Paranoid delusions swept across the floor of the United States Senate...
By louisehartmann
On Tuesday as a group of Republican Senators blocked ratification of a UN treaty to help disabled people around the planet. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities requires signatory nations to provide for disabled populations in the same way the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act does. The treaty would require absolutely no changes to current U.S. law. It was originally signed by President George W. Bush in 2006, and then re-signed by President Obama in 2009. It was championed by former Republican Senator Bob Dole and supported by Republicans John McCain, Dick Lugar, and John Barrasso.
It received 61 votes in the Senate – a clear majority – however treaty ratification requires a two-thirds majority and 38 Republicans, including Senators Jim DeMint, Mike Lee, and Marco Rubio, joined together to block it out of fear that it threatens the sovereignty of the United States even though – again – the treaty would require no changes to U.S. law since our nation has already passed laws to assist the disabled. Rather than doing what’s right for the nation and the entire world, Republicans in the Senate used this treaty to scare the hell out of their base and warn of a nameless, faceless global government that is trying to take over the United States.
Nothing could be farther from the truth – or even more ironic as these same Republicans support free trade agreements like NAFTA, the WTO, and the TPP, which actually do threaten our sovereignty on the behalf of transnational corporations.
Comments
#2
Big foot-stomping, desk-pounding bawl-babies aren't those Rethuglicans? I can't wait till 2014 when we, the majority, are going to completely trash them at the polls....unless Obama and the Democrats do something stupid...like give in and compromise with the Rethuglicans....and hurt our social programs.
#3
War is the biggest threat to any nations sovereignty and the U.S. is big on violating other country's sovereignty for selfish reasons...especially the weak ones..the ones that can't really fight back on an even playing field...the one's without the latest high tech weapons and nukes. The U.S. can dish it out but can't take it...this nation's right-wing, chicken-hawk leaders are big tantrum-throwing, War-Criminal, Bawl-Babies and bullies. Watch out Canada...we invaded once and could do it again...unless you mind yourselves and don't make too much of a fuss against the ruling elite in the U.S.
#4
What is going here has nothing to do with the treaty...This no brainer was selected as an example
of Tea Party's power to disrupt the will of both parties. Translation: Watch out for the cliffffffffffffff.
#5
Obama hates the U.S.! Obama hates the U.S. Constitution!
#6
The "global government" that Obama is letting take over the U.S. is not a "nameless, faceless global government". They are Kenyan Muslims!
#7
It figures. Once again, the United States shows its colors as a rogue nation of Ayn Rand dirtbags. Three cheers for American exceptionalism: American stupidity, American stinginess and American bullies. Be very proud! (Not.) - Aliceinwonderland
#8
The Republicon are just a bunch of old hoodlums that have lost their ability to apply critical thinking skills. This is an excellent example of just how STUPID THEY ARE!!! Can we publish all the names of the so-called Senators that voted against this? All of them.... I will personally call there home office!
#9
So why to the Republican support treaties like WTO and NAFTA, but NOT treaties that support disabled people? The answer is pretty obious. Disabled people don't have as much money to donate as multi-national corporates do.
#10
Extraemail: You're so funny! Salaam Alykum, dude!
#11
P.S. to "Extraemail": You guys lost the election. GET OVER IT. - Aliceinwonderland
#12
When will we care? ... Regarding the topic of simply caring for human beings on planet earth we've been there before via the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights.
"The United States voted "yes" on [ the Universal Declaration of Human Rights] ... in December 1948 when the resolution was created. Since 1948, the only country voting "no" on the resolution each year was the United States. For example, in 2004 and 2005, 52 of 53 countries voted for the resolution, and the United States voted against it."
Reference: http://www.medicareforall.org/pages/United_Nations
HOWEVER .... "The Senate may choose to take up the treaty again when the new Congress convenes." ... according to Human Rights Watch ...
http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/12/04/us-senate-misses-opportunity-disabili...
I have friends and acquaintances across the globe. This makes me ashamed to the point of tears.
Somebody please post the names of the 38 U.S. Senators.
