If you thought a meeting of minds between Pat Robertson and Hugo Chávez was weird, how about new BFF Daily Kos and The Club for Growth teaming up to condemn the defeat of the Coburn Amendment, which would have paid for post-Katrina reconstruction by scrapping pork such as Rep. Don Young's (R-Alaska) infamous bridge to nowhere. Kos calls the 82-15 smackdown of this minimal act of fiscal responsibility "unconscionable."
Kos calls the 82-15 smackdown of this minimal act of fiscal
responsibility "unconscionable."
"Unconscionable": otherwise known as "politics as usual".
Funny how the Kossacks have (like so many other lefty blogs) an
ad pimping Sherrod Brown's campaign, even though I can guarantee
that he'd have voted no (he's my Congressman, and I despise him).
He's running against Mike DeWine (who I can't say I much care for,
either), who voted no.
If this issue means that much to Kos, I'm sure that Sherrod Brown
ad will be coming down real soon.
Argh, DeWine voted YES. Stupid stupid me. The rest of the post still applies, although it reads better had I gotten DeWine's vote right.
"We must find a way to meet the inevitable needs that will
arise after future disasters," he said. "We cannot continue deficit
spending."
-Rep. Don Young
I picked the wrong week to quit huffing glue, that's for damn
sure.
Ah, republicans. Just as soon as they got their fat hands on the taxpayer credit card they were burning plastic like a teenage girl at the mall. So...who's going to pay for all this? But hey, bush never raised taxes so that means something, right?
Congressional Philosophy: The right to rebuild your city ends where my bridge begins.
There is no hope. The bridge is politically meaningless at the
national level. It doesn't have a huge constituency. It doesn't
have a PAC dedicated to its preservation.
Near unanimous approval from both sides. It is just depressing.
joe:
Best Friends Forever. It's a Southpark reference. When Kenny was
put in a Schiavo like state, Cartman went to the Supreme Court and
argued for Kenny's right to die. He was not family, but he was a
BFF, and as we all know, that trumps everything.
This tops it all - from CongressDaily:
"But it was Stevens who brought the most emotion to the debate,
railing in heated and boisterous floor speeches against the
amendment. The Alaskan who is also a former Appropriations
Committee chairman, threatened to filibuster the spending bill and
resign from the Senate.
�����'This is not the Senate I've devoted 37 years to," Stevens
said. "This is the first time I have seen any attempt of any
senator to treat my state in a way different from any other state.
It will not happen. It will not happen.'
�����Stevens, who turns 82 next month, warned that he would
filibuster the bill for days, even at the expense of his
health.
�����'The amendment may pass, but if it does, the bill will never
pass. If it does, I'll be taken out of here on a stretcher," he
said. Earlier he stated: "Praise God I have the energy to do what I
may have to do to prove to the senator from Oklahoma I mean what I
say.'
...
"Stevens and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, defended the bridges as
vital to the local economies. Since Alaska has a high concentration
of wilderness and other protected areas that can be difficult to
traverse, the bridges are needed 'to tie together two areas
inaccessible otherwise,' Stevens said.
�����Coburn had earlier countered that people can take a
seven-minute ferry ride between Ketchikan and Gravina every 15 to
30 minutes and that the money used to pay for that bridge could buy
all residents of Gravina Island their own Lear jets."
Argh, DeWine voted YES.
Which makes Kos running ads for his opponent even worse, no?
'The amendment may pass, but if it does, the bill will never
pass. If it does, I'll be taken out of here on a
stretcher,"
Sadly, this was too good to be true.
Argh, DeWine voted YES.
Why don't you like DeWine? I haven't lived in Ohio for a few years
so I don't know if he's done something awful, but he always seemed
to me to be one of a very few people who are actually trying to do
good. (Just look at him! He's a NERD!)
