Remember that excellent Matt Taibbi piece about the Republican way of doing things when in the majority that featured stories like this:
The GOP’s “take that, bitch” approach to governing has been taken to the greatest heights by the House Judiciary Committee. The committee is chaired by the legendary Republican monster James Sensenbrenner Jr., an ever-sweating, fat-fingered beast who wields his gavel in a way that makes you think he might have used one before in some other arena, perhaps to beat prostitutes to death. Last year, Sensenbrenner became apoplectic when Democrats who wanted to hold a hearing on the Patriot Act invoked a little-known rule that required him to let them have one.
“Naturally, he scheduled it for something like 9 a.m. on a Friday when Congress wasn’t in session, hoping that no one would show,” recalls a Democratic staffer who attended the hearing. “But we got a pretty good turnout anyway.”
Sensenbrenner kept trying to gavel the hearing to a close, but Democrats again pointed to the rules, which said they had a certain amount of time to examine their witnesses. When they refused to stop the proceedings, the chairman did something unprecedented: He simply picked up his gavel and walked out.
“He was like a kid at the playground,” the staffer says. And just in case anyone missed the point, Sensenbrenner shut off the lights and cut the microphones on his way out of the room.
Looks like Taibbi needs to do a new piece, this time about how these petulant over-grown kids act in the minority:
In September, the Orlando Sentinel reported that Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) had noticed Republicans House lawmakers intentionally forgetting or losing their voting cards in order to delay votes. Starting late in the summer, Grayson said he saw 60-70 GOP congressmen engaging in this tactic:
GRAYSON: They’d all walk to the front of the House and, laughingly and jokingly, put their arms around each other’s shoulder like it was some kind of clownish fun. And they did this over and over to make sure every vote took half an hour. That’s how low things have gotten. I could give you countless examples just like that. They’re simply obstructionists and there’s nothing you can do about it.
I really don’t know how this country is supposed to operate when one of the two political parties is composed almost entirely of crazy assholes. The entire party has gone wingnut.
dmsilev
Nancy Pelosi does a good “pissed off grandmother” glare. Maybe she should tell the GOP that unless they behave, they’re all going to be sent to their rooms without dinner, dessert, or prostitutes.
-dms
El Cid
They really do enjoy acting like the most bitter punks from the back of some 4th grade classroom.
tamied
I’m afraid I’d have to kill someone if I was in there. Who could have patience with idiocy and incompetance like that?
arguingwithsignposts
I wish we had video of this. It would make for great campaign footage.
GReynoldsCT00
They think this is their playground and the bad news is they never have to leave. A big mistake of our forefathers not to suggest term limits in the Senate. It’s disgusting.
Original Lee
@arguingwithsignposts: This.
Although I think Pelosi needs to have her staffers look into obscure rules that let her scratch their votes if they forget their cards 3 times in a row or something.
Jim Once
Matt Taibbi is a national treasure. The Republicans, OTOH – every time I think they can’t go any lower, they show us all what True Low is. I don’t know . . . do you think it’s contagious Alzheimer’s? (Although my father, who had that terrible disease, was much more logical and much less aggressive.)
Original Lee
Whoops. Not Pelosi. Reid. Well, fuck, that won’t happen.
Zifnab
This SHOULD be highlighted again and again and again on the national stage. But these shenanigans get epic shit tons of cover from the national media. Some of the most obnoxious and childish Congressional bullshit – perfect fodder for a media obsessed with image – and HOLY SHIT MICHELLE OBAMA HAS BARE ARMS! AND THE PRESIDENT BOWED TO THE EMPEROR OF JAPAN! OMG! OMG!
:-p
Where’s our liberal Rush Limbaugh? He’d be ranting about bullshit like this for weeks.
Kryptik
The worst thing about it is just how many Democrats continue to try and work with these assholes as if they’re acting in good faith. Heaven forbid we talk about those who actually agree enough with the Repubs in substance to turn a blind eye for the sake of getting what they want.
JenJen
Mmmmm… Matt Taibbi. :-)
Oh and @Zifnab, speaking of Rush, have you seen this? Good gawd.
