Late Night Democrat Only Negotiations = Final Stimulus Bill

[Kanastrous]

I've been pretty clear that the issue I am complaining about is the fact that given Obama's promises of increased transparency the fact that he lied about a 48 hour public review period before voting began is a pretty big deal.

Actually in all fairness that's hardly where you started, in the OP:

Well, looks like you all got your wish, the Dems completely shut out the Republicans from the discussion to finalize the form of the largest spending bill in American History.

Don't see any mention of transparency, there.

[Dark Hellion]

Let's see Krauser, you are well known as a Republican apologist who continuously makes excuses for the right that generally boil down to boarder line No-True Scotsmen.

Note, I don't think you are a bad person in any way. You often show empathy that is distinctly lacking from the politics of the party you support. The problem is that your support comes at the price of integrity. You display all the hallmarks of a bad pundit, lets just reference a very recent thread Orange County STDs, you jumped in because you felt conservatism was being unfairly bashed. Now despite conceding that you did not know that Orange County was conservative that fails to excuse that you implied blame to liberals in your opening post. There was both a failure to understand that STD rates rising could be the result of systemic problems started by the Republicans, and a kneejerk necessity to blame it on liberalism.

Do you see why it is easy to dismiss what you say as apologetic tripe?

[KrauserKrauser]

Don't see any mention of transparency, there.

Well, Obama definitely trampled all over his Increased Transparency promises with this one. I understand wanting to get your version of the bill passed but there is a hell of a lot of difference between promising to allow for 48 hours to review the bill and not providing a copy of it less than 24 hours before the schedule voting time.

Man, if only people bothered reading the entirety of posts...

[Kanastrous]

Don't see any mention of transparency, there.

Well, Obama definitely trampled all over his Increased Transparency promises with this one. I understand wanting to get your version of the bill passed but there is a hell of a lot of difference between promising to allow for 48 hours to review the bill and not providing a copy of it less than 24 hours before the schedule voting time.

Man, if only people bothered reading the entirety of posts...

You're right. Sorry about that.

[KrauserKrauser]

Let's see Krauser, you are well known as a Republican apologist who continuously makes excuses for the right that generally boil down to boarder line No-True Scotsmen.

Note, I don't think you are a bad person in any way. You often show empathy that is distinctly lacking from the politics of the party you support. The problem is that your support comes at the price of integrity. You display all the hallmarks of a bad pundit, lets just reference a very recent thread Orange County STDs, you jumped in because you felt conservatism was being unfairly bashed. Now despite conceding that you did not know that Orange County was conservative that fails to excuse that you implied blame to liberals in your opening post. There was both a failure to understand that STD rates rising could be the result of systemic problems started by the Republicans, and a kneejerk necessity to blame it on liberalism.

Do you see why it is easy to dismiss what you say as apologetic tripe?

You know what, sure, I'll definitely admit that I've changed and even grown in my posting, starting out as basically a mouthpiece of Rush, etc and lately been trying to just get more input from more sources.

In that post, which has jack shit to do with the topic at hand, yeah, I was supporting conservatism because I believed that OC was liberal as much of California is in fact liberal and even offered up the point that if this place is liberal, why is it so bad? Had I not thought that the OC was liberal, I would not have posted as I understand the arguments and failings behind the standard histrocial approach to sex ed and don't agree with it. When confronted with evidence otherwise, I conceeded, so I don't know what you are trying to bring up with that post.

Sure I've made mistakes in the past and I've learned from them, how exactly that invalidates my points and opens me up to personal attacks, I fail to understand.

[LMSx]

Wasn't the bill unanimously rejected by House Republicans, and got like 3 votes from Senate Repubs? Obama already talked to them, compromised on provisions, and got squat in return. The real moronic action would have been letting the Republicans stick their finger in the pie again at the final conference negotiations expecting any new support. The Republicans aren't stupid, they know their 2010 prospects depend on this bill failing.

[Elfdart]

It's also something Obama and Co. railed against on the campaign trail and promised not to continue in this new era of hoping for the changing hope of change.

Like Lynne Cheney, payback is a bitch.

[Pablo Sanchez]

You display all the hallmarks of a bad pundit, lets just reference a very recent thread Orange County STDs, you jumped in because you felt conservatism was being unfairly bashed.

Since bringing up shit he said in a different thread in this fashion, and making the argument about some bullshit posting analysis is off-topic, distracting, and useless, I want it to stop in this thread. You two want to talk about it, you can do it over PM or something. This is your warning; I don't want to have to go through and HoS part of this thread.

Like Lynne Cheney, payback is a bitch.

One liner, no new content, yup... contribute or GTFO.

