I doubt the spitter knew exactly who Rep. Emanuel Cleaver is, but he could tell that Cleaver is black:
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) issued a statement late Saturday saying that he was spit upon while walking to the Capitol to cast a vote, leading the Capitol Police to usher him into the building out of concern for his safety. Police detained the individual, who was then released because Cleaver declined to press charges.
“The congressman was walking into the Capitol to vote, when one protester spat on him. The congressman would like to thank the U.S. Capitol Police officer who quickly escorted the other Members and him into the Capitol, and defused the tense situation with professionalism and care,” said Danny Rotert, a spokesman for Cleaver.
gbear
I hope that homeland security is keeping all small planes from flying within 100 miles of DC tomorrow.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
The ugly truth emerges. Good job, GOP, for aligning yourselves with this kind of thing. It will be worse tomorrow and here on out, and the only question that remains, is will the Grand Ole Party pull back and disown this un American shit, or go all in . My money is all in, what else they got going for them?
Violet
I’m very glad to see these ugly incidents get mainstream media coverage. If only there were video.
dslak
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: If the reaction in the comments section at Fox News is any indication, they plan to deny any responsibility for it whatsoever. The most popular responses found in that cesspool are 1) Cleaver et al are lying 2) it’s a liberal plan.
Party of personal responsibility!
gbear
Video via TPM. Ryan is pretty mad.
I’m not gonna hold my breath until Bachmann apologizes for the actions of the people she rallied today. I’ll be so glad when she’s finally out of DC (as long as she doesn’t come back to MN politics).
gbear
@dslak:
Some of the commenters at WaPo are calling it ‘playing the race card’.
Christ, a teabagger spits on a black congressman, calls him a ni-, and it’s a conspiracy against the teabaggers.
Morons.
Max
No worries y’all… Morning Joe and Erik “best political team on tv” Erickson are on the case…
From E’s Twitter feed…
I haven’t diagrammed a sentence in a long time, but I can guess what part of that statement the “Sad” refers back to.
JenJen
I have no idea how I ended up reading Jim Treacher’s twitter feed, but he seems to have no difficulty accusing the Congressmen of making it all up.
I’d forgotten how insufferable this guy is.
rob!
What the hell do black Republicans (all five of them) tell themselves when they see/hear this shit? Does the belief in Trickle Down Economics trump all other senses of identity?
Violet
Well, you’ll never convince true teabaggers that they’ve done anything wrong. But anyone who is not really a full out teabagger, but is sort of sympathetic to the things the teabaggers claim to support will look at this kind of display with horror and disgust. Those are the people that can be picked off. And the more of them that get picked off, the smaller the teabagger crowd becomes.
shidlar
Pavement?
burnspbesq
Nickel Creek reference in the title.
I am in awe. We are not worthy.
TenguPhule
They tell themselves, “We are Judas Goats. We’ll walk out of the slaughterhouse alive.”
MoeLarryAndJesus
To be fair, we should acknowledge that teabaggers spit spontaneously hundreds of times a day because they’re trying to get all those coarse little hairs out of their mouths.
Also, they’re assholes.
Brian J
At some point, the Republicans are going to have to distance themselves from this. I think–or maybe hope–they will soon. If not, it could get ugly.
Kerry Reid
I do hope Jane Hamsher was in there being all grassroots and populist with the Teabaggers this weekend.
DougJ
@burnspbesq:
It’s a Pavement song. Nickel Creek covered it.
gbear
She cannot go to hell soon enough.
TR
@DougJ:
Glad to hear that. My reaction to that comment was “Who the Spiral Stairs is ‘Nickel Creek’?”
HE Pennypacker, Wealthy Industrialist
Beautiful.
FormerSwingVoter
I am glad that Democrats are finally trying to nail some of this teabagging nonsense to congressional republicans.
We need to start calling Republicans. “Do you condone or condemn these acts?” Over and over and over again. Condone or condemn. We need to make those their only two options.
Put together a list of all Republican lawmakers. Put their contact phone numbers up. Call them. Whip them. Get a whip count of Republicans who are pro- and anti-hate. Condone or condemn the rancid, hate-fueled teabaggers. We have to make those their only options.
Annie
As I just said in a previous post, watch Obama’s speech…It is extraordinary…
And, then tell the teabaggers, who WILL benefit from HCR, to shove it…They will be the first to loose if HCR is not passed. They are so ignorant, that they stand behind Republicans in Congress who have all of the benefits of their position, while actively working against the interests of most teabaggers.
The Republican leadership is so immoral and unethical that they use racism, God, socialism, and every other ism to feed into the worst instincts of a small minded Americans. What they don’t use, and can’t use, are arguments related to good policy — in fact, they have deliberately stay away from policy debates, thinking that feeding into the worst instincts of certain Americans is a far better strategy for victory.
