The Omnibus Bill’s ‘Hit Parade’ of Senatorial Theft
December 16th, 2010 - 11:29 am
Thanks to the perspicacious Jamie Dupree, the 1,924 page Omnibus Budget Bill has revealed a “hit parade of senatorial malfeasance.” It’s a long list but, for your convenience, here are the Top Twenty “Earmarkers” in the Senate:
- Cochran (R-MS) 230
- Wicker (R-MS) 199
- Murray (D-WA) 172
- Harkin (D-IA) 152
- Reid (D-NV) 129
- Menendez (D-NJ) 123
- Feinstein (D-CA) 121
- Lautenberg (D-NJ) 120
- Lincoln (D-AR) 114
- Inouye (D-HI) 113
- Schumer (D-NY) 106
- Johnson (D-SD) 105
- Landrieu (D-LA) 104
- Specter (D-PA) 103
- Pryor (D-AR) 96
- Levin (D-MI) 93
- Stabenow (D-MI) 91
- Boxer (D-CA) 90
- Brown (D-OH) 87
- Grassley (R-IA) 86
How bad are these legislators? Pretty bad, I would say. I think there is actually an argument for calling them criminals. After all, what are they attempting to do? They are taking the American taxpayers’ money — your money — and distributing it in near complete secrecy, with virtually no discussion and as quickly as possible, to their friends, supporters, pet projects, etc.
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Criminals?
It is to laugh. This is the least of their crimes.
There is a case to be made that they are the greatest criminals of all time. Not because they are more evil than who preceded them, but because of the size of property they have stolen, and because they commit their crime in spite of living in the most moral society of all time…and the contempt with which they commit the crimes.
Utah’s Pork, led by Senator Bob “Cry Baby” Bennett.
Every last single one of these elected officials perceive themselves as sufficiently virtuous and intelligent to make these decisions. Progressivism allows “elites” to think they are looking out for the common folk—when they are actually acting in a self-serving manner.
Disgusting!
Where’s Oliver Cromwell when you really need him?
McCain? Seriously. Ask him what he’d cut other than the earmarks. That is what lost him the debate with Obama and he still couldn’t answer it today, because he doesn’t really want to cut anything significant. I’ll go along with your “criminal” argument. In fact, for those of us who do not consent to this so-called government, we rightly consider these crimes to be crimes against humanity. And we consider ourselves in a Lockean “state of war” against these tyrannts. Off with their heads.
Roger,
Didn’t Mark Twain famously say, “…[T]here is no distinctly native American criminal class, except Congress”?
Jamie Irons
Yes, and these, too are attributed to Mark Twain.
“Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”
“No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.”
(1866)
Here’s what he had to say more than 100 years ago about Islam. (Ever get the feeling we’re marching backwards in intelligence ?)
“When I, a thoughtful and unblessed Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane, not in all things, but in religious matters. I cannot prove to him that he is insane, because you never can prove anything to a lunatic — for that is a part of his insanity and the evidence of it.”
As to that last quote: there you have it. To turn a phrase: the proof of Islam is in the reading of it (the Koran). To do so is to directly examine the mind of a lunatic. I had gotten so sick of hearing people say what is and is not in the Koran when they clearly hadn’t read it. Somehow there’s been a complete cessation of that B.S. Could it be that some of those people actually began to read it?
Bribery is a crime. Extortion is a crime. Subversion is a crime. Theft is a crime. None of those earmarks would have passed legislation had they stood on thier own merits and not been attached to a larger bill. Why does a legislator in Utah have to have a little something for his district to pay for hog waste studies in N.Carolina? “Because it is the way that they do business in Washington, D.C.” makes it no less criminal. The correct answer of the absurd has to be that elected officials are above the law. Rangel’s censure proved that.
Thanks for outing the spend-aholics. Maybe their golden health care plans will pay for the rehab.
rope ….. lots of it.
I ask my senators and reps the same thing each note i send them on any subject:
Reduce federal spending 10% per year.
I wrote to them today on the strength of this article to explain my disappointment with my senators.
If all of you do the same, we can make a difference.
Most of these people are lawyers. It’s called legalized theft. What more does anyone need to know?
If these people keep this up there might not be a “House of the People” in a few decades. Not because we’ll be such deep hock to the Chinese—they’ll have their own huge problem to deal with shortly, but because we won’t be able to afford a national government. Unthinkable, think again? A personal Income Tax revolt could be just over the horizon.
Twain also said: “Honor is a harder master than the law.”
Clearly, our legislators have no concept of the first and view the latter as a means for achieving their own self-serving goals.
Thank you, Jamie DuPree and Roger for revealing this “Hall of Shame.” This list of thieves should go viral so that people will see that, although the Democrats are the majority in this list, there are RINOs here as well.
Revolutionaries comes to mind when you look at what they are doing.
Well…I agree and I think many millions in America agree too.
But in reality…how many of us are willing to get off our fat asses…our well endowed asses and take the gamble? Like our predecessors did on a winters day in Boston?
Who really has the guts and commitment to have a very worthy repeat of what brought us this country in the first place?
