More GOP Civil War: Anti-Choice Extremists Hang Lindsey Graham In Effigy On Capitol Hill

Lunatic fringe wingnut Randall Terry, a longtime flickering star in the Republican firmament, was down in South Carolina hanging Lindsey Graham effigies after Graham said he would vote to confirm Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, one of 4 Republicans to publicly do so thus far. But even in Greenville, an extremist bastion in a pretty extremist state, most people were more disgusted with Terry's stunt than with Graham's position.

The anti-abortion activist filmed two skits while in downtown. One of them involved Randall's employee constructing gallows to hang the mannequin with Graham's picture on it.

The other skit involved a stick and a piñata. The workers hit the piñata, which had a picture of Graham on it, until plastic babies fell out of it... A few on-lookers expressed their disgust with Terry's performance.

Yesterday Terry turned up on Capitol Hill for the same publicity stunt. The police rolled their eyes, told him how far he could go-- playing with dolls is ok but burning or beating one with a stick was a no-no (although slapping the effigy was allowed)-- and the crowds just ignored Terry.

[T]he attention-getting tactic can backfire. Hanging and burning effigies can turn away potential supporters, lead to legal action, and prompt concerns about mob violence.

Many of the people who walked by Terry's display outside a Senate building Thursday morning turned away. Media reports of similar actions earlier this week in South Carolina mentioned similar reactions there.

That's why many advocacy groups stay away from the tactic.

During the health care debate last summer, members of Americans for Prosperity attended an unaffiliated protest where a man hung an effigy of Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-Md.). The AFP activists quickly left to ensure their group would not be tied with the act.

The incident has become a legendary example among the group's activists of what not to do at a protest.
"When something like that happens, the media doesn't pick up on the message," Dave Schwartz, the group's state director, said. "They pick up on someone crazy doing something stupid."

...Outside the Senate building, Terry was careful to say that it was the senator's political career-- and not the man himself-- that he wanted to see hung.

"We don't want Senator Graham to fear for his safety," he said. "We want him to fear for his political career."

And Graham would have to be crazy not to. He's been outed as a closet case (again) and he's watched mainstream conservative allies like Bob Inglis and Gresham Barrett go down to ignominious electoral defeat this year at the hands of angry, riled up teabaggers, while another conservative ally, Henry Brown was forced to retire rather than face defeat. Maybe Terry picked Greenville because Greenville for his stunt because Graham had already gotten into a serious tussle with right-wing activists there before, warning that he had no intention of abandoning the Republican Party to fringe radicals like Ron Paul.

Terry was barnstorming against Graham over his support for a moderate judge he perceives will be pro-Choice. Other radical right activists hate Graham because he's perceived as being insufficiently anti-immigrant, too open to that whole Enlightenment thing and science, in favor of figuring out a rational way to deal with Climate Change. And, of course, because he's a homo. It would be hard to imagine Graham winning a Republican primary in South Carolina again. After he was defeated, Bob Inglis let loose on the GOP extremists, racists, and teabaggers for his own defeat.

Too many Republican leaders are acquiescing to a poisonous "demagoguery" that threatens the party's long-term credibility, says a veteran GOP House member who was defeated in South Carolina's primary last month.

While not naming names, 12-year incumbent Rep. Bob Inglis suggested in interviews with the Associated Press that tea party favorites such as former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and right-wing talk show hosts like Glenn Beck are the culprits.

He cited a claim made famous by Palin that the Democratic health care bill would create "death panels" to decide whether elderly or sick people should get care.

"There were no death panels in the bill ... and to encourage that kind of fear is just the lowest form of political leadership. It's not leadership. It's demagoguery," said Inglis, one of three Republican incumbents who have lost their seats in Congress to primary and state party convention challengers this year.

Inglis said voters eventually will discover that you're "preying on their fears" and turn away.

"I think we have a lot of leaders that are following those (television and talk radio) personalities and not leading," he said. "What it takes to lead is to say, 'You know, that's just not right.'"

Inglis said the rhetoric also distracts from the real problems that politicians should be trying to resolve, such as budget deficits and energy security.

"It's a real concern, because I think what we're doing is dividing the country into partisan camps that really look a lot like Shia and Sunni," he said, referring to the two predominant Islamic denominations that have feuded for centuries. "It's very difficult to come together to find solutions."

