It seems that someone woke Joe Biden up from the Zombie he is. Because throughout his 2020 presidential campaign regarding the construction of the border wall. HE WAS 100 percent against it, in fact he has already allowed over 2 Million Illegals to enter .But on Thursday, the Biden administration approved the continuing of the construction of the U.S.-Mexico a plan to complete a section of the border wall near Yuma, Arizona.
The plan includes filling four major gaps in the wall that continue to allow the Yuma area to be one of the busiest corridors for illegal immigration crossings. a plan to complete a section of the border wall near Yuma, Arizona. I guess that he really wants to run for re-election!
On one hand, seeing Mitch McConnell’s sour face from a taste of his own medicine is a delightful site.
On the other hand, seeing the Republican senate, simply out of spite, retaliate by flipping off American soldiers and allowing them to die from burn pit exposure is hard to watch.
This is the rot of country selling themselves as pro-life.
Why did the White House remove the ugly shameless liar spokeswoman and replace her with a cute little cuddle toy who couldn't think her way out of a bare room with four open doors?
Yesterday the Senate killed a bill to provide benefits to veterans sick from tending burn piles in Iraq and Afghanistan. It died on the vine because Republican Senators were upset that Schumer and Manchin had made a deal and those GOP leaders did not want the world seeing the Dems getting two "wins" in a row.
And we know this because the GOP had previously voted yes on the bill and some even admitted to their political reasons for opposing the bill.
Then yesterday, as John Stewart made the TV news rounds to explain what happened and why it was defeated, curiously, FOX News refused to have him on.
The Democrats poison pilled it by inserting some language that shifted discretionary spending to mandatory spending that can never be undone without an act of God.
Brilliant political move on the Democrats part. Wake up open both eyes and understand the entire story
SF, those spending issues were settled in June with a 84-14 vote. It explains the 14 who are still bringing it up but not the sudden flip of 25 others.
From several sources including The Military Times, it was sent back to the senate after "technical corrections" having nothing to do with the substance of the bill.
It certainly appears to be either out of blatant spite or that dying American soldiers are mere pawns in their efforts to see the Biden administration fail. I mean, that would give Biden 3 big legislation accomplishments in a role.
It's not that somebody is right and somebody is wrong. I'm providing you more information to show this isn't a simple black and white. I'm not even defending Republicans.
Democrats poison-pilled this on purpose. Either the GOP votes for it and they lock in another $300 billion in mandatory spending that cannot be undone, or the GOP does the stupid thing and performs the rare act of standing on principle (and as CI asks, why did they pick this hill?)
This was crafty political strategery by the Dems, and I congratulate them.
Also, the bill is not dead. This was a cloture vote. Something will get worked out.
I caution people on all sides to not rip the latest press release off the teletype and run out in the streets screaming about it. In politics, everything is murky, and in political reporting, its 95% BS.
Also, I am 100% for this bill and it pisses me off that politicians of all parties cannot simply put forth a simple bill on something. All sides always do crap like this.
I worked around those burn pits--and have the pics to prove it, although we were not taking snaps of the pit, but of us working on top of an air traffic control tower, and the eternal smoking pit is in the background--and I thank God all I got out of it was year-round allergy-like sinus symptoms.
If our nation insists on perpetually sending people to war, it needs to take care of those people when they come home, and their families when they don't come home.
SF, I haven't had time and probably won't read the entire bill and little time to research but my understanding is that the House Ways and Means Committee found what they called a "blue slip" issue, that a tax provision couldn't originate in the Senate. After fixing that and approving it 342-88, it had to be sent back to the senate for their vote.
So from everything I'm seeing, it was the same bill with a minute "I dotting T crossing" repair rather than language altering.
From your first link, "In the subsequent weeks, Toomey worked behind the scenes to make his Republican colleagues aware of the issue and pushed to get the prior spending moved back to the discretionary category."
I find it a bit had to swallow that 25 Senators including McConnell, Inhofe, Portman, Sasse, Cruz et al along with their aides, didn't catch this earlier, that they had to be made aware of during the weeks of the gap.
As previously state, I'm not trying to play 'I'm right and your wrong,' but it looks like Repubes thought they had some handshake deal that fell through to vote on amendments.
I also do not defend politicians, because at some point, that will force your to defend the indefensible. Its plausible many of them didn't read the fine print. I just don't know...
From the Newsweek article:
"There was an agreement between Senator Tester and [Senator Jerry] Moran for two amendment votes when this bill passed," Cornyn said. "Senator Schumer would not allow those votes to occur. And what we're hoping for is there will be a negotiation to eliminate some of the mandatory spending in the bill and then the bill can pass. But this is a cloture vote to provoke a conversation. But I expect it ultimately to pass in some form or another."
Hmmmm. The text of both the House Bill (HR 3967) passed on 16 June and the Senate bill (S.3373) that was largely opposed by the GOP, both have the same text regarding spending:
“(d) Budget scorekeeping.— (1) Immediately upon enactment of the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act of 2022, expenses authorized to be appropriated to the Fund in subsection (c) shall be estimated for fiscal year 2023 and each subsequent fiscal year and treated as budget authority that is considered to be direct spending—
“(2) No amount appropriated to the Fund in fiscal year 2023 or any subsequent fiscal year pursuant to this section shall be counted as discretionary budget authority and outlays or as direct spending for any estimate of an appropriation Act under the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (2 U.S.C. 621 et seq.) and any other Act.
So....where was this "budgetary trick" inserted by those rascally Democrats?
Its up to Senator Toomey to answer that. He alleges this trick opens the door to an unrelated $400 billion of spending completely separate from the $280 billion directed to the burn pit efforts.
Here is a 2.5 min twitter snippet of the Senator explaining himself:
I wish he, and the reporters, would break this down better. The government publishes all this for anyone to read, but good luck. What you read may not mean what you think it means.
I am always suspicious of any politics-related outrage. How often do you see me screaming about something Democrats are doing? The closest would be my criticism of the Jan 6th committee, and my chief complaint was that it was one-sided and highly/selectively edited and the complete record is not public.
This smells like phony outrage theater. Dems planned this to a T, to include inviting vets to the vote as props to hold up as sympathy and outrage totems. Veterans are up there with 'the children,' 'the elderly,' the (fill in the blank). Its shameless emotional exploitation.
I am not defending Republicans. Its on them to explain their allegation, and right now, I'm hearing it from them, but I'm not seeing it clearly in writing.
