What is wrong with these people? While I certainly don’t agree with many things Obama & Dems have/are doing, this obstructionism is simply ludicrous. And too many of their Tea Party friends are worse.
In an example of Republican obstructionism rendered beautiful by its simplicity, the GOP yesterday killed a House bill that would increase funding for scientific research and math and science education by forcing Democrats to vote in favor of federal employees viewing pornography.
[…]
“For anyone that is concerned about federal employees watching pornography, they just saw a pornographic movie. It’s called; ‘Motion to Recommit,'” Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN) said. “It was a cynical effort to undermine an important bill for my 9-year-old daughter, for your kids and your grandkids.”
The Dems screwed themselves with their obsession with health care instead of jobs (or more accurately, a jobs for insurance companies bill). Hopefully too late, the Republicans are realizing they may have gone too far with the ‘vote no on everything’ agenda.
Only now that their own incumbents and establishment candidates are threatened are some Republicans starting to realize the problem with their strategy of yelling, “Throw the bums out!” every time government spends a dime. As it turns out, if you demonize all federal spending, pretty much everyone who’s ever supported any of it can become political collateral damage.
Perhaps it’s time, as some of our readers suggest, to vote out all incumbents of both parties and start over from scratch. Could it really be worse than now?
The tea baggers are predictably following their irresistible urge to legislate morality.
Hence, they will slowly lose their independent supporters and be left with their christian taliban core glued together with white supremacist and your basic moron.
Its not just a matter of voting out all currently sitting elected officials. The entire two party system is poison and needs to be totally reformed as well.
Both sides pull this kind of crap. Don’t be so suprised. The only defense against this kind of crap is an intelligent voter base, something both sides are trying to suppress.
Jeez. Only a pr0n hound could object to such a procedure.
Sorry, Uncle Dave, but your interpretation is bvllsh1t.
Items are tacked onto bills all the time – mostly pork – but sometimes stuff that actually makes sense!
So what did those evil rethuglicans want to do?
In other words, to with hold pay to federal employee pr0n hounds surfing for their pervert kicks while on the tax payer dime!
Only a democrat would throw kids under the bus instead of voting for some common sense item tacked onto their precious funding bill.
I’ll take the ‘party of no’ over the ‘party of perverts’, any day.
#4: You’re kidding, right? If it really is important, then introduce it as a bill in its own right. Don’t tack it onto an important funding bill in such a way that it will be defeated.
This was clearly a cynical move to kill anything positive that Obama and the Dems do just for votes from the Repub base.
Education is a overblown political agenda. Any time you want to score points, add more spending to Education, after all, “It’s for the children”
Most eduction spending is just pork for the education lobby that never reaches down to do what was intended.
You want to do something for the children, cut spending to keep our childen out of debt they will not be able to repay.
They should have killed the bill for sound economic reasons – We Can’t Afford Anything New (no matter how worthy). But killing it with politics was simpler. From an econ blog:
[i]As a rough estimate, the government will need to find spending cuts and tax increases equal to 7 to 10 percent of G.D.P. The longer we wait, the bigger the cuts will need to be (because of the accumulating interest costs).
Seven percent of G.D.P. is about $1 trillion today. In concrete terms, Medicare’s entire budget is about $450 billion. The combined budgets of the Education, Energy, Homeland Security, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation and Veterans Affairs Departments are less than $600 billion.[/i] That’s a trillion every year.
I think all Federal Employees should be required to identify the “money shot” in a random video in order to authorize salary payment.
Time to get these bureaucrats up to speed on financial matters.
“Could it really be worse than now?”
Yes.
Those on the right are so obsessed with money that they can’t see past it. Every issue comes down to money (or the imposition of their religion on the rest of us).
Cut spending! Cut spending! But not on what government spends on ME. Meanwhile, YOU CAN GO TO HELL.
When THEY need help, they run directly to government for it every time – just like the big corporations that they worship
All you world class economists on this blog make me laugh. Why are you hanging out here instead of winning nobel prizes?
Uncle Dave is a glorified Troll Monkey.
All his posts are so far to the extreme left that it’s obvious he either: couldn’t possibly believe what he is writing or he lives with the zombies in San Francisco.
Does Dvorak pay him based on the number of comments his ludicrous posts generate?
Cha-ching!
