While I have been unable to determine who actually said “Anger is only one letter short of danger” it certainly fits the current state of political discourse in our country today. As if to emphasize that point, it is becoming increasingly evident that U.S. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has begun the process of making a run for the nomination of the Republican Party for President of the United States in the upcoming 2012 elections. Bachmann wasted no time attacking President Obama after his Tuesday night State of the Union (STOU) Address but unfortunately, she made herself look foolish in the process.
In her speech, Congresswoman Bachmann paid homage to our founding fathers for who in her words ended the institution of slavery in America. “…the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States…Men like John Quincy Adams, who would not rest until slavery was extinguished in the country.”
I won’t bother you here with too much of a response to that statement because anyone who has even the most basic understanding of American history knows that slavery was not abolished by our founding fathers. In the interests of accuracy however, I will remind you that slavery was not actually abolished until January 31, 1865 when the 13th Amendment was ratified. Also, John Quincy Adams was NOT a “founding father” but the son of John Adams, who was. Despite the efforts of our new Speaker of the House John Boehner to ensure the legitimacy of legislation introduced in Congress by its compliance with constitutional principles, it is apparently not critical for those who serve in the Congress to have an accurate knowledge of American history. Consequently, ultra-conservative Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, a member of the Speaker’s Party, has somewhat separated herself from the pack by not only making an independent, non-sanctioned response to President Obama’s STOU Address, but is also making news by making the pretty embarrassing and incredulous statement crediting our founding fathers with the abolition of slavery.
Back on February 1, 2010, I wrote in my blog a post entitled “Tea Anyone” that should the tea party candidates springing up all over the country, readying themselves for the 2010 mid-term elections were actually sent to Congress, that “The Tea Baggers are in for an unpleasant reality. They will discover, if elected to office, that holding on to that office will cause them to flounder in all the compromises they will be forced into and that are a requirement for retaining office and while Republican congressional leaders are going to want to appease these new hard right-wingers as they come to Washington by handing out choice committee assignments to them, mainstream Republicans who have been toiling in the trenches for some time will resent being shoved aside in favor of the newcomers.” As a testament to this observation, Representative Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah remarked after Bachmann’s response to President Obama, “It was bad form.” This expression of disappointment comes on the heels of the rejection of Michele Bachmann’s bid for a House leadership position after the GOP took the chamber’s majority away from Democrats as a result of the 2010 mid-term elections.
But Bachmann is more than just a limelight-hungry politician. She also represents an anti-establishment tension simmering just below the surface of a unified but unstable Republican caucus. If the Speaker and his fellow establishment Republicans ignore Bachmann and her base, those tensions could immolate the Republican’s congressional agenda, particularly if she makes a stink over such shaky upcoming legislation as the impending vote on increasing the debt ceiling.
Curiously, the message from House GOP leadership is that Bachmann is strictly a third-term lawmaker from Minnesota who was given her choice spot on the Intelligence Committee. They see her as a media phenomena—not a legislative or political threat.
Bachmann has already flexed her political muscle however. As an example, she failed to provide her Tuesday night response to the STOU in advance to Republican leadership. Rather, they got it when everyone else got it—and they had absolutely no idea or warning that CNN was going to broadcast it live. As a result, Bachmann’s name appeared in the New York Times on the day after the STOU as many times as Boehner’s.
Republican Representative Steve King, R-IA, while he was for some reason unable to watch Bachmann’s speech, did review the written narrative. He ferociously defended the speech, saying the only way to “move a conservative agenda” is to have voices outside the leadership. More importantly, he thinks his Party could have avoided all of this fuss. Smarting from Bachmann’s rejection in her bid for a leadership position he says, “They had the chance to listen before the leadership elections and they chose to put their support where they did and so now they have an opportunity to listen to this message, and they can take a look at it and decide how much they want to consider what she has to say. She is going to have more effect in leadership talking to the press [than] in talking to leadership. In fact, I guarantee it.”
Interesting use of the word “they” don’t you think?
As if to show support for Congresswoman Bachmann from the other side of the U.S. Capital Building, Senator Jim DeMint, R-SC said that Bachmannn’s effort was a “good compliment to what Paul Ryan said.” He went on to say that GOP House leadership “should encourage any member who wants to speak out on the issues to do it. That’s what Americans expect of us. They don’t expect us to filter everything through our leadership.”
Uh-oh.
And now, a final word on Tucson……
During his campaign against Congresswoman Gifford, Republican challenger Jesse Kelly promoted a rally with the following notice: “Get on Target for Victory in November, Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M-16 with Jesse Kelly.”
While no one can say I suppose, with absolute certainty, that Jesse Loughner was aware of this rhetoric, this suggestive language certainly did nothing to encourage any kind of rational debate over the issues. Rather, it implied violence as a means to victory.
Our political universe is more than ever fraught with highly charged political discourse. Joe Wilson, whose “You Lie” outburst during last year’s STOU Address, has had his words engraved on assault rifles. The gun manufacturer urges buyers to “get yours before they are gone.”
During the Nevada Senate campaign, Republican candidate Sharron Angle talked of “second amendment remedies,” while Glenn Beck has openly talked of killing filmmaker Michael Moore wondering whether “I could kill him myself, or if I would have to hire somebody to do it.” Not least, we have the ravings of Rush Limbaugh who as I pointed out in this blog a couple of weeks ago, claims that Loughner has the full support of the Democratic Party.
