The side that Barrow and Marshall have chosen

blog_icon_obama.jpgIt appears that House Democrats will have just enough votes to pass the healthcare reform bill when it finally comes up for consideration sometime Sunday evening.

Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak and several other anti-abortion Democrats have reached an agreement with President Barack Obama that basically allows them to save face while voting for the bill. Obama will sign an executive order stating that the healthcare reform bill provides no federal funds for abortion, even though the bill has never provided federal funds for abortion. It’s the equivalent of Obama signing an executive order guaranteeing that federal funds will not be used to reimburse child molesters, but apparently it’s the kind of ego-stroking gesture that is needed to placate congressmen these days.


Stupak stated several times in a Sunday afternoon presser that he can now vote for the bill because it protects the “sanctity of life” that is so important to him and other anti-abortionist Democrats. So precious is the “sanctity of life” to Stupak that he was threatening to vote against legislation providing health insurance coverage that could save the lives of 45,000 Americans a year. Whatever.

If and when the bill does come up for a vote in the House, Georgia’s seven Republican House members obviously will vote against it. The only Georgia Democrats who are expected to vote for it are John Lewis, Hank Johnson, David Scott and Sanford Bishop. Democrats Jim Marshall and John Barrow will vote no.

Let’s look at the kind of people Marshall and Barrow have decided to align with by voting against the bill. There have been teabagger gatherings all over the capitol area this weekend as the anti-healthcare faction holds its “Code Red” protest. Here’s what the teabaggers said to some of the Democratic congressmen who are voting for the healthcare reform bill:

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 Canon House office building.

“People have been just downright mean,” Lewis added.

And that wasn’t an isolated incident. Early this afternoon, standing outside a Democratic whip meeting in the Longworth House office building, I watched Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) make his way out the door, en route to the neighboring Rayburn building. As he rounded the corner toward the exit, wading through a huge crowd of tea partiers and other health care protesters, an elderly white man screamed “Barney, you faggot” — a line that caused dozens of his confederates to erupt in laughter . . .

“This is incredible,” House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) told reporters of the slurs. “It’s shocking to me.” He said he hadn’t heard such vitriol since March 15, 1960 when he was protesting segregation laws that forced him to sit in the back of buses. “A lot of us have been saying for a long time that much of this, much of this, is not about health care at all,” Clyburn said. “I think a lot of those people today demonstrated this is not about health care.”

What is it about, a reporter asked?

“It’s about trying to extend a basic fundamental right to people who are less powerful.”

Yes, these are the kind of people with whom Jim Marshall and John Barrow have found common cause: racists who call John Lewis a “nigger,” homophobes who call Barney Frank a “faggot,” and berserk right-wingers who have been spitting on congressmen who support healthcare reform.

I’m sure that Marshall and Barrow feel very proud to be associated with such a fine group of patriotic Americans.


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10 responses to “The side that Barrow and Marshall have chosen”

  1. J.M. Prince Avatar
    J.M. Prince

    Well TT, It looks as if Cong. Barrow gets another chance to vote For something, and even For a public option for HCR. Are we taking any bets now? Just wondering…JMP

  2. J.M. Prince Avatar
    J.M. Prince

    Good to see Tom @ the JJ Dinner & good to hear from Matt J too here! JMP

  3. Matt Jennings Avatar
    Matt Jennings

    Of course Marshall and Barrow are going to vote like Republicans. They pretty much already are Republicans.

  4. J.M. Prince Avatar
    J.M. Prince

    Well TT, It’s good that you can present such a stirring defense of your campaign. Now go back and read carefully what I said above. Not quite how you want to cast it, but I’ll try to be a bit more specific here.

