Larger Than Life

Article on Yahoo news...


Angry Ky. Sen. Jim Bunning holds up spending bill

FRANKFORT, Ky. – The angry man of the Senate is at it again.

Republican Sen. Jim Bunning, a 78-year-old Hall of Fame pitcher, is playing hardball on Capitol Hill, single-handedly holding up a $10 billion spending bill because it would add to the deficit.



The move has forced some 2,000 federal employees into unpaid furloughs, put jobless benefits in jeopardy for millions and halted more than 40 highway projects.

Because of his ornery nature and ungovernable mouth, Bunning has come to be regarded as the crazy uncle in the Senate attic during his 11 years in Washington. And because he is retiring after this session, there isn't much anyone can do to keep him in line.

"I think the older he gets, the more cantankerous he becomes," said Kentucky Republican Larry Forgy, a two-time candidate for governor and one of Bunning's biggest admirers. "He's as tough as a pine knot. He doesn't care what they say about him."

It's not the first time Bunning has made others cringe.

Last year, he had to apologize after he predicted Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, would be dead within a year.

During his 2004 re-election campaign, which he narrowly won, he said his Democratic opponent — Daniel Mongiardo, who is of Italian descent — looked "like one of Saddam Hussein's sons." He apologized for that, too.

Bunning also accused Mongiardo of spreading rumors that he was mentally unfit to be a senator, a charge Mongiardo denied. The Courier-Journal ran an editorial questioning Bunning's "suitability" for office and wondering whether he had "drifted into territory that indicates a serious health concern." Bunning released letters from doctors vouching for his health.

He has feuded with GOP floor leader Mitch McConnell, the other senator from his state.

Bunning has also been known to curse at reporters. On Tuesday, ABC and CNN showed video of him refusing to talk to reporters about blocking the spending bill. "Excuse me!" he snapped. "This is a senators-only elevator." ABC said he gave the finger to one of its producers.

Few people in Kentucky, where the senator has been in politics for more than 30 years, were surprised last week when he stopped legislation that would have extended funding for a variety of federal programs, including the flood insurance that many people in the nation's heartland rely on when the spring flood season arrives.

"He's cruel," said Louisville resident George Boyd, who lost his job a year ago and could be affected by the impasse. "He's heartless. He doesn't think about the needs of other people."

Bunning is so toxic that Republican leaders pushed him to retire when his second term is up at the end of the year.

At one point, he threatened to sue the party's national campaign arm if it backed a primary challenger. But in July he relented and dropped his re-election bid, accusing his GOP colleagues of doing "everything in their power to dry up my fundraising."

University of Kentucky political scientist Donald Gross speculated that Bunning's effort to hold up the spending bill might reflect frustration that after two terms he has no notable legislative legacy and has essentially been forced into retirement.

"He's always been an argumentative type of person, testy," Gross said. "This may be his last hurrah, his last chance to take a slap at people before he leaves."

During his days with the Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Phillies, for whom he pitched a perfect game in 1964, the right-hander who faced the likes of Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris never hesitated to bean batters. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1996, the first pitcher to record 100 wins and 1,000 strikeouts in both the American and National Leagues. He is also a Xavier University-educated economist who has taken a hard line on fiscal issues.

He has been holding up the spending bill since Thursday, saying he objects because it requires borrowing money. Bunning proposed to pay for the extension with unspent money from last year's big economic recovery package, but Democrats objected.

By the Senate's rules, that single objection was enough to block the bill, at least temporarily.

Democrats have bashed him for stopping a measure of vital importance to down-on-their-luck Americans, and White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday: "I don't know how you negotiate with the irrational."

Bunning refused to budge, to the increasing discomfort of some fellow Republicans.

"He's hurting the American people," Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said when asked Tuesday if Bunning was hurting the Republican Party.

He has also become fodder for late-night comedians, with Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" calling Bunning a "cranky obstructionist" and joking that he is "leaving the Senate to spend more time obstructing his family's progress."

