Conservatives Losing Again-- Turn Mean

I never said "motherfuckers" on DWT before and I recall even editing it out of guests' posts. But the sobs accompanying the tears I was just shedding weren't silent. They shook my whole body and they were loud. The sobs were for my country as it cascades towards dissolution, self-appointed arbiters of Americanism-- slaves to greed, selfishness and hostile bigotry themselves, from Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and Glenn Beck to Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter-- cheerleading the end of civility. I can barely write about it without shaking.

Yesterday, egged on by Republican political hacks and racists like Mike Pence (R-IN), John Boehner (R-OH), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Paul Broun (R-GA), Steve King (R-IA), and Michele Bachmann (R-Mars), angling to seize power for themselves and their corporate masters in November, Republican losers in tri-cornered hats with a basic knowledge of the world around them straight from Fox "News," cursed and spat on some of the congressmembers who spend their lives working on behalf of ordinary American families in need of a voice to speak up against the might of generational and corporate wealth. To them John Lewis is just a "nigger" and Barney Frank is a "faggot."

Civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) and fellow Congressional Black Caucus member Andre Carson (D-IN) related a particularly jarring encounter with a large crowd of protesters screaming "kill the bill"... and punctuating their chants with the word "nigger."

Standing next to Lewis, emerging from a Democratic caucus meeting with President Obama, Carson said people in the crowd yelled, "kill the bill and then the N-word" several times, while he and Lewis were exiting the Cannon House office building.

"People have been just downright mean," Lewis added.

Watch Tim Ryan on the House floor speaking for almost all Americans (not Republicans, of course):



As Tim Ryan said, John Lewis has stood up to far worse in his heroic life and he's not likely to get turned away from the historic moment tomorrow when Congress starts down the road to putting the U.S. in a position to compete with the rest of the industrialized world, all of which makes sure their citizens are able to get healthcare. No, he'll proudly vote "aye," probably extra proudly after President Obama's speech yesterday. Here was part of it:

I have the great pleasure of having a really nice library at the White House. And I was tooling through some of the writings of some previous Presidents and I came upon this quote by Abraham Lincoln: “I am not bound to win, but I’m bound to be true. I’m not bound to succeed, but I’m bound to live up to what light I have.”
 
This debate has been a difficult debate. This process has been a difficult process. And this year has been a difficult year for the American people. When I was sworn in, we were in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression. Eight hundred thousand people per month were losing their jobs. Millions of people were losing their health insurance. And the financial system was on the verge of collapse.
 
And this body has taken on some of the toughest votes and some of the toughest decisions in the history of Congress. Not because you were bound to win, but because you were bound to be true. Because each and every one of you made a decision that at a moment of such urgency, it was less important to measure what the polls said than to measure what was right.
 
A year later, we’re in different circumstances. Because of the actions that you’ve taken, the financial system has stabilized. The stock market has stabilized. Businesses are starting to invest again. The economy, instead of contracting, is now growing again. There are signs that people are going to start hiring again. There’s still tremendous hardship all across the country, but there is a sense that we are making progress-- because of you.
 
But even before this crisis, each and every one of us knew that there were millions of people across America who were living their own quiet crises. Maybe because they had a child who had a preexisting condition and no matter how desperate they were, no matter what insurance company they called, they couldn’t get coverage for that child. Maybe it was somebody who had been forced into early retirement, in their 50s not yet eligible for Medicare, and they couldn’t find a job and they couldn’t find health insurance, despite the fact that they had some sort of chronic condition that had to be tended to.
 
Every single one of you at some point before you arrived in Congress and after you arrived in Congress have met constituents with heart-breaking stories. And you’ve looked them in the eye and you’ve said, we’re going to do something about it-- that’s why I want to go to Congress. 
 
And now, we’re on the threshold of doing something about it. We’re a day away. After a year of debate, after every argument has been made, by just about everybody, we’re 24 hours away. 
 
As some of you know, I’m not somebody who spends a lot of time surfing the cable channels, but I’m not completely in the bubble. I have a sense of what the coverage has been, and mostly it’s an obsession with “What will this mean for the Democratic Party? What will this mean for the President’s polls? How will this play out in November? Is this good or is this bad for the Democratic majority? What does it mean for those swing districts?” 
 
And I noticed that there’s been a lot of friendly advice offered all across town. (Laughter.)  Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Karl Rove-- they’re all warning you of the horrendous impact if you support this legislation. Now, it could be that they are suddenly having a change of heart and they are deeply concerned about their Democratic friends. (Laughter.) They are giving you the best possible advice in order to assure that Nancy Pelosi remains Speaker and Harry Reid remains Leader and that all of you keep your seats. That’s a possibility. (Laughter.)
 
