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Gov workers say their shutdown out-of-office replies were forcibly changed

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Re: Gov workers say their shutdown out-of-office replies were forcibly changed

#111
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's factual. Nobody asked why Republicans, which control every branch of government, need Democrats to cooperate with them to pass a budget, which only requires 50% to pass due to the special process for budget bills. Oh, right. Because they mislabeled the One Big Beautiful Bill as a budget bill, which means they've used up their one special budget bill for the year and now the actual budget bill has to play by th…

> only requires 50% to pass This is incorrect. The bill that just failed ( https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/5371 ), is an appropriations bill. 60 votes are needed, and the final vote was 55-45. https://apnews.com/article/democrats-republicans-shutdown-ne... What you are referring to with the "50%" is a reconciliation bill (which is what the OBBB was), which requires a simple majority (50% + 1)…

Reality: the reconciliations bill is whichever bill they say it is. Budget reconciliation is often used for bills that are not actually budget reconciliations. Republicans fucked up this time. Skill issue.

Also reality: there's a government shutdown because the Republicans want a government shutdown (for some reason). They've ignored so many more important laws already, there's no reason they couldn't ignore the filibuster thing, or just continue spending money without having a budget bill (like they are continuing to spend money on Israel and ICE without having a budget)

Re: Gov workers say their shutdown out-of-office replies were forcibly changed

#112
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

‘People should be lied to by the government out of political convenience’ is a theory I guess. Though not one I’d endorse. It’s equally true that “Senate republicans failed to put forth a spending CR that could attract 60 votes” or “Senate republicans failed to pass filibuster reform to only require 50 votes on spending measures.” Are equally true statements yet somehow they didn’t make the autoresponders. Weird.

Always finding a way to blame the Republicans... last time they were in the minority and were blamed for shutting down the government. Now they're in the majority and you still want to blame them for shutting down the government. To summarize, you want to blame the oppositition for not passing your flavor of a spending bill, ie. one that suits your politics. Elections have consequences - and the longer Democrats drag…

> "last time they were in the minority and were blamed for shutting down the government"

To when are you referring? Because "last time", republicans were in fact also in the majority.

Re: Gov workers say their shutdown out-of-office replies were forcibly changed

#113
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The party in charge generally decides the content of the bills they choose to vote on. It's the party in charge that wrote a bill they knew that no Democrats could accept.

And last time we had this same standoff, Democrats held a majority and Republicans were blamed for not "getting in line". Can't have it both ways guys...

In the shutdown of december 2018, Trump was president and republicans held a majority in both the house and senate.

Re: Gov workers say their shutdown out-of-office replies were forcibly changed

#115
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to add some context to this "clean federal funding": a "clean bill" here means "let things expire". Democrats are fighting for a continuing resolution which extends whatever is about to expire. In this case, the ACA subsidies would expire if a clean funding bill is passed.

The Democrats already lost the battle on those things (cuts to Medicaid + no extension of Obamacare subsidies) and they were already going to happen because Democrats didn’t (and don’t) have the votes to renew them because they can’t win elections. Now they’re using this opportunity to try to get those things back at gunpoint. It’s not propaganda that the Republicans have offered a CR which changes nothing additional…

> Democrats didn’t (and don’t) have the votes to renew them because they can’t win elections.

They win once and all of a sudden they feel they are the new kings

Re: Gov workers say their shutdown out-of-office replies were forcibly changed

#116
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No.

Can you elaborate on which part you believe isn't true? The bill already passed the House. The Democrats have a minorotiy in the Senate. 60 votes are required to pass the bill - and Democrats are holding it up, deliberately for political reasons. It's entirely factual.

When Mitch McConnell refuses to hold a hearing for 6 months, that is sparkling procedure.

When Democrats vote no on a measure they oppose, that's obstruction.

