Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Political blogs lit up this afternoon with word that Democrats plan to circulate a discharge petition to discharge a clean CR bill to a vote in the House, as reported in The Hill. Dems plan discharge petition to force vote on ending shutdown. A discharge petition would require a minimum of 18 Republicans willing to sign on and to abandon their House leadership on its government shutdown hostage strategy.
Now, there are a large number of Republican congressmen who say they disagree with their House leadership strategy, and who say they want to end the government shutdown. The GOP civil war has been playing out in the media for weeks for all the world to see.
But when it comes time to actually take a stand and put their votes where their big mouths are, these mythical moderate Republicans are always gutless wonders. Their votes rarely, if ever, materialize.
Democrats' attempted a procedural move today to vote on a clean CR bill -- what these mythical moderate Republicans say they are willing to vote for -- they could have voted to end the government shutdown today.
But these mythical moderate Republicans voted in lockstep with their Tea Party economic terrorist captors holding the GOP hostage, in a classic case of Stockholm syndrome. Just call them "Tania" from now on. GOP thwarts Dem move to force vote on ‘clean’ spending bill:
House Republicans on Friday stood firm against a move by Democrats to call up the Senate's continuing resolution funding the government.
The vote came on the fourth day of the government shutdown, and is an indication the House GOP remains united in its effort to press ahead with smaller spending bills for the next several days.
Friday's House vote came up at the end of debate on a rule that will allow the GOP to call up nearly a dozen smaller spending bills on issues like disaster aid, nuclear weapon safety, nutrition and education.
Before the rule vote, Democrats called on members to vote against the "previous question," a procedural move that could allow Democrats to call up the Senate's continuing resolution.
Democrats said more than 20 House Republicans have indicated they would vote for the Senate's "clean" spending bill at this point to end the shutdown, and tried to coax these wavering Republicans to vote against GOP leaders.
"Those members of the majority who claim that they want to end the government shutdown get the opportunity today to stand up and vote," Rules Committee ranking member Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) said on the House floor.
However, no Republicans went against their leadership, and the House easily voted down the Democratic maneuver, 223-184. Republicans were also unanimously against this move when Democrats tried it on Wednesday.
The vote was finished just minutes after Democrats announced they have filed a discharge petition to get a vote on a clean spending bill. That effort will also require Republican support.
The House GOP is continuing with its a la carte "piecemeal" budget hostage strategy. What this amounts to is the Tea Party economic terrorists releasing one hostage at a time. This leaves the terrorists in control of the hostage negotiations.
Democrats must reject these "mini budgets" because it only legitimizes governing-by-extortion and hostage taking by Tea Party economic terrorists. Capitulating to their hostage demands normalizes governing-by-extortion, and will only encourage further hostage taking. America does not negotiate with terrorists. Period. Full stop.
This undemocratic economic terrorism must be brought to an end with certain finality, so that it is never attempted again.
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