'Groundswell': Stirring the Pot of Congressional Dysfunction

by Sunnyjane

But before I do that, my king-sized Sippy Cup needs a Merlot refill!

It's no secret that the House of Representatives is the most malfunctioning organ in the body politic of the United States government.

There's a history, of course: In 2008, John McCain lost and Barack Obama won.  And things haven't been quite the same since.  The new President's first -- and last -- highly significant legislation to pass into law was the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act, which he signed in March of 2010.

The Taxed Enough Already movement (the Tea Party) was already making noises about government spending and lower taxes.  Then they got co-opted by the shrilling extreme right and their message turned to social issues.  Thus, by the November mid-term election, they ushered in a bunch of the most contemptible anti-Americans ever to enter that hallowed chamber.  Thus we -- and John Boehner, who became the Speaker of the House -- were cursed with the most Do-Nothing legislative body in history.

Boehner not only has the Teabaggers to endure, he also has to put up with outside groups -- yeah, they're lobbyists, regardless of what they call themselves -- who threaten dire election consequences for Republicans who go against them.  So now, to steal a quote from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, they are engaged in a great civil war for the heart and soul of the Republican Party.  Or something like that.

Is it any wonder Boehner drinks?  (Oh, there's no truth to the rumor that Boehner limps because of an old football injury.  He actually fell off his stool in a sports bar.)

What is Groundswell and Why Does it Matter?

Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, wife of Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarance Thomas, is the maker and shaker of Groundswell, a super-clandestine group of far-far-right Tea Partiers who see the Obama administration through the foggy lens of tyranny!  That is not hyperbole, dear readers; this group consists of such teabagging luminaries as former ambassador (thank God) John Bolton, former (ditto) GOP representative Allen West, journalists (huh?) from Breitbart.com, and a top aid to Sen. Ted Cruz.  Are you getting the picture here?

As David Corn of Mother Jones reported last summer, the Groundswellers have launched a
30 front war seeking to fundamentally transform the nation.  How will they win this war?  With what they hope is persuasive messaging, of course.  Like Reince Priebus, it's not their policies that are losing voters, it's the message, stupid!  And they know their audience well, using phrases such as the low-information voters, writing their propaganda on a 4th grade level, and using images like Humpty Dumpty that voters can identify with to get their points across.  (How sad is this, I ask you!) 

Immigration Reform and the Spanking of Marco Rubio

I didn't mean to take a LEFT, honestly I didn't!

Groundswell has a lot of hissy-fit issues with President Obama and Democratic lawmakers, of course, but none is as critical to them as Immigration Reform: If we lose on immigration, we lose on every other issue. The key to defeating this bill is Sen. Rubio.

Marco Rubio was one of the Gang of 8, a bipartisan group assembled in late January 2013 to tackle Immigration Reform.  Being from Florida and of Cuban ancestry, Sen Rubio seemed a perfect choice to take on this important task -- particularly in light of the stiff-arming the GOP got from Latinos in the November 2012 general election.   But the Republican was in a quandary, you see, because the teabaggers got him elected and they want nothing to do with immigration reform.  It is interesting (ahem) what Rubio did in March: he actually donated $30,000 from his leadership PAC to Jim DeMint's Senate Conservative Action group, which is closely connected to Groundswell!  

The Immigration Reform bill put together by the Gang of 8 was passed in the Senate in June.  However, Boehner said it would never be brought to the House without major redo because he thinks immigration reform should come in steps.  

My, my, my!

Groundswells' War on Karl Rove

Uber-GOP Strategist Karl Rove is pretty sick of his party losing winnable elections because the most unelectable candidates were selected to run against their Democratic opponents.  Still smarting from the 2012 election, in February Rove put together a group called the Conservative Victory Project, which plans to pick the most conservative candidate who can win.  (Translation: Forget about those Tea Party candidates like Christine O'Donnell, Todd Akin, and Richard Mourdock!) 

Groundswell, however, has an entirely opposite goal.  They'll most likely end up embracing such people as Tea Party extremist Dr. Greg Brannon of North Carolina, who is for all the most radical positions in America today.  To whit, he's against public education because it dehumanizes students; he doesn't believe that states have to follow Supreme Court decisions; he thinks that bipartisan compromises enslave Americans; he believes the late Jesse Helms was a modern hero; and he supports secession so that to achieve a free and independent Southern republic.  Oh, yes, and he's been endorsed by Sen. Rand Paul.

Good luck with this, Karl.

End Note

  

Election 2012: Turning Out the Traitorous Teabaggers - Darrell Issa and Allen West

by Sunnyjane

There are a lot of things in this world that I don’t understand.   I cannot fathom the technology that allows me to send an email half-way around the world and get an almost immediate response.   I cannot comprehend why dogs eat poop – their own or anyone else’s. (Fact: there are no gourmands in the canine world).   And I haven’t figured out why, when I carefully regulate the hot and cold faucets, the minute I turn on the shower I first get treated to a blast of frigid water.  

