Tag Archives: Patty Murray

January 3, 2013 · 12:29 AM

House GOP blocks Violence Against Women Act

No wonder pundits are calling the 112th Congress the worst in the history of our nation.  Their last day (yesterday) was a particularly repugnant one.  Good riddance 112th “do nothing” Congress…

Rachel Maddow Blog

Congress had a lengthy to-do list as the end of the year approached, with a series of measures that needed action before 2013 began. Some of the items passed (a fiscal agreement, a temporary farm bill), while others didn’t (relief funding for victims of Hurricane Sandy).

And then there’s the Violence Against Women Act, which was supposed to be one of the year’s easy ones. It wasn’t.

Back in April, the Senate approved VAWA reauthorization fairly easily, with a 68 to 31 vote. The bill was co-written by a liberal Democrat (Vermont’s Pat Leahy) and a conservative Republican (Idaho’s Mike Crapo), and seemed on track to be reauthorized without much of a fuss, just as it was in 2000 and 2005.

But House Republicans insisted the bill is too supportive of immigrants, the LGBT community, and Native Americans — and they’d rather let the law expire than approve a slightly expanded proposal. Vice President Biden, who helped write the original law, tried to persuade House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) to keep the law alive, but the efforts didn’t go anywhere.

And so, for the first time since 1994, the Violence Against Women Act is no more. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the Democratic point person on VAWA, said in a statement:

“The House Republican leadership’s failure to take up and pass the Senate’s bipartisan and inclusive VAWA bill is inexcusable. This is a bill that passed with 68 votes in the Senate and that extends the bill’s protections to 30 million more women. But this seems to be how House Republican leadership operates. No matter how broad the bipartisan support, no matter who gets hurt in the process, the politics of the right wing of their party always comes first.”

Proponents of the law hope to revive the law in the new Congress, starting from scratch, but in the meantime, there will be far fewer resources available for state and local governments to combat domestic violence.

As for electoral considerations, Republicans lost badly in the 2012 elections, thanks in large part to the largest gender gap in modern times, but if that changed GOP attitudes towards legislation affecting women, the party is hiding it well.

Update: Reader AG asks about the House version that was approved several months ago. As I reported at the time, the House gutted the bipartisan Senate bill with a watered-down version, which was widely seen by everyone involved as a joke that undermined the interests of victims. It had no support in the Senate and drew a White House veto threat. House Republicans knew this, and instead of revisiting the issue and/or working with the Senate on a compromise, GOP leaders simply decided the law was not a priority. The result was this week’s outcome.

Ed. Note: This clip from the award winning HBO series “The Newsroom“ examines  some of this right-wing extremist madness…

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November 4, 2010 · 5:58 PM

GOP senators fight over failure

Let the games begin!

Politico

Long-simmering tensions within the Republican Party spilled into public view Wednesday as the pragmatic and conservative wings of the GOP blamed each other in blunt terms for the party’s failure to capture the Senate.

With tea party-backed candidates going down in Delaware, Colorado and Nevada, depriving Republicans of what would have been a 50-50 Senate, a bloc of prominent senators and operatives said party purists like Sarah Palin and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) had foolishly pushed nominees too conservative to win in politically competitive states.

Movement conservatives pointed the finger right back at the establishment, accusing the National Republican Senatorial Committee of squandering millions on a California race that wasn’t close at the expense of offering additional aid in places like Colorado, Nevada and Washington state, where Democratic Sen. Patty Murray holds a narrow lead as the votes continue to be counted.

The back-and-forth following an otherwise triumphant election amounted to a significant ratcheting up of the internecine battle that has been taking place within the GOP for the past year.

“Candidates matter,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). “It was a good night for Republicans but it could have been a better one. We left some on the table.”

Referring to the debate within the right about whether the party was better off losing the Delaware seat than winning with a moderate Republican like Rep. Mike Castle, who lost the GOP primary to Christine O’Donnell, Graham was even more blunt.

“If you think what happened in Delaware is ‘a win’ for the Republican Party then we don’t have a snowball’s chance to win the White House,” he said. “If you think Delaware was a wake-up call for Republicans than we have shot at doing well for a long time.”Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott put it plainly: “We did not nominate our strongest candidates.”Had Republicans run Castle in Delaware and establishment favorites Sue Lowden in Nevada and Jane Norton in Colorado, Lott said, Tuesday would have turned out different.“With those three we would have won and been sitting at 50 [senators],” he observed.

