Politics Congress - the body you love to hate

rogue49 · Nov 21, 2013

And we go "nuclear"...

Democrats were forced to go ‘nuclear’ at last
By Eugene Robinson, Thursday, November 21 2013

Way to nuke ’em, Harry.

It was time — actually, long past time — for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to invoke the “nuclear option” and ask his colleagues to change the Senate’s rules. This isn’t about partisan politics. It’s about making what has been called “the world’s greatest deliberative body” function the way the Framers of the Constitution intended.

Recently, it has barely functioned, as Republicans abused the old rules to prevent the chamber from performing its enumerated duties. There was a time when the minority party in the Senate would have been embarrassed to use such tactics in pursuit of ends that are purely political, but we seem to live in an era without shame.

This month, Republicans used the filibuster to block three of President Obama’s nominees to serve on the 11-seat D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, often described as the second most powerful court in the land.

There was no suggestion that any of the nominees — Patricia Millett, Cornelia “Nina” Pillard and Robert L. Wilkins — was in any way unqualified to sit on the court. There was no hint of controversy or scandal. There was no good reason to reject any of them, yet Republicans decided to filibuster all three. And since the Democratic majority controls just 55 votes, short of the 60 needed to break a filibuster, three long-vacant seats on the D.C. court remained unfilled.

There is a stated reason, an ideological reason and a real reason for this pattern of GOP intransigence, each more bogus than the last.

The stated reason is that the judges are not needed because the understaffed court is managing to handle its workload. This is a smoke screen, not an argument. There was no such attempt to set ad hoc standards of jurisprudential productivity when George W. Bush was choosing the nominees.

The ideological reason is that, without the three nominees, the court is balanced: Four of its judges are Republican appointees, four are Democratic appointees. Obama, by naming these judges, is allegedly trying to “pack” the court with liberals. But this view, which the GOP can’t be serious about, is a nullification of the way the system is supposed to work. The three seats on the court are vacant. The president who happens to be in office when vacancies arise gets to name qualified replacements, which Obama has done. If Republicans want to appoint more judges, they should win more presidential elections.

The real reason is that the Republican political strategy for working with Obama is not to work with him at all. Whatever Obama favors, the GOP opposes. Simple as that.

It wasn’t possible, of course, for Republican senators to block every nominee sent over by the White House. But Obama has seen far more of his executive and judicial nominations die by filibuster than his predecessors.

The Senate’s assigned role in presidential appointments is to “advise and consent” — a duty to be taken seriously. It is inevitable that politics come into play in confirmations. But, ultimately, the president has to be allowed to do his duty and fill vacancies.

By blocking these three nominations in rapid succession, Republicans knew they were daring Reid and the Democrats to act. Accepting the invitation, the Democrats changed the rules Thursday so that executive and judicial nominations — except for the Supreme Court — can go forward with a simple majority rather than 60 votes.

To hear the Republican reaction, you’d think someone was mandating that senators hold their sessions naked.

There was utter dismay that Reid would even dream of using an arcane parliamentary maneuver to change rules that GOP leaders — who once threatened to do the very same thing — now describe in terms befitting religious commandments. Reality check: The Constitution says nothing about the filibuster, and the Senate’s procedures have never been set in stone.

Republicans warn that Democrats will eventually find themselves in the minority — and rue the day when they limited the filibuster. That may well be true. But even veteran Democrats who were reluctant to tamper with the Senate’s traditions got tired of seeing those traditions abused. Reid made clear that he understands the consequences and is prepared to live with them.

The Senate was designed by the Founders to move slowly, not to be paralyzed. Republican obstruction of presidential appointments makes the government less able to do the people’s work — and less reflective of the people’s will. Elections are supposed to have consequences.

It was time to push the button.
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And yes, I'm glad they pushed the button too.
But it's scary...because it can have unintended consequences...as politics changes. I don't always like what the Dems do...or any other party.
However, let's see if it works.

I guess they could always change back...hell, they did for a whole damn amendment or two.

And some perspectives to consider for both sides, good and bad...

Nine reasons the filibuster change is a huge deal
By Ezra Klein, Updated: November 21, 2013

1. The change the Senate made today is small but consequential: The filibuster no longer applies to judicial or executive-branch nominees. It still applies to bills and Supreme Court nominations.

2. Well, technically it still applies to all bills and Supreme Court nominations. In practice, legislation that mainly uses the government's tax and spending powers can evade the filibuster using the budget reconciliation procedures. That's how George W. Bush's tax cuts passed, and how Obamacare was finished. As for the Supreme Court, it's very hard to believe that Democrats or Republicans would accept filibusters of qualified Supreme Court nominees, either. And, as Democrats proved today, they don't have to.

3. The filibuster now exists in what you might call an unstable equilibrium. It theoretically forces a 60-vote threshold on important legislation. But it can — and now, in part, has —been undone with 51 votes. Its only protection was the perceived norm against using the 51-vote option. Democrats just blew that norm apart. The moment one party or the other filibusters a consequential and popular bill, that's likely the end of the filibuster, permanently.

4. The practical end of the Senate's 60-vote threshold is not plunging the chamber into new and uncharted territories. It's the omnipresence of the filibuster in recent decades that plunged the chamber into new and uncharted territories. At the founding of the Republic, the filibuster didn't exist. Prior to the 1970s, filibusters — which required 67 votes to break for most of the 20th century — were incredibly rare.

