All Comments (41)

Kim,

Maybe if you could point to something specific that supports your theory that Republicans don't support medical aid for children. Keep in mind that I'm looking for something that carries a little more weight than "Because I said so" or "Everyone just knows these things."

Where do you live,

Your post is wrong on so many levels that a comprehensive response would require the literary equivalent of War and Peace.

First, you're making the "it's all relative" argument. Weak and lazy. Exhibit One for what's wrong with our education system. Our kids don't understand the "truth" anymore because we teach them that the truth is relative. If it's too expensive to live in Washington, D.C., then DON'T. I work for a well known Fortune 500 company in Northern Virginia. I commute 45 minutes, each way, to work everyday because I CHOOSE to live someplace more affordable.

Second, SCHIP was originally designed for "low income persons" and "children." Families making $82,000 a year are 400% above the federal poverty level (FPL). It is completely absurd and unreasonable to believe that 400% above FPL = Low Income. Also, 89% of all children between 300% and 400% of the FPL are ALREADY enrolled in PRIVATE HEALTH CARE. Why would you spend BILLIONS of $$$$ on health care for children WHO ALREADY HAVE ACCESS TO IT? Does that sound like the original intention of SCHIP? Think man, think.

Third, at yet another attempt by House Dems to expand welfare dependency, Senora Pelosi's bill would allow persons up to age 21 (21!!!) to be recognized as "children" for purposes of the law.

If you want socialist health insurance, then have the courage to just come out and say it or construct a bill that says as much. But don't try and sneak national health care into a children's bill and then slander anybody who opposes it.

Posted on November 6, 2007 07:23

Brambleton:
One of the factors for rejecting the original SCHIP bill, as put forth by Senora Pelosi, was that it would provide coverage to children whose family income was upwards of $80,000.

$80,000 sounds like a lot of money and that affording health care should be no problem. BUT... $80,000 is a living wage in D.C. where CHEAP rent for a one bedroom can cost AT MINIMUM $1000, mortgages if you can afford a house multiply that three to five times. Now couples who make $80,000 generally have jobs that pay for health insurance. Where would most all of us be if our employers stopped contributing to our health insurance coverage tomorrow. Most americans would be without health insurance! Now what about couples both working two and three jobs to make that $80K, hum? log wage jobs that do not offer insurance - - AND what if you are a small business and cannot afford adaquate health care for your own family?

Dude think outside of the box and out of just your world. $80K is not $80K in every city and town. With heating prices going up, you would be suprised - how many "rich folks" have no heat in their house.

I've been saying this for YEARS. Too many pro-lifers are HIPPOCRATES!!! They care until the baby is born, where are they after. The same people who want to stop abortion are the same people who do not want "their taxes" taking care of someone else's children.

If life is so sacred to you, then why don't you unofficially adopt an unwed mother? Why don't you offer free babysitting so she can finish school or work a job? Why don't you do your Christian duty and become a "second" mom and help her understand what a baby needs. Not to freak out when the baby is teething for the first time.

I've been saying this for YEARS. Too many pro-lifers are HIPPOCRATES!!! They care until the baby is born, where are they after. The same people who want to stop abortion are the same people who do not want "their taxes" taking care of someone else's children.

If life is so sacred to you, then why don't you unofficially adopt an unwed mother? Why don't you offer free babysitting so she can finish school or work a job? Why don't you do your Christian duty and become a "second" mom and help her understand what a baby needs. Not to freak out when the baby is teething for the first time.

Where is your Christianity when the child needs clothes and supplies for school or money for a musical instrument?

Talk is cheap and God knows true intentions. Your works to stop abortion fall on his deaf ears until your heart is with the child and its mother from conception until....

I've been saying this for years. Too many pro-lifers are HIPPOCRATES!!! They care until the baby is born, where are they after. The same people who want to stop abortion are the same people who do not want "their taxes" taking care of someone else's children.

If life is so sacred to you, then why don't you unofficially adopt an unwed mother? Why don't you offer free babysitting so she can finish school or work a job? Why don't you do your Christian duty and become a "second" mom and help her understand what a baby needs. Not to freak out when the baby is teething for the first time.

Where is your Christianity when the child needs clothes and supplies for school or money for a musical instrument?

Talk is cheap and God knows true intentions. Your works to stop abortion fall on his deaf ears until your heart is with the child and its mother from conception until....

