It's partly what happens when such important rules are determined by who is appointed at an executive agency, rather than requiring an act of Congress. The former can be trivially gamed by the party in power after each election, whereas getting Congress to take action on something can be difficult and requires you to first get them motivated to do so at a given moment.
This is the tyranny of minority rule. When congress is not representative of the electorate and the minority doesn’t have to compromise to get things done to gain political favor and power, nothing gets done.
Exactly, we never voted any of the people making these decisions into office, they didn’t have to campaign or explain their policies to the public. Having a layer in between these regulators and the public (the politicians who appoint them) removes power from the common people.
I'd flip it and say its what happens when Congress has been dysfunctional for over a decade. It's not even possible to get a house bill with net neutrality passed without it included 99 other things that will inevitably get the bill punted on forever.
Congress could have drafted this anytime if they had seen fit, but they are "too busy" fighting ideology wars.
To be fair Congress does some work. They have avoided 2 government shutdowns. They funded the war efforts in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. They passed the infrastructure bill.
The reality is, they just don't care about net neutrality. I'm still mad that they haven't passed the bill that gets rid of DST (or rather, gets rid of standard time). Everyone wants it in both parties. Just get it done.
Even more annoying is the whole Section 174 debacle. Completely killing the field of software engineering in the US.
“Congress avoided two government shutdowns” is like saying “I avoided pooping in my pants twice today.” It’s factually true and objectively a positive thing, but there’s nothing really commendable about it.
The debt ceiling is Congress’s own creation, and Congress itself approves the budgets that cause the increase in debt. There isn’t another parliament on the planet that behaves so absurdly, fighting shadow puppets set up by itself.
There are plenty of countries with legal debt ceilings, some of them even in the constitution. That said, I'll grant you that I don't know of any that behave so absurdly about it. The trick is to stay clear very far from the limit, which is something that recent US governments are simply unwilling to do.
There are plenty of dysfunctional/autocratic/kleptocratic governments based on constitutions that are somewhat democratic in nature. The US is just a high profile example of government structure slowly sliding into one of these failed states (faster if Trump gets another term).
I didn't keep track and don't have a good list, but a guess is that Trump did push through a lot of regulatory changes. If the media would publish a well documented list ...!!
From all I've seen, I like Trump, but apparently a lot of people don't. I wonder where am I going wrong.
Why do some people not like him? A guess is the now old collection of video clips from the MSM (mainstream media) still at
Sooo, recently I watched several videos (still at YouTube) of episodes of Trump's old TV show The Apprentice. (1) From the business world I've seen, this guy was definitely, uh, different! In a way, tough to criticize since apparently he was very successful. (2) A surprise was the propensity of mess ups, in fighting of the apparently carefully selected candidates. When I think back, yup, I did see a lot of that but guessed it was incidental and would go away and wasn't too bad -- I was wrong, and Trump's TV show was closer to right. How Trump handled (2) was good to see, although maybe some of it was just "TV".
Kindly read or listen to any long-form work by Sarah Kendzior.
But I don't know if the statement you quoted is correct either. Trump isn't the politician who has people tracking their stock trades because they so consistently outperform the market (that would be legislators, including Democrats, who trade on insider information, but face no consequences because the arbiters of such judgment are... themselves). Unfortunately, I'm not sure that even a second Biden term will save us.
> Kindly read or listen to any long-form work by Sarah Kendzior.
This is the first I've heard of her. So, just did a Google search on her:
She has written a lot of stories for the "news" on a lot of subjects. Maybe ~10% of the stories are about Trump.
There were some lists of story titles with URLs, but the URLs didn't point to the stories -- apparently were old and now broken.
Her stories on Trump I could find didn't seem like they were on important issues. Then I saw her story on the "Russia" issue. Sorry, I long ago concluded that Trump did nothing wrong and, instead, the whole Russia Gate issue was a cooked up, made up, pile of nonsense trying to get Trump.
