You damnable, twisted, partisan hacks.

Let's not mince words. My personal reaction to nearly every action the Republican Party has taken in the past decade or so has fallen somewhere between "confused" and "aghast". My own views are fairly staunchly to the left, and I know that on certain issues, neither I nor those I disagree with will budge because the differences come down to sincere but deeply personal beliefs about the proper way to govern the nation. Fair enough. However, sometimes politicians (on both sides and everywhere between, but you can guess who I tend to be angrier at) take actions that, for lack of nuance I'd like to refer to as "evil", "stupid", or some ratio of the two for no reason other than politics itself. This is an atrocious betrayal of the trust of the citizenry.

Americans from every walk of political ideology all came together to some extent following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Say what you will about the way the tragedy was subsequently exploited by politics and media to gain viewers or voters or push agendas, but for a brief time during and immediately following the attacks, we were all Americans, united in the face of a shared horror.

While we all felt the fear, the anger, the uncertainty of that day, for some individuals the tragedy was profoundly personal. For them, it happened in their very city - in their home. And to the great credit of the citizens of New York City and surrounding areas, they turned out in droves to do the backbreaking, emotionally-toxic work of digging through the rubble, providing aid, comfort and safety where ever they could. I challenge anyone to say that the rescue workers who turned out on that day and in the days to follow are anything other than heroes. (On an aside, I want to give some notable credit to Steve Buscemi, who worked tirelessly and anonymously that day as a volunteer firefighter, because he knew that they needed all the help they could get out there. I love you, Steve Buscemi.)

Of course, being a first responder to this tragedy was dangerous, and many of those who helped that day now struggle with lasting health issues as a direct result of their heroism that day. The US House of Representatives has spent the past nine years or so working on, re-working, and fighting over a bill to provide those first responders with the health care necessary to treat the health problems they incurred working in the ashes and rubble. There really could be no more appropriate, reasonable, and merited cost than to provide this care for the people who were literally our American heroes.

The. Bill. Failed.

How did it fail? How could it fail? Well, you can blame some of it on anti-tax rhetoric. Some opponents simply didn't think we should foot the bill. They'd favor the bill if the health care was magically paid for by nobody ever. Because, you know, that's realistic. Now, some tiny selfish part of even you, my kind and intelligent readers, might be saying deep in your brain "well yeah, I'd support it too if I didn't have to pay for it, money is tight lately and I don't really want to pay more taxes, even if it'd just be a tiny increase," and of course the rest of your compassionate and values-governed brain is chiding that tiny selfish part, but the fact is, you can relate just a tiny bit to not wanting to place the tax burden on the average citizen.

The funding for the bill was to come from closing the loophole that allows people to use overseas tax havens to avoid paying the taxes they rightfully owe. It wasn't going to burden anyone unduly, and would only in fact make those who are currently evading paying their fair share through a legal loophole of dubious ethical premise actually start to pitch in. So, the anti-tax crowd is either factually ignorant on this one, aware but trying to score political points, or is just so vehemently anti-tax that they believe nobody should ever pay taxes for anything, no matter what it is. In fact, the third option is really the only way to oppose this bill on principles related to taxation and not be a shill or an asshole. Just an unrealistic prick.

Further troubles for the bill came when the GOP wanted to introduce an unrelated amendment dealing with illegal immigration. Now, I know that's a hot button issue with a lot of people. As I understand it, specifically the Republicans wanted to make sure that nobody in the country illegally could claim benefit from the bill. Now, I don't know about you, but in my book, if somebody bravely responded to the tragedy on 9/11, I don't care where they're from. They're heroes. They deserve our gratitude, our respect, and yes, their directly-related ailments treated. So I would oppose this amendment, both because I disagree with it, and because I think it's either evil or stupid to propose it in the first place. You have to be obsessed with illegal immigration (or just think your voters are) to have your brain go there when this is the bill before you. Seriously! We want to reward people for their rescue work, and all you can think is "YEAH BUT DID THEY COME FROM MEX-EE-CO? AHYUCK!" You're an ass-faced animal if this is some variant on your response.

So the Democrats, not wanting to actually deal with this amendment because it could be costly to their political image when they could've just killed the amendment, eaten the flack for it, and helped our American heroes, tried to pass the bill in a way that requires a 2/3 majority instead of a simple majority. The rest is (recent) history. The bill had over 50% of the House in support, but not 2/3.

And so, a chance to do some very tangible, very reasonable good for eminently deserving individuals in the nation who acted selflessly on behalf of their neighbors is killed. Because of a lunatic fringe, a party that courts that fringe, and another party that won't face the first party head-on out of fear. If you voted no on this bill, you are morally bankrupt, or a ludicrous ideologue. At the very least, you've learned to shove whatever conscience you had into some deep corner of yourself and act without regard to it, maybe only taking it out on weekends and holidays. Your petty political one-upsmanship has cost those who not only deserve our aid but have flat-out EARNED it very real assistance. I hope you're happy, you damnable, twisted, partisan hacks.