Republican Party, Teabag Party and the Libertarian Party absolutely SUCK!

[Henry Hawk]

Term limits already exist if the constituents bother to vote the office holder out. 

You simply want to abdicate your responsibility to an automated process - just like the Congress has done with their war powers.

You are an idiot.  You think your intelligent with such remarks, but the bottom line is your an idiot.  WE NEED TERM LIMITS, it "ain't" workin the way we go it.  If you think we don't then your an idiot. I don't know how else to say it.  I don't like using that word, but it seems like the only word that fits.

[Exterminator]

That person does not speak for me...

No, but it's the same message!

...who also disagree with the policies of this administration.

Trot out the old, tired, "policy," excuse for being a bigot... 

[Exterminator]

You are an idiot.  You think your intelligent with such remarks, but the bottom line is your an idiot.  WE NEED TERM LIMITS, it "ain't" workin the way we go it.  If you think we don't then your an idiot. I don't know how else to say it.  I don't like using that word, but it seems like the only word that fits.

Your inability to undersatand his point makes you the idiot here.

[me]

No, but it's the same message!

Trot out the old, tired, "policy," excuse for being a bigot... 

Well, since he's so damn perfect all of his policies should be agreed with and not questioned then let's just not have an election to replace him when his term is over.  I mean, what would be the point no one could be as perfect as Obama he's the king and even if the next POTUS is a liberal he/she may change some of his policies and that would be bad since they're so perfect as is he. 

[Henry Hawk]

Your inability to undersatand his point makes you the idiot here.

I get it ex.  WE have term limits in place all we have to do is vote them out.  Not sure if you have been paying attention though....WE HAVE NOT BEEN DOING THAT.  It is always those OTHER senators and congressmen who need to go..MINE IS OKAY mentality that has us frozen. 
WE NEED TERM LIMITS TO KEEP US FROM ALLOWING THE SAME PEOPLE TO MAKE CAREERS OUT WASHINGTON DC. 

I fully believe that HE is an idgit for not understanding something so common sensical.

[Exterminator]

Well, since he's so damn perfect all of his policies should be agreed with and not questioned then let's just not have an election to replace him when his term is over.  I mean, what would be the point no one could be as perfect as Obama he's the king and even if the next POTUS is a liberal he/she may change some of his policies and that would be bad since they're so perfect as is he.

I don't agree with all of his policies but have at least endeavored to understand what they are.  Every time anyone has asked you on this forum to explain with which of his policies you disagree and why, you have only neocon rhetoric with which to respond.  Not once have you offered anything of substance.  You don't dislike him because of policies you know nothing about; you dislike his policies because you hate him and you hate him because you're a racist.

[The Troll]

I don't agree with all of his policies but have at least endeavored to understand what they are.  Every time anyone has asked you on this forum to explain with which of his policies you disagree and why, you have only neocon rhetoric with which to respond.  Not once have you offered anything of substance.  You don't dislike him because of policies you know nothing about; you dislike his policies because you hate him and you hate him because you're a racist.

  Amen Brother Exterminator.   As anyone who is not an idiot which you aren't, we know that

[me]

I don't agree with all of his policies but have at least endeavored to understand what they are.  Every time anyone has asked you on this forum to explain with which of his policies you disagree and why, you have only neocon rhetoric with which to respond.  Not once have you offered anything of substance.  You don't dislike him because of policies you know nothing about; you dislike his policies because you hate him and you hate him because you're a racist.

Just keep right on parroting that garbage Ex if it makes you feel superior but, whether you believe it or not, that is very racist because you are pointing out that you consider him different.  Sorry but he isn't. 

[Exterminator]

Just keep right on parroting that garbage Ex if it makes you feel superior but, whether you believe it or not, that is very racist because you are pointing out that you consider him different.  Sorry but he isn't.

I'm pointing out the obvious.  You fool no one.

[libby]

Well, hello, everybody. Have been, still am, very busy. Barely have time to scan the morning paper, but this morning saw something that got my attention -- in the Metro or Local section -- about a Republican Congressman who describes himself as a "Hip-Hop Conservative."


Just Say Yes to Drug Tests for Members of Congress
Drug testing is a great idea. Thanks, Rep. Radel.

By Petula Dvorak, Published: November 21,2013

Rep. Trey Radel voted in favor of drug-testing the folks who get food stamps.

In that case, why don't we drug-test all people who get federal money? Let's start with members of Congress!

Radel, the Florida Republican whose campaign was heavy on balancing the budget, would be the first to save the government some money on that plan.

The 37-year-old congressman who describes himself on Twitter as a "Hip Hop Conservative" — whatever that is — lasted just 10 months in the nation's capital before his Nose Snow Rewards Card balance tripped the radar of law enforcement.

