Month: October 2009

BET co-founder Shelia Johnson — a Democrat who supports the Republican candidate for governor of Virginia — has apologized for derisively imitating the halting speech pattern of the Democratic candidate, Creigh Deeds.

Johnson was caught on video mocking Deeds at a campaign event on Sept. 25 for Deed’s GOP opponent, Bob McDonnell. Johnson told the crowd that the next governor of Virginia should be someone “who can really communicate, and Bob McDonnell can communicate … The other people I talk to, especially his op-op-op-o-opponent, di-di-did this all through my interview with him … He could not articulate what needed to be done.”

McDonnell — whose campaign was shaken a month ago by the release of a thesis he wrote while a student at Pat Robertson’s CBN University (now known as Regent University) that was filled with virulent anti-gay and misogynist rhetoric — was present at the event.

Shelia Johnson is apparently either apathetic about or in agreement with McDonnell’s bigoted views — as are most Virginians. McDonnell is currently polling 11 points ahead of Deeds.

Reacting to a reporter’s request, the McDonnell campaign sent over a snark-filled non-apology:

“Creigh Deeds has never had a problem voicing his false attacks about Bob McDonnell. What he has had difficulty expressing is any positive vision for Virginia’s future. Democratic businesswoman Sheila Johnson was noting that fact. Why the Deeds campaign wants to attack a prominent supporter of both Governor Tim Kaine and President Barack Obama, while reminding voters that she strongly supports Bob McDonnell for governor, is beyond us.”

But then Johnson issued a pro forma backtrack:

“Two weeks ago I made reference to Creigh Deeds’s inability to clearly communicate effective solutions to the serious problems facing Virginia … I shouldn’t have done it in the manner in which I did, and for that I apologize for any offense he, or others, may have taken.”

In the lead-up to the South Carolina primary in last year’s presidential campaign, Johnson’s former husband and BET co-founder, Bob Johnson, a Clinton supporter, created a stir when he made a veiled reference to then-candidate Barack Obama’s admission he’d smoked pot in his youth. He also compared Obama to Sidney Poitier in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”

Rolling Stone has an excellent article that is required reading if you want to understand what’s really going on in the health care reform battle. The hotheaded “little people” of the summer of 2009 are getting PLAYED by rightwingers with everything to gain from obstructing reform and none of the pesky morals, ethics, or consciences that often get in the way of unbridled greed. For example:

The fourth group behind the town-hall protests, Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, [was founded by] Rick Scott…the former CEO of Columbia/HCA, the world’s largest hospital conglomerate. Scott was ousted from the company after it was caught overbilling taxpayers for Medicare treatment; it eventually pleaded guilty to criminal fraud and paid a record $1.7 billion in penalties. Scott now runs a chain of urgent-care clinics that serve uninsured Americans fearful of being bankrupted by hospital emergency-room visits. “He is one of those people who’s gotten very, very, very rich off of sick people,” says Potter, the former CIGNA executive. “He doesn’t want that cash cow to go away — so that’s why you’re seeing all his money there.”

Indeed, Scott has bankrolled Conservatives for Patients’ Rights with more than $5 million of his own fortune. “We have invested a lot of time, energy and resources into educating Americans over the past several months about the dangers of government-run health care,” he boasted in August. “And I think we’re seeing some of the fruits of that campaign.” To block reform, Scott has also hired CRC Public Relations, the firm that orchestrated the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against John Kerry in 2004. CRC enjoys high-ranking connections to the right-wing establishment, with a client list including the RNC, the National Republican Senatorial and Congressional Committees, the Federalist Society, the Parents Television Council and the Christian Coalition.

There is more, much more, including tobacco companies that don’t want expanded coverage to be paid with taxes on their products, oil and gas billionaires who are looking down the road at Obama’s other policies and want to wound him now before it’s their turn to do battle, and hardline party hacks who just need the work. Do yourself a favor and read the excerpt online, then go out and buy the full hard copy.

There are two ways to love and two ways to hate U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) in a poll at his hometown paper’s site. Grayson, of course, recently boiled down the Republican alternatives to health care reform as, “Don’t get sick,” and, “If you get sick, die quickly.” Now the Orlando Sentinel wants to know if you think he owes anyone an apology. Not to influence you, but puh-lease. As if. Seriously? O.K., just take the poll yourself.

House GOP Leader John Boehner (Ohio) told reporters yesterday that, based entirely on his empirical experience, there aren’t any supporters of an optional government-run health-insurance plan. He said the government option is as “unpopular as a garlic milkshake.” He also acknowledged that by making this claim, he was “inviting” the plan’s supporters to call him:

“I’m still trying to find the first American to talk to who’s in favor of the public option, other than a member of Congress or the administration. I’ve not talked to one, and I get to a lot of places and I’ve not had anyone come up to me — I know I’m inviting it — and lobby for the public option,” Boehner said.

“This thing (the public option) is about as unpopular as a garlic milkshake,” Boehner added, noting that he had not consumed such a milkshake.

As is usual for Bush-era Republicans, Boehner is either clueless or lying. Surely someone his staff has informed him that a Quinnipiac poll in Ohio two weeks ago found that Boehner’s home-staters are in favor of an optional government insurance plan, 57 percent to 35 percent.

Nationwide, the latest CBS News/New York Times poll found that 72 percent of Americans favor the government plan, while just 26 percent oppose it.

A SurveyUSA poll in late August found that 77 percent of Americans supported the government option.

If you’re a supporter of the government plan, Leader Boehner needs to hear from you:

• Washington: 202-225-6205
• Butler County: 513-779-5400
• Miami County: 937-339-1524