Good Lord-My Congressman,Joe Barton

[w8liftinglady]

http://thedailylight.com/articles/2007/08/23/dailylight/news/02-08-23-terror.txt
-snip-
“This war is a real war and the terrorists don’t like us,” Barton said. “I want to remind people that 9/11 did happen and we lost more people at the Twin Towers and Pentagon than were lost at Pearl Harbor.


“Some people think terrorists can be negotiated with,” he added. “On the other side of the aisle there are people saying we need to get out and everything will be OK.

“How can you negotiate in a diplomatic fashion with those who slit people’s throats for the television cameras?” Barton asked. “How can we negotiate with people who fill a garbage truck up with gravel and explosives and then drive into a market to kill as many civilians as they can?”

Barton said he felt the war was going much better than it was being portrayed in the media and by Democrats.


“We are doing a much better job on the ground and the House majority whip is reported as saying that success in Iraq will present a political problem in November,” Barton said. “I hope to make another trip to Iraq and take a look at the 15 milestones presented by Gen. (David) Petraeus as goals he is attempting to meet.”
-snip-
Barton and Nathan Deal, R-Georgia, introduced the Guaranteed Access for SCHIP’s Target Population Act of 2007 early in the session. The bill’s aim was to address the funding shortfalls in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

“This bill was designed to help the working poor, not those covered by Medicaid or children whose parents had insurance,” Barton said. “I didn’t think any party in Washington would be against that.”


But Barton said political maneuverings in the House didn’t bring SCHIP before committee until the last two weeks of the session. Barton said the actual bill was not made public until the day it was supposed to be debated by or “marked up” by lawmakers.

Barton said he felt it was good law and was saddened that Washington politics hindered good legislation that could have helped children who need it.

“Unlike the Democrats’ bill, my proposal would prohibit federal SCHIP dollars from going to adults, as well as those families with far more income than the program was designed to serve,” Barton said. “Another key provision in my bill was the requirement that SCHIP dollars be provided to U.S. citizens only.


“Should a state decide that it wants to extend its SCHIP program to adults or illegal immigrants or those with incomes of $200,000 or more, the state has every right to do so, but it must do so with its own money,” Barton said. “My bill would simply ensure that hard-earned taxpayer dollars at the federal level go solely to the low-income children who need them rather than to extraneous groups.”

...and you wonder why I'm going insane here...

[anniebelle]

1. Hey, I understand, I'm in Tennessee.

I've got Corker, Wamp, Alexander -- we lost Frist, but he's got clones. Yes, Corker and Alexander just got back from the Imperial City too. Singing praises and still hung over from their heady trip to the green zone. Here in my area, the repukes would have to walk down the street and shoot everybody for there to be any kind of uprising. And, if they're carrying a bible, a flag and a gun, shoot away, they're doing the Lord's work.

[blogslut]

2. I feel for you

I got the lovely Mac Thornberry. A while back I sent him an email and of course, now I get regular updates from his office in my inbox. Here's his latest:

Recently, I was one of the House and Senate members asked to go to the Pentagon for a classified briefing from General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker in Baghdad. As I walked out of the tunnel-like hallways in the basement of the Pentagon, I was struck by the contrast between the factual report I had just heard and the debate going on in Congress. It was truly two different worlds.

Not that the news from Baghdad was all positive, it wasn't, but it was based on the facts on the ground. The debate in Congress seems to be based on something else. General Petraeus will come back to Washington in mid-September to report on where we are and what the prospects are for success. We should all expect that his report will again include some good news, some not-so-good.

Will we be able to listen to his professional military judgment objectively, or are the bitterness and divisions too deep? There are well-intentioned people on both sides of the debate, and there are clearly no simple answers. That is why we must stay focused on the facts, put partisanship aside, and let the truth lead the way.

Mac

So, apparently Mac breathes a special kind of air, allowing him to hear the secret truth we mere Texans cannot. The bi-partisan pandering is in there as some sort of inside joke, I'm assuming.

[PA Democrat]

3. You have my sympathies.

I have received THREE letters from MY right wing wacko congressman, Tim Murphy, last week in response to letters I've written to him regarding the SCHIP bill, the war in Iraq, and the warrantless wiretapping bill. I couldn't manage to get beyond the first two paragraphs in any of them because they were so full of the same kind of talking points. What a waste to send out a letter AFTER you've voted in direct contradiction to your constituent's opinion.

Murphy sent an exact replica of the letter I received on the SCHIP program to our local paper. He tries to pit senior citizens against uninsured children by claiming that the SCHIP bill severely cuts funding for Medicare. In reality, the bill DID contain a provision to end the 12% subsidy provided to private for-profit insurance companies offering Medicare Advantage plans (privatization of Medicare) over and above payments made by fee-for-service traditional Medicare.

[izzie]

4. So that means we should bomb a country that had nothing to do with

what happened? I am wondering why we went after Japan after Pearl. After all they had no oil or rubber and that is what we really needed.