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January 21, 2011 06:19 PM UTC

Lambert: "The King of Mean"

  • 73 Comments
  • by: Teeter

(Ouch–read the original story on this vote here – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Dave Perry, the editor of the Aurora Sentinel, has a piece worth reading on the GOP’s new priorities for Colorado.

No doubt that this year’s Legislative Ebenezer Scrooge Award will go to the Republican members of the Joint Budget Committee for refusing to spend already designated state funds to provide school breakfast for poor children.

Now get off their lawn.

Denver Post reporter Tim Hoover got the quote of the season from Republican state Sen. Kent Lambert of the JBC, Colo. Springs and The Moon. Lambert told Hoover that even though the state Department of Education was only asking to spend an extra $124,229 to keep the breakfast program going for almost 60,000 poor children across the state from March through the end of the school year, and even though there’s money in the bank that simply needed to be allocated, Colorado’s most vulnerable citizens can just eat crow for breakfast…

“As a family guy myself with children and grandchildren, I take a very strong responsibility to earn money to feed my own family,” Lambert, one of the three naysaying Republicans, told the Post.

Lambert earns money the old fashioned way: from your tax dollars. He was a lifetime member of the military, now on pension, and he now collects tax dollars as a state lawmaker.

Family values anyone?

Comments

73 thoughts on “Lambert: “The King of Mean”

    1. In 2010 for CO state Leg per diem expenses.  Can’t let those legislators go hungry now can we?

      $ 126,000 for breakfasts to feed needy kids…clearly mom and dad need to work harder.

        1. leadership in the House or Senate to set up.a private fund for donations, and then let us donate and feel that sucker up in about 10 hours, and then publicize the hell out of it so as to show (once again) what kind of miserable asshats the Republicans are.

            1. You most certainly aren’t.  I should have written “Republicans who believe like Lambert” instead of tarring everyone in the grand old party.

              (I also should have written “fill” instead od “feel”, so I have no idea where that slip came from.  Not Blackberry’s fault.

              And, I should have indicated that my first concern was funding the feeding of these kids, not making Lambert look bad.)

              Obviously, my incense got the better of me.  Sorry.

              1. I was just trying to figure out how to get out of Asshat status.

                Now if you had said being a legendary Broncos hater qualified me as an asshat, then I would have to proclaim it loudly, as well as find a new term to describe Lambert.

              2. Tiny screen, tiny keys, bad eyes, and fat fingers . . .

                Might be God’s way of telling me to quit scewing off at work and wait to post until I get home to the laptop?

    1. Do nothing while protecting the rich and then stand on a street corner and screech about how Pro-Life you are.

      This position is not surprising from someone who represents the biggest welfare town in the state.

  1. I hope everyone who is outraged by this does what I did, and call the three Republican members of the JBC and tell them what you think of this decision!  Maybe with enough calls they will “reconsider” their decision.  

  2. Didn’t the Black Panthers run free breakfast programs back in the ’60s?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F

    The Panthers believed that “Children cannot reach their full academic potential if they have empty stomachs.” The magnitude and powerful impact of this program was such that the federal government was pressed and shamed into adopting a similar program for public schools across the country, while the FBI assailed the free breakfast program as nothing more than a propaganda tool used by the Party to carry out its “communist” agenda.

    1. You can’t provide if you don’t have a steady source of funding.  Republicans will use charity as proof that government services and social safety net programs aren’t needed.  “Let the bleeding liberals feed the starving masses” or some similar selfish bilge.

      Well run public programs to help the children get proper nutrition during economic hard times benefits all of society and all of society should contribute to providing food security in our great nation.

      1. is that charities abjectly failed to help all who needed it during the Great Depression, and it was for precisely this reason. Anyone involved with a nonprofit group can tell you that they’re having a hell of a time raising money right now. Gee, you think that was true 80 years ago as well?

        1. If someone is interested look at the book Freedom from Fear which is one of the volumes in the Oxford History of the United States series. It chronicles the era of the Great Depression and World War II. At the beginning of the great depression there were many ethnic aid societies (e.g. Greek, Irish etc.) in the urban neighborhoods, as well as, religious based charities. Within months everyone of them was broke and could no longer help let alone the fact they were not evenly spread throughout American society to help all that needed it.

