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the article also does not mention all the 'inadvertent' repeated misrepresentations of crowd size by Fox using photos and footage unrelated to the actual events they were covering, and simply making up crowd numbers:
To “teabag” or not to “teabag”: That is not the most pressing question of these times, but it is a question to consider. Routinely, conservative protesters in the “tea party” movement are called “teabaggers,” and those calling them that do not mean it in a nice way. Many conservatives are mulling what to do about this term: fight it, embrace it, what?
First, a little history. After Barack Obama was sworn in as president, with his big majorities in Congress, the Democrats launched quite a bit of federal spending: particularly with the “stimulus” package. Some Americans were determined to counter this. And, before you knew it, we had the “tea party” movement. What protesters were doing, of course, was invoking the spirit of the American Revolutionaries, and their Boston Tea Party. According to the website of the Tea Party Patriots, the movement is committed to three “core values”: fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets.
The first big day for this movement was Tax Day, April 15. And organizers had a gimmick. They asked people to send a tea bag to the Oval Office. One of the exhortations was “Tea Bag the Fools in D.C.” A protester was spotted with a sign saying, “Tea Bag the Liberal Dems Before They Tea Bag You.” So, conservatives started it: started with this terminology. But others ran with it and ran with it.
I have no doubt you are sexually hip, but just in case you’re not, please know that “teabag” has a particular meaning in certain circles. In order to have a discussion of our general topic, we must be aware of that meaning, and I call on the Source of All Knowledge, Wikipedia: “‘Teabagging’ is a slang term for the act of a man placing his scrotum in the mouth or on or around the face (including the top of the head) of another person, often in a repeated in-and-out motion as in irrumatio. The practice resembles dipping a tea bag into a cup of tea.” I could quote you more, but you have had enough.
The liberal media, to use a convenient tag, went after the protesters with glee. Take Anderson Cooper, the acclaimed anchorman for CNN. He was interviewing David Gergen, the political pundit. And Gergen was saying that, after two very bad elections, conservatives and Republicans were “searching for their voice.” Cooper responded, “It’s hard to talk when you’re teabagging.” He said this with a smirk.
MSNBC had an outright field day. Rachel Maddow and a guest of hers, Ana Marie Cox, made teabag jokes to each other for minutes on end: having great, chortling fun at the conservatives’ expense. And here is the performance of another host, David Shuster:
“For most Americans, Wednesday, April 15, will be Tax Day, but . . . it’s going to be Teabagging Day for the right wing, and they’re going nuts for it. Thousands of them whipped out the festivities early this past weekend, and while the parties are officially toothless, the teabaggers are full-throated about their goals. They want to give President Obama a strong tongue-lashing and lick government spending.”
Shuster went on to say that Fox News personalities were “looking forward to an up-close-and-personal taste of teabagging.” Etc., etc., etc. All the while, MSNBC was picturing Republican figures, and the following words were on the screen: “TEABAG MOUTHPIECES.”
Ma and Pa America may not have been in on the joke, but plenty of other people were. On HBO, the lefty comedian Bill Maher commented, “When the year started, ‘teabagging’ was a phrase that referred to dangling one’s testicles in someone else’s face.” And the tea-party protesters “managed to turn it into something gross and ridiculous.” Tuh-dum.
After Cooper and the others smirked about “teabagging,” the word went utterly mainstream — although you could say that, if Cooper used it, it started mainstream: because how much more mainstream can you get than a CNN anchor? On ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, E. J. Dionne, the liberal columnist, spoke of “a right-wing candidate supported by the teabaggers.” The host himself, Stephanopoulos, followed suit. On PBS’s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, senior correspondent Gwen Ifill used “teabaggers” as well. At the New York Times, Paul Krugman used it in a column. Elsewhere, Roger Ebert used it in a movie review. And so on.
Some politicians — Democrats — have talked about “teabagging” and “teabaggers” too. And that includes the biggest Democratic politicians of them all. Recently, both President Obama and former president Bill Clinton spoke to congressional Democrats behind closed doors. They were giving pep talks on health-care legislation. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse reported Clinton as saying, “The reason the teabaggers are so inflamed is because we are winning.” Rep. Earl Blumenauer reported Obama as saying, “Does anybody think that the teabag, anti-government people are going to support them if they bring down health care?”
It will be interesting to see whether the president — or Bill Clinton, for that matter — ever uses “teabag” and the like in public. And if not, why not?
Some on the right are using “teabagger,” but mainly the word is a putdown from the left. Conservatives realize that nothing friendly is meant by it. You can tell by tone and context, for one thing. (Or is that two things?) Of course, some people use “teabagger” in innocence — unaware of any vulgar connotation. One such person is, or was, Gwen Ifill. Some of her NewsHour viewers wrote to complain. And Ifill later said, “Turns out I am the only person with access to email who never knew this was a term with a sexual meaning. I used it in an offhand manner as a shorthand referring to the ‘tea party’ movement. It was a slip I was unaware of, and I regret it.”
