The new stimulus bill…
…has outraged nearly everyone on the right. Simply put, its ratio of pork to relief is high. Articles like this one are fairly typical; you can read them at almost every site.
This kind of action has been typical of DC government for a long time, and it’s bipartisan. But that article and so many others seem to focus the ire towards the right, stating that there is no different between the two parties.
I’ve written about this before, so this post will be short: the fact that both parties are extremely flawed is not news, but it doesn’t make them the same. We are on the brink of total leftist control of our government if the GOP loses the Senate. Gaining the Senate merely buys time, but time is important if anything is to be done about the problems we face. Try to reform the party, challenge the party, or change the party during that time. But if the Democrats take control, we may have run out of time.
It was reassuring that 6 (count them-6!) GOP Senators refused McConnell’s request to pass the bill without a vote. The 6 voted no. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz and Ron Johnson were three. Now, that Trump is going and McConnell doesn’t need him anymore, he is back to best buddies with Pelosi.
The idea of a bill running to nearly 6,000 pages (read in its entirety by no-one and written mostly for the benefit of lobbyists and special interests, including those of foreign countries) is truly an abomination, especially considering how long any relief for ordinary Americans, crushed by the irrational lockdowns, was delayed by Pelosi. Only a few Republicans had the courage to vote against the monstrosity, and (alas!) the case for supporting the two mediocre candidates in the Peach State has mostly devolved into the old argument of the “lesser of two evils”.
j e:
It always was the lesser of two evils.
And in government, it probably always will be. That’s reality. As Churchill pointed out, “…it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
5538 pages in one bill! Opposed by almost no one.
It is Modern Monetary Theory, which claims that perpetually growing government deficits will be just fine.
There is so much vomitus in this $900 million bill that is truly astounding. $10 mill to Pakistan for gender democracy. Money for the salmon in the Pacific NW.
Opposed by almost no one, because “compromise”. This is what you get when you compromise with the Left.
Why? So the bread-eaters can get a single $600 each to tide them over their lost-business, lost jobs woes?
The USA is withering and dying.
Biden’s “black winter” is already upon us.
To hell with the whole thing.
I wish Trump would veto it but Fox News has said he will sign it.
…democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Why be pessimistic? I’ve got a good feeling that the Democrats are going to make fascio-communism work this time.
After all, it took Edison quite a few tries to get that light-bulb thingie right.
je:
Do you actually know anything about the two Democrats running in Georgia?
They are both evil. One is the new “Rev.” Jeremiah Wright, and the other, Osoff, is a frank socialist. The alternative, the two “mediocraties” in your eyes, is not to be sneered at. I fear Loeffler will lose. Georgia vote fraud operations remain intact, uninvestigated.
The cause of American freedom is not a small cause, and you will regret the adverse election result.
Discouraging as it may be you just have to keep telling people.
“Remember this. You VOTED for it!”
Then go into the example what they are complaining about. They thought it was perfectly acceptable at the time they voted. Maybe next time think a little more about what people are saying and advocating for before casting your vote. This tactic is working on a few people that voted for Whitmer.
Going off on a tangent, the Republicans should block any attempt to remove Biden using the 25th amendment. Make the people see who and what they voted for. Rub their noses in it. Then walk away happy because Biden is not your president but theirs. As Joe would say “you dirty dog face pony soldier”.
I was also hoping that Trump would veto. What has he got to lose, and he would be a bigger hero in the eyes of people who crave responsible government.
I am considering resigning from the human race and self-identifying as a Virtual Venetian. I recently read that at some point Venus had an atmosphere similar to earth’s, before they experienced climate change. So, I am confident that there are some descendants of immigrants living among us, if I can only make contact.
Actually, I suppose I will just have to muddle along and do whatever I can to keep the government out of my life and bank account. Daunting task.
I appreciate the desire to consider the Repubs as less evil, having been there myself for the last few decades.
But now …. I’m coming to a conclusion of “both evil”. At most maybe one is “active evil” and the other is “eager/willing to cooperate with evil”. (Not appreciably different when you are a target) And it’s a Bell Curve, some Repubs are not evil (6 in the Senate for starters) whereas pretty much all Dems are.