5. As Gregory Koger, a University of Miami political scientist who researches the filibuster, told me: “Over the last 50 years, we have added a new veto point in American politics. It used to be the House, the Senate and the president, and now it’s the House, the president, the Senate majority and the Senate minority. Now you need to get past four veto points to pass legislation. That’s a huge change of constitutional priorities. But it’s been done, almost unintentionally, through procedural strategies of party leaders.”

6. The rise of the filibuster and the death of the filibuster can be traced to the same fundamental cause: Party polarization. Before the two parties became reasonably unified and disciplined ideological combatants, filibusters were rarely used as a tactic of inter-party warfare because each political party had both members who supported and opposed the bills in question. As that era waned, the filibuster became constant because parties could agree on what to oppose. But that's also why the filibuster's days were (and are) numbered: The majority party agrees on what to support, and continual filibusters against those items increase the majority party's anger at the filibuster itself.

7. Republicans take a lot of the blame here. They've used the filibuster more aggressively than Democrats, by a wide margin. They've also been less willing to cooperate with Democrats on general legislative efforts, making the presence of the filibuster more costly to the Democratic Party. And they've been so unwilling to work with Democrats this year that they essentially removed all reason for Democrats to stay their hand. The way Senate Democrats saw it was that if they weren't going to get immigration reform or gun control or jobs bills or anything big that they cared about, then at least they would get their judicial and executive-branch nominations.

8. There's a lot of upside for Republicans in how this went down. It came at a time when Republicans control the House and are likely to do so for the duration of President Obama's second term, so the weakening of the filibuster will have no effect on the legislation Democrats can pass. The electoral map, the demographics of midterm elections, and the political problems bedeviling Democrats make it very likely that Mitch McConnell will be majority leader come 2015 and then he will be able to take advantage of a weakened filibuster. And, finally, if and when Republicans recapture the White House and decide to do away with the filibuster altogether, Democrats won't have much of an argument when they try to stop them.

9. With gun control dead, immigration reform on life support and bitter disagreement between the House and Senate proving the norm, it looked like the 113th Congress would be notably inconsequential. Today, it became notably consequential. It has changed how all congresses to come will work. Indeed, this might prove to be one of the most significant congresses in modern times. Today, the political system changed its rules to work more smoothly in an age of sharply polarized parties. If American politics is to avoid collapsing into complete dysfunction in the years to come, more changes like this one will likely be needed.
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rogue49 · Dec 30, 2013

Well, it looks like no one has anything to say about Congress...good or bad.
Or...they're just over it.

One pundit tried to sum it up...and assign blame.

Were the GOP the primary culprits?
Were the Dems in a more lackluster year...backing the wrong horse?
Or were they both guilty?

IMHO, the Dems weren't stellar students...but the GOP was the one flooding the bathroom stalls.
What do you think?

Juan Williams: Republicans to blame for the public's disgust with Congress
By Juan Williams - 12/30/13

As the year ends, Gallup reports that public approval of Congress averaged 14 percent during 2013. This, the polling firm points out, is “the lowest annual average in Gallup’s history.”

The pollsters added: “2013 is the only year in Gallup’s history in which all monthly readings were below 20 percent.”

Yet this is “the new normal,” according to Gallup, because in each of the last four years the congressional approval rating for the year has been below 20 percent.

It was such a bad year for Congress that Gallup predicts the 2014 midterm elections will not, fundamentally, be a fight over which party controls the House and Senate.

Instead, the campaign could hinge on the overwhelmingly negative view of Congress and the sense “that more Americans feel that problems are with the institution itself rather than with the particular party or people who control it.”

This brings us to the quote of the year about political life on Capitol Hill. It came from Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), defending the Republican-led House.

“We should not be judged on how many new laws we create,” he told CBS in July. “We ought to be judged on how many laws we repeal.”

This Republican strategy is at the heart of why Congress is so unpopular. They will not work on the big issues, beginning with their failure to deal with the number one public priority: creating jobs and boosting the economy.

Instead, the GOP’s congressional focus, according to the influential Republican Study Committee, is on extracting what they term “reforms” — really, they’re talking about budget cuts — in “mandatory spending” programs including food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. There is practically no desire for those cuts reflected in any polling.

As Campaign 2014 gets underway, Republicans are threatening another government shutdown tied to refusal to approve a debt-ceiling hike to pay bills. Their demand is for President Obama to make major cuts to programs such as Social Security.

The reduced-government, reduced-spending, reduced-federal-power strategy extends to the Senate where Republicans have used an historic number of filibusters and threats to block nominees to Obama administration posts and judicial seats. That led Senate Democrats to the “nuclear option,” opening the door to simple majority votes on most nominees.

But even with rules changes intended to break gridlock, the economy continues to struggle partly as a result of the GOP strategy.

This is not winning Republicans friends or votes. Only after the awful start for the ObamaCare website did generic polls on voter preference briefly lean toward the GOP. But at year end, polling on the question of generic preference now swings back and forth between the parties.

Now the Speaker is disavowing his earlier desire to have his party’s success in Congress measured by how many laws it repeals. His new talking point revolves around the number of bills passed by the GOP House that the Democratic majority in the Senate has ignored.

But even if all those bills, about 150, are counted, it does not change Congress’ absurdly low approval ratings and this Congress’ ranking, at the mid-point of the 113th Congress, as the least productive in modern times.

Of course, about a third of those bills that did pass the House called for repeal or defunding of ObamaCare. They had no chance in the Senate and no hope of avoiding a presidential veto.

Even by the standards of a divided Congress, with Republicans controlling the House and Democrats in the majority in the Senate, there has never been such an unproductive session of Congress.