Now to the question of what to do. How should conservatives handle this matter? Should we challenge the language, let it slide, adopt it? Many conservatives — most, I would say — are of a mind to fight. According to this point of view, people who use “teabagger” and such should be called on it, especially if they smirk. “What do you mean by that?” one might ask. “What do you mean by ‘teabagger,’ and why do you smirk?” In other words, conservatives want to introduce a little shame. And the responses of liberals could be kind of interesting.
I myself have enjoyed “calling out” opponents in debate — not on “teabagger” (no opportunity yet), but on other words. “Neocon,” for example. “What do you mean by ‘neocon’?” I’ll say. “What’s a ‘neocon’?” Also “Zionist”: “What do you mean by ‘Zionist’? What’s a Zionist, in your mind?” These words have real meanings, but often people don’t know them. They just mean them as putdowns.
Some conservatives are happy to embrace “teabagger,” or are at least willing to do so. They are “owning the insult,” which is to say, taking what is intended as a slur and wearing it proudly. There are many words and names in our vocabulary that started out as slurs and became something else. Several of these words and names are found in religion — “Christian,” for example. According to a Bible dictionary, this was “the name given by the Greeks or Romans, probably in reproach, to the followers of Jesus.” Soon enough, it “was universally accepted.” “Jesuit” had a defamatory beginning. Same with “Methodist,” “Unitarian,” “Quaker,” and “Shaker.” (You can sort of tell with those last two, can’t you?)
We have had this phenomenon in politics, too. “Tory” and “Whig” were putdowns when they originated, and so was “neoconservative.” (All things are new again, I guess.) “Yankee Doodle” was none too nice. That second word probably relates to the male organ. In the world of art, “Impressionist” was a putdown directed at those who painted rather gauzily or suggestively, rather than accurately. But no one today would consider Monet defamed if called an Impressionist.
What about a special case — the worst word in American English, as some of us see it, namely the N-word? When I was growing up, in Ann Arbor, Mich., there was a little debate: Should school officials try to prevent black students from using the N-word? I don’t believe the issue was ever settled. And this brings up the question of whether “teabagger” could be kind of a conservative N-word: to be used in the family, but radioactive outside the family.
We grant that one can always look at things too literally, or too etymologically. In 1998, a major Clinton foe, Rep. Dan Burton (R., Ind.), called the president a “scumbag.” The same year, Sen. Al D’Amato (R., N.Y.), running for reelection, called his opponent — Rep. Charles Schumer — a “putzhead.” Many in the media were careful to explain to people that Burton had called Clinton a “used condom,” and that D’Amato, borrowing from Yiddish, had called Schumer a “penis head.” (Always with the penis.) But did Burton and D’Amato mean those words in quite those senses?
In any event, it may well be too late to purge “teabagger” from our discourse, certainly from discourse controlled by liberals. But I’m for giving it a try: for running “teabagger” out of town, even at this late date. It is really a lowdown term. “Tea partier” is a neutral term. “Tea-party patriots” is a positive term, used by some of the protesters themselves. “Teabagger” — not so positive, and not so neutral.
It could well be that liberals at large are recognizing this too. In a discussion at Slate, the online magazine, Sam Tanenhaus wrote, “Even today the right insists it is driven by ideas, even if the leading thinkers are now Limbaugh and Beck, and the shock troops are tea-baggers and anti-tax demonstrators.” As he told me, he subsequently learned that “teabagger” had this vulgar meaning, and was used as a pejorative. So he changed his text to “tea-partiers”: “tea-partiers and anti-tax demonstrators.” Much better, don’t you think?
William Jefferson Clinton- Impeached by the House of Representatives over allegations of perjury and obstruction of justice, but acquitted by the Senate. Scandals include Whitewater - Travelgate Gennifer Flowersgate - Filegate - Vince Fostergate - Whitewater Billing Recordsgate - Paula Jonesgate- Lincoln Bedroomgate - Donations from Convicted Drug and Weapons Dealersgate - Lippogate - Chinagate - The Lewinsky Affair - Perjury and Jobs for Lewinskygate - Kathleen Willeygate - Web Hubbell Prison Phone Callgate - Selling Military Technology to the Chinesegate - Jaunita Broaddrick Gate - Lootergate - Pardongate
Edward Moore Kennedy - Democrat - U. S. Senator from Massachusetts. Pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, after his car plunged off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island killing passenger Mary Jo Kopechne.
Barney Frank - Democrat - U.S. Representative from Massachusetts from 1981 to present. Admitted to having paid Stephen L. Gobie, a male prostitute, for sex and subsequently hiring Gobie as his personal assistant. Gobie used the congressman's Washington apartment for prostitution. A move to expel Frank from the House of Representatives failed and a motion to censure him failed.
DNC - The Federal Election Commission imposed $719,000 in fines against participants in the 1996 Democratic Party fundraising scandals involving contributions from China, Korea and other foreign sources. The Federal Election Commission said it decided to drop cases against contributors of more than $3 million in illegal DNC contributions because the respondents left the country or the corporations are defunct.
