See, the right wing is up in arms that, after fighting to prohibit any federally subsidized insurance money from abortion services, the Republican National Committee’s own employee insurance program provides abortion services to those who wish to have it. The hypocrisy is striking. Various wingnuts are calling for rescinding all contributions to the RNC, an act I wholeheartedly agree should continue.
The question is posed then to the House leadership. Do they provide their own staff with access to standard, legal care for women or are they complete hypocrites? Lee notes that Cantor uses Carefirst Blue Cross Blue Shield for his employees’ health care, and they do provide coverage for elective abortions with an opt-out clause.
The Anti-Defamation League, a non-partisan NGO committed to fighting anti-Semitism and bigotry around the world, has called out Republican leadership, especially Eric Cantor, for his refusal to forcefully condemn the hate-filled signs featured by Republican operatives in their health care protest at the US Capitol.
In the letter they addressed to John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and other Republican members of Congress, the ADL pleaded with the representatives to use their “stature and platform as national political leaders to reject and condemn the use of Holocaust imagery for political purposes, and to urge your supporters to find other ways to communicate their views.”
It will be fascinating to see if Cantor actually responds, but I would put the odds of that as very low. Cantor is only interested in what’s politically expedient for him, and right now in order to be a Republican, you must cater to the far-right, hate-filled tea partiers. There are already rumblings of a tea party shock trooper running against Cantor from the right, and he needs to keep his base, the frothing Republican extremists, satisfied that he is one of them. He’s ultimately too cowardly to truly distance himself from his hateful base.
CNN.com has a breathless profile piece on Eric Cantor, shedding basically no insight into either him or his politics. The thrust of the piece is that Cantor’s colleagues believes he has his sights higher than Congress. Seriously. That’s it. Had anyone at CNN actually been paying attention just last year, they would have known that Eric Cantor and his staff appear to have floated the rumor that Cantor was being considered in the running for John McCain’s vice presidential pick while he was actually never considered. In fact his ambition for such rumored glory appears to have been a joke within the McCain camp.
Read the whole piece, it’s spectacular. CNN is doing an intro piece to the number two Republican in the House. It’s basically what you would expect a high school reporter to write if he got the chance to interview the head cheerleader who was running for class president.
Slow day in Cantor news. He’s probably off doing fundraisers or something. So here’s an old gem for your viewing pleasure.
Chris Matthews sure loves making inadequate Republicans look like babbling dunces from time to time.
From February, 2007 Matthews tried to pin Cantor down on whether or not he thought we should attack Iran. Cantor refused to take it off the table, not answering the question. In Matthews’ fashion he proceeded to hound him on the topic. Cantor said, “Chris, I’ll leave that decision up to the commanders on the ground.” He then apparently realized how idiotic (and unconstitutional) what he said was, so he dug the hole deeper by saying it’s up to the commander-in-chief. A simple reading of the constitution would show him that he’s wrong. It’s up to congress.
Under Article 1, Section 8 “Powers of Congress” of the US Constitution:
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
It was then, and still is now, an embarrassment to the state of Virginia and the rest of the nation that this man, who doesn’t even understand what middle schoolers know about his own country, is in Congress.
On the same day he was getting rave reports in the press for his mild rebuke of those who invoke the Holocaust in discussing American politics, Eric Cantor seems to have invoked the Holocaust in discussing American politics.
Speaking at the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly yesterday, Cantor spoke forcefully about what he deems to be the shift in America to a less pro-Israel position, whatever that may be. And he pulled out the biggest card of all: the Nazi card.
Now he didn’t play it explicitly of course because that would be too similar to Rush Limbaugh. He played it from the bottom of the deck. Sort of a “thinking man’s Rush Limbaugh.”
“Many men are pointing guns at Israel, indeed at Jews, everywhere,” he said, but “too many Jews have become desensitized” and believe “it can’t happen to us.”
“When we allow ourselves to be lulled ourselves into silence when political correctness beckons, it may be too late,” he said. “When we dally and threaten and wring our hands but fail to do anything to really stop” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, “where are we then?”
“When we allow ourselves to be lulled ourselves into silence when political correctness beckons, it may be too late.” Translation: if America doesn’t stop being liberal, another Holocaust will happen.
Oh great and wise pundits who heaped such fawning praise on Mr. Cantor for his rebuke of conservative discourse, please remind me. How on earth is this any different than Rush Limbaugh? Like Limbaugh he knows the only way Republicans have left to even try to win the Jewish vote is by telling them they’re about to be put in death camps. There’s a reason Cantor is the only Jewish Republican left in Congress, and it’s because most of the Jewish people are smart enough to see through his fear-mongering bullshit.
Here’s the video of Eric Cantor on Bloomberg expressing mild displeasure with references to Hitler and the Holocaust (referenced before).
