Shut 'em Down!

My wife calls our dog "dude", but that's about the only time I ever hear it.

Considering the House committee on rules is comprised of 13 members, 9 republican and 4 democrat and that they aren't obligated to bring any of their discussion, debate, or actions to the house floor, it's unlikely that the democrats had any knowledge of this resolution's existence or any power to stop it. It's seems odd that the committee that determines the rules of conduct and process for the house of representatives would have such a lopsided makeup.

The committee chairman, Pete Sessions-Texas, along with 3 others are members of the tea party caucus and 2 of those voted against the sandy relief bill. The vice chair, Virginia Foxx is another wacko, though not a TPer. She was a vocal opponent of the hate crimes act and said that everyone knows that Mathew Shephard was killed because he was caught robbing people, not because he was gay. (I lived in SE Wyoming, I can promise you that is not true)

There are a few sane members of the committee, Rob Woodall is one of only a handful of current house republicans who refused to sign Grover's no new taxes pledge.

The 4 Dems are slightly more level headed. Louise slaughter is the ranking member (akin to a minority leader) who has a consistent voting record on women's issues including securing earmarks totally half a billion for breast cancer research which is directly responsible for millions of saved lives. McGovern is a bit of far left nutbag with a hardon for throwing money into unproven social programs. And Jared Polis is one of only a handful of openly gay congressmen, though he is also a bleeding heart.

Really there's only 3 objectively moderate members of the committee, 2 pubs and 1 dem, with the majority of crazy licking the windows on the FAR right side of the short bus.

It was, pretty much, kept from the Dems. No information regarding the rule change was ever shared outside of the committee, we know that. I'm sure that Cantor's plan was to keep it a secret forever considering how tyrannical it is.
I'm willing to bet that fewer than 10 Republicans even knew it happened at the time, considering the revolt that was staged by the moderate members of the GOP. I'm also willing to bet that the revolt was eventually abandoned because Cantor placed a phone call and said "Hey its not going to work because of this secret of mine, which you need to keep a secret considering the potential blowback could deal even more damage to our brand. Just say the revolt failed because you 'didn't have enough votes. Wink Wink." It really is a conspiracy theorist's dream. It was, undeniably, a coverup that failed.

So how is it legal to change rules like that with 0 notice and excluding people?

Seems like there needs to be some more checks and balances implemented to prevent anyone trying to use this as leverage.

well, the purpose of committees is to take lesser legislation off the house floor for various reasons. Some of them are for security reasons eg. defense. Others are for simplicity like the ag committees and stuff like the committee on technology.

The collective committees oversee so many small pieces of legislation that could never practically go through the body of the house. House floor legislation traditionally is focused around larger pieces of legislation like constitutional amendments and major budgetary acts as well as feel good fluff legislation or anything that requires a majority vote.

How is it legal for only 30ish members of a section of government that requires 2/3rds of that body to do anything legal?

I think there needs to be some good ole constitutional *** kicking out of some elected positions, but thatll never happen. We'll just start impeachment procedures because its TOTALLY the presidents fault for being a flaming *** cause his brand of diet government just tastes so bad to me. What was wrong with full on 3 branch flavored pure american government?

Rule changes are common, Pelosi did it a lot and her predecessors did as well. This one is just pathetic because they tried to keep it a secret from their own party and the public as well, and it's literally designed to keep the govt from being open with a majority vote. Tyranny at its finest.

So they basically slipped it in a committee meeting disguised as something small? Were records available and simply not seen till it was too late or were they hidden/confidential? Either way, I really don't like people abusing/making rules to leverage underhand legislation. I think it says something about our representatives when they are willing to pull this.

I can't understand why either side would be okay with it though. If one can, the other can at some other point and it's going to be a mess either way.

No they didn't slip it into a meeting, they simply held the meeting without the 4 Dems being present and made the change on a majority vote, so at minimum, 8 people knew about it when it occurred. It does go into the record but no one noticed it until the weekend. Very hush hush.

