Personally, I’m skeptical that this was by accident.
The reps who missed this seem to have common political alignments.
My guess is that they would rather wait until after the new congress gets sworn in to Impeach Hegseth because the extra time is good for their allies in the war industry, and because they have some dumb political game theory about how it helps them if it happens on their preferred schedule.
I don’t think that 11 similarly-minded reps somehow had an oopsie-daisy on the day of the big vote.
Imma keep it real with you Jeffries, I’m going to extend the exact same forgiveness I get from my boss when I miss big work responsibilities because I had trouble with the bus: exactly none. Be at work on time, and then police motorcades won’t be a problem.
This. If I have a downtime, I have to be there on time. Full stop.
I’m up at 5:30 every day, I don’t start work 'till 8. By the time I get to sit down after work, it’s 8 pm at least. There is absolutely no excuse for missing a vote. You leave yourself plenty of time to get there, then you don’t have to worry about being late.
Yet another complete failure by Democratic leadership.
The vote was rushed. There was a police led motorcade that blocked numerous Reps from getting to be present and vote. Pelosi was ironically honoring vets, in CA, so that’s a fail. And Jeffries could have ‘whipped up’ the vote, so that’s a fail. And anyone could have expected some shenanigans from the gopers, so that’s a fail.
The GOP told you when the vote was ahead of time. Doesn’t matter if it was rushed, leadership’s job is to respond to it and make sure that on important votes, your party is there to counter the fuckery.
This leadership that wants to continue being a leader didn’t step up. But they sure did make sure they stepped up to gut the Clean Waters Act though so there’s that.
The 11 took AIPAC money.
This might actually be a bigger screw up on the GOP side. If they impeached now then the GOP controls the narrative and the process. It could be just as big of a sham as Trump’s impeachments were. So now it’s going to come back up next session, and even if they don’t have the votes to oust him, the Democrats will be able to put all of his crimes into public record.
You know, people downvoted a heliocentic system, too…doesn’t change the facts.
Sounds like leadership got what it wanted. How’s that a failure?
I don’t think even the rotating villains of capital want Hegseth involved in the military (and its not like he would be removed if this had passed). This seems more an issue of broader failures of democrats even when aligned.
Make the MAGAts vote to protect this asshole
Give them nothing for free
Well, I’m no horse combing rocketeer, but can’t we just do it again until everyone is present…like maybe announce it and have people be present?
You sure it wasn’t a setup? Like they didn’t really want to go that far?
My god he is pathetic.
Further proof Jeffries is incapable of true leadership.
No one has ever accused him of leadership, but at least he can’t whip votes to backstab everyone
I don’t like or respect Jefferies, but he’s a compromise I could live with
Schumer on the other hand…
Compromise means we get something and weegxve something. What are we saying we get? Plum committee assignments in return for no progressive bill ever passing the House?
Neolibs now in power and hitting the ground sitting down as expected.
HOLD THESE PEOPLE ACCOUNTABLE WITH THE PEOPLES EXECUTIVE BRANCH.
This is so dumb.
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There was a massive traffic clusterfuck that delayed a busload of Democrats from returning from an event across town (multiple Republicans also got delayed). This included some of the loudest Democratic supporters of the effort.
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The House GOP exploited this by closing the vote as soon as they had the majority; if it had been the other way around, they would have just held it open for hours until they had enough votes to defeat it. The absent Dems didn’t actually change the outcome.
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This specific vote was driven by outgoing Republican Thomas Massie, there’s nothing preventing Democrats from introducing their own in January. In fact it’s arguably better – an impeachment now would have managers appointed by Republicans and go before a Republican-controlled Senate. I’d much rather have Democratic managers and 56 Democrats in the Senate. Especially if Hegseth somehow is fired or resigns and Trump is able to appoint a new Defense Secretary with the current Senate.
