Friday, August 3, 2007

House Dems Playing Those Shady Games

A vote is a vote, no matter how you slice it.

However, for the first time ever, a Congressional vote has been reversed after it was gaveled to a close.

Why? Well, let's set stage for last night's shenanigans...courtesy of The Politico (h/t to Virginia Virtucon, bold emphasis is mine).

"The rancor erupted shortly before 11 p.m. as Rep. Michael R. McNulty (D-N.Y.) gaveled close the vote on a standard procedural measure with the outcome still in doubt.

Details remain fuzzy, but numerous Republicans argued afterward that they had secured a 215-213 win on their motion to bar undocumented immigrants from receiving any federal funds apportioned in the agricultural spending bill for employment or rental assistance. Democrats, however, argued the measure was deadlocked at 214-214 and failed, members and aides on both sides of the aisle said afterward.

One GOP aide saw McNulty gavel the vote to a close after receiving a signal from his leaders – but before reading the official tally. And votes continued to shift even after he closed the roll call - a strange development in itself.

. . .

The House eventually recessed at 11:18 p.m. But Republicans quickly discovered that there was no longer any record of the controversial vote and immediately charged Democrats with erasing the bad result."

Now, Dems claim they beat the vote, 216-212, and that is what the new official tally says. The defeat of this now allows illegal immigrants to receive federal funds (like housing assistance and food stamps) under the Agriculture appropriations bill.

Basically, the House Dems cheated to take money away from poor American citizens to poor illegal aliens!

Rule .303, a Democrat, isn't happy about this at all, and says that even though he fought for a Dem Congress for 6 years, stunts like this will definite drive him to fight against the Dems.

That's two unprecedented acts of power-grabbing, GOP-shafting, and generally shady activity in the House by the Democrats within the past couple of months. Where's this honest, open, corruption-free majority we heard so much about last year?

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