Stephenie Tubbs Jones should lose her position now!

[flaminbats]

She chairs the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct in the House of Representatives. The Republicans wisely used their floor time today to attack Democrats for unethical conduct, for supporting unfunded mandates, and for using House rules avoid debate. Then the Republicans ran out of time, Jones comes to the floor to offer Republicans some of OUR TIME to "discuss the matter." Then Jones is yanked about like a fool and kicked around like a useless soccer ball, as Republicans like Boehner and Drier use Democrat's time to attack and criticize the Democratic majority! All Jones wanted in return was some personal butt kissing, which Republicans gladly gave her in return for this opportunity to slap the Democratic majority in the face.

A Republican majority would have never given such valuable air time on the floor to allow Democrats to do this!! Democratic leaders like Stephenie Tubbs Jones want to be nice and show "respect" these same backstabbers who know nothing about respect, but use our time and authority given by the people against us. If Democrats don't begin to make use of their majority to hold impeachment hearings on this Administration, to use their time on the floor to counter attacks made by the puppets of this Administration, and to repeal Bush's taxcuts without giving the other party the chance to label this as just another "tax increase"...then Democrats don't deserve a majority or even a party!

I voted Democratic to give our leaders a chance to hold this Administration accountable, to force conservatives to do more than just put yellow ribbons on their cars to support the troops, and to end the Republican power to attack the Democratic minority..even as Republicans were the ones in charge. :grr: Democratic leaders now have an opportunity to change things and to build a lasting political majority, and they can take it or leave it. But ignoring this opportunity will only hurt us all in the next election!

[Ian David]

1. ...

There she is... thrown under the bus.

[Democrat 4 Ever]

5. I watched this debate earlier and she was wiping the floor with Drier

and the other whiny butts. Not sure what you saw but she yelled at the repugs that they weren't going to use her and her committee for anything. The repugs were complaining that there wasn't enough money in the Ethics Committee budget to properly inform the members of the rules. She kept telling them that they would work with the money they have.

I kept getting the impression the repugs wanted to do away with the new rule changes and were using the excuse not enough money to properly oversee as the reason to change the rules back to what was under rethug majority. One of the repugs actually whined that a member "missed out on a trip" because he didn't know the rules. Louise Slaughter got up and said, in a very dry, sarcastic way, "Sorry the member missed his trip." Priceless.

[flaminbats]

7. she could of done this without yielding them more time..

unfortunately I think Drier wisely used the additional time that Jones yielded, against her. I remember when Democrats were in the minority, Republicans even cut our conservative members off in mid-sentence, no time remaining to express an opinion. When will our party leaders learn?

The minority party has a place to express dissent, that is in the Senate!! But the House of Representatives is the place for Democrats to take action, not a place for allowing Republicans to make our leaders look like fools!

[Deep13]

2. Stephie isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Never was.

Just an observation.

[calimary]

3. Have you called her office to complain?

TOLL FREE Capitol Hill switchboard numbers conveniently located in my sig line below.

If they think you don't care, THEY WON'T, EITHER!!!

[flaminbats]

6. actually I just took your advice..

when someone at Jones' office picked up the phone, I was asked "are you calling from Cleveland?"

I said "no..and I wanted to express my disappointment with Jones yielding addition time on the floor to Republicans like David Drier."

I was told that I would be put on hold because of incoming calls, then was immediately cut off. lol, so much for expressing my opinion to someone who cares!

[calimary]

11. Yeah, I've faced that before. There are MANY ways to deal with it.

I had one guy in Susan Collins' office bark back at me "And WHAT does this have to do with the state of Maine?!?!?!?!?" Whereupon I told him ('cause it was about the war) that it had to do with EVERY STATE IN THE UNION from which our troops are taken, and EVERY CITIZEN OF THIS COUNTRY - because we ALL are underwriting this war with our taxes whether we want to or not. He took the rest of my call.

Not to say that always works. Sometimes they don't care if you're not from their district. Sometimes they're assholes about it or sometimes you can get through to the human being buried in there somewhere.

Sometimes I start out with "I care enough about this that I'm calling all the way from California." Sometimes that works.

Sometimes, I say some version of "I don't live in Illinois (for example) but I have family all over Chicago, so I sort of consider him/her mine, anyway, kinda by default." This also applies wherever you have best friends or college buddies or old Army buddies or whoevers, or you just moved from there (or somebody you knew did) or you (or a spouse/partner or parent) were born there or you used to work there - WHATEVER might link you to that state or district INDIRECTLY, even if you yourself aren't linked to it directly. Sometimes that works nicely.

Sometimes, I say some version of "I don't live in Oregon (or Nevada or Arizona) but I'm a next-door neighbor here in California, so I'm hoping you'll consider my view." Another version of the "once-removed" application. Sometimes that works nicely.

Sometimes, I say some version of "I don't live in Oregon, but my daughter just applied to college up there (I specify a couple of schools) so we're going to be very deeply involved up there." Sometimes that works nicely.

Sometimes, when I call Nancy Pelosi's office or some other Californian, I note that I AM a Californian, and since she heads my state delegation, I consider her mine as well. For anyone NOT Nancy Pelosi, it would be "I am a Californian myself, so I still consider him/her mine." Sometimes that works nicely.

And, of course, it goes without saying (even though I'm saying it anyway :) ) that you always treat them politely.

Now, those are all based in truth.

