Vote Yes on Rape

I have known several women who were victims of rape and child sexual abuse. I have a deep sensitivity to the effect it has on women—and men for that matter.

But this post is not about the Jamie Leigh Jones case, but rather the political fallout from the vote on the Franken Amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill. I state this up front so as not to seem insensitive.

So, having said that, I have said in this space two or three times before that if Democrats and/or progressives work real hard in 2010 they could unseat a few Republican Senators and Representatives over health care reform because they were so blatantly against the will of the people.

Now, another issue has emerged to further batter them into oblivion—30 of their Senators having voted against the Franken Amendment which prevents government contracts from being awarded to companies that prevent—as KBR did—employees from suing their employers for rape and assault.

The case of Jamie Leigh Jones is particularly egregious because it shows the arrogance of contractors under the Bush Administration’s fatal folly in Iraq such as Blackwater seeming to, literally, get away with murder. It also shows the arrogance and insensitivity of Republican lawmakers who are used to voting like this in a business as usual/status quo approach.

But there is a backlash against the 30 Senators. In newspapers in their states, editorials are popping up against the Senators’ votes throughout the Midwest and the South.

This is exciting news because it is Republican Senators being called out by constituents in their own conservative communities.

I particularly hope Saxby Chambliss of George is defeated because of his Swift Boat-style dirty tricks against Max Cleland in the 2002 election.

An Obama strategy I saw in an Associated Press story was to appeal to women on health care to get reform passed. With this horrific story revealing the relationship between contractors and the Republican side of our government in the “terror-industrial complex”, Obama may have an opportunity to change business as usual in Washington and Democrats may have an opportunity to also change business as usual in Washington.

Right now the Republicans are not only imploding and exploding but they are doing it to themselves by themselves and not from anything the Democrats are forcing upon them.

Imagine what can happen when Democrats and progressives begin working to defeat them in the 2010 elections. Republicans are simply on the wrong side of issues that benefit the American people and that has to be the basis of election strategies in the midterm.

This is why progressives have to organize, fundraise and work hard to defeat Charles Grassley, Tom Coburn, David Vitter, Johnny Isakson and Mike Crapo. They may lose Harry Reid but still be able to gain seats if they lose no others.

And if progressives really work hard there are a few Democrats who should be defeated as well. Unfortunately, Ben Nelson, Kent Conrad and Max Faucus (cheap joke) are not running.

I think Democrats should throw the controversy surrounding this vote in the face of the Cheneys and make them shut up.

Two Oh One Oh

It’s been a rough couple of months for progressives—and Americans—surrounding all this health care reform traveling vaudeville show.

Nothing is certain as yet, but many believe Obama pulled the rabbit out of the hat. I did not get to see the speech because I was picking up a friend at the airport.

However, I saw snippets of it and listened to some guests on the Marxist Socialist Nazi Bolshevik Communist network (MSNBC) and they believe Obama “hit one out of the park” and brought a “game changer”.

The four year conversion time table may complicate my strategy of making America a more progressive country, but we have time.

I said a couple of weeks ago that Republicans could lose even more seats in the House and the Senate in 2010 if the Democratic Party and the progressives in it play it right.

By 2012, progressive Democrats could win even more so that the Blue Dogs are significantly marginalized just in time for the asteroid to wipe us all out because the Mayans said so.

The working, middle and lower classes of America want and need help and not just because of Bush’s economic meltdown. Average Americans have a deep need to know that their government cares more about them.

Senator Tom Coburn’s belief that people should not turn to their government for help is, I believe, classism. If corporations can turn to their government for help, and Republicans agree with that, they are classists and corporatists and hypocrites.

Taxpayers pay taxes. They deserve more for their tax dollar than to have 50 cents of every one of those dollars to be given to the military for contractors and weapons manufacturers who have no oversight or accountability. That is never mentioned by the Coburns and his ilk—I mean, like.

This is their Achilles Heel. Republicans don’t really care about the American people despite the right-wing Christian and abortion and flag-waving brainwashing. This needs to be explained to the American voter provided the Supreme Court doesn’t rule in favor of Citizens United and our elections can be bought and sold by corporate America.

They can also lose from a true Christian point of view because their lack of compassion for the uninsured in favor of insurance companies is certainly un-Christian. If Christ was anything, he was progressive. Lying and scaring old people is not something Christ would approve of. Really make the old Midwesterner Bible Belters understand this and watch what happens.

Someone with guts and balls needs to exploit the Repub’s and Blue Dogs’ lies about health care reform at their town halls and defeat them in the next available election. But that requires a very good opposing candidate.

If health care reform succeeds, all the Birthers in Congress could be forced out of office because of the high poll numbers Obama could well have because of a rebounding economy and the initial successes of health care reform.

I would caution progressives not to get greedy. The goal is to win centrist and slightly-conservative Americans with health care. Americans want to know that people care about them and do not care more about illegal aliens, etc. The Republicans are going to exploit immigration. Progressives should not make the mistake of stepping into the trap.

The goal is to build a better America. That cannot be done by piling on everything all at once. Some issues must be left for another time. If you convince Americans you are for them, they will help you be for others next time.

Certain Congressional races should be targeted, but not all. Perhaps Grassley is vulnerable—and easily defeated—because of his speeches about “death panels”, obstructionism in his “Gang of Six” seat and flip flopping on “death panels” by blaming it on Sarah Palin.

