Since the healthcare bill was passed and signed the hate, bigotry and violence of these people, spurred on and encouraged to riot and commit acts of violence by Sarah Palin, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and the overwhelming silence by their Republican leaders has escalated. Not ONE Republican senator or congress member has come forward to apologize to the Democrats and the American public for the actions of their followers, not ONE of them have spoken out against the violence. Their silence only spurs on their outlaw followers. Their silence is just another smile and nod and a way of saying, go ahead. The political climate these days is just totally disgusting. None of it has a place in democracy. The media is just as guilty for giving the Tea Party criminals air time. When Bush was in office no one could protest. He fenced off the protesters miles from him. And the national news never gave any of the protests any coverage at all. We hear from the hateful Republicans and the Tea Party fools every evening on the news. 
Members of Congress Threatened. Democratic lawmakers have received death threats and been the victims of vandalism because of their votes in favor of the health-care bill, lawmakers and law enforcement officials said Wednesday, as the Congressional debate over the issue headed toward a bitter and divisive conclusion.Within moments of President Obama signing the health care bill, Republican Leader Mitch McConnell introduced legislation to repeal the most sweeping reform in the last 50 years. Sen. John McCain vowed, "There will be no cooperation for the year."
Democrats are fighting to bring better health care coverage to every American. Republicans are in the back rooms scheming up plans to thwart the President's entire agenda.
GOP's 'Repeal the Bill' Legislation an Exercise in Futility by: Aaron Pendell
Following his introduction of Barack Obama at Tuesday's health care reform signing ceremony, Vice President Joe Biden informed the president that the legislative accomplishment was "a big f***ing deal!" Biden's word choice was, perhaps, indelicate, but his sentiment was appropriate. Considering the over-the-top, often misleading, attacks which have clouded the year-long debate over reform, opponents of the bill seem to agree.
Here's what Sen. Jim "Waterloo" DeMint said in a statement related to his legislation tasked with repealing health care reform (via TPM):
In ramming through a bill that forces government into the most personal aspect of our lives, the President and his Democrat Party have revealed themselves as being radically to the left of the American people. They will lose this fight in the end; the American people cherish their freedom and will defend it this November.
These two sentences contain a number of errors. The "ramming through" bit is only right if you view the health care debate as having taken place exclusively in the last few weeks, which it didn't. He repeats the GOP's petty habit of misnaming their opposition as the "Democrat Party," rather than "Democratic," which is hardly worth mentioning considering the ludicrousness of the rest of that sentence.
But it's the last bit from DeMint, the suggestion that the Democrats "will lose this fight," drawing the battle lines for the 2010 midterm elections. A few months ago, this might have represented conventional thinking on the matter; but, that was before reform passed, and before anti-reform protesters made asses of themselves outside the Capitol building last weekend.
DeMint's assertion is based on the tired GOP health care meme, that the reform legislation was and is "unpopular" among American voters. But just because Republicans say it, that doesn't make it so.
As I've asserted previously, even if the polls indicate a measure of dissatisfaction with reform, it doesn't mean that all those unhappy with it are dissatisfied for the same reason. Matt Finkelstein explains it in his March 23 Media Matters Action post, calling out one of DeMint's colleagues:
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) cited a recent CNN poll finding that a majority of American voters are against the bill. "The CNN latest poll that I saw said that 59 percent of the respondents disapproved of the bill, didn't want it," Cornyn said.
However, as Media Matters Action noted yesterday, the top line of the CNN poll only tells half the story. When asked why they oppose the bill, 13 percent of the poll's respondents said it is "not liberal enough." In total, 52 percent of those surveyed approve of the bill or wish it was more liberal -- which doesn't exactly suit the GOP's argument...
Finkelstein goes on to cite a highly publicized March 23 USA Today/Gallup poll which indicates that 49 per cent of Americans think that the passage of reform was "a good thing," opposed to the 40 per cent who don't. Finkelstein rightly concludes, "As it becomes even clearer that the GOP's anti-reform rhetoric was overblown, a bill that provides millions of Americans with safeguards they need should only become more popular."
