502 replies to this topic

[dawh]

actually the DEMS and REPs have been demonizing each other since well the beggining of your nation. it si Niave to think that this is relatively new. They did a survey here and found the guy l;eading the NDP (now deceased, evil cancer) who was constantly demanding a return to civility ion our house of commons was by far the most rude and insulting of all the politicians in parliment. I know its an aside but jsut pointing out this has been going on forever and peopel have been decrying it forever saying if only we could get back to the civility of yesteryear, unfortunately it never existed

Just quickly, I did oversimplify that point. Yes, politics has always been a dirty business, but it was Newt and his ilk who codified it and condensed it to its current toxic form. Up until the 1980s, Congressmen from both sides of the aisle spent a lot of time together. They ate lunch together in the Congressional cafeteria and they generally had cordial relations off the House floor (which helped to ease sticky legislation through in backroom meetings). But it was Gingrich and his supporters who started pushing backbenchers to stick to party lunches and to consider their opponents "the enemy" in all things. I don't think that there are very many Democrats or Republicans in Congress who maintain strong friendships now that the political class of Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch is retiring/dying (though Hatch fought off a potentially tough primary challenge by blatantly pandering to the far right in the last year).

So I think that I was half-right in saying that cordiality has disappeared from the halls of Congress since the current crop of Republicans came to power. Up until that point, most contentious floor debates were on the content of the bills, not on the content of the other side's character. Gingrich helped change all that with his list and general bomb-throwing mentality. Gingrich basically said that decorum and precedent didn't matter: The ends justify the means. So even if we abuse 100 year House and Senate rules to get what we want, it's okay. Because getting what we want is all that matters.

The filibuster and cloture rules in the Senate are archaic rules intended to slow truly egregious legislation that a significant portion of the Senate (the supposed "most deliberative body in the world") has problems with. It had become routine to use it (and secret holds) to stop any and all legislation from passing, even if that legislation ends up getting 96-0 votes once cloture is finally obtained. Cloture is designed to be invoked only rarely, but the Senate rules don't provide any limitations on it, so it could have been used the way that it currently is for the entirety of the rule's existence, but only now that they must obstruct "the enemy" from passing any legislation, no matter how trivial, it has become common place. The Dems should have modified the rules when they had the chance to try to bring it back to its original purpose, to slow down monumental legislation that really does need a second look, not for routine appropriations bills that gets passed almost unanimously after cloture passes. In particular, Republicans are using it right now to hold up all of Obama's appointments to various posts, even ones that they wouldn't find controversial in the slightest, just because they don't want the government to be able to do the job it is paid to do. I don't think any other President has had as few of his appointees passed (or failed) by the Senate as the President has because of Republican obstruction.

[Quag]

Nope the personal attacks are as old as the congress. ill have to disagree with you there. as to fillibusters dems did the same thing there really is no change.
i can remember the republicans accusing the dems of the exact same dirty tricks during the bush era, then the dems accusing the reps under Clinton. then reps accusing dems under bush the elder (heheh sounds more polite and old world britishy than bush 41) and regan and dems accusing reps under Carter, before that i was too young but if you look at the historical material it is all the same. only in old timey times they used pamphlets and newspapers not tv radio and the internet

Not that i think Newt is a nice polite politician or anything but he hasnt invented squat.

[dawh]

Nope the personal attacks are as old as the congress. ill have to disagree with you there. as to fillibusters dems did the same thing there really is no change.
i can remember the republicans accusing the dems of the exact same dirty tricks during the bush era, then the dems accusing the reps under Clinton. then reps accusing dems under bush the elder (heheh sounds more polite and old world britishy than bush 41) and regan and dems accusing reps under Carter, before that i was too young but if you look at the historical material it is all the same. only in old timey times they used pamphlets and newspapers not tv radio and the internet

Not that i think Newt is a nice polite politician or anything but he hasnt invented squat.

I didn't say that the personal attacks weren't age-old. I said that rather than having attacks in public, while maintaining some level of friendship off the floor (as odd as that sounds), Newt and Co. institutionalized the idea of demonizing the other side all the time, no matter what. Even if you really agree with them, you demonize them anyway and say they don't go far enough.

I think the graph in this article from Talking Points Memo shows that the Democrats and Republicans are not the same when it comes to filibuster use. Both sides have been using it for more things, but the Republicans have been far more cavalier with it. And accusing someone of doing something is not the same as that person doing it.

