This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Congress sucks

  • WaPo; Obama says shutdown would be ‘inexcusable’

    This is what the Washington Post runs as a headline;

    As if he has nothing to do with impending shutdown;

    “It would be inexcusable, given the relatively narrow differences when it comes to numbers between the two parties, that we can’t get this done,” Obama said. “There’s no reason why we should have a government shutdown unless we’ve made a decision that politics is more important.”

    Well, of course Democrats have decided that politics is most important – they’re trying to hold on to their base. We can all agree that government spending is out of control, so the largest, most prolonged cuts make the most sense. So why are the Democrats, including the President, married to the smallest, least ineffectual cuts?

    The House has passed a budget, the Senate and the President are standing in the way of the first budget in three years. So who is really being “inexcusable” here?

  • Draft dodger can’t see the irony of his own words

    Harry Reid (a draft dodger if you use the same standard the Left uses for Dick Cheney) rejected the latest Republican proposal to prevent the government shutdown for another week. The proposal would have paid the Department of Defense for the entire year and funded government for another week. Politico quotes Reid;

    “Instead of solving the crisis the way we should, instead of saying ‘yes’ .. what they’re going to do is pass what they’ll call another short-term stop-gap measure,” Reid said of the Republicans. “They’ll say it’s short-term but what that really means is it’s a short-cut around doing our jobs. Instead of solving problems, they’re stalling. They’re procrastinating. That’s not just bad policy, it’s a fantasy.”

    And Reid should know since his Senate hasn’t passed a budget in more than two years. In fact, since Reid took charge of the Senate in 2007, that body has only passed two budgets.

    “We want to avoid a shutdown and the terrible consequences that would follow. The only thing Republicans are trying to avoid is making tough choices,” Reid said on the floor.

    Tough choices. Like the Republican plan to cut $40 billion from the budget instead of the meager $33 billion Democrats want to cut.

    And of course, dicksmith at VoteVets blames Republicans;

    It shouldn’t be. The new majority are slaves to the radical tea party wing of their party. Although I don’t like the guy, I’ve got to think that Speaker Boehner is at least sane enough to know that troops who are in harms way deserve to get payed so their families back home aren’t getting evicted and having their cars repossessed. But then there is the new dominant influence in their caucus. The one made up of war criminals and reality TV stars. These are the lowlifes that actually want a shutdown and aren’t real concerned with whether or not a Soldier can put food in his kids’ mouths.

    Who is actually responsible for not paying the troops? The Republicans have proposed at least two measures that would continue paying military families – both were rejected by the Democrat Senate and the President. But I guess I can’t expect reality to disturb that “non-partisan” cloud that envelopes the post-Jon Soltz VoteVets.

  • Oooooooo – scary shut down looms

    Of course the Washington Post uses a picture of John Boehner to personify the impending government shut down.

    In the meantime, federal agencies began preparing workers for what would happen if the federal government does shut down for the first time since the mid-1990s, and D.C. residents and tourists considered the possibility of a spring weekend without Smithsonian museums or the National Zoo.

    What? No zoo? No one can see Archie Bunker’s chair or Fonzie’s jacket? Really?

    I noticed that even Fox News ran the federal employee as the victim of political wrangling this morning. Of course, private sector employees haven’t had much job-angst over the past few years what with 10% unemployment, right?

    Most of the federal employees I know are looking forward to a shut down – a little time off while the weather warms up. Of course, they’ve done this thing that they call “saving” which smart people do when they have work. Apparently they put aside a little bit of money every pay check instead of burning through the lot in two weeks.

    The media claims that the Democrats are “only” separated by $7 billion of cuts, hinting that the GOP should capitulate. If “only” $7 billion, why can’t Democrats make the leap. Nancy Pelosi makes the old claims that the GOP is out to starve old people and children. What? There are no old Republicans? No Republicans have children? Next she’ll be telling the media that the GOP is funding the burning of Black churches in the South at the expense of affordable puppy food.

    Boehner says that the Democrat proposals are smoke and mirrors – like $10 billion in one time cuts to Pell Grants. I agree – cut the whole Pell Grants program. Seeing the quality of college students these days who needs to throw money at them? They can go to their local community colleges and get a better education than those Art History and Wymyn Studies morons coming from Harvard.

    Besides, it’s the fault of the Senate and the White House that government may shut down. The Republican House has passed budgets – something the Democrat House couldn’t do in 2009 and 2010 – and the Senate and White House are standing in the way over “only” $7 billion.

  • Bill to insure troops get paid in case of shut down

    Jeff sent us a link to an article in Stars & Stripes about Congress moving to pass a bill which will insure the troops are paid in case they shut down the government in the upcoming budget battle;

    “When we heard that the military was concerned about whether or not they would get paid on time, then we rushed through and we got this bill done,” [Louie Gohmert, R-Texas] said at a news conference on Friday. “We’re getting widespread support. We’ve got people in the Senate wanting to carry it over there and get it done.”

