UPDATE: The haters may be blowing up his phone so please contact Congressman Gordon one more time to say “Thanks.”

UPDATE on all Democrats: Huffpo

UPDATE II: The Daily News Journal has the deets:

“The health care bill being considered by Congress now accomplishes three things: one, it reduces health care costs for families and small businesses; two, it improves access to affordable care, regardless of pre-existing conditions; three, it lowers our budget deficit. That’s why I am supporting it.”

How is this not a PR disaster for the Farm Bureau? “We can’t bother to have some basic protections for livestock we know are being harmed because it might inconvenience a few people.” That’s their stance? People who abuse animals also abuse their families. There is a direct correlation. Stepping in and identifying them and punishing them in a way that has some weight behind it just makes sense. Almost all of the farmers in Tennessee are not abusive assholes. They have nothing to fear from this legislation. But it makes you wonder about the people who make up the lobby, doesn’t it? If regular farmers have nothing to fear and tons of people in the state are clamoring for this, a gal starts to wonder about what’s going on with the people working against this.

From Liz’s report on the last hearing:

That’s when a Sumner County Animal Control officer, in attendance to testify in favor of the legislation, offered the money retort: “A lot of the people who are abusing their animals are also the ones who are abusing their children.”

The House Ag Committee will be voting on this bill. Like Liz says, call’em up:

Stratton Bone, 741-7086
Dale Ford, 741-1717
Willie Butch Borchert, 741-6804
Eddie Bass, 741-1864
Chad Faulkner, 741-3335
Curtis Halford, 741-7478
John Litz, 741-6877
Steve McDaniel, 741-1980
Frank Niceley, 741-4419
Johnny Shaw, 741-4538
Terri Lynn Weaver, 741-2192
John Mark Windle, 741-1260

Tennessee has a great opportunity to be first in the U.S. in providing good paying, long-lasting jobs that will help to create a better future for ALL Tennesseans.

Money quote: “We CAN do well by doing good.”

More from TAPTN and TN Conservation Voters on their magically delicious Green Jobs / St. Patrick’s Lobby Day.

Call Congress now.

Original Source Video: The Columbus Dispatch. On March 17th outside of Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy’s district office teabaggers mocked and threw things at a man who said he had Parkinson’s. They told him “he’s in the wrong end of town to ask for handouts”, called him a communist and threw money at him to “pay for his health care”.

How can these people justify this? It seems as if the behavior being modeled by Rush Limbaugh and his ilk IS having an affect on our civility. THE MAN HAS A LIFE-THREATENING CHRONIC ILLNESS AND PERFECTLY HEALTHY PEOPLE ARE TAUNTING AND THROWING MONEY AT HIM? IN AMERICA?

But what can you expect when false and misleading information on policy are being reinforced by people who make fun of a 12-year-old kid speaking for health insurance reform because his mother, who didn’t have access to affordable healthcare, is now dead?

Was it:

A) 18th
B) 19th
C) 20th
D) 21st
E) All of the above

Anarchival has both the date, the name and the context:

This statement was why I went to bed thinking about the biker gang who roams around Tennessee hunting down sex offenders. The legislative purpose of a sex offender registry is to notify the public of the presence of this certain type of criminal, so that hopefully they can take steps to protect themselves and their families. Very few people in the total population of Tennessee take advantage of this information. Even fewer are actually protected by it. However, there are plenty of sadistic people in this state who are happy to use the registry to find people no one really cares about to bully and victimize. Of course, for people like Eddie Bass (D-Prospect), that’s OK. As a good ‘ole boy from a rural county, he still believes that justice is best executed by lynching, not by the constitutional protections he has sworn to uphold. He will happily stand by shouting “Burn, Baby, Burn!” as Rep. [Debra] Maggart [R-Hendersonville] sets fire to that Constitution, because he believes all alleged criminals deserve is a stout oak tree and a sturdy rope…until he, of course, is accused of a crime. Then I’m sure he’ll want all the constitutional protections he can get. As the saying goes, “No one escapes when freedom fails. The best men rot in filthy jails. And those who cried, ‘Appease! Appease!’, are hanged by those they tried to please.” Luckily, we’re not to that point yet, even if this Bill passes. The worst that might happen is that a fifteen year old boy who was raped and beaten for eleven years by his stepfather, and then took out his own frustration on the neighbor kid, ends up being bludgeoned to death and left to die in a field by a biker gang. And who will care if they did? Not Eddie Bass.

Rep. Maggart and Rep. Bass are rapidly becoming members of Rep. Campfield’s “It’s my State, you just live in it” club where they get to decide – based on their whims – when Tennesseans abide by the U.S. Constitution and when we don’t. Tsk.

As Democrats in Congress mount the final push to approve President Obama’s health care reform proposal, conservative Talk radio hosts across the country are mobilizing the “troops” to defeat the controversial bill. Premiere Radio Networks talker Rush Limbaugh deviated from his usual policy of not giving out DC phone numbers on his show and actively called for listeners to “flood Congress with calls and emails.” Fellow Premiere talkers and FOX News Channel personalities Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck have also called for active protests from their listeners,…Meanwhile, Salem Radio Network hosts Bill Bennett, Mike Gallagher, Dennis Prager, Janet Mefferd and Michael Medved have all placed “Say No To Obamacare” buttons on their websites to encourage listeners to email Congress. So far, the hosts combined efforts have generated nearly 1 million emails urging defeat of the pending legislation.

There. So now you also know how “death panels” became a talking point so quickly.

For those of us who have been watching the misinformation stream coming out of the Obstructionist’s Party on the right, it has been a head-scratching fight. Though the Republican Party had ten years in the majority to study and pass health care reform legislation to their liking, they did nothing. They continued to let an ever increasing portion of America’s GDP get sucked out of our hides and into the pockets of an industry whose profiteering callousness knows no bounds. Every day American families spend 18% and still rising of our household budgets on healthcare. Well, those of us lucky enough to get it. And now the right’s rallying cry is a weak “Code Red.” Indeed, they have waited until the patient is dying on the table to start their inadequate wails of “save us,” blaming those who are trying to sort through a difficult diagnosis as if we caused the disease….

Now, as the Congress readies itself to pass legislation, we must look past the hype, the media moment of the day, the manufactured winners and losers of the horse race. No one thinks this legislation is perfect, but the Republican Party needs to start telling the truth about this issue. There is no time to start over, they had their chance, and they lost their majorities.

Perhaps we have reached the end of one battle, but this is really just another step on the long path of liberty and justice for all. Thanks to our Founding Fathers, we are no longer yoked by fealty to King or Crown, but my how the Framers would be appalled by our bent knees before the throne of Corporatism and Profiteering.

Go read the rest. Maria’s voice is one that has been hiding too long in Sumner County. She needs to be heard.

T/F/B: Speak to Power