Bob the Health and Health Care Advocate
#13
Hey extraemail...so what part of Kenya are you from? When did you come to the U.S.? You are so sure that Obama is a Kenyan Muslim, I suspect that you must have known him over there when you lived there yourself? Unfortunately, Obama is more of a capitalist than a Muslim. And even if he were a Muslim...that would be just fine with me.
هل البراغيث من الف الجمال ايجاد الخاص بك خيمة الليلة
شهر ماي يجتاح البراغيث من ألف جمال أباطك
Maasalamu, Saddiqi.
#14
LOL! Sorry... I thought it was obvious enough that I was just having some fun. C'mon! "Kenyan Muslim" should have been a give away. Palindromedary got it. :-)
Well, perhaps it is not so obvious when you read some of the radical right comments... Just for fun - here is a real comment I recently read from the L.A. Times: "He knows what goimng on. More of the same plan to destroy the USA and take down whitey at the same time"
#15
Paul Krugman's == December 1, 2012, 5:37 pm – What Defines A Serious Deficit Proposal?
So I thought I’d look at the dollars and cents — and even I am somewhat shocked. Those tax hikes would raise $1.6 trillion over the next decade; according to the CBO, raising the Medicare age would save $113 billion in federal funds over the next decade.
So, the non-serious proposal would reduce the deficit 14 times as much as the serious proposal.
On the other hand, The Hous speaker , in his letter to the President today offers no specific cuts that would lead to the $800 B cuts he claims. If there was any “stratigic downturn” in the Us economy, it would have to be trhe Bush Tax Cuts (out of a deficit budget situation) of 2001 and 2004.
http://www.speaker.gov/sites/speaker.house.gov/files/documents/letter_to_wh_121203.pdf
For a good timeline of the sources of the current budget problems see Paul Krugnman's graph on his blog “The Conscience of a Liberal” 12/04/12.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/
December 4, 2012, 7:45 am Paul Krugman Three-Card Budget Monte
It goes without saying that the Republican “counteroffer” is basically fake. It calls for $800 billion in revenue from closing loopholes, but doesn’t specify a single loophole to be closed; it calls for huge spending cuts, but aside from raising the Medicare age and cutting the Social Security inflation adjustment — moves worth only around $300 billion — it doesn’t specify how these cuts are to be achieved. So it’s basically the Paul Ryan method: scribble down some numbers and pretend that you’re a budget wonk with a Serious plan.
What I haven’t seen pointed out here is the longer arc of GOP strategy. Does anyone recall how the Bush tax cuts were passed? The 2001 cut was passed based on the claim that the government was running an excessive surplus; the 2003 cut on the claim that it would provide an economic boost. Then the surplus went away, and the economy did not, to say the least, perform very well.
So now we face a substantial long-run deficit largely created by those tax cuts.
And the GOP says that because of that deficit we must raise the Medicare age and cut Social Security!
Oh, and for all the seniors or near-seniors who voted Republican because you thought they would protect Medicare from that bad guy Obama: you’ve been had.
#16
Global - Are you and the Republicans as steadfast against the T.P.P., N.A.F.T.A. and the W.T.O. which destroys are sovereignty when it comes to what Corporations want changed if it hinders their profits regardless of our sovereign laws? The U.N. is there to protect the rest of the World from nations like ours, who will war against any nation for profit. The U.N. asked Israel to allow inspection of its nuclear facilities, as they have asked Iran, and they refused. As long as it is an American allies we do not enforce any requests from the U.N., but if it is not we are ready to drop bunker busters on them and their population of civilians. We as a nation invaded Iraq under the rule of the war criminal Bush because we told the U.N. they had weapons of mass destruction, yet we embrace a small insignificant nation like Israel who has confiscated Palestinian land for it's so call protection and our reply is to send them more advanced weapons to use against their neighbors in the Middle East. Israel used terrorism against the British to acquire land that was not theirs to start with, yet they denounce the Palestinians for doing the same. I am just glad we have the U.N. to make the World aware of what nations like the U.S. and Israel are doing to promote war and war crimes. We gave up our sovereignty when we signed the N.A.F.T.A. treaty and I have not heard one Republicans cry out against that treaty even though it has cost us tens of thousands of jobs here in the U.S.. And please do not question my loyalty to our nation, I have served in our military and helped fight its wars and would do so again if called on to do so. But I will not defend its illegal wars that have killed millions all over the World in the name of Democracy and would have killed even more if it was not for the eyes of the United Nations. When did it become a bad thing to promote a treaty to help the disabled around the World, when we already have laws on the books to do so here in the United States?
