Ny Times - Partisan Anger Stalls Congress in Final Push

[red states rule]

The NY Times has this funny story about the Dem run Congress.

Dems are not to blame for their failures to get anything done during the last 6months - not it is the evil Republicans

I would have loved to be a fly of the wall as the NY Times newroom found out the new Zogby poll showing the Dem Congress with record low poll numbers


BTW - that polll is not in the NY Times today. Strange, they carried all the polls showing the low numbers for Pres Bush and the Republican Comgress



Partisan Anger Stalls Congress in Final Push


WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 — Congress stumbled toward its August recess on a discordant note Friday as angry partisanship and distrust slowed the House and Senate in the latest example of the ideological standoff that has made progress difficult all year.

A bitter procedural fight in the House forced Democrats to delay until at least Saturday consideration of final bills that they had hoped would cap a week of accomplishment. But lawmakers put their disagreements aside long enough to advance $250 million to help rebuild the collapsed bridge in Minneapolis.

The divisiveness was the culmination of months of intense clashes on Capitol Hill as the newly empowered Democrats sought to press their agenda. The effort remained incomplete Friday, leaving dangling legislation to improve energy efficiency, rewrite terrorist surveillance rules and map out Pentagon spending.

Even as they tried to fight off Republican accusations of heavy-handedness, Democrats sought to portray their first months in charge as a success, pointing to this week’s approval of new ethics and lobbying rules as well as initial House and Senate passage of a major expansion of a children’s health care program.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, said the resistance was emblematic of the Republican strategy to block legislation in order to paint Democrats as incompetent. “They have nothing else to talk about,” Ms. Pelosi said in an interview. “Their party has been hijacked by people who don’t really have an agenda but to stop progress.”

But House Republicans were incensed and accused Democrats of abruptly gaveling a roll-call vote to a close when Republicans appeared to be pulling ahead on an agricultural-spending bill late Thursday. “Rarely has the radical agenda of this Democrat majority been more on display,” said Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas, chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee.

House and Senate Republicans joined President Bush in demanding that Congress remain in session until it passed changes in a terrorist surveillance program acceptable to the administration. Democrats said they suspected Republicans were more interested in painting Democrats as soft on terror, saying that every time they acceded to administration requests, new ones surfaced. But the Senate cleared a legislative fix for the program Friday night, and House leaders said they anticipated approval Saturday.

The infighting took an almost surreal turn Friday afternoon when House voting machinery malfunctioned just hours after the blowup over the agricultural bill. The failure of the equipment — which displays the running vote total and the time remaining during a procedural fight on the floor — had lawmakers on edge and both sides looking over their shoulders.

“I am just trying to figure out who is doing the dastardly things,” said Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, as he urged calm during what Representative David Dreier, Republican of California, described as a “very, very difficult time for this institution.”

After one last shouting match Friday night between Republicans and Democrats, the House adjourned until Saturday. Members of the Senate, which was at a standstill for much of the day as the surveillance measure was negotiated, filed out for their recess after approving that bill.

Republicans dismissed Democratic claims of overall legislative success, pointing to dismal approval ratings for Congress as evidence that the public is unhappy with the new majority party’s performance. And Democrats have so far been unable to deliver on a chief demand of many party supporters — the beginning of withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

Even a news conference by Democratic leaders, intended to highlight the recent achievements, was postponed twice on Friday as negotiations continued over the surveillance bill. Finally, when the leaders emerged, they looked ahead to legislative action on the war in September and a potential showdown with Mr. Bush over federal spending.

“We have great hurdles to overcome,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader.

Democrats dismissed as hollow the Republican mantra that the new managers of Congress have accomplished little. They said that they had succeeded in spite of fierce Republican resistance.

for the complete article

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/04/washington/04cong.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1186244725-oLKGo7dr6z97DgTZueYOpA

[red states rule]

NYT Deceives on Dem Vote Dodge
By Mark Finkelstein | August 4, 2007 - 12:09 ET
Aren't the MSM and the Dems the "let every vote count" clan? But when the Dems snuff out a GOP win on the House floor in a manner that would send the New York Times into the mother of all snits were the shoe on the other foot, the Gray Lady camouflages the facts, and even manages to place blame on the Republicans.