But these are not the issues that keep me awake at night.  No, what makes me ponder restlessly is how in the name of all that I hold dear can Republican voters elect some of the stupidest, nastiest, most incompetent  and most ignorant hypocrites in the United States of America.  Writing about the crazies in the 112^th Congress is beginning to feel like describing someone's demented old Uncle Charlie’s latest kookiness.  The only difference is that all the "Uncle Charlies" in America are not assembled in one place with a morally corrupt, all-for-the-Rich-and-the-Right agenda to destroy the country. 


It has become apparent to this writer that, even collectively, the über-conservative congress cannot surpass the intellectual competence and moral integrity of Play-Doh.  Perhaps that’s unfair, because unlike today's representative body, Play-Doh actually performs its tasks, however limited, with a modicum of honesty.

Two Twisted Troglodytes*


*Troglodyte: a prehistoric cave dweller; a person of degraded, primitive, or brutal character.

The wealthiest person on Capitol Hill today, Congressman Darrell Issa of California is the proud possessor what can only be called a checkered past consisting of car thefts, likely insurance fraud, an unverifiable  military record, carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, etc. In addition, Rep. Issa has racked up a reprehensible history in the House, at one time calling the horrific events of 9/11 "that plane crash."  These less-than-noble activities, in the GOP leadership’s opinion, gave him the perfect credentials to be named as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee after the Tea Party gained control of the House in 2010.  The assignment, of course, was merely a thinly disguised mission to "get Obama" and make sure he was a one-term president.  


Issa's first target was an unwise choice: the First Lady.  I guess I missed the section of the Constitution that spells out  the historic role of the first lady, but Darrell Issa wants to “protect” it by limiting any First Lady’s role in her husband's administration.  Let’s see now: Issa has been in the House through Mrs. Laura Bush’s entire time as First Lady.   Did anyone see this recommendation proposed during her tenure?   No, I thought not.  This obviously was his transparent effort to make Michelle Obama quiver and quake in her stylish shoes, and stick meekly to the role of "White House hostess" circa the mid-eighteen hundreds.   However, Mrs. Obama became, and remains, a very popular First Lady who carries out her worthy causes with vigor, dedication, class, aplomb, and dignity.   So, how'd that "muffle Michelle" thingy work out for ya there, Darrell?

There have been criticisms and controversies  for "Mr. Chairman" during his first twelve months, but his most egregiously offensive act to date (I'm sure there will be more before November 6) was his decision to call a hearing on the birth control issue in this country. When the....ahem...astute panel of experts, or witnesses, or whatever you want to call them, showed up, they were all men.   So much has been written on this badly performed charade and the subsequent shitstorm firestorm that ensued, that there is little need to rehash it here.   I will leave the subject with Nancy Pelosi's excellent perspective on the farce:  “Where are the women on that panel?  Imagine, they are having a panel on women's health and they don't have any women on the panel.  Duh.”

Rep. Allen West serves his Florida constituents as an arrogant, spiteful, ever-ranting Tea Party star, with a side order of paranoia, please.  (He once thought the television network Al Jazeera English was trying to kidnap him on behalf of Muslim terrorists.  It wasn't.  Snicker) 

West spent twenty years in the military, reaching the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.  He may well have remained in the service had it not been for a wee incident concerning the severe beating of an Iraqi civilian police officer.

The condensed version of this story:

• An "Intelligence specialist" told West about a plot to ambush him and his men.
• Said plot involved the aforementioned police officer, Mr. Yahya Jhodri Hamoodi.
• Mr. Hamoodi was "detained" by West's men and beaten; West fired a gun next to Hamoodi's head, after which, out of fear for his life, the detainee gave his captors meaningless information. (It is important to note the obvious:  West was not a trained interrogator, nor had he ever witnessed or conducted an interrogation.)  
• No plans for an attack and no weapons were ever found.
• West was charged with assault, fined $5,000, and shortly thereafter resigned from the military with an Honorable Discharge.
• West's comment on the incident: At the time I had to base my decision on the intelligence I received.   It's possible that I was wrong about Mr. Hamoodi.

The tidy sum of $5,000 seems to follow in Allen West's wake.  The IRS put several liens on his home and a judge ordered him to pay the amount of $5K in unpaid credit card bills.

And after he got to Washington, West was able to put his military experience to work in what has become Battleground Washington: If you ain't with us, you're a'gin us.   He once got all hot and bothered with DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (they seem to have a history), ultimately sending her a personal email in which he called her vile, unprofessional, and despicable, a coward, characterless, not a Lady, and demanding that she shut the heck up.   Lovely talk...sir.

