Political Ruminations

The Grover Norquist Congress

Referring to the fact that almost all (literally) Republicans have signed Grover Norquist’s pledge not to raise taxes, Harry Reid called the 112th Congress the ‘Grover Norquist Congress’ on the Senate floor today:

“John Boehner could never go against Grover. Grover Norquist. This is the 'Grover Norquist Congress,' because Republicans shake in their boots.”

And don’t be fooled when you land on the page Norquist calls ‘What is the Taxpayer Protection Pledge?’. The only people Norquist is interested in protecting from taxes are the millionaires and billionaires.

The Hill:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday criticized Republicans in a 20-minute floor speech for blocking any bipartisan agreement on deficit reduction for the last several years, which he said was due in large part to their allegiance to Grover Norquist.

Reid and other Democrats have routinely complained about the pledge — taken by most Republicans — through Norquist's group, Americans for Tax Reform, not to support proposals that raise taxes. That GOP position prevented a bipartisan agreement to cut the deficit that includes the Democratic proposal to raise new tax revenues.

List of Pledge Signers in the 112th Congress
List of State Signers of the Pledge
List of the 2012 Election Pledge Signers

Morning Quote: John Kerry

“We Democrats put a $4 trillion dollar plan on the table. We had $1.3 trillion of cuts, and we had $1.3 trillion in revenue. Now, some of that revenue, we’re not asking that to happen tomorrow or the next day, it could happen in a year. This is a ten-year plan and longer. So we have the ability here to do something that’s fair for all Americans. But unfortunately, this thing about the Bush tax cuts and the pledge to Grover Norquist keeps coming up. Grover Norquist has been the 13th member of this committee without being there. I can’t tell you how many times we hear about ‘the pledge, the pledge.’”

- Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), Super Committee member, on Grover Norquist’s influence over the Republican party.

Morning Quote: Michele Bachmann

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) during last weeks GOP debate, apparently pushing no taxation:

“I think you earned every dollar, you should get to keep every dollar that you earn. That's your money, that's not the government's money. That's the whole point.”

The government, the big bad government, built and maintains the roads by which you get to work, to church, to school. That same government educated you, produced vaccinations for you, tested your water to keep you safe, regulated landfills...........well, you get the point.

Still, the anti-taxers seem to feel that they shouldn’t pay for the resources they clearly use. A pity we can’t permanently export Grover Norquist.

Morning Quote: Grover Norquist

From the article by Gov. Deval Patrick (D-MA) “How Grover Norquist hypnotized the GOP”, emphasis mine:

“At our 25th college reunion in 2003, Grover Norquist — the brain and able spokesman for the radical right — and I, along with other classmates who had been in public or political life, participated in a lively panel discussion about politics. During his presentation, Norquist explained why he believed that there would be a permanent Republican majority in America. One person interrupted, as I recall, and said, “C’mon, Grover, surely one day a Democrat will win the White House.””

Grover Norquist’s response:

“We will make it so that a Democrat cannot govern as a Democrat.”

And isn’t that exactly what they’re working so hard to accomplish now? To the point where they are willing to cause an economic collapse. 

Opportunist Arianna Huffington Reverts to True Colors

Well, now she’s done it.

As if many of us haven’t been saying for years that Huffington is a fake  Progressive, an opportunist in it for the money and fame, she had to go and prove us right, or at least make us feel like we were dead on right.

Arianna Huffington, formerly the Queen of the Liberal Political Kingdom online, has hired Conservative ideologue Andrew Breitbart, the same guy who spends so much of his time colluding with known con artist James O’Keefe, worked as an editor for the notorious Matt Drudge, worked for Ms. Huffington previously as a researcher, and helped her to launch The Huffington Post.

She not only hired him, she allowed him to use her site, her front page, to defend James O’Keefe’s latest scam video which targets NPR, a scam which resulted in a vote by the 112th Wingnut Congress to defund NPR.

FishbowlLA:

Big news. But we want to talk about something else. Andrew Breitbart is now blogging for Huffington Post. Here’s the first graph of his very first post.

The latest James O’Keefe success story against NPR has taken a predictable pattern — panicked press releases and firings, followed by denunciation of O’Keefe in a belated attempt to discredit him. Naturally, conservatives are crowing about it, but I wanted to give a little perspective to those Huffington Post readers — whatever your political stripe — who share my passion for free speech, honest debate, and fairness in the media.

Yes, not only is the conservative agitator now blogging on the formerly iconographic liberal website, he’s using the site to credit his propensity for “honest debate.”

Honest like taking out-of-context videos of Shirley Sherrod, putting them online and–knowingly mind you–falsely accusing her of being a racist?

Et tu, HuffPo?