Kudos! I have yet to see one "pro-life" hysteric ready to help the millions of children already born who are sick or impoverished. Essentially, if they can't tell a woman what to do with her body, that's where their interest ends.

This is hypocrisy taken to a new low.

The failure of some in the Christian Right to recognize their Christian duty to care for the poor may stem from the belief that God takes care of those who follow his teachings. In direct contradiction to my Catholic upbringing, some Christians believe that they will be financially rewarded in this life for following Jesus’ teachings. Therefore, those who are impoverished must be so as a result of their failures to adequately impress God through their faith.

If that were true, then why would Jesus go on and on and on and on about helping the poor, selling everything you own and donating it to the poor, and how hard it is for a rich man to get into heaven? If faith in god made you rich, wouldn’t that be counterproductive if your goal is to get into heaven.

Brambleton:

Induldge me, please.
1)Are you an average voter?
2)Shall we do away with democracy?
3)Is the US Military an example of capitalism or socialism?

Your statement: "Nobody is in favoring of killing SCHIP" seems to be an outright lie. Perhaps the press is lying. ???

Brambleton:
Wrong, the Republicans do not support medical aid for poor children. Not for poor children, not for immigrant children, not for minority children, not for other people's children.

Say what you will, excuse it as you like, but the message is loud and clear. Poor children don't vote Republican, so they don't get any money.

Kim,

First, if you believe a family earning $82,000 a year in income is "poor", you're in need of more help than I could possibly offer.

Nobody is in favoring of killing SCHIP. There isn't a single Republican or Democrat that I'm aware of that isn't in favor of providing medical support for disadvantaged children.

The problem occurs when members of Congress, in this case Senora Pelosi, try to push bills that are inherently absurd in order to make political points. (Isn't that nice! Screw the children so we can point fingers at people across the aisle) But I digress. Most congressman and women have come to realize that the average voter bases his/her conclusion on whatever soundbite they last heard. You would be such an example. Forget the facts. It's far easier to just regurgitate what Michael Moore or Rosie O'Donnell tells you, isn't it?

Winston Churchill said it best, "The greatest argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

The purpose of government is to do for the people what they wouldn't otherwise do for themselves. Thus we have government to provide police, roads, firemen, etc.

One problem with not paying for the poor children's health care is that they (poor children's families) basically clog-up and dis-able our hospitals' emergency rooms, and this is a problem for all. Because we refuse to pay for poor-children's doctors, they use the nation's emergency rooms as their doctors. Now, if I am injured and want to go to the emergency room, I have to wait hours and hours. Because of George Bush and the Republicans. Thank-you.

Sorry, Doug, but you are the one with your facts wrong. My own New Jersey proposed raising the threshold to $80K for its SCHIP receipients, and if approved, the increase was estimated to result in over 40% of the new beneficiaries being adults.

Further, since the new program would be available (at no direct cost) to people already enrolled in private medical insurance, it definetly WOULD be taking kids (& parents) away from private insurance. Why would anyone pay for something they could get for free?
There are plenty of lies being tossed around about SCHIP, I guess you just wanted to make your contribution, huh?

POINT ONE:
Tying the Pro-Life stand to other "Quality-of-Life" stands is a classic example of a canard. The two have nothing to do with each other, and the feable attempts to link them merely show the paucity of intelligent arguement for the opposing views.
POINT TWO:
Why does this column charecterize the outcome as the "...failure of Congress to pass... SCHIP?" The author clearly tries to give the impression that the entire program has been kiboshed. The vote was only about how much th EXPAND the coverage. Bush wanted a very large increase, but Congress insisted on an obscenely obese expansion. Left-wing wacko advertisments to the contrary notwithstanding, the President's plan, being an increase, could not be said to force the cut of anyone's coverage. Trotting out some poor 12-year-old to read a script full of lies and distortions shows how nothing, absolutely NOTHING, is beneath the Congressional Democrats.

Hey brambleton the so called facts you bring up are lies schip was never for familys with over 80,000 dollars not for illegals and wouldnt take kids who already have private insurance all lies spread by Bushco and the republucan party. Now that we have cleared the air of the untruths whats wrong with schip i guess yall rightys are just plain mean billions for war not one penny for our own needy kids wait till 2008 your party will get what it deserves.

