Thursday Mashup Part Two (3/25/10)

(Part One is over here.)

1) In their seemingly inexhaustible efforts to prevent health care reform from being enacted in this country for upwards of 40 million uninsured Americans, the U.S. Senate Republicans have introduced (at last count) 32 amendments as part of the reconciliation process (here).

They are all ridiculous, but the most outrageous one may have been proposed by Tom Coburn of Oklahoma (figures), which states as follows:

"To reduce the cost of providing federally funded prescription drugs by eliminating fraudulent payments and prohibiting coverage of Viagra for child molesters and rapists and for drugs intended to induce abortion." (Amendment #3556)

In response, TPM tells us the following (here)…

The Louisiana Democrats released a snarky little statement today, calling out Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), who has introduced a health care amendment to the try to prevent states from providing drugs like Viagra to convicted sex offenders.

Said the Dems of Coburn: "Surely he would agree that anyone who has admitted or been found guilty of involvement with prostitution should not be covered either."

(Among other reasons why Coburn’s amendment is stupid is because it would never stand up to the inevitable court challenge.)

Of course, the Louisiana Dems were taking a well-deserved shot at Diaper Dave Vitter, who has been found guilty of soliciting prostitutes and still, as a living, breathing testimony to Republican hypocrisy, continues to serve in the U.S. Senate.

As noted above, though, this is really just another stunt by Coburn to make abortions less safe in this country (with the highlighted text in the amendment “flying under the radar” while everybody else focuses on the “Viagra for child molesters” thing) by making it harder for women to obtain the drugs for this still-legal procedure. And to get an understanding of why it should remain this way, please click here to read the heartbreaking story of “K.B.” (I’m trying in my admittedly small way to put a human face on this issue, a task our corporate media refuses to perform possibly because they may be criticized with the evergreen right-wing lie of “liberal bias”).

Update: Looks like Coburn is taking a page out of the Jim Bunning play book here (how proud those single-digit-IQ life forms in Oklahoma must be for sending this cretin back to Washington).

2) Also, it is a further testimony to the infantile state of the Republican Party in this country that one of their “leaders,” House Rep Eric Cantor of Virginia, refuses to criticize the violent actions of those opposed to health care reform, but instead here, with his typically cowardly deceit, uses the issue as an excuse to blame Democrats for “fanning the flames,” as noted here by Dem House Rep Tom Perriello of Virginia; see, the wingnuts attacked what they thought was Perriello’s house by cutting the gas line – real nice; lucky that an inferno didn’t take place – but it turned out that it was the house of Perriello’s brother instead (Rachel Maddow discussed this last night, I know).

(Oh, but Cantor’s house was supposedly shot at also, so that makes Cantor’s criticism of the Democrats for inciting the violence OK….WHAAAA?????!!!!!).

Oh, and “Man Tan” Boehner said that those engaged in violent acts should “channel their anger into campaigns.”

Uh, no…

"I thought his statement was fairly outrageous," Perriello said. "What he was saying was, 'For those of you who are threatening people's children, we want you to channel that anger into the campaign.'

"No, we want those people to go to jail," Perriello said. "As my very conservative attorney general (in VA) said, these people need to be prosecuted, not brought into the campaign room."

Now, can anybody tell me why people who pose as reasonable adults like Cantor and Boehner can’t utter those words?

At least Mike Pence of Indiana had this to say (here)…

(The health care reform law) is no excuse for bigotry, threats or acts of vandalism and I condemn such things in the strongest possible terms. People who engage in such acts undermine our cause and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Of course, Pence would be a lot more credible on this had he not participated in “Lonesome Rhodes” Beck’s little “9/12” party here, and said the following…

As Ronald Reagan said in 1964, it's about whether 'we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.' My money is on the American people. My money is on freedom. My money is on the future.

This great national Capitol is filled with memorials to freedom's heroes. Americans whose faces are carved in bronze, whose names adorn monuments, and just across that river, lie the remains of Americans who paid freedom's price so we could gather here today. In their time, they did freedom's work as citizens and patriots. Now it's our turn.

Let us do as those great Americans we remember in this city have done before: let us stand and fight for freedom. And if we hold the banner of freedom high, I believe with all my heart that the good and great people of this country will rally to our cause, we will take this Congress back in 2010 and we will take this Country back in 2012, so help us God.

“American Revolution”? “Our turn” to “(pay) freedom’s price”? Images of memorials to “freedom’s heroes”? “Stand and fight for freedom”?

Call me a filthy, unkempt liberal blogger, but that to me sounds like an incitement to violence.

So help me God.

Update 1: And isn't this a charming correspondence?

Update 2: And so much for the "threat" on Cantor (here).

Update 3/26/10: God, is Cantor an idiot (here).

3) Finally, I don’t know about you (and I’ll admit that there’s even more of a theme to these three items than I first thought), but I’m getting tired of reading stories like this one, in which Senate Republicans basically are refusing to do their jobs and are shutting down the function of government (and as Think Progress tells us, this is actually a big deal, particularly concerning a Senate Armed Services Committee meeting in which “a couple of the commanders had traveled long distances to attend today’s hearing, from as far away as Japan,” though “Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), speaking on behalf of Republicans, objected and blocked the request” to proceed with the meeting).

(Oh, and by the way, to do something about Burr, click here.)

I’ve done a bit of digging through Senate history to look for some kind of a precedent upon which to base a response to those who refuse to do what they were elected to do, and this article tells us that, when ten southern senators joined the Confederacy at the onset of The Civil War (perhaps appropriate?)…

Daniel Clark (R-NH) on July 10, 1861, submitted a resolution asking for their expulsion from the Senate. Clark cited the failure of these senators to appear in the chamber and their active involvement in the Confederate government as evidence that they had participated in a conspiracy against the peace and union of the United States government. The resolution he introduced stated:

Whereas a conspiracy has been formed against the peace, union, and liberties of the people and Government of the United States; and in furtherance of such conspiracy a portion of the people of the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Texas, have attempted to withdraw those States from the Union, and are now in arms against the Government; and whereas [the senators from those states] have failed to appear in their seats in the Senate and to aid the Government in this important crisis; and it is apparent to the Senate that said Senators are engaged in said conspiracy for the destruction of the Union and Government, or, with full knowledge of such conspiracy, have failed to advise the Government of its progress or aid in its suppression: Therefore,

Resolved, That the said Mason, Hunter, Clingman, Bragg, Chesnut, Nicholson, Sebastian, Mitchel, Hemphill, and Wigfall be, and they hereby are, each and all of them, expelled from the Senate of the United States.

Now I’ll grant you that our circumstances, though still dangerous, are less extreme than they were in 1861, and a resolution such as this would never be passed, but it would get the attention of obstructionist Republicans, if nothing else.

And if the resolution fails and they keep obstructing, then keep introducing it. Give these idiots a taste of their own medicine (and would it really be a bad thing if the resolution somehow were to actually pass after all?).