But, sometimes you may have to - um - er - manipulate the truth a little. Be a stealth fighter.

If you don't have anything more than a once-removed link to another state or congressional district, google the district or mapquest it from the congressperson's office address, and you can sometimes get adjacent zip codes. Or use a zip code from the Christmas card some out-of-town relative or friend sent you. They'll ask for the zip code if you portray yourself as coming from - well, in this case - Cleveland. Just keep in mind, the congressperson's office will likely be in a commercial district where there are business centers, but not much of a residential area. (Hey, as WE get more sophisticated, SO DO THEY.) If you don't have time to look up an adjacent community and/or zip code, just say you're calling from your office near there, but you wanted to call Washington DC to make your point more directly and immediately (sooner - in real time, since district offices generally report at the END of the day or the following morning on what their phone traffic was like - and you want your message delivered sooner than later). I used to call Jane Harman's office frequently when a close family friend had a small business in her district, and I'd say so, and claim her as mine, in effect, even though I don't live in her district. When I call her again, I'll use the same tactic.

I apologize for being Machiavellian, but we have to meet these people where they are. In my opinion, it's far more important that a really urgent and critically important message get through to them.

Just some suggestions. I've been calling and nagging these people for some time. I've tried ALL these techniques, and they do help, indeed.

And sometimes I've called republi-CONS in two different ways - either as a "fellow true believer" who is now deeply conflicted and concerned that her party might actually be wrong on this (whatever issue it is), and who's worried about its future if it doesn't correct those wrongs, having been turned on that issue personally. And I use my sweetest, gentlest, friendliest voice. That works REALLY WELL when talking to those in the enemy camp. You, too, can be a Trojan Horse. In Chuck Hagel's case, I called several times, always wound up talking to a staffer named Elizabeth who was really pleasant (maybe because I tried to be pleasant, myself), and went for the "common ground" in my comments - especially as he started turning against the war. I actually did identify myself as a Dem, a Dem from California, no less - who MIGHT, considering what I was hearing from him, be persuaded to cross over and consider him seriously for president, and who wanted to encourage him on those things I agreed with (like his opposition to the war) and invite him to continue down that road. I wound up on his Christmas card list!!! In which case, of course, the next time I called, this past January, I made SURE to mention that in some detail so they knew I wasn't just making stuff up. (His school-age son had done the drawing that was used as the artwork.) They took my call and were quite friendly about it.

Other times, it's not as pleasant. I think it was mitch mcconnell's office or tom delay's office or some asshole's office where I called and the staffer tried to engage me in a rather snarky debate. He had his talking points DOWN, I tell ya! Had a comeback for everything I said, and of course I had a comeback for every retort from him. So it just went round and round and round - for a surprisingly long time, considering how few staffers they actually have in any of these offices to handle heavy phone traffic - they usually can't afford to stay on any one call for very long. I got this fairly strong sense as the conversation went on (just a sense, mind you - no idea whether it was true) that this was some young wise-ass, snot-nosed little prick who thought he was so smart because he was tying up some stupid Democrat and running up her phone bill with a long-distance call. It made me chuckle to myself because I'M CALLING YOUR OFFICE TOLL FREE, BOZO!!!

Of course, there ARE times when there's no way around being transfered to their message machine. You can't win 'em all. So you leave a message, then. I called John Conyers' office just this morning, and it was a recorded message voice-mail mechanism that answered the phone. I picked out the extension of some random staffer and wound up having to leave a message there, too. Which I did. If I feel REALLY hopped-up about something, I'll go to www.congress.org and look up the member's district office, and just eat the long distance call. Oh well...

Just some ideas from the trenches. As our own Class Warrior would say - NGU. Never Give Up!

[RubyDuby in GA]

4. I'm sick and tired of these idiots who never realize that playing nicey nice and kissy kiss

with these evil bastards will never get us anywhere except under the bus! I want a ferocious attack dog in charge! You can't play nice with these people because they don't understand the concept of nice!!!

Damnit! Why are we the only ones who realize this?????????? I'm series!!!!!!!!111 :)

[KingFlorez]

8. Fair is fair

Even if the Republicans are saying things that aren't agreeable, I don't see anything wrong with her offering time for them to discuss the issue. The Democrats shouldn't use the same tactics the Republicans used when they were in the majority. Sometimes it seems like people here look for any reason to attack Democrats.

[ClassWarrior]

10. "Sometimes it seems like people here look for any reason to attack Democrats."

Exactly!! Rep. Tubbs-Jones has, as far as I've seen, ALWAYS fought the good fight for the people. And it's disgusting that she's being attacked over something so petty.

NGU.

[flaminbats]

12. I don't have a problem with that either..

and let the Republicans use that time how they wish..wisely or foolishly.

But what I am objecting to is yielding more time to the Republicans, even after their time had run out. I am objecting to how badly Democrats misuse their time! Not using every minute to counter Republican attacks, and even yielding it to Republicans to make more attacks. Fair is fair, and Democrats should be using the majority we gave them to define the issues. Republicans can use the floor of the Senate and the time in the House alloted to them for attacking the Democratic majority.

Sorry, but winning a majority isn't petty..and neither is losing it!

[Norquist Nemesis]

9. I wouldn't go so far as to demand she lose her position

but I'd encourage phone calls and letters to her expressing disappointment/outrage. Maybe a CC to Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer would be good too. :)