@SF - I largely concur, excepting the political theater being only in the Democrats corner. The GOP Senators who voted against the Bill, are making the allegations. It's on them to prove their case. That I've seen, not a single one has done the barest of minimums....and simply pointed to any changed language between the two Bills....or explained why VA Disability Compensation should now be discretionary, instead of mandatory.
And Amen......the 'patriot porn' has used our Armed Forces as political props for at least all of my lifetime.
What leads you to believe that the Democrats 'invited' Vets to use as props? It's hardly uncommon for interested parties to be on-hand, either inside or outside the Capitol during arguments and votes for a Bill. VSO's are no exception.
Its a gut feeling. I smell a rat. And trust me, I smell rats all the time when the GOP does their partisan maneuvering, which is why I spend zero time blogging about it and why I don't watch fox news or any other political shows. It's all partisan porn, and none of it gets to the root of anything.
CI, I don't know about you, but I went into the service in the 80's, when most everyone was indifferent to the military, and many places around military bases were hostile. Those were the good old days, having to fight your way out of a bar when some drunk yahoos realized you were a GI...
I came in during the 80's well.....but spent the first few bar-hopping years in Europe. Our biggest issue (beyond the random Turk) was our fellow, drunk "comrades".
Moving on from veterans benefits, is anyone here troubled by the new revelations that Trump Admin officials in Homeland Security have also now been found to have erased text messages surrounding Jan 5 and 6?
That makes three different areas of the Trump Admin that at the very least, seem to have run afoul of the Government Records Act requirements on record retention...
The news was first reported by The Washington Post, which described the text messages as being lost in a reset of the officials’ government phones when they left office after President Biden’s inauguration.
The correspondence from DHS’s management division alerted Cuffari that the messages could not be extracted and were no longer accessible.
from WaPo On Thursday, The Washington Post revealed that phone records from Trump’s acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and acting deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli in the days leading up to the Capitol riots also apparently vanished due to what internal emails suggested was a “reset” of their phones after they left their jobs in January 2021. Wolf has said he gave his phone to DHS officials with all data intact, and the reset appears to have been separate from the Secret Service’s migration.
Some experts said they could see how such errors were possible. Both the DHS and Secret Service are known for a culture of secrecy, a disdain for oversight and a preference for operational security above all else. Among the potential technical complications, these experts said, was the fact that DHS and Secret Service personnel can use iPhones and Apple’s iMessage for communications, which encrypts texts and stores them on the phone.
But several experts said they could not understand why the agencies had not worked more aggressively to safeguard phone records after Jan. 6 — not only because they were legally required to, but because the information could have helped them scrutinize how they had performed during an attack on the heart of American democracy.
In a letter to the House select committee investigating the insurrection, Secret Service officials said they began planning in the fall of 2020 to move all devices onto Microsoft Intune, a “mobile device management” service, known as an MDM, that companies and other organizations can use to centrally manage their computers and phones.
The agency said it told its personnel on Jan. 25 to back up their phones’ data onto an internal drive, including offering a “step-by-step” guide, but that employees were ultimately “responsible for appropriately preserving government records that may be created via text messaging.” The Secret Service said agents were told that enrolling their devices in the new system, via a “self-install,” was mandatory, though it was not clear that actually performing the backup was.
The migration, the agency said, began two days later, on Jan. 27 — 11 days after the committee had first instructed DHS officials to preserve their records. Some experts questioned why, even if the process had been preplanned, the agency did not pause the migration or assume a more direct role in preserving agents' data during that 11-day span.
Yes I am troubled by it, as I am of all government malfeasance. Welcome aboard.
Where do you stand on the politicization and corruption in the CIA and FBI? Lois Lerner and the IRS must have really steamed you up good when they targeted the tea party and then pulled a Hellary by 'accidentally' destroying all those hard drives.
If we had a real news media with real reporters who were not in the same cocktail circuit and power circles as the politicians, crap like would be exposed and people fired regardless of party.
....is anyone here troubled by the new revelations that Trump Admin officials in Homeland Security have also now been found to have erased text messages surrounding Jan 5 and 6?
Yep. Weird how a federal law enforcement agency with cybercrimes in it's portfolio......can't seem to retain communications, as mandated by law.....during a routine 'data migration'.
I am 'troubled' by The Department of Homeland Security. It should be abolished, along with the FBI.
If Heimatlandsicherheit were really protecting We The People, they would defending our borders and looking outward for threats instead of setting up Ministries of Disinformation and fomenting paranoia about 'domestic terrorism.'
CI, I also serve the beast. There is no contradiction working in the defense/intel industry while simultaneously decrying abuses and thinking we need to avoid military action where our national interests are not threatened. It is not exactly a brilliant observation to say that the armaments industry love$ war$
Most federal government departments perform vital services, but overall, government has indeed become an 'unaccountable monster.'
@SF, exactly right. And those on the inside decrying those abuses should continue to speak out....so as to at least drown out the political cheerleaders on the sidelines who suck the oxygen out of the media-scape.
How could we possibly elect a president in 2024 unless the FBI has exonorated all the Democratic candidates of any past wrongdoing and labelled any contradictory evidence as "Russian Disinformation" or not achieving the legal threshold of prosecutable?
DHS is a horrible monstrosity. It needs to be blown up, and the useful agencies like Border Patrol, USCIS, Coast Guard, FEMA, Secret Service restored to their previous state.
The TSA Kabuki needs to be flushed. Charge airlines with security, with some government oversight.
DHS has no business having its own intelligence function. We have enough of that already.
The ecconomy is hurting all of us. WE ARE NOW IN A RECESSION. Let them twist that caviat. But they are are the spin masters. And we really thought Bill O'Rielly was the master of the 'spin zone?' NOT!
What Biden destroyed with his ilk in the last year and a half is beyond a sin and beyond insane and why? BECAUSE THEY HATE TRUMP BUT NOW IN NOVEMBER WE WILL BITE BACK WITH OUR VOTES!
L, All the spin -- all the lies -- is so pervasive that it's making me physically ill. And I can't believe how gullible so many Americans are to believe this tripe being dished out by the administration and their allies, the media. I have liberal friends, both here on the blogs and in "real life," and see for myself that they believe what's being dished out. People that I always thought were intelligent.
IN NOVEMBER WE WILL BITE BACK WITH OUR VOTES!
