Maybe Congress will provide relief for Victims of Hurricane Sandy. Maybe not

So the argument here is, "Obama's handling of Sandy is OK because of Bush's handling of Katrina"? Or is the argument, "The 19 Billion pork dollar pork laden Katrina clean up bill justifies a 60 billion dollar pork laden clean up bill for Sandy"? If so, let me take the time right now to applaud slowly for you. Congratulations on such winning arguments.

I personally would have gone down the path of, "Sandy needed three times as much money, most of it dedicated to pork because the cost of construction has gone up by a multiple of three since 2006 because of the roaring economy". Or perhaps, "The damage to New Jersey is much more expensive to repair due to the fact it didn't involve a major metropolitan area, all of which sits below sea level". Hey, how about this one! "Sandy costs three times as much to fix because the victims are white people!".

Nah, they all suck. Maybe we should hold a winning argument contest to allow some of the creative minds out there to come up with excuses for 40 billion dollars in pork built into an emergency aid bill, and a better excuse for Obama's piss poor performance.

Lets also not forget about the massive, wide spread fraud and waste once Bush cut the checks and balances off the FEMA aid distribution process to speed it up.


Remember. We need to raise taxes because those evil Republicans are starving the government.

 

The US military will go to extraordinary extremes, risking death, to save one of its own wounded in battle. Its a noble and very American value. One would hope the representatives of Congress might have even the slightest bit of that value.

Its apparently not the case with a wide swath of GOP goon followers under the control of the Right Wing extremist threat groups. So they voted against the initial $9 billion for emergency relief. 37 of these traitors begged, cajoled and demanded federal funds for their districts but completely turned their backs on the folks from NY, NJ, and Connecticut. I guess you could call these 37 extremist republicans the Benedict Arnold wing of traitors and back stabbers.

One pure idiot of a GOP right wing fundamentalist non brain of an excuse, who represents coastal Mississippi voted against these funds.

His own population called him out. He is a worthless example of an American. To think he is being paid by taxpayers.

After his own constituency called him out for being a disgrace, he, like a shamed dog with his tail between his legs showed up in NJ and NY pledging future support. I guess his own constituents let him know his future getting a free ride on the tax payer dole is about over unless he demonstrates the slightest amount of American values.

I suppose the rest of you true believers in the Koch brother manifesto also believe Americans should be left to die.

 

"block grants"? You mean Pork for Democrats. No how no idea what they do? Didn't you read the list Obamanation and I wrote?

Correct, just days after Katrina, President Bush and the Republican Congress quickly allocated money for Katrina. What's Obama's excuse?

I read that days after Sandy hit, the Republicans tried to introduce a bill to allocate funds ONLY FOR SANDY VICTIMS! Why did the Democrats ignore it? Please lie about this Earl, it's what I've come to expect from you.

Earl, I'm here in Long Island in the middle of this shit. The victims of Sandy are only tools to you. You cold-hearted bastard.

Obama's incompetence still won't allow him to allocate money for Sandy. A $60.2 Billion bill where less than $10 Billion goes to Sandy victims? And your response to this open and obvious corruption on the part of the Democrats using the name of the bill as a smoke screen to payoff their friends and ILLEGALLY get around the budget process - all you can do is fling insults like a child flings toys?



@Earl: So I'm assuming you support these items Democrats added that were on the original Sandy relief bill?

- $2 million to repair roof damage at Smithsonian buildings in Washington, D.C.?
- $336 million for Amtrak?
- $8 million to buy new cars for federal agencies?
- $150 million for fisheries in Mississippi and Alaska?
- 4 million for repairs at the Kennedy Space Center?
- $58.8 million for forest restoration on private land?
- $197 million “to… protect coastal ecosystems and habitat impacted by Hurricane Sandy.”
- $10.78 billion for public transportation improvements not in the Sandy disaster area?
- $17 billion for the infamous Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), a backdoor earmark program notorious for being used as bribes?
- $10.8 billion for the Federal Transportation Administration
- $33.2 million for eight Nevada pork projects put in by Harry Reid (D-Nev.), including:
. . o $25 million for rural Nevada;
. . o $1.5 million for Truckee Meadows
. . o $725,000 for Tahoe Regional Planning

Earl, is it O.K. with you that most of this bill is unrelated to Sandy?

