"Interesting, yes, if you're interested in right-wing paranoia about widespread voter fraud that supposedly happens all the time and would be stopped if we just made it harder for poor people and minorities to vote."

I get it, now.

Green wants to make it harder for minorities and the poor to attend his town-hall meeting.

Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Though not a State official it appears that Rep Green must be in favor of the State of Texas' efforts to require that you must be a citizen or legal alien in order to obtain a Texas Driver's License. Come on Gene get out there and support the DPS. It's obvious you require it as well.

"made it harder for poor people and minorities to vote"

I've always found this argument to be a load of crap. If you are poor enough that the fee for an official State of Texas ID is an economic hardship then you are poor enough to receive government assistance, which you need an official State of Texas ID to sign up for in the first place!

Gimme a break.

Interesting, yes, if you're interested in left-wing paranoia about widespread constituent fraud that supposedly happens all the time and would be stopped if we just made it harder for people who dissagree with you to have their voices heard.

The notice I received asked for proof that attendees live in the 29th Congressional District but not specifically for photo I.D.

The point being missed here is that there is a wide-spread, well-documented, well-coordinated among the closeted (and not-so-closeted) racists who are determined to do everything they can to polarize the electorate due to their gut revulsion at the notion of a black president. The "town hall meetings" have become a focal point for these quasi-Kluckers; case in point: the stealth town hall meeting held recently over here in 5th Ward by my own Congressweasel Shelia Jackson Lee, which the locals didn't hear about but a whole bunch of people who could teach SJL a few things about being loud, rude and stupid (which is really saying something) who obviously ain't from around here managed to find out about and show up for. "I'm not a racist but... that radical socialist liberal Muslim terrorist wants to put Grandma on an ice floe and put flouride in the water! It must be true, I read about it on the Internet!" Way to go, Republicans, it takes a lot of work to look stupider than Shelia!

And who/where are these well-documented sources and stories. It would be nice if you could reference them instead of just making an unsubstantiated charge. You need to look at ALL of the people who are upset over these issues, on the right and the left. There are fringe elements on both sides. Check out facts, read the bill, then make your judgements. I have yet to see or hear anything about race in anything I've seen in coverage except from people like you. Let's keep it about the issues and leave race out of it.

Jim, I find many posts hilarious but found yours extremely comical.

So because I oppose federal health care as it is unconstitutional I am a racist? Do you know of a man called Hamilton? Yea thought so. He is the father of the Constitution (do you know about this document? Thought not) he said this and maybe you have sufficient intelligence to understand it's application to health care...

"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress.... Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America." James Madison (1751-1836), 4th US President

Have you heard the term projection? When people have a strong belief in a view/tactics they project this onto others believing that others think the same way. You are the racist and therefore believe all others who have a different view to you are racist.

I am sure that math means nothing to you. Rasmussen shows clearly that the majority of americans by a large margin are opposed to the health care plan of obama and the democrats. By your definition the majority of americans are racist. Since it is the same people who voted obama into office I find it impossible to believe. Have you considered the alternative? That obama is an incompetent fraud? No, your obsession with the man is so patently obvious that you have failed to engage your brain. Your racism results in your reverence of a man that is incompetent and whose supposed constitutional legal expertise is lacking in understanding.

In terms of the comment "Grandma on ice" have you actually read the bill? Sections 122, 123, 142, 1145, 1162, 1177, 1233 (imp), 1308, 1713 talks of rationing, so who do you think will get the medical assistance? Have you read the philosophy of the czars on allocation of resources? Apparently not.

What really gets my goat are the efforts by your ilk to use the age old racist ploy of victimhood. Stop acting like a victim and act like a responsible adult. Adults make an effort to read a bill and dissect it to find the facts, adults take responsibility for taking care of themselves. I think of the statement made by a great mind when he stated there are two kinds of people as it pertains to socialism, the socialist who has read the communist manifesto and the anti communist who understands the communist manifesto.

