US Republicans against disabled people

This video from the USA says about itself:

Tea Party Candidate Attacks Disabled Veteran Opponent for Dress Shopping

Oct 14, 2012 by TheYoungTurks

“One of the dirtier House races this election cycle is between Rep. Joe Walsh, R-Ill., and Army vet Tammy Duckworth, who lost both of her legs in combat. Walsh has been attacking Duckworth for things like talking about her military career (“My God, that’s all she talks about,” he once said), and, now, wearing dresses.

At a debate, Walsh held up a photo of Duckworth and said: “I was marching in a parade in Schaumburg [Ill.[, Sunday, two days before the Democratic convention, when Tammy Duckworth was on a stage down in Charlotte [N.C.[ — if you can look at the picture — picking out a dress for her speech Tuesday night.” Jimmy Dore (The Jimmy Dore Show), Steve Oh (COO of The Young Turks) and RJ Eskow (The Breakdown, Huffington Post) break down why Rep. Joe Walsh, a man who dodged child support, would launch a sexist attack against a disabled U.S. Army veteran.

For quite some Republican politicians in the USA, not even George W Bush was far enough to the political Right.

For them, George W Bush starting wars was OK. Many veterans of those wars became disabled.

At least, the Bush administration accepted on paper that those disabled veterans should not be discriminated against.

But extremely conservative Republicans now want to destroy the Bush administration’s work on this.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Senate blocks disability treaty

Wednesday 05 December 2012

by Our Foreign Desk

The US Senate, led by right-wing Republican opposition, rejected a United Nations treaty today on the rights of the disabled.

With 38 Republicans casting No votes, the 61-38 vote fell five short of the two-thirds majority needed to ratify a treaty.

The vote took place in an unusually solemn atmosphere, with senators sitting at their desks rather than milling around the podium.

The treaty, which has already been signed by 155 nations and ratified by 126 countries including Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia, simply states that nations should strive to assure that the disabled enjoy the same rights and fundamental freedoms as their fellow citizens.

It was negotiated by the George W Bush administration, completed in 2006 and signed by President Barack Obama in 2009.

The blueprint for the UN treaty, formally called the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, was the US Americans with Disabilities Act, which put the US in the forefront of efforts to secure equal rights for the disabled in 1990.

That act was signed into law by George H W Bush, George W Bush’s father, another Republican president. The main senator promoting it was Bob Dole, later Republican presidential candidate.

Republicans ludicrously claimed that the treaty could pose a threat to US national sovereignty.

“I do not support the cumbersome regulations and potentially overzealous international organisations with anti-American biases that infringe upon American society,” huffed Republican Senator Jim Inhofe.

The treaty had been widely backed by the disabilities community and veterans groups.

White House press secretary Jay Carney called the vote disappointing and noted that President Obama had declared just before the vote that “disability rights should not stop at our nation’s shores.”

FORMER VIRGINIA GOVERNOR SENTENCED TO TWO YEARS Bob McConnell, the former governor of Virginia, was sentenced to two years in prison for selling the influence of his office. The prison term was lighter than expected in comparison with other high-profile convicted public servants. [WaPo]