Earl, why are you afraid to admit that the Democrats crafted this as a fraud bill?

Earl, are you brave enough to tell us exactly how much of this bill actually goes to victims of Sandy?

 

Corwin: Maybe in your hatred for Obama you miss very simple things.

Try and re read. Of the proposed $60 billion, $17 billion was for block grants. Of course you guys characterize them as evil, full of pork. Study up on Katrina relief. A LOT of that money was given out through block grants. Whatever the hell they specifically are and how they are used for these recovery processes.

I can't verify that all the proposed $60 million is direct related to NJ, NY and CT, and it could be some padding via the senate bill..but remember:

The senate bill was a compromise with both GOP and Dem support. Some senators threw shit in there, quite probably. It has been a long process and one that has been twisted by big spending irresponsible politicians of all ilks.

Hell, lets face it...the biggest spending president of all time before Obama was Bush II by an incredible long shot...and most of that big spending occurred while the GOP controlled both houses of Congress.

Now...I see you and the rest of the GOP mouthpieces really don't give a rats ass about a bunch of GOP members of congress who simply voted against sending money YOUR way....but love to suck off the federal spigot for their own districts and in at least one case their own personal accts.

Those members of congress ARE ON RECORD telling you and the folks of LI to take a hike. NOTHING FOR YOU.

but don't trust me on that issue. That is what GOP members of congress from NJ and NY and GOP NJ Governor Chris Christie had to say to shame those dirtballs into action.

You on the other hand are criticizing a bill based on some right wing propaganda piece who is among other things...attacking a MaJOR component used in Katrina rescue efforts and likewise targeted for the Northeast.

Okay...I'll do what I can to see that none of the $$ comes your way. I suggest you try and get some from the 37 GOP selfish members of Congress who will suck up $$ for themselves and tell NY, NJ, and CT to f*ck themselves. You are on the same wavelength as those generous folks.

 

I feel no hatred for anyone. Hared is for the intolerant.
YOU, on the other hand...

How much of this is "propaganda":

- $2 million to repair roof damage at Smithsonian buildings in Washington, D.C.?
- $336 million for Amtrak?
- $8 million to buy new cars for federal agencies?
- $150 million for fisheries in Mississippi and Alaska?
- 4 million for repairs at the Kennedy Space Center?
- $58.8 million for forest restoration on private land?
- $197 million “to… protect coastal ecosystems and habitat impacted by Hurricane Sandy.”
- $10.78 billion for public transportation improvements not in the Sandy disaster area?
- $17 billion for the infamous Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), a backdoor earmark program notorious for being used as bribes?
- $10.8 billion for the Federal Transportation Administration
- $33.2 million for eight Nevada pork projects put in by Harry Reid (D-Nev.), including:
. . o $25 million for rural Nevada;
. . o $1.5 million for Truckee Meadows
. . o $725,000 for Tahoe Regional Planning

Earl, you are caught in the "extremist trap" - you believe "my party ALL good, other party ALL bad". No insult intended, but to a politician that makes you a Useful Idiot. It's exactly that behavior that is responsible for the extreme partisanship we see today.

You need to understand that the title of a bill does not have to have anything to do with it's content. Here we have a "Hurricane Sandy Emergency Relief" bill that does little for Sandy relief. More than two-thirds of this bill funds things that have absolutely nothing to do with Sandy.

It's O.K. for you to admit this is a bad bill for Sandy victims. That won't make you a Republican or a traitor to your party. But your rants are just getting more and more ridiculous. I'm sure Republicans have sponsored deceptive bills in the past - here we have the Democrats pushing a very deceptive bill. And it puts you, Earl, in the very unfair position of FEELING that you have to defend a bill that can't be defended.

