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If, in the Congress of a reunited United States, 151 years after everybody got together at Appomattox, ol' Jeff Davis can triumph over a genuine public health crisis, can we really determine who won that damn war, or whether or not what happened at Gettysburg was worth all the fuss?
You may have noticed that the Senate proved unable to pass a dog's breakfast of a funding bill to help fight the encroaching Zika virus. This is because the Democratic minority declined to vote for it. The reasons for this were simple: The bill had turned into a sop for the angry white Christianist bigot base vital to the re-election chances of Republican senators.
Back in May, the House passed a bill banning the display of the Confederate battle flag at VA cemeteries. This was the last big victory in the fight to eliminate the gonfalon of sedition from its entirely undeserved place of honor in our national life, one that began after the Mother Emanuel massacre in Charleston. Somehow, by a calculation so twisted it defies rational explanation, some Republicans in the House decided to sneak a provision into the Zika bill that would rescind this new rule.
The Democratic opposition to the bill in the Senate primarily dealt with the whack the bill took at Planned Parenthood, and the president was likely to veto this bill anyway, not least because it contains half of what he asked for to fight the disease, and because it does so by draining money from other urgent priorities. But, honestly now, babies are being born with severe birth defects, and this is seen as an opportunity to get back a fight you've already lost?
Read more @: Did Republicans Really Just Bring the Confederate Flag into the Zika Debate?
:doh:doh
The answer to that question is yes, yes they did, and they also went after Planned Parenthood as well.