NBC’s “First Read” recently published a chart comparing the productivity of today’s divided Congress (57 laws passed) to the work undertaken by a divided Congress during President Reagan’s terms – when Republicans controlled the Senate and Democrats controlled the House. The 97th, 98th and 99th Congresses respectively passed 473 laws, 623 laws, and 663 laws.

The article concluded: “It’s not even a close call. That [Democratic] House got a lot more done with its GOP rivals than this GOP House has with its [Democratic] counterparts.”

The failure to deal with the nation’s big issues begins with the Republican refusal to help the economy get better. The public is aware of the damage the Republican majority in the House inflicted upon the country when they shut down the government in October — an action that came with a price tag of $24 billion, according to the financial services firm Standard & Poor’s.

The Republican strategy of congressional inaction has not even won fans among Republicans. According to Gallup, Democrats give Congress a 14 percent approval rating, Independents an 11 percent approval rating and Republicans a 10 percent approval rating.

There is constant attention in the news to Obama’s falling approval ratings in the polls — Real Clear Politics’ average of polls has him at 54 percent disapproval to 42.2 percent approval, near his all-time low.

But even if this is the darkest hour for the president, he still holds close to a 30-percentage point lead in approval over Congress.

At a Christmas party last week a Republican who owns several television stations came over to me with an idea: How about starting a movement to throw out the entire Congress and start over?

I thought he was joking and politely smiled. But he recounted how two radio personalities in California started the movement that led to the recall of Gov. Gray Davis (D) in 2003.

Now he wants he wants me and major television personalities, columnists and editorial writers to call for a “housecleaning” of all current members of Congress.

Well, this is the time for New Year’s resolutions.

Juan Williams is an author and political analyst for Fox News Channel.
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rogue49 · Jan 15, 2014

OMG! They are friggin' doing their job!!!

House approves bipartisan spending bill

Baraka_Guru · Jan 16, 2014

rogue49 said: ↑

OMG! They are friggin' doing their job!!!

House approves bipartisan spending bill
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i thought this was weird because I didn't read about a lot of hoopla leading up to it.

Did I just miss it up here in the Great White North?

rogue49 · Jan 16, 2014

Baraka_Guru said: ↑

i thought this was weird because I didn't read about a lot of hoopla leading up to it.

Did I just miss it up here in the Great White North?
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Nope...the Senate still has to approve it...but it's actually more than likely.
The amazing thing was how many on both sides of the aisle voted for it. It was like the "good ol' days".

I guess they all want to be focused on their upcoming elections or assisting others with theirs and not stuck arguing in DC.
Forgive me for being cynical...but I've come to expect the lowest common denominator from these folk.

rogue49 · Mar 3, 2014

Wistful thoughts of political times of yesteryear.
But I wonder if sentiments like this have been said throughout the same years.

Seems to waver back & forth between sand & crazy.
I do agree about the money aspect though...need to rein that back in.

Although I'll "edit" the title and say the GOP are bat-shit crazy and the Dems are "Spineless"

How Republicans lost their minds, Democrats lost their souls and Washington lost its appeal
By Robert G. Kaiser, Published: February 28

Robert G. Kaiser, a native Washingtonian, joined The Washington Post as a summer intern in 1963. After working as a local reporter, a foreign correspondent, an editor and, from 1991 to 1998, the paper’s managing editor, he retired in February.

‘Do you miss Washington yet?”

A friend asked me this on the phone the other day, and — like a longtime Washingtonian — I avoided a full and frank reply. “Not yet,” I said.

It’s an odd sensation, leaving the town I’d lived in for most of my 70 years, ending my 50-year career at The Washington Post, turning my back on the political circus that enthralled me for so long. But a more honest answer would have been this: I don’t miss Washington, and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon.

Why? Because for me, the fun has drained out of the game. So has the substance. I used to get excited about the big issues we covered — civil rights, women’s liberation, the fate of the country’s great cities, the end of the Cold War. I loved the politicians who brought those issues to life, from Everett McKinley Dirksen and Howard Baker (Dirksen’s son-in-law, curiously) to Russell B. Long and Edmund Muskie, from Bob Dole to George Mitchell — all people who knew and cared a great deal about governing. Watching them at work was exhilarating. Watching their successors, today’s senators and representatives, is just depressing.

I realized just how depressing last October, when Congress voted on legislation that would raise the debt ceiling — allowing the Treasury to pay the debts Congress had already incurred — and keep the government open. This was exciting, but perversely so. On Oct. 16, 162 members of Congress, 144 in the House and 18 in the Senate, voted “no,” votes meant explicitly to drive their government into bankruptcy, when there was a real chance that their view might prevail. Here was an entirely new style of public service, and it turned my stomach.

Those 162 votes reflected the deep hostility felt by the newest version of Republican lawmakers toward the government of their country. It is a cynical and often uninformed hostility, befitting the age we live in. And it has many adherents in a country with an elaborate regulatory and welfare state that many like to pretend we don’t really have, don’t really need and don’t really like — three blatant falsehoods.

Lies and intellectual inventions are now typical of our public life, which made Washington difficult for me. Of course, a politician lying is hardly a shock, but there is a difference between telling untruths (see Nixon, Richard M.) and making stuff up. I liked Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s dictum: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”

That seems so old-fashioned now, when global-warming deniers hold forth on the floors of the House and the Senate, and numerous Republicans merrily denounce our moderate president as a “Socialistic dictator,” in the recent words of Rep. Randy Weber (R-Tex.). I haven’t met Weber, but I have met some of the other House Republicans whose intellectual output can be equally baffling. One of my frustrations in recent years has been the journalistic conventions that can make it difficult to speak or write in a straightforward way about people such as Weber who make preposterous statements — and act as though they believe them. What is the appropriate journalistic response to Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) when he announces that evolution and the Big Bang theory are all “lies straight from the pit of hell”?

