The New McCarthyism

During the 2008 Presidential Campaign the rabid rightwing targeted ACORN, claiming the organization had engaged in Voter Fraud. Despite the fact that these allegations were proven to be false, the Rightwing Noise Machine repeated the lie over and over again.

Repeating a lie doesn't make it so, but Propagandists know well that if you repeat something often enough, after a while most people will believe it. And McCarthyites know that if you smear someone enough, you can destroy their lives.

Many of these 'Dirty Tricksters' and 'Propagandists' are students of the Morton Blackwell school of 'journalism'. Graduates of his Leadership Institute include, Karl Rove, Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist and Jeff Gannon among others. Having no ethical standards is a requirement to be a part of this infamous and very ugly 'Conservative Movement'.

Among the new generation of these McCarthyites, is the now infamous James O'Keefe

Morton Blackwell himself is a 'dirty trickster' of the ugliest kind. Many may remember his 'Purple Heart' bandaids during the Kerry campaign in 2004, eg.


Paul Weyrich

One of the heroes of this anti-democratic movement is Paul Weyrich, who made the now infamous statement: "I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.


So it is easy to see that to this subversive movement, suppressing the vote is a fair tactic to use in a political campaign. Targeting an organization that registered over one million voters, most of them poor, by lying, smearing or anyhow they could do it, was therefore one of their main goals in the run-up to the 2008 Election.

They hoped that after discrediting ACORN, to then tie President Obama to what would then be viewed as a 'corrupt' organization. And any other Democrat they could find!

They set out, with the help of their Noise Machine and sadly, the MSM, to smear the organization so badly, that anyone who ever had even the slightest connection to them, going back 30 years if necessary, would be finished politically.

Shame on the Media

None of this would have worked, if we had an independent media with reputable journalists who care about delivering facts to the American people. Instead, the MSM doing what they do so well being, as Colbert pointed out so correctly, mere stenographers at best, simply read the memos handed to them by whoever their contacts are in the 'Conservative Movement'.

It worked, as smear campaigns often do, despite the fact that there was not a shred of truth to allegations and as I said, despite the fact that the smear along with the Giles/O'Keefe/Breitbart smears have all been debunked.

The Nation: ACORN's Vindication: Too Little, Too Late

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...

January 6, 2010

On Christmas Eve, buried on page A24 of my edition of the New York Times, was this story: "The controversial community organizing group Acorn has not broken any laws in the last five years, according to a Congressional Research Service report released Tuesday evening."

Indeed, the CRS report—requested in September by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank—finds no instances in which ACORN "violated the terms of federal funding in the last five years," and no instances of individuals allegedly registered to vote improperly by ACORN "attempting to vote at the polls."

While the lies and the smears of the ugly Conservative 'Media' received coverage practically 24/7, the news of this finding by a Congressional Committee, received none. The same 'journalists' on CNN and elsewhere who covered those lies extensively, never issued an apology or a correction of the lies they were responsible for disseminating.

More from the link above:

In the case of ACORN, not only does the CRS Report refute recent charges of financial impropriety and voter fraud against it, but so does a report by Scott Harshbarger, former Attorney General of Massachusetts and former president of Common Cause, whom ACORN quickly turned to for an independent audit when the damaging video tapes surfaced.

Harshbarger writes of the videotape content, "While some of the advice and counsel given by ACORN employees and volunteers was clearly inappropriate and unprofessional, we did not find a pattern of intentional, illegal conduct by ACORN staff; in fact, there is no evidence that action, illegal or otherwise, was taken by any ACORN employee on behalf of the videographers." (The videographers might be facing their own legal troubles. The CRS report finds that taping face-to-face conversations without consent appears to violate California and Maryland state laws.)

But facts be damned, CRS notes that as of October 2009, ACORN had been subjected to at least 46 federal, state, and local investigations. And too many good Democrats were swept up in the witch hunt hysteria, moving quickly to defund ACORN based on the rants of Beck, Bachmann, and Boehner.

Yes, the disgraceful rush by Congress to vote to defund ACORN including all but a few Democrats. ACORN sued Congress and won an injunction against Congress when a judge found that they had acted 'unconstitutionally' which should mean that ACORN's funding will be instated.

One who rose above the fray was New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler who courageously spoke out against House legislation as unconstitutional for singling out ACORN for punishment—known as a "bill of attainder." Last month, the federal courts agreed with Nadler's opinion.

ACORN Wins Injunction Against Congress

http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/acorn...

But according to ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis:

..... the ruling didn't correct the injustice. "The judge declared it unconstitutional. Well, it didn't seem to make a difference—did not make one whit of a difference. The new Appropriations bill had defund ACORN language in it. The damage has been done. The omnibus bill was signed. So they completely ignored the judge's order, so now we have to go back in the court along with the Center for Constitutional Rights—thank god for them. And we will continue to fight this legally because we know we are right."

It is so easy to take away someone's reputation, but even with victories like these, it is not so easy to get it back.

ACORN is suing O'Keefe, Giles and Breitbart and hopefully we will find out more about these anti-constitutional dirty tricksters in the discovery phase. That should prove to be even more interesting now with the arrest of O'Keefe for his latest violation of the law.

ACORN Sues, O'Keefe, Giles and Breitbart.com

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/0...

They are also in danger of criminal charges in three states, CA, MD, and PA for violating the laws when they illegally recorded ACORN workers without their knowledge.


And last Thursday, ACORN's Philadelphia office filed a Federal lawsuit against Giles and O'Keefe which should also produce some interesting information on who is behind this bumbling and criminal operation.

Who Was Harmed The Most By These Criminal Activities

More from the link above:

According to Lewis, damage to ACORN's work on the ground includes "10,000 people minimum" who will not obtain free tax preparation services from ACORN.
"We've had to suspend that. That's a direct affect on poor people, and you know we were commended by the IRS prior to the right-wing attacks," said Lewis.

Lewis also said ACORN must curtail its fight against foreclosures. "About 200,000 people that we won't be able to help directly," she said, noting that this comes at a moment when the Obama Administration has admitted its own anti-foreclosure plan has fallen short because bailed-out banks aren't cooperating.

