Tea Partiers menace Congressional Dems with name calling: Ni**er, Fag**tA swarm of health care protesters, many holding Tea Party signs, heckled members of Congress with racial epithets and abusive language as the House votes on health care reform.We had a whole year of Republicans lying, distorting and throwing temper tantrums to stop Democrats from helping working Americans, so why not throw in a fake memo. Since modern conservative live in the ideological gutter one more dirty trick is no big deal, right? GOP accused of circulating ‘hoax’ health care memo
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a "faggot," causing the surrounding crowd to erupt in laughter. A staffer for Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said a protester spat on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.). Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a leader of the civil rights movement, was called a "ni**er."
Although Frank shrugged off the incident, Clyburn was shocked and told reporters that he hadn't experienced such treatment since leading protests in South Carolina in the 1960s.
"It was absolutely shocking to me," Clyburn told the Huffington Post. "Last Monday, this past Monday, I stayed home to meet on the campus of Claflin University where fifty years ago as of last Monday... I led the first demonstrations in South Carolina, the sit ins... And quite frankly I heard some things today I have not heard since that day. I heard people saying things that I have not heard since March 15, 1960 when I was marching to try and get off the back of the bus."
GOP accused of circulating hoax health care memoUPDATE AT BOTTOM: GOP pushed 'hoax' memo on to reporters before it was verified: report
Second update: Rep. Anthony Weiner rips GOP on House floor for 'producing fake memos'
The Democratic leadership in Washington, DC, has accused Republicans of circulating a "hoax" Democrat memo promising to revisit the health care issue after the reform measure has passed, in order to tack another $371 billion in costs to it.
On Friday, news site Politico published an article -- no longer available online -- which stated that a Democratic strategy document showed the party was planning to reintroduce the "doc fix" it had abandoned during health reform debate last year. The "doc fix" aims to prevent further cuts to Medicare payments, and would cost an estimated $371 billion.
Politico reported that the Democrats had kept the plan secret in order not to scare off support for the current health care reform proposal. The news site also noted that Democrats had removed the doc fix from health reform in order to make the reforms deficit-neutral, which they would not have been if the doc fix had been included.
Story continues below...
The memo, which can be viewed here, suggested some surprising tactics for Democrats to follow.
"We have increasingly noticed how right-wing fringe media are trying to pick apart the CBO score," a passage in the memo stated. "We cannot emphasize enough: Do not allow yourself ... to get into a discussion on CBO scores and textual narrative. Instead, focus only on the deficit reduction and the number of Americans covered."
"If this were a Democratic communications person who wrote this, they should be fired, because this looks like Republican talking points," an unnamed Democratic aide told TalkingPointsMemo's Christina Bellantoni.
The Politico report was quickly linked to by conservative news aggregator Matt Drudge, and appeared well on its way to being a major talking point in Washington ahead of this weekend's vote on health care, when TPM's Bellantoni reported that Democratic party leaders were disputing the authenticity of the memo and accusing Republicans of trying to foist a "hoax" on the public.
A senior Democratic leadership aide told TPMDC in an interview the memo, printed by Politico and leading the Drudge Report this afternoon a few days ahead of the health care vote Sunday, is "a hoax."
"We have checked with every Democratic office, no one has ever seen it. It did not come out of a Democratic office," the aide said, adding that media outlets printing the memo have not checked with leadership offices if the memo is authentic. A second Democratic leadership aide confirmed the memo was not sent by the Democrats. A third Democratic aide also said the memo is fake, citing the "draft" stamp and saying no one uses such things.
"This is an unethical underhanded dirty trick by Republicans to try and distract from important debate on health care reform," a "senior Democratic leadership aide" told TPM.
As of Friday afternoon, Politico had removed its report from the Web, replacing it with a note stating, "An earlier post in this spot detailed what was purported by Republicans to be an internal Democratic memo regarding the upcoming health reform vote Sunday. Democratic leadership has challenged the authenticity of the memo. POLITICO has removed the memo and the details about it until we can absolutely verify the document’s origin."
Conservatives have modeled their misinformation campaign on that of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
