Congress has lost its mind...

[TheMercenary]

What if we burn her out?

[TheMercenary]

THE LAST FEAST: 6,488 EARMARKS
Tue Dec 14 2010 19:40:02 ET

Washington, D.C. *– U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) delivered the following statement today on the floor of the U.S. Senate:

“Mr. President, at 12:15 p.m. this afternoon, my office received a copy of the omnibus appropriations bill. It is 1,924 pages long and contains the funding for all 12 of the annual appropriations bills for a grand total of over $1.1 Trillion. It is important to note that the 1,924 pages is only the legislative language and does not include the thousands of pages of report language which contain the details of the billions of dollars in earmarks and, I’m sure, countless policy riders.

“While we continue to uncover which earmarks the appropriators decided to fund – thanks to a new online database – we at least know what earmarks were requested by Members and how much those projects would cost the American people if they were all funded. Taxpayers against Earmarks, www.washingtonwatch.com and Taxpayers for Common Sense joined forces to create this database. According to the data they compiled – for fiscal year 2011 Members requested over 39,000 earmarks totaling over $130 billion. Absolutely disgraceful. I encourage every American to go to the website www.endingspending.com study it, and make yourselves aware of how your elected officials seek to spend your money.

“In the short time I’ve had to review this massive piece of legislation – I’ve identified approximately 6,488 earmarks totaling nearly $8.3 billion. Here is a small sample:

$277,000 for potato pest management in Wisconsin
$246,000 for bovine tuberculosis in Michigan and Minnesota
$522,000 for cranberry and blueberry disease and breeding in New Jersey
$500,000 for oyster safety in Florida
$349,000 for swine waste management in North Carolina
$413,000 for peanut research in Alabama
$247,000 for virus free wine grapes in Washington
$208,000 beaver management in North Carolina
$94,000 for blackbird management in Louisiana
$165,000 for maple syrup research in Vermont
$235,000 for noxious weed management in Nevada
$100,000 for the Edgar Allen Poe Cottage Visitor’s Center in New York
$300,000 for the Polynesian Voyaging Society in Hawaii
$400,000 for solar parking canopies and plug-in electric stations in Kansas

“Additionally, the bill earmarks $727,000 to compensate ranchers in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan whenever endangered wolves eat their cattle. As my colleagues know, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Gray Wolf program is under intense scrutiny for wasting millions of taxpayer dollars every year to ‘recover’ endangered wolves that are now overpopulating the West and Midwest. My State of Arizona has a similar wolf program but ranchers in my state aren’t getting $727,000 in this bill.

“Mr. President, I will have much more to say about this bill later this week. I assure my colleagues – we will spend a great deal of time talking about this bill and the outrageous number of earmarks it contains. But for now let me just say this: it is December 14th – we are 22 days away from the beginning of a new Congress and nearly three full months into fiscal year 2011 – and yet we have not debated a single spending bill or considered any amendments to cut costs or get our debt under control. Furthermore, the majority decided that they just didn’t feel like doing a budget this year. How is that responsible leadership?

“This is the ninth omnibus appropriations bill we have considered in this body since 2000. That is shameful and we should be embarrassed by the fact that we care so little about doing the people’s business that we continuously put off fulfilling our constitutional responsibilities until the very last minute.

“One thing is abundantly clear to me – that the majority has not learned the lessons of last month’s election. The American people could not have been more clear. They are tired of wasteful spending. They are tired of big government. They are tired of sweetheart deals for special interests. They are tired of business as usual in Washington. And they are tired of massive bills – just like this one - put together behind closed doors, and rammed through the Congress at the last moment so that no one has the opportunity to read them and no one really knows what kind of waste is in them.

“Let me be clear about one thing – if the Majority Leader insists on proceeding to this monstrosity - the American people will know what’s in it. I will be joined by many of my colleagues on this side of the aisle to ensure that every single word of this bill is read aloud here on the Senate floor.

“I encourage my friends on the other side of the aisle to rethink their strategy and move forward with a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government into next year when a new Congress takes over – a Congress that was elected by the American people on November 2nd. “The majority may be able to strong arm enough members into voting for this omnibus – but they will not win in the end. The American people will remember – and I predict that we will see a repeat of November 2nd in the very near future.”

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash2n.htm

[TheMercenary]

OOps.....

Yep, they lost their minds.

http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=174&load=3751

[skysidhe]

So, the bill passed without the pet projects and earmarks? If it's really true, how did that happen. You'd think they'd be stalling for more, as usual. I can't believe my eyes, or maybe I am hoping for some measure of fiscal responsibility that I am not reading correctly. I do understand that an across the board tax cut isn't fiscally responsible to some, but to lighten the load by dropping earmarks would be something I haven't seen.

[TheMercenary]

Nice.... God I am so glad she is out as speaker.

