liddy, and Dick Cheney.
The Saff
@burnspbesq:
This.
Savage Henry
@MikeJ
Its ok if they are only doing those things to the brown people. As long as they stay away from the real, hard-working ‘merkins no lines have been crossed.
And under no circumstances should they be giving the brown people healthcare.
smiley
@Zifnab:
My local newspaper has a call -in feature where people can leave anonymous comments. A few days ago one was, “When are real Americans going to stand up.” That sentiment really is out there.
Funkhauser
John, again, why do we give a shit about wankers at a low-rent rag like Reason suddenly discovering their guilt? The masturbators there aren’t any more intellectually honest than McArgleBargle, and are just as smug.
Who cares what they think?
Keith G
@Mnemosyne:
@<a@Midnight Marauder:
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
Your responses to sanka are well taken. Still there were some who saw this coming and were a gasp that Obama and the Dems were not strapping on their pads and getting ready for a tough game. I am gut wrenched at our side’s Charlie Brown approach to the conservatives and the SCLM who seem to take so great a delight in portraying Lucy with a football.
Zifnab
@smiley:
Yeah, but it’s kinda a bogus sentiment. We’ve issued the rallying cry, “When are people going to stand up?!” a thousand times over torture and corporate fraud and corruption and waste and embezzlement and needless, bloody wars. And sure enough, in 2006 and 2008, we saw majorities march to the polls to vote their consciences.
That’s your people “standing up”. That’s your public outcry. When half a million immigrants and ex-pats and sympathizers marched through LA protesting immigration, that was “standing up”.
Lone guy on the internet screaming about why people aren’t “standing up”? That’s not standing up.
All that said, I think it’s worth noting the Million Minion March on 9/12. First, I think the 70k turnout figure was a bit low, but that’s probably because DC isn’t in the deep south. If Beck had held his wingnut parade in Montgomery, Alabama or Tallahasse, Florida or – hell – freak’n Alaska or Wyoming, he might have seen better numbers. Second, these numbers are still minuscule. The fact that the GOP has to drop these massive lies to pump up the outrage illustrates what a popular program universal health care can be.
A guy shouting “When are people going to stand up!” out into an empty message board doesn’t illustrate popular support at all. Just the opposite. He feels alone and abandoned, because no one agrees with him. Might as well start bemoaning, “Why am I such a minority?!”
Stooleo
So we got Cantor, Boehner and DeMint, pretty much saying anything to rile up the fiscal conservatives and derail health care. We also got Limbaugh, Beck and O’Rielly saying Obama’s going to take your guns along with the usual race baiting. And we also got Michell Bachman firing up the insane crowd with the so called dangers of the census, which BTW is mandated by the constitution. So when some poor SOB census worker winds up lynched with the word FED written on his chest, all this shit isn’t some how interconnected?
Mark my words, something seriously fucked up is going to happen in the next 4 years, cause these assholes will keep on throwing gas on the fire until it does.
Midnight Marauder
@Keith G:
I would concur with everything you wrote here. I know I shouldn’t be, but I am still amazed everytime the Democratic establishment is caught off guard by more wingnut craziness or by constantly trying to appease them or find some kind of conciliatory solution.
There is no reason to even include those assholes in any discussions whatsoever, so long as they continue to behave like the Obstructionist Assholes they are.
Dean Wormer
@Stooleo:
Fat, drunk and republican is no way to go through life, son.
SFAW
That’s because the Dems are, unfortunately, still under the impression that “Peak Wingnut” actually exists. If they popped in here – or The Poor Man – or edroso – or take-your-pick – they would be disabused of that belief. Not immediately, of course, but (I hope) soon enough.
Once you come to that understanding, it becomes much easier to tell the Rethugs to pound sand until the cows come home (or some other cliche that’s more fitting).
Tsulagi
Just a little friendly wingnut bipartisanship.
Yeah, no one could ever have predicted this would be their strategy. Politically, there is no advantage in successful, beneficial HCR or anything else to the Country firsters. Hell, since the beginning of this year leading nutters have said they want Obama to fail. Gotta give them some credit for being upfront about it.