>> Perhaps it’s time, as some of our readers suggest, to vote out all incumbents
This is EXACTLY what the GOP wants you to do, Uncle Dave. It’s the whole reason they are intentionally making Americans hate Congress.
You’d totally be their hapless dupe if you fell for their cynical strategy.
Instead, be a smart voter: vote out the obstructionists and keep the ones trying to solve America’s problems.
But, I GUARANDAMTEE you, even if you vote out incumbents, the new bunch will get corrupted too.
The problem is not incumbents — it’s money and politics. The two simply don’t mix.
We need to end all campaign donations. Every single dime — and all the free jet rides, fancy dinners, golf retreats, everything.
It has to be such a complete and total ban that there is no way to cheat the system without risking jail.
>> GetReal said, on May 16th, 2010 at 7:05 am
>> Cut spending! Cut spending! But not on what government spends on ME. Meanwhile, YOU CAN GO TO HELL.
The hypocricy of this bunch is stunning!
For THIRTY YEARS the conservatives have been preaching: “The government that does the least is the best.”
Now they are crying — “WHY OH WHY, hasn’t the government done anything about illegal immigration?!? Whah!!!!!!”
GregAllen said,
“We need to end all campaign donations. Every single dime — and all the free jet rides, fancy dinners, golf retreats, everything.”
I agree completely. Money + Politics = Corruption. Always.
A few other suggestions for campain/voting reform.
1. Ban ALL political parties. Every political candidate should be judged solely by their own voting record and on their own merits, not by the single letter that follows their name on the ballot. Once you accept money and support from a political party, you owe them and they effectively own you. This is very similar to how organized crime expands its network of influence.
2. The ONLY information outlet available for a candidate to state his/her qualifications and merits shall be a few paragraphs of space on the voter information pamphlet and a similar space on a government provided website. Candidates shall NOT be allowed to sling mud at their opponents. Radio and TV ads, Banned. Lawn signs, Banned. You want to show support for your candidate, vote for them at the ballot box.
3. In place of the R, I or D at the end of each candidate’s name on the ballot, there shall be a sentence or two (less than 50 words) summarizing the candidate’s essential views and why they believe you should vote for them. No two candidates shall be allowed to present the same (or essentially the same) text here. The candidate shall also NOT be allowed to state their current political office here. This guarantees that even if the voter did not take the time to read the candidate’s statements, at least they will not be voting based on the single letter after the candidate’s name or the fact they they are the incumbent.
I realize that some may view these as violating a citizen’s personal rights, but public service should be just that, not a wealth and power creation tool.
The people of this country deserve more.
Wow. What a stupid post, and even more poor commentary by our favorite uncle.
Show me, exactly, where the bill states “forcing Democrats to vote in favor of federal employees viewing pornography.”
In fact, specifically, the bill states “Prohibiting any Federal employee who has been disciplined for downloading, viewing, or exchanging pornographic material from receiving a salary on the taxpayer dollar”
And then, given this restriction, “121 Democrats jumped ship and voted with Republicans to kill the bill”.
Looks like Uncle didn’t do his homework. 121 Democrats SUPPORTED the porn BAN, and so the authors of the bill, who also were DEMOCRATS, killed the bill.
WHY!!! Because the bill supported a ban on federal employees viewing porn on taxpayer time!
The DEMOCRATS killed the bill, thereby showing support for viewing porn on taxpayer time!!
Pedophiles rejoice! The Dems are in town!!
Uncle, stop being duped. Look beyond the headlines.
Voting them out will not do a thing.
The system is broken, bloated and not a fit for the modern nation we are in.
Scrap it, create a new constitution and get on with it.
Cursor_
#16: You really don’t get it, do you.
The bill was about funding science research and education, areas we in the US are fast falling behind the rest of the world. Not about porn.
The porn provision was added by Republicans to kill the bill to appear anti-Obama. Period.
Look beyond the surface.
Posts #4 and #5 pretty much spell out the problem; that being we all suffer from poorly crafted legislation. This is why presidents keep asking for the line item veto (which is also a bad idea but an understandable one). These items should not be bundled together, but they are because it speeds the passage of legislation. The system isn’t broken, it’s not working because there is a bug in the system. If they changed to a smart form of electronic voting and only crafted bills with a single item within them (or dealt with a single issue), it would prevent stuff like this. And introduce new problems, but hey; that’s the price of democracy, and it would be worth paying for.
