Entry 1079 of 1199
By Blue Prevails On July 23, 2010 at 1:53 AM
This morning, I heard Florida Congressman Alan Grayson interviewed on a progressive radio show. Grayson is famous for remarks such as “The Republicans’ answer to health care is don’t get sick and if you do, die quickly.” The Congressman also told his Republican colleagues who voted against the unemployment extension that they should ask for God’s forgiveness. His website is called ‘Congressman with Guts’ and that sums up his approach to representing his constituents. The lunatics have come out the woodwork and Grayson has received several death threats for speaking out. To me, the most interesting nonsense has been a right wing blogger who placed a bounty on any Congressman who would punch him in the nose. Grayson’s response was that he is not worried because the Republicans know that HE WILL PUNCH BACK! My question is when will the President and Harry Reid and the rest of the Democrats punch back? I have been proud of many Democratic accomplishments including health care and financial reform and disappointed that Gitmo is still open and that we remain mired in winless wars. Nothing, however, has truly outraged me more than the situation with Shirley Sherrod. The most damning and damnable revelation was that Ms. Sherrod was pressured to resign before the story was to run on Glen Beck’s FOX News Channel show. Who is making decisions and advising the President! The people who watch Beck, a high school dropout, believe that he is the fount of all knowledge, particularly American History, and they also believe that Sarah Palin should be president of the United States. Most of the people who love these two consistently vote against their own economic self interest and rail against the Socialist Obama when they have no clue what socialism really means, and they are the same ones who watch FOX News. So, when Hannity, O’Reilly, Beck (not to mention Rush Limbaugh and Andrew Breitbart) and their abettors tell one lie after another, the Dems’ reaction is to whine and say “Isn’t it awful?” instead of punching back and calling them out.
My other frustration continues to be with the Senate and the filibuster “agreement". I am old enough to remember when the Southern Democrats were forced to stand and actually filibuster the Civil Rights Bill. Now, however, there seems to be a “gentleman agreement” so as not to make the 41 Republicans uncomfortable. It would seem to me that the unemployment bill would have been a great opportunity to make Republicans spend endless hours telling us why they were in favor of children going hungry. But no, once again, they knock us down, bully us and lie about our intentions, and we whine and take it. We need more Alan Graysons and fewer compromisers because the Republicans have shown that their only agenda is power for power’s sake—or, perhaps they have one agenda—help the rich get richer at the expense of the rest of us.