What separates us is I have no hatred for Obama - I just have little faith in him. Biden, I now like because he can get things done. And I've spoken highly of Hillary Clinton many times.

And Earl, stop calling anyone and everyone that dares disagree with you "an extremist". Hands down YOU are the most extreme person on DP P&L. Certainly Obamanation and I are more polite to you, than you are to us.

 

I guess all you right wingers are scared to read what real people are saying about the vote of the 67 tea party fanatics who voted against immediate aid for folks in NJ, NY, and CT. I guess you are indifferent to the disgust and embarrassment that folks in Southern Mississippi had to their tea party member of Congress who voted against the immediate $9.7 billion dollars.

The folks in Southern Mississippi were outraged and disgusted by their tea party congressman who voted against that relief. he, of course BEGGED for money for Mississippi and his govt dole job when Hurricane Katrina hit...but when it came to NY, NJ and CT he couldn't give a shit and became a tea party cheap skate.

Here is a link to how his constituents feel. http://www.wdam.com/story/20525004/some-question-palazzos-sandy-relief-bill

I know the tea party propagandists are scared to comment about stuff that real people feel.

Here I'll copy some of the milder language from folks on the gulf coast reacting after their representative turned cheap, political, partisan, and ultimately acted in a way that they know can come back to haunt them.

they are real people and voters...not some group of tea party thugs that threaten gop legislators to become ever cheaper.

real people, real Americans, with real concerns, who incidentally were on the receiving end of emergency relief from other Americans. These folks have both compassion and common sense.

They don't buy into the tea party propaganda.

I guess the tea party propagandists here are scared to discuss this issue though.

 

Are we talking about Snooki, Jwow, or The Situation. Here all this time I was thinking Tea Party people were real Americans. Silly me.

 

It's amazing how EVERY Liberal brain is geared to deliberately twist / skew / lie / forge / deceive for this president. You all just love him SO much.

NOTHING can be his fault...

What a bunch of clowns.

 

hah...o-nation: refused to read what real people wrote and said....again. and gr: can you read? if you can do your overlords allow you to read anything that wasn't pre screened.

and I see none of you propagandists managed to research how money was disbursed after Katrina hit. Block grants were used. It ended up getting people back on their feet, and now years later being responsible Americans.

Those were the types of Americans in the 4th district of Mississippi who attacked their mindless, ungrateful puppet of the right wing Koch money machine that now wants the folks of NJ, NY, and CT to suffer.

hey oink-nation: do you think the tea party should target and attack Palazzo. He says he is NOW going to support relief for Sandy after being shamed by his constituents.

 

Of course I read it. What I pointed out, and you missed, was the difference between your definition of "Real People", and mine. For instance, when Maxine Waters, a sitting member of congress, said "Viva Fidel!" in reference to Fidel Castro, and that the Tea Party can "go to hell", I listened to her as well because, though it chaps my ass, she too is a "Real Person". I hate to jump straight to breaking Godwin's law ( again), but marginalizing those who disagree with you as something less than human is right out of the Third Reich playbook.

I think any congressman who supports pork laiden legislation should be targeted, I don't care if the stated goal of the legislation is to keep my sickly mother on life support.

 

Both democrats and republicans have this incredible history for loading up on the pork.

in the realm of trying to operate a government, a country, and an economy the legislative branches that can have huge impact on the future health and welfare of the entire economy have a choice.

They can get in there and legislate and compromise, and try and get some of their points. That might mean some ugly uncomfortable things like stupid wasteful expensive pork for things like bridges to nowhere.

Alternatively they can go immature brat like or alternatively terrorist like and refuse to negotiate at all and threaten to crush the economy and/or return it to a recession. They can act like the world is "give me everything I want" or ELSE.

