1 Flake will also have 4 freshman members (read Tea Party) to assist him in keeping things right on the commitee ...

2 Politicians still haven't figured out why the tea party is very anti-incumbent right now.  Status quo kinda sucks, especially with the worms in positions of power who overwhelmingly say whatever it takes to maintain that power.

3 Ummmmm, I LOVE pork!  Especially the roasted medallions of roast pork with glazed carrots and LOTS of gravy.  Gawd, this makes me SO HUNGRY!

4 Do not look at the Man behind the curtain...

5 Rogers NTU score drops into the ‘C’ and ‘C-‘ range during Republican-controlled Congresses, suggesting that his appetite for spending money grows when it becomes easier for Republicans to pass legislation.


I'd like to see that stat for all members of Congress during their stint when their party is in power.

6 Ummmmm, I LOVE pork!  Especially the roasted medallions of roast pork with glazed carrots and LOTS of gravy.  Gawd, this makes me SO HUNGRY!

Posted by: Meghan McCain at December 10, 2010 03:26 PM (zAZNI)

GET OUT OF MY CAB!!!!  PORK is NOT ALLOWED!!!!!

7 baby steps........

Maybe it's too late for baby steps; maybe it's time for..............you know, something more substantive and meaningful and profound and lasting

8

Pork isn't Halal.

...and we want equal protection for Muslims who want in on the gravytrain.

9 Call Boner and Bachmann, cantor whoever immediately. I left very disappointing/mad messages.

10 I would say something positive about this but Murcuntski won and John Murtha kept his seat after calling his own constituents racist. If citizens want their representative to do their stealing for them WTF can u do?

11 Republicans don't get it.  I guess they also missed the results of the last election.  People voted against the democrats - not for them.  This tax extension compromise is a crap sandwich.  Harry will add internet poker to it along with plenty of lard.  More money wasted on windmills and ethanol.  When the tea part supporters gets pissed enough a third party will form and these phony republicans led by clowns like Mitch McConnell will be out on their ass.

12 That article about Rogers keeps using the word 'reliable'

I do not think it means what they think it means..........

13 Damn fine choice.

14 This why I have never regretted leaving the Republican Party.  When this stuff happens I just say, "Those wascally Wepublicans" instead of feeling like a teenage girl after a date with Roman Polanski.

15 More likely, Flake will be ignored and bypassed by the pork-hungry royalty on the committee.

Expecting any member of Congress to cut spending after they get their grubby mitts on the public checkbook and have a taste of governmental high life is an exercise in futility.

I would dearly love to be proven wrong by the incoming "conservatives," but I expect two more years of wild spending, followed by another "something's gotta be done about the debt!" round of speechifying in the '12 election.

16 Doesn't sound good.

17 This why I have never regretted leaving the Republican Party.  When this stuff happens I just say, "Those wascally Wepublicans" instead of feeling like a teenage prepubescent girl after a date with Roman Polanski..

Just couldn't allow that to get through without adjustment.  Sorry.

18 9 Call Boner and Bachmann, cantor whoever immediately. I left very disappointing/mad messages.

Hi, you've reached Ms. Bachmann's answering device. Michelle is presently busy meeting with her bridge building contractor team. Leave a pleasant message please.

19
Yeah, no shit.

Hal fucking Rogers.

He's a good ol' boy.

It was his time.

20
Maybe Spencer fucking Baucus can chair Ways & Means!

21

 

Pork the one you love.

22

I want to see Ron Paul in charge of Appropriations.

Don't trust him anywhere else, but I think we could use him there.

Oh wait, then he'd pull the plug on military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and everywhere else.

23

The linked CBS news site called him a "reliable 'yay' vote."

I can't trust a 29-year congressman who goes around yelling "yay."

"En fuego," now, would be another matter entirely.

24 So, that added video is moderately disturbing.  Not that I don't agree with the message or anything...I'm just sayin....

25

Meanwhile.....

(this is for mpfs if she's reading)

26 But Waygu steak is the meat of Gods!

27 Posted by: laceyunderalls at December 10, 2010 03:40 PM (pLTLS)

Well, he COULD be doing it on a commandeered military jet with the rest of his extended family on board.

28 Oh I want to see him abolish the rule. Total slap in the face to Ninny Pelosi.  I'd grin from ear-to-ear just to hear him say, 'Eh, I Won'.

29 So, that added video is moderately disturbing.

Yes who could imagine that a video with sausage riding in it could actually be SFW. Definitely creepy though.

