Reid Pulls His Monster Bill
Dec 17, 2010 Political
The 1900 page Omnibus bill that would fund government for another year has been pulled by Senate Leader Harry Reid. The bill contained over 6000 earmarks (from members of both parties) and the total cost of the bill was 1.3 TRILLION DOLLARS. Reid pulled the bill after several Republicans (in name only) who had earlier supported it, withdrew their support. This is a blow to the Democrats who had hoped to go out with a bang.
This bill has been in the works for nearly half a year. The Congress is supposed to pass a budget and it did not so we are down to the last minute of the game and they are still playing around.
Reid put together a bill that included Republican earmarks requested before the election and added them to the bill. Some Republicans who did not get the message from the last election were working behind the scenes to get the things passed but were silent about them publicly. As the details unfolded some of the Republicans began to get uncomfortable in supporting the HUGE spending bill. Some Democrats in the Senate who will be up for reelection in two years are feeling the same heat.
Anyway, Harry Reid pulled the bill because he knows that he will have a hard time getting support. He is working on a short term extension of government funding to take us into the new year and then the new Congress will work on it. This does not mean that Democrats (and some Republicans) will not be working to lard up anything that makes its way through so they can take home the bacon this Christmas.
We need to be on the lookout and prepared to call them out.
This, so far, is a win. We cannot afford the 1.3 TRILLION DOLLARS the bill spends and we cannot afford to let the people who were voted out of office decide how things will be run when they are gone.
And liberals, if Reid and the Democrats had done this when they were supposed to we would not be discussing it now. This is part of that crisis management that the Dems are known for. Never let one go to waste you know. So they take it to the wire and figure they will hold the country hostage. Surely the Republicans will have to budge when backs are against the wall.
It did not work out like that this time.
And it can only get better in the new Congress…
Cave Canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
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You Will See What Kind Of People The Dems Are
Jul 9, 2010 Political
The Democrats are looking at losing the House and they are not pretending any longer that holding on is a possibility. Of course they could hold it but right now they believe they will lose it and they are making plans based on that.
The Democrats are leaving a week early for their month off and do not plan to return until sometime in September (all of Congress will be off but the Dems set the schedule) in order to work on keeping their jobs but they have all but conceded that they will lose control of at least one chamber of Congress.
So what will they do? Looks like they will try to pass every major piece of legislation but not until after the election. It would be political suicide to push those things now so they will wait and if they lose control they plan on pushing it all during the lame duck session. It looks like they will try to use some parliamentary procedures to avoid drawing things out so it remains to be seen if they will be able to thwart a Republican filibuster in the Senate.
Outgoing Dems will not have to worry about their votes so they will vote for anything and they will add as much pork to bills as they can. It will be one last shot for them to take as much as they can.
In other words, they will be sore losers and will saddle the country with even more debt. They will vote for things that their constituents do not want (the very things that cost them their jobs) as a big fat F**k You to the people who they are supposed to represent.
If they vote for things that they would not have if they were running for reelection then they will be showing us what cowards they really are.
It all remains to be seen but if they act stupid their constituents should be waiting for them with pitchforks, tar, and feathers…
And in case you were wondering, this is the Obama-Pelosi plan…
Source:
WSJ
Never surrender, never submit.
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Tags: childish games, Congress, lame duck, lies, pork
Update On The Executive Jets For Congress
Aug 7, 2009 Political
I wrote recently about Congress adding two executive jets to the Air Force budget, jets the Air Force says it does not need. The Congress added the jets under the guise of giving the troops what they need but the reality is they added the jets for their own travel.
It gets worse though. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that The House added a total of eight more planes. The story goes on to discuss the increased amount of Congressional travel and how they do not like to have air travel on these planes rationed. It seems that with what the Air Force currently has some members of Congress miss out on the luxury travel.
Of course Coungress is saying this is for the troops:
Ellis Brachman, a spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee, said the changes were part of “Congress’s normal oversight responsibility” to make sure “the troops have everything they need.”
