Tainted Saints

[Proving that there is at least one Republican left in the U.S. with a conscience...-Ed.]

Rep. Jim Campbell, a veteran Republican state legislator in Maine, has announced he’s leaving the party over its inability to solve his state’s and the nation’s broken health care system. In a statement, Campbell expresses frustration with the party, saying he wants to “send a message” to Republicans in Washington to stop blocking health care reform for “partisan gain”:

This move has been a long time coming for me. I have been very frustrated with the Republican Party in Maine, and nationally, for their failure to address the health care crisis in a meaningful way. Nobody has all the answers, but the Republican Party has none when it comes to health care reform.

This move is about the working people and our seniors who need action. I became a Republican because I believed the party stood for something. I hope to send a message to the Republican Party – and the Democratic Party – that enough is enough; it is time to stop blocking progress in the hope of partisan gain.

Republicans have been brazenly using parliamentary tricks to slow down the health care bill in attempt to kill it before the Democrats’ self-imposed Christmas deadline. In October, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA), who himself left the GOP, ripped his former party as “a party of obstructionism.”

Today’s links courtesy of Think Progress and Crooks and Liars.

Right-Wing Projection Theater: Bennett compares climate-change science to Nazi medicine, debate to Hitler’s persecutions

The Rachel Maddow Show: Tea Baggers Taking Over the Republican Party

DeMint Laughably Claims Republicans Have Been Acting In ‘Good Faith’ To Improve Health Care Reform

Fox News: Ben Nelson Opposes Health Reform Because He ‘Understands The True Meaning Of Christmas’ »

Yep. The ‘Party of No’ Blocks War Funding To Delay Health-Care Bill.

Alan Greenspan, Born-Again Deficit Hawk

I haven’t been posting about “the Republicans” and they’re brainless campaigns against death panels, socialism, and so on, because other sites handle that side of things really well — especially Think Progress. I’ve been trying to remain high-minded about them because they’re just a distraction from the real issues we’re facing (which is their whole point…)

But I’ve been thinking lately that if I ignore these vermin completely, then that means I’m really in denial about them and the very real damage they’re doing (aided by the Democrats who use them as an excuse to not do anything at all.)  So beginning today, I will be posting a daily summary of the antics of the blockhead Republican contingency and their latest attempts to subvert common decency.

Glenn Beck Defends Founding Fathers’ Decision To Count African-Americans As Three-Fifths Of A Person

Republicans Obstruct Health Care Debate By Demanding Reading Of Sanders’ 767-Page Single-Payer Amendment

Bush officials e-mailed bogus rumor blaming Al Gore for failure to kill Bin Laden

Dick Armey mocks Rachel Maddow, referring to her as ‘a woman named Maddox’ who ‘has a Ph.D. in something that doesn’t matter.’

– Do you want to heckle the President during his address to the nation?
– Do you want to suggest that smacking around your wife doesn’t really count for assault, and neither does killing homosexuals?
– Do you want to tell foreign governments the United States can’t be trusted?
– Do you want to refute scientific research by quoting biblical prophesy?
– Do you want to declare that wives should be submissive to their husbands?
– Do you want to pass laws to establish the Bible as the word of God for all Americans?
– Do you want to scare women with a false link between breast cancer and abortion?
– Do you think stiffer penalties for anti-gay violence are a threat to your freedom?
– Do you believe that same-sex marriage is a purely socialist concept?
– Do you want someone to call Michelle Obama “uppity”?
– Did Obama’s election send you looking for a “great white hope to save the GOP”?
– Do you want to push your political agenda by exploiting the fears of senior citizens?
– Veterans?
– Parents of disabled children?

“We’ve got a Rep for that.” (Click for specific references and videos.)

Senate Democrats are rejecting Republicans’ demands to slow things down, charging that the GOP isn’t interested in working with the majority to craft a bipartisan health care bill. Rather, Reid said repeatedly last week, the Republicans’ primary goal is to sink reform in order to undercut President Barack Obama.