What do y'all think of two things with the new bailout vote. 1. Basically they are taking off the Jewish holidays...they are voting tomorrow AFTER SUNDOWN (kind of violates the separation of church and state). It is this kind of delay which the people who wrote the constitution had in mind....delaying important votes that will affect the good of the nation due to a RELIGIOUS holiday. 2. The rush to vote on Wednesday night so it doesn't overshadow the VP debate. Do you think this isn't intentional? Democrats are likely salivating and want as many people to see Biden crush Palin Thursday night...hence the WEDNESDAY night vote so the news is focused only on the VP debate.
a significant subset of congressmen will be in temple. If you present the bill tomorrow afternoon, it won't have enough votes to pass. Forgetting about your ridiculous "separation of church and state" argument, it is simple math.
Skipping the religious holidays is, I agree, silly, at least for those who believe this is a huge crisis. Especially since the majority of congresspeeps are not Jewish. As for the debate, I doubt the timing of the vote has anything to do with it. Most likely they won't get it settled Weds and it will still be in the news Thursday. In fact, if they do get it settled Weds it will still be in the news Thurs. barfo
If they're not there, they're not there. Country first. Work the entire day, negotiate it. If its as important as they say it is, then country first.
If its settled by Thursday morning, thursday afternoon and night's news is all VP debate. If the bailout doesn't pass, the news is split between the two. So I think that there could be some kind of effect where the bailout vote outcome may be influenced by the exisiting thursday night debate in STL.
Really? How many Jewish congresspeople are there? I thought that to do business, the house only had to have a majority of reps present. barfo
I'd say if the bailout passes, the outrage of Americans will dominate the news and overshadow the "debate", which is not a debate at all. It is basically 2 simultaneous interviews. I'd LOVE to see Palin face Biden in a real debate, but she is a coward.
Do you think the news cycle will brush whatever the vote is aside? The thing is, if they did the vote thursday, it would further overshadow the VP debates....so they decided to start the debate/vote at Sundown? I mean, is that a normal thing?
I fail to see the big deal. My guess is that most representative returned to their home districts for a few days to get beat about the head by their constituents over this issue, and to take a day or two to let tempers die down a little bit before they jump back into the fray. Has anyone actually come out and said, "We're taking a couple of days off because of this Jewish holiday." I find it far more likely that the relationship is more coincidental than casual.
First of all, rosh hashana is NOT a federal holiday, and no other government office is closed. However, as I understand it, each January congress sets a schedule which indicates what days it will be closed, and in recent years rosh hashana has been on the list. Which suggests that even non-Jews have probably long planned on using these days to go home and meet with their constituents. I'm pretty sure that this could be overridden in the case of emergency. However, there are 29 Jewish representatives, and it is possible that the bill wouldn't pass without them present. For these that don't know, Rosh Hashana and the upcoming Jewish holiday of Yom Kippor are not fun party days. They are a day filled with reflection and prayer. Praying on those days are fundamental to the religion. It is incorrect to call them a "day off" or a "vacation." Sandy Koufax caused a stir when he refused to pitch on Yom Kippor in October. I believe Shawn Green did the same. I don't know why Congress started no longer meeting on these days. I would imagine that it was done so that party leaders wouldn't be able to intentionally schedule votes on those days (and schedule committee meetings) and present a difficult choice to Jewish representatives, especially if they were outspoken opponents to whatever was being discussed or voted on.
