From Thom Hartmann's radio show this Wednesday: Rep. Alan Grayson: No Chained CPI!:

Thom Hartmann talks with Representative Alan Grayson, U.S. Congressman (D-FL) about President Obama's budget proposal which includes cuts to Social Security.

Sign the petition here: NoCuts:

29 members of Congress have pledged to vote against legislation that cuts Social Security, Medicaid or Medicare benefits. Join us. If 100,000 of us sign this petition, I will deliver it to the White House.

Alan

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Rep. Alan Grayson joined the set of Current TV's Viewpoint this Tuesday evening and was asked about former vice presidential nominee and House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan's widely panned budget proposal just released this week, and as we've come to expect from Congressman Grayson, he didn't mince words with his criticism of just who Ryan is looking out for with his proposals.

Rep. Alan Grayson: Paul Ryan wants sick poor people to die:

While discussing the Republican congressman’s latest budget proposal on Current TV, Grayson accused Ryan of wishing a large swath of Americans would die.

“In one case after another, you look at his principles, you look at his vision, and they’re a nightmare for America,” he said. “He wants Americans to work until they die, he wants poor people who get sick not be able to see a doctor, not to get the care they need, not to get better, he wants them to die, and he wants an America that consists of nothing but cheap labor for his corporate patrons.”

Ryan’s budget would repeal most of Obamacare, partially privatize Medicare, and cut discretionary spending on food stamps and other programs, while lowering the corporate tax rate. Grayson claimed that Ryan also wanted to cut Social Security, citing Ryan’s self-professed admiration for the libertarian novelist Ayn Rand.

“Paul Ryan believes that Social Security is unconstitutional,” Grayson explained. “Just like anyone who follows the writings of Ayn Rand would believe. If you read the Fountianhead, if you read similar fiction — although they don’t regard it as fiction — you come to the conclusion that these are people who believe government itself, anything that does anything for people other than defend the borders, is fundamentally immoral and unconstitutional.”

Grayson didn't mince words as well when it came to President Obama and whether he might be willing to make a deal with Republicans which cuts our social safety nets: Rep. Alan Grayson: ‘There is no fiscal crisis’ and ‘Republicans are crisis junkies’ :

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Rep. Alan Grayson continues to come out with some of the best lines to describe the complete dysfunction in the House of Representatives.

via Eric Dolan at Raw Story

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) on Monday mocked the 67 House Republicans who voted against disaster relief funds for the victims of Hurricane Sanday.

“It’s the same 67 over and over again,” he noted on The Stephanie Miller Show. “It’s the bath salts caucus, the people that would rather eat your face than cut taxes on the rich.”

The bill provided $9.7 billion for those whose homes were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Sandy last year. The 67 Republicans who voted against the bill objected to it because the funds were not paid for with cuts to over government programs.

Grayson said that Republican obstruction in Congress had become worse since his previous term in the House of Representatives.

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Anyone who thinks Alan Grayson is going back to congress neutered after his loss in 2010 would be sadly mistaken. If anything his activities over Thanksgiving seem to indicate he's more ready to fight than ever.

Video and text by WKMG, Orlando.

ORLANDO, Fla. -U.S. Rep.-elect Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) joined a Walmart worker as she walked off her job in St. Cloud as part of a nationwide protest against the country's largest employer.

Grayson joined Walmart associate Lisa Lopez on Thanksgiving night to protest what employees says is the store's retaliation against workers who speak out for better job conditions.

On "Black Friday," Grayson also joined a walkout at a Walmart in Orlando.

Union-backed groups OUR Walmart and Making Change at Wal-Mart, along with watchdog group Corporate Action Network, are calling on the retailer to end what they call retaliation against employees who speak out for better pay, fair schedules and affordable health care.

Photo of @alangrayson with #WalmartStriker Lisa as she walked out of the store in Orlando, FL tonight. twitter.com/ForRespect/sta…

— ForRespect (@ForRespect) November 23, 2012

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via The Young Turks

Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL.) explains why he’s completely against the Obama administration agreeing to a Grand Bargain with Republicans. “The Democratic should be united,” Grayson says. “We are the party that created social security. We are the party that created Medicare. We should stand behind it, and we should protect it. It’s amazingly popular among the voters. Why should we shoot ourselves in the head by saying we’re going to end these programs or even cut back these programs?”

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Former Florida Rep. Alan Grayson and Blue America candidate Alan Grayson joined Current TV's John Fugelsang in the War Room to discuss the Fast and Furious and what the Republicans are really after with their witch hunt of Attorney General Eric Holder.

Grayson: Fast and Furious ‘circus’ will backfire on Republicans:

Former Florida Rep. Alan Grayson (D) on Wednesday blasted Republicans in Congress for continuing to grill U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder over the “fast and furious” gun-running scandal.