[D.Turtle]

KrauserKrauser, your assertion that the way this bill was worked on is somehow breaking Obama's promise to bringing more transparency to the process is wrong.

Why don't we look at what the White House says about the so-called "Sunlight before Signing" thing:

Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Update on Sunlight Before Signing

As we've noted on the blog, the President has signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act. We've also published the DTV Delay Act of 2009.

Since a few questions have come in, we want to update you on the President's campaign commitment to introducing more sunlight into the lawmaking process by posting non-emergency legislation online for five days before signing it. This policy will be implemented in full soon; currently we are working through implementation procedures and some initial issues with the congressional calendar.

The President remains committed to bringing more transparency to government, and in this spirit the White House will continue to publish legislation expected to come to his desk online for public comment as it moves through Congress.

Emphasis mine.

I think this stimulus bill would fall under "emergency legislation"...

LMSx, that is essentially correct. House Republicans unanimously rejected the bill. However, the Republicans that voted for the bill in the Senate were needed in order for this bill to pass. This type of bill (I'll look up the details of why if asked to) actually needs 60 votes to pass - the 60 votes were not needed in order to stop a threatened filibuster. Those Republicans incidentally were also included in the final conference negotiations.

In other words: Obama/Democrats worked together with those Republicans willing to work with Democrats. The rest were ignored as the irrelevant idiots they are. After all, 36 out of 41 Republicans showed they were completely useless partisan ideologues by voting for an amendment that would have replaced everything in the stimulus bill with tax cuts. In other words, there are at most 5 non-idiot Republicans in the Senate - zero in the House...

[KrauserKrauser]

Jesus Tap Dancing Christ people, I'm not taking umbrage from the fact that Obama didn't include the Republicans in the last minute planning of the bill, as has been so eloquently stated before, the Republicans made their bed and now they get to lie in it.

What I'm going on about is the 48 hour window that was promised on and not delivered by Obama Co. which could easily come back to bite him in the ass, especially given the fact that he promised increased visbility/transparency. This is not taking into account the fact that this is, if nothing else, the largest directed spending bill in the last 70 years and we, the public, didn't get to see the final form until after voting had already begun on it.

Additionally, if Obama is going to fuck up this promise on this bill, possibly the most important one in his Presidency, definitely the most important in his first 100 days, this might be a hint for what is to come, Republicans or no Republicans.

To save a post and to respond to D. Turtle, the Democrats promised to have the final bill posted online by Tuesday, leaving 48 hours for public review, everybody not just the Dems and the GOP. They did not post it until TODAY, the day that voting starts on the bill. Emergency Bill or no, though I'll gladly debate the emergency nature of a bunch of the measures in the bill once the final analysis is performed, they promised a time window and then completely FAILED to honor that promise.

[Dark Hellion]

Ok Pablo. Sorry about the hijack.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Jesus Tap Dancing Christ people, I'm not taking umbrage from the fact that Obama didn't include the Republicans in the last minute planning of the bill, as has been so eloquently stated before, the Republicans made their bed and now they get to lie in it.

What I'm going on about is the 48 hour window that was promised on and not delivered by Obama Co. which could easily come back to bite him in the ass, especially given the fact that he promised increased visbility/transparency. This is not taking into account the fact that this is, if nothing else, the largest directed spending bill in the last 70 years and we, the public, didn't get to see the final form until after voting had already begun on it.

Additionally, if Obama is going to fuck up this promise on this bill, possibly the most important one in his Presidency, definitely the most important in his first 100 days, this might be a hint for what is to come, Republicans or no Republicans.

You're a moron. All kinds of things Bush did were less transparent. Energy bill negotiations? Check. Warrantless wiretapping without even consulting (behind closed-doors or otherwise) the courts or Congress for awhile? Check. Fed and Treasury secretly meeting in order to issue the bailout, behind closed doors? Check. You're just a partisan that expects perfect idealism from the opposition as an insincere rhetorical device to claim you thought he could help too but oh noez, he's just being a partisan business-as-usual liberal! You voted against him, you knew you were opposed to all his policies before he ever got elected, and he still tried to include people like you, and now he's moving on because he can pass his bill. We'll still get to look at it, the GOP just won't be able to take a whole week appearing on Hannity over and over and over again to cry crocodile tears over missed tax cut fetishism and .01% of the bill's spending total.

[KrauserKrauser]

Exactly, Bush did those things, and now Obama is doing the same exact shit. Especially if you dislike Bush this should be a very negative sign if you are an Obama supporter as if this trend continues, it will simply be business as usual, lofty rhetoric or no lofty rhetoric.

If nothing else this a broken promise from Obama and people should be wary that this may be the way he will handle such matters in the future.

It's the first broken promise on a really important bill and if he can't keep his promises on the really important stuff, what should we expect on the nromal day-to-day governanace.