Not that Democrats are all clever and insightful; far from it. The intellectual firepower in Congress declined sharply during my years in Washington. Lawmakers who read books, have their own ideas, care about policy issues and believe in government have become rarer than Redskins victories. Where once we had Sen. Philip Hart (D-Mich.) and Rep. Richard Bolling (D-Mo.), for example, now we have Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.). Did you listen to Baucus testify about China, where he is soon to be our ambassador? (“I am no real expert on China.”) Have you heard Jackson Lee hold forth, for example, on Vietnam? (“Today we have two Vietnams, side by side, North and South . . . living in peace.”) Not inspiring.

But the most consequential political development in my time has been the transformation of the Grand Old Party. When I was young, we had Republicans who liked to govern, resisted political orthodoxy, made strong friendships with Democrats and took principled positions on difficult issues. We have forgotten that Lyndon B. Johnson’s civil rights bills, perhaps the most important legislation passed in my decades in Washington, were possible only because of Senate Republicans such as Dirksen of Illinois, Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania and Jacob Javits of New York. The idea that Javits and Barry Goldwater were both Republicans in the same Senate is, by today’s standards, astounding.

Now the anti-government right wing dominates the GOP. Vigilantes from the Club for Growth and Heritage Action campaign to eliminate every Republican in Congress who toys with moderation or considers collaborating with Democrats. The vigilantes’ key allies are members of “the base,” the party activists who make up perhaps 10 to 15 percent of the country’s population but can control the Republican nominating process. The base consists principally of white evangelical Christians who, the pollsters tell us, fear that their America is disappearing. Of course they are right; it has probably disappeared already. Their America would not have elected a black president.

The Democratic Party has also changed profoundly. It lost its white Southerners, who are now all Republicans, and lost its conservative wing. The modern Democrats are a more liberal alliance of, mostly, interest groups: women, trade unionists, gay men and lesbians, blacks, Hispanics, and most of the country’s intellectuals. Balancing the interests of all of them has been challenging and at times has left the Democrats electorally vulnerable.

I just called them “liberal,” a word Democrats from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Hubert Humphrey invoked with pride. But today’s Democrats have been avoiding that word, a sign of the fundamental insecurity that has crippled them. I think Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich deserve most of the credit for spooking them.

Reagan’s 1980 landslide victory surprised the Democrats in Congress and left them confused about what they believed. Once they had genuine leaders — Humphrey was one, Robert F. Kennedy another — who could forcefully articulate a liberal platform with broad appeal, but those leaders had no successors. When Reagan announced, in his first inaugural address, that “government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem,” Democrats seemed helpless to reply. Instead they caved. In 1981, Democrats provided the votes in both the House and the Senate that enacted Reagan’s tax and spending cuts, as well as his defense buildup.

That same year, Democrats in the House elected a new chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Rep. Tony Coelho of California. It was a fateful choice. Coelho was remarkably good at the job. His colleagues saw him as a lifeline who would help them raise enough money to retain their House majority despite Reagan’s popularity. And he succeeded. Coelho convinced his fellow Democrats that in this new era, they had to raise money from business interests — just like Republicans. He set up new ways for those interests to make their wishes known to House Democrats. Democrats listened, took the money and retained big majorities. All it cost them was their soul.

The 1980s changed America. These were the years when corporations and wealthy individuals organized to fight back against the liberal forces that had dominated the ’60s and ’70s. Moneyed interests organized new groups, especially political action committees that were prepared to spend large sums to achieve their political objectives. This began the three-decade process that has made money the most important element of our public life, a form of pollution way beyond the reach of the Environmental Protection Agency.

As money became more and more important to congressional candidates, Democrats, especially in the House, became less and less effective in their historic role as the allies and defenders of the little guy. Their electoral successes every two years dulled their competitive skills. They had little to offer by way of new policies or ideas. They became smug, self-satisfied, too willing to engage in the petty corruptions that four decades in control made so easy. Instead of defending the little guy, Democrats helped themselves.

Newt Gingrich understood the opportunity those ’80s Democrats had created for Republicans. Gingrich was the most effective and most destructive political figure I encountered in five decades covering Washington. He invented the partisan warfare that has produced today’s gridlock. He encouraged the disregard for facts that has defiled our public life. He believed, fiercely, that the end justified the means. The end he sought was a Republican House, and he had no qualms about how it was achieved or maintained. He and his successor as lead enforcer, Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas, helped destroy collegiality in Washington.

I won’t rail against the wind. I understand that, beginning with the passage of Proposition 13 in California in 1978, a tax revolt spread across the land. Americans who once trusted their government now distrusted it, profoundly. This was not irrational. The appalling war in Vietnam, the venality of Watergate, the now-forgotten but then-terrifying Great Inflation of the late 1970s — these huge events altered the relationship between citizens and their government. Americans began to realize that their standard of living, which grew so dramatically for nearly three decades after World War II, had stopped improving. The government wasn’t much use, and a new kind of Republican politician sought their votes on an anti-government platform, won power and ushered in a new era.

Washington became more of a winner-take-all community. But the percentage of winners in the capital seemed higher than in the rest of the country. One example of the winnings: Edward Bennett Williams, the most famous Washington lawyer in the 1970s and 1980s, paid himself an annual salary of $200,000 in 1971 and $1.7 million in 1985.