Sandy Berger - Democrat - National Security Advisor during the Clinton Administration. Berger fined $50,000 for illegally removing highly classified documents and handwritten notes from the National Archives during preparations for the Sept. 11 commission hearings.
Robert Torricelli - Democrat - Withdrew from the 2002 Senate race with less than 30 days before the election because of controversy over personal gifts he took from a major campaign donor and questions about campaign donations from 1996.
James McGreevey - Democrat - New Jersey Governor . Admitted to having a gay affair. Resigned after allegations of sexual harassment, rumors of being blackmailed on top of fundraising investigations and indictments.
Jesse Jackson - Democrat - Democratic candidate for President. Admitted to having an extramarital affair and fathering a illegitimate child.
Gary Condit - Democrat - US Democratic Congressman from California. Condit had an affair with an intern. Condit, covered up the affair and lied to police after she went missing. No charges were ever filed against Condit. Her remains were discovered in a Washington DC park..
Eliot Spitzer- Democrat - New York governor - resigned from office after being tied to a prostitution ring.
Sowande Ajumoke Omokunde - Democrat - the son of newly elected U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, was booked on charges of criminal damage to property for allegedly slashing tires on 20 vans and cars rented by the Republican Party for use in Election Day voter turnout efforts.
Daniel David Rostenkowski - Democrat - U.S. Representative from Illinois from 1959 to 1995. Indicted on 17 felony charges- pleaded guilty to two counts of misuse of public funds and sentenced to seventeen months in federal prison.
Melvin Jay Reynolds - Democrat U.S. Representative from Illinois from 1993 to 1995. Convicted on sexual misconduct and obstruction of justice charges and sentenced to five years in prison.
Wayne Bryant - Democrat NJ state senator- was convicted was found guilty on all 12 counts against him including bribery and pension fraud.
Charles Coles Diggs, Jr. - Democrat - U.S. Representative from Michigan from 1955 to 1980. Convicted on eleven counts of mail fraud and filing false payroll forms- sentenced to three years in prison.
George Rogers - Democrat - Massachusetts State House of Representatives from 1965 to 1970. M000ember of Massachusetts State Senate from 1975 to 1978. Convicted of bribery in 1978 and sentenced to two years in prison.
Don Siegelman - Democrat Governor Alabama - indicted in a bid-rigging scheme involving a maternity-care program. The charges accused Siegelman and his former chief of staff of helping Tuscaloosa physician Phillip Bobo rig bids. Siegelman was accused of moving $550,000 from the state education budget to the State Fire College in Tuscaloosa so Bobo could use the money to pay off a competitor for a state contract for maternity care.
John Murtha, Jr. - Democrat - U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania. Implicated in the Abscam sting, in which FBI agents impersonating Arab businessmen offered bribes to political figures; Murtha was cited as an unindicted co-conspirator.
Otto Kerner - Democrat governor of Illinois from 1961 to 1968 was jailed after the manager of two horse-racing tracks admitted to bribing the then- governor; charges were filed after Kerner left office he was convicted in 1973.
Dan Walker - Democrat governor of Illinois from1973 to 1977 served less than two years of a seven-year sentence for receiving improper loans a decade after leaving office.
Gerry Eastman Studds - Democrat - U.S. Representative from Massachusetts from 1973 to 1997. The first openly gay member of Congress. Censured by the House of Representatives for having sexual relations with a teenage House page.
Hiram Monserrate- Queens City Councilman and state Senator-elect - who has claimed to be an advocate of victims of domestic violence - was arrested for breaking a glass over his girlfriend's face. Monserrate, 41, a former cop, won election to the state Senate as a Democrat in November 2008.
James C. Green - Democrat - North Carolina State House of Representatives from 1961 to 1977. Charged with accepting a bribe from an undercover FBI agent, but was acquitted. Convicted of tax evasion in 1997.
Frederick Richmond - Democrat - U.S. Representative from New York from 1975 to 1982. Arrested in Washington, D.C., in 1978 for soliciting sex from a minor and from an undercover police officer - pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. Also - charged with tax evasion, marijuana possession, and improper payments to a federal employee - pleaded guilty.
Raymond Lederer - Democrat - U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania from 1977 to 1981. Implicated in the Abscam sting - convicted of bribery and sentenced to three years in prison and fined $20,000.
Harrison Arlington Williams, Jr. - Democrat - U.S. Senator from New Jersey from 1959 to 1970. Implicated in the Abscam sting. Allegedly accepted an 18% interest in a titanium mine. Convicted of nine counts of bribery, conspiracy, receiving an unlawful gratuity, conflict of interest, and interstate travel in aid of racketeering. Sentenced to three years in prison and fined $50,000.