Inglis' refusal to join in on the Obama-bashing of the far right played a big role in his landslide defeat on June 22. Leading up to the election, he frequently challenged voters who questioned the president's citizenship or patriotism. At one town hall meeting, he was jeered for saying that Beck, a Fox News Channel host, is a divisive fearmonger.

In his primary runoff against prosecutor Trey Gowdy, Inglis failed to break 30 percent, an improbably low result for a sitting incumbent not embroiled in scandal.

Things can change in politics and 2014 is a long ways away, but... Graham will be a relatively young 59 when he has to decide if he wants to face the same humiliating defeats that Inglis and Gresham faced. My guess is he'll opt for an Executive appointment by either second term Obama or first term Romney.

No, Republican Townshirts Don't Want To Debate The Issues

In fact, debating the issues is the very last thing they want to do. As they've announced, they want to disrupt the meetings and prevent the truth about health care reform from coming to the fore. Watch the video of Jim Moran's Town Hall meeting in Reston, Virginia, where a small, noisy, deranged minority prevented Moran's constituents from hearing what he and Howard Dean had to say about health care reform, reform that 79% of Americans favor. Watch the police escorting Republican Party sociopath and terrorist Randall Terry out of the meeting:



Now, if you want to see more, watch a Republican congressman, GOP fringe loon Wally Herger, coddling a self-proclaimed "right-wing terrorrist" at his own mini-bund meeting. Stay 'til the very end so you can hear Herger's 8 word response to the freak who seems to have forgotten how the American Indians got the Pilgrims through their first winter in the New World.

And all those drooling imbeciles at Herger's little bund-rally? Very whiteof course, but is it so prosperous a district that doesn't need health care reform? The median income is $33,559, considerably less than the whole state's ($47,493). And, ironically, the health care reform legislation that Herger is working with Big Insurance to sabotage would actually do more for his own constituents than it would for most of the country. Here's a report that explains how CA-02 residents would benefit if Herger would stop trying to kill reform:

America’s Affordable Health Choices Act would provide significant benefits in the 2nd Congressional District of California: up to 14,000 small businesses could receive tax credits to provide coverage to their employees; 9,900 seniors would avoid the donut hole in Medicare Part D; 1,300 families could escape bankruptcy each year due to unaffordable health care costs; health care providers would receive payment for $107 million in uncompensated care each year; and 128,000 uninsured individuals would gain access to high-quality, affordable health insurance. Congressman Wally Herger represents the district.

• Help for small businesses. Under the legislation, small businesses with 25 employees or less and average wages of less than $40,000 qualify for tax credits of up to 50% of the costs of providing health insurance. There are up to 14,000 small businesses in the district that could qualify for these credits.

• Help for seniors with drug costs in the Part D donut hole. Each year, 9,900 seniors in the district hit the donut hole and are forced to pay their full drug costs, despite having Part D drug coverage. The legislation would provide them with immediate relief, cutting brand name drug costs in the donut hole by 50%, and ultimately eliminate the donut hole.

• Health care and financial security. There were 1,300 health care-related bankruptcies in the district in 2008, caused primarily by the health care costs not covered by insurance. The bill provides health insurance for almost every American and caps annual out-of-pocket costs at $10,000 per year, ensuring that no citizen will have to face financial ruin because of high health care costs.

• Relieving the burden of uncompensated care for hospitals and health care providers. In 2008, health care providers in the district provided $107 million worth of uncompensated care, care that was provided to individuals who lacked insurance coverage and were unable to pay their bills. Under the legislation, these costs of uncompensated care would be virtually eliminated.

• Coverage of the uninsured. There are 149,000 uninsured individuals in the district, 21% of the district. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that nationwide, 97% of all Americans will have insurance coverage when the bill takes effect. If this benchmark is reached in the district, 128,000 people who currently do not have health insurance will receive coverage.

• No deficit spending. The cost of health care reform under the legislation is fully paid for: half through making the Medicare and Medicaid program more efficient and half through a surtax on the income of the wealthiest individuals. This surtax would affect only 1,820 households in the district. The surtax would not affect 99.4% of taxpayers in the district.

