GOP BS about Reconciliation

Let's retire the notion being pushed like crack that using "reconciliation" to get what's been watered down to health care consumer protection passed through the U.S. Senate is something terribly, terribly unusual and sinister. The pushers, Republicans such as Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), should be ashamed of themselves for this naked effort to throw pixie dust at the public to protect their insurance industry patrons.

The facts of the matter are that reconciliation, a procedure created to bypass an arcane Senate practice to make sure, among other things, that the federal government has funds on which to legally operate, was first used in 1981 by the ... wait for it ... Republicans!

• 17 of the 23 reconciliation bills signed into law, were enacted by Republican presidents;
• If you have ever continued under your employer's health plan after you were laid off under "COBRA" benefits, that's due to the 1974 Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act;
• Welfare reforms were passed in 1996 thanks to one Newton Leroy Gingrich (then R-Ga), in the the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act.

As to what reconciliation bypasses, it's called a filibuster, a maneuver not found nor based in the Constitution, to stop the Senate from even debating whether a law should be passed or voting on the law. The filibuster stops a 59% majority from approving a law.

Let's consider what 59% means.

Remember  Ronald Reagan's 1980 "landslide" electoral victory that made him president? He only got 50.7% of the votes cast. In contrast, Lyndon B. Johnson won 61% of the votes cast 1964 -- that was a real landslide.

Under the Senate's 60% supermajority rule needed to defeat a filibuster, neither Abraham Lincoln nor John F. Kennedy would have been elected. Nor would any president since Lyndon Johnson, including Barack Obama and both Bushes.

The famously portrayed filibuster by actor Jimmy Stewart in the 1939 film  "Mr. Smith Comes to Washington" isn't even how filibusters occur today at all. There's no continuous talkathon, no drama at all and really no effort.

Last week, by one vote upholding a filibuster, that of Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky), the unemployment benefits of millions of people came to a crashing halt this past Sunday, just when the duration of joblessness is at an all-time-record.

Telenovelas and the NPR Reporter

Just Thursday morning, I  heard a reporter on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" comparing the then-upcoming conference between President Obama and the Republicans on health reform to a "Latin telenovela." In case listeners didn't know what a telenovela is, he added, "you know, one of Latin American those soap operas that go on for hours and hours."

I get it. We're all supposed to laugh. Imagine Barack Obama and John Boehner (R-Ohio) going on like those crazy "Latins" sitting in the shade in their Mexican "sombreros" and going on endlessly about nothing while sipping their tequila! Ha, ha, ha!

You know, of course, that all Hispanics wear mariachi band outfits, right? In addition, they have no sense of time -- not like punctual, lickety-spit Anglos -- and can't use a pithy Anglo-Saxon phrase where a guitar-accompanied serenade can be had.

Right, Mr. NPR reporter? Ha, ha, ha!!!

Oh, but wait! I am no fan of telenovelas, yet even I know that they keep to their appointed half-hour or hour schedules. They don't go on continuously for "hours and hours" like the debatefest at the White House on health reform.

That's Anglo politicians, Mr. NPR reporter. Not Hispanics in telenovelas.

What's long about telenovelas and Anglo soap-operas alike is that they have interminable, implausible plots that go on for years over thousands of episodes.

The NPR reporter obviously merged in his mind the long plots with the stereotypes about Hispanics -- not "Latins," unless you want to count Andrew Cuomo as one. Doesn't NPR have editors capable of deleting a simile that not only runs against the facts, but is subtly racist?

I understand you didn't mean to offend anyone, Mr. NPR reporter. You wanted to show off that you are so culturally broadminded that you know the word "telenovela."

Piling on Muslims

At the risk of sticking my nose where it doesn't belong, I would like to raise my voice against the denial of French citizenship to a man accused of forcing his wife to wear a veil. According to The New York Times and Le Monde, Prime Minister François Fillon announced on Feb. 3 that he would sign a decree denying French nationality to the man.

We don't know the man's name nor the evidence that he forced his wife to wear a veil. Nor do we know under what law it is illegal to do so. Most importantly, we don't know how the man allegedly forced his wife to wear a veil.

Just think. How does one person force another person to wear something? Did he tie her down and put it on her? Did he watch her every moment to make sure she didn't take it off? Did he beat her and terrorize her?

If the alleged forcing involved assault it is some kind of crime in France, no? Why wasn't he arrested? Why wasn't he deported? How come he is allowed to walk freely and merely denied the "honor" of a French passport?

And don't they have shelters for battered women in France to which she could have fled and been helped to remake her life without the abusive husband?

Given the absence of evidence, why does this allegation warrant a prejudicial, but merely administrative, government action? Why isn't the citizenry of the country that gave us the cry of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" rising up in outrage against an arbitrary government that denies citizen to a man without showing legal cause?

Who's next? Jews for wearing yarmulkes? Americans for wearing shorts in summer? Peruvians for wearing ponchos?

All I see here is a Muslim couple in which the woman apparently happens to wear a veil.