He was busted last month after buying $250 worth of cocaine from a federal agent. And it apparently wasn't his first time on this particular sleigh ride.

Radel was described in charging documents as a routine buyer in Dupont Circle, purchasing for himself and for his pals. He pleaded guilty in D.C. Superior Court this week, was sentenced to a year of probation and announced a leave of absence.

Ho-hum. Nothing new, politics and drugs. Thanks to former D.C. mayor Marion Barry and Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, we can mention more than just weed in this list. And the roll call of politicians who've admitted to smoking pot — whether they inhaled or not — is too huge to tackle in this space.

Radel, a former TV reporter and conservative radio gabber, isn't an aberration when it comes to using coke. About 1.6 million Americans admitted to being regular cocaine users in a survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration last year.

The same survey said that about 1,800 try cocaine for their first time every day. It's not just boxy boyfriend blazers that are coming back from the '80s.

Plus, Radel was described as an energetic new lawmaker who was quickly making a name for himself on Capitol Hill. And he's got a 2-year-old at home. Who couldn't use a little coke to stay wired?

Radel's drug use isn't even his worst transgression. It's attaining a level of hypocrisy that usually takes politicians years — decades — to achieve.

This is a guy whose campaign ads lambasted "typical politicians."

"Washington's full of them," he lamented.

He said he'd bring American values to Washington, "Values that come with integrity, especially when we talk about cuts." Like, the kind you make with a razor blade, Hip Hop Man?

Seriously — this is a guy who preaches about the dysfunction in Washington, and then look at what he does once he gets to Our Town.

The tea party darling is one of the Republicans who voted in favor of a devastating $39 billion cut to the nation's food stamp program and later voted for another bill requiring mandatory drug testing for food stamp recipients.

Yup, in Radel's version of Absurdistan, it's totally okay for a guy in a suit to use coke and collect a government paycheck, but a single mom who needs help buying milk for her kids has to be drug-tested before she gets one government dime.

Drug-testing food stamp and welfare recipients is a mean-spirited, political potshot at our nation's most vulnerable families. And it doesn't work.

In Utah, from August 2012 to July, the state spent more than $30,000 testing nearly 5,000 welfare applicants for drug use. The haul? Twelve people.

The same thing was tried in Florida, where drug tests cost the state more money than was saved. Those tests turned up more positives than in Utah. (Come on, it's Florida!) There, about 100 of 4,000 recipients tested dirty. Maybe Radel was a ringer, taking that test to increase the numbers and bolster his spending cuts.

Why, exactly, don't we require a drug test for our lawmakers?

They get paid by the taxpayers. They make important decisions. I'm sure the electronic voting machines they use to cast their yeas and nays count as heavy machinery. Or the members-only elevator does.

In America, if you stack apples, cut meat, pitch a baseball, carry a weapon, drive a forklift, answer phones, sweep streets or do any number of other jobs, you've got to pee in a cup to assure your employer that you are drug-free and worthy of the job.

The Partnership at Drugfree.org estimated that 84 percent of employers in America drug-test their employees. Why don't we hold our members of Congress to the same standards?

I'm not alone in thinking this. Go to petitiononline.com, find the petition to drug-test members of Congress and read the comments of people angry about the consistent double standard that politicians live by.

If we tested everyone in Congress at an average cost of $40 a test, the bill would be about $21,400. And even if Radel was the only one (ha!) who tested positive for drugs, the taxpayers would come out ahead by withholding his $174,000 salary.

You were right, congressman Radel. Drug testing is an excellent idea.

Just make sure you target the right people.

© The Washington Post Company

petula.dvorak@washpost.com

[The Troll]

  He's just one of the many, many, many douchebag Republicans we have here in America.  God I hate the son of bitches.   

[libby]

Well, since he's so damn perfect all of his policies should be agreed with and not questioned then let's just not have an election to replace him when his term is over.  I mean, what would be the point no one could be as perfect as Obama he's the king and even if the next POTUS is a liberal he/she may change some of his policies and that would be bad since they're so perfect as is he.

I don't agree with all of his policies but have at least endeavored to understand what they are.  Every time anyone has asked you on this forum to explain with which of his policies you disagree and why, you have only neocon rhetoric with which to respond.  Not once have you offered anything of substance.  You don't dislike him because of policies you know nothing about; you dislike his policies because you hate him and you hate him because you're a racist.

I'd like to add my two cents here: 

President Obama IS different: His mother was a white anthropologist, his father a black man, born in Africa. They met in college. Some people judge him, their son, by that alone. Others judge him not only for that, but also because he's been known to change his mind.  And that's what I want to address: our president has one thing in common with another Harvard College scholar -- Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 - 1882, "the first philosopher of the American spirit. "

The following is from The Complete Essays and Other Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson:

"Self-Reliance ....
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks, in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said to-day.-- 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood. -- Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."