Simply think back to the town-hall meetings last summer regarding the health-care “debate.” Tempers were hot, fist fights broke out and members of Congress on both sides of the aisle were viciously attacked. Lies, such as the “death panel” rumors were unabashedly promoted, whipping people into an emotional and even physical frenzy. Guns were openly displayed at political rallies.
It is absolutely true that the left is also guilty of spouting hate, but a 2009 Department of Homeland Security report cautioned that right-wing extremism was on the rise. The report cited the “bleak economy” and the election of the “first black President” as “unique drivers for right-wing radicalization and recruitment” and even described the rise of “lone wolves and small terrorist cells embracing right wing extremist ideology [as] the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States.”
This horrific shooting in Tucson raises other issues: mental health services (or the lack of them) and the ridiculous easy access to guns, but the overarching issue of hateful speech is one that we can all work to overcome.
We must stop treating those with whom we disagree as our enemy. We should value reason over emotion, challenging lies presented as fact. We must learn to be better listeners. And, we must stop giving credibility to those who deserve none.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
And so it begins..........
Now that the dust has settled in the Safeway parking lot in Tucson, and we are falling all over each other to blame the horrific shooting on a deranged, lone gunman as opposed to placing the blame of such a despicable act on a political environment that is fraught with vicious, vitriolic and venomous discourse consisting of marching with signs that depict President Obama as the devil; or as a socialist Muslim; or right wing celebrities like Glenn Beck insisting that President Obama’s only problem is that he just “doesn’t like white people” which when you think about it means he didn’t like his own mother or grandparents. Now that we have done this and have all agreed to be nicer to one another, Republican lawmakers in the United States Congress, reinforced with newly minted Tea Party allies, have placed an assault on healthcare reform at the top of their agenda, planning to put a repeal of the new federal law to a vote, possibly as early as next week.
The reality is that at least for the present, repeal is unlikely to succeed, even if the repeal action passes in the House. Everyone from the most rabid Tea Partier to the most stubborn liberal understands that the effort to repeal would at the very least, have trouble clearing the Senate, and even if there was success in the Senate, President Obama would in the end, veto it.
I think the Republicans real strategy is to gain enough momentum so as to undermine support for healthcare reform in the 50 State Legislatures around the country, while in the interim, eviscerate the bill by gutting smaller provisions and ultimately clear the way for totally killing reform in a hoped for 2012 Republican administration.
That said, this new GOP offensive against healthcare reform also provides a golden opportunity for Democrats and their allies to present the benefits of healthcare reform once again to Americans, making a much stronger case now that some of the more popular provisions of the law went into effect on January 1st such as regulations that forbid co-pays on preventative care; compel insurance companies to invest a higher percentage of premiums received on real medical care and provide some Medicare beneficiaries with a 50 percent discount on prescription medicines.
What truly concerns me however is that the Democratic Party seems to be traveling on all too familiar ground by promising to pull out all the stops on defending healthcare reform, but as is usual with Democrats, they have up to now failed to do even the simple things, such as demonstrating how Republicans are totally committed to take such just won benefits as described above away from Americans. What seems to be coming out of the Democratic caucus instead is a lot of whining about how Republicans are simply “wasting their time” with their repeal efforts. There is simply no way to avoid healthcare reform debate at this point, so failing to address the real consequences of repeal only allows the Republicans, their Tea Party allies, and right wing talk media, the ability to once again dominate the discussion.
One critical concern we should all share is that if enacted, the House Republican’s repeal effort would increase the deficit by approximately $230 billion through 2021. This startling revelation comes directly from the always non-partisan Congressional Budget Office whose Director Douglas Elmendorf just this past week wrote to new House Speaker John Boehner. In his letter to Boehner, Elmendorf explained this astonishing phenomenon this way: “The March health care legislation contained a set of provisions designed to expand health insurance coverage, which CBO and [Joint Committee on Taxation] estimated would have a gross cost of about $930 billion and a net cost (after accounting for certain related changes in outlays and revenues) of about $780 billion over the 2012-2019 period. Repealing that legislation would eliminate such costs. But [the health care legislation] also included a number of provisions to reduce federal outlays (primarily for Medicare) and to increase federal revenues (mostly by increasing the Hospital Insurance payroll tax and imposing fees on certain manufacturers and insurers); in March, CBO and JCT estimated that those provisions unrelated to insurance coverage would, on balance, reduce direct spending by about $500 billion and increase revenues by about $410 billion over the 2012-2019 period. If that legislation was repealed, such reductions in spending and increases in revenues would not occur. Thus, H.R. 2 would, on net, increase federal deficits over that period."
Mr. Elmendorf also adds in his letter to the Speaker that enacting repeal “would increase federal deficits in the decade after 2019 by an amount that is in a broad range around one-half percent of GDP, plus or minus the effects of technical and economic changes that CBO and JCT will include in the forthcoming estimate. For the decade beginning after 2021, the effect of H.R. 2 on federal deficits as a share of the economy would probably be somewhat larger."