If you'd actually read her long-form work (specifically, her books Hiding In Plain Sight and They Knew)... Humor her for the length of those, then see how you feel.
Her thesis is that "Russiagate" wasn't cooked up; that Trump is, in fact, simply an agent of a class of wealthy oligarchs who don't have loyalty to anything but their own money; that people are drawn to him because their correct instincts about the dysfunction in DC are being misdirected to him as a savior, in a way that is identical to the way autocratic, kleptomanic strongmem have been put into power in the past in other countries.
Give her work a chance. If you come out of it still supporting Trump, then I suppose you've made the right decision. But see why she's come to her conclusions first; I personally think that they're compelling. Otherwise, it's kind of weird to disagree with an argument you don't even understand.
> Her thesis is that "Russiagate" wasn't cooked up;
...
> weird to disagree with an argument you don't even understand.
To me, from all I have seen, the "cooked up" part was real and well documented. If not cooked up, then some of the media did a really big trick on me, after trying at first to do the big trick of trying to convince me that Russia Gate was real. Peeing in the bed with women in a Moscow hotel??? Naw.
> in a way that is identical to the way autocratic, kleptomanic strongmem have been put into power in the past in other countries.
Hmm .... Tough to take that very seriously when I disagree with the not cooked up assumption. But, interesting, fits some of what is easy to see about Trump: He is a strong personality. He is rich and powerful. He is not, "leading from behind", waiting until the polls says he should take action X but, instead, looking at X well in advance and making decisions then -- so, e.g., he is not merely representing the voters but is charging in some directions he likes and, if not a nuts strongman, competently thinks will be good for the US and that voters will like.
It's a judgment each US citizen has to make: Is he nuts???? For an answer, that's part of why I watched some of his TV series The Apprentice.
From some that's easy to see about him, even if he is nuts, he works hard to appear not to be and, instead, to take actions to appear to be sympathetic, empathetic, generous, etc. with people in need. E.g., in The Apprentice he flew the Rhodes Scholar candidate down to Pennsylvania for a family funeral. That said, maybe working for him could be tough, need 25 hours a day, 8 days a week, and a quart of sweat an hour.
And as voters, we can see that we have to be careful, i.e., once a POTUS is in office, super tough to get him out, no matter what the heck he does.
But for Trump, we do have 4 years of his time as POTUS. There I didn't see a nut case. It looked like in business he was a darned good CEO and as POTUS was the same as it can be appropriate for a POTUS instead of a CEO to be.
We will see in November and, then, likely again, starting in 2025.
Thanks for the book review: "autocratic, kleptomanic strongmem"??? Naw.... Watched him for 4 years, Naw.
No one's arguing that Trump isn't forceful. It's to what end. The "kleptomanic" part is important, exemplified publicly (at the very least) by the way he changed the tax code to advantage wealthy individuals and businesses, while middle class and working class Americans have seen their tax bills rise. (Again, Biden is not so good on this either, as he didn't repeal Trump's changes).
Of course, the books go into more detail. Unfortunately, if you don't read them, your opinion that the issue was "cooked up" remains baseless and bereft of value. :)
> Are you being sarcastic? Did you miss the part where he waged an attempted coup against the US government to remain in power?
I never understood that: I watched his speech. All I saw looked reasonable, appropriate, prudent. It seemed he was careful to advise no violence. That there was an "attempted coup" makes no sense to me. I watched his speech and saw nothing wrong.
> I mean... he was just found by a court to have committed rape.
I didn't and don't see that.
But, if what you say is correct, then that would explain why some people don't like him.
From your post, it looks like there is some deep bitterness about Trump. I don't see why, but okay. For one explanation there is that old collection of media video clips
Apparently the media was totally convinced that those clips would doom Trump; maybe those clips are why some people don't like him.
