SCHIP

O. M. F. G. This is really awesome.

I direct you to the latest press release coming from the government run and financed website for the Committee on Energy and Commerce Republicans. It seems that Congressman Joe Barton has a hyperactive funny bone and since the SCHIP debacle broke out, he's been using the website as a place to issue his one-man smackdowns to any and all supporters of SCHIP.

Joe Barton uses The Simpsons for SCHIP-bashing: Republicans using their goernment websites for snarky purposes. Cool!

Here's the link to the first one I noticed, The ‘C’ in SCHIP Is for Children, Except When It’s Not. Today Mr. Barton issued a new release, Bipartisanship on SCHIP!. This one will go down into the annals of the US Congress history as not only an excellent example of Fair Use (something a lot of Republicans stand against), and the First Amendment, but it stands are proof positive that those stodgy conservatives are hip to the popculty times.

Starring "Republican" businessman Montgomery Burns and "Democrat" Mayor Joe Quimby, the press release goes on to depict how the bill is not about the kids but all about the greed. A bipartisan greed that, by the way, is aided an abetted by MoveOn.org and the head of the Democratic Caucus, Rahm Emanuel.

I. Kid. You. Not.

WTF!

The full bipartisan greedy fun after the jump :

The title of this post is a comment I found at MetaFilter. It's so perfect at describing the congressional haggling and backroom political smackdowns I've been privvy to in online and offline discussions about the current congressional session, that I just had to have it.

It was a comment that perfectly described Barney Frank's "thoughtful compromise" on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). That bill would have prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation AND gender identity; making it not only a crime to dismiss a worker for being a lesbian but also for firing a woman for looking like man (or vice versa).

People in the GLBT community are up in arms because, and rightly so, Barney Frank, (the second openly gay congressman to serve in this country) has gone out of his way to say that it is important for this bill to pass without transgender protection. And he has done so with the help of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights organization that had promised to make a better effort at focusing more on the issues affecting the transgender communities they purport to serve.

The unfortunate reality of this trans-exclusionary ENDA legislation is that it will not only deny equal rights to a minority within an already minority community, but it will have a larger and more punitive effect on anybody who does not conform to any definition of "heteronormalcy" their employer may want to impose. Meaning that it may bring a much welcomed loophole for employers dying to get rid of butch looking women or fey looking men in their payrolls.

The refrain from both Barney and the HRC is that leaving the "T" out of GLBT is anyhow for the greater good.

Which brings me to Hillary Clinton and her throwing of documented and legal resident children and pregnant women under the Democrats political bus.