"...they give us incentive to appreciate living in Oregon..."
Carla Axtman
Regular BlueO commenter Bill Bodden responding to the thread on Kari's post about Senator Jim Bunning (R-Kentucky), who is holding up a bill extending unemployment insurance benefits:
One thing about Bunning and his partner, McConnell, they give us incentive to appreciate living in Oregon and not Kentucky.
There are indeed many reasons to appreciate living in Oregon. But Bill is spot-on. Knowing that this right-wing, fringe garbage won't fly in Oregon is one big reason to love it here.
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Mar 2, '10
That's statements true for you west-siders, but for those of us east of the mountains wingnuttery flies high and often. Just read the Bulletin's Editorial page - Ugh!
Mar 2, '10
So Oregon isn't open to conservatives?
Mar 2, '10
No Jason -- Oregon just doesn't like right wing "fringe garbage." Reasonable conservatives contribute to political discussion -- extremism doesn't go over well.
Mar 2, '10
I make no excuses for Bunning, he is a whacked one for sure.
However, is there any truth to the matter that another republican had inserted language into the bill addressing the Inheritance (Estate) Tax and setting the limit at around $7 million?
If so, that person should be chagrined and perhaps Bunning WAS looking out for the best interests of all. Perhaps Chuck Sheketoff can weigh in.
Mar 2, '10
Never mind the above, I was given some bad information. Bunning is a jerk.
Mar 2, '10
Jim Bunning was an amazing pitcher. I will never forget the perfect game he pitched for the Phillies on Father's Day in 1964. Too bad he went into politics. What a moron.
Mar 2, '10
Carla, Why don't you go back to San Jose or wherever in the hell you came from. Natives don't much cotton to your socialist agenda.
7:44 p.m.
Mar 2, '10
LOL @anon
I was raised in John Day, Oregon. Oregon is where I'm from.
Maybe the problem is that Oregonians don't "cotton" (who in Oregon says that..?) to your right-wing fringe agenda.
Mar 2, '10
hey "anon"
Natives aren't afraid to reveal their identity. Only paid astroturfers are.
Mar 2, '10
Hey, "anon" … speaks for yourself, yes? This native Oregonian – who's had relatives in as far-flung places as Roseburg and Terrebonne (y'know where Terrebonne is, aintcha?) would like to disrespectfully ask you to go fly a kite. Preferably in another state.
WRT the perception of Kentucky, I always thought Mark Twain had it best when he opined "When the end of the world comes I want to be in Kentucky; it's always 20 years behind".
Mar 2, '10
Bunning seeks to have Congress adhere to the “PayGo” rule that BHO himself has championed. He’s presented ways to finance the unemployment extension which have been rejected because of political posturing.
It is indeed a sorry reflection on our current political climate that attempts at fiscal responsibility are used as a cudgel to gain cheap political points.
Mar 2, '10
I don't know... seems to me we might have avoided at least some of the recent $733M deficit and associated M66/67 hullabaloo if we had a few more people in state government asking how we're going to pay for some things as the growth of Oregon's budget continues to outpace the growth of the citizens' collective wallet. But the party goes on!
Mar 2, '10
Jackassery deleted--Editor
Mar 2, '10
Jackassery deleted--Editor
Mar 2, '10
Jim Bunning didn't care at all about any pay-as-you-go when they were voting for amazing levels of funding for tax breaks for the rich or wars we didn't need to be in.
Now, that the unemployed (who are unemployed thanks to stunningly bad Republican policies that let the economy go straight to hell) are needing comparative crumbs, he's all concerned.
Yeah, maybe he backed the Presidents push for Paygo – now it's convenient to do so.
And as far as scoring cheap political points – well, hey, kindly sit down and shut up. If that's what one sees it as, since one didn't object when Republicans do it (which actually is what Bunning is doing now – or more precisely, being a catspaw in the overall Republican plan for ruining America for anyone who isn't a multimillionaire) one's objections toward same from Democrats now are either foolish or the height of disingenuity – you choose.
Mar 2, '10
Larry – you keep it classy now.
Mar 2, '10
Buckman, didn't Bunning vote AGAINST Paygo a month ago? If he was so concerned with adhering to the principle, why didn't he vote for the legislation?
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/78533-senate-passes-paygo-rule-in-party-lines-vote
12:13 a.m.
Mar 3, '10
A couple of thoughts...
