Constitution Reading Provokes Political Tussling

A Day After Reading Constitution, Republicans Abolish Civil Liberties, Civil Liberties Bits of It
I sort of expected the Republicans to abolish labor-or at least its named inclusion among the business of Congressional Committees. After all, the GOP really doesn’t like tough things like physical work or the people who do it. But it wasn’t so long ago that the Republican Party-not to mention its newest Activist branch, the Tea Party-claimed to give a damn about Civil Liberties. Hell, Louie Gohmert, who reassured me yesterday the Fourth Amendment is still on the ...

Nevada House lawmakers didn't attend Constitution recital
WASHINGTON -- As promised by new Republican leaders, the U.S. Constitution was read aloud Thursday in the House of Representatives. None of Nevada's three House lawmakers participated in the 90-minute exercise, nor attended as observers. The reading was conducted by 135 volunteers -- 63 Democrats and 72 Republicans. A few dozen others sat in the chamber during all or part of the event. In a nod to Tea Party-backed Candidates who had campaigned on adherence to the Constitution, Republicans touted...

A compromise on the debt ceiling and another promised-but-meaningless health care vote.
Don't-Tread-on-Meter: Jan. 7, 2011: 14 They wanted an "ObamaCare" Repeal vote, and they'll get an ObamaCare Repeal vote. On Friday, Republicans got the votes to start debating the Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act, for a vote next Wednesday. "They threw out a whole bunch of members of Congress in constitutional Fashion and replaced them with people who took the oath and the pledge to come here to Repeal 'Obamacare,' " explained Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. "It's pretty simple." Republic...

Zandar's Thought Of The Day
If this is the new normal for the Tea Party right (and every indication that these inmates are indeed well ensconced in administration and day-to-day affairs of the asylum) then the next two years are going to be awesome. An apparent member of the Birther Movement seated in the gallery of the House of Representatives on Thursday interrupted a reading of the Constitution. The woman yelled out "Except Obama, except Obama, help us Jesus!" as Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) read the "natural born citizen"...

Conservatives Admit Debt Ceiling Threat Is A Bluff
It's increasingly clear that Republican leaders are bluffing when they threaten to destroy the full faith and credit of the American government by allowing the Debt ceiling to be shattered unless draconian Budget cuts are made. And a clear bluff is a bad bluff. There is no need to concede to any of their demands to protect American credit and the Global Economy. Last year, the now-Speaker John Boehner said Republicans would have to deal with the Debt ceiling like "adults." And this week, the ...

Constitution reading provokes political tussling
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers took turns reading the Constitution on the House floor Thursday, a nod to tea partiers who put Republicans in power. Even the nation's founding text got caught in political tussling: Democrats questioned omitting amended sections that reflect how the document has changed over time, such as one that classified slaves as three-fifths of a person. Republicans, celebrating their second day as the majority power, saw the event as an affirmation of their campaign promise...

Chandler removed from House spending panel
U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler, D-Versailles U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler , D-Versailles, has lost his seat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, at least for the foreseeable future in the 112th Congress. On Friday, Chandler said he was squeezed off the committee — which decides all federal spending — when Republicans took over the House this week and claimed the majority of seats on the panel. Congressional Committees reflect the Makeup of their respective chambers when it comes to part...

Fidelity or enmity
On the floor of the House of Representatives Thursday, Jan. 6, 2011, I was able to witness, firsthand, perhaps one of the more significant historical events in American history. For the first time in our nation’s history the Constitution of the United States of America was read in its entirety on the floor of the House.   The gentleman from Virginia, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), stood on the shoulders of the Virginians that established this Republic and orchestrated the reading of the R

The Economy and 2012
Tea Partiers, William Daley and David Plouffe, birthers, John Boehner, Sarah Palin, "the professional left" -- all will play marginal roles in deciding who wins the next Presidential Election. But almost nothing is likely to be as decisive as a single number: the Unemployment Rate. And so today's signs of continued Economic Growth, while superficially encouraging, don't offer much consolation for Barack Obama: “It could take four to five more years for the Job Market to normalize fully,...

By the Skin of Pelosis Clenched Teeth
As if it wasn’t bad enough for Democrats, still licking their wounds from last year’s Elections, the party’s House Caucus leadership still finds itself in a state of obnoxious disarray and factionalism.  The signs of bitter internal fights are still apparent, from anxious Progressives clearly dissatisfied with the current political playing field and bitter moderate Blue Dogs blindly grabbing through the darkness of a Capitol Hill abyss. Months of circular Firing Squads and...

Boehner allies get key Appropriations chairs
House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) on Friday named the chairmen of the panel’s powerful subcommittees—the ten men and two women with the arduous task of meeting House Republicans’ campaign pledge to reduce non-defense Discretionary Spending to fiscal 2008 levels. Southerners were the big winners, with seven of the 12 subcommittee chairmen coming from the region, including two each from Florida and Texas. The midwest and west will each have two Appropriations &ld...;

Shouts about Obama interrupt Constitution reading
WASHINGTON—House Republicans' reading of the Constitution was interrupted Thursday by a woman who shouted "except Obama, except Obama" to the venerable document's words on a U.S. citizen's eligibility to be president. Just as Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., was reading "no person, except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States" is eligible for the presidency, a woman in the visitor's gallery yelled out that it did not apply to President Barack Obama. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Ida...

