Recently watching the Republicans in the House block the most obviously popular bill in a decade (extending assistance to 9/11 volunteers suffering ill health effects), has emphasized just how much the GOP is determined to openly outrage the American people. Joe Barton’s BP bootlicking was just a preview, since they’re no longer even pretending—they’ve completely sold themselves to their corporatist masters, still deluded that they can push people to vote against their own interests without being exposed this time around. The Rethugs had already enraged the population with their blockage of the stimulus/unemployment extension, and their opposition to Al Franken’s 2009 amendment to halt gang rape by KBR and other corrupt corporations overseas, but they just can’t help themselves anymore. Their anti-American hatred is showing through. FDR-style economic populism is at the heart of winning elections during periods of economic distress, and the GOP is going in the opposite direction, insulting working Americans in favor of the very corrupt people and institutions who've caused this economic crisis in the first place.
It’s become striking how the GOP is offending Americans across the ideological spectrum, not just the progressive movement, with such behavior. It’s also not only Independents and Dems (who vastly outnumber new Republican registrations, for a reason) who’ve been documented for their anger—despite the extremism of the Tea Partiers and the GOP candidate themselves, the polls have shown that there are large numbers of rank-and-file, more moderate Republicans who’ve been at least skeptical, and often furious at GOP obstructionism on matters like unemployment and help for the 9/11 volunteers, with their good old-fashioned American patriotism. IOW these aren’t complex issues with a challenging Progressive case to make—these are the no-brainers guaranteed to piss of the population at large. The only way the GOP can minimize the damage they suffer in November is if Democrats give them a free pass, and fail to remind voters of these instances. We can’t let that happen.
So this diary is for the Top 10 obvious, utterly egregious Republican affronts to the American people over the most recent session of Congress. The suggestions and links below were a team effort by my precinct, and we wanted to spread the word, but since these represent just a first suggestion for the Top 10, other ideas for this list are more than welcome! No more conciliatory, "reach across the aisle" appeasement—the Republicans have shown that they have no interest in governing and want to damage the USA as much as possible during Obama’s terms. They’ve declared total war on the country, so we need to fight them on behalf of all Americans. Winning elections these days is all about aggressively framing the debate (aka changing the subject when needed) and choosing the issues that the media focuses on, and these are prime cases for that attention. They’re perfect for political ads (some of them already are), but also rank-and-file efforts—letters to the editor, repeated Youtube videos, face-to-face canvassing, subtle mentions to friends and family members, calls to news stations, conversations at the bar or stadium, however you can get the word out. Wherever possible, we’ve included links below to local newspapers in Red States (invariably overflowing with comments by residents outraged at the GOP), to help demonstrate how universal the loathing of the GOP has become on these matters.
- As per the intro above, Republicans in the House of Representatives blocking a bill to provide health assistance to the heroic firefighters, soldiers, police and other volunteers who rushed to the scene on September 11, to save people hurt by the worst ever foreign attack on US soil. This one’s an easy choice to head the list of the outrages—the Republicans are anti-patriotic, blocking efforts to help people universally regarded as heroes, effectively helping the 9/11 terrorists to hurt the USA even more, and all for political posturing. On top of this—the bill was to be paid for, by closing tax loopholes for foreign corporations operating in the USA, a second dose of Rethug anti-Americanism. Anthony Weiner’s enraged response is also great fodder. We should be running ads for this one on continuous loop, 24/7.
http://tinyurl.com/...
http://www.youtube.com/...
- Joe Barton’s idiotic outburst kissing up to BP in the midst of the worst environmental disaster in US history, spitting in the face of millions of Americans in the Gulf suffering from BP’s negligence, and insulting Obama (who had gained $20 billion for the American people) for a "shakedown." Universally condemned, even by many other Republican politicians.
http://tinyurl.com/...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
- Almost all Republicans voting against Al Franken’s common-sense Senate amendment in 2009, to protect American workers overseas from rape and other sexual assaults. This one was especially notorious—Franken’s fine effort was prompted by the ugly and infamous case of Jamie Leigh Jones, who (along with other women) had been working for Halliburton subsidiary KBR in Iraq, and suffered gang-rape at the hands of the corporate thugs. Since it occurred outside of US jurisdiction (and Halliburton employees conveniently lost the physical evidence of her rape), she wasn’t able to pursue effective criminal or civil charges. Franken’s Amendment closed that loophole, but nearly every GOP Senator opposed it—including Diaperman David Vitter of Louisiana—as yet another example of GOP sycophancy to the most corrupt corporations. FWIW Jones herself had been a Republican but GOP bloggers and commenters, showing their true class, savaged her as an enemy when she came forward. (I personally know several ex-GOPers, men and women, who’ve burned their Republican registration cards because of this.) This is also one of the reasons that Bob Bennett in Utah was tea-bagged in his primary, ironically—right-wing as he was, his support for this Amendment (roll call here: http://tinyurl.com/... ) made him too liberal for Utah Rethugs.
http://www.youtube.com/... (powerful ad, and top-rated comment is great. Also note that Burr, Brownback, Shelby, McCain, Vitter and some others are currently up for re-election, so they should be specifically hammered for this.)
http://digg.com/...
http://tinyurl.com/...
http://www.youtube.com/...
- Republicans blocking a popular bill to provide loans to small businesses damaged by the recession, and starved by the arrogant big banks that the Rethugs love so much. The corrupt bank execs, of course, are happy to take our taxpayer money in the bailouts, and give each other bigger bonuses rather than helping US companies and business in general. So the Republicans aren’t even the pro-business party anymore—they hate the private sector as well. (Except, of course, when the Rethugs are providing new tax shelters to the most corrupt and least productive of the big banks and big businesses—something else to remind the voters of.)
http://www.azcentral.com/... (first comment is great)
http://tinyurl.com/...
http://www.cnn.com/...
- Republicans’ recent filibuster of the unemployment extension, during desperate economic times that would have thrown millions of Americans onto the streets. Of all the issues on the menus of American voters, economic issues trump everything—hard to care about much else if people are worried about having a job the next day. The GOP shot themselves in the foot here. Everyone knows someone who’s unemployed whether a family member, friend, acquaintance, colleague or neighbor, and given the 5:1 ratio of job applicants to available jobs (since banks and big businesses are hoarding the taxpayer bailout money), the GOP’s arrogance was deeply insulting. And nobody buys into the Rethugs’ excuse anymore, that the benefits would have hurt us by increasing the deficit—given how the Rethugs’ spent many trillions to give taxpayer dollars to billionaire bankers and screw-up execs, for the Iraqi/Afghan Wars, and tax cuts for the rich (all unfunded, at a cost 100X that of the unemployment benefits as even their own David Stockman has pointed out), they’re just hypocrites, and even their Red State ex-supporters are taking notice. Amazing how even many long-time Republicans have angrily turned against the party—bounty of Red/Purple State links here (shout-out to CR and VB for finding these):
http://blogs.wsj.com/... (search the comment by Angry old ex-Republican vet—rips the GOP a new one)
http://www.wkyc.com/... (from hard-hit Ohio—last page of comments by rwdrwdrwd and rebeccastutler76, with 83 recs, show how outraged they are out there against the Rethugs’s obstructionism)
http://tinyurl.com/... , http://tinyurl.com/... , http://tinyurl.com/... (Michigan)
http://cbs11tv.com/... (Texas)
http://www.firstcoastnews.com/... (Florida)
http://www.nashvillescene.com/...
http://www.wndu.com/... (Indiana)
- GOP opposition to financial reform. Another no-brainer bill popular throughout the country, for which Rethug Senators again showed themselves to be boot-licking servants of the big Wall Street banks against the needs of suffering working- and middle-class Americans, and consumers in general. (It’ll be great to have Elizabeth Warren leading up that Consumer Protection Agency, yet another reason to keep pushing for her appointment!) This is a great one to focus on—Americans across the political spectrum absolutely hate the thieves on Wall Street, including many very conservative Republicans. (Ann Coulter, of all people, has lately been on a crusade railing against the crooks on Wall St.—and given the sycophancy of Republican elected officials, this is a great issue for Democratic candidates to get crossover support from Republicans and Republican-leaning Independent voters.)
