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Debrah

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2-Dec-10 09:58

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There is no bigger crook in the Senate than Mitch McConnell, IMPHO. He is an absolute, bona-fide crook eyeballing tax cuts for his overly rich buddies. AND he's willing to put the entire nation on hold to do it. Him and the rest of his republican cronies who seem to do nothing for the middle class, but only cater to the very rich -- not the semi-rich, but the VERY rich. The semi-rich don't even count in this equation. Not only that but now they're playing games with Obama in order to make it look like he's responsible for taking down the "classes". Unless you're one of the VERY rich, we're all serfs, let's face it.

But I'm highly disappointed in the democrats for supporting this food safety bill thing, too, because they know better. They know it would be like handing the FDA a sword with two sharpened edges -- but they did it anyway. I guess the will of the American people doesn't mean squat on this issue because if those dudes really did get MILLIONS of emails, calls, letters yada yada, they ignored everything they were hearing and reading. From what I could gather in my communications with Sen. Johnson, these guys actually think they're helping the american people by giving more authority to the FDA -- because they do not pay enough attention to what the FDA is actually doing with their "given powers". That was a fact that was clear to me from the get-go in my conversations with him. It's too bad this type of thing has to come to a "vote" because the House and Senate are not nutritionists and they know nothing about the subject, so they have no clue what it is they're voting for or on or against.

We're screwed.

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Senate Republicans Threaten Tax Dispute Blockade
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Published: December 1, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/us/politics/02cong.html?_r=1&hp

WASHINGTON — Not even 24 hours after President Obama met with senior Republican Congressional leaders and expressed hopes for a “new dialogue,” renewed partisan fury engulfed the Senate on Wednesday, as Republicans threatened to block any legislation until a deal is reached to extend the expiring Bush-era tax cuts, potentially derailing the Democrats’ busy end-of-year agenda.

Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, accused Democrats of ignoring the results of the midterm elections.

The blunt threat was made in a letter to the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, and signed by all 42 Senate Republicans. And it was reiterated by the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, in a speech in which he accused Democratic leaders and Mr. Obama of ignoring the midterm election results.

The move put Democrats in a vise and sharply heightened tensions on Capitol Hill, where administration officials and senior lawmakers from both the House and Senate opened the first round of talks in hopes of reaching an accord on the expiring tax cuts. Officials reported no progress in those talks, and the Senate Republicans’ threat suggested they had little appetite for compromise.

If Congress does not act by the end of the year, the lower rates expire for everyone, an outcome neither side wants.

The Republican maneuver came just as Senate Democrats seemed within reach of the votes needed to authorize repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gay service members. The Republican blockade stalls debate on the military policy bill containing the repeal language, and it casts a long shadow over numerous bills awaiting action in Congress, including efforts to extend jobless benefits for millions of Americans about to lose them.

It also complicates the chances of ratification of the New Start arms treaty with Russia that is a major priority for the White House, and it could prevent Mr. Reid from fulfilling a major promise of his re-election campaign, to try again to pass a bill that would create a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children.

“For the past two years, Democrat leaders in Washington have spent virtually all their time ticking off items on the liberal wish list while they’ve had the chance,” Mr. McConnell said. “Here we are, just a few weeks left in the session, and they’re still at it. Last month, the American people issued their verdict on the Democrats’ priorities. Democrats have responded by doubling down.”

Mr. McConnell’s announcement of an all-out blockade came just a day after he applauded Senator Christopher R. Dodd, the retiring Connecticut Democrat, for a farewell address in which Mr. Dodd called for greater civility and cooperation among lawmakers. His announcement drew howls of anger from Democrats who said it was just the latest evidence of Republican obstructionism.

To emphasize their point, Democrats went to the floor and attempted to bring up numerous bills, including a measure to extend jobless benefits and a measure to promote clean energy. On behalf of his colleagues, Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, repeatedly voiced objections, blocking the bills and prompting a furious speech by Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri.

“If anybody’s been paying attention, they would understand that our friends across the aisle have been blocking everything, including motherhood and apple pie for the last year,” Ms. McCaskill said. She derided Mr. Barrasso for accusing the Democrats of engaging in theater. “Theater is having 42 senators say we will not participate unless you do what we want to do today,” she said. “That’s theater.”


Ms. McCaskill added, “What you are seeing on this side right now is a healthy dose of indignation on behalf of the American people that are hurting.”

Senate Republicans said they would even block a major food safety bill that the Senate adopted just on Tuesday but must be voted on again because of a parliamentary glitch. The food safety measure, which strengthens the Food and Drug Administration in an effort to prevent unsafe foods from reaching grocery stores and restaurant, was approved by a vote of 73 to 25, with 15 Republicans joining Democrats in support.