Supporting capital punishment and pre-emptive war IS NOT PRO LIFE!

Supporting capital punishment and pre-emptive war IS NOT PRO LIFE!

I'm pro life deffinetly, in some situations. What if a 14 year old girl gets raped, becomes pregnant and has to give birth to a baby. First of all, the baby was not meant to be and her father a rapist. Absolutely not. If a young girl unwisely gets pregnant, well then she deserves the consequences and should not have the choice of killing a human. BUt a poor innocent young girl with not thoguht of having a abby and that age, should deffinetly have a choice of having or not having a baby.
To have an abortion, I believe the fetus should be very young, or else it could be considered as murder. So for me being pro life, it is different for diverse situations.

I'm pro life deffinetly, in some situations. What if a 14 year old girl gets raped, becomes pregnant and has to give birth to a baby. First of all, the baby was not meant to be and her father a rapist. Absolutely not. If a young girl unwisely gets pregnant, well then she deserves the consequences and should not have the choice of killing a human. BUt a poor innocent young girl with not thoguht of having a abby and that age, should deffinetly have a choice of having or not having a baby.
To have an abortion, I believe the fetus should be very young, or else it could be considered as murder. So for me being pro life, it is different for diverse situations.

I think that health care for children these days

is really important. I think everyone should

have coverage for health and medical problems.

Even if families cannot afford it, the state

should provide children with it. These day there

are more chances of kids getting a serious

sickness, or disease that the health care can't

cover because they don't have it. Yes, i am pro

life. I think that women or teens who get

pregnant should have the baby. That would be

horrible to kill a baby who hasn't been born.

It's like killing one or your family members

right now. If you can't handle having a baby,

then why did you have sex in the first place. If

teens were more careful with their sexual life,

then there would be less abortions. Hopefully.

I think that health care for children these days

is really important. I think everyone should

have coverage for health and medical problems.

Even if families cannot afford it, the state

should provide children with it. These day there

are more chances of kids getting a serious

sickness, or disease that the health care can't

cover because they don't have it. Yes, i am pro

life. I think that women or teens who get

pregnant should have the baby. That would be

horrible to kill a baby who hasn't been born.

It's like killing one or your family members

right now. If you can't handle having a baby,

then why did you have sex in the first place. If

teens were more careful with their sexual life,

then there would be less abortions. Hopefully.

I think that health care for children these days

is really important. I think everyone should

have coverage for health and medical problems.

Even if families cannot afford it, the state

should provide children with it. These day there

are more chances of kids getting a serious

sickness, or disease that the health care can't

cover because they don't have it. Yes, i am pro

life. I think that women or teens who get

pregnant should have the baby. That would be

horrible to kill a baby who hasn't been born.

It's like killing one or your family members

right now. If you can't handle having a baby,

then why did you have sex in the first place. If

teens were more careful with their sexual life,

then there would be less abortions. Hopefully.

Brambleton,

Is the US Military an example of capitalism or socialism?

Wow - all these posts and not a single person (okay, maybe one) gets it. Do any of you Michael Moore wannabe's have a clue as to why the SCHIP bill was vetoed? Obviously not. Stupid question.

One of the factors for rejecting the original SCHIP bill, as put forth by Senora Pelosi, was that it would provide coverage to children whose family income was upwards of $80,000. Children would actually leave private medical insurance and jump on the government paid gravy train. According to CBO estimates, an estimated 1.9 million people would make the move from private to TAXPAYER FUNDED HEALTH CARE. Why pay for your own health care when the taxpayers will give it to you for free? Can you spell SOCIALISM?

Or how about the fact that a number of states were using the SCHIP funds to pay for ADULT medical coverage? Hello?

And unlike the ORIGINAL SCHIP legislation, Pelosi's bill would require no future reauthorization, thereby transforming it into a permanent government program. Entitlements for everyone!!

I know, I know. It's a lot easier to name call and throw around a bunch of absurdities in the hopes that the person you're talking to is also a moron. I get it.

Tax the churches! Use the money for universal health care!

Our governor, Matt Blunt, threw 100,000 people off of medicaid last year, yet he was sworn in with two Bibles.

In Missouri the cutoff for Medicaid is $269 PER MONTH.

They claim to be Christians, but they are not. Otherwise they would be weeping over the treatment of the "least of these."

