Brad, I think the pukes were acting in bad faith here (*surprise*):

UPDATE: According to a staffer for Debbie Wasserman Schultz, one of the two Democratic congresspersons who missed the vote on the amendment, the congresswoman left for a short prescheduled press conference on medicare reform, an issue critical to her home district in Florida. The vote was hastily called. Once she learned of the vote, she left the press conference and hurried back, but was not in time to record her vote.

And one other thing, on the humor front.

Well, having seen her speaking to an empty House night after night on C-Span, I don’t doubt this was a b-s move on the repugs part.

Yep, the two Dems got punked: they left the committee room, and all the GOPpers were hiding in the stationery closet; as soon as they were far enough away, they rushed out, held the vote, and bwahahahad like the snotfaced shitheads they are.

Remember, this is Kotex ‘Shut up! Shut up!’ Sensenbrenner’s committee, and as a total shit, he’s got a long shitty history of pulling procedural BS like this.

Washington Wire reports one of the two as Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida. So who was the other sucker?

I mean, c’mon, this isn’t like it’s a new tactic or anything, it’s as old as the Republic. Do we need remedial How-not-to-get-screwed-by-the-Rules-of-Order 101 for these folks?

Hey, it’s the Democrats problem that they miss committee votes.

Here’s a quote on this from the Judiciary Commitee:

House Judiciary Committee Chairman stated, “This Committee today approved two major bills to fight the War on Terror, unfortunately, without a single vote from my Democratic colleagues. The terrorist tribunals legislation provides congressional authorization to establish a fair and effective procedure to prosecute dangerous terrorists. In taking this action we provide terrorists – such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9-11 attacks – the fairness and legal protections that none of their innocent victims ever enjoyed. The Committee also took a major step in updating and reforming FISA – something that will provide the intelligence community and others with greater agility and flexibility as they try to thwart our determined and dangerous terrorist
enemies.�

The fact is that the extreme liberalism of the Democrats on Judiciary is another good reason to keep a GOP congress.

I’ve always understood that folks miss votes on purpose. Are we sure that’s not at work here?

Clarification:

There were two different votes: one for the anti-torture amanedment and one for the whole bill.

The vote that the 2 democrats missed was the anti-torture amendment.
“Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) and Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.) offered an amendment substituting McCain’s approach. It failed by just one vote — 18-17 — as all the Democrats who were there and two Republicans — Flake and Rep. Bob Inglis of South Carolina — voted for it.”

They were present for the whole-bill vote and voted against it–twice:
“The House Judiciary Committee voted 20-19 to send the legislation to the full House after Republicans leaders rounded up two members who missed the prior roll call and one member switched. Earlier today, the panel voted 20-17 against the bill, which opponents said would weaken protections against abuse for both U.S. and enemy prisoners of war.”

So the sequence of events is:
1) Entire bill was voted down, 20-17.
2) Two Democrats leave for a pre-scheduled press conference.
3) Republicans round up 2 more members and re-open the voting (not exactly normal procedure, BTW).
4) The two Democrats find out about this and head back to the committee chamber.
5) Chairman calls a vote on the Schiff-Flake amendment. It fails, 18-17.
6) The two missing Democrats return in time for the final vote, but the bill passes anyway, 20-19.
7) Bush gets to continue torturing borderline-retarded people who have not been accused of any crime.
8) Democray spreads further across the globe.

BTW, the Republican leadership in Congress has been especially nasty about violating procedures, holding votes open long past the rules, and removing all the checks the minority party used to have on legislation and appointment confirmations. They have even resorted to blackmailing their own party members on the floor of the chamber. When people started complaining that the Democrats were filibustering nominees in the Senate, they apparantly failed to realize that *every other method the minority party had for opposing nominees had been stripped away as soon as Bush took office 2001*. It’s pretty clear that the current batch of Republican Congressional leaders in the House and Senate never, ever plan to be in the minority again. Or that they are shortsighted and stupid. Possible both.

.

Gary,

Extreme liberalism?

Habeas Corpus was first codified in the Magna Carta, in 1215 CE, during the “Dark Ages”. The concepts of the rights enshrined in habeas corpus were greatly expanded in the Constitution (remember that old thing?), with the addition of protection against search and seisure, freedom of expression, and the right to carry arms.

This bill eliminates habeas corpus. Let me say that again:

THIS BILL ELIMINATES A RIGHT THAT HAS BEEN RECOGNIZED SINCE 1215.

