Your Bipartisan Congress

[JackLuis]

As Trump's poll numbers slip, He's still a head of Congress' Approval Ratings!

President Trump Job Approval Gallup Approve 36, Disapprove 58 Disapprove +22

Congressional Job App Economist/YouGov Approve 11, Disapprove 67 Disapprove +56


Trump is ahead of Congress by 34%, Way to go Paul/Mitch!

 

[magicalmoments]

Yes they are.

If they were right wing they would hold firm that it's none of the governments fuckin' business who you associate with or how you spend your money.

No they're not.

 

[JackLuis]

Nestled in House Spending Bill: Campaign Finance Deregulation

WASHINGTON—House Republicans are backing several provisions that could reshape campaign-finance rules ahead of next year’s midterm elections as spending negotiations continue this fall.

The measures are included in a GOP package of spending bills being debated in the House. While the House package is unlikely to advance in the Senate, its provisions could become bargaining chips in the negotiations leading up to the next government-funding deadline, now Dec. 8.

Under one deregulatory measure in the spending package, churches may be able to contribute to candidates without fear of losing their tax-exempt status, furthering President Donald Trump’s promise to “get rid of and totally destroy” a law that forbids such activity.

Corporations also would be able to ask their employees to donate to unlimited numbers of trade associations’ political-action groups instead of limiting employee solicitations to one group per year.

This will not end well!

 

[JackLuis]

Republicans left fuming after Sen. Al Franken blocks one of Trump’s federal court judge picks

President Trump is standing by his nominee to fill a seat on the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, despite a blockade by Sen. Al Franken, who is using the Senate's arcane "blue slip" policy to try to sink the pick, an administration official said Wednesday.

Mr. Franken, flexing a Senate tradition that gives home-state senators a say in judicial picks, refused to return his blue slip for Minnesota Supreme Court Justice David Stras. Under the usual practice, that would derail the nominee.

But the administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they're hoping either Mr. Franken relents or Senate Republicans proceed with the nomination anyway, notwithstanding the blue slip policy.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, echoed Mr. Grassley's earlier sentiment on Wednesday, saying blue slips shouldn't be used to obstruct Mr. Trump's circuit court nominees.

"My personal view is that the blue slip, with regard to circuit court appointments, ought to simply be a notification of how you're going to vote, not the opportunity to blackball," Mr. McConnell told the New York Times.

Mitch know about Black Balls and Tea Bagging too!

 

[Boxlicker101]

Both of my senators are absolute enemies to the general philosophy of American liberty, they hate that Nazi shit more than just about anything.

So there is little point to writing them about it.

You must be from CA, as I am.

 

[JackLuis]

You must be from CA, as I am.

No one is stopping you from moving to Texas, Box.

Or Utah

Or Florida!

 

[AnalCreampieGiver]

Democrats Join Republicans In Bill Criminalizing Speech Critical Of Israel



A little harsh, wouldn't you say? I guess Free Speech costs a lot these days?

That is disturbing. So much for freedom of speech.

 

[JackLuis]

Republicans Now Strip Away Retirement From Millions of Americans

While Trump deflects the LSM, Rethuglicans fuck the country!

Republicans are now taking away retirement accounts from millions of Americans in a new push to repeal a rule that President Obama put in place.

According to The Huffington Post, they voted 50 to 49 to “repeal a [Obama] rule that paved the way for states to create retirement plans for workers who don’t already have them through their jobs. The White House says that President Trump will sign the repeal.”

Once strongly supported by Republicans this rule was fought by Wall Street, so no surprise to see who Trump’s regime is putting first.

But the Financial Services Roundtable, a powerful lobby for the banking industry, called upon Congress to strip away the “safe harbor” that Obama’s rule gave states to set up auto IRA plans. The group said it wasn’t fair that such plans wouldn’t be held to the same strict standards as privately run retirement plans under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the complicated law regulating pensions.

Call your Senator and tell him how much you care about his reelection.

 

[Trumpire]

Republicans left fuming after Sen. Al Franken blocks one of Trump’s federal court judge picks

Yet they approved the guy after Al ripped-apart Dorksuch!

 

[JackLuis]

Outlets That Scolded Sanders Over Deficits Uniformly Silent on $700B Pentagon Handout

Where did all the concern over deficits go? After two years of the media lamenting, worrying and feigning outrage over the cost of Bernie Sanders’ two big-budget items—free college and single-payer healthcare—the same outlets are uniformly silent, days after the largest military budget increase in history.