Frank Thompson, Jr. - Democrat - U.S. Representative from New Jersey from 1955 to 1980. Implicated in the Abscam sting, convicted on bribery and conspiracy charges. Sentenced to three years in prison
Michael Joseph Myers - Democrat - U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania from 1976 to 1980. Implicated in the Abscam sting - convicted of bribery and conspiracy; sentenced to three years in prison and fined $20,000; expelled from the House of Representatives on October 2, 1980.
John Michael Murphy - Democrat - U.S. Representative from New York from 1963 to 1981. Implicated in the Abscam sting. Convicted of conspiracy, conflict of interest, and accepting an illegal gratuity. Sentenced to three years in prison and fined $20,000.
John Wilson Jenrette, Jr - Democrat - U.S. Representative from South Carolina from 1975 to 1980. Implicated in the Abscam sting. Convicted on bribery and conspiracy charges and sentenced to prison
Neil Goldschmidt - Democrat - Oregon governor. Admitted to having an illegal sexual relationship with a 14-year-old teenager while he was serving as Mayor of Portland.
Alcee Lamar Hastings - Democrat - U.S. Representative from Florida. Impeached and removed from office as federal judge in 1989 over bribery charges.
Marion Barry - Democrat - mayor of Washington, D.C., from 1979 to 1991 and again from 1995 to 1999. Convicted of cocaine possession after being caught on videotape smoking crack cocaine. Sentenced to six months in prison.
Mario Biaggi - Democrat - U.S. Representative from New York from 1969 to 1988. Indicted on federal charges that he had accepted bribes in return for influence on federal contracts.Convicted of obstructing justice and accepting illegal gratuities. Tried in 1988 on federal racketeering charges and convicted on 15 felony counts.
Lee Alexander - Democrat - Mayor of Syracuse, N.Y. from 1970 to 1985. Was indicted over a $1.5 million kickback scandal. Pleaded guilty to racketeering and tax evasion charges. Served six years in prison.
Bill Campbell - Democrat - Mayor of Atlanta. Indicted and charged with fraud over claims he accepted improper payments from contractors seeking city contracts.
Frank Ballance - Democrat - Congressman North Carolina. Pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering related to mishandling of money by his charitable foundation.
Hazel O'Leary - Democrat - Secretary of Energy during the Clinton Administration - O'leary took trips all over the world as Secretary with as many 50 staff members and at times rented a plane, which was used by Madonna during her concert tours.
Lafayette Thomas - Democrat - Candidate for Tennessee State House of Representatives in 1954. Sheriff of Davidson County, from 1972 to 1990. Indicted in federal court on 54 counts of abusing his power as sheriff. Pleaded guilty to theft and mail fraud; sentenced to five years in prison.
Mary Rose Oakar - Democrat - U.S. Representative from Ohio from 1977 to 1993. Pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges of funneling $16,000 through fake donors.
David Giles - Democrat - candidate for U.S. Representative from Washington in 1986 and 1990. Convicted in June 2000 of child rape.
Gary Siplin - Democrat state senator Florida- found guilty of third-degree grand theft of $5,000 or more, a felony, and using services of employees for his candidacy.
Edward Mezvinsky - Democrat - U.S. Representative from Iowa from 1973 to 1977. Indicted on 56 federal fraud charges.
Lena Swanson - Democrat - Member of Washington State Senate in 1997. Pleaded guilty to charges of soliciting unlawful payments from veterans and former prisoners of war.
Abraham J. Hirschfeld - Democrat - candidate in Democratic primary for U.S. Senator from New York in 1974 and 1976. Offered Paula Jones $1 million to drop her sexual harassment lawsuit against President Bill Clinton. Convicted in 2000 of trying to hire a hit man to kill his business partner.
Henry Cisneros - Democrat - U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1993 to 1997. Pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of lying to the FBI.
James A. Traficant Jr. - Member of House of Representatives from Ohio. Expelled from Congress after being convicted of corruption charges. Sentenced today to eight years in prison for accepting bribes and kickbacks.
John Doug Hays - Democrat - member of Kentucky State Senate from 1980 to 1982 Found guilty of mail fraud for submitting false campaign reports stemming from an unsuccessful run for judge. He was sentenced to six months in prison to be followed by six months of home confinement and three years of probation.
Henry J. Cianfrani - Democrat - Pennsylvania State Senate from 1967 to 1976. Convicted on federal charges of racketeering and mail fraud for padding his Senate payroll. Sentenced to five years in federal prison.
David Hall - Democrat - Governor of Oklahoma from 1971 to 1975. Indicted on extortion and conspiracy charges. Convicted and sentenced to three years in prison.
John A. Celona - Democrat - A former state senator was charged with the three counts of mail fraud. Federal prosecutors accused him of defrauding the state and collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars from CVS Corp. and others while serving in the legislature. Celona has agreed to plead guilty to taking money from the CVS pharmacy chain and other companies that had interest in legislation. Under the deal, Celona agreed to cooperate with investigators. He faces up to five years in federal prison on each of the three counts and a $250,000 fine
Allan Turner Howe - Democrat - U.S. Representative from Utah from 1975 to 1977. Arrested for soliciting a policewoman posing as a prostitute.
