How to Be Pretty Dam Successful In Washington, DC!

 Mitch McConnell - Pretty dam well pleased with himself

Hey, don't blame me, it's not MY de-fault!

You know that I don't use 'bad language' in my posts, but I'm reminded of the (singular) funny exchange from the otherwise-forgettable 'Vegas Vacation' in which the use of the word 'Dam' is used often as Clark Griswold stands on top of the Great Hoover Dam and...

Flashback sequence begins...

Hoover Dam Guide: "Welcome everyone. I am your dam guide, Arnie. Now I'm about to take you through a fully funtional power plant, so please, no one wander off the dam tour and please take all the dam pictures you want. Now are there any dam questions?"




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Cousin Eddie: "Yeah, where can I get some damn bait?" 

The answer, after all these years, to Cousin Eddie's question of, "Where can I get some dam bait?" is...

KENTUCKY! (via Washington DC...)

 


Mitch McConnell gets nearly $3 billion for Kentucky dam project in congressional deal


Most experts agree that there were no real winners in the government shutdown debate. And many political forecasters say the brunt of fallout from the debate over the shutdown and the debt ceiling is likely to hurt Republican lawmakers.


However, the nation’s leading Republican senator came out of the deal far from empty handed. That’s because it’s been reported that Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell secured language in the new government funding bill that includes nearly $3 billion for a dam project in his home state of Kentucky.


According to reports, a provision in the funding bill includes $2.918 billion in funding to the Army Corps of Engineers to install locks as part of the Olmsted Dam and Lock Authority Project on the Ohio River.


A recent investigation by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch found that the project has run millions of dollars over budget and should have been completed “years ago.” The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates that the project will not be fully complete until 2024.

...

McConnell faces a Republican primary challenge in his 2014 re-election race from Tea Party candidate Matt Bevin. Recent polls McConnell facing a potentially tight race against his likely Democratic opponent, Allison Lundergan Grimes.
 
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Will McConnell keep his seat in the Senate?

Frankly Mitchell, I don't give a dam.   

Sorry, you knew it was coming...

While I may not give a, um, you know, in exchange for his support of yesterday's vote in the Senate, apparently some one does care enough to GIVE Mitch funding for a spiffy, bloated, and cost-overrun dam.

And, in turn, he'll turn around and give his voting constituents some cash (which the Federal Government does not have) so they can HAVE a dam of their very own!  

Buh-bye Mitch.  Buh-bye.  

I'd tell you that, "I'll miss you when you're gone..."  

But I haven't lied to you yet, and I'm not going to start today.  

And before I forget, tell John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Bob Corker 'Hi' for me.  

I think they're just 'swell' people too - just like you!!!

Enjoy your new lake with your best buds! 


Dam it...

In A Bad Moo-d

I received a call from my 'Navy Son' last night.  He called me from Japan where he's been stationed for the past two and a half years.  It was great to hear from him.  Until, of course, he told me why he was calling.  

In hindsight, I should have known that the call would come.  And I should have been better prepared to respond to it.

On September 30th, 2013 Congress sent a Bill to President Obama to assure the continued funding for Active Duty Military.  It was signed.  And then...

My son called me last night to tell me that on October 1st he had a 'pending transaction' for his Credit Union account.  This, of course, was his 'normally scheduled' paycheck deposit.  Except, for some reason, his 'normally scheduled' paycheck was NOT normal.

The following morning he awoke to find no deposit, no 'pending transactions', only the balance he had in his account on September 30th.

Perhaps it is typical for Federal Workers to be mistreated by their employer?  After all, the folks who PAY FOR the Federal Government are often mistreated by it, so yeah, I guess my son NOT being paid should not have surprised me.  

I asked him the logical question, "Okay, so, why didn't you get paid?"

His honest, yet unsatisfying response was, "I don't know, and my Commanding Officer doesn't know either, but Dad, it's not just me, it's everyone here wearing the uniform - no one is getting paid.  Part-time employees at the base were told last week that they'd have to get 'loans' to pay their bills, but we were told that we were going to get paid.  And now..."