Under normal circumstances, the Senate might simply reapprove the bill by unanimous agreement, bypassing the need even for a formal roll call vote. But Republicans said they would block any effort to take up the bill again before the tax issue was resolved. And even then, they said, they will force Mr. Reid to spend the better part of a week cycling through procedural votes just to get the measure back on the floor.

If Republicans had any worry about being seen as uncooperative, they did not show it. Mr. Barrasso coolly objected to the Democrats’ efforts to bring up other bills, often saying he knew little about what the Democrats were trying to do.

“What I do know,” Mr. Barrasso said, “is 42 senators from this side of the aisle have signed a letter, a letter to say that what we ought to do and what we need to do is to find a way to fund the government and prevent a tax hike on every American come Jan. 1.”

Mr. Obama tried to put a positive spin on the day’s developments, saying he did not think Mr. McConnell’s threat broke the spirit of bipartisanship that the president expressed after his meeting with Republican Congressional leaders on Tuesday.

“Nobody wants to see taxes on middle-class families go up starting Jan. 1, and so there’s going to be some lingering politics that have to work themselves out in all the caucuses, Democrat and Republican,” Mr. Obama said. “But at the end of the day, I think that people of good will can come together.”

Mr. Obama and senior Democratic Congressional leaders want to let the tax cuts expire on annual income above $250,000 for couples and $200,000 for individuals, while continuing the lower rates on income below those amounts. The Democrats’ plan would add roughly $3 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years. The Republicans want to extend all of the lower rates, which would add about $4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.

Democrats had hoped to put political pressure on Republicans by portraying them as fighting to maintain tax breaks even for millionaires and billionaires. But the Republicans pushed Democrats against a wall, making it clear that if they did not quickly agree to extend all of the lower rates, they risked accomplishing nothing else before the end of the year, when they lose their majority in the House.

A version of this article appeared in print on December 2, 2010, on page A24 of the New York edition.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/us/politics/02cong.html?_r=1&hp[/code]

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Debrah

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2-Dec-10 10:54

Check this out. First of all their information is wrong, and secondly it's wrong wrong wrong. It's Thursday and they still haven't figured out that their information is erroneous. I had to go practically to the bottom of the page at the NYTimes.com to find this, and it was the ONLY article even mentioning the food safety issue. I find that quite strange. This is a major part of the American landscape and yet it's practically hidden from view.
=======================

Senate Passes Sweeping Law on Food Safety
By GARDINER HARRIS and WILLIAM NEUMAN
Published: November 30, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/health/policy/01food.html?ref=health

WASHINGTON — The Senate passed a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s food safety system on Tuesday, after tainted eggs, peanut butter and spinach sickened thousands of people in the last few years and led major food makers to join consumer advocates in demanding stronger government oversight.

The legislation, which passed by a vote of 73 to 25, would greatly strengthen the Food and Drug Administration, an agency that in recent decades focused more on policing medical products than ensuring the safety of food. The bill is intended to keep unsafe foods from reaching markets and restaurants, where they can make people sick — a change from the current practice, which mainly involves cracking down after outbreaks occur.

Despite unusual bipartisan support on Capitol Hill and a strong push from the Obama administration, the bill could still die because there might not be enough time for the usual haggling between the Senate and the House, which passed its own version last year. Top House Democrats said Tuesday that they were considering simply passing the Senate version to speed approval but that no decision had been made.

“With the Senate’s passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act, we are one step closer to having critically important new tools to protect our nation’s food supply and keep consumers safe,” said President Obama, who made improving the safety of the nation’s food supply an early priority of his administration. He urged the House to act quickly.

Both versions of the bill would grant the F.D.A. new powers to recall tainted foods, increase inspections, demand accountability from food companies and oversee farming. But neither would consolidate overlapping functions at the Department of Agriculture and nearly a dozen other federal agencies that oversee various aspects of food safety, leaving coordination among the agencies a continuing challenge.

While food safety advocates and many industry groups prefer the House version because it includes more money for inspections and fewer exceptions from the rules it sets out, most said the Senate bill was far better than nothing.

“This is a historic moment,” said Erik Olson, deputy director of the Pew Health Group, an advocacy organization. “For the first time in over 70 years, the Senate has approved an overhaul of F.D.A.’s food safety law that will help ensure that the food we put on our kitchen tables will be safer.” [MINE: Is he completely out of his mind? YES!]