Watch the clips -- if anything, by now they are entertaining! They have much of the largest of the MSM (mainstream media) doing a big gang up, pile on of "bombshell", "done, no question about that", etc. that never happened.
Maybe in low level town and city politics nearly everyone interested in politics at all has some really strong reasons to like the Democrat Party. If my startup works, maybe I'll discover that the local Democrats will do good things for me but the Republicans won't. Hmm.
“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’ ... Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”
> I watched your video -- it's media personalities babbling.
Yup, but maybe it and related media stuff is responsible for much of the anti-Trump opinions there are. I thought the collection was outrageous, insulting, and dirty politics but settled on it being entertaining.
> rape
A NY jury found Trump guilty of WHAT with his fingers?
If Trump entered Carroll's dressing room, she was supposed to scream loudly enough to blow the roof off the store. Every girl over the age of 12, 9, ..., 5 knows this.
"Despite Carroll’s claims that Trump had raped her, they noted, the jury stopped short of saying he committed that particular offense. Instead, jurors opted for a second option: sexual abuse."
and the article quotes some judge saying that the act really was rape. Hmm. If we are going by a jury trial, then it's "sexual abuse". If we are not going by a jury trial, then it's made up, cooked up, porn star and Democrat Party political dirt to "get Trump" -- Trump with a "porn star". Naa .... While married to Melania??? Naa!! While planning to run for POTUS, take a risk of being extorted??? Whatever Trump is, he's NOT bonkers, brain-dead stupid. Besides, in US culture, what happens between a male and female alone is unknowable, and that's why US females over the age of 12, 9, ..., 5 are strongly advised never to be alone with a male. So, likely we can never know for sure about such things.
As I recall, there is a document signed by Carroll that no rape ever happened.
Uh, maybe Trump was guilty of the bad judgment of being in the women's department of a high end NYC department store ....
Or, maybe it's about "defamation" of a porn star?
Maybe it's about getting $130,000 to keep quiet.
> Arizona
Seems to have to do with Kelli Ward and nothing directly with Trump. As I recall, Ward has been fighting in Arizona.
> Georgia
I would trust any homeless person in a plastic shelter on a street in NYC more than the Georgia legal system.
> J6
Maybe some day we will have access to and an objective review of all the actions of and evidence presented to the J6 committee. (A) From watching Trump's J6 speech, I don't believe he did anything wrong on J6 -- he didn't even have an opportunity to do anything wrong. (B) The J6 committee looked like a kangaroo court, not at all objective, just to sow doubt about Trump. It was not a real court and was just a committee of Congress, and apparently they are permitted to do whatever they want. So, they wanted to dump on Trump -- we can believe that.
> Federal
That's a bunch of DC stuff saying that, yes, Trump has rights, e.g., 1st rights, but still from his words within those rights did something illegal. Nonsense. On troops for J6, there are claims that (a) that decision is up to the Speaker, Pelosi, (b) within plenty of time Trump offered a big force from the military, (c) the Mayor of DC also turned down both Trump and the DC Chief of Police. Besides, what I saw of J6 was (a) US citizens legally petitioning Congress for redress of grievances, (b) some guy in a Buffalo costume, (c) a police officer assuming his "tactical stance" and killing some citizen for no good reason, (d) some small fraction of the people misbehaving in ways that should get them arrested.
As I saw the 2020 election, in some of the "swing states" (a) the local Democrats had a long standing, non-trivial, and effective machine to create votes, at least as mail-in ballots, as necessary and, in a close election, sufficient and (b) the state governments declined to exercise their authorities to investigate the situation. Sounds like machine politics.
> A NY jury found Trump guilty of WHAT with his fingers?
Rape. I linked to the court's opinion stating this. What the judge makes clear is that "rape" as a matter of law in NY is with a penis only. That Trump raped was with his fingers does not make his rape any less rape.