Zifnab
@JenJen: He’s just mad because his third wife never cared enough to chase him down the driveway swinging a golf club.
Jay in Oregon
So they don’t even have the guts to be the “Party of No”; they’re the “Party of Passive-Aggressive Antics To Avoid Saying No”.
There’s your bipartisanship, Mr. President.
tamied
@Kryptik: It’s scary though. Deals with the devil come due in brimstone.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Kryptik:
That applies in the Senate far more than in the House. I think Pelosi finally had her own come to jeeebus moment regarding the “it’s pointless negotiating with these uberdouches” over the summer. She’s been pretty good at getting around the delay tactics.
I mean there’s a lot of good shit going on in the House.
Of course then there’s the Senate where the 40 batshit, insane wingnut Senators are the *least* of our problems.
The Senate is very broke and is helping break the country as a result.
Wile E. Quixote
We need to implement the Wyoming Rule and further marginalize the GOP by increasing the number of seats in the house to about 570 or so. It kicks the shit out of the gerrymandering and most of the new seats would go to blue states, plus it would really piss off the Republicans, which is a good thing in and of itself.
freelancer
@Zifnab:
I for one, think that would be a horrible road for progressives to go down. I do not want a liberal Rush. I want adults. Who make cogent, intellectually honest arguments. And a dick joke or two, like Jon Stewart.
Rekster
And the other party consists of invertebrate amoeba’s
Morbo
Well, that Grayson’s just a whiny little snitch then, isn’t he? What say you, Dana Milbank?
YankeeApologist
Unfortunately, I think the one aspect of their job that these guys really excel in is representing the people that vote for them.
There are people waiting in the cold to view Sarah Palin live in all her evil radiance. Rick Warren’s megachurches are filled to capacity.
I don’t think we can reasonably expect our governing body to act with class and dignity when a significant portion of our own population is voting against basic civil rights for LGBT’s and railing against people saying “Happy Holidays”.
Kryptik
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Pelosi finally getting a clue helps, yes. Though the House being much less prone to bullshit stalling tactics helps more too. And you still have jackoffs like Stupak threatening a hissy fit in the House.
Reid is just a useless leader with feet of clay, spine of KY jelly, and a grip on leadership that a limp fish would mock.
Zifnab
@freelancer:
There’s not a really good way to make a cogent, intellectually honest argument that basically begins and ends with, “Look at what giant jackasses these people are being”.
I suppose we’ve got Stewart, Olbermann, and Maddow. And that’s really all you can ask for in that arena. It’s just that I suspect if a Congressman’s constituents had an eye on them when they were doing these hijinks, I imagine it would erode their support.
geg6
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
I was gonna blockquote the best parts of your comment, but…it’s all good.
So I’ll just say:
THIS.
Waynski
@arguingwithsignposts: I’m pretty sure there’s footage somewhere. I’m not sure they ever turn the House Chamber camera off. C-span has a video library here:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/
Guess you’d neeed dates and times though.
soonergrunt
John, just look at the quality of trolls you have around here. Remember that anyone with enough gumption to troll an opposing blog is probably somebody who at least puts in a few hours a year working for a candidate or issue.
Makewi and BrickOvenBill are the examples of typical right-wing-thought and action.
Brent
Alan Grayson is a freshman congresscritter who has not been told the rules or else is willfully ignoring them, to his long term incumbency peril. He is the only dem with big brass ones who earlier spoke of how the republicans health care plan was for you to not get sick and if you get sick to die quickly. When the repubs acted horrified and demanded an apology, he went to the House floor and aplogized for the 45, 000 Merkins who die every year due to lack of access to affordable health care and called it a holocaust.
Now that is playing the republican game with their rules. Of course he will be silenced eventually because there is one party in Washington; the business party with two wings. There is a tacit understanding that the republicans push the window in favor of corporate power as far as is possible until everything breaks, then the dems come in and fix everything, but sheepishly allow the repbulicans to still own the national debate and the media still treat them as serious responsible statesmen despite nearly destroying the nation and the world. Soon, the media will play up dem ineffectuality and the republicans will win back seats and so the cycle continues. I can’t believe that every dem to a man and woman are such feckless impotent spineless worthless wimps, so I can only assume there is an arrangement in place that each side plays their role to serve the larger oligarchy/plutocracy/corporatocracy.