Re: Gov workers say their shutdown out-of-office replies were forcibly changed

#117
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of HR 5371 in the Senate which has led to a lapse in appropriations.” Come on. The message is overtly political (blaming democrats for the shutdown when republicans control the presidency + the house + the senate) and 100% of the people pretending it’s not would be outraged if the same thing was posted under a different administration.

Which part of the statement is false or campaigning? Is it not true Democrats have blocked the passage of the bill? Of course it is.. and people should know that, shouldn't they?

It wouldn't be false to have an email signature that says "President Trump was convicted of 34 felonies." Would it be reasonable to automatically update everybody's email response to say this?

Re: Gov workers say their shutdown out-of-office replies were forcibly changed

#118
post #101
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Republicans can end the filibuster in the Senate with a simple majority after which they can pass the funding bill with a simple majority. But of course, they won't do that since it opens up other bills to be passed with a simple majority too in the future. So it's not factual. edit: This is what they would need to do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option

It’s weird to me that any Democrat would be rooting for the nuclear option right now. After losing so badly last year, after demographic trends continue to degrade their ability to win majorities in either house or in to win in most swing states, and with Trump improving his numbers even in blue states last year. Democrats are currently daring Republicans to eliminate their last resort option to block anything, even…

While I'd prefer to get the first legislative crack at it, I am extremely convinced that the filibuster is poison to our country.

Congress cannot pass anything meaningful except one omnibus spending bill each year via budget reconciliation, which has arcane rules around flat budget impact after 10 years. Since congress can't do anything, we naturally move more and more of the details of federal governance to executive agencies and executive orders. While not all of this is bad, it has a few horrible effects.

First, the supreme court is more willing to interfere with executive action, amplifying its power as it finds reason to protect actions by the favored party and cancel actions by the disfavored party. Increasing the power of the supreme court shifts federal power towards an unelected branch that is the slowest to adjust to changing voter preference.

Second, as more power within the executive gets concentrated specifically with the president we enable more and more federal action at the whims of exactly one person. This exposes us to the current situation, where Trump is unfettered in how he wields the executive branch rather than guiding it and having its power distributed across the executive branch.

And we've also got the general popular dissatisfaction with congress and the democratic process because they can't get shit done. A country that has an enormously unfavorable opinion of congress is more primed for collapse into anti-democratic governance.

Yes, if we didn't have the filibuster then the GOP could pass all sorts of nightmare legislation. But I'd prefer legislation enabled through the will of the people to this slow collapse into authoritarianism.

Re: Gov workers say their shutdown out-of-office replies were forcibly changed

#119
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of HR 5371 in the Senate which has led to a lapse in appropriations.” Come on. The message is overtly political (blaming democrats for the shutdown when republicans control the presidency + the house + the senate) and 100% of the people pretending it’s not would be outraged if the same thing was posted under a different administration.

They don’t “control” the Senate. You need 60 seats in the Senate if the other party is willing to filibuster everything, and boy howdy are both parties willing to these days. If the GOP did have 60 seats, then they’d be able to pass that clean bill over the filibuster of the Democrats.

I didn’t say they have a filibuster proof majority in the senate, ‘control’ is just a bare majority because at that point you can bring up whatever legislation you want for votes.

Re: Gov workers say their shutdown out-of-office replies were forcibly changed

#120
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to add some context to this "clean federal funding": a "clean bill" here means "let things expire". Democrats are fighting for a continuing resolution which extends whatever is about to expire. In this case, the ACA subsidies would expire if a clean funding bill is passed.

The Democrats already lost the battle on those things (cuts to Medicaid + no extension of Obamacare subsidies) and they were already going to happen because Democrats didn’t (and don’t) have the votes to renew them because they can’t win elections. Now they’re using this opportunity to try to get those things back at gunpoint. It’s not propaganda that the Republicans have offered a CR which changes nothing additional…

>’m not a democrat or a republican, I’m not rooting for either one

You clear are of you're rooting for your own Healthcare premiums to go up. This really isn't a left or right issue.

Heck, this proportionately hurts red states more. Must be so tiring in office to try and defend people who actively wish for your destruction.

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