Plan B Forum

...and in the process, gives one of their Elder Statesmen a big slap in the face:

It’s ironic that the man conservatives honored before the CRPD vote, Bob Dole, was one of the principal sponsors of the ADA and a vocal supporter of the CRPD.

It’s ironic, given just how much conservatives hate both the ADA and the CRPD.

Conservatives can’t stand it, can’t stand that bleeding heart crap, can’t stand that anybody would put people before business or before nationalism.

Because apparently treating the disabled in a respectful manner and providing sissy liberal cripples like former Republican Senator Bob Dole – who was disabled in the service of his country while fighting for America in WWII no less – with equal access to, well, life is somehow downright un-American.

In a stomach turning display, Republican senators, each in turn, stopped to pay their respects to Dole before the vote as he sat there weak and shrunken in his wheelchair on the Senate floor, and the malignant disgusting hypocrisy of it all just completely escaped them.

See, if it wasn’t for the ADA, they wouldn’t have been able to roll Bob Dole into the Senate chamber in the first place.

More at http://www.stonekettle.com/2012/12/welc ... -dole.html

The party who helps the rich against the poor, who helps the strong and persecutes the weak.

Just doing 'their thing'.


yrs,
rubato

Econo - aside from invective and abuse, what is your post all about?

Thanks
Meade

One two three four - One two three
I don't like the GOP
Five six seven eight nine ten eleven
There are no republicans in heaven
twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen
Right wing folks are very mean
Sixteen seventeen eighteen nine
The votes they get will not be mine
Twenty twenty-one twenty-two twenty-three
Nobody here is as rich as me!!!

yrs,
staccato

MajGenl.Meade wrote:Econo - aside from invective and abuse, what is your post all about?

Thanks
Meade

The moral bankuptcy of the Republican party. (The link I posted was, yes, a commentary: here's what it's about, if you haven't seen the story.)

I suppose nobody should be surprised or angry anymore, just resigned and depressed. Still, when they pull something as outrageous as this*, I think they deserve some invective and abuse.



*defeating a treaty which the George W. Bush Administration drafted and brought to the floor of the UN! How far right do you have to be to make that administration's human rights record look good?

Eight Republicans broke ranks to vote with the majority but the 'all filibuster all the time' party rules again with a minority.



http://usicd.org/index.cfm/crpdupdates

yrs,
rubato

the 'all filibuster all the time' party rules again with a minority.

Uh, rube....

This was a treaty; treaties require a 2/3 vote for ratification in the Senate...

Filibusters had nothing to do with it, the treaty got 61 votes. (Which would have been sufficient to overcome a "filibuster")

Did I hear a lame-ass excuse?

Yes! Yes I did.

Pure crap.

yrs,
rubato

Lord Jim wrote:Filibusters had nothing to do with it, the treaty got 61 votes. (Which would have been sufficient to overcome a "filibuster")

Which still doesn't excuse throwing people with disabilities under the bus just to whip up more "government is trying to take over our lives" frenzy.

There isn't a single clause in this treaty that isn't already U.S. law, because it was modelled pretty much word for word on the ADA. But why let that get in the way being assholes.

Did I hear a lame-ass excuse?

No, what you heard was me pointing out yet another ignorant fuck-up on your part....

For the record I probably would have voted in favor of the treaty since it has absolutely no affect on US law, and if for no other reason, to prevent this symbolic non-issue from being demagogued (as it has been by every source that has been quoted in this thread.)

But the arguments against the treaty had nothing to do with wanting to throw cripples out of their wheel chairs; (again as Scooter pointed out it was based on US law and would have had no affect on US law, and since no enforcement mechanism exists it could have been easily ignored by other countries)

It was about ways in which it was believed it could potentially impact on US law in ways that to me seem quite a stretch, but that's what the opposition was about, not some sort of imagined heartlessness. The opposition was based around suspicion of the UN, not hatred for invalids.

A couple of minor amendments were offered that that would have addressed these concerns and brought over the votes needed for ratification, but the Democratic leadership in the Senate was more interested in scoring a propaganda victory than in getting this passed. They wanted the treaty to fail and the GOP to be blamed for it, all the crocodile tears not withstanding.

My understanding is now that they have scored those brownie points, Kerry will be bringing the treaty back in the late spring or early summer with a couple of changes and this symbolic, non-substantive treaty will pass.

Scooter wrote:

Lord Jim wrote:Filibusters had nothing to do with it, the treaty got 61 votes. (Which would have been sufficient to overcome a "filibuster")

Which still doesn't excuse throwing people with disabilities under the bus just to whip up more "government is trying to take over our lives" frenzy.