30 This is just great. One month after the midterms, and we're ready to have a Don McClean karoke contest. SPin the chamber and pass the revolver would ya?

31 28 Oh I want to see him abolish the rule. Total slap in the face to Ninny Pelosi.  I'd grin from ear-to-ear just to hear him say, 'Eh, I Won'.

Posted by: laceyunderalls at December 10, 2010 03:46 PM (pLTLS)

And do it with a big ole stogie in his mouth, the gavel in one hand and a glass of scotch in the other.

32 Pork you bitches!

33

But Waygu steak is the meat of Gods!

I thought you prefered Pohk-istani Sausage.

34

They never learn.

35

I thought you prefered Pohk-istani Sausage.

Indian. Red Dot.

36 I suspect the battle against earmarks will be fought by searching for a synonym we haven't used yet and declaring victory. You can't tell me these cocksuckers are going to give up on the time-honored strategy of tossing money at bums, layabouts and Oprah's viewers. But I repeat myself. How about "vote vouchers." Or "libtard snacks" Hey, if you called them "Kathy Griffin's Ass," no one would dare touch it. Except rdbrewer. That guy would fuck a tumbleweed if it'd stop rollin' long enough.

37 If they were serious about spending, they'd make Flake the committee chair. He's one of the few Republican politicians I like...

38 The Meat of Kings for the Prince of Pork.

39 Hey, Ace, it looks like Tom Graves has also been appointed to Appropriations. According to NRO, he was handpicked by Jeff Flake. Maybe that's a win?

40 They sould make pork lipstick or something.

41 I'm not sure whether that video is deeply disgusting or insanely awesome. Maybe both.

42

Anyone following Pigford?

Question -- how many farmers do YOU know?

Now follow-up question -- how many minority farmers do you know?

43

What we need is incentive for fiscal restraint.  Like a "spending veto".  Each Congressman gets to slash a couple of mil from any discretionary part of the budget they like.

"Congressman Claghorn is looking out for your interests, he stopped a program that would send $200 million that would have gone California to study the mating habits of the hairy-chested nut-scratcher.  Congressman Claghorn, looking out for the taxpayers of the third district.

I'm Bill Claghorn and I approved this message."

44

It's simple: tax each Congressman 1/1000% of every dollar they spend.

45

They sould make pork lipstick or something.

Or better yet, bacon-flavored pork.

46 I told my dad I was tired of running around in circles.

So he nailed down the other foot!!!

47 Time for some Who math.

New/Old = 1
NewBoss/Old = Boss
NewBoss = OldBoss

QED

48 O/t:  I wonder if in Shanghai there's an area called "Americatown."

49

I'm selfish, lazy, and I don't really care what the rest of you are talking about most of the time, so I'm going to post two short essays I just wrote without any context.

***

the danger in commitment to abstract ideals.

George Orwell, in Homage to Catalonia, speaks to the dangers of commitment to abstract ideals by showing the end results of those ideological attachments both in terms of human suffering as well as the ultimate direction of a country in the throes of revolution.  This he showed in two main ways:  the political cost of adhering to a granulated political platform, and the personal cost to the men and women who did adhere to their core beliefs at a time when the nationÂ’s political classes settled the fight for them in the assembly halls that they were trying to solve on the field of battle. 

The men who enlisted in militias attached to specific political parties, with specific political goals in furtherance of revolution and change, eventually saw their granular allegiances swallowed up wholesale by the monolithic and consolidated communist contingent. 

At the beginning of OrwellÂ’s time in Spain, the “revolutionary atmosphere” bolstered the small bands of militia in the field, and was bolstered by it.  These small militias dedicated to various leftist ideologies (such as socialist, anarcho-syndicalist, and Marxist) attracted those men who believed strongest in them.  This strength of purpose made for soldiers of indomitable will in the field.  However, belief in a political goal does not translate well to prowess on the battlefield.  Nor does it mean troops who are well-equipped.  Armies run democratically, without strong hierarchical structure, are not efficient in achieving their aims.  Finally, since each ideology represented a small fraction of the population, it meant each militia was relatively tiny, compared to FrancoÂ’s army or the interloping Communist front.

Since the Communists had great propaganda, great funding for arms and the like and greater political power and adeptness, they were able to direct the government to their liking.  Those militias who were most amicable were swallowed up into the regular army, and those that were not were outlawed.  In the end, the communists were able to control the loyalist side of the fight without having to go to war with any of the smaller militias directly.