[LMSx]

LMSx, that is essentially correct. House Republicans unanimously rejected the bill. However, the Republicans that voted for the bill in the Senate were needed in order for this bill to pass. This type of bill (I'll look up the details of why if asked to) actually needs 60 votes to pass - the 60 votes were not needed in order to stop a threatened filibuster. Those Republicans incidentally were also included in the final conference negotiations.

In other words: Obama/Democrats worked together with those Republicans willing to work with Democrats. The rest were ignored as the irrelevant idiots they are. After all, 36 out of 41 Republicans showed they were completely useless partisan ideologues by voting for an amendment that would have replaced everything in the stimulus bill with tax cuts. In other words, there are at most 5 non-idiot Republicans in the Senate - zero in the House...

Cool, I didn't know that about letting those Senate Republicans in. I wish we didn't have to use the word "threatened" WRT filibusters, though. I guess that's Harry Reid leadership, though....

[Kanastrous]

Exactly, Bush did those things, and now Obama is doing the same exact shit.

Links, to Obama's warrant-less wiretaps, shredding of Habeas Corpus, and all the other "same exact shit" that his administration is doing?

Failure to consult to your satisfaction <> interchangeability with the misdeeds of the Bush administration.

[KrauserKrauser]

I was not trying to imply that now with this one broken promise, Obama = Bush the Junior.

IP stated that this is something Bush did as well and knowing that IP doesn't exactly have the highest opinion of Bush the Junior, I was stating that yes, Bush did those things (which in the context of this topic is limit or completely ignore the transparency of his policies) and now Obama is engaging in the same approach.

Saying that someone who you don't like did something you didn't like to defend the actions of someone else when those actions are of the same nature doesn't strike me as a solid point of argument.

[Elfdart]

Well, looks like you all got your wish, the Dems completely shut out the Republicans from the discussion to finalize the form of the largest spending bill in American History.

Obama's mistake was trying to court the Republitards as a group rather than just trying to skim enough of them to pass the bill. He should have known better unless his goal was to make the Torture Party look like a bigger collection of fuckwits than it does already. Gilding gold, painting lilies, coal to Newcastle...

Well, Obama definitely trampled all over his Increased Transparency promises with this one. I understand wanting to get your version of the bill passed but there is a hell of a lot of difference between promising to allow for 48 hours to review the bill and not providing a copy of it less than 24 hours before the schedule voting time.

You can thank the constant dicking around from the Torture Party for that one. They (Obama and the Dems) wanted to pass this as quickly as possible to try to roll-start the economy NOW, before another two million jobs go into the shitter. Where did this sudden concern about whether members read a bill or not come from? If I had my way, the bill would have already been written before Obama took office and been put up for a vote immediately after. Instead they wasted the better part of a month reaching out to douchebags who bit their hands at every opportunity.

Haste makes Waste and with this amount of money, that's going to be a hell of alot of waste.

There's going to a lot more waste thanks to the whistleblower provision being taken out to appease the Torture Party, so taxpayers' money can be stolen without any consequences.

Also, I've heard unsubstantiated rumors that the secret conference balooned the size of the bill to over a trillion dollars.

I've heard an equally unsubstantiated rumor that...

Never mind. Unsubstantiated rumors mean less than Jack Shit.

[D.Turtle]

To save a post and to respond to D. Turtle, the Democrats promised to have the final bill posted online by Tuesday, leaving 48 hours for public review, everybody not just the Dems and the GOP. They did not post it until TODAY, the day that voting starts on the bill. Emergency Bill or no, though I'll gladly debate the emergency nature of a bunch of the measures in the bill once the final analysis is performed, they promised a time window and then completely FAILED to honor that promise.

I didn't know about the specific additional promise made by Democrats and Republicans to post it online. So, yes, this is Democrats and the Republicans involved breaking their promise - probably being caused by only finalizing the thing relatively late.

Oh, additionally, something I forgot to mention earlier: The second source you posted in the opening post included this part:

In this case, not only is the end product ragged—some of the elements aren't terribly stimulative—but the means were ugly. The differences between the House and Senate bills were reconciled mostly in secret by House and Senate Democratic leaders, three Northeastern Republicans, and White House aides. This is hardly unusual for Washington—which is precisely the problem: It's not the change Obama promised.

Emphasis mine.

Maybe you should read your own posted sources before posting inaccurate crap?

(And maybe change the topic title too)

[Loner]

Exactly, Bush did those things, and now Obama is doing the same exact shit.

Links, to Obama's warrant-less wiretaps, shredding of Habeas Corpus, and all the other "same exact shit" that his administration is doing?