Maybe. I don't have much confidence in the electorate. We'll know in a few months.
And when Republicans win control of Congress what will change? How much of what Democrats have done will be reversed? We all know the answer. The excuse will be, "We couldn't do anything because the president would just veto it."
Oh God please no. Obamacare would already be gone if Comrade Donald "I like single payer" Trump had not demanded that that cancer on society be replaced with some other cancer.
Romantic irony, Hegel scathingly dismisses it as an exercise of empty negativity, of the vain subjectivity which perceives itself as elevated over every objective content, making fun of everything, caught in “the hither and thither course of the humor which uses every topic only to emphasize the subjective wit of the author.” “It is the artist himself who enters the material, with the result that his chief activity, by the power of subjective notions, flashes of thought, striking modes of interpretation, consists in destroying and dissolving everything that proposes to make itself objective and win a firm shape for itself in reality, or that seems to have such a shape already in the external world.
Meanwhile in the real world, conservatives that wanted to repeal Obamacare - boom, gone - were run out of the Senate and House with Trump threatening to assist primary opponents against them, because he wanted to "replace Obamacare," not repeal it, leaving government in control of a full 14-point-something percent of the US economy. Trump got his way: conservatives largely do not exist in government at the federal level, the Republican Party no longer control the legislative or executive branches of government and probably never will again, and Obamacare is very much still alive and well and nobody wants to touch it.
Hillary Clinton chose Trump to run against her for a reason.
Trump even stood up with his fellow America-hating leftists and criticized Republicans for "not having a plan to replace Obamacare" - as if one weeding a garden or flushing a toilet requires a plan deeper than getting rid of weeds or shit. Repealing Obamacare, returning to the status quo ante was the plan. It was a great plan.
And Trump fought to keep Obamacare intact harder than goddamn Obama himself. Be serious.
The times Obamacare was brought before the Supreme Court to be ruled unconstitutional, not one White House attorney under Trump showed up to make the case that it should be. Trump didn't want to get rid of Obamacare anymore than a deer tick wants to let go of flesh you can't reach.
Obamacare made sure my father was denied life-sustaining medications he was prescribed and taking when the doctors were forced by law to prove he would die without them. So they took Dad off of them to document the results, and were very able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he in fact was dead. Trump fought like hell to make that death panel happen. Keep happening. F**k Trump.
The only thing Trump disliked about Obamacare was that nobody calls it "Trumpcare," FJ. As for Romney - Obamacare should be called Romneycare, it was his to begin with. Maybe it should be called HeritageFoundationCare. The only thing we know for certain is that Comrade Trump wanted single payer, likely because that would be even more socialist and inflationary to health care prices the way military contractors can charge thousands of dollars for hammers and toilet seats. Camel on the horizon? The camels are between our butt cheeks now . Gee thanks, Trump.
The costs of the meds to have kept Dad alive for the past 3 years, at 25 cents a day, we're coming up on $300 total. I'd gladly pay that to get my Dad back.
Nope. I'm sending my complaints to the huckster that campaigned on repealing Obamacare then reneged because nobody thought changing the name to Trumpcare was better.
The same left-wing asshole that thought forceably seizing guns from American citizens and requiring them to go to court to get them back would be a good idea.
As frightening as 25 years of propaganda made a Hillary Clinton presidency sound like a bad idea, the shrill shrew never even dared to go as full retard as Trump. Sorry, you backed an anti-American left-wing scumbag.
I'm sure that you'll find that all the Congressmen EXCEPT for the America First Caucus are responsible. You're barking up the wrong scapegoat, beamish.
Besides, Trump Care didn't pass the Senate...the Senate rejected the HCFA in a 51-to-49 vote, with Republican senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and John McCain joining with all Senate Democrats in voting against it. In September 2017.
Are you saying that you now love those three RINOs?
Bzzzt wrong. A far-left progressive Jim Crow Democrat like Trump doesn't get to switch parties and start telling people who know better who the "real Republicans" are. The only RINO in this equation is the far-left America hater Donald Trump. Aside from not repealing Obamacare at all, the Trumpcare proposals that got defeated in the Senate (that Republicans got to keep control of for two more years despite Trump's best efforts to put Chuck Schumer in charge) had no substantive differences with Obamacare.
All Trump wanted to do was put his name on Obamacare. Period.
Republicans are holding a straight flush and are about to lose to a high Jack this November.
They are fumbling abortion badly, when the broad middle is staring them in the face (and would result in less abortions). They let the Democrats put them on the wrong side of contraceptives, gay marriage and mixed-race marriage, and they've just kicked disabled veterans in the balls.
What next for the GOOP? Campaign ads where they strangle puppies and kittens and kick babies down the stairs?
My election 2022 prediction? Warnock holds on, and Fetterman strolls to victory without breaking a sweat.
Repubelicons barely take the House with a uselessly narrow majority, and Democrats hold the Senate.
That pretty much matches my predictions, although I wouldn't count the Democrats out on holding on to the House. Nobody wants the Republican Party in charge of the House if Trump is stupid enough to run in 2024 and put the nation through another one of his "I really won / I should have won by more" tantrums against reality.
Republicans *have* to lose the mid-terms this year. It will finally dislodge Trumpism as a millstone around their necks, and finally get them to write a serious party platform, something they haven't done since 2012.
Further reinforces that Republican does not equal Conservative
Indeed. It doesn't, and hasn't in a good decade or so. Democrats have fielded better Presidential candidates since the daze ofMichael Dukakis, and "liberal / left-winf" is not the magic word candidacy killer it once was. Republicans have failed to realize the map is no longer the territory.
Vox has an article that kinda explains what's going on with the GOP blocking cloture on the burn pit bill. It's still all political blather, but there may be a point in there somehow...
“As written, the legislation would not just help America’s veterans as designed. It could also allow Democrats to effectively spend the same money twice and enable hundreds of billions in new, unrelated spending on the discretionary side of the federal budget,” McConnell said on Thursday. “There is no excuse why the Democratic leader should continue to block Senator Toomey’s commonsense amendment. A bill this important and this bipartisan deserves for us to fix this accounting gimmick, and then it deserves to become law."
So, it looks like Democrats chalked up money in one bookkeeping column for the bill (which they all agree on), but the Democrats left that amount in another column instead of zeroing it out.
That's the best I can make of it. I agree with everyone here that it is up to the GOP to explain what the hell they are doing.