But Forgy, of the Kentucky GOP, said Bunning should be praised: "It's the equivalent of hitting the mule between the eyes with a two-by-four to get its attention. He is drawing attention to an issue, and if he has to draw criticism to himself in the process, he's willing to do that."
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Gee, it must be great to be a stinkin' rich senator with a fat pension waiting and then depriving the unemployed of benefits... How good you must feel, Jim... It's definitely a life, but now as we know it...

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My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or her as far away from a church as you can.. (F. Zappa)
"How ironic... You eat vegetarian and speak baloney" -- Bucky Catt
Blackadder: Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?
Baldrick: Yes, it's like goldy and bronzy only it's made out of iron.

Yes but don't forget, there are the poor bankers to think of. If $10 billion spending bills get approved, those poor guys might only get $500,000 bonuses instead of the usual $1 million or more.

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Pobody's nerfect

The irony is Bunning is right (IMHO) to oppose the spending-mentality we're seeing in Washington, but his choice of where to make a stand is counterproductive to be kind.

So, Dutchie. . .What you’re saying is that TARP funding should be used by free-wheeling banksters and bailing out foreign economies exclusively - and none should ever be used on the unemployed? Some stimulus package that is. . .

Guys, we can’t - or shouldn‘t - just ‘create’ money out of thin air. This money has to come from somewhere. If there is money left in the TARP and is not being used at this time, why not? Give THAT to the unemployed as Jim Bunning asks?

OR. . .Is it because there’s nothing left in the TARP fund? You see, we’ll never know because there is no accountability:



President Barack H. Obama said it in a C-SPAN interview May 22, 2009 - “We’re out of money now” - If we didn’t have money then, where are we supposed to be getting it NOW? Here? (please see that last LINK - it’s the gov’ts own charts).

I don’t think so. That said, why doesn’t Harry Reid give in and allow us to use whats’ left in the TARP? (Oh - that’s right. Nevermind.)



Gotta hand it to Jim. He knows. He just wants them to admit it. Brilliant.

Joe (Bigsky770)

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“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.”

- - Groucho Marx

Partisan games. Both sides play it and in the process our elected Donkeys and Elephants often forget why they're supposed to be there in the first place. Bunning's ploy could have hurt his own constituents, which is why I think he could have done better picking his spots and the Dems could have went around him, but chose not to.

The bill ended up going through BTW. This could be spun as a "victory" for Bunning or the Dems but there was no winner as far as I'm concerned, just more of the same malarkey.

I say more power to Bunning! At last a politician who is reluctant to spend the People's money. What a breath of fresh air. It helps that he's not running for re-election. Obama has racked up record deficits spending the People's money. Good for Bunning. The liberal-biased media in the U.S. are raking him over the coals but screw them. They got Obama elected. It is past time for fiscal conservatism. The whole country has been tightening its belt in this economy. It's past time Congress did so as well. Don't spend it if you don't have it. Doesn't that make sense? "Oh, but the poor and the unemployed will suffer!" My ass they will. The money is readily available from other sources but the democrats are blocking that, so who is the real enemy of the unemployed?

This was irony, right?.

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I would rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy

Me said it.

I'm afraid not.

I should have known when I posted this: in the US of A, it's everyone for themselves and God or us all. Anything that smells of being benificient to a vulnerable group of people is done away with as being socialism. In the USA, greed is exchangeable with "freedom".

Take your income tax for instance. If you are single, you get to pay 28% up to an income of $171,850.
If you are married, the joint income for a 28% tax is $209,250

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

You load of silly, greedy WHINERS!!!!

We pay 52% (!!!!!) for a (joint or single) income FROM (and higher than) € 54,367 ($73,939)

That is why WE can afford cheap health care, good schooling, great roads, unemployment benefits, disabled insurance etcetera. That is why OUR deficit is neglectable compared to yours. It's because you simply REFUSE to have ANY solidarity with your fellow man. You pull a dirty face and call it "socialism", we just call it human decency.

