Can you just imagine if he’d said this to one of his Democratic colleagues? I’m sure that it would have gone over swimmingly with, say, I don’t know… Babs Boxer?
Bachmann first laid out her agenda — cutting taxes and killing President Obama’s health reform bill — at considerable length.
When Specter tried to counter, Bachmann, darling of the Tea Party movement, kept on talking, which didn’t sit well with the one-time Philadelphia DA, who is a stickler for politeness and protocol.
“I’m going to treat you like a lady,” Mr. Specter shot back. “Now act like one.”
Ms. Bachmann replied, “I am a lady.”
Do we get to call misogyny on this one? Because really. His statement feels like it should continue with “and get back in the kitchen.”
Today, Americans showed up in force again at Upper Senate Park for the Code Red Senate Rally. Similar to Michele Bachmann’s House Call last month, today was a day for constituents to show up and speak to their Senators on their own turf. I just left the rally, and as I write this, Laura Ingraham is probably on stage riling people up. This will go strong for the rest of the day as people line up and wait to talk to their Senators.
The tone from Hill staffers and Capitol Police was less friendly than it has been. I’m getting the impression that they’re sick of seeing us. Well, guess what guys, we’re sick of having to go down there. I’d rather not babysit Congress every day, trust me. If they had their junk together we wouldn’t have to do this every few weeks. The Senators seem a little more freaked out than the House members did about having constituents in their offices. One highlight was Senator Lieberman’s office threatening to arrest Tea Party Patriots National Coordinator Mark Meckler. Check this out:
All across the country, Senators refuse our calls, ignore our emails, throw away our letters and refuse to meet with us.. Today — in the Senate office building — Senate staff literally threatened to arrest three members of the Tea Party Patriots, including two National Coordinators. When one of the most “moderate” Senators threatens to have well groomed, quiet, cooperative tea partiers arrested simply for sitting in the office waiting to meet with a Senator, it is clear that representative democracy is on its death bed in this country.
I’m beginning to recognize so many faces from these events, people who come out every single time they can manage it. Those who have to take off work and come week after week don’t do it for fun. However, there is also a sense of commitment – we are fighting this battle to win. No one is going anywhere until we’ve defeated the socialization of the American health care industry. Period. This is not a battle we can afford to lose. I’m glad to have so many incredible people showing up.
Here are some photos from today:
Code Red Rally Crowd
Passing a flag over the crowd.
Tea Party Movie star and generally incredible American, William Temple.
Me, Michele Bachmann, and Dick Armey
FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe with Dick Armey
Keep it up, everyone. As one of my dear friends reminds me on weekends where I go home and hibernate on her couch, “Don’t grow weary of doing good.” Today was one more nail in the coffin for the Senate Health Care bill.
In this episode, I interviewed Rep. Virginia Foxx and Rep. Paul Broun. Teri Christoph spoke to Michele Bachmann. Lots of good health care information and insight on last week’s evnts.
Yes, you all know that the monstrosity of a health care bill made it through the house late Saturday night. It was bi-partisan… in that ONE Republican – Anh Joseph Cao – decided to become a One Term Representative by voting for it.
Meanwhile, 39 Democrats voted AGAINST it, bringing the final vote to 220 – 215. Aren’t you glad a full 1/6 of our economy passed with such a decisive victory? I know that’s at least a comfort. The true bi-partisanship was in the opposition.
In my opinion, the Stupak Amendment put it over the top. It was the amendment that placed limitations on abortions. Which sounds like a good thing, right? In this case it so wasn’t. All it did was give the fence-sitters cover. They could vote for it with a clean conscience, and a lot of them did. Obviously. Joke’s on them though, because the amendment will probably be done away with in committee.
Well done, GOP.
I’m not going to lie, the defeat stung. We busted our tails – all of us. I was amazed at how many people turned. And a vote that close renders it that much harder to force through in the Senate. I hate to say it’ll never go through, because honestly, things stopped surprising me a long time ago. They forced this victory. They postponed until enough votes could be hustled… and make no mistake, that’s how all the last minute votes were pulled together. If it were a slam dunk they would certainly not have postponed the vote, brought Obama in for a pep rally, or anything of the sort.