Therefore, in committing to specific, granular, and rigid ideologies, many of the most politically-active revolutionaries were doomed from the beginning, without knowing it to be so.  Had the non-Communist leftists banded together under a bigger tent of leftist policies, they may have been able to stave off the communists by keeping Moscow out of the domestic fight. As it was, there were many small individual players aligned against one more powerful team.  And as in sports, a united team will usually defeat any group of individual players.  So it was with the Communist re-organization of SpainÂ’s leftist loyalist government and military.

The war itself is a strange thing to talk about in terms of modern warfare taking place between the World Wars.  It seemed to me upon reading it that it was a conflict more suited to 1830 than 1930.  Weapons and equipment were primitive, and the positions of the two forces were sufficiently far apart that casualties and property destruction were, on the whole, low for a time of hot war. 

During the first part of the war, when the dominant loyalist forces were in ideology-based militias, the conditions at the front reminded me more of a boring camping trip than trench warfare.  Cold, boredom and hunger were the limiting factors, not bullets and shells.  In fact, Orwell was only really involved in one meaningful sortie during the whole war, and even that was a minor skirmish between small groups of men with small arms rather than a large battle such as those in the American Civil War or World War I. 

The real danger to Orwell and his ideological comrades came after the Communists had subtly taken an iron grip upon the government apparatus, and cracked down on the militia.  OrwellÂ’s own militia would not capitulate and assimilate into the regular army, and was outlawed.  In practical terms, this meant that he was a wanted man.  Many, many of his close friends and fellow soldiers were rounded up and put into government dungeons.  Many more were shot by government police and soldiers.  They were outlawed not because of their actions, which were essentially the same ones that they were carrying out on behalf of the government all along, but because of their ideology and political affiliations.  It was not who they were or what they were doing that was getting them shot or thrown in a rotten prison, but rather what they believed and whom they associated with on the grounds of their beliefs.  Orwell and his wife only escaped the countryÂ’s chaotic crackdown by the thinnest of margins.

From these events, Orwell learned that while ideologies are worth having and pursuing, realpolitik will demand that real human beings in real situations must be more flexible in the face of political dangers.  Had the various factions on the loyalist side put aside their differences and recognized their mutual common humanity (and in a larger sense, had FrancoÂ’s men done the same), they might have had a chance to avoid the chaos and terror of the latter stages of the Civil War.  They might have even been able to fashion a coalition government which was autonomous and acceptable to a majority of the combatants.  But because they stuck to their ideologies, a trait we might consider a sign of integrity and forethought in peacetime, they were unprepared to stave off the ignoble end to the noble revolution.

 

On the other hand, Orwell had the very existential belief that a man can act, or a man can die.  There is no middle ground.  George Orwell was not a soldier by trade or in his heart, but rather the son of a bourgeois English family trained in letters and high culture.  But rather than subjectively observing the Civil War like so many of this countrymen and people around the world, he instead believed that the only way he could get his head around the thing and tell the story authentically was to go and live it.  And so he did.  He had experiences which were messy and real, and sometimes hard to put into words.  By seeing his authentic telling of the truth as he experienced it, versus his accounts of how people back home had experienced it through the ideological lenses of various writers and newspapers who were telling a story about the war, we can see the difference between the existential, authentic story of the war-as-war, and the metaphysical, epicurean/ideological view of the war-as-politics.

*** HobbesÂ’ account of human nature as a rational basis for the politics and obligation of the modern state.

HobbesÂ’ account of human nature is an ideology which views human beings in Nature as beasts which are in a constant state of war with each other human being all the time.  The only natural rights he knows for these beasts are those which the beasts themselves can defend.  Without some all-powerful (awesome) force available to enforce laws and contracts, Hobbes does not believe natural humans are capable of self-governance on a scale larger than that of an individual. 

Hobbes also believes that the only thing people can know is names—in other words, we cannot think about things rationally without labeling them, and then using the labels to reason about what they are and what they do.  This symbolic thinking will be for later thinkers a defining factor setting humans apart from human-like animals and others.  Once humans create words to label things, those words can be defined.  Building up the definitions of things and seeing how they interrelate creates language:  the alphabet, grammar, conjugations, and speech; the essence of being human.  With language to record, define, and manipulate ideas of things, we can practice and develop a legacy, which we call institutions and culture.