Suddenly, the sleepy Southern town of my youth was bubbling with money. A technology boom in Virginia, a biotech boom in Maryland, an extraordinary increase in government contracting throughout the region fueled by the Reagan administration’s privatization of a large part of the government — all this made Washington a new kind of Fat City.

Nearly everyone wanted a piece of the new action, so appointed officials, former members of Congress, and staffers from agencies and the Hill rushed to convert their public service into private gain — as lobbyists. This urge to cash in has no party loyalty; both Democrats and Republicans are infected.

There’s no denying that the money made Washington more fun — for those who could afford it. In the past 20 years my home town became a real city. Young people flocked here . Apartment houses sprung up along Massachusetts Avenue and then, amazingly, along 14th Street, which I can still remember ablaze in the riots of April 1968. The city’s cultural institutions boomed, even as my Washington Post shrunk. Major league baseball returned, the icing on a rich cake. I will miss all of this now that I have moved away.

But in other respects, Washington has made it easier to leave. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the town has become obsessed with security. The barriers and security checks everywhere felt more like the Moscow where I lived 40 years ago as a foreign correspondent than my home town. The Capitol, my favorite Washington haunt, became all but inaccessible to citizens who weren’t part of a formal tour group. The symbolism of that change seemed powerful.

The election of Barack Obama in 2008 provided an intriguing jolt to the culture of political Washington, but surprisingly quickly, his arrival confirmed how dysfunctional that culture had become. The election of 2010 made things worse, empowering the anti-government faction represented by the tea party. After 2010, and despite Obama’s reelection, Washington was victimized by the politics of lying, hating and avoiding the country’s huge problems. That’s when I began to realize that it might be time for me to leave.

I’m sure my age is a factor here. A man of 70 cannot sustain the excitement and optimism of youth. Still, all my instincts tell me that the dreadful politics of today cannot last indefinitely. Politicians who care more about partisan advantage than about keeping the country strong and vibrant are, I hope and believe, profoundly un-American.

The hardest thing to predict is discontinuity — a break from the patterns of today. But I think America is in for discontinuity. Something is going to happen to change this awful game we are playing. I will be reading the work of the wonderful crop of young journalists in Washington who I expect to keep me abreast of developments, as I tried to do when I was young and full of enthusiasm.

But I will be reading them from New York, where I am already looking for a new story to report on. I will miss my home town, the neighborhoods I grew up in, the shortcuts and native’s tricks that I mastered over many years. I will miss the city’s majestic public spaces and an army of personal friends. And I will miss the Nats, the best thing to happen to Washington in years. So I’ll be in the stands at Citi Field in Queens on March 31, opening day, to watch them beat the New York Mets.
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rogue49 · Mar 28, 2014

Pretty much says it all for the coming election...

rogue49 · May 7, 2014

If people want to know why that their nation and government is fucked up,
they simply need to look in the mirror.

YOU vote them in.
YOU don't hold them accountable.
YOU don't remember the bullshit.

Ignorance is not bliss.

rogue49 · Jun 4, 2014

We need to have an Amendment to fix the voting fiasco that happens in the US.

This computer programmer solved gerrymandering in his spare time

It's NOT that difficult...unfortunately, we have the foxes ruling the hen-house. (they vote on their own pay too...of course)

Not only using an algorithm such as the one described.
But voting on weekends. Make it a holiday.
No blocks to voting.
Have to allow registering there.
and so on...

Also limit exploratory committees & SuperPacs, no more anonymous donations...also limit donations by corporations...businesses are NOT people
and the need millions of dollars to run successful campaign...you shouldn't be able to buy the election.

I'm tired of the BS.
If you can't win on your own, you don't deserve to win and be in power. Period

redux · Jun 4, 2014

As likely as a Constitutional Amendment that was the subject of hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday that focuses on campaign finance reform.

JOINT RESOLUTION

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States
relating to contributions and expenditures intended to affect
elections.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House
concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an
amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be
valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when
ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States:

``Article--

``Section 1. To advance the fundamental principle of political
equality for all, and to protect the integrity of the legislative and
electoral processes, Congress shall have power to regulate the raising
and spending of money and in-kind equivalents with respect to Federal
elections, including through setting limits on--
``(1) the amount of contributions to candidates for
nomination for election to, or for election to, Federal office;
and
``(2) the amount of funds that may be spent by, in support
of, or in opposition to such candidates.
``Section 2. To advance the fundamental principle of political
equality for all, and to protect the integrity of the legislative and
electoral processes, each State shall have power to regulate the
raising and spending of money and in-kind equivalents with respect to
State elections, including through setting limits on--
``(1) the amount of contributions to candidates for
nomination for election to, or for election to, State office;
and
``(2) the amount of funds that may be spent by, in support
of, or in opposition to such candidates.
``Section 3. Nothing in this article shall be construed to grant
Congress the power to abridge the freedom of the press.
``Section 4. Congress and the States shall have power to implement
and enforce this article by appropriate legislation.''.
<all>

Text - S.J.Res.19 - 113th Congress (2013-2014): A joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to contributions and expenditures intended to affect elections. | Congress.gov | Library of Congress
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This one could actually pass the Senate later this month, if not filibustered, then die a quiet death in the House.

I dont think we will ever see another Constitutional amendment given how divided the country has become.

rogue49 · Jun 4, 2014

redux said: ↑

As likely as a Constitutional Amendment that was the subject of hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday that focuses on campaign finance reform.

This one could actually pass the Senate later this month, if not filibustered, then die a quiet death in the House.

