Day: March 9, 2011

The Right’s Target List

Trish

This list was started on Twitter, by Peter Daou:

As I’ve said, the right’s target list speaks volumes: unions, scientists, academics, public broadcasters, health providers, women.

We can think of a few more.

  • Gay people, especially those in long-term, loving relationships who want to marry and/or adopt children
  • Veterans, once they’ve been injured, maimed, or traumatized in defense of our country
  • Children, when they are out of the womb and require food, health care, or education
  • People who adhere strictly to religious faiths, unless it’s Christianity
  • Anyone who wasn’t born an American citizen but yearns to become one
  • Doctors who want to protect children from accidental shootings
  • Mass transit, renewable energy, and anything else that does not involve paving more land for more cars and SUVs

We’ll stop now but please keep this list going. What else do Republicans, tea partiers, and the right want to get rid of?

Senate Democrats Defeat House Tea Party’s Job-Killing Budget Bill

Jon Ponder

The U.S. Senate saved between 700,000 and 1 million American jobs today by defeating the House tea party’s budget bill which contained $61 billion in budget cuts:

The cuts would have plunged the economy into the second Republican-driven recession in two and a half years.

The House-passed budget bill (HR. 1) was voted down 44-56. Lawmakers voting against the measure included two Independents and 51 Democrats, as well as [Tea Party Caucus members] Jim DeMint (SC), Mike Lee (UT) and Rand Paul (KY).

The three tea party senators presumably voted against the bill because they felt the $61 billion in cuts were not sufficient. Sen. Paul recently called for $500 billion in cuts, a move so drastic it’s unlikely the U.S. economy would recover from it for decades.

A study released at the end of February from Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics who also served as the chief economic adviser to the McCain-Palin presidential campaign in 2008, found that the tea party budget cuts would put around 700,000 people out of jobs.

Just days before Zandi’s report was released, a confidential Goldman Sachs analysis of the bill predicted it would slow growth by 2 percent, which would translate into the loss of at least 1 million jobs.

Analysis of the tea party’s budget bill by the Center for American Progress also found that the bill would lead to the loss of about 1 million jobs.

Based on these reports, it’s clear that had the tea party budget bill passed, the cuts would have plunged the economy into the second Republican-driven recession in two and a half years.

Verbatim

Trish

Let me get this straight: the big “controversy” uncovered by James O’Keefe (the hidden camera doofus) is that someone called the tea party a bunch of racists? Who could imagine that anyone could reach that conclusion just by seeing a bunch of middle aged white men holding up signs comparing President Obama to a monkey. What’s next, will he uncover the shocking revelation that the NAACP is run by a bunch of black people? Or perhaps he can blind-side us all by discovering that the morons from Westboro Baptist Church hate gays. What incredible investigative journalism!

— William Smith, a Baltimore Sun reader, in a letter to the editor

Protesters Shout ‘Shame, Shame, Shame’ after GOP Rep. Sensennbrenner Abruptly Adjourns Town Hall Meeting

Jon Ponder

“This is what democracy looks like,” GOP Rep. James Sensenbrenner’s constituents shouted as he scurried away after abruptly adjourning a town hall meeting in his Wisconsin district in order to stifle dissent.

Sensenbrenner shut down the meeting after the crowd reacted derisively to GOP State Sen. Leah Vukmir’s false claim that Gov. Scott Walker’s “budget” bill would not end collective bargaining for state employee unions.

This is not the first time Sensenbrenner has adjourned a meeting to shut off debate. In June 2005, when Sensenbrenner chaired the House Judiciary Committee, he gaveled a hearing on the PATRIOT ACT to a close because he did not like Democratic criticism of the bill.

Sensenbrenner is perhaps best known for serving on the House prosecution team during the Clinton impeachment.

Frum: ‘Anyone Can Dump a Sick Wife, Gingrich Dumped Two’

Jon Ponder

It’s not the infidelity. It’s the arrogance, hypocrisy, and – most horrifying to women voters – the cruelty. Anyone can dump one sick wife. Gingrich dumped two.

— David Frum

There are so many reasons why Gingrich is the lead balloon of presidential politics, but Frum really has this right that the infidelity thing is just something he cannot survive. Not because voters won’t tolerate infidelity — in many circumstances they will — but because the pattern with Gingrich shows a level of hypocrisy, cruelty and emotional immaturity that most people won’t accept in a president.

— Josh Marshall

Don’t Tell Floridians in Support of Public Workers That the Numbers Aren’t With Them

Trish

While the news media in Florida featured heavy coverage of tea party members at “Awake the State” budget protest rallies, YouTube video and eyewitness accounts tell a different story. Here is just one gathering in Jacksonville, where a mayoral primary was being held. Other events were staged around the city, and repeated throughout the state.