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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Right back at you Captain. And I know what you mean about the tards. Its like 95 percent of the world has gone completely crazy.
Just dropped in for a short visit. That whitewater kayaking on the kings trip report was over the top. Those guys had an amazing trip. Its on the Tehipite thread.
http://www.kayakphoto.com/darinmcquoid/middlekings.html
Those guys had a seriously righteous trip. "but it wasn't about the rock" heh heh.. Smiling at you man. Just smiling.
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Captain...or Skully
climber
or some such
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Cool rocks are in that River & above it. (oh, my, above). It's still about the REAL.
Cheers!
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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John.
Federal Income Tax is what I was talking about.
Not your stupid airfare tax or whatever other tax the Fed has tacked onto your life. (Ask yourself why they do that too!)
INCOME TAX!!!
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Captain...or Skully
climber
or some such
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And so it goes.
Harlan Ellison was so much more right than he ever knew.
Tick tock.
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apogee
climber
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Hey, look- it's 'Donald the talking Dog'!
Speak, Donald, Speak!
Roll over!
Lick your balls!
Good Donald...good Donald. Here's a treat.
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Captain...or Skully
climber
or some such
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I was in need of a laugh. Thanks be to the Apogee.
Wisdom comes in interesting packages. G'nite, all.
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Stewart
Trad climber
Courtenay, B.C.
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Hello Donald Thompson:
Bite me - your poisonous ignorance is spreading to my nation, and I don't like it one damn bit.
Furthermore, the U.S. Constitution has enshrined freedom of speech in its text and, speaking of which, have you bothered to read the words inscribed in the Statue of Liberty, or have you melted it down for scrap yet?
I assume you can read, so how about acting like an adult and pointing out the factual errors in my statements?
Here's a quote to consider: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Perhaps you can look that one up if you can't locate facts to counter my statements, and I am sure that you can locate someone down there to help you locate the source.
Taxes pay for things like national defence and many other things that I am sure are dear to your heart. The bulk of your deficit has been racked up by Republican administrations, often as a result of of its habit of providing weapons to prop up corrupt foreign dictatorships, but it appears to me that you think that disgustingly wealthy citizens of the United States should be exempt from the responsibility of carrying the same tax burdens that hard-working less fortunate citizens are expected to bear.
We are far from perfect up here, but I can honestly say that I am unaware of a single citizen in my country getting their house taken away from them as a result of a mortgage scam, or of a single person being bankrupted as a result of their inability to pay medical bills - that's what taxes and government regulation are for, amongst other things. I was appalled at the indifference shown towards the citizens of New Orleans by your then parody of a President, both before and after Hurricane Katrina - I guess he and the people who pulled his strings were too busy tearing up the Constitution. Oh well, I guess those people deserved it because many of the victims were black and therefore probably weren't hard workers like the bankers, stockbrokers and politicians who were clearly working real hard stealing money from from those lower down the food chain.
Get your information from somewhere other than Fox news, or at least read some books with footnotes that can actually withstand objective criticism.
By the way, it's clear that I don't like you, but I would make an effort to help you if you were hungry or homeless. As a matter of fact, I DID do volunteer work for those very same unfortunates for nearly ten years.
Whatever awaits us in the afterlife is a mystery, but we only pass through here once. I hope you can grow up and try to make this world a better place instead of spreading hatred around as if it were something to be proud of. That's how wars start, and nice people on both sides often get hurt or worse.
By the way, I work real hard and have the scars to prove it. Strangely enough, I'm not rich and, by the way, if the tone of your rhetoric actually represents the voice of the American public, it is my opinion that even you will be eventually looking back from the future and remembering the present as the good old days.
P.S.: By the way, I am not an alternate identity - nor am I deranged or delusional. Since you seem to think that you are a shining example of mental health, perhaps you could provide me with details of the results of your assessment by a reputable psychiatrist.
