Still Tea'd Off

The revolt of the Tea Party against the GOP leadership continues in the House.  Tuesday it was the PATRIOT Act failing to pass under expedited rules, now of all the things to fail, New York Republicans led by Rep. Peter King have defeated a measure that would strip funding from the United Nations.

A bill that would retrieve money already paid to the United Nations failed Wednesday afternoon 259-169, 290 votes were needed for passage. The bill is the third to fail under House stewardship this week. The U.N. bill would have return $179 million that was paid into the U.N. tax equalization fund.

The measure was brought up under House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's (R-Va.) signature budget slashing initiative, known as YouCut, under suspension of House rules that required two-thirds vote for passage.

Several GOP sources said Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) had lobbied against the U.N. bill, at the urging of New York city officials. King had spoken to New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly about the funding.

King spoke on the House floor Wednesday, saying defeating the bill is "a matter of life and death."

This one wasn't even close to the 290 votes needed either, it failed by 31.  Why hold a vote on something that was so clearly doomed, especially after Tuesday's mildly embarrassing  PATRIOT Act loss?

It's like Orange Julius and Eric Cantor have no clue what they are doing.  It's one thing to cut this in the FY 2012 budget, but stripping money already allocated to the UN requires a two-thirds vote, and the Republicans knew this ahead of time.  If this was a symbolic gesture to force Senate Dems and the White House to kill the legislation, that's one thing...but you actually have to carry the vote in the House to be symbolic.

These guys haven't even been in charge of the House for a month now and they're already looking like fools, holding pointless votes on legislation that never had a chance of passing.

Where are the jobs, Mr Speaker?  That's what you promised America, right?