Consequently, the actual long-term cost of this repeal could reach $1.2 trillion while simultaneously 32 million fewer non-elderly people would have health insurance in 2019 if the law is repealed. This would reduce the total percentage of non-elderly Americans covered from 94 percent if the legislation is allowed to stay in place to 83 percent if healthcare reform is repealed. Worse still is that premiums for employment-based coverage from large employers would be slightly higher if the law is repealed and benefits would be correspondingly reduced.
A truly scary development is the number of states that have sued in federal court to nullify the healthcare legislation as unconstitutional. What makes this truly frightening is that the proponents of this effort acknowledge that they are targeting more than healthcare reform. Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia’s attorney general, has led that state’s legal challenge and has already won a victory in lower court that has labeled the requirement of people to purchase healthcare insurance if they are able to or be “fined” for not doing so as unconstitutional. In a recent speech before the Heritage Foundation, Cuccinelli admitted that healthcare was “secondary to the real important aspect of the case and that is to protect the Constitution as we essentially define the outer limits of federal power.”
What is particularly dangerous about these lawsuits however is a kind of radical constitutional theorizing that is driving them. These lawsuits are if nothing else, an all-out attack on the legal thinking and jurisprudence that has existed since the 1930s. And while the lawsuits themselves may not pose any immediate threat to federal healthcare reform, they could ultimately help to turn out conservative voters in 2012, especially when support for the repeal of healthcare reform is on the ballot and thus becomes a kind of litmus test for voters.
Getting back to my original point—now is an excellent time to get out and market the benefits of healthcare reform and at the risk of working from a totally negative perspective, impress upon the American electorate the absolute nightmare that would result should this reform be repealed. Now is the time to make the case that government needs to be in the business of providing healthcare reform, environmental protection and Social Security. Do we really want to go back to the days when there was no protection for our environment or there was no Social Security? Do we really want to go back to allowing our healthcare to be dictated totally by market forces? I think not.
The reality is that at least for the present, repeal is unlikely to succeed, even if the repeal action passes in the House. Everyone from the most rabid Tea Partier to the most stubborn liberal understands that the effort to repeal would at the very least, have trouble clearing the Senate, and even if there was success in the Senate, President Obama would in the end, veto it.
I think the Republicans real strategy is to gain enough momentum so as to undermine support for healthcare reform in the 50 State Legislatures around the country, while in the interim, eviscerate the bill by gutting smaller provisions and ultimately clear the way for totally killing reform in a hoped for 2012 Republican administration.
That said, this new GOP offensive against healthcare reform also provides a golden opportunity for Democrats and their allies to present the benefits of healthcare reform once again to Americans, making a much stronger case now that some of the more popular provisions of the law went into effect on January 1st such as regulations that forbid co-pays on preventative care; compel insurance companies to invest a higher percentage of premiums received on real medical care and provide some Medicare beneficiaries with a 50 percent discount on prescription medicines.
What truly concerns me however is that the Democratic Party seems to be traveling on all too familiar ground by promising to pull out all the stops on defending healthcare reform, but as is usual with Democrats, they have up to now failed to do even the simple things, such as demonstrating how Republicans are totally committed to take such just won benefits as described above away from Americans. What seems to be coming out of the Democratic caucus instead is a lot of whining about how Republicans are simply “wasting their time” with their repeal efforts. There is simply no way to avoid healthcare reform debate at this point, so failing to address the real consequences of repeal only allows the Republicans, their Tea Party allies, and right wing talk media, the ability to once again dominate the discussion.
One critical concern we should all share is that if enacted, the House Republican’s repeal effort would increase the deficit by approximately $230 billion through 2021. This startling revelation comes directly from the always non-partisan Congressional Budget Office whose Director Douglas Elmendorf just this past week wrote to new House Speaker John Boehner. In his letter to Boehner, Elmendorf explained this astonishing phenomenon this way: “The March health care legislation contained a set of provisions designed to expand health insurance coverage, which CBO and [Joint Committee on Taxation] estimated would have a gross cost of about $930 billion and a net cost (after accounting for certain related changes in outlays and revenues) of about $780 billion over the 2012-2019 period. Repealing that legislation would eliminate such costs. But [the health care legislation] also included a number of provisions to reduce federal outlays (primarily for Medicare) and to increase federal revenues (mostly by increasing the Hospital Insurance payroll tax and imposing fees on certain manufacturers and insurers); in March, CBO and JCT estimated that those provisions unrelated to insurance coverage would, on balance, reduce direct spending by about $500 billion and increase revenues by about $410 billion over the 2012-2019 period. If that legislation was repealed, such reductions in spending and increases in revenues would not occur. Thus, H.R. 2 would, on net, increase federal deficits over that period."
Mr. Elmendorf also adds in his letter to the Speaker that enacting repeal “would increase federal deficits in the decade after 2019 by an amount that is in a broad range around one-half percent of GDP, plus or minus the effects of technical and economic changes that CBO and JCT will include in the forthcoming estimate. For the decade beginning after 2021, the effect of H.R. 2 on federal deficits as a share of the economy would probably be somewhat larger."
