[blohannaserri]

SECOND STEP ARE SMALL AS POSSIBLE -- AND MESS UP WHAT SMALL YOU DO It's Thursday night, September 28th, and on the Military Commissions Act of 2006, informally referred to as the "torture bill" the Senate is placing the finishing touches. It's a law actually Stalin might appreciate, one which kicks habeas corpus in the garbage, legalizes a huge variety of savage interrogation methods and broadly speaking becomes the leader of america right into a type of turbocharged Yoruba witch physician, with not exactly limitless grabbing forces. The statement is just a fall-from-Eden time in American history, a potentially devastating action toward authoritarianism -- but what exactly is most troubling about it, beyond the very fact that it's occurring, is that the senators are rushing to obtain it done. Along with instituting one-party rule and ending decades of bipartisanship, our nationwide legislators in the Bush years are guilty of some thing much more fundamental: They pull at their jobs. Many times they don't work, don't pass many laws, and the laws they're required to pass, they pass late. Actually, in most year that Bush has been president, Congress has didn't move significantly more than three of the eleven annual appropriations bills promptly. That numbers in to tonight's issues. As of this very minute, whilst the bill would go to an election, you will find left just a few days before start of the financial year -- and not just one appropriations bill has been approved to date. Why these *******s are rushing to case this pain bill: They wish to complete over time to press in a two hours of discussion today on the half-trillion-dollar defense-appropriations bill they've taken down so far that's. The program would be to then cover things up tomorrow before breaking Washington for per month of actual function, i.e., campaigning. Sen. Jim Leahy of Vermont remarks with this run to pain throughout the final, unhappy discussion. "Over 200 years of jurisprudence in this country," Leahy pleads, "and pursuing an hour or so of discussion, we eliminate it?" Yawns, chat, several models of moving eyes -- yes, whatever, Pat. An hour or so later, the pain statement is law. Two hours next, the small seat of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Sen. Ted Stevens, flows off the overview of the military-spending bill to a largely clear hall; because the people all need their many and rest have remaining early, the "debate" on the largest spending bill of the entire year is performed before a mostly phantom market. "Mr. President," Stevens starts, seeking the several people present. "There are just four days left in the financial year. The 2007 protection appropriations conference report must certanly be signed in to law by the leader before Saturday at nighttime. . . ." Watching Ted Stevens spend half of a billion dollars is much like seeing an enthusiast draw a belt around his arms with his teeth. You receive the feeling he might get it done just like quickly at nighttime. When he completes his overview -- $436 billion in defense spending, including $70 billion for the Iraq "emergency" -- he ****s down and leaves the area. A couple of minutes later, Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma -- among the alleged sincere Republicans who has clashed together with his own party's leadership on spending problems -- appears in the corridor and whines to the bare space about all the luxurious chicken tasks and pure unadulterated waste crammed in to the statement. But irrespective of a John Cornyn of Texas, who's acting as president pro tempore, and a few laughing, suit-clad pages, there's no body in the hallway to hear him. In annually the Sixties and Seventies, Congress met on average 162 days. In the Nineties and Eighties, the typical transpired to 139 days. The all-time record will be set by the second session of the 109th Congress for fewest days worked with a U.S, this season. Congress: ninety-three. That means that House members may collect their $165,000 salaries for just 3 months of real work. What this signifies is that the present Congress won't only defeat but break the report for negligence set by the infamous "Do-Nothing" Congress of 1948, which met for a mixed 252 times between the Senate and the House. That Congress -- the Do-Even-Less Congress -- met for 218 times, just over half of a year, between your House and the Senate combined. And even these figures don't come near to showing the entire account. Those who really focus on the Hill can tell you that the large number of of these "workdays" were shameless mail-ins, half-days at most useful. Congress has fixed things now so the standard workweek on the Hill starts late on Tuesday and stops soon after midday on Thursday, to provide time to people to get home for the four-day weekend. This is carried out in the numbers: On eight of its "workdays" this year, the Home presented not really a single election -- assembly for under eleven minutes. The Senate were able to top the House's task, taking down three workdays this season that lasted significantly less than about a minute. All told, a complete fifteen % of the Senate's workdays lasted significantly less than four hours. Working for half-days, actually, the 109th Congress probably worked nearly 8 weeks significantly less than that "Do-Nothing" Congress. Congressional negligence comes at a higher cost. By therefore many appropriations expenses unpassed by the start of the brand new financial year making, Congress causes large pieces of the federal government to depend on "continuing resolutions" due to their financing. Exactly why is this an issue? The level approved by the Senate or the level approved from the past year, since under congressional guidelines, CRs are financed at the cheapest of three levels: the level approved by the House. As social programs to be slashed by a backdoor way because of large differences between Senate and House appropriations for social development, CRs effortlessly run. It's also a pleasant way for congressmen to obtain around spending for expensive-ass plans they voted for, like Number Son or daughter Left Out and some of the different terminally underfunded boondoggles of the Bush years. "The whole point of moving appropriations expenses is that Congress is meant to create modest increases in applications to account for such things as the escalation in population," states Adam Hughes, director of national monetary plan for OMB Watch, a nonpartisan watchdog group. "It is their primary job." As an alternative, he says, the dependence on CRs "leaves applications underfunded." In the place of coping with its main constitutional responsibility -- granting all government spending -- its time is devoted by Congress to foolish bullshit. "This Congress spent a half and per week discussing Terri Schiavo -- it never produced appropriations a priority," says Hughes. In therefore little time for you to move the actual appropriations bills that it ends up moving all of them into one large waste as an invoice known and passing it with little or number discussion fact, Congress leaves it self. Moving eight-elevenths of federal spending into the floor that is hit by a single bill each day or two before the financial year ends doesn't leave much room to check on the fine print. "It enables much more flexibility for financial irresponsibility," says Hughes. Many years before, when Democratic staffers in the Senate were anxiously poring over an enormous Omnibus statement they'd been passed the evening before the election, they found a little supply that hadn't been in just about any of the prior types. The product might have provided senators on the Appropriations Committee entry to the private documents of any citizen -- basically bestowing several chosen hackers in the Senate with the permit to spy in to the private financial data of Americans. "We were like, 'What the hell is this'? ?says one Democratic help acquainted with the event. "It was the absolute most egregious thing possible. It had been just happy we captured them."