    Again it would have been nice for the Congressmen to issue something of a press release stating something along the lines of oh…”While I’m unable in good conscience to support this health care reform effort presently, I wanted to make perfectly clear that I stand with my friend & colleague John Lewis and other reform supporters in our party & state & nation and against those who would demean and diminish this worthy prospect and his & our noble cause of reforms by viscous slurs, racist name calling, vituperative cat-calls and still worse that was seen by some of the opposition throughout this effort, and especially here yesterday at the Capitol. It was & is deeply despicable & deplorable, and I for one am deeply shamed to see it, and to hear of it directed towards such fine & great men of the State of Georgia. I condemn them unequivocally.”

    But again alas & alack, I’ve heard nothing like that. So again, I’ll tell you. It’s fine that you can come up with stats saying that Cong. Barrow supported his caucus better than 90% of the time thus year. There’s many, many ways to come up with the stats. I’ll not dispute them here. Just note the growing rep the Congressman has of as Harry Reid put it of Joe Lieberman ‘he’s with us mostly unless we need him’.

    Now I may even have an affection for many deeply Conservative Congresscritters across the board. (If you’re really ‘conservative enough’, you’re vehemently anti-war too, especially of the needless ‘war of choice’ kinds, BTW). But no doubt about it, this was about the most important vote of his career, and I think it would have helped him in his campaign. We desperately needed him to be with us on this one. But be that as it may? Please do take up my suggestion and offer up a statement on the deplorable tactics of the opposition that was seen yesterday & throughout this overly long process. That would be helpful here. So perhaps would a more detailed explanation of his thinking on why he was a consistent no vote, despite you claiming repeatedly that he was ‘for a public option’. Thanks. JMP

  5. TT Avatar
    TT

    If what you say is so: “Jim Marshall and John Barrow have found common cause: racists who call John Lewis a “nigger,”; then I guess President (then Senator) Obama found common cause with Wall Street investment bankers, Goldman Sachs and President GW Bush: the oligarchs who crashed our economy; when he voted for TARP I, II and III.

    Summing up this health care bill has black/white, right/wrong makes for interesting reading, I suppose; but does a disservice to the nuances of our political system. Especially since John Barrow has voted 93.6% of the time, THIS Congress with the Democratic Caucus (http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/b001252/) hardly a DINO or Tea Party voting record.

    The rhetoric that I’ve personally witnessed reminds me of something I heard in the dark days of 2003: “you are either with us or against us”, I think we all know who said that. Lets not regress back to that type of Republican dualism ever again.

  6. Juliana Avatar
    Juliana

    Hey, didn’t get that many pictures overall- the scene was a bit too crazy and they would have looked a lot like everyone elses pictures- silly hat wearing, home made sign chanting folks are really not that interesting to look at.

    It was surreal to say the least. I hope the Nast-tea party folks will fall back and regroup for a while-a long while.

    I will writing a note to all three of the Congressman, telling them that I support them and would be happy to help them any way that I could. Can’t really think of anything else to do for them.

  7. innerredneckexposed Avatar
    innerredneckexposed

    What I’ve learned about this “debate” is that not a single ideologue (looking at you OP) seems to have heard about Utilitarianism. It really is remarkable.

  8. J.M. Prince Avatar
    J.M. Prince

    Thanks Mel, I still have no TV, but I don’t think I’m missing out on much. Hysteria perhaps, but not the history. JMP

  9. Mel Avatar
    Mel

    Barrow or Marshall have long been dead to me. Even they can’t dampen my enthusiasm today. We can’t take our eyes off the TV and have both MSNBC and C-Span on. It’s going to be a very late, but amazing night.

    Hopefully, Jules will post pictures at some point. She and many of our Georgia folk are in the District today.

  10. J.M. Prince Avatar
    J.M. Prince

    I was hoping against hope that one of them might split their usual un-supportive ways to vote in solidarity with their fellow Ga. Cong. John Lewis. But I think they’re mostly too far gone for that, sadly. Even if they’ve served with Cong. Lewis for many, many years too. Loyalty & comradeship of a state caucus used to actually mean something. Again you can’t make gains for the country or your state if every vote is ‘every man for himself’. It can’t work like that all the time, every time.

    JMP

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