Probable Dem response? Likely continuing to woo Grassley and Snowe because that’s what’s important. If they can just get those bipartisanship green shoots to sprout, utopia will follow. And those who believe that deserve to be on Nigerian lists of platinum level easy marks.
Ed Marshall
Whenever I see Reason people on bloggingheads.tv the standard apologia is how hard it is too deal with their readers. They pat themselves on the back because some of them dare to not be morons who don’t understand how changing the composition of a planets atmosphere might cause problems or that torturing people isn’t libertarian because they have to put up with a revolt from the morons they have cultivated for a following.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Midnight Marauder:
That’s one of the drawbacks of living in the reality-based community; you tend assume that not-bugfuck-insane is the default state, and that other people are just as amenable to logic and evidence as you are. If you’re used to negotiating in good faith, you tend to assume the other party is also negotiating in good faith, because that’s how negotiating is done.
It’s honestly amazing to me that so many public figures appear to be clinically woo-woo. You have to wonder how they got into positions of power in the first place.
I still have faith that Obama is playing 11-dimensional chess, and that he’s deliberately hanging back and letting the GOP leaderhip embarrass themselves. It’s frustrating and a little scary, but it’s also the right thing to do in the long term IMNSHO. We can afford to be cynical, since we don’t have to work with these bastards on a daily basis.
We’ll know in a couple of years if it was the right thing to do.
Mike G
Larry Craig’s replacement Mr. Crapo
Hey Idaho, enough with the toilet-obsessed senators, OK?
AkaDad
One of the main themes at Reason is that tax cuts allow you to keep more money and that equals freedom.
Following their logic, if we had a single-payer system, I wouldn’t have to spend thousands on premiums or go bankrupt when the free-market decides I shouldn’t get certain kinds of care.
In other words, a universal health-care system will provide us with more freedom than the average tax cut.
Nellcote
Newsmax speculates on military coup:
http://mediamatters.org/blog/200909290042
Brittancus
Our government panders to the 20 to 30 plus (?) illegal immigrants allowing them free subsidies from taxpayers in the US. California–a Sanctuary State has one of the worst records that currently languish under the immense burden of near bankruptcy, instead of –ATTRACTING–ICE to illegal business operations. Certain legislators in Sacramento, led by Gilbert Cedillo-D has authored a lame brain resolution condemning any interference in immigration enforcement. Congressman Brian Bilbray-R Calif. reminds Sen. Cedillo that this resolution breaks the laws of the Constitution. “He should look up the separation of powers section and this resolution is nothing more than political posturing.” Cedillo urges President Obama to declare an immediate moratorium on immigration policies and practices until a comprehensive reform of immigration is enacted. The resolution states ” The State of California values all of its residents, whether they be citizens, legal residents, or undocumented immigrants, and strives to enable all residents to work and live free from discrimination, exploitation, and repressive federal immigration enforcement.” This man certainly has no love for the legal American worker and should be immediately discarded from office as his words are a form of treachery to the jobless people hurting.
Why wouldn’t certain legislators want health care for foreign labor, because they have an over abundance of illegal immigrant families to financially support? Our own government is so absorbed in protecting every other countries border? They remain unconcerned to our poor replica border fence that should have been a two-tier periphery, with border patrol surveillance lanes in between, as originally planned by Rep. Duncan Hunter. Every time a good enforcement plan is written, it’s methodically cut to pieces by pro-illegal worker politicians and open border fanatics. Though we spend billions on our armed forces in foreign lands, the rich countries in Europe just forward token troops and little money: while our nation is literary falling apart at the seams–or its rivets?
