It might be some small, if icy, comfort if cyrena was right that what’s coming for theamericanpeople is only more-of-the-same shafting they’ve been getting from the plutoligarchy all-along.  Fact is all of that so far, however hellacious from-time-to-time, was just “foreplay.”

The reaming being prepared right now in the empty “corridors-of-power” is intended to gut what little is left of Franklin’s faux “republic,” and devide its entrails among the handful of “global” gangsters who put out the original “contract.”  Her concern for the “huddled masses,” all lined-up and bent-over in delerious expectation, is no-doubt as sincere as it is “grounded” in quicksand.  Money-in-their-pockets might keep the victims tranquilized and anaesthetized a little longer, but quite CONtrary to cyrena’s expectation will do them a grave disservice anyway, since it is really WAKING-UP! that they so desperately need.

Somehow it’s hard to see how the stokers on the Titanic really benefitted in staying faithfully by the boilers as she slipped beneath the waves.  So cyrena might do more actual good sharing her understanding of the Tiyoshpaye Way, then she can agitating for per-capita shares in this latest “fiscal” spike being driven into the vanishing hopes of her greatgrandchildren.

As shift said on another thread, it’s all coming out in the wash of Living Community, anyway.  So why not just go right there?  Forget about collecting that worthless-anyway “$200.00.”

HokaHey!

troublesum—Didnt you hear? They cant do anything until they have a 60 vote majority! Fillibustering makes Reid nervous..if they get 60, it will be 61, to have a FULL majority.

Biden said today that “in the middle east, we also need bi-partisanhip”. Do you have any idea what that means? I saw is on c-span.org and read the story in The Times…I dont get it—-does he mean NATO? That wouldnt be ‘bi”, biden…or did everyone quit except the UK now…he asked for more troops for Afghanistan, too.

Notice that all the corporate news networks are saying that Obama better get nice again now that it looks like the stimulus bill will pass in some form.  One decisive, tough sounding speech in support of what is best for the country was more than they could take.  Does anyone remember the msm ever saying that it was time for Bush to be nice?  They’re having fantasies about peasants with pitchforks.

Democwats have the white house and both houses of congress and republicans still have them on the defensive.  When will it ever change?  Accoring to a nationwide survey, only five states have a majority of people identifying themselves as republicans.  Even that isn’t enough to put a spine in most democrats.  They should have let the republicans filibuster so theamericanpeople could see that they just don’t care about the working class.

Thanks, Louise..

Tax cuts—-been there, done that.

Most GOP and Blue Dogs wont vote for it anyway. Its a tease. Then, they can blame the fact that the economy hasnt ‘been fixed” , by 2010, on “liberals”.

They also cut COBRA help, Head Start and food stamps.

Senators Hammering Out Workable Stimulus?
au contraire!

GOP Senators Hammering Huge Hunk Of Stimulus Out Of Stimulus!

~~~

“Among the $110 billion in spending cuts: $98 million for school nutrition, $3.5 billion for school construction, and $100 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The deal jettisons or pares back a number of items that President Barack Obama had wanted. Funding to computerize health records is all but gone, as is a national study on the comparative effectiveness of health treatments. Mr. Obama’s Make Work Pay payroll-tax holiday was clipped back, and an expansion of the child tax credit for the working poor was also trimmed. At least half the funds to subsidize state education spending were eliminated.”

~~~

And that’s the short list!

~~~

“Most Republicans remained strongly opposed to the compromise bill, saying it was too costly and ineffective, and Democratic leaders were counting on just three GOP votes for the plan as of last night but hoped to expand the number before a final vote. ... GOP lawmakers said that they will seek to delay a final vote through procedural objections, which could push debate to as late as Monday.”

~~~

Awe the GOP ... the party of Greed Over Principle!

I have a question. How on earth do the REPUBLICANS KNOW this bill is “too costly and ineffective?” Is that knowledge based on their experience of the past eight years? If so, we can [or should] all agree they are absolute ding-bats, who wouldn’t understand the meaning of costly and ineffective if they had a four year college course to teach them!