In future consider the intelligence of the audience that you share comments with. We are not all kool-aid drinkers and have a degree of intelligence.

By the way Jim, the article is on the hypocritical Green with respect to ID and voting. It would be interesting to see how you justify this blatant idiocy and hypocrisy. I guess because you support his political ideology this is acceptable.

Do you wonder why race conflict is promoted by the left i.e. your cronies? It is about money and power not a concern for the black man. Hundreds of billions have been spent to fix the so called prejudice of the past on those who were never victims and yet poverty remains high. Why? Think before you respond.

The issue at hand is neither a question of ID's for voting or attendance at a Congresscritter's town hall nor about the racist tendencies of the US population nor even the content of whatever the devil health insurance reform (in case ya'll missed it, it is no longer being called health care reform) legislation may emerge from the House, Senate and the inevitable conference committee. It is about an attempt to blunt a political tactic being used with considerable effect, though one that sheds no light on the health care cost problems confronting the nation and in fact serves to obscure those issues. One commenter here asks for examples of the well planned campaign. Well, one must first understand that the health insurance, pharmaceutical and health care delivery industries have been spending $1.4 million a DAY to lobby against all of the various versions of the legislation. If that, in and of itself, does not reflect organization, then it is unclear what is required. But, to the specific case of the disruption of town hall meetings, I refer to two examples of several; former Congresscritter Dick Armey's "FreedomWorks" and Rick Scott's newly established (coincident with the election of Barack Obama) "Conservatives for Patients Rights." Both have been active in coordinating and orchestrating the disruptions. Scott's effort is most interesting as Scott is the former CEO of what was then known as Columbia/HCA (now simply "HCA")- the nation's largest health care delivery conglomerate. He was forced out by his board as a result of a long string of felony fraud cases lodged against the company by both the federal and state governments. The company ultimately settled those cases for over $1 billion, the largest ever such settlement in a case of that sort. The fraud? Against the taxpayers, false claims for Medicare and Medicade treatment.

But let me also be clear on this point; I view civil disobedience as a valid political tactic in a well functioning democratic republic. Congresscritter Green also has every right to attempt to maintain order at a meeting with his constituents. For many years, those who sought to protect the status quo (Jim Crow in the south or whatever) pointed to "outside agitators." Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander or, what goes around, comes around.

Mitch -

Funny, I was reading David Nevin's "1812" the other day (fiction, granted, but well-researched fiction) and it backed up "serious" history I seem to recall reading for grades that indicated a fellow named Madison may have had a bit to do with the Constitution. Actually, Hamilton was a key figure among the Federalists whose philosophy that political power was so important that it should only be entrusted to wealthy, white, property-owning males.

When it comes to health care, I believe as a longtime Libretarian that the worst solution to a problem is a government program. What is even worse, if possible, is a deliberate collusion (fueled by campaign contributions, also known as "bribes") between entrenched politicians and neo-Federalists, also known as CEOs. This collusion has lead to the various fusterclucks sinking the ship of state (lifeboats with champagne and chamber quartets for first-class passengers; sorry, we seem to have left the inflatable donuts for the folks in steerage back on the pier.) Health care is just one of the ongoing diasters; add banking, insurance and agriculture among many others. And when did these snowballs start rolling down the mountain? If you read Studs Terkel's "The Great Divide" it makes a pretty clear case that it started with the deregulation mania of the Reagan administration, when we first put a neon "Foxes Welcome" sign on the henhouse door instead of making them use the servant's entrance.