You know? All of these threads about the "crisis" and how corrupt politicians and bankers are, just really bore the crap out of me. The fault is with the entire nation. Pay a decent tax rate and your worries will vanish. Stop armed conflicts in countries where you shouldn't even be in the first place and you'll have money enough to grant EVERY American a decent life.

I don't know why I even bother to say all this. You'll just say I'm a commie.

_________________
My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or her as far away from a church as you can.. (F. Zappa)
"How ironic... You eat vegetarian and speak baloney" -- Bucky Catt
Blackadder: Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?
Baldrick: Yes, it's like goldy and bronzy only it's made out of iron.

Communist? Hell, all this time I thought you were a social democrat. . .

Joe (Bigsky770)

_________________
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.”

- - Groucho Marx

How brave to just address that last sentence...

_________________
My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or her as far away from a church as you can.. (F. Zappa)
"How ironic... You eat vegetarian and speak baloney" -- Bucky Catt
Blackadder: Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?
Baldrick: Yes, it's like goldy and bronzy only it's made out of iron.

And there’s a very good reason for that. Argument is an exercise in futility @ this point.

CIP; You probably didn’t click on that one LINK I’d provided - Nathan’s blogspot. That’s okay - though just to explain, those are the latest charts from our gov’t. The ones MSM doesn’t talk a whole helluvalot about.

I went back there after I’d last posted (here) just to ‘mentally digest’ the significance of them and the thought occurred to me -

Yah know, it really doesn’t matter who’s right/who’s wrong in this - not anymore.

At this point, we’re just arguing over the arrangement of deck-chairs on the Titanic. Who gets to feel those chill waters first, who gets to listen to the band play a moment longer, stuff like that.

Joe (Bigsky770)

_________________
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.”

- - Groucho Marx

I agree. The point of my post was how you guys got to be at that point in the first place...

_________________
My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or her as far away from a church as you can.. (F. Zappa)
"How ironic... You eat vegetarian and speak baloney" -- Bucky Catt
Blackadder: Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?
Baldrick: Yes, it's like goldy and bronzy only it's made out of iron.

I don't exactly see Shangri-La across the pond...am I missing something?

I think the USA will be alright in the long run. The people here are starting to wake up and, unlike some other places I've seen, that's what ultimately works here. Our problems are a result of poor economic decisions and mediocre leadership (for a while now) coupled with an ignorant materialistically-focused electorate. The problem to me wasn't that the bubble burst, it's that no one saw it coming. The positive out of all this and something most of the media hasn't latched on to yet is that a lot of people here are starting to shuck their partisan ideological/political thinking, looking beyond whether an (R) or (D) follows a politico's name. It'll take a while but the people are stirring...finally.

I agree about the wars. They haven't helped economically here or geopolitically anywhere outside of maybe Iran. In fact, Iraq ironically was a hedge against Iranian adventurism before we completely neutered their military and economy. I can't blame Bush for taking action in Afghanistan but I would have done it a little differently. I would have nuked the Tora Bora mountains when OBL was there and addressed the world afterward with a split screen showing the mushroom cloud and the Twin Towers. All I'd have to say is "When you do this, we do this." End of story. What are we looking at in Afghanistan now? A quagmire. The country will never be "pacified" and those who think a political/military solution will work don't know their Afghan history or how guerrilla warfare works. I was hoping Obama would break the mold and realize that Afghanistan isn't vital to the "war on terror." Terrorists can go to and operate from anywhere they want. It's not like Afghanistan or any particular patch of land is going to be their Alamo. They're trans-national and mobile. If anything, our continued presence in Afghanistan and pressure on Pakistan for support there has made Pakistan a poster child for instability...a nuclear-armed poster child at that. Here's what's going to happen: the US and NATO will leave eventually and the Taliban will move back in. The only way to prevent that from happening would be to support a ruthless alternative to the Taliban and we all know that won't happen. The tragedy is more lives will be lost for nothing.

[psst!] Wanna hear a conspiracy theory? WMD was a red herring with regard to Iraq. What it really was about wasn't oil (we could have had it in 1991) or to grease the palms of special interests, it was about revenge. The Iraqis tried to kill the younger Bush's dad a year or so after the first Gulf War.