 

You make it sound as though the Pork is part of a legitimate compromise. It reminds me a bit of doing real estate deals in the third world, something I have personal experience with. The European property owners want to sell without having to travel half way across the planet so they make a local attorney their minority partner. The owners have a stated sale price, and a buyer comes in with a full price offer (otherwise known as a compromise), but the attorney who is supposedly representing the sellers wants two acres of beach front property out of the negotiation or he will not allow the owners to see the offer. This is what most people refer to as corruption, and it is common as hell in the third world.

I don't care if your chunk of pork is a few million dollars of funding for green energy projects for your campaign contributors, funding for a bridge to nowhere, or the construction of a new highway to some property you brought (Harry Reid). These things have nothing to do with aid for hurricane victims, and insisting they be removed from legislation is not "terrorist" like at all.

If Democrats would start demanding honesty and the elimination of corruption from these negotiations in the same way Tea Party Republicans have, our debt/deficit problem would quickly be dealt with. Sadly, Democrats now argue for and champion the cause of corruption. It is an embarrassment.

 

So let's see ... according to the "real people" posting here, it's fine to send $25 billion in pork to Mississippi in 2005, but it's bad to send $66 billion (or about $50 billion in 2005 dollars) to three states to clean up from a worse storm now. By this time after Katrina, no one was living in their cars, as many people in NJ still are. And the people of Breezy Point? The rubble still hasn't been cleared from the foundations of the buildings that burned that night, so they don't even have any idea of what year it will be when they can return home - if ever.

Washington did it to NYC in 1975, and it's doing it to the northeast again in 2012-2013. This time, however, I think the victims are going to demand a kiss before they get screwed.

I'll go along with the "real" part, but "people"? Even insects treat their own better than that.

 

As long as representatives have to be elected, it's part of a real-world compromise. No congressman will go along with a huge spending bill unless he can show his constituents how it benefited them - because he won't get re-elected if he keeps voting to give their tax money to other people. Even if his constituents don't need the pork and others need the legitimate spending.

Idealism is a nice concept but it doesn't actually work.

 

So you have no issue with the fact the Sandy relief bill had money for fisheries in Alaska. In fact, your allegation is that Californians should be upset because it had no money in it for California schools. Such a ringing endorsement of corruption as the norm.

Your reference to reduced corruption as "Idealism" well illustrates the world view of the status quo. It illustrates why the US has fallen to the mid 20s on the world's corruption index under Obama.

I've got news for you. In the first world countries at the top of that corruption index, refusal to load spending bills with gifts for yourself, your friends, and your constituents is not considered Idealism, and the absence of such pork actually does work. You should note that those same countries are also beating the US on the quality of life index and inter generational social mobility indexes, and that correlation is not a coincidence. Such "idealism" used to work in America.

Guys like you make guys like Alex Jones look sane. You expect Americans to just lay down and accept corruption. Accept the erosion of our rights. Accept the invasion of our privacy. Accept mediocrity. Lie down and accept it, because refusal to accept it is just blind idealism!

I hate to borrow a line from a guy who I consider to be somewhat of a raving lunatic, but come try and make me lie down and accept it and you are going to have 1776 all over again. You have no clue as to what the hell you are talking about, what you are asking, or the people you are dealing with.

Guys like you are going to be pissing your pants come this debt ceiling debate. While your dim witted echo chamber pundits are rambling on yet again about the diminished power of the Tea Party, we are still sticking more people into government, and more specifically the Senate, than any other single group. The media has all but acknowledged the Tea Party is the major driving influence of House Republicans. 30 Republican Governors now, up from 29 last year.



If you think all those angry people in 2010 have suddenly changed their mind about what is wrong with this country, I suggest you put down the crack pipe.

 

look the tea party GOP talks about pork all the time and then begs, blows, fights for it all the time. Its a propaganda bull shit line. On top of that the original bill that the tea party GOP is crying about....while they directly stiff the folks in NY, NJ, and CT, came out of a Senate in which both GOP and Dems voted for the legislation.

Go through the tea party crying points. They really don't want any help being given to the folks in the Northeast. Identify line for line, item for item which Senator supported and pushed it for it. Check to see if some of those things weren't added by the GOP.

