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The House Gets Mad [Democratic Sit In]
Mazzyx
Comedy GoldRegistered User regular
Comedy GoldRegistered User regular
Since this kind of affects a lot of areas from the election to the gun discussion and so on. I am going to give it's own thread.
If you do not know the House Democrats have taken over the House of Representatives by staging a sit in under the leadership of John Lewis. This has been going on since almost noon EDT. So 11+ hours as I write this.
The Dems have one goal, to have a vote on a No Fly List No Gun Buy bill. Also Universal Background Checks have been brought up.
But what makes this interesting is this is historic. It is something unprecedented in the US House. The video is via bootleg phones held by congressmen as the video that is normally shown is turned off when the House is not official in session. There are no mics. And the Dems have been talking for hours. This includes singing "We Shall Overcome" during a vote set by Paul Ryan.
Live video on C-Span:
http://www.c-span.org/video/?411624-1/sitin-continues-house-recesses&live
John Lewis:
Twitter has been a major factor in this action.
So major thoughts for this thread:
1. This is not the election thread, we have two of those.
2. This is not the gun control or Orlando thread. They are important and can be pointed out though as necessary but the merits have their own threads.
3. This is to watch and discuss the historic actions taking place in the House. If you agree with them or not. How this shows changes in our system. Changes in the parties. How this will affect us as a country. This is a shift and should be talked about.
If you do not know the House Democrats have taken over the House of Representatives by staging a sit in under the leadership of John Lewis. This has been going on since almost noon EDT. So 11+ hours as I write this.
The Dems have one goal, to have a vote on a No Fly List No Gun Buy bill. Also Universal Background Checks have been brought up.
But what makes this interesting is this is historic. It is something unprecedented in the US House. The video is via bootleg phones held by congressmen as the video that is normally shown is turned off when the House is not official in session. There are no mics. And the Dems have been talking for hours. This includes singing "We Shall Overcome" during a vote set by Paul Ryan.
Live video on C-Span:
http://www.c-span.org/video/?411624-1/sitin-continues-house-recesses&live
John Lewis:
Twitter has been a major factor in this action.
So major thoughts for this thread:
1. This is not the election thread, we have two of those.
2. This is not the gun control or Orlando thread. They are important and can be pointed out though as necessary but the merits have their own threads.
3. This is to watch and discuss the historic actions taking place in the House. If you agree with them or not. How this shows changes in our system. Changes in the parties. How this will affect us as a country. This is a shift and should be talked about.
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edit: I mean, like, procedural. I don't really know how the rules of the House work other than that the speaker gets to pick what bills get voted on.
As a supporter of owning guns but licensed and controlled and a lot more stricter than we have now, I'm happy to see this happening. Getting even some movement, even if imperfect, is a start. I don't expect anything to come out of this, though.
The most Massachusetts thing ever
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Twitter/Facebook are huge in this sit in as it is where some of the discussion, good and bad, are happening but also where information and video is being sent out.
Yeah, there really needs to be some serious talk about a way to make sure someone can repeal if/when their Constitutional rights were wrongly taken from them for being on a list.
Though at this point, I'm thinking some people are saying to themselves "what better way to get people to focus on fixing all the problems with the no-fly/terrorist watch list than putting something like "can't buy guns" as a part of being on that list?"
There was a proposal by a Senate Republican (can't recall the name) pitched after the first four bills that were voted down that was No Fly No Buy with an explicit way to appeal if you felt you were put on the watchlist wrongly, including paying all legal fees if you won the appeal.
I'm not the hugest fan of No Fly No Buy but that was actually a reasonable compromise that allowed a remedy if there was injustice while actually functioning as gun control.
If it gets more people on the record as the nonfly list being bullshit and that's all it does, hey, bonus.
Honestly ain't nothing passing this house. I mean one of the votes was on the President's veto on a bill which would allow for deregulation of fiduciaries so that investors could be cheated more easily.
Specifically when people are paying attention Paul Ryan felt this was necessary.
pleasepaypreacher.net
knowing this congress, they'll fix all those problems right after they patch the ACA's medicaid gap, end sequestration, and fix the VRA
I'd absolutely be pleased with any member of GOP that joined the sit in to push forward gun control legislation.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Eh I doubt that, most of the gun control stuff polls good but never gets the votes it needs because the people polled don't vote on it.
pleasepaypreacher.net
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2016/jun/22/us-election-2016-live-updates-donald-trump-speech-clinton-email-ethics
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
I heard about this bill on NPR, and McConnell has actually promised to give it a chance to be voted on in the senate, possibly even as early as tomorrow.