#17
Nuckin-futz -- there's no end to it.
#18
Extraemail - Will you and the rest of the frigging Republicans please put up or shut up. People like you continue to make these ignorant statements with no facts to back them up. Nameless, faceless government is called the Multi-National Corporations you Republicans protect with great vigor. I agree on one thing and that is if any political leader on either side of the isle supports the W.T.O., N.A.F.T.A. or any other world trade agreement they are supporting a global government in the form of the corporate elite! And that would include all the Presidents that have signed any trade agreements that bind our sovereignty from deciding our own fate. But to keep repeating the trash you have heard on the Fox entertainment channel or rightwing radio commentators is being an idiot and a trader to the American way of life. These stupid remarks are made up to spur on the idiots who do not ask for any form of proof and go along with the mindless crowd of Republican nitwits that are angry because a half black and half white man defeated a white Senator the first time and a selfish job destroying business man who once held an honorable position as governor, but sold out his morals for cash...Wake up and look for the facts before you make moronic statements that can be read by others! I welcome any intelligent reply to my comments.
#19
Obviously, that treaty is a conspiracy among disabled people, who want to take over the world. My God, it's not bad enough that we allowed Obama to come here from Nigeria? No, apparently it is not bad enough, because now they want us to enable disabled people to have access to public facilities!
I am sitting here weeping great big tears of fear for our country. In fact, I wrote on a blackboard that if crippled veterans are allowed access to our public facilities, Godzilla will personally visit every American city and make all of the Christians get divorced, and I don't want to get a divorce, so please, I'm begging you don't ratify that treaty!
#20
Palindromedary - Well said, couldn't have said it better if I tried and your remarks to extraemail were right on. Can't believe I am agreeing with you again!
#21
Republicans in the Senate and the House of Representatives are only interested in playing politics. The business of governing the nation is off their menu of available actions. They only know how to play politics. Their behavior on the rights of the disabled is disgusting and disgraceful. I hope that none of them ever hide behind the banner of support for the troops. Many of the disabled people covered by this treaty are disabled veterans. These Senators should be made to pay for this vote. They should have their disgraceful behavior shown to their constituencies.
#22
So Moron Nation once again shows the world its true Ayn Rand malevolence: no surprise to me.
Try being disabled in public -- for example using a walker as I occasionally have to do when my arthritis-inflamed spinal injuries are too restrictive for a cane -- you'll discover there's no limit to the USian hatred of anyone who's definitively "different"
And that's what this vote against disabled people is really about: not Teabagger skill at evoking fear amongst the Moronic Majorities in the diverse States of Ignorance, but the carefully fostered, methodically mustered hatred of disabled people -- and anyone else who by definition is no longer exploitable for profit.
Understand the pattern here. This like the downsizing and elimination of the socioeconomic safety net is but another battle in the One Percent's war against elderly, disabled and chronically impoverished people.
Had that UN treaty been ratified, it would have put another obstacle in the way of the One Percent's long-range plan of killing us all by abandonment and neglect -- the new, no-death-camps approach to genocide.
#23
Here's the liist of Senators:
The CRPD WALL OF SHAME
The following 38 Senators voted no on equal rights for people with disabilities both here at home and around the world. Let them know they will not get away with this, that we refuse to be treated like second class citizens..and we VOTE!