Finally, Lewis said loss of funding has impacted ACORN's fight to address wage and hour disparities — workers who aren't paid the minimum wage, cheated out of overtime, unfairly dismissed or discriminated against — "people just totally taking advantage of low-wage workers in this economy."

The saddest thing of all is how the Democrats betrayed ACORN and the poor who were affected. And how even on Democratic boards, credibility was given to this gang of criminals.

If this had happened to a Republican Organization, Republicans everywhere would have been fighting hard to defend them and donating to make sure they could continue their work.

Shame on Democrats for their failure to defend ACORN.

Jerry Nadler is a hero imo. He alone had the courage to speak out in their defense. As Bertha Lewis said:

"To have liberals, moderates — a lot of Democrats — just be willing to throw us under the bus and wipe away 40 years of working for poor people in this country without due process…" said Lewis. "This story is bigger than ACORN. And that's what we're going to try to get folks to continue to focus on."

This network of anti-Democratic 'Conservatives' which is training an army of spies and political dirty tricksters, inflitrating college campuses and attacking and smearing decent people, destroying lives, resembling Germany's infamous brown-shirts more than citizens of a Democratic nation, has gone unchallenged, in fact it has been encouraged, by the media and worst of all, by Democrats. I won't hold my breath, but a real media exposure of what these dangerous-to-democracy people are all about would at least shed light on them so that the American people can judge better the next time they set out to destroy innocent people.

This is apparently a separate suit from the ACORN suit filed in September against Giles, Breitbart and O'Keefe which is reported here:

ACORN Sues O'Keefe, Giles and Breitbart.com

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/0...

Time for criminal charges in that case also. And in California.

This latest lawsuit was filed last Thursday:

Makers of ACORN 'Documentary' Sued in Federal Court

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/mak...

Remember, James O'Keefe's partner on an abortion documentary stopped working with him. She said he edited the video in a misleading way to make it look like things happened that didn't. (Imagine that!)

Anyway, now he and his newest collaborator can explain to a federal judge why he broke Pennsylvania's wiretap laws:

The Philadelphia-office director of the anti-poverty group ACORN filed a civil lawsuit late Thursday in federal district court alleging that two conservative filmmakers violated state law when they recorded an interview with her without her consent and then disseminated it.

They also lied when they told the media that no one had thrown them out after they claimed to be bringing in underage prostitutes. The Philadelphia office produced a police report showing that they had called the police on them.

In the San Diego Office also, it wproven that ACORN worker, Juan Carlos Vera, had contacted the police about them. Even after the police reports were produced, Fox and the rightwing noise-machine continued the smear campaign.

The media is responsible for spreading this false story and for propping up O'Keefe and Giles whose tapes were edited so much that no respectable journalistic outlet should ever have aired them. Shame on CNN especially for being an accessory to a right-wing smear campaign.

And the Democrats in Congress who went along and violated the Constitution by voting to defund ACORN, should also be ashamed of themselves. ACORN recently won their case against Congress who were ordered by the judge to restore ACORN's funding.

After the scam began to unravel, the media dropped the story and the impression left was that ACORN workers had actually done something wrong.

It's sad that ACORN has to go to all this trouble to do the job the media should have done in the first place.

They should have known better than to take on ACORN. They are fighters and were not likely to take these smears lying down.

It was laughable that he was lauded as a 'rising star' in the Conservative media. He was never anything but a bumbling, lying fool easily exposed by bloggers such as Media Matters. That he fooled the MSM is probably no surprise.

Now, with federal criminal charges against him, as well as multiple lawsuits and possible criminal charges in other states like MD and CA, it looks like O'Keefe will be preoccupied for the foresee-able future. I hope his funders anticipated these expenditures.

Even before the earthquake in Haiti, animals there were badly in need of help. The people themselves were so poor that most could not afford to keep pets so there were many stray dogs like the one in the photo below who received little or no food or care. The link below leads to a site that was set up before the disaster to try to help the dogs of Haiti and is now coordinating with other organizations to help Haiti's animals.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smiteme/42775... /



The above photo is excerpted from the following Kinship Circle alert. Is it a photo of a stray Haitian dog, pre-2010 quake. Image taken from the website The Story of Ti-gba

Task forces and troops are assembling worldwide to aid Haiti's human victims. But Kinship Circle followers also want to know about the animals. The breadth of destruction in this disaster has been compared to Katrina. Still, animal repercussions are different.

As many as 5 million farm animals (primarily goats and a lot of chickens!) and native wild animals need help. A mostly homeless dog population, struggling to survive before the earthquake, needs comforting hands. In fact an unknown number of "community" cats and dogs await relief.

There cannot be a dedicated animal presence on the ground until the human crisis is more stabilized. However, Kinship Circle is contributing funding and volunteer support to the coalition right now.

Crisis in Haiti: How the ASPCA is Helping

http://www.aspca.org/news/help-the-animals...



Members of the ARCH team are currently working to help Haiti's animal population.
Photo Credit: WSPA-IFAW Tomas Stargardter

ARCH was created to address the needs of animals in Haiti in this time of crisis. The coalition is headed by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), and in addition to the ASPCA, consists of a number of animal welfare groups including American Humane, Best Friends, the Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society International.

The ASPCA has joined ARCH with the belief that partnering across organizations is the most effective way to address the serious and enormous problems facing animals in Haiti. There are an estimated 5 million head of livestock in the country (mostly goats), a large stray dog population, and an untold number of companion animals and native wildlife all adversely affected by the earthquake.

This article from over a week ago is the only one I have found on Haiti's Zoo animals and they don't have information on what happened to them so far:

Fate of Haiti's Zoo and Animals Remains Uncertain

http://news.discovery.com/animals/fate-of-...

Fermathe, Haiti, is home to a zoo that one past visitor reported housed monkeys, snakes, alligators and exotic birds, such as peacocks. The nearby hospital in Fermathe is still standing, but doctors, nurses and other staff there are said to be exhausted and struggling to care for the many patients.

