The random political thoughts thread (Part Deux)

[SacTown Chronic]

But The Jewish World Review has the best coupons!

[Ghoulish Delight]

Randomizing -

Earmarks. I don't get it. What exactly is the alternate suggestion to earmarks? What does getting rid of earmarks in a spending bill accomplish? Because as far as I can tell, all it does is delay the exact same process and deal making. The money has to be spent. It has to be spent on something. Someone has to decide what it gets spent on. Without earmarks, it's not like they're just going to throw money on the sidwalk in front of Congress, first come first served. Eventually, a decision is going to be made about what to spend the money on. Who gives a sh*t if that decision is made when the bill is written and passed, or after that? It's the exact same thing. What am I missing?

[Alex]

Obviously targeting Limbaugh is a political strategy. It may be a good one in that the core despises Limbaugh and to the extent that the meme catches on it marginalizes the official Republican leadership.

So yes, it is craven, but as far as such things go it isn't particularly distasteful or dishonest. What is odd is that it seems to be a rare example of the Democrats trying something like this and having it work moderately well. Republicans have been masters of controlling the conversation for a very long time.

That said, it would probably help deflate the thing if every Republican who dares say anything remotely negative about Limbaugh wasn't seen crawling to him on hands-and-knees with keister raises for just punishment, babbling incoherently about how they were quoted out of context or didn't mean it the way it sounded or meant it the way it sounded but that meaning isn't really bad.

[Alex]

On earmarks, I'm not specifically opposed to them. That said, I don't think it is a great idea that the same politician that doesn't have time to actually read the full budget he votes for to fund the Department of Transportation somehow thinks he has enough knowledge about the operations to circumvent the project prioritization process.

And, a lot of times, something is passed as an earmark specifically because it is known that it is an idea that would never get funded if actually put through any standard review process.

And a certain amount of horsetrading leeway is needed to grease the wheels of any legislative process.

So I think saying "absolutely any earmark is bad" is just as misguided as saying "there's absolutely nothing wrong with them." And, of course, once you say you won't accept any earmarks then you run into a definitional problem of what exactly is an earmark.

My biggest problem with them historically is how they came to be included in legislation which generally offered no option for true review and frequently you couldn't even tell who had put it in there.

[JWBear]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Randomizing -

Earmarks. I don't get it. What exactly is the alternate suggestion to earmarks? What does getting rid of earmarks in a spending bill accomplish? Because as far as I can tell, all it does is delay the exact same process and deal making. The money has to be spent. It has to be spent on something. Someone has to decide what it gets spent on. Without earmarks, it's not like they're just going to throw money on the sidwalk in front of Congress, first come first served. Eventually, a decision is going to be made about what to spend the money on. Who gives a sh*t if that decision is made when the bill is written and passed, or after that? It's the exact same thing. What am I missing?

Beacuse spending a few million for a badly needed road, or to build a dam to prevent a rural town from being flooded, or building a community center are bad things; but giving billions to banks and Wall Street firms so that they can buy $50 million dollar jets, or give their executives millions in bonuses is good.

Didn't you get the memo?

[JWBear]

(Pssst... Don't let the GOP sheeple know, but the earmarks were less than 1% of the OBRA bill, and over half of them were included by republicans.)

[Strangler Lewis]

Life happened again.

I think we should all be having more fun with the Levi/Bristol breakup.

[JWBear]

I was sitting here puzzled, thinking to myself "When did Levi Straus and Bristol-Meyers merge? And more importantly, why?"

Then it hit me....



Poor little dears.

[sleepyjeff]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Do you ever read any other news source?

1) It's not a news source....it's basically just the best darn archive of syndicated pundits(mostly conservative I must admit) out there. I'd have to visit the websites of a score or more newspapers to match it.

2) What difference does it make?(surely you are not attempting to make the fallacious argument that anything I post should be dismissed because it may come from a single source?)

3) Yes....Bloomberg being my favorite.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by sleepyjeff

2) What difference does it make?(surely you are not attempting to make the fallacious argument that anything I post should be dismissed because it may come from a single source?)

No, it says nothing about the validity of the stories (those speak for themselves), but after a while it certainly makes me question any perspective you might have on things.