Among the Senate bill’s last major sticking points was how it would affect small farmers and food producers. Some advocates for small farms and organic food producers said the legislation would destroy their industry under a mountain of paperwork. Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana, pushed for a recent addition to the bill that exempts producers with less than $500,000 in annual sales who sell most of their food locally.

That provision led the United Fresh Produce Association, a trade group, to announce recently that it would oppose the legislation since small food operations have been the source of some food recalls in recent years.

But Randy Napier of Medina, Ohio, said the Senate bill was much needed. Mr. Napier’s 80-year-old mother, Nellie Napier, died in January 2009 after the nursing home where she lived continued to give her contaminated peanut butter even after she got sick. “I am appalled at what I have found out since my mother’s death about how poorly food is regulated and how these companies cut corners to save money,” Mr. Napier said. [MINE: I'm sorry buddy, but the appalling stuff won't be stopped with this bill or any bill which includes the FDA.]

The legislation greatly increases the number of inspections of food processing plants that the F.D.A. must conduct, with an emphasis on foods that are considered most high risk — although figuring out which those are is an uncertain science. Until recently, peanut butter would not have made the list.

Staunch opposition to the bill by Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, forced months of delay and eventually required the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, to call a series of time-consuming procedural votes to end debate. Mr. Coburn offered his own version of the legislation. It eliminated many of the bill’s requirements because he said that more government rules would be deleterious and that the free market was working. That version was rejected.

Despite Mr. Coburn’s opposition, the bill is one of the few major pieces of bipartisan legislation to emerge from this Congress. Some Republican and Democratic Senate staff members — who in previous terms would have seen one another routinely — met for the first time during the food bill negotiations. The group bonded over snacks: Starburst candies from a staff member of Senator Michael B. Enzi, Republican of Wyoming, and jelly beans from a staff member of Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois.

“This legislation means that parents who tell their kids to eat their spinach can be assured that it won’t make them sick,” said Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, who, as chairman of the Senate health committee, shepherded the legislation through months of negotiations."

======================================


Starburst candies and Jelly Belly's are their idea of a "snack"????? Oh yeah, we're all in deep dog doo here. At least those of us interested in actual food and nutrition.

And, Senator Harkin is an idiot of gargantuan proportions if he thinks that merely passing this bill (or anything like it in future) will protect kids from eating contaminated foods.

Nothing will protect any of us from contaminated foods until and unless the "bigagricorporatefoodjunkiesonsteriodsbecausethefoodislousyandcrappy" keep their mugs out of the photo.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/health/policy/01food.html?ref=health

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Shoot for the Moon. Even if you miss, you'll land amongst the stars. - Anonymous

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#2 [url]

2-Dec-10 02:20

The Republicans have made it clear that their only goal is in ensuring that Obama will serve only one term. By this, I think they meant that it is their ONLY goal for the next 2 years. This will be at the expense of us.

They cannot afford to lose support of their major lobbies, such as agriculture, pharmaceuticals, health insurance. They have been concerned about the defense budget as the largest expense in the country. However, when the Secretary of Defense (a republican) said what he was cutting, many were very very upset as it would cut business in their States. Next will be the entitlements - social security, medicaid. Democrats are to blame here as well. No one really wants to make the real hard choices. You and I are the only ones to lose anyway. They will continue their salary and health plans long after they are gone.

- Jim

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#3 [url]

2-Dec-10 03:48

Members of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus may tout their commitment to cutting government spending now, but they used the 111th Congress to request hundreds of earmarks that, taken cumulatively, added more than $1 billion to the federal budget.

According to a Hotline review of records compiled by Citizens Against Government Waste, the 52 members of the caucus, which pledges to cut spending and reduce the size of government, requested a total of 764 earmarks valued at $1,049,783,150 during Fiscal Year 2010, the last year for which records are available.

"It's disturbing to see the Tea Party Caucus requested that much in earmarks. This is their time to put up or shut up, to be blunt," said David Williams, vice president for policy at Citizens Against Government Waste. "There's going to be a huge backlash if they continue to request earmarks."

In founding the caucus in July, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said she was giving voice to Americans who were sick of government overspending.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_exclusive/anti-earmark-tea-party-caucus-takes-1-billion-in-earmarks

- Jim

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Debrah

Posts: 10,305 Site Admin

#4 [url]

2-Dec-10 04:40

Ms. Bachmann is an embarrassment. Not only to MN but to the United States. A lot of the people who were elected this time around are total embarrassments and shouldn't be allowed to run a school bake sale much less have a say in running this country. But so eager were the repugs to make changes in order to gain congressional control they would have elected Roger Rabbit if necessary. I'm not so sure they didn't.

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Shoot for the Moon. Even if you miss, you'll land amongst the stars. - Anonymous

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