Republican Sickness

We are all familiar with the Republican party's flagrant opposition to the current Democratic-controlled government. This has been well documented and manifested via an almost unilateral blanket of "no" when it comes to any policy changes proposed by congressional Democrats. In fact, their almost unanimous opposition, now hijacked and irrationally perpetuated by the Fox Opinion Machine (nee News) has already led to such a deep muddling of the healthcare overhaul that I fear we will not recover from it. Is it possible that they can get even more egregious than this? Yes they can, 30 of them did:

"Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) introduced an amendment to a defense appropriations bill that would prevent the federal government from funding contractors whose employee contracts prevent workers from pursuing allegations of rape against co-workers.

The measure passed the Senate by a vote of 68 to 30, with all 30 'no' votes being cast by Republicans. Notably, 10 Senate Republicans voted for the measure, including all four female Republican senators.

Franken was inspired to push the amendment by the story of Jamie Leigh Jones, who was an employee of KBR -- at the time a subsidiary of Halliburton -- working in Baghdad's Green Zone when she was allegedly gang-raped by other KBR workers." (excerpt from rawstory.com 10/7/09).

There is no other way to describe this as downright sickness. If you are against the ruling party, come up with your own plausible solutions and, by rationally opposing, win the respect of the people you represent but more importantly, sway some of the people from the other side. But to flagrantly vote against a provision that seeks to curb and punish downright deviant behavior just to prolong an already irrational opposition is a sickness of the mind that no political party should sanction. This is the party of morality and family values? With this one, these 30 Republicans have really crossed the line from mere opposition to pure and utter lunacy (and hatred in my opinion). How else can you characterize it?

Al Franken Wins...

...8 months after he was elected U.S. Senator from Minnesota. Today, the Minnesota State Supreme Court ruled that he did so by a margin of 312 votes and finally, excruciatingly so, Republican incumbent Norm Coleman, otherwise known as sore loser, conceded defeat after countless recounts. Now the U.S. Senate can legitimately undertake the business of the nation.

We in New York State, however, continue to wait for our Senate to resolve a similar power struggle between Republicans and Democrats. Even though the Republicans have controlled the NY Senate for 40 years, yes 40 years, they could not accept their defeat last November. They staged a coup this spring to regain leadership by appending two, but then losing one, Democratic rope jumpers, unfortunately and inadvertently creating a 31-31 tie.

Power-sharing resolutions are expected but have failed to materialize. And, despite orders from the Governor to return to the business of the state, the Senate having first engaged in separate but equal attendance have failed to maintain even these feeble attempts at conducting business. The only successful action has been separate but ratifiable orders to ensure that they get paid. Sad but true but, I digress.

Al Franken's win delivers a 60 vote Democratic quorum to the United States Senate. Hopefully this leads to something good but the rising and inescapable bad sportsmanship of the GOP is starting to reach indefatigable proportions. Must the rich and powerful make mockery of everything we thought we had a stake in? The saga continues...