[Quag]

I think the graph in this article from Talking Points Memo shows that the Democrats and Republicans are not the same when it comes to filibuster use. Both sides have been using it for more things, but the Republicans have been far more cavalier with it. And accusing someone of doing something is not the same as that person doing it.

Hmm graph seems to show that the trend is up regardless of who controlls the senate. but i still dont see how that makes your country more right wing. i see it as showing the 2 parties going farther apart, something i said in the very beggining of this thread before it got all crazy anarchist then morphed into what it is now. I still maintain your county is moving more to the left. it is not linear but the general trend is moving to a more liberal society. Politicians being politiicans will use whatever they can to get themselves elected. Lying, imploring, yelling, scaring, bribing, whatever they think will work. This is not new it is as old as well human civilization.
Being a fiscal conservative/social liberal I applaud the social mouvement towards the left but lament the fiscal imprudence shown by well so darn many of your politicians of all stripes.

[dawh]

gvg ref Bernie

Sorry that is why i despise the toad. He is soo completly 1 sided. If you notice he wants to stop corporations from dontating $ but of course he get pretty much nothing from them. He has NOOOOOO problem with Unions giving cash and guess where nut job Bernie gets his largest donations from? If he was really concerened with campaign financing he would try and stop unions from donating as well but of course he is not actully concerened with fair and equittable campaign financing only with denying his opponents from getting $ while trying to get as much for himself.

let me help you out
http://www.opensecre...p?cid=n00000528

he is just another self serving politician who is using left wing rhetoric to get elected as opposed to right wing rhetoric. he doesnt give a crap about fair elections only about stopping his opposition from having any advantage.
He has been a politican for 40 years now. can you say career politican or what?

I live in Montreal, Vermont is next door to us so ive unfortunately heard far far too often and far far to long crap from Bernie to give the guy 1 ounce of slack on any subject

I admit I'm not the best informed on Bernie Sanders, but my impression is that most of the policies that he supports to stop corporations from spending money on elections would also affect unions. I don't think he's being inconsistent in this regard. Sure, he's getting union money now, but that's because his views align more closely with union goals than with the views of many corporations. The unfortunate fact of elections in this country right now is that you need an exorbitant sum of money to run and have any chance of winning. Bernie Sanders could probably run with less money than a lot of politicians now since he's been there for 40 years as you said and has the name recognition, but the point of entry is almost prohibitively expensive, so everyone has to get money from somewhere, be it corporations, unions, yourself or lots and lots of individual donations.

You seem to be very cynical regarding all politicians, believing that they are all craven publicity seekers, uninterested in actually making the world a better place. I'm just a little miffed because you demonize Sanders and Pelosi in particular and in my opinion, while there are certainly a lot of craven politicians, those two seem to be two of the more earnest ones. Being a career politician isn't necessarily a bad thing. It means you know the game and that you know how to get things done efficiently and one hopes that you know what works and what doesn't work when crafting legislation.

Efforts to curtail "career politicians" by imposing term limits have usually been bad in my view because it prevents good, effective politicians from staying in their job as long as the voters want. It also limits the amount of experience in the government body. If your politicians can only hold a particular position for 2 terms of 4 years, then they can only get a limited amount of experience before they become ineligible to hold the position again, meaning you get stuck with relative neophytes in the job because there is such a high turnover rate (by design).

Sure there can be abuses by being a career politician, but I think it's worse when they are forced to "retire" after a certain amount of time because the "bad" politicians just become lobbyists anyway now, so they're hardly out of politics and they're even less accountable than if they were in an elected position. (Term limits aren't quite germane to the US Congress as it's been ruled that the states don't have the power to limit the number of terms of a federal elected politician. Only the Federal government could impose term-limits on Congress by means of a Constitutional amendment like the one for limiting the president to two terms(22nd).)

Hmm graph seems to show that the trend is up regardless of who controlls the senate. but i still dont see how that makes your country more right wing. i see it as showing the 2 parties going farther apart, something i said in the very beggining of this thread before it got all crazy anarchist then morphed into what it is now. I still maintain your county is moving more to the left. it is not linear but the general trend is moving to a more liberal society. Politicians being politiicans will use whatever they can to get themselves elected. Lying, imploring, yelling, scaring, bribing, whatever they think will work. This is not new it is as old as well human civilization.
Being a fiscal conservative/social liberal I applaud the social mouvement towards the left but lament the fiscal imprudence shown by well so darn many of your politicians of all stripes.