Consequently, the actual long-term cost of this repeal could reach $1.2 trillion while simultaneously 32 million fewer non-elderly people would have health insurance in 2019 if the law is repealed. This would reduce the total percentage of non-elderly Americans covered from 94 percent if the legislation is allowed to stay in place to 83 percent if healthcare reform is repealed. Worse still is that premiums for employment-based coverage from large employers would be slightly higher if the law is repealed and benefits would be correspondingly reduced.
A truly scary development is the number of states that have sued in federal court to nullify the healthcare legislation as unconstitutional. What makes this truly frightening is that the proponents of this effort acknowledge that they are targeting more than healthcare reform. Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia’s attorney general, has led that state’s legal challenge and has already won a victory in lower court that has labeled the requirement of people to purchase healthcare insurance if they are able to or be “fined” for not doing so as unconstitutional. In a recent speech before the Heritage Foundation, Cuccinelli admitted that healthcare was “secondary to the real important aspect of the case and that is to protect the Constitution as we essentially define the outer limits of federal power.”
What is particularly dangerous about these lawsuits however is a kind of radical constitutional theorizing that is driving them. These lawsuits are if nothing else, an all-out attack on the legal thinking and jurisprudence that has existed since the 1930s. And while the lawsuits themselves may not pose any immediate threat to federal healthcare reform, they could ultimately help to turn out conservative voters in 2012, especially when support for the repeal of healthcare reform is on the ballot and thus becomes a kind of litmus test for voters.
Getting back to my original point—now is an excellent time to get out and market the benefits of healthcare reform and at the risk of working from a totally negative perspective, impress upon the American electorate the absolute nightmare that would result should this reform be repealed. Now is the time to make the case that government needs to be in the business of providing healthcare reform, environmental protection and Social Security. Do we really want to go back to the days when there was no protection for our environment or there was no Social Security? Do we really want to go back to allowing our healthcare to be dictated totally by market forces? I think not.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
We Reap What We Sow
On January 12, 2011, presumptive 2012 Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who had been silent since the horrific Tucson shootings that had taken the lives of six people including a nine-year old girl and wounded 13 others including Arizona U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords issued a vigorous condemnation of her critics on Wednesday in a video accusing her detractors of “blood libel” in what she referred to as their rush to blame a hostile environment of political discourse across America for the Arizona massacre.
“Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own,” the ex-Vice Presidential nominee said in a seven and a half minute video posted to her Facebook page. “Especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence that they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.”
Ms. Palin’s use of a map with cross hairs hovering over a number of swing districts, including that of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, has become a symbol of the vitriolic political discourse that she and other conservative politicos, journalists and bloggers have denied exists in America today. Tim Pawlenty, a conservative rival for the 2012 Republican nomination and the former governor of Minnesota has said that he would not have produced such a map.
Sarah Palin’s use of the term “blood libel” is what has rocked the political world however. The term blood libel has been historically used to refer to the accusation that Jews throughout history have murdered Christian children and have then used their blood in religious rituals, as well as in preparing matzos (unleavened bread) for Passover and other meals. That false claim was circulated and widely believed for centuries and was responsible for the successful prosecution of anti-Semitism and the justification for violent pogroms against Jews. Ms. Palin’s use of the phrase in her video is one reason that it went viral so rapidly. Its use has itself attracted criticism, not the least because Congresswoman Giffords who remains in critical condition, is herself Jewish.
Reaction to Sarah Palin’s video has been swift. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat lawmaker in Florida, who is also a close friend of Ms. Giffords, immediately issued a statement repudiating her use of the phrase “blood libel.”
“Palin’s comments either show a complete ignorance of history, or blatant anti-Semitism,” said Jonathan Beeton, Ms. Wasserman-Schultz’s spokesperson. “Either way, it shows an appalling lack of sensitivity given Representative Gifford’s faith and the events of the past week.”
As if to prove just how wrong Sarah Palin and her fellow conservatives-in-denial are regarding the present state of political discourse in America today, the conservative blogger Michelle Malkin rushed to the defense of Ms. Palin, accusing liberals of being “Tucson massacre opportunists” for criticizing her. “The blamestream media is already up in arms—can we still say that?—over the use of the phrase ‘blood libel’, Ms. Malkin wrote. “The more moronic of Palin-bashers will simply gnash their teeth because she said “blood.” Idiocracy: The new normal.”
Pat Buchanan, who wrote in his syndicated column during the vetting process of Elena Kagan who had been nominated by President Obama to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, “If Kagan is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than two percent of the U.S. population, will have 33 percent of the Supreme Court seats. Is this the Democrats’ idea of diversity” also came to the defense of Sarah Palin’s use of the term blood libel calling it “excellent.”
The problem is probably that Sarah Palin does not understand Jewish sensitivity and history because she is unable to see Israel from her back yard.
The reality, at least for me, is that Congresswoman Gifford’s shooting and the death and wounding of so many who came to meet with her, are just the latest examples of ideologically motivated violence. For at least two years, we have been told how angry millions of Americans are. The Republicans have been at the forefront of the angry rhetoric spawned by this so-called anger that initially was manifested by public officials and politicians being verbally molested at town hall meetings and other public gatherings where politicians had come to meet and speak with their constituents. During the health care debates of 2009 and 2010, these public discourses took an especially heinous and violent turn as no politician—Republican or Democrat was truly safe. It seemed that the crazies for the most part had found their passport to the surface in the unexpected election of America’s first African-American to the presidency which gave them a real live focus to vent their frustration and yes, anger at the government and it has ultimately created an environment in which a politician feels perfectly justified in placing a crosshairs over an opponent’s congressional district as part of a discussion designed to defeat that person in an election.