Any moment now I expect to hear of yet another collapsing ailing city bridge, deteriorating waterworks, the underground pipes and eroding highway. Our cities are already exhibiting inward decay, but years of neglect by the very people who’s supposed to protect us do nothing? I have reiterated watch “The Crumbling of America” on the History (International) channel in the next few weeks and learn? This is where your tax dollars should be going? We must not allow the Administration as in previous times keep sending our precious tax dollars to other countries. These politicians are deaf, dumb and intentionally blind to the rigors our industrial nation is going through. Not just Democrats, but the Republicans have had their sticky fingers in the bad apple–SPECIAL INTEREST–barrel, where money is plentiful. It’s like they are intentionally trying to turn our magnificent country into a third world nation, while making other cheap labor countries, on an even par with our sovereign society as US wages tumble? Then Again the Council of Foreign Relations have been amplifying its agenda of free movement of cheap labor through North America for years?
Most of these other lands have been at each others throats for centuries, so why do we expect any metamorphism into something any different? Only change can come from within, not by our nation expending billions of dollars, American lives? We must build our own borders fences, tall and strong and meant to keep out drug dealers, criminal aliens, terrorists and the never ending tracks of illegal aliens. Our politician’s noses are involved in too much foreign policy, while our aging infrastructure implodes. Trillions of dollars are spirited out the country, while we gain little in return. Washington–MUST–start giving back to the jobless American worker by placing a 5 year moratorium on all immigration, even legal? The next politicians should deliver us from any new sinister path to citizenship or better referred to as BLANKET AMNESTY? Follow the “Rule of Law” and not twist it into something else for their own convenience, as it will come back to haunt them at the voting booth. Unless ACORN steps-in with another fed contract and handles sign-ups for the ballot box? In that case will still see absentee ballots for the deceased people, pets and anybody who has learned that you need no government picture ID to sign on to vote.
Our government panders to the 20 to 30 plus (?) illegal immigrants allowing them free subsidies from taxpayers in the US. California–a Sanctuary Statehas one of the worst records that currently languish under the immense burden of near bankruptcy, instead of –ATTRACTING–ICE to illegal business operations. Certain legislators in Sacramento, led by Gilbert Cedillo-D has authored a lame brain resolution condemning any interference in immigration enforcement. Congressman Brian Bilbray-R Calif. reminds Sen. Cedillo that this resolution breaks the laws of the Constitution. “He should look up the separation of powers section and this resolution is nothing more than political posturing.” Cedillo urges President Obama to declare an immediate moratorium on immigration policies and practices until a comprehensive reform of immigration is enacted. The resolution states ” The State of California values all of its residents, whether they be citizens, legal residents, or undocumented immigrants, and strives to enable all residents to work and live free from discrimination, exploitation, and repressive federal immigration enforcement.” This man certainly has no love for the legal American worker and should be immediately discarded from office as his words are a form of treachery to the jobless people hurting.
Why wouldn’t certain legislators want health care for foreign labor, because they have an over abundance of illegal immigrant families to financially support? Our own government is so absorbed in protecting every other countries border? They remain unconcerned to our poor replica border fence that should have been a two-tier periphery, with border patrol surveillance lanes in between, as originally planned by Rep. Duncan Hunter. Every time a good enforcement plan is written, it’s methodically cut to pieces by pro-illegal worker politicians and open border fanatics. Though we spend billions on our armed forces in foreign lands, the rich countries in Europe just forward token troops and little money: while our nation is literary falling apart at the seams–or its rivets?
Any moment now I expect to hear of yet another collapsing ailing city bridge, deteriorating waterworks, the underground pipes and eroding highway. Our cities are already exhibiting inward decay, but years of neglect by the very people who’s supposed to protect us do nothing? I have reiterated watch “The Crumbling of America” on the History (International) channel in the next few weeks and learn? This is where your tax dollars should be going? We must not allow the Administration as in previous times keep sending our precious tax dollars to other countries. These politicians are deaf, dumb and intentionally blind to the rigors our industrial nation is going through. Not just Democrats, but the Republicans have had their sticky fingers in the bad apple–SPECIAL INTEREST–barrel, where money is plentiful. It’s like they are intentionally trying to turn our magnificent country into a third world nation, while making other cheap labor countries, on an even par with our sovereign society as US wages tumble? Then Again the Council of Foreign Relations have been amplifying its agenda of free movement of cheap labor through North America for years?