What I'm having a hard time nailing down conclusively is if the gimmick (which Toomey's "commonsense amendment" would resolve) was there when they voted 84-14 OR was it slipped in with the "blue slip" correction.
Seems to be conflicting arguments from both sides while neither they nor right or left wing media wants to prove it.
@Ronald - At least some media sources have posted the two bills side-by-side, through Diffchecker or in their entirety.....The GOP Senators haven't (that I've seen) pointed to a single difference, nor made the case of Discretionary v. mandatory spending.
It's because of course....our elected representatives think we're stupid.
There is a difference between the House and Senate bills, but it looks like this 'trick' was always there. I think the GOOPers (other than Toomey) were asleep at the switch and didn't notice it until after the first vote. In the earlier link, they referenced a handshake agreement to allow amendments on the final vote, so maybe some Repubes voted for it, knowing the 'trick' was there, but expecting to be able to insert an amendment on the final vote.
Seriously my friends (and yes Ronald, that includes you) this is why I have never seriously blogged on congress and legislation. It is all so damned arcane. It pisses me off every time I try to understand what they are up to.
I go back to WF Buckley. We would be better off being ruled by the first 300 people selected out of any phone book in America.
Silver, I know I'm late on the rebound here, but so be it. I'm swamped here in Mexico.
Look, the Lerner stuff was a major blow it. All the way around. And as the resident lefty non profit 501 guy here, yes, even my stuff took forever to get attended to by the IRS during the Obama Admin.
And I wrote and let them know it.
As for the Toomey Admentment, what I've seen is this... a handshake "deal" where the GOP would honestly vote their conscience, but get a chance to offer and amendment later in the process.
Now it looks like Schumer reneged on that amendment deal. But, and this seems important to me, Senator Toomey has admitted that his amendment would not have addressed, or fixed, the red herring fiscal issue.
So what's the problem?
The GOP seems to be saying we should not codify an expense mandate to fund veteran's care.
WHY NOT?
BTW... re legislation... yes, it's worse than arcane. I'll grant you that.
Asleep at the wheel SF? Horse feathers! They don't call Republicans "the party of no" and Mitch the Grim Reaper for nothing. He's the guy to send legislation to die. His party has openly admitted, and proven, that stalling, obstructing, or killing legislation is a winner when Dems are in control. Time and again they've made legislative demands only to say no to getting what they've asked for.
At a time of Biden accomplishments, you think they're going to give him another win because they've had some change of heart or too lazy to scroll for a reason? Or maybe give their staff of aides a nod not to bother?
This bill should have passed in March and the longer these diseased bastards can stretch it out and kill more veterans, the more they can point a finger at Democrats.
Half the Republican Party want Trump to go away, half the Democrats want Biden (who has done nothing but continue to continue Trump policy) to go away.
Sounds like 2024 is a ripe opportunity for both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party to offer an alternative to Trumpism. Shit might even (dare I say it) go back to normal.
Well, I'm not FJ but it would appear to me; the 8th Circle / Evil Counselors. "All men of gift who abused their genius, perverting it to wiles and stratagems."...“As they stole from God in their lives and worked by hidden ways, so are they stolen from sight and hidden in the great flames which are their own guilty consciences...as they sinned by glibness of tongue, so are the flames made into a fiery travesty of tongues”.
We welcome civil dialogue at Always on Watch. Comments that include any of the following are subject to deletion: 1. Any use of profanity or abusive language 2. Off topic comments and spam 3. Use of personal invective
It seems that someone woke Joe Biden up from the Zombie he is. Because throughout his 2020 presidential campaign regarding the construction of the border wall. HE WAS 100 percent against it, in fact he has already allowed over 2 Million Illegals to enter .But on Thursday, the Biden administration approved the continuing of the construction of the U.S.-Mexico a plan to complete a section of the border wall near Yuma, Arizona.
ReplyDeleteThe plan includes filling four major gaps in the wall that continue to allow the Yuma area to be one of the busiest corridors for illegal immigration crossings. a plan to complete a section of the border wall near Yuma, Arizona.
I guess that he really wants to run for re-election!
Maybe all those buses filled with immigrants to DC had something to do with it...
DeleteGov Abbot is brilliant. Ship a tiny sliver of them to DC, and suddenly to open border becomes a crisis.
DeleteMaybe we should bus homeless people to Beverly Hills...
DeleteOn one hand, seeing Mitch McConnell’s sour face from a taste of his own medicine is a delightful site.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, seeing the Republican senate, simply out of spite, retaliate by flipping off American soldiers and allowing them to die from burn pit exposure is hard to watch.
This is the rot of country selling themselves as pro-life.
:P
DeleteThe original bill was full of billions for other things. Monday it will be voted again without the pork.
DeleteWhy did the White House remove the ugly shameless liar spokeswoman and replace her with a cute little cuddle toy who couldn't think her way out of a bare room with four open doors?
DeleteYesterday the Senate killed a bill to provide benefits to veterans sick from tending burn piles in Iraq and Afghanistan. It died on the vine because Republican Senators were upset that Schumer and Manchin had made a deal and those GOP leaders did not want the world seeing the Dems getting two "wins" in a row.
ReplyDeleteAnd we know this because the GOP had previously voted yes on the bill and some even admitted to their political reasons for opposing the bill.
Then yesterday, as John Stewart made the TV news rounds to explain what happened and why it was defeated, curiously, FOX News refused to have him on.
The Democrats poison pilled it by inserting some language that shifted discretionary spending to mandatory spending that can never be undone without an act of God.
DeleteBrilliant political move on the Democrats part. Wake up open both eyes and understand the entire story
@SF - To which Stewart appropriately brought up discretionary OCO funding that makes the PACT bill pale in comparison.
DeleteShameful display on the part of some Congressmen/Women....but at least they get to go home and enjoy their recess.
The political props can just wait. Just like they always do.
SF, those spending issues were settled in June with a 84-14 vote. It explains the 14 who are still bringing it up but not the sudden flip of 25 others.
DeleteFrom several sources including The Military Times, it was sent back to the senate after "technical corrections" having nothing to do with the substance of the bill.
It certainly appears to be either out of blatant spite or that dying American soldiers are mere pawns in their efforts to see the Biden administration fail. I mean, that would give Biden 3 big legislation accomplishments in a role.
Read the link. It's political gamesmanship, and the Democrats just beat the Republicans at it.
DeleteBrilliant political strategery by Democrats.