I'm thinking that you didn't intend to imply that, since we are becoming (in your view) a more liberal society, politicians are lying, yelling, etc. more. Because I'm pretty sure that those two ideas are non sequiturs. Being a liberal society does not indicate that politicians are more aggressive than other types of societies. And politicians "[l]ying, imploring, yelling, scaring, bribing, whatever they think will work" to get elected does not require society (or the politicians) to be liberal. There can be just as much browbeating in conservative societies as in liberal ones.

[Quag]

2nd point first
I was replying to what i thought was your attempt to equate rebublican fillibusters to the USA moving to the right. I was trying to point out that "Lying, imploring, yelling, scaring, bribing, whatever" was neither right nor left and has always been around. Obviously i didnt get my point across very well. So if you didnt mean to imply that conservatives are the only ones who act like this and it isnt a move to the right then i misunderstood and well am still confused on what your actual point was, Please elaborate.

Bernie:

If Bernie had wanted to include Unions he would have, the fact he didnt speaks volumes! Actually i doubt it really matters anymore. thanx to the internet any group can base activities outside the USA and spam the internet with whatever they want. There is no way for the govt to effectively regulate this. I am not saying this is a good thing, i think it is terrible! i just dont see any way around 3rd party interference in elections in modern times. Thus money will always be a factor. having said that at a certain point it makes little difference. If politician A spends 100 million and politician B 200 they have both pretty much saturated the market. Presidential elections have reached this level, though i do not believe senatorial or lower have yet.

You seem to be very cynical regarding all politicians, believing that they are all craven publicity seekers, uninterested in actually making the world a better place. I'm just a little miffed because you demonize Sanders and Pelosi in particular and in my opinion, while there are certainly a lot of craven politicians, those two seem to be two of the more earnest ones. Being a career politician isn't necessarily a bad thing. It means you know the game and that you know how to get things done efficiently and one hopes that you know what works and what doesn't work when crafting legislation.

Yes i am cynical. I believe most (i hope) enter for the right reasons but they soon learn if you dont get elected you cant do squat and even then unless you are chair of a commitee leader of the house/senate/opposition few peopel listen to you. they only want to influence you not let you influence them. Thus the old adage the primary job of a politician is to get elected becomes a self fulfilling prophesy of sorts. I agree a career politician isnt necessarily bad but Bernie has done nothing NADA SQUAT of any use and i see him as a fraud who doesnt give a crap about the little guy but spends all his time pretending he does. I do not see Bernie even remotely capable of working outside his extreme left wing ideology on any matter under any sitiation and thus is EXACTLY what you are accusing the reps (partialy rightly partially wrongly) of doing. This complete waste of time of a petition is just another example as far as i am concened.
I dont like Bernie if you cant tell yet!
As to Pelosi Well i just consider her a moron not fit for any office. Certain remarks make me dismiss politicians as being unfit. The we must pass the bill to see whats in it is a prime example. For a politician to be against a bill I do not believe they have to read it all if it is opposite to their political views but to be for a bill you damn well better read it and understand it! It could be very very different than what you think. (again the Bernie Sanders petition doesnt mention Unions and that IS on purpose) I would attack republicans liek Newt but i see no need as you and gvg are doing a fine job.
having said all that if a politician does the right thing for the wrong reasons i will dislike him/her but will be more inclined to vote for them that someone who does the wrong thing regardless of reasons.

Efforts to curtail "career politicians" by imposing term limits have usually been bad in my view because it prevents good, effective politicians from staying in their job as long as the voters want. It also limits the amount of experience in the government body. If your politicians can only hold a particular position for 2 terms of 4 years, then they can only get a limited amount of experience before they become ineligible to hold the position again, meaning you get stuck with relative neophytes in the job because there is such a high turnover rate (by design).

i dont think ive ever said i was for term limits. i am actually very divided on them opposed for reasons you say but see soem use at often politicians get elected because peopel remember their name not because of anythign they have ever done (often remembering the name because they have actually been in the news for being so incredibly bad at what they do)

[gvg]

Quag:
First off, on Bernie:

Yes, you are right, not including unions is stupid, but not doing this petition at all just because of that is even more dumb. So i signed it. Not the best, but certainly better than nothing.

For your other points:

1. I doubt it'll fail. It was that or for sure it would fail, and actually, considering the fact that they are separate from the gov., i dont think taxpayers (i was gonna say way we but im dont pay them yet =)) will have to pay this back. I could be wrong, but the Fed pumped a lot more money into the economy then the gov did, and we dont have to pay it, so.

