So are Republicans now openly terrorists? (page 17)

Simon

And did FOX announce that "Republicans won the election!"?

Is Mitt Romney now president?

No?

I guess they lost another election then.

But good for you, "don't stop, belieeeeving, woah yeah woah".

You are correct. So let them vote. Even Republican reps who would vote against a clean CR have stated that if a clean CR was voted on (as received from the Senate) it would pass as enough Republicans would vote for it. This is no secret, they have been refreshingly candid about it.

The Speaker will not allow a vote on that matter. IF you really want the House of Reps to, well, REPRESENT why not push the Speaker to allow a vote on a clean CR? Would that not demonstrate the will of the duly elected representatives?

You can't say the House of Reps are doing the peoples bidding when the Speaker will not even allow a vote to demonstrate that. This is nothing more than high stakes politics.

minimus

If you can still read what I wrote, I said not only Obama won but so did the House Republicans. You were suggesting that they were unelectable. You were wrong again. Whether FOX announced something incorrectly or not has nothing to do with what I said. Stick to the topic, willya? (I hate having to re-explain things to you since I'm only allowed 25 posts).....P.S. leave the Speaker alone or else he may get emotional again. lol

Berengaria

A majority of Americans disapprove of the Republicans in Congress, yet the odds remain in the party’s favor that it will retain control of the House. One big reason the Republicans have this edge: their district boundaries are drawn so carefully that the only votes that often matter come from fellow Republicans.

The 2010 elections, in which Republicans won the House majority and gained more than 700 state legislative seats across the nation, gave the party the upper-hand in the process of redistricting, the once-a-decade redrawing of congressional seats. The advantage helped them design safer partisan districts and maintain their House majority in 2012 -- even as they lost the presidential race by about 5 million votes. Also nationwide, Democratic House candidates combined to win about 1.4 million more votes than Republicans, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-19/republicans-win-congress-as-democrats-get-most-votes.html

AndDontCallMeShirley

A majority of Americans disapprove of the Republicans in Congress

Discontent is across the board (and, before someone launches on me for being a Republican supporter, I am not. I just found the cherry-picking example posted above interesting).

"A NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Wednesday finds that Americans' disapproval of Congress has reached unprecedented levels, while approval of President Barack Obama has dropped significantly.

According to the survey, 83 percent of Americans disapprove of the job Congress is doing in Washington, an all-time high in the poll. Just 12 percent approve of Congress' job, while 57 percent they would replace every member of Congress if they could."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/24/congress-disapproval-rating_n_3642480.html

jgnat

Here's one explanation:

Republicans House

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/92585/house-republicans-senate-john-boehner

The deeper problem might be partisan politics and polarization. Not much sitting on the fence these days.

Berengaria

Discontent is across the board (and, before someone launches on me for being a Republican supporter, I am not. I just found the cherry-picking example posted above interesting).

That wasn't cherry picking, it was a paragraph from the article I linked. Within that sentence was a link to a poll.

Simon

Yes, many dissapprove of Congress and many blame Republicans for the shut-down.

I don't think it's a stretch for most people to dissapprove of Republicans in congress.

The bigger issue though is a jgnat says - US politics is breaking down to a new level of dysfunction and partisanship that didn't exist even in the RayGun / Carter days.

To take it to the point where a party would rather cripple the country than see the opposing party 'win' or accomplish an election goal is appaling and doesn't bode well for the future.

Perhaps if they do enough damage then the republicans will see a blood-bath at the next election regardless of how the electoral map is carved out to benefit them currently.

DogGone

Simon,

I really don't think it is as bad as all of that. The Speaker has stated that he will not allow the country to default.... what we witnessed in late 2011 was complete madness. I'm relieved that they chose this, increasing the government's funding, instead of the coming debt ceiling to stake thier ground. To me, that actually shows they DO care about the country.

That Congress has to increase the debt ceiling is the most bizarre structure I can think of. The Executive has to raise only the taxes Congress authorizes, has to execute the laws Congress enacts (spend money), and can only borrow what the Congress allows. All the other governments I know of legislate the first two and the third naturally follows. A failure to raise the debt ceiling means the President is put in conflict between the Congressional Taxation Power, Spending Power, and Borrowing Power. A constitutional crisis is inevitable in the face of a default. I have read some opinions that should Congress not raise the debt ceiling the President should ignore the debt ceiling and break the Borrowing Power of Congress. This would be unconstitutional and would likely result in impeachment, but is the better of the three to violate.

http://www.columbialawreview.org/how-to-choose-the-lease-unconstitutional-option/

I am very pleased the Republicans are choosing this current tactic rather than the nuke they have access to. [I don't agree with what they are trying to do, but if they were truly terrorists they'd try to blow the economy up with the debt ceiling. Of course, to your point, there are some (few?) Republicans who argue for doing exactly that.....]

AndDontCallMeShirley

Berengaria: "That wasn't cherry picking, it was a paragraph from the article I linked."

Of course it was cherry-picking. Had you been honest you would have quoted the other part of the article that de-sensationalized and nullified your first cherry-picked quote. The entire article explained that Democrats are just as guilty of "gerrymandering" districts as are Republicans. Furthermore, Democrats lost some popularity specifically due to passage of Obamacare:

"Still, it’s rare for one party to win more House seats while securing fewer votes than the other party. The last time it happened before 2012 was in 1996, when Democrats won the nationwide House vote by 43.6 million to 43.4 million as Republicans held their majority and Bill Clinton was re-elected president, according to the U.S. House Clerk’s office.

Redistricting is intended to ensure House members represent roughly equal size populations. Yet from the first Congress, party leaders began exploiting the map-making exercise by weakening the voting strength of some groups to gain partisan advantage, a practice known as gerrymandering.

Democrats aren’t immune from engaging in the political bloodsport of redistricting. With control of the process in Illinois, Democratic lawmakers from Obama’s home state approved a map on Memorial Day weekend in 2011 that led to the defeat of five Republicans in the 2012 elections."

And, your cited article had this to say, which contradicts previous statements made on this thread that Obamacare had the overwhelming approval of the voting public and that's why it became law:

"Democrats also faced a political environment that had swung sharply Republican, partly due to a wave of public discontent over passage of Obama’s health-care law."

It must suck for you when people actually read the entire article that you post already cherry-picked, Berengaria.

So are Republicans now openly terrorists?

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