Take the headline from the Times' story on the way in which the Democrat wielding the gavel somehow transformed a 215-213 Republican win into a 214-214 tie resulting in the motion failing: "Partisan Anger Stalls Congress in Final Push." The Times neatly switches the focus away from the Dems' theft of the vote, and onto those angry old Republicans, who are letting their anger stand in the way of progress. To that end, the article worked in a quote from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) [file photo]: “Their party has been hijacked by people who don’t really have an agenda but to stop progress.”

What's more, the Times never bothered to divulge what the vote was about. The article merely refers to the GOP motion as "a plan to revise the agricultural bill." Big deal, right? Not so fast. What the Times didn't reveal was that the motion in question would have barred undocumented immigrants from receiving any federal funds apportioned in the agricultural spending bill for employment or rental assistance. That's right: the Dems resorted to this profoundly undemocratic chicanery in order to preserve . . . welfare for illegals.

No wonder the Times didn't want its readers to know.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2007/08/04/nyt-deceives-dem-vote-dodge

[red states rule]

A Polarized, and Polarizing, Congress

By David S. Broder
Sunday, August 5, 2007; Page B07

The distinguishing characteristic of this Congress was on vivid display the other day when the House debated a bill to expand the federal program that provides health insurance for children of the working poor.

Even when it is performing a useful service, this Congress manages to look ugly and mean-spirited. So much blood has been spilled, so much bile stockpiled on Capitol Hill, that no good deed goes untarnished.

The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is a 10-year-old proven success. Originally a product of bipartisan consensus, passed by a Republican Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton, it was one of the last domestic achievements before Monica and impeachment fever seized control.

It is up for renewal this year and suddenly has become a bone of contention. President Bush underfunded it in his budget; the $4.8 billion extra he proposed spending in the next five years would not finance insurance even for all those who are currently being served.

But when the Senate Finance Committee proposed boosting the funding to $35 billion -- financed by a hefty hike in tobacco taxes -- Bush threatened a veto, and he raised the rhetorical stakes by claiming that the measure was a step toward "government health insurance."

That was surprising news to Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Orrin Hatch of Utah, two staunch conservatives who had joined in sponsoring the Senate bill, which the Senate Finance Committee supported 17 to 4.

But rather than meet the president's unwise challenge with a strong bipartisan alternative, the House Democratic leadership decided to raise the partisan stakes even higher by bringing out a $50 billion bill that not only would expand SCHIP but would also curtail the private Medicare benefit delivery system that Bush favors.

To add insult to injury, House Democratic leaders then took a leaf from the old Republican playbook and brought the swollen bill to the floor with minimal time for debate and denied Republicans any opportunity to offer amendments.

The result was undisguised fury -- and some really ugly exchanges on the floor. The worst, given voice by former speaker Dennis Hastert, a Republican from Illinois, among others, was the charge that the Democrats were opening the program to illegal immigrants. The National Republican Congressional Committee distributed that distortion wholesale across the country in a flurry of news releases playing to the same kind of nativist prejudice that sank the immigration reform bill. In fact, governors of both parties support the certification system included in the bill for assuring that families meet citizenship requirements; the governors know that too many legal residents have been wrongly disqualified because they could not locate their birth certificates.

In the end, the House bill passed on a near-party-line vote, 225 to 204, far short of the margin that would be needed to override the promised Bush veto. That means the program will probably have to be given a temporary renewal before the Sept. 30 deadline, and eventually Democrats and the White House will negotiate an agreement.

So it will go down as one more example of unnecessary conflict. No rational human being could explain why a program that both parties support and both want to continue could ignite such a fight.

But that is Washington in this era of polarized politics. As Congress heads out for its August recess, it has accomplished about as much as is usually the case at this stage. It passed an overdue increase in the minimum wage and an overdue but healthy package of ethics reforms. It moved some routine legislation.

But what the public has seen and heard is mainly the ugly sound of partisan warfare. The Senate let a handful of dissident Republicans highjack the immigration bill. Its Democratic leadership marched up the hill and back down on repeated futile efforts to circumscribe American involvement in Iraq, then shamefully pulled back from a final vote when a constructive Republican alternative to the Bush policy was on offer.

