Rep. Snidely Whiplash (R-IL) Casts Vote Against Global AIDS Relief Bill

Every once in a while since I’ve been writing this blog I’ve found myself thinking that Peter Roskam isn’t such a bad guy. Misguided perhaps. A nice guy who’s fallen in with bad company (read Republicans). Naive about life outside his wealthy and insulated district. I was wrong to believe this. Peter Roskam is a total ass.

Roskam today voted against a global AIDS relief package that even the morally abject White House had supported. Of the Illinois delegation, only Manzullo joined him in voting against the package.

The bill, if approved by the Senate in its present form, would authorize $50 billion over five years for the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief, an ongoing initiative to combat the spread of AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, primarily in Africa, but also in the Caribbean. The bill passed in the House 308-116, with unanimous Democratic support. 78 Republicans joined them including Biggert, Johnson, Kirk, LaHood, Shimkus and Weller. They should be congratulated.

Roskam’s predecessor, arch-conservative Henry Hyde had supported the AIDS initiative in the past, even compromising on provisions restricting funds to family planning organizations, risking the ire of the so-called “pro-life” community.

Apparently the only type of “foreign aid” that Roskam supports is that which our military began providing to the people of Iraq in 2003 and is presently providing to peasants in Colombia through its proxies. Our tax dollars should be spent as the God and the Constitution intends: on corporate welfare and tax breaks for rich folks.

The grave problems that our planet and our civilization is facing over the course of the next few decades requires that we shed ourselves of leaders like Roskam, who work only in the interests of a narrow elite, in favor of men and women who value the good of humanity over destructive nationalism and greed.