Archive for budget bill

Marco, Marco, Marco

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rubio water I'm you

Another guest post is by our pal and regular TPC contributor, David Garber:

Marco, Marco, Marco. You had trouble keeping hydrated when you were giving your response to the SOTU address. I actually felt a bit sorry for you. All those lights and cameras, a huge at home audience. Not only were you’re words parsed and dry, but so was your mouth. I just figured it was nerves.

Then today’s speech made me think differently. There’s another reason. How about your constant putting your foot in your mouth. Some people step in poop. Other people spew it. You evidently savor the latter.

You say you want to help your fellow Hispanics, your Asian brothers, your immigrant sisters — so you come out with an immigration plan that doesn’t allow for a path to full citizenship. You prefer keeping undocumented people here, but under second class citizenship. Some heart you have. You’re some compassionate soul. But maybe I’m too quick to judge. So I took a look at your voting record and here’s what you voted:

Against: The 2013 budget, unfreezing the hiring of Federal employees, affordable medical care, timely payment of government bills, disaster relief, keeping student loan rates low, job protection and recession prevention and the bring jobs home act.

For: Limit eligibility for SNAP (supplemental nutrition), prohibiting the US from entering into a UN Arms Trade Treaty. A much shorter list.

You, like your Republican cohorts seem to be against much more than you are for. Why is that? Spineless? Void of thoughts and vision? Or just plain stupid?

Now you say you’re for sane gun control, and then from the other side of your mouth comes this today:

“We should look for ways to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill prone to misusing them, but I oppose legislation that will be used as a vehicle to impose new Second Amendment restrictions on responsible, law-abiding gun owners.”

Dummy, isn’t that what background checks are supposed to do? There’s no restrictions offered up on responsible, law-abiding gun owners? How deep are you into the NRA’s back pocket?

Can’t you hear this is what nearly 90% of the country wants? Evidently you’re not listening.

So not only are you deaf, dumb and stupid, but you reek of what you have been stepping in — public sanitation waste. And you want to be president? You certainly are showing your colors — and they’re not red, white and blue. They’re diaper waste brown.

For the past 25 years, David Garber has been serving as the show runner and or writer on some of television’s biggest hits… Saved By The Bell, Power Rangers, 227, Bill Cosby Show and many other network series. His writing and producing have also netted David two very prestigious awards:the PRISM AWARD and the TV CRITICS AWARD – TV SPECIAL OF THE YEAR. Currently he’s authoring a short story series called “A Few Minutes With…”

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Senate narrowly passes $3.7 trillion budget, its first in 4 years. But nobody is talking about this part of it.

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budget cartoon via  Clay Bennett from The Chattanooga Times Free PressVia Clay Bennett from The Chattanooga Times Free Press

Here is a New York Times email alert about the budget:

After an all-night debate that ended close to 5 a.m., the Senate on Saturday adopted its first budget in four years, a $3.7 trillion blueprint for 2014 [...]

The 50-49 vote sets up contentious — and potentially fruitless — negotiations with the Republican-dominated House to reconcile two different visions for dealing with the nation’s economic and budgetary problems. No Republicans voted for the Senate plan, and four Democrats, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mark Begich of Alaska, and Max Baucus of Montana, also opposed it. All four are Red State Democrats up for re-election in 2014.

Well now, there are four Democrats we sure don’t need. Replacing ConservaDems with more progressive representatives won’t be easy, but we can’t stop trying. This means doing everything we can to get good candidates elected at every level, starting locally, with school boards and city councils, and continue grassroots efforts to build from the bottom up.

So yes, four “Dems” joined every Senate Republican in voting against this budget. Bummer.

But I have yet to hear a word mentioned about another bummer, this very disturbing part of the bill. Via the L.A. Times:

And the proposed Keystone oil pipeline, between Canada and the Gulf of Mexico, drew broad bipartisan support.

To all those inexplicably shortsighted members of Congress and the Obama administration, here’s the problem: There has been a huge jump in atmospheric CO2 due to fossil fuels. So how’s that Keystone Tar Sands Pipeline coming along?

Yet the State Dep’t. draft report looks promising for backers of Keystone XL even though it would bring the dirtiest oil on earth through America.

It would also create very few long term jobs, gas prices would increase, dependence on foreign oil would not lessen, and Bill McKibben and NASA’s Jim Hansen both warn that it would be “essentially game over for the climate” if this crackpot project gets the go ahead.

Yet it is getting “broad bipartisan support.” From bipartisan recipients of Big Oil money.

The good news:

Women benefited from the exercise, as Republicans showed no interest in fighting Democratic proposals to ensure equal pay and reproductive care. Both issues were approved.

And of course, the Senate had this incentive:

One outcome was guaranteed: paychecks for the senators.