Dutchie had informed me a while back Netherlands’ parliament collapses in disarray on a fairly regular basis. They’re used to it. We, on the other hand, probably wouldn’t know how to handle what for themselves is pretty standard fare.



(sigh) Amen! Just to underscore guys -

I’m not saying this is the end of the world, simply the end of the world as we knew it. Dutchie wanted to know *IF* I was aware where it all began - Though I’m sure many could make damn good point (Karl Denninger, for one) that this has been running some 20+ years, for myself - I think the Glass-Steagall 33 acts’ removal in 1999 in favour The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act was a historical turning point - though we didn’t recognize it as such at the time. It removed all the safeties allowing commercial banks, investment banks, securities firms and insurance companies to consolidate as issue, spreading their toxic filth the world over - As we‘ve seen in Greece (now with Goldman-Sachs involvement), it isn‘t merely an “American problem” anymore.

And the banking lobby made all this possible. What happens? To either Republican and Democratic parties given they are receiving money from a [one] or [group] of entities’ special interest? Any distinctions become blurred, the only differences witnessed in action purely superficial. If it runs counter banking interests a big spectacle is created for the public (horse & pony show), they then implement all the clever loopholes and work-arounds allowing the banks unethical behaviors to continue.

Thus, with all this rightous indignation and moral outrage we feel in lieu those behaviors, we give rise those things as the Tea-Party movement, though my fears - lets’ say the Tea-Party becomes a force to be reckoned with - - What matter? does it make? with the kind of power Lobbyists wield, any third-party could fall corrupted themselves which leads us right back to square one.

Jim Bunning just highlighted the point as to what we’ve become. We’re no longer a ‘Republic’ but a Kleptocracy, practicing slight-of-hand. Funny how short our memories become - though a Democratically controlled house said they would not forward any new actions (such as unemployment) not previously covered with monies set aside, they turned and did exactly that, on a populist issue. Jim was merely holding them to their word, and looking like the bad guy in the end. Sucks, but that’s politics.



There is a problem with that kind of thinking though. In practice, if we were to show it as ‘acceptable’ counter-offensive wise nuclear first use, we than raise the bar globally for what may be done concerning reprisal - Do we really want to travel that road?



Not so much a secret, I’ve heard that before and in hindsight must admit, don’t doubt as a motivation.

Joe (Bigsky770)

_________________
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.”

- - Groucho Marx

Y'all sure did a good job of hijacking this thread. Could you repeat the question? I wish they had kewel smilely people like this over at Space.com

The way I look at it is we have the right to respond as we see fit when attacked like we were on 9/11. Do you think OBL would have hestitated to use nukes on us if he had 'em? We like to call ourselves a "superpower" but are we if what makes us one is always off-limits because it might "set a bad example?" We had thousands die in our cities and the cowardly perpetrator who sent these "martyrs" hid in a mountain range littered with caves. Why sacrifice even one soldier to ferret him out when we didn't have to? I would have nuked the bastard and moved on.

BTW, you're not exactly the first person that took issue with my atomic POV. Some think I'm nuts.



This coming from someone who invoked Paris Hilton in a UFO thread?

I AM a commie, and . . . 52%?.

YOU COMMIE !.

bwahahahaha.

I agree with every other point you make about people who accept they live in a society having to accept responsibility for the entire society, NOT just the nice pleasant parts inside the gated community.

Aside from your point of it being the only just, moral outlook, it is also clear as mud that it is in everyones self interest NOT to have a destitute underclass in their society. To have no large groups of people who serious illness or accident condemns to first POVERTY, then DEATH.

You also are forgetting one thing about their tax rates I think. They don't simply pay that one 28% federal income tax. They also pay local state tax on things. And property tax.

I always wanted to know the real tax level Americans pay, compared to say the English.

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I would rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy

Me said it.

Yeah mate.

We don't have one percent of our population in jail.