The Conservative Philosophy Has Boiled Down To... A Secret Plan To Kill Off The Elderly

The banksters and they Insurance CEOs are so certain that Baucus in the Senate and the Blue Dogs in the House will repay the millions of dollars invested in them by working with the Republicans to kill off effective health care reform that stocks from the Medical Industrial Complex have been making gains as prospects for reform have faded. CNN reported this morning that Rahm Emanuel was over in the House talking with Democratic leaders and his reactionary, bribe-besotted Blue Dogs. If Emanuel hammers out a "compromise" (as though the public option isn't already the compromise between sensible single payer and continued corporate pillage), it can only be a boon to his patrons on Wall Street-- and more bad news for American working families.

But if the man who shoved NAFTA down the throats of Democrats-- ensuring the GOP a subsequent House majority-- isn't enough to kill health care reform, how about threats of violence from the far right?

Randall Terry, the controversial former head of Operation Rescue, is predicting that extremists would retaliate with violence if a health care overhaul allows taxpayers to foot the bill for abortions.

Terry offered his forecast during an unusual meeting on Tuesday between two dozen or so anti-abortion activists and an aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., during which Terry spilled hundreds of miniature plastic babies from a small faux casket onto a conference table in a room adjacent to Pelosi's personal office in the Cannon Building.

During the meeting, Terry warned of ominous repercussions from extremists if House provisions that would expand insurance coverage for abortions are made into law.

"If you force people to pay their money" he said afterward, "there are people who will resort to acts of violence."

Yesterday a Republican-oriented, lobbyist-funded astroturf group in Maryland tried to intimidate squishy Blue Dog Frank Kratovil by hanging him in effigy outside his district office.

Or how about the cascade of Republican lies about the substance of the health care bill? Lies? Yeah, like the claim by delusional sociopaths like Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Paul Broun (R-GA), Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), and Mike Pence (R-IN) that health care is a secret plan to kill off the elderly. Rachel covered it on MSNBC last night:

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So Much Hatred On The Right-- But On The Same Day As Dr. Tiller's Assassination, Civil Unions Veto Is Overridden In Nevada

Dr. George Tiller, assassinated by right-wing domestic terrorist

When I woke up yesterday I told myself I wouldn't be writing about the barbaric beheading and crucifixion in Saudi Arabia. What more is there to say than that the self-righteous, hypocritical religious fanatics in that country are primitive savages? And then came the reports of the murder of Dr. George Tiller inside the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita-- an act of right-wing terrorism, right wing terrorism countenanced and encouraged by Fox News for ratings points. (Some people think Bill O'Reilly should be charged as an accomplice.)

The anti-Choice, "pro-Life" terrorist-- somehow certain that God is on his side-- was arrested while primitive right-wing barbarians publicly justified it the same way that the Saudi crucifiers did.

I think most Americans were shocked. President Obama released a brief statement:

I am shocked and outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller as he attended church services this morning. However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence.

There are probably no Republican legislators who will cheer this, at least not publicly; they have their surrogates who will do that for them. In fact, investigators found a post-it note with the phone number of an operative from Operation Rescue-- a Republican Party-connected terrorist front-- in the assassin's car. If you think crowing over this is too barbaric to be real, take a look at the ever-growing tweets of hate from the people Charles Pierce wrote his new book about. Should Bill O'Reilly and Fox News be charged as accessories for the assassination of Dr. George Tiller?



You may not find the vicious, homophobic veto of a domestic partnership bill by Nevada's crooked right-wing governor, Jim Gibbons, related. But it is. It's this kind of self-serving hatred that gives permission to more extreme elements to dehumanize and target groups of people-- with God on their side. Saturday night the Nevada state Senate overrode Gibbon's veto, 14-7, in a rare, and very surprising, show of sanity, humanity and political courage. And then on Sunday night the state Assembly followed suit and voted 28-14 to override Gibbons' veto. Domestic partnerships will be the law in Nevada starting October 1. Nevada voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2002 enshrining marriage inequality.

Under the new law, same-sex and opposite-sex couples can go to the secretary of state's office, sign a registry, pay a fee and secure a domestic partnership contract that essentially gives them the same legal rights and responsibilities as married couples [in the eyes of the state]... Employers are not required to offer medical and other benefits to domestic partner couples but may do so if they wish.

Nevada's top employers, the gaming industry, had urged the legislators to override the veto, fearing a boycott from the gay community nationally. 28 of the 29 Democrats in the Assembly did so, as did one Republican (of the 14 in the Assembly). One Democrat and the one Republican changed their votes when the bill was first approved last month, and one Democrat who was absent voted "yes" this time. Those 3 votes made the override possible.