A strange thing happened Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill.

As Rep. Stenny Hoyer (D-MD) attempted to call for a vote to extend a payroll tax cut to middle class and working Americans, his Republican colleagues adjourned the House and walked out of the chamber. And if that weren’t odd enough, it got even stranger: As Hoyer railed against them for failing to help working Americans, footage from C-SPAN went silent, then cut away.

Moments later, C-SPAN took to the Internet to explain that it wasn’t their doing, but someone working for House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH).

via Boehner’s office cuts off C-SPAN cameras as GOP takes verbal beating | The Raw Story.

You can see the video here before Boehner had it cut off.

The bill passed the Senate 89-10, after the partisan House version failed.  So now the House refused to vote on the Senate version (Republicans don’t want to be seen voting down a working class tax cut…but they want to vote against it), and instead tries to reconcile the two versions.

What the video shows is the Republicans cutting off debate and refusing to vote on the Senate version…they had to cut off the video or Cantor’s lies about what happened might seem plausible.

UPDATE:

“We regret, Mr. Speaker, that you have walked off the platform without addressing the issue of critical importance to this country, and that is the continuation of the middle class tax cut, the continuation of unemployment benefits for those at risk of losing them, and a continuation of the access to doctors for all those 48 million seniors who rely on them daily for help.”

And that’s when the audio cut out. Seconds later, footage faded to a shot of the capitol from outside.

Moments later, someone at C-SPAN took to Twitter and explained: “C-SPAN has no control over the U.S. House TV cameras – the Speaker of the House does.”