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2022/jul/28/senate-republicans-block-bill-to-help-veterans-exp/#:~:text=That%20previously%20authorized%20spending%20had%20been%20designated%20as,%24400%20billion%20in%20authorizations%20from%20discretionary%20to%20mandatory.
https://www.newsweek.com/why-veteran-health-care-bill-was-smacked-down-republicans-1729230
Deletehttps://www.toomey.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/toomey-congress-must-protect-veterans-care-bill-from-being-used-as-vehicle-for-massive-unrelated-spending-binge
VA Disability Compensation is already funded with mandatory spending. The argument isn't terribly convincing.
DeleteSilver, if what you say is true and both RJW and Ci are incorrect, so be it. But what I've seen seems to mirror their views.
DeleteHowever, at the end of the day, the GOP has killed the bill and offered nothing in its place.
And no one seems to care that FOX doesn't seem to care enough to even report on it.
Fascinating.
It's not that somebody is right and somebody is wrong. I'm providing you more information to show this isn't a simple black and white. I'm not even defending Republicans.
DeleteDemocrats poison-pilled this on purpose. Either the GOP votes for it and they lock in another $300 billion in mandatory spending that cannot be undone, or the GOP does the stupid thing and performs the rare act of standing on principle (and as CI asks, why did they pick this hill?)
This was crafty political strategery by the Dems, and I congratulate them.
Also, the bill is not dead. This was a cloture vote. Something will get worked out.
I caution people on all sides to not rip the latest press release off the teletype and run out in the streets screaming about it. In politics, everything is murky, and in political reporting, its 95% BS.
Also, I am 100% for this bill and it pisses me off that politicians of all parties cannot simply put forth a simple bill on something. All sides always do crap like this.
DeleteI worked around those burn pits--and have the pics to prove it, although we were not taking snaps of the pit, but of us working on top of an air traffic control tower, and the eternal smoking pit is in the background--and I thank God all I got out of it was year-round allergy-like sinus symptoms.
If our nation insists on perpetually sending people to war, it needs to take care of those people when they come home, and their families when they don't come home.
SF, I haven't had time and probably won't read the entire bill and little time to research but my understanding is that the House Ways and Means Committee found what they called a "blue slip" issue, that a tax provision couldn't originate in the Senate. After fixing that and approving it 342-88, it had to be sent back to the senate for their vote.
DeleteSo from everything I'm seeing, it was the same bill with a minute "I dotting T crossing" repair rather than language altering.
From your first link, "In the subsequent weeks, Toomey worked behind the scenes to make his Republican colleagues aware of the issue and pushed to get the prior spending moved back to the discretionary category."
I find it a bit had to swallow that 25 Senators including McConnell, Inhofe, Portman, Sasse, Cruz et al along with their aides, didn't catch this earlier, that they had to be made aware of during the weeks of the gap.
.
As previously state, I'm not trying to play 'I'm right and your wrong,' but it looks like Repubes thought they had some handshake deal that fell through to vote on amendments.
DeleteI also do not defend politicians, because at some point, that will force your to defend the indefensible. Its plausible many of them didn't read the fine print. I just don't know...
From the Newsweek article:
"There was an agreement between Senator Tester and [Senator Jerry] Moran for two amendment votes when this bill passed," Cornyn said. "Senator Schumer would not allow those votes to occur. And what we're hoping for is there will be a negotiation to eliminate some of the mandatory spending in the bill and then the bill can pass. But this is a cloture vote to provoke a conversation. But I expect it ultimately to pass in some form or another."
Hmmmm. The text of both the House Bill (HR 3967) passed on 16 June and the Senate bill (S.3373) that was largely opposed by the GOP, both have the same text regarding spending:
Delete“(d) Budget scorekeeping.— (1) Immediately upon enactment of the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act of 2022, expenses authorized to be appropriated to the Fund in subsection (c) shall be estimated for fiscal year 2023 and each subsequent fiscal year and treated as budget authority that is considered to be direct spending—
“(2) No amount appropriated to the Fund in fiscal year 2023 or any subsequent fiscal year pursuant to this section shall be counted as discretionary budget authority and outlays or as direct spending for any estimate of an appropriation Act under the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (2 U.S.C. 621 et seq.) and any other Act.
So....where was this "budgetary trick" inserted by those rascally Democrats?
@RJW
DeleteI'm not sure what's harder to believe - that Congresspeople actually write bills or that Congresspeople actually read bills.
Its up to Senator Toomey to answer that. He alleges this trick opens the door to an unrelated $400 billion of spending completely separate from the $280 billion directed to the burn pit efforts.
DeleteHere is a 2.5 min twitter snippet of the Senator explaining himself:
https://twitter.com/SenToomey/status/1552425283663400961
I wish he, and the reporters, would break this down better. The government publishes all this for anyone to read, but good luck. What you read may not mean what you think it means.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/3373
I am always suspicious of any politics-related outrage. How often do you see me screaming about something Democrats are doing? The closest would be my criticism of the Jan 6th committee, and my chief complaint was that it was one-sided and highly/selectively edited and the complete record is not public.
DeleteThis smells like phony outrage theater. Dems planned this to a T, to include inviting vets to the vote as props to hold up as sympathy and outrage totems. Veterans are up there with 'the children,' 'the elderly,' the (fill in the blank). Its shameless emotional exploitation.
I am not defending Republicans. Its on them to explain their allegation, and right now, I'm hearing it from them, but I'm not seeing it clearly in writing.
GOP has been exploiting war porn disguised as patriotism and 'support the troops' for decades, just so everyone knows where I stand.
Delete@SF - I largely concur, excepting the political theater being only in the Democrats corner. The GOP Senators who voted against the Bill, are making the allegations. It's on them to prove their case. That I've seen, not a single one has done the barest of minimums....and simply pointed to any changed language between the two Bills....or explained why VA Disability Compensation should now be discretionary, instead of mandatory.
DeleteAnd Amen......the 'patriot porn' has used our Armed Forces as political props for at least all of my lifetime.
What leads you to believe that the Democrats 'invited' Vets to use as props? It's hardly uncommon for interested parties to be on-hand, either inside or outside the Capitol during arguments and votes for a Bill. VSO's are no exception.
DeleteCI, that is my assumption, could be wrong.
