Posted on 02/13/2009 2:55:39 PM PST by Michael Eden
At over 1,071 pages and 8 inches thick, one would have been a speed reader ON some pretty major methamphetamines to have read it between it's midnight release and today's vote.
You'd have to read for 12 straight hours (no potty breaks) at 640 words a minute to get through the bill. So it is pretty safe to say that there is no way in hell that a single politician voting for this bill actually bothered to read the largest spending bill in the history of the republic.
Erick Ericksen has this amazing example of Democratic bipartisanship:
Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., complained this morning on the House floor that lawmakers were being asked to vote, sight unseen, on “the largest single bill in the history of Congress.” Some Democratic lawmakers fired back that Republicans didn’t need to see the bill anyway, since none of them voted for the stimulus when it moved through the House the first time and would probably stand in opposition.And Slate (which also linked to the above quote) has this:
Have You Seen Porkulus?Nancy Pelosi let K-Street lobbyists look at the final language, but would not let members of Congress look. Democrats told Republicans they couldn’t see Porkulus because they were going to vote against it. And the Democrats told everyone there’s be a 48 hour viewing period, but they’ve decided to ignore their promise.Amazing. Just (an incredibly long string of expletives deleted) amazing.We’re receiving E-mails from Capitol Hill staffers expressing frustration that they can’t get a copy of the stimulus bill agreed to last night at a price of $789 billion. What’s more, staffers are complaining about who does have a copy: K Street lobbyists.
E-mails one key Democratic staffer: “K Street has the bill, or chunks of it, already, and the congressional offices don’t. So, the Hill is getting calls from the press (because it’s leaking out) asking us to confirm or talk about what we know—but we can’t do that because we haven’t seen the bill. Anyway, peeps up here are sort of a combo of confused and like, ‘Is this really happening?’”
Reporters pressing for details, meanwhile, are getting different numbers from different offices, especially when seeking the details of specific programs.
It turns out that the unstoppable killer zombie in that hockey mask was actually Nancy Pelosi all along.
Readthestimulus.org - which actually has the monstrosity available to download - had this to say:
The final language has been posted; you can find links to the various docs at the Speaker's website. Update: The speaker's website is apparently down. Imagine that. Docs are also available here.If I planned to screw the American people with a massive pork package, this is exactly how I'd do it.The total size of the four major files is over 100MB, and consists of 1419 pages. Three of the four files are huge "scanned" PDFs, meaning they were created by printing the original document and then scanning it in again --- and therefore contain no real "text" that can be easily searched. This will make our parsing process difficult and more time consuming, so we most likely won't have our versions ready until midday tomorrow. But we'll see...
Republicans were completely shut out of the process. Without any input whatsoever. But they are "obstructionists" for voting against having their noses rubbed in the pig filth that is this Porkulus bill.
The bill cleared the house - again thank God without a single Republican vote, and joined by 7 Democrats - and will now move to the Senate.
This is an outrage on every level imaginable.
We are devaluing our dollar. Who's going to keep floating our increasingly massive debts? And at what interest rates?
Not China. At least not for very much longer. They hold $682 billion in US debt, and are concerned about the "reckless policies of our spending." They see a socialist spending addicted United States not only destroying the American currency, but other currencies around the world.
The Chinese government contacted new tax-cheating Treasury Secretary Geithner and said:
"We want some kind of a guarantee that your money is going to be worth something if you keep spending so much over there and devalue not only your currency but the currencies throughout the world... We hate you guys. Once you start issuing $1 trillion, $2 trillion, or more dollars, we know the dollar is going to depreciate."What on earth do you even say when you discover that not only has the United States become socialist, but that it has become SO socialist that a even a communist country is shocked at our massive socialist spending?
Joe the Plumber - Mr. "That sounds a lot like socialism" - where ARE you?
Someone responding to another article I wrote said:
“America pulls out own teeth, counts on Tooth Fairy for retirement payoff.”And only a few Americans now realize it, but THERE AINT NO TOOTH FAIRY!!!
Our credit rating could very well end up being reduced. And the price of gold is skyrocketing as the "stimulus" plan passes and confidence in the US government plummets.
And that's change you can believe in!!!
Well, it could be illustrative to not only know how much crap they buried in it, but also to know when they aren't fulfilling their end of the bargain.