Mar 3, '10
Say I was thinking now that it would be a good idea after all to get Texas out of the union and if they don't seceed we should reduce them to a territory kind of like Guam because the political situation is so unstable and the drifting away from the ideas of the American Revolution moving towards a Theocracy.
Carla, there you go again - My family came out here when this place wasn't even a state and personally we aplaud your agenda.
Mar 3, '10
"Knowing that this right-wing, fringe garbage won't fly in Oregon "
HAHA! Yeah, only left-wing fringe garbage is allowed in Oregon.
Oregon: Right-Wing extremists can't even rent a space in John Day. Left-Wing extremists run local and state government.
Mar 3, '10
"He’s presented ways to finance the unemployment extension which have been rejected because of political posturing."
Sorry for asking, but did Bunning's recommendations include dollar for dollar reductions in the Pentagon or Department of Defense budgets?
Mar 3, '10
"Sorry for asking, but did Bunning's recommendations include dollar for dollar reductions in the Pentagon or Department of Defense budgets?"
No, Since Obama decided to escalate the war on terror they need the dollars. BTW, when will Obama bring our troops home? Seems like there's a broken campaign promise there. Also, I see he renewed the Patriot Act - WTF? And how about closing Gitmo? I think we need those Pentagon dollars for now....
Mar 3, '10
Fiscal responsibility doesn't play on the west coast.
8:46 a.m.
Mar 3, '10
Conservative definition of "fiscal responsibility": Cut taxes on corporations and the top 15% in the country--dump cash into the Pentagon and start two wars to back it up. Drive the country to the biggest economic crisis since the great depression--and sit back to block essentially every effort to fix the mess they created.
yeah..doesn't pay well on the west coast.
Mar 3, '10
... and then deny the unemployed their benefits that pay to keep the lights on and food on the table.
Mar 3, '10
"...the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) just released by the Obama Pentagon is a bad joke. That bad joke is about to be given the good housekeeping seal of approval by a special panel appointed jointly by the Secretary of Defense and the defense barons of the Armed Services committees in Congress. When this happens, rest assured, any desire to get control of the out-of-control defense budget will plunge far below its already low level. Chalk up another victory in the Military - Industrial - Congressional Complex’s (MICC’s) war on the Constitution, the American taxpayer, and programs like Social Security and Medicare, which are hallmarks of civilized society." Full article at Eisenhower's Nightmare Arrives
Mar 3, '10
The hypocrisy is not limited to Bunning. Include most of Congress
Mar 3, '10
The so-called "pay-go" legislation was recently signed by Mr. Obama. If no one in the majority in Congress wants to observe that development, perhaps they shouldn't be shocked to get called on it.
Both parties pay lip service to fiscal responsibility. Republicans are angered when called hypocrites on the issue and Democrats are highly offended when it is pointed out that they are merely bald faced liars on the issue.
12:12 p.m.
Mar 3, '10
And yet somehow, under Pay-Go, Bill Clinton balance the budget. The first and only president to do so in my lifetime. Boatsy, you sound like Joe Wilson over there.
12:16 p.m.
Mar 3, '10
Boats: Democrats are highly offended when it is pointed out that they are merely bald faced liars on the issue
The neutral facts are clear: President Clinton left a balanced budget, which was immediately torpedoed by a massive tax giveaway to plutocrats by George Bush (which he accomplished over Democratic objections using budget reconciliation), massive porkbarrel defense spending, and an "off budget" war of choice. That, combined with filling every Federal financial-policing agency with right wing hacks who were all in favor of banks gambling with other people's money, we are now in the worst financial crash since the Great Depression.
All that happened before Democrats, especially liberal Democrats, had any semblance of power.
Now, Democrats are trying to bring some small semblance of financial responsibility back to government. But they also recognize that, according to just every economist who has any semblance of credibility - meaning those who accurately predicted that this was the situation we were going to be in years ago - our economy needs demand right now, and the government is the only entity that can actually supply it.
In short, Boats, Democrats are not "liars" on the issue. The fact that whackjobs like you live in your own little psychotic reality, does not make people who live in the real world "liars" when they point out your problems with basic facts, and your preference for lying to yourself to preserve your own precious, fragile, ideology. Like the idiots who predicted a 36,000 Dow would be the result of GOP policies being put in place, you have absolutely no credibility outside of your own little ego-driven mind.