If I was a GA voter, I’d still vote for the Repubs but it would not be an enthusiastic experience. I would not volunteer … or donate money.
Now, that Trump is going and McConnell doesn’t need him anymore, he is back to best buddies with Pelosi.
He’s 78 years old and has been planted in the floor leader’s position for 14 years. I think Robert Dole was 73 years old and had been floor leader for 11 years and change when he tendered his resignation from Congress. Among the few speakers, floor leaders and whips who have hung around this long have been Nancy Pelosi and Dick Dirtbag. Our current crop of congressional bosses accomplish nothing of value but fancy themselves indispensable.
If McConnell ever had any skill set other than navigating caucus politics and parliamentary procedure, haven’t a clue as to what it is. If they’re all voting on 5,000 page monstrosities, we cannot credit any of the floor leader’s skills as a legislator. Of course, he rolls over for one outrage after another. Consult his remarks on Obergefell.
“If McConnell ever had any skill set other than navigating caucus politics and parliamentary procedure, haven’t a clue as to what it is.”
He chose a good wife. At least, one with connections that benefit them. Us?? not so sure about that part. In fact, I’ve become very leary about their connections.
I must say though … I never thought I’d agree with AOC. But I do – on this at least. Probably never again!
What is left to say. The Left,Rinos,deep state, and media got everything they wanted. Its back to normal course of business of fleecing the rest of us from every last dime we have. Taking away our rights in a new frenzy of supposed “emergencies”. And generally putting down any time of opposition.
I think the incoming administration calls this “Unity”
Hooray for these six senators:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/why-6-gop-senators-voted-against-coronavirus-relief-bill
Sorry no sale. McConnell promised to restore regular order when he became Majority Leader, which would have prevented this atrocity. He sabotaged President Trump for four years, then endorsed a corrupt Chinese agent with a crack addicted sex pervert business partner who tortured women (have you seen the photos on GTV?) for President—after it was demonstrated that Biden committed major election fraud! He won’t defend America against the Left…instead he’s demonstrably bern running interference FOR the Left in exchange for graft. Unless Republicans reverse course to save President Trump I’m never giving a dime to the GOP again.
My “political donation” allowance was limited this year but I donated to Pres Trump.
Other than that I only donated to organizations:
Election Integrity Project
Judicial Watch
Center for American Libery
There are many others:
True the Vote
Pacific Legal Foundation
F.I.R.E.
Project Veritas
David Horowitz Freedom Center
and on and on
I’ve decided that candidates can turn on you, but organizations can hopefully start up some of the lawfare that we need. And which worked out so well for the Dems.
Another benefit is that orgs help support and build grass roots activists.
One other brief snippet. The Senate only had 6 brave soles resisting the Swamp.
House? Not much better. Here’s a sentence from an article–
“The House passed the combined bill on two votes: 327-85 for the defense and homeland spending part and 359-53 for the rest of the …”
With 85 NOs on Defense but only 53 NOs for other spending, I’m thinking the Dems were more rebellious. They at least got a few Members to vote NO on that half whereas the anti-pork side of the Repubs was a pretty shallow pond.
He chose a good wife. At least, one with connections that benefit them.
That’s not for what you choose a wife.
For whatever reason, his current wife remained unmarried until age 40, and has no children. He has three children, who are the issue of his previous wife. The previous Mrs. McConnell evidently worked for the University of Louisville libraries and then decamped to Smith College when her youngest child was college age. There’s a brief discussion of her and her daughters here:
https://blog.wataugawatch.net/2020/04/when-your-own-children-cant-stand-your.html
Much liberal discourse gives one the impression that its purveyors are arrested development cases.
Cicero and others cry this is the end of the US. So this is the Covid porkulous?
The Swamp is deep, even within the White House, according to Patrick Byrne. (Interview link below.) Byrne, you recall, warned Homeland Security and the FBI about electronic vote manipulation altering this election, getting nowhere. Turned to Trump.
Byrne was in the recent White House meeting with Gen. Flynn, Sydney Powell, and President Trump, nearly coming to blows with rage against a sell out, on the election fraud issue, mongering lawyer.
The RepubloCRATS can’t wait for Trump to be gone, and DC careerists can move up will help them. Even in the WH. Even though there is great love for Trump among the staffers and support people.
