It was, as Joe Biden famously put it, "a big fuckin' deal." You bet your hair plugs it was, Joe! Legislation to reform health care coverage has passed and will be enacted into law. It is history in our time and a proud moment.
The bill is far from perfect and does far less than it should have, but it still does a hell of a lot and is an undeniably large step in the right direction. Barack Obama has succeeded where so many before him had failed. Great job, Cuz! When the time is right, we can get back to work on a public option and some genuine cost controls for both insurers and providers. But the first step can be the hardest, and that step has been taken.
The Democrats took the step alone. Not a single Republican voted for it (and we should remember that). The R's continue to show unified support for a policy of 47 million uninsured Americans, coverage and claims denied for pre-existing conditions, insurance rescinded in the event of serious illness, bankruptcies caused by medical costs, unconscionable profits and executive pay in the health industry, and the entire god-awful greed-driven status quo! They believe they can make political hay with this abhorrent position. Mitch McConnell says the R's mantra for the mid-term elections will be "Replace & Repeal." John Boehner said passage of the bill was "Armageddon" and got so worked up he turned blue in the face (no easy task for an orange person!).
And the R's good buddies the TEA Baggers put on their usual show of good manners and civility. They took to the streets, the phones, and halls of government with their signature tactics -- vandalism, homophobic epithets, racial slurs, and death threats. Lovely! Sarah Palin, tone-deaf as always, put a map of the U.S. on her website showing supposedly "vulnerable" Democrats in the crosshairs of a rifle scope. Stay classy, Sarah!
Buster suspects he has at least a couple of occasional readers who consider themselves Republicans. What do you make of all this noise and fury? Do you like it? Do you believe it's persuasive? Are you proud? What I hear from a lot of R's I know is, "No, no, I don't approve of that sort of behavior. That's not me. That's not my Republican Party." Douchebag Boehner mumbled a half-hearted denouncement of the TEA tactics, but you could see he had his fingers crossed. Whiny little asshole Eric Cantor wanted us to know that he too had received a nasty phone message.
Sorry, but it won't wash. It's way too late for the R's to distance themselves from the monster they created. Hey boys, you wanted blind, unreasoning anger? Well, you got it. Newt Gingrich pointed the way 16 years ago, and ever since -- on talk radio, on Fox TV, in a few newspapers, and on the web -- you've been encouraging your base of bigoted, Bible-totin', mean stupid cocksuckers. And here they are. This is what you wanted and what you made. You are responsible for it, and you own it! All this ugliness is indeed your Republican Party. Good luck trying to turn it into a pretty picture.
And good luck as well trying to sue the federal government. The new law will require everyone to carry health insurance by 2014. Suddenly, a number of states with Republican governors and attorneys general filed suit, claiming the requirement is an unconstitutional violation of states' rights. While the Constitution does protect states' rights, there's also this little thing in Article 6 known as the supremacy clause, which says: "The U.S. Constitution shall be the supreme Law of the Land, laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." There has never been a successful legal challenge to the supremacy clause, and there won't be one now. These lawsuits are DOA, although Beck and Limbaugh will probably scream about them for years.
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