Following The Lead of Congress....."Deeming" Is All The Rage

I deem Nancy Pelosi will be the new Minority Leader :-)

I deem that I will not vote for any of the bass turds involved in this current boondoggle

This is a great post!  I am in shock every morning and evening when I listen to the news.

Wow I am late to the party but I must say even being late has its deeming qualities. :0)

Great post and thread. Love it, love it. You made my day and night and tomorrow!!

sadly I am truly disgusted at the country that i am passing along to m son.  it s absurd, the difference I am passing along

Karen, I deem that the rule that allows them to deem any new law enacted by deeming it so be abolished! Poof! There, it's gone - no problemo! Let's see now, how many deems did I manage in that last sentence? lol

You can also deem that you have lots of money in your checking account, even though it is about a trillion dollars overdrawn. 

I would love to deem right along with you.  Wouldn't life just be more fun that way?

It's even more funny that Pelosi reasons "They must pass this bill so they can learn whats actually in the bill". Even funnier is Obama's statement today "I'm not concerned with policy in the House and the Senate". He just wants the bill to be passed so he can claim a win. Now that is Change we can believe in. I'm deeming that I will no longer pay taxes! LOL

Deem it, we should deem to remove all of the deeming congressmen in this year's demming election. This is one funny post on a serious issue. The comments have been great also.

I hear there is a lawsuit in the works should this be "deemed"

I can't believe that this is even being considered by our government.

I hear there is a lawsuit in the works should this be "deemed"

I can't believe that this is even being considered by our government.

Karen -  I always make an effort to disagree with respect.  My position when debating anything with anyone is not an overwhelming desire to win an argument. It is to state my opinion and listen to the opposing opinion with the desire for both sides to learn more about the issue.  

Unfortunately our Congress, right now - and for the last two decades or so - doesn't take that position. It seems the only thing that matters to each side is to crush the opposition - regardless if there is any merit to their position.

My opinion is that the reason behind this all out war comes from two changes in our society.

#1 - Shortened news cycles.  Back in the days of good old Walter Cronkite (I really am showing my age), we got our national news once a day.  The networks had to cram all the events of the day in to a 30 or 60 minute show.  When the President had something to say to the public it was announced days ahead of time and they would pre-empt something like Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In or the Mary Tyler Moore show.  He'd speak for 10 minutes with no audience, then Dan Rather or David Brinkley would give a 10 minute analysis of the speech.   Today you can find the President on TV, and speaking to live crowds twice a week.

And Congress -my Lord, I can't remember EVER seeing Senators or House Members speaking on TV.  I don't think I even knew what most of them looked like.Today each party's leadership runs to a press gaggle within seconds of coming out of a session.  They rush to beat each other to the microphone.

And then there's CNN,  FOX< MSNBC all trying to fill up 24 hours of programming so they all hire "pundits" to endlessly debate ths most micro-issues, like should the head of the RNC apologize to Rush Limbaugh.

Transparency of the process sounds like a good idea in princieple, but I'm not so sure it is.  Legislators CANNOT compromise with the other side - EVER, because the media will be jumping all over it and they will be called "flip-floppers".  Once branded in the media as being someone who doesn't stand behind what they "believe" in they are going to face a hard time getting re-elected.  "Back in the day" - deals were made all the time, "procedural tricks" were common - we just weren't exposed to them.  At the end of the day we had a law.   There is no way for 435 Congressmen and 100 Senators to come to a consensus on anything without wheeling and dealing - it's the way our system works.  By having it all so visible to us, really turns our stomachs at some of the behavior. 

People often refer to "the founding fathers" or the "framers of the Constitution" and how they would roll over in their graves at the shenanigans and dealings and earmarks that take place today. The fact is that these guys were not a united front with a single mindset.  The Constitution was created by a group of people who had very differing ideas on how to do it.  Jefferson and Adams, while they were lifelong friends, they were also staunch adversaries and each thought that the other one's position would make the newly formed county fail in a few short years.  If cable news had covered the building of our country, most of these guys would have been tarred and feathered.  With all their wheeling and dealing and compromising, they came up with a government model that, for the most part, has served our country well for the last 220 years or so.

#2.  Campaign financing.   I can remember in my 20s when our local Congressman and his opponents would campaign by going to offices and diners and little league games, giving the locals a chance to meet and to know them.  Nowadays, the one who wins is usually the one who has the biggest war chest.  They MUST start raising money for the next campaign the day they are sworn into office.   A Politician's job today is not to make decisions that he thinks will be good for his constituency, it's to make decisions based on what will have the most impact on his ability to get re-elected.

Someone addressed me above if I knew if the "deem" rule had ever been used on any as major as this.  I do not know the answer. I'd bet dollars to donuts, the person who asked, doesn't know the answer either.  I do know it has been used but unless you take the time to look up each use of it, how can we know if anything major has been put through with it.  Again - my basic position is this, if you want to put forth a position on something do your homework.   It's so easy to listen to your favorite biased news source and quote them, using their arguments.  It happens on both sides - there are some very inaccurate positions put forth by right and left leaning media pundits.  If you take what they say as gospel, you're likely to have bad information.   I would submit that you can learn more about an issue by watching the opposing media.  If you are a devout liberal, you may get an emotional high from hearing Keith Olbermman espouse the position you already believe in but you'll learn more about making your own decision by waching Bill O'Reilly on FOX - and vice versa.  Listeng to the opposition, hear what THEY have to say, comapre that to what your side says - look it up, see who's right - then come to the table and have a real debate.

Karen

As a follow-up, here is a good article today in Bloomberg regarding the " Deem " issue we as Americans now face from our elected leaders.

I don't care what party one is affiliated with, this is just plain wrong for such a huge decision for change to our medical care industy and the economy as a whole.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a2CFuScQAu7Y&pos=8

Karen

Sunday turned out to be a very Sad day for many Americans.  Unbelievable.