Haiti is home to several endangered animals, according to the organization Animal Info. These include the critically endangered Puerto Rican Hutia (Isolobodon portoricensis), the endangered Haitian Solenodon (Solenodon paradoxus) and the "vulnerable" manatee "sea cow" (Trichechus manatus) and Hispaniolan Hutia (Plagiodontia aedium).

The Humane Society has been on the ground in Haiti from early on. This is their latest report which tells a remarkable story of two dogs who survived Hurricane Katrina and now have survived Haiti's Earthquake:

Hurricane Katrina to Haiti: Dogs Survive Two Disasters

http://hsus.typepad.com/wayne/2010/01/hait...

..... In talking further with the family, we discovered that they were the victims of two natural disasters, as were the dogs. The couple had lived in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and, when they returned home in the aftermath of the storm, found two dachshund mixes roaming the streets. They were moved to take the dogs in, and named them Bella and Dieter. These are the same two dogs who had to be left behind in Port-au-Prince.

Here’s the remarkable news: Our team has located the dogs. They are in good health and now in our safe keeping, having survived a Category 4 hurricane in 2005 and now a magnitude 7.0 earthquake in 2010. When we told the family that we had located the dogs, they were understandably overjoyed. With the help of our partnering organization, Veterinary Care and Human Services of the Dominican Republic, we’re transporting them to the Dominican Republic today. We intend to reunite them with their family as soon as possible.

It is remarkable that these dogs are on-the-ground survivors of the two biggest disasters in recent years in the western hemisphere. They are living embodiments of the principle that kindness and concerted action do make a real difference in the lives of vulnerable creatures. That’s one reason why we’ll continue to maintain boots on the ground in Haiti and to do all we can to help the animals and people of this stricken nation.

So many groups are now there taking care of the animals, giving them rabies shots and treating their wounds as well as providing them with food and water. It is a daunting task as many are still in hiding according to some people who are there. But the kindness of so many people from all over the world towards both the people of Haiti and its animals is awe-inspiring.

One last story, although this is from before the earthquake. If you find it difficult to read about animals being badly treated or suffering, then don't read this story. However, it does have a happy ending. I just think it is another example of how love and kindness, rather than neglect and cruelty make this world a better place.

This blog The Dogs of Haiti was set up by the blogger after a visit to Haiti in 2003. It is the story of a wounded, stray puppy who would not have survived, but for the kindness of the blogger.

The Story of Ti-gba

When I picked up the puppy she was like a skeleton. She cried and grunted in pain. I set her on the sidewalk, and she collapsed -- she could not support her weight at all. I knew that leaving her would mean slow starvation.

I wondered about Haiti's animals as there was nothing in the news reports about them and I did not see any animals in any of the footage. I am so grateful that these wonderful organizations are there now. I am sure the animals as well as the people, are still very traumatized.

Source: Huffington Post

At least one leading House progressive is blaming the White House for the likely death of health care legislation, arguing that President Obama never forcefully made the case for reform.

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) told the Huffington Post on Tuesday evening that, with some difficulty, he believed that passing a bill in the immediate future was not likely to happen. Part of the problem, the New York Democrat insisted, was that House Democrats no longer believed that the rest of their agenda was contingent on health care's passage.

"I don't think people are buying it as much as they were," said Weiner. "We have been asked to accept as an article of faith that success on health care was a building block for anything else we do all year. And I think increasingly my colleagues are saying: 'Really? I think we can bounce back OK if we move on from it for now.'"

> snip

"Obama's kind of populist thing on taxing the banks, I wish we had seen a little bit of that on health care. He hasn't been really willing to do that. If he went around and did a push on the public option three or four months ago, I don't know," he said. "If he would have been in Nebraska and just given some cover. Go to the University of Nebraska and say to the same 20,000 kids he spoke to during the campaign, 'Look, I need you again and here is what this is about.' Because look, I believe on the merits it was the right thing to do. And then you have the added value that it turned out whenever we talked about it, it was popular."

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/20/w...

---

The loss of the Senate seat in Mass seems to have released a lot of the frustration Democrats like Weiner, who publicly had supported the Senate bill, felt about a bill that had so little of what Progressives in Congress had hoped for.

I think they now realize just how unpopular it was and are no longer willing to just toe the party line on something that as so many people tried to warn them about, was political suicide. Better it happened with this one special election, than in November after the bill had passed and cost the Democrats their majority.

Source: The Washington Post

By David Cho and Binyamin Appelbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 22, 2010

For much of last year, Paul Volcker wandered the country arguing for tougher restraints on big banks while the Obama administration pursued a more moderate regulatory agenda driven by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner.

> snip

Senior administration officials say there is now broad consensus within the White House and the Treasury for the plan advanced by Volcker, who leads an outside economic advisory group for the president. At its heart, Volcker's plan restricts banks from making speculative investments that do not benefit their customers. He has argued that such speculative activity played a key role in the financial crisis. The administration also wants to limit the ability of the largest banks to use borrowed money to fund expansion plans.

Advocates of Volcker's ideas were delighted. "This is a complete change of policy that was announced today. It's a fundamental shift," said Simon Johnson, a professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management. "This is coming from the political side. There are classic signs of major policy changes under pressure . . . but in a new and much more sensible direction."

Industry officials, however, said they were startled and disheartened that Geithner was overruled, in part because they supported the more moderate approach Geithner proposed last year.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...

---

Insiders are saying that while Geithner may be losing power, this shift to Volcker is more because Obama needs him to bolster his new 'get tough' stance against the banks. Volcker is apparently respected by both parties so the WH is hoping that will help Congress in approving these policies.

Are the winds of change really beginning to blow through the White House at last? According to several reports on President Obama's Banking Reforms, they are.

Three Cheers for Obama's Banking Reforms

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2010... /

Barack Obama is coming out swinging today, and good for him for doing so.

WASHINGTON, DC- President Obama joined Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve; Bill Donaldson, former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission; Congressman Barney Frank, House Financial Services Chairman; Senator Chris Dodd, Chairman of the Banking Committee and the President’s economic team to call for new restrictions on the size and scope of banks and other financial institutions to rein in excessive risk taking and to protect taxpayers.

Note here how Geithner and Summers just become part of “the President’s economic team”, while Volcker gets top billing. This is, as Simon Johnson says, an important change of course — and it’s one which is being supported by both Dodd and Frank, so there’s a good chance it can pass.

And from Huffington Post:

Banking Reform Optics: Volcker Up, Big Banks Down

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/21/b...

Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker is off the bench and the "too big to fail" banks are in the crosshairs.

As economist Simon Johnson noted here early this morning, Volcker has won "an important round."

Obama's new proposal calls for limits on the size and risk taken by the country's biggest banks, and -- in dramatic contrast to the pish-poshing we were hearing from his economic team up until very recently -- embraces the previously outcast Volcker's proposal to restore the spirit of post-Great Depression rules that prevented commercial banks from making risky trades. It also stops big bank mergers going forward.

As Johnson put it, "This is an important change of course that, while still far from complete, represents a major victory for Volcker -- who has been pushing firmly for exactly this."

Excerpt from Obama's speech taken from HuffPo link

OBAMA: My message to leaders of the financial industry is to work with us and not against us on needed reforms. I welcome constructive input from folks in the financial sector. But what we've seen so far in recent weeks is an army of industry lobbyists from Wall Street descending on Capitol Hill to try and block basic and common-sense rules of the road that would protect our economy and the American people. So, if these folks want a fight, it's a fight I'm ready to have. And my resolve is only strengthened when I see a return to old practices as some of the very firms fighting reform. When I see soaring profits and obscene bonuses of some of the firms claiming they can't lend more to small businesses, they can't keep credit card rates low, they can't pay a fee to refund taxpayers for the bailout without passing on the cost of shareholders or customers -- that's the claims they're making. It's exactly this kind of irresponsibility that makes clear reform is necessary.

Yesss!!! This is change we can believe in. The fact that Paul Volcker whose practical views have all been but dismissed up to now, is right next to the president while his 'economic team' of Geithner and Summers are nowhere to be seen, they who gave the exact opposite advice to that offered by Paul Volcker, is a sign of change in itself.

Here is an interview Paul Volcker, Chairman of the Federal Reserve under Jimmy Carter, btw, now in his eighties but a very respected economist and proponent of the post depression-type bank regulations such as the Glass Steagall Act, gave to Charlie Rose while he was on the outside of Obama's economic team:

Paul Volcker: The Lion Lets Loose



http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/conte...

There has been chatter in recent months about Paul Volcker, the chairman of President Barack Obama's Economic Advisory Board, being muffled by the Administration—especially when it comes to his views on bank regulation. But that hasn't stopped Volcker from taking his argument for separating commercial and investment banking on the road, scolding bankers in Britain in early December and telling politicians in Germany that "this is no time for a return to business as usual." The former Fed chairman has also been hard at work leading a panel that will report back to the President early next year with proposals for tax reform. And at 82, he recently got engaged. We talked at Volcker's Manhattan apartment on Dec. 29. ....

Are they finally getting the message? If so it will have been worth the temporary loss of the Mass. Senate seat imo. Every cloud has a silver lining and maybe this is it:

Obama Turns To Populist Pitch To Reclaim Anti-Establishment Mantle

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/21/o...

In a sharp turnaround, the administration on Thursday announced a new proposal to place limits on the size of banks and prohibitions on their commercial activities. It's an idea that one senior White House official said President Obama began considering "a couple of months ago." But the timing of the rollout, coming one day after what the White acknowledged was a "wake up call" wasn't a coincidence.

The reality of angry voters turning against them, as embodied by the election of Republic Scott Brown to the Senate seat in Massachusetts, is having a profound effect on Democratic leaders. Officials now recognize that the party appears far too aligned with financial industry bailouts and special-interest dealmaking, and that if the electoral bloodletting is to end, more distance is needed from Wall Street.

And more good news in the article:

The wheels are very much in motion. On Wednesday, just hours after Brown declared victory, White House senior advisers David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett met with Elizabeth Warren, the congressionally-appointed bailout watchdog and a long-standing champion of consumer protection. Discussions touched on various aspects of financial regulatory reform including Warren's central project, a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Wednesday also reaffirmed Obama's directive that any piece of legislation had "to include a consumer protection agency."

Elizabeth Warren ~ if you saw Micael Moore's 'Capitalism, A Love Story' you will remember her when MM asked 'what happened to all the money?' Her response was priceless. 'I don't know' ~ I am very happy to see that they are meeting with her also.

And comments from two good Democratic Congressmen:

"I think the American people are looking for someone to punch in the nose and whether we think that is right or wrong on the substance I think it is an undeniable political force right now," said Rep. Anthony Weiner, in an interview with the Huffington Post. "It is natural, keeping with what our brand should be and used to be... but we even kind of muddied that deal up a bit too. The president seems though to be getting his sense of this with his railing that we are going to get our money back."

"We should have done this a while ago," said Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.). "We could have been tough initially. If we were, we would not be dealing with the consequences of looking weak right now."

You got that right, Anthony. And Raul, I couldn't agree more. They can't say we didn't try to tell them.

After the bad news on the Supreme Court decision today, which Obama has also spoken out strongly against, this seems like good news. Definitely the kind of change people voted for.

Disaster Capitalism! For a short while I hoped the enormous humanitarian crisis in Haiti would shame some of these profiteers into either refraining from profiting from it, or, and I know this was extreme optimism, that some of them might find themselves so moved by the heartbreaking tragedy, that they might volunteer some of their services. Logic told me this was futile wishful thinking which it was:

http://rebelreports.com/post/341031627/us-...

By Jeremy Scahill

The Orwellian-named mercenary trade group, the International Peace Operations Association, didn’t waste much time in offering the “services” of its member companies to swoop down on Haiti for some old fashioned humanitarian assistance disaster profiteering. Within hours of the massive earthquake in Haiti, the IPOA created a special web page for prospective clients, saying: “In the wake of the tragic events in Haiti, a number of IPOA’s member companies are available and prepared to provide a wide variety of critical relief services to the earthquake’s victims.”

> snip

In 2005, while still a leading member of IPOA, Blackwater’s owner Erik Prince deployed his forces in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Far from some sort of generous gift to the suffering people of the US gulf, Blackwater raked in some $70 million in Homeland Security contracts that began with a massive no-bid contract to provide protective services for FEMA. Blackwater billed US taxpayers $950 per man per day.

