Tag: Hamsher

“I am Oz, the Great and Terrible. Who are you, and why do you seek me?”

“I am jeffroby, the Small and Meek. I have come to you for help.”

“What do you wish me to do?”

“Keep to your principles.  Before the healthcare bill passed, you quoted a poll that said, “A full 79.7% think it’s ‘important’ or ‘very important’ that the health care bill contain no restrictions on abortion coverage, and 82.3% think that any member who casts a vote to restrict abortion coverage should face a primary.  You approved.  Now I beg you to use your power to make it happen.”

“Why should I do this for you?” asked Oz.

“Because you are strong and I am weak; because you are a Great Wizard and I am only a little blogger.”

Or so it felt.

The great and terrible wizard, of course, is Jane Hamsher.  An often principled and occasionally courageous progressive.  On March 10, she came out in favor of primarying any Democrat who voted for a healthcare bill containing Nelson or Stupak anti-abortion language.  I was impressed.

I know, I’m the pest who keeps complaining that, for all their heroic posturing, our progressive leaders have been pathetic in refusing to brandish any kind of retaliatory stick while begging the Democratic Party to not turn the healthcare bill into nothing more than the bloody stump of reform.  And urging those outraged at those pathetic leaders to start figuring out how to hit the Democratic Party where it hurts.

Then along comes Jane Hamsher.  For the record, I had criticized her in my intro to the Full Court Press as one of those progressive leaders who had caved in and was supporting the bill even without the “robust” public option she had once demanded.  But then she turned around and came out 4-square for killing the Senate bill.  And then, a few days ago, she joined with notorious scoundrel Grover Norquist  to demand an investigation of Rahm Emmanuel for malfeasance regarding his relationship with Freddie Mac.

Well, I gotta say the lady’s got guts.

Her move follows one or both of two tracks.  It could be seen as an innocent exercise in good  government.  Or it could be a counterpunch to the way Rahm and the White House have viciously sidelined progressives around, well, everything.  Both are valid.

But working with Norquist! the Dems cry while clutching at their smelling salts.  Okay, let’s look at the Democrats’ record.  The Stupak amendment passed mostly with Republican votes.  And then when the House Democrats passed its Stupak-laden bill, they made Stupak their own.  They passed a Republican measure.

So the Obamacrats cry “teabagger!”  Jane Hamsher is getting her money from Jack Abramoff!  Next thing you know, she’ll be leading teabagger rallies.  The charges are nonsense, but the underlying politic is worth some thought.

Make no mistake, the teabagger movement is a fascist-led, corporate-funded reactionary movement.  But its success is in part a monument to progressive failure.  While progressives had dreams of Obama-plums dancing in their heads, they ignored their working class base, which was outraged that Wall Street was getting bailed out while they were losing their homes.  They distrust the Fed.  They fear a distant government that might do things like, oh, mandating people to buy insurance they can’t afford.  The teabaggers were able to merge this righteous anger with backward racist and sexist currents in the American people.  Because progressives were asleep at the wheel!

I’d never really read her before-or if I had, I quickly forgot about it.

So I went over to FDL, and what did I find? Really flaming crazy, nutso, lefty stuff –she’s really far, far from the mainstream:

So if anyone’s got a story about a remarkable medical pet recovery, please share it, because we could use some hope and inspiration tonight. Kobe sent me packing a short time ago because he said I was a big drag and I need to get myself in a better place so I can be there for him.

And this:

Susan Boyle Final Performance Video, “Britain’s Got Talent”

And, of course this:

I’m sure Michael Jackson is happy he’s not around to see all the psychobabble being dished up about his life. Did the crappy upbringing really doom him to brooding unhappiness, or did it fuel his otherwordly talent? Would he have been just as strange and troubled without the fame and fortune, or was being “Michael Jackson” the only thing that kept him out of Leavenworth? We’ll never know.

So, in response to all this radical communist propaganda, I have asked Meteor to re-instate my account over at dk, so that I could attack it, and help save the world from pernicious socialistic, communist-y, nazi-like posts like these.

He immediately re-instated me, and they gave me a thumbs up, a pat on the back, and a cold diet coke.

Here’s an excerpt from my first ever rec list diary:

Don’t you fucking fools understand that we need to kill muslims in Afghanistan because Obama says so, and he’s our LEADER, and he WANTS TO HELP THE UNEMPLOYED (so that they can kill people in Afghanistan too).  

And don’t you understand that mandated mandates to pay our American corp-o-crocy will save 300,000,000,000,000.26 lives every year ? Rahm told us so.  Twice.

And don’t you realize that if we don’t stick together, then we’ll LOSE in 2012–and that would be a disaster, because then Jane Hamsher would be IN CHARGE. And we’d ALL be mandated to SHARE OUR PET STORIES.

How’s that for socialisty, femi-nazi stuff?  (look at that chicks HAIR!)

I mean SHARE. How American is that ?

Sharrrrreeee.

Like equally.

You have to do it, and so do I, and then we’d all be sharing…..