To Hobbes, the greatest institution we have created, the one that protects, defines and defends every other institution, is the state:  Leviathan.  Leviathan: that which is the ultimate authority in matters both civil and criminal; that which has the exclusive and ultimate sovereign authority over all matters.  Because Leviathan is the ultimate expression of culture and institution, which are based upon language, which are based upon words, which are based upon symbolism, which is the essence of being human, Hobbes argues that political obligation to this Leviathan is sacrosanct (except in the event that oneÂ’s own death is at hand, since weÂ’ve created Leviathan to protect against death in the first place) and unimpeachable.  Once we, as a Civil Society, make a contract among ourselves to imbue Leviathan as sovereign, we do not have the power to revoke it.  In fact, if another greater force should come along and defeat Leviathan, the sovereign power immediately devolves upon this conqueror. 

This Hobbesian view for understanding human nature and the nature of political obligation in the modern state is sufficient for some cultures and some peoples.  There are many people in the world who live in a nation controlled by a nigh-invincible overlord.  There are many who have not had the cultural background of Western Europe, where (at least for some centuries now) sovereignty has effectively rested in the hands of the people.  There are many, many more who live without either advantage; for whom liberty as we understand it in the West is unimportant, frivolous, dangerous, or simply alien.

 

Will this always be the case?  I certainly hope not.  It is my hope that people all over the world will come to understand, appreciate, and enact self-government.  But my hope is anthropocentric.  It may very well be that the Western European, post-Medieval tradition of humanism, individuality, reason, self-direction, and so forth is an anomaly in the continued descent of Man.  I suspect that there are people far from me geographically or culturally who would laugh at my criticism of Hobbesian philosophy as incomplete.

For those of us who do descend from the cultural traditions of Greece and Rome (and more specifically from Runnymede in 1215), the idea that a government could be the central organizing force for a people rather than a tool at the peopleÂ’s disposal is at least foolish and likely backward.  For even Hobbes pre-supposes some cultural and social solidarity as the basis for the SK bestowing sovereignty on Leviathan.  In other words, there must be a society for Leviathan to contract with before it can come into legitimate existence!

 

Upon the completion and signing of the Constitution, a young lady asked Ben Franklin what sort of government they had.  He answered something along the lines of, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”  Franklin knew that a government could only be as powerful as the people who invested it with power and authority.  He knew its dimensions, morals, ethics, and abilities would only reflect those of the people.  He did not know whether the new Americans had the common sentiment for it; the social solidarity that a precariously libertarian Constitution required.  If we did have it then, Franklin knew it was possible and likely that we would not always have it in the future.  And he was right.

However, at the heart of Western political thought is the concepts of the nature of liberty, the nature of responsibility, the definition of justice, the related balancing acts between security and liberty and equality versus economic freedom, and the role government ought to, by right, be allowed to play in the scope of peopleÂ’s lives.  While Leviathan may or may not now exist in practice in most countries in the West, in our hearts HobbesÂ’ Enlightenment science-based philosophy is foreign, over-reaching and draconian to a majority of citizens (Progressives and some others excluded).  As politics (as opposed to war) is largely an intellectual exercise based upon reason and emotion, rather than a deterministic process such as those which follow the laws of Nature, then HobbesÂ’ account of human nature falls at least conditionally short in describing our obligations in the modern state.  It is insufficient in that it does not accurately describe the core Western intellectual beliefs based upon the value of the individual which IÂ’ve just mentioned.  It is insufficient in that it uses a purely scientific approach to describe something—human behavior—which is anything but deterministic.  And it is insufficient from an anthropological standpoint—it is not true that in a state of nature every human is at war with every other in perpetuity.  If it were strictly true, then symbols, words, language, institutions and culture would not be possible, since no human would have the means, motive and opportunity to transmit his own legacy to another, let alone continue the species in a strictly biological sense.

In short, Hobbes starts with a false premise which, in the logical sense, begs his own question.  The result he sees, Leviathan, cannot possibly exist in a system that starts under the conditions which he presumes.  It is our fundamental unalienable social solidarity, whether in groups unimaginably large or as small as two people, which can lead to the cultural institutions necessary to bring Leviathan into existence.

50 Bitches.

51
If a rep wants to send pork back to his district, he pays juice on it.

52

Anyone following Pigford?

another Shakedown.

53 44 What we need is incentive for fiscal restraint.  Like a "spending veto".  Each Congressman gets to slash a couple of mil from any discretionary part of the budget they like.

Good idea.  As Milton Friedman would put it, "the way you solve things is by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. "

54 So, that added video is moderately disturbing.

Dancing bacon.  And cannibal pigs.

55

Now follow-up question -- how many minority farmers do you know?

