Now that the government is shut down and you’re all still alive, isn’t it a strange feeling about just how much of the government is non-essential? (P.S.–you’re paying for all of it too!)
It makes you wonder: where the hell has the money been going all this time?
A viral (hate that word) video circulating on UpWorthy (BuzzFeed for the profoundly retarded) shows a Democratic congressman throwing a shitfit because the House Rules Committee…set the rules.
UpWorthy called the video, “Congress Did Something So Spectacularly Creepy That It’s Too Unbelievable To Make Up”, ignoring the fact that there’s nothing more spectacularly creepy than the pop-ups that assault you everytime you go to their site.
*no UpWorthy, I disagree, blow me
Now, I wasn’t there, mostly because it happened at midnight which is 9PM my time and I was far too busy watching Real Housewives (Teresa finally admitted blame!) but here’s what went down:
As the clock approached midnight, the Democratic Senate wanted to force the Republican House to shutdown the government—by not passing the House bill that funded the government and defunded Obamacare—and instead tried to shoehorn in their own bill.
The Republican House asked the Democrat Senate to come to conference committee* and the Democrat Senate refused–in order to punt away responsibility from them and the President having to pass the bill to fund the government already passed in the house.
*Remember, bills are passed in the House AND the Senate before going to the President and since both houses usually come up with separate bills, they come to conference to hammer out the differences.
The Republican House called the Senate’s bluff: there’s a House rule (Rule XXII…missing just one X from being interesting!) that a vote can be privileged (i.e, anyone can call for a vote). Democrats in the House would have called for a vote in the House on the Senate bill–which would have failed and the government would have shut down. But hey, then the President and Democratic Senate can blame the House and Republicans!
So the House Rules Committee altered the rule–that on this bill amendment, instead of coming to a fruitless and pointless vote, that the House Majority Leader (Eric Cantor, R-VA) is directly asking for the House and Senate to come to committee and avert the shutdown.
Don’t believe me? Here’s the rule, H. Res. 368:
SEC. 1. Resolved, That the House hereby (1) takes from the
Speaker’s table the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 59) making
continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2014, and for
other purposes, with the House amendment to the Senate
amendment thereto, (2) insists on its amendment, and (3)
requests a conference with the Senate thereon.SEC. 2. Any motion pursuant to clause 4 of rule XXII
relating to House Joint Resolution 59 may be offered only
by the Majority Leader or his designee.
The Congressman Umadbro? waited a week for news coverage of the shutdown to pass and for the perfect opportunity to grandstand, complete with big graphics:
“What people don’t know is that [the Republicans] rigged the rules of the House to keep the government shut down,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), ranking member of the House Budget Committee, told TPM in an interview.
No, the Republicans changed the rule in order to avert the shutdown (you think someone in Congress would know how the damn rules worked…)
“This is a blatant effort to make sure that the Senate bill did not come up for a vote.”
This was an effort to put together a joint bill in conference that would have passed both houses and been signed by the President (or vetoed and overridden, in case the President really wanted to keep the government shutdown. Spoiler alert: he does).
TalkingPointsMemo says:
At that point, Democrats say, they could have joined with moderate Republicans in approving the motion and then in passing the clean Senate bill, averting a shutdown.
Democrats didn’t join with moderate Republicans to pass Obamacare in the first place, passing the bill with an unprecedented party-line vote. So why would they cross the aisle to prevent a shutdown?
Answer is: they wouldn’t. The Senate bill would not have passed and the government would have shut down with two houses and two different bills.
So which party wants to work together–and which one doesn’t?
- The Republicans offered to defund the mess that is Obamacare and start over—saving Democrats from having to face the consequences of one of their self-created disasters. The Democrats said no.
- The Republicans urged Democrats to join them and avert the shutdown. The Democrats said no.
- The Republicans changed the rules to force the houses to come together and avert the shutdown. The Democrats said no.
Now, Democrats are just sitting around eating sour grapes, upset that people are discovering that Obamacare is failing, upset that people don’t want Obamacare, upset that the government and country are functioning just fine without non-essential employees, upset that people are realizing just how damn much money the government wastes, and upset that Obama has a lower approval rating than Bush ever did.
So they’re lashing out. They’re refusing to pass bills to fund treatment for kids with cancer. They’re comparing Republicans to suicide bombers, kidnappers, and arsonists. They’re making Ted Cruz into the devil for doing the same thing Wendy Davis did in Texas to fight for abortion rights. And they’re spinning tales about Republicans crowning Eric Cantor as King Shutdown keeping his thumb down on the government’s neck.
Adam Mordecai of UpWorthy ends with this little gem to his “viral” article:
Here’s the thing. Democrats are not always right. Neither are Republicans. The political system is messed up from top to bottom. But this is just crazy. The guy in charge of the GOP can’t end the shutdown.
Translated: Democrats are not always right. I’m sure they’ve messed up once! Republicans are never right, and probably evil. Let’s blame the system for this. This is just crazy–Congress can set rules? The Speaker of the House can’t wave a wand to end the shutdown? He must be evil too!
It shouldn’t matter what party does it. This is nuts. You could share this if you want to help apply pressure to end the shutdown and the dangerous game that is playing out right now. Totally up to you though.
It matters what party does this. This is nuts. You could share this if you want to inform your friends about how they’re being lied to, screwed over, and marginalized by a Democratic-led government that wants to give them phony health insurance that covers nothing (just WAIT till you guys get the bill!), lock them out of national parks that their tax dollars pay for, take as much as possible out of their paychecks (if they can even find a job these days), and ensure that there will be no pension when they need it and no student loans when their kids are going off to college.
Totally up to you though.