One thing I can say is that it was the first thing to bring Republicans together in a long time. Who knew that many had a back bone? I won’t give them too much credit – they’re realizing how much power we have. A lot of it is a political move. But regardless, they’ve decided to listen. Too bad the Democrats don’t care.
After Thursday, I was totally wiped out, but Rep. King called for another rally at the Capitol on Saturday. A ton of GOP Representatives were there, and there was a great crowd for less than a day’s notice. Here are some of the photos:
Two of my favorite women. Clearly a serious moment.
Pretty shot of Michele Bachmann
They unraveled the bill - pages stuck end to end - and it ran along the entire lawn all the way up the stairs into the building.
Three copies of the monstrosity.
Rep. Shaddegg got riled up and chucked it from the podium. I had my Flip.
I have some seriously mixed emotions right now. Today was amazing. I was blown away by the shift in the GOP Representatives. There were so many who were FINALLY getting it. It was like they realized we weren’t going away, and they’d better get on board. It’s about time. I have been busting my tail all week to help anyone I could help with logistics. This was an odd event in that no one was really in charge. Rep. Bachmann (who I have openly admitted to having a girl crush on) announced it, a few talk show hosts and Fox News supported it, and we came. Oh, we came.
Amazingly, most people were on message today. Which is always impressive, because a lot of the time people choose their pet issues and make a sign about it. And then I’m like, um. This is about taxes, why are we talking about marriage again? Anyway, with the exception of the total whackjobs that were dressed as demons torturing Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in the fires of hell, I was pretty impressed with the focus.
The crowd estimates ranged from 20k to 30k – which was amazing considering there was a five day notice. I spent the first part of the day elated. I was so thrilled that so many people saw the importance of just showing up. But I’ve been thinking about my job lately, and about what people give to be at these things – it’s not cheap, and no, we’re not paying anyone’s way. No one forced these people on to the streets or to wait in line for hours to meet their representatives.
My job, in short, should not exist. At all. There should not be organizations that do nothing but babysit the government. We shouldn’t even have to say things like “Spending a trillion dollars is a bad idea”… you’d think that would be common sense. Obviously that is not the case. I’ve heard so many stories of people who have drained savings accounts, taken off work, run up credit cards… anything they could do to get here. And it really makes me sad that we’re at the point where people HAVE to do that. Why should we have to bring thousands and thousands of people to their doorstep and figuratively bang down their doors to get them to listen? It’s a sad state of affairs.
I hate that I have to do what I do. To be completely honest, I would not have chosen to live in Washington at all. This city has never been on my radar. I’d be completely content back home in NC with my friends and family. But I have to be here. And so do so many others. And it sucks.
Days like today give me hope. This is honestly the first time that I’ve ever really felt like they were listening. The GOP representatives couldn’t jump on board fast enough. So many spoke to us and supported what we were doing.
A powerful moment for me was when I went with a New Jersey constituent to meet with his representative – a squishy Republican named Leonard Lance. He voted for TARP. He voted for Cap and Trade. He seemed shaky and almost scared when we entered his office. Everyone there could not have been nicer. He was happy to let us all come in, even though we weren’t in his district. He looked at us and said “Your voices are being heard. I’m going to vote no.” I was blown away.
All in all, what we’re doing is working. I have no doubt in my mind that the Representatives have heard us, and they’re afraid to ignore us anymore. This is not about this bill or that bill or any particular Representative or Senator. It’s not about Obama. It’s not about Nancy Pelosi. As much as she makes my skin crawl.
It’s about freedom. It’s about liberty. It’s about people who want their kids to be free. That’s why we show up.
The Left has been painting protestors as violent, angry, riotous mobs. I think of the the same way as I think of their “Republicans are idiots” meme. It’s a way to discredit the opposition without actually tackling their ideas. This escalated around the time of the Tea Parties, which the racism accusations and the like being perpetuated by MS-NBC, CNN, etc. Not to mention the Janeane Garafolos and Joy Behars of the world.
Are their fringe right wingers who have been violent? Yes. But the majority of us cringe when we see them. I have been to many a Tea Party where I want to tear the signs out of people’s hands and ask them what the heck they’re thinking. However, to classify us as violent because of a few extremists that show up at Tea Parties is false.