The jury’s unanimous verdict in Carroll II was almost entirely in favor of Ms. Carroll. The only point on which Ms. Carroll did not prevail was whether she had proved that Mr. Trump had “raped” her within the narrow, technical meaning of a particular section of the New York Penal Law – a section that provides that the label “rape” as used in criminal prosecutions in New
York applies only to vaginal penetration by a penis. Forcible, unconsented-to penetration of the vagina or of other bodily orifices by fingers, other body parts, or other articles or materials is not called “rape” under the New York Penal Law. It instead is labeled “sexual abuse.”
Do I need to make this more clear? Putting a part of your body into another person's body without their consent is rape. A court found Trump did that, and now people don't want him to be president for that among other reasons. Not hard to understand.
> maybe Trump was guilty of the bad judgment
No. The jury found he's guilty of rape, not bad judgment. Trump is a rapist.
> Seems to have to do with Kelli Ward and nothing directly with Trump
Trump is an unindicted co-conspirator in the indictment, so it relates directly to him. The acts under indictment are the various frauds the defendants underwent in service of Trump's coup plot. They are also Trump campaign surrogates. This is another reason people don't like Trump -- he surrounds himself with people willing to commit crimes, and asks people to commit crimes for him.
> I would trust any homeless person
You don't have to Trust the legal system, you have to trust Georgia's Republican SoS and Republican Governor, who felt so pressured by Trump to overturn the election that they started recording and leaking calls with him doing exactly that. Another reason people don't like him.
> he didn't even have an opportunity to do anything wrong. (B) The J6 committee looked like a kangaroo court, not at all objective, just to sow doubt about Trump.
See, this is how I know you didn't read any of the information I linked to nor did you watch the hearings. Because if your had you would know the speech was not the coup. That you keep trying to deflect to it shows me you didn't even consider the vast array of evidence laid out by the committee. They show the effort that went on months beforehand which culminated in the J6 insurrection was the coup attempt.
> Besides, what I saw of J6 was...
This has been litigated in court for years. The opportunity to petition was prior to December 14, the date states certify their elections. Trump, appropriately, brought 60+ challenges in court and lost all but 1 due to lack of evidence. Since then, he has not brought any proof of fraud. He had none at the time, and after plenty of forensic audits in the intervening years, fraud at the alleged scale has not been found in any of the disputed states.
So it was all a lie at the time, and we know that now. By Dec 14, since Trump did not have that evidence, he should have dropped his challenge.
> As I saw the 2020 election, in some of the "swing states" (a) the local Democrats had a long standing, non-trivial, and effective machine to create votes
This is not what happened at all. What really happened was that many states had affected CVOID emergency measures to allow people to vote by mail who wouldn't usually have permission to. In my state, PA, it was Republicans who passed a measure allowing no excuse ballot access in 2019.
But either way, state governments have not in any way declined to exercise their authorities to investigate the situation. All elections have been audited several times by now with no anomalies on the scale alleged detected. Nevada results were even opened up to a third party, the Cyber Ninjas, who were a right wing group intent on proving that some ballots came from China by examining the paper they were printed on. They found nothing. Actually what they found through their audit was Biden had more votes on their recount.
Anyway, it seems you have a very cursory and surface-level understanding of these matters and of US politics generally. I linked you those sources so that you would read them, in the hope that you would become more informed. Since you can't discuss these topics past your casual observations, I would suggest just read some actual primary sources before instead of spending hundreds of words replying to me with confident ignorance.
I'm still trying to evaluate Trump and
understand the anti-Trump people.
Thanks for your references and remarks.
Okay, from some of the news, I concluded
that the J6 issues were from what Trump
did on J6 and some role for him in the
disturbance that day at the Capitol
building. But your claim is that,
instead, the issue is about some things
Trump did in 11/5/2020 to 1/6/2021 as
claimed by the J6 committee and that
constitute an attempted "coup". (A) I
can't trust the J6 committee even for the
time of day. (B) If Trump did something
illegal (jay walking doesn't count) in
11/5/2020 to 1/6/2021, then we should have
some actual credible legal actions instead
of just the J6 committee of Congress. (C)
Just from common sense, tough for me to
believe that Trump intended anything like
a "coup", but is dreaming of a "coup"
itself actually illegal?
