{"id":6169,"date":"2011-10-22T00:46:12","date_gmt":"2011-10-22T07:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/22\/the-coward-clucked\/"},"modified":"2011-10-22T00:46:12","modified_gmt":"2011-10-22T07:46:12","slug":"the-coward-clucked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/22\/the-coward-clucked\/","title":{"rendered":"The Coward Clucked"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republicans live to speak to audiences that have been prescreened for loyalty, where anyone who might disagree is removed, sometimes forcibly.  They love hijacking Democratic meetings with Teabaggers, carefully taught what to think, say and do. and then bussed in, at billionaire expense, to disrupt the meeting.  But what does a Republican leader say when informed that spontaneous protesters will attend his speech?  This is not an exact quote, but it is a reliable interpretation: Bwaaack-buk-buk-buk-buk!<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"CantorHat\"House Majority Leader Eric Cantor canceled a speech on income inequality<\/a> at the University of Pennsylvania Friday morning, after his office was told that the school opened the speech to the public<\/strong> and it was targeted by protesters \u2014 including Occupy Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

The Virginia Republican\u2019s speech was pre-empted by protests from liberal groups and unions, who were set to start demonstrating well before the scheduled 4:30 p.m. start time of Cantor\u2019s address.<\/p>\n

Cantor\u2019s office was told that only the university community would be invited to attend the event, but Capitol Police informed the majority leader\u2019s office Thursday night that the first 300 people in line would be allowed in. The Daily Pennsylvanian, the campus paper, reported that protesters were allowed to move from the street onto Penn\u2019s campus hours before the speech was slated to begin. The college paper reported that protesters were planning to be there as early as 9 a.m\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Politico<\/a>><\/p>\n

Now, if Cantor planned an honest presentation on the causes of and need to address income inequality, as advertised, he should have nothing to fear from the protesters.  They have the same concerns and would listen to any serious proposal.  Could it be that Cantor knew they would not tolerate a meaningless dog and pony show?  Here\u2019s what was to be in the speech.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"22income-inequalityJ\"…Cantor\u2019s speech quite literally has no policy proposals in it at all. In fact, the closest he comes to presenting an actual idea is a plea not to say mean things about rich people<\/a><\/font> or ask them to pay their fair share in taxes:<\/font><\/p>\n

There are politicians and others who want to demonize people that have earned success in certain sectors of our society. They claim that these people have now made enough, and haven\u2019t paid their fair share. But, pitting Americans against one another tends to deflate the aspirational spirit of our people and fade the American dream.<\/font><\/strong><\/span> I believe that the most successful among us are positioned to use their talents to help grow our economy and give everyone a hand up the ladder and the dignity of a job. We should encourage them to extend their creativity and generosity to helping build the community infrastructure that provides a hand up and a fair shot to those less fortunate. […]<\/font><\/p>\n

Instead of talking about a fair share or spending time trying to push those at the top down, elected leaders in Washington should be trying to ensure that everyone has a fair shot and the opportunity to earn success up the ladder.<\/font><\/strong><\/span> The goal shouldn\u2019t be for everyone to meet in the middle of the ladder. We should want all people to be moving up and no one to be pulled down. How do we do that? It cannot simply be about wealth redistribution. You don\u2019t just take from the guy at the top to give to the guy at the bottom and expect our problems to be solved.<\/font><\/p>\n

Cantor also mentions that lawmakers should embrace \u201ca Steve Jobs Plan [Cantor delinked],\u201d under which \u201cthose who are successful not only create good jobs and services that make our lives better, they also give back and help everyone move just a little bit further up the ladder and everybody wins.\u201d But that\u2019s it. No actual ideas of any kind. Cantor\u2019s entire speech is a story about his grandmother and a plea to not raise taxes on the wealthy\u2026 [emphasis original<\/em><\/span>]<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Think Progress<\/a>><\/p>\n

No wonder!!  Because he had to offer but platitudes and lies, the coward clucked.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republicans live to speak to audiences that have been prescreened for loyalty, where anyone who might disagree is removed, sometimes forcibly.  They love hijacking Democratic meetings with Teabaggers, carefully taught what to think, say and do. and then bussed in, at billionaire expense, to disrupt the meeting.  But what does a Republican leader say when […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}