DeleteIts a gut feeling. I smell a rat. And trust me, I smell rats all the time when the GOP does their partisan maneuvering, which is why I spend zero time blogging about it and why I don't watch fox news or any other political shows. It's all partisan porn, and none of it gets to the root of anything.
CI, I don't know about you, but I went into the service in the 80's, when most everyone was indifferent to the military, and many places around military bases were hostile. Those were the good old days, having to fight your way out of a bar when some drunk yahoos realized you were a GI...
DeleteI came in during the 80's well.....but spent the first few bar-hopping years in Europe. Our biggest issue (beyond the random Turk) was our fellow, drunk "comrades".
DeleteMoving on from veterans benefits, is anyone here troubled by the new revelations that Trump Admin officials in Homeland Security have also now been found to have erased text messages surrounding Jan 5 and 6?
ReplyDeleteThat makes three different areas of the Trump Admin that at the very least, seem to have run afoul of the Government Records Act requirements on record retention...
Trump Admin? there were only 14 days after Jan 6 of the "Trump Admin".
DeleteIf you're looking for "records retention problems," just look in the mirror.
DeleteThe news was first reported by The Washington Post, which described the text messages as being lost in a reset of the officials’ government phones when they left office after President Biden’s inauguration.
DeleteThe correspondence from DHS’s management division alerted Cuffari that the messages could not be extracted and were no longer accessible.
from WaPo On Thursday, The Washington Post revealed that phone records from Trump’s acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and acting deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli in the days leading up to the Capitol riots also apparently vanished due to what internal emails suggested was a “reset” of their phones after they left their jobs in January 2021. Wolf has said he gave his phone to DHS officials with all data intact, and the reset appears to have been separate from the Secret Service’s migration.
DeleteSome experts said they could see how such errors were possible. Both the DHS and Secret Service are known for a culture of secrecy, a disdain for oversight and a preference for operational security above all else. Among the potential technical complications, these experts said, was the fact that DHS and Secret Service personnel can use iPhones and Apple’s iMessage for communications, which encrypts texts and stores them on the phone.
But several experts said they could not understand why the agencies had not worked more aggressively to safeguard phone records after Jan. 6 — not only because they were legally required to, but because the information could have helped them scrutinize how they had performed during an attack on the heart of American democracy.
In a letter to the House select committee investigating the insurrection, Secret Service officials said they began planning in the fall of 2020 to move all devices onto Microsoft Intune, a “mobile device management” service, known as an MDM, that companies and other organizations can use to centrally manage their computers and phones.
The agency said it told its personnel on Jan. 25 to back up their phones’ data onto an internal drive, including offering a “step-by-step” guide, but that employees were ultimately “responsible for appropriately preserving government records that may be created via text messaging.” The Secret Service said agents were told that enrolling their devices in the new system, via a “self-install,” was mandatory, though it was not clear that actually performing the backup was.
The migration, the agency said, began two days later, on Jan. 27 — 11 days after the committee had first instructed DHS officials to preserve their records. Some experts questioned why, even if the process had been preplanned, the agency did not pause the migration or assume a more direct role in preserving agents' data during that 11-day span.
Looks like a "Biden Admin" fu.
DeleteDave,
DeleteYes I am troubled by it, as I am of all government malfeasance. Welcome aboard.
Where do you stand on the politicization and corruption in the CIA and FBI? Lois Lerner and the IRS must have really steamed you up good when they targeted the tea party and then pulled a Hellary by 'accidentally' destroying all those hard drives.
If we had a real news media with real reporters who were not in the same cocktail circuit and power circles as the politicians, crap like would be exposed and people fired regardless of party.
Meanwhile, at the Department of Mobile Device Management...
DeleteOkham's razor, gentlemen. The words SNAFU and FUBAR didn't originate in the private sector.
DeleteI remember when Brazil was just a funny quasi-Monty Python absurd comedy...
Delete....is anyone here troubled by the new revelations that Trump Admin officials in Homeland Security have also now been found to have erased text messages surrounding Jan 5 and 6?
DeleteYep. Weird how a federal law enforcement agency with cybercrimes in it's portfolio......can't seem to retain communications, as mandated by law.....during a routine 'data migration'.
Weird.
++
DeleteRule #1 for every government employee: CYA!
Delete...just ask the records retention queen, HRC.
DeleteDave,
ReplyDeleteI am 'troubled' by The Department of Homeland Security. It should be abolished, along with the FBI.
If Heimatlandsicherheit were really protecting We The People, they would defending our borders and looking outward for threats instead of setting up Ministries of Disinformation and fomenting paranoia about 'domestic terrorism.'
Our government has become the evil fireman who turns arsonist to protect his job.
DeleteI am 'troubled' by The Department of Homeland Security. It should be abolished, along with the FBI.
DeleteYep. My current company would take a massive hit, but that's not Division, so I'm all about the greater good. DHS is a largely unaccountable monster.
CI, I also serve the beast. There is no contradiction working in the defense/intel industry while simultaneously decrying abuses and thinking we need to avoid military action where our national interests are not threatened. It is not exactly a brilliant observation to say that the armaments industry love$ war$
DeleteMost federal government departments perform vital services, but overall, government has indeed become an 'unaccountable monster.'
SF +1
DeleteBAYSIDER
@SF, exactly right. And those on the inside decrying those abuses should continue to speak out....so as to at least drown out the political cheerleaders on the sidelines who suck the oxygen out of the media-scape.
DeleteAbolish the DHS? Sounds like defunding on steroids.
DeleteMight want to at least get that big beautiful Mexican paid wall completed first.
Defunding the coordination function for our 4th branch of government? The horror!
DeleteHow could we possibly elect a president in 2024 unless the FBI has exonorated all the Democratic candidates of any past wrongdoing and labelled any contradictory evidence as "Russian Disinformation" or not achieving the legal threshold of prosecutable?
DeleteRonald,
DeleteDHS is a horrible monstrosity. It needs to be blown up, and the useful agencies like Border Patrol, USCIS, Coast Guard, FEMA, Secret Service restored to their previous state.
The TSA Kabuki needs to be flushed. Charge airlines with security, with some government oversight.
DHS has no business having its own intelligence function. We have enough of that already.
Ronald:
DeleteBiden administration to close border wall gaps in Arizona
The ecconomy is hurting all of us. WE ARE NOW IN A RECESSION. Let them twist that caviat. But they are are the spin masters. And we really thought Bill O'Rielly was the master of the 'spin zone?' NOT!