Huffington, like one of her many contributors, Jane Hamsher, is an opportunist.

Like Huffington, Hamsher has also teamed up with a much despised Right Wing ideologue, Grover Norquist, and like Huffington, she has spent much of the first two years of the Obama presidency on various television shows, as well as on her website, shrieking about how President Obama is just not ever good enough. All that shrieking, as well as the blatant encouragement by Hamsher’s drones to sit out the election, contributed much to our huge losses in November 2010.

I don’t know about you, but at this point, I am unwilling to give Arianna Huffington and/or the right-leaning AOL, any more clicks than I absolutely have to.

She is so over.

March 24 UPDATE

Dick of the Day: Glenn Greenwald Compares Liberal Blogger to a Nazi on Twitter

Seriously.

Disclosure: I am not a fan of Glenn Greenwald. In point of fact, I can’t stand the man. He and Jane Hamsher are on my all-time list of least favorite people.

But, I normally would not blog about either of them. They infuriate me, but they don’t hold any interest for me, and I tend to see them in the same light that I do the GOP. Maybe that’s because they are well known for collaborating with Grover Norquist.

Anyway, on to my point. Glenn Greenwald posted his asinine, nasty tweet yesterday, comparing a pro-Obama blogger to Hitler’s favorite Nazi cinematographer, Leni Riefenstahl. Blackwater Dog is the blog of former Kos diarist, BWD, who was hounded out of DailyKos. I don’t know the details, but I think it’s safe to presume that it was because she is pro-Obama, and Kos has become more and more Firebagger-like.

Nevertheless, Greenwald is utterly out of line, and deserves censure, that of course will not come from his seething anti-Obama groupies.

To them I say that Greenwald is the pied piper of Democratic ruin, leading the way only to failure and loss of any hope for a realization of progressive ideals in the next 20 years. Supporting Greenwald, et al, is working against your own best interests.

Alternatively, learn to filter. The truth is out there. But, you won’t find it on Glenn Greenwald’s site, nor on FireDogLake.They're much too busy pouting because they "lost their seat at the table" thanks to their vindictive ranting.

VIDEO: Who is Secretly Buying Our Elections?

Chilling. And as someone else said [can't remember exactly who], this election is for all of the marbles. VOTE.

 

Grover Norquist and Americans For Tax Reform Make Large Ad Buys in Michigan

NOTE: I’ll be updating this as I source further information.

There's a new ad on network television attacking the 9th district Democratic incumbent in Michigan, Gary Peters. The $225,000 ad buy was made by Americans For Tax Reform yesterday.

Americans For Tax Reform is an anti-government advocacy group, located in Washington D.C. on 7th Street, and is run by right wing scourge, Grover Norquist. Norquist and Americans For Tax Reform are most well known for laundering money for Jack Abramoff—and they did so at a profit. The Washington Post [2006]:

Newly released documents in the Jack Abramoff investigation shed light on how the lobbyist secretly routed his clients' funds through tax-exempt organizations with the acquiescence of those in charge, including prominent conservative activist Grover Norquist.

The federal probe has brought a string of bribery-related charges and plea deals. The possible misuse of tax-exempt groups is also receiving investigators' attention, sources familiar with the matter said.

Among the organizations used by Abramoff was Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform. According to an investigative report on Abramoff's lobbying released last week by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, Americans for Tax Reform served as a "conduit" for funds that flowed from Abramoff's clients to surreptitiously finance grass-roots lobbying campaigns. As the money passed through, Norquist's organization kept a small cut, e-mails show.

PR RELATED POSTS: Grover Norquist’s Group, Americans for Tax Reform, is Making Large Ad Buys Against Democrats

Grover Norquist’s Group, Americans for Tax Reform, is Making Large Ad Buys Against Democrats

Grover Norquist's anti-government, right wing group, Americans for Tax Reform, [also known for having laundered money for Jack Abramoff] made a $225,000 ad buy in Democratic incumbent Gary Peters' [D-MI] 9th Congressional District.

Just saw the ad on tv, and I’ll post it as soon as I can find it on the web. It's nasty and very aggressive.

Bastard right wing pacs.

Also. MoveOn has a new report out, “Buying Democracy” [pdf]. If you have the time, it’s worth a read.

UPDATE: The ad is using the possibility of the impending expiration of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, announcing that we will see a huge increase in taxes in 2011, in an attempt to panic people in to voting Republican. The unscrupulous morons.

They don't mention why that "increase" is occurring, nor the fact that only those earning over $250,000 will be affected. Additionally, the "increase" is not huge at all. It simply returns people to the tax rates in effect under Bill Clinton. For more info, take a look at this article I posted in August.