House Democrats Storm Out of Ways and Means Committee ("you little fruitcake")

Washington Post ^ | Friday, July 18, 2003

[nickcarraway]

By any standards, today represented a low point in the history of congressional comity. Democrats accused the GOP of running a police state; Republicans recounted how one Democratic member of the panel called a Republican colleague "you little fruitcake" in the midst of the standoff.

The blowup occurred as the panel began to mark up a wide-ranging pension bill sponsored by Reps. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.). The changes narrowed the original bill, but retained most of its key provisions.

[DannyTN]

"Committee Democrats complained that the Republican majority had not given them enough time to review a substitute bill that they had received shortly before midnight Thursday."

I expect Republicans to hold to a higher standard than Democrats. If they really used this kind of tactic of giving them something with only 8 hours to review, then they are as bad as the Democrats.

I'm ok with them changing the house rules to end filibusters of judges. But if they are really railroading legislation through without allowing the minority party time to review that's just wrong.

[DannyTN]

"Committee Democrats complained that the Republican majority had not given them enough time to review a substitute bill that they had received shortly before midnight Thursday."

I expect Republicans to hold to a higher standard than Democrats. If they really used this kind of tactic of giving them something with only 8 hours to review, then they are as bad as the Democrats.

I'm ok with them changing the house rules to end filibusters of judges. But if they are really railroading legislation through without allowing the minority party time to review that's just wrong.

[tgslTakoma]

Fortney "Pete" Stark

Nancy "Toots" Pelosi

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

All I know is that I don't take every word my Republicans say as gospell or always right, but in a contest for the truth the Democrats usually come up short.

[swheats]

LOL you little fruitcake

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Anyone else notice that most of the speakers the Dems called weren't even there.

[rockfish59]

You want a piece of me?

[DannyTN]

"but in a contest for the truth the Democrats usually come up short."

I agree with that.

[Consort]

I watched the debate on C-SPAN for a while and the DEMs were forced to play the Race Card, Ethnic Card, Age Card, Cry Baby Card..... They looked bad.

[RippleFire]

According to WorlNetDaily it was Louis Sullivan, HHS Secretary in the first Bush admin - see Fortney's wit and wisdom at http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31605 . Also he's a former 60's peace activist.

[Bullish]

Imagine that. A steaming pile...of democrats.

Oh please.... Call the AQMD!

[Blood of Tyrants]

LOL! They are losing it! It delights me to see them looking like a bunch of spoiled children. They have been used to bullying the Pubs around for so long that they are simply unable to cope with being a minority.

To all the Rats. Get used to it because your continued moves to the left only make you look less and less palatable to Mr. and Mrs. Moderate Citizen.

Look for the Rat Party to completely disintegrate over the next 10 years.

[tgslTakoma]

Robert "Sheets" Byrd ??

Hillary and Jorge Cabrera (w/wife?), at the White House.

[jhw61]

"I watched the debate on C-SPAN for a while and the DEMs were forced to play the Race Card, Ethnic Card, Age Card, Cry Baby Card..... They looked bad."............

They always look bad.

[Wild Irish Rogue]

" The committee reporter captured the essence of Stark's less-than-soaring rhetoric, read on the House floor by Rep. Kenny Hulshof, R-Mo.

"'Oh, you think you are big enough to make me, you little wimp? Come over here and make me. I dare you,'" Hulshof recited.

According to the stenographer's transcript, the room then broke out in laughter, at which point Stark raged, "You little fruitcake, you little fruitcake. I said you are a fruitcake"

Anyone who missed the official recitation at the podium by Hulsof,should try and catch a repeat of Special Report. The way Hulsof repeated the insults was LOL-totally deadpan and monotone,which only added to the humor.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

A guy with the name "Fortney" calls somebody ELSE a fruitcake?

Did Fortney swish when he walked to the podium to call his opponent a fruitcake. And is it true that he actually called his opponent a "thiththy fwuitcake". Inquiring minds want to know.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

If the Dims don't have the power to get their way they resort not to persuasion and compromise but to trying to block every move with parlimentary tricks and just plain ugly behavior. I think if they had the power to do so, they would simply declare martial law and make us all do what they wanted. These people are dangerous.

Out of power for the first time in fourty years and recognizing that society is slowly byt surely rejecting the arguments of the extreme left, they are going apoplectic.

And since the dimo party has been commadeered by extreme activist leftists lawyers, they are increasingly adopting the courtroom tactics of radical attorneys: lying, delaying, obfuscating, leaking, intentionally ignoring constitutional constraints, floating "trial ballons", even "storming out of the room" when they know they will loose.

The good news is that they are in their death throes. We must keep on spreading the word and shining the searchlight of truth upon them -- exposing their subterfuge and the bankruptcy of their views.

[thinktwice]

each side accused the other of debasing Congress as an institution.

When it comes to debasing an institution, Congress critters are experts at it.

[Chesterbelloc]

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

I think Micheal Savage summed it up preety well when he said (paraphrasing): "To leftist, if a minority adopts a conservative viewpoint, he/she loses their minority status. A Black loses their blackness. A Gay loses their gayness. A feminist loses their feministism (? LOL!) In essence, as minorities lose their usefulness to the leftist agenda, they lose their personal value to (the Utopian) society. After all, group identity (among the "accepted" groups, of course) is all that matters in the end."