ReplyDeleteWhat Biden destroyed with his ilk in the last year and a half is beyond a sin and beyond insane and why? BECAUSE THEY HATE TRUMP BUT NOW IN NOVEMBER WE WILL BITE BACK WITH OUR VOTES!
L,
DeleteAll the spin -- all the lies -- is so pervasive that it's making me physically ill. And I can't believe how gullible so many Americans are to believe this tripe being dished out by the administration and their allies, the media. I have liberal friends, both here on the blogs and in "real life," and see for myself that they believe what's being dished out. People that I always thought were intelligent.
IN NOVEMBER WE WILL BITE BACK WITH OUR VOTES!
Maybe. I don't have much confidence in the electorate. We'll know in a few months.
And when Republicans win control of Congress what will change? How much of what Democrats have done will be reversed? We all know the answer. The excuse will be, "We couldn't do anything because the president would just veto it."
DeleteJayhawk,
DeleteLook on the bright side! Repubelicons get back in, they can start holding brave votes defunding Obamacare...
Oh God please no. Obamacare would already be gone if Comrade Donald "I like single payer" Trump had not demanded that that cancer on society be replaced with some other cancer.
DeleteYes, we can all rely upon Mitt Romney will come up with a "better alternative"....
DeleteGiuliani called somebody "dumb as a box of rocks"?
DeleteI love irony.
In the Hegelian sense...
DeleteRomantic irony, Hegel scathingly dismisses it as an exercise of empty negativity, of the vain subjectivity which perceives itself as elevated over every objective content, making fun of everything, caught in “the hither and thither course of the humor which uses every topic only to emphasize the subjective wit of the author.” “It is the artist himself who enters the material, with the result that his chief activity, by the power of subjective notions, flashes of thought, striking modes of interpretation, consists in destroying and dissolving everything that proposes to make itself objective and win a firm shape for itself in reality, or that seems to have such a shape already in the external world.
How romantic....
Meanwhile in the real world, conservatives that wanted to repeal Obamacare - boom, gone - were run out of the Senate and House with Trump threatening to assist primary opponents against them, because he wanted to "replace Obamacare," not repeal it, leaving government in control of a full 14-point-something percent of the US economy. Trump got his way: conservatives largely do not exist in government at the federal level, the Republican Party no longer control the legislative or executive branches of government and probably never will again, and Obamacare is very much still alive and well and nobody wants to touch it.
DeleteHillary Clinton chose Trump to run against her for a reason.
Trump even stood up with his fellow America-hating leftists and criticized Republicans for "not having a plan to replace Obamacare" - as if one weeding a garden or flushing a toilet requires a plan deeper than getting rid of weeds or shit. Repealing Obamacare, returning to the status quo ante was the plan. It was a great plan.
DeleteAnd Trump fought to keep Obamacare intact harder than goddamn Obama himself. Be serious.
Romney's not in the Senate, who knew? The camels are on the horizon, beamish.... and apparently you want to get them here sooner...
DeleteThe times Obamacare was brought before the Supreme Court to be ruled unconstitutional, not one White House attorney under Trump showed up to make the case that it should be. Trump didn't want to get rid of Obamacare anymore than a deer tick wants to let go of flesh you can't reach.
DeleteObamacare made sure my father was denied life-sustaining medications he was prescribed and taking when the doctors were forced by law to prove he would die without them. So they took Dad off of them to document the results, and were very able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he in fact was dead. Trump fought like hell to make that death panel happen. Keep happening. F**k Trump.
The only thing Trump disliked about Obamacare was that nobody calls it "Trumpcare," FJ. As for Romney - Obamacare should be called Romneycare, it was his to begin with. Maybe it should be called HeritageFoundationCare. The only thing we know for certain is that Comrade Trump wanted single payer, likely because that would be even more socialist and inflationary to health care prices the way military contractors can charge thousands of dollars for hammers and toilet seats. Camel on the horizon? The camels are between our butt cheeks now . Gee thanks, Trump.
DeleteThe costs of the meds to have kept Dad alive for the past 3 years, at 25 cents a day, we're coming up on $300 total. I'd gladly pay that to get my Dad back.
DeletePlease. Send your complaints to the Chief Justice.
DeleteNope. I'm sending my complaints to the huckster that campaigned on repealing Obamacare then reneged because nobody thought changing the name to Trumpcare was better.
DeleteThe same left-wing asshole that thought forceably seizing guns from American citizens and requiring them to go to court to get them back would be a good idea.
DeleteAs frightening as 25 years of propaganda made a Hillary Clinton presidency sound like a bad idea, the shrill shrew never even dared to go as full retard as Trump. Sorry, you backed an anti-American left-wing scumbag.
Is there a clause of or Amendment to the JS Constitution that Trump doesn't hate with all of his heart?
DeleteNo sir, there isn't.
*US Constitution
DeleteI'm sure that you'll find that all the Congressmen EXCEPT for the America First Caucus are responsible. You're barking up the wrong scapegoat, beamish.
DeleteBesides, Trump Care didn't pass the Senate...the Senate rejected the HCFA in a 51-to-49 vote, with Republican senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and John McCain joining with all Senate Democrats in voting against it. In September 2017.
DeleteAre you saying that you now love those three RINOs?
Yeah, you got to KEEP Obamacare.... hurray!
DeleteBzzzt wrong. A far-left progressive Jim Crow Democrat like Trump doesn't get to switch parties and start telling people who know better who the "real Republicans" are. The only RINO in this equation is the far-left America hater Donald Trump. Aside from not repealing Obamacare at all, the Trumpcare proposals that got defeated in the Senate (that Republicans got to keep control of for two more years despite Trump's best efforts to put Chuck Schumer in charge) had no substantive differences with Obamacare.
DeleteAll Trump wanted to do was put his name on Obamacare. Period.
(Trump has donated more money to Chuck Schumer than all of the Republican Party combined)
DeleteThe only RINO in this equation....
DeleteComedic to witness which Republicans employ this supposed pejorative....and against who.
Further reinforces that Republican does not equal Conservative.
If you're protecting the existing elite power structure ala UniParty, you're conservative by definition. Conservative of "power".
DeleteRepublicans are holding a straight flush and are about to lose to a high Jack this November.
DeleteThey are fumbling abortion badly, when the broad middle is staring them in the face (and would result in less abortions). They let the Democrats put them on the wrong side of contraceptives, gay marriage and mixed-race marriage, and they've just kicked disabled veterans in the balls.