So it takes 30 people to shut down a government, and 8 people to change rules...again, how is it legal constitutionally?

Personally I don't agree with labeling something and charging a person more for a "hate" crime, only because it rises dangerously on the level of thought crimes.

That being said, what's this resolution that was passed?

The press, the anti war protesters, occupy wall street and chris matthews all lapsed into a post coital coma in 2008 after obama was elected.

Everything is fine, shop as usual and avoid panic buying. Obama has got this kids, stand back and give him room to work his magic. For the forces of evil have been destroyed and all is right in the world.

Everybody loves us now as they worship Obama and beg his royal majesty for more drone strikes... Please bring us your wonderful democracy and free us from ourselves... they beg. And so Obama brought freedom and justice to the world. He killed osama bin laden with his own two bare hands and everyone cheered.

and on the seventh day, obama saw what he made, and it was good and so he rested and played golf and hung out with Jay-Z and Beyonce and watched his wife do the dougie and all was right and fair in the world. So now if you will all bow your heads and join me in the prayer....

Obama, who art in washington, hallowed by thy name. thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in D.C. Give us this day, our daily bread, some free healthcare and some cell phones. forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us and by forgiveness I mean intense IRS scrutiny, and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil tea party For thine is the kingdom, The power, and the glory, For ever and ever. AMEN...

Blasphemy and heresy :< that is not from the commienazisocialist bible..how dare you insult my spiritual/political messiah!

Liar in chief is out there today saying that if a deal isn't reached soon we'll default. In all seriousness, how do you liberals let him get away with this rhetoric? Do you even know how default works?

DEFAULT!!! THAT WAS THE SECRET WORD OF THE DAY!!!
/FANFARE
/CONFETTI

ya, we don't pay a bill on time... purse is empty bro, and your cult brethren are obsessed with keeping the insurance lobby happy.

....but the purse isn't empty, we have a constant stream of revenue coming into the government.

No no.. lets try a new approach.


please enlighten us as to how a default works from your perspective.

I was there when bush handed the keys to obama as he lead him into the room off the oval office....



He said, "So here is the control panel... there is no instruction manual anymore.... Nixon's dog Checkers ate it.... I'm not sure what anything does but I can tell you that every time you push a button with a flashing light on it half the country hates you and thousands of people die. If you don't push a button with a flashing light on it half the country hates you and thousands of people die....

But since it automatically switches into democrat mode, you won't be blamed for anything so it's all good buddy... have fun.

except it's coming in slower than it goes out, so we reached a point where we cannot pay our bills on time because the money doesn't come in until after they are due. honestly this is first grade math.

omfg, does this mean we're going to have to turn off the cable?

cause I'll freak out. HAND TO GOD.

Incorrect, the service on the national debt is about 20 billion a month

The monthly revenue coming into the government is over 200 billion a month.

There's clearly plenty of money coming in every month to "pay our debt".

So then the Republican outrage the last 5yrs over the debt has been a complete act?

That Obama's economic plans have been successful enough to generate enough revenue to handle the debt and run the government even at bare bones?

Time for the US gov't to axe those magazine subscriptions, get rid of HBO and cancel that FFXI sub.

Nobody knows how it works that's the whole problem in a nutshell.

Once the "debt ceiling" has been reached the treasury department has to act. So it would have to not pay for "something" thus default on an obligation and whether that's paying an actual debt or not nobody is quite sure what they would actually DO since it's never happened....

The argument about what "might" happen is what is being talked about now. Since no one can see the future they can't say for sure what would happen so a lot of the rhetoric is speculation.

/gasp

OMG! Like the government is already encroaching on Halloween! Poor kids! What if candy prices skyrocket?!? I will freak the crap out if they ruin Thanksgiving and Christmas too!

What about Black Friday? BLACK FRIDAY! It's going to ruin our Black Friday tradition of getting toasty, moseying around, and watching people get silly. NOBODY GOES CRAZY OVER TOILET PAPER AND SEED PACKETS!!!