- Republicans led by Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, thwarting broadly popular efforts to increase the liability cap on oil companies that ruin US coasts and fisheries. Americans across the political spectrum are enraged by BP, Exxon, and other companies who befoul our seas but try to get out of paying for clean-up costs—this is one of those "90% of the country agrees" things. The Republicans pull this crap b/c they think Americans aren’t paying attention—we’ll have to disappoint them!
http://articles.latimes.com/...
http://tinyurl.com/...
http://www.cnn.com/... (Jomo’s comment sums it up perfectly)
- Recent Republican filibuster of campaign finance disclosure laws. The SCOTUS’s decision to allow massively increased spending by corporations was hated by Americans—the polls after the ruling showed 80-90% opposition (http://tinyurl.com/yz5yv2b http://tinyurl.com/... ), including most Republicans polled, with even Tea Partiers now convinced that Hugo Chavez, the Saudis, the Iranians and whatever other foreign evil they can dream up will now be setting up shell companies to fund and tilt US elections. (There’s massive opposition to the overflow of special interest and lobbyist money in Washington—it’s a legal form of bribery and corruption to observers outside the Beltway.) At the very least, people want transparency now, and the Republicans are determined to block even that. Another example of pissing on the American people and calling it their "trickle-down" politics.
http://www.cnn.com/...
http://www.newsweek.com/...
http://www.post-gazette.com/...
- Republicans undercutting mine safety (a part of their general deregulation fiasco), leading to disasters like the West Virginia Massey Mine disaster. Blankenship, the owner, has bought off Rethug judges and legislators, screwing over people across the political spectrum. Yet another example of the direct harm to the American people caused by George W. Bush’s policies of mass deregulation, and something else to remind voters of.
- Finally, not to be overlooked, in their attempts to appeal to the nutjobs and racists at their base, the GOP have wound up alienating all Americans—especially in the outrages they perpetrated against Sotomayor, and in their attacks on the 14th Amendment. SB1070 is the Republicans’ Prop 187 in Arizona as Kos wrote before—Arizona Latinos used to vote close to 40% Republican, and the GOP has lost that support forever. But the GOP’s hatchet job on Sotomayor and their recent idiocy on the 14th Amendment aren’t just angering a particular community—they’re deeply offensive to all Americans, for whom the promotion of a qualified justice like Sotomayor, and the protection of one of our most American of amendments, is at the heart of being an American.
On that note, let’s make sure to push all this in all 50 states, as Howard Dean’s always emphasized. My team does a lot of work in Arizona and Texas, and I know many of us are down on those states for recent events—but they’ve already purpled, and they’re both worth fighting for in 2010. Although SB1070 has gotten much of the press attention, the real issue for Arizonans is the budget disaster there, and the complete mismanagement of the economy by Gov. Jan Brewer and the Republican-controlled Arizona state legislature. This affects people far more directly than the SB1070 brouhaha, and Arizonans’ suffering is a direct consequence of the GOP’s arrogance on the issues above. We’ll probably need a second major stimulus bill in 2011 to truly jumpstart the economy (maybe through some sort of reconciliation), and people in Arizona and elsewhere are realizing that the Republicans’ obstructionism is a direct threat to them. So however dissatisfied you might be with recent events in Arizona, stand your ground and fight, because if you move away, you're just ceding the battlefield to the Rethugs. I've actually met a number of progressives who've recently moved to Arizona (Latinos and otherwise), so we're getting reinforcements every week to register voters, stand up for our causes and give concrete help to Arizonans who've suffered from the GOP's serial screw-ups managing the state.
Make sure to keep registering Democratic voters in large voters and moving forward with GOTV—in colleges and universities, minority communities, welfare and unemployment offices, and other communities. And where possible, request ballots in foreign languages. This is often overlooked, but by law, ballots must be available in major languages of the different precincts, and this can greatly increase voter turnout in underserved populations. We have the numbers to blast the GOP out of the water and shock them in November of 2010—it’s all about getting our voters to the polls. Any more suggestions are welcome!