          The Republican mantra that private charitable organizations can handle all the welfare needs in our society are baseless and hollow. It can’t even be characterized as a talking point. Most talking points at least have some factual back-up. This one is simply another instance where the Republican Party ignores the truth and then realizing their position lacks any moral foundation, they attempt to shift responsibility to parents who aren’t working hard enough but again, they have no facts to prove their position. Individuals like Mr. Lambert aren’t moral or immoral, they are amoral. They have no morality but knowing that isn’t acceptable in political society, they attempt to shift responsibility for their creulty on to the shoulders of the very people they intend to harm.  

    2. Salvation Army is not operating on the good side of zero.

      The strawman meme of “the charities will do it” is pure BS.  Most charities on on the edge of bankruptcy.  Food banks are nearly empty all the time. Shelters may have a bed open for a night or three, but that is only for a night or three.

      Republicans take no social responsibility that is the foundation of our country. Or going back further, they refuse to work beyond a family tribe orientation.  Government is the necessity for having country.  And the regan bs of government bad, guns good; unions bad, monopoly good has brought our country to near third world life.

      That’s right go to the charities which the Republicans do not support because they are too cheap and ignorant of what life is like on the street.

        1. and don’t come anywhere close to what many of our fellow posters do.  It’s a good group for that.  I think we know the difference.

          (That’s meant to be reassuring not bitchy, how it unfortunately kind of sounds.)

  3. Why not put them to work? Why when I was their age, I was watching TV shows about kids my age who worked in sweatshops. And if it’s good enough for me, it’s good enough for them.

    We could give these kids “food” so their brains can “work” and help them “learn,” but really, we all know what’s going to happen. They’ll just poop it out, and then what have you accomplished? You’ve turned money into poop, just like a liberal.

    Better to give it to rich people, who have demonstrated they know what to do with money that people give them.

    Besides, at $2 a year per kid, what kind of food are they really getting? Why if my meals cost only 4 cents per week, I’d just refuse to eat!

    It’s probably the fault of the unions. There, I’ve solved a problem!

    1. when the lack of proper nutrition for these children causes them to score worse on standardized testing, blame the teachers and de-fund the schools–the public ones anyway.

      1. coupled with the stress of poverty warps these kids to the the point that they become mentally unstable and have unregulated access to unlimited arsenals.

        Then the Republicans are going to demand that taxpayers pay for gated communities to keep the rich separate from the crazy rabble.

  4. “…I take a very strong responsibility to earn money to feed my own family,”

    Maybe Lambert should be working on ways to create jobs so people CAN actually afford to feed their own families. Talk about compassionate conservatism. Yeesh.

      1. Facilitate the damn private sector, and let the kids have their damn breakfast! He’s making a Randian example out of poverty-stricken schoolchildren.

      2. (It’s been awhile since I served in the military, and I was single then . . . and I had lots more hair, too . . . so I’m hoping I remember this correctly)

        is that when he was in the military he received additional funds in the form of various allowances as his family grew in size.  He didn’t work any harder for this extra allowance; he didn’t provide any additional defense of the country; he just had more family.

        (I would like to call him a fucking hypocritical revisionist jagoff — but I’m still trying, really trying, to ignore his hypocrisy and keep it civil.)

        1. All but one uncle are progressive Dems. All but that one uncle has always worked in the private sector.  The Limbaugh loving uncle,  who doesn’t want his tax dollars spent to help lazy people, pay for public healthcare etc. because government paying for that kind of thing with his taxes is socialism, is a retired fire fighter whose salary and excellent benefits were and are  paid by tax payers. His pension is now a lot more than his pay ever was and his health benefits are of the gold plated variety.  

          His wife is a retired public school secretary, another government job paid for by tax payers. In short, by their own definition, their whole lives have been financed by state “socialism”.  While they think union workers are to blame for almost everything, outside of what various minorities and illegal immigrants are to blame for, and don’t deserve their promised benefits, they are quite sure they deserve theirs.

          When they rail against the government they seem to have no awareness of the fact that everything they have is a result of being government workers. It’s pretty astounding that so many firefighters, military and police, government workers all, are far right Republicans who supposedly hate government, see government as the enemy and are appalled at “socialized” medicine, the kind they’ve enjoyed all their lives. How do they make sense of their supposedly superior morality and family values while kicking the children of the working poor to the curb? How do these people get this all to make sense in their own minds?  