BFF = Best Friends Forever...not originating with South Park,
though. While you little boys were playing with your Tonka trucks
or whatever, girls in elementary school in the '80s actually wrote
notes to one another with "BFF" all over them. Sometimes, we'd
write it on our hands, after we traded little braided bracelets. I
think South Park was making FUN of this stuff :-)
Well, it looks like Sen Stevens, like the President, isn't above
taking the Lord's name in vain. Disgusting.
As if this fucking bridge is an integral part of God's will.
Look, I get seasick, and so I don't like ferry rides, allright? If I just pop the bridge into existence, it's gonna confuse everyone, so I'll let Ted do My work for Me.
"Which makes Kos running ads for his opponent even worse,
no?"
RC, didn't you used to write lengthy posts about not being a one
issue voter when people pointed out that Kerry was more fiscally
conservative than Bush?
There is no hope. The bridge is politically meaningless at
the national level. It doesn't have a huge constituency. It doesn't
have a PAC dedicated to its preservation.
Jason-
I think the reason why Congress will defend the bridge is that
"First they came for Don Young's pork, but I didn't represent
Alaska so I said nothing. Then they came for Robert Byrd's pork,
but I didn't represent West Virginia, so I said nothing. Then they
came for my pork, and there was nobody left to defend me and as a
result I lost my re-election bid."
thoreau,
Well, more to the point, deals have been struck and minus Young's
own personal say-so, those deals would unravel if Young's pork was
taken out. So, yes, there may be some future-looking component to
this, but its the here and now of currently operating deals that is
likely more important.
Cranky, old, free-spending, obstructionist legislators threatening to die of fillibuster? Wow, this coulda been a great two-fer.
Funny, when it's a stupid spending proposal in a rural
nowheresville, lefties go all fiscally conservative, but when it's
a stupid spending proposal to benefit their pet urban
constituencies, the lefties get all blubbery and accuse those
opposed of being heartless racists.
Since Kos is now on record as opposing wasteful federal spending,
I'm sure he'd have no problem supporting a bill to eliminate the
departments of Commerce, Education, and Energy. :)
RC, didn't you used to write lengthy posts about not being a
one issue voter when people pointed out that Kerry was more
fiscally conservative than Bush?.
Not that I recall, no. Of course, I don't really believe Kerry is
more fiscally responsible than Bush, unless you equate "fiscal
responsibility" with raising taxes rather than cutting
spending.
Brown is spending money advertising and trying to get blog grassroots support. that doesn't mean most readers and commenters at Daily Kos support him. Paul Hackett a Marine and Iraq war veteran, NRA member, calling for US withdrawal from Iraq has more support at his site and across the blogs than Brown.
"Funny, when it's a stupid spending proposal in a rural
nowheresville, lefties go all fiscally conservative, but when it's
a stupid spending proposal to benefit their pet urban
constituencies, the lefties get all blubbery and accuse those
opposed of being heartless racists."
I like the way you don't have to actually know anything about any
of the projects to make this argument. $300 million bridge to an
island with 50 people living on it, mass transit expansion on
Manhattan Island - hey, one's in a rural area and one helps those
urban types, and that's all you need to know. Typical porker
mentality.
joe,
Maybe if the "Big Dig" had been under-budget, uncorrupted, lacking
in all manner of cronyism, etc. we could take you seriously.
:-)
I like the way you don't have to actually know anything
about any of the projects to make this argument. $300 million
bridge to an island with 50 people living on it, mass transit
expansion on Manhattan Island - hey, one's in a rural area and one
helps those urban types, and that's all you need to know. Typical
porker mentality.
Umm, Joe, I was writing generally there, rather than in reference
to any specific project. In no way do I support the Bridge to
Nowhere (great song title, BTW). I would argue that it is no more
or less egregious than most of the other domestic-spending crap
that the feds do, a large percentage of which lefties seem to
support.
Pork, almost by definition, is supported by the locals for whom it
is appropriated. People in Wyoming shouldn't be paying for
Manhattan mass transit anymore than Manhattanites should be paying
for a bridge in remote Alaska.
