CURING ALL THAT AILS THE DEMOCRATS? WELL... HOW ABOUT THIS FOR A START?

Yesterday I wrote a long and sometimes meandering post about Blue America taking direct action against the 5 renegade Democrats who joined the GOP to support Bush's veto of health insurance for needy children. Blue America and some of our allies from other blogs hope to run 40,000 calls into each of the districts of the 5 reactionaries and make sure the voters know that there are even some Democrats who vote like Republicans.

This shot over their bows is an action we're asking you to help out with. The idea is to get them to vote with the Democratic Party leadership when an attempt is made to override Bush's veto (October 18). The DCCC is covering the Republicans and trying to pressure some of them into switching votes. We like that. And we think the 5 Democrats-- Jim Marshall (GA), Mike McIntyre (NC), Bob Etheridge (NC), Baron Hill (IN), and Gene Taylor (MS)-- need the same kind of prodding.

You can donate at the Blue America PAC, not for one of our endorsed candidates but to the PAC itself, near the top of the page.

The calls were recorded by Michelle James a working mother who is hard-pressed to make ends meet and can't afford the cost of health care for her son. Listen to the message to Gene Taylor of Mississippi.



Taylor has a really awful voting record, in many ways the very worst of any Democrat in the House of Representatives. He voted against health care for needy children and he votes consistently with the Republicans on most crucial issues. He's virulently anti-choice (and even opposes the use of contraceptives) and on Iraq... he's as bad as any Bush Dog and many Republicans. He's earned these calls. Let's hold them accountable for how they vote. The kids can't do it themselves.

Do putative Democratic Reps. McIntyre, Hill, Marshall, Taylor and Etheridge but onto their side's strategy to demonize Graeme Frost, the 12 year old who made the plea for support for S-CHIP last Saturday? Do you consider yourself the kind of person with a heart? Or are you a Republican? If you think you have a heart, please read Digby's post on how Boehner and the GOP has decided to smear the Frost family.

This is so loathsome I am literally sick to my stomach. These kids were hurt in a car accident. Their parents could not afford health insurance --- and sure as hell couldn't get it now with a severely handicapped daughter. And these shrieking wingnut jackasses are harassing their family for publicly supporting the program that allowed the kids to get health care. A program, by the way, which a large number of these Republicans support as well.

They went after Michael J. Fox. They went after a wounded Iraq war veteran. Now they are going after handicapped kids. There is obviously no limit to how low these people will go.

They'd better pray that they stay rich and healthy and live forever because if there is a hell these people are going to be on the express train to the 9th circle the minute they shuffle off their useless mortal coils.

Christy over at FDL has a great take on this too. But one more thing before I move on to write a story on the latest Republican caught in a toilet trying to fellate some person trying to relieve himself-- who probably voted for the Party of Hatred and Bigotry... In today's Wahington Post Jeff Birnbaum writes about how Harry Reid is giving up on the Democrats' promise to tax billion dollar hedge funds fairly. Is that because Harry Reid and the Senate Democratic leaders are bowing to the pressures-- and enticements-- of the millions of dollars spent by lobbyists to deep six this? Possibly. "Reid's assurance all but ends the year's highest-profile battle over a major tax increase. Democratic lawmakers, including some presidential candidates, had been pushing to more than double the tax rate on the massive earnings of private-equity managers, who the Democrats say have been chronically undertaxed."

In response, private-equity firms -- whose multibillion-dollar deals have created a class of superwealthy investors and taken some of America's large corporations private -- hired dozens of lobbyists, stepped up campaign contributions and lined up business allies to wage an unusually conspicuous lobbying blitz. Their argument was that higher taxes would run counter to accepted tax policy and slow economic growth.

Some lawmakers have touted the tax boost as a way to pay for such expensive measures as the repeal of the alternative minimum tax, which this year alone threatens to increase taxes on 23 million households. But lawmakers and lobbyists agree that if the tax is not raised this year, its chances are not strong in 2008, either; Congress tends to be leery of tax increases in election years.

In one meeting with industry representatives last month, Reid said the private-equity tax plan would not be considered in the Senate this year, according to a participant. Rather than citing the lobbying push, Reid implied that the reason had to do with the lack of time on the jammed Senate schedule.

The "jammed schedule?" Condemning citizens banding together to do what Reid and the Democrats should be doing-- ending the occupation of Iraq? Obama says it's the lobbyists and he may be right. I just say it's too many fake Democrats like Mike McIntyre, Jim Marshall, Gene Taylor, Baron Hill and Bob Etheridge. Wanna do something about it? For real?


UPDATE: JANE SEZ

Jane Hamsher over at FDL just found out from some Republican shills she knows that there are no poor people in America. Who knew?


UPDATE: GOING DOWN WITH THE SCHIP

Does Bush have compromising photos of each of the pathetic pygmies™? How else could anyone explain why they're backing his gigantically unpopular veto? Ruth Marcus gives it a try in tomorrow's Washington Post they're all congenital liars and don't even know when they're lying.