Jerry Cosentino - Democrat - Illinois State Treasurer. Pleaded guilty to bank fraud - fined $5,000 and sentenced to nine months home confinement.
Joseph Waggonner Jr. - Democrat - U.S. Representative from Louisiana from 1961 to 19 79. Arrested in Washington, D.C. for soliciting a policewoman posing as a prostitute
Albert G. Bustamante - Democrat - U.S. Representative from Texas from 1985 to 1993. Convicted in 1993 on racketeering and bribery charges and sentenced to prison.
Lawrence Jack Smith - Democrat - U.S. Representative from Florida from 1983 to 1993. Sentenced to three months in federal prison for tax evasion.
David Lee Walters - Democrat - Governor of Oklahoma from 1991 to 1995. Pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor election law violation.
James Guy Tucker, Jr. - Democrat - Governor of Arkansas from 1992 to 1996. Resigned in July 1996 after conviction on federal fraud charges as part of the Whitewater investigation.
Walter Rayford Tucker - Democrat - Mayor of Compton, California from 1991 to 1992; U.S. Representative from California from 1993 to 1995. Sentenced to 27 months in prison for extortion and tax evasion.
William McCuen - Democrat - Secretary of State of Arkansas from 1985 to 1995. Admitted accepting kickbacks from two supporters he gave jobs, and not paying taxes on the money. Admitted to conspiring with a political consultant to split $53,560 embezzled from the state in a sham transaction. He was indicted on corruption charges. Pleaded guilty to felony counts tax evasion and accepting a kickback. Sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Walter Fauntroy - Democrat - Delegate to U.S. Congress from the District of Columbia from 1971 to 1991. Charged in federal court with making false statements on financial disclosure forms. Pleaded guilty to one felony count and sentenced to probation.
Carroll Hubbard, Jr. - Democrat - Kentucky State Senate from 1968 to 1975 and U.S. Representative from Kentucky from 1975 to 1993. Pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the Federal Elections Commission and to theft of government property; sentenced to three years in prison.
Joseph Kolter - Democrat - member of Pennsylvania State House of Representatives from 1969 to 1982 and U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania from 1983 to 1993. Indicted by a Federal grand jury on five felony charges of embezzlement at the U.S. House post office. Pleaded guilty.
Webster Hubbell - Democrat - Chief Justice of Arkansas State Supreme Court in 1983. Pleaded guilty to federal mail fraud and tax evasion charges - sentenced to 21 months in prison.
Nicholas Mavroules - Democrat - U.S. Representative from Massachusetts from 1979 to 1993. Pleaded guilty to charges of tax fraud and accepting gratuities while in office.
Carl Christopher Perkins - Democrat - Kentucky State House of Representatives from 1981 to 1984 and U.S. Representative from Kentucky from 1985 to 1993. Pleaded guilty to bank fraud in connection with the House banking scandal. Perkins wrote overdrafts totaling about $300,000. Pleaded guilty to charges of filing false statements with the Federal Election Commission and false financial disclosure reports. Sentenced to 21 months in prison.
Richard Hanna - Democrat - U.S. Representative from California from 1963 to 1974. Received payments of about $200,000 from a Korean businessman in what became known as the "Koreagate" influence buying scandal. Pleaded guilty and sentenced to federal prison.
Angelo Errichetti - Democrat - New Jersey State Senator was sentenced to six years in prison and fined $40,000 for his involvement in Abscam.
Daniel Baugh Brewster - Democrat - U.S. Senator from Maryland. Indicted on charges of accepting illegal gratuity while in Senate.
Thomas Joseph Dodd - Democrat - U.S. Senator from Connecticut. Censured by the Senate for financial improprieties, having diverted $116,000 in campaign and testimonial funds to his own use
Edward Fretwell Prichard, Jr. - Democrat - Delegate to Democratic National Convention from Kentucky. Convicted of vote fraud in federal court in connection with ballot-box stuffing. Served five months in prison.
Jerry Springer - Democrat - Resigned from Cincinnati City Council in 1974 after admitting to paying a prostitute with a personal check, which was found in a police raid on a massage parlor.
Guy Hamilton Jones, Sr. - Democrat -Arkansas State Senate. Convicted on federal tax charges and expelled from the Arkansas Senate.
Daniel Flood - Democrat - U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania from 1945 to 1947, 1949 to 1953 and 1955 to 1980. Pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge involving payoffs and sentenced to probation.
Otto Kerner, Jr - Democrat - Governor of Illinois from 1961 to 1968. While serving as Governor, he and another official made a gain of over $300,000 in a stock deal. Convicted on 17 counts of bribery, conspiracy, perjury, and related charges. Sentenced to three years in federal prison and fined $50,000.
George Crockett, Jr. - Democrat - U.S. Representative from Michigan. Served four months in federal prison for contempt of court following his defense of a Communist leader on trial for advocating the overthrow of the government.
