My thoughts go out today to wounded Majority Whip Steve Scalise.
The House leader's life was saved not only by his heavily armed security detail, who killed the alleged shooter, but by some of the physicians who have given up practicing medicine in order to practice nihilistic politics. Who knew that among the reactionaries who'd gathered to practice their baseball skills were medical doctors whose version of the Hippocratic Oath is first, do no harm by withholding medical care from as many poor people as possible?
As Donald Trump initially Tweeted in reaction, today's event was a true American tragedy, ostensibly because a manly GOP man was wounded right in the hip. In keeping with solemn presidential tradition, Trump added the obligatory prayers to what passes for his thoughts.
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans, under cover of darkness, were busily trying to make life worse for ordinary Americans by throwing some 20 million of them off their market-based health care and plotting the morbidity and mortality of tens of millions more through the vicious gutting of Medicaid. The only point of contention among them is whether to kill poor and elderly people slowly and mercilessly, or quickly and mercilessly.
As Axios reports, they're refusing to release a draft of their death panel legislation because they're not stupid. It would be "premature" of them to warn people that they can now expect to die even more prematurely than they already are.
Meanwhile, Steve Scalise was said to be in "good spirits" as he prepared to undergo surgery. And why wouldn't he be? Not only was he blissing out on I.V. painkillers, he will likely never even have to look at a hospital bill.
Meanwhile, the Democrats still seem more interested in searching for the ephemeral "smoking gun" in #RussiaGate than they are in speaking up for some actual gun control and agitating for some actual single payer health insurance.
But several of them did gather on their own baseball practice field to pray for the cameras.
"Who would have thought it? I'm really good at killing people."
ReplyDelete- Obama on 'Terror Tuesday'
When Gabby Giffords was shot, Democrats condemned Sarah Palin for her 'crosshairs' map and accused her of inciting violence.
ReplyDeleteFor the past 6 months, we've heard almost nothing but spewing of hate and open suggestions of violence from the Dems, yet no Democrats (or Independent Bernie) have condemned it. I remember writing a comment months ago here about my worries along those lines and it has only gotten worse since then. So will Dems own up to their responsibility for setting the violent tone for this incident, or will they let Bernie take the blame?
Apparently, the shooter was a 'Berniebro' but he was whipped into his lather by Democrat hate-mongering, not by Bernie. However, Bernie remained silent for these many months about the violent tone the Dems were setting. Sadly, he had nothing to say about it until after he was dragged into it personally with this shooting. It will be difficult now for him to place the blame where it belongs, on the Dems, not that he would even try since the Democrats are his team. Lay down with dogs, get up with fleas, Bernie.
He'd better hope that the Republicans and Establishment (Hillary) Democrats don't use the media to somehow crush him and Our Revolution. Never let a crisis go to waste, as Rahm would say.
I became Anonymous again even though the first entry I made in the comment box was my name!
ReplyDeleteWho does Bernie think he is: Lenin, Mao, Castro, Jim Jones?
ReplyDeleteThat's what the NY Times suggests you Benie Bros ask yourselves:
"That shooting on Wednesday, which wounded four people, may prove to be an unexpected test for a movement born out of Mr. Sanders’s left-wing, populist politics and a moment for liberals to figure out how to balance anger at Mr. Trump with inciting violence."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/politics/bernie-sanders-supporters.html?emc=edit_th_20170615&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=48169905&_r=0
It was you, Bernie. First, you caused violence by sheepdogging for Hillary. Then, on a quiet summer morning in June, you incited––by clever indirection––the attack on one of our duly-elected Washington shepherds from the heartland who was doing nothing more than playing the good old American Game.
Go ahead, bite your lip, just like in the photos of you behind the podium. Shame on you and your wacky left-wing populist liberals on the other side of that bully pulpit.
Time to do what you finally had the good sense to do at the Democratic Convention. Ease up on the "constant drumbeat of hatred" from the Democratic left. Tell your belligerent followers to put away their torches and pitchforks and stand down out of respect, not for Hillary this time, but for The Donald, the man you yourself, by omission and indirection, helped put in the White House.
O "the rage buried in some corners of the progressive left," like those battleaxes from National Nurses United. Yeah, it was you, Bernie. I knew it was you. You broke my heart.
Hey, Jay-O, quit the snark and cut to the chase.
ReplyDeleteI've followed your comments with interest prompted by their shrewdness.
Yet sarcasm (if that is your spiel here) under these circumstances is simply self-aggrandizing, and however entertaining, it is not enlightening.
Now the bloody chips are coming down, and the chickens coming home to roost will just be slaughtered by the idiots mistaking them for golden egg-laying geese.
I know you know how deeply we're into the endgame, and I'd like to believe you think we still have a sliver of a chance to overcome (to which last straw I try to cling myself).
Bur parsing and picking at every little thing Sanders has done, or failed to do, is academic fodder for retrospect, not directive commentary for what to do now.
So, what then must we do?
Foremost, I insist we must assert and advance a progressive direction based on principle and purpose. The difference in outcome at odds and at stake could not be more starkly defined.
Note what Ken Kesey said: "You don't lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case."
Heed what he also said: "When God wants to get your attention, he always has to use blood."
Well, this latest, tragic bloodshed demands we pay attention, but not to draw the wrong conclusions, or take the wrong actions.
We must give our hearts to the good of the commonwealth, and our Mother Earth, not to anyone in the battle, whether warrior chief or fellow fighter.
And so, to call any of us "Bernie Bros" (and align yourself with such slander against Sanders) is simply an insipid, smarmy smear, and disturbingly with suspect intentions.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSo sickening how after the shooting of a lawmaker another Rebulican lawmaker makes a comment in a televised interview stating he blames the democrats and liberals for the negative rhetoric. It's exactly this hateful message that reinforces and even promotes more attacks on the other party. Such a hypocrite! Ideally he should stand up and change his own rhetoric if he is seriously concerned about the effects of how the American political climate is effecting and increasing violence here and around the world. Both Republicans and democrats should look in the mirror but unfortunately their narcissism won't allow them to see their ugliness. So sad they can't see what their viewers can see. This is dangerous no doubt. I don't see much difference between the two parties.
ReplyDelete