At one point I sent an e-mail to a person in the government, requesting that he give the message to the governor to read one of the Bibles, and that religion wasn't just for Sunday and political campaigns.

Sadly, no one cares. After all, they are against abortion.

Our governor, Matt Blunt, threw 100,000 people off of medicaid last year, yet he was sworn in with two Bibles.

In Missouri the cutoff for Medicaid is $269 PER MONTH.

They claim to be Christians, but they are not. Otherwise they would be weeping over the treatment of the "least of these."

At one point I sent an e-mail to a person in the government, requesting that he give the message to the governor to read one of the Bibles, and that religion wasn't just for Sunday and political campaigns.

Sadly, no one cares. After all, they are against abortion.

Our governor, Matt Blunt, threw 100,000 people off of medicaid last year, yet he was sworn in with two Bibles.

In Missouri the cutoff for Medicaid is $269 PER MONTH.

They claim to be Christians, but they are not. Otherwise they would be weeping over the treatment of the "least of these."

At one point I sent an e-mail to a person in the government, requesting that he give the message to the governor to read one of the Bibles, and that religion wasn't just for Sunday and political campaigns.

Sadly, no one cares. After all, they are against abortion.

Matt, We just cannot allow you the freedom to murder, run red-lights, engage in paedophilia, etc. Indeed, a facet of government is compulsion.

Why is compulsion necessary?

We are supposedly a "christian nation; but health care is not available to millions of our nations children.

A morally sound nation and people will care for their children.

That is why legislation, compulsion, is necessary.

You (christians) aren't moral and you (christians) do not provide for the health care of millions of our nations children(you told a lie).

Tax? (tax cigarette smokers _ that's just smoke and mirrors - pun intended).

I'll happily take it up with you if you can stand the Socratic method that I will use.

If you prefer to take it off line; let me know and I will set up an email just to teach you.

Indeed, 'Beloved is the cheerful giver".

Unfortunately, our "christian" nation couldn't care less - especially for the poor and the minorities.

Only legislation has brought us morality. You do not kill (though you have in the past) - why ? It is against the law and you will be punished.

You have stopped discriminating on the basis of....... Why? because LBJ legislated a higher moral standard for you.

I know you hate to have your morals controlled by the rest of us - read government - but faith has NEVER been successful.

The favorite argument of the rightwing is that unless parents can provide for their children, they shouldn't have them. What they don't realize is that this is an argument for having abortions to prevent the birth of children who can't be supported. Taken to the extreme, it is also an argument for infanticide when parents lose a job and/or health insurance.

By the same token, if the rightwing believes that the government has the obligatiion to interfere in the choice of a woman about what happens to her body during pregnancy, then the government also has the obligation to interfere after the baby is born. You can't have it both ways.

But then, the argument has never been about prolife. It has always been about punishing women for having sex, so while Rev. Rodriquez' argument is irrefutable, it is beside the point as far as the rightwing "prolife" movement is concerned.

Question: Why should cigarette smokers be the only ones that have to pay for SCHIP? Or is this somehow pro-life too since government is supposed to tell people how to live their lives and not to engage in unhealthy activities?

Here's a suggestion: How about we tax abortions to pay for SCHIP? Finally...a tax that liberals would oppose. But would this be a violation of Roe? Hmm?

And to all the others who say that anti-poverty is somehow a religious issue. It may be, but supporting government policies that take from one to give to another is not moral regardless of what you may think of the outcome. That's coercion. There's a difference.

Remember this: "Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."

Government is compulsion!!!!!

Bush bad. Republican bad. Christian bad. America bad.

Yonkers, New York

There ought not to be an inconsistency between being pro-life and pro-S-chip, the health insurance for millions of American children.

Obviously, however, President Bush had something else on his mind when he cruelly vetoed S-chip soon after the bill reached the White House.

His main reason? The S-chip bill was in his well-considered opinion "socialistic medicine."

As if the program he vetoed were new--which it was and is not. The bill the Congress sent to him for signature merely continues and expands a program that has successfully been in place for many years now! The bill entails an expenditure of $35 billion for a period of five years.

If it was not "socialitic medicine" then, why should it be this all of a sudden?

And here lies the rub: President Bush has just asked Congress to give him an additional $190 billion to fund his Iraq Folly for another disastrous year. That's on top of the $459 billion which the Congress recently gave him for Defense. The brings the funding for war up to the astronomical figure of $649 billion!