The current US program under which armed security companies work for the State Department in Iraq—the Worldwide Personal Protection Program—has its roots in Haiti during the Clinton administration. In 1994, private US forces, such as DynCorp, became a staple of US operations in the country following the overthrow of Jean Bertrand Aristide by CIA-backed death squads. When President Bush invaded Iraq, his administration radically expanded that program and turned it into the privatized paramilitary force it is today. At the time of his overthrow in 2004, Aristide was being protected by a San Francisco-based private security firm, the Steele Foundation.

This organization broke away from Blackwater after the murders in Iraq which took the lives of 17 Iraqi citizens, and for which, so far, there has been no accountability.

I would like to know if any of the money donated for the victims will go to pay these mercenaries. And if so, I think we should be given a list of which 'charities' will be paying for their 'expertise'.

I don't know who paid Blackwater to go to NOLA, but their mission there was not to help the victims, it was to protect the wealthy.

Haiti was already a failed state as a result of being subjected for so long to neo-liberal policies. Privatization of everything. The Global Capitalists have had a field day in Haiti, and this is their tragic creation.

I hope this tragedy, which many believe would not have been as devastating had the infrastructure not been so degraded and had there been more government-run organizations, like the Fire Department eg. is a warning to anyone who has been supportive of such policies in this country and elsewhere.

The following CNN headline, will probably be seen as a justification for more 'security' measures. Anderson Cooper graphically describing this incident. It works to gain support for 'law and order' even though it is apparently not widespread.

But buried deep in the article is what maybe should have been the headline, especially considering the massive devastation caused by this disaster:

Looting Reported as Desperation Grows in Haiti

Earlier Monday, Kenneth Merten, the U.S. ambassador to Haiti, said that "overall, people are very calm."

To make sure I do not inadvertently contribute to bringing mercenaries to Haiti, I will donate only to Doctors Without Borders.

Source: Bloomberg

Jan. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has been asked to join his successor Timothy Geithner in testifying before a House panel examining bailout payments to American International Group Inc.’s trading partners.

Paulson was invited to a Jan. 27 hearing set by Edolphus Towns, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, about the decision to fully reimburse AIG’s bank counterparties for $62.1 billion in derivatives. Stephen Friedman, the former Federal Reserve Bank of New York chairman who serves on the board of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., was also asked to appear, Towns said in a statement yesterday.

“Chairman Towns is well aware of the fact that President Bush’s Treasury secretary orchestrated this bailout,” Jenny Rosenberg, a spokeswoman for the New York Democrat, said in an e-mail explaining why Paulson was invited.

The request widens the probe into what lawmakers have called a “backdoor bailout” of banks that benefited from the $182.3 billion U.S. rescue of AIG. Geithner, who ran the New York Fed when AIG was saved in 2008, agreed to testify before the committee after Darrell Issa, a California Republican, released e-mails last week showing that the New York Fed asked AIG to withhold data about bank payments.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...

---

Paulson was known at Goldman Sachs as 'Mr. Risk'. He has said he had nothing to do with this decision.

Source: Bloomberg

Jan. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Even if Democrats lose the Jan. 19 special election to pick a new Massachusetts senator, Congress may still pass a health-care overhaul by using a process called reconciliation, a top House Democrat said.

That procedure requires 51 votes rather than the 60 needed to prevent Republicans from blocking votes on President Barack Obama’s top legislative priorities. That supermajority is at risk as the Massachusetts race has tightened.

“Even before Massachusetts and that race was on the radar screen, we prepared for the process of using reconciliation,” said Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

>snip

Using reconciliation would likely force Democrats to scale back their health-care plans. The procedure is designed to make deficit-cutting easier by reducing the number of votes needed to pass unpopular tax increases and spending cuts. Lawmakers can’t include policy changes that the parliamentarian deems have only an “incidental” connection to budget-cutting, and senators would need 60 votes to override those rulings.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...

---

Van Hollen also says he expects Coakley to win. I don't know why they didn't do this in the first place. They wasted the entire summer on Olympia Snowe and Joe Lieberman. If they end up using reconciliation and NOT including a Public Option, which WILL cut costs, I think it will be obvious that there never was serious consideration of doing so from the beginning.

I thought we were told that it was too late for reconciliation ~ guess we were mis-informed.

The Dictator in this case was the brutal Haitian despot, Papa Doc Duvalier. His U.S. defenders and supporters included, not surprisingly, Rudolph Giuliani. But for me at least, it was a surprise to see that Democrat Ron Brown was also one of his defenders.




Nelson Rockefeller (right) visits Papa Doc

Francois 'Papa Doc' Duvalier ~ Reign of Terror

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois...

In addition to his pervasive control over Haitian life, Duvalier also fostered an extensive personality cult around himself, and claimed to be the physical embodiment of the island nation. He even nationalized all media companies to help propagate this idea, so much that even TV stations couldn't produce any original programming unless it was about him.<21> Haitian communists and suspected communists, in particular, bore the brunt of the government's repression.<18> Within the country, Duvalier used both political murder and expulsion to suppress his opponents; estimates of those killed are as high as 30,000.<21>

Many Haitians fled their country during the reign of Papa Doc Duvalier. During the '70s the flight of refugees increased. After Ronald Reagan became president he decided to do something to stop the flow of refugees into the US. He signed an agreement with Papa Doc Duvalier in 1981 which would permit the US to interdict fleeing Haitians on the high seas.

The detention of 2,100 of those Haitian refugees in the U.S. led to a lawsuit filed on their behalf demanding their release. Rudolph Giuliani defended the U.S. Government in that case.

All the Dictator's Men

Arguing the government's case against releasing the refugees and urging their "repatriation," another squeaky clean word, assiduously scrubbed so that no blood leaks, was the Associate Attorney General of the United States at the time, Rudolph Giuliani. Giuliani, the man who would a decade later become Mayor of New York City, home to tens of thousands of Haitian immigrants, argued that repression in Haiti "simply does not exist now." The refugees, Giuliani contended, had nothing to fear from the friendly government of Jean-Claude Duvalier. Giuliani based this conclusion on a visit to Haiti two weeks earlier, where he met with Duvalier. The dictator had "personally assured" him, he said, that Haitians returning home from the United States were not persecuted. "Political repression is not the major reason for leaving Haiti," Giuliani concluded.