2. Yeah, i know they count it differently. They used full non-working numbers during the depression, then at some point stopped, i dunno when. Which is why I'm skeptical of any 'drops' in unemployment. But then, think of it this way: if it looks like unemployment is going down, that gives people more confidence, giving the economy more confidence, and ultimately improving it. it's not like the government is hiding these numbers, otherwise no one would know about them without a leak. So slightly misleading, yes, but i think with good intention.

3. OK, this is where we disagree, as we know. But notice that the biggest players in the dems are only talking about letting the bush tax cuts expire, which had no reason to exist in the first place. No doing more then that, nor should they. And of course its obvious that unless we look at capital gains taxes, we are going to miss the Steve Jobs and Bill Gates type billionaires. Now, whether or not we should raise the capital gains tax is an issue in and of itself (which truthfully, although there is no evidence of an effect on investment when capital gains taxes go up or down, im not sure enough to have an argument on that). Also, the whole point of ending the tax cuts is because its supposed to combine with spending cuts to reduce the deficit. And of course the rich pay more in taxes, they have more money! Even if we taxed a guy making 50k 50% (which is of course ridiculous) and taxes a guy making 1 mil 10%, the rich guy will pay more taxes because he has more money. So that is irrelevant. Consider this video:

http://www.thedailys...ee-ride-is-over

I think he says it best. Think: the rich got there with help from his or her countrymen. Why is it wrong in a time of crisis to ask them to give back and help? The middle class spend the most, so of course raising taxes on them would be dumb and would have the wrong effect. Taxing the poor more would be negligible and again pointless. This leaves one source of revenue income tax wise: closing loopholes and raising the rate of the rich a little. No one is calling for 90% taxes, and if they are, they should be ignored like the idiots they are. Ending the bush tax cuts bumps it up to the 39.5% it would be anyway were it not for the Bush tax cuts. Whats the matter with this? someone making 1 million (the rich threshold for me, don't give me this ridiculousness of 250k Obama) with that kind of tax (without the loopholes of course, because there would still be some legitimate ones that remain) would pay (rounding up to 40%) 400k dollars. A big amount, dont get me wrong. But that leaves that individual 600k. And thats an individual too, because if im not mistaking, taxes are different for spouses with or without kids. I dont know about you, but give me 600k as an individual and im set for the year. It doesnt even need to go this high, but currently the rich pay mid 20's% in taxes. Raising this to even 35 or 30% would help when combined with other things. Most of the money may need to come from cuts, but a large amount needs to be increased revenue as well. (By the way, i feel this is worth reading actually, because it discusses middle class taxes: http://www.politifac...r-middle-class/).

4. My Mistake.

5. These are estimates. Obamacare hasnt even taken effect yet. It will right around the time these issues will be more then just intellectual talking points for me (i think it goes into effect 2013-14, ill be 17-18 by then).

6. Thats not Bill Maher. Thats a guy explaining why Bill Maher is wrong. Very different. And thats completely incorrect. He attacks the democrats almost as much as the republicans for being spineless, leaderless crybaby's. Almost every show i've seen involving discussion of the two parties garners the same result. He hates both parties, and actually agrees with republicans on some things, like the death penalty (he's praised Bill O'Reily before).

Now to agree with you somewhat: We've been moving left culturally for sure, thankfully. Left economically? I dunno about that, although we havent been moving right (that is, conservatively/liberterienly) either. So i dunno. Quag might be right on that one.

And i actually praised Newt by the way, but from what i saw in the debate yesterday, good god i was wrong. Of them all, Ron Paul was doing good early on, and i still agree with him on many (though not all) of his social and military ideas. but then he remembered he was Ron Paul, and the crazy left me breathless. Thus, my current favorite is still Huntsman, but he's got some things i dont agree with either.

There are good republicans. Indeed. And Dawh, Pelosi is a dumba**. I'm no fan of big corporations, but Pelosi kisses up to unions (again, not necessarily horrible, but big unions and big corporations are the same: they compete for government attention and favors, sell a product (for the unions its high (sometimes ridiculously) wages and other things good and bad), and dont have my love or even my respect. so.)

Oh, and term limits are dumb too.

Edited by gvg, 16 December 2011 - 10:55 PM.

[peace*out]

I dont know if you guys posted this already, but i just thought id post this...

[gvg]

Oh, that LOVELY commercial.

Funniest thing about it though: I don't know who pointed it out, but that jacket looks like the one from brokeback mountain =) Irony, how I love you.

[gvg]

http://nolabels.org/work#ways

THAT is something i signed right when i saw it.