Trump may have strongly suspected that (a)
he actually won the the 2020 election, (b)
the election was stolen by illegal means,
and (c) he wanted to defend himself.
Sounds reasonable, okay, and not
surprising or at all illegal. He has a
right to defend himself? Right?
For the DC lawsuit, the PDF file seems to
make clear that (A) Trump said some things
that were well within his rights of
freedom of speech but (B) as in the first
actual charge in the PDF, Trump was still
being charged with some consequences of
that free speech? Looks like law-fare.
For Carroll, if Trump did something she
didn't like, she should have, was supposed
to, scream in which case there would be
lots of objective, credible witnesses from
that department store.
As I understand the legal results, Trump
was convicted of "sexual abuse".
Inserting fingers, sure, would be a case
of sexual abuse, but just breast fondling
may also be. All we have from the jury is
"sexual abuse" and that's not necessarily
"rape". That Trump is a convicted rapist
seems to have poor support; seems to be
false.
Also a porn star who did not scream is not
credible; that is, if not consensual, then
scream. That Trump, married, running for
POTUS, and not stupid did anything wrong
with Carroll is not credible.
NY AG Letitia James, out to "get Trump",
and Judge Engoron and his 1/2 $billion
fine are not credible and instead, just
obvious via common sense, look like
Democrat Party law-fare. Trump's loan
application had a disclaimer, and the loan
companies are all happy. The area in
square feet of part of Trump Tower or the
value of Mar-a-Lago seem irrelevant;
claiming that those two are relevant looks
like more law-fare.
(A) NY DA Bragg's many felony charges
based on some goofy issue about some tiny
accounting issue past statute of
limitations and some goofy accusation
about Federal campaign law and (B) Judge
Juan Merchan and his efforts to keep Trump
in court and quiet look like kangaroo
court, election interference law-fare.
In Georgia, Fulton DA Fani Willis and her
boyfriend got, what, $600,000 reasons to
go after Trump? Looks like more Democrat
Party law-fare.
There is a pattern here: Democrat Party
law-fare against Trump.
Sorry, so far I don't see anything
seriously wrong with Trump and don't
understand the anti-Trump people.
We will have to agree to disagree and look
forward to the election.
This rape stuff makes no sense: Before seeing your quote, I saw it myself when I looked at the PDF, and it sounds like Trump was convicted of finger rape. But then there is the statement I referenced:
"Despite Carroll’s claims that Trump had raped her, they noted, the jury stopped short of saying he committed that particular offense. Instead, jurors opted for a second option: sexual abuse."
So, sounds like the jury didn't say "rape", with either penis or fingers and only "sexual abuse".
Finally, the whole Carroll thing, I don't believe it -- Trump is not that stupid. What I believe is the $130,000.
For Georgia, sure, in principle and thankfully, it is up to the Georgia Secretary of State and the Governor, in principle. But it sure looks like that hate Trump prosecutor and her boyfriend are 99% of the reality there.
For the Arizona case, right, there are the charges that somehow near the end of his term, he went around the country doing something illegal complaining about the integrity of the election. So, he went around complaining. And maybe he had some coffee with Kelli. That should be no crime. And, with the Judge Merchant and Bragg case, there is a lot of lawfare going on. Trump did something illegal in Arizona???? Naw.
Again, the J6 committee was 99 44/100% Democrat propaganda.
The recounts, etc. -- if it was just counting again some crooked ballots, then that doesn't mean anything. The Chinese paper thing, then the changes for Covid thing, all looks like maybe something valid. I saw more accusations, e.g., trucks of fake mail-in ballots arriving late at night, but the information is too thin to take seriously. So, if there was cheating, I don't know how it was done.