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October 29, 2010 · 10:32 AM

Relatives Says Man Arrested For Threatening Democratic Senator Was ‘Under The Spell That Glenn Beck Cast’

This story is not hard to believe at all.  “The crazy” is contagious…

Think Progress

In April, a Washington man named Charles Alan Wilson was arrested for threatening Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) for her vote to pass health care reform. He left a series of threatening messages on her voicemail, saying “It only takes one piece of lead. Kill the (expletive) senator! … Now that you’ve passed your health-care bill, let the violence begin” and “I do believe that every one of you (expletive) socialist democratic progressive (expletive) need to be taken out.” Wilson was arrested after a federal agent called him pretending to be from a group backed by Americans for Prosperity, the right-wing organization responsible for funding some of the “grassroots” opposition to health care reform. Wilson told the agent, who he thought was a fellow opponent to health care reform, that “I will not blink” when it comes to shooting the Senator. “It’s not a threat, it’s a guarantee,” he said.

Now, Media Matters reports on new disturbing details about the extent to which Wilson may have been influenced by Fox News personality Glenn Beck. According to court records, Wilson’s family blamed Beck for putting Wilson “under a spell.” Wilson’s cousin submitted this letter to the court last month:

What happened later with Charlie is something I think I can understand. He became basically housebound due to illness and his small world became even smaller. His brother got him a computer and he was able to stay connected with family. And he watched television and found Glenn Beck… I found Glenn Beck about the same time Charlie did. I understand how his fears were grown and fostered by Mr. Beck’s persuasive personality. The same thing happened to me but I went in a different direction with what I was seeing. Rather than blame politicians for the current issues, I simply got prepared for what Glenn said was coming. I slowly filled our pantry as Glenn fed fear into me. I did not miss watching his show and could not understand why the rest of the world didn’t get it — Glenn became a pariah to me. But I was finally able to step away and realize the error of my ways. The media lost its grip on me. But it still held very tightly to Charlie.

While his actions were undeniably wrong and his choices were terrible, in part they were the actions of others played out by a very gullible Charlie. He was under the spell that Glenn Beck cast, aided by the turbulent times in our economy. I don’t believe that Charlie even had the ability to actually carry out his threats.

Indeed, Beck fiercely opposed health care reform, often in apocalyptic terms, saying that “This is the end of prosperity in America forever … the end of America as you know it,” and asking “if this passes, don’t we lose, really, the Democratic Party to the socialists?” This was coupled with some disturbingly violent rhetoric: Beck characterized Democrats as vampires, and then suggested “driv[ing] a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers.” He also said that “[t]o the day I die, I am going to be a progressive hunter.”

Watch a compilation of videos found at Media Matters.

This isn’t the first time an unhinged person claims to have been motivated to conduct political violence because of what they saw on Beck’s show. In July an unemployed California man loaded up his car with guns and ammunition, and was pulled over and arrested on his way to shoot up the Tides Foundation in San Francisco, a frequent Beck target. He later told a reporter that “I would have never started watching Fox News if it wasn’t for the fact that Beck was on there. And it was the things that he did, it was the things he exposed that blew my mind. I said, well, nobody does this.” In April, a man was arrested for threatening Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and his mother told reporters that she blamed Fox News.

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· 12:15 AM

Media Matters: Attack on MoveOn worker was the latest in string of violence and threats against progressives

 

Media Matters has a complete breakdown of violence and threats toward progressives through the midterm campaign season and more.

Media Matters

White powder and swastikas mailed to Rep. Grijalva. On October 21, an envelope containing “a plastic bag of white powder and two pieces of paper with swastikas written on them” was reportedly mailed to Rep. Raul Grijalva’s (D-AZ) campaign office. The powder was determined to be non-toxic.

Byron Williams set out to kill people at Tides Foundation and ACLU. On July 18, Byron Williams was stopped by California Highway Patrol and engaged in a shootout with law enforcement. He later said he planned to murder individuals at the Tides Foundation and ACLU and his mother said he was angry about “Congress railroading through all these left-wing agenda items.” As reporter John Hamilton documented, Williams said he saw Fox News’ Glenn Beck as “a schoolteacher” and that “it was the things [Beck] exposed that blew my mind.” Indeed, the gunman, Byron Williams, was driven by belief in conspiracy theories that have been pushed by Beck and other members of the right-wing media.

AZ federal judge threatened, Grijalva office fired on after ruling on AZ immigration law. Politico reported in July:

Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said in a statement he shut down his Yuma district office after staff members discovered a bullet had shattered a window there Thursday. And authorities said U.S. Judge Susan Bolton received hundreds of threats at her downtown Phoenix court offices after issuing the injunction, according to news reports.

Phoenix man indicted for alleged murder threats against Grijalva and his aides. The Yuma Sun reported on June 14 that a Phoenix man was indicted on federal charges for “allegedly threatening to kill U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva in late April, over Grijalva’s opposition to the state’s new immigration law.” The article added: “Prosecutors say Haynes is accused of calling Grijalva’s office in Tucson twice on April 23 and threatening to ‘come down there and blow the brains out’ of Grijalva and his employees.”

Man arrested for allegedly threatening to kill Sen. Patty Murray. Politico reported on April 6:

Charles Alan Wilson, 64, was arrested at his home in central Washington after he allegedly called Murray’s office on numerous occasions over the last few weeks saying that she “had a target on her back, ” and “I want to [expletive] kill you,” according to court documents. The alleged phone calls stretched over almost two weeks and were said to be in relation to Murray’s vote to pass health care overhaul legislation.

