I'm not victorious over video embeds today so we have to make do with a mere link to Sen. McConnell's speech here. In this way are vital issues considered in the world's greatest deliberative body.
This speech by Sen. McConnell is further discussed by Neil Munro at Breitbart, for which h/t.
McConnell's talking about the latest gigantic spending bill. It's an equally-gigantic sellout by the GOP. He knows it. They know it.
The maneuvering you see is designed to do one thing and one thing only -- to prevent the American electorate from knowing anything about this 2,000-page bill. "It's all good. Good luck reading it yourself, bitchez."
Congressman Rep. Curt Clawson, (R-Fla., Tea Party extremist), above, gets it that:
- the debt-GDP ratio is approaching that of Spain and Italy;
- a great opportunity to do something about our fiscal madness was passed up by agreeing this massive spending bill;
- Republicans shouldn't roll over every time;
- there's no point in caving on important issues so you can fight the really good fight later on if you never fight later on; and
- it's no use saying the presidency in 2016 is the great prize if you give up your values in the process of trying to attain it.
If I ever called the French cheese-eating surrender monkeys I hereby apologize sincerely. I don't think I ever did, but, just in case I did, I'm very sorry. Nikolas Sarkozy looks like that molon labe guy compared to Ryan and McConnell.
I couldn't retrieve the embed code for the video for some reason so here's the link to the Cavuto interview with Rep. Clawson. It's concentrated fiscal and political sense well worth your time (3m54s).
It's distilled far-right-wing extremism but try to get past that.
My senator, Steve Daines, wrote to us and asked that we comment on the bill, and made a .pdf of the bill available (I downloaded it). He voted NAY, thank goodness.
ReplyDeleteI looked at the first few pages, then for the hell of it, went to the very end and looked at a few pages there. Almost $3 Billion dollars to Iraq as a "loan", which it indicates within the text , right near the end of the document. A loan Iraq won't have to pay back, and one which will probably end up funding terrorism at our expense, right here in America.
Even more telling, there is a thing called 1 TITLE I—HIGH COST EMPLOYER SPONSORED HEALTH COVERAGE EXCISE TAX PROVISIONS:
SEC. 101. DELAY OF EXCISE TAX ON HIGH COST EMPLOYER SPONSORED HEALTH COVERAGE
Can't have the crippling expense of excise taxes on health coverage show up during an election year, can we?
SEC. 103. STUDY ON SUITABLE BENCHMARKS FOR AGE AND
2 GENDER ADJUSTMENT OF EXCISE TAX ON
3 HIGH COST EMPLOYER-SPONSORED HEALTH
4 COVERAGE. BUT it isn't due for 18 months after enactment of this bill. No worries during the election cycle that way. Getting the message? Here's another:
SEC. 201. MORATORIUM ON ANNUAL FEE ON HEALTH INSURANCE PROVIDERS. 1) beginning after December 31, 2013, and ending before January 1, 2017,
Here is a real kicker concerning transparency:
20 SEC. 1001. BUDGETARY EFFECTS.
21 (a) STATUTORY PAYGO SCORECARDS.—The budgetary effects of this
22 division and division P shall NOT be [emphasis with caps is mine]
23 entered on either PAYGO scorecard maintained pursuant
24 to section 4(d) of the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of
25 2010.
So, the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010 was evidently passed to make sure government didn't spend what it didn't have, and used some sort of scorecard system to track what could be spent. These provisions, on page 1994, apparently are meant to side-step earlier law without being so blatant as to repeal that legislation. I guess Congress decided "Don't ask, don't tell" applies to them ignoring their own law without us peons being the wiser.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand they are using the bill to continue spending more than they are legally (by the laws they wrote themselves) permitted to spend, they intend to keep it a secret, also in violation of the laws they passed, and they have given themselves the ability to hide many of the increasingly higher costs of health care for another year or so in order to reduce the bad PR the candidates (Democrats especially, since they rammed Obamacare through) will have to face during the 2016 elections.
Did I mention billions of dollars in grants, too?
If I get snowed in, I just might look deeper into this vomitous document, but it so obviously gives the Democrats and Obama everything they want. My head is swimming, so I can't remember who wrote that Ryan was personally thanked by the pResident for toeing the One Party™ line, but he sure was a big help to Obama. Have I mentioned he is as bad as Boehner? I had the feeling he would be, but we peons don't have the least say in that sort of thing.
And my House Representative, Super-Seal Ryan Zinke, has once again lived by his own favorite saying: "When I was a Seal we believed in 'United We Stand' " He did indeed stand united, with the Democrats and (other) RINO traitors.
You could have a luau for the entire state of Rhode Island with all the pork in this bill. And it re-affirms my belief we won't be voting our way out of this.
All the local "conservative" republicans here in the Houston area voted for it: Culberson, Poe, McCaul and Brady. Babin (who won Ron Paul's) district did not but he failed to vote against Boehner back in '14. I believe that politicos who vote wrong must be punished even if that means losing a 'safe' seat. No seats can be safe. If any of these traitorous curs should make it through the primary, it is imperative that the second place finisher run as an independent with the sole purpose of splitting the republican vote and electing the demonrat. That is a small price to pay to regain the fealty of our "elected representatives." They feel themselves invincible thanks to corporate and super pac money.
ReplyDeleteThanks for providing that detail about the bill, Reg. Betrayal and lies come cloaked in clouds of dry legalese. At least the Rs were all opposed initially though their betrayal since has been total.
ReplyDeleteI will post a great comment at ZH I found about having your view of America upended.
Absolutely, we can't vote our way out if this. There was a time when many Americans thought slaves should not serve plantation owners. When more than 50% of your income goes to government, how close is your status to that of those slaves? Serious question. How angry are people at the change of government where elections are now a sham and the untouchable elites patronize us like children? Hundreds of thousands have been killed because of what we have done in Syria and millions displaced. Have the voters been consulted on this or on mass immigration?
Short answer: Trump.
I noticed Zinke's vote. Sad. He's good on immigration, I think.
Andy, I like that idea. If you are going to get tweedle dee no matter how you vote then at this point what difference does it make? Where have I heard that before? If you can make tweedle dum irrelevant by how you vote then that's just delicious and you get his full attention.
ReplyDeleteDecent people cooperate instinctively. Wives will do a great deal for husbands who respect them. Once they decide not to cooperate, however, good luck getting more than Cheerios for dinner. Similarly, governments assume that people only speak through the ballot box.