Mofos need to study up on union tactics, get some si se puede up in that joint. Or maybe just some Ben Franklin advice about all hanging together.
Yes, if one of them shows a spine, then they’ll be a Tea Party victim. But if 180 of them show a spine, they force the Tea Party billionaires to dilute their focus.
It’s the waiting for someone else to lead the charge that’s shameful. The charge needs leading? Lead it.
And more importantly, because the GOP will still be in Washington in 2015.
According to Wikipedia, no:
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
In May 2007 Pelosi said, “I have to take into consideration something broader than the majority of the majority in the Democratic Caucus.”[12] According to the Brookings Institution, she violated the majority-of-the-majority rule seven times during her four-year speakership.
[/QUOTE]
(From: Hastert rule - Wikipedia)
I think it was Gingrich, not Hastert, that started it. Before Gingrich, didn’t the Democrats have the House for, like, ever?
Since everyone else seems to be seizing on this number, I wonder if you can share its source?
It contradicts what I’ve been seeing elsewhere. The CV seems to be that a minority of Republicans would vote to end the shutdown without concessions on ACA, but that this minority, when combined with almost all the Democrats, would consitutute a majority of the entire House.
Sanity outbreak reported, preliminary details sketchy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...35e_story.html
I’m not seeing this Republican/Democrat divide that you’re seeing. You’re making something of Pelosi’s 7 violations in 4 years, but according to your own link Boehner has violated it 4 times (out of a total 9 bills passed) in 2013. And as for Hastert himself “During his speakership, he broke the Hastert Rule a dozen times”.
All of which seem more or less in line with Gingrich’s Democratic predecessor Tom Foley, who is quoted - same source - as saying "“I think you don’t want to bring bills to the floor that a majority of your party is opposed to routinely but sometimes when a great issue is at stake, I think you need to do that.”
So, how would you characterize the government shutdown, if not a great issue?
Yeah, this is interesting. First, the source for that number is a Newsmax article, and I’m not saying it’s wrong, but I wonder. Second, there are 9 bills passed so far this year; what does that mean compared to other congresses? Third, the Newsmax article suggests that Pelosi considers Boehner pretty weak in this regard, because he has so little control over his own caucus.
4 of 9 things that actually got passed–does this mean actually got signed into law? Because the House has voted to repeal Obamacare at least 40 times, and I’m pretty sure the Hastert rule wasn’t violated in any of those cases.
Maybe the story is that this singularly inept Congress makes all kinds of votes, but only way anything can actually get done is to take a majority of Democrats and mix them with a minority of Republicans, or vice versa. About half the time it goes one way, and half the time it goes the other way.
I don’t think it’s every great issue. Sometimes. Some of the other issues Boehner overrode his constituency for were pretty big issues too. But this particular one seems to be a bigger deal for the Republicans than most. I didn’t see Tom Foley losing his speakership over any of his great issues.
You did not address that your numbers for Pelosi don’t show what you implied.
To be clear, the source for “9 bills passed” is Newsmax. The source for the 4 bills passed is about 14 footnotes, none of them Newsmax.
I don’t know if “inept” is a fair term. Probably more a reflection of the fact that the Senate and White House are controlled by the other party.
You think a Congress that’s voted 40 times on a completely unrealistic proposal and is now shutting down in a completely Quixotic quest and is demanding some concession for no other reason than proving that they’re not gonna be disrespected is ept?
I’m not sure I’m up for a broader discussion of the eptness of the HoR at this time. I was just commenting on the specific matter at hand, i.e. the high percentage of signed bills which violated the Hastert Rule. And this seems most easily explainable by the fact that such bills are disproportionately likely to make it through the Senate and get signed by the Prez.
In America we call them politicians.
I heard it on NPR, they had a moderate Republicans House member who repeated the “180” multiple times. I don’t know if that was an actual whip count, or just his idle speculation based on best guesses about his colleagues. I don’t have a source for it other than that, but I know other Republicans have definitely said there are enough votes to get a clean CR through the House.
I should also mention, this number predates the shutdown. It’s possible now that the shutdown has happened the number willing to do this may have changed for various political reasons.