Snarky Pickles
@dslak:
And 3) Cleaver, Lewis et al. are “playing the race card.”
DougJ
@JenJen:
Thanks for the tip. I just added him to my RSS feed. What a jack ass. But very entertaining.
burnspbesq
@TR:
“Who the Spiral Stairs is ‘Nickel Creek’?”
Nickel Creek is (or was) Sean and Sara Watkins and Chris Thile. All of whom are extravagantly talented instrumentalists (on guitar, fiddle, and mandolin, respectively), singers, and songwriters. The clip below is now ten years old (!).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwkpihGwSj0
dslak
@Snarky Pickles: Yeah, or that. I just wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean. I assumed it fell under 1.
Lolis
It is such a bizarre world we live in where a representative can get spit on for voting to help 32 millions get health care, improving Medicare benefits, and cutting the deficit.
shidlar
can the nickel creek guy confess to being a moron? Please?
Kerry Reid
@FormerSwingVoter:
Amen! How many damn times have Democrats been told they have to “distance themselves” from “leftwing extremists?” (Translation: Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan, neither of whom has ever spat on a politician to my knowledge). Hang this around their necks.
Oh, and I do hope BoBo went for another jog today — maybe he can deny the racism some more.
FlipYrWhig
@Lolis: It’s because the teabag crowd STILL thinks the way the bill works is that it raises their taxes to give shiftless poor, black, and/or Mexican people free goodies, including abortions, meaning sexy sexy sex and dead babies. And all they, the hardworking murcans, get out of it is the gubmit tellin em whut ta dew. They’re never going to stop thinking that.
Kevin @ Political Amorality
Are you idiots still proudly claiming that this bill reduces the deficit?
http://www.house.gov/budget_republicans/press/2007/pr20100319healthdeficits.pdf
You told me the other day I was a “conspiracy theorist” for saying the CBO’s initial score was wrong because of the budgeting gimmicks in hcr. Now the CBO ITSELF confirms that my argument was accurate.
It’s shocking that anyone above a third grade education could be duped into believing that a 2.4+ trillion dollar entitlement program can reduce a deficit or debt.
How’s that Massachusetts health care program working out? Bankruptcy apparently won’t stop you idiots from continuing to enact your childish utopia.
someguy
Teabaggers only say and do what typical Republicans don’t have the guts to.
Anya
One can conclude from the pictures that the majority of the protestors are Rep. Clyburn’s contemporaries. I bet some of those screaming teabaggers are the same screamers who taunted young children during school integration or called for the murder of civil rights marchers.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Tsk tsk, libtard haters. K-Low tea parties and sees apple pie and angel hair and ice cream castles in the air.
The latest from Planet Wingnut. Stay tuned.
gbear
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
She’s looked at life that way.
But now friends are acting strange. They shake their heads and say she’s changed.
She really doesn’t know life. At all.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@gbear: LOL, K-Low is a national treasure.
Lolis
@FlipYrWhig:
I know. That is the scary thing about it. The hatred is so disconnected from reality. This whole thing is so surreal. I am especially excited for health care reform to pass so these goons will all cry like Glenn Beck.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
So no arrests? One report at TPM suggested that the cops were intimidated by the the thugs. As Dave Weigel said in his twitter, how would the cops have reacted to a mob of black voters angrily invading the Capitol building, much less spitting on MoC’s.
And Joe Scarborough called on “both sides” to condemn their haters. David Broder put a gold star in his grade book.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
deleted due to bad linky
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
I wonder what else goes on in K-LO’s little fantasy world? I bet Iraq is a democracy without income tax, Osama bin Laden has revealed he was funded by the French and John Kerry warned him about Tora Bora and she’s married to that dreamy Rich Lowry and they have four kids: Reagan, he’s seven, little Maggie T is five and the three year old twins Cheney and Rove, they’re two.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
don’t know, nor do I want to. But I’m betting Dick Cheney is a star in her fantasy world.
Annie
Not even nuns like K-Lo…
theturtlemoves
@burnspbesq: Several of them (one full time, the rest on and off) are also in a band with former Toad the Wet Sprocket frontman Glenn Phillips called Works Progress Administration. Highly recommended.
And I’ll re-iterate a comment I made on the thread with the PhD Parkinson’s sufferer getting dollars thrown at him. These assholes are bullies and maybe the only thing they are going to understand is a bunch of gym queens cornering them in a dark alley and beating the crap out of them. Why gym queens? Cause physical pain is one thing, but these cro-mags getting beat down by “a bunch o’ damn queers”? Priceless.