But the Pentagon has a different take on the subject:
Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said the Department of Defense didn’t request the additional planes and doesn’t need them. “We ask for what we need and only what we need,” he told reporters Wednesday. “We’ve always frowned upon earmarks and additives that are above and beyond what we ask for.”
However, this might explain why the Congress felt the Air Force needed more luxury jets:
The 737s, known as C-40s by the military, are designed to be an “office in the sky” for government leaders, according to Air Force documents describing the plane. The plane is configured with all first-class leather seats, worktables, two large galleys for cooking and a “distinguished visitor compartment with sleep accommodations.”
~snip~
Lawmakers typically fly on military jets, where members of the Armed Services carry bags and take drink orders. When flying on military jets, lawmakers are permitted to bring along spouses at no cost.
When there are too many requests for military planes, the speaker of the House or the Senate majority leader decides who gets to go. Two House employees work full time to organize overseas trips.
There is often a shortage of military planes for use by lawmakers when Congress is in recess, according to emails from 2007 obtained by the conservative group Judicial Watch under a Freedom of Information Act Request.
In June 2007, the House’s travel coordinator, Kay King, was told that all military planes were booked for the July 4 recess. She replied to the Air Force officer: “This is not good news, and we will have some very disappointed folks, as well as a very upset Speaker.” [emphasis mine]
It does not take an aerospace engineer to see that these planes were ordered to accomodate members of Congress who like to fly in style and be catered to. And if they fly on military aircraft they can take their spouses at no cost.
The article points out; “Over the past five years, 44% of the use of the planes has been for the military, 42% for the administration and 14.5% for members of Congress, Mr. Brachman said.”
The military use is undoubtedly for the Joint Chiefs and other DOD executives but I imagine some of the flights involved members of Congress using the planes to visit troops. Until they classify what constitutes military use we won’t know the extent of the travel.
Regardless, the Congress chastised auto executives for flying to DC in corporate jets to beg for stimulus money and Congress is using executive aircraft to fly around while taking more and more of our money.
These planes will cost $550 million. I know that seems like very little when Obama and Congress are spending trillions but it is a waste of money for the purpose of providing members of Congress with a perk.
I just hope no one tells them what comes after a trillion…
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Tags: Congress, executive aircraft, Obama, perks, pork
The Stimulus Had A Lot Of Pork In It
Jul 20, 2009 Political
Now we know why they call it the Porkulus… (from the front page of Drudge)
RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $2,531,600 FOR ‘HAM, WATER ADDED, COOKED, FROZEN, SLICED, 2-LB’…
RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $1,191,200 FOR ‘2 POUND FROZEN HAM SLICED’…
RECOVERY.GOV // AWARDED: $16,784,272 FOR ‘CANNED PORK’…
There sure is a lot of pork in that bill…
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack released a statement indicating that the quantities of pork purchased were much higher. He said the pork came in 2 pound packages and they bought 760,000 pounds of it and that is why it cost so much. He said it was about $1.50 a pound.
Food lion has pork for 0.79 a pound. Seems to me if they are going to buy 380 tons of pork they could get a better price than Food Lion.
These might be legitimate costs (if they are telling the truth) but there are plenty that are not. There are hundreds of thousands of dollars to replace a (one) door and a (one) dumbwaiter as well as install a traffic light. I saw many items where the available money equaled the bid, how convenient!
Perhaps, if they want to keep from creating confusion, they could actually put a quantity purchased on the bills so we know what was bought and can assess if the money was spent wisely.
I also want to know how buying all this food (which includes tons of cheese) is creating jobs. Sure, farmers have to produce more but how many people are being put to work?
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Tags: government waste, jobs, pork, stimulus, Vilsack
Filthy little Piggies, Doing Piggie Things, democrat
Apr 25, 2009 Political
The feeding at the public trough has commenced in earnest- if it ever really stopped, that is. I believe the feeding slowed just enough for the piggies to change places, but boy oh boy, these Democrats are really showing an appetite here, now that they know they will not be pulled back from the trough by any little thing like ethics, or a sense of moral outrage. Don’t anybody reach in, you’ll draw back a stump- piranha have better manners.
