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BS: Fiscal Cliff
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Subject: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: GUEST,999 Date: 31 Dec 12 - 09:44 PM Not Cliff Richard (Hank Webb), not Cliff Robertson, not your mother. A month ago I suggested it was theatre and bullshit. Anyone disagree? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Bobert Date: 31 Dec 12 - 10:02 PM No, but... ...apparently Obama and the Repubs have a stenkin' deal which the Senate will vote on in the next few minutes and the House will take up shortly after midnight... Really fucked up deal no matter how you look at it... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Rapparee Date: 31 Dec 12 - 10:09 PM We must beat our chests and yell and pelt each other with with shitballs and threaten and scream and then, when our jobs are in danger, work something out that doesn't solve anything but pushes the problem away instead. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: number 6 Date: 31 Dec 12 - 10:22 PM It's all bullshit ... another manipulative way of spreading a wave fear to the people by the government. biLL |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: GUEST,999 Date: 31 Dec 12 - 10:23 PM I get it, I was wrong, right? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Bobert Date: 31 Dec 12 - 10:36 PM Well, on some levels it is a cliff but guess what??? If we had done nothin' then in a couple years we'd be fine... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Jeri Date: 31 Dec 12 - 10:46 PM I get the impression Republicans want to get as far away from looking reasonable as possible. I think mid-terms will be interesting. I also think it's all bullshit, in a sort of political game of "chicken". And if it hadn't been flogged to death in the media, absolutely nothing would have changed except people would have been less worried. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Rapparee Date: 31 Dec 12 - 10:52 PM Nah...posing, etc. Gotta show off our muscles and scream like Tarzan. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: GUEST Date: 31 Dec 12 - 11:06 PM My taxes just went up 2 percent...at midnight. It wasn't the republicans ... there was no vote... we can only point fingers at Obama 's momma. Its not that bad...ten less folk CDs will be purchased from the discretionary pocket of the household budget for 2013. Beef and potatoes will still grace our tables. PTL |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Crowhugger Date: 31 Dec 12 - 11:08 PM Nope, no disagreement here. Jeri I agree--most of the hoopla is about filling air time and being able to sell advertising on that air time at the highest possible price, which means they need good ratings. I think people really need to remember that when they watch so-called "news". |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Jeri Date: 31 Dec 12 - 11:18 PM Gargoyle, it isn't midnight yet. It's not just the reality TV mentality, it's the fact that there are a pile of Congressholes who need to be fired. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Bobert Date: 01 Jan 13 - 07:31 AM A deal has been approved by the Senate... It has a lot of stuff in it... One of those is that the "payroll tax holiday" is over so that 2% reduction in FICA will be ended so, in essence, most everyone will see a 2% increase in with-holding... Most of the other provisions won't effect too many people except those families making a combined income of $450,000 or individuals making $400,000... It still must pass the House which it could do as early as today... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: GUEST Date: 01 Jan 13 - 03:02 PM It should be re-labled the GOP's "fiscal fraud", a weapon of mass diversion. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Ron Davies Date: 01 Jan 13 - 03:20 PM A little patience might just possibly be in order--til we see the details of the "agreement". Don't worry, I'm sure your outrage will be amply justified regardless of the deal. Maybe BS should be re-labeled Outrage R Us. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Little Hawk Date: 01 Jan 13 - 03:27 PM Yeah! ;-D I've been thinking for some time that we could change the name of the entire Mudcat Forum to that, Ron. Or maybe just call it the Recreational Outrage Cafe. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Ron Davies Date: 01 Jan 13 - 04:32 PM You got it, LH---ROC n roll, right? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Bobert Date: 01 Jan 13 - 05:18 PM Now that Obama and the Dems have already given way too much, Johnny and the Tea Thugs get their chance to extract even more... And loo0ks as if Johnny and the Tea Thugs are going to play this out as if they had won the November election??? Go figure??? B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Ron Davies Date: 01 Jan 13 - 06:39 PM Sorry, people, it's called compromise--maybe it will make it into the Mudcat lexicon--the day after Hell freezes over. It's something you have to do in the real world when the other side has control of the House. Or are you all devotees of the idea of burning down the village to save it? Here in the Neverland of Outrage R Us, the business where it sometimes seems most Mudcatters have franchises. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Rapparee Date: 01 Jan 13 - 11:28 PM Passed the Senate, passed the House 257-167. Obama will sign it, I don't doubt. Now for more posturing and chest thumping and stuff. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: number 6 Date: 01 Jan 13 - 11:43 PM Well PRAISE THE Lord !! We are all saved !!!! Geeeesh ... what a pile of bull crap biLL |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Ron Davies Date: 01 Jan 13 - 11:45 PM Not to mention the moaning--on both sides--that it is not perfect. Sorry, people, it was the only deal in town at this point. And, as I've indicated earlier, financial markets are manic-depressive enough; you don't really want to encourage it if you have any sense, which I think Mudcatters do (perhaps I'm wrong on that). Believe it or not, such markets can have a direct impact even on hardcore Lefties--especially through soaring interest rates and the dislocations resulting from that. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: dick greenhaus Date: 01 Jan 13 - 11:50 PM Mislabeling. Congress did The 2% increase in FICA isn't a really a increase---it 's the result of ending a temporary holiday of a tax that paid for Social Security. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Ron Davies Date: 01 Jan 13 - 11:54 PM But Dick, "Mislabeling" is Congress' middle name. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Ron Davies Date: 02 Jan 13 - 06:08 AM One more thing; please remember before criticizing this bill--which no one claims is perfect---that there is a $5 fine for whining. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: number 6 Date: 02 Jan 13 - 10:21 AM not really related related to this thread ... but what the hell, I'll post this regardless ... from the Message News/Media website "Maybe the only time that Obama should look to John Boehner for guidance on how to negotiate... Speaker John Boehner couldn't hold back when he spotted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the White House lobby last Friday. ... Reid had just publicly accused Boehner of running a 'dictatorship' in the House and caring more about holding onto his gavel than striking a deal. 'Go f--- yourself,' Boehner sniped as he pointed his finger at Reid, according to multiple sources present. Reid, a bit startled, replied: 'What are you talking about?' Boehner repeated: 'Go f--- yourself." biLL |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Bobert Date: 02 Jan 13 - 10:30 AM Boehner isn't responsible for anything he says or does after 5 pm because chances are he's well on the way to being drunk... But, no matter... Here's the deal... We definitely have gone over a fiscal cliff here and there aren't enough sane people in Congress who understand basic college economics to expect anything that resembles intelligent fiscal policy... Bunch of "true Believers" who believe anything that makes it past the tin foil... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: EBarnacle Date: 02 Jan 13 - 10:50 AM Next comes Thursday's votes on Speakership and rules of the House and Senate. Could holds and filibusters become a thing of the past, along with the need of a supermajority to get anything accomplished? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Bobert Date: 02 Jan 13 - 11:34 AM I wish the Senate would change the rules but Vegas has it 7-2 they won't... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: dick greenhaus Date: 02 Jan 13 - 12:40 PM Bobert, "Here's the deal... We definitely have gone over a fiscal cliff here and there aren't enough sane people in Congress who understand basic college economics to expect anything that resembles intelligent fiscal policy..." I wish you would more specific about what you don't like about the bill. I know what I don't like about it, but I don't see it as going over any cliff. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Bobert Date: 02 Jan 13 - 12:56 PM Very simple, dick... Obama ran on the $200K (individual)/$25oK (combined)... Even those numbers I thought were way too high... Me??? I would have set the numbers at closer to $75K/$100K... What we got ($400K/$450K) is great news for 80% of the millionaires, i.e. "1%-ers", whose taxes won't go up at all and ain't gonna be all that much revenue in relation to what is needed to have a balanced approach... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Ron Davies Date: 02 Jan 13 - 03:42 PM We needed a bill, for the reason I cited. As I also pointed out, the GOP has the majority in the House--so you can't dictate what you want to them. On top of this, there is a boatload of unhappy Tea Party etc., types. Who are they unhappy with? Their own leader, Boehner, who is seen as having sold them down the river. So there may even be a civil war on the GOP, as an added bonus. Sounds like a good deal for us. And above all, remember the $5 fine for whining. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Ron Davies Date: 02 Jan 13 - 03:44 PM "on the GOP side" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Bobert Date: 02 Jan 13 - 04:16 PM Given the sequestration, Ron, which would have pissed off the Republican donor base of DoD contractors, Obama and the Dems could have held their feet to the fire and won this round... This wasn't a compromise... It was capitulation... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Ron Davies Date: 02 Jan 13 - 04:28 PM You can't assume that anybody could have held "feet to the fire" unless you are rather naive. I thought Mudcatters were not naive. Only sure thing is: no deal would have rattled markets--and that, believe it or not, is not just Wall St's affair. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle Date: 02 Jan 13 - 04:29 PM Fiscal Cliff.......! you can't keep away from Cliff at Christmas. he doesn't even have to make records! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Bobert Date: 02 Jan 13 - 04:46 PM No, I see Obama and the Dems as being the naive, Ron... They played right into the Doomsday PR propaganda that has been pushed on us ever since the Super Committee failed to find common ground and now we have signed on to a bad deal that only insures that the Republicans and, more importantly, the Tea Party is back in control of the discussion going toward the debt ceiling hostage situation... Throw in the spending cuts which must be decided over the next two months, I'd say that Obama and the Dems were holding a full-house and backed down from the Repubs who bluffed them with a pair of deuces... The worst part about it is that the Repubs now fully understand that Obama will "fold 'um" over and over and over... The very worst part about this is that the bill is bad policy... