Friday, October 4, 2013
$30 Million Per Hour, $1.6 Billion Per Week
If the government shutdown revealed anything, it exposed he craven hypocrisy of Tea Party Republicans whose lust for partisan terrorism far exceeds any real concern for deficits or debt. Forty million dollars per hour, $330 million per day, and $1.6 billion per week … these are conservative estimates of how much the government shutdown is costing the American people. More here.
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Wait...wait...are you telling us that the TeaPublicans and the GOP are NOT the party of fiscal responsibility???? NOooooooooooooo!
ReplyDeleteThere is no equivalency here. The TeaPublicans are fiscal terrorists and on a suicide mission. It is hoped only their party will be the victims of their foolishness.
Congratulations on coining a new concept, Fiscal Terrorists and Fiscal Terrorism. Can we expect to hear that the government must simply, in the interest of national security, haul all the "TeaPublicans" off to reprogramming camps?
ReplyDeleteRN,
DeleteThis post links to an article by Richard Eskow at TruthOut, who points out:
Republicans in Congress recently voted to cut $4 billion per year from programs that feed the needy. In two-and-a-half weeks they’ll have wasted more than that on their shutdown.
Why? ”We’re not going to be disrespected,” said one Republican House member. “We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is.”
This stunt isn’t just costly and wasteful. It’s endangering a fragile economy, and the jobs that go with it.
Indeed! The magnitude of human suffering caused by this shutdown does not justify the vanity of a few GOP House members in search of “respect” or saving face. Furloughed: 800,000 government workers including my son-in-law. Yes, this government shutdown debacle strikes close to home.
Vanity and a callous disregard for human suffering! Vanity and a callous disregard for human suffering! Vanity and a callous disregard for human suffering!
Reprogramming would be far too kind for these people. I have something else in mind.
Man sets himself on fire at National Mall, and the DC police dispatched a violent crimes unit to the scene. What are they going to do? Shoot out his tires?
DeleteRead in the NYT today, that the average daily responsibility for our government is $60 Billion. That's a lot of money. Before we start selling off our fighter jets to France and England, can we increase taxes on the rich?
ReplyDeleteThe GOP protects its rich contributors. From Mike Lofgren (a former GOP Congressional staffer who blows the lid off GOP hypocrisy):
Delete“The party has built a whole catechism on protection and further enrichment of America’s plutocracy. Their caterwauling about deficit and debt is so much eyewash to con the public. Whatever else President Obama has accomplished … his $4 trillion deficit reduction package did perform a useful service of smoking out Republican hypocrisy. The GOP refused because, because it could not abide by so much as a one-tenth of one percent increase on the tax rates of the Walton family or the Koch brothers, much less a repeal of the carried interest rule that permits billionaire hedge fund traders to pay income tax at a lower effective rate than cops and nurses.”
The situation is far worse than Lofgren states. There’s an estimated $1 trillion in annual tax credits, loopholes, and concessions granted to big business that would close the Federal budget deficit in a minute! The plutocracy has stashed an estimated $20 trillion in overseas bank accounts – assets often illegally hidden from the IRS.
In contrast, the middle class has no special perks or privileges, and wages have remained stuck in stasis for decades. This massive income inequality system has been built into the tax code over time; and any attempt to correct it brings out predictable GOP sloganeering: “Class warfare,” “Income redistribution,” and “commie-socialism.”
Enough is enough!!!
Speaking of health care in America, I spend all yesterday sitting in doctor's waiting rooms with my ailing 90 yer old father and witching CNN where a parade of Republicans tied to pass off the blame on the Democrats for "forcing" the worst legislative measure in American history; the most destructive and dangerous and immoral law, on our country. You'd think it hadn't passed both houses and survived a SCOTUS examination. You'd think the president wasn't elected on the promise of passing it and re-elected for having done it. You'd think bleating goats like Ted Cruz hadn't praised it in 2007, that it hadn't been developed in Republican think tanks.
ReplyDeleteSure, all the want it more time to think about it - to negotiate it because after all, Any law, and law it is, needs to be approved by the Tea Party before it's legitimate. After all, these rebels, insurrectionist scofflaws are the final court, aren't they? I mean Obstruction of Justice doesn't apply to them Does it?
Isn't there a procedure by which we can arrest each of them and charge them with sedition, obstruction and making terroristic threats? Because if we don't stop them now, what stops them from holding any other law hostage and shut down the government until we repeal all taxes, repeal Social Security and Medicare, close OSHA, the FDA and any other thing they can get their claws on?
It seems hard to believe that the politicians can actually believe the lies they are peddling. There is not a vast array of approaches to assuring near-universal healthcare or at least health insurance. We all know the single payer option is off the table for the foreseeable future. The republicans won several concessions in 2009, including the scratching of the public option. In the end we didn't even get Ms. Snowe's vote as she caved to pressure. Traitor Joe Lieberman may be personally responsible for eliminating the public option for his one vote to force cloture on filibuster.
ReplyDeleteThe only true meaning behind this current temper tantrum en masse of republicans is that they simply do not care if people go uninsured. Could any of you even imagine the horror and humiliation of not being able to visit a doctor because you had no insurance? Nothing to show the receptionist that you had financial means to pay? Yet this is precisely what the republicans want. (And other stripes of libertarians or conservatives.) Absolutely heartless. Lacking in any and all compassion. Denigrating this law as we speak while it simultaneously allows millions of Americans to seek health insurance for what may be the very first time in their lives. It's theatre of the absurd.
Captain,
I hope Dad is feeling better after seeing the doctor. I saw a doctor yesterday as well. Caring professional staff, a triage nurse, a pre-exam nurse, a medical student and a very nice young doctor. All the medicine I need. I'll be fit as a fiddle in a couple of days. Wonderful feeling if you have access to it.
" Could any of you even imagine the horror and humiliation of not being able to visit a doctor because you had no insurance? "
DeleteI've had close friends go through exactly that after having lost everything in the W recession. Of course emergency room visits are an invisible premium [payed by everyone.
But I don't think it's that they don't care if people are uninsured, I think they delight in other people's misery.
"Could any of you even imagine the horror and humiliation of not being able to visit a doctor because you had no insurance?"
ReplyDeleteWell, yes. My daughter didn't have to imagine it; that actually was what she faced for a number of years. Her father and I had to pay for any visits or procedures she needed by calling in our credit cards. Both of us are retired. One of the bills was $11,000. This is the truth. So we can very well imagine the misery the selfish sons of bitches in the GOP would like to keep other Americans in if only they got their way to delay the implementation for another year. Delay for one year a duly passed law? Are they nucking futs? My daughter just signed up for the A.C.A. It is her way to finally afford insurance and to not have to be humiliated every time she needs to see a doctor.
Not one of the self-serving Teabagging cretins have been able to answer me why she should have to delay coverage for another year. Blackmailing the country and our family over this IS a terrorist tactic.
May the fleas of a thousand camels infest their crotches and their arms be too short to scratch!
The
We wish your daughter well.
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ReplyDelete"The federal government [which was shut down by the TeaPublicans] had forced the inn, in a leased building on federal land, to shut down at 6 p.m. ET Thursday."
ReplyDeleteThe owner should complain to the destructive TeaPublicans for causing any financial hardship.
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ReplyDelete(O)CT(O)PUS, "Thersites" is an internet stalker. He spammed by blog for weeks and weeks last year. And he's been spamming my blog this week. Delete this troll.
ReplyDeleteIt seems this spamming BS is not specific to conservatives. Or maybe spamming by ,liberals is acceptable?
DeleteInquiring minds want to know.
Assholeness ( or is it Assholity) is not specific to any political affiliation, although the Tea Party comes awfully close to being the asshole party.
DeleteSpam is spam and a troll is a troll and Thirsty, or whatever he calls himself has been jettisoned with the trash. This being pretty much private property, it's permissible to put up the no shirt, no manners, no service sign. Management reserves the right to refuse space to anyone.
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ReplyDelete(O)CT(O)PUS said... "Reprogramming would be far too kind for these people. I have something else in mind."
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you do...
What I have in mind ... undecided but there are two possibilities:
DeleteA. Immerse them in a swimming pool with thousands of stinging scorpionfish or ...
B. Force them to watch 24 hours of Rush Limbaugh and Chris Christie performing on Nude Dancing With the Stars.
My scorpionfish buddies prefer option 'B'
I'm curious. What sort of spamming by liberals is going on here?
ReplyDeleteSince you asked. Did I say here?
DeleteChecking...........
Nope.
But it does occur elsewhere.
Over and out.
The cephalopods were away for the weekend. Monday morning damage assessment:
DeleteIt appears a Termites spammer left a half dozen comments, all anecdotal reports of business concessions or cottages on Federal land that inconvenienced the lessees. What was his point? Is he accusing government of closing down concessions that operate on public property or keeping vacationers from accessing their cottages or taking away their guns, Barbie Dolls, and video games?
Pointless and annoying ... analogous to a stray dog crapping on the lawn.
Confirmed, there are spammers of all political persuasions; but spamming is NOT ABOUT politics. It's about rudeness, an adrenaline fix, sometimes a character-disordered narcissist disrespecting people, or a stray dog marking your territory. Politics merely offers another frame for contest or combat.
A delete button usually makes my day.
I guess I didn't need to comment above, but I agree -- when in doubt, toss 'em out.
DeleteBut since I haven't had my smug, arrogant, condescending fix yet this morning, I'd like to add that proper radio protocol is to say, either over or out, but not both. And of course if you're using code, it's SK. - as in de N4HO 73 SK.
Ah, now I feel better.