Not enough I fear. America….is a once great country on the cusp of a mention in history books. Like he sang…”Bye bye Miss American pie…..the scummy drove us to the levy and left us dry…..when good ole boys said “do or die”…this is the days gone bye.
Good bye America. It was real for some time and it’s now time to pass it on to the 3rd world, the muslims, the illegals, the anarchists, the greens and the Chicoms, of course.
Roger, your “IANAL disclaimer” is unnecessary here, and pays too much deference to the legal profession. One need not be a lawyer to recognize wrongdoing. You’re making a moral and political judgment — a judgment that you’re entitled to make simply by virtue of being a concerned citizen, and that doesn’t require, for its validity, the same formal legal process that is due to actual criminal defendant.
Beldar, I was – shall we say -being a tad facetious.
The best bumper sticker I have ever seen – Don’t steal, the government doesn’t like the competition.
But the Republicans who were elected for the promises they made are letting them get away with this!!
And only a slight and quiet mention has been made — there is funding set aside for Obamacare in this thing of a bill — that will impede what the Republicans had supposedly promised they planned to do — which is to de-fund it!!!
And they might just let them get away with the START treaty as well.
They’re all much less than useless —
Yes, they are nothing but criminals — all of them!!!
Thanks for the info and the exposure of crooks. The Nov 2 election didn’t reach these people, apparently. They are such slow learners, it’ll take a new wave of house & senate cleaning in 2012 to convince the elites that the pork they provide is tainted and rotten.
In this year’s campaign my 20-year representative went around bragging about all the pork he had brought in; a couple of mayors said that was the reason they supported him. The representative lost by a big margin to a conservative promising to turn down any pork. We’ve got our sights set to replace the mayors when they come up for re-election, since they are abetting the crooks.
I guess all the idiot leftists in Seattle will have to make due without Pure Pork Patty Murray’s 172 tons of bacon and sausage. Earmarks were the only reason for them to re-elect a dim-bulb like Murray. Now Washington is stuck with a loser like Murray for another six…porkless years. Not how you planned it, huh fools?
The Porkulus died to soon. It would have been better to run out the clock with it and then force through the bare minimum essential business and go home. The two and only two things that need to be done are a Continuing Resolution and a Bill to extend the tax rates. Unfortunately Reid now has over a week to push through the START treaty, and then join in Pelosi’s final curses, DADT repeal, and finally the nuclear bomb on Democracy in America, the DREAM Act.
As a principle it is unwise to tinker with the Constitution. Calls to change it inevitably sound like a harrumphing of “There ought to be a law.” The new Congress needs to consider some Constitutional reforms. High on the list should be eliminating the Lame Duck session of Congress. The Congress should adjourn before the election. If the President calls either or both Houses into session, as is in his power, to conduct necessary business between the election and January 05th then the newly elected Members should be sworn in. Provision can be made for the outgoing Speaker of the House and the President pro-tempore of the Senate and a minimum staff to stay on duty as needed.
Nice info, thanks for share
artis
Harry Reid is a “pimp” to the illegals, LBGT, and to the socialist/progressive movement. He holds as much disdain and arrogance as the muslim terrorist in chief does. We have awakened and now is the time. I called Reids office and reminded him through his two-year-old staffer that there are only 535 of them and there are 300 million of us. The odds are not in their favor. Do they really want to push us to the edge? Not a good choice on their part.
We “the people” are the problem.
These crooks say ” we need to raise taxes to pay for our stuff”.
We “the people” say, ” no, you cannot do this the US cannot afford it”.
The crooks say, ” ok, we won’t raise taxes, but for this favor you “the people” need to pay us crooks $47 billion”.
If a fox is always in the hen house, what does the farmer do?
I seriously believe that if we emptied the prisons of all the criminals, yes even the most violent, and replaced them with most of what resides in The Cesspool On The Potomac, we would have more and bigger criminals locked up.
You wonder why voters in the recipient States cheer on this activity. It could only be becuase they think their state is getting more back than the additional taxes they had to pay as theri share of total earmarks. This turns us into the kind of people that nobody likes in their private dealings.
But in terms of criminal activity, this doesn’t hold a candle to the fraudulant deal making between politicians and public service employee unions. This is institutionalized theft that costs us hundreds of billions every year while carrying forward trillions of future obligations.
The RULES! The “rules” of the congressional process are designed for corruption.
Having said that, I agree with the jist of all the comments thus far, for,……the constitution grants to the congress, the authority to derive their own rules of process.
Add to that, the government abuse of the constitutions commerce clause and the corruption that has brought to all of government by the zillions of corrupted, excessively financed special interest groups.
All three branches of the government are nothing more than a boiling pot of corruption…..much probably criminal and most unconstitutional.
Amend Article I, Section 8, Commerce Clause and the corrupt government won’t have to much to do….as intended by the Constitution!
Comparing our esteemed Senators to criminals is a true insult to hardworking men and women such as “Lucky” Luciano, and “Ma” Barker; who, after all, were just trying to keep food on the table for their families.