Birther Interrupts Reading Of Constitution
As New Jersey Congressman Frank Pallone read the “natural born citizen” clause of the Constitution, a birther shouted from the gallery, “Except Obama, except Obama, help us Jesus!” He was, in particular, a great source to the late Robert Novak, who outed Daley in his memoir (page 451) as the anonymous Midwestern Democratic source of an incendiary remark on Michael Dukakis’s failed attempt to keep Jesse Jackson’s profile low at the 1988 Democratic convention. &...

Shouts about Obama interrupt Constitution reading
House Republicans' reading of the Constitution was interrupted Thursday by a woman who shouted "except Obama, except Obama" to the venerable document's words on a U.S. citizen's eligibility to be president. Just as Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., was reading "no person, except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States" is eligible for the presidency, a woman in the visitor's gallery yelled out that it did not apply to President Barack Obama. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, who was presid...

Birther outburst during Pallone's reading of the U.S. Constitution
As designated by the House GOP majority, Thursday morning was set aside for a full reading of the U.S. Constitution. During one part of it, a spectator in the gallery exercised her First Amendment right of Freedom of Speech. What set her off? No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to th...

Reading the Constitution: Education or futility?
Republicans and Democrats took turns politely in a historic recitation of the Constitution from the House floor Thursday, but the decorum hardly meant they were in agreement. In a nod to the tea partiers who put the Republicans in power, GOP lawmakers took time out from their campaign to change the way government works to read the document upon which the government was founded. Democrats went along but pointedly questioned the Republicans’ insistence on omitting sections that show how the ...

Historic Reading Of Constitution Sees Conflict
WASHINGTON — Republicans made history Thursday by staging the first-ever reading of the entire Constitution on the House floor. But that record may come with an asterisk: Democrats asked why original sections that later were amended, including references to slaves, were left out of the recital, and lawmakers initially did not catch that a couple of key paragraphs were omitted when two pages got stuck together. Disputes and glitches aside, Republican and Democratic lawmakers silenced thei...

Quote Of The Day - Theresa Cao
"Literally if this question of the natural born Citizenship, if this question does not get answered, then I am allowing a tyrannical dictator - the spirit of the anti-Christ, the New World Order system that has their plans right this second to collapse the U.S. economy, and we know their plan, the New World Order system's plan is to literally destroy humanity. He [Obama] has fought it not only for two years, not only has he fought it pre-election but historically all of his connections, ever...

Lightning Round: The Party of Epistemological Relativism.
Democrats certainly lack the message discipline Republicans have, but it wouldn't hurt to remind everyone that Republicans do not care about the Deficit. They rely on gimmicks to falsely claim the ACA explodes the Deficit. They are repeatedly on record voting for policy that increases the Deficit. They ignore CBO scores that disprove their nonsensical theories of economics. Despite all this, a myth persists concerning "fiscally responsible" Republicans. It would be nice if, you know, this easil...

Four Democrats vote yes for Obama repeal test vote, two Republicans vote present
Four Democrats vote yes for Obama Repeal test vote, two Republicans vote present Again, don’t be fooled by the so called “conservative” Democrats. There is no such thing anymore. There are over 20 Democrats left in the 112th Congress that voted NO on the original ObamaCare bill, yet only four of them voted yes during today’s test vote. Two Republicans,  pulled an Obama and voted “present.” The two “Republicans” voting present were Rep. Pete Sess...

No Negotiations on the Debt Limit
Here’s Paul Ryan talking about the Debt ceiling: But House Budget Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan says that tactic isn’t viable. “Just refusing to vote for it, I don’t think that’s really a strategy,” he said, noting that a failure to raise the ceiling could result in the nation defaulting on its debts to investors. “Will the Debt ceiling be raised? Does it have to be raised? Yes,” he said at an event sponsored by economics21 and the Manhattan Institute ...

Today's Electoral Politics
Digby links to an article in the National Journal about the composition of the current Democratic Party and Obama's chances 2012. I haven't decided on what I think about the piece but it's a good start for discussions. Note, for example, these snippets: From every angle, the exit-poll results reveal a new color line: a consistent chasm between the attitudes of whites and Minorities. The gap begins with preferences in the election. Meanwhile, Republicans, with their 60 percent showing, notched th...

Card: GOP must not block debt limit
You know how John Boehner and some hosts on Fox are trying to convince people that Republicans are serious about blocking an increase in the Debt Limit unless President Obama agrees to the GOP plan to immediately slash Federal spending? Well, as former Bush Chief of Staff Andy Card explained to Fox viewers earlier today, Conservatives shouldn't bet on winning this hostage crisis. Boehner and the GOP aren't going to follow through on their threat because the stakes are too high -- blocking the d...

How Many Democrats Will Join The Republicans In A Symbolic Attempt To Repeal Health Care Reform?
Officially, McIntyre is still a Democrat of sorts. A few days ago we posed the simple question about how many Democrats would cross into darkness and vote to Repeal Healthcare Reform. Again, when the Affordable Health Care for America Act first passed 220-215 on November 7, 2009, there were 39 Democrats who joined all but one Republican in opposing it. Almost all of those conservative Democrats were swept out of office in November. This time Boehner won't be able to count on anti-family whores...

Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change
I mentioned previously that one of the extreme gender feminists suggested on Twitter that the #MooreandMe Protest was something akin to a new Civil Rights movement. No doubt there's quite a bit of self-congratulations there. And while the gender feminists did gain a lot of attention, the power of Twitter and other media is to mobilize social change through strengthening civil society. The New Media gets people out in the streets, to the Ballot Box, raising money and distributing information. Thi...