Question about Senate rules / swearing in Oil Execs

[mestup]

Why is it "out of order" to ask that Oil Execs swear in before the Senate committee? Does the committee chair have that much arbitrary power?

BTW, someone needs to call the Alaska Alzheimer's Care Center and tell them Ted Stevens has wandered off again.

[punpirate]

1. I didn't see the hearings...

... but the general routine would be for the committee chair to swear in any witnesses. Now, if the committee chair failed to do so, it would be proper for another committee member to make a point of order and indicate that the witness(es) had not been sworn.

If the chair then blew the point of order off and did not swear the witness, then it's clear intent to protect the witnesses from possible perjury.

[mestup]

3. That's what I wondered.

Right after Alzheimer's Stevens denied the "swearing in," I heard someone else say they seconded the motion.

Dirty dealings in the Senate to protect BigFatOil,Inc.

[rpannier]

2. I hear he'll quit if they take the funding away from his bridge.

Be a shame if he quit. But, I'm sure the governor has another family member he could appoint.

[roguevalley]

4. I wish he would. Of course, they could appoint his son Ben, who is

a first class thief and bastard in training to take Uncle Satan's place.

[Lindsay]

5. Committee chairs seem to have a great deal of

arbitrary power.

Who was the guy who shut off the microphones to end a hearing a while back?

Then there was Bill Thomas, who called the cops on Dems in the Ways and Means Committee to get them out of a committee meeting room he didn't want them in.

And apparently there are lots of committee meetings that just totally exclude the Dems.

So much for "the peoples' house."

[Starbucks Anarchist]

6. James Sensenbrenner cut off the mics that time.

[Lindsay]

7. You're right. Thanks.

I think I was trying to repress that memory.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

8. I still remember his fat face from C-SPAN.

:scared: