Along with a $1.1 trillion spending bill that will keep government funded through September, the U.S. Congress is on the verge of passing a Republican-backed, $629 billion package of tax cuts that one group calls "a lobbyist-wrapped Christmas present for our nation's biggest corporations."
"in a frame of fiscal austerity that means that government cannot adequately serve the needs of its people,"
* Oh, I think the government does an excellent job of serving the needs of its people, but its people are the 0.001%. Whatever they want, the "government" rolls over and does what its "people" want.
* The two-hundred million plus serfs that inhabit this country don't count. They are disposable. Their only value is to provide near slave labor for the 0.001% and to purchase the junk made or imported by the 0.001%, usually by going deeper into credit debt to the 0.001%.
* I often wish that this was our government like it used to be, but apparently, no more.
* For the peons, it is "Shop 'til you drop and watch the big game."
;-})
Although it seems crazy here on CD to say it --- nowhere near enough
Americans even understand that there is an EMPIRE, nor that they
themselves are nothing but 'subjects' of that EMPIRE --- because all but
a small fraction of even the alt media don't really try to educate the
people about the EMPIRE, which is a shame (or a sham) in not enabling the:
"Rising-up, standing-up, and shouting-out against EMPIRE" --- which is absolutely
essential if we are to ignite a non-violent Second American Revolution against EMPIRE again in 2015/6 like 1775/6.
The American people will absolutely have to understand that Empire wars abroad and its economic tyranny at home are both parts of the same disease/cancer of EMPIRE itself.
"Empire Files" is uniquely and with seminal focus doing more to
educate the American people about the Disguised Global Capitalist Empire that
has captured, controls, and now fully "Occupies" our former country as
its nominal global HQ, metropole, and 'beard' of faux-democracy than any
other progressive source of truth-telling.
Although, "Popular Resistance", "Common Dreams", "TruthDig", WSWS, "The Real News Network", "Truth Out", "Days of Rage", and an array of progressive alt media sites also deserve credit for providing good articles exposing and 'outing' the Empire with some increasing frequency.
A non-violent "shout heard round the world" against this EMPIRE is the only peaceful and 'effective' alternative to another bloody "shot heard round the world" of mass suicide.
Sooooooo......
No Democrats voted on this/these bills????
(I'm registered non-partisan voter)
The Constitution needs to be re-written from: WE THE PEOPLE... TO WE THE CORPORATIONS. And of the oligarchs; by the oligarchs; and for the oligarchs.
But the sad part is that until the vast majority of Americans wake up and realize they no longer live in a democracy, but a corportocracy and an Amerikan Empire that is backed by a military dictatorship and that for the people; of the people; and by the people; is no longer relevant, nothing will change.
minitrue, I like your comment and fully agree with the deceitful phony nature of this NOT-democracy of the people.
However, as an alternative to calling the 'little people' (as Leona Hemsley did), merely; serfs, peons, wage-slaves, peasants, or other terms that are perfectly accurate, but do not point to their tyrannous oppressor, I always call them "subjects' of the Empire --- since this term gives people the correct name of the thing, predator, and actual structure which they could and should Revolt against, just as the earlier American colonists and 'subjects; of the Empire well understood what foot of Empire was on their throats and what 'thing' they needed to confront and overcome.
Being a serf, peon, peasant, or pauper --- which most of us are ---- does not give the serf enough of an identity, as the 'subject of an EMPIRE' does to fight back against a specific thing, the EMPIRE that is enslaving him as a 'subject'.
All Revolutions throughout history are fought "against Empire" ---- although they are sometimes disguised with other names like: dynasty, monarchy, dictatorship, oligarchy, fascism, plutocracy, et al.
Sure they did!
Result: 332 Yes ( 214 needed to pass)
Republicans 169 Y 62 N
Democrats 163 Y 32 N
Bipartisan as hell!
QUOTE:
With 271,527 votes cast -- and all three presidential candidates campaigning directly for your vote -- the results are in and they are extraordinary.
Bernie Sanders has earned Democracy for America's endorsement in the
2016 Democratic presidential primary with an astonishing, record-breaking 87.9%
of the vote (including 77.8% of voters who were already members of DFA
prior to the poll being launched on December 7).
This is an historic moment for DFA, for the progressive movement, for the
Democratic Party, for people-powered politics -- and for Bernie
supporters who relentlessly rallied over nine intense days to Get Out The Vote
and win this pivotal endorsement....UNQUOTE
(The bold emphasis on 87.9% is mine.)
That is despite the foul move by Howard Dean, the founder of the DFA, when he sabotaged the neutrality of the process by co-authoring an email with Hillary to all members endorsing her.
This is much more valuable than a union endorsement, which is just a recommendation to the members whom to vote for. ** These are 238,672 DIRECT votes for Bernie!** and the start of a powerful new campaign in his behalf.
When deals are made with the devil, in the end there will always be Hell to pay. The vote was not "bipartisan." It was more like a consummate example of coercion/extortion. The vultures have come to roost on Ryan...picking at his flesh and blinding him...and he seems to regale in their attention. Not for long....
Yes. I've often written comments to the effect that we were once Citizens of the Constitutional Republic, of the United States of America.
* We have become subjects of the Empire of the US Fourth Reich.
* We are well on the way toward being serfs of the Autocracy of the 0.001%.
* I hope that we can turn this around, but it will take the whole world to make it happen. Every time the Reich invades another country, I keep hoping it will be the Fourth Reich's Poland, but so far...
;-})
If the Amerikan Empire's, Stasi military war mongers like Graham, Huck and the insane McCain people get their wish and attack Russia, it will not be Poland; it will be Waterloo!
It's also funny that conservatives say that the Democrats and Obama got everything and that they got nothing.