This is surreal. The outrage is not matching the situation.

[20score]

No person who would suggest funds for a disaster should be used for political advantage and would withhold them for any reason, is fit to hold public office. And any party that would not oppose this person's ideas has no right to pretend it represents the American people.

WASHINGTON - A political battle between the Tea Party-driven House and the Democratic-controlled Senate is threatening to slow money to the government’s main disaster aid account, which is so low that new rebuilding projects have been put on hold to help victims of Hurricane Irene and future disasters.


The Federal Emergency Management Agency has less than $800 million in its disaster coffers. A debate over whether to cut spending elsewhere in the federal budget to pay for tornado and hurricane aid seems likely to delay legislation to provide the billions of dollars needed to replenish FEMA’s disaster aid in the upcoming budget year.


House majority leader Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia, said the House will require offsetting spending cuts. Irene caused significant damage in Virginia, and Cantor’s district sustained damage from last week’s quake.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2011/08/31/battle_over_disaster_aid_brewing_in_congress/

[A-Schwarzenegger]

1. This is the message the Dems should be beating like a drum...

Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.
Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans. Heartless Republicans.

[Fumesucker]

3. That wouldn't be bipartisan..

I'm sure all Republicans, more than a few Democrats and almost all of the M$M would require fainting couches and smelling salts.

[QC]

21. That might hurt their feelings! n/t

[99th_Monkey]

43. And THEN they'd get REALLY MAD!!!!! 'en publically bust Dem. balls in public again.

nt

[McCamy Taylor]

37. Dems won't have to beat it. Three of the US's biggest newspapers were hit.

[TeamsterDem]

2. Our entire politics are surreal at this point. nt

[Supersedeas]

23. the level of courtesy and civil diplomacy from Democrats is something to behold

[Lorien]

34. Spinelessness. nt

[provis99]

4. Cantor doesn't even give a damn about his own district...

The fuckers there will re-elect him anyways.

[Duppers]

5. K & R

And a big thank you!

[20score]

17. Duppers...

You rock!

[tblue]

6. $900 million a week for Afghanistan.

What is wrong with these people? Never mind I already know.

Obama should hammer this hard!!!! If not this then what?!!!

[Quantess]

8. Obama doesn't seem to want to cut defense, either.

The bloated defense budget is the sacred cow.

[lonestarnot]

10. That is bullshit and you know it.

[tkmorris]

11. It is?

I certainly haven't seen him suggest that any serious Defense budget cuts are on the table, whereas EVERYTHING else is. Could you point me to anything that suggests otherwise?

[lonestarnot]

12. Obama Said to Seek $400 Billion Defense Cut Through Fiscal 2023

President Barack Obama, as part of his plan to reduce the nation’s long-term debt, will propose cutting $400 billion from the Pentagon’s budget through the 2023 fiscal year, extending cuts beyond those sought by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a person familiar with the plan said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-13/obama-said-to-seek-pentagon-cuts-that-go-beyond-defense-chief-gates-s-plan.html

[DCKit]

13. Yeah, 'cept it needs to be $400 billion per year in cuts...

not $400 billion over 12 years.

Really, we've caught on to the scam. It's going to be harder to play us from here on out.

[sad sally]

25. Can you say kick the can down the road defense cuts?

The White House's "fact sheet" asserts a $350 billion savings in the "base defense budget." The $350 billion in defense savings that the White House declares apparently uses a different "baseline" (basis of comparison) and pretends that a two year cap the bill establishes on "security" spending will extend to ten years. Most misleading of all, it assumes that all savings in the "security" category (which includes DOD, DOE/nuclear weapons, all State Department related spending, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security) will occur only in DOD spending. In fact, the "security" category was designed to broaden the base for "defense" cuts and to lessen the impact on DOD. The undocumented $350 billion in "security" savings will actually translate into lesser reductions in DOD spending, but the amount is unknown. The actual amount will be decided by Congress in the future.

The debt deal kicks the defense budget can down the road for this and future Congresses. People should not read precision and certainty into a political deal specifically designed to be uncertain and indistinct.

http://www.cdi.org/program/document.cfm?DocumentID=4677&from_page=../index.cfm?du

[lonestarnot]

28. While reducing troop numbers in Afghanistan under the radar.

Do you know what the numbers are coming home or their schedules for coming home or any new numbers daily costs are?

[sad sally]

29. Back in a June speech, the President said 10,000 troops would

be pulled by the end of 2011, with another 23,000 out by next summer, which amounts to the additional troops used for the Afghan-surge, and would leave 70,000 US troops.

Sec Panetta on his first trip to Afghanistan slipped up and said that although the withdrawal plan called for all combat troops to be gone by 2014, that the US would have to see what the situation was in 2014 before the country was turned over to Afghan military and security forces. (sounds like continued occupation, just like where US occupation in Iraq seems to be headed, at least to me.)

Estimated cost of Operation Enduring Freedom aka the Afghanistan War is $449,719,000,000 and counting - do the math to come up with a daily cost.

War is a cash cow for the mic; they won't end this or any war the US is involved in without a fight.

You didn't ask, but I think every American should be assessed a War Tax to pay for them; it should be a line item tax, no ifs, ands or buts until every cent is paid. It might actually end US involvement.

As FDR put it two days after Pearl Harbor, "We are now in this war. We are all in it-all the way. Every single man, woman, and child is a partner in the most tremendous undertaking of our American history." That must as true of our wars (and deficits) now as it was then.