“enough votes to get a clean CR through the House” is not the same thing as “enough Republican votes to get a clean CR through the House”. I’m not challenging the first formulation. They can get it through the house with a minority of Republicans plus the Democrats.
I’m skeptical of the second formulation, and I’m even more skeptical of the “180 Republican votes” claim. Certainly it seems to contradict what all the media sources and capitol hill watchers are saying.
I think his 180 number was also intended to be understood as “these are people who will sign off on the CR if Boehner brings it to a vote.” That’s not the same as the number of Republicans who would side with the Democrats against Boehner’s wishes, nor is it the same as the number of Republicans who are willing to publicly put their name in the newspapers and say they support ending the shutdown with a clean CR.
I don’t know what the real number is, but the 21 or so GOP house members who have openly stated they wanted a clean CR are mostly from safe “moderate” Republican districts where Tea Party candidates would get no play at all anyway. There are probably lots of Republican Congressmen, who if the House leadership said they wanted to have a vote on a clean CR, would go along with it under the relative anonymity of a big vote like that. But they may not be willing to stand up and proclaim themselves.
IOW, it’s a made up number (by him, not by you).
But these people talk among themselves and their staffers and all talk anonymously to the press. It’s hard to imagine that 3/4 of the Republicans in Congress are in favor of something but no one in the media has been able to figure this out.
You’re making it seem as if these people are the unsullied heroes of pure conscience. Actually most or all of these people are just as much political animals as the rest. But they’re from moderate districts and while they’re not going to face viable TP candidates in primaries, they are going face viable Democrats in the general election. They can’t afford to be in favor of shutting down the government in an effort to defund the ACA.
No doubt there are some. Don’t know about lots.
I would agree with that, I certainly wouldn’t fight to defend the number and don’t believe it’s really what we should be using as an assumption sans further information.
The media has been hitting recently on the fact that a majority of the House hits a clean CR. But yes, 180/232 would be a high number.
Oh that wasn’t my intent. Moderate Republicans are no less political than far right Republicans or centrist Democrats or far left Democrats for that matter. I have a generally low view of the principles of any politician, left or right. I’m not a nostalgic “in better days” type that thinks 100 years ago or even 50 years ago politicians were more selfless, though. I suspect the selfless politicians who did what was right for the common good have always been the exceptions to the rule, it’s just when you look back through history they are the ones who get written about because the unheralded majority aren’t that notable, and were probably just as base and craven as most politicians today.
Fair enough.
Sorry, Bricker, was I interrupting a private conversation between you and septimus? 
Again, that’s a majority of the House, not a majority of the Republicans in the House.
I’m coming to the conclusion that Boehner and the Pubs don’t want this resolved. They want Obama to have a failed presidency. Part of what makes for a successful presidency is just general public happiness, and specifically contentment with the government. People are angrier at Washington now than they’ve been in years. Eighty-seven percent expressed unhappiness with the direction DC is taking us in a recent poll. I think the Pubs’ feeling is that, as the head of government, ultimately and over time, this will reflect worse on Obama than on them. They’re also big on gut feeling and public perception over facts. If the public *feels *and *perceives *Obama to be a failure, then in their eyes, he is.
The numbers show that the House is safe in 2014 for the Pubs, and even with general public approval of Congress down, people still usually like their own Congresscritter. So all of this public anger with the government will trickle up to the president, further contributing to, what they hope, is a failed presidency.
I feel like they just keep pushing the envelope to make Obama fail and make people dislike him. If he’s unlikable and appears like a weak leader, he fails, they win. If they keep creating unprecedented chaos, forcing him to constantly deal with unforeseen bullshit, he can’t move things forward, the American public is angry during his presidency, and he is at-risk of slipping up royally at some point. It’s like the Upright Citizens Brigade has taken over Congress. It’s also like they’re running a twisted torture experiment; “Now what do you think he’ll do if we connect a car battery to his nipples?!”
They feel utterly and completely defeated; so now they want to utterly destroy the thing(s) that have defeated them.