So, as far as this president is concerned, there should be nothing for health care for America's needy children. But there should be everything for Defense and his Iraq Folly.

Talk of a topsy-turvy sense of values and a distorted sense of priorities!
MarPatalinjug@aol.com

Yonkers, New York

There ought not to be an inconsistency between being pro-life and pro-S-chip, the health insurance for millions of American children.

Obviously, however, President Bush had something else on his mind when he cruelly vetoed S-chip soon after the bill reached the White House.

His main reason? The S-chip bill was in his well-considered opinion "socialistic medicine."

As if the program he vetoed were new--which it was and is not. The bill the Congress sent to him for signature merely continues and expands a program that has successfully been in place for many years now! The bill entails an expenditure of $35 billion for a period of five years.

If it was not "socialitic medicine" then, why should it be this all of a sudden?

And here lies the rub: President Bush has just asked Congress to give him an additional $190 billion to fund his Iraq Folly for another disastrous year. That's on top of the $459 billion which the Congress recently gave him for Defense. The brings the funding for war up to the astronomical figure of $649 billion!

So, as far as this president is concerned, there should be nothing for health care for America's needy children. But there should be everything for Defense and his Iraq Folly.

Talk of a topsy-turvy sense of values and a distorted sense of priorities!
MarPatalinjug@aol.com

Yonkers, New York

There ought not to be an inconsistency between being pro-life and pro-S-chip, the health insurance for millions of American children.

Obviously, however, President Bush had something else on his mind when he cruelly vetoed S-chip soon after the bill reached the White House.

His main reason? The S-chip bill was in his well-considered opinion "socialistic medicine."

As if the program he vetoed were new--which it was and is not. The bill the Congress sent to him for signature merely continues and expands a program that has successfully been in place for many years now! The bill entails an expenditure of $35 billion for a period of five years.

If it was not "socialitic medicine" then, why should it be this all of a sudden?

And here lies the rub: President Bush has just asked Congress to give him an additional $190 billion to fund his Iraq Folly for another disastrous year. That's on top of the $459 billion which the Congress recently gave him for Defense. The brings the funding for war up to the astronomical figure of $649 billion!

So, as far as this president is concerned, there should be nothing for health care for America's needy children. But there should be everything for Defense and his Iraq Folly.

Talk of a topsy-turvy sense of values and a distorted sense of priorities!
MarPatalinjug@aol.com

Only legislation has put in place the moral pillars necessary to make a moral society.

The religions have been a complete failure since the invention of "faith".

Witness that the "good christians" in Southern States stopped lynching blacks as laws were enacted to exact a price IN THIS LIFE for immoral behaviour.

Note that even the "good christian" mormons toed the line when the Great Society legislation was enacted. Now black males can "hold the priesthood". (well as long as they pay their money).

Nooses?

They have never been out of style among the hypocritical, southern and midwestern, "good christian", rednecks; but, Blacks are now protected from these "good christians".

The point.
Legistation is responsible for raising the bar of morality, i.e. conservatives are forced to be moral via threat of prosecution.

Health Care?
"good christians" have done nothing to provide for children's healthcare except as it has provided a tax deduction for the wealthy.

The "inconvienent truth"?

The churches use donations to further their existence, not for charity as Jesus encouraged.

Sadly, an immoral society tends to vote for immoral candidates, e.g. George Bush and the majority of republicans.

Nevertheless, little by little, we achieve a more moral society via legislation (FDR, JFK, LBJ) - not faith (we also lose morality via legislation Hitler, Lenin, Reagan, Bushes 1 & 2).

Right you are, because the unwanted children who grow up in poverty as a result of so-called "pro-life" philosophy need the schip coverage more than anyone!

When you deny condoms to the poor, advocate unrealistic abstinence only programs, and deny a woman the right to determine reproductive choices that are right for her family, her living condition in which the child will be born and reared, and for herself... You are in CONFLICT WITH REALITY AND MOTHER NATURE and create a world of unwanted children.

GO FEED THE HOMELESS, SICK, AND POVERTY STRICKEN THAT AMERICA HAS LEFT BEHIND ON SKID ROW BEFORE YOU POUND YOUR CHEST AT THE PULPIT ABOUT STOPPING A WOMAN'S CHOICE. CLEANING UP THE MESS YOU MAKE OF THE NATION'S CHILD WELFARE LATER WITH SCHIP ISN'T ENOUGH!