Mar 3, '10
Yet while gay and lesbian couples are legally married today in Washington, DC, and later this week in Mexico City, couples in oh so progressive Oregon remain selectively denied this basic civil right...
...because the oh so progressive parishioners at St. Andrews, and Holy Family, dropped money in the collection plates of their Catholic churches, money used by the Archdiocese of Portland to run the political campaign demonizing gays and lesbians...
...and resulting in an amendment to the state constitution, literally erasing marriage rights for many of their fellow family members, neighbors, co-workers and friends...
There are many wonderful aspects to life in Oregon - but our religious people are just as homophobic, clueless and close-minded as those in Kentucky...
Mar 3, '10
Bunning and others like him tout, with good reason, that we are building up a enormous debt for future generations, but a greater concern should be what kind of political system they will be stuck with. Given the growth of the military-industrial-Congressional-mercenary-media complex the financial debt may be the much lesser of two evils. We should have been alarmed when Generals Petraeus and McChrystal sandbagged President Obama with their leaks to the media to force an increase in troops in Afghanistan.
When General Douglas MacArthur tried to push Harry Truman around he failed because he tangled with a president with the guts to let MacArthur know who was boss. Obama, apparently, lacked the cojones that Give-'em-hell Harry had. So Bunning,et al, endorsed 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan at a million bucks per head per year without checking where the money was coming from or how much that would add to the national debt.
Mar 3, '10
He made a stand, yes he knew he would get slaughtered and did, but even Ray Charles could see the political climate is changing and it's time we put right and wrong ahead of politics. The bad part is that Senator Bunning was right. How he did it was wrong, and now all endless political attacks show that party and politics come before the people.
Abraham Lincoln “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our FREEDOMS, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
Mar 4, '10
Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He has some thoughts on the American economy that Bunning, the rest of Congress and we would do well to head.
7:37 p.m.
Mar 4, '10
Well my family has only been here since 1977, but I don't go much for self congratulatory "Oregon is special" stuff. We have our strong points and we have our weak points. Bunning, he's just a kook.
But in Carla's spirit...
Sure, we don't have Jim Bunning. But we also don't have flouride in our water and have as a result one of the worst children's (and adult) dental health in the country!
We don't have Jim Bunning, but we have the kicker law, universally reviled as terrible fiscal policy!
We don't have Jim Bunning, but we do have the worst unemployment in the nation!
We don't have Jim Bunning, but we have Bill Sizemore!
8:56 p.m.
Mar 4, '10
We don't have Jim Bunning, but we do have the worst unemployment in the nation!
Well..we don't. Michigan, Nevada, Rhode Island, South Carolina, California, DC, Florida, North Carolina and Illinois are worse.
Mar 5, '10
Democrat, Republican - there's little difference now. Oh sure, they argue over the merits or otherwise of flag burning, gay marriage and steroids in sports. But at the core, both parties are full of war-mongering, budget-busting, power-hungry demagogues.
I believe it's too late now for the dollar, our standard of living and the United States as a great nation. Both major parties are to blame. And hence, we are to blame. Too many people are dependent now on government and hate the idea of true liberty (and the responsibilities that come with it).
We chatter on our boards, watch our TV , drink our beer and expect our politicians to prohibit and provide (all for good causes, naturally) - panem et circenses. Meanwhile, just as every great nation and every currency before ours fell, I believe we are now too far down the same slope.
If you expect your preferred politician to help, equalize or support your cause, you're going to be at the very least disappointed. Far better to figure out now how to cut them loose and fend for yourself. Depending upon the severity of our decline, you might not later have a choice.
While we can argue reasonably over the rate and severity of the decline, surely no-one can argue that it is not happening.
I and mine are learning as best and as fast as we can.
Mar 5, '10
"Far better to figure out now how to cut them loose and fend for yourself."
Howard: I agree with much of what you said, but this is a terrible idea. This nation is in its terrible predicament now because fending for oneself by so many in the past has been a major factor at the core of our problems. With the exception of the gold-brickers and war profiteers most of the nation came together to fight and win in World War II. We need to return to that sense of citizenship.
Mar 5, '10
Jackassery deleted--Editor
A better word, please. "Jackassery" is what's going on in the White House.
<h2>So, true, Oregon Bill. Just from your POV, though, could I hear why you won't debate ending their tax exempt status? How can you have any meaningful debate on things like the measures, without mentioning that we're subsidizing those reprehensible institutions you mention.</h2>