YankeeApologist
@JenJen:
This is exactly what I was just trying to say. It’s people like this that have MILLIONS of listeners, and they AGREE with this racist douche-rocket.
How do we move forward as a nation when we can’t get a majority agreement that gays and black folks are human?
That's Just How We Roll
Purify your party back to power baby!!!
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/12/08/huckabee-big-tent/
Rick Taylor
And when the rules to the senate have evolved to where it takes a 60% majority to do almost anything.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
It’s called the librul blogosphere. For years, we’ve always thought we needed to fight these assholes in the same media.
While I don’t delude myself that the blogosphere’s penetration isn’t what some of it’s big players would have you believe, I do think we’ve made significant inroads in battling the right wing noise machine.
We’re looking at 18+ year olds. They ain’t gonna listen to AM radio so let that fat rat bastard rail all he wants into the public airwaves where the vast majority of the public…ain’t.
Kryptik
@Rick Taylor:
Fixed. Remember, the 60-vote mandatory requirement only applies to democratic measures.
Noonan
I guess the one thing you can say about these ass clowns is that for all the complaining they do about government being part of the problem they do a hell of a job holding up their end of the bargain.
kay
It’s a shame, because I think voters would be really, really interested in this stuff. It’s easy to explain and everyone recognizes childish behavior.
I would be interested, if Democrats were doing it, and I’d love to know if my GOP rep is pulling this nonsense.
Instead, today, Obama got a question on the Gallup DAILY tracking poll, which was BACK UP by the time the reporter asked the question.
Does the daily tracking poll merit a question? Really?
Clark
In 2004, Missouri Republicans started making fart noises into the microphone in a floor debate on Medicaid cuts. I’m pretty sure the GOP is now at heart a group of 6th grade boys.
Phaedrus
God, I wish there was someone in Congress who would do this shit to stop torture or our failed war efforts. Imagine real American Heroes, Congressman, chaining themselves together to block the passage of legislation that legitimized torture or immunized corporations for civil rights infringement.
See, the Republicans are doing good work for their constituents – they are fighting the good fight with everything they’ve got. I think they’re wrong and they’re policies disastrous, but, fuck, if my Senator tried to filibuster the Iraq War resolution, I’d cheer him on and walk twenty miles through snow to vote for him, carrying ten other voters on my back.
Remember when the Texas State Dems boarded a plane and fled the state to deny a quorum on re-districting? That was the same shit, but because everyone KNEW that the what the Reps were doing was illigit, the Left LOVED it. Shoes on the other foot now, and, typical Dems, they whine and cry but don’t threaten to go nuclear.
Kryptik
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
There’s still a problem however in getting even Democratic leaders to look at us as something other than DFHs, whereas Rush, as vile as he is, is still un-ignorable, simply because of the size of his audience and how often he’s cited by the Repubs.
Noonan
@That’s Just How We Roll: Apparently the political playbook says it’s time to kiss the base’s ass after you let a cop killer out of prison.
Michael
On an amusing note, Hannity is dabbling his toe in Birther water.
mk3872
And yet he keeps on winning elections. How can the Dems not have candidates of enough quality to knock off brainless zombines like Sensenbrenner, Inhofe or King?
Kryptik
@mk3872:
Because they’re only ever accountable to their constituents, who for the majority are as wingnutty as they (with sensenbrenner and king having the advantage of only having one district to contend with…and Inhofe having the advantage of representing Oklahoma.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@mk3872:
Easy, gerrymandering. Made worse by the fact that for the last 2 redistricting cycles, both parties have colluded in gerrymandering, essentially a “scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” which basically has eliminated competitive districts nationwide.
In the few states which have non-political district creation (well, as non-political as you can make it), surprise, surprise, Congressional districts are competitive.
