Gingrich Says Democrats ‘Have To Take Some Moral Responsibility’ For Far-Right Death Threats
Yesterday, former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA) spoke alongside Gov. Sonny Perdue (R-GA) at a press conference in Atlanta organized to air Republican opposition to the health care bill that just passed. At one point, Gingrich was asked about the death threats and vandalism lawmakers who supported the bill have been receiving. After stressing that “there is no place for this viciousness” and condemning the various threats and violent acts, Gingrich went on to explain that the Democratic leadership “has to take some moral responsibility” for encouraging death threats and terrorism because of the way they conducted the health care debate…
Newt has yet once again knocked back one too many sour mashes or is trying to create his own reality in addition to rewriting moral philosophy as we know it. Republicans were not only invited to the health care reform prom, but the package that passed has many of their suggestions in it. The idea that Democrats are to blame for violence against them is a tiresome and repugnant moral thesis that blames the rape victim for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, the murder victim for being murdered or the wife for doing something that caused her husband to beat her into a coma. All of this while a Republican leader takes credit for part of the bill, the part which a another Republican already running for president also proposed.
The incidents of violence against Democrats and the right-wing meme coming from Newt among others should be viewed in light of how fast yet another conservative standard bearer Eric Cantor, Fox and right-wing bloggers rushed to deflect blame and invent an incident in which they could claim some kind of equivalence, Cantor not targeted: Richmond PD says bullet fired randomly
Eric Cantor, the second-ranking House Republican, claimed earlier today that his office had been the target of a politically motivated shooting.
If you thought Cantor’s claim seemed reminiscent of the the bogus “an Obama supporter carved a backwards ‘B’ into my face” story from the 2008 campaign, you were right.
According to AP, the Richmond Police Department now says the bullet that hit an office in the building where he has a campaign office was fired randomly.
Let’s suppose for a moment the bullet was not from a stray but was meant as a political message. Being shot at or having your offices fired at is no joke. Though using our Gingrich logic wouldn’t Cantor be to blame because he has tried to keep over 30 million Americans from getting health care insurance for themselves and their children. In the United States we are free as citizens to have elections and set up programs that have been found to be constitutional. No, even then, shooting at Cantor would have been inexcusable and anyone involved should have been tracked down and prosecuted. No one is going to jail because of the mandate – yet another right-wing meme that will not be true no matter how loud and often it is shouted. And states can opt out if they have a plan that meets or exceeds the current one..
Former militiaman unapologetic for calls to vandalize offices over health care
“To all modern Sons of Liberty: THIS is your time. Break their windows. Break them NOW.”
These were the words of Mike Vanderboegh, a 57-year-old former militiaman from Alabama…
And drum roll please,
Vanderboegh said he once worked as a warehouse manager but now lives on government disability checks. He said he receives $1,300 a month because of his congestive heart failure, diabetes and hypertension.
Which reminds me of the tea baggers who say they are against government run health care, but are on Medicare or collecting Medicare disability. If Social Security is the third rail of politics, Medicare is the fourth. I dare Republicans to run on a platform of repealing Medicare. The guy was a communist before he was a right-winger. His brain cannot seem to grasp the concept of moderation.
However repellent it is, I guess there’s nothing particularly remarkable about hate mail to a congresswoman being in the form of a nasty sex remark accompanied by a prophylactic:
Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minnesota, was one of several members of Congress who reported receiving obscene and threatening letters after voting for the health care reform bill passed by Democrats on Sunday.
Democrats from Minnesota including McCollum, Rep. Keith Ellison, Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Sen. Al Franken also received shredded parts of a U.S. flag doused in gasoline. In a related act of patriotism childish vindictiveness, Republicans Block Bills Ensuring Continuation Of Military Health Care
Rep. Vic Snyder (D-AR) Reports Threat Over Health Care Vote
Snyder read from a copy of the original saying: “It is apparent that it will take a few assassinations to stop Obamacare. Militia central has selected you for assassination. If we cannot stalk and find you in Washington, D.C., we will get you in Little Rock.”
At least 10 members of Congress have reported similar threats.
They misspelled Snyder’s name in the threat. The Timothy McVeigh School of Conservatism is thriving. Road rage, accident centers on Obama bumper sticker
A Nashville man says he and his 10-year-old daughter were victims of road rage Thursday afternoon, all because of a political bumper sticker on his car.
Mark Duren told News 2 the incident happened around 4:30p.m., while he was driving on Blair Boulevard, not far from Belmont University.
He said Harry Weisiger gave him the bird and rammed into his vehicle, after noticing an Obama-Biden sticker on his car bumper.
Duren had just picked up his 10-year-old daughter from school and had her in the car with him.
Weisiger was charged with felony reckless endangerment. A future star pupil in the local anger management class.
Conservatives have been more than two-faced about the tea baggers. Calling for their support one minute and disclaiming them the next. Seeing that right-wing stalwart Dick Army among others have been the driving financial force behind them most of us have figured out the tea bagger movement – which tends to deny any responsibility for enabling the Great Recession – is just right-wingers trying to reinvent themselves, The 5 Signs of Republican and Tea Party Unity
1. Tea Baggers Vote Republican
While their members might (see #2 below), the numbers don’t lie. Far from being the “independents” trumpeted by half-term Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the Tea Partiers are just Republicans who happen to be louder and more in your face about it.
A new Quinnipiac University poll found that 74 percent are Republicans or independent voters leaning Republican while 77 percent voted for Sen. John McCain in 2008. (Exit polls showed that McCain won 90% of Republican voters but only 44% of independents.) That’s a far cry for the current 8-point Democratic edge in party identification in the United States as a whole.
What tea baggerism seems to be about more than anything else is deflecting blame. They’re the very same Republicans that are simply against things – regulation that would have prevented the financial crisis, against a progressive tax and revenue system that would have left us in better shape to deal with a crisis and against a measured national security policy that protects the constitutional rights that claim to care so much about. One of the things not listed in that very good post at Perrspectives is that tea baggers are also similarly masters of hypocrisy, just like your run of the meal right-wing conservative – Poll: ‘Anti-socialist’ Tea Party activists want government to create jobs
Seventy percent of those who identify as Tea Partiers — a platform that strongly decries government intervention in public life — want an interventionist government to create jobs, and only about one in three believe Medicaid and Medicare are “socialist” programs, according to a new Bloomberg poll.
[ ]…”Fewer than 10 percent say the Veterans Administration is definitely socialist, 12 percent identify management of national parks and museums, and 36 percent say expanding Medicare for the elderly, Medicaid for the poor and Social Security amount to socialism,” Bloomberg notes.
Even 35 percent don’t see Social Security as socialist: 65 percent said Social Security was “either definitely or sort of socialism.” But 47 percent still wanted to keep it under government control (and just 53 percent supported Social Security privatization).
It is an unfortunate drift in the definition of the terms, but Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid are not socialized programs – as in under the ever-widening and distorted definition of socialism. Social Security was, in historical perspective, FDR’s response to the rising popularity of socialism during the Great Depression. Those programs are part of America’s very thin safety net. If we adhere to stricter definitions of socialism and capitalism, government intervention in job creation is still not socialism, but it is closer than pooling insurance funds for the financial and medical protection of the population – so to “provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.”
Scott Brown Is Not Letting This Rachel Maddow Electoral Fantasy Go. Watching the video one realizes what a himbo Brown is. he imagines that Maddow is running against him. Sends out a fund raising letter to that effect. On being challenged to the veracity of his claims says he is going to run against her anyway. I hope whatever Scott is smoking is legal.
The Long Goodbye 