It's worth noting that efforts to repeal the reform bill aren't the only proposed threat from conservatives. My Care2 colleague Jessica Pieklo addresses numerous -- legally shaky to varying degrees -- legal attacks by reform opponents in her latest post. What sets DeMint's legislation apart from the rest is that, if the attacks listed by Pieklo have little chance of success, repeal legislation has even less.
Nate Silver places the nearest "small window of opportunity" for repeal proponents in 2013, contingent upon a set of hurdles the GOP can't hope to clear. Between now and then, any such effort would certainly be vetoed by the president. Silver links to Matthew Yglasias, explaining that it's "literally impossible for Republicans to amass enough manpower in the Congress to override a veto from Obama."
So, if a repeal bill has no chance of undoing the' BFD' Biden spoke of, what's the point?
Personally, I suspect DeMint's repeal effort -- all around scary person, Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN), is leading another futile "repeal the bill" endeavor in the House -- is about money. It's the GOP clutching for campaign donations by way an empty gesture to the 40 per cent of Americans who think reform was a "bad idea."
The GOP better get it while they can. As it is, Republicans are playing directly into the Democrats' 'game plan,' one they've been planning for months. If the Democrats, by some miracle, actually have their act together on fighting back, that "bad idea" number is likely to come down along with the size of the GOP's donor pool.
Overall, 2010 is shaping up poorly for the GOP, but there is a bright side: they'll always be able to count on the 24 per cent of Republicans who believe Obama to be the Anti-Christ (*sigh* - seriously, no joke, check it out ).
Not wasting even a moment, officials in a dozen states pledged to try and block the health care bill. The arguments against the bill fall into two general categories: those that argue that the mandate requiring people to buy health insurance is an unconstitutional overstep by the federal government into the lives of individuals, and those that argue that the bill in general violates state sovereignty rights. The states planning to mount challenges include Texas, Florida, Alabama, Nebraska, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Washington Louisiana and Virginia
Legal scholars of all political stripes agree that neither argument has much of a chance of prevailing, meaning the challenges will likely amount to little more than political theatre. Of the two, the challenges directly attacking the insurance mandate will likely gain more ground than those posed by the "tenthers"., (
my note: the tenthers are another racist group that don't like having a black man in the White House so they want to put power back in states' hands). That is because the overall mandate is structured as a tax, and taxing citizens is fully within the constitutional authority granted to the federal government. Courts will typically defer to tax decisions by Congress so long as they constitute a "genuine revenue-raising device". Supreme Court decisions going as far back as the New Deal all broadly interpret the government's power to regulate interstate commerce, including the impact of an individual, or a state's, attempt to "opt out" of a particular regulation.
In fact, one need not look as far back as early challenges to the New Deal to understand just how broad the federal governments powers are concerning interstate commerce and reigning in personal freedoms. For example, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 required hotels and restaurants to serve minorities and faced initial challenges on the same grounds. Clearly those challenges failed, but even if the mandate were to be successfully challenged, the remainder of the bill would stand.
Which brings us to the more unhinged of the legal challenges, and that is the argument that the entire bill violates state sovereign rights. Of course, tenthers also believe that Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid are also unconstitutional oversteps and should be eliminated as well. Those who take this ideology to the extreme often advocate against filing income taxes and declare themselves sovereign. The movement has its roots in the the secessionist movement prior to the Civil War and the racist rebellion in the 1950s and 1960s against Supreme Court rulings ordering an end to racial segregation. It should come as no surprise then that the "Tea Party" movement embraces this ideology and is leading the charge in these legal challenges. These are, after all, the same activists shouting racial epithets to members of Congress and spitting on them just prior to their vote on the bill.
So when we examine the impact and the importance of these legal challenges, it is fair to place them in their social, historical context as part of a larger movement fighting against economic, racial, and social justice. Make no mistake about it, health care reform is an extension of civil rights, just like the Civil Rights Act, the Americans With Disabilities Act, the Fair Housing Act, and the Social Security Act--legislation designed to help Americans realize those inalienable rights. Those attempting to block it now simply think that only a select and privileged group have those rights.
Love, Connie 
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