McConnell: 'There is considerable senatorial Democratic unrest'
Mitch McConnell's press conference today (you can see the whole thing at Heather's place) was mostly an exercise in pushing the limits of what "bipartisan" means, which is how our discourse on the economic-stimulus plan has gone. But it was notable for this:
McConnell: But I can tell you this, with regard to the measure that's on the floor this week, there is considerable -- and you're hearing -- considerable senatorial Democratic unrest about this package. Considerable. I think there is a bipartisan feeling that this is not the way to get the economy moving.
Gee, thanks, Ben Nelson and the Blue Dogs.
But this is all so much kabuki. Even McConnell makes plain that "the goal" is to pass a package, so they need to go through a certain amount of posturing so they can claim victory whether they vote for it or not and go home when it passes anyway. And we have to listen to it.
Better think again, Mitch. Our patience with your hackery and obstructionism is just about exhausted. You slimy GOP bastards are going to get what you deserve---obscurity and marginalization.
Bur that's what you get when you bring a knife to a gunfight.
"We will find fulfillment not in the goods that we have, but in the good we can do for each other."
Robert F. Kennedy
the "stimulus" bill has been gutted already.
The true stimulus measures, namely infrastructure projects, are way down.
While useless republican tax cuts? ... whopping $275 billion, and they won't do anything for the vast majority of us.
Link for pie chart: http://pndblog.typepad.com/pndblog/2009/01/ec...
Hell, at this point, I'm almost hoping it gets voted down so we can come back quickly -- with NO tax cuts. Beat the Repugs at their own stupid game.
but you never hear the Dems. on cable news talking about how these ridiculous tax cuts have been in place since the beginning of Dubya's term and there wasn't any jobs created that are worth having.
The Democrat and Republican are truly different breeds.
They are, in fact, the same. For when people's true political aspirations are accurately reflected by their political parties," as Frederic Bastiat pointed out in his seminal work: 'The Law', "all will seek the common good."
The political elite use partisan strife to divide and rule the people instead of the people ruling for the common good of all.
As far as stimulating the economy goes, why doesn't the fed just borrow a trillion or so from the banks, starting with the most prudent?
ex animo
davidfarrar
Thanks for the pie chart link. Actually, I think at this point the Democrats should start playing rough, and threatening to take some of those useless tax cuts OUT if the Republicans don't shut up and behave. Don't the Democrats realize that, despite the MSM bending over for the Republicans on the talking head channels, this is NOT a SELLERS MARKET for Republican ideas at the moment.
Why did the American people BOTHER changing governing parties if they wanted the guys that they just kicked out to continue running things with the same old ideas?
out and pass it anyway....McConnell and DeMint are idiots and against the middleclass and Kyl is a silly old conervative with an axe to grind! 2010 will be another blood bath for the repubs'!
Hilarious to hear the wingnuts going at it. Bitchin that the Dems wont
give out more handouts to the wealthy via taxcuts. Where did these dumb fucks go to school anyways ? redepression = deficits = less tax revenues does not equal more tax cuts for rich. The lying bastards want one more chance to trickle down. Why would anyone embrace their ideas after they are the ones that drove the country into the ditch in the first place ? Your right BMW.... obscurity and marginalization. are what they really deserve.
The bill had been Gutted it near useless Now. The democrates should vote lock in step aginest the bill make sure it doesn't pass , And get the message out that............
"we could Not aprove of this Bill which has been change By the Gop to be ineffective, Passing such a bill will do more harm then good. It is sad that The GOP care more about the top 1% and there political futures then our great county".
But No Obama would Not allow such A thing and theDems are too limp wristed for such actions
favorite R. A. Heinlein quote:
"What are the facts? Again and again and again - what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what 'the stars foretell,' avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable 'verdict of history' - what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
Now consider -- the entire business of our news media is to obscure the facts.
You accord them unearned legitimacy. They are lying propagandists whose work is the equivalent of sedition.
More crap on a stick from one of the biggest pricks in the Senate.
Sit down and STFU, McConnell. You asshats ran the country into the ground the past eight years. It's time for you to step aside and let us fix it.
Not when there are still a few more pennies that can be squeezed out of the poorest people in the country and put into the pockets of the richest. More tax cuts that only help people who already have a relatively high income. More trickle down.
They may as well obstruct to get it. Wouldn't YOU if you had NOTHING TO LOSE? The party is on the verge of extinction, may as well grab as much money for your friends as you can on the way out. After all, how are all these clowns expected to get their wingnut welfare jobs at the American Enterprise Institute if all the fat cats who contribute to it lose their sense of generosity.
