Get More Smarter on Wednesday (Dec. 16)

8 thoughts on “Get More Smarter on Wednesday (Dec. 16)”

1. "War on Christmas??"  I don't think so. For some interesting info on that non-existent "war," check out the web site of Americans United for Separation of Church and State (www.au.org).   

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   1. I've seen it, C.H.B. They're on my Facebook feed. War on everyone else's midwinter holiday is more like it.

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2. Though R's constantly complain about bloated government, continually attempt to defund effective programs, refuse to normalize tax rates or insist our most profitable corporations pay reasonable taxes on overseas profits, they are always game for another war and increases in defense spending:

   We will have to embed additional American special operators alongside them to help them with training, to help them conduct special missions, and to help improve the air strikes. The air strikes are important, but we need to have an air force capable of it.  And because of the budget cuts we are facing in this country, we are going to be left with the oldest and the smallest Air Force we have ever had. We have to reverse those cuts, in addition to the cuts to our Navy and in addition to the cuts to our Army, as well.

   I would love to know how the fight against ISIS requires more money for the navy. Yes, I know that planes are often launched from aircraft carriers but this particular fight is not a naval battle. Using the "war on terror" to justify trillions in new spending on the navy.

   Of course the hawks want this — they always do.

   No paygos. No offsets. No need to identify funding. Defense gets a free pass on justifying almost everything: 

   A sweeping new two-year budget deal unveiled by the White House and congressional leaders late Monday would give Pentagon planners the fiscal stability they have been begging for, but falls about $5 billion short of what they hoped to receive in fiscal 2016.

   If finalized, the agreement would stave off the threat of a government shutdown for the rest of President Obama's term and raise the national debt ceiling until spring 2017. It also would be the second partial fix to the mandatory federal budget caps that were passed by Congress in 2011 and have been lamented ever since.

   Under details of the "bipartisan budget act" provided by House Republican leaders, the caps on defense spending would be raised by about $25 billion for each of the next two fiscal years, to $548 billion in fiscal 2016 and $551 billion in fiscal 2017.

   That, combined with nearly $59 billion in overseas contingency operations (OCO) funding for each of the next two years, would nearly match Pentagon budget plans for the near future.

   It's not enough for Republicans. And Democrats who thought they outsmarted R's on sequester cuts didn't.

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3. Yes, the war on x-mas is real! Internment camps are already started:

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      1. Cripes!   It's gotten so that it's hard to tell one person's holiday celebration from another person's really bad acid flashback . . . 

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         1. First they came for Frosty, and I did not speak out—
            Because I was not a snowman.

            Then they came for Rudolph, and I did not speak out—
            Because I was not a reindeer.

            Then they came for the Santa, and I did not speak out—
            Because I was not a fictional holiday character.

            Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

            

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