SpotWeld
In private life, if you end up working with someone who’s a useless asshole you can probably bite the bullet and do your own job *and* thier’s , if only to ensure you get paid.
In general the boss will take note of this and eventually weed out the useless people when they can afford to lose headcount (and bring in less experienced folks).
In political life, representatives can’t do each other jobs. So in this case, the GOP has made being an asshole a feature instead of a bug.
This is probably why the GOP tends to elevate their assholes to higher levels of more (at least moreso than the Dems) since thier core philosphy is based on stagnating change.
jl
The complete bad faith of the current GOP is why Obama’s post-partisan approach has long been a tired gimmick.
Being reasonable and conciliatory is one thing. Being a stupid sap and sad chump who thinks he is clever is another thing. This summer with the GOP issuing lies about death panels, and publicly smearing our allies health care systems (which by the way, were nothing like what was proposed in the legislation), Obama crossed the line into being a chump who thinks he is clever.
Obama started going after the GOP today in a statement. He better keep it up, and put a lot more spine into both his statements and his policy proposals, and start backing up some of the hard charging and constructive people in Congress. Otherwise the GOP will make enough gains in the midterms to cause even more trouble.
I think that the GOP were so discredited after the last two elections, that if Obama had really followed through on his promise to produce rational evidence based policies, and fight for them, there would be a very good chance the GOP would have lost seats three elections in a row. That probably won’t happen now, but it still could if Obama would lose his post partisan nonsense.
No one likes a chump who thinks he is being very clever. Obama has become a chump who thinks he is very clever. It is not too late to change that. By late next spring, it probably will be too late for the midterms.
Liberty60
@Brent:
Damn straight.
I am liking Grayson more and more each day, along with Al Franken.
As a former Republican, I feel like kicking some ass in Dem party and telling them to behave with a little more brass, and be unafraid.
The Republicans win not by acting like assholes, but by framing their arguments in clear, bold moral terms.
If I have Fox News on, even if I am in the other room, I can tell which side is speaking, just by the tone of the voice-
conservatives speak in stark moral contrasts, clear cut choices between good and evil; liberals always sound like policy wonks, sniveling about 38.5% of this, and 4.8 Million of that, and when you subtract line a from column b…..
Fuck that.
Health care reform is about 45,000 Americans dying each year; the conservatives want to preserve that status quo so that Aetna can make billions.
Saying things that clearly doesn’t make one a liberal Rush Limbaugh; it makes one a plain speaking public servant.
Say what you want about Keith Olberman, but he speaks clearly and isn’t afraid to name names and throw punches.
If the Fox show had been called “Hannity & Olberman” all those years, he would be the one left standing.
I see where Harry Reid pissed off the Republicans by comparing their arguments to the slavery and Jim Crow apologists; of course they howled in anger- but what the liberals usually do, and have always done, is swiftly apologize for the lack of decorum, and grovel before the gods of Bipartisanship.
If the Dems want to win, they will do what the Republicans would do in this situation- double down, and dial it up a notch.
Pound that effing message home, day in, day out, on every media outlet they can.
Dems are always bringing a spoonful of statistics to a knife fight, convinced a position paper from the Brookings Institution will win the day.
soonergrunt
@Michael:
Well, he has to keep in touch with the people who watch him. No one else does these days.
Makewi
On a recorded vote, the speaker of the house has discretion over whether to allow the vote to go longer than 15 minutes. If, as the assertion is being made, the GOP members were attempting to game the system, the speaker (Nancy) is under no obligation to allow the voting to continue past 15 minutes. So, unless I’m missing something here, that second story sounds like pure BS.
kay
@Michael:
Oh, good. Bring Orly out. I love, love, love that she’s their lawyer.
I still read her filings on TPM. About 3/4 of what she files now is about other birthers. Their duplicity and LIES.
That must be an intense relationship, birtherism. They’re sleeping with each other at this point. I think it’s all the travel, and the time away from spouses. Huddled in motel rooms, plotting.