[Exterminator]

You are an idiot.  You think your intelligent ...

Irony alert!

[Locutus]

Well we know it's December when Bill O'Liely starts going on and on over the manufactured "War on Christmas."

[Locutus]

The 113th Congress has stuck it to the poor at pretty much every opportunity. In fact, if you take all their past and future plans into account, it looks like they have accomplished that rare feat: To close in on enacting an overarching, radical agenda without control of the Senate or the presidency. How did they do it? Probably by escaping scrutiny through a piecemeal approach to legislation, a president who is willing to meet them halfway, and one diabolic word: Sequester.

Let's drill down into each piece:

1. Kick 'em to the curb
Congress will basically start kicking poor people out of their homes early next year. The idea is, if you can't pay for your home without government assistance, you don't deserve to live in one. In this spirit, budget cuts due to sequestration will take rental assistance vouchers away from 140,000 low-income families by the beginning of next year, making housing more expensive as agencies raise costs to offset the budget cuts. All in all, about three million disabled seniors and families will be affected. The savings? $2 billion, which is pretty much what the government shutdown cost in back-pay to federal workers.

If you're lucky enough to keep your home, don't expect to heat it. Sequester cuts to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) meant that 300,000 low-income families in 2013 were denied government support for energy costs.

2. Take the food out of their mouths. Literally.
The recent reduction in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits has affected more than 47 million Americans and is the largest wholesale cut in the program since Congress passed the first Food Stamps Act in 1964.

The cuts to Food Stamps were implemented on November 1. Yet, Congress won't let the program rest there — House Republicans are pushing to take $39 billion from SNAP over the next decade. If their plan succeeds, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 3.8 million low-income individuals would lose their benefits in 2014 with 2.8 million more getting kicked off the program each year. SNAP is one of the three most effective anti-poverty programs the government has, keeping four million people out of poverty last year alone. So the initial and further cuts make a lot of sense — if you despise the poor.

And don't worry, other cuts to food programs ensure both the oldest and youngest amongst us won't be spared. Cuts to Meals on Wheels will cost poor seniors four to 18 million meals next year. Meanwhile, the Women, Infants, and Children program (WIC), which provides health care referrals and nutrition to poor pregnant and postpartum women and children up to age five, has grappled with $500 million in cuts this year and faces even deeper ones next. Fair's fair, though.

3. Dim their kids' future
There's nothing that will make our economic future brighter than under-educating our children, right? That's why, again as a result of sequestration, Head Start literally had to kick preschoolers out of their classrooms this March and removed 57,000 children from the program this September (70,000 kids total are will be affected). If this weren't enough, more than half of public schools have fired personnel due to the ominous cuts — and Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said sequestration "has been one of the good things that has happened." Given that 40 percent of children who don't receive early childhood education are more likely to become a parent as a teenager, 25 percent are more likely to drop out of school, and 70 percent are more likely to be arrested for a violent crime, this is definitely the definition of a "good thing."

4. Erase the roadmap for employment
The United States has one of the stingiest unemployment programs in the developed world and it is getting even stingier. People who have been out of work for 27 weeks or more — 40 percent of the unemployed — have already begun and will continue to lose a large portion of their benefits between January and March. Eight percent of this year's sequestration cuts are coming from unemployment insurance. The logic here is that the program discourages people from looking for work, so why fund something that just makes the unemployed lazier? The evidence, however, proves that government assistance fuels the job searches of these 4.4 million Americans. Yet by the end of December, about 1.3 million will lose their extended jobless benefits if Congress doesn't renew the program. And cuts to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF, or welfare) means there will be even less of safety net to fall back on.

5. Make 'em work till they drop
President Obama put Social Security cuts in his budget for fiscal year 2014, and Republicans are thrilled. Switching to a new formula called Chained CPI would lead to benefit cuts of $230 billion dollars in the next ten years. Apparently, it's Social Security that's driving up the debt, as Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) has said. The irony here, according to The New York Times' Paul Krugman, is that while debt can indirectly make us poor if deficits drive up interest rates and discourage productive investment (they haven't), investment is low because the economy is so weak, partly from cutbacks in public spending and investment — the cuts, such as this one, that supposedly protect Americans from a future of excessive debt. Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Tom Harkin (Iowa) have been fighting an uphill battle to boost Social Security benefits. But carry on, Congress. What you're doing really makes sense here.

In just a few short decades, we've gone from LBJ's Great Society, where many of these ideas originated, to this Congress' attacks on the poor. According to the Census Bureau, safety net programs keep tens of millions of Americans out of poverty each year. But that's just not the federal government's priority anymore. This Congress' message: It's every man for himself.

http://news.yahoo.com/stick-poor-congressional-strategy-080500785.html