@Dallas,
Do you think the tea partiers are really trying to regulate morality? I don’t think they are and that is to my own chagrin. I am one of those far right winged Christians and I wish there was more talk of social issues but there just isn’t. The Tea Pary as I see it is basically a movement against over taxation and big government.
Which is why we need to make it punishable by death to belong to either the Democrat or Republican party. They both exist solely to screw over the other and fuck the same hookers, often at the same time.
Yea, I think #4–Train Gas and #5–Unc Dave have set the parameters of a good debate.
Unc Dave, you do have to explain to me why putting two things that should both be passed is a manipulation of anything==unless you do believe it is axiomatic that Dems should be against docking salary for porn viewing bureaucrats. ((Silly me, most private sector employees will get FIRED for it.))
Now, I also think that “issues” or bills should be presented as single issue packages==but the world doesn’t work that way and I’m man enough to deal with it. An alternative is a Presidential line item veto. Given the Pres can veto the entire bill, I don’t see any constitutional bar to line item==it all goes back to preventing Congress from playing games==and that takes us back to voting all encumbents OUT of office. Not just once==but over and over until they get the message and DO something fer Jebus’s sake.
We can all make our own lists.
Dave–you said we need to look deeper. I’ve gone as far as I can, given my analysis, and conclude you are wrong. What is your even deeper analysis?
Why “should” Dems support porn reading beaurocrats (if they do?). How do you know “why” the bill failed?? Since both elements of the bill sound good to me, maybe the Dems were against math and science funding because they want to attract the Fundy vote?
When you are swimming in a cess pool of self interest, all you contact is shit.
Someone doesn’t get it, Uncle Dave….
Let’s see if you can follow along here.
What you are saying is:
The Republicans put a provision into the bill disallowing Government employees from getting paid to surf porn on Government time knowing that…
The Democrats who sponsored the bill will kill it…
Because these Democrats WANT government employees to surf porn on government time, and were willing to kill the bill to keep it! …
Even though 121 Democrats SUPPORTED the Republican provision?
Is this the level of critical thinking of a radical leftest??
Isn’t it true that the Democrats would have had enough support to pass this bill if they had all voted for it???
So answer me this, Uncle Dave.
Why did 121 Democrats go along with the Republican MINORITY?
Why not just pass the bill with the porn restriction????
We need to be more concerned about the candidate rather then the party. I think we too often vote people in for what they promise when we should vote in people who will do what is needed to fix our government.
Sometimes that is not a popular choice. We seem to complain a lot but are unwilling to give up a lot. In fact considering just the health care issue. We seem to want these services like health care. But keep forgetting about how its going to be paid for. We are a want nation.
Wow, Bobbo! I should have posted faster, because you got to exactly my same thoughts 5 minutes earlier!
Ah Yea–would that it was always so, but your approach takes a slightly different path going to the numbers which does raise another thorny issue for Uncle Dave to ignore.
“You Know”–when I make sausage, I choose what ingredients to use and if another cook comes in and adds something I don’t like, I take it out. So this legislative process is something other than “sausage making on display.” Maybe not swimming in shit, but something distasteful and in fact “not on full view.”
I should add, ironically to avoid redundancy, that if we voted all Obstructionists out of Congress, the overlap with incumbency would approach 100%?. Same with the other pejoratives. I’m fine with any formulation.
Bobbo,
Bingo! Exactly right, again.
Ah_Yea, what does scientific research have to do with government employees surfing porn? Why link them in a bill unless you’re against the research?
Yes, it can and will get worse. Both parties have professional brain washing experts that know which buttons to push to get the votes from us dumb idiots. Every election brings us closer to our own extinction as a nation. How else can millions of illegals be welcome in a bankrupt country? How else can trade laws be changed to benefit the other guys? Our votes don’t count. If they did things would be a lot different.
Very basically, or in essence, this is about what happened with the Salem Witch trials. They started small time, accusing just the locals. And the then proper authorities did nothing about these extremists. Then they started after more important people, like the Mass. governor’s wife. And that’s when the whole thing was quickly dealt with, by state officials. And the “trials” were put to an end, and mostly, covered up as the embarrassment of injustice they were.
I’m so tired of “both sides are at fault”. Let’s be honest, the GOP is incompetent and every law they pass has contributed towards the destruction of this country, regardless of how well-meaning they are.