Nancy Pelosi’s final days as Speaker of the House were spent at the exotic Four Seasons Resort Hualalai at Historic Ka’upulehu in Kona on the island of Hawaii.
Escorted throughout her trip by a mini security motorcade that included Secret Service and Hawaii County Police officers, Pelosi was seen at St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Kailua-Kona, where she received Communion. Parishioners greeted her warmly, Hawaii Reporter was told. Two police SUVs were on guard outside the hotel during her week long stay.
Pelosi, who traveled to Hawaii by private plane, spent the holidays in Kona last year at the same hotel in an elaborate suite that reportedly rents for $10,000 a night.

http://www.hawaiireporter.com/pelosi...-with-the-bill

[ZenGum]

An opinion piece on the ABC.

The US Senate is a complete joke (and what to do about it)

...But just in case the filibuster isn’t enough to grind the Senate to a halt, some clever geezer also invented “holds”. Thankfully, like most old-time senators, he was probably shot in a duel....

[Shawnee123]

I don't get it. Republicans want to get rid of filibustering? I'll admit ignorance, but didn't it serve them well? I'm not starting an argument here, I am just curious as to why all of a sudden they're concerned about it? Any of you political-knowledgeable folks out there able to explain it?

Filibuster reform

In the Senate, a move is under way to change the filibuster -- the procedure in which 60 votes are needed to move a bill from debate to a final vote. Changing the filibuster rule has drawn both support and ire. Many wonder, why change it now?

Julian Zelizer, a historian and CNN.com contributor, says changing the rules is not necessarily a bad thing.

"Some opponents of reform will certainly ask, given the recent coverage of the historic 111th Congress, whether procedural changes are really needed. Shouldn't senators just leave things alone?" he said in a recent CNN.com commentary. "The answer is no. The past three decades of congressional history have been marked by a filibuster frenzy."

He added: "Whereas senators once reserved filibusters for big issues such as civil rights, now they are willing to filibuster, or threaten to filibuster, everything that comes their way. In short, the filibuster has become a normalized tool of partisan conflict."

That partisan conflict was on full display in the last Congress with Republicans filibustering a number of Democrats' legislative items, such as the health care reform bill.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/01/...ess/index.html

[TheMercenary]

No, the current Demoncrats want to get rid of it to stop the Republickins from preventing legislation from moving to a vote that would otherwise require debate (simple majority), but to stifle the debate process and move to straight up or down vote on legislation they require 2/3rds majority to do that. Hence, Republickins filibuster to prevent a up or down vote without debate and no opportunity to propose amendments. If they have no filibuster the simple majority in the Senate will pass everything they want by a simple majority vote, a margin of 51 or greater. The problem is that if the Dems lose the next election and lose the control of the Senate the Repubs will hammer a bunch of stuff through, like judges, etc, and other things that are only handled in the Senate and the Dems will not be able to stop them. It seems that the last 20 + years have been nothing more than sticking it to the other guys when one party or the other gets in power.

[glatt]

The filibuster is generally a good thing. It's a form of power sharing. The Republicans have been abusing it, but that reflects more on them than on the filibuster itself. I think the Senate would be worse off if it didn't exist.

Any majority party that bans the filibuster would be very foolish and short sighted. In this political climate, majority parties don't stay in that position for very long. The electorate hates them both and isn't giving anyone much time to fix anything.

[Lamplighter]

Looks like a trend is starting...

Reuters
By David Lawder, Andy Sullivan and Glen Somerville
WASHINGTON | Thu Jan 6, 2011 7:52pm EST

Republicans acknowledge debt limit should rise
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans acknowledged on Thursday they will have to sign off
on more deficit spending to avoid a debt default that would roil financial markets
and bring the government to a grinding halt.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70113W20110107
Reuters

Republican bid to scrap healthcare hits snag
Republican efforts to scrap President Barack Obama's healthcare reform took a hit
on Thursday when budget analysts said repeal would add billions of dollars
to the federal budget deficit.

And I heard a TV talking head say that Speaker Boenher stated
today that President Obama was, indeed, and American citizen !!!

[TheMercenary]

1. End deficit spending by cutting some of the billions spent in the last 2 years.

2. Modify the crap healthcare bill Rham Rodded through with no amendments and no debate. Overcome the lies that were fed to the electorate about transparency and bipartisanship that Pelosi and Reid fed the population.

3. We cannot scrap the healthcare bill as much as I think it would be a good idea, it can only be replaced.

4. It does not matter if Obama was, is, or was not born in the US. He is already president. Move on people. If you don't like him vote him out in 2012.

[TheMercenary]

This is frigging great! Now who gets the blame for the next violent act? Not the Repubs..... He forgot, it was not about Göbbels, it was about Alinsky.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/201...-get-much.html

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/201...-get-much.html

[plthijinx]

note the crowded room behind him...

[TheMercenary]

Where Did The Stimulus Money Go? You might be surprised where it didn't go..

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/vi...ulus-go--15610

[TheMercenary]

What a tool....

Rep. Christopher Lee is a married Republican congressman serving the 26th District of New York. But when he trolls Craigslist's "Women Seeking Men" forum, he's Christopher Lee, "divorced" "lobbyist" and "fit fun classy guy." One object of his flirtation told us her story.

http://gawker.com/#!5755071/married-...raigslist-babe