How can voting to maintain a section of the fucking Magna Carta be considered “liberal”? How much more “conservative” can you get than voting to “conserve” a law passed during the fucking Dark Ages?

Go establish your cult of divine kingship somewhere else, Gary, and leave my country the fuck alone!

W as King John? Hmmm…yes, that might work well.

(Sorry about that–this is a topic I don’t seem to have a sense of humor on. I’ll be good now.)

Huh.

I never knew John Kruk was a centaur.

That explains his appetite for hay, but opens so many other questions.

BTW, the Republican leadership in Congress has been especially nasty about violating procedures, holding votes open long past the rules, and removing all the checks the minority party used to have on legislation and appointment confirmations. They have even resorted to blackmailing their own party members on the floor of the chamber.

Very true. All the more reason not to schedule a press conference in the middle of one of the most important committee sessions in the history of our nation. Fucking idiots.

You know what I ilke about Senator Centaur? He’s got good old-fashioned horse-sense.

Go fuck yourself, Sensible Centaur!

I engaged in a robust debate regarding these issues at Patterico’s Zany House of Bed-Wetting Wingnuts. You can guess how that turned out.
I’m convinced that torture to them is only a concept; a means to an end, and due process is quaint when the baddies are always at their door (or so they seem to believe). The Culture of Fear has inflicted a substantial, though thankfully not a majority of this nation’s populace, and I fear it may take decades of undoing.
And the fact is Gary has no grasp of history, human rights and common sense.
I could really use a pony right now, but the Centaur will do.

This is how I feel about it.

http://sdrobbie.blogspot.com/2006/09/inspired-by-my-raiders-pride-part-deux.html

Ginger,

I don’t know about this particular vote, but it would be interesting to see which came first on the schedule.

The press conference was to point out issues with the “donut hole” problem in Medicare benefits, which pundits and admin mouthpieces are now saying doesn’t exist. So the Dems have to choose, I guess: let the lying liars dominate the media with their lies (and have people complain that the Dems don’t say anything against the lies), or let the slimy sleazeballs sideline democracy itself with their cheating (and have people complain that the Dems don’t stand up to the cheaters in committee).

It’s a brilliant strategy by the Republicans, really: do so much slimy shit that no one can possibly keep up with it all, and then slam their opponents for not stopping that portion that gets through. A conscientious person (of any party) on Capitol Hill right now probably feels like a lone pre-school teacher in a room with 30 toddlers on speed: you can only minimize the damage as best you can and hope no one breaks their arm while you’re distracted tyring to keep the others from dying.

The Magna Carta sucks, dude.

DO THE MATH! There were 4 members absent from the amendment vote, 2 Republicans and 2 Democrats. So if the 2 Democrats had rushed back in time, the chairman would have rounded up the 2 missing Republicans, and the amendment still would have failed.

TPM Muckraker is a usually reliable source but in this case they were wrong (because they took the story from the WSJ and the WSJ was wrong).

Myself, I saw the TPM Muckraker story and the WSJ story and I went ballistic but then I DID THE MATH and I realized they were wrong.

TPM Muckraker sort of corrected themselves by posting a link to an article in “The Hill” that said what really happened, but TPM Muckraker should have posted a big fat retraction and a mea culpa.

They should have been there … why make it easy for the ReThugs?

And anyway, without or without the Schiff-Flake amendment, this is a truly awful bill. The only U.S. Senator who is fighting for the Magna Carta is Arlen Specter (yes, on this issue, Specter’s the good guy, even though he’s doing bad stuff elsewhere.)

Am I seeing things, or does that centaur have a large centaur penis?

I’m surprised there are no references to boytaurs in here.

No, I won’t post a link to that.

And I wouldn’t Google it at work if I were you.

I’ve met that centaur dude. No kidding. He’s a pretty decent fellow even though he’s mostly a horses ass.He hangs out at the Texas Renaissance Festival near the Woodlands.

Hey mikefromtexas,

The folks you’ll meet at Ye Olde Renaissance Festival and Faire, eh! It makes perfect sense to me, though, given all those centaurs still running around during the Renaissance.

That explains why Sandro Botticelli could paint one.

I’ve started a blog to un seat Adam Schiff.. I don’t think it’s a long shot. people are mad and we are not going to take it anymore.