Eight years earlier James Simms, head of the Haiti desk at the Department of State, had cited this same script word-for-word to justify US policy at that time. Giuliani had memorized his lines well.

According to attorney Arthur Helton, the Director of Immigrant Programs at the Open Society Institute in New York, Giuliani was "the key implementer and an ardent defender of the policy to return the refugees to Haiti." In court (and, earlier, in testimony before Congress), Giuliani claimed that there was no persecution in Haiti and all was fine and proper there. As Helton explains, "It is extremely unusual for such a high-ranking official as Giuliani, who was the top Justice Department official with a specific brief on immigration issues at that time, to personally argue such a case before the 11th Circuit Court."

..... on many occasions thereafter, Giuliani was back in court fighting against a ruling by Federal District Judge Eugene Spellman that ordered the release of 1,800 Haitian refugees who were held in six states and Puerto Rico. Giuliani continued his fight to send the refugees back, many to their deaths, despite federal court decisions, ......

Later, during Giuliani's term of Mayor of NYC, a Haitian immigrant, Abner Louima was tortured by the NYCPD. Giuliani's defense of his police department in that case is legendary.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/torture/tortu...

Ron Brown too was a defender of Papa Doc Duvalier:

http://www.spunk.org/texts/pubs/lr/sp00171...

2. Ron Brown

At the same time Giuliani was attempting to exonerate the Duvalier regime in the courts, another lawyer was hired to do the same in the media. Ron Brown, then Chairman of the Democratic National Committee and now Clinton's Secretary of Commerce, served as Duvalier's US-based lawyer and mouthpiece. Together, Giuliani and Brown constituted the Haitian fascists' one-two punch in the US. Duvalier paid Brown, a partner at the powerful Washington law firm of Patton, Boggs & Blow, an annual retainer of $150,000 to secure his services, and Brown went to work for him on Capitol Hill. Some of Brown's work involved representing one Fritz Bennett, arrested in Puerto Rico for narcotics trafficking. Bennett is the brother of Michele Bennett Duvalier, the dictator's wife.

While Haitians were fighting and dying for their freedom, many high officials in the U.S and elsewhere were thwarting their efforts. And it seemed to many observers that Haitians were singled out for discriminatory treatment, particularly to Haitians themselves. This poignant note from Haitian detainees in Puerto Rico in 1981 asks why:

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1229010

We are asking why you treat us this way. Is it because we are Negroes? Why are you letting us suffer this way, America? Do you have a father's heart? Haven't you thought we are humans, that we had a heart to suffer with and a soul that could be wounded? Give us back our freedom. Why among all the nations that emigrate to the United States have only the Haitians known such suffering?

Some people recently have suggested that the US send Haitians now left homeless by the Earthquake, to Guantanamo Bay. I hope the U.S. does not repeat this past history of detaining Haitian refugees as they did in the '80s. Many of those detained refugees suffered the loss of their freedom here after fleeing their country to try to escape oppression. Their treatment here was inhumane, prompting many of them to threaten suicide rather than remain virtual prisoners in the 'land of the free'. We can do better than that for people to whom it seems many owe so much of their wealth and prosperity.

One suggestion that might now gain some traction is to grant Haitians 'Protected Status'.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49985

Obama Urged to Grant Haitians "Protected Status"

U.S. residents trying to reach family members in Haiti have been told to contact the U.S. State Department for information. Haitians who had been living in the U.S. without proper documentation and were scheduled to be deported will be allowed to remain in the country for now, the Obama administration announced Wednesday.

But this action does not go far enough for some U.S. politicians and advocacy groups, who have long hoped that Haitians in the U.S. be granted "temporary protected status."

TPS provides temporary work permits to illegal immigrants who are deemed unable to return to their countries due to natural disasters or war. It is currently available to citizens from El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Somalia and Sudan.

Undocumented U.S. immigrants from Haiti – currently estimated at around 125,000 – have long called for TPS status given their country's history of political turbulence and instability.

This tragedy in Haiti is giving the U.S. an opportunity to right some of the wrongs perpetrated in the past against Haiti. It's way past time to stop supporting dictators around the world, leaving countries shattered by their brutality.

I hope that President Obama will give serious consideration to end forever the destructive policies of the past starting with Haiti.

Source: CNN

Washington (CNN) -- With the first of its flights touching down in earthquake-devastated Haiti late Wednesday afternoon, the U.S. began deploying military planes, ships and ground troops to the Caribbean nation.

One of two planes carrying a 30-person assessment team arrived at Port-au-Prince airport about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. The team will assess what Haiti needs to cope with the immediate aftermath of the disaster.

One of the team's first jobs is to get the airport working to a point where it can handle all the flights coming in from around the world filled with people and supplies to help the victims of the quake.

The U.S. Southern Command is leading the Department of Defense's response. Gen. P.K. Keen, deputy commander of the Southern Command, was in Haiti when the quake struck and has seen the situation at the airport.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/01/13/haiti.us....

---

Also on its way is the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. The ship was at sea near Virginia when the quake hit and as it sails south, it will stop at Mayport, Florida, Naval Station to pick up supplies. They will have helicopters on the ship, the article says.

2000 Marines are also being sent, as well as the hospital ship USNS Comfort.

Thank you President Obama!

I will call her Illysa as she is not ready to make her story public yet.

Her husband, Walt, a Marine Veteran of the war in Vietnam finally succumbed to the cancer believed by his doctors to be the result of his exposure to Agent Orange, three years ago.

Immediately after his death, his income from the military was cut off. She received a widow's pension and part of a life insurance policy and eventually found a temporary roommate which allowed her to keep up with the bills. She tried to return to the workforce after staying home during the last two years of her husband's life to take care of him. Last Fall when her roommate found a place of her own, Illysa knew she would not be able to keep up with her mortgage payments.