I dont think we will ever see another Constitutional amendment given how divided the country has become.
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Brilliant, I heard about this happening, I just didn't know the verbiage.

Now they just need to add in 3 things, or 3 additional new Amendments...a "Bill of Rights" for voting & elections.
- Rules on gerrymandering or constituent areas. (per Census data)
- Stipulate the election day to the weekends and make it a federal holiday. (2 days...not just one)
- Extended privs and definition on voting rights.

Actually, there is a slight chance that the GOP will allow this to go thru too....they've also been bitchin' also on the burdens of working the money.

I think the Dems are doing this before the election to leverage the argument,
but if it's submitted afterwards...if the GOP doesn't get what they want or enough of it...and they've soaked the area,
then they may not want the pain of big money anymore, because THEY expect results for their investment
...and the reflecting anger not getting the best bang for their buck.

rogue49 · Jun 16, 2014

And to show how much you hate them...

Poll: Congress historic midterm low
By: Jonathan Topaz - June 16, 2014 06:11 AM EDT

Congressional approval rating has hit its lowest mark in a midterm election year in at least 40 years, a new poll found.

According to a Gallup poll on Monday, 16 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing — the lowest rating in a midterm year since the firm began tracking the question in 1974. That’s down from 21 percent in 2010 and a high-water mark of 50 percent in 2002.

The survey comes after House Majority Leader Eric Cantor — whom many political observers thought would sail to reelection — lost to political novice Dave Brat in a shocking Republican primary for Virginia’s 7th district. Gallup reports that low congressional approval rating correlates with a higher incumbent losing percentage.

The findings are largely in line with a May Gallup poll that found that only 22 percent of Americans thought that most members of Congress deserve reelection, the lowest percentage Gallup has ever measured.

Americans also remain dissatisfied with the direction of the country, the poll says. Twenty-three percent of those surveyed are satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S., up just one point from 2010.

The poll also found that 44 percent of Americans think the economy is the most important problem in the U.S. That mark is far lower than the 69 percent of 2010, but at least 15 points higher than scores in 2006, 2002 and 1998.

The survey was conducted June 5-8 with 1,027 adults on landlines and cellphones. The margin for error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

© 2014 POLITICO LLC
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And yet...their own voters keep putting them back in.
And even more so...those that are the most contentious ...and block legislation or cooperation.
In truth, voters have no one to blame but themselves.
PAY ATTENTION FOLKS! Use your memory.

I don't know why I'm shouting, the ones most likely doing it aren't on this section, this board...hell, this internet.

rogue49 · Jun 30, 2014

This a GREAT summary overall about the political dynamics in the US.
It covers ALL sides.

Much better than typical media which is mostly looking for controversy.

The vital incoherent center
E.J. Dionne Jr. - June 29 at 7:55 PM

Here’s one political paradox: A substantial majority of Americans do not fit neatly into the conventional “liberal” and “conservative” boxes, yet there is no coherent political center. Those who dream of a middle-of-the-road third party are destined to be disappointed.

Here’s another: Groups broadly sympathetic to the Democratic Party significantly outnumber those sympathetic to the Republican Party. But in the smaller but influential universe of the ideologically committed, conservative Republicans outnumber liberal Democrats. The larger Democratic coalition has mixed convictions while the smaller Republican core is filled with passionate intensity.

Every decade or so, the Pew Research Center sorts the U.S. electorate into discrete groupings with interesting names. Pioneered by the legendary pollster Andrew Kohut in 1987, the political typology helps clarify reality by making the complexity of public opinion understandable. Voters aren’t “inconsistent.” They just don’t conform to a pre-fabricated left-center-right world.

Pew’s latest map of public opinion finds the electorate divided into eight groups. One of them, “Bystanders,” consists of Americans simply disconnected from politics. Three groups are the “anchors” of partisanship: “Steadfast Conservatives” and “Business Conservatives” are the bedrock of the Republican Party, while “Solid Liberals” are staunch Democrats.

The Republican “anchors” reflect the fundamental split in the GOP. The Steadfast group is conservative across the board, while the Business group is more pro-immigration and pro-Wall Street. This split does not overlap with the conflict over the tea party, since both groups are about equally partial to the movement. At the other end, Solid Liberals are, as their name suggests, “liberal across the board” on major issues.

The two conservative groups constitute 22 percent of the general public (12 percent in the Steadfast category, 10 percent in the Business camp) while Solid Liberals account for 15 percent. The conservative lead widens (27 percent versus 17 percent) among registered voters, and it’s wider still among politically engaged Americans — 36 percent of them belong to the conservative groups, only 21 percent to the liberal one.

So if you wonder why Republicans have a hard time being moderate or conciliatory, the answer is clear enough: The bulk of their support comes from tuned-in, ideological conservatives. In the Democratic coalition, liberals are important but not dominant.

So why aren’t Republicans sweeping the country? The explanation can be found in the political center, and the report has bad news for those searching for a vital middle-ground politics. The center, the report finds, is “fragmented” because “there are many distinct voices in the center, often with as little in common with each other as with those who are on the left and the right.”

And it’s in the center where Democrats enjoy a major advantage. Of the four “less partisan, less predictable” groups, three lean Democratic.

The “Faith and Family Left” (15 percent of the electorate) is racially diverse, religious, pro-government and tilts socially conservative. The “Hard-Pressed Skeptics” (13 percent) are financially stressed pessimists who believe in government programs, preferred President Obama by a 40-point margin in 2012, but now lean Democratic in this fall’s congressional races by only 14 points. The “Next Generation Left” (12 percent) is made up of younger social liberals who support an activist government but worry about the cost of social programs.