Apparently, Rush Limbaugh went just a little bit too far for Mr. Cantor by claiming that Obama is like Adolf Hitler and that health care reform is similar to Nazism. Everything else from Rush Limbaugh Cantor agrees with apparently; he claims Rush is a “conservative voice for America.” He has absolutely no problem with Rush’s constant racism and sexism. He has NO problem with that; that’s the “conservative voice for America.” He had no problem when Rush Limbaugh smeared US vets; in fact he sent out a fundraising letter in support of his statements.
He’s fine with everything Rush Limbaugh says. It’s just that the Holocaust talk means he has to meekly go on TV and express his mild disapproval. How noble.
This is what passes for bravery in today’s corrupt extremist Republican party.
Eric Cantor, noted liar, speaking in defense of doing nothing to improve health care, made the false claim that the House health care bill (all 2,000 pages of it!) increases the deficit.
False. The Democrats’ bill will decrease the deficit by over $100 billion. In fact it saves $36 billion more the than Republicans’ “plan” and insures 12 times more people.
Sometimes I struggle, I’ll admit. I struggle to find the words to express how truly vapid and out of touch Eric Cantor is. How low this congressman has become. Sure, he’s corrupt, rotten to the core, and in it not to help people but only to expand his own political power and enrich his friends and colleagues. But sometimes words fail.
For instance take this video Eric Cantor considers worthy of putting on his YouTube channel. After months of trying to stall on health care (many would say decades) without offering a single idea of their own, now Republicans are throwing a collective hissy fit about Democrats bringing the healthcare reform bill to a vote. (Up or down vote? Remember that?)
These people are truly ridiculous. Also consider that these are the same overgrown children shouting “I object” during the debate period for the bill. Gee, why didn’t you post this video, Eric? Why do you not want women to be heard, Eric?
Seems like the first national campaign ad of the 2010 cycle to me.
That said, if you really want to watch a video about how low Eric Cantor and the Republicans have sunk, here’s one for you.
Eric Cantor, under fire for standing by idly while extremist Republicans brandished anti-Semitic, violent, and generally insulting signs mere yards from where he was standing, has taken the bold step of calling out Rush Limbaugh and firmly denouncing those extremists!
HAHA! Just kidding. You see, Eric Cantor is a coward, so he meekly granted a pathetic and equivocating interview to Bloomberg News. And he did it on a Friday afternoon so that he could have it both ways; he can claim to have taken the high road and denounced the teabaggers extremism (and avoid insulting Republican Leader Rush Limbaugh) while not actually letting any of the teabaggers know what he did. Who cares what he actually said because it’s not as if he means it. He’s perfectly willing to overlook some of most shocking hatred, racism, and, yes, even anti-Semitism in order to further his own political gain. This is the same coward who stood nearby a sign comparing health care reform to the Nazi Dachau concentration camp without saying a thing. And now he oh-so-gently chides them from afar and in a Friday afternoon news hole with the damage already done. Sure, he’ll probably end up making nice with his master Rush Limbaugh, as he did when he sent out a fundraising letter to support Mr. Limbaugh, then under fire for smearing American troops, and he’ll come crawling back, tail between his legs, like the pathetic clown he is to Master Limbaugh so he keeps his far-right credentials up-to-date.
The man’s shrewd in some ways, but he’s a spineless coward nonetheless.
At the great teabag circle jerk of yesterday on Capitol Hill, the crazy came out to play. And as usual when you get this number of dingbats, wingnuts, and general freaks in one area, at least some anti-Semitism is bound to break out. See also: the picture above referencing an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that Jewish bankers control America. There was also a picture making the rounds of a stack of Holocaust victims, suggesting that that is what would happen under health care reform. Your Republican Party in action, folks.
Glenn Thrush brings attention to the obvious: will Eric Cantor and the rest of the Republicans denounce these crazy people in their own party? The National Jewish Democratic Council has already condemned this anti-Semitism. Eric Cantor stood before this crowd and participated in the festivities. It seems as if he might have something to say about it. Or is he willing to look the other way and coddle the worst of today’s extremist Republican party?
Surprisingly, the House Republicans after months and months of dithering, promising a bill was imminent, then backing down, have FINALLY released a bill to counter the Democrats’ proposals. Unsurprisingly, it is laughably bad.
The early reports the other day were harsh, including that the plan refused to prohibit insurers from reject individuals for pre-existing conditions, something that even most Republicans were behind.
