“Jeffries didn’t even whip the vote,” one critic said about the House minority leader, who wants to be speaker. “This is why people want a stronger leader.”

As House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries seeks to become speaker when Democrats retake Congress in January, critics questioned his leadership Tuesday after the Republican-led lower chamber effectively blocked a bid to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth by just seven votes—an outcome that may have been averted if more Democrats showed up to vote.

The 211-204 procedural vote effectively torpedoed Congressman Thomas Massie’s attempt to impeach Hegseth by sending the outgoing Kentucky Republican’s resolution to the House Judiciary Committee, where it will likely gather dust during the remainder of the GOP-controlled congressional term.

  • TheFonz@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    This vote is doa in the senate because there are not enough republicans to flip. So I don’t understand why everyone is so bent up about this? Wait until January when we have a new congress. You guys either don’t care about this enough to know how our government works. It’s baffling.

    • stormeuh@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      I disagree that this is doa in the senate, but that’s beside the point. The main point of this (and many other failing proposals) is messaging.

      With this, Jeffries communicated that even after the midterms, he doesn’t care about this. You are right that in January the democrats will have full control and will be able to impeach if they want, but this signals they likely will not.

      If it had passed to the senate, it would have forced republican senators to reaffirm their loyalty to trump by voting no. Since the midterms, many of them have discovered they are in a swing state all of a sudden. Even if none of them break ranks, that is valuable ammunition for the next election cycle. So in effect, Jeffries helped shield a bunch of republican senators from having to make a painful vote.

    • TheFonz@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      This vote is doa in the senate. What exactly is it accomplishing? We have to wait until jan to unseat current republicans

      • lb_o@lemmy.world
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        48 minutes ago

        Comment above explains it. Forces republicans in swing states to show their colors.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
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    23 hours ago

    Jeffries and schumer need to go yesterMANYYEARSAGO, but I’m always cautious of Massie… Seemingly on the right side of history on one thing with the “courage” to call a pedophile a pedophile (in this one case at least) but he still has a lot of fucked up standard nutjob conservative ideas unfortunately.

    Is anyone familiar enough with procedure here, did he need to call this when he did? Is there precedent for maybe working with dem leaders on timing, directly or through back channels, if he truly wanted this to pass? I don’t know enough about the other dems that missed here, any of them those “blue dog” dipshits?

    Because otherwise, Massie wants to be the guy seen as stirring shit up, but without ever actually toppling the regime? It’s effective at taking wind out of the sails and giving the illusion that hegseth has support to folks paying half attention.

    In any event, tie Haley Stevens to Nancy pelosi and throw them in the middle of the ocean. And let their only rescue support be chuck schumer as navigator on a coast guard ship piloted by Hakeem jefferies, 400 miles away.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      23 hours ago

      Massie hates Trump. He’s Republican and I vehemently disagree with him on many issues, but he’s not MAGA. Massie is the kind of politician I can disagree with without hating.

      But there was also an opportunity for the Republicans here. If the impeachment had gone through and the Senate fast-tracked the trial and voted to remove him, the GOP Senators could have done some real damage control for their brand while punishing Trump for what he did to them AND getting to confirm the next SecDef.

  • thunder@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 day ago

    As few days as our Congress is in session, I don’t think it is too much to ask our Representatives to be present in or around the Capitol during business hours unless it is a life or death emergency. My employer wouldn’t keep me around if I was slacking off whenever I felt like it.

    • sugarcake@lemmy.zip
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      1 day ago

      We should assume it is deliberate. There will be a lot of “rotating villains”, “parliamentarians” and “bipartisanship” in the coming congress. Any excuse to not get anything good passed.

      All of it is bullshit. Many democrats want to protect the status quo in spite of the popular mandate for change.

      Don’t give them the benefit of the doubt.

      • Mo.@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Fucking Hydra bullshit. Hate it.

        We need to expose and get rid of all of them.

  • obvs@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    AIPAC Shakur didn’t fight to impeach the guy who attacked Iran?

    Can’t imagine why.

    • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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      33 minutes ago

      I know it’s a good pun, but we should really stop perverting the name of one of the most influential black political activists to make fun of this assclown.

    • tempest@lemmy.ca
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      23 hours ago

      Nah this is just what you are supposed to do after you vote for the lesser of two evils, you try and make the lesser even more lesser.

      It’s why it was crazy for people to not vote for Kamala because the Democrats didn’t promise to stop genociding and in the process get the guy in who wants to genocide harder.

      • deathmetaldawgy@lemmy.ml
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        19 hours ago

        I know I’m digging my grave mentioning this here but, genocide is bad no matter who does it and more Palestinians were killed under Biden than under Trump. Not that the numbers themselves matter because any innocent Palestinian, or Iranian, or other person killed unjustifiably by Democrats is enough to take my vote away completely.

        Also the facts from polling shows directly, if every single person who voted 3rd party because of democrats genocide and violence Kamala still wouldn’t have won. So it’s not about supporting Trump by not supporting Kamala it’s about not supporting Kamala’s support of Bidens style of Genocide thru Isreal.

        I do 100% agree about the making lesser evils actually lesser, tho, that’s good shit

      • holy_scroller@lemmy.zip
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        19 hours ago

        In their defense, Kamala only held 95% of their beliefs while the other guy promised a blank check to Netanyahu…so it was a really tough choice.

  • rynn@piefed.social
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    2 days ago

    Get ready for another year of protesting even with dems in Congress.

    Dems in Congress only means there’s a chance people will listen as opposed to before when there was no chance.

    We are NOT out of the woods yet.

    • DrDickHandler@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Americans aren’t getting out of the woods. Republicans aren’t leaving the White House regardless of what happens.

      • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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        14 hours ago

        Cool then the states can mobilize the Nat Guard who will effectively be independent due to no Commander and Chief to drag the profligates out. Hell there’s a good chance the military as a whole would ignore it for similar reasons of there is no chief, point is there are less than civil ways of removing Trump. If it causes war we can complete what Sherman failed to do, though I doubt we’ll need to burn Atlanta this time 'round.

      • ExperiencedWinter@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        A few months ago comments like this were saying that the election was cancelled… Turns out being a doomer doesn’t actually accomplish anything.

  • Folstar@lemmus.org
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    23 hours ago

    First order of business for whoever replaces that twat Jeffries in 2027, bring back remote/proxy voting. There are so many antiquated aspects to our government that desperately need updating. Remote voting is far from the most important, but it is the one that will help make the others a reality.

  • TrackenDaKracken@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I’m very disappointed in my rep, Melanie Stansbury. She won’t get my vote again. I wrote a message to her on the government contact form, saying as much. Fat lot of good that will do.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Jeffries didn’t even whip the vote. He told people to ‘vote their conscience,’ and 11 members of his caucus didn’t show up,” writer Laura Bassett wrote on social media. “This is why people want a stronger leader.”

    Jeffries is a piece of shit and shouldn’t be anywhere near any leadership position…

    But whipping votes is the job of the second in line…

    A job with the literal title “minority whip”…

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Clark

    We can’t just focus on two popular names, we need to flush all the neoliberals out of leadership.

    All that being said, votes just happen whenever with no warning. It’s way past time that these votes need to be scheduled in advance. Instead of “vote starts now” at least “vote starts in 24 hour, exactly at ____ o’clock”

    Once the main vote happens, there can be exceptions for follow ups, like “next vote in one hour”

    The current way shit is done is fucking stupid

    • Carl@anarchist.nexus
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      2 days ago

      All that being said, votes just happen whenever with no warning. It’s way past time that these votes need to be scheduled in advance. Instead of “vote starts now” at least “vote starts in 24 hour, exactly at ____ o’clock”

      Yeah, it’s worth noting because the vote was called right after many Dems left for a break. And then when the call went out for all the Dems to scramble back, many were too far away and couldn’t make it before the vote was held.

      • Instigate@aussie.zone
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        1 day ago

        Is that a thing that can happen? Here in Australia our parliament is designed in such a way that the chamber (House or Senate) is no more than three minutes walk from every parliamentarian’s office and, when a vote is held where a formal division is required, they ‘ring the bells’ (literally a ringing bell with alarms in every office) for exactly four minutes so every parliamentarian has the ability to make it to the chamber for the vote before they lock the doors. To design a parliament or congress building in any other way seems insane to me.

        • kestrel7_7@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          That sounds like a good system set up in good faith. The USA government was set up in very bad faith, by men who thought they could own people like cattle

          • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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            14 hours ago

            Id personally argue that this isn’t an issue of bad faith and moreso an issue of being out of date and then being used in bad faith. We are talking about a system that was set up when the steam engine was still very new and the fastest way to move around was by boat and by horse, your kinda hard capped on how fast you can move at the time. A lot of the federal systems in particular make a lot of sense when you factor in just how old a lot of it is, looking at you electoral college.

          • teslekova@lemmy.ml
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            1 day ago

            We designed our system in the 1890s, learning from both the US and British systems, and others. The writers of our Constitution did a pretty amazing job, but they had the advantage of hindsight.

      • SabinStargem@lemmy.today
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        2 days ago

        Voting by our representatives should take place over the course of a week. They can use web cameras to discuss the topic, a publicly recorded version of Discord, and so on. I want my reps to drink coffee, talk out the issues, and be able to submit their vote without time pressure.

        Our systems are rooted in being physically present, yet make mental presence optional.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        It’s honestly depressing how little thought people put into this stuff, not every rage addict is a trump supporter these days. Uninformed angry people are all over, and they really want to share opinions

    • CountVon@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      A job with the literal title “minority whip”…

      That is not the official title for that position, though it’s commonly called that. The official title is Assistant Minority Leader, because the person in that position reports to the House Minority Leader. Katherine Clark shares responsibility for this failure, but the buck stops at the top, and that’s Jeffries. It’s literally part of Jeffries’ job to tell the Assistant which votes should get whipped. The Assistant doesn’t typically decide that on their own.

    • 🇨🇦GreenBeard🇨🇦@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      That’s why majority leader is an important position. Because they’re SUPPOSED to keep this kind of childish bullshit from happening. If you elect adults, this doesn’t happen. If you elect children (including those AARP age), you get the level of administration you voted for.

      • Taldan@lemmy.world
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        21 hours ago

        The childish bullshit is just politics

        Mike Johnson made a strong move here. The vote never actually mattered. It was political theater. Zero chance Hegseth was even getting impeached and convicted

        The whole thing was just getting Republicans on record defending him, but Johnson managed to make the plan explode on Democrats. Now everyone is pissed at Democrats over a vote that didn’t matter

        • 🇨🇦GreenBeard🇨🇦@lemmy.ca
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          20 hours ago

          No, childish bullshit is Republican politics. I wish people who thought this was what politics was for would either grow the fuck up or get the hell out of the room while the grownups talk, but here we are, with half of America thinking juvenile pranks and “For the LULZ” is just how the country works. Every Republican from Johnson down should be ashamed, but we already know they don’t have the capacity for that. Jefferies failure to keep his team on side in the lame duck sessions is a failure of leadership. Republicans having no dignity or morals isn’t news anymore.

  • cocorio@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Majority of dems who didn’t vote, also had funding to their campaigns through aipac. Looking at you Marylin Strickland.