McConnell, Paul Reject Protections for Disabled

Really, you people: that wheelchair just makes you dependent. And using those handicapped parking spots is nothing less than mooching. What parasites you are.

Steve Benen at Maddowblog:

Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) made a rare Senate appearance this morning, sitting in a wheelchair just off the floor so that members would have to see him as they entered the chamber. Why? Because they were poised to vote on ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, and Dole hoped to send a message.

It didn't work. The Senate killed the treaty this afternoon, with a final vote of 61 to 38, which seems like a lopsided majority, but which fell short of the two-thirds necessary for ratification. Eight Republicans broke ranks and joined Democrats in support of the treaty, but the clear majority of the Senate GOP voted to block it.

The U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, for those who've forgotten, is a human rights treaty negotiated by the George H.W. Bush administration, which has been ratified by 126 nations, including China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.

But most Senate Republicans saw it as a threat to American "sovereignty," even though the treaty wouldn't have required the United States to change its laws. When the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the treaty with bipartisan support in July, Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) explained the proposal simply "raises the [international] standard to our level without requiring us to go further."

In other words, we wouldn't actually have to do anything except say we like the treaty -- and then wait for other signatories around the world to catch up to the United States' Americans with Disabilities Act.

In other words, this was a great opportunity for repugs to send the message that if they had their way, you crips would have to stop mooching off the taxpayers and make it on your fucking own. 

Kentucky Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul were among the 38 opponents - all repugs.

Three years ago, I recommended that President Obama both test and publicize the determination of congressional repugs to oppose absolutely everything he proposed by recommending bills extolling motherhood and apple pie just to count the repug votes against them.

Since then, knee-jerk repug votes have not just killed satire, but dismembered the body, burned it up and pissed on the ashes.