Climate change = national security issue

Maybe the astroturfers and climate change denialists within the GOP will finally sit up and take notice. John Kerry is trying exactly that angle as the initial Senate spadework on Waxman-Markey starts.

Team Obama backs off Big Pharma deal

The national healthcare debate, ’winger pseudo-debate aside, gets more interesting by the day. The latest? The Obama Administration’s claim that a deal with Big Pharma is NOT written in stone, at least not in the details.

Ultimately, though, this gets back to two problems with the Administration.

One, of course, is that Obama simply didn’t show enough leadership at the start of the legislative process. And, what statements he did make were themselves not written in stone as to priorities, non-negotiables, etc.

Second is an overstaffed White House staff, in my opinion. Who speaks with what authority, what clearance, and what advance interoffice communication? Details in the article show these are all continuing issues.

Astroturfers say ‘get Reps. off prepared script’ on health

Ahh, the irony alert and hypocrisy alert daily double at work.

If anybody has a “prepared script,” including a prepared script for disrespect and intimidation, it’s astroturfing corporate groups and their far-right political action group fellow travelers.

“Pack the hall,” said a strategy memo circulated by the Web site Tea Party Patriots that instructed, “Yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”

“Get him off his prepared script and agenda,” the memo continued. “Stand up and shout and sit right back down.”

That said, liberals need to respond with firmness but WITHOUT violence; we do not need more Russ Carnahan town halls.

National healthcare and thuggers = possibly political shifts

Earlier this week, several polls came out noting that support for public-option national healthcare HUGELY divided on age lines, with senior citizens either largely deceived by Republican lies that Medicare allegedly isn't a government program, or else out of pure "I got mine" greed, strongly opposed, 40-64 folks neutral to favorable and under 40 definitely favorable.

Steve Pearlstein of the Washington Post, after calling the deceptions oriented toward the first group of seniors “a flat-out lie”:

By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.

closes with a note to the Jim DeMints of the world, on the political issue:

If health reform is to be anyone's Waterloo, let it be theirs.

Indeed, if we want to put this in terms of raw political calculus, this can be a counter-shift as big or bigger than Nixon’s “Southern strategy,” only this time, generational.

So, can, and will, Obama do it? Stay tuned.

Here's why Cornyn knows Obama is telling truth about town hall thuggery

Texas Sen. John Cornyn wants President Barack Obama to stop talking about an “enemies list” behind disruptions of Congressional town halls and such.

The idea that Cornyn, who sometimes flirts with the edges of reality, thinks Obama’s asking people to report GOP and ’winger Astroturf groups lies and misinformation about healthcare issues is sending secret information to the president, this one is so laughable, in part, because Cornyn knows tea-baggers better from personal experience:



First, Obama the (actual) violator of civil liberties could have his telco immunity buddy, AT&T, team up with the NSA and take care of this in secret if he really were of the mindset Cornyn attributes to him.

Second, people can send their e-mails through routers or anonymizers.

Third, they can stop sending lying e-mails! Hey, there’s an idea for Whackjob Cornyn!

Rather, I hope he ups the ante. Cornyn’s whining shows this might just stick. And, having seen these nutbars protest against HIM on the Fourth of July, he knows what they are like.

A longer video reminder of what Cornyn knows about these thuggery:



More information about actual thuggery on the jump.

In St. Louis, Rep. Russ Carnahan was the target, though liberals were prepared. The result? A big pre town-hall fracas, which included multiple apparent “assault by cop” actions against healthcare supporters.

Remember, police generally come from the more conservative elements of society.

In Wisconsin, a protestor claming to be “just a mom” with “not affiliated with any political party” gets exposed as a big liar — a member of the Republican National Committee.

And good on Steve Pearlstein of the WaPost for calling the lies of folks like this “a flat-out lie.”

By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.

And he closes with a note to the Jim DeMints of the world:

If health reform is to be anyone's Waterloo, let it be theirs.

Indeed, if we want to put this in terms of raw political calculus, this can be a counter-shift as big or bigger than Nixon’s “Southern strategy,” only this time, generational.

And now, astroturf-teabag intimidation spreads to unions

The latest? The St. Louis headquarters of the SEIU has received a threatening phone call – along with additional threats by Twitter.

Astroturf-teabag intimidation spreads to unions

The latest? The St. Louis headquarters of the SEIU has received a threatening phone call – along with additional threats by Twitter.