          1. who wasn’t completely dependent on the government or his family for his livelihood. The difference between a liberal and a conservative is that a liberal knows how to say “Thank you.”

  5. …Like that handouts make people dependent and the poor are lazy and so on and so forth, where does he get off implying that the kids deserve to go hungry because their parents and grandparents aren’t taking responsibility for earning money to feed their families?

      1. Not that you implied I wasn’t, of course.

        She’s already standing, trying to talk, making choices, recognizing people, and there are rather new HOLES IN HER BRAIN still. With that kind of resilience I predict she’ll make a full recovery, return to the House, and then become the first woman to serve as POTUS. I’m looking into having a sign made, just to say I was the first.

        Cowgirls gotta stick together.

  6. is very embedded in the brain of the hard right individual. They still believe that Puritan crap about predestination, and that you can tell who God love based on the size of his wallet. Down on your luck? No such thing – you pissed the Big Guy off and this is your just desserts.

    This is the GOP’s weakness. Just like shutting down the government in the 90s, Dems need to give them enough rope to hang themselves. This will return the lower chamber of the lege back to the Dems in rapid order.

    1. that and whatever the problem is, it is always somehow created by the shortcomings or character flaws of the individual, the group, or the institution involved, therefore it can’t be helped.  

      Well, I guess that’ll do it for today, turn out the lights.  See how easy that was ?  Governing is a snap !

    2. That’s what it looks like when you think about it. But it’s basically the way a child thinks: everything I’ve got is something I need/deserve, and everything I didn’t get is evidence of how much I suffered. An adult can see outside himself and compare himself somewhat objectively to others (did I really work harder than Joe? am I getting more than him?).

      Lambert’s thinking is what happens when your brain stops developing at age 4.

      1. And I’m not sure if the Puritans actually codified this stuff in their theology. But they’re the ones that brought this kind of thinking to America, and it’s why we’re the laughing stock of the free world when it comes to caring for our citizenry. It may have gotten a revival as described by PR below, but it wasn’t developed within living memory.

        1. Here’s a good summary of the belief:

          Calvinist beliefs in predestination led believers to distinguish between the elect and the preterite – those who were destined to go to heaven, and those who were destined to go to hell. Because it was impossible to be sure whether they were going to ascend to paradise or to burn, Calvinists sought evidence that they were favoured by God through accumulating goods without consuming them. If you did well in worldly affairs, you could take this as a sign of God’s favour.

          For a more academic discussion, check out this

          Readers of Thomas Pynchon know that this distinction, and the shadow it has cast across American history, is central to his writing.

          1. I’ll check it out.

            As far as Pynchon, I once tried to read V. but got bogged down. I might give it another go, but I’m tackling War and Peace this year.

        1. There are writings by Calvin saying both that wealth and good luck might be the blessings of God, and that good people often faced adversity while the evil prospered.

          As with so many religious foundations, the founder isn’t really to blame for the beliefs of those who supposedly follow him.

    3. Calvin waxed and waned on the subject of what wealth and adversity told about a person.  Puritans tended to focus on the waxing passages, but their ethic was still highly influenced by the “work is its own reward” philosophy, which when taken to the extremes some people devoted to that philosophy, did result in some Puritans becoming more wealthy than their neighbors.

      This kind of philosophy, though is Prosperity Gospel, through and through.  It’s post-WWII theology, popularized by Oral Roberts, the PTL Club, and others.  In many ways it stands Calvanism on its head.

  7. The man thanked us over and over for calling and said he will get back to me first thing Monday on where we can send $$$.  In school district 51 we are talking about $3500.  

      1. already with that purpose.  If there wasn’t, the cheap and dirty way to do it would be to set up a donor advised fund at an outfit like the Denver Foundation.

  8. Allegedly Lambert opposed the candy tax because of the hardship on FAMILIES (instead of businesses).  Hot lunch v candy and soda… hmmm.  Lambert – Simultaneously the king of starving children and childhood obesity.  That’s actually pretty impressive.

  9. We should call it the Scrooge McLambert Fund.  I’ll also kick in a couple of jars of change in the closet.  A lot of people save their change and what better cause for it?

    The paper that must not be named actually had a great editorial about this – is Litwin writing some of those now that he’s on the editorial board?

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