Reflexive Aisle-crossing In Women's Health Issues And Heavy Weapons

Ideal for Texarkana-- but in DC people have progressed a bit more

Yesterday the Senate voted down an amendment by anti-choice fanatic John Ensign (R-NV), 56-41, predictably, most of the Democrats voting against it and most of the Repugs voting for it. Before we look at the exceptions to the party stands, let me make it clear that Ensign's amendment wasn't meant to pass, just to draw a line in the sand for the two sides to stand on either side of. It was meant to please the lunatic fringe religious right base by targeting "crisis pregnancy centers, and organizations that serve battled women or victims of rape or incest." The single issue nuts can mark it down on their little score cards that determine how they grade senators.

Now that Specter has decided to throw his lot in with the far right, he flip-flopped again today and is suddenly Mr. Anti-choice. Something tells me that despite his craven vote, Pennsylvania anti-choice fanatics will figure out that Toomey is one of them, not someone condescending to them. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both of Maine, were the only Republicans to vote for women's basic rights. The Democrats who abandoned the party were avowed anti-choicers Ben Nelson (NE) and Bob Casey (PA). But this amendment didn't have much to do with pushing forward any anti-choice agenda. For Nelson and Casey, it was just a way to remind the score card keepers that they have friends on the other side of the aisle.

Over in the House today a different kind of reactionary was at work-- 65 of them. “Now we know there are 65 pro-gun Democrats,” said right-wing Democrat Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR). “When you add up all the pro-gun Republicans and the pro-gun Democrats, that or any other anti-gun legislation is DOA... You could safely assume we’d also have the votes on the D.C. issue.” Basically, what Ross was posturing about was a letter he and 65 other Democrats sent to Attorney General Eric Holder warning him not to try to reinstate an assault-weapons ban. These loons want heavy weapons loose in the streets of America. They're out of their minds. The DC thing he referred to is basically a tactics for holding Washington's residents' voting rights hostage until gun control legislation-- which may be appropriate in Arkansas and other rural backwaters, but doesn't work in urban environments-- is off the books. I know folks in Arkansas and Tennessee need AK-47s to hunt a squirrel for din-din but in DC the only thing to hunt walks on two legs.

Republicans and the National Rifle Association want to add an amendment to the D.C. voting rights bill that would wipe out most of the District’s gun laws. The bill is stalled by the fear that the NRA would go after any centrist Democrat who votes for a procedural motion to prevent the addition of the gun amendment... [G]un-rights supporters in the Democratic Caucus have shown no willingness to buck the NRA on the D.C. bill issue, according to leadership aides.

I don't wish a violent death on anyone but imagine what a better country we'd have if a bunch of kooks with Uzis ran into 65 Blue Dogs as they were leaving Congress one evening on their way to whichever lobbyists' fundraisers they were attending that night!