Call it what it really is, and always was before Ronny Raygun's crew rebranded it with a fancy new name and glitzy new packaging: Feudalism.
Or is the LOSING party getting a disproportional amount of air time to spew their propaganda? After what the Rethug Party has done to our Country and the World, you would think the "Liberal" media would shut them out like a skunked dog.
That's right gopher-face. Dick Cheney really needs more tax relief.
They just need to take of all the junk out of the bill, and address it later. "I don't belong to an organized political party, I'm a Democrat," said Will Rogers.
Looking at the surplus/deficit records of the past years, each time there is a republican president, the deficit increases. See here for more info. How many times do they need to fail for the media to accept that Republicans are incompetent?
The US media is mainly run by journalists with shit-for-brains. There is no other explanation why a group of incompetent idiots are being treated so seriously on TV.
Every depression and recession this country has ever had has been at the hands of conservatives...whether those conservatives were Tories, Whigs, Democrats or Republicans. It isn't the party, it's the conservative impulse itself.
Shouldn't some democrat shove him out of the way and say "Mitch McConnell doesn't speak for me!" ...or maybe he does.
Mitch McConnell is also the Senator which has given tax welfare to foreign countries while attacking and destroying the unions...
Mitch McConnell also stated that he want the BUY AMERICA taken out of the stimulus package...
In the past 8 years the republicans have done more destruction to our country the the terrorist could ever dream of in a thousand years...
They have totally destroy our manufacturing plants , jobs , social programs , economy and our military. Bin Laden could only talk and dream about this accomplishment..
Bush said ,, The terrorist are finding new ways to destroy us and SO ARE WE...
Looks as if Bush and his administration are winners hands down..
None
This package can't be just about shovels in the dirt programs. It has got to be about the society at large. We have got to make sure there is a medical aspect as well as education. If the youth can't continue in college because there is no funding they are looking for jobs. If the schools have to close that is a tremendous amount of unemployment right there. The same with the medical. Without funding for medicaid and health care for the children clinics and hospitals are going to be laying off people and closing their doors.
So this stimulus package has to be looked at as more than just creating jobs but also keeping jobs that are already there. We can not afford to have sectors of society falling into unemployment or the job of building the economy will be almost impossible.
Jeanne
The Republicans and the Blue Dog Democrats are only exposing themselves as being reflexively against anything that helps people. The only thing they care about is money.
For the good it will do them: I've never seen a Brinks truck following a hearse in a funeral procession.
makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up every time I see him...
Who -or what- does this eunuch represent, anyway?
The geniuses in Kentucky.
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
...Deliverance sound track.
LMAO
NOBODY 2012
are actually undercover GOP operatives that run as Democrats but follow the orders of their GOP overseers. Ben Nelson's whole point is to help the GOP destroy the Democratic Party.
So is Ben Nelson's owner and master Mitch McConnell himself, or is it another Republican?
F**k Ben Nelson, and the horse he rode in on!
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
I wonder if Mitch is including Holy Joe L in his assessment of "democrats"?
The hacks are trying to destroy this administration, making NO BONES ABOUT IT.
They figure if they logjam the process we will throw the dems out.
FACT: They CLAIM Dems have had Congressional power for 2 years. NOT TRUE. We had elected ENOUGH to hold back the oncoming train wreck. We threw a log in front of it. Well the log is pulled and here she goes!
RIGHT OFF THE CLIFF.
GET THOSE GARDENS PLANTED OR GO HUNGRY.
And if you read Paul Krugman's column today about what our new Secretary of the Treasury said, this administration is going to fail. The new Treas Sec is an idiot, if what Krugman wrote is true!
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
I have a read bunch of his stuff and he has been terribly vague in explaining why a stimulus package is a good thing.
I have posted too much on Krugman lately, I won't even bother chewing that again here. But you can read why I say that if you like
Here
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/amity-...
And here
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/amity-...
And here too
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/p...
Goodnight, Frau Blücher
Can anyone at C&L explain why the stimulus package is a good thing?
Do you know where the money is going to come from?
You think we need to stop the correction? Why would you stop a correction from correcting?
Why do you think trying to artificially reinflate our flat tire economy with massive dollars is good when there is a huge hole in the tire?
We could have bought every distressed mortgage in the country several times over with all the liquidity that has been injected into the system and yet we are still retracting. What makes you think investing money we don't have in our infrastructure is going to work?