There are many other instances regarding Mr. West's unseemly behavior, but I'll end our visit into his twisted mentality with a January verbal barrage at a dinner in Florida:  We need to let President Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and my dear friend the chairman of the Democrat National Committee, we need to let them know that Florida ain't on the table. Take your message of equality of achievement, take your message of economic dependency, take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will and spirit of the American people somewhere else. You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America.  (This attack on Harry Reid inspired Jim Manley, Reid's former spokesman, to tweet:  Me to Allen West: you first, asshole.)

After this rabble-rousing rhetoric caused something of an uproar in DC, West tried to walk it back by lying, claiming indignantly, I did not refer to any person leaving.  Oh, Mr. West, will you and your fellow idiots continue to forget that audio and video equipment record our every word these days?

But, please, let us all remember that Allen West, at this point only a half-term congressman who carries around much personal and professional baggage, has been endorsed (cough, cough) by none other than failed VP candidate and Quitter Half-Term Governor Sarah Palin.  Certainly, that's a good enough reason to send him back to Florida -- for good!

END NOTE  


All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. Thomas Jefferson.

Politicalgates: Our first anniversary - Blogging for democracy, freedom and truth

By Kathleen and Patrick

Today is Politicalgates first anniversary. That's right. This little baby is now one year old.

To mark the event we have a new and fun Politicalgates contest and we hope that entrants will be as creative as possible.

Describe what Politicalgates means to you. What are the good and bad things about the blog that you would like to see changed or emphasised or do you like things just as they are? Your suggestions can be either serious or funny and can be in any form that you like. For example you could submit a picture (remember our Blingee competition at Palingates), a poem or a short essay. The more creative and original the better.

The winner will receive a prize of $50.00 and will be published in a separate blog post.

Entry will close on Friday 3rd February and results published on Saturday 4th February.

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Our anniversary is also a good opportunity to take a look at our stats, as they give another indication of what our community has achieved as a whole in the first year.

This screenshot of the internal blogger stats which was taken today shows what happened during the first twelve months of our existence. For most of the year, we had between 200,000 and 250,000 pageviews per months. After Sarah Palin finally announced that she is not running for president, we immediately had a significant drop in pageviews, a drop which other blogs experienced as well, and since then it has been very stable between 140,000 and 145,000 pageviews per month.

The internal blogger stats also gives us an overview about the stats of the most popular "all-time" posts:

I would have never thought at the beginning of the year that two "non-Palin related posts" would be at the top. I was particularly pleased about the fact that the important "Plutonomy" post got a lot of attention. I am equally happy about the fact that our fabulous friend and tireless contributor Nomad also made it into the top-ten with his post about the contributors to Mitt Romney's Super-Pac.

Therefore we can look forward to another exciting year. Blogging is a challenging business as it consumes a lot of time and energy, but there should be no shortage of topics in 2012, and we do hope that all our contributors will continue to write lots of excellent posts that will continue to drive Politicalgates forward!

But there are not only the regular contributors, there is also our close-knit community of readers who support Politicalgates on a daily basis with many more facts, stories and opinions. We view ourselves as an interactive blog without censorship and moderated comments. The internet is a great tool for citizens, and it should be used extensively, in the fight for freedom, democracy and truth.

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A strong movement of citizens journalism, meaning journalism outside the commercial media, is desperately needed especially in the USA, as civil rights are now being attacked virtually on a daily basis. We have documented several times at Politicalgates how the "police and surveillance state" is on a seemingly unstoppable rise in the USA. The FBI is rolling out a multi-billion dollar "Next Generation Identification" program (see an enthusiastic review here), and protesters will be amongst the most important targets. The privacy of all Americans is under huge threat due to these new measures.

But there is also a change of perception, a change of words. It is apparently now "OK" to call OWS protesters "domestic terrorists", just because they are a big nuisance to the right-wingers - as happened yesterday in several tweets by Fox News host Todd Starnes:

We know what can happen to "terrorists" these days.

Scenes from yesterday at Occupy Oakland, with the police firing tear gas, flash grenades and rubber bullets:

This footage was taken by OakFoSho via live streaming.

So where are they, the "domestic terrorists?" More raw-footage from yesterday, showing the protesters from above, by AP:

"Terrorists" actually cause "terror." They don't just protest on streets, or burn a flag - an act which is, by the way, protected by the US constitution, according to the US Supreme Court. But it seems only a matter of time until more right-wingers pick up this new "meme" about the OWS-protesters.

More warning signs about the "new reality" in the USA, where you might quickly transform from a demonstrator to a terrorist, are visible. A few days ago, it was reported that according to "Reporters Without Borders", the largest press freedom organization in the world, the USA has dramatically dropped in the latest world press freedom ranking from place 20 to place 47.

