A Forgotten History

Over the past few weeks, the subject of reconciliation has become a political firestorm for Democrats in Congress, as well as, Republicans who continue to denounce its possible use. Now for the average American, this fight seems tedious and many fail to understand the use of reconciliation both past and its possible use in the future. In basic terms, reconciliation is a procedural rule of the Senate that prevents the possible use of a filibuster on any one piece of legislation, thus requiring a simple majority vote.

Now Republicans are charging that the use of reconciliation on the issue of healthcare reform is unprecedented. Most Americans would probably believe this being that they fail to understand or even seek to understand history. Now if Americans were to know that Republicans utilized reconciliation to pass the Bush Tax-Cuts. Americans fail to remember that President Regan, and Republicans in Congress used reconciliation to pass Regan’s entire economic agenda. So is this possible move by Democrats really unprecedented? The answer is no simply because, in the past 30 years, Republicans have set the precedent for the use of reconciliation.

Also we as voters should also remember that reconciliation would not even be an issue if it wasn’t for the Republican opposition to every single aspect of any Democratic legislation. Take for instance Sen. Bunning’s opposition to unemployment extensions that was waged on the backs of America’s unemployed workers. This healthcare reform fight is being waged on the backs of America’s uninsured; who die by the millions every single year due to lack of health insurance.

Thus we should label the Republicans in Congress who continue to oppose simple legislation meant to enhance the lives of the average American from the Party of “No” to the Party of “Hell No”. Perhaps then Americans will realize that Republicans are not fighting to better America but to better those who already survive at the expense of the unemployed, the underemployed, the uninsured, and the uneducated.

Mark Thiessen: An Example of Distortion

Isn’t it interesting that Conservatives are able to get away with blatant distortions of history so easily. For those of you who enjoy watching Morning Joe on MSNBC, you would have seen the heated exchange between Lawrence O’Donnell and Mark Thiessen former speechwriter for President George W. Bush.

The debate began when Mark Thiessen posed a argument based on a false premises, that President Obama is inviting the next terrorist attack by eliminating torture from the CIA interrogation program. Lawrence O’Donnell countered that argument by saying that if President Obama is inviting the next terrorist attack, than President George W. Bush invited the 1st terrorist attack on September 11th 2001 by not utilizing torture from the start.

Now everyone knows that torture does not reveal new evidence that would help prevent an oncoming terrorist attack. For instance, Mark Thiessen claimed that a planned terrorist attack was prevented in California when in actuality, the information that was used to prevent that attack was obtained well before torture was being used by the CIA.

http://www.examiner.com/x-6572-NY-Obama-Administration-Examiner~y2009m4d26-Timeline-proves-Cheney-claim-of-foiled-LA-terroist-plot-due-to-torture-false

When the points being made by Lawrence O’Donnell were becoming to accurate for Joe Scarborough, the host of Morning Joe, to feel comfortable with helping to promote the Republican agenda, Joe cut off Lawrence O’Donnell’s mic and stated that he would “interview” Mark Thiessen by himself.

This shows the clear bias in the media towards the Conservative right, even on a “liberal” news station like MSNBC. It is clear that the American people are being subjected to Conservative propaganda that is meant to promote Republican ideology. It also appears that Americans have forgotten that it is Republican ideology that brought America to its knees financially during the end of the Bush presidency. I wonder how much more it will take to for Americans to understand that the very platform of the Republican party is only meant to support masochistic war-mongering, Bible thumpers, the financial elite, and white supremacists.

Here is the exchange between Lawrence O’Donnell and Mark Thiessen in its entirety.

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