She contacted Wells Fargo after learning that as a condition of the two bailouts they had received, they had agreed to help 'keep people in their homes' by renegotiating their mortgage payments giving them a chance to get back on their feet. She met all four of the requirements listed on the government's page regarding this agreement.

In all she wrote six letters and made numerous phone calls. She received not a single response to any of her letters and was given a run-around every time she called.

It's hard to negotiate when no one will speak to you so she decided to send a partial payment of her mortgage, hoping that the non-response was the result of them having so many requests. The payment was returned to her.

Friends hearing about her situation managed to get her a lawyer. He called Wells Fargo and wrote to their attorney who was handling the fore-closure. Hard as it is to believe, he did not get anywhere either.

A few weeks ago, she received a notice saying her house would be sold on the courthouse steps. Her attorney wrote a letter to the judge, again attempting to stop the foreclosure until she had a chance to speak to the bank. There was no response to that letter either. She went to the court but there was no sale that day. And she learned later she had mistaken the date. Looking at the county records and public notices, we found nothing on her house, but saw that in that small area of upstate NY, there was a foreclosure notice almost every day. And the attorney handling many of them, was the Wells Fargo attorney who had refused to talk to her or her attorney.

She had also discovered that her mortgage had changed hands three times over the past number of years and that two of the lenders who had held her mortgage were listed with MERS raising the question of whether or not Wells Fargo actually held the note to her mortgage. But by the time she learned that information, things were moving so fast all she could do was mention it to the judge in her last letter to him.

On Nov. 13th, the day after Veteran's Day, an emotional day for her, she received another notice, telling her she must vacate the property in ten days. Not once during this entire process did a single representative of Wells Fargo even acknowledge her as a human being. They were made aware of her husband's death and of his service to this country.

I am not writing this asking for any help for her. It is too late for that now and although I did not go into details as it would take far too long, we, her friends and her attorney did all that we knew how to do to try to help save the home she and her husband bought together, and which meant so much to her.

I'm writing it merely to show how greedy and heartless these people are. How willing they were to take tax payer dollars when they could not pay their own bills, and then refuse to even abide by the conditions they agreed to to get that money.

Maybe someone reading this who has an account with them might think of cancelling it and telling them why. And the next time we head off to war and Wells Fargo decorates its banks with yellow ribbons and flags and 'Support the Troops' signs, ask them to remove them as I know Walt would do if he could.

Her husband literally gave his life for this country but he tried, before he died, to make sure his wife would have a home. The remainder of her mortgage, approximately $75,000.00 is pocket change to the Wall St. Corporate Welfare recipients.

Sorry, I'm angry today and I know that if her husband is anywhere where he can see what is happening to the woman he loved, he is in tears also, for her, and for what has happened to the country he loved. He was a wonderful person, a talented musician as she is.

I didn't write this very well, and hope to properly honor Walt in the future. Today I just wanted to show what greedy, uncaring, hard-hearted, compassionless bastards we the people gave so much money to when they screwed up. And how, in return, when the widow of a veteran loses her husband and needs a little time to get back on her feet, they would not even talk to her.

R.I.P. Walt we miss you ~

Last Friday night, Rep. Michelle Bachmann, in a Television appearance urged Teabaggers, Birthers, Deathers and GOPers to go to Washington to tell Nancy Pelosi what they thought of Government-run Health Care.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...

No one said freedom was pretty

They came as directed, about 5,000 tea-party regulars and antiabortion activists, to the West Lawn of the Capitol on Thursday for what Bachmann called a "Super Bowl of Freedom," sponsored by Republican members of Congress

It was quite a hate-fest by all accounts as we have come to expect from these gatherings. This one however, had a stamp of approval from the GOP with several Republican members of Congress present and anxious to make their presence known.

Many of the demonstrators chanted "Weasel Queen," their pet name for the speaker of the House. Others wore masks of Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.); they were covered in fake blood and carrying dolls representing aborted fetuses, as the Grim Reaper led them in chains to hell.

> snip

But the best of Bachmann's recruits were a few rows into the crowd, holding aloft a pair of 5-by-8-foot banners proclaiming "National Socialist Healthcare, Dachau, Germany, 1945." Both banners showed close-up photographs of Holocaust victims, many of them children.

Photo above is from Think Progress ~

Health Care = Dachau?? Republican Members of Congress approved this message as you can see below!

Immediately in front of this colorful scenery, various House Republicans signed autographs and shook hands with the demonstrators. Rep. Virginia Foxx (N.C.), who recently said the health-care bill is more dangerous than terrorists, gave out stickers saying "Govt Run Healthcare Makes Me Sick!"
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"Who knew a casual comment on TV could generate this?" Rep. Jeb Hensarling (Tex.) exulted as he stood in front of the Dachau banner.

Who knew indeed. As Dana Millbank asks, protesting the Health care bill is one thing, but doesn't it send the wrong message for House Republicans to hold an event on the Capitol grounds full of hateful and gruesome words and images?

They also approved this anti-Semitic message, which has already been condemned by the National Jewish Democratic Council:



But back to the original subject of this OP. Again from the Washington Post article linked above:

unpredictable things tend to happen in the wide-open spaces of the Capitol's West Front. Minutes into the rally, a breeze toppled the American flag from the stage.

More ominously, a man standing just beyond the TV cameras apparently suffered a heart attack 20 minutes after event began. Medical personnel from the Capitol physician's office -- an entity that could, quite accurately, be labeled government-run health care -- rushed over, attaching electrodes to his chest and giving him oxygen and an IV drip.

This turned into an unwanted visual for the speakers, as a D.C. ambulance and firetruck, lights flashing, pulled in just behind the lawmakers. A path was made through the media section, and the patient, attended to by about 10 government medical personnel, was being wheeled away on a stretcher just as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) stepped to the microphone.

Boehner, perhaps distracted by the sudden appearance of Government Funded Health Care at the rally, made his now legendary mistake of reading a clause, ironically the one about having the the right 'LIFE, LIBERTY and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS' from the Declaration of Independence while declaring himself to be quoting from the Constitution. And despite the cries of 'Tyranny, Socialism, Communism' ~

By the time it was over, medics had administered government-run health care to at least five people in the crowd who were stricken as they denounced government-run health care. But Bachmann overlooked this irony as she said farewell to her recruits.