And it just keeps getting better and better, when you are a Democrat and you know the media’s got your back.
First, we have Jack Murtha, a lush who likes, for some reason, to slander our veterans with no evidence, and who pours over 100 million dollars to an airport in his district that services maybe twenty people in a day.
Yeah, Jackie- that’s real good use of our money- do you even have a brain? Twenty people a day? Oh- one of them may be you? Well, that’s OK then, because we wouldn’t want to keep you from all of those wonderful speaking engagements where you call your constituents “Rednecks and racists.” Your’e real classy.
And then, on the other side of the country, there is Senator Diane Feinstein, one of the five richest members of the Senate, a person who is not even on a banking committee, steering federal funding of more than 100 billion with a B dollars to the FDIC. OK so far, but then…
Enter her husband’s firm, which had a competitive bid in with the FDIC to handle foreclosed homes, where this firm could make from 8- 30% of the sale on these homes.
Guess who gets the contract- that’s right, Diane’s hubby, who adamantly maintains that he didn’t know a thing about this, despite the fact that he is the board Chairman.
Does ANYBODY really believe this? Perhaps in a bizarre X-Files moment, but in real life? Really, you mean to try and say that this husband and wife didn’t mention anything about all of this- it just came together like the random atoms liberals say was the beginning of life? Just a sort of financial Big Bang, right?
I have to say, if Richard Blum, Sen. Feinstein’s husband says he didn’t know this, and people believe him, these same people should also believe Jeffery Skilling, Bernie Madoff, Richard Stanford, and all the other heads of companies who maintain that they did not know what was happening. Or, for that matter, Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney, and anybody else who offers an explanation, because it will have become painfully evident that the explanation doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to be said, and, you know, we will believe ANYTHING.
It borders on science fiction to even try to say that all of this is coincidence- call a spade a spade, and admit that Sen. Feinstein and her hubby were stealing from the taxpayer, just as Jackie “our Army is murderin’ scum” Murtha has been stealing from the taxpayer for years. 100 million dollars for what is really an Air Park? It now has a state of the art radar facility that NOONE USES. That is correct- there is no one manning this multi million dollar radar facility. There it sits, grass growing around it, because Murtha just can’t stop spending our money.
And of course, there are many more, but it’s kind of like getting beaten- after awhile, you sort of get a little numb to all the body blows.
The Democrats are very good, some might even say world- class at stealing tax money. They have been doing that since Roosevelt. Of course, there are the bone heads, like William Jefferson (who was one last name away from feeling like a president), who thought a freezer was a fine place to store cash. (Why no, officer, I don’t think it’s odd, do you? Doesn’t everyone keep cash there? I thought the roaches would eat it if I left it out, and besides, it was going to be a present, yea, that’s it, that’s the ticket.)
Not to mention John Conyers, who has the gall to try and accuse Dick Cheney of crimes, while he himself is under investigation, or Charlie Rangel, who, in spite of being the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, which oversees our tax code, can’t seem to figure out why he can’t exempt himself from the tax laws he oversees with regard to either his many rental properties (Charlie,it’s income, you have to declare it) to the cars he rents or owns.
Look, I know there are Republicans who do the same things- the media are all over them, but here’s the hypocrisy- the story about Sen, Feinstein was reported by several papers, almost all of whom had the same story, virtually word for word, like a press release, with no follow up. The story effectively has died, because when you have no one with the huevos to follow up, it’s like it never even happened.
Further, the original story actually began on Oct. 30, with the timeline horribly skewed,and nobody questioning why Richard Blum knew about the awarding of the contract on Nov. 26, while Sen. Feinstein said she didn’t know about it until Jan. 21? Don’t you think that maybe her husband, during one of the Senate’s MANY vacations, might have said,” Honey, guess what? My company has been awarded a 10 million dollar bid to sell foreclosed homes. How fortuitous, and lucky we must be. The stars must have aligned themselves just right for us, for surely this could not have been planned.” Uh Huh.
And some wonder why we don’t trust liberals.
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Tags: blum, contracts, Democrats, feinstein, Murtha, pigs, pork, trough