But it may also be possible that they realize after health reform passes and I sign that legislation into law, that it’s going to be a little harder to mischaracterize what this effort has been all about. 
 
Because this year, small businesses will start getting tax credits so that they can offer health insurance to employees who currently don’t have it. (Applause.) Because this year, those same parents who are worried about getting coverage for their children with preexisting conditions now are assured that insurance companies have to give them coverage-- this year. (Applause.) 
 
Because this year, insurance companies won’t suddenly be able to drop your coverage when you get sick-- (applause)-- or impose lifetime limits or restrictive limits on the coverage that you have. Maybe they know that this year, for the first time, young people will be able to stay on their parents’ health insurance until they’re 26 years old and they’re thinking that just might be popular all across the country. (Applause.)
 
And what they also know is what won’t happen. They know that after this legislation passes and after I sign this bill, lo and behold nobody is pulling the plug on Granny. (Laughter.) It turns out that in fact people who like their health insurance are going to be able to keep their health insurance; that there’s no government takeover. People will discover that if they like their doctor, they’ll be keeping their doctor. In fact, they’re more likely to keep their doctor because of a stronger system.
 
It’ll turn out that this piece of historic legislation is built on the private insurance system that we have now and runs straight down the center of American political thought. It turns out this is a bill that tracks the recommendations not just of Democrat Tom Daschle, but also Republicans Bob Dole and Howard Baker; that this is a middle-of-the-road bill that is designed to help the American people in an area of their lives where they urgently need help.

Clearly that video up there was Tim Ryan, an Ohio Democrat, not radical right corporate shill Paul Ryan from Wisconsin, the bank bailout king who has been making up all kinds of nonsense about the healthcare reform bill-- well, not making up... just recycling the same arguments that conservatives used when they opposed Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the right of workers to organize, the minimum wage, child safety, women's emancipation, and so on. It's the same scare and smear tactics. Today Paul Ryan told his constituents why they shouldn't have healthcare reform. He touched on every debunked GOP talking point-- debunked but still ingrained in the craniums of the violent mob of teabaggers Glenn Beck, Steve King and Rush Limbaugh called out to attack Congress today. Ryan:

Congress stands at the brink of jamming through the largest entitlement expansion in 40 years, the largest tax increase in American history, and a consequential acceleration of our nation's march toward bankruptcy. Through a cynical "deem-and-pass" procedural maneuver, the U.S. House of Representatives is set to send the Senate-passed health care overhaul to the President's desk on Sunday, while voting on a "reconciliation" bill that includes an array of new tax hikes and back-room deals.
 
If the consideration of the bill progresses as the Democratic Leadership intends, the House will send the 2700 page overhaul of one-sixth of the U.S. economy to the President's desk without an up-or-down vote. The use of "deeming and passing," employing the budget reconciliation process, and making deals with Members behind closed doors have all fueled resentment among the American people, further eroding our trust in Washington. The ugly process speaks to the even more troublesome policies that have been unable to stand on their own merits. 

 
...When you strip away the gimmicks and the faulty assumptions, it is clear this bill does not reduce the deficit and it does not contain costs. Instead, it creates a brand new open-ended entitlement at a time when we have no idea how to pay for our current unsustainable entitlement programs. This overhaul imposes job-killing tax hikes on all Americans at a time when we desperately need to get sustained job creation and economic growth going again. Most importantly, this legislation fails to improve the quality and affordability of health care in America.

...We all agree that meaningful health care reform is long overdue, but it is increasingly clear that Washington's trillion-dollar, two-thousand page overhaul will not only fail to address what's broken in health care - but will actually make matters worse. If we are serious about reaching bipartisan solutions, we ought to scrap this massive overhaul and start over - working from a clean sheet of paper to advance common sense patient-centered reforms.

Conservatives-- on both sides of the aisle, will oppose the bill today-- just as they have opposed all moves forward, from the Declaration of Independence to the freeing of the slaves to consumer protections that were needed to save Americans from Big Business predators. And whether it's Paul Ryan, Republican, or John Barrow, Blue Dog Democrat, conservatives are the servants, first and foremost, of the wealthy special interests who will also demand a maintenance of the status quo and, as I mentioned as an addendum to Ken's post yesterday on why right wingers are trying to expunge Thomas Jefferson from our history books, an exceptionalism for a class of ultra-wealthy parasites living off the rest of us. A quote of Jefferson that drives them insane with rage: "There is a debt of service due from every man to his country, proportioned to the bounties which nature and fortune have measured to him."

