truth-has-a-liberal-bias:

Republicans Want Food Stamps Cut in Farm Bill

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WASHINGTON — The 1,000-page “farm bill” being debated in the Senate is somewhat of a misnomer. Four of every five dollars in it - roughly $80 billion a year - goes for grocery bills for one of every seven Americans through food stamps.

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“This is more than just a financial issue. It is a moral issue,” says Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., one of several Republicans pushing for cuts in spending for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as SNAP. 

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The Republican-controlled House, which has yet to write its own farm bill, is certain to demand greater food stamp cuts, too. Finding common ground with the Democratic-led Senate could be key to whether Congress can pass a 1,000-page bill that also makes fundamental changes in farm subsidies before the current legislation bill expires at the end of September.

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The Senate last week rejected an amendment by Rand Paul, R-Ky., that would have saved $322 billion over 10 years by cutting it $45 billion a year and turning spending decisions over to the states. The vote was 65-32 against, with 13 Republicans joining every Democrat in opposing it. […]

thepoliticalfreakshow:

As States’ Bridges and Road Are Crumbling, GOP Is Refusing To Agree With Infrastructure Investments Contained In The American Jobs Act

President Obama’s plan to kickstart the economy and put the American people back to work includes investing in the nation’s rapidly deteriorating infrastructure, which, as studies have shown, is in need of as much as $2 trillion in immediate investment just to bring it up to date. In the past, Republicans have agreed that infrastructure improvements are needed, but in the context of economic stimulus and in their effort to remain opposed to anything Obama offers, they have chosen to ignore the nation’s infrastructure and jobs crises. Unfortunately, that approach doesn’t mean either crisis will go away.

Republican leadership has continually blocked efforts by Obama and Congressional Democrats to invest in infrastructure improvements, and as a result, bridges and roadways in their states are crumbling. According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, about 12 percent of the nation’s bridges are considered “structurally deficient,” the same rating given to the Minneapolis bridge that collapsed in 2007, killing 13 people. Roughly another 12 percent are considered “functionally obsolete.” In four of the five states represented by Republican congressional leadership, the rate of structurally deficient or functionally obsolete bridges outpaces the national average. ThinkProgress compiled a breakdown of the status of roads and bridges in each of those five states and, where applicable, individual congressional districts:

OHIO: 27 percent of the bridges Speaker John Boehner’s home state of Ohio are either “structurally deficient or functionally obsolete,” while one-fourth of its roads are considered poor or mediocre. At the heart of the Midwest, Ohio’s share of the national highway system has 171 highway bridges that are structurally deficient. 10 of those bridges are located inBoehner’s own district. Indeed, Obama singled out the Brent-Spence bridge connecting Ohio and Kentucky as “one of the busiest trucking routes in North America.” A recent Cincinnati Enquirer investigation into the bridge noted that it “is one of only 15 major interstate bridges in the country labeled by the federal government as ‘functionally obsolete’ for failure to meet safety or traffic flow standards.”

KENTUCKY: More than one-third (34 percent) of the bridges in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s home state are structurally deficient or obsolete, including the Brent-Spence Bridge. Of those bridges, 108are located on the national highway system, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Nearly one in five of Kentucky’s roads are in poor or mediocre condition.

VIRGINIA: In House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s home state, 26 percent of bridges are considered structurally deficient or obsolete, 104of which are on the national highway system. Nearly one in four of the state’s roads are considered to be in poor or mediocre condition. In Cantor’s congressional district, 11 national highway bridges are considered deficient.

ARIZONA: In Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl’s home state, 12 percent of the bridges are “structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.” Of those in the national highway system, 25 are structurally deficient. Indeed, a recent report found that the poor rural roads and bridges in Arizona, where 21 percent of roads are considered poor or mediocre, have earned the state the eighth highest rural traffic fatality rate in the nation.

CALIFORNIA: Home to House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, California is perhaps most in need of infrastructure improvement. Thirty percent of its bridges are “structurally deficient or fundamentally obsolete.” Though a well-traveled state, California has a whopping 976 bridges on its national highways that are structurally deficient; 24 of those bridges are in McCarthy’s district. California ranks 19th in the nation for percentage of rural bridges that are structurally deficient, and two-thirds of its major roads are in poor or mediocre condition.

Even as roads and bridges in their states fall apart, Republicans remain opposed to Obama’s efforts to invest in improvement projects. When progressives and Democrats pushed for more infrastructure spending in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Republicans demanded a bigger emphasis on tax cuts. When House Democrats passed a jobs bill geared toward infrastructure investment in February 2010, Republicans derailed it in the Senate. And unless the GOP undergoes a radical shift in priorities in the next few months, yet another plan that will help solve both America’s infrastructure and jobs crises will die at the hands of Congressional Republicans.

The result, as statistics from these five states show, is that the country continues to watch its infrastructure crumble while leaders in the Republican Party sit idly by, refusing to do anything about it.

