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GOP: Obama, Biden Incite Wall Street Protests

Friday, 07 Oct 2011 01:02 PM

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are under increasing attack for egging on the burgeoning Occupy Wall Street protest that has spread to cities across the country.

Senior Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah said he believes comments Obama made about “running Republicans out of town” could end up turning the protests ugly.

“We are going to have riots in this country because of what these people are doing," he warned.

Hatch said Obama’s words coupled with by Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa’s Labor Day speech in which he called tea party members “sons of bitches” who should be “taken out” could incite violence.

"They are going to get people very angry and sooner or later people who basically are dependent upon the federal government and are about to be cut back, yeah, you are going to have lots of problems," Hatch told reporters in Salt Lake City, one of many places that have seen protests.

Fellow Republican Sen. Rand Paul joined in the attack on the White House, calling Obama’s comments “inflammatory,” and saying the protesters reminded him of the Paris mob during the French Revolution.

“I see the president’s rhetoric of envy inflaming the public,” the Kentucky senator told Fox News’ Judge Andrew Napolitano."

“I hope ultimately it doesn’t result in lawlessness where they say, ‘Gosh those nice iPads through the window should be mine and why don’t I throw a brick through the window to get them because rich people don’t deserve to have them when I can’t have one.’”

Obama said during his Thursday press conference that voters will “run Republicans out of town” if they refuse to pass his jobs bill. He then expressed sympathy for the Occupy Wall Street movement which started in lower Manhattan three weeks ago. He said it “expresses the frustrations that the American people feel.”

“We had the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, huge collateral damage all throughout the country, all across Main Street, and yet you’re still seeing some of the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to fight efforts to crack down on abusive practices that got us into this problem in the first place,” Obama said.

“People are frustrated and the protesters are giving voice to a more broad-based frustration about how our financial system works.”

Biden likened the protests to the birth of the tea party. “What is the core of that protest?” he asked. “The core is: The bargain has been breached. The core is the American people do not think the system is fair, or on the level. That is the core is what you’re seeing with Wall Street.

“There’s a lot in common with the tea party,” he said at the Washington Ideas Forum. “The tea party started, why? TARP. They thought it was unfair.”

Biden is not the only one likening the movement to the tea party. The Los Angeles Times asked whether the movement is “a tea party for Democrats.”

The idea was shot down by Tea Party Express chairwoman Amy Kremer. She told Britain’s Guardian newspaper the protesters were like “a kid having a temper tantrum because their parents won't buy them the whole ice-cream store.

“Their demands are ridiculous, absurd." Kremer added. "This isn't Wall Street's fault. It's Washington's fault – and that's where they should focus their efforts."

But David Webb of Manhattan-based Tea Party 365 believed there are similarities. “The transport unions are getting behind it, rabble rousing and agitating, moveon.org is imposing its progressive agenda on it," he told the Guardian.

"I accept that there will always be institutions or individuals who want to take advantage of any grass-roots movement," added Webb. "They tried to take advantage of us, but by and large we said no. We don't yet know whether Occupy Wall Street will do the same."

The Occupy Wall Street protests have spread to cities including Washington DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver and Tampa in the past week. Although ostensibly an anti-big business demonstration, it has attracted groups concerned with a wide range of left wing issues.

Jonathan Collegio who works for Karl Rove’s American Crossroads office in Washington told Newsmax that protesters near his 14th Street office had signs ranging from “Voting is a Hoax – Wake Up” to “Jail Obama” to “The military budget is KILLING Washington State!” and even “Stop Cheating Movie Goers.”

“It’s just your generic left wing protest,” said Collegio. “It reminded me of those World Bank/IMF protests from about 10 years ago, where the exact cause was nebulous, and the protests were instead a cornucopia of disparate left wing causes from veganism to anarchy.”

Tea party aligned Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia agreed. “They don’t know why they’re there. They’re just mad,” he told ABC’s Top Line.

“Now the unions seem to be weighing in and trying to subvert that anger into a political power to try to re-elect a president whose policies are just totally ignorant and incompetent about the economy and how to create jobs and how to create freedom in this country.”

Radio host Rush Limbaugh described the protesters as Obama’s base. “He expressed his solidarity because those are his campaign foot soldiers down there. He can't turn his back on them this close to the elections,” Limbaugh said.

Leading Republicans have also bashed the movement. Presidential candidate Herman Cain said he believed the whole protest movement has been “planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama Administration.

“Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks, if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself. It is not someone's fault if they succeeded, it is someone's fault if they failed.”

And Majority House leader Eric Cantor called the protesters “a mob” saying he was becoming “increasingly concerned” about the growing movement.

Colleen

He's showing his true colors and agenda more and more. Anyone who votes for this man again is truly wearing blinders.