The second question escaped me before I could stop it, "Okay, so do you know WHEN you will be paid?"

He got very quiet and then said, "No."

I told him that I'd 'work on it', told him that I loved him, that he shouldn't worry, and then I hung up the phone.

For the record, I haven't seen my son in the two and a half years since he took up his post in Japan.  I can still see his face when I close my eyes, but I realize that the face I'm seeing is most likely not the same one that he currently wears.  I imagine that his current, more-grown-up face is narrower, and much more serious than the one I remember from the spring of 2011 when he spent a few weeks with us following his time at Boot Camp at Great Lakes, Illinois.  The boy has grown up, but hey, he's still my boy.

I will do what the folks in Washington said they were going to do - I'll pay my son's way until the President, the Treasury, and Congress decide to honor the commitment each made on September 30th to the men and women who serve our country.  Each is someone's 'kid', they, I imagine, will have to take care of their own, just as I will take care of mine.    

In this era of broken promises, broken dreams, and shattered hopes, why would I have expected any other outcome from the rolling tide of ineptitude which personifies the Obama Administration?

We all get wet, our eyes get a bit redder, and we constantly scan the distant horizon for a glimpse of sunshine heading our way.

Just lately, I'm feeling 'soaked' to my bones.  My face is wet but I can't tell if it's from tears of sadness or tears of rage. 

Probably a little of both, but I suspect more of one than the other.

As for my boy in Japan, you know that we've always got your back, but you're gonna owe us big when you get your sorry rumpus back here to the States.  Until then, we miss you every day, and hope that you know how proud of you that we are.
  

Stay dry kidd-o.  The sun will come out - I guarantee it.


One parting thought for the day:  I think you need a bigger boat... 

Yeah, with three more years of this President, we all need a bigger boat...

Because lately the sharks out there are GINORMOUS...

 

 

Why Would Harry Reid Want To Fund Cancer Research for Children when He Can Blame Dying Children On Republicans?

Thanks Mr. Reid, you've cleared up for this whole 'NIH Children's Cancer Research Funding' thing for me.  

Please ignore the post which appears directly below this one, I guess I was too stupid to understand that YOU (and only you) get to play God.

THIS JUST IN:  Harry, God is not amused.

Prepare to be smitten.

The Secret of NIH

Once upon a time there was a magical place called...  Washington, DC

It was a place of prosperity, wealth and power.  Its rulers treated all of Washington's subjects equally, whether they were rich or poor, weak or powerful.  

Everyone was treated equally by the Great and Powerful Rulers in Washington.  Birds flew, children played, women and men sang and, then...

The rats came.

As I type this, a barrage of lies are being spread across television screens, desktop computers, and mobile devices across the Nation.  How many lies are there?  You're better served in attempting to count the stars on a warm summer's night.  

The short answer to 'how many lies' is, of course, that there are too many lies to count.  

So I will settle in to address a singular lie which I came across earlier today.

This post, addressing this unique and malevolent lie, follows after the photo of the sick young child fighting for his / her life...

HUFFINGTON POST, October 2, 11:57am:  Government Shutdown Having A Very Real Impact On Children In Need Of Lifesaving Treatment


Think the government shutdown isn't having much of an effect on people's lives? Here's an affected population likely to change your mind.


Every week that the National Institute of Health (NIH) goes unfunded, an estimated 200 patients, 30 of whom are children, will be denied treatment at the facility's Clinical Center. Of those 30 children, many have cancer, said NIH Director Francis Collins to The Wall Street Journal.


Because the Clinical Center is a research hospital, the treatments available for diseases -- like childhood cancer, for instance -- are unavailable anywhere else. As a result, notes NIH literature, "[these patients] have no other alternatives."


According to an agency memo obtained by The Washington Post, patients admitted to the NIH Clinical Center prior to the shutdown will continue to receive treatment, but the memo also said the clinic "would not be accepting new patients or initiating new clinical protocols during a hiatus."


John Burklow, an NIH spokesman, told ABC News the Institute has had to furlough 14,700 employees, resulting in the indefinite postponement of several clinical trials.