We have free healthcare. It isn't perfect by any means, but far better than dying , swept into the gutter when the last cent of your whole families assets is spent on stupidly inflated hospital costs. Inflated in the first place, because

We have a sane judicial system focused on crime, rather than rewards for lawyers. You got madness wrapped up in privilege for the wealthy.

All three of the above topics trace their relative existence in our various countries to the tax support offered the government, and its expressed local sentiment, no one likes paying taxes mate, but YOU pay them and get nothing back, it seems to me. We pay 'em and expect our social ills to be ameliorated.

I would mention the free-for-all for the Pres present every four years, that leads to war and civil war, but then I think I said that somewhere else.






Well, you joke, but actually the entire thing, first gulf war and all along to today, was to protect the extended Bush family and friends oil holdings, because Saddam threatened Saudi, and Saudi had/has the Bush family in its pocket. Everyone in the world had their plane grounded on 9/11.
Except, the Saudis ordered their Bush servants to fly out all the various bin laden family members. EVERYONE in the world was unable to fly, but not Bushs' masters, they got a plane PAID for by the US taxpayer.

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I would rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy

Me said it.

You have me at a disadvantage. Does your Shangri-La have a name?


Who said I was joking? Regarding Gulf War One, our participation was due to oil but you personalized it too much. Bush just happened to be in office when Iraq conquered Kuwait. Any sitting POTUS would have rushed to defend Saudi Arabia from a possible Iraqi invasion and due to our (and other's) reliance on Saudi oil it was in our national interest to do so. Your premise really starts to lose steam when Desert Shield became Desert Storm though. Unlike 2003, there was a clear case of Iraqi non-compliance with UN resolutions demanding Iraqi withdrawl from Kuwait and practically unanimous support for it's liberation. There was contributions from not only the US and Saudi Arabia but contingents from the UK, Egypt, France, Syria, Morocco, "free" Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Canada, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bangladesh, Italy, Australia, Netherlands, Niger, Sweden, Argentina, Senegal, Spain, Bahrain, Belgium, Poland, South Korea, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Denmark, New Zealand, Hungary, and Norway. Bush must have had one hell of an "extended family."

Regarding the 9/11 traffic shutdown, it wasn't a world shutdown. I'm not aware of the Bush administration flying out OBL's family members during the air closure. If I paid for it I'd like a receipt, although a link will do in your case.

Since 1947 there has been clear case after clear case that Israel violated UN resolutions too, but we have never seen the USA bribe/beg/threaten the world into ANY sort of forcing of the issue, have we.

And we would have still been reliant on the oil under those sands, post Saddam gaining control of them, but that wouldn't suit the Saudi princes, nor the Bush crowd. Yes, it was due to business interests, and any president would have done the same, but this doesn't preclude it being specifically in BUSH family interest, which of course it was. Sometimes you get to eat your cake and claim it was duty.


http://www.prisonplanet.com/030903binladen1.html



Not only was the plane leaving chartered and staffed by US officials, it got a military escort of fighters. AND the family members were rushed to the exit airport by various official US services, ( these actions were initiated BEFORE many other more important actions on the day, because Bushs' second thought - after asking "When can we hit Tehran?" - was, " how can I help my masters? ") which were denied, amongst other people, the Prime Ministers of New Zealand ( trapped on a tarmac in the plane she was in ) and Kenya.
You say it wasn't a WORLD shutdown, but actually you are completely wrong. The USA ( quite rightly, and we all supported it ) shutdown all traffic into or out of its borders, which, because of the fact that that was half the tarmac space in the entire world, was understood to mean every international plane had to land right away. turned out of course, the order was only for "Unimportant People" and Bush as a favour :rolleyes: didn't consider bin ladens family that.
Do I need links for these other facts, or will you just, as I do for you, accept I am not a liar?. Because, you know, I lived through these events as a thinking adult with access to extremely detailed world wide news reporting, and you lived through them as same, but in your case, member of a society that was traumatised and fixated on its own interests , to the exclusion of "trivial" matters like planes being down in all the world, as opposed to "the important country". So, like you say, you were un-aware of facts, no one told you as they occurred.

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I would rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy

Me said it.