The less-than-vital issue of the firing of eight U.S. attorneys has occupied more time and attention than the threat of a terrorist enclave in Pakistan -- or the unchecked growth of long-term debts that could sink Medicare and Social Security.

And when this Congress had an opportunity to take a relatively simple, incremental step to extend health insurance to a vulnerable group, the members managed to make a mess of it.

It's no wonder the approval ratings of Congress are so dismal.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/03/AR2007080301949.html

[PostmodernProphet]

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, said the resistance was emblematic of the Republican strategy to block legislation in order to paint Democrats as incompetent.


....that's not paint, Nancy....that's transparent......

[red states rule]

....that's not paint, Nancy....that's transparent......

San Fran Nan and White Flag Harry have shown how the kook left has taken over the Dem party

The proof is in the Dems ever falling record low poll numbers

[PostmodernProphet]

The worst, given voice by former speaker Dennis Hastert, a Republican from Illinois, among others, was the charge that the Democrats were opening the program to illegal immigrants. The National Republican Congressional Committee distributed that distortion wholesale across the country in a flurry of news releases playing to the same kind of nativist prejudice that sank the immigration reform bill.

was it a distortion?....seems to me if the Dems hadn't barred amendments, that 'distortion' could have been resolved quite easily by specifically providing that aid was only available to citizens.....

[red states rule]

was it a distortion?....seems to me if the Dems hadn't barred amendments, that 'distortion' could have been resolved quite easily by specifically providing that aid was only available to citizens.....

Hey, the article was written by David Broder of the Washingtron Post. You know they are going to try and gove some cover to the Dems

[red states rule]

The Congress So Far
An ugly finish to a rocky start
Sunday, August 5, 2007; Page B06


FORGET ABOUT November's bipartisan promises of civility and cooperation in Congress. At the time they seemed overly optimistic. Nonetheless, it is hard to believe that relations could have deteriorated so far so fast -- both between the new Democratic majority and congressional Republicans and between Democratic lawmakers and President Bush.

Thursday's late-night rumble on the House floor, when a vote was gaveled to what Democrats acknowledge was a premature close, epitomized the ugliness that has overtaken the entire legislative process. In the end, the 110th Congress headed for its August recess with civility in shreds and achievements sparse. Indeed, the only thing that might make August look pleasant is September, when lawmakers will return to resume the acrimonious debate over Iraq policy and confront the looming end of the fiscal year with spending bills unpassed and presidential vetoes in the offing.


There have been scraps of good news from the first seven months. Lawmakers managed to see two of their priorities become law: an increase in the minimum wage and passage of the recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission. Another major achievement, a lobbying and ethics reform bill that will make important changes in the way Washington does business, is awaiting Mr. Bush's signature. Both chambers passed versions of a measure to extend the health insurance program for children in low-income families.

But many other Democratic priorities -- and a big presidential one, immigration reform -- were snarled in the Senate. The 60-vote majority needed to overcome a filibuster proved to be as big an impediment for majority Democrats as the Democrats had made it when Republicans held power. The failure of immigration reform, of which there had been at least a hope of bipartisan achievement, was a particularly low note. Meanwhile, Democrats in both chambers chose to spend countless hours mired in a fruitless effort to compel an "end" to the war in Iraq.

One of the most disappointing recent developments has been the administration's apparent decision, in the aftermath of the immigration bill's failure, that there was not much to be gained from working with this Congress -- and something to gained by taking it on. This new belligerence has manifested itself in a blizzard of veto threats -- Democrats counted up 31 between May 1 and Aug. 1 -- the most regrettable of which involves the children's health insurance bill.

In the final hours before recess, it was hard to know which was more shameful: the administration's use of the looming vacation to bully Democrats into accepting its overbroad rewrite of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or Democrats' spinelessness in caving to this strong-arming.

On the House side, a major disappointment was the failure of Democrats to live up to their pledge to treat the new Republican minority better than Democrats were treated when Republicans held power. Democrats promised a new, more open House, with adequate time for members to digest complex legislation and ample opportunity for the minority to offer amendments on the floor; instead, they, too, often used the same hardball tactics to muscle through legislation that Republicans had employed. That might have been understandable in the Democrats' "first 100 hours" that the new Congress was in session, but it is unfortunate that it persisted until the recess. That's no way to do business, and Democrats know it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/04/AR2007080401272.html

[actsnoblemartin]

Saying republicans are only capable of corruption is like saying only blacks are capable or committing crime.