Monday, the Senate voted to increase military spending by a whopping $81 billion, from $619 billion to $700 billion—an increase of over 13 percent. (The House passed its own $696 billion Pentagon budget in July—Politico, 7/14/17.) The reaction thus far to this unprecedented handout to military contractors and weapons makers has been one big yawn.

LSM shrugs at the Defense increase ($81 Billion) , but wigs out on Bernie's Single Payer ( $41 Billion).

The increase alone in military spending—over a budget that was already bigger than the next eight countries combined—is greater than the total amount spent annually on state university tuition by every student in the United States: $81 billion vs. $70 billion. This is to say that if the budget for the US military had just stayed the same for 2018, the US could have paid the tuition for every public college student this year, with $11 billion left over for board and books.

Only 8 Senators voted against it.

 

[JawnKarTurr]

Liberals complaining about too much government now that is funny.

 

[JackLuis]

Dems' approval is as bad as Trump's; Congressional GOP's even worse (POLL)

Trump still ahead of Congress. Barely.

 

[sr71plt]

Dems' approval is as bad as Trump's; Congressional GOP's even worse (POLL)

Trump still ahead of Congress. Barely.

The voters' ratings should be just as bad.

 

[Trumpire]

YTH would anyone approve more military spending when the same Pres. said less people (&/or types of people) can be members?!

Maybe due to the fact NFL showed less will stand for anthem, etc.? Nah; That's due to words & actions of the same President.

 

[Hypoxia]

Liberals complaining about too much government now that is funny.

That's because your strawman image of 'liberals' doesn't accord with reality. To be facile: libs like big gov't when it helps people from a safe distance. Reactionary fucktards like big gov't when it assaults and kills people close up.

It ain't libs that instituted the pervasive surveillance police state. It ain't libs chipping away at your legal rights and protections. Wee Willie Clinton, not the most lib of libs, 'triangulated' lots of nasty shit that wrecked his beloved Black community even more -- by shrinking gov't aid.

Lunatics dream of minimal gov't in a maximal country. Dream on.

 

[JackLuis]

Puerto Rico: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Published on Apr 24, 2016
Puerto Rico is suffering a massive debt crisis. Lin-Manuel Miranda joins John Oliver to call for relief.

Thank You Congress.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Dems' approval is as bad as Trump's; Congressional GOP's even worse (POLL)

Trump still ahead of Congress. Barely.

I don't know the source of those figures. Here is the most recent Gallup Poll on Congress as a whole: http://news.gallup.com/poll/1600/congress-public.aspx

The figures could be more up to date, but they have been fairly consistent for over a year.

 

[JackLuis]

Wells Fargo CEO whines Sen. Warren uses math ‘inappropriately’ after she blasts him for ‘screwing’ workers

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) on Tuesday railed against Wells Fargo CEO Timothy Sloan — and the banking chief accused her of scaring people with mathematics.

Using figures from the bank’s own financial plan, Warren said at a Senate Banking Committee hearing that Wells Fargo planned to cut expenses by firing tens of thousands of employees.

“If you stick to your current plan, it is clear Wells Fargo employees making $30,000 or $40,000 a year are going to get screwed, just as they got screwed in the fake account scandals before,” she said. “It was executives who demanded new accounts be created at all costs, but it was 5,300 frontline employees who paid for that with their jobs.”

The senator said Wells Fargo was trying to save its reputation by blaming their problems on low-level employees.

“The only way we are ever going to stop these scandals is to hold executives personally accountable,” Warren added. “To fire the people who are responsible and when the break the law to march some of them out in handcuffs. Until we do that, these scandals are going to continue and working people are going to continue to take the brunt of it.”

If Corporations are 'people' and they break the law, who should do the time?

 

[Hypoxia]

Wells Fargo CEO whines Sen. Warren uses math ‘inappropriately’ after she blasts him for ‘screwing’ workers

If Corporations are 'people' and they break the law, who should do the time?

Electrocute the head office. Or surround corporate HQ with concertina wire. "Stone walls do not a prison make," but concertina does.