Oh, and NYTime’s Maggie Haberman (?) straight up and lied about Martial Law – it was never discussed. She’s a total liar and smear monger.
Byrne is deeply convinced of electronic corruption of the vote and only an Antrim County style forensic analysis done in six states, taking days or up to two weeks, will either conclusively prove vote fraud or it won’t, and Trump will gladly walk!
But the Left leads the fake opposition GOPers in corruption and they want none of that.
Interview with Patrick Byrne after WH meeting with Powell, Flynn and Trump starts at 5 minutes, listen through to 21 minutes at least.
https://uncoverdc.com/2020/12/21/dark-to-light-a-meeting-with-the-president/
Depressing, hopeful, facing impossible odds because of the corrupt powers against Trump, the People, and the Constitution. Our country, our nation, is getting stolen if this is mostly true. Sold out to the grifters, power grabbers, China lovers.
Byrne thinks Trump is very badly served by WH legal counsel. By “she,” early in the interview, I think the unnamed woman lawyer Byrne is fired up about, is Jenna Ellis.
Now the whole thing is back up in the air again.
It’s this kind of disorganized chaos that I won’t miss about Trump. He has Mnuchin negotiating for him so he had to or should know all this crap was in this bill and should have said so but instead he waits until it passes by huge margins in both houses before speaking out.
It’s this kind of thing that always stops me short with Trump. Don’t get me wrong I wish he was going to get another term but this chaos is so infuriating.
Griffin – there is chaos because Trump doesn’t allow the slow rolling pork barrel politics. Also the fact that Pelosi will not allow regular spending bills to process is another factor to the chaos.
The way to beat this is to tell congress that Trump will not sign any omnibus bills but insist that Congress do their CONSTITUTIONALLY MANDATED JOB and pass normal spending bills on time. Stress the words constitutionally mandated. People will respond to that. Start the pressure with the State of the Union and keep up through out the budget process. Ask why they can’t do that constitutionally mandated job and tell them if the job is too tough for them then quit. When the country shuts down because Congress could pass bills per the constitution I believe that the blame will end up on them and not the president.
The dirty secret is that Congress by and large doesn’t write bills anymore. They farm it out to K Street lobbyists. My former congressman Dave Trott basically told me that and it has been confirmed by other DC people that I know.
So yes there is chaos but that is how Trumps gets things done. I would rather have the elites in chaos than the stultifying slow rolling theft that happened under Clinton, Bush and Obama. You really need to read his “Art of the Deal” on his method of operating.
Per Trump’s address, he’s sending the bill back. I’m unsure whether it’s a formal veto. The last line of his speech is worth the price of admission – “… or else the next Administration will have to deliver a Covid relief package and maybe that Administration will be me.”
I am Spartacus,
Yes that’s all fine but he knew or should have known all this foreign garbage was in there so why wasn’t he raising hell about it all along instead waiting until now?
Obviously he has had more going against him than any president since maybe Lincoln but his lack of discipline just makes it worse.
And he is not negotiating some real estate deal this effects millions of lives in various ways so the whole chaos thing is a little more damaging because it turns a lot of people off.
I read somewhere that this $600 check to taxpayers is only costing them $2700.
My outgoing Representative today wrote his constituents – the ones on his email newsletter list anyway – about how proud he was that this bill got passed through, with all the Republican victories and all of the Democrat defeats. I wrote him back:
You forgot to mention pork. Lots and lots of pork. So much pork, the 5000 page bill was sent with just a few hours allowed to review it before passage. The benefits to citizens are a mere afterthought, a mushroom in a forest of money for special interests.
Congress is the problem, not COVID. Thank you for your service, but I am not at all confident of your replacement.
He’s retiring, he was a business man who did some good during his tenure – but his replacement is a party hack who got run out of his seat in Dallas in 2018 only to show up again like a bad rash this year, in this district. That’s the problem with the GOPe. Even when they lose, they resurrect themselves again using the old-boy network to find a cozy space in the clown car.