Since the House and 9% Nazi Pelousy couldn't wait to push this disaster on the American people, I want them to own every last dollar of Porkzilla so they can own everypart of the worsening economy to come.
The vote thread was pulled and I had to go over to DU to find out what is going on!!!
My advice to every taxpayer that actually pays some damn taxes is to revisit their exemptions and the number of deductions they have very very closely calculating the amount not withheld which would force them into a penalty situation. The object of this exercise is to keep this government from getting bi-weekly infusions of cash they can use to drive this country deeper into debt. If tax collections are seen as decreasing, it will signal a failure of his bill......
This whining about the pdf format is BEE ESS. I’ve been searching and copying sections out of the two documents posted online all day. You just have to use Foxit rather than that worthless POS from Adobe. The text view (OCR) isn’t perfect but it’s pretty darned good.
I figured the title might be misleading - particularly to “drive by-ers” who didn’t do much more than read the article.
The article is an outraged rant against this POS bill, not a call for people to drop out and quit caring.
The “whining” is over the fact that the current version - and this the version that is being VOTED on - is largely non-searchable.
You have to just sit down and read the whole thing: no targeted reading, no finding key parts based on searches.
It is a format that makes it as hard for someone to really know what’s going on as one can make it.
Shouldn’t it be unlawful for lawmakers to pass legislation on something they have not read? There will undoubtedly be some shockers in this thing when the text is actually read.
In the aftermath of Tim Geithner and Tom Daschle (especially given what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said), paying taxes is largely voluntary anyway.
But I agree with you. I wouldn’t pay these scumbags one cent more than I absolutely had to. And any possible way we’ve got to make these frauds and liars look bad is a good option as far as I’m concerned.
Let's start a thread on the pork filled earmarks and most outrageous items buried in this bill.
So each Freeper should download the bill and start at different parts. So I suggest you take your birthday and start at that page. For example if you BD is the fourth of July start at page 704. Everybody do 10 pages.
this will spread everybody out. Then post your findings in one place (there will be overlap but that will be good).
Maybe someone can start a top 10 list. Each earmark is an Obama lie.
Get going Freepers. This is bigger than bringing down Dan Rather.
I was trying to be ironic - guess I wasn't successful.
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of interest.
Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment
Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”
I am with you on standing up for life. We have murdered more than 50 million of our most innocent human beings.
Every unborn baby is “human” by virtue of his or her parents, and a “being” by virtue of the fact that they are living, growing, existing lives. They are human beings.
Or think of the classification of all living things: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. A human embryo is of the kingdom Animalia, of the phylum Chordata, of the class Mammalia, of the order Primates, of the family Hominidae, of the genus Homo, and of the species sapiens. From the moment of conception, a human embryo is every bit as “human” as his or her parents. And it is a moral crime to intentionally kill an innocent human being.
The article is an outraged rant against this POS bill, not a call for people to drop out and quit caring.
I was trying to be ironic - guess I wasn’t successful.
Apologize if I misunderstood. I’m glad you understand the point.
I’ve written articles that people have commented on who clearly didn’t do much more than read the title. I was really trying to clarify my point rather than “scold” you in any way.
I hope we DO tear into this awful mess. And hang it on the Democrats and keep pointing out what a failure it was.
Starting from the day it’s signed.
Maybe have a “porkulus” clock that counts the days since the thing passed - and hasn’t improved the economy.
And it is a moral crime to intentionally kill an innocent human being.It is always so.
Thank you. Speak up, always and often.
Not a prob. Sometimes I don't write as clearly as I intended, so I tend to throw a lot of FReepers off.
I’ve learned - the hard way - that a) you can misunderstand what someone is writing; or b) find out that they didn’t actually mean what they very much seemed to be “saying.”
So rather than come unglued - as I did once or twice on someone - it is better to simply clarify my own point.
It’s hard to stand up for the unborn, isn’t it? I imagine in Nazi Germany, all you could do was hide Jews. The culture was too corrupted, and “speaking out” was not an option (even if you DIDN’T get imprisoned, who listened to you?).
Today, abortion is a matter-of-fact in our culture. Few people are even willing to seriously consider “the right to choose.” And it is unelected judges who decide these matters, not priests, politicians, or people.
All I know is that I would rather be one shouting the truth into a whirlwind than one who passively embraces an evil lie.
Keep fighting the good fight. God sees us.
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