My slogan: Don't be a wuss - pay for your damn wars!

[Angry Dragon]

7. I feel people like cantor are traitors

they have broken their Oath of Office

[sam11111]

9. "tax the rich" Warren Buffet said. I say NO CUTS anywhere at all

Cuts are insane. Any at all...insane.
We should roll back every cut since 1980 and then end all poverty accOrding to LBJ's plan. Which would end all hmlessness and hunger and the job shortage ... and this recession.

FDR and Truman and LBJ and Buffet have the useful plans.
Some of them at

Jobs For All.

A site with 2 Nobel Laureates. IIRC...-----

http://www.njfac.org

[deacon]

14. They use natural disasters now in an effort to cut medicare and SS. Fire them. n/t

[20score]

18. This should be unthinkable.

[Javaman]

15. When you finally understand and realize that we are nothing but

disposable pawns to them, then and only then will everything become crystal clear.

the beltway lives in a reality vacuum.

our elected officials have virtually zero in common with the average person. 90% of the people in the house and senate are millionaires. Please tell me how the plight of a single mom with 2 kids struggling on minimum wage salary while getting various social programs cut, falls within the realm of any congress persons sense of reality?

The don't care about us, because they don't understand. And more so, they don't care to understand.

[scheming daemons]

16. The outrage brigade is still trying to figure out how to blame Obama

[JNinWB]

19. Absolutely.

It's amazing (to me) that so many here know more about Presidential decision-making than Obama. The voters "hired" Obama to be the President, but many still want to second guess every decision and proposal that he makes.

How many large public companies allow a shareholder to constantly hector the CEO about each management decision?

[Deep13]

39. Given the condition of the economy...

...and the behavior of big business management, I'd say not enough. Wow. Is that REALLY the example you wanted to use?

[ibegurpard]

33. wow, you'd think you'd be happy that people are ragging on repukes for a change

[suede1]

20. What an ass!!!

[20score]

27. Yes he is.

[punkin87]

22. Wonder if he's getting heat for this? He should.

[spanone]

24. the republicans have gone so far right, this shit seems normal

[piedmont]

26. Terrific! Offer to cut the money out of the military weapons development budget.

Looks like they're going to use the same tactic over and over again until Democrats show some backbone.

[lob1]

30. The dems are paid to have no spine.

[Mosaic]

31. Eric Cantor is a traitor

He should be forced to resign, maybe even prosecuted. I have never seen anyone so anti-American as this little man. Republican philosophy is toxic at its core. The only reason it didn't fail decades ago was because of the New Deal. Remove the New Deal, this country is nothing more than a banana republic, and forget about Wilsonian ideals, that will never happen. I do dream of a democratic world, but we must face reality, it is just a dream.

[krispos42]

32. Eric Cantor is a boil on on the ass of humanity, much less American politics n/t

[20score]

35. That first sentence was about the worst I've written, grammatically. But I'm glad people got the

sentiment.

[McCamy Taylor]

36. Ooops. WaPo, NYT, Boston Globe---the House GOP is toast Thank you, Cantor!

Never, ever fuck with the US eastern seaboard, shit for brains. That is where the "liberal media" hangs out.

[20score]

38. Wish there a like button.

That is damn cool!

[alp227]

40. the crazy things rePIGs have said would make great campaign ad material

like Mitch McConnell saying that his goal would be to make Obama a one term president

or Michele Bachmann saying that Hurricane Irene was a sign from God for a libertarian agenda

or Jon Kyl smearing Planned Parenthood as providing abortion as 90% of its services

or Eric Cantor playing political games first with the Joplin, Mo. tornado and now Hurricane Irene

or Mitt Romney saying "corporations are people, my friend"

or all the bigoted stuff Rick Santorum says (he's still campaigning, isn't he?)

when i see the campaign ads start to roll out in the winter i hope to hear a lot of soundbites from the party of evil. we NEED to counter the Fox News/Drudge Report/talk radio/Breitbart noise machine. it's so scary how so many idiots with low class and disrespect for our people have such huge chances of being leaders of this country.

[glowing]

41. I can say my family and friends in VT are more than pissed off that they

are going to play politics with their lives. "If they need the money, and they want to pay for it, they need to increase taxes." Main consensus I'm hearing. Exactly what will they be trying to cut? Medicaid, medicare, food stamps. The effected areas are going to increase the spending needed in these effected regions. So much has been so badly effected, it is going to take time to rebuild and get people back to work or able to drive into work. At this point, many schools are being used as evacuation centers or command centers until FEMA trailers are able to be driven in. Many roads are cat paths. The buses are going to be unable to get to some of the kids even when they do start up school again.

AND its not just VT. Its from the Carolina's up to Maine. The flooding is massive in the NE. This is the worst time to have any Republicans in charge of anything. Its NOT ok for the Dems to roll over on this. Its just not. In the NE, enough of the roads and bridges need to be re-established before winter sets in. It will be impossible to be building anything when a snow storm sets in. They had enough problems this last year with the ice and snow storms. It is critical to get the money and as much work as possible completed before it is impossible to do anymore until spring.

I can't even stand to listen to Cantor. He's such a petty little fucking child.

[Enthusiast]

42. An extremely wealthy petty little fucking child.

He will get his way.