Let’s look in the mirror, lefties. Case in point: Van Jones. I’ll let the videos do the talking.
Phil Kerpen summed it up on Fox and Friends this summer:
And he said himself that he was radicalized in jail, that he found communism and anarchism. And then he started a pretty radical, kind of communist, socialist, utopian group that was supposed to end all racism though central planning. And then he decided that the real path the sort of progressive nirvana, was the this green jobs idea.
So how do these people get through? Gibbs claims that the President doesn’t condone Jones’ past statements or actions. WaPo explains:
A White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel matter, said Jones’s past was not studied as intensively as other advisers because of his relatively low rank.
Jones’s position did not require Senate confirmation, so he avoided the kind of vetting Cabinet officials were subjected to.
Don’t you love the anonymity? Anyway, he didn’t get the same vetting as Cabinet officials. Because he’s a czar. And czars don’t need confirmation. Which is my whole issue with them… unchecked power is bad, kids.
Then we have the commentators. Formerly civil TV host Montel Williams released this gem on his radio broadcast this week:
Nancy Pelosi has been vocal in her active demonization of protesters as well, stating that we’re an angry mob sporting swastikas. Here’s a great article from the Washington Times on Pelosi’s “Visions of Swastikas“.
And remember last week, when a 65 year old man got his finger bitten off by an Obamacare supporter from MoveOn.org?
Damon Root at the Sun Times published an article on the history of violence from the left, concluding with this:
“Have some ugly views cropped up at the recent health-care protests? Sure. But to take that as evidence of a centurylong battle between enlightened liberal reformers and knuckle-dragging laissez-faire racist goons is to believe in a self-serving fairy tale.
It’s time for any pundit who thinks that way to grow up.”
I couldn’t have summed it up better myself, Damon.
Okay so I love her. She’s one of the first women that SGP decided to throw their support behind, and I’m so glad there are women like her out there in our government.
First of all, she started The Majority Tracker. The Majority Tracker is her blog, tracking the 111th Congress. She provides a detailed account of all the inside stuff, letting us know how they’re spending our money. Thanks to Brodigan for bringing this to my attention, because it’s great. Go add it to your blogroll and reader.
Just to add to her awesomeness, she did an interview with us last week, which has been posted on the main SGP site, but I figured I’d re-post some highlights here in case you missed it:
Conservatism is not dead, no matter how much the main stream media, liberal elites, and others may want it to be – it just needs to be reignited. Republicans squandered our opportunity to lead our country for decades to come because we threw conservative policies and principles aside in place of big government programs and spending. Plain and simple, we governed like liberals. Spending skyrocketed, the size of government multiplied, the debt grew, and the conservative ideals Republicans came to power on were left by the wayside.
AMEN.
The partisanship of the White House doesn’t scare me half as much as the partisanship of the Democrat leadership in the Congress. I expect that they will look to seize this opportunity to ram through enormous spending bills, Big Labor agenda items, and liberal social policies.
Just look at the first couple of weeks of the 111th Congress: The Senate pushes through its land grab; both houses push through massive changes to employment law that benefit no one but trial lawyers; the so-called $825 billion stimulus package is rushing into law. This is likely only a preview of the next two years.
So clearly she rocks. And we need more of her in Congress. You can read the rest of the article here.
She hit the nail on the head in that first comment. We governed like liberals. There was nothing conservative about Bush’s fiscal policies – and that is the image of “conservatives” the country is left with. It was embarrassing, and gave people a very good reason not to like us. We basically became a pro-life version of the Democrats, and we have so much more to offer than that!
Congress is going to be the scariest part of the next 4 years. I have said before that I think Nancy Pelosi is one of the most dangerous people in power right now – and she’s two heartbeats away from the presidency. We need to keep track of everything they do. Tell them how you want them to spend YOUR money.
I’ll make it easy: Here’s Pelosi’s number: (202) 225-4965.
Help minimize the damage of the next couple years, and let’s start doing the legwork to make changes for 2010. Support people like Michele Bachmann. This starts now.
