by KathyinBlacksburgThe following headline from Friday's paper once again shows the The Washington Post's biases: "McAuliffe beats drum on gun control and Medicaid after Oregon shooting." It's also pretty transparent work by author Jenna Portnoy. Beats drum on gun control and Medicaid? Really? Let's look at what Governor McAuliffe actually did. He pleaded for action on two real and serious problems. Citizens have every right to expect action on these subjects at long last. Yet reasonable efforts to curb gun violence, upon which huge majorities of Americans agree, have been obstructed over and over. But such obstruction is not seen as a drumbeat. It's a disgrace that nothing has been done because of the NRA's lock on state legislatures and of Congress. But, apparently the Washington Post sees no problem with that. To paraphrase Steven Colbert, we cannot pretend that the Oregon shooting didn't happen.
Governor McAuliffe could not possibly talk about Medicaid enough. Vengeful Prosperity Gospel and Club for Growth Republicans beat down the poor with one onerous piece of legislation after another. They offshore jobs via their own policies. They fight living wages. With ridiculous cuts to already puny food stamp programs, they take food out of the mouths of the poor. They cut meager subsistence and housing subsidies. They support usurious lending, predatory practices and even (in some states) imprisoning the poor just because they are penniless. And they do everything in their power to assure the poor cannot get expanded Medicaid. But WAPO says Terry McAuliffe beats a drum? Virginians struggle without health care and caring about them enough to try to get something done is demeaned as a drumbeat?
When over 60 times, Congress has actually beat its tiresome and absurd drum to repeal “Obamacare” and when it has purposely obstructed nearly everything this president has tried to accomplish to make his presidency a failure, WAPO dares to speak of drumbeat? Congressional Republicans have been in a twit since Inauguration Day, 2009, when they began the drumbeat that this president must fail. That is a senseless drumbeat if ever there were one.
Ignoring the good of the country, the GOP beats its drum to shut the government down for yet another contrived non-crisis. Americans must suffer because the GOP hates Planned Parenthood. Every investigation has shown Planned Parenthood did nothing wrong. Stock video about tissue was tissue from a spontaneous miscarriage, not an abortion. No fetal tissue is ever sold. Further, no federal money has gone for abortion in decades. But never mind. Facts don't matter. The obstruction drumbeat will go on. The war on women's reproductive health will go on. The war on (Democrats) voting will go on. And none dare call any of it a drumbeat. Well, here you go, WAPO: The GOP is capable of nothing but drumbeats. Hold them accountable. And, Virginians, please do likewise at the polls.