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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i don't recall anyone here claiming that we should pay no taxes, simply lower taxes...we conservatives believe that certain government services (i.e. defense) are necessary and we're happy to pay for those services
when we point to the 50% of working americans that "pay no taxes", it is understood that we refer to federal income taxes...you know this; we know that you know; thus, your outrage simply illustrates your refusal to debate the issue at hand, which indicates that you have no logical counter-argument
see, it's like when you claim that the "rich need to pay their fair share"; we know you're referring to income tax; so we point out that the top 10% of taxpayers pay 38% of all federal income taxes, which clearly indicates that the rich pay MORE than their "fair share" (by any legitimate definition of 'fair'); we could also point to the higher percentages of social security, property, sales, etc., tax revenue the rich contribute, but that would be irrelevant to the argument and, therefore, unfair
hey, when barry claims, "everybody needs to pay their fair share" does he mean EVERYBODY, including the 50% of working americans who don't pay any income taxes? no, of course not, because "everybody" to a liberal means rich conservative corporate owners
another question: when is being poor better than being average? when you're poor in america...poor americans have a higher standard of living than average europeans AND poor americans have a far greater opportunity for upward economic mobility in our capitalist system than average europeans have in their socialist systems, which explains why so many average europeans, poor people from other nations, and perpetually disgruntled liberals in america choose to live in america rather than in europe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkebmhTQN-4
ps: if we take all the income, ALL, from those who make $10 million or more peer year (which is the liberal dream), we could run the gov for approximately three weeks...of course, then the rich would have nothing more to give and the world economy would collapse and there would be chaos and the only ones who would survive to rebuild would be...gun owners...hey maybe this whole liberal dream isn't such a bad idea
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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it's like when you claim that the "rich need to pay their fair share"; we know you're referring to income tax; so we point out that the top 10% of taxpayers pay 38% of all federal income taxes, which clearly indicates that the rich pay MORE than their "fair share"
This is your opinion. Perhaps that opinion would change if you realized that the 400 wealthiest americans have more wealth then 50 percent of all Americans. Thats right. Just 400 Americans own more then 150 million Americans, yet you worry that they are paying too much.
Bah.. Wealth inequality is greater in America then in any other industrialized nation. Yet you worry about the richest people.
That is just bizarre to me. For a Christian, You have your priorities mixed up.
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Stewart
Trad climber
Courtenay, B.C.
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Hey Bookworm: I haven't tripped over you since you last started calling me names when I pointed out your noxious habit of cherry-picking half-truths to bolster your lame assertions - just like your buddy David Thompson, although I must reluctantly admit that you appear to have at least a couple more IQ points.
I don't claim to be an expert on living conditions of the disadvantaged in every nation of Europe, but perhaps you could help me locate FACTS about the standard of living in "Socialist" Norway. It's in Europe, along with Sweden and Denmark. Sure - taxes are higher over there, but that nation provides cradle to grave free health care, free education, paid maternity leave and a galaxy of other benefits to their citizens. The violent crime rate in that nation is almost non-existent - that is if you ignore the evil nobody (who shared many of your opinions)who, to promote his twisted agenda, murdered over 70 innocent children.
An objective citizen should have little trouble tracking down the growth of the U.S. deficit, and should have little trouble finding the numbers to support the fact that the Federal deficit has ballooned under Republican administrations. Trickle-down economics and free trade have benefited no one other than the wealthy.
Say what you will about Obama, but it is a laughable betrayal of the truth to blame this debt crisis on him. Your Republican-controlled Congress is doing everything within its power to prevent him from spending a single cent on any measure to reign in the power of the avalanche of thieves whom you so passionately defend.
How much did the needless war in Iraq cost and how many brave U.S. servicemen lost their lives, and for what? How much did the private military contractors (AKA mercenaries) get paid compared to comparative ranks in the U.S. military? Whose war criminal ex-presidential advisors had a financial interest in the illegal invasion of Iraq?
Are you actually claiming that the poor in the U.S. actually have a higher standard of living than in most nations of Europe? If so, perhaps the plutocrats you pimp for could arrange transportation to the United States for these poor souls so that they can experience this largesse. This shouldn't be a problem, since these words are paraphrased on your Statue of Liberty. Also, they couldn't possibly be a burden on your economy, since they could be encouraged to work hard and get filthy rich in no time flat.
I doubt that you're a climber, since one of the expected character traits of a REAL climber is a willingness to place his or her own safety at risk to assist another in distress.
P.S.: It is at best beneath contempt to make (I presume) jokes about murdering people who disagree with you - the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history was your civil war and, in those days, the opposing sides did not have access to the nauseatingly lethal weaponry available today.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Bookworm said
another question: when is being poor better than being average? when you're poor in america...poor americans have a higher standard of living than average europeans AND poor americans have a far greater opportunity for upward economic mobility in our capitalist system than average europeans have in their socialist systems, which explains why so many average europeans, poor people from other nations, and perpetually disgruntled liberals in america choose to live in america rather than in europe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkebmhTQN-4
This is likely the most bizzare thing posted yet. Actually, the persons with the most upward mobility are the deaf, blind, african children who cannot read or write who are starving. Boy, can they improve a lot! Duh!
Actually, you will find that Americans generally cannot immigrate to europe.
Europeans are generally much happier than Americans. Generally, their health is better, their lifespan is longer.
Your youtube propaganda piece is filled with information that is biased to give a slant that is very misleading, so far outside reasonable, as to be wrong.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Conservatives in US Better watch out for the Israeli Lead:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced details about a new financial team Sunday, a day after more than a quarter of a million demonstrators took to the streets protesting the rising cost of living in the Jewish state.
The Israelis have so squeezed the middle class with taxes, rising costs of living, while the upper class master have grown richer, that the protests have broken out. Difference with America is that the Israeli middle class IS the army, and they are all armed with automatic weapons, and they control the streets. The gov't does not control the civilian population with the military, the civilian population IS the military.
The Oligarcs are now very scared. There may be bloodshed. The jewish moneyhandlers overseas hiding the money for their masters may be the targets.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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60 minutes piece on morgage scam by banks, tonite.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/08/07/60minutes/main20086862.shtml?tag=contentMain;cbsCarousel
Unbelievable fraud by banks to defraud millions out of their homes. Uncovered by target of fraud who lost home, who happened to be attorney who was expert on fraud who taught FBI, who uncovered forgeries.
One of the strangest signatures belonged to the bank vice president who had signed Szymoniak's newly discovered mortgage documents. The name is Linda Green. But, on thousands of other mortgages, the style of Green's signature changed a lot.
And, even more remarkable, Szymoniak found Green was vice president of 20 banks - all at the same time.
Where did all those documents come from? We went searching for "the" Linda Green and found her in rural Georgia. She told us she has never been a bank vice president.
In 2003, she was a shipping clerk for auto parts when her grandson told her about a job at a company called Docx. The company, that was once housed in Alpharetta, Ga., was a sweatshop for forged mortgage documents.
"They were sitting in a room signing their name as fast as they possibly could to any kind of nonsense document that was put in front of them," Szymoniak said.
Docx, and companies like it, were recreating missing mortgage assignments for the banks and providing the legally required signatures of bank vice presidents and notaries. Linda Green says she was named a bank vice president by Docx because her name was short and easy to spell. As demand exploded, Docx needed more Linda Greens.
"So you're Linda Green?" Pelley asked Chris Pendley.
"Yeah, can't you tell?" Pendley, who is a man, replied.
These are the corporations that Donald and Fattrad want you to trust and pay tribute to. And give your house to. Watch this and get sick.
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Degaine
climber
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fattrad,
The ratings agencies gave toxic waste a AAA rating and even gave Lehman a good rating less than a month before its demise.
Who gives a sh#t what the ratings agencies think? They no longer have any credibility.
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Degaine
climber
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bookworm wrote:
poor americans have a higher standard of living than average europeans AND poor americans have a far greater opportunity for upward economic mobility in our capitalist system than average europeans have in their socialist systems,
Completely untrue. I know that you dislike facts, but your outstanding demonstration of ignorance in this sentence is even uncharacteristic for you.
Honest question, how were you able to keep a straight face when writing this B.S. ?
The average European has a far higher standard of living than poor Americans. Just look at healthcare coverage to start.
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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can you say, "unfunded liabilities", boys and girls?
from wsj:
August 8, 2011 4:00 A.M.
Obama Makes History (of Our AAA Credit)
The Obama administration and congressional Democrats are betting their political futures on the hope that the American electorate is ignorant and forgetful, and hence the memo has gone out to functionaries hither and yon, from David Axelrod to John Kerry: This is to be called the “tea-party downgrade.” That this is said with straight faces bespeaks either an unshakable contempt for the mind of the American voter or an as-yet unplumbed capacity for Democratic self-delusion.
