According to Cook, the number of strongly Democratic districts decreased from 144 before redistricting to 136 afterward. The number of strongly Republican districts increased from 175 to 183. "When one party starts out with 47 more very strong districts than the other," said Cook, "the numbers suggest that the fix is in for any election featuring a fairly neutral environment." Translation: there is little or no perceived risk of punishment at the polls for right-wing legislative terrorists in Congress now holding the country hostage.
Why are they doing it? What motivates such extreme legislative obstructionism? Answer: saving the country from the curse of affordable health insurance. But even this vicious objective is a based on a big lie.
Indeed, the watered-down version of the new law "will leave out two-thirds of the poor blacks and single mothers and more than half of the low-wage workers who do not have insurance, the very kinds of people that the program was intended to help, according to an analysis of census data by The New York Times."
As the Times article reveals, more than half of the chronically uninsured live in the 26 Republican-controlled states. The reform law originally sought to help poor and middle-income people through a mandatory expansion of Medicaid to cover childless adults with incomes well below the poverty line and a provision to help people with income levels above the poverty line by "making them eligible for federal subsidies to buy private policies on the new insurance exchanges." But the Supreme Court in its wisdom ruled out penalties for states choosing not to play.
The 26 states that have rejected the Medicaid expansion have a disproportionate share of the country's minorities, single mothers, and working-poor population, including "about 435,000 cashiers, 341,000 cooks and 253,000 nurses' aides." At present, most Midwestern states and all the Deep South states except Arkansas have opted out . "In all, 6 out of 10 blacks live in the states not expanding Medicaid. In Mississippi, 56 percent of all poor and uninsured adults are black, though they account for just 38 percent of the population."
In sum, this government shutdown is not simply about defunding health-care reform. The goal is far more ambitious and nefarious, namely to stage a complete takeover of the federal government, a constitutional coup against everything we've been taught to believe the Constitution stands for. Decent, old-fashioned, God-fearing, law-abiding rank-and-file Republicans have been bamboozled into going along with this charade, even as moderate Republicans in the House have been bullied into submission by the likes of Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, and Ted Cruz.
Conclusion: Until we start to think and act not as Democrats or Republicans, until we come together as concerned citizens to drive the ghost of Joe McCarthy from the corridors of Congress, the country and the Constitution will remain in grave peril.
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