One I buy produce from every week-- this time of year its collards, sweet potatoes and sugar cane.

However, he's post stroke, paralysed on one side and at 70 plus can work circles around me.  I also think he isn't paying the Pigford thing a bit of attention.

56
No pork falafel?

57 What was that thing riding "Barney" frank?

58 The porkers will just be drawing a target on their backs for 2012. Throw the bastards out.

59 They sould make pork lipstick or something.

I'd kiss my wife more if they made bacon flavored lipstick.

60 I'm really getting tired of this. 
How much more can be done?  What else does the American public need to do to get the point across?

Like the man said: "Stop spending, Stop Spending, STOP SPENDING!!!"

61 That was nice, Truman.

62 You know if you want sausage, and who doesn't right ladies?, you need pork.
Sausages without pork  is just Baloney.

63

41 They sould make pork lipstick or something.

They've actually made a bacon fragrance oil (Natures Garden Candles) for scenting candles and soap   And Cool Stuff Express has Bacon Flavored Lip Balm.

Yes, there are women out there making Bacon Soap on a Rope for their sweeties for Christmas.

64 Truman finally got somebody to read his fucking doctoral dissertation.

65 Truman finally got somebody to read his fucking doctoral dissertation.

Who?  I saw how long it was and right then and there wanted to punch him in the face.  I didn't read it.

66 I'd kiss my wife more if they made bacon flavored lipstick.

OH!  And Lip Balm Love has a bacon flavor oil that can be added to anything (Lip balm, massage oil...YKWIM)

67 It's simple: tax each Congressman 1/1000% of every dollar they spend.


Posted by: Soothsayer for RNC Chair at December 10, 2010 04:03 PM

Good idea, but let's get real....

Tax each member of Congress 1/535th of a dollar for each dollar they spend.

68
OH!  And Lip Balm Love has a bacon flavor oil that can be added to anything (Lip balm, massage oil...YKWIM)

Righteous Bucks!!!

69 Truman finally got somebody to read his fucking doctoral dissertation. Posted by: Sharkman at December 10, 2010 04:14 PM

And here was me thinkin' "Poppin' Fresh" denied Truman admission to the Groan Room at TepidAir for some reason.

_{Probably because his dissertation didn't say "in fairness..." at least once}

70

Pork Popsicles.

71 I'll take "Giant Blahbedy-Blah Comment I'm Going to Scroll Right Past" for $800, Alex.

72

Posted by: AmishDude at December 10, 2010 03:59 PM (BvBKY)

Hmmm... intresting idea...

How about, for everything a Representative cuts, they get to spend 10% of it on somthing THEY want...

Of course, their Pork would then be cut by someone else, and pretty soon we would be down to no Pork at all...

73 Ladies, I got pork-flavored condoms!

74 Bacon isn't Kosher and that incest guy ain't no Christian

75 I'm so glad our deal-making GOP has seen the light. It shines out of Barry's anus.

76 i voted for holbert.

77 Nobody really wanted the slot, so I guess they felt they could just give it to whoever. But Rogers, really? Makes me want to hit my head against a brick wall.

78

@15: "More likely, Flake will be ignored and bypassed by the pork-hungry royalty on the committee."

Hey, Jeff Flake, all this can be yours...if you play ball!

79 @23: "The linked CBS news site called him a "reliable 'yay' vote."

I can't trust a 29-year congressman who goes around yelling "yay.""

Ok, so he's basically Special Ed from Crank Yankers.... Yaaaaaaaaaay!

80 Pork Stories

81 I think they do "get it". They have to "get it", (their padded bank accounts)over the next 2 years why they still can. The republican party is toast.

82 I'm not wild about the choice either, but it is a new landscape now so a lot of former get-along spenders will have to get with the program or make other plans for their futures.  As I see it, there are two choices here:

1)  Give the guy a chance to prove he will do what he says he will do, since we have no other real choice anyway; or

2)  Throw a major hissy-fit before he even takes the gavel, even though there is not one freakin' thing we can do about it now, and prove ourselves to be mindless parrots of what other half-asped conservative bloggers are spazzing out over.

Choose well.

83 I would say something positive about this but Murcuntski won and John Murtha kept his seat after calling his own constituents racist. If citizens want their representative to do their stealing for them WTF can u do?

Not much, so far as I can tell.

This is why Libertarians and full retard Purity Conservatives tend to shoot themselves in the foot, practically speaking.

Makes no matter about ought, should or could...

Will it or won't it?

Why or why not?