Impending government shutdown in 43 minutes

@PraetorianMan: Stop the delusion.. Unemployment is the lowest in 17 years and the economy is the best its ever been. Libs absolutely can't stand it!

Could not agree more.

@loganx77: that has literally nothing to do with anything I wrote

@PraetorianMan: No? Your just one of the many liberal drones that fail to acknowlegde hes done good things.

Who cares. Dark Souls Remastered comes out at the end of May.

Why is this a thing.

My cousins wife did exactly what you said and came back just fine with her green card, albiet it took weeks, not days.

Even The House Speaker Paul Ryan is shaking in his boots. Paul Ryan Just May Have Lost The House And Trump The White House With His Shutdown Demands and it could not happen to a more Deserving person. I used to respect Paul Ryan back when he stood up for what he thought was right, despite the consequences. I think he's going to pay the price someday and the clock is ticking Mr. Ryan.

@loganx77: lol are you one of the fools who thinks eliminating regulations prohibiting dumping toxic waste into drinking water is a good thing?

The only genuinely good thing he’s done is not **** up the autopilot mode that the economy has been in for about 6 years now.

@PraetorianMan: Auto pilot mode? You are delusional. We haven't reached record highs because of auto pilot mode.

what kind of system allows a democratically elected government to be shut down, while members of that government still get paid...in a country where the normal people can not access services and so on. Who devised this system and is there need for a revamp?

It's the elected ones who decided it was best this way. Apparently to chicken to face the consequences. But they are willing to sacrifice those beneath them. Speaks volumes, doesn't it?

"The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." - P. J. O'Rourke

Where's the "master negotiator"? Christ, even with all three branches of government with him he can't even avert this shit. Real dealmaker, right.

Not really. Since these people are required to get everything up and running again, they've got to keep working, which means they've got to be paid. You don't like the job they're doing, that's what election day is for. Unfortunately most people conclude that it's everyone else's senator/congressperson that is the problem, so we end up with the same people year after year.

Our politicians are fine - they reflect us perfectly. We just need better voters. For example, if you need the letter to figure out which person to vote for at the polling booth...just walk out without voting and do us all a favor. Congress used to talk to each other and do deals across the aisle all the time, but now that's a traitorous proposition, as if in a country of 400 million people, getting everything you want is a reasonable expectation. And it became this way because of the voters with their uninformed yet mentally incurious, gullible yet confident nature who take their marching orders from the news source that tells them what they want to hear. Bills lasted precisely because they were compromises, inherently bipartisan, but now we're ramming things through, ripping up all the stuff the last guy did and calling it progress. And when dems get in, we'll spend the first few years doing the same. Where does this lead guys? Either get your democratic/republican head out of your ass or stop voting.

I mean the senatorial system that is in place in the US was a result of the American revolution and is in dire need of a revamp, much like the Parliamentary system in the UK. However, our system does not have a complete government stand still and is almost impossible for that to occur. Has there been much talk about it in the US, I mean changing the current system, not copying a parliamentary system that is?

Honestly on this topic a few things:

1. Trump absolulty totally salivates at the idea of shutting down the government, he has just been waiting for a reason. I mean come on anyone really surprised?

2. for all intents and purposes much of the government has already been shut down for a year anyway

I predict its going to be the longest shut down in history, he likes it far too much

We'll see, but there's a vote taking place in the senate today around noon to see if a compromise can be made.

Ah conservatives that don't understand politics are slightly amusing....totally uneducated.

@LJS9502_basic: A liberal talking about being uneducated about politics? Keep bitching about how trump triggered you i will continue to watch my 401k hit an all time high.

it is an advantage of having someone who puts liars in every government position.

I am about to retire so its a good thing for me.

Questions for the Right:

inst the government being shut down exactly what you want in the first place?

And the stupid it burns. I'm not and have never been a liberal. Fail.

@LJS9502_basic: You are about as far left as they come ive read your post. Let me guess CNN is centrest?

And im hardly a conservative.

The problem isn't that I'm far left......it's that you're so conservative you think that.

@LJS9502_basic: Im so conservative yet they would never accept me. Im pro choice (although for different reasons then those on the left ) i believe in the legalization of Marijane and im pro science.... buh buh im so conservative.

@loganx77 LJ has consistently considered himself a moderate democrat for years, but over that same time period I think the country has become more polarized and both sides have moved further into their own camps, the conservatives a lot (in my view) and the dems quite a bit less so, but never the less I think LJ isn't so much a hardcore leftist so much as he has become vocally pissed about both the polarization of country and the fact that we have elected Trump who has proven to be willfully ignorent and highly unqualified for the job among other things. Frankly I'm right there with him.

CNN is far from being far left.

lol..its corporate left at best.

Democracy Now is far left.

which party control the House and Senate these days?

Indeed. You are exactly right.

From an outside perspective. Got to say I largely agree. Sadly it seems like you're quite far into a circle where this seems to get worse and worse.

