Teabaggers Fighting Health Care, and Sanity

Looking out there this morning it's hard to believe that just a few weeks ago we had snow almost up to our waists. With its ancient inevitability nature brings us back from the desolation of winter. Somebody said it was seventy-five yesterday. How soon before you hear people complaining that it's too hot?

This morning we see headlines like House is expected to pass historic healthcare overhaul. This really is a big deal. Only a month ago the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are people, opening the way for big business to out-influence real humans at every step of the way, and now Congress is taking a stand against big corporations, on behalf of real humans. That headline comes from the LA Times, and it starts like this:

The hard-fought measure would be a victory for President Obama - and, he says, for the American people.

Maybe the President is grandstanding in the most cynical way when he says this isn't about politics, but the fact is, he has let the other party run him into the ground over this. A lot of Congressmen in both houses are going to pay dearly for taking a stand on this bill, which the Republicans and Fox News have painted in the darkest colors as socialism and worse, government takeover of our personal choices. But it looks like the votes are there, the Democrats are putting their foot down, they're saying, We were elected to change things and we're going to do it as long as we are here. And maybe the American people would prefer, in the end, to have gigantic corporations making their health decisions for them, maybe the healthy majority doesn't want to share the risk with sick people, and maybe when the smoke clears the Republicans will be elected to run things the usual way again.

March 16th, the teabaggers organized a "Code Red" demonstration at the White House out of desperation at the momentum that the health care package seemed to be picking up. About three hundred people showed up, in other words the event was a failure. I suppose the most publicity they got was THIS VIDEO of teabaggers mocking a man with Parkinsons disease, throwing dollar bills at him and calling him names. They seem very agitated in this video.

There was a documentary filmed that day as well, an interviewer asked people how they felt about specific provisions of the health care bill HERE. As you see, they don't really know what's in the bill except that it's a socialized government takeover and Obama wants to turn America into Ameristan.

This past Friday the Citizens for Responsible Whatever, and I assume lots of other rightwing groups, sent out an urgent email that said:

Obama's Healthcare Take-Over must be stopped. It's not over yet. We need everyone to show up at the rally tomorrow at 12 noon. Come early or stay late to visit your Representative's office.

Yesterday's demonstration was more of a success for fringe groups like the CRW. The New York Times reports:

They might want to think about renaming it the Nastea Party.

Democrats were angered, shocked and disappointed after reports that some Tea Party activists let more than their opinions on health care reform be known today, calling revered civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) n——- and openly gay Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank a f——-.

And racism and gay-bashing apparently wasn’t all. Add anti-Semitism to the list.

A staffer in Rep. Anthony Weiner’s office reported a stream of hostile encounters with tea partiers roaming the halls of Congress. The less harmful stuff was mockery. But they left a couple of notes behind. One asked what Rahm Emanuel did with Weiner in the shower, in a reference to mess around ex-Rep Eric Massa. It was signed with a swastika, the staffer said. The other note called the congressman “Schlomo Weiner,” among other hate-filled words.

Rep. Jose Serrano was so disturbed, he called to relay his own unpleasant encounter with a Tea Party activist who accosted him outside, when Serrano went for a stroll near the rally.

“The Capitol there was pretty ugly,” Serrano sad. “They were shouting, ‘Don’t take away my Medicare, we don’t want socialism, you’re throwing our country away.’”

“There was a person who saw me go by, and called me a bunch of things, and ended calling me an elitist pig with a cutesy haircut,” Serrano, of the Bronx, said.

It wasn’t the words so much that bothered the congressman, but the tone and attitude.

And the words heard by Lewis were especially distasteful to Serrano. Lewis is a widely respected member of Congress who had his skull fractured by police in a 1965 civil rights march in Selma, Ala.

“He’s the conscience of the Congress,” Serrano said.

It all reminded him of the worst reactions to the civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam war protests. It was the kind of reaction, he said, that you get “whenever you’re trying to do something really important.” Make That the Nas-Tea Party

Some of them were threatening violence. Think Progress showed photos of people holding signs that said, "If Brown can't stop it, a Browning can," with a silhouette of a pistol. Talking Points Memo reports:

Things are getting pretty heated in the Capitol with crowds of anti-Reform/Tea Party activists going through the halls shouting slogans and epithets at Democratic members of Congress.

As our Brian Beutler reports, a few moments ago in the Longworth office building, a group swarmed a very calm looking Henry Waxman, as he got on the elevator, with shouts of "Kill the bill!" "You liar! You crook!"

Not long before, Rep. Barney Frank got an uglier version of the treatment. Just after Frank rounded a corner to leave the building, an older protestor yelled "Barney, you faggot." The surrounding crowd of protestors then erupted in laughter. Menacing

The LA Times disclosed:

A congressman who was spat on by a protestor on Capitol Hill says he is declining to press charges, but turns out the Capitol Police say they made no arrests.

Missouri Democrat Emanuel Cleaver was making his way through a group of angry protestors when the incident occurred. It was one of several ugly incidents in a day of protests against President Barack Obama's health care overhaul measure, which faces a House vote on Sunday.

Cleaver, who is black, was also one of several lawmakers who faced racial epithets as they walked to the Capitol to vote. Sgt. Kimberly Schneider of the U.S. Capitol Police said in an e-mail later: "We did not make any arrests today." Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., won't press charges after being spat on by Capitol Hill protestor

There may have been 20,000 people at yesterday's event, it was more successful by far than the one earlier in the week.

A few years ago, Tea Party types were beginning to have influence in our little suburban county, the school district was begining to take them seriously, and somebody had to stand up and deal with them, and that was us. Lots of communities let those groups taste power, and now they are running around threatening to shoot people, waving Confederate flags, spitting on Congressmen, calling people names, yelling that they want their country back. I think it is pretty clear to the rest of us that they must not have "their country" back. They had it for eight years, and things did not work out.

Today's health care reform vote is an important one. Some Democratic Congressmen are holding out for details they want, and in fact I don't think the bill as it is written is anybody's ideal. I expect some hold-outs to switch and vote for it -- health insurance has become a ghoulish scam, and I don't think a legislator can vote against reform in good conscience, just because the bill doesn't contain his or her pet feature. It's not a done deal, we don't even know if they'll vote today, but it does seem likely. I doubt that Nancy Pelosi will call for a vote if it won't pass, so she might wait. But it's coming.