This is a time to get together and eat and talk , just time for our friends. There is no format, dues, agenda etc., We can meet anytime or place we decide, picnic pot luck, local food, anything we want to, even invite speakers. But for now please show up, eat and talk to like minded friends. No need to RSVP just stop by and eat.
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Trana if you like.
There are someuseful parallels between the House Republican borg and Dr. Evil, of course, but I'm not sure that it does the debate justice. The House Republicans are now directly tied to the teabagger movement when they had their "press conference" with them yesterday.
Its also unfair to bring this down to satire. House Republicans have regularly been disrespectful of Democrats on the house floor on numerous occasions in recent years in many cases like this one. They also seem to have a perennial disrespect for the rules. Here's just a few other occasions:
Nevermind the fairly strict rule on the House Floor of never addressing members of the house directly(your speech is always directed at the Distinguished speaker). I'll just ask her directly and then demand that she yield time to me to continue myquestion because she is unresponsive. John Culberson is not a freshman. He's been in Congress for eight-going on nine-years. But that's not all. Here's John Culberson again:
It is generally considered an insult to compare anymember of congress to Marie Antoinette, much less the Speaker of the House. Again, Culberson is no freshman, he should know better. But that's not all. Here's Patrick McHenry and Joe Barton using parliamentary inquiries and points of order to engage in debate with Barney Frank, who was presiding over the house:
Patrick McHenry wasn't a spring chicken. He had been in the House for two years prior to this, which should make him aware of the difference between a speech and a parliamentary inquiry. Joe Barton, on the other hand is old guard. He's been around since the last time the Republicans were in the minority in the 1980s. He should absolutely know the definition of a point of order.
Here's Michelle Bachman continuing to interrupt Barney Frank during debate insisting that he he yield time to her to debate despite his numerous rejections of her requests.
This one's fairly cut and dried. It's considered rude to interrupt. Don't do it continouosly whenthe person speaking has made it clear that he wants to finish his thought.
I have of course saved the two most egregious and well-known examples for last:
Now Jean Schmidt was brand new to the house, but she still had to have known that what she was going to say was going to cause trouble before she said it. Those were prepared remarks and its generally frowned upon by all to trash the record of a 38-year Marine Corps vet.
Last but not least, who can forget, "You Lie!"
There are some basic rules about debate in the House. Take your turn, don't interrupt, don't use incendiary language regarding other members of the body or refer to them by name(say "the gentle(wo)man from North Dakota" for example), always direct your remarks to the speaker unless engaging in a colliquoy(which you ask unanimous consent in order to do). This doesn't extend up into the leadership usually, but the leadership does have some responsibility in making sure its members show a baseline amount of respect for the other party. That doesn't mean you can't engage in vigorous debate, it doesn't mean you can't question the motives of Democrats or even say things like "Matthew Shepherd's murder was a hoax," or that the Republican healthcare plan is to not get sick and if you do, to die quickly, or that Democrats want seniors to die sooner. I wish that the debate were sometimes more lofty and policy-driven that, but it's not, and the rules allow congressmen to say pretty much whatever they want. You do have to respect some basic rules. It seems that Republicans don't really care about rules, nor do they have any real respect for their Democratic colleagues. I want to show one last clip of Barney Frank trying to be helpful:
It was fully within the purview of the chair to do what he did and declare Shelly Moore Capito's remarks to be out of order(to note, reserving the right to object is different from objecting, it is typically used only to make a complaint about something or to ask a brief question), but Frank asked for the house to go out of its way to allow her to speak, which they did, and she yielded time to Dan Burton to make a speech, which Franksaid, "Oh I didn't know that!" They are repaid of course by Tom Price continuing to object to a Democrat merely asking that her written remarks be inserted into the record so as not to take up too much time. Note also that when I was watching these proceedings live today that there were three Republicans that asked for the very same unanimous consent requests, and engaged in debate while doing so(they said something to the effect of, "I ask unanimous consent that my remarks regarding this bill, which will destroy American jobs and lead to a government takeover of healthcare be inserted into the record. We cannot allow this bill to pass!") and Rep. Price had no such objection then, but he couldn't wait to even let the woman make her request before objecting to it. If I were in John Dingell's shoes there(he's the one presiding), I would have told him to suspend and to take his seat. He has a right to object(which is simply a delay tactic), but he does not have a right under the rules to interrupt another member.
But again, when you're in the party of "no," I guess that doesn't matter much.
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Upon watching the clips and thinking about what is tranpiring in MY CONGRESS, and other activities around the nation, I have concluded that enough is enough. This is not about free speech---it is about the corrupting of free speech. Moreover it is about bullying. I was ashamed of those in Congress who would stoop to that level of behaviour. It is time to deal with the bullys. The rules allow the following: After ample warning, ask the Sargeant-at-Arms to "frog march" the offender into the hallway and bar their entrance until they agree to follow the code of conduct. Make sure the cameras are rolling. The Speaker then addresses both Congress and the country and firmly states that the rules will be followed. Civil behavior is mandatory, not optional. Let the chips fall where they may. Stand Firm. The post in this blog by archimedes should be read and considered. It is time to stand up for principles and not allow the bullys to win. I recall how bullys were treated when I was a kid. Nothing was ever gained by tolerating the intolerable. This is not a Democrat issue. It is one of Amercian character.
Actually...