The president has the bully pulpit he should have been using it the last couple of weeks and pounding it constantly about all this pork because again his guy Mnuchin has been involved in these tedious negotiations for months so I sure as hell hope he knew what was in it. Instead he waits until it passes by huge margins and he has hung out to dry a bunch of republicans who might have backed him.
If what the Daily Mail reports is true, then Trump is indeed taking treating Patrick Byrne’s criticisms (see podcast interview link above) very seriously.
Byrnes fingers WH lawyer Pat Cipollone for being the leading sell out to DC Swamp — just get rid of Trump at any cost! — according to what he’s heard on the street, while living there in the Capitol overrecent months.
The President asked Byrne who is this guy? And he was already among the suits, the legal counsel or, sitting in on the long 4 and a half hour meeting in the West Wing, with Flynn and Powell and Byrnes. The meeting even continued on into the First Families residence.
But Cipollone is also the likely source that NYTimes Maggie Haberman used to gin up the Martial Law Big Lie! And recurrently undermining Trump’s goals to get the election finished with accuracy and legitimacy, which the Deep State rejects.
Here’s the Daily Mail headlines:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9079007/Trump-privately-lashing-Pence-accusing-not-fighting-overturn-election.html
The story includes Congressmen and Women at the Monday night meeting as well as background context for the Patrick Byrne interview:
https://uncoverdc.com/2020/12/21/dark-to-light-a-meeting-with-the-president/
It is the first time Byrne has met Trump. Byrne’s estimation of him has grown hugely. And he see’s him as tired. And sees these DC Swampers in the WH as snakes around Trump’s legs. The President needs American’s support.
DCuncovered’s Tracey Beanz, who hosts the interview, is completely enthused at the content because our future is at stake.
I’ve listened twice. It is passionate. At times, riveting.
A 10 minute NTD summary of the above posts:
Byrne charges that certain members on Trump’s Team “wants him to lose the election and are lying to him.” Powell weighs in, in this two minute opening news story. Powell and Flynn’s plans to win have, Byrnes estimates, a 50 to 70% chance to win.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWwNJZhcrww
Responding to complaints of the members of Congress: if they haven’t read the bill and don’t know what is in it (as is true of everything that we pass to find out what’s in it):
(1) why are they voting FOR it?
(2) who DOES know what’s in it?
(3) why do the negotiators (whoever they are) have the power to decide what every Representative in the country is presented with?
(4) do the individual congessweasels have NO input into legislation?
And is their any reason to suppose the Democrats even told Mnuchin what they were putting in the bill, or (if they did) that he reported this accurately to the President?
Senator Lee in the Fox report: “This process, by which members of Congress are asked to defer blindly to legislation negotiated entirely in secret by four of their colleagues, must come to an end,” he said.
AesopFan — the Speed Bump of Trump is OVER! Back to unity: all for greed and lies and unconstrained spending.
In the old days, when Congress passed such pork laden bills, someone (the appointed Scrooge) would lament at how much this was going to raise the debt and burden our children. There would be a requisite amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Now, crickets. If we keep this up– someone is going to get the idea that the government can such pay for stuff permanently. If we were trying to condition the hoi polloi to the benefits of socialism, we couldn’t do a better job.
Brian E:
At least they’ve dropped the hypocrisy. Actually, though, there were a number (not a huge number, but a number) of GOP members of Congress who voted against the bill and condemned it. Among them we have Rand Paul as well as five others.
Dan Bongino suggested President Trump just not sign it (Pocket Veto) unless they strip out the pork or separate the Omnibus from the COVID19 bill.
As I suspected the Trump administration signed off on linking the omnibus bill and the stimulus on Sunday and it’s not the stimulus portion that Trump is mad about it’s the stupid omnibus bill.
But, again, why did he wait until it had been passed by huge margins in Congress? This has happened too many times in this administration.
Obama had his ‘gee I just read about that in the paper’ response and for Trump it seems to be he only hears about these things after the fact on twitter.
But not your boy Marco Rubio(R? Disney). He is just fine with it. On the other hand I am proud of our other senator, one of the Stalwart Six. Maybe he’ll help us find a primary opponent next election, or I might have to vote for Debi Wasserman-Schultz (and I suspect she may be behind the Pakistan portion of the Porkulus – still some blackmail to be paid there) who believes she is ready to move up to the big time.