These threats may continue, but they are not working. And they will never work. Because this is democracy. And in a democracy, hostage tactics are the last resort for those who can’t otherwise win their fights through elections, can’t win their fights in Congress, can’t win their fights for the Presidency, and can’t win their fights in the Courts. For this right-wing minority, hostage-taking is all they have left -- a last gasp of those who cannot cope with the realities of our democracy.
My apologies if this was previously posted. Tonight was first I had heard this stirring floor speech, from a few days ago
Senator Elizabeth Warren -- On Republicans Shutdown Threats
link to video
Posted by Senator Elizabeth Warren youtube page -- Sept 30, 2013
Senator Elizabeth Warren:
Madam President I come to the forum today in a state of disbelief.
With millions of people still out of work, with an economic recovery still far too fragile, with students and families being crushed by student loan debt, with millions of seniors denied their chance with one hot meal a day with Meals on Wheels and millions of little children pushed out of Head start because of a sequester with the country hours away from a government shutdown and days away from a potential default on the nation’s debt, the Republicans have decided that the single most important issue facing our nation is to change the law so that employers can deny women access birth control coverage.
In fact, letting employers decide whether women can get birth control covered on their insurance plans is SO important that the Republicans are willing to shutter the government and potentially tank the economy. Over whether women can access to birth control coverage. In the year 2013. Not the year 1913 -- the year 2013.
I have a daughter and I have granddaughters and I will never vote to let a group of backward-looking ideologues cut women’s access to birth control. We have lived in that world and we are not going back. Not ever.
This assault on birth control is just one more piece of an ongoing Republican assault on orderly functioning of government and the orderly functioning of our economy.
In effect, the Republicans are trying to take the government and the economy hostage -- threatening serious damage to both, unless the President agrees to gut the Affordable Care Act.
I see things like this and I wonder what alternate reality some of my colleagues are living in.
So let me be very clear about what is happening in the real world: The ACA (Affordable Care Act) is the law of the land. Millions of people are counting on it -- people who need health care coverage, people who need insurance policies that don’t disappear just when they are at their sickest.
Women will get insurance coverage for birth control. The law is here to stay, and it will stay.
Earlier today, the Senate emphasized that reality by flatly rejecting the Republican’s newest ransom note, just as we did last week.
Now we are just hours from the government running out of money. We haven’t fixed the sequester because of all the obstruction. We haven’t finished a budget because of all the obstruction. We haven’t even passed a single appropriations bill because of all the obstruction.
The least we can do -- the bare minimum that we can do -- would be to pass a “continuing resolution” to keep the doors open and the lights on. We could ensure that over a million federal workers aren’t simply sent home for no reason. We could avoid a government shutdown.
But the Republicans have refused to do even that. They have continued to threaten to shutter the government unless the President agrees to gut the Affordable Care Act.
The Senate rejected that position -- twice -- yet the Republican response has been to continue to threaten to shut the government down.
These threats may continue, but they are not working. And they will never work. Because this is democracy. And in a democracy, hostage tactics are the last resort for those who can’t otherwise win their fights through elections, can’t win their fights in Congress, can’t win their fights for the Presidency, and can’t win their fights in the Courts. For this right-wing minority, hostage-taking is all they have left - a last gasp of those who cannot cope with the realities of our democracy.
The time has come for those legislators who cannot cope with the reality of our democracy to get out of the way so that those of us in both parties who understand that the American people sent us here to work for them can get back to working on solving real problems faced by the American people.
We have real work to do, and that’s what we should be doing.
Thank you Madam President.
Transcript from:
LYBIO, FeedReader.com -- 2013-10-02
Well-said Senator Warren, well-said. And thank you for standing up and saying it.