Cornelius Edward Gallagher - Democrat - U.S. Representative from New Jersey from 1959 to 1973. Indicted on federal charges of income tax evasion, conspiracy, and perjury
Mark B. Jimenez - Democrat fundraiser - sentenced to 27 months in prison on charges of tax evasion and conspiracy to defraud the United States and commit election financing offenses.
Bobby Lee Rush - Democrat - U.S. Representative from Illinois. As a Black Panther, spent six months in prison on a weapons charge.
Bolley ''Bo'' Johnson - Democrat - Former Florida House Speaker - received a two-year term for tax evasion.
Roger L. Green - Democrat - Brooklyn Democrat Assemblyman. Pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for accepting travel reimbursement for trips he did not pay for and was sentenced to fines and probation.
Gloria Davis - Democrat - Bronx assemblywoman. Pleaded guilty to second-degree bribe-taking.
Take a moment to think what medicine was 100 years ago compared to what it is now. Think what was fatal then and isn't now. Sepsis, malaria, broken hips, cardiomyopathy, organ failure, premature birth, pulmonary embolisms, stroke, heart attacks, hepatitis, meningitis, tuberculosis, diphtheria, polio, smallpox, rheumatic fever, typhoid, slipped vertebrae, anemia, the list goes on and on. All of these cures were brought about by entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial companies seeking profit in a market economy. Think of the hundreds of millions of lives that have been saved in this fashion. Think of all the human suffering that was ended by the pursuit of profit that you consider profane.
Charity organizations do not cure diseases. No amount of walking or political campaigns has ever invented something new cure to diabetes, AIDS, cancer, or other fatal maladies.
If America socializes medicine, international medical and pharmaceutical corporations will no longer make a significant operating profit anywhere in the world. If you remove the operating profit from international medical and pharmaceutical companies, they can no longer finance or fund research and development for new products, being cures to disease that are at present incurable, or treatments that would be cheaper, more effective, safer, and more widely available.
Socialized medicine will be the death of hope for the fatally sick; because there will be no chance of any new cure for them. There will be no future cures to diabetes, AIDS, cancer, MRSA, VRSA, or genetic disease. Forget about new flu shots. Forget about any newly-developed prosthesis if you lose a limb. Forget about any new antibiotics. Those whose prognosis is death now will be forever doomed, as will their successors in their maladies.
The murder of four police officers in Washington on Sunday cast a pall on the nation's Thanksgiving holiday weekend, and now there's a political controversy brewing over the the main suspect in the killings. Investigators have named former Arkansas prison inmate Maurice Clemmons their primary suspect. Clemmons was released nine years ago after being granted clemency by then-governor and former GOP presidential-candidate hopeful Mike Huckabee. Huckabee now faces questions about that decision, which could damage his standing as a prospective Republican presidential nominee.
Huckabee commuted Clemmons' 1989 conviction for aggravated burglary and theft of property in 2000, citing the fact that Clemmons was only 17 at the time of the crimes. Clemmons, however, violated his parole and was returned to prison in Arkansas, where he remained until 2004. Just six days ago, he was released from a Washington jail on bail after being arrested several months ago for second-degree rape of a child and assaulting a police officer.
Huckabee distanced himself from Clemmons' release in a statement last night, arguing that the commutation was not the final word:
He was recommended for and received a commutation of his original sentence from 1990. This commutation making him parole eligible and was paroled by the parole board once they determined he met the conditions at that time. He was arrested later for parole violation and taken back to prison to serve his full term, but prosecutors dropped the charges that would have held him.
He went further today on Fox News Radio, saying: ''If I could've known nine years ago, looked into the future, would I have acted favorably upon the parole board's recommendation? Of course not."
Though he's been coy about possible future political ambitions, Huckabee is frequently mentioned as a contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination and remains popular among conservatives. A recent poll of Republican voters conducted by The Washington Post found him trailing only Sarah Palin as the party's favorite candidate for the presidency in 2012. The conservative voters who dominate Republican primary contests, however, frown on anything less than a hard line when it comes to so-called "law and order" issues.
In fact, this line of attack has been used on Huckabee before. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney criticized Huckabee throughout 2007 for his role in the release of convicted murderer and rapist Wayne DuMond. DuMond was released from an Arkansas prison in 1999, only to rape and murder another woman. Romney and Arkansas parole officials claimed Huckabee had played a central role in securing DuMond's release. Huckabee denies it.
The DuMond case haunted Huckabee during his attempt to secure the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. Some dubbed it "Huckabee's Willie Horton" in reference to the clemency case that dogged Michael Dukakis during the 1988 presidential campaign.
If Clemmons is found and convicted of this quadruple murder, the same thing could happen to Huckabee's attempts to win the nomination in 2012.
For now, however, Clemmons is keeping authorities on edge.
