CAFTA vote story

I am stopping the clock so that you can sleep and time will not pass. However, would it be okay to stop the clock in the US House of Representatives if they were trying to pass a bill to end abortion and they needed to call in a couple of absent members? Are you going to say no?

 

I think if a vote is fifteen minutes, then it should end after fifteen minutes. Period.

 

Impractical. And I imagine that the far right agrees with you. You want to overthrow 200 years of practical experience for an ambiguity.

 

No, I want the Congress to go by the rules.

They could start by actually reading the U.S. constitution and actually abiding by it.

 

The rules allow them to stop the clock. I can't believe that they don't do that in the Arkansas state legislature....

 

No clock was stopped, cmg. I was watching the vote clock on C-SPAN.

 

can't.................stop..............LAUGHING!!

CMG, did you really drink that much kool-aid that you honestly believe that?

Central America is largely agricultural. Now, what exactly are the Indiana farmers going to sell to those countries that they aren't already growing?

Come on, CMG: you're better than this....

 

Oh, I don't have C-SPAN but I know that in the Indiana legislature they actually stop the clock until they get their work done. I don't know how they do it in the Congress, but I can't believe that if you had a couple of votes who were sick and not on the floor but nearby that you would allow something like abortion to remain legal other than using your power to extend the time so that the necessary votes could get to the floor.

As far as I know that is how a parliament has always worked. I think that it is a good thing. It allows issues to be settled in Congres where the House has to deal with getting 435 ducks lined up in a row.

 

They vote electronically in the House, mouse. It's a very quick procedure. Plus all the members knew this vote was coming up.

 

N.C. Republican Switched Vote on CAFTA

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - For weeks, Rep. Robin Hayes (news, bio, voting record), R-N.C., was colorfully adamant in his opposition to the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

"What does CAFTA sound like? NAFTA," Hayes declared. "It's not in the best interests of a core constituency I represent. Every time I drive through Kannapolis and I see those empty plants, I know there is no way I could vote for CAFTA."

But an hour into what is normally a 15-minute roll call — and still short the votes needed to avoid handing President Bush an embarrassing defeat — Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., told Hayes he could promise increased GOP attention to the challenges China poses to the domestic textile industry.

SOURCE

 

There you go again with undiplomatic language about distinguished members of the House. Some of them might have been dead drunk or something but we have to say that they were personally busy.

I can't believe that the far right is actually saying that what goes on in the sausage factory is or should be pretty! Yet I do believe that the critics of CAFTA eat all the sausage that they can get.

 

Yes, of course: they will ensure that ALL of those jobs move to China, right?

Regards to you and yours, poncho,
BiR

 

From Bush Sr. and Agenda 21 to Clintons EXO 13107 to NAFTA and CAFTA and the FTAA I figure it's all about "Building A North American Community". Nothing more than our government handing over the country to unelected global banker and corporate interests at the expence of all Americans.

 

No, it's not. CAFTA is a minor deal. The great lesson of the Depression was that Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act actually made things worse because it put up trade barriers.

It is wrong to say, NetPub, as you did that the clock was held in .."order to bribe, blackmail and threaten members of the House to change their vote is the real scenario that we are dealing with!" That is the reason that I say that even if they were dead drunk we just have to say that they were busy. You actually attack them and make unsubstantiated accusations of things like blackmail and threats. The legislative process deals in tradeoffs. If you think that making sausage is supposed to be pretty, then you are badly mistaken.

I think that CAFTA will be a good thing. I suppose, BiR, that Hoosier farmers will sell soybeans, corn, or wheat, since those are our major crops here. I know that we are selling some corn to Mexico. Maybe these minor trade deals will lead to undoing what FDR did to agriculture and free the American farmer from DC excessive regulation.

 

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"Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution states that Congress shall have the power "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations." Congress may not abdicate or transfer to others these Constitutional powers. Which is why I oppose the unconstitutional transfer of authority over U.S. trade policy from Congress to agencies, domestic or foreign, which improperly exercise policy-setting functions with respect to U.S. trade policy."

Exactly.