Month: March 2010

Perspective

by digby

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Broken Windows

by digby

Emptywheel reports on the window breaking that’s going on around the country:

On Friday, former militia leader Mike Vanderboegh called for anti-Democratic vandalism across the country to protest the health care bill.

Vanderboegh posted the call for action Friday on his blog, “Sipsey Street Irregulars.” Referring to the health care reform bill as “Nancy Pelosi’s Intolerable Act,” he told followers to send a message to Democrats. “We can break their windows,” he said. “Break them NOW. And if we do a proper job, if we break the windows of hundreds, thousands, of Democrat party headquarters across this country, we might just wake up enough of them to make defending ourselves at the muzzle of a rifle unnecessary.”

And, apparently in response, there were attacks in–at least–Wichita, KS, Tucson, AZ, Rochester, NY, Niagara Falls, NY. Vanderboegh has proudly claimed credit for the coordinated attacks.

Does this “make defending ourselves at the muzzle of a rifle unnecessary” mean that unless the Democrats stop passing legislation they don’t like (wake up) they’ll start shooting them? If not, what does he mean? And for whom is he speaking?

Meanwhile, we have the Republican Vice Presidential nominee issuing this tweet today:

Don’t retreat. RELOAD. See my facebook page:

“We’ll aim for these races and many others. This is just the first salvo in a fight to elect people across the nation who will bring common sense to Washington.”

Creepy, eh?

Update: Maddow had a big story about this Vanderbeough fellow tonight.

It sure is a good thing the whole nutball faction in this country is armed to the teeth.

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Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious

by digby

Somebody needs to give Jonah a bottle and send him to bed. He’s on metaphor overload:

This legislation is a superconducting super collider of culture-war conflagrations. It will throw off new and unforeseen cultural spectacles for years to come (if it is not repealed). The grinding debate over the Stupak amendment was just a foretaste. The government has surged over the breakwater and is now going to flood the nooks and crannies of American life. Americans will now fight over what tax dollars should cover and not cover. Debates over “subsidizing” this “lifestyle” or that “personal choice” will erupt. And when conservatives complain, liberals will blame them for perpetuating the culture war.

(Grinding, foretaste, surging, erupting and flooding. What’s on his mind?)

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There Were No MRIs in 1780

by digby

The Cato Institute’s Roger Pilon was on TV earlier saying:

Nowhere in the constitution does it authorize the congress to enact a health care bill.

Nowhere in the constitution does it authorize the Federal Aviation Administration or the Center For Disease Control either, so I guess they’re out too. The fact that the founders weren’t psychics or time travelers is a real problem for us, apparently.

Ian Millheiser from CAP pointed out that if you used this logic, then Medicare and Medicaid are unconstitutional as well. Pilon agrees, saying that the entire New Deal is unconstitutional. So, there you have it.

This discussion was about the various ambitious AGs who are pressing a lawsuit against the individual mandate. And we have known for months that the mandate was going to be subject to court challenge. I wrote about it way back when. I assume that legal minds have been engaged in this for some time and that we’ll get a Supreme Court decision at some point on the issue. (It would be very useful to have a Medicare buy-in plan at the ready in case they overturn this — which they could. Counting on them to be intellectually consistent at this point is pretty naive.)

Here’s a good overview of the legal issues. They seem to think that it would be akin to Bush vs Gore if they overturned. I doubt it, but even if it were, I don’t see why that would stop them.

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Doubling Down

by digby

For all the talk about David Frum’s declaration of GOP Waterloo, the Republicans are having none of it:

The debate over how the Republican Party should handle the passage of health care legislation has, indeed, been a relatively one-sided affair in the hours since the House voted 219 to 212 on Sunday to put the Senate’s version of reform into law. From the halls of Congress to the airwaves of cable news, the GOP has spun a narrative in which they emerge as the big beneficiaries of the Democrats’ victory. Even as the debate was happening, members of the Republican Party were placing fliers on the seats of Democratic lawmakers, warning them that they’d be booted from office in 2010. Once the tally became clear, the unwillingness to compromise seemed cemented even further.

“I completely disagree that we played this wrong,” Rep. John Campbell (R-Cali.) told the Huffington Post. “What they proposed was just directionally opposite of where we want to go. If you think you ought to go south… and someone is dragging you north, going halfway north instead of all the way north doesn’t get you where you need to go.”

Instead of self-reflection, the Republican conversation immediately turned to just how forcefully they would and should push for repeal of the bill. A seemingly distraught Frum took to the pages of CNN.com to ask: “What the hell do we Republicans do now?… Do Republicans write a one-sentence bill declaring that the whole thing is repealed?”

That’s exactly what Michele Bachman proposes.

I have no doubt that the midterms will be seen as the determining factor on this. If the Republicans take control of one or both houses, the CW will immediately hold that health care was a mistake and they’ll start trying to dismantle it. The Democrats think there are too many booby traps to do that and so the GOP will find themselves tied up in knots trying to keep the popular stuff while getting rid of the unpopular.

I don’t think this radical GOP will have any trouble passing this stuff if they are in the majority, but Obama obviously won’t sign it and it’s unlikely they can find enough votes to override. (That’s not a guaranteed, however….) So, their real weapon will be to harrass, investigate, interrogate and otherwise blow smoke through 2012.

And don’t think they aren’t good at doing that because they are. It’s going to be quite a show if they win. Let’s hope this emerging vacuous CW that Obama wants to lose his majority so that he will be re-elected, is wrong. It won’t help him.

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Well Lookie Here

by digby

First polls:

Americans by 9 percentage points have a favorable view of the health care overhaul that President Obama signed into law Tuesday, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, a notable turnaround from surveys before the vote that showed a plurality against it.