The “Young Outsiders,” the sole Republican-leaning center group, have conservative views on government and economics but not on social issues and constitute 14 percent of the public.

Combining all of Pew’s categories, the pro-Republican groups add up to only 36 percent of the public, the pro-Democratic groups to 55 percent. (The rest are Bystanders.) Among registered voters, the Democratic-leaning groups have an edge of about 3-to-2 over the Republicans.

So why don’t Democrats win every election? We are back to intensity and to the fact that middle-ground Democratic groups have qualms about the party they lean toward. For 2014, the GOP groups are mobilized and largely united. Democrats, the survey found, are suffering a fall-off from their 2012 margins, particularly among the Hard-Pressed Skeptics and the Faith and Family crowd.

These numbers suggest that the outcome in November will depend in large part on the Democrats’ ability to strengthen themselves among voters still hurting economically — one reason Obama is having so many town halls in the heartland this summer — and to boost both turnout and support among the Faith and Family voters.

The bottom line: Republicans are prisoners of an older, deeply conservative base. The Democrats are hostage to a politically diverse but easily splintered coalition. And good luck to those trying to find a viable center.
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I love the term "Bystanders"...this is SO true...there is a huge section of society that just doesn't care or participate.
They don't know. They aren't aware. They don't vote often or it's inconsistent.
It's often just not in their worldview.
They do have opinions & values...it's only immediate to them and their own...not applied to politics, policy or the system.

Or some DO have some interest...it's just that they don't have time or mind to think about it...or act on it.
Yet, they are represented too in Congress and otherwise.

There's a difference between the apathetic and the engaged.
But apathetic use resources too and participate and add value to the nation still. They just aren't involved in politics.

ASU2003 · Jul 1, 2014

That is a good article. And it conveys my feelings of where the Democratic party is now. I received around 75 e-mails to donate in the past two days (I can't due to work, and even then...) But they don't seem to have a consistent message that they can all get behind. There is no 'perfect' left-winger who is the role model and demostrates how government programs can make life much easier. Along with protecting yourself from getting screwed over by greedy companies and opportunistic criminals.

All the left needs to do is come up with a video of what life would look like under a Ted Cruz presidency where the Tea Party held a large majority in both houses and a 6-3 supreme court. Along with many state governors and legislatures... Basically the situation where I would start viewing options to escape to a different country. And then show them what life in the perfect leftist world would look like. Something like Star Trek:TNG without the space ships. Have plans and details about how to get there. Explain how the progress made already has helped. And have the media start having guests from the left and further left debate some of these issues to get people on the same page.

rogue49 · Jul 1, 2014

Let the hate continue...
Congress Quietly Deletes a Key Disclosure of Free Trips Lawmakers Take

So decades of precedent...gone like that.

Obama should add this to his Congress Mocking Tour 2014

rogue49 · Jul 10, 2014

Uh...because it can.

Why Is the Senate Hobbling American Diplomacy?

Some day we'll get a Congress that actually does work again...

rogue49 · Jul 11, 2014

Florida judge throws out 2012 congressional redistricting plan

This is wonderful, I wish they'd do this throughout the US.

We desperately need a federal law that states it like they have in Florida.

Perhaps they can use this even and scenario as precedent.
and other judges could to the same...or groups sue for it...or press for laws like it.

No party should have advantage, period.

redravin · Jul 11, 2014

So the President is trying to get an emergency appropriations bill passed to help kids who are being shoved into camps and all Congress can find time to do is sue him for?
I'm consistently amazed at the level of drek these morons seem to think they can shovel our way.

rogue49 · Jul 21, 2014

I hate this "all or nothing" attitude.
Because, that's all we end up with...nothing.

Fix it...do your fuckin' job.
Otherwise, I'm paying you for zilch.

If I do nada for pay...I get fired.

… And Congress punts
By: Burgess Everett - July 21, 2014

Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill are united on one thing: The best strategy this election year is to punt on any big decisions.

Senate leaders are set to join the Republican House soon to replenish the ailing Highway Trust Fund for just a few months. When lawmakers return to Washington in September from the August recess, they’ll very likely have to come together on a short-term funding bill to keep the government open because the traditional appropriations process is bogged down.

And when kicking the can won’t work, lawmakers may simply avoid any decision at all. A deal to reform the Department of Veterans Affairs is faltering in the final stages while Congress is nowhere near an agreement to address the surge of children crossing the southern border. And forget any talk of a grand bargain on issues like immigration reform or a tax and budget package.

Congressional inaction is a time-honored tradition in the months before an election. But the stagnation in this Congress — even in the face of mounting national and international challenges — only bolsters the perception that this is really the least productive in history. And a thaw doesn’t appear to be in the offing as each party commits to seeking an elusive, post-election upper hand.

“The feeling has been: ‘Let’s just wait,’” said Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.), a retiring first-term senator who has long sought a comprehensive budget deal. “There’s just too much of a tendency [to say]: ‘Well, it’s an election year.’ It’s always an election year around here. It never ends.”

Each party thinks its lot will improve in just a few months. Democrats are hoping to keep their Senate majority and prod purple-state Republicans from places like Pennsylvania and Ohio into compromise during a presidential election cycle. Meanwhile, Republicans are fixated on taking back the Senate, giving them full control of Congress for the first time in nearly a decade.

There’s a bipartisan consensus, including from President Barack Obama, that a high-profile punt on the Highway Trust Fund is the worst of the worst, revealing that Congress can’t even agree on basic issues that affect virtually every American. But lawmakers are about to pass it anyway, with Obama’s signature sure to follow.