There isn't a single clause in this treaty that isn't already U.S. law, because it was modelled pretty much word for word on the ADA. But why let that get in the way being assholes.

There you go.

Facts is facts.



yrs,
rubato

Rube, I don't suppose you would care for once to put on your big boy pants and admit you screwed up, and didn't know that this was a treaty requiring a 2/3 vote, and that a filibuster had nothing to do with it?

Didn't think so....

Lord Jim wrote:A couple of minor amendments were offered that that would have addressed these concerns and brought over the votes needed for ratification, but the Democratic leadership in the Senate was more interested in scoring a propaganda victory than in getting this passed. They wanted the treaty to fail and the GOP to be blamed for it, all the crocodile tears not withstanding.

This was a treaty negotiated under President George W. Bush and with Bob Dole as the chief proponent of it. The Republicans could have easily pointed to it as something they took charge in doing. Instead they made up nonsense about possible problems that don't really exist.



The treaty does nothing about US laws, the Republicans who voted this down are either lying about their reasons for voting or simply didn't read the treaty at all.

Econoline wrote:

MajGenl.Meade wrote:Econo - aside from invective and abuse, what is your post all about?

Thanks
Meade

The moral bankuptcy of the Republican party. (The link I posted was, yes, a commentary: here's what it's about, if you haven't seen the story.)

Thanks Econo. Abuse away - it seems extremely silly of the Reps to me too.

Meade

it seems extremely silly of the Reps to me too.

I would agree that it was silly, and as I've said, politically ill advised....

However, when you are talking about something that is 100% symbolic; (the quality of life or not one single person anywhere is diminished by the failure of the US Senate to ratify this treaty, and the quality of life of not one single person anywhere would have been improved by its passage) it seems to me that hyperbolic, hyper-partisan rhetoric like this:

" malignant disgusting hypocrisy"

"helps the strong and persecutes the weak."

"The moral bankuptcy of the Republican party."

"pull something as outrageous as this"

"throwing people with disabilities under the bus"

"a stomach turning display"

Seems to me to be over the top to the point of borderline hysteria.....

Personally I would reserve that sort of red faced, artery bulging rhetoric for something that actually had some sort of real, tangible affect....

If it was 100% symbolic, then why would anyone vote against it?

Well, first let me again point out, it is not my purpose to defend the votes against the treaty; in fact I've criticized them, and said I would have voted the other way...

If I had to speculate based on what I've read and seen as to why those who voted against it did so, I think the Anderson Cooper interview you posted illuminated it pretty well...(Again, another shout out to Cooper; he seems to me to have the most integrity of any major current journalist; I've seen him conduct equally vigorous interviews with Democrats)

I think the basis of the opposition is misinterpretation of the treaties provisions, compounded by a basic ideological distrust for, and opposition to, anything that emanates from the UN....

I think that depending on the individual Senator, some of the opposition was sincere but wrong headed, while in other cases it was probably a political calculation by those who knew better but decided to pander (or cave in) to a segment of their constituency that didn't. (Those in the second group probably didn't see much downside in assuaging the right-wing groups over something that had no practical meaning.)

___________________________________
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ ... story.html

The U.S. blunders on disabilities

Published: December 8

Considering the performance of Congress in recent years, it is almost impossible to believe that things could get worse [“Treaty on disability rights fails in Senate,” news story, Dec. 5]. But last week’s Senate vote against ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities marks an all-time low.

This treaty had the bipartisan support of leaders such as Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and was based on the Americans With Disabilities Act and signed by 155 nations. It would do nothing more than ensure that disabled individuals around the world would enjoy the same rights and freedoms as people do here. Yet, led by people such as former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, who spread half-truths about threats to “American sovereignty,” 38 senators blocked the approval of this treaty.

How those senators could look individuals who are disabled, whether by war, birth or accident, in the eye and justify their position is a mystery. "

From the letters section.
_______________________________________

_______________________________________
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... itics.html


Senate vote on UN disability convention shows pitiful state of US politics
Last week's failure to ratify a UN convention on disabled rights showed just how polarised and dysfunctional the Senate has become, says John Avlon.
Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) (R), and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) (L) participate in a news conference with people who have disabilities on Capitol Hill: Senate vote on UN disability convention shows broken US politics really is.


By John Avlon, American Way

"It needs to be a wake-up call about a broken institution that's letting down the American people." So said John Kerry in a fit of frustration after the Senate voted against ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
... "
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yrs,
rubato

... my disability parking permit, you damned dirty Republicans!"

"I will give up my handicapped placard when they pry my cold, dead fingers from around it.”


(This sounds so much better if you add Charlton Heston voice to it.)