Maybe the bottom line is "Politics is dirty business" and differs mostly only in how dirty. At this point, with the lawfare, the Democrats look like the dirty ones and look especially dirty since 2020.
Thanks for your materials. Apparently you believe those materials mean more than I do, but maybe they mean something.
For the 50:1 case outcome, looks like NO ONE in power wanted to open that possible Pandora's Box.
With the current lawfare Florida to Maine, it looks like the Democrats are going after Trump any way they can. That makes the legal cases you referenced questionable. The Democrats have a lot of power and money, and they can file lots of lawfare cases, and it looks like that's what they have been doing. I expect that some judges will retire, some higher courts will jump in and hose out the crap, some lawyers will be disbarred, and Trump will win all the cases. Why? In the lawfare, the main goal is not to convict Trump but just to tie him up in court, cost him a lot of time, money, and energy, sow doubt among some voters, and keep him off the campaign trail until 11/5/2024. The Democrats are calling the fire trucks. For that there doesn't have to be a fire or even smoke, and there isn't.
For 2024, Trump promises to have enough lawyers, poll watchers, etc. to have high election integrity. Maybe we will get some more information on how the Democrats try to cheat.
Look, there is something in this whole mud wrestling ring more certain and wrong than any of the actual legal accusations against Trump -- the Democrat's lawfare attack on Trump.
I was glad to get your references -- the DC one is a riot, a scream: As the PDF explains, he was fully within his rights to object to the 2020 election BUUUUUT: They are going to charge him anyway with, what, confusing the politics, the public????? Gads. That's not even up to the kangaroo level.
There is nothing to stop the Democrats from executing lawfare, but we don't have to grant that the objections are valid or that Trump did anything wrong. The Bragg case is a new low in the US justice system. Same for the 1/2 $billion fine.
As sometimes said in courts, there is a "pattern" here.
Actually, Trump is not even accused of doing anything seriously wrong.
Good to see, I'm not making a serious error in judgment liking Trump.
So much cope. It doesn’t matter what you believe. You didn’t hear the evidence. You didn’t sit through the trial. You have no idea what you are talking about to the point you can’t interpret the NY law, the jury instruction, the verdict, and the judge’s ruling.
Sorry but it’s your critical thinking that’s impaired here.
This is a nation of laws, and under the law, Trump is a rapist. If you refuse to admit finger rape is rape, which it is, then you at least have to admit that Trump was found guilty under NY law of sexual abuse. Are you saying sexual abuse is not seriously wrong?
If you think you have good judgement for supporting a convicted sexual abuser, well, good luck to you dying on that hill.
Have a nice life.
PS: you seem like the kind of person who needs to have the last word so I’ll let you have it. But you should answer this: so you don’t trust the judicial system, and you don’t trust democrats. Fine. But why then is his former VP not endorsing him? He’s not a leftist liberal out to get Trump. He’s ride or die Trump. And yet he’s not endorsing, and had this to say:
I believe anyone that puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States and anyone who asks someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president of the United States again
This is what Pence said about Trump. Why is he saying that? What does he mean when he says that he feels Trump put himself ahead of the constitution and asked others to violate it?
I think their congressional salary is probably not where most members of Congress are deriving their main income. I think the paychecks their 'other' employers are cutting are more lucrative.
It’s true but “keep the government from grinding to a halt due to pure inaction” is kind of the absolute minimum bar for congress that I don’t think it’s reasonable to call it a win.
Of course, there's no difference between permanent DST and abolishing DST but having everyone agree to shift their schedules forward by 1 hour. So abolishing DST altogether isn't really a better option.
I used to think DST was stupid. Now I think it's actually the best we can do.
People aren’t going to shift an hour. When I’ve argued this with friends it seems to idea is wholly incomprehensible.