Hypocrisy would be if Adam accused someone else of doing something Adam says is "bad" when ADAM, himself, has done it; especially, if he's done it repeatedly. I think you're misusing the word "hypocrisy" and you probably mean something else. Like maybe you mean Adam is being selective in writing about things when he only has a limited amount of time to blog, and you don't like his focus. But that isn't hypocrisy.
An example of hypocrisy might be if a married, "family values" Republican senator from Idaho who demonizes homosexuals got caught soliciting gay sex from a complete stranger in a bathroom at the Minneapolis airport. Or if a "Values Voter Summit" speaker and Republican spokesperson had starred in a sex video. Or if a married American state governor who ran on "family values" was exposed as having a girlfriend in Argentina. Or if a presidential candidate who ran on a message of "fiscal responsibility" entered office with a $1 trillion budget surplus and $5.7 trillion debt and turned them into a $482 billion budget deficit and $11 trillion in debt. See, hypocrisy is generally specific to the person who is claiming some specific conduct is reprehensible, while all along engaging in that conduct him/herself. The nice thing about being a progressive or liberal or Democrat is that we aren't hypocrites when we don't live up to the standards Republicans set for themselves. In other words, I suppose there's an upside to being Godless heathens. When we get caught, we can just say, "What did you expect? We're Godless heathens."
If you thought Adam had been disrespectful, rude or impolite on the floor of Congress, then it would be appropriate to call him a hypocrite when he criticized others for doing it. I don't know whether Adam has been on the floor of Congress. If he has, I'd bet he was pretty respectful.
Well for starters, I haven't
although the next time I'm in DC I might get that privilege-I know a guy-and you can bet that if I did I would be reeeeeealllly respectful. I would like to see the extensive pattern of behavior that Dave has displayed of Congressional Democrats not following the basic rules of decency on the House floor. I watch for these things, I haven't seen it, and certainly not nearly as extensive as the loist I have shown above. I'm willing to be wrong though if you can prove that I am.
You are correct
on one point. It isn't hypocritical to point out the flaws of the R party. However, it would be if you gave the D party a pass on their bad behavior. A more fair article would mention some of the behavior during the previous administration. Then the events could be compared and the reader could be shown why the recent behavior is worse. I believe that by choosing strong willed and vocal people to represent us, we should expect occasional outbursts. Those Congressmen (D or R) who make a HABIT of poor self control should certainly be reined in. Public servants should show respect for their office. Swearing, name calling, lies, and doing nasty things on the office desk should be considered shameful. They of course have rules to follow. But I'm sure there's a lot of stuff that happens off camera.
Yeah, but...
The thing is, the conservative media spends all of its time, money and effort attacking Democrats when they do stuff poorly. One of our goals here is to provide balance to the right-wing talking points you see in 95% of the mainstream media. And, now that I think about it, that's not necessarily even accurate.
A lot of what the right-wing does is spew lies, half-truths and distortions to convince people to vote against their best interests and the interests of our towns, cities, counties, states, country and planet. If we were truly going to try to provide "balance," we'd spew lies, half-truths and distortions the other way. But we don't. We provide facts. We provide source documents that back up the facts. You don't have to believe the facts. We just want to provide a forum where you can find them if you want.
You want to read about what kinds of shenanigans there were in congress during the previous administration? I recommend Matt Taibbi's article entitled "The Worst Congress Ever." It's from October 17, 2006. Here's an excerpt:
There is very little that sums up the record of the U.S. Congress in the Bush years better than a half-mad boy-addict put in charge of a federal commission on child exploitation. After all, if a hairy-necked, raincoat-clad freak like Rep. Mark Foley can get himself named co-chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, one can only wonder: What the hell else is going on in the corridors of Capitol Hill these days?
These past six years were more than just the most shameful, corrupt and incompetent period in the history of the American legislative branch. These were the years when the U.S. parliament became a historical punch line, a political obscenity on par with the court of Nero or Caligula -- a stable of thieves and perverts who committed crimes rolling out of bed in the morning and did their very best to turn the mighty American empire into a debt-laden, despotic backwater, a Burkina Faso with cable.
To be sure, Congress has always been a kind of muddy ideological cemetery, a place where good ideas go to die in a maelstrom of bureaucratic hedging and rank favor-trading. Its whole history is one long love letter to sleaze, idiocy and pigheaded, glacial conservatism. That Congress exists mainly to misspend our money and snore its way through even the direst political crises is something we Americans understand instinctively. "There is no native criminal class except Congress," Mark Twain said -- a joke that still provokes a laugh of recognition a hundred years later.
But the 109th Congress is no mild departure from the norm, no slight deviation in an already-underwhelming history. No, this is nothing less than a historic shift in how our democracy is run. The Republicans who control this Congress are revolutionaries, and they have brought their revolutionary vision for the House and Senate quite unpleasantly to fruition. In the past six years they have castrated the political minority, abdicated their oversight responsibilities mandated by the Constitution, enacted a conscious policy of massive borrowing and unrestrained spending, and installed a host of semipermanent mechanisms for transferring legislative power to commercial interests. They aimed far lower than any other Congress has ever aimed, and they nailed their target.
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Taibbi is right on. It is complete folly to argue which party has behaved the worst. Their is a winner--hands down. They have won that prize numerous times. The democrats aren't even in the running. In this Congress, only a handful of Democrats have stood up to these nutcases. Grayson, Kuchinich, Kaptur, Weiner, Ind. Sanders and a few others. The rest seem to be too busy counting the money they are getting for re-election.
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