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PoliGAF 2013 |OT1| Never mind, Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

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T

Tim-E

Member
I'd say this Hastert Rule will probably be broken again for the debt ceiling thing, which should pave the way for gun control and immigration to be the major legislative issues before the midterms.
 
T

Tim-E

Member
People are now quoting Mein Kampf on my Facebook feed where Hitler stated something about using children to get people to go along with something. Ugh.
 
B

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
Oblivion said:
NRA's response:
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What a bunch of morons. How people this dumb have gotten into a position of power I will never know.

Tim-E said:
People are now quoting Mein Kampf on my Facebook feed where Hitler stated something about using children to get people to go along with something. Ugh.
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Wow, thank god the people on my feed aren't that stupid. Well they're dumb but you get the idea.
 
S

Shadow Hog

Member
Tim-E said:
People are now quoting Mein Kampf on my Facebook feed where Hitler stated something about using children to get people to go along with something. Ugh.
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For a second I thought this was about the NRA using Obama's children in their flawed advertising campaign.
 
R

RDreamer

Member
Tim-E said:
People are now quoting Mein Kampf on my Facebook feed where Hitler stated something about using children to get people to go along with something. Ugh.
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I love that taking the typical playbook from Republicans (omg think of the children) now equates to Hitler. LMAO
 
P

pigeon

Banned
Rocket Scientist said:
Edit: I don't understand the Hassert rule... it's just a joke, right?
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No, it's a big deal. Basically, American parliamentary rules are...ad hoc, as the filibuster proves. In the House of Representatives, after a bill is read it goes to committee, and can't be voted on until the committee reports it back. Since the committees are controlled by the majority party, the upshot of this is that nothing can be voted on in the House without the Speaker's permission. There's a way around this with a discharge petition, but signing it means visibly opposing your boss with no guaranteed payoff, so they rarely work.

For the last fifteen years, the Republicans have informally agreed that the Speaker shouldn't let anything get voted on unless a majority of the GOP caucus is for it. That's why something like a clean debt ceiling increase couldn't get to the House floor in 2011 -- it would have passed if there was a vote on it, but with most Republicans against it, so Boehner didn't allow it to come to a vote. Boehner actually expanded this rule to say that he wouldn't bring anything to the floor that he couldn't pass with ONLY Republican votes, but that obviously ran into difficulties. The fact that the Republicans felt such a rule was necessary in the mid-90s should indicate that even that early they were sensing cracks in their coalition, by the way -- it's designed, not exactly to empower the far-right members of the caucus, but to WEAKEN the centrist and moderate members.

If the Hastert Rule was universally abandoned, the House would regularly pass legislation much further towards the center than it currently produces. If it were only abandoned in crisis situations, we'd get basically what we have now, where nothing happens until it's a crisis and then it passes with mostly Democratic votes. In other words, Boehner breaking the Hastert Rule is the only reason we haven't blown up the country already.

Cyan said:
What in the hell, how is this a thing?

I just read up on this, it explains so much of the dysfunction.
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Arguably the real problem is that the Speaker of the House is a partisan position, rather than, as in many parliamentary countries, an essentially nonpartisan one. One would assume that the ideal legislative structure would ensure that bills that could pass the House would automatically get voted on and thus do so; however there are obviously practical problems with creating such a structure.

mightynine said:
Since all they appear to be able to do is win House races, it might be.
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It depends on what you think they really want out of politics. Some of them clearly just want to win races, yell a lot, and make a lot of money when they retire -- this is perfect for them. These people are presumably casting votes to destroy the country out of good old-fashioned American not-my-problemism -- their individual cost for raising the debt ceiling is high, while it will be difficult to trace a global financial collapse right to their door. But some of them are Ron Paul -- and they actually want to destroy the country because they think it's the right thing to do. These people will not be well-served by a coalition structure, which personally I think is fine, but it's an open question how much power they have to make their wishes known to the Speaker.
 
T

Tim-E

Member
B-Dubs said:
Oh don't you get my hopes up!
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I think Obama is going to come out of this gun fight looking like the winner. The majority support his proposals and even if he compromises and it passes, he still comes out having signed into law the biggest gun bill in decades.
 
T

The Librarian

Banned
pigeon said:
I continue to find all this gun control stuff relatively uninteresting compared to exciting conversations about the deficit, so here's Jonathan Chait:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/01/house-gops-intentional-losing-strategy.html

Parliamentary government, here we come. The Hastert Rule is the primary thing standing in the way of the coalition of the sane that the pragmatist GOP members need to form to survive. Relevantly, any gun control legislation, as well as fiscal stuff or immigration reform, will have to break the Hastert Rule to pass without a rider defunding Obamacare. And most everybody's goals align here -- Obama gets to push for his priorities and splinter the GOP, Boehner gets to pass legislation that makes the government not fall over, and the Tea Party gets to be as loud and crazy as they want to without the negative consequences they'd face if they were in charge. The question to answer really is whether that's enough for the Tea Party.
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Read that piece earlier. It's a good one. Maybe we can get climate legislation done this way too? Maybe? No...probably not.
Hitokage said:
Dax01: I now have mixed feelings about that Justin Long avatar.