All in all, it was a comedy of errors ~ as far as denouncing what they were there to denounce. Not one of those five stricken tea-baggers refused their Government Funded Healthcare, not was it even suggested by any of the gawking tea-baggers on the side-lines or by the Republican Members of Congress.

P.S. The linked article from the Washington Post is worth reading in full.

If only Palin/Beck/Limbaugh/Fred Thompson/Dick Armey and their teabaggers had stayed away! Republican Dede Scozzafava probably would have won the seat Republicans have held for over a century!

I guess we owe them a big round of applause!

Rep. Grayson is one of the most targeted Democrats in the 2010 election, according to political observers. Republicans are searching for a challenger to take him on and remove him from Congress. So far, no well-known Republican has taken up the challenge, but there is no doubt Republicans will do whatever it takes to get rid of him as his unwillingness to back down to their normally effective bullying, is a real threat to them.

In the following article, he explains why he is willing to say what others only think about saying:

'Die quickly' just a sample of Alan Grayson's sound bite attack



http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/nati...

"I don't need the job for income or satisfaction," said Grayson, sitting on a bench outside the House chamber in between votes. "The truth is, it's really a hardship. I took an enormous pay cut to take the job. Every week, I leave five young children and my wife to come up here.

"I don't owe anything to anyone here. I don't owe anything to lobbyists. I don't owe anything to leadership. The only thing I owe to anybody is the well-being of 800,000 people who depend on me."

So he unabashedly pursues money for his district, which stretches from Marion to Orange counties, bragging that he has increased "earmarks" by 500 percent in the past year. He brushes off heat he took for attempting to get $350,000 for a housing counseling service in Orlando run by a man with a dubious background. He scoffs at his ties to the controversial community organizing group ACORN.

I think that is the key to building a Congress that represents the people. He is one of only a few that I know of, who looks at his job the way all members of Congress ought to do.

He has also said that he is not going to let winning the next election affect how he does his job now so threatening to remove him if he continues to tell the truth, will not work either.

And he doesn't hesitate to let the powerful know when he catches them trying to excuse their abominable behavior. He is not fooled by their excuses and doesn't hide his disdain:

In a memorable exchange, Grayson laughs at Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke as he tries to explain why the government would loan $500 billion to foreign banks.

The performances have made Grayson an Internet sensation, a champion for a public buried under credit card debt and foreclosures. "Alan Grayson. Wow," wrote a commenter on a YouTube video of him questioning Bernanke. "The only thing that would make this video better is if Grayson body-slammed Bernanke through a hardwood table."

I first noticed him when he challenged the bill Congress passed to defund ACORN. He spent his time as a lawyer going after corrupt government contractors before running for Congress, so he was in a position to know just how much corruption there is in that field.

He pointed out that the government cannot single out one corporation for punishment based on allegations of corruption as they did with ACORN. He claimed that doing so when they continue to fund other organizations that have actually been found guilty of corruption, is 'Unconstitutional and should be viewed as a 'Bill of Attainder'.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/rad... /

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) -- my guest on Salon Radio today -- yesterday pointed out that the bill passed by both the Senate and House to de-fund ACORN is written so broadly that it literally compels the de-funding not only of that group, but also the de-funding of, and denial of all government contracts to, any corporation that "has filed a fraudulent form with any Federal or State regulatory agency." By definition, that includes virtually every large defense contractor, which -- unlike ACORN -- has actually been found guilty of fraud. As The Huffington Post's Ryan Grim put it: "the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex.

Calling out corruption and lies seems to come from Rep. Grayson's deep sense of justice. He's not someone who doesn't think about those who work to provide us with all the things that make our lives better. From the first link:

Routine questions elicit deeply philosophical responses. Asked where he got his political leanings, Grayson's answer ran eight minutes.

"There are now over 6 billion of us," he said. "When I buy something, I'm buying the fruits of someone else's labor. When I watch TV, I'm seeing things that other people have created. We are all highly specialized and highly independent, and the only way to make everyone better off is if everyone is better off. My political philosophy is to see that that happens."

He's not above using theatrics to get people's attention. For example, according to the article, he wore pink boots and multi-colored shirts and ties, to get the attention of jurors.

Barney Frank had this to say about Grayson's fashion choices:

"I thought at first he was trying out for a road company of Guys and Dolls," said Rep. Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the Financial Services Committee.

But Barney Frank also says that Grayson is responsible for pushing issues forward that otherwise might be ignored. And he doesn't hold back when asked for his opinion of certain, prominent Republicans:

During an August fundraiser he said that former Vice President Dick Cheney liked to "shoot old men in the face." At a blogger convention that same month he said Keller's campaign staff "spent all their time flying paper clips at each other and watching porn on their computers." Rush Limbaugh? "A has-been hypocrite loser."

Short and to the point on Limbaugh!

He doesn't give them importance and pulls no punches when asked for his opinion of them. He is a breath of fresh air in that regard.

And so, the Republicans ARE out to get him. I'm sure they'll dig up something sooner or later and give it their usual spin. The question is, will Democrats run for cover when it happens once again, or will they stand by this Congressman who has done more to put Republicans in their place, than anyone else I can think of?

They have trackers who follow him around, trying to get him to say something 'outrageous' which they can use to make him look bad. But, as the article says:

But arguably, the trackers are wasting their energy. Grayson does not need provocation to say exactly what he thinks. And, in effect, he tracks himself. Shortly after his CNN appearance, Grayson posted the clip on his YouTube page.

The clip they thought he might be embarrassed by as they tried to reign him in.

He's one of the best things to happen to the Democratic Party. And he deserves applause for the stand he has taken and for inspiring other Democrats to do the same ~



for a Democratic Congressman with guts!


Edited to remind everyone of Rep. Grayson's Nov. 2nd money bomb. If I lived in his district I would volunteer to work for him, but I don't. So, this is the best I can do from halfway across the country.

http://salsa.mydccc.org/o/30019/t/6/conten...