The reason was also made public:

The United States (47th) also owed its fall of 27 places to the many arrests of journalist covering Occupy Wall Street protests.

The USA can now be found within a rather non-exceptional neighbourhood in the 2011/2012 ranking by "Reporters Without Borders." There is now more freedom of the press in Ghana and Botswana than in the USA:

People like Todd Starnes don't care. But we should, and it's time to fight for our freedoms, or they will just slip away.

Especially since the rhetoric of the right-wingers gets more and more aggressive by the day. Yesterday, at a Lincoln Day Dinner in New Jersey, the already notorious "Tea Party" Republican Rep Allen West had no hesitation to say that Obama, Reid and Pelosi should "get the hell out of the United States of America."

Watch (for a longer clip of this inflammatory speech, click here):

But these remarks are not even the most frightening thing. What is even more worrisome is the fact that the audience seemed to be ecstatic about these remarks and cheered wildly! So they apparently think that Allen West, who clearly is a rabble-rouser and a right-wing extremist, is a great guy.

Obama-bashing is all the rage now in 2012. The more vicious, the better.

Politicalgates will continue to take a close look at all these developments. In the recent interview on Fox News with Jeanine Pirro, Sarah Palin said: "Annoy a liberal, vote for Newt Gingrich!"

Short excerpt (long version here, in which Jeanine Pirro challenges Palin, much to her displeasure):

Following Sarah Palin's suggestion, I guess it should be one of our goals here at Politicalgates in 2012 to continue to annoy those people who want to change the USA into an authoritarian state in which dissent is "terrorism."

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UPDATE:

The blog "Boogie Man Journal" has a detailed and extremely interesting first hand report about the Occupy Oakland protest yesterday where about 300 protesters were arrested - excerpts:

Because of the incident earlier in the day, I realized they were effectively treating the peaceful march as a riot. There was not rioting, or intentions to riot, just dancing, optimism, hope, and walking. But clearly the police thought differently, and I knew they would try to trap us again without warning. From the moment I saw riot police running towards are march from both directions, I knew the constitution would not apply in Oakland tonight. The police made that very clear. My friends thought differently, thinking that they would not be arrested for marching. They are currently in jail.

The second, and successful, kettle occurred as the protest was headed back up Broadway, at Broadway and 24th. Again, the police appeared quickly in front of the crowd, as well as a line behind the crowd. This time there was no side street. A few people attempted to escape into the YMCA; some mis-infonformed news reports claim that the YMCA got 'occupied'. Around 300 people were trapped, mostly young people. At this point I had fallen behind the line of riot police in back of the crowd, and when the kettle was sprung I was on the other side of the police line. I have a policy of avoiding arrest, but I feel like I've been striped of some dignity. I've seen some shit go down in oaktown, but I've always avoided arrest because it was easy. Most mass arrests occur when people choose to break the law (like occupying Bank of America in downtown SF and pitching a tent to send a statement to UC Regent Monica Lozano on BofA's board - respect). At 'unlawfully assemblies', people are usually extracted by a quick attack of 5+ cops, and their often 'targets' (previously-identified and profiled protesters). If the crowd is too large, they use tear-gas.

Tonight was different. When I fell behind the group, I knew they were going to arrest a very large number of peaceful protesters without declaring an unlawful assembly at the location. And then they did. I thought this shit was reserved for G20's and WTO meetings. I felt shame for being intimidated away from my rights. 'Unlawful assemblies' feel like a boot stomp on the first amendment, but this was like them wiping their ass with the constitution and force feeding it to me. 300+ were arrested, corralled below the YMCA @ 23rd and Broadway. The only announcement that was made was one I've never heard before: "You are under arrest. Submit to your arrest." The 300 protesters were then arrested, one by one. They were ziptied and sat in rows while they waited to be processed. OPD set up an entire processing station behind police lines, where they searched and identified every protester. They were slowly loaded onto buses, including local public AC transit buses. This took about 4 or 5 hours. 

A note about police militarization: I saw some big guns and scary gear tonight. Alameda County Sheriff seems to have an endless budget for that shit. But tonight I saw something much scarier, that I've never seen before. First, I saw that the police have a printed profile books of protesters. I saw a cop flipping through pictures with descriptions, talking about who on their list they've seen today. When resting in Oscar Grant Plaza, a cop was filming the plaza from a rooftop in an adjacent building. They're always filming, some have cameras on their bodies now, but this was clear spying and sophisticated intelligence gathering and analysis. Second, a very large tank on wheels, with a water cannon on top, rolled on scene. Someone said it was called a "grizzly", but I can't find a photo anywhere. help? It was massive, and I stood right next to it before they brought it behind police lines. It was a hardcore, modern urban tank. The police are funded and prepared to use a water cannon on protesters, if need be. Know that.