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Even in the case of a 2027 impeachment though, you’d still need 11 Senate Republicans to vote to convict (12 if Fetterman defects), which is extremely unlikely given who’s left in the caucus. This whole effort is ultimately symbolic, not something with a real shot at removing Hegseth.
Acting like this was some nefarious plot by AIPAC to maintain the war is absurd.
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Not just the US. It’s a massive problem on the left - people screaming because the Dems, who just won a big midterm election, haven’t miraculously already made America better… when said election winners haven’t even been sworn in. The Dems currently have no real power and Hegseth was never going to be found guilty in the Senate.
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Where is the asshole asking me to point to the Democrats phoning it in or just playing politics? Right here, this is it right here.
I think people are getting a little too up in arms about this whole thing. This is still the 119th Congress, the same one we’ve had for two years. Impeachment was always a long shot until the 120th is seated.
I actually don’t like that move by Massie because if there’s enough public pressure against a cabinet member then Trump may be inclined to fire them and get a replacement in while he still potentially has the votes to confirm them. That would end in January.
No, NOW is the time to put as much pressure on the Democrats as possible. There’s zero reason to wait.
Get up and arms NOW, and EVERY SINGLE TIME they let us down.
If they keep fucking up, then primary them in 2 years and replace them with someone that will actually show up to work.
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I don’t give a shit. Impeach whoever comes in after too.
There’s always excuses. In January people will keep making other excuses as to why it’s “not the right time”. NOW is the right time.
Senate won’t convict cause there’s not enough Dems. Fine, impeach him now and do it again in January.
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The reason to wait is that if the administration sees enough public pressure then Trump could fire cabinet members and potentially squeeze in a replacement while he still has the Senate. We want any removals to happen after January when Democrats will have control of the confirmation.
Massie helped show which Dems are willing to be controlled opposition with this move though. I’ll give him that.
We need to keep calling our reps and demand that they don’t vote for Schumer or Jeffries.
Massie continues to stick to his guns and I’ll give him that.
And the leader of the Democrats in the 119th Congress is bidding for leadership of the 120th Congress. The point of impeachment being a long shot isn’t the issue here, the fact that Massie introduced it isn’t the issue here, the fact that it was a quick turn around for this vote to advance it isn’t the issue here.
The issue is the complete failure of the 119th Congress’ Democratic leadership when your job is to ensure that on important votes, you make sure that your members are there to vote for it. When you ensure everyone can make time to advance a shitty bill that neuters the Clean Water act then you can damn well ensure that on the vote to advance impeachment of a guy who you’ve constantly said was unfit for the job, you make damn well sure that everyone is there to vote and not pussyfooting around getting stuck in traffic. And that same failure of a leader is running for the leadership of the 120th Congress too so no, we are right to be up in arms about this because if you can’t be arsed to do you damn job now, you aren’t going to be arsed to do the job latter when it actually matters.
The failure from Democrats pisses me off too and I hope to see somebody else as Speaker than Jeffries.
But in the end it was functionally irrelevant to the vote. There were also Republicans held up for the same reason as Democrats, and if they had all voted it still would have failed. Johnson would have extended the vote because he’s still Speaker and the Republicans still have control of the House.
This was just a mic drop by Massie on his way out. We were always going to have to wait until January for meaningful things to start happening.
And again, the fact that Republicans were also stuck in some traffic doesn’t matter. The fact that the vote you think was irrelevant doesn’t matter. The fact that Johnson is still Speaker doesn’t matter. The fact that Massie wanted to have a final say really doesn’t matter.
All of that is just excuses and whataboutism doesn’t address the point that the current leader failed in providing leadership on a important vote, especially when the vote failed by a mere seven votes.
I’ve already agreed that the current leader failed on an important issue. But those things you listed all matter very much actually.
Massie is leaving in January and I guess he counted on some GOP members taking their shot at distancing from Maga after the midterm results.
Yeah, and turns out they didn’t.