Yeah. I don't think it's much, and I don't want it to be the only thing that gets voted on, and I'm not sure it would pass the Senate, let alone the house... but it's an honest attempt at compromise that might have an effect down the road.
The Collin's bill?
I thought it was still in drafting. Though if it did somehow pass cloture and then the Senate it would destroy Ryan's main argument for not bringing any bills to the House floor. I mean outside him just not wanting a vote on record.
It would stop the protest though.
I'd hope that they'd still push for UBC and wouldn't stop the protest, but Ryan wouldn't put it up for a vote anyway. And yeah, I believe it's still in drafting so there's the potential that it does something to make it unpassable, like e.g. put "Radical Islamic terrorism" in the name or weaken other aspects of gun control.
Even better -
They were birthday donuts.
Because today is, well, the birthday of the senior senator from Massachusetts.
The No Fly List is monstrous and ridiculous, and the idea that we need to restrict constitutional rights based on a fucking shitty secret fucking probably Excel-based goddamn list of Suspicious Persons is horrifying.
If this doesn't pass and manages to gain some political momentum for gun control because "they rejected the totally popular sensible bill, America!" that might be worth it? But shit, it's a terrible proposal and it scares me that this is the attempt they're making.
That's last I read on it. I assume everyone is talking about that same bill.
That's mildly mildy better. The idea of expanding our suite of secret poorly designed watch lists to deal with basic rights (no matter how dumb a basic right I might think it is) is really the exact opposite of what I want from a Democratic Party bill though.
This is, frankly, where being 'the party of no' rather than being open to compromise and helping craft sensible and useful legislation has led them.
They don't want to craft something better, they just want to shit on the idea, as though the notion that expanding background checks or whatever is the slippery slope to Obama finally taking their guns.
Like, personally taking them. Shit-eating grin and all.
I don't expect it to change much on its own, but I imagine this will be useful in some particularly powerful ads in a few months time.
Context?
Wonderful. Maybe you should win the fucking house then.
This is a pathetic and childish display more suited to the Democrats of the 1800s than those of today.
It's a disgrace. They should be embarrassed. And they should come to fucking order. You're in the minority party (is what this forum said a billion times in 2007) so suck it up and act like you have a shred of dignity or respect for your office.
I knew this shit was going to happen after Wisconsin Democrats fled the state to avoid doing their fucking jobs.
She just delivered a speech about what it was like growing up with a mentally unhinged father who put a gun in her face.
I believe that influencing the public is their job.
Her speech was very impressive. I was sort of responding like this was a debate thread and everybody was live-watching the sit in.
As well as being able to actually vote on legislation.
They can go home and do that. Their job in the House is to act like parliamentarians, not an Occupy drum circle or a pack of college freshmen angry at the Dean.
Their job as the minority party is most certainly not to get their way.
...is what this forum said a billion times when the Republicans were in the minority, and will again next January if they lose the Senate.
So that's three major things: restrict assault weapons only, easy (and free) path to erroneous removal, and use the "select" list. That to me is a measured response to what happened. It's not gonna end gun violence, it's not gonna gut the 2nd Amendment, it's not gonna get struck down, and it's not gonna allow excessive government overreach.
Mostly though I'm just...amazed at what we're seeing. This is awesome
Parlimentarians argue with each other publicly all the time, though? Like, they have a public, scheduled shouting match with the Prime Minister in Britain; it's like Festivus but political.
There is nothing wrong with what they are doing.
They're asking for a vote. They're pretty much explicitly saying that they can and will lose that vote.
This is technically true. But (at least per the summaries of the bill I've seen) the government doesn't have to justify any decision to deny. So it seems likely that few if any sales would actually be approved.
You're conflating passing the legislation with voting on it. If the Republicans wanted to end this, Ryan would allow the vote, and that'd be that. But they know that voting it down would put that vote on their records, and they know that they'd be hammered over that. Preventing the vote lets them continue to ride the fence.