Former Bush press secretary Dana Perino's jaw-dropping statement Wednesday that "we did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term" didn't merely serve to confirm President Obama's terrible judgment in appointing her to the Broadcasting Board of Governors. As it turns out, Perino's clumsy whitewashing of the 9/11 attacks is just the latest (if most pathetic) installment of the ongoing GOP project to selectively erase history. From their disaster in Iraq and neglect of Afghanistan to their budget-busting deficits and more, Republicans on this day are no doubt giving thanks for short memories.
Of course, Dana Perino is only a minor figure in the Republican program of targeted amnesia, and a less successful one at that. Her butchery of the fatiguing GOP talking point that "Bush kept us safe" after 9/11 highlighted the Republicans' favorite historical asterisk. But her gaffe also served as a reminder of other Perino classics, such as "we did not torture," her October 2008 insistence that "I don't think anybody could tell you right now if we're in a recession or not," and her 2007 admission of ignorance about the Cuban Missile Crisis.
But if anyone should be thanking his Maker for the short memories of the American people - and even shorter recall of the American media - it's Dick Cheney.
No one has been as gravely and consistently wrong on matters of war and peace as the former Vice President. As he blasts President Obama for "inexcusable" delays and "dithering" in escalating the U.S. effort in Afghanistan, Cheney is predictably silent about the Bush administration's catastrophic under-resourcing of that conflict, a bare-bones effort made worse by the misadventure in Iraq. After all, George W. Bush admitted as much in March 2002 after the fiasco in Tora Bora:
"So I don't know where he [Bin Laden] is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you...I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him."
Cheney's impersonation of the mind-wiping agents in Men in Black hardly ends there. Despite the five deferments he received to keep him out of military service in Vietnam, Cheney this week criticized Obama from the "perspective" of our fighting men and women:
"I worry that there's a lack of understanding there of what this means from the perspective of the troops. You know, if you're out there on the line day in and day out and putting your life at risk on a volunteer basis for the nation, and you see the Commander in Chief unable, to or appearing to be unable, to make a decision about the way forward here -- you know that raises serious doubts. Nobody wants to think of volunteering to be participate in that kind of operation."
Obama critic Cheney also assumes the American people will forget his own dismal record of calamitously wrong predictions about the war in Iraq. Two days before the invasion of Iraq and over 4,000 U.S. deaths ago, Cheney announced:
"My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."
In mid-2005, Vice President Cheney saw light at the end of the tunnel:
"The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."
Almost as loud in his denunciations of President Obama but with an even worse track record that Dick Cheney is John McCain. On Wednesday, McCain slammed Obama's upcoming announcement on Afghanistan, "I would like to see the emphasis on succeeding, not on an exit strategy." This from the man who in July 2003 said the United States "can muddle through" in its war in Afghanistan.
Sadly, McCain's catalog of error on Iraq is much lengthier. From his predictions of a short war, claims U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators and that the U.S. would find weapons of mass destruction to his announcements of mission accomplished, his ongoing confusion over friend and foe in Iraq and so much more, John McCain was wrong at virtually every turn.
Then there's former Bush National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
This week, Condi and her Bush ally Stephen Hadley announced the launch of their new consulting company. But given her laughable "dog ate my homework" defense of her days in the Bush White House, potential clients of her strategic advisory firm would do well to steer clear of The RiceHadley Group.
But in the aftermath of the horrific 9/11 attacks, Condi Rice has played the role of a reverse Nostradmus, detailing the myriad foreign policy and security disasters she failed to predict. Confronted by 9/11 commissioner Richard Ben Veniste about the August 6, 2001 PDB (Presidential Daily Brief) which warned of "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks," national security adviser Rice responded:
"I believe the title was 'Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S.'"
Two weeks later on April 24, 2004, Rice took to the op-ed pages of the Washington Post to argue, "No al-Qaeda threat was turned over to the new administration." And in an argument she would later make repeatedly, Rice first introduced the now ubiquitous "nobody could have predicted" defense on May 16, 2002:
"I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile. All of this reporting about hijacking was about traditional hijacking."
That' just the beginning when it comes to Condi Rice's pathetic attempts to clean the historical slate of Bush administration failure. In 2006, Secretary Rice admitted being completely blindsided by the victory of Hamas in Palestinian elections. As the New York Times noted:
"I've asked why nobody saw it coming," Ms. Rice said, speaking of her own staff. "It does say something about us not having a good enough pulse."
On the subject of Iraq and the bogus claims of Saddam Hussein's links to Al Qaeda and the September 11 attacks, Rice's dissembling continues even now. As late as September 2006, Rice insisted "there were ties going on between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime." But despite voluminous statements to the contrary by Bush, Cheney and Rice herself, Condi told Charlie Rose in March:
"No one was arguing that Saddam Hussein somehow had something to do with 9/11...I was certainly not. The President was certainly not...That's right. We were not arguing that."
Of course, Republicans' sandblasting of their record extends to domestic policy as well. And on no topic is the GOP do-over more evident than the federal budget deficit and the U.S. national debt.