WHO CREATED THIS MESS?

~~~

“We trimmed the fat, fried the bacon and killed the sacred cows,” Nelson, speaking now on the floor of the Senate, said to his colleagues about the deal he and other “moderates” have reached.”

~~~

Uhhh, excuse me, but from where I’m sitting it looks like the sacred COWS are still in place! What you killed was close to 50% of the good that this stimulus might do. And in the process heaped more harm on an already suffering population!

~~~

“Any bill would include tax cuts and new federal spending designed to help heal the economy, now in the grip of the worst recession in decades.”

~~~

The final nail in the coffin? No, just one more in a series. Every dollar in tax cuts takes real money away from REAL stimulus. And the price tag, which “moderates” so proudly point out they have decreased is frankly way too small! And finally, we are NOT in a bad recession! Lets get honest and label EVERY bad recession since the Great Depression as just exactly what they are! REPUBLICAN created Little Depressions, leading to the biggest Depression since the “Great” one!

Cyrena – it’s not the shock without awe.  The american citizenry has been f**ked over so much they all feel like the town whore.  What’s another screwing. . ..

The Greedy Obstructionist Party is doing what they do best, trivializing the problem and finding minor points to ridicule making them sound like the reason for the legislation.  Your can trace this behavior back beyond living memory.  The great society (Kennedy/Johnson) got their hackles up and the Regan Regression confirmed their beliefs and set them on a holy mission.

Now we live in a country where the nationalization of banks is a reasonable measure to prevent further failure.  Spending on anything which may create jobs is the only way to get money back into circulation.  Tax cuts to businesses only improves their profits, but not their sales.  Sales increases will produce job creation.  Sales come from people having money to spend.  The stimulus must be inserted at the lowest possible level.  The money will rise to the top as it always does but in its rise a multiplier effect will increase the effectiveness of the stimulus funds.  Poor people (that’s us)  of the working class (white or blue the collars are all working class) have to spend their money on essentials. 

With some luck we may see a movement to simplification and debts reduction which will reduce the power of the money barons over us wage slaves.  Living within one’s means is a radical action against the corporate state.

Does everybody get one last cheap-thrill before the “....shock….” of just how huge the bill for it’s going to be is rammed down their throats and/or up their anal orifices?

The ramming down and/or shoving up or down has already been in progress for so long now TAO, that we’re immunized from the shock. (just permanently ‘shocked’ I guess).

But, I’m still conscious enough to have noted the overwhelming hypocrisy from the likes of Lindsey Graham and John McCain, as they argue passionately against the ‘thought’ of spending their grandchildrens’  money.

Didn’t seem to worry them one single god-damned bit during the past 8 years of spending, spending, spending, on war, war, and more war, in fulfillment of the Bush Doctrine of preemptive aggressive war.

NOW they care? I’d say it’s a thousand days too late and about $3 trillion dollars too short.

The former keptocrat regime managed the greatest Grand Theft Larceny Heist in the history of the world, and NOW their claiming to care about the birthrights of future generations.

Quite as it’s kept, THEY’VE already got their part from the heist, and the rest of our future generations don’t count. We aren’t INTENDED to survive!! So, they’d just as soon not spend any money on the triage operation that we have going on as we speak and write.

I’ve already discovered the Tiyoshpaye Way (thanks for filling in the blanks for me on that - way back when…it was excellent counseling) but my tame two-legged brothers and sisters are suffering terribly, and too many of them are now out of heard formation because they’ve lost their minds. Now they’re just wandering the desert looking for survival substance, and I wanna get ‘em some help, and get it to them FAST. They can’t make the trip to Turtle Island if they are starved and dehydrated.

So, the repiglicans need to just shut up and give us our money.

Speaking, as cyrena does here, of “electrical….systems,” does it seem to others that the titular “WORKING STIMULUS” being cobbled-together by Congress has all the “earmarks” of a giant vibrating dildo?  Does everybody get one last cheap-thrill before the “....shock….” of just how huge the bill for it’s going to be is rammed down their throats and/or up their anal orifices?