Let us revisit the facts. The original debt-ceiling deal put forward by the Democrats totaled $0.00 in debt reduction. This would have fallen approximately $4 trillion short of the $4 trillion in debt reduction the credit-rating agencies suggested would constitute a “credible” step toward maintaining our AAA rating and avoiding a downgrade. This $0.00 program was the so-called “clean” debt-ceiling bill — the one that contained not a farthing of debt reduction. Bad as it was, Republicans agreed to give Democrats a vote on it. Some 82 Democrats and every Republican voted against it, and for good reason: Doing nothing at all is hardly a “credible” program.
The Democrats have suggested that Republicans’ refusal to accede to tax hikes is the main reason Standard & Poor’s felt it necessary to issue a downgrade, the first in American history, last Friday evening. In their assessment of Standard & Poor’s reasoning, the Democrats are acutely at odds with Standard & Poor’s. The credit-rating agency did not call for tax hikes in its assessment: “Standard & Poor’s takes no position on the mix of spending and revenue measures that Congress and the Administration might conclude is appropriate for putting the U.S.’s finances on a sustainable footing.” No position on tax hikes. But S&P, along with the other credit-rating agencies, has long taken a position on one aspect of our fiscal troubles: entitlement reform. From S&P again: “The plan envisions only minor policy changes on Medicare and little change in other entitlements, the containment of which we and most other independent observers regard as key to long-term fiscal sustainability.”
As anybody who has looked at our long-term deficit projections knows, entitlement spending is the major driver of our future deficits. With unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare already running into trillions of dollars — many multiples of our GDP — it is implausible that taxes would be raised sufficiently to meet those obligations. Sustaining present spending levels over coming decades while maintaining current levels of debt would mean nearly doubling every federal tax: income, payroll, inheritance, excises, etc. To repeat: That’s to maintain current debt levels, not to reduce them. Even if the political will existed to inflict such tax increases on the American people, doing so would prove economically ruinous. Entitlement reform, then — not taxes, not President Obama’s fictitious “balanced approach” — is rightly understood, as S&P argues, as the “key to long-term fiscal sustainability.” Tea-party leaders, far from being a barrier to entitlement reform, have demanded it.
The main obstacle to reform is the gentleman who lives at at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and his legislative enablers down the street. Recall: Though Democrats controlled the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives from 2008–10, and therefore could have forced through any budget they saw fit, they left the nation with no budget at all — much less a reformed or balanced one — never bothering to pass one in the year before they lost their House majority. Though congressional Democrats could not be bothered, President Obama did submit a 2011 budget. It contained $0.00 toward entitlement reform. He soon disavowed his own budget proposal. The president later gave a speech in which he said he’d like to see $4 trillion in deficit-reduction, but submitted no budget or other legislation to accompany that rhetoric. The head of the Congressional Budget Office, a Democrat, was moved to observe dryly that his agency “does not score speeches.”
But the CBO does score legislative proposals, and gave good marks to a bipartisan proposal offered by the president’s own hand-picked deficit-reduction panel. The presidential commission offered a credible plan, one that even included the tax increases so beloved of this administration. Naturally, the president disavowed his own commission’s proposal, just as he would disavow his own budget proposal. Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi declared it “dead on arrival” in the House. The plan was angrily rejected by congressional Democrats precisely and specifically because it contained modest entitlement-reform proposals. Likewise, Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget proposal, which would have brought health-care entitlement spending down to sustainable levels while making key reforms to improve the performance of those programs, passed the House only to be rejected out of hand by Sen. Harry Reid and his Democratic colleagues, precisely because it contained entitlement reforms. It would have cut some $4.4 trillion off of the deficits over a decade, well beyond the $4 trillion mark suggested by the credit-rating agencies. But Democrats would have none of it.
The deal that finally did pass would have contained significantly more in deficit-reduction, except for the fact that Democrats categorically refused to consider — is this sounding familiar? — entitlement reform, the most important issue.