Should have used a different character! Or not done it at all, but I already felt that before.
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Justin Long avatar?
Cyan said:
wat

Edit: glad we've got someone for the binders!
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I'm PoliGAF's token girl. <3
PhoenixDark said:
Dax pretending to be a girl? Now I've seen everything
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Please proceed, PhoenixDark.
 
T

Tim-E

Member
Dax01 said:
Read that piece earlier. It's a good one. Maybe we can get climate legislation done this way too? Maybe? No...probably not.
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I'm not too optimistic about climate legislation right now, but then again two years ago had you told me that Obama would put forth the biggest gun control effort since the 1960s I wouldn't have believed you, so you really never know.
 
S

smokeandmirrors

Banned
Avon Barksdale said:
Rick Scott in huge trouble in Florida.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/01/scott-in-a-very-bad-position.html
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excellent-mr-burns.gif
 
C

CharlieDigital

Banned
Avon Barksdale said:
Rick Scott in huge trouble in Florida.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/01/scott-in-a-very-bad-position.html
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Any FLA GAFfers know the legitimacy of this: http://www.stableytimes.com/feature...s-latest-in-rick-scott-impeachment-drive/776/

Florida has gone bankrupt under governor Rick Scott, yet there’s still money to bulldoze the Turnpike rest stops and rebuild them exactly the same. It’s presumable that he greenlit this pointless project because he’s personally profiting from it.
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G

GhaleonEB

Member
lednerg said:
"14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence."

In your fucking face, NRA.
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Of the announcements this morning, that one pleased me the most. It's absurd to block the government from even studying gun violence. Lifting that ban can only help public discourse and policy. Which is why the NRA is so opposed, of course.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
Rocket Scientist said:
There... was a ban?
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From the link quoted:

Over the past two decades, the NRA has not only been able to stop gun control laws, but even debate on the subject. The Centers for Disease Control funds research into the causes of death in the United States, including firearms &#8212; or at least it used to. In 1996, after various studies funded by the agency found that guns can be dangerous, the gun lobby mobilized to punish the agency. First, Republicans tried to eliminate entirely the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, the bureau responsible for the research. When that failed, Rep. Jay Dickey, a Republican from Arkansas, successfully pushed through an amendment that stripped $2.6 million from the CDC&#8217;s budget (the amount it had spent on gun research in the previous year) and outlawed research on gun control with a provision that reads: &#8220;None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.&#8221;
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Dickey&#8217;s clause, which remains in effect today, has had a chilling effect on all scientific research into gun safety, as gun rights advocates view &#8220;advocacy&#8221; as any research that notices that guns are dangerous. Stephen Teret, who co-directs the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, told Salon: &#8220;They sent a message and the message was heard loud and clear. People [at the CDC], then and now, know that if they start going down that road, their budget is going to be vulnerable. And the way public agencies work, they know how this works and they&#8217;re not going to stick their necks out.&#8221;

In January, the New York Times reported that the CDC goes so far as to &#8220;ask researchers it finances to give it a heads-up anytime they are publishing studies that have anything to do with firearms. The agency, in turn, relays this information to the NRA as a courtesy.&#8221;
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So not a ban in the strict sense, but a defacto one. Obama ordered the CDC to start researching gun violence and control again, and will presumably back that up by not allowing their budget to be cut in retaliation.

14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.
Click to expand...
 
S

speculawyer

Member
Crisco said:
Obama is well on his way to marginalizing the NRA. Dat legacy.
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The NRA has marginalized itself. The fact that no one pushed back on them apparently allowed them to run wild. And now people are waking up and realizing that the NRA has done things like prevent science from happening, help people on the terrorist no-fly list buy guns, propose armed guards in elementary schools, etc.

Well . . . they were given enough rope to hang themselves.
 
E

el retorno

Member
Tim-E said:
People are now quoting Mein Kampf on my Facebook feed where Hitler stated something about using children to get people to go along with something. Ugh.
Click to expand...

Seriously were do you guys find these people? I'm from the south and never see this stuff. You've got multiple people posting it.

Cyan said:
What in the hell, how is this a thing?

I just read up on this, it explains so much of the dysfunction.
Click to expand...

Its a GOP thing that started in the 90s its supposed to make sure you're not embarrassed in votes. Usually it worked because the party wasn't completly insane. Thats not really the case anymore.
 
R

Rocket Scientist

Member
T

The Librarian

Banned
Hitokage said:
Galaxy Quest.
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Oh yeah. Haha. Oh, no harm done. Not like it was permanent or anything, and it was only for a month wasn't it? :)
Tim-E said:
West Virginia :(
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I'm friends with the daughter of a prosecuting attorney in West Virginia. She told me her mom was asked to run for Congress over two years ago, and in this previous cycle to run as a state senator (declined both). Don't know the first name of her father, though.

Edit: Oh, and this is funny.
 
T

Tim-E

Member
Dax01 said:
I'm friends with the daughter of a prosecuting attorney in West Virginia. She told me her mom was asked to run for Congress over two years ago, and in this previous cycle to run as a state senator (declined both). Don't know the first name of her father, though.

Edit: Oh, and this is funny.
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I've thought about running for a local office, but even though I'm to the center of a lot of liberals I don't think I'd survive a campaign here.
 
B

BobTheFork

Member
Screw the guns. I want Executive Orders banning the practice of burning popcorn in an office building. Mandatory microwave instructional classes and background checks. I swear, every single day someone does this.
 
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