There are tons of proposals. A few off the top of my head (some of which I support and some of which I don't):

1. Getting rid of the senate filibuster
2. Getting rid of the electoral college
3. Term limits for all politicians
4. Term limits for no politicians
5. Instant runoff voting
6. Multimember disctricts
7. Nonpartisan redisctricting committees
8. Universal mail-in voting
9. Universal voter registration
10. Suffrage for felons

For better or for worse, every time these arguments come up they get derailed. Some wonk suggests it in an article, it starts making the rounds, and the think-tanks, lobbyists, pundits, and politicians who stand to lose from it drown it in noise. If people can't be arsed to pay attention to who's sitting on the Supreme Court or what a filibuster is then how do you expect them to pay attention to a nuanced discussion of congressional procedures? And that's not even to mention that most of these would take a Constitutional convention in order to implement.

Ah filibustering, we don't really have much of a concept of it, I'm not sure if it happens in Parliament but it certainly isn't at a scale to hold up proceedings. Why is something like that allowed to proceed? Can't a simple law be brought in to limit how much someone is allowed to say, or rather, for how long?

The senate does not use a majority rule vote. You need 60 votes to pass anything in the senate. The Republicans do not have 60 votes. You need a civics lesson.

Which party is holding America hostage? The Democrats.

Since as JimB already said they need 60, not 41

So basically (and I think it actually works like this in Parliament too), the rules say that votes can't be held until every senator/representative/parliamentarian has used their allotted speaking time. If you know you don't have the votes to defeat a measure you don't like, you can stand up and talk on the floor therefore not ceding your time and not allowing a vote to take place. In the U.S. Senate, during World War One, they came up with the idea of a cloture vote, which means that the Senate president can end debate during a filibuster with a 3/5 vote (60/100). Basically, a bunch of Senators threatened to filibuster the ratification of the treaty of Versailles and President Wilson couldn't have that. Then in the 60s racist segregationists changed the rules so that you didn't have to talk to filibuster (probably because they didn't want to stand for as long as it took to kill a bill) in order to defeat civil rights legislation. Basically, on every bill there has to be a vote to take it from the discussion phase to the voting phase, and that can only happen with 60 votes or more. On the plus side, during this era they allowed more than one piece of legislation to be discussed at once, so filibustering one bill didn't stall all the rest. And then there are a ton of loopholes and technicalities (can't be used for judicial appointments anymore, can't be used for spending legislation that will decrease the deficit), although it's pretty easy to get around them anyway. By all rights, Democrats should've been able to filibuster the recent tax reform legislation, but Republicans used some very creative bookkeeping to rule that it would decrease the deficit.

Short version, in order for a bill to be voted on there has to be a preliminary vote to end debate that requires 60 votes.

@theone86: I know how filibustering works, I'm just saying its a crazy system that allows it to happen to this extent. I've never seen anything like it in the UK, to such an extent that government is shut down.

@Jacanuk: "Which party is holding America hostage? The Democrats."

I think you'll find that such complaints fall on deaf ears after the record filibuster numbers during the Obama administration.

Haha, GOP tears over holding the legislature hostage. *****, please.

What does that have to do with what happened now? So your logic is "oh the Republicans filibustered during Obama´s reign, so it´s ok that the Democrats is holding American workers, hostage, now"?

And as I have pointed out several times, there are no good guys in a shutdown. Both sides are showing just how petty they are.

@Jacanuk: The last administration changed the way the legislature operates (in large part because of the filibuster usage). A party cannot use such tactics and then cry about their use by the other party.

You play smash mouth football, don't be surprised when the other team plays it back.

questioning a president about possible obstruction of justice or possible collision with Russia is not fair if its a member of the GOP.

questioning a president about sex however, is totally reasonable if its a democrat.

that is how it works

What kind of logic is that? You are pretty much saying an eye for an eye.

I hope you do know that we are talking about real people here and people who are being affected by your "smash football" and also that no matter who does it, that is unacceptable and considering they are supposed to be in office to serve the peoples interest, it´s sickening that either side uses hardworking Americans as hostage.

@Jacanuk: Talk to McConnell, man. He set this precedent and continued it until he no longer could.

And you were fine with it as well until it no longer suited you.

Stop whining because your party changed the game and now they have to deal with it. Damn such a hypocrite.

Fine with what?

And just to be clear as I have said, it´s never ok for a shutdown no matter who is the "cause"

and why is that exactly?

Sorry, but this isn't true. We are not anti-immigrant, we just want immigration to be regulated which it isn't (well not well anyways) We have issues with illegal immigrants who don't care about citizenship and who are abusing the system. We are also not anti-government, we simply believe that a government should be smaller and there should be less regulations.

But creating an Conscience and Religious Freedom to protect people who refuse to do their job sounds like a good way to expand government?

and immigration IS highly regulated, its just not highly enforced.

Can you elaborate on the religious freedom part?

Also, I guess it is regulated, but not highly enforced, however, that still is a huge problem.