Progression: The Act of Moving Forward. Finally.

It's that time of year when the cherry blossoms are on the trees and I'm mildly interested in politics for, like, a minute.

If any of you have a television, internet connection, radio transmitter, workplace water cooler or news ticker...then you'll know that the United States finally passed a bill to make securing and benefiting from healthcare a little bit easier for some 30-odd million Americans. This improvement has taken an incredibly long time. And it's unfinished. We still have no public option, and a big Debbie Downer part of me is concerned that it will never happen with the passing of this bill.

Still...fuck yeah!

And THIS is the part of the post where I take the quotations from various members of the senate and congress out of the New York Times article I read and reply to them as though said members are in the room with me:

“This is the Civil Rights Act of the 21st century,” said Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 Democrat in the House.

Mostly, Mr Clyburn. Mostly. And your last name is odd. I think it's missing a vowel.


The House Republican leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, said lawmakers were defying the wishes of their constituents. “The American people are angry,” Mr. Boehner said. “This body moves forward against their will. Shame on us.”

John, have you ever not had insurance while making minimum wage and then broken a tooth? Have you ever been rejected for coverage because you have a strange and small condition that has a 20% chance of ever affecting you in your lifetime? Have you paid a $1,000 premium a month for two people because you're technically retired but too young to be on Medicare? No? Well then fuck you. You don't know any American people. And let me tell you something about some of these "angry" people. They're still looking for WMDs and signs of the Rapture. Enough said.


Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Republican of Florida, called it “a decisive step in the weakening of the United States.”

Lincoln, you should be stripped of your name. The first one. And secondly - what does that even fucking mean? How could we be any weaker? And denying 50 million Americans the right to a healthy life helps that how?


Representative Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina, said it was “one of the most offensive pieces of social engineering legislation in the history of the United States.”

Really? Because I would've said that about The Patriot Act. Bitch.


On Sunday afternoon, members of the group announced that they would support the legislation after Mr. Obama promised to issue an executive order to “ensure that federal funds are not used for abortion services.” Mr. Stupak described the order as a significant guarantee that would “protect the sanctity of life in health care reform.”

This reminds me of the movie Children of Men? You see that movie? I didn't get it. There was this scene when these people were all warring with each other...but stopped to let a pregnant woman through, because she was the last prego on earth. Or some junk. But as soon as she passed, they went back to shooting each other. The theme you were supposed to take away is that life is precious. But the theme I took away was that life is precious until you're a teenager and then you better fucking watch it because I'm going to shoot you in the face. That's what this abortion provision is to me. Unborn life needs to be preserved at all costs, but once you're born, you're on your own. The social conscience expires. Make sure that kid is born to the teenage mother working at McDonald's...but don't support the ability of that mother to get the kid the vaccine to prevent it from contracting polio. Serious lack of perspective, Mr. Stupak. Serious.


Representative Rodney Alexander, Republican of Louisiana, said, “You cannot expect to expand coverage to millions of individuals and to curb costs at the same time.”

No shit, Roddy. But maybe if they're not going bankrupt from that emergency surgery on their pancreas - they can afford to stay in their house and buy that big screen tv that you're convinced will save the economy.


“Are you so arrogant that you know what’s best for the American people?” Representative Paul Broun, Republican of Georgia, asked the Democrats.

Are you? It seems to me that an elected body created for the purpose of representing the people should maybe spend its time trying to figure out and implementing what they think might be best for the people who voted for them. Or something. Someone needs a civics lesson. And a punch in the nads.


After the legislation passed, Mr. Obama sought to place the day in perspective. “In the end what this day represents is another stone firmly laid in the foundation of the American dream,” the president said. “Tonight, we answered the call of history as so many generations of Americans have before us. When faced with crisis, we did not shrink from our challenges. We overcame them. We did not avoid our responsibilities, we embraced it. We did not fear our future, we shaped it.”

Amen.

In other news, I just got Donnie Darko on Blu-Ray and am therefore cooler than you.