Dear Senators,
Congratulation, assholes, for blocking the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities yesterday. You done “real good!”
Let’s see…you further narrowed your alarmingly narrow base:
If you thought the Republican Party only tries to appeal to well-off, married, white suburban and rural Christian men, boy are you wrong. The Republican Party tried to appeal only to well-off, white, suburban and rural able-bodied Christian men.
Nice!
In rejecting the treaty, you spit in the face of both former Sen. Bob Dole and former President George H.W. Bush—you know, the guy who signed the American With Disabilities Act, that serves as model law for signatory states. Oh…and George W. Bush, whose administration negotiated the treaty in the first place, and who first signed the treaty.
Really, nice work!
Instead you cast your lot with the fringe extremists of your party—the American Taliban, if you will. And the American Taliban’s top General is Senator Rick Santorum, who convinced you to reject the treaty because:
…parents and caregivers care most deeply and are best equipped to care for the disabled. Not international bureaucrats.
Except that the treaty does not put “international bureaucrats” in charge of children with disabilities. The very idea completely contradicts the words and spirit of the treaty (try reading it, ya nutjobbers!), which is almost entirely about countries agreeing to pass laws ensuring people with disabilities receive the same opportunities that are enjoyed by persons without disabilities.
Santorum’s overt lie misinformation about the treaty is strikingly similar to, and as absurd as, Sarah Palin’s 2009 lie-of-the-year award winning, repeatedly debunked “Obama’s Death Panels” crazy talk.
Santorum also frets:
Another example of this U.N. overreach is the treaty’s “best interests of the child” standard, which states in full: “In all actions concerning children with disabilities, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.”
But here is what the treaty says:
Article 7 – Children with disabilities
- States Parties shall take all necessary measures to ensure the full enjoyment by children with disabilities of all human rights and fundamental freedoms on an equal basis with other children.
- In all actions concerning children with disabilities, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.
Wow…I can see how considering the best interests of the child in passing laws to ensure equality of “full human rights and fundamental freedoms” might threaten the fuck out of you. The little rugrats might try to vote!
And it isn’t just General Santorum. Some of you bought the bullshit of General Tony Perkins:
“The global community could force America to sanction sterilization or abortion for the disabled–at taxpayer expense,” said Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.
Actually, what the treaty says is:
Article 23 – Respect for home and the family
1. States Parties shall take effective and appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against persons with disabilities in all matters relating to marriage, family, parenthood and relationships, on an equal basis with others, so as to ensure that:
a. The right of all persons with disabilities who are of marriageable age to marry and to found a family on the basis of free and full consent of the intending spouses is recognized;
b. The rights of persons with disabilities to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children and to have access to age-appropriate information, reproductive and family planning education are recognized, and the means necessary to enable them to exercise these rights are provided;
c. Persons with disabilities, including children, retain their fertility on an equal basis with others.
Literally, the treaty encourages countries to provide the same reproductive options to persons with disabilities as are available to persons without disabilities. But Tony Perkins is a well known lying sack of shit uninformed dissembling nutjob. So…”good job” there.
And that’s not all. You:
…bought the bogus argument that to vote for the U.N. treaty would mean that the U.N. committee overseeing the ban on discrimination against the disabled, including children, could violate the rights of American parents who decide to home school their disabled children.
Nuh-huh. What the treaty does do is ensure that children with disabilities have the same rights to schooling, including home schooling that children without disabilities have.
This “home schooling” concern can only be considered the rantings of lunatics who have not read the fucking treaty. That likely includes YOU and up to 37 of your esteemed, lunatic colleagues!
That’s not the craziest thing of all. The stupefyingly crazy thing comes from a whole other collection of wackjobs: The “U.N. sovereignty over the U.S.” conspiracy theorists. Santorum, of course, hinted at this.
Since the treaty is really designed to get countries to pass laws essentially modeled after the American With Disabilities Act, ratification of the treaty by the U.S. would really only subject the U.S. to a quadrennial reporting requirement. So, thank you, Senators, for saving us from the tyranny of writing the Easiest. Report. Ever. every four years.
Now that you have saved us from the autocracy of U.N. bureaucrats performing abortions and forced sterilization on home-schooled babies with disabilities, it’s time to move on the other important things.
You know…like outing high ranking government officials who are members of the New World Order (or the Muslim Brotherhood). Or revealing the truth about aliens and Area 51. And, for Pete’s sake, finally nailing Bill and Hillary Clinton for the death of Vince Foster!
Get to it!
Verily,
Darryl
Horsesass.org
Bravo!
And F*ck You Republican Asswipes!
I get the feeling this is about contraception. The Bible Thumpers are agin’ it, whether you belong to their church or not. Thanks to Republicans, the U.S. is rapidly becoming the world’s laughingstock.
Fucking assholes.
Another example of the overtly fascist party the modern GOTP has become. These are the same folks who fought tooth and nail against the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Ku Klux Klan Act, the removal of Prohibition of Alcohol (and replaced it with an openly racist police state against marijuana), they fought against womens Sufferage, black Sufferage, and allowing native Americans to own property or run businesses.