The NY Times has this funny story about the Dem run Congress.

Dems are not to blame for their failures to get anything done during the last 6months - not it is the evil Republicans

I would have loved to be a fly of the wall as the NY Times newroom found out the new Zogby poll showing the Dem Congress with record low poll numbers


BTW - that polll is not in the NY Times today. Strange, they carried all the polls showing the low numbers for Pres Bush and the Republican Comgress



Partisan Anger Stalls Congress in Final Push


WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 — Congress stumbled toward its August recess on a discordant note Friday as angry partisanship and distrust slowed the House and Senate in the latest example of the ideological standoff that has made progress difficult all year.

A bitter procedural fight in the House forced Democrats to delay until at least Saturday consideration of final bills that they had hoped would cap a week of accomplishment. But lawmakers put their disagreements aside long enough to advance $250 million to help rebuild the collapsed bridge in Minneapolis.

The divisiveness was the culmination of months of intense clashes on Capitol Hill as the newly empowered Democrats sought to press their agenda. The effort remained incomplete Friday, leaving dangling legislation to improve energy efficiency, rewrite terrorist surveillance rules and map out Pentagon spending.

Even as they tried to fight off Republican accusations of heavy-handedness, Democrats sought to portray their first months in charge as a success, pointing to this week’s approval of new ethics and lobbying rules as well as initial House and Senate passage of a major expansion of a children’s health care program.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, said the resistance was emblematic of the Republican strategy to block legislation in order to paint Democrats as incompetent. “They have nothing else to talk about,” Ms. Pelosi said in an interview. “Their party has been hijacked by people who don’t really have an agenda but to stop progress.”

But House Republicans were incensed and accused Democrats of abruptly gaveling a roll-call vote to a close when Republicans appeared to be pulling ahead on an agricultural-spending bill late Thursday. “Rarely has the radical agenda of this Democrat majority been more on display,” said Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas, chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee.

House and Senate Republicans joined President Bush in demanding that Congress remain in session until it passed changes in a terrorist surveillance program acceptable to the administration. Democrats said they suspected Republicans were more interested in painting Democrats as soft on terror, saying that every time they acceded to administration requests, new ones surfaced. But the Senate cleared a legislative fix for the program Friday night, and House leaders said they anticipated approval Saturday.

The infighting took an almost surreal turn Friday afternoon when House voting machinery malfunctioned just hours after the blowup over the agricultural bill. The failure of the equipment — which displays the running vote total and the time remaining during a procedural fight on the floor — had lawmakers on edge and both sides looking over their shoulders.

“I am just trying to figure out who is doing the dastardly things,” said Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, as he urged calm during what Representative David Dreier, Republican of California, described as a “very, very difficult time for this institution.”

After one last shouting match Friday night between Republicans and Democrats, the House adjourned until Saturday. Members of the Senate, which was at a standstill for much of the day as the surveillance measure was negotiated, filed out for their recess after approving that bill.

Republicans dismissed Democratic claims of overall legislative success, pointing to dismal approval ratings for Congress as evidence that the public is unhappy with the new majority party’s performance. And Democrats have so far been unable to deliver on a chief demand of many party supporters — the beginning of withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

Even a news conference by Democratic leaders, intended to highlight the recent achievements, was postponed twice on Friday as negotiations continued over the surveillance bill. Finally, when the leaders emerged, they looked ahead to legislative action on the war in September and a potential showdown with Mr. Bush over federal spending.

“We have great hurdles to overcome,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader.

Democrats dismissed as hollow the Republican mantra that the new managers of Congress have accomplished little. They said that they had succeeded in spite of fierce Republican resistance.

for the complete article

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/04/washington/04cong.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1186244725-oLKGo7dr6z97DgTZueYOpA

[red states rule]

Saying republicans are only capable of corruption is like saying only blacks are capable or committing crime.

the liberal media does all it can to ignore Dems in trouble - so folks will think only Republicans are capable of corruption