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: GUEST,Paul Date: 02 Jan 13 - 07:32 PM For the past 25 years the intelligent parasites and manipulators have been shipping real jobs out of the country. I haven't seen any of these idiots on TV running around and yelling like now. What the hell are they expecting anyway? The damage has been done. Pat Bucanan , Roos Perot and a number of sensible people warned these idiots what will happen. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Bobert Date: 02 Jan 13 - 07:49 PM This goes back even further, Paul... In the early 1980s the Japanese came into America and made off with our steel industry... It took massive subsidies by the Japanese steel industry to pull it off... Ronald Reagan, rather than step in and stop the out-right theft, took it as an opportunity to blame the unions the theft??? I mean, I knew people who worked at the Jenette Blast Furnace in Youngstown, Ohio and these people weren't getting rich... Yeah, they were union people but they weren't getting rich... Most were scarping by... But Reagan stood behind all those BIG LIES that Boss Hog was telling anyone who would listen about how the union people were living so well and how unreasonable their demands were... BS... Go to Youngstown and look at the houses... If times were so great back then then the houses should still be there as monuments of better times... Miles and miles of bungalows and clapboard sided small houses... It's good to report that steel has come back to Youngstown... Came back about 5 years ago... But, like before, no one gettinh' rich except the rich people... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Songwronger Date: 02 Jan 13 - 08:08 PM Excerpts from a good article on the World Socialist Website. Written before the last-minute wrangling and vote, but exceptionally perceptive. They resume activity tomorrow, and it'll be interesting to see what they write: Obama spearheads social counterrevolution 31 December 2012 ...It is necessary to demystify the whole process, which is characterized by an extraordinary level of posturing and lies, behind which is concealed a conspiracy against the American people. The "fiscal cliff" is an artificially erected deadline, laid down as part of previous negotiations and aimed at creating the conditions for implementing unpopular measures that previously would have been considered politically impossible.... This is only the beginning. The fiscal cliff is the first in a series of artificial deadlines established for the New Year. There will be another deadline in late February over raising the federal debt ceiling—the same issue that became the pretext in August 2011 for a bipartisan agreement to cut over $1 trillion in social spending over the next decade. In March, the "continuing resolution" adopted before the election to authorize federal spending for six months will expire. Each deadline will be utilized as the occasion to go after the most important federal social programs: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which provide retirement income and pay for health care for tens of millions of elderly, disabled and poor people. The phony debate over a minuscule tax increase for the rich—which will be quickly replaced with "comprehensive reform" to lower income and corporate taxes next year—is intended to conceal this reactionary agenda.... In the course of the presidential election, liberal publications like the Nation magazine and a panoply of pseudo-left groups such as the International Socialist Organization portrayed the reelection of Obama as a blow to the right-wing agenda of the giant corporations and banks. The truth is that Obama and the Democrats represent the financial aristocracy no less than the Republicans. In fact, Obama became the preferred candidate of the ruling elite, as demonstrated by his campaign cash hoard of more than $1 billion.... http://wsws.org/en/articles/2012/12/31/pers-d31.html |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Ron Davies Date: 02 Jan 13 - 10:44 PM Bobert-- You play the hand with the cards you're dealt, not with the ones you wish you had. Obama knows this. Some Mudcatters don't. Now it's on to immigration reform--and he has a better chance now with that than ever--thanks to the incipient civil war in the GOP. Only fools would advocate a civil war among the Democrats. I hope Mudcatters are not fools. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Bobert Date: 02 Jan 13 - 10:50 PM Your opinion, Ron... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Songwronger Date: 02 Jan 13 - 11:35 PM Obama's a fascist. He just attacked his base supporters. In some interview over the weekend he said he may not last out his term. The spin was that he's worried he will be assassinated, but that worthless piece of shit knows he's running a risk of being impeached. By his own party. Good riddance. Pull the plug on on braindead Hillary and impeach Obama. Let the liberals back into the party. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: GUEST,Big Al Whittle Date: 03 Jan 13 - 07:04 AM Oh its Christmas time Republicans that whine No tax for the rich folks! And uzis are fine! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: beardedbruce Date: 03 Jan 13 - 07:39 AM "The "fiscal cliff" legislation passed this week included $76 billion in special-interest tax credits for the likes of General Electric, Hollywood and even Captain Morgan. But these subsidies weren't the fruit of eleventh-hour lobbying conducted on the cliff's edge -- they were crafted back in August in a Senate committee, and they sat dormant until the White House reportedly insisted on them this week. The Family and Business Tax Cut Certainty Act of 2012, which passed through the Senate Finance Committee in August, was copied and pasted into the fiscal cliff legislation, yielding a victory for biotech companies, wind-turbine-makers, biodiesel producers, film studios -- and their lobbyists. So, if you're wondering how algae subsidies became part of a must-pass package to avert the dreaded fiscal cliff, credit the Biotechnology Industry Organization's lobbying last summer. Some tax lobbyists mostly ignored the August bill "because they thought it would be just a political document," one K Streeter told me. "They were the ones that got bit in the butt." Here's what happened: In late July, Finance Chairman Max Baucus announced the committee would soon convene to craft a bill extending many expiring tax credits. This attracted lobbyists like a raw steak attracts wolves. Former Sens. John Breaux, D-La., and Trent Lott, R-Miss., a pair of rainmaker lobbyists, pleaded for extensions on behalf of a powerful lineup of clients. General Electric and Citigroup, for instance, hired Breaux and Lott to extend a tax provision that allows multinational corporations to defer U.S. taxes by moving profits into offshore financial subsidiaries. This provision -- known as the "active financing exception" -- is the main tool GE uses to avoid nearly all U.S. corporate income tax. Liquor giant Diageo also retained Breaux and Lott to win extensions on two provisions benefitting rum-making in Puerto Rico. The K Street firm Capitol Tax Partners, led by Treasury Department alumni from the Clinton administration, represented an even more impressive list of tax clients, who paid CTP more than $1.68 million in the third quarter. Besides financial clients like Citi, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, CTP represented green energy companies like GE and the American Wind Energy Association. These companies won extension and expansion of the production tax credit for wind energy. Hollywood hired CTP, too: The Motion Picture Association of America won an extension on tax credits for film production. After packing 50 tax credit extensions into the bill, the committee voted 19 to 5 to pass it. But then it stalled. The Senate left for the conventions and the fall campaign. Meanwhile, House Republicans signaled resistance to some of the extensions -- especially for green energy. One lobbyist said he didn't worry too much about the Baucus bill because "we knew the House wasn't going to pass it." But another lobbyist, who had worked on the Puerto Rico issues, said he saw Baucus' bill as an important starting point that "set the parameters" of a future fight with House Republicans. But there never was a fight. Baucus' bill sat ignored until last week, when the White House sat down with Senate Republicans to craft a deal averting the fiscal cliff. A Republican Senate aide familiar with the cliff negotiations tells me the White House wanted permanent extensions of a whole slew of corporate tax credits. When Senate Republicans said no, "the White House insisted that the exact language" of the Baucus bill be included in the fiscal cliff deal. "They were absolutely insistent," another aide tells me. (The White House did not return requests for comment.) Sure enough, Title II of the fiscal cliff legislation is nearly a word-for-word replication of the Family and Business Tax Cut Certainty Act of 2012. " http://washingtonexaminer.com/tim-carney-how-corporate-tax-credits-got-in-the-cliff-deal/article/2517397#.UOV7T6Ws38u |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Bobert Date: 03 Jan 13 - 09:38 AM Yup... Lotta pork stuffed in there... $43 for NASCAR??? Wonder who got that in there??? Never mind... Probably the same folks who booed Michelle Obama when she attended a car race... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: beardedbruce Date: 03 Jan 13 - 09:38 AM No, it was the present White House that insisted on it... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: beardedbruce Date: 03 Jan 13 - 09:40 AM " A Republican Senate aide familiar with the cliff negotiations tells me the White House wanted permanent extensions of a whole slew of corporate tax credits. When Senate Republicans said no, "the White House insisted that the exact language" of the Baucus bill be included in the fiscal cliff deal. "They were absolutely insistent," another aide tells me. (The White House did not return requests for comment.) Sure enough, Title II of the fiscal cliff legislation is nearly a word-for-word replication of the Family and Business Tax Cut Certainty Act of 2012. " |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: number 6 Date: 03 Jan 13 - 09:53 AM "Michelle Obama when she attended a car race" What the hell was Michelle doing at a car race ?!?!?! and I assume it was Nascar. biLL |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: Bobert Date: 03 Jan 13 - 10:06 AM Yup. it was a NASCAR race... She and Jill Biden attended one and were boo-ed... Yo, bb... Can you provide your source on your assertion that the NASCAR pork originated with Obama??? B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Fiscal Cliff From: beardedbruce Date: 03 Jan 13 - 10:36 AM Can you provide YOUR source for your accusations about the TEA party ( who did NOT vote for this bill)? - I posted the clickey, and it should be easy to see if it is factual- " Title II of the fiscal cliff legislation is nearly a word-for-word replication of the Family and Business Tax Cut Certainty Act of 2012." Either it is, or it is not. The DEMS control the Senate and that committee, so I think it is safe to presume they were aware of what was in the bill that they copied into the "cliff" legislation. |
