Looking at that list, Harry Mitchell runs a 10+ person office for $600,000. I gaurentee your office isn’t nearly that efficient.

You’re all morons. Really. Get over yourselves.

HOW can Americans pretend that what happens in AFghanistan will have NOTHING to do with our little bubble lives when we all know that Bin Laden orchastrated the 9/11 attacks from his safe haven in that country? He’s on video bragging about it.

BOTH India and Pakistan have told the USA to stay the course! Not often those two nations agree on ANYTHING, but the danger is that extreme.

America in 1780 sent US Naval ships to the North AFrican Barbary Coast sultanates to pound the Muslim despots for pirating AMerican merchant ships and holding AMericans hostages as slaves. It was harder and took longer than today to deal with this, but Americans did it and understood why it was important to take the fight to the SOURCE. America broke the back of 300 years of Muslim piracy and tribute demands in the Mediterranean. Everyone benefitted from that resolve and effort.

The nation-building taking too long? Modern American attention spans can’t handle over 5 minutes? Germany needed 50 years, with a violent insurgency of leftover NAZIs who had to be defeated, and still can’t protect itself against a Russian invasion, so we stay, and no one says it wasn’t worth it.

Worse, where is the discipline and seriousness to RESEARCH the region to get up to speed on what’s going on to make an INFORMED decision? Lazy, empty, can’t be bothered. WE’ve had troops in Afghanistan for years and most Americans still don’t even know the name of the capital. “Whatever!”
What a travesty!

“Just testing. You obliged.”

Is this some of that “Christian’s aren’t perfect, just forgiven” rhetoric that allows you to wallow in the moral sewer?

“The issue is politicians who are evidently underpaying and overworking their staffs…”

Actually, I was replying to Ashen, who mentioned this strike (and how it would be nice if conservatives were out there looking for jobs rather than living off the dole to go and protest), and you got all offended by my language, and proceeded to try to provoke me further.

But this comment:

“The issue is politicians who are evidently underpaying and overworking their staffs who then need bonuses to make up for their underpaid efforts, using money extracted from productive businesses and inidviduals and families who are struggling in a recession, with a genuine danger of a full depression ahead.”

That’s gotta be the most circular statement I’ve read today.

1. Politicans are working for the country.
2. Politicians require their staff to do the work.
3. Staff is overworked, underpaid.
4. Bonuses are required to provide adequate recompense because of #3.
5. This would create equity in work/pay.
6. This is bad because bonuses are paid by the taxpayer.
7. Which creates a burden on the taxpayer, which exacerbates the problems.
8. Which are trying to be fixed by the politican in step 1.

For the record, I don’t care if politicians pay bonuses – being a staff member in DC can be one of the hardest jobs. I’ve got no problem in the extra $0.10 of my tax bill (or whatever miniscule amount goes to that) going to pay someone’s meal of Top Ramen and RC Cola.

I’m more concerned about things like the giant Iraq-shaped toilet we’re flushing money down.

I have to agree with you in part. These were 2008 figures which was well before we knew how bad the recession was. I am surprised that the mainstream media decided to originally post the article (that gave rise to this post.) (No offense to our blogger here.)

Yes, let’s go after the liberals and make sure our house is clean before we do such.

How convenient to paint the picture limiting the duties of staffers to simply answering the phone. To give them anymore credit would simply destroy the premise of your argument. How about the time spent doing research, dealing with constituent issues, reading every draft of every bill, attending the large number of committee meetings and keeping the ball moving?

The spending is pretty well balanced between D & R. I’m not saying there isn’t savings to be had, but I have been in plenty of staff offices that were really a closet, where they share a table for a desk, and use boxes for file cabinets.

Please…stop this inane nonsense! We have real battles to fight and this sort of garbage is nothing more than a distraction from the real work to be done.

The issue is politicians who are evidently underpaying and overworking their staffs who then need bonuses to make up for their underpaid efforts, using money extracted from productive businesses and inidviduals and families who are struggling in a recession, with a genuine danger of a full depression ahead.

Obviously, the brutal reality of the seriousness of the current economic situation hasn’t hit home yet in politicians’ offices.

The AX, not the TAX.

“Madam”? “Her”?

You’ve simply got to stop fetishizing me that way. Creepy.

Awww. Can I get you a tissue?
Teabagger it is. And still – get a job.
……………..
Never bring a tissue when a fire hose is required. Madam seems quite comfortable hip-deep in the ooze of derogratory sexual put-downs against her fellow citizens who are simply exercising their Constitutional rights, and doesn’t notice the stench.

Name-calling is warning sign No 1 that the debater has lost the debate.
Stay classy!

I’d like to hear that from Senator Coburn himself, because frankly, there is no depth the GOP hasn’t sunk to in this debate.

And while I’ll pretty certain this is a joke, it’s possible one Teabagger from Waycross, GA thought that’s what Senator Coburn told him to do:

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/12/22/coburn-pray-inhofe/

And Sen. Coburn has been conspicuously silent on this since Sen. Durbin asked him to clarify.

Awww. Can I get you a tissue?

But no, conservatives have taught me well – there is no epithet to vile, no moral sewer to awful to swim in that is out of bounds these days.

Why, just in the last 2 weeks, a Republican Senator Tom Coburn asked the American people to pray for the death of a Democratic Senator, and Laura Ingraham rewrote Martin Neimoller’s Holocaust poem to make a cheap political shot.

Teabagger it is. And still – get a job.