Most of these other lands have been at each others throats for centuries, so why do we expect any metamorphism into something any different? Only change can come from within, not by our nation expending billions of dollars, American lives? We must build our own borders fences, tall and strong and meant to keep out drug dealers, criminal aliens, terrorists and the never ending tracks of illegal aliens. Our politician’s noses are involved in too much foreign policy, while our aging infrastructure implodes. Trillions of dollars are spirited out the country, while we gain little in return. Washington–MUST–start giving back to the jobless American worker by placing a 5 year moratorium on all immigration, even legal? The next politicians should deliver us from any new sinister path to citizenship or better referred to as BLANKET AMNESTY? Follow the “Rule of Law” and not twist it into something else for their own convenience, as it will come back to haunt them at the voting booth. Unless ACORN steps-in with another fed contract and handles sign-ups for the ballot box? In that case will still see absentee ballots for the deceased people, pets and anybody who has learned that you need no government picture ID to sign on to vote.
The 1986 immigration reform bill dismally failed last time and all we inherited was 5 million illegal immigrants that still keep on coming with their impoverished hands out. Anti-Illegal immigrant forces are growing in numbers to stop another travesty. They acknowledge it could end up costing billions, perhaps even trillions of dollars. Nationwide we have seen the advent of closing hospitals and emergency rooms that have been submerged everyday by swarms by penniless foreigners and their families. Yes! We need health care reform. Americans are dying, going bankrupt , falling under the spell of debt collectors. The special interest lobbyists are causing mass hysteria by lying to the people. Many insurance companies are under this bombardment in television, radio and mass media. Their Status quo wants no change to their profits or high flying CEO’s making millions of dollars. on patients backs? I want health care reform, for the sake of my step daughter who died of Cancer, because the insurers said it was a pre-existing condition and they couldn’t continue to insure her?
It has become an enigma–THAT THE EMPLOYERS WHO HIRE THEM-LEAVE THE MAJORITY OF SICK PEOPLE ON THE STEPS OF EMERGENCY ROOMS. SO THAT THEIR RESPONSIBILITY ENDS THERE? THEY DRIVE AWAY WITH A CLEAR CONSCIOUS? THEN IS LEFT FOR THE TAXPAYERS CHECK BOOK TO PAY THE BILL? THOSE EMPLOYERS SHOULD BE HUNTED DOWN AND HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR EVERY CENT. We have already been warned by the census bureau of overpopulation in the not too distant future. WE now have a very unique deterrent called E-Verify, that is a part of the SAVE ACT and our lawmakers should stop procrastinating and make it permanent for every worker? Washington knows their walking on quicksand, if the try to under fund or spirit away E-Verify this time around? The corrupting influences from the special interest lobby, have failed to induce many lawmakers to table E-Verify. In our future it could have many other uses other than extracting unauthorized labor from the workplace. Once fully installed it could check state drivers license applicants, insurance, school and higher education registrations and hospital admittances.
Americans have been unknowingly paying taxes to underwrite subsidies for the illegal population for decades. This is the biggest draw to American jobs, because the employers who hire them are sentient that taxpayers will foot the bills for education, health food stamps, housing and other government benefit consignments that even as citizens are denied. Keep the phone calls coming at 202-224-3121 LOOK FOR ANSWERS AT NUMBERSUSA, JUDICIAL WATCH & OVERPOPULATION AT CAPSWEB? These websites can identity politicians who actually work for the American people and others whose immigration grading level is unsatisfactory to stay in office? Have you heard about any large ICE raids lately? ICE got the order to cease and desist from the motley Democratic leadership. They are also using their influence to either weaken the federal training program 287 G that gives local police federal right to hold for questioning suspicious individual’s immigration status and to rescind the no-match-letter capability in determining a person’s right to work?
SFAW
Brittancus –
Thanks for sharing. Twice.