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Post by james on Oct 8, 2015 20:35:57 GMT -5
One issue seems to be that it is a bit difficult to find a plausible candidate for speaker that both wants the position and is not thought to be screwing people to whom they are not wed.
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Post by epaul on Oct 8, 2015 20:53:11 GMT -5
Screwing people to whom they are not wed? That would be most Republicans.
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Post by epaul on Oct 8, 2015 20:54:36 GMT -5
Sorry. I couldn't pass that one up. It was a changeup up and in the middle begging to be put in the stands.
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Post by fauxmaha on Oct 8, 2015 21:07:01 GMT -5
It will end up being Paul Ryan.
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Post by dradtke on Oct 8, 2015 21:38:05 GMT -5
It will end up being Paul Ryan. Boehner's on his knees to Ryan now, but Ryan seems to think that he has a career in politics ahead of him that will be cut quite short if he becomes Speaker.
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Post by Chesapeake on Oct 8, 2015 23:09:16 GMT -5
Doug - our main disagreement on this is that I don't believe compromise is the art of surrender. In my experience covering the Hill for twenty years (for the strictly non-partisan Congressional Quarterly), politics is all about the art of compromise, and compromise is what keeps us from killing each other. I mean that literally. Compromise failed in Washington 155 years ago and we started shooting each other. I believe it could be said that failure to compromise is the most immediate cause of every war ever fought. The art is to come up with a middle ground that allows all sides to walk away with something, and allow life to go on. Kind of like holding a marriage together. (Speaking for myself anyway.) But that is increasingly not possible in the House, where if you are from one of these heavily gerryymandered districts, where everybody thinks alike, you didn't have to compromise anything to get elected. In fact your whole campaign was likely built around how every one of your predecessors talked a good game, but once they got to the Hill, somebody sprinkled some evil fairy dust on their heads and they started behaving exactly like the ones that had gone before. It's like some kind of virus, you said in your stump speech - a mysterious bug to which you are immune. So you took your seat in Congress, began to see what was really at stake, that things weren't as simple as you thought, and the only alternative to (for example) shutting the government down, or defauiting on debt payments, is c.... c.... c.... You dasn't even whisper the word, because you know if you are heard doing so yuo are instant road kill. You'll be accused of betraying the people who sent you. And in fact you would be. But not for long, because your political career would end in the next primary, where you would be dumped (unceremoniously, of course) by the next "take-no-prisoners" orator waiting in the wings. And there is no end to that line.
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Post by dradtke on Oct 9, 2015 7:57:40 GMT -5
The Speaker doesn't have to be s sitting member of the House, and Gingrinch has let it be known that he's available.
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Post by Doug on Oct 9, 2015 8:02:36 GMT -5
You don't have to shutdown the government just every thing not listed in Article 1 section 8. If their wasn't so much compromise there would be no debt and the government wouldn't be bankrupt owing 9000 times it's income and still borrowing. Compromise is the art of spending the country into bankruptcy. You like that better.
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Post by Marshall on Oct 9, 2015 9:41:04 GMT -5
Glad to see everyone treating it with all the seriousness it deserves. Did somebody already do "weaker?" And bleaker ?
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Post by dradtke on Oct 9, 2015 9:44:03 GMT -5
Glad to see everyone treating it with all the seriousness it deserves. Did somebody already do "weaker?" And bleaker ? We could go with Bleecker and work in an old folk song vibe. If he limped naked through Greenwich Village he could be the weaker Bleecker streaker Speaker.
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Post by Marshall on Oct 9, 2015 9:45:16 GMT -5
The craziness is that the leading party (Republicans) want to pass things with only Republican votes. So they let the far end of their party dictate what is passable. It's not allowable under the rules of engagement to seek votes from the other party. It's like they are invisible. If you get one of their votes, you're not supposed to count it.
That's just idiocy.
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Post by millring on Oct 9, 2015 9:57:09 GMT -5
Yeah, what they need is a good Democrat in there who knows how to compromise.
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Post by aquaduct on Oct 9, 2015 10:07:35 GMT -5
Yeah, what they need is a good Democrat in there who knows how to compromise. Wonder where the hell you'll find one of those. That's rarer than a one-eyed unicorn with a limp and a lisp.
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Post by epaul on Oct 9, 2015 10:17:00 GMT -5
Yeah, what they need is a good Democrat in there who knows how to compromise. +1
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Post by Fingerplucked on Oct 9, 2015 11:00:57 GMT -5
You don't have to shutdown the government just every thing not listed in Article 1 section 8. If their wasn't so much compromise there would be no debt and the government wouldn't be bankrupt owing 9000 times it's income and still borrowing. Compromise is the art of spending the country into bankruptcy. You like that better. Doug, if there was no compromise there would be no Article 1 section 8. There would be no constitution. There would be no United States of America. As an American I should be worried about the obvious dysfunction of the Republican Party. But what we're seeing now is only a small step beyond what we've been seeing from Republicans since 2010. It's extreme vs not-so-extreme conservatism imploding. It could even be seen as a good thing if there was any reasonable hope that it would cause people to wake up and reevaluate their strategies and world views. Sadly, I don't think that's going to happen.
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Post by dradtke on Oct 9, 2015 12:05:19 GMT -5
Yeah, what they need is a good Democrat in there who knows how to compromise. They have all the Republicans they need to pass whatever they want. They're in the majority.
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Post by aquaduct on Oct 9, 2015 12:22:16 GMT -5
Yeah, what they need is a good Democrat in there who knows how to compromise. They have all the Republicans they need to pass whatever they want. They're in the majority. No they don't.
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Post by dradtke on Oct 9, 2015 12:30:48 GMT -5
They have all the Republicans they need to pass whatever they want. They're in the majority. No they don't. Republicans don't have a majority in the House and Senate? News to me.
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Dub
Administrator
I'm gettin' so the past is the only thing I can remember.
Posts: 19,869
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Post by Dub on Oct 9, 2015 12:36:31 GMT -5
I confess that this whole thing doesn't really worry me much. That there is fighting in DC is as it should be. I don't worry that our legislative processes are inefficient. I'd worry more if everyone on Capitol Hill marched in lockstep.
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Post by aquaduct on Oct 9, 2015 12:42:25 GMT -5
Republicans don't have a majority in the House and Senate? News to me. They don't have enough to break a filibuster in the Senate so they effectively can't just pass whatever they want without some Democratic support (or don't you remember how much the Dems whined about that back in the days when they held the Senate?) And beyond that they still have a narcissistic and incompetent dolt in the White House that will veto anything he doesn't like anyways. The Democrats, and particularly Barry, are the true obstructionists.
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