She believes Eric Holder is following her, because she saw a black person wearing a gray suit.
soonergrunt
@Kryptik: As I’ve said before, being a liberal in Oklahoma is a lot like being a gay republican without all of the ickyness. The republican ickyness, I mean.
Comrade Alan
This is all they’re left with, since they can’t argue anything on substance. And I’m sure Eric Cantor is is leading the charge–I’m baaaaaack, I’m back in the saddle again….
jl
Also, glad to see that B-J saw the ACORN fraud tape fraud.
These people are willing stoop so low, to lie about anything, to manufacture evidence, to debase and discredit all public debate and our electoral system for power, that it is really impossible to imagine what they might do next.
It never occurred to me that the wingnut swindlers would have the nerve, the swank, the gall, to doctor the tapes.
The post about it earlier today threw a rock at Stewart at the Daily Show or believing them. But who saw evidence that they were doctored? Anyone? Bueller… Bueller? Who suspected it?
Some one needs to get that report and see how they determined that the tapes were doctored.
People need to hold all the media that joined in the gang tackle of ACORN based on these tapes accountable. If revealing ACORN fraud was such a big story, the fact that the tapes that supposedly revealed it were fraudulently doctored should be just as big a story. If it is not, we all need to call out the media for what they are: total frauds
If Obama should not be a sap and a chump, we all should not be saps and chumps. Public accusations of fraud and bias will be appropriate, also notifying the guilty media and telling them subscriptions are cancelled and products are not purchased, and wise counsel will be given to friends and neighbors about their malfeasance.
And the blogs need to go medieval on their asses.
arguingwithsignposts
@Liberty60:
I like that. Sad, but I like it.
JenJen
OT, but if you don’t feel like being incensed on this cold December afternoon, then, by all means avoid Chuck Todd’s twitter feed today.
This has been a public service announcement.
Zifnab
@Makewi:
If Grayson has the gavel, because the Speaker is in her office or otherwise engaged, and Grayson isn’t Nancy Pelosi, he’s either got to run out of the chamber to fetch her to cut the vote short, or he’s got to just wait the extra 15 minutes.
You could just look the vote up on CSPAN if you’re really so incredulous. Or you can continue “missing something here” and whip out your ignorance junk for the world to see a second time.
Just Some Fuckhead
This is a direct result of the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine. For the last 20 or more years, you’ve had far rightwing nutbags dialing up the rhetoric, inflaming partisan passions and essentially becoming a fifth column against Democracy. Too late now as they’ve taken what was essentially a popular Father Coughlin radio routine and expanded it into a philosophy that overran all other forms of broadcast like a zombie virus and has now becomes a bonafide Way of Life for its adherents.
Now that these hosers are making a regular practice of eating their own, we may get some relief somehow (although I don’t know how) but the lesson here should be clear in hindsight to everyone. Fuckers.
JMG
Public opinion polling for many many years has confirmed that crazy assholes are a working majority of the American public. We are a nation that worships irresponsibility, personal, social, economic, you name it.
Makewi
@Zifnab:
The point you are missing is that the solid rule is the vote is 15 minutes, and more only at the discretion of the speaker. Do try to keep up. So the vote isn’t cut short, it’s run it’s allotted time.
SiubhanDuinne
Breaking news (O/T):
Mike G
Funny how we never hear about their dirty shit in the mainstream media. But they’ve got a late-breaking Tiger’s Penis event or Sarah Palin book-signing to cover. And the neverending Obama ArugulaDijonFlagPinBirthCertificate crisis, because Karl Rove told them so.
Like John Cole said, what really is killing the Republican party is that deep down, they are just complete assholes. All big organizations have assholes, but none exalt bullying and assholishness like the Repigs.
Pangloss
@Just Some Fuckhead: Yep. Once they started with the outragetainment talk radio and they started trying to outbid each other on teh crayzeee, this was the only way it could possibly end.
John S.
And the point you are always so blissfully missing is that Democrats will never be the assholes that Republicans are. Which means that a Democratic speaker will be far less of a petulant asshole than a Republican speaker.
All the projection in the world won’t change that fact, though sometimes I really wish it were so.