Wilson, who was arrested in Selah, Wash., also allegedly told undercover FBI agents that he carries a concealed firearm with a permit, and said he was “extremely angry” with the passage of health care legislation, according to the news release. If convicted, Wilson could face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. 

 

Members of right-wing militia group arrested for allegedly plotting overthrow of the U.S. government. Nine members of the “Hutaree militia” were arrested in March and charged with plotting a violent uprising against the U.S. government, a plot that was to begin with an attack on law enforcement personnel. The Southern Poverty Law Center has called the Hutaree militia as a member of the radical right-wing patriot movement.

AP: Man arrested for allegedly making threatening phone calls to Pelosi. The AP reported that in the days after the vote on the health care reform bill, “The FBI arrested a California man Wednesday for allegedly making threatening phone calls to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.”

Threats made against Rep. Betsy Markey. A Denver television station reported that Rep. Betsy Markey’s (D-CO) chief of staff “said the calls came on Saturday before the House cast its final vote on health care reform. She said in the first, the caller said to one of Markey’s staff members, ‘better hope I don’t run into you in a dark alley with a knife, a club or a gun.’ In another instance, a caller said something like ‘better tell your boss that she better be careful when she comes back here to Colorado.’”

Gas line outside the house of the brother of Rep. Tom Perriello was cut. Rep. Tom Perriello’s (D-VA) brother’s address was erroneously posted online by a Tea Party blogger who invited activists to descend on the house. In March, a gas line outside the brother’s house was cut.

Threats made against Rep. Stupak after he voted for final version of health care bill. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) was the target of threatening faxes and phone calls, including death threats. Some of the faxes included “racial epithets used in reference to President Obama,” according to CBS News.

Picture of a noose faxed to Rep. Clyburn. Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), the Majority Whip, said in a March interview on CNN that his office had received a fax of a noose after he voted in favor of the health care reform bill.

Brick thrown at Democratic county headquarters in Rochester, NY. New York Daily News reported on March 22 that, after the House health care vote, a “brick, to which a piece of paper bearing the message “Extremism is defense of liberty is no vice” was attached with a rubber band” was thrown through the headquarters of the Democratic county headquarters in Rochester, New York.

Rep. Slaughter threatened with brick and “snipers.” CNN reported on March 24: “Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-New York, said her Niagara Falls district office had a brick thrown through one of its windows and a message that referred to ‘snipers’ was left on one of her campaign offices.”

Rep. Giffords’ office window shattered. CNN reported that in March, “a glass panel at the Tucson office of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Arizona, was shattered, spokesman C.J. Karamargin said. It wasn’t clear how the window was shattered, but visitors have to go through a gated courtyard to enter the office, and staffers suspect someone may have shot a pellet gun at the glass, he said.”

Continue reading…

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October 7, 2010 · 1:04 AM

Like clockwork: Conservatives return to baseless voter fraud allegations…

Of course it’s an example of the obfuscation and smoke screens the right-wing media always brings out when it’s getting “too hot” in the political arena.  The Chamber of Commerce election finance fiasco is something that they don’t want their “low information” followers to know about, so naturally they bring up a tried and true alternative.

Media Matters

Discussing midterms, O’Reilly claims elections in Seattle and Chicago areas are “not honest.” On the October 5 edition of Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, O’Reilly and Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich discussed Republican prospects in this fall’s Senate elections. After O’Reilly asserted that elections in the Seattle and Chicago areas are not “honest” and that the “entrenched power” there “is Democrat,” Gingrich said, “It always helps if you’re the Republican candidate in certain states to win by a big enough margin”:

O’REILLY: I think Illinois and Washington state — and I know how these elections go in King County, the Seattle area, and in Cook County, the Chicago area. Now, you may say — but I know how they go, and it’s not honest. It isn’t honest. So, if it’s close, the Democrats are going to — they’re going — and I’m not accusing anyone of anything. But I know the entrenched power in the Seattle area and the Chicago area is Democrat. You wouldn’t argue with that. The entrenched power is Democrat.

GINGRICH: It always helps if you’re the Republican candidate in certain states to win by a big enough margin.

O’REILLY: You’ve got to win by four or five –

GINGRICH: That’s right.

O’REILLY: — all right, to win in those states.

GINGRICH: In order to win by two.

O’REILLY: Right.

GINGRICH: That’s right.

O’REILLY: And Patty Murray is a bad senator, awful. Rossi — I don’t know the guy, but he’s — you know, he’s tied with her now. And, that again, you would indicate that the challenger beats the incumbent when they’re tied, but not in those states.

Fox Nation: “O’Reilly Warns of Massive Midterm Voter Fraud.” On October 6, The Fox Nation linked to a clip of the O’Reilly Factor segment on its front page:

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