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Why would they initiate a vote now, before all the new people get sworn in?
A republican initiated the impeachment, and he won’t be there next year.
Because it was designed to fail.
Maybe some of you don’t realize this, but while I don’t like the Dem party, this is clearly news bait to drive a wedge in the left.
The vote wasn’t whether or not to impeach, it was whether or not to move the impeachment to committee.
It was also called short, before Dems that COULD’VE been present could arrive.
The GOP loves playing games, this is them playing games and you’re falling for it.
Definitely wasn’t called short, I watched it happen. It was a 5 minute vote, the vote was known about the day before, and even after the 5 minutes was up they still let people vote.
If all the GOP and all the Dems voted, then the Dems would have failed by 2 votes. But 7 GOP didn’t vote while 11 Dems didn’t vote. Dems could have struck down the effort to send the impeachment to committee, but they couldn’t even bother to show up for work.
I don’t give a shit what excuses they had, I don’t get to make excuses to miss work during critical moments, why the fuck should our overpaid reps get different treatment? Especially when all I’m doing most of the time is enshittifying a website for some corpo shmuck, meanwhile these fucking people are supposed to be running our country!!!
This is just another example of why DSA and progressives built up so much momentum in the midterms. The neolib establishment dems are utterly useless in the face of real progress.
Pasting my comment from a similar reply…
Your diatribe is exactly my point. I’m not onboard for Jeffries. I emailed my future Blue rep asking her to oust him from leadership. But sadly, we have to work with corpo dems to get anything done until they are all gone.
My point is these types of articles fit in with the GOP strategy, to cause rifts in the “left”
Quotes on “left” because of pedants, who keep yelling at me that there is no “left” in the USA.
The only wedge this drives though is with the vast masses against the corporatist zionist wing of the party…which IMO is the energy people need to keep up.
I don’t know of any meaningful constituency of voters that is out there angry that people are getting mad at Hailey Stevens for making her dreams of Israel come true and up and leaving, or Nancy Pelosi ironically skipping the vote to end an illegal and unjust war to get a lifetime achievement award from a veterans organization.
If I missed a crucial meeting at my work that was pivotal for positioning the future of the company, I would expect to reprimanded far more consequentially than some mean words.
Sadly, progressives will have to work with corpo dems to make anything happen. At least it’s possible to sway them…
It’s not possible to sway the Repubs in Congress for the most part.
I’m sorry we don’t live in an ideal world but these type of news articles produce apathy, which is the enemy of progress.
And the way you change that overton window and shift those pressures leftward is thru sustained outside pressure
Corporate Dems have no real incentive to betray their actual constituents, donors, especially when their former main lovers(tech oligarchs and Israel) are sending all the signals their pocketbooks will open back up for them if they play nice, and if voters as a whole just go back to brunch, guess who easily wins that influence battle?
So while there is a type of corporate media propaganda that I think undermines the left, this is one of those rare instances I think this sort of coverage is actually helping. As it is keeping focus on who the villains inside the tent are and that they can’t be trusted(which they can’t). And right now they are banking on people going quiet and falling in line so they can maneuver behind the scenes and preserve their power and the status quo dynamic.
Ok
Ah yes, the good ol’ Centrist war cry of “But Repbulicans are mean so let’s not try at all!”.
Maybe stop being a coward always worrying about what Republicans will do and worry about what Democrats should do.
I’ve said nothing to do with whatever you are arguing about.
Your anger at me is my point exactly
I read your second line as the indicating why centrists would be not passing things progressives would be proposing.
If that’s not what your intent was then I do apologize.
Maybe some of you don’t realize this, but while I don’t like the Dem party, this is clearly news bait to drive a wedge in the left.
I want to hope that all the accounts “falling for it” aren’t actually that dense, but the only argument for that is they’re constantly shitting on the only other option to facial and never trying to approve it.
And well, thats just as easily an argument for them legitimately not understanding any of this too