To avert an August slowdown in road construction, Congress is set to make changes to federal pension accounting and extend unrelated customs fees to pay for just a few months of certainty for an account whose long-term future is in constant jeopardy. The federal gas tax has been stagnant since 1993, cars are more efficient, and Congress is projected to spend $15 billion more than the tax collects annually.

Two immediate solutions are staring lawmakers straight in the face: Raise the gas tax to keep up with spending, or choke off the federal program and leave it to the states. Neither option would be popular with voters, so Congress is going with solution C: Fix it later.

“It’s the clearest form of generational theft that I’ve seen us do here,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), a supporter of a higher gas tax. “We really are throwing our children under the bus in the name of us not facing up to tough issues.”

Beyond tax writers who’ve pulled $10 billion out of a congressional magic hat to buy a few more months for road crews, it’s hard to find many cheering the short-term approach.

Last week, before the House approved the measure, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) railed against the legislation, calling it “a pathetic band-aid bill with pretend money that will limp us through the next nine months.” Retiring Rep. Tom Petri (R-Wis.) urged lawmakers to “stop the patches and budget gimmicks” and implored lawmakers to find political courage.

Both lawmakers then turned around and voted for the bill, joining 365 of their House colleagues. Just 55 lawmakers voted against the patch.

“We are doing exactly the wrong thing here,” fumed Rep. Reid Ribble (R-Wis.), a rare dissenter on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

For every important, if incremental, breakthrough like new farm or water bills, there’s an example of Capitol Hill sheltering itself from the political pain of exacting unpopular policies.

After a lengthy, painful government shutdown last fall, Democrats and Republicans agreed to a two-year budget resolution in December that would provide some long-term certainty while giving appropriators room to decide how money should be spent. The deal included saving money by slashing future veterans’ benefits, the most politically unpopular provision in the package.

About two months after Congress agreed to the budget resolution, lawmakers overwhelmingly reversed the veterans language. Just three senators opposed overturning the measure: Republicans Jeff Flake of Arizona and Dan Coats of Indiana plus Democrat Tom Carper of Delaware, a retired Navy captain.

Politicians “feel that it’s important for them at every opportunity to demonstrate our love and gratitude for veterans,” Carper said. “Somebody’s going to use that 30- or 60-second TV commercial and try to destroy you. For a lot of people, why take the chance?”

In 2012, lawmakers passed landmark flood insurance legislation aimed at cutting off subsidies to people living in flood-prone areas and stabilizing the national program’s finances. In March, lawmakers limited most of their own reforms to stop skyrocketing premiums, then patted themselves on the back.

“We have returned affordability as a centerpiece of the National Flood Insurance Program,” said Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), up for reelection in November.

The punting won’t stop anytime soon: Congress may break for a five-week August recess without agreements on either the veterans bill or swelling numbers of Central American migrants pouring over the southern border, due to cost concerns over both bills. The pension and customs revenue used by the highway bill are among the few politically palatable revenue raisers left sitting around — and Congress is running out of couch cushions to turn over when it needs to pay for something.

Partisan gridlock goes past crisis-driven legislation that calls for quick infusions of money: House members can’t even agree on a deal-making process that would put either party out of its comfort zone. Many Democrats argue a large fiscal deal is the only way to raise taxes and cut spending responsibly, while Republicans are more likely to focus on smaller bills, targeted at specific problems.

Timing, too, is a vexing problem: Take a leap at the start of a new Congress? Before the midterms? How about after the election?

“It’s kind of like a Band-Aid, you know? Do you want to rip it off a little bit at a time or just rip it off and deal with it one time?” said Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas).

Deadlines have been the most effective driver of congressional decision making since the GOP took back the House in 2011, so some powerful committee chairmen, like Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Carper, hope to extend transportation policy only into December, rather than a May deadline preferred by Republicans who believe they will control both chambers next year.

Democrats are holding out hope that retiring lawmakers like Petri and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) — both of whom have expressed openness to raising the gas tax — might take a lame-duck leap on a tough revenue-raising vote before they leave Congress. But with no fiscal cliff-style deadline looming in November and December, party leaders may decide to do the bare minimum of legislating, drawn by the always promising possibility of better conditions the next time around.

“The best politics is good government. And good policy delivers good government. And we’ve flipped that completely,” said Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who’s mulling over leaving the Senate in 2016 and returning to his governor’s perch in West Virginia. “Politics rules the day. Don’t worry about policy, don’t worry about good government, just worry about politics: who has 51 [in the Senate] and who’s got 218 [in the House].”

© 2014 POLITICO LLC
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At least fuckin' Obama is doing SOMETHING for his job.
What, is debatable...but at least it's something.

How about we start suspending pay & perks until work gets done...

rogue49 · Jul 27, 2014

I'm sorry, but the American public...are a bunch of wishy-washy, fickle, ADD, memory lacking idiots.
Might as well be a bunch of mercurial junior high-school students.

Or at least, what is reported or polled of them...but I hear it IRL too, so it's there.

Makes me wonder how we actually make a correct decision when it comes to make it.
Congress...or ANY political position. (President, state or local level, etc...)

But it also makes me understand why the Founding Fathers didn't trust ANYONE, including the public and themselves.
They truly understood how humans are.
And it hasn't changed since then.

and you've got politicians, often fulfilling their own agendas and CYA.
and you've got media, looking to hype ANY controversy.

How the hell do you tell what direction is up???

Is this true in other post-industrial nations???
I'm sure it is.

Man, how do we not fuck ourselves up???
How do we get anything done??

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