Standard time is what we should be on. Anything else makes it way too cold for kids in the morning in the winter, it’s better for our sleep cycles (especially teenagers), and it just makes sense as far as the sun’s position. If you want to go into work an hour early so the “sun is still up when I go home at night,” feel free.
The linked Wikipedia page about the 1974 experiment says "some schools moved their start times later" in response. I agree that trying to get the entire population to shift everything on their schedules at the same time would be inconsistent at best. But many institutions would adjust to the seasons as they see fit. And you want to minimize the inconsistencies; people would pick different cutoffs, different shift amounts, etc. That's the whole point of why it was regulated in the first place.
And DST is demonstrably good during the summer. It lowers crime and improves mood and productivity. It's just not good in the winter, because people in northern latitudes wake up in the cold and dark. It kinda does make sense to have seasonal shifting.
So, unfortunately, the best solution in my opinion is in fact to just lie to ourselves about what time it is for half the year. AKA Daylight Saving.
It could be much worse and end up with a system with smaller timezones with 30 minute offsets instead of DST. Or a single timezone for the continental US.
all expenses, in theory, incurred in connection with software development must now be amortized. Many technology and software companies will face significant increases in their taxable income because they are no longer allowed to deduct certain expenses
> To be fair Congress does some work. They have avoided 2 government shutdowns. They funded the war efforts in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. They passed the infrastructure bill.
The euphemization in this subthread is a bit out of control. In fact these are 100% partisan issues. The "pro shutdown" and "anti aid/infrastructure" camps who had been blocking progress are uniformly sitting on one side of the aisle, and the progress you are celebrating happened when their party split under duress and aligned with the other side briefly.
That's not "congress" doing some work. That's a "pro work" and "anti work" partisan argument whose answer flips due to intra-GOP drama.
>To be fair Congress does some work. They have avoided 2 government shutdowns. They funded the war efforts in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. They passed the infrastructure bill.
That's just three different ways of saying, "Wrote checks to fill the pockets of monied interests, the bill for which will be paid for by the generations which explicitly oppose such policy."
Talk to me when they pass Medicare For All, the Green New Deal, campaign finance reform, and a border/immigration bill that finally puts that issue to rest. Until then, it's just another round of avoiding addressing the issues that are easiest to run on if they haven't been fixed in a prior term.
>Talk to me when they pass Medicare For All, the Green New Deal, campaign finance reform, and a border/immigration bill that finally puts that issue to rest. Until then, it's just another round of avoiding addressing the issues that are easiest to run on if they haven't been fixed in a prior term.
You do realize that half (and maybe a little more than that) of the elected folks in Congress do not support such things. That those folks represent less than half of the electorate is a different discussion -- but until you have clear majorities that support those initiatives (I and those I voted for certainly do), clamoring for everything all at once is a waste of time.
The idea that "I'm not getting everything I want right now means that government is irreparably broken," is ridiculous on its face.
That's not to say we shouldn't have better governance and more focus on making the world a better place rather than maintaining power. We definitely should. But asserting that unless all our elected representatives support our own beliefs/policy ideas and pass them post-haste is both unhelpful and not very realistic.
>The idea that "I'm not getting everything I want right now means that government is irreparably broken," is ridiculous on its face.
It's weird that you would put those words in my mouth when the actual reason for the dysfunction
>That those folks represent less than half of the electorate
is readily apparent to you.
The point is that Congress is terminally dysfunctional. Avoiding shutdowns and passing grift doesn't change that. I don't want to hear all the reasons why things can't be done (perhaps the most unhelpful thing to do). I just want them done. And I have every right to be pissed abot the state of things until that happens.
> They funded the war efforts in Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
Aaaannnndd?... You're just going to leave out the banning of TikTok while claiming a victory for sending my money to other nations for wars I do not want to fund?
And another thing </Andy Rooney>, government shutdowns are problems created ENTIRELY BY CONGRESS for never operating under a proper budget since 1997. All they're doing is fighting each other over a massive shell game of sending the right amounts of money to their donors' interests to guarantee reelection.