Annie
@gbear:
She is so stupid. The Sabbath is Saturday and Jewish. Christians don’t observe the Sabbath….
slag
@DougJ: I understand that Texas is hoping to be the first court challenge to HCR. And we all know that Texas never whispers.
auntieeminaz
@FormerSwingVoter: This in spades.
mslarry
educated black female here… loving the original Pavement reference…but beyond that i gotta say, what the heck are the republicans thinking? This kind of stuff, I assure you, IS NOT ENDEARING black folks to their cause. We’re only 12% of the population… blah, blah, but you don’t need to be black or gay to recognize these people are crazy.
Newsflash GOP, you can’t BUILD A PARTY IN THE 21ST CENTURY ON RACISTS AND HOMOPHOBES…
Even if HCR fails (which I hope it does not), there ain’t no coming back from this crap. Why can’t they see this?
Next up, I’m about take off my earrings and for those of you who aren’t in the know “don’t make a black woman take off her earrings” is “our” speak for… time for talk is done. we’ve moved on to ass whupping.
UGH… I hate these people! also.
that is all.
freelancer
@mslarry:
You’re not alone. They are vexing, and staring at them in their galling hatred is akin to watching the aftermath of a car wreck. Not responding to their nonsense is like staving off an addictive urge, and unfortunately I just gave in.
http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2010/03/20/they-are-who-we-knew-they-were-and-who-they-have-always-been/#comment-21907
“Hi, my name’s Nick, and I am a scrotum-puncher*.”
*h/t TBogg.
scav
Well, if what we saw today was “smiles and babies and families and goodwill” and based on what we know a “farmers market in Indiana” looks like, I can’t wait to see the Norman Rockwell Spectacular we’ve got on for tomorrow. I plan to observe from within a large concrete bunker (#42) some thirty-seven miles from the stage. I hear the best sound balance is from there.
Kevin @ Political Amorality
Are you idiots still proudly claiming that this bill reduces the deficit?
http://www.house.gov/budget_republicans/press/2007/pr20100319healthdeficits.pdf
You told me the other day I was a “conspiracy theorist” for saying the CBO’s initial score was wrong because of the budgeting gimmicks in hcr. Now the CBO ITSELF confirms that my argument was accurate.
It’s shocking that anyone above a third grade education could be duped into believing that a 2.4+ trillion dollar entitlement program can reduce a deficit or debt.
How’s that Massachusetts health care program working out? Bankruptcy apparently won’t stop you idiots from continuing to enact your childish utopia.
freelancer
@scav:
Like I stated earlier today, “Break out the earplugs and the kevlar. Tomorrow is going to be Really. Fucking. Loud.“
ThatPirateGuy
Kevin I long to hear your agonized screams as healthcare passes and your dreams die.
MikeJ
That’s some funny, funny shit Kevin’s got. A press release from the republicans about something they forged.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
The thing that strikes me about this whole experience, and the thing I think is going to be remembered by history, is the contrast between both sides of the debate.
One side is motivated by policy concerns, welfare of fellow Americans; is conciliatory and compromising, actually overly intellectually honest to the point of making awkward and wonky statements.
The other side is screaming about the dissolution of America, spouting racist epithets, screaming about death panels, and threatening to start a revolution.
Either all this insanity is going to disappear down the rabbit hole, or one side is going to look incredibly stupid when the marginal effects of healthcare reform take place. I think Obama’s remarks tonight (which were classy, sober, and appropriate) serve as a nice coda to the whole mess.
JGabriel
Lolis:
I had dinner tonight with friends who are diplomats at the UN, and one of them said, “I can’t believe people are so polarized over just trying to help others get health care.”
I explained that the polarization isn’t really over health care, but due to propanganda from FOX and the GOP – the result of decades of polarization from Nixon’s and Reagan’s use of the Southern Strategy. I think she got the racial aspect of it, but I’m not sure that I properly explained the religious and capitalist aspects sufficiently.
.
mslarry
@freelancer
You’re not alone. They are vexing, and staring at them in their galling hatred is akin to watching the aftermath of a car wreck. Not responding to their nonsense is like staving off an addictive urge, and unfortunately I just gave in.
http://attackerman.firedoglake…..ment-21907
“Hi, my name’s Nick, and I am a scrotum-puncher*.”
*h/t TBogg.
OF COURSE YOU GAVE IN… you’re a kind, giving human being. There’s only so much that you/our kind can take before we give in. Shit I make my living as freelance writer, which means I I pride myself on seeing both sides of an issue. But these people and their reaction to helping out 30 million innocent Americans? It is so beyond the pale that I can no longer pretend to be civil.
I’m only sorry that I couched my initial response in race, because I’m black/latino w/mostly white friends and have dated men of all races and they all agree… this shit is RIDICULOUS.
We’ve moved past racial issues with these folks… into human issues. What type of human being thinks it’s okay to spit on another? or threaten violence towards those w/whom we disagree?