Alexander (R-TN)
Blunt (R-MO)
Boozman (R-AR)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coats (R-IN)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Hatch (R-UT)
Heller (R-NV)
Hoeven (R-ND)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Johnson (R-WI)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Lee (R-UT)
McConnell (R-KY)
Moran (R-KS)
Paul (R-KY)
Portman (R-OH)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rubio (R-FL)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Toomey (R-PA)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)
#24
Ken Ware: Thanx, I aims to please! Actually, we could almost be twins..in beliefs anyway..I'm not as good looking as you though. We have mostly agreed on the basic and important things...even down to eating only chicken (and no red meat...or even the other white meat..which it's really not..but I do also eat turkey and fish but no shell fish because of occasional gout) and knowing that we would probably be better off being vegetarians.
#25
Grinchsmom: thanx for posting those Senators...I had done a little searching for them but was diverted to something else. Hopefully Anonymous is hacking into their emails and can pull up some dirt on them. But, I can't imagine them being much dirtier than they have all just shown themselves to be. Hopefully people will, everywhere these Senators go, greet them with lots of loud boos and jeers...not booze and cheers.
#26
Ken Ware, great comment but you forgot to include the European Union. In Britain it's a constant fight to stop them taking away our sovereignty. For example: they issued a ruling that if things are sold by weight they must be in kg. A greengrocer carried on selling in lb and oz and was jailed. The stress killed him. later the EU did a U-turn and now it's OK to sell in lb and oz again (if you also display the kg). And so it goes on. it's crazy.
We are seeing the negative effects of the conservatives adoration of austerity but still the UK government won't admit it - maybe like lemmings we'll have to fall over a cliff and even then they'll cling on to the austerity mantra.
#27
I heard about this on a local independent talk radio station...
I agree with your perspective...If this was Star Wars, Corporate America would be the Death Star going around blowing up planets...Or in this case the weak and the less able!
Funny (queer) how we play ball with China (huge human rights violators) and get along with Russia...Both countries could spank our asses or at the very least give us a hard go at it.
#28
Okay??? Give me your take than on NAFTA. Pros and Cons.
#29
"FEAR, 'war', good god you all what is it good for? Absolutly nothing!" I remember the the fear rages about the U.N. having black helicopters circling above us & getting ready to take over the U.S.A. . That must of been in the 70's? Fear makes otherwise sane people nuts. We already have a national disabilities act. Signing up for a U.N. agreement that would promote a more unifided world wide approach to disabled people could be a great encouragement, is all that this would be, "an encouragement", to treat the disabled in a unified manner.....ramps that would make easier access to pubilic buildings. Is that world domination? I believe that T.P.P is a world domination effort of mulinational corporations.
#30
Palindromedary, I thought you realized I was being facetious when you replied "very funny".
Ken Ware, I was being facetious. Beware! David Abbot was is being facetious also...
I posted the following shortly after:
---------------------------------------------------------
LOL! Sorry... I thought it was obvious enough that I was just having some fun. C'mon! "Kenyan Muslim" should have been a give away. Palindromedary got it. :-)
Well, perhaps it is not so obvious when you read some of the radical right comments... Just for fun - here is a real comment I recently read from the L.A. Times: "He knows what goimng on. More of the same plan to destroy the USA and take down whitey at the same time"
#31
Ana Asif, extraemail...that means I'm sorry in Arabic. Thought you might want to know that. You're right, I did not pick up on the facetious overtones. And I take back the Arabic curse as well. ;-}
No, I'm not Arabic..or even Muslim.... just a WASA..white anglo saxon atheist that's trying to learn Arabic just for the fun of it.
I'm also a VSOO..very suspicious of obama..as I'm not quite over the sell-out from his first 4 years...and not very trusting of his bravado and intentions in his second term. So far, I am happy that he is holding his ground against the Republicans. It is really so ironic that the Republicans are now trying to make a big ruckus over Obama's apparent unwillingness to "compromise" (which to the Republicans means "do everything 100% our way") especially in light of the Republican's refusal to compromise (the party of "NO") the first four years. They live in a bubble...or, at least, those who buy the Republican's lies and idiotic propaganda live in a bubble.
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Good for those senators, we do not need the UN dictating through treaties what we can and cannot do as a sovereign country. Treaties are a very dangerous way to do just that. The UN is a threat to any nations sovereignty. Defund the UN and put the money against our national debt.