"There are four new [clinical trials] ready to start next week," he told ABC, "and they won't be starting during the shutdown if we're still shut down.”


The Atlantic's Jordan Weissmann may have summarized the situation best when he wrote, "House Republicans have failed to stop Obamacare from going into effect so far, but sadly and ironically, their actions have prevented hundreds of people from getting healthcare from just one clinic."

Harry Reid:  "Mission Accomplished!"

Okay, I'm re-focusing, I'm taking a moment, breathing is returning to normal, and, oh yeah, that's better.  

Only one little, teeny, weeny, freaking glaring error in the above (and ongoing) damnation of those Republicans, whom Democrats (and the nice folks of the Media) claim are attempting to KILL CANCER-AFFLICTED CHILDREN in Washington, DC:

It isn't true.

New York's 'Daily News' cover, October 1, 2013

WASHINGTONEXAMINER.COM, OCTOBER 1, 5:10PM:  Republicans dig in on Day One of shutdown with plan to pass mini government spending bills



On Day One of the government shutdown, some were expecting House Speaker John Boehner to begin reducing Republican demands to defund or delay Obamacare. But he is instead digging in.


The House plans a Tuesday evening vote on three smaller spending bills that would re-open some parts of the government, including national parks. It's a move intended to increase pressure on Senate Democrats, who have so far rejected nearly every spending measure the House has proposed because each one attacked the new health care law.


House leadership aides tell the Washington Examiner that they now plan to send the Senate piecemeal spending bills that together achieve the Republican goal of funding parts of the government, but not those crucial to the implementation of Obamacare.


GOP leaders on Tuesday stood behind their latest proposal to pass a short-term spending bill that would delay the individual mandate in the health care law and eliminate special health insurance subsidies for Congress and their staffers.


The Senate early Tuesday rejected a House proposal to start formal House-Senate conference talks on the spending bill.


The government cannot fully re-open until Congress passes legislation to fund the 2014 fiscal year.


Senate Democrats reacted negatively to the House plan to pass piecemeal spending measures, noting that the idea was first proposed by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who led the fight against the health care reform law with a nearly 22-hour filibuster speech and who Democrats have portrayed as a right-wing extremist from the GOP's Tea Party wing.

...


"Sen. Ted Cruz is now going to pick his favorite federal agencies to reopen?" Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., responded when asked about the House plan. "There are a lot of federal agencies that need to be reopened. I suggest we open all of them."


Senate Democrats want the House to pass a bill to fund the entire federal government until Nov. 15 with "no political strings attached."


Durbin said he expects the GOP will feel pressured to pass such a measure in the coming days.


"Wait until people start looking at the retirement accounts and savings after a couple of days when the stock market declines," Durbin said. "They are going to have second thoughts about this wonderful Tea Party incident."

TEA Party Rally in DC

You know, I NEVER get tired of hearing Democrats, Liberals and Progressives use sick children, financial ruin, misery, and personal attacks to drive their agenda...

It's what keeps me typing during my lunch hour here at work.

The bottom line is that the House of Representatives has sent Harry Reid's Senate a series of Bills which WILL fund organizations like...  The National Institute of Health, the National Parks, the "Save the Inch-Worm Foundation" and the like.  

There is only one small problem however...

Harry Reid said 'No'.  (Then, of course he laughed as grabbed, and bit the head off, a small puppy which happened to be skittering by, much to the delight of other Democratic Senators gathered around the Senate Office Conference table with him.)   

Yeah, I can go there too.

So the bottom line is that the US House of Representatives has attempted to SAVE CHILDREN DYING OF CANCER by funding the NIH and Harry Reid decided that it was better to make a political point than to attempt to save the life of a child.  N-I-C-E


There's a special place in Hell for this guy, and given the company he keeps, I'm just hoping that it's got enough seating for all of his friends so he won't feel so alone over 'there'.  

They say that, "Misery loves Company".  Perhaps that's why Democrats like each other so very much?

Weasel rat bastards.  

Sorry, but these are the only words that come to mind...