They openly opposed US involvement in the Second World War, and then vehemently fought our opposition to the Germans, and insisted we support Germany. These are the same people that maintained local laws governing whether Jews could own property in certain areas. They fought against the rural Electrification Acts, the rural Communications Acts, and the idea of the Government building Dams to generate electricity.
Causing the Great Depression of the 1930s was the ultimate purpose of the GOP, and it’s greatest economic success until 2007.
Goddamn edit thingy isn’t working again.
If the GOP had its way, they’d make the whole world look like This.
Except for the rich peoples areas of course.
Great post. Just x-posted on my FB wall.
I got the impression, this was just the ADA going global. I remember seeing an interview done by a Canadian outlet with then-outgoing Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan, who was a quadriplegic after a skiing accident when he was younger. When he would do some of his duties that required him visiting other countries, he would actually be asked by people if his title was honorary. They could not believe that a disabled person could hold such an office and be up front about it. He also had said he got a kick out his counterparts often having to come outside and meet him because their city hall might not have been handicaped accessible.
Also, I saw on Maddow last night, some footage she showed of a little disability-rights protest prior to the ADA passage. It was at the 1986 convention of the American Public Transportation Association(the trade group of public transportation in the US), and the activists chained their wheelchairs to buses. THat was in 1986, one irony, was there was one bus agency that was ahead of the curve on that one, the earlier incarnation of King County Metro, which had started putting wheelchair lifts on buses as early as the 1980s, often being the only purchaser of a bus model asking for that.(they in fact designed the lift).
Some Republicans claim the ADA was a burdensome regulation. I wonder if it is because businesses had to do improvements to be accessible and in compliance. Bus operators adapted well. I am not sure, but other than over the road coaches used for commuter service, most bus manufacturers in Canada and the US have pulled high-floor buses from the 30 to 60 foot category catalogues(although a few years ago, North American Bus Industries still had a model for sale).
In a way, we were exporting the ADA to other countries that may have not had anything similar yet. Some conservatives acted like we did not need to ratify this treaty. Then again, they do not want us to have any diplomatic credibility. This treaty would have extended the protections of the ADA to Americans overseas, some of those are wounded war veterans.
Is This Guy Smart Enough To Be President?
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said today the earth is 4.5 billion years old — after thinking about it for a month. Rubio admitted he should have been able to sit down and write out an answer in “30 minutes.”
http://politicalticker.blogs.c.....nt-4581305
Roger Rabbit Commentary: I can do it in 5 seconds and I’m only a rabbit. Of course, my answer would disqualify me for the GOP nomination; but then, so does his.
The lobbying group purporting to represent home-schooling parents let their GOP Senators know that they are organized and would take some vengence on anyone voting for the treaty. For those afraid of being primaried by a Tea-Party candidate, it didn’t matter that the argument against the treaty was so much B.S. What mattered was that it was a threat they had to take seriously.
I’ve knows a few parents who home-schooled their children. A couple of them do quite well, being disciplined and making sure they have lots of social interaction and studies in various subjects from their homeschool network. Another couple had a child with a large birth mark across half her face, and they decided to home-school out of concerns that she would be teased and ostracized throughout her early school years.
Unfortunately, there are the other ones as well. One couple I know had one of the more disorganized households I’ve ever seen, and their kids’s schooling reflected it. After two years of home-schooling, the mother took a job and decided to put her kids into public schools. But she was upset that the school tested the kids and placed them back two grade levels – essentially back to where they started.
And then there are the extremists, those that won’t let the state and local school board teach their kids hearasy such as science, ect. They also want to keep a tight leash on their kids, making sure they have no contact with “the outside world” except through their parents and church. For these parents, the very reference to “U.N.” was enough to put them into a tizzy – especially with the wingnut claims that Obama wants to turn the U.S. over to the U.N., the first step in setting himself up as the Anti-Christ. Those are the ones who support the Tea Party and the lobbying effort which bore fruit for the GOP minority in the Senate yesterday.
Lost in all of this, of course, is the actual truth of what the treaty does and does not do. It’s become a political tool. The homeschool lobbying group has dreams of being the new Grover Norquist of the wingnut side of the Republican Party – able to shape policy without ever being elected to anything.
What I don’t understand is how in the world they think the UN could make us do anything we don’t want to. We regularly ignore parts of UN agreements we don’t want to follow, and we have veto power in the Security Council. We’ve got the biggest military in the world, and they’ve got whatever they can cajole member states to lend them. These nutjobs are eager to ignore bureaucrats in DC at all times, so who give a damn what powers a bureaucrat in Geneva thinks he has.
Of course, I’m a commie liberal who is just fine with the provision requiring us to feed, maintain, and allow rabid wombats to teach children Marxism in our living rooms. What? That isn’t in there either? Darn.
But thankfully we have maintained our sovereignty although our credibility is once again in the toilet. Us East of the Mountain folk know a thing or two about Sovereignty
Baghdad Bob, Ver. 2.0
“There are no Americans in Baghdad!”
