quote:

Appeasing Special Interests

The mentalities of senate staffers, such as the one quoted in the Politico piece, aren’t hard to comprehend. The quote appears to have a non-zero possibility of being aimed right at K Street.

By explicitly admitting the poor nature of the trade-off, the staffer in question has laid down a marker for future employment among the myriad of health care, lobbying, and interest groups downtown. Translated, the subtext of the staffer’s message might be, “Because I cut this bad deal for Republicans, all you medical provider groups got a legislative vehicle to receive the ‘sweeteners’ and other special deals you wanted in this massive omnibus bill. So please remember me a few years from now when I’m looking for you to pay me $300,000 or $500,000 per year to lobby my former colleagues on your behalf.”

Yeah... it's completely self-interested and against the interest of good, clean, efficient government.
In other words, these types of Omnibus Spending Bills pit our government against America's citizens.

There used to be a popular saying: "America is great because America is good". It's no longer true.

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Third, the aide speaks the language of the left when talking about “reinvesting the savings.”

His reinvest the savings means keep spending the money. *If* one were to reinvest the savings, they should instead use it instead to buy another 6-9 months of solvency for SS & Medicare. Heck it probably won't even buy a few extra months considering the 9% COLA they had to dish out due to their earlier reckless spending.

What are the current projections for that house of cards falling after the COLA? I'm sure that shaves a year or two off.

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Here is a full list of Republican senators who voted in favor of the bill:

Roy Blunt (Missouri)
John Boozman (Arkansas)
Shelley Capito (West Virginia)
Susan Collins (Maine)
John Cornyn (Texas)
Tom Cotton (Arkansas)
Lindsey Graham (South Carolina)
Jim Inhofe (Oklahoma)
Mitch McConnell (Kentucky)
Jerry Moran (Kansas)
Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)
Rob Portman (Ohio)
Mitt Romney (Utah)
Mike Rounds (South Dakota)
Richard Shelby (Alabama)
John Thune (South Dakota)
Roger Wicker (Mississippi)
Todd Young (Indiana)

Link

Most of these are no surprise, except for Tom Cotton. Thankfully, absent from the list are Tennessee's (Marsha Blackburn, Bill Hagerty, both Trump-endorsed, bTW).

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
There used to be a popular saying: "America is great because America is good". It's no longer true.

I have to agree that America is neither great nor good nowadays, but the idea still is. I hope that that's worth something.

People scream and cry "CORRUPTION!!!" while pointing fingers at other countries and I'd argue the we are the most corrupt country on the face of the planet.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
There used to be a popular saying: "America is great because America is good". It's no longer true.

I have to agree that America is neither great nor good nowadays, but the idea still is. I hope that that's worth something.

People scream and cry "CORRUPTION!!!" while pointing fingers at other countries and I'd argue the we are the most corrupt country on the face of the planet.

Naturally. We have all the wealth and power.

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:

quote:

Here is a full list of Republican senators who voted in favor of the bill:

Roy Blunt (Missouri)
John Boozman (Arkansas)
Shelley Capito (West Virginia)
Susan Collins (Maine)
John Cornyn (Texas)
Tom Cotton (Arkansas)
Lindsey Graham (South Carolina)
Jim Inhofe (Oklahoma)
Mitch McConnell (Kentucky)
Jerry Moran (Kansas)
Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)
Rob Portman (Ohio)
Mitt Romney (Utah)
Mike Rounds (South Dakota)
Richard Shelby (Alabama)
John Thune (South Dakota)
Roger Wicker (Mississippi)
Todd Young (Indiana)

Link

Most of these are no surprise, except for Tom Cotton. Thankfully, absent from the list are Tennessee's (Marsha Blackburn, Bill Hagerty, both Trump-endorsed, bTW).

There you are folks the senators who are not conservative and willing to sell the country out for special interests, lining their pockets while spouting out that they are conservatives. Until we have the mind set of the big picture and make changes in our voting in primaries against these asshats we will continue down this road.

I regretfully voted in the past for Thune and Rounds while being a resident of SD. Only because we failed to primary any candidates against them and not voting for them was a half of a vote for a democrat. It was like when McCain was our forced choice. I continuously called and wrote to them on my views.

I will continue to talk out against the above POS in government who are hellbent on destroying our country.

Finally I could care less if those who voted for these idiots told me to go to hell or not because I am willing to look at the big picture.

My guess is that there are few Republicans that are trustworthy. These were the ones just elected to 6 year terms. Two years from now, a different set will stab us in the back. Then two year after that, a different set.

^^ I think that's an open question. There's little doubt that the sellouts have embedded themselves like ticks in leadership positions, and worked together to keep "the gang" embedded. Because they exercise the control that they do, there's no real way of knowing whether the next generation of leadership will be good or bad except insofar as the grass roots plays a role in selecting them for leadership positions.

John Cornyn. That fucking RINO!!! I'm so glad he's in his last term. I don't even know if he's running again, but if he is, I'll be hoping beyond hope that sunuvabitch DOESN'T get re-elected.

quote:

Originally posted by oldbill123:
My guess is that there are few Republicans that are trustworthy. These were the ones just elected to 6 year terms. Two years from now, a different set will stab us in the back. Then two year after that, a different set.

Here goes. Picture a hog trough a mile long. The slop is dumped in at the front of the trough. It runs downhill. When the Demorats are in, they take their place at the front of the trough in order by favoritism and seniority followed by the Repubs. Each feed and the last in line get the scraps. When the Repubs are in, the order reverses. This is a simple way of describing all of our leadership. We need to fix this horseshit.