Warning: Depresssing as hell

[Cappurr]

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/index.html

The Right's Grip on the Capitol

he big Congressional stories this year have been big-ticket legislation, like Medicare prescription drugs and the pork-layered energy bill. But barely under the political radar, a long-sought, hard-right G.O.P. agenda has been quietly progressing. Proposals dear to the Republican leadership that would undermine gun controls, women's reproductive freedom, a citizen's right to seek court redress, and a vital array of other constitutional bulwarks are moving slowly toward what in some cases seems like almost certain passage.

snip.

The Senate seems close to a vote on final approval of the egregious House bill that would grant the gun-making industry unprecedented protection from liability suits by state and local governments and victims of gun violence. Custom-tailored for the donation-rich gun lobby, the bill was strategically delayed during the sniper murders last year around Washington. Now it is moving again, and some Democrats who in the past might have helped to derail it are wavering, frightened by polls that show gun control as a losing issue in some swing states. G.O.P. leaders also are angling to let the federal assault weapon ban expire next year, and to protect the lethal loophole that exempts weapon sales at gun shows from background checks.

Under the guise of "tort reform," Senate leaders, prodded by corporate lobbyists, are just a handful of votes away from skewing the basic rules of class-action lawsuits. The bill they are considering would circumvent state jurisdiction and hobble federal courts to make it significantly harder for citizens to sue big polluters, securities cheats and other institutional powers. Senator John Breaux's alternative plan to address genuine class-action abuses is far preferable.

Final Capitol approval seems virtually certain soon for the federal ban on so-called partial-birth abortion. The deceptively broad measure, which President Bush is ready to sign, strikes at the heart of Roe v. Wade by criminalizing many midterm abortions and omitting exceptions for a mother's health. Beyond this, Republican leaders are working to enshrine in law the concept of "fetal rights." They want to turn assault on a pregnant woman into two separate crimes, a device to establish that the fetus is a "child" at any stage of gestation.

Another hard-right chestnut, a so-called victims' rights amendment to the Constitution, was forestalled in the past as critics warned it would go beyond legitimate concerns about crime victims to complicate prosecutions and undermine defendants' rights. But it has gotten a new lease on life this year, given the constitution of the House and Senate, and the new power of the Republican Party's right wing to have its agenda passed, especially with a kindred spirit in the White House. Pressure is also growing on Senate leaders to finally pass another perennial, the House's ban on flag desecration. Approval of that would be an attack on an important Supreme Court free-speech ruling. It would also add a triumphalist exclamation mark to a banner session for the hard-right agenda.



All I know is that Democrats in the Senate better be ready for a lot of filibustering if they want our support next time.

[Ilsa]

1. I can't help but wonder why

after we warn people that the Repukes are up to this, they refuse to believe it until it is too late, like it is for our involvement in Iraq. Women are going to have to lose their reproductive freedom, all of us must lose our legal redress, etc before the dumbfux constituency wakes up and smells the coffee.

Of course, many of them will take a juvenile attitude and accept that Pukes in DC know what's "best" for them.

[izzie]

5. No one thinks they would do these things.

Do you ever think they would have voted for Bush if he had said what he was about to do. Even when people came out and showed them he had put Tex in the red no one would hear it. We may have not asked for this group but half the country did. Now that is food for thought that just about half that vote want this guy. If it takes away your freedom they really do not care plus they are always saying they are willing to give up their freedom to be safe. As if this stuff they are doing is going to make us safe. I just do not understand them at all.

[Flying_Pig]

2. Most of this can, and will, be reversed when we take over in 05'.

In the meantime, I wish the Dems would take my suggestion, and F-I-L-I-B-U-S-T-E-R everything, until answers are given concerning 9/11, Iraq, Enron, Cheney's energy group meetings, etc.

Shut the damned place down, just like the Texas Dems did there. Though the Texans weren't successful in the end, they brought unprecedented publicity to their cause, which we need to do to the issues I mentioned.

[Ilsa]

3. I should add:

I bet the OB/GYN's fight this. Alot of their income comes from prenatal testing in the midterm of a pregnancy. If women no longer have a choice about the outcome of a pregnancy, office income for procedures like higher-level ultrasounds, amniocentesis, etc. will drop. Clinics will dry up in many places. Women with money will have to have their prenatal testing done out of the country, as well as their abortions. That means that wealthy poeple will still get them.

[Cappurr]

6. Yeah....

Can you imagine telling a MAN he can't have an operation that will save his life? No-one has late term abortions except for reasons of health risk. Doctors won't do them, for one thing.

[Loyal]

4. I only agree with one part of that:

I agree with the undermining of gun controls. Other than that, what they are doing is disgusting.

[Skittles]

7. undermining of gun controls?

is that what you would call it? Sure, make the US a free-for-all shooting range. Guns are FUN!!!