Moreover, my point didn't concern simply "pork" as it is
traditionally defined. Redistributionist welfare payments are
really nothing more than a non-geographic form of pork, as are
various corporate subsidies. As I see it, the evolution of the
'modern left' (stated rudely and with some exaggeration) is from
"any and all domestic govt. spending is good" to "any and all
domestic spending that benefits my specific coalition members is
good, and anything else is either pork or heartless racism." In
that, the left has begun to approach the idiocy of the modern
right, for which fiscal conservatism no longer exists. Some choice
there, eh?
Lowdog,
Here:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00262
Lowdog,
Yes, my state state was one for two as well. I just sent an e-mail
of thanks to Sen. Burr, and I will soon be sending an less friendly
e-mail to Sen. Dole.
"Certainly, it was not out of suspicion of bribery and
corruption that they required all such petitioners for their favour
to appear ungirt and open, without any close garment; as it was
much later, and many ages after this, that buying and selling crept
in at their elections, and money became an ingredient in the public
suffrages; proceeding thence to attempt their tribunals, and even
attack their camps, till, by hiring the valiant, and enslaving iron
to silver, it grew master of the state, and turned their
commonwealth into a monarchy." - Plutarch -
http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/coriolan.html
Oh gaius marius, where are you? :)
Coburn's an interesting character. I read this via Scripps
Howard News Service:
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., astonished his colleagues by telling
George Washington University College Republicans that the outcome
of the 2006 elections doesn�t matter. �It�s OK if the Republicans
lose control. . . . In the long run . . . one (election) cycle
won�t make a difference, two cycles won�t make a difference.��
Stevens, who turns 82 next month, warned that he would
filibuster the bill for days, even at the expense of his
health.
�����'The amendment may pass, but if it does, the bill will never
pass. If it does, I'll be taken out of here on a stretcher," he
said.
Aw, MAN. Not only was the bill wasn't worth voting for on its own
merits, but we could've been treated to the sight of one of these
numbskulls actually falling on their sword for the cause of the
Glorious Bridge to Nowhere! Way to go, Senate...
By the way, does anyone out there know if this has actually ever
happened? Is the MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON scenario - someone
yaps and yaps for hours and even days straight, pausing only to
collapse in a lifeless heap - destined to remain the stuff of
legend?
Britton - actually, McCain abstained...so only Kyl voted
yea.
Just goes to show where McCain's coming from...ie gutless.
Hakluyt - I'm waiting for my response from my Congressman, JD
Hayworth after I bitched to him about something a couple of weeks
ago. I can't remember what the issue was now, but I said something
about fiscal conservatives, and then threw in the shot that it was
too bad that I had to preface "conservative" with "fiscal". I enjoy
reading their stupid responses.
Although whenever I've written Jeff Flake, he's always been pretty
cool and reasoned in his responses, even when I'm not in his
district.
Tom Crick at October 20, 2005 11:20 PM,
Fleas do not hate the dog; You're asking the wrong question.
Trotsky --
Coburn's best quote is still this one:
"Lesbianism is so rampant in some of the schools in southeast
Oklahoma that they'll only let one girl go to the bathroom. Now
think about it. Think about that issue. How is it that that's
happened to us?"
Hakluyt,
Yes, God does work through history, but that doesn't mean that
anyone who makes history can claim to be serving God's will. As far
as morality goes, it is intention that matters, so just because
one's evil deeds are twisted to serve God's purpose, does not make
one right with God.
But in any case, what pissed me off about his statement was the
false piety bordering on blasphemy. Like the Pharisee in the
parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, he inserts an empty
"praise God" into what is really a praise of himself, and then
attempts to link God to his porkiferous ways.
Lowdog, do you actually think your letter is read much less answered by your Represenative HIMSELF!?! Perhaps some lowly minion in his office!
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