One image I will never forget was the photo of an African-American man showing up at a President Obama public appearance in Arizona with an automatic weapon strapped to his back. In almost any other state in the country, that man would have been whisked off the street and taken directly to jail. Not in Arizona however, where the right to own, possess and carry any gun, un-concealed or concealed, is allowable. And this past Saturday, another Arizona gun owner was able to shoot his gun, in a public shopping center, again and again and again and again……
One of the dead sprawled on that Arizona parking lot was nine-year old Christina Taylor-Green who had just been elected to her school’s student council. Because of that electoral victory, a neighbor brought Christina to Congresswoman Gifford’s constituent outreach event so that she could see how adults put democracy into action.
What happened however, was that this baby, born on 9/11, became just one more victim of political violence in America, a violence that has been fueled by an incoherent and misplaced rage against government and politicians who are unable to bring prosperity and lost jobs back fast enough, and worse, a violence that is driven by racism and hatred for others who are different, whether they are the President of the United States or a Mexican family attempting to cross the border in order to have a better life—like so many millions of Europeans did in the early twentieth century. And all of this anger, this hatred, this deciding to ‘reload instead of retreat’ driven by right wing leaders and listened to raptly by their feeble minded followers lurking in the outer reaches of the internet, are being constantly spurred on by the likes of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Jon Kyl and Rush Limbaugh. We now are witness to the deadly effect of all that hatred
I am vexed by everyone trying so hard to transfer the blame of the Arizona shootings away from the vitriolic state of American political discourse to a lone, mentally ill gunman with no real political agenda. For me, the harsh language on the right is a direct correlation to the Arizona tragedy. I realize that the root causes for Saturday’s horror are many and not very definitive: fear of what is to come or not come, anger motivated by the uncertainty and dread associated with joblessness, embarrassment at not being able to honor one’s financial commitments or the frustration at having one’s entire household budget crippled by the loss of $50 or $100 in expected income.
Maybe however, just maybe, it is the fact that too many of us have or have access to guns in this country. One in four Americans owns at least one gun. Today, the NRA and their various offshoots are spending millions to ensure that anyone who wants a gun shall have one. According to gun advocates, the right to gun ownership supersedes the right to employment, health care, a decent and viable education, even housing.
Don’t we all realize by now that too many guns are not used for sport or even legitimate protection but for dealing with feelings of inadequacy and fantasies driven by weaponry? It amazes me that someone who seemingly everyone thought was crazy could walk into a store and buy a weapon with the capacity to fire off 30 rounds at a time and then walk across the street into a Walmart of all places, to buy the ammunition that would facilitate his ability to kill six people and wound thirteen! I simply refuse to accept the fact that this is what Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and Lighthorse Harry Lee and the rest of the Continental Congress had in mind when they discussed a “well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state.”
Last night, President Obama spoke to the lack of civility in our political discourse. He did it however, in non-political terms. This is no easy feat—talking about politics apolitically—but he managed to pull it off in a way that even won kudos from Republicans. "At a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do -- it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds," Obama said.
On the day before the President of the United States was to address the nation regarding the shootings in Tucson, Rush Limbaugh reacted to the instantly despised mugshot of Jared Lee Loughner, the suspected shooter in the Arizona shooting, by publicly stating that Loughner is smiling in the picture because he knows he is backed by the Democratic Party.
Speaking on his radio show, Limbaugh said that Loughner was getting the exact attention that he wanted:
“What Mr. Loughner knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country. He's sitting there in jail. He knows what's going on, he knows that...the Democratic Party is attempting to find anybody but him to blame. He knows if he plays his cards right, he's just a victim. He's the latest in a never-ending parade of victims brought about by the unfairness of America...this guy clearly understands he's getting all the attention and he understands he's got a political party doing everything it can, plus a local sheriff doing everything that they can to make sure he's not convicted of murder - but something lesser."
After all the bickering and accusations and finger pointing following the tragedy in Tucson this past Saturday, President Obama last night stepped up to the podium and became what news analyst Nate Silver has called the “adult in the room.” The last two weeks were meant to be the time when the Republicans returned to power as they took control of the House of Representatives. There was to be a vote to repeal healthcare and with that a simultaneous vicious dismantling of the new healthcare law because even the most ardent Tea Partier knows that the still-Democratic controlled Senate and White House will not allow such a thing. Instead, the Republicans are somewhat on the defensive, distancing themselves from the likes of Rush Limbaugh who just days ago was their hero. And then, there is the difference between the shrill Sarah Palin, who bogarded her way into the limelight with a feisty, attacking and petty video message that made the insensitive and crude claim that she had been the victim of a “blood libel.” The contrast between the 2008 VP Republican candidate and the 2008 elected President of the United States could not have been sharper. It is my hope and prayer that the good will generated by the President’s remarks last night will somehow usher in a period of political compromise and accomplishment heretofore not thought possible.
“Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own,” the ex-Vice Presidential nominee said in a seven and a half minute video posted to her Facebook page. “Especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence that they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.”
Ms. Palin’s use of a map with cross hairs hovering over a number of swing districts, including that of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, has become a symbol of the vitriolic political discourse that she and other conservative politicos, journalists and bloggers have denied exists in America today. Tim Pawlenty, a conservative rival for the 2012 Republican nomination and the former governor of Minnesota has said that he would not have produced such a map.
Sarah Palin’s use of the term “blood libel” is what has rocked the political world however. The term blood libel has been historically used to refer to the accusation that Jews throughout history have murdered Christian children and have then used their blood in religious rituals, as well as in preparing matzos (unleavened bread) for Passover and other meals. That false claim was circulated and widely believed for centuries and was responsible for the successful prosecution of anti-Semitism and the justification for violent pogroms against Jews. Ms. Palin’s use of the phrase in her video is one reason that it went viral so rapidly. Its use has itself attracted criticism, not the least because Congresswoman Giffords who remains in critical condition, is herself Jewish.
Reaction to Sarah Palin’s video has been swift. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat lawmaker in Florida, who is also a close friend of Ms. Giffords, immediately issued a statement repudiating her use of the phrase “blood libel.”
“Palin’s comments either show a complete ignorance of history, or blatant anti-Semitism,” said Jonathan Beeton, Ms. Wasserman-Schultz’s spokesperson. “Either way, it shows an appalling lack of sensitivity given Representative Gifford’s faith and the events of the past week.”
As if to prove just how wrong Sarah Palin and her fellow conservatives-in-denial are regarding the present state of political discourse in America today, the conservative blogger Michelle Malkin rushed to the defense of Ms. Palin, accusing liberals of being “Tucson massacre opportunists” for criticizing her. “The blamestream media is already up in arms—can we still say that?—over the use of the phrase ‘blood libel’, Ms. Malkin wrote. “The more moronic of Palin-bashers will simply gnash their teeth because she said “blood.” Idiocracy: The new normal.”
Pat Buchanan, who wrote in his syndicated column during the vetting process of Elena Kagan who had been nominated by President Obama to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, “If Kagan is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than two percent of the U.S. population, will have 33 percent of the Supreme Court seats. Is this the Democrats’ idea of diversity” also came to the defense of Sarah Palin’s use of the term blood libel calling it “excellent.”
The problem is probably that Sarah Palin does not understand Jewish sensitivity and history because she is unable to see Israel from her back yard.
The reality, at least for me, is that Congresswoman Gifford’s shooting and the death and wounding of so many who came to meet with her, are just the latest examples of ideologically motivated violence. For at least two years, we have been told how angry millions of Americans are. The Republicans have been at the forefront of the angry rhetoric spawned by this so-called anger that initially was manifested by public officials and politicians being verbally molested at town hall meetings and other public gatherings where politicians had come to meet and speak with their constituents. During the health care debates of 2009 and 2010, these public discourses took an especially heinous and violent turn as no politician—Republican or Democrat was truly safe. It seemed that the crazies for the most part had found their passport to the surface in the unexpected election of America’s first African-American to the presidency which gave them a real live focus to vent their frustration and yes, anger at the government and it has ultimately created an environment in which a politician feels perfectly justified in placing a crosshairs over an opponent’s congressional district as part of a discussion designed to defeat that person in an election.
One image I will never forget was the photo of an African-American man showing up at a President Obama public appearance in Arizona with an automatic weapon strapped to his back. In almost any other state in the country, that man would have been whisked off the street and taken directly to jail. Not in Arizona however, where the right to own, possess and carry any gun, un-concealed or concealed, is allowable. And this past Saturday, another Arizona gun owner was able to shoot his gun, in a public shopping center, again and again and again and again……
One of the dead sprawled on that Arizona parking lot was nine-year old Christina Taylor-Green who had just been elected to her school’s student council. Because of that electoral victory, a neighbor brought Christina to Congresswoman Gifford’s constituent outreach event so that she could see how adults put democracy into action.
What happened however, was that this baby, born on 9/11, became just one more victim of political violence in America, a violence that has been fueled by an incoherent and misplaced rage against government and politicians who are unable to bring prosperity and lost jobs back fast enough, and worse, a violence that is driven by racism and hatred for others who are different, whether they are the President of the United States or a Mexican family attempting to cross the border in order to have a better life—like so many millions of Europeans did in the early twentieth century. And all of this anger, this hatred, this deciding to ‘reload instead of retreat’ driven by right wing leaders and listened to raptly by their feeble minded followers lurking in the outer reaches of the internet, are being constantly spurred on by the likes of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Jon Kyl and Rush Limbaugh. We now are witness to the deadly effect of all that hatred
I am vexed by everyone trying so hard to transfer the blame of the Arizona shootings away from the vitriolic state of American political discourse to a lone, mentally ill gunman with no real political agenda. For me, the harsh language on the right is a direct correlation to the Arizona tragedy. I realize that the root causes for Saturday’s horror are many and not very definitive: fear of what is to come or not come, anger motivated by the uncertainty and dread associated with joblessness, embarrassment at not being able to honor one’s financial commitments or the frustration at having one’s entire household budget crippled by the loss of $50 or $100 in expected income.