Comrade Dread
I’ve been reading plenty of comments at right wing blogs today, and while I’m not a liberal, I’ve got to say that no matter how petulant, crazy, and adept at assholery the GOP leaders are, they will never come within 100 yards of the complete insanity that their base occupies.
I mean, I remember Republicans used to have a fair percentage of people I could debate ideas with, but nowadays? It’s like the crazy of the Clinton years cubed.
Suzan
It’s not.
That’s the trick. They have bankrupted us for the next several generations.
And moved the money offshore,
Revolution, anyone?
Or should we wait until they all are offshore?
S
I really don’t know how this country is supposed to operate when one of the two political parties is composed almost entirely of crazy assholes. The entire party has gone wingnut.
mclaren
The entire Republican party went wingnut in 1981 when they elected the senile sociopath Ronald Reagan. Nobody noticed until 2009.
SFAW
John –
This is like the eleventy-third time you’ve said this (or similar). You could probably say the same thing, four or five times a day, until the day you die, and still have plenty more outrageous Rethug crap you could write about waiting in the queue.
So, I have a couple of alternative (friendly) suggestions for you:
A) Do something about it. Not just write about it, but find a way to get the Rethugs to pay a large price for their continual bullshit tactics. I don’t know what that way would be – if I did, I’d find someone (Grayson? Durbin? Schumer? Bueller?) to start implementing it – but perhaps you can come up with something.
B) Get drunk and stay drunk (not at work or before driving, of course). This will only work if you’re a happy drunk, or at least a pleasant one.
I expect there are other alternatives as well. But whatever you do, can you please give us a rest from the “I can’t believe that the Rethugs just did X !!!1!” We get it, already.
ds
There’s nothing that can really be done about it.
Yeah, a lot of our problems are institutional. The media, the filibuster, campaign finance, etc. Perhaps if we reformed those issues we’d be a somewhat decent, governable country again. But just barely.
The root problem is the American people.
Republicans can get 45% of the vote after presiding over a 8 years of economic stagnation followed by the biggest downturn since the Great Depression.
The teabaggers have a good shot at taking the House in 2010.
Something is seriously wrong here. I just hope it doesn’t take a bloody WW2-type event for the craziness to finally sputter out, like it took in Europe.
JC
Between the vote for rape, the WATB behavior elicited here, the no no no no no no no no no no no no no behavior elicited on every vote…
There are some SERIOUS negative ads that can come out of this sh*t.
Can you imagine, if you get a couple of really good and passionate hollywood types, to evoke the absolutely unpleasantness that the Republicans have been this year? I say that the Democrats could end up GAINING votes, in the House at least, and maybe the Senate.
If you put together some hard-hitting ads, that simply highlight just how these guys act like disgusting clowns, based on what they are REALLY acting like, you can shift 10% of the vote!!
ds
Uh, the public has seen how Republicans behave and they’ve elected them time and time again. It’s not like this stuff doesn’t make the news. The media eats up this sort of political story.
America has a soft spot for crazy rude assholes, preferably borderline-retarded ones.
The sad fact is that if Republicans had behaved like decent human beings over the last year, they’d be in worse shape, because their base would be demoralized and Obama would look a lot more effective.
Their strategy is working wonderfully. It might not tank all of Obama’s agenda, but it’ll probably ensure they’ll make big enough gains in 2010 that they can obstruct him for the remainder of his term.
Mnemosyne
@Liberty60:
Except that Reid has not apologized for saying that. In fact, he backed his point up further.
If we’re going to complain that the Democrats always fold and apologize, shouldn’t we notice and praise when one doesn’t? It’s a pretty basic principle of animal training to praise the animal for doing the desired behavior so, fer chrissakes, why can’t Democrats manage to do it with our politicians?
Inconstant Reader
Sensenbrenner is my Congresscritter, and he will be re-elected forever and ever because I live in a district full of crazy wingnuts. You’d think behavior like that would be seen as a disqualification for high office, but you would be wrong. (Doesn’t hurt that he’s a Kimberley-Clark heir.)