HCR in da House: Step Forward; Step Backward

Last night I watched the electronic vote tally for health care reform in the House.  The vote was hailed as historic, and indeed as I watched the vote tally for the bill stall at about 196 and then again stall at about 215, knowing that 218 votes were needed, I felt the anxiety and excitement that I felt election night ‘08 as Obama neared the 270 electoral vote count. The House let out a cheer as the 218th vote appeared, and then a gasp as a single republican vote registered as the 219th or 220th vote for the Bill.

Speaker Pelosi let out a giggle as she announced the vote tally and then banged the gavel.  And so it was. The House voted for health reform by a 220-215 count.

And then with a whoosh, the giddiness of learning that another 36 million Americans indeed might received health insurance, disappeared as I heard that the House’s passage of health reform came with a caveat, the Stupak Amendment, which goes out of its way to be punitive against women and marginalize their rights to reproductive freedom. And so it is another night in the discomforting journey of progressive reform in the Obama era.  In order to win passage of health reform, Speaker Pelosi and the Obama Administration horse traded away reproductive rights, moving the country ever closer to the dark pre Roe V Wade days of back ally abortions, needless health risks and overt discrimination against 51% of the population.

I am most intrigued by the horse trading of rights for reform, and the fact that Know Nothing conservatives continue to lead the country down the Bush Administration’s back ally days of rights retrenchment while lambasting Democrats for restricting basic freedom in America.

I’m amused and scared for the future especially considering that 2009 marks the likely high water mark of democratic control in the house and senate, at least for this era.  What other rights concessions might be embedded in the next progressive reforms for climate change, immigration and regulating wall street?

Two sets of Rules on Health Reform

The problem with the Dems in the health reform debate is that they are allowing their opponents to play by a different set of rules. While the president seeks bipartianship, the Repubican leadership says it will reject any democratic health reform plan. period.

While the dems engage in “honest” debate over the public option, the republicans ignore facts and insist on sabotage. period.

Okay, at least we know.

Hardly the ingredients for reform.  But The real problem is not the Republicans who seem pretty open about their intentions. It is the Democrats, who seem unwilling to consider their bretheran are anything other than loyal opponents.

Hey folks. wake up.

It is time, for example, for the democratic leadership to ride herd over the blue dogs to make sure they vote for cloture to prevent a republican filibuster.  Then, the blue dogs can vote their conscience on the merits of the bill, or rather their campaign warchests. This way– blue dogs are prevented from being accomplices in the Republican attempt to sabotage reform, and the Obama presidency.

And health reform could then win (or lose) based on 51 votes.

Guns, Wackiness, Health care and the First Amendment

For the past several days I have been disturbed by the recurring imagining of the gun toting Obama opponent that was allowed to walk around the NH town hall site with w gun strapped to his leg. Reports said police were monitoring the guy but still he and thousands of other Birthist/ deathist anti Obama wackos were permitted in close proximity to the president. One gun related arrest was reported.

It wasn’t so long ago, during the Bush presidency that unarmed, passionate but not dangerous political opponents were kept in cages several blocks away from President.  Demonstrators, even persons who were not demonstrators, but merely members of the opposition–democratic–party, were denied proximity.

so, my questions:

since when does one’s right to bear arms trump free speech? Why is it that attempts to forbid some gun toting nut-job from close proximity to the president  are thwarted ostenisibly out of fear of intruding on his second amendment, while free speech advocates have never enjoyed such zone of privacy around their liberty?

Consider this. the first amendment is a fundamental right. The right to bear arms is not. And yet, the first amendment free speech and right to assembly has always been regulated, recentl w/ free speech zones, better known as free speech cages that were constructed some distance away from the republican conventions in 2004 and 2008.

It is one thing to countenance the fact-free attacks and hate driven tirades that are increasing in intensity around the president and the issues he cares strongly about, but adhering to the value of free speech to this country’s larger spirit of liberty and democracy. I’m all for giving them play, but think they should be shouted down.

it is quite another to hold the second amendment in a place never intended for it by the framers nor countenanced for it recently by the Court. That  may be a sign of the times but given such signs, it is just plain dangerous.