Maybe however, just maybe, it is the fact that too many of us have or have access to guns in this country. One in four Americans owns at least one gun. Today, the NRA and their various offshoots are spending millions to ensure that anyone who wants a gun shall have one. According to gun advocates, the right to gun ownership supersedes the right to employment, health care, a decent and viable education, even housing.
Don’t we all realize by now that too many guns are not used for sport or even legitimate protection but for dealing with feelings of inadequacy and fantasies driven by weaponry? It amazes me that someone who seemingly everyone thought was crazy could walk into a store and buy a weapon with the capacity to fire off 30 rounds at a time and then walk across the street into a Walmart of all places, to buy the ammunition that would facilitate his ability to kill six people and wound thirteen! I simply refuse to accept the fact that this is what Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and Lighthorse Harry Lee and the rest of the Continental Congress had in mind when they discussed a “well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state.”
Last night, President Obama spoke to the lack of civility in our political discourse. He did it however, in non-political terms. This is no easy feat—talking about politics apolitically—but he managed to pull it off in a way that even won kudos from Republicans. "At a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do -- it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds," Obama said.
On the day before the President of the United States was to address the nation regarding the shootings in Tucson, Rush Limbaugh reacted to the instantly despised mugshot of Jared Lee Loughner, the suspected shooter in the Arizona shooting, by publicly stating that Loughner is smiling in the picture because he knows he is backed by the Democratic Party.
Speaking on his radio show, Limbaugh said that Loughner was getting the exact attention that he wanted:
“What Mr. Loughner knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country. He's sitting there in jail. He knows what's going on, he knows that...the Democratic Party is attempting to find anybody but him to blame. He knows if he plays his cards right, he's just a victim. He's the latest in a never-ending parade of victims brought about by the unfairness of America...this guy clearly understands he's getting all the attention and he understands he's got a political party doing everything it can, plus a local sheriff doing everything that they can to make sure he's not convicted of murder - but something lesser."
After all the bickering and accusations and finger pointing following the tragedy in Tucson this past Saturday, President Obama last night stepped up to the podium and became what news analyst Nate Silver has called the “adult in the room.” The last two weeks were meant to be the time when the Republicans returned to power as they took control of the House of Representatives. There was to be a vote to repeal healthcare and with that a simultaneous vicious dismantling of the new healthcare law because even the most ardent Tea Partier knows that the still-Democratic controlled Senate and White House will not allow such a thing. Instead, the Republicans are somewhat on the defensive, distancing themselves from the likes of Rush Limbaugh who just days ago was their hero. And then, there is the difference between the shrill Sarah Palin, who bogarded her way into the limelight with a feisty, attacking and petty video message that made the insensitive and crude claim that she had been the victim of a “blood libel.” The contrast between the 2008 VP Republican candidate and the 2008 elected President of the United States could not have been sharper. It is my hope and prayer that the good will generated by the President’s remarks last night will somehow usher in a period of political compromise and accomplishment heretofore not thought possible.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
We the People
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
With the start of the 112th Congress, Tea Partiers are brimming with pride over the fact that the new House Republican leadership will begin this legislative session with a reading of the U.S. Constitution on the House floor. As the quote from the Preamble of the Constitution above shows, when you actually read this document in its entirety, it is not representative of what the Tea Party claims it stands for. The irony is that the joke is really on them—turns out the U.S. Constitution is a very progressive document.
The distortions brought on this past year and a half by Tea Party rhetoric may have caused many of us to forget the progressive nature of our Constitution’s narrative. In a July 2010 post on their website, the Constitution Accountability Center wrote.....
“We think the Constitution should frame our political debates and should be followed by our leaders, whatever their political stripe. But if the Tea Party wants to be taken seriously—and if it wants the media to continue fawning over it for its purported love for the Constitution—it should at least be required to make plausible claims about the words and meaning of our Nation’s charter. A close look at the Tea Party’s version of the Constitution shows that it bears little resemblance to our actual Constitution and could in fact threaten the constitutional values Americans cherish most.”
Powers granted to the federal government by the Constitution are substantial and broad. And, since our country’s beginnings, the American people have amended the Constitution to ensure that Congress would always have the tools it needed to address national challenges and more importantly, to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans. Eight separate amendments have expanded the original powers of the central government, granting vast powers to the government in order to protect civil and voting rights, ensure liberty, and to raise funds through taxes on income. Many Tea Partiers “refudiate” (sic) these Amendments and some even want to repeal most if not all of them. Fortunately, for the rest of us, these Amendments are just as much a part of the Constitution as if they had been written in 1787. When the new members of Congress have been sworn in, they will be bound by their oath to uphold the entire Constitution, not just the parts they agree with.
Consequently, as House members comply with the new requirement of citing constitutional authority for all proposed legislation, the rest of us should remain cognizant of how these references to the Constitution manifest the progressive history of our Constitution. I hereby humbly offer these following constitutional grants of authority to Congress that could be used to support key progressive policies:
• The “Power to lay and collect Taxes” to provide for the “general welfare of the United States” (Article I, Section 8), which gives the federal government broad authority to further national policies such as ensuring healthcare for the poor (Medicaid) and provide security for older Americans (Social Security).
