Rep. Paul Broun: The ramifications of health reform will be like ?the Great War of Yankee Aggression.?
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on March 20th, 2010 4:45 am by HL
Rep. Paul Broun: The ramifications of health reform will be like ?the Great War of Yankee Aggression.?
As the vote on health care approaches, Republican lawmakers are attacking the legislation with increasingly bizarre and hateful comments. Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), a far right lawmaker who has led much of the opposition to health reform, took to the floor of the House of Representatives last night to deliver a diatribe against health reform. […]
As the vote on health care approaches, Republican lawmakers are attacking the legislation with increasingly bizarre and hateful comments. Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), a far right lawmaker who has led much of the opposition to health reform, took to the floor of the House of Representatives last night to deliver a diatribe against health reform. Previously, Broun had compared President Obama to a dictator who would impose martial law. But last night, Broun out-performed his reactionary colleagues and even his own track record of absurdity. Bellowing into the microphone, Broun said that “if ObamaCare passes,” a “free insurance card” (which is not in the bill) will be “as worthless as a Confederate dollar after the “Great War of Yankee Aggression“:
BROUN: If ObamaCare passes, that free insurance card that’s in people’s pockets is gonna be as worthless as a Confederate dollar after the War Between The States — the Great War of Yankee Aggression.
Watch it:
Rather than simply distort the legislation by lying about how much it costs or how it will affect people, the right has tried to build opposition to health reform using racial, militant rhetoric. As ThinkProgress reported yesterday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) compared health reform to a Japanese suicide bombing attack. And Glenn Beck has continuously referred to health reform as “reparations” for slavery. But Broun’s analogy between health reform and a “Great War of Yankee Aggression” might take the cake for its coded racism, historical revisionism, and outright level of detachment from reality. (HT: Media Matters Action Network)
Dutch officials call Sheehan?s theory blaming gay soldiers for the Srebrenica massacre ?complete nonsense.?
Yesterday, ret. Gen. John J. Sheehan, the former Supreme Allied Commander for NATO, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) could harm the competency of the U.S. military. To back up his claim, he argued that Netherlands’ allowance of gay men and women to serve openly played a […]
Yesterday, ret. Gen. John J. Sheehan, the former Supreme Allied Commander for NATO, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) could harm the competency of the U.S. military. To back up his claim, he argued that Netherlands’ allowance of gay men and women to serve openly played a role in the devastating Srebrenica genocide in 1995. From his exchange with committee chairman Carl Levin (D-MI):
SHEEHAN: The case in point that I’m referring to was when the Dutch were required to defend Sbrenecia against the Serbs, the battalion was understrength, poorly led. And the Serbs came into town, handcuffed the soldiers to the telephone polls, marched the Muslims off and executed them. That was the largest massacre in Europe since World War II.
LEVIN: And did the Dutch leaders tell you it was because there were gay soldiers there?
SHEEHAN: It was a combination –
LEVIN: Did they tell you that?
SHEEHAN: Yes.
Dutch officials, however, are forcefully rejecting Sheehan’s outrageous claim. “It is astonishing that a man of his stature can utter such complete nonsense,” said the Dutch defense ministry spokesman, pointing out that international investigations of the Srebrenica massacre found no evidence “that the sexual orientation of soldiers played a role.” The Dutch ambassador to the United States said she “couldn’t disagree more” with Sheehan’s statement, and Dutch caretaker Defense Minister Eimert van Middelkoop called the claim “‘damaging’ and not worthy of a soldier. ‘I don’t want to waste any more words on it,’ he said.” Gen. Henk van den Breemen, Dutch Chief of Staff at the time of the Srebrenica genocide, added that Sheehan was spouting “total nonsense.”