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100285498
Roger Rabbit Commentary: There are still those who think they can create an alternate universe simply by saying it exists.
@8 Considering that all the righties seem to so fervently want to wipe all mass transit off the map, you’d think they’d welcome wheelchair lifts and anything else “burdensome” to bus operators.
ArtFart@14,
Good Point. Although people would be shocked who was in charge when the state started the funding formula for mass transit here. It was Governor Dan Evans, a Republican, whose own party supported the initiative that gutted that formula(the MVET).
The burdensome regulation of accomodating wheelchair lifts, turned out to be anything but. The market got a nudge from a regulation, adapted, and overcame. In fact, I think the Low Floor bus and light rail vehicle, while accomodating disabled people, actually has sped up buses and trains. Every second you can shave off of dwell time matters. I got a problem with San Francisco’s new Central Subway, it looks like it will be high platform, which will see more high-floor cars needed. Then again, the commonality with the MuniMetro legacy lines(J,K,L,M, and N) in the Market Street Subway has to be taken into account. The way the Europeans adapted is interesting. In Karlsruhe, Germany, the tram and tramtrain network has gotten so efficient and used, they needed to dig a subway. The city network uses low-floor vehicles, the regional tramtrain network, which runs on city tracks within the city, mainline rail tracks outside, uses high floor vehicles. So to ensure level access in the new subway, part of the platform will be a high platform, the rest of a lower height.(First two doors of the regional vehicle would be the higher one).
The Philippine Republic has many sorrowful problems, but no GOP. A net plus. Typhoons are preferable to hateful Republicans.
Typhoons are impersonal.
Well well, another rightwing jerk who made a career of whining about taxes he didn’t pay is in the slammer for tax evasion.
http://nyack.patch.com/article.....tc00000006
Roger Rabbit Commentary: This guy promised he’d move to Canada if Obama was re-elected. He didn’t move fast enough.
16)
Term Limits for Congressmembers too , for better or for worse, and a one-term limit for President.
@18 After their experience with Ferdinand Marcos, they don’t want anyone to get as attached to that job as he did.
In which Glenn Beck denies being a journalist and calls himself a “commentator” (whatever that is), Whoopi Goldberg corrects him by explaining he’s actually “a lying sack of dog mess,” and Barbara Walters chews him out for never checking facts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2FK2vchoEo
More Glenn Beck: “He would say Mother Teresa was a clothes horse to get publicity.” And in which Barbara Walters et al. call him out for calling Obama a racist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87M5mIm16cg
Okay, that’s 2 posts about Glenn Beck (3 counting this one), which is 3 more than he merits, so that’s it for today about this particular lying fascist sack of dog shit.
@ 17 RR
You see the comments on that link you posted there? jesus H Christ in a Chariot-driven Popsicle truck. You’d think people would at least try to appear to be educated about what the purpose of taxation is.
Criminetlies people are fucking stupid.
@23 That’s nothing compared to the rants you get about global warming.
“A warm winter, a record warm spring, a record hot July and a warmer than average autumn combined to make it even more likely that 2012 will go down as the warmest year in the contiguous United States on record, the federal government reported Thursday.”
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_new.....rcent?lite
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Hey globull warming deniers, how d’ya like this fuckin’ ICE AGE we’re living in?!
In other news, “Police doused demonstrators with pepper spray in Michigan’s state Capitol building Thursday, but the protests didn’t stop right-to-work legislation from passing the state legislature.”
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_new.....ation?lite
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Republicans sure know how to make themselves unpopular. The question is, why do they want to be so unpopular?
“Republican luminaries like Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio have begun to step forward to call for the GOP to re-fashion itself as a more broadly appealing party. But … it’ll take more than a handful of speeches just a few weeks after the election to accomplish the task of remaking the Republican Party into a more appealing brand.”
http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com.....efeat?lite
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Maybe they could start by not pepper spraying people who object to their cheap-labor policies, but hey, I’m just a rabbit so what do I know.
One less GOP asshole in the Senate since Jim Dimwitt is resigning to suck Koch full time.
I saw that Stephen Colbert wants the open seat, and there is talk that Jenny Sanford might be a possibility for Governor Haley to pick, or perhaps Rep. Tim Scott(R-SC).
Also, as the treaty came to a vote, it showed that respect for former colleagues has gone by the wayside. Some of the Senators that voted no, were friends of Former Senator Bob Dole(R-KS). I remember seeing somewhere, that former Senator Barry Goldwater(R-KS) actually called Bob Dole after his loss in 1996, and said that how did it feel that both of them were considered Liberal by the GOP Establishment.
There are wounded war veterans in the Senate, at least one of them that I know of. Senate President Pro Tempore Senator Daniel Inouye(D-HI), who lost an arm on a hilltop in Italy during WWII. For decades, that action only seemed to merit the Distinguished Service Cross, but upon historical review in 2000, was upgraded to the Medal of Honor.
http://www.homeofheroes.com/mo.....nouye.html