What next for the GOOP? Campaign ads where they strangle puppies and kittens and kick babies down the stairs?
My election 2022 prediction? Warnock holds on, and Fetterman strolls to victory without breaking a sweat.
Repubelicons barely take the House with a uselessly narrow majority, and Democrats hold the Senate.
That pretty much matches my predictions, although I wouldn't count the Democrats out on holding on to the House. Nobody wants the Republican Party in charge of the House if Trump is stupid enough to run in 2024 and put the nation through another one of his "I really won / I should have won by more" tantrums against reality.
DeleteRepublicans *have* to lose the mid-terms this year. It will finally dislodge Trumpism as a millstone around their necks, and finally get them to write a serious party platform, something they haven't done since 2012.
Further reinforces that Republican does not equal Conservative
DeleteIndeed. It doesn't, and hasn't in a good decade or so. Democrats have fielded better Presidential candidates since the daze ofMichael Dukakis, and "liberal / left-winf" is not the magic word candidacy killer it once was. Republicans have failed to realize the map is no longer the territory.
Vox has an article that kinda explains what's going on with the GOP blocking cloture on the burn pit bill. It's still all political blather, but there may be a point in there somehow...
ReplyDelete“As written, the legislation would not just help America’s veterans as designed. It could also allow Democrats to effectively spend the same money twice and enable hundreds of billions in new, unrelated spending on the discretionary side of the federal budget,” McConnell said on Thursday. “There is no excuse why the Democratic leader should continue to block Senator Toomey’s commonsense amendment. A bill this important and this bipartisan deserves for us to fix this accounting gimmick, and then it deserves to become law."
So, it looks like Democrats chalked up money in one bookkeeping column for the bill (which they all agree on), but the Democrats left that amount in another column instead of zeroing it out.
That's the best I can make of it. I agree with everyone here that it is up to the GOP to explain what the hell they are doing.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/senate-republicans-burned-a-bill-that-would-have-helped-veterans-here-s-why/ar-AA108hmT?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=71542d5adaa24294ce59cc46d0010e0b
One wonders if the good Senator from Pennsylvania has ever objected to the runaway OCO spending over the past two decades,
DeleteWhat I'm having a hard time nailing down conclusively is if the gimmick (which Toomey's "commonsense amendment" would resolve) was there when they voted 84-14 OR was it slipped in with the "blue slip" correction.
DeleteSeems to be conflicting arguments from both sides while neither they nor right or left wing media wants to prove it.
@Ronald - At least some media sources have posted the two bills side-by-side, through Diffchecker or in their entirety.....The GOP Senators haven't (that I've seen) pointed to a single difference, nor made the case of Discretionary v. mandatory spending.
DeleteIt's because of course....our elected representatives think we're stupid.
There is a difference between the House and Senate bills, but it looks like this 'trick' was always there. I think the GOOPers (other than Toomey) were asleep at the switch and didn't notice it until after the first vote. In the earlier link, they referenced a handshake agreement to allow amendments on the final vote, so maybe some Repubes voted for it, knowing the 'trick' was there, but expecting to be able to insert an amendment on the final vote.
DeleteSeriously my friends (and yes Ronald, that includes you) this is why I have never seriously blogged on congress and legislation. It is all so damned arcane. It pisses me off every time I try to understand what they are up to.
I go back to WF Buckley. We would be better off being ruled by the first 300 people selected out of any phone book in America.
Silver, I know I'm late on the rebound here, but so be it. I'm swamped here in Mexico.
DeleteLook, the Lerner stuff was a major blow it. All the way around. And as the resident lefty non profit 501 guy here, yes, even my stuff took forever to get attended to by the IRS during the Obama Admin.
And I wrote and let them know it.
As for the Toomey Admentment, what I've seen is this... a handshake "deal" where the GOP would honestly vote their conscience, but get a chance to offer and amendment later in the process.
Now it looks like Schumer reneged on that amendment deal. But, and this seems important to me, Senator Toomey has admitted that his amendment would not have addressed, or fixed, the red herring fiscal issue.
So what's the problem?
The GOP seems to be saying we should not codify an expense mandate to fund veteran's care.
WHY NOT?
BTW... re legislation... yes, it's worse than arcane. I'll grant you that.
Asleep at the wheel SF? Horse feathers! They don't call Republicans "the party of no" and Mitch the Grim Reaper for nothing. He's the guy to send legislation to die. His party has openly admitted, and proven, that stalling, obstructing, or killing legislation is a winner when Dems are in control. Time and again they've made legislative demands only to say no to getting what they've asked for.
DeleteAt a time of Biden accomplishments, you think they're going to give him another win because they've had some change of heart or too lazy to scroll for a reason? Or maybe give their staff of aides a nod not to bother?
This bill should have passed in March and the longer these diseased bastards can stretch it out and kill more veterans, the more they can point a finger at Democrats.
Your emotion drenched rant gets your partisan point of view across quite effectively, Ronald.
DeleteI don't know, and I've said I don't know. The handshake agreement is probably the most plausible explanation.
Half the Republican Party want Trump to go away, half the Democrats want Biden (who has done nothing but continue to continue Trump policy) to go away.
ReplyDeleteSounds like 2024 is a ripe opportunity for both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party to offer an alternative to Trumpism. Shit might even (dare I say it) go back to normal.
I thought Biden was supposed to be the "return to normal", wasn't that the 2020 Never-Trump promise? lol!
DeleteMaybe if he put some effort into reversing Trump policies ..
DeleteIf we the people get our just desserts, it will be...
DeleteCrapwich 2024: El Donaldo v. Hellary
Farmer, you're the classicist here. Which circle of hell are we in?
Well, I'm not FJ but it would appear to me; the 8th Circle / Evil Counselors.
Delete"All men of gift who abused their genius, perverting it to wiles and stratagems."...“As they stole from God in their lives and worked by hidden ways, so are they stolen from sight and hidden in the great flames which are their own guilty consciences...as they sinned by glibness of tongue, so are the flames made into a fiery travesty of tongues”.
Assuming they have guilty consciences.
Thank you, Warren. I knew one of you smart men steeped in the classics would step in, and I think the passage you have chosen is sadly dead on.
DeleteI would have gone with the 1st, limbo... at least until the 2024 candidates begin announcing come January of '23... and THEN we'll enter the 8th. :(
Delete