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Title: Cheer Up, Justin Amash! There’s No Need to Cry Over One Missed Vote.
Source:
Slate
URL Source: [None]
Published: Mar 10, 2017
Author: By Osita Nwanevu
Post Date: 2017-03-31 03:47:51 by Gatlin
Keywords: None
Views: 2075
Comments: 10
Congressman Justin Amash of Michigan was speaking to the press about the GOP’s Obamacare replacement in the speaker's lobby of the House of Representatives when, as Politico reported Friday afternoon, a sudden realization dawned on him. He asked the gaggle the status of a vote on the floor. A reporter informed him that she believed a vote on an amendment was underway. Then this happened: Amash, after a 4,289 vote streak stretching back to his 2011 arrival in the House, had just missed his first vote. “When he realized his streak had just ended,” Politico’s Rachael Bade and Jennifer Haberkorn wrote, “the blunt-spoken congressman broke down in tears.”* The new streak-holder, Arkansas Rep. Steve Womack, released a statement immediately. “I am humbled by the opportunity to serve my constituents and thank God that no personal hardships have kept me from representing them on a single vote since taking office,” Amash's fellow Republican said. Why was Amash brought to tears? Does he genuinely believe missing a single vote in more than half a decade is a substantive fault on his record? Politico implies, and Amash would certainly have voters believe, this is the case—he is “one of the few House members who personally justifies and explains his every vote on his Facebook page for constituents.” This suggests a commitment to the service of others that might have puzzled one of Amash’s idols, Ayn Rand, whose portrait he hangs in his congressional office. Amash has praised the author of The Virtue of Selfishness for her vision of a society where limited government makes possible the unleashing of “rational heroes.” It is plausible that Amash will be turning to the consoling words of one Randian hero to console himself tonight. “I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life,” Howard Roark says in The Fountainhead. “No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need.” The need for Amash's voice on this vote, which failed 225 to 185, with 19 not voting, was perhaps not that great. *Correction, March 10, 2017: This post originally misspelled Rachael Bade’s first name.
Rep. Justin Amash, far right, exits the Senate chamber on Capitol Hill on May 31, 2015.
Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesAmash immediately sprinted into the chamber and tried to put his card in the voting slot to cast his yea or nay, but the vote had closed.
Amash approached floor staff and leadership to see if they could either re-open the vote or call it again. Staff said there was no precedent for doing so. Amash hung his head low and was overcome with emotion, those on the floor told POLITICO.
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#3. To: Gatlin (#0)
That part was pretty funny. But they aren't telling us how many votes are in Womack's record of not missing a vote. Womack, like Amash, has been in the House since 2011. However, depending on committee assignments, Amash probably had accumulated more votes.
This is a test. The original is 2000x1333. I will specify the width only to be 750 and see what happens. If it blows the picture off the right side of the page….I will remove it and you may see only a blank space. Edit....how about that?
#6. To: Tooconservative (#5)
(Edited)
There are just too many pictures of these 3 together....I keep seeing them everywhere. I wonder if the Freedom Caucus can get Rand a second office over on the House side ...
I'm not sure how you got that particular image. It is in the rather rare format {img src="data:image/jpeg;base64,..."}. That is hardly used any more and, when it is used, is usually for a little icon that is 16x16 or 32x32. The true size of your image was 275x183. But it does display at the size you wanted in Firefox, Safari (Mac), and Chrome (Google) and in the correct aspect ratio. I gave it the correct size with a width=275. And it adjusted the height automatically. If you wonder what is the difference with this img src=data: format, it is this: using the data: format, you include all the actual data and it can be posted on any text-only forum (like LF) and the originating website does not record any hits from people here at LF loading this thread. So the site you're stealing the picture from doesn't know you stole it. However, that picture is 12,888 bytes instead of less than 100 if you just linked to it the way we normally do with img src="http://slate.com/somepicture.jpg. But posting pictures with the data: format results in really huge amounts of text being added to a thread. For a 1024x768 pic it would probably be 200,000 bytes or more. A normal thread here takes a lot less. That Newt video thread with a half-dozen comments on it and its embedded video tag only use 20,000 bytes. Another advantage of the data: format is that even if the source website pulls their pic off the entire internet (which normally will wreck any linked image), the copy posted here at LF will remain forever. If you ever want to deliberately create such a picture, you can use DataUrl.Net. Just download the picture you want to your computer and then drag-drop it onto that DataURL.Net page and it will give you the file in data: format.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestThe new streak-holder, Arkansas Rep. Steve Womack, released a statement immediately. “I am humbled by the opportunity to serve my constituents and thank God that no personal hardships have kept me from representing them on a single vote since taking office,” Amash's fellow Republican said.
#5. To: Tooconservative (#3)
(Edited)
Replies to Comment # 5. 
#7. To: Gatlin (#5)
(Edited)
This is a test. The original is 2000x1333. I will specify the width only to be 750 and see what happens.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 5.
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