Frankly, as someone whose issues are the small business and the family farm I don't see any hope from either political party. They are both so contaminated by corporate cash and influence that the middle class will continue its slide into, at best, working poor status. There's an interesting chart in "If The Gods Had Intended To Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates" by Jim Hightower (a true populist and public servant whose career was destroyed just for practice by Carl Rove back when the coke-snorting war-mongering draft-dodging fortunate son we lovingly refer to as Idiot Boy was merely Texas Guv) showing the corporations who gave lavish and equal bribes (my bad, I meant campaign contributions) to both the Bush and Gore campaigns. No matter who won, you know who would have had access and the working class would have been peddling matchsticks in the snow. Lest I brand myself a liberal (actually, I consider myself to be a gun-nut neo-Goldwaterite, aside from that nonsense over the Civil Rights Act, which Barry admitted later was the dumbest thing he had ever done) by citing The Commish, the chapter on farm policy in P. J. O'Rourke's "Parliment of Whores" makes the same point.

So how do they get away with this? I read somewhere once that what doomed the Carter presidency was that he tryed to discuss issues that wouldn't fit on a bumper sticker with the American people. Whoops, I forgot, Carter was a "liberal" (actually, he was a populist) and somehow that is inherently evil. (Since I did my service Jan'77-Jan'81 on a nuclear weapons platform I think Carter was fairly cool as Commander in Chiefs go - I never had to invade obscure Caribbean islands to avenge the murder by insane American foriegn policy of 240-some US Marines in Beruit. When and where did you serve, Mitch?)

Anyway, we have an electorate with short attention spans which demands quick and simple solutions to longstanding, complex problems. Add to that the basic human tendacy toward tribalism (My tribe good! Their tribe bad!) and we are ripe for exploitation by people who are willing to use disingenious propaganda to sell nefarious schemes such as HMOs and agricultural subsidies that only benefit ConAgra and ADM no matter whether the Frickians or the Frackians are in office. We are eager to adopt "tribal" designations such as "liberal" or "conservative" without noticing that what we have on either hand are center-right corporate whores. Some fat junkie idiot on the radio turned "liberal" into a curse word to describe the center-right corporate whores who give lip service to abortion rights and gun control, despite the fact that there hasn't been a truely liberal movement in this country in my half-century. Actually, aside from some New Deal programs, the nearest thing I can think of to a liberal anytime recently (in geological terms) in the nation was this anti-trust environmentalist named Teddy Roosevelt. But we are given side shows like gun control and abortion to define if we are a "liberal" or a "conservative" and are content to allow the corruption that infests the system to spread unchecked.

"Code words" are key to establishing tribal relationships. Reagan used this with his infamous and totally fictional "welfare queen in a Cadillac" (wow, a twofer code word; "welfare" and "Cadillac" - what race do you think was being discussed?) and cheered while children starved without noticing that "corporate welfare" such as subsidies and "free trade" agreements eroded the economy even faster. I read the comments following articles about Obama and anyone with a Hispanic name in the Chron, and you cannot tell me that those comments (not to mention a huge number of unsolicited emails I receive) are not motivated by a deep, unreasonable need to blame deep economic and social woes on people of other races. The ongoing problems facing the black community are Frick to this Frack; self-serving megalomaniacs like SJL put band-aids on brain tumors by giving "poverty relief" and education money to people who are at best poverty pimps who do quite well for themselves selling their brothers and sisters down the river, to quote UH's late, great Bill Simon.

All I was saying was that thinnly veiled appeals to racial fear is what motivates the obvious hatred for any initative made by Obama, such as the spuriously "spontanious" demonstrations at town hall meetings. I'm no Obamista - if nothing else, he has wretched taste in Vice Presidents and Secretaries of State - and the best thing I can say about him is that he is better than Uncle Dick and Idiot Boy, but you could have grabbed a couple of the elderly drinkin' gentlemen out of the lot behind the liquor store and say the same thing. But as long as we allow shallow-minded tribalism and racial fear to obstruct any attempt to cure problems that have gone on too long, we are doomed.

Health Care Reform does not cover but $50 a day of long term care and only for home care. You have to pay into it for five years and then continue paying into it at over $100 per month. I think investigating long term care insurance sounds like a safer endeavor.