House Republican leadership refuses to allow the government to continue operating past midnight. They have yet another
harebrained scheme pulled out of who know's nether regions to vote tonight to appoint conferees to work with the Senate to come up with a six-week budget. While the government is shuttered.
The House Rules Committee will meet at 10:30 Monday night to set parameters for debate on a motion to appoint conferees to negotiate the stop-gap funding bill.
A conference committee is meant to hash out differences between the two chambers’ bills. But the main differences between the two chambers at this point appear to be intractable: House Republicans want to use the government-funding debate to strip funding from or delay all or parts of Obamacare, and Democrats refuse to do so.
Oh, so
now Republicans want to go to a budget conference. This isn't even a gambit to resolve the
whole budget, just a temporary one. Republicans have been fighting going to a budget conference for months. The House Republican leadership has refused to appoint conferees for the past six months. The Cruz crew in the Senate has been
blocking efforts to do so there for months.
It's also very unlikely to work in the Senate. But apparently the geniuses in the House Republican conference think that if they do this, the mess can be blamed on the Senate. Because they are all functioning a mental age of 12.
8:00 PM PT:
Senate Democrats noting that GOP Senators have blocked 18 requests for a conference on the budget resolution
— @jamiedupree
8:01 PM PT:
Sen. Reid: "we will not go to a conference with a gun to our head. The first thing that the House has to do is to pass a clean 6-week CR"
— @AJentleson
8:12 PM PT: Here's the best part:
Members are advised: the House will vote tonight to adopt a motion insisting on our last amendment and request a conference with the Senate.
— @GOPLeader
They're
insisting on their last, stupid amendment taking away health insurance from their staff. That'll be popular.
9:16 PM PT: Happy Obamacare enrollment day!!!