Failure to consult to your satisfaction <> interchangeability with the misdeeds of the Bush administration.

Will he did vote for the renewal of the Patriot Act and the FISA bill last year, and this thread shows he's trying to undermine the lawsuits against Bush's warrant-less wiretaps. So, in my opinion, he's as bad as the previous monkey in office.

[Count Chocula]

Damn, Loner threw down some facts!. I'll throw down some opinion.

Fact: Obama's political experience came from Chicago politics, which are widely recognized as being among the most corrupt in the nation.

Fact: Obama cut his teeth as a lawyer for ACORN, whose mission was to strongarm banks into making loans to people of, let's say, marginal means to repay (CRA enforcement).

Fact: Obama won the election and made many, many promises, one of which was a nebulous "transparency."

Fact: A 1,000+ page spending bill was made available to Congress at 9AM this morning, with voting to commence at.....
......9AM. How fast can Barney Frank read?

Opinion: Hey, guess what? He's a politician, and my leg doesn't "get all tingly" when I hear his name.

[Darth Wong]

Will he did vote for the renewal of the Patriot Act and the FISA bill last year, and this thread shows he's trying to undermine the lawsuits against Bush's warrant-less wiretaps. So, in my opinion, he's as bad as the previous monkey in office.

No, he's not as bad. He's banning torture after all, and while some people would pretend this is a completely trivial distinction, it really isn't.

Having said that, he's no liberal either. Those who believe he's a liberal have been sorely mistaken. He's a middle-ground compromiser, and that's exactly why he won. If he were a true liberal, then America would have rejected him despite the absolute horror-show that was McCain-Palin.

[Darth Wong]

Fact: Obama won the election and made many, many promises, one of which was a nebulous "transparency."

He also promised to make this thing happen as quickly as possible, and the Republicans have been stonewalling him the whole time.

If this final bill contains some shocking provisions not seen in previous versions, then you might have a point: he used the closed meeting to shoehorn in some provisions and is then attempting to slide them past review. I think it will take some time to see just what happened here, although it needs to be pointed out how very doubtful it is that it will take away anyone's civil liberties, unlike the PATRIOT act. Frankly, when the dust settles I think we're going to see that the points of contention are nothing more than the bullshit nitpicks that the Republicans have been trying to score points on all week.

[Executor32]

Since you evidently missed it earlier, Krauser, I'll repost what D.Turtle quoted from the White House blog, with greater emphasis:

Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Update on Sunlight Before Signing

As we've noted on the blog, the President has signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act. We've also published the DTV Delay Act of 2009.

Since a few questions have come in, we want to update you on the President's campaign commitment to introducing more sunlight into the lawmaking process by posting
non-emergency legislation online for five days before signing it. This policy will be implemented in full soon; currently we are working through implementation procedures and some initial issues with the congressional calendar.

The President remains committed to bringing more transparency to government, and in this spirit the White House will continue to publish legislation expected to come to his desk online for public comment as it moves through Congress.

I think this stimulus qualifies as emergency legislation to all but the greatest of idiots. When in January alone 598,000 people have lost their jobs, an average of over 19,000 per day, we don't have the time to wait for 5 days.

[The Original Nex]

Also, IIRC, Obama NEVER campaigned on allowing for 48 hour review of bills before PASSAGE. That's out of his jurisdiction. He can't dictate to Congress how much time they may or may not take to pass a bill in its final form.

He pledged what is posted above: a five day online review of all "non-emergency" passed legislation before he SIGNS it.

Unless Krauser can document Obama's supposed pledge on review of bills BEFORE passage, might I suggest he has it wrong?

[Patrick Degan]

Damn, Loner threw down some facts!. I'll throw down some opinion.

Fact: Obama's political experience came from Chicago politics, which are widely recognized as being among the most corrupt in the nation.

Your evidence that Obama is engaging in corrupt practises right now, please.

Fact: Obama cut his teeth as a lawyer for ACORN, whose mission was to strongarm banks into making loans to people of, let's say, marginal means to repay (CRA enforcement).

Your evidence that Obama is engaging in corrupt practises right now, please.

Fact: Obama won the election and made many, many promises, one of which was a nebulous "transparency."

Which has actually been in evidence so far in the public record. Your unsubstantiated opinion counts for exactly dick.

Fact: A 1,000+ page spending bill was made available to Congress at 9AM this morning, with voting to commence at.....
......9AM. How fast can Barney Frank read?

Several posts have already knocked down the "substance" of this alleged argument. In addition, each previous version of the stimulus bill has been put up for full public display at the website thomas.loc.gov. An emergency session to pass the final form of a bill which has been debated and in public scrutiny throughout that process does not violate the principle of transparency in government nor any promise by the Obama campaign along those lines.