The inmates have taken over the asylum.

[Scooter]

One thing I don't get about these Speaker elections - is it not the whole House that votes for the Speaker? If so, given that Democrats know that the position cannot be theirs in a Republican House, is there not room for a sane Republican to be elected Speaker with support from a goodly number of sane members of his/her party plus the support of a goodly number of sane Democrats? It seems to me that would also set the stage for a formula for getting House business accomplished under the leadership of said Speaker.

Or am I tilting at windmills?

[kristina]

I was wondering the same thing, Scooter.

[Guinevere]

Each party nominates a candidate and traditionally, each party only votes for their own party's candidate and majority wins. The vote by the full House is largely ceremonial, as the decision is really made in the back rooms based on who the party leadership decides will be the nominee. It's been decades since the actual decision went to the full body.

ETA: according to wiki, if you vote against your party's nominee, you can be and have been stripped of seniority and committee chair privileges. So yes, Don Quixote, windmills it is.....

[Scooter]

Thanks for the education, but it still seems to me that when the majority party is being hijacked by a minority of nutbars in its midst, then it would be to the advantage of both parties to abandon the established customs and reach across the aisle.

[Lord Jim]

One thing I don't get about these Speaker elections - is it not the whole House that votes for the Speaker? If so, given that Democrats know that the position cannot be theirs in a Republican House, is there not room for a sane Republican to be elected Speaker with support from a goodly number of sane members of his/her party plus the support of a goodly number of sane Democrats? It seems to me that would also set the stage for a formula for getting House business accomplished under the leadership of said Speaker.

Or am I tilting at windmills?

There's the whole issue, and it may come to that... (though it hasn't since 1922)

In order to be the party nominee for the Speakership one only requires a majority of the members voting in the caucus...

But, in order to be elected Speaker Of The House (which is a Constitutional position) you must receive an absolute majority of at least 218 (out of 435) to win the position...

In normal times this is not an issue; the members of the Majority Party all vote for their caucus nominee, the members of the Minority party all vote for theirs, (maybe a couple of protest votes either way) and the nominee of the Majority Party is elected Speaker...

But these are not normal times...

On paper, the GOP has an overall majority of 247....(The largest majority the party has enjoyed in modern political times...)

But, that also means that a small group of at least 29 Kamikaze malcontents can throw the whole process into a cocked hat, (giving themselves out-sized influence over the process...)

If it were up to me... I would say:

"Well, fuck you Kamikazes, I'm full up with your destructive nonsense. I would rather have 200 responsible, grown-up, GOP representatives behind me, rather than 247, including you bunch of kookaboos...

And I'll find at least 18 responsible, grown-up Democrats to join me, and then we'll get back finally to the business of governance...

Which involves seeking compromise and making deals...

Those are not "dirty words"; it's what we were elected to do...

If you have a problem understanding that, try taking a basic civics course..."

Alas, I doubt that such a refreshing course of action will be on offer...

[Big RR]

Sadly, I agree with your conclusion.

[Lord Jim]

Cupp, not Cupps. But I can see how you got distracted


ETA: Cornell class of 2000

Yes, Cupp not Cupps...

(Freudian slip there.... )

[Crackpot]

Better be careful Jim things keep going the way they are you'll purity test

[Guinevere]

I agree with LJ and BigRR. And CP as well.

Just stand up to the nut jobs and think about why you're in Congress in the first place. Is it really that difficult to be principled?

[Lord Jim]

Better be careful Jim things keep going the way they are you'll purity test

Oh, I know that the Radical Randian "let's repeal The Social Contract; the Constitution Means What I Say It Does, Compromise is a Dirty Word" nihilistic Kamikaze Tea Party nimrods consider me to be a "RINO"....

But by their standards Mr. Reagan would also be a "RINO", so I figure I'm in pretty good company...

[Sue U]

Is it really that difficult to be principled?

Hahahahahahahaha. Have you met Congress?

[rubato]

Ryan is a big fat liar.

whoah yeah.


yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

Yes, well not everyone can meet the standards of scrupulous integrity vis a vis the truth that you have rube...

[Gob]

US Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson has defended comments that suggested the Holocaust may have been avoided if people had been armed.

"The likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed," he told CNN on Thursday.

An anti-Semitism monitoring group says linking US gun control to the Holocaust is "historically inaccurate".

Mr Carson is polling second in the Republican race behind Donald Trump.

History isn't his strong point, is it?

[Econoline]

[Lord Jim]

You don't think I'm Republican enough, you Tea Party morons?

I was Republican when Republican wasn't cool...

I was the Chairman of The Teen Age Republicans Of Fairfax County when Mr. Nixon was circling the drain, and Gerald Ford was taking over...

As I explained to Dave/Mort in an earlier exchange, I'm not going to allow these Tea Party types to define either my Republicanism, or my Conservatism...

My bonafides are well established; I don't have to justify myself to that lot...

[rubato]

Clint seemed very fuddled and confused during that performance. I was worried that his confusion was due to dementia.



yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

Yes, well not everyone can meet the standards of scrupulous integrity vis a vis the truth that you have rube...

I used to be surprised that lying does not bother you.



http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/1 ... pe=opinion

Memories of Con Jobs Past
October 9, 2015 4:53 pm October 9, 2015 4:53 pm

As the Paul Ryan clamor gets louder, a public service reminder: he’s a con man.

I don’t mean that I disagree with his policy ideas, although I do. I mean that his reputation as a serious thinker is based on deception, both about what he has actually proposed and how it has or hasn’t been vetted.

Take, for example, the famous “fiscally responsible” budget plan. As I explained way back when, what Ryan did was to present a sort of vague fiscal outline to the Congressional Budget Office that envisioned implausibly large cuts in spending and mysterious increases in revenue, and stipulated for the purpose of the exercise that CBO take those numbers as given. The budget office hinted broadly in its report that it didn’t believe any of it, e.g.:

That combination of other mandatory and discretionary spending was specified to decline from 12 percent of GDP in 2010 to about 6 percent in 2021 and then move in line with the GDP price deflator beginning in 2022, which would generate a further decline relative to GDP. No proposals were specified that would generate that path. [My italics]

But CBO did the numbers as required — and then the Ryan plan was presented as something that the budget office had “vetted”, when it did no such thing.

And as I’ve said, Ryan is to budget analysis as Carly Fiorina is to corporate leadership: he’s brilliant at self-promotion, but there’s no hint that he’s actually able to do the job. There is, in particular, no example I know of where he’s actually been right about anything involving budgets or economics, and some remarkable examples — like his inflation screeds — of being completely wrong, and learning nothing from the experience.

So is this really the GOP can do? And the answer, sad to say, is that it probably is.

yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

LOL !!!

You offer up the partisan opinions of a known prevaricator and notorious hack like Krugman as proof of someone elses lack of integrity?

Too funny...

[rubato]

Reason really is beyond you.

So is any concern for facts or the truth.


Did you ever find that proof that Paul Krugman lied? Or are you still looking for it ?

Well, if you ever do come up with it we'll all be interested.

yrs,
rubato