And so it begins…

The love and peace of the Holiday season is apparently not something the United States House of Representatives is willing let flow into any portion of U.S. politics.

What is wrong with these Republicans? I’m not trying to be funny, I’m honestly asking – what is wrong with these Republicans?

Eric Cantor

It’s unconscionable to refuse to bring the Violence Against Women Act to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives for a vote before the end of the 112th session of Congress.

Since the introduction of The Violence of Women Act in 1994, the bill has passed in a bipartisan manner – until now. Eric Cantor didn’t like it – so he killed the bill.

He killed the bill because he (Eric Cantor) and other House Republicans didn’t like the portions of the bill that had been expanded by the U.S. Senate, to cover immigrants, members of the LGBT community, and the Native American community living within tribal jurisdiction.

Just to be clear – the expanded version of the legislation passed the Senate in April, 2012 by a 68-31 vote.

But – when the legislation moved to the House of Representatives – they didn’t like the expanded version, so they wrote their own, scaled-back version which omitted the expanded victims – immigrants, LGBT, and Native American victims. It’s been reported that Eric Cantor absolutely refused to budge on the LGBT, undocumented immigrant, and most especially on the Native American tribal jurisdiction provisions. I find this so disgusting, and the fact that other Republicans just followed his lead – unconscionable.

And these Republican women – Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers for example – she was actually out trying to make a case for the Republican version of the bill without the expansions – When asked by Chris Matthews why they (the Republicans) don’t cover people who are not in traditional marriages – her answer was – “…That is an issue – there is no – there is nothing under federal law that currently recognizes same-sex couples…”

What sort of woman would believe it was okay for any woman – gay or straight – to not have any sort of protection under the law? Who does that?

My feeling is this – either we cover all people who are victims of domestic violence or we don’t cover any of them. How on earth do you choose who gets help and who doesn’t? What on earth would make you believe that you have the power to decide who gets help and who is left to just get the crap beat out of them with no recourse?

Is this where we are now? Is this the people we vote into power? People who won’t protect those who need protecting – People who won’t vote on giving aid to victims of super storms – People who continue to spend tax-payers money on protecting what they consider traditional marriage (DOMA), and a Pentagon that doesn’t believe Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh are hate-speech but ban LGBT internet sites from their workers.

And so the fight continues…

Tags: Eric Cantor, GOP, Premium, Republicans, U.S. House of Representatives, Violence Against Women Act

Filed under: Views & Voices