Anyhow, all the official media-amplified “sound-and-fury” is only for-show.  The open declaration of marshall law to “quell DOMESTIC unrest (interesting choice-of-words, that)” remains the-order-of-the-day.  The ruling elite still feel a need, however, to first goad “....your huddled masses” into overt resistance to their ideological/institutional/electro-mechanical rape-‘n’-pillage, as “legal” justification for a “global” lock-down.

Your tormentors and their half-human pawns MEAN BUSINESS, tame Sisters and Brothers.  Shouldn’t you be looking for “....some Way outta here”?

The Tiyoshpaye Way is still open.

HokaHey!

•  “I hope very much that it passes tonight. It’s the right thing to do.” Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. He said the the bill will be $780 billion. Of the cuts, there were $25 billion in tax cuts that were eliminated, he said.

This doesn’t really comfort me, because in all of the hoopla over the money in tax cuts, nobody seems to register the fact that a lot of this ‘tax cut’ money was geared to the middle-class worker – those who still have jobs and feed the tax base.
So when everybody thinks they’re vindicated by getting rid of $25 billion in tax cuts, I just have to wonder who those $25 billion worth of tax cuts was supposed to help. It SHOULD be helping the wage earner, and the ones at the bottom of the heap. WE are the most likely to put the tax savings back into the economy. There’s no guarantee that eliminating these tax reductions for the poorest among us is gonna do anything to stimulate the economy.
It also makes no sense to try to come up with a RECOVERY plan on the cheap. It’s fine to take out the fat that serves no purpose, but if it’s only about getting a low price tag on the whole thing, then it’s the same as giving everybody $5.00,  when we know damn well there isn’t a single thing anyone can purchase for less than $8.00. It doesn’t do them a damn bit of good. It’s like patching the roof instead of replacing it.

So they knocked off $25bil in tax cuts. What are they gonna spend it on instead? THAT should be the question, because it NEEDS to be spent. As President Obama has made clear, for those of you who have some ideological objection to the ‘spending’ component of a stimulus package, THE SPENDING IS THE POINT. It’s a last ditch electrical shock system to bring the already flat-lined economy back to some semblance of life. If it’s too cheensey, it will all be a waste.

Update at 7:30 p.m. ET: Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., just confirmed that the package totals $780 billion.

“We trimmed the fat, fried the bacon and killed the sacred cows,” Nelson, speaking now on the floor of the Senate, said to his colleagues about the deal he and other “moderates” have reached.

Nelson is a dumbass…the “pork” he is talking about is this:

In a key reduction from the bill that reached the Senate floor earlier in the week, $40 billion would be cut from a “fiscal stabilization fund” for state governments’ education costs, though $14 billion to boost the maximum for college Pell Grants by $400 to $5,250 would be preserved, as would aid to local school districts for the No Child Left Behind law and special education.

A plan to help the unemployed purchase health insurance would be reduced to a 50 percent subsidy instead of two-thirds.

So we cut state money, health care and schools, and, allow tax cuts. And, most GOP are not going to vote for it anyway.

So, it is better to give every working couple $1000 than to “pool” it , and, possibly provide low cost health care, or fully fund state schools??

The GOP PR on this spread like wildfire! The Dems had better be able to do better “damage control” than this, and, keep their own party voting with them (ie Blue Dogs), or they will lose in 2010.

Let them fillibuster! It is better than compromising and listening to Lindsay Graham carry on like Scarlett O’Hara anyway, and, Thune explain how miles of $100 bills stack up !! (and $1 bills woudo go how high??) Dumnbasses.

They will pass a bill, of course, for the same reason they voted the TARP. FEAR. Those who are not completely asleep at the wheel, as most of the Republicans seem to be, understand the gravity of the situation.

The ideologues who helped Bush violate the law of financial gravity and now protest so loudly about government spending and the burden on the coming generations are certifiable in their complacent expectation that there will be future generations!

Let one of them filibuster! He will promptly receive a plain brown envelope marked “private” and “confidential” containing photos and transcripts, if he hasn’t already, just for thinking about it.

And this reminder will not come from the Democrats. It will come courtesy of the permanent and unelected shadow government that wants this mess straightened out ASAP so they can continue with their plans for global hegemony without the inconvenience of a societal meltdown.