Failure to approve budgets this year would have suspended pay for the lawmakers under a provision slipped into a law earlier this year by House Republicans to goad Democratic senators into presenting their own budget proposal — and saving their $174,000 a year salaries.

Congress is now enjoying a two-week Easter recess.

senate calendar 2013

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New GOP budget bill defunds the defunct. Apparently it’s 2008 all over again and ACORN’s back.

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ACORN cute smaller

Back in December, Public Policy Polling had some pretty pathetic survey results to report:

49% of GOP voters nationally say they think that ACORN stole the election for President Obama. We found that 52% of Republicans thought that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama, so this is a modest decline, but perhaps smaller than might have been expected given that ACORN doesn’t exist anymore.

Here’s what big bad ACORN was all about:

ACORN was founded in 1970 as a grassroots organization to advocate for low-income families. By 2009, the group had 500,000 members and had expanded into a national network of federally funded organization that helped to develop affordable housing, offered foreclosure counseling, and conducted voter registration drives.

To repeat, before it disbanded, ACORN was indeed demonized by Republicans, but they were vindicated, cleared of all wrongdoing.

Additionally, ACORN was proved innocent of any illegality in the notorious James O’Keefe “pimp” affair, a federal judge declared defunding ACORN unconstitutional, and the Congressional Research Service found no evidence of voter fraud.

As The Brad Blog posted in May 2012:

[Y]ou’ve heard plenty about a handful of ACORN workersno actual ACORN officials, mind you, and they were never hired by the Democratic Party, and never led to a fraudulent vote — turning in fraudulent registration forms in past years.

But nobody who ever worked for the non-profit ACORN has ever been accused of what these Republican firms continue to do on behalf of the Republican officials who hire them, paying them per Republican registration, year after year, as is once again apparent in the allegations surfacing today against Momentum Political Services…

But it’s okay if you’re a Republican (IOKIYAR). Facts don’t matter to them. They create their own reality– it’s so much easier!– as is documented in this quote by an “unnamed Bush aide” (later identified as the now-very tarnished Karl Rove):

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out.”

Which brings me to this very surreal HuffPo report:

A new short-term budget bill introduced on Monday by House Republicans includes a bizarre provision banning federal funding to anti-poverty group ACORN, despite the fact that the group has already been stripped of federal funding — and has been defunct for nearly three years.

ACORN leaders announced that the group was disbanding in March 2010, after Congress cut off all federal funding to the organization. The provision in the current GOP budget bill [PDF], buried on page 221 of 269, would duplicate legislation that has already passed, to target an organization that does not exist.

gop budget plan ACORN funding

What next, a new O’Keefe super ultra double secret video? And, oops, did the GOP forget about what happened in 2005? ACORN and Rick Perry passed a bill together!

Oh that’s right. IOKIYAR.

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Live Streaming Video- President Obama Speaks on the need to Extend Tax Cuts for the Middle Class 11:30a EST

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Harry Reid: “We’re not going to cave on this.”



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Close your eyes tightly and try to imagine the Democrats not caving. I dare you. Every time I try, I get so-o-o close, then bam! They cave. I really need to have a talk with my imagination and fix that. Maybe this will help, via The Hill:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday there is a chance that the government could shutter at the end of this month.



Criticizing House Republicans for the disaster relief provisions in their budget bill, Reid told reporters, “We’re not going to cave on this.”

 [...]

Tuesday saw both parties accusing the other of playing games with legislation to keep the government funded through Sept. 30.

Here we go again. Now what? What’s causing all the ruckus this time?

At issue is increased funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to help a number of states recover from various natural disasters.

That ‘splains everything. Damn socialist commie Marxists, don’t they understand that people have the freedom to die, or whatever, on their own?

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VIDEO: The Push to Privatize Social Security

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Via our friends at Main Street Insider. Please link over to read their post. Here’s the video:

This week, we take a look at a proposal to end Social Security “as we know it.” H.R. 2109, the Savings Account for Every American Act of 2011 would establish a path for individuals to opt out of Social Security in exchange for a “defined contribution” system.

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President Obama praises John Boehner

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In my previous post, I put up a quote by Thom Hartmann saying that while President Obama was praising John Boehner, the Boehner was bashing the president. Here is the quote from President Obama:

“And I want to say I appreciate Speaker Boehner’s good-faith efforts on that front… I think Speaker Boehner has been very sincere about trying to do something big… My experience with John Boehner has been good. I think he’s a good man who wants to do right by the country.”

My advice to the president: You’re a kind and generous man, but it’s time to be Not Mr. Nice Guy and play hardball in that classy way you have. Killing them with kindness is killing some of your base, and it’s a good bet that Boehner isn’t as appreciative as you might think.

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