• The power to establish “a uniform rule of Naturalization” (Article I, § 8), which mandates that only Congress can enact immigration reform and also that state anti-immigration laws, like the one in Arizona (Arizona SB 1070), are an unconstitutional infringement of Congress’ exclusive power to regulate immigration.
• The power to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations and among the several States” (Article I, § 8) which gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce, for example, the national health care and banking industries.
• The crucial power to “make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper” (Article I, § 8) for carrying out all constitutional powers granted to the federal government, which means for example that Congress can, after all, require individuals who can afford it, to obtain health insurance in order to carry out its authority to regulate the interstate health insurance industry and ensure affordable, non-discriminatory health care.
Reading the U.S. Constitution in its entirety should leave the unmistakable impression that our constitutional story is, inherently progressive. Throughout the history of our country, “We the People” have taken a great but on some levels flawed document and made it even greater. We have, in effect, created an even “more perfect union” by writing into our Constitution, through the Amendment process, the abolition of slavery, expanded democracy and voting rights for women and all Americans of color as well as other notions of equality and liberty.
If those of us on the left can recognize, understand and accept the progressive nature of the Constitution, then we should feel no need to disagree with or make fun of Speaker Boehner’s requirement that all bills contain a citation to the constitutional grant of authority that allows whatever legislation is being proposed. Instead, we should welcome the new Republican-led House of Representatives embracing of the Constitution and then hold all members of Congress to their oath to be faithful to it and to support it—all of it.
With the start of the 112th Congress, Tea Partiers are brimming with pride over the fact that the new House Republican leadership will begin this legislative session with a reading of the U.S. Constitution on the House floor. As the quote from the Preamble of the Constitution above shows, when you actually read this document in its entirety, it is not representative of what the Tea Party claims it stands for. The irony is that the joke is really on them—turns out the U.S. Constitution is a very progressive document.
The distortions brought on this past year and a half by Tea Party rhetoric may have caused many of us to forget the progressive nature of our Constitution’s narrative. In a July 2010 post on their website, the Constitution Accountability Center wrote.....
“We think the Constitution should frame our political debates and should be followed by our leaders, whatever their political stripe. But if the Tea Party wants to be taken seriously—and if it wants the media to continue fawning over it for its purported love for the Constitution—it should at least be required to make plausible claims about the words and meaning of our Nation’s charter. A close look at the Tea Party’s version of the Constitution shows that it bears little resemblance to our actual Constitution and could in fact threaten the constitutional values Americans cherish most.”
Powers granted to the federal government by the Constitution are substantial and broad. And, since our country’s beginnings, the American people have amended the Constitution to ensure that Congress would always have the tools it needed to address national challenges and more importantly, to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans. Eight separate amendments have expanded the original powers of the central government, granting vast powers to the government in order to protect civil and voting rights, ensure liberty, and to raise funds through taxes on income. Many Tea Partiers “refudiate” (sic) these Amendments and some even want to repeal most if not all of them. Fortunately, for the rest of us, these Amendments are just as much a part of the Constitution as if they had been written in 1787. When the new members of Congress have been sworn in, they will be bound by their oath to uphold the entire Constitution, not just the parts they agree with.
Consequently, as House members comply with the new requirement of citing constitutional authority for all proposed legislation, the rest of us should remain cognizant of how these references to the Constitution manifest the progressive history of our Constitution. I hereby humbly offer these following constitutional grants of authority to Congress that could be used to support key progressive policies:
• The “Power to lay and collect Taxes” to provide for the “general welfare of the United States” (Article I, Section 8), which gives the federal government broad authority to further national policies such as ensuring healthcare for the poor (Medicaid) and provide security for older Americans (Social Security).
• The power to establish “a uniform rule of Naturalization” (Article I, § 8), which mandates that only Congress can enact immigration reform and also that state anti-immigration laws, like the one in Arizona (Arizona SB 1070), are an unconstitutional infringement of Congress’ exclusive power to regulate immigration.
• The power to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations and among the several States” (Article I, § 8) which gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce, for example, the national health care and banking industries.
• The crucial power to “make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper” (Article I, § 8) for carrying out all constitutional powers granted to the federal government, which means for example that Congress can, after all, require individuals who can afford it, to obtain health insurance in order to carry out its authority to regulate the interstate health insurance industry and ensure affordable, non-discriminatory health care.
Reading the U.S. Constitution in its entirety should leave the unmistakable impression that our constitutional story is, inherently progressive. Throughout the history of our country, “We the People” have taken a great but on some levels flawed document and made it even greater. We have, in effect, created an even “more perfect union” by writing into our Constitution, through the Amendment process, the abolition of slavery, expanded democracy and voting rights for women and all Americans of color as well as other notions of equality and liberty.
If those of us on the left can recognize, understand and accept the progressive nature of the Constitution, then we should feel no need to disagree with or make fun of Speaker Boehner’s requirement that all bills contain a citation to the constitutional grant of authority that allows whatever legislation is being proposed. Instead, we should welcome the new Republican-led House of Representatives embracing of the Constitution and then hold all members of Congress to their oath to be faithful to it and to support it—all of it.
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