Posted on 06/25/2009 4:46:22 PM PDT by jazusamo
Two Democrats got into a verbal altercation — and according to one a physical one — on the floor of the House on Thursday night over an appropriations earmark one was seeking.
After the House floor had largely cleared following a series of votes, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) split apart from a heated conversation and began yelling at one another.
“You’re out of line,” Waters shot while walking down toward the well.
“You’re out of line,” Obey shot back before turning and walking away.
But then Obey stopped, turned back toward Waters, and shouted: “I’m not going to approve that earmark!”
Obey turned away, but Waters went to go huddle with members of the Congressional Black Caucus. She could be over heard telling them: “He touched me first.”
Waters was escorted by her colleagues into the cloakroom.
Obey appeared to be summoned by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) to explain what just happened.
Obey and Hoyer spoke for a few minutes. Their conversation ended with Hoyer chuckling and slapping Obey on the arm.
Obey then exited the chamber.
But Waters soon returned briefly, again telling her colleagues: “He touched me.”
Waters then disappeared into the cloakroom.
Waters and Obey have had an ongoing dispute about an earmark for a public school employment training center in Los Angeles that was named after Waters when she was a state representative.
Obey rejected that earmark as violating policies against so-called “monuments to me.” Waters revised her request to go to the school district’s whole adult employment training program, so the district could decide whether the money would go to the school named after Waters.
Thursday was the committee markup of the spending bill that would include the earmark, and Obey let it be known that the earmark would be denied. She approached him and complained.
A Waters aide said that Obey had pushed her.
Ellis Brachman, a spokesman for Obey, confirmed that the dispute was about an earmark Obey denied Waters, but placed the blame on Waters for escalating the situation.
“As I understand it, she was the one who pressed the issue,” Brachman said. “The chairman repeatedly tried to end the confrontation.”
I want to stand in the well and yell that they’re all out of order.
He should have slugged her.
Trouble in Paradise? Watch her show up with a bruise or some ‘inflicted’ injury and claim he did it. Get rid of both of them. And so it goes.....
C-Span?
If Al Franken ends up in the senate I guarantee that he’ll end up getting arrested for attacking someone.
Maxine “Shut Up!” Waters has no business being in any public office.
The radical lib nutcases are really starting to show themselves. Let them eat each other and do us a favor...
Nice... the Democrats are in charge, but this is like going into a roomful of hungry pit bulls and dropping a piece of meat and letting them fight over it.
Maxine is worse than a any of the dirtest jobs Mike Rowe has ever undertaken! And just think of the fact that she is considered one of the best the Demorats have in their membership!
Know damn well she started it.
Waters should be in prison for treason, theft and assault on the American people.
Leather strap, cage match!
Two Dem enter, one Dem leaves!
If he touched her, he should use Clorox and Pinesol to disinfect his hand. Stat.
Swine squabbling over the leavings of money extorted from the exploited, martryed taxpayers. When will it end?
No honor among thieves.
This reminds me of something that happened in Chicago after Harold Washington died, then Mayor of the 2nd city. In the aftermath of his death the City Council had to vote on a variety of things that were thrown into complete chaos by Washington’s sudden death and the concomitant scramble for power and realignment of factions. I was watching on WGN from outside of Illinois as an obese black woman council person stood up on her desk stomped her feet and shouted into the microphone – “I have the floor and I’se can shout louder than any of you!”, pretty much establishing her right to the floor under the Chicago vernacular of Robert’s Rules of Order. That woman and Maxine Waters are virtually interchangeable.
Somebody call Vince McMahan!
Should have pushed her down the well!
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