The Republicans' shameless cynicism was perfectly captured by Vice President Dick Cheney, who in 2002 proclaimed, "Reagan proved deficits don't matter."
Not, that is, if a Republican is in the White House. But when Barack Obama stepped into the Oval Office and the $1.2 trillion deficit George W. Bush left for him there, the GOP quickly changed its tune. While the national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan and doubled again under President Bush, House Minority Leader John Boehner in February decried the $787 billion emergency economic recovery spending as "one big down payment on a new American socialist experiment." By June, Boehner warned of the "crushing debt Washington Democrats are running up." And Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), Obama's aborted choice for Commerce Secretary, slapped the President last month, "we're basically on the path to a banana-republic-type of financial situation in this country." And, Gregg added:
"You can't keep throwing debt on top of debt."
Obviously, throwing debt on top of debt is precisely what Gregg and his GOP allies have done for over a generation.
On health care, too, Republicans are asking the American people to forget. Forget, that is, that the party that now comically claims to defend the Medicare program used by 46 million seniors is the same GOP which tried to block it in the 1960's and gut it in the 1990's. And as they decry fully funded Democratic health care bills in the House and Senate which would cut the federal budget deficit, they neglect to mention their own support for the deeply flawed and unpaid for 2003 Medicare prescription drug benefit which added hundreds of billions in red ink.
And so it goes. Joining a long and growing list of Republicans, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) this week took credit for stimulus projects funded by the very $787 bullion recovery package he opposed and later called a "dismal failure." As for Sarah Palin, her entire political future is premised on forgetting her past.
At the end of the day, the Republican mantra boils down to this: you can fool some of the people all of the time, and that's our target market. And on this Thanksgiving Day, the Republican Party should be giving thanks that more often than not, it works.
While joking around on his radio show Wednesday, Fox News personality Glenn Beck addressed the idea that he and Sarah Palin should run for president together in 2012.
Beck apparently likes the idea of a Beck-Palin ticket, but a Palin-Beck ticket? Not so much.
"I was just thinking, what, I'm going to take a back seat to a chick?" Beck quipped, to laughter from the studio. "Go shoot a bear, make some stew, I'm hungry in here."
In an interview with Newsmax last week, Palin "wouldn't rule out" running with the controversial talk show host in 2012.
"So while she's considering it ... I just want her to know, I'm ruling it out. A Palin-Beck ticket, I'm absolutely ruling it out," Beck said. "I’m just saying, Beck-Palin, I’ll consider. But Palin-Beck -- can you imagine what an administration with the two of us would be like? She'd be yapping or something, I'd say, 'I'm sorry, why am I hearing your voice? I'm not in the kitchen.' I mean, you'd have to live up to the evil conservative stereotypes, you'd have no choice but to do so."
"A woman’s appropriate place on a presidential ticket, according to Beck, is in the number two spot," writes Alex Seitz-Wald at ThinkProgress. "Otherwise, she should just 'yap' away in a kitchen somewhere. Apparently, being a vice presidential running mate behind a woman is a serious challenge to Beck’s manhood."
"Palin has a hair-trigger reaction to sexist slights ... so I would predict a wingnut feud," writes Azaria Jagger at Gawker. "But in this case, Lady Alaska's martyr complex is going to conflict with her effusive love of right-wing media. Also, Beck's producers will likely pressure him to make nice. She's way too valuable to them."
But, hey, it's all a joke, right?
"Yeah, Glenn, it's a 'joke.' We get it," writes bluegal at the Crooks and Liars blog. "We get that you're a former shock jock, that you don't actually believe a single word you say, and that you will say anything for money. We get that the vice-presidency is even further out of your league than it is for Palin, and that's saying a lot.
The following audio was broadcast on The Glenn Beck Program, November 25, 2009.
Sean Hannity to Jon Stewart: "You're right, we faked footage"
BY MARK W. SMITH
FREE PRESS WEB EDITOR
Fox News host Sean Hannity apologized on his show Wednesday night after it was revealed by comedian Jon Stewart that the program had used archived footage of a well-attended rally and passed it off as a recent health care protest in Washington, D.C.
Hannity spent the last 30 seconds of his show addressing the controversy, giving no explanation and calling the use of 2-month-old footage in a current news package "inadvertent."
"He was correct," Hannity said. "We screwed up."
The Fox News program used footage from a much larger Sept. 12 rally during a discussion on a health care rally from last week.
The archived footage was used to portray public outrage to the then-pending health care reform legislation in the House. The bill was passed by the House late Saturday.
Hannity ended his program Wednesday with a message for Stewart.
"By the way, I want to thank you and all your writers for watching," he said.
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It's not like Fox "News" has ever done something like this before...
While the bankers who created the crisis are now doing better than ever, the social crisis affecting masses of people is getting worse, as unemployment soars and wages fall.
These public meetings will present a detailed analysis of the policies of the Obama administration and will explain the basis for an independent socialist movement of the international working class.