There are parts of this country so steeped in ignorance and bigotry that there's no chance of voters understanding how they destroy their own interests by electing conservatives. But this year offers grassroots Democrats opportunities to replace conservative Democrats like John Barrow and Bart Stupak with progressive primary challengers Regina Thomas and Connie Saltonstall, respectively in Georgia and Michigan. And it offers an opportunity to remove particularly onerous Republican radicals like Virginia Foxx (NC) and Ken Calvert (CA) and replace them with thoughtful progressives Billy Kennedy and Bill Hedrick.

In a district widely considered "too red" for a Democrat to win in, Billy is making headway against Virginia Foxx without mincing any words and without ever buying into conservative framing. Yesterday, for example, he sent this to voters in NC-05:

This is an historic moment in our country. Tomorrow the Congress will either pass or defeat a health insurance reform bill. I believe the incumbent is on the wrong side of history, and that's why I wanted her to explain her vote against working families on health insurance reform. My question is, if it's okay for our tax dollars to subsidize a career politician's insurance premiums, why can't the politicians extend the same access and affordability to the tax-payers?

Time and time again career politicians try to scare us into thinking that helping working families is somehow a "government takeover."  My father was a minister and an educator. After he retired, he was elected Mayor of Black Mountain. He found that he could help others by serving in government-that GOOD government DOES help people. 
 
I am going to Washington because I believe that the bickering, grand-standing and scare tactics have to end.  Simply put, our leaders need to put the "service" back into "public service," and get back to doing the people's business in the peoples' House.

John Hall (D-NY), who is being targeted by Republicans in the hope off knocking off a progressive voice from a swing district, also announced his support for healthcare reform yesterday. This is the letter he sent to Upstate voters:

After listening to thousands of constituents, meeting with health care professionals, and reading the pending health care insurance reform bills, I have decided to vote YES on Sunday.

I held more than 80 public events and meetings to get input from local families, businesses, and health care professionals. I’ve heard from local business owners in Stony Point and Somers who told me they couldn't afford the annual double digit increases in the insurance premiums for their employees. I sat in a living room in Warwick where a woman told me her insurance company canceled her policy while she was undergoing treatments for breast cancer. I heard from countless Seniors who are trapped in the Medicare donut hole and have to choose between food and medicine
because they can't afford to pay more for their prescription drugs.

Tomorrow the House of Representatives will take an up or down vote. I will be voting YES and here is why. The bill:
• Immediately protects people with preexisting conditions
• Prevents insurance companies from dropping people when they get sick
• Prohibits annual and lifetime caps on benefits
• Closes the Medicare donut hole for prescription drugs
• Provides tax credits for small businesses who provide coverage for their employees
• Allows young people to stay on their parents' coverage until they turn 26, and
• Allows 32 million Americans who are currently uninsured to have access to high quality, affordable health care

You elected me to solve the problems we face. The status quo is unacceptible. We all know someone who is harmed by the current health insurance system. Just saying no will not change anything. This bill demonstrates we can make progress towards achieving our goals.

I will cast my vote YES

Another targeted Blue America alumnus, Gary Peters (D-MI) sent his constituents a similar letter last night, explaining why he too is voting yes today:

Far too many of our seniors, small businesses, families and loved ones are being hurt by a broken health care system that puts insurance companies and their profits ahead of people. That’s why yesterday I announced my support for health care reform legislation that will reign in costs, make coverage more accessible and end the shameful practice of denying people coverage because they or a loved one gets sick or has a pre-existing condition like diabetes or cancer.

I did not reach this decision lightly. I thoroughly reviewed this legislation and have taken into consideration the views of the thousands of Oakland County residents I've met with in person and the countless calls, letters and emails to my office. We need reform, but it was critical to make sure it was the right kind of reform. I said last year that health care reform legislation must do three things:  it must drive down health care costs for middle class families and small businesses, it must crackdown on the worst practices of the insurance industry and it must not add to the deficit. This legislation accomplishes these goals.

A vast majority of Americans want health care reform and support the approaches this bill takes to achieve it. It’s no secret that the insurance industry is spending millions of dollars trying pressure me and others in Congress to vote their way-- against reform. I want you to know that I will not be intimidated.  I represent you, not insurance companies or any other special interests. I read the bill, I talked with local residents and small business owners, I searched my conscience and I did what I believe is right.

...In the end, inaction simply was not an option. If we do not reform our system, businesses and families right here in Oakland County will suffer the consequences, and higher costs will continue to add to our national debt and weigh down our economy. The threat of losing health coverage because of a job loss or a serious illness, or not being able to regain health coverage because of a preexisting condition will continue to hang over the heads of families everywhere.  

These reforms are far better than the status quo. After discussing the issue for 100 years, I believe America cannot wait any longer for reform.