Has not the corruption and misuse of the first $800 billion not raised enough alarms for you yet? How many executive massages, vacation parties, new private jets must we endure before enough is enough?
Goodnight, Frau Blücher
This is more than a mere correction.
The liquidity that was injected into the economy was an utter waste, only because it was given to the wrong people. It should have gone directly towards buying the so-called toxic assets and nationalizing the banks. Giving the money to the banks in the expectation that they would lend it showed gullible foolishness by those who bought the rationalization for one last GOPer plunder raid against the US Treasury, and was a cynical subtrefuge by those who pushed it.
Even if there were no foreclosure crisis ongoing and no toxic assets to redeem, the banks still would not lend money, simply because there is no profit in it at these interest rates. There is no way in hell that these greedy institutions are going to obligate themselves to the returns they would get from low interest rate loans. You may have noticed that they are still pushing credit cards like crazy, where the minimum rate, following a typical "low" 6 month introductory rate of "Prime +6% + 3.99%", is 28.99- 36%. Somehow they've got plenty of cash for that. Unlimited amounts. Unless they are ordered, under pain of nationalization and fraud prosecutions, to lend the money that they are now sitting on, that money isn't going to be lent, no matter how good the risk. That's why every recipient of bailout cash has refused to disclose how the money is being used. Pretty arrogant, what?
The only thing these unAmerican social parasites care about is profits, profits, profits, and then only if they are easy and usurious. The people who are running these scams need to be put into prison for life, because they are committing the equivalent of acts of economic warfare against the nation. They should be grateful that I'm not the philosopher king, because I would nationalize every bank in the country by confiscation, including the Federal Reserve Corporation, and line the principals up against the wall to be machine-gunned.
The size and scope are different on each correction we have but a correction by definition is a contraction of the market where the bubble occurred. In this case it occurred in every asset class.
American's should get a little international perspective on this, quite different from what our news is pumping. Paul Keating nailed it out of the park in his opening comments on Australia's Lateline read below or watch the video at the link below.
Video link on the right
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s...
Transcript
TONY JONES, PRESENTER: Joining us now in the studio is the former Prime Minister Paul Keating. Thanks for being here.
PAUL KEATING, FORMER PRIME MINISTER: Tony.
TONY JONES, PRESENTER: Now let's start with a very big picture, if we can, does this global financial crisis look to you like a two year crisis, a five year crisis, or something much worse, and much more prolonged?
PAUL KEATING, FORMER PRIME MINISTER: Well, it's a catastrophe, its way worse than it appears. We have had an expansion of credit running for 60 years from 1947 to 2007. This is the first time, 2008, and now 09, where we have had a contraction of credit.
The top 200 financial institutions in the world have suffered an average loss of value of 74 per cent. The top 200, average loss of 74 per cent. We have gone through a bull market which began in 1982, went for 25 years, a bull market in the stock market to 2007.
What we need is a completely new global political and economic settlement. We need to get rid of the old G7. We have to be rid of the old IMF (International Monetary Fund), we've got to bring the surplus countries into the, into the political framework.
You see, the G7 is made of debtor countries, countries like the United States, Britain, France, Italy, these are all borrowers, there's no surplus countries in that. And if you look at the structure of the IMF, the Chinese get 3.7 per cent of the vote, the Indians get 1.9, the Europeans and Americans get 51 per cent.
And there's just no way the Chinese Communist Party is going to hand over control of their currency and their political fortunes to a Washington based US Treasury run institution. So unless there's going to be a complete resettlement.
TONY JONES, PRESENTER: You talk about a new Bretton Woods agreement?
PAUL KEATING, FORMER PRIME MINISTER: A totally new Bretton Woods agreement. We're not going to get out of this. I mean this is the United States Budget cannot reflate the world.
We've always lived in a position where the United States Budget could reflate the world this is not going to happen now. The Budget this year was going to be $850-billion, now look President Obama is talking about another trillion, so $1.8-trillion, their GDP is 13-trillion, so they'll be running a Budget deficit this year of 15 per cent of GDP, they'll have to do this for three or four years.
Sixty per cent of American GDP, who is going to buy the bonds? Now every serious American policy maker knows that they are not going to be returning value, in the end they'll inflate their way out. So in other words, you'll buy American Treasury bond, but what you get back in return will be an inflated dollar, so you'll get back 50 per cent of real value, or something, in other words the debt will be so overwhelming that it cannot be repaid.
And you'll start to see in the price of gold, if this goes on for a couple more years, the real serious question of an American default, a default by the United States Treasury. So this is what we are dealing with now.