    The normal philosophical divisions that divide Republicans and Democrats do not apply to the issue of making sure troops get paid, said U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., who is co-sponsoring the bill.

    I remember when the government shut down briefly during the Reagan Administration while I was on leave between assignments. It was a pretty distressing time. But ya know, if the Democrats, who haven’t passed a budget since 2009 (and 2007 before that), would just get out of the way and let the f’n grown ups write a budget for a change we wouldn’t even be talking about this bill.

  • Jim McDermott; I’m tired of reading the Constitution

    You remember Jim McDermott, don’t you?

    He stood on the roof of one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces and declared that Hussein was more trustworthy than President Bush. Later, it was discovered that his trip was paid for indirectly by Hussein’s security service. And soon after he returned, he got a $5000 contribution from Shakir al Khafaji, an Iraqi-American businessman with ties to the Oil for Food scandal.

    John Boehner successfully sued McDermott for publicizing a cell phone conversation which Newt Gingrich had with his lawyer and Boehner.

    I think McDermott got tired of reading the Constitution a long time ago, but he just admitted it yesterday.

    He’s tired of the “little things” he’s had to deal with in the last 13 weeks. We’re tired of his little thing, too.

  • Some Leftist hypocrisy for Tuesday

    Two articles on the front page of Fox News this morning just to demonstrate a little Leftist hypocrisy. First is Bill Maher calling Sarah Palin a “dumb twat” and the silence of the National Organization for [Liberal] Women;

    The National Organization for Women (NOW) refused to comment on Maher’s use of the derogatory term. A rep told FOXNews.com it is a “known fact” that NOW does not correspond with FOX News.

    Yeah, because so few women watch Fox News. And there are so few women working at Fox. I can’t think of anything more childish.

    Second up is Senator Claire McCaskill and her taxes;

    “I have discovered that the…personal property taxes on the plane have not been paid,” McCaskill told a small number of reporters on a conference call Monday. “There should have been a reporting to the county of the existence of this airplane…There are people I could blame for this, but I know better. As (a former) auditor, I know I should have checked for myself. I take full responsibility for the mistake.”

    Yeah, she “discovered” after four years of not paying the taxes for her plane that she had an extra $300k in her purse. Friggen chump change. I’m excited when I find a $5 bill in my jacket pocket. That’s discovering something. Discovering an extra 300 grand would make me explode.

    But you know it’s hard to keep track of what you spend on your jet when you’re one of America’s political elite.

    You and I would be standing at the door “in the position” waiting for the IRS to show up, but not Lady McCaskill;

    The senator had used the plane for political purposes paying for the travel with taxpayer money from her Senate office, a “mistake,” the senator said, for which she reimbursed the government nearly $89,000. “All of the money has been repaid for the public funds,” McCaskill said Monday.

    Oh, well, that’s OK. Let’s give her another six years.

  • Foreign aid under the gun

    The Washington Times reports that one Congressman is trying to shut of aid for countries that “don;t like us”;

    With foreign aid a major sticking point in the budget battles raging on Capitol Hill, Rep. Ted Poe proposed new House rules to hold country-by-country votes, saying it would end the current system where overall foreign aid levels are decided essentially in one fell swoop. He said splitting each country’s funding into its own bill will make members of Congress think more carefully about which countries deserve money, while adding transparency and accountability to the process.

    Yeah, like the embarrassing aid that the Bush Administration sent to the Taliban a few months before 9-11. Or some of the funding we’re going to find for Gaddafi. Liking us should probably be a prerequisite for aid. Anything to make our spending buddies in Congress realize who they’re sending our tax dollars to is more than likely good for us.

    Democrats have fought back, saying foreign-aid spending saves money over the long haul.

    Yeah, like the health care bill was going to save our economy. Pardon me if I don’t hold my breath in the interim.

  • Where’s the spending bill?

    Two weeks ago, the president signed a stop-gap spending bill to keep the government running for another few weeks. He then assigned Joe Biden to ride herd on Congress to get a new spending bill passed. Biden immediately accepted the assignment and then boarded a plane to Russia. So much for leadership from the White House.

    Now we’re looking at another stop-gap measure because the last one is expiring.

    So, John McCain and Joe Lieberman try to carve out defense spending from the bill and now Dick Durbin opposes that. And Joe Biden is getting a train station named after him.

    So while the Obama Administration fiddles, where’s our damned spending bill? They certainly can’t claim they’re too busy with foreign policy issues since they’ve lost Libya and dithered long enough for the Gulf States to form a mercenary army to put down revolutions there.

    Republicans in Congress are proving themselves to be the same types of boobs as the Pelosi crowd. It’s like the country is being run by my high school student body government.

    You’ll have to excuse my blogging today. I’m zipping down I-68 towards DC (no, I’m not driving). Research is a little thin and so are my thoughts.