But one shouldn't need to do that. Unfortunately we live in a real world with pork loving members of Congress and a real world where tea party radicals directly want to stiff the poor folks in the NE who live in blue states, and can't be bothered by the fact that the majority of the extremists who voted against the most immediate funding....HAVE ALL begged borrowed and whined for emergency funding.

Another vote is coming up. We'll see what occurs.

 

I have no doubt there were. Pay attention. We are culling the Senate.

BTW, there are already rumblings of a Rand Paul run at the Presidency in 2016. I always thought his dad was a bit too extreme, but Rand speaks my language. In fact, he speaks my exact dialect. I wonder if the press will still blather on about the death of the Tea Party after our first Tea Party president?

 

In the end, what the Tea Party really wants is that politicians keep their campaign promises. Neither party wants that.

Very early Democrats tried to envelop and infiltrate the Tea Party. It failed because the Tea Party is not a political party, it is a movement. It has no leaders, only influencers.

Ariana Huffington, who everyone remember as being an extreme Conservative, suddenly became a flaming Liberal when she started Huff Post. Obviously she did it as smart business move but she never had credibility with the Libs. in 2011 she tried to become a Tea Party infuencer, and failed.

The Republicans tried a different track - they tried the appearance of embracing the Tea Party, with the agreement of whomever wins the primaries would be endorsed by the Tea Party and the Republican Party. Well, then Tea Party candidates beat out Republicans, the Republican party not only reneged on the endorsements, they started attacking the Tea Party. So the Tea Party rejects the Republican establishment, too.

Fox News used to be the network for Conservatives. Now they are the mouthpiece for the Republicans the same way CNN and MSNBC was the mouthpiece of the Democrats.

Hey, anyone else remember Dylan Ratigan on MSNBC? He was the best political pundit on TV. But when he started exposing the influence of money in politics, BOTH PARTIES, MSNBC couldn't boot him fast enough - hey, if you're on MSNBC, you can't point out how BOTH parties are corrupt!

So now a quick Google search shows FoxNews.com articles on the death of the Tea Party, Tea Party being sidelined, etc. I say that if honesty in campaigns, keeping campaign promises, and getting the hypocrisy out of Washington is what the Tea Party stands for, well, I'm for it, too.

In the end - the Tea Party stands for what the Democratic Party PRETENDS to stand for!

 

Me? You cut

I made no comment about what I prefer, just about how things actually work.

My preference? 25,000 human beings on the planet, living in small clans, formed into small tribes. No "politics" beyond the clan level.

Neither mine nor yours has as much chance of happening as a square round thing.

Rand Paul? He has less chance than Ross Perot did in '92. He fools only a small part of the population. TP and OWS were good ideas but, like most other good ideas, they were taken over by those in power to further their own ends. The current TP congresscritters are worse than any Republican or Democrat.

 

In Russia. You make it sound as though as though there is some universal truth when it comes to corruption, when the opposite is obviously the case.

So reducing corruption in US politics you consider to be as unlikely as eradicating 6 billion people from the planet? Wow. Put down the crack pipe?

Picking a presidential winner in four years would be idioitic, regardless of who you are talking about. If anyone in 2004 thought Barack Obama had even a remote shot of ever being president, they would have been laughed out of the room.

I do like your comparisons though. Comparing TP members to other congressmen, comparing OWS to the TP. I'll bite. Please. Compare one TP congressman to one of the OWS congressman.


Ok, that was unfair. Obviously OWS is as popular as chlamydia, dumb as crap, and have about as many new ideas as Joseph Stalin. Lets try one of your comparisons that can actually be made. Whose popularity, education, and intelligence shall we compare? Ted Cruz to Charlie Rangle? How about Maxine Waters with Jim Demint? Rand Paul to Harry Reid? Marco Rubio and Joe Biden?

Like most liberals, you live in a world of your own creation, completely oblivious to facts. Congress as a whole is generally unpopular, and the only people creating change are the Tea Party.