Go to the link above to watch the video or read the rest of the transcript
Goodnight, Frau Blücher
Hey Mitch, Will you please STFU?
This guy supported Bush, Bush, the guy who wants to keep his executive powers forever now - his plans for a republican dictatorship fell through so now he's looking for other ways to keep screwing with us.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
HR 1, the measure approved by the House yesterday, includes a $100 million appropriation for the “Compassion Capital” Fund (CCF), a key component of former President George W. Bush’s faith-based initiative.
Snip - FACT SHEET: > Compassion Capital Fund
Purpose: To expand and strengthen the role of faith-based and community organizations in their ability to provide social services to low-income communities.
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ocs/ccf/about...
Compassion Capital Fund > The Fund lacks oversight, sends money directly to Houses of Worship, and allows recipients to hire employees based solely upon their religion for government-funded jobs. Clearly, more taxpayer dollars should not be expended on this program.
Study the symptoms not the virus...
...it's still unconstitutional. the extreme court should have struck that thing down. Shows how corrupt the court's majority is.
After all these years I finally connected who he looks like and who his personality resembles: a Skexis. What a corrupt and pathetic POS. The man is so slimey that he leaves snail tracks to mark his passage.
By the way, the only tax cuts I want to see are for those on the lowest end of the earnings scale, to benefit principally the poor and the lower middle class, and they should only be paid for by offsets obtained by raising taxes on the wealthiest in the nation. As far as businesses go, you only get a tax cut if you have less than 20 employees (not partners) and are paying them benefits.
It's about time that the Democrats stopped pretending they are Republicans, or they may be in for some surprises come 2010.
...I want to see are those presently imposed on our labor. Profit should be taxed, not individual labor. Labor is a simple conversion of capital, not profit. If we stopped taxing labor, we could keep $1.1 trillion in the pockets of the consumers every year and instantly stimulate the economy.
ex animo
davidfarrar
I was shocked but McConnell and Repugs got at least two things right ,they need to attack the housing and mortgage problem , priority one , there is no question about it and of lesser importance he mentioned halting the Federal income tax on unemployment benefits . I was floored when applying for unemployment peanuts for the first time in my life ( 57 years) that they asked if I wanted federal income tax taken out , believe me folks it's just survival dollars as it is , I mean what the hell ? This " package " Obama and the Dems have on the table ... is a lot of horse crap and we are pretty much on the third and last strike , this is it ! Makes me wonder how serious they are about rescuing the economy ... and our asses , it makes no sense at all . I am a progressive and an Obama supporter but it's looking like the same old madness and insanity , I'm afraid this is a slow motion train wreck happening .
Insanity , it is what it is , there is no understanding it .
A federal tax on a state's financial spending item.
HEY lil mitch "rymes with" u get the idea....didnt your lardass and master oxy lush limpballs say once you lost the election now sit down and shut up till you win one...ofcorse they will screw it up and just like the dems time and time before snatch defeat out the jaws of victory by going along with this rethug crap
as for mcconnell he brings his chin to a gun fight oh wait he has no chin never mind
for 2009: Don't listen to the Republicans.
They got us into this mess.
NOBODY 2012
Who exactly does Mitch McConnell speak for? Certainly he doesn't speak for the Democrats and he obviously doesn't speak for the majority of Americans, nor does his Party.
Does anyone (besides his media corporatist cronies) actually listen to this self hating closeted individual?
Mitch McConnell? Geez...he's nothing but a comma in history...a hemorrhoid on the asshole of the Congress.
Vote GOP and move forward to the 18th Century.
The only unrest is probably that not enough of the cash cow goes to their state.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
The country has been operating under tax cuts and the "trickle down theory" for 8 years . . . You can see the state we find our country in. Why in the world would anyone with a brain want to increase the percentage of the stimulus pkg in tax cuts. We need to put people back to work . . . use every dollar we can get to do just that while upgrading our infrastructure.DO NOT BEND TO THE REPULICANS ON THIS . . .
haha, man. it's time to retire grandpa gop. Would somebody please stuff a whole bunch of taxpayer money in his pocket to shut him up? thanx in advance
What the hell happened to Mitch's lips and chin? Did they wear away because of all the dick he's sucked in his life? I heard that if the government ever prints a 3 dollar bill,Mitch's face will be on it! Pucker up sweety!
Obama was elected to reverse the policies of Bush (Cheney) *and* congress. The last thing we need is those pukes derailing the recovery effort.
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