I couldn't agree more. The difference is that protecting living children costs money. When money is involved the Christian side of "Christian Republican" gives way to the Republican side of the term. Your argument reminds me of another befuddling should-be-obvious-to-anyone issue of gay marriage. What spreads family values more than marriage? The more marriages we have the more families we have.

Bobby Redstate says" "But gay is gross and health care is costly. I need my guns to protect me from the devil. And I need my gas guzzler and a very warm house. So no gay marriage, no universal health care, no gun control and global warming is a myth cooked up by Demorats!"

Pro Life begins at Birth!

Since one blogger has already spoken, let me share the way another blog I read regularly put the issue nicely in a single sentence: "I think the “Pro-Life” movement has little interest in what happens to people after birth".

http://ianramjohn.wordpress.com/2007/11/02/health-care-and-sick-children/

http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/2007/11/quote-of-day-ian-ramjohn.html

The issue presented here is that the current debate about pro-life is to a large extent ironic or better yet, hypocritical. It is not really a pro-life debate but an anti-abortion debate and the difference between these two position is not all that subtle.

To be anti-abortion means that you can rationally argue against a specific practice as an isolated event and, although it would be prudent and perhaps more ethically sound to do so, you do not have to argue the ethical probabilities of limiting the actions according to the anti-abortion issue.

If you are pro-life, this would seem to mean that all of life should be held as a prior consideration to any policy. Thus, in the case of limiting the practice of abortion, the question then is, if we are actively protecting the life of the unborn which is often a potential life with a lower probability of survival than say, a 5 year old child, what is being done to support the quality of life of that fetus after its birth.

The anti-abortion issue can stop at the issue of preserving the fetus and ignore the extant issues of how the quality of life of that fetus and that mother will be held by the society that forced, in a sense, the mother to give birth to that child - even if that child is unwanted. So if society values the life of that child more than the mother, what will society do to support the quality of life of that child post-partum? the pro-life stance demands an answer, the anti-abortion stance does not. Note: this is not a religion issue, but a legal one lest anyone misread the ethical problem posed here.

Further, if we are pro-life, should we also not be more pro-adoption? Find me a family who was eager to adopt and found that the benefits to do so were adequate from the state. It is hard to do. IF we are protecting the lives that are only potential of an undivided pre-zygote fertilized cell, it is only ethically rational to offer just an intense support for the born child without a family, the mother who is struggling to make ends meet, the grandmother who is raising her daughter's crack addicted baby.

Punishment for the error of many to become pregnant is currently heaped on the backs of the child who did not ask to be born into the social milieu in which they are born. This is a more or less permanent and unjust punishment for the effect of a contingent event. Perhaps the rhetoric of punishment on the side of the anti-abortion campaign is the real problem since it does not seem to espouse the love of neighbor of which Jesus spoke so vividly and controversially. the rhetoric focuses on the punishment of the mother for getting pregnant out of wedlock and the consequences of her actions (since it always seems to be the mother's fault) without seeming to care that those very consequences are carried by the child for the rest of their life.

There seems to be a serious ethical disconnect in the debate that goes as unnoticed as the children who continue to populate the over-burdened foster care system and who continue to life without families that will love them and enhance their qualities of life. Jesus spoke vividly of the orphan and the widow - but not of the fetus and of the unborn. The anti-abortion campaign has it all backwards and continue to retain an improbable ethic.

http://off-center.tatuskofam.com

"As for the recent failure in Congress to pass the State Children’s Health Insurance Plan or SCHIP demonstrates the moral dissonance between the executive and legislative branches as it pertains to health coverage for children."

The failure of Congress? WTH are you talking about?

The bill was PASSED by BOTH HOUSES of Congress. It was then VETOED by gw bush. The bill was then sent back to Congress where REPUBLIC CONGRESSMEN blocked it by not providing the votes to override gw bush's veto.

This was a failure of THE REPUBLICS to do the right thing. Not the Congress. Not the Democrats. The REPUBLICS.

Your column spreads the blame equally among the Parties. It would be like me averring that all Xian denominations share the blame for the child rape crisis the has afflicted the RCC.

You can always tell a right winger, even among the clergy. They provide tacit cover for RWers without even thinking about what they're doing.