unanimous consent

One thing the payroll tax cut fight has given us is a big fracture in the GOP. Here's a couple of quotes that caught my eye:

Rep. Kevin Brady, a Texas Republican whom Boehner picked to be on the conference committee, summed up the beating his caucus had taken when he said, “I am willing to fight on, but in the end House Republicans felt like they were re-enacting the Alamo, with no reinforcements and our friends shooting at us.”

Brady isn't alone either:

After the deal was announced, Rep. Dennis Ross sent a flurry of angry tweets expressing his distaste for backroom dealmaking among party leaders. In an interview with Roll Call, the Florida Republican said that he would not obstruct the unanimous consent vote but that he thought the House should have voted on the McConnell-Reid plan earlier this week after the Senate passed it.

“At least we would have let the process work as it was intended to,” Ross said. “Sure, the Speaker would have been upset because he did not have all his Republicans on board, and we would have had to do some damage control on that. Instead we tried to preserve ourselves by not having a ‘no’ vote on lowering taxes.

“It’s very frustrating,” he added. “And of course we get blamed by our own party, saying we just don’t know how Washington works.”

The House Republicans would have done much better allowing the vote and taking the fallout from being seen as voting against a tax cut, but instead John Boehner took a big gamble and he lost. It really makes you wonder if Boehner will be able to hold on as Speaker after this serious exposure of his lack of leadership skills. Only time will tell, but the GOP picking a new Speaker wouldn't shock me one bit.

This is absolutely priceless:

Two House Republicans have cast votes as members of the 112th Congress, but were not sworn in on Wednesday, a violation of the Constitution on the same day that the GOP had the document read from the podium.

The Republicans, incumbent Pete Sessions of Texas and freshman Mike Fitzpatrick, missed the swearing in because they were at a fundraiser in the Capitol Visitors Center. The pair watched the swearing-in on television from the Capitol Visitors Center with their hands raised.

Not only is this a violation of the Constitution, but the fundraising on Capital grounds is also a violation of House Rules. Think that’s enough? Well wait…there’s more! Pete Sessions sits on the House Rules Committee.

But it gets even better than that. Now the GOP leadership is trying to change the rules after the fact:

Republicans, led by Rules Committee chairman David Dreier, are now looking to draft a rule to allow the pair's TV oath to count, but it would have to be approved by unanimous consent, and there's no sign Democrats, who are looking to slow down next week's planned vote on a repeal of President Obama's health-care plan, are willing to play ball.

A tiring argument we hear on a daily basis from conservatives is that the
liberal left believes that Saddam should have been left in power to rape and
kill. The truth is that is a totally false assertion, and, in my opinion,
getting rather old.

The fact is that we question the timing of the war more than the reasoning
for it. We all admit that Saddam Huessein was a horrible dictator that raped,
killed and tortured his people. We also admit the fact that he has previously
attacked surrounding nations without provocation. As matter of fact, it was
while Bill Clinton was President of the United States that Congress passed
resolution 4655 which was called the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. This was
passed by both floors and signed into law on October 31, 1998 by President
Clinton. The resolution passed the House by a vote of 360-38 and passed Senate
by unanimous consent. The fact lies in that both parties regarded Saddam as an
evil dictator that needed removed from power. This thereby negates the argument
from certain conservatives that the liberal right thought Saddam should remain
in power.

So why all the debate over the war in Iraq, both past and present? If we all
agree Saddam should be removed as Iraq’s tyrant leader how come Democrats and
now some Republicans want the troops out? The truth is our questioning has
always been behind the reasoning of going to war with Iraq at a time when we
were already engaged in another war on terrorism