“The consumer protection agency exists because a majority of democratically elected lawmakers passed a law and a democratically elected president signed it. Now a minority of Senators representing a minority of the country are exploiting procedural rules (i.e., using the filibuster) to prevent that law from taking effect. That’s undemocratic. And I mean that with a small ‘d.’” -Jonathan Cohn

Traditionally, if the GOP wanted to alter the powers of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, it would write legislation, send it to committee, bring it to the floor, send it to the other chamber, etc. But that takes time and effort, and might not work. Instead, we see the latest in a series of GOP extortion strategies: Republicans will force Democrats to accept changes to the agency, or Republicans won’t allow the agency to meet its legal mandate.

vruz:

Congress Continues Debate Over Whether Or Not Nation Should Be Economically Ruined

—via markcoatney:brooklynmutt:

WASHINGTON—Members of the U.S. Congress reported Wednesday they were continuing to carefully debate the issue of whether or not they should allow the country to descend into a roiling economic meltdown of historically dire proportions. “It is a question that, I think, is worthy of serious consideration: Should we take steps to avoid a crippling, decades-long depression that would lead to disastrous consequences on a worldwide scale? Or should we not do that?” asked House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA).

Continue reading… TheOnion

They really are the nation’s finest news source, aren’t they?

We’ve reported previously about how Republicans in Montana’s Legislature, completely overrun by some of the most extremist of all the Tea Party elements, have been going nuts this session, passing a variety of bills that have been so obviously unconstitutional and frivolous (not to mention downright insane) that last week the Democratic governor felt compelled to make a very public display of his vetoes — with a branding iron.

But the problem isn’t merely with the legislation they’re passing. There’s also a problem with the legislation they’re refusing to pass.

For instance, last month a Democrat offered up a bill that should have been uncontroversial: It would have officially repealed the state’s primitive anti-homosexuality law, already long overturned by the state’s Supreme Court. But no: the Tea-Partying Republicans running the House committee overseeing the bill simply killed it in the crib.

So one of those Republicans last week explained to the Missoula Independent exactly what his thinking was:

The legislature’s inaction was not, it turns out, another non-priority falling off the too-long to-do list. Rather, it’s homophobic lawmakers subtly suggesting that homosexual acts should still be outlawed, the Supreme Court—and equal rights in general—be damned. In fact, at least one lawmaker, Rep. Ken Peterson, R-Billings, an attorney, argues that the archaic law may still apply in certain situations.

Which situations? According to Peterson, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, there are at least two prosecutable offenses—felonies punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $50,000 fine. One is the “recruitment” of non-gays. “Homosexuals can’t go out into the heterosexual community and try to recruit people, or try to enlist them in homosexual acts,” Peterson says. He provides an example: “‘Here, young man, your hormones are raging. Let’s go in this bedroom, and we’ll engage in some homosexual acts. You’ll find you like it.’” Peterson hasn’t actually seen this happen, he says, because “I don’t associate with that group of people at all… I’ve associated with mainstream people all my life.”

The other offense, in Peterson’s legal opinion, is the public display of homosexuality, since he believes the Supreme Court’s decision only applies to private acts behind closed doors. Being gay in public, he says, is a wholly different matter:

“In my mind, if they were engaging in acts in public that could be construed as homosexual, it would violate that statute. It has to be more than affection. It has to be overt homosexual acts of some kind or another… If kissing goes to that extent, yes. If it’s more than that, yes.”  ………

An economist, a lawyer and a professor of marketing walk into a room. What’s the punch line? They were three of the five “expert witnesses” Republicans called for last week’s Congressional hearing on climate science.

timetruthhumor:

Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer rips proposed cuts to homeless vets housing

Never one to mince words, U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer had many choice ones today for the Republican plan in Congress to eliminate housing aid to homeless military veterans nationwide. None were complimentary.

Among them were “ridiculous” and “mean-spirited.” The blazing look in her eyes as she spoke to reporters at mid-day news conference at the Ferry Building in San Francisco indicated that she was being polite.

“How could they cut funding like this — how could they?” she asked. “They don’t care.”

The cutting she was referring to is a provision in the House Republicans’ budget, which would do away with housing vouchers for 10,000 veterans next year.
A year ago, the Obama administration announced an ambitious plan to end homelessness among military veterans within five years. Cutting, rather than adding to, things like housing vouchers is like blowing a hole in a tire on the good guys’ Humvee, veterans advocates say.

The vouchers are issued through the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development, and they pay 70 of the rent for homeless veterans getting into housing. Similar to Section 8 housing vouchers for non-military people, they often are the crucial difference between being able to become stable and permanently housed, and living on the street. […]

{Republicans think that putting a yellow ribbon magnet on the back of their SUV is “supporting the troops” what a bunch of hypocritical scum! They have no shame. But what can you expect from the Republicans when their big hero Ronald Reagan had this to say about being homeless:

“You can’t help those who simply will not be helped. One problem that we’ve had, even in the best of times, is people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless who are homeless, you might say, by choice.” — President Reagan, 1/31/84, on Good Morning America, defending his administration against charges of callousness.}