Maybe I got lucky because I grew up in NYC, travelled outside of America and spent my 20s/30s in Los Angeles? Or maybe these people are the ones who live in a bubble?
In their fucked up world, up is down and left is right and it’s okay to thoroughly disrespect your fellow man/woman.
Whatever the reason, I find myself in a strange position in that I HATE, HATE folks who I’ve never met. It makes me very uncomfortable, but the more they speak, the more i’m committed to despising them!
I guess this is good news for John McCain :)
JGabriel
DougJ:
So, next time some conservative bitches about apocryphal hippies spitting on returning Vietman Vets in 1969, we can counter with real teabaggers spitting at black representatives like Cleaver, and calling Civil Rights heroes like John Lewis “nigger”, in 2010.
Despite the cliche about clouds, that’s a silver lining I really would have been happy to live without.
.
JGabriel
@Kevin @ Political Amorality:
I don’t know, are your idiots still attacking Congressional Representatives with racial slurs, gender slurs, spit, and bricks?
Oh, yes, I see from the nightly news that they are.
Go fuck yourself, asshole.
.
FlipYrWhig
Is it really hard for people like Kevin and the Republicans who represent him to understand that something can be both costly _and_ save money over time, due to the fact that it is _less_ costly than a _more_ costly alternative? This kind of seems like a basic concept to me.
You switch from incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescents, which requires spending money up front, but they last longer and they use less energy, both factors that save you money over time, so over the long run you have spent less money on lighting your house.
You switch from the current health care system to HCR, which requires spending money up front, but it transforms the market and the incentives and the practices of health care, so over the long run the nation has spent less money on health care.
FlipYrWhig
@JGabriel: I think race is inflaming teabag rage but that there would still be teabag rage without it–because their reaction is (strangely) all about the idea that their taxes are either going up or being wasted. Wasted on poor people, wasted on lazy people, wasted on black people, wasted on Mexicans. They believe that they are only ever the victims of, and never the beneficiaries of, things the government does. Mostly they have a lot of grudges and no empathy.
Sentient Puddle
@FlipYrWhig:
Yes.
JGabriel
FlipYrWhig:
No, it’s just impossible for them to
believeadmit that anyone who doesn’t share their twisted, racist, homophobic, liberal-hating values could be right about anything..
Citizen Alan
@FlipYrWhig:
To expand on Sentient Puddle’s reply, these are the same mongoloids who think that heavy snowstorms in the Northeast in February disprove the theory of global warming, because they are too brick-hard stupid to realize that above-average snowfall is caused by above-average amounts of water vapor during winter months which, in turn, is the result of above-average amounts of water evaporating from the oceans due to warmer-than-average temperatures preceding the snow storms. And, in fact, the month preceding those heavy snowstorms was the hottest January on record for that region.
Believe me. There is no concept so simple and easy to grasp that you could ever explain to a God-damned Teabagger if his tiny little brain had already been programmed by Glenn Beck and Michelle Bachman to reach the opposite conclusion. They’re like zombies from a George Romero film except instead of moaning “Braaaiinnss” as they try to kill you, they say “Soooshulllisssm” instead.
Karen
@Kevin @ Political Amorality
Will it be you who spits on a Democrat next? Or would you rather just beat one up instead?
I love how you just accept horrible things happening to HUMAN BEINGS! You have no empathy whatsoever.
With things this ugly now, with President Obama being in power a little over a year, there’s only one place this is headed. G-d Forbid the unthinkable happens will you get off on it? Will you pop the champagne cork with the Fox Network because it’ll be one less Democrat in the world?
What the frick is your limit on cruelty? Do you have one?
Karen
I think I need to take a break from this for the rest of the night because I am filled with so much hate for those evil people that I’m going to swallow enough bile to make me physically ill.
My husband who is a big reader of BJ says I take it way too personally. But how can I not?
Xenos
Ex.A: “Drill, Baby, Drill!”;
Ex. B: “In what regards, Charlie?”
Ex. C: Oh, fuck it, life is to short. The great mystery is how these people don’t kill themselves making breakfast each morning.
TaiFood
I listened to the many news reports and the slurs came almost if by cue. and after reviewing tape of the walks of the representatives there isn’t a shred of evidence supporting the Rep.’s claims, not a one.
Now I can see some asshole yelling from behind bushes but no way in that crowd and the video of the exact location that the Rep. Lewis claims to be verbally assaulted…nothing.
Is it possible that the they imagined something that did not happen or worse could it be a strategy?
I hope not.
No one was arrested and no one can confirm who was detained, if anyone was.
This has gone too far and the Rep’s need to have proof that should be easy to come by with just a recorder in the pocket. I smell something is afoul.
And if the video show someone spit at the Rep. arrest and prosecute. If no one was detained the Rep. should be charged with making false statements to the police.
HELP