"Infrastructure projects" is just another term for crony capitalism. Just look at funding for telcos to build out infra, or EV charging stations, or solar panels, or anything else they fund as "infrastructure." It's always just a massive kickback scheme, and nothing gets built.
They're doing work alright, just not any that I want. Our system is nakedly and brazenly corrupt, and we don't seem to be able to do anything about it.
>"Infrastructure projects" is just another term for crony capitalism. Just look at funding for telcos to build out infra, or EV charging stations, or solar panels, or anything else they fund as "infrastructure." It's always just a massive kickback scheme, and nothing gets built.
This is the most baffling one. Everyone seems to forget that they also failed to pass the bill that contained the provisions that most working and middle-class Americans wanted. I've had multiple conversations where the counterargument was, "Well, at least they got part of it passed." No, that's actually worse. We got all of the expensive giveaways without any of the mitigating funding and policies. We literally would have been better off if nothing had passed.
> we don't seem to be able to do anything about it.
I thought that, with our democratic structures, it would be really easy "to do" a lot about it, but you seem right:
I don't get it and have been guessing that
> It's always just a massive kickback scheme,
is correct.
A first problem is some basic vote counting: A politician does something, e.g., a "kickback scheme", that pleases < 10% of the voters by essentially stealing from > 90% of the voters. Soooo, at the next election, the politician should lose by at least 9 to 1, but apparently not and I'm wrong and the politician, correct?
Uh, maybe the politician partitions the voters into 10 parts, has 10 schemes, and for each of the 10 steals from the other 9 to please the one, and everyone is happy even though everyone gets stolen from 10 times?
My guess was, if a good majority, 80%, maybe as low as 55%, of the voters would write their Members of Congress objecting to the scheme, then Congress would STOP it, in a few minutes. But, nope. Apparently tough to get > 20%, maybe > 5%, of the voters to write their Members of Congress about even a "brazen" scheme.
In simple terms, Congress is awash in powers, e.g., that massive one, "power of the purse". So, I have to believe that in any 10 minutes, Congress could have gasoline under $2 a gallon and falling, but Congress declines to do that.
The blame is the media that wants eyeballs for ad revenue and, thus, creates divisions, grabs people emotionally, avoids exposing the schemes??? Or the voters are "apathetic"??
Politics is goofy, inscrutable, and the media is right? Uh, ABC, CBS, CNN, ... WaPo are short on money so are not really "right"?
While I agree Congress is quite dysfunctional, the sheer difficulty with which to get a bill written, passed, and signed into law is by design. Legislation is supposed to take a large amount of deliberation, agreement, and time.
Also consider that this works both ways: If something is passed into law by Congress, it's going to take monumental effort to undo it just like getting it passed was. An example of this is Obamacare, where getting it passed was difficult and revoking it has been difficult.
Likewise, the flippant nature of orders authorized by the Executive Branch is also by design. Such orders are meant primarily to address short-term concerns requiring immediate or expedient attention, not long-term concerns that require thorough deliberation.
> Congress could have drafted this anytime if they had seen fit,
Congress as a whole does not support net neutrality, and the reason they have not drafted a simple house bill to do it that doesn't include 99 other things is because they had no desire to. It has nothing to do with "ideology wars."
because nobody wants single subject bills, it would semi make them accountable.. remind me, who in congress is for single subject bills, who is against? (and its very few individuals FOR, so not super hard)
There are de-facto one party systems in many cities, counties, and some states. They all suffer from getting nothing done. “Both sides” is a legitimate observation by those who recognize politics as upper class nobility vs the peasants. They run in the same social circles. We’re still primates at our core.
And when the House Speaker won’t even let it get to a vote in the first place, no one has any motivation to even draft such a bill. But yeah let’s ban TikTok because in theory they could do something bad that every US-based company already does. Way to represent the will of the people, House.