Robert Heinlein dealt with this (bisexual women, too) on a larger scale in FRIDAY. Real states have a disadvantage: they ain't going nowhere. Corporate entities aren't bound to specific physical locations. After a dispute with the Mexican gov't, IBM apologizes for the nuclear destruction of Acapulco. Just a negotiating tactic. But really, how could Mexico retaliate? Where is IBM?

"I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one." So, define the personhood of a corporation as being its executive layer, AVP on up. If a corp is found guilty, hang-em all. Or jail and/or fine them all. YOU are the corporation, YOU get to pay. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

 

[jaF0]

I don't know the source of those figures.

This one from '15 says 11%, up from 9% with an 86% disapproval rating:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-congress-approval-rating-drops-to-11-percent/

This one from a couple of months ago says 10%:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/03/politics/republicans-congress-approval-drops/index.html

Also features a picture of the two fools most responsible for the dismal performance.

 

[JackLuis]

Republicans once railed against deficits but Trump’s tax plan piles on more than $2 trillion in red ink

WASHINGTON — Not long ago, Paul D. Ryan stood before charts and graphs as the House Budget Committee chairman like a new Ross Perot, promoting an austerity plan that slashed taxes and spending, and warning of the dangers of deficits.

"The facts are very, very clear: The United States is heading toward a debt crisis," he said then. "We face a crushing burden of debt which will take down our economy, which will lower our living standards."

Now as House Speaker, the Wisconsin Republican is undergoing a role-reversal, championing President Donald Trump's tax cuts, which promise massive tax cuts for corporations and, to some extent individuals — and which experts say will add some $2 trillion to the nation's red ink over the next decade.

Republicans are racing to assemble Trump's tax package, which remains more conceptual than actual legislation, at a time when the nation's debt load has topped the eye-popping level of $20 trillion.

At the same time, Republicans are under great pressure to deliver on taxes, to have something to show for their hold on the Congress and the presidency, especially after the collapse of efforts to repeal and place the Affordable Care Act.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) hung a debt clock in his office — even before photos of his kids — after he was elected. Now, he worries that his colleagues may put aside concern over deficits.

"I didn't want to forget that is the main issue here that I came to solve," said the libertarian-leaning congressman. "I may very well be alone. Part it is the zeal for the deal on tax reform, and people are willing to hold their nose. ... Because we've done nothing else."

The ghost of Ronnie haunting the hall of Congress. How well did that work out?

 

[jaF0]

FIRST thing that needs to happen is to dump Donnie AND Mitch. Nothing productive will happen until those two are gone.

 

[Hypoxia]

FIRST thing that needs to happen is to dump Donnie AND Mitch. Nothing productive will happen until those two are gone.

Won't make any difference so long as Gups think they run things. They've spewed unrealities and promised impossibilities for decades; the corner into which they painted themselves is mighty tight. Gup congresscritters voting for massively unpopular bills would be dumped in their next contests if Dums weren't even more FUBAR.

Don't expect anything productive. Destructive is much more probable.

 

[SweetCupcake]

Democrats Join Republicans In Bill Criminalizing Speech Critical Of Israel



A little harsh, wouldn't you say? I guess Free Speech costs a lot these days?

This is not new at all. The only thing that is really changing is the penalties are increasing ($250k up from $50k) since the anti-boycott legislation was introduced in the 70s. The Arab League began formalized boycotting of Israel almost as soon as Israel was created so this has been going on for decades. Nearly all of the western countries long ago passed legislation to make it punishable to comply with boycotts of Israel.

Old news -- I wonder why it is just disturbing people now as they tweak the law?

 

[JackLuis]

After hurricanes Congress ponders future of flood insurance program that Trump slashed

The devastating hit Houston took from Hurricane Harvey has exacerbated — and highlighted — the enormous financial jam facing the National Flood Insurance Program.

Thanks to the recent onslaught of hurricanes hitting Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, there has never been a greater need for the program. But that need has also set off a new round of calls to dramatically overhaul a program that hasn’t been able to sustain itself without major subsidies from the U.S. Treasury.

Republican U.S. Rep. Pete Olson’s Sugar Land-based district suffered some of the most intensive flooding in the state. He said he is open to some changes, but not if it risks payouts on Harvey claims his constituents are filing. He is quick to underscore the desperation in his suburban Houston district and doesn’t want changes to make things worse.

“It should be part of the package but not a do-all, end-all,” Olson said of any potential overhaul.

Maybe not building in a flood plain is a better idea, use it for agriculture?