“Why won’t they launch an investigation of why 50 million Americans don’t have health care?” he asked on Current TV. “When are we going to see those investigations?” [...]

Grayson said the documents requested by Republicans could put law enforcement official at risk if released publicly. He described their investigation as a “circus” that was solely intent on harming the Obama administration.

“I think it is already back firing on them,” he said. “People are fed up with the Republicans. They understand the only thing they care about are tax cuts and giving the President a hard time — and I’m talking about tax cuts for the one percent.”

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Al Sharpton spoke to former Rep. Alan Grayson and Van Jones about the strength of the Occupy Wall Street movement and that both of them see the movement doing nothing but growing as our political class and the elites of America continue to remain disconnected from the 99 percent of the country that want to see the richest among us pay their fair share in taxes and something done about the extreme income disparity we've seen grow continually worse over the last decade.

You can find Van Jones site here -- Rebuild the Dream.

And if you'd like to donate to Alan Grayson's campaign, he's one of our Blue America candidates for '12 and you can do so here.

Transcript below the fold.

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Once upon a time PJ O'Rourke was thought in some circles to be a humorist. Not so much anymore. O'Rourke has a hard time getting his head around what this OccupyWallStreet thing is all about, seeing a bunch of goal-less, leaderless protesters, just a bunch of DFH's out playing bongos and smoking dope. Grayson quickly clarifies for O'Rourke why they're there, in beautifully succinct point-by-point form.

Grayson: Let me tell what they're talking about. They're complaining about the fact the Wall Street wrecked the economy three years ago and nobody's held responsible for that. Not a single person has been indicted or convicted for destroying twenty percent of our national net worth accumulated over two centuries. They're upset about the fact that wall street have iron control over economic policies of this country and that one party is a wholly owned subsidiary of wall street and the other party caters to them as well, that's the truth of the matter as you said before. And…

O'Rourke: Get the man a bongo drum, they've found their spokesman!

Grayson: If I…

O'Rourke: Get your shoes off, get a bongo drum, forget where to go to the bathroom and it's yours.

Grayson: If I am the spokesman for all the people who think we should not have twenty four million people in this country who can't find a full time job. That we should not have fifty million people who can't see a doctor when they're sick. That we shouldn't have forty seven million people of this country who need government help to feed themselves. And we shouldn't have fifteen million families who owe more on their mortgage than the value of home, OK, I'll be that spokesman..

EDITOR'S NOTE: Thanks PJ for exposing the conservative view of OWS.. We're not playing bongos, we're angry about the destruction Wall Street caused to America for their greed and C&L is going to try to feed all the protesters we can. Please donate to our #occupies Solidarity Pizzas fundraiser. Our C&L twitter feed has been rocking.

By the way, Alan Grayson articulates perfectly what this country is feeling. The 99%ers that is.

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As John wrote about yesterday, Alan Grayson is going to run for Congress again in Florida. He joined Ed Schultz to talk about the current negotiations going on right now over raising the debt ceiling and he didn't have too many kind words about our social safety nets being put on the table and for Republicans being given a complete pass for claiming we have to make huge cuts to the budget without explaining what those cuts are.

As Grayson noted, if we ended a lot of our ill advised military adventures, that would go a really long way towards balancing our budget rather than asking it be taken our of the hides of everyday Americans. Ed Schultz asked Grayson about President Obama putting Social Security on the table during these debt ceiling negotiations and I don't necessarily agree with the way Schultz characterized it since unfortunately we don't know enough details about what either side is offering up during these negotiations.

That said, I do agree that I don't think our social safety nets should have been put out there as a bargaining chip so that the Obama administration might be able to use to make the Republicans look like the unreasonable fools that they are if they still refuse to make a deal. The problem with making that offer is what if the Republicans take it? Then what?

Anyway, par for the course, Grayson as usual didn't pull too many punches here with how he feels about all of this.

Transcript below the fold.

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Lawrence O'Donnell and hosted a panel segment with Rep. Alan Grayson, the rabbi Michael Lerner, Jane Hamsher and Ralph Nader discussing the merits of a primary challenger to Barack Obama in 2012. Alan Grayson resisted answering whether he'd be willing to challenge the president, even though his name is one that comes up often in liberal circles with potential candidates to challenge Obama.

The panel agreed that they didn't think that the Democratic party needs a spoiler this time around and didn't think that anyone who might challenge the president would have much of a chance of winning, but they all agreed that there had better be some push back from the left to pull the president back to the middle after his hard tack to the right and his willingness to coddle up to Mitch McConnell and the Republicans and their tax cuts for the rich.

Lawrence O'Donnell also made up for his extremely rude behavior when Alan Grayson was on the show the previous night and apologized to him in the first part of this panel discussion which is not included here.

More on their discussion below the fold.

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