Obama needs to help forcefully. With the anticipated success of health care reform by 2010, Bill Clinton also needs to campaign. His ability to gloat because of the health care victory could be extremely valuable and key to Congressional victories in many, many races.

I personally am slightly more conservative than the average progressive on some issues. But we need to take this country in another direction and swimming to the other shore after the shipwreck we all survived since 2000 is the only real way to recover. We need to get as far away from conservatism and corporatism as possible then we can slide back down when progressives begin fucking everything up in another 10-20 years.

This is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Grassley, Coburn, Vitter and the others need to be made understand that fact in no uncertain terms.

And if they do not agree, they need to hear the same phrase I remember hearing conservatives say to liberals and leftists when I was a kid, and that was: “This is America, love it or leave it!”

On to Single Payer!

No, Obama Got a Little Excited!

In his radio interview with radio talk show host Michael Smerconish yesterday, President Obama said that the media and progressives got “a little excited” about the public option issue.

I would counter that President Obama got a little excited about the prospect of bi-partisanship for his health care reform effort. He got a little “turned on” one might say about Republicans helping him pass substantial and historic health care reform and I think it goes back to his semi-delusional Lincoln fantasy that he touted during the campaign. Did he think he and the Republicans were going to bring this country together? Is he putting his legacy ahead of the process of health care reform? Shouldn’t he be channeling the spirit of Teddy Roosevelt instead of Lincoln and FDR?

I would also argue that “progressives”—and me—didn’t get a little excited as much as we became a little afraid. Why? Because we can’t read his mind, and lately he has said some things about health care reform which raised concern that he may be selling us out. Also, we don’t fully trust that he knows what he’s doing or he is doing what he should be doing the right way.

Now, while we don’t all crowd into the cockpit to second guess the airline pilot when we’re going through turbulence, Obama seems to have lost some measure of control. Did he jump into this with too much naiveté? And by “this” I don’t just mean health care reform, I also mean his presidency.

I would have approached health care reform in a different way, so obviously there is not as much faith in him as he may expect us to have. Our trust is not strong for this and other reasons. Why? Because this is the President who has gone soft on the Bush-era torture issue prosecutions and policies, he has kept his White House visitor log secret, and he confused and even angered many with his reversal on Guantanamo, among other things during his seven-plus months in office. And, because this is the President who insists he is going to get the very same Republicans to join him who want to destroy him.

He is too nice and calm when I want fight and fire. Has his being born in laid-back Hawaii revealed itself to be a detriment for him? Seems like it. Next time we elect a black president maybe he should be born in Kenya!

Now, if this pursuit of bi-partisanship is a tactic of Obama’s to make the Republicans look bad and lose even more in 2010, I’ll give it a chance. But first, let me explain what I mean.

Only Obama knows exactly what he can and will do on health care reform to get what he promised during the campaign. Just as Captain Kirk frequently took the Enterprise to the brink of destruction—and scared Scotty, the ship’s most intimately knowledgeable engineer, to death—in pursuit of that week’s enemy, perhaps that is what Obama is doing. Perhaps the Spock comparison has been misapplied all along.

If Obama is buttering up the Republicans by being very diplomatic in his pursuit of bi-partisanship by not doing or saying anything rude or mean or nasty to anger them, his strategy may be that he knows the Republicans will reject his attempts in the end anyway and then when Democrats do pass health care reform with the public option alone and the American people like it and find there are no death panels and none of the other scare tactic items they hurled with venom during the August recess, then Americans will have good reason not to trust Republicans. That’s my theory.

Two things anyone who has ever played poker knows are: play your cards close to your vest and always keep a poker face. Is that what Obama is doing? Is that what he did on Saturday when he said the public option was only a sliver of health care reform? Was he bluffing the Republicans?

The Republicans have already shown their hand because we know how many cards they have in Congress and from these stupid town hall bullying sessions, they led early with their best cards. Everyone already knows the Republican believe they are ordained by God to head the American government. Therefore, their actions are somewhat predictable and their hand can be figured out.

However, to embellish my theory about Obama, when the American voter sees how the Republicans shamelessly sided with the insurance industry and blatantly lied to scare them, maybe a sufficient number of elderly, poor and working class Republican and Independent voters may vote against Grassley, Coburn, DeMint and Vitter in the Senate and various Republican and evil Democrat Representatives in the House.

We’ll see.

On the other hand, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Obama needs to become someone we can trust by fighting. He needs to stop being Barack Obama and become Barrage (of punches) o-BAM!!-a, and he needs to start swinging now.

SOCK!

POW!

ZOK!

BAM!

SOCK!

BLAP!

WHAP!

BIFF!

OOF!

Yes, I loved the 60s Batman TV series when I was a kid.

So, no, Mr. President, we did not become a little excited. It was more like we don’t know you that well or for that long and what you revealed about yourself during the courtship, you changed noticeably once we said “I do”.

What kind of marriage is this going to be?

Well, if we find out after the 2010 elections that Obama has secretly been a Scientologist since the late-80s that may explain some things but we’d better make an appointment with an attorney asap.

If he is or has ever been a Scientologist, he needs to resolve this bi-partisan engram that tortures him and focus on a uni-partisan endgame.

Rimshot!! Goodnight, everybody!!

Join us Monday for another thrilling and rapturous episode of the Internet’s #1 blog serial, Congressman Christ, where President Obama invites Jesus to the White House to shoot some hoops.

Check out the best of JimBuckBlog list over the weekend!!!