And then came the Congressional Budget Office scoring which you can read here as a .pdf. Epic. It would insure 3 million additional people. That’s it. It would leave 52 million people without insurance. It would cut a whopping $68 billion from the deficit. Unfortunately for the GOP, the Democrats’ plan would cut a more whopping $104 billion from the deficit. Ezra Klein sums it up best:
The Democratic bill, in other words, covers 12 times as many people and saves $36 billion more than the Republican plan. And amazingly, the Democratic bill has already been through three committees and a merger process. [...] It’s already been through the legislative sausage grinder. And yet it saves more money and covers more people than the blank-slate alternative proposed by John Boehner and the House Republicans. The Democrats, constrained by reality, produced a far better plan than Boehner, who was constrained solely by his political imagination and legislative skill.
What an embarrassment! And this on the same day Eric Cantor and the rest of the far-right teabagging tools converged on their own offices with a theme of “kill this bill.” Not “support our laughably bad bill,” just “kill this bill.”
Oh, and it gets better. As the invaluable ThinkProgress reports, those same Republican “leaders” responsible for putting together this “bill” would struggle to find individual insurance under their own plan.
Tada! Your Republican Party, ladies and gentlemen!
With the 2009 mid-mid-term elections mercifully behind us, it’s time to start the focus like a laser on November, 2010. 2009 resulted in unequivocal gains for the Republicans in Virginia, although nationwide it was more of a wash, with Republicans adding two governors and Democrats picking up two more desperately needed representatives.
There have been rumblings in Virginia 7. Charlie Diradour, “local” businessman who doesn’t actually live in the 7th District, bowed out just weeks after he had entered the race. I hope he enjoys the Flying Squirrels.
Cantor himself obliquely acknowledged the uphill fight Republicans may face in the coming years, especially between members of the “conservative” movement. In New York’s 23rd District, Republicans lost a seat that a Democrat hasn’t held since the 1870s because a far-right tea party activist forced out a moderate Republican who fit the district much better. And worse for the Republicans, the far right is even crowing about that as a “win.” Cantor was quoted in the New York Times saying,
“When our party is united, whether you run in a Northern state or a Southern state, our party can win. But when you are divided, you can lose a seat that has been in the Republican column for quite a long time.”
Very true and borne out by Tuesday’s results. And Cantor himself already faces a challenger from the right, Floyd Bayne, who based on his website doesn’t look particularly serious. But you never know with the tea partiers whom they will embrace as one of their own and unleash their destructive forces. Cantor and Republicans should definitely be concerned by this new Republican circular firing squad.
Noted political genius Eric Cantor, he who proudly proclaimed the GOP would keep the congress in 2006 and who predicted they would take it back in 2008 (and 2010), is back with another prediction: that Bob McDonnell will win the governor’s race in Virginia and that it will be a referendum on President Obama.
He may be right on that first part, but let’s be honest, Mr. Cantor. The “referendum” nonsense is pure spin. In fact President Obama maintains almost the exact same approval rating that he won with in November, 53%. If you look at polling in Virginia, Deeds’ support has gone down the longer he harped on the “thesis” story without providing any actual vision for what he would do as governor. He’s tacked to the right as his polls slid.
And if one were to look at history, a topic Eric Cantor clearly does not understand, Virginia always goes in a different direction than the national electorate the year after a presidential election. Kaine, Warner, Gilmore, Allen, Wilder, Baliles, Robb, Dalton. You have to go back to the Nixon administration to find that trend bucked.
So Eric Cantor doesn’t understand how politics works and doesn’t understand the history of his own state. Why is he in Congress again?
Okay, that’s not technically true. He’s far to the right of the American people. But compared to the deformed, shrunken band of misfits, freaks, and degenerates known as “today’s Republican Party,” Cantor is actually somewhat moderate.
Look at what’s going on in the 23rd District of New York. Dede Scozzafava, a moderate Republican who fits well in the moderate Republican district of New York, is under fire from the fire-breathing conservative base. Her “Conservative Party” challenger Doug Hoffman is racking up endorsements from leaders of the wingnut wing of the Republican Party like Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin. The old guard Republicans like Eric Cantor and Newt Gingrich, both far to the right but aware that Republicans have to at least pretend to reach out to both sides, are backing Scozzafava.
And because of this great schism Republicans are in grave danger of losing a seat they could easily keep were they united. Instead, they look to be splitting the vote with the Democrat emerging the winner. And quite frankly I couldn’t be happier.
This is why I don’t place much stock in the idea that Republicans will have it easy in the 2010 elections (or Cantor’s idea that they will take back the House). The conservative movement is splitting apart, with much of it filled with hatred and paranoia. This part hates the Republicans as much as they hate Democrats, if not more. Republicans are the focus of their immediate ire because they demand ideological purity and will not tolerate any dissent. They’re the jackbooted thugs of the Beck-Limbaugh ticket, and Cantor, whose leadership possibilities are on the line this cycle, should be very, very concerned.
Lee Fang asks the question of the day: Does Eric Cantor provide abortion services for his employees?