Content to offer blind opposition, the Obama administration never put forward a detailed plan of its own, though it insisted it had one, a fact that resulted in a moment of unintentional comedy when White House press secretary Jay Carney irritatedly asked unconvinced reporters: “You need it written down?” When it comes to the Obama administration and spending restraint, the American people have every reason to demand that the president put it in writing.
And so we are led to this sorry pass. We are sympathetic to protests that S&P may have reacted more strongly to the political drama surrounding the debt-ceiling debate than was justified by the underlying economics: Despite the troubles in the eurozone, which are quite severe, Germany and France currently boast of higher credit ratings than that of the United States, a nation that accounts for nearly a quarter of the world’s economic output. But even those who believe S&P has overreacted must concede that the finances of the United States have been considerably weakened since 2008. Obama’s deficits have been unprecedented in peacetime, and this downgrade is unprecedented for our nation, at war or at peace. Its effects remain unknown at this time, but its causes do not: S&P spelled out its reasoning quite clearly.
Entitlement reform is the “key issue.” The Tea Party is not standing in the way of entitlement reform. Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid are. Democrats believe that they have discovered a cartoon villain in the Tea Party, and they are hoping that American voters are gullible enough to be distracted by the political theatrics. Come November 2012, Americans should keep in mind both the insult and the injury — to the nation and its credit. President Obama has indeed “made history,” as he promised, but not the sort that we might have hoped for.
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Studly
Trad climber
WA
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What you guys don't understand is that the Big business/world banks/corporate world wants the US to fall/fail. They will then be able to loot our natural resources at will, utilize our young men/women for soliders wherever there is petro, and change the rules to suit them completely. This whole thing is no accident but a well thought out executed plan. We are going down and they have purchased the politicians in our nations capital to do it, thanks to the corruption of the Supreme Court.
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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I wonder where along the socio-economic spectrum that 12% resides?
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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A 'real republican' dies.
...............................................................
Mark O. Hatfield dies at 89; longtime Oregon senator was bedrock of moderate Republicanism
Hatfield was a devout Christian who opposed prayer in the public schools and managed to negotiate common ground among the environmentalists, loggers, anti-abortion activists, death penalty foes, business owners, farmers and antiwar protesters who were his constituents.
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As chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations during two terms, Hatfield infuriated his party's leadership by opposing the wars in Vietnam and Iraq and cast the deciding vote in 1986 against a proposed balanced budget amendment, while championing such typically "liberal" issues as handgun control and family medical leave. In the midst of the shrink-government era of Ronald Reagan, Hatfield said he saw his appropriations chairmanship as a golden opportunity for "sending dollars to social programs in desperate need."
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"His courtesy and his unfailing respect for the views of others made him probably one of the most respected and well-liked members of the United States Senate," U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in an interview
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"Government service has allowed me to promote peace, protect human life, enhance education, safeguard our environment, improve the healthcare of Oregonians and guard the rights of individuals. I have dedicated my public life to these principles."
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He joined the Navy and served as a landing craft officer during the World War II invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He was one of the first U.S. troops to enter Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped.
Those "inhuman, shock-ridden" scenes, as he later described them, inspired a lifetime of activism against war and nuclear weapons.
...
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-me-mark-hatfield-20110808,0,6282369.story?track=rss
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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Ronald Regan's solicitor general Charles Fried on Boehner and the debt ceiling negotiation:
"When John Boehner at the height of the debt ceiling crisis answered [Obama] on the national media he simply did not tell the truth. He said that the president would not compromise, would not take yes for an answer, and wanted it all his own way.
But he cannot have forgotten that he had negotiated Obama into far more cuts than Obama and his caucus had wanted, thought wise or even palatable in return for a modest increase in revenue to be achieved by closing egregious and unfair loopholes in personal and corporate taxes. This is the same compromise recommended by the “Gang of Six,” which included the extremely conservative and admirably patriotic Senator Tom Coburn, by the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson group, and by Republican economists like Martin Feldstein.
It was the Speaker who, Arafat-like, walked away from that deal because he concluded he lacked the skill or the muscle or the spine to sell it to his own caucus."
The rump of the GOP has taken over the party. Even Regan wouldn't be acceptable to this bunch of back bencher yahoos.
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