By 49%-40% those surveyed say it was “a good thing” rather than a bad one that Congress passed the bill. Half describe their reaction in positive terms, as “enthusiastic” or “pleased,” while about four in 10 describe it in negative ways, as “disappointed” or “angry.”

The largest single group, 48%, calls the bill “a good first step” that should be followed by more action on health care. An additional 4% also have a favorable view, saying the bill makes the most important changes needed in the nation’s health care system.

The country’s polarized between the two political tribes and this bill is likely to be a proxy for that divide for quite a long while to come. But it isn’t surprising that there would be a bounce in the polls. I would guess part of it is just sheer relief that they can tune out the argument for a while.

But this does help the Democrats bat back the scurrilous claim that they usurped the will of the people, at least among those who aren’t so deep in the rabbit hole that they can’t function in reality anymore.

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Illegal Immigrants Killed Off The Indians

by digby

Minneapolis prankster Robert Erickson punk’d anti-immigration zealot Roy Beck of Number USA (whose bodyguard attacked female mimes for being “hateful” at the rally on Sunday) into agreeing that illegal European immigration has been a huge problem going back to Columbus:

I think this is the kind of thing O’Keefe and Giles were aiming for, but like typical wingnuts, they had to doctor the tapes and lie because they just aren’t good enough to pull it off (and that’s just how they roll.) And, of course, they had to use crude racial stereotypes to make their point because they were aiming at a lizard brain response. Sadly, they got it.

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Nothing To Say

by digby

House Republican Conference Chairman Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind, accompanied by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. , discusses health care legislation during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 23, 2010.

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What’s In A Name?

by digby

I would imagine there will be more of this. I’m just surprised they didn’t do it before the vote:

A tea party organizer angry over Rep. Thomas Perriello’s (D-Va.) vote in favor of health care reform published what he thought was the freshman member’s home address on a blog, in case any readers “want to drop by” and provide a “personal touch” to their views.

Basic intimidation, obviously. I’d imagine that some of them might even want to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights.

Unfortunately, they’re not the brightest people:

Rather than giving out Perriello’s address however, the tea party activist mistakenly printed the home address of the congressman’s brother. Perriello’s brother and wife have four children under the age of 8.

In the post, the author gives out the address to his “friends” in Perriello’s district.

“Just in case any of his friends and neighbors want to drop by and say hi and express their thanks regarding his vote for health care,” the author writes. “I personally believe it’s so important for representatives to remain fully grounded and to remember exactly what it is their constituents are saying and how they are telling them to vote. Nothing quite does that like a good face-to-face chat. It has a much more personal touch to it.”

The post does not have a byline but was published on a blog run by an organizer for the Lynchburg Tea Party, a member of the group confirmed to POLITICO. There is no contact information on the blog, but POLITICO has been able to trace the blog to Mike Troxel, an organizer for the Lynchburg Tea Party who has been active in the organization since it launched last year.

In an interview with POLITICO, Troxel admitted to writing the post and said that he has no intention of removing the address from the blog.

Troxel found the address through a directory website and said he would only replace what he currently has on the blog with an address provided by Perriello’s office.

“If they would like to provide me with the address of Tom, then I’d be more than happy to take it down,” he said. “I have no reason to believe it’s not his house.”

“We’re pretty ticked off he voted for it,” Troxel said.

I think the lesson here is that not only should members of congress who voted for universal health care tighten their their security but anyone who shares their last name should probably start looking over their shoulders as well. Word to the wise.

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Panic Artists

by digby

The head of the Republican party had a full blown tantrum yesterday. You almost have to wonder if he isn’t back on the little blue babies because this is so over the top it’s like something out of a bad Mexican novella:

“Today, as we start the radio program, America is hanging by a thread. So we have to see what we can do with a thread. At the end of the day our freedom has been assaulted. This is the kind of change that people did not think they were going to get when they voted for Barack Obama. I’m asking myself what kind of country are we today. We’re not a representative republic. The will of the people was spat upon yesterday. The will of the people is of no concern to the people who now have power and authority from the White House all the way down to Capitol Hill. The will of the people is something to be crushed. So we’re not a representative republic. You can’t even say loosely defined we are much of a democracy. We have to restore these things. We have to do this by getting rid of these people at the ballot box. We must get them out of office. That’s the only thing here.”

Does anyone know where I look in the constitution says the representative republic has to take an opinion poll before they pass a bill and vote accordingly? I can’t find it. All I can find is this boring junk about elections and voting and stuff.

As usual, there’s not a lot of grace under pressure in this crowd. They are behaving as if the government is rounding up teabaggers and putting them into prison camps instead of setting up health insurance system. Is anybody buying this? After all, these are the people who impeach presidents over sex and take office on 5-4 Supreme Court decisions. It is the party that Chris Hayes described this way when he reviewed Hacker and Pierson’s Off Center, the chilling tale of the workings and strategy of the Republican machine:

The picture of the GOP’s leadership that emerges from Off Center resembles nothing so much as Louis XIV, who was able to consolidate power in the French monarchy by recognizing that much of what limited the king’s political power were ultimately social and cultural norms, norms which Louis ingeniously undermined. He was, in short, an innovator, a power entrepreneur who recognized that the “rules” that kept the king in check could be subverted and altered, and that the fractured nature of the aristocracy could be leveraged and manipulated to his advantage.

So basically Limbaugh and the boys are projecting again when they get themselves all worked over “the end of America.” They are the ones who are undemocratic, but they’ve seamlessly re-looped the left’s criticism of themselves back on the Democrats. And then supercharged the outrage. I think it may be a form of therapy for them.

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