• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

PoliGAF 2015 |OT| Keep Calm and Diablos On

Status
Not open for further replies.
B

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
Poodlestrike said:
Prevent effectively permanent incumbency. 3 and 2 terms were just something I picked out of a hat, but the idea is that mandatory turnover isn't so bad.

And part of what enables lobbying is the extraordinarily deep networks superlongterm congresspeople create. This would reduce the effectiveness of lobbying, not enable it.
Click to expand...

Actually it would increase it. Lobbyists get in when the congresspeople are fairly new and don't know much. All you're doing is creating a situation where all these people would have to start planning for a new job and most people get their jobs through connections. Guess who these congresspeople are going to go to? All term limits would do is speed up the process we currently have. If you want to make lobbying weaker you need to fix campaign finance. That's how you fix it, fix the flow of money and everything else will fall into place. You're looking for a complicated solution for a problem with an easy fix.
 
P

Poodlestrike

Banned
B-Dubs said:
Actually it would increase it. Lobbyists get in when the congresspeople are fairly new and don't know much. All you're doing is creating a situation where all these people would have to start planning for a new job and most people get their jobs through connections. Guess who these congresspeople are going to go to? All term limits would do is speed up the process we currently have. If you want to make lobbying weaker you need to fix campaign finance. That's how you fix it, fix the flow of money and everything else will fall into place. You're looking for a complicated solution for a problem with an easy fix.
Click to expand...

I'm not just looking to fix lobbying, though.

That said: while lobbyists do get in when congresspeople are inexperienced, the gains don't come until later, when they've really built up clout. You also get a "not running for anything anymore" period. And finally, you also reduce the prevalence of career politicians, people looking for a job that'll last them 20+ years.
 
B

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
Poodlestrike said:
I'm not just looking to fix lobbying, though.

That said: while lobbyists do get in when congresspeople are inexperienced, the gains don't come until later, when they've really built up clout. You also get a "not running for anything anymore" period. And finally, you also reduce the prevalence of career politicians, people looking for a job that'll last them 20+ years.
Click to expand...

For your first point: that's why I said it would just speed up the process. You've just truncated the congresspeople's terms, you didn't change much of anything in this case. The senior people who want to be corrupt will still be corrupt, it'll just be happening faster and in a shorter time frame.

For your second point: not everyone is Obama. They aren't going to do the right thing just because they have nothing else to run for. They'll have to think about how they'll survive after they're done, what their next job will be. Congresspeople don't often fetch much on the lecture or book circuit, so they will need new jobs. People get jobs through connections, most of their connections will be with lobbyists and special interests. They're gonna want to impress these people so they can get new jobs after they are done.

For your third point: this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Just because someone has been in Congress a long time doesn't mean they are corrupt or don't care. There's plenty of congresspeople who have been in their jobs for a long time that have done a massive amount of good in the process.

If you want to fix politics in general, you need to fix the money. A vast majority of our problems stem from our shitty campaign finance laws. You think cigarettes would still be legal without the tobacco lobby? Or that we wouldn't be trying to embrace climate change fixes if big oil wasn't a huge political donor? We'd be able to fix a lot of issues if we would just fix the issue of money in politics.

It's all about the money.
 
J

JesseEwiak

Member
Institutional knowledge is important. So are relationships. One can make a good argument that the reason it took the Senate longer to become partisan thunderdome than the House is that many of those Senator's had known each other forever, and it took the housecleanings of '06 and '08 to only leave the last Republican's standing as either those scared of a primary challenge (Hatch et al) or actually wanting to be assholes (McConnell).
 
N

NeoXChaos

Member
JesseEwiak said:
Institutional knowledge is important. So are relationships. One can make a good argument that the reason it took the Senate longer to become partisan thunderdome than the House is that many of those Senator's had known each other forever, and it took the housecleanings of '06 and '08 to only leave the last Republican's standing as either those scared of a primary challenge (Hatch et al) or actually wanting to be assholes (McConnell).
Click to expand...

06', 08', 10' 12', & 14' cleaned out a lot of the old guard counting retirements. There are only 23 Senators left pre-00'. 97 House members left elected Pre-00'. 270 of were elected in 06' or later with the rest elected in 00', 02' & 04'
 
B

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
thepotatoman said:
Would democrats want to vote yes on the motion to unseat the speaker? I'm not sure if that'd be a good idea or not. It would probably the only way that motion passes.
Click to expand...

No way would Dems let him get sacked, he's probably the sanest person they could get for the spot. Short of winning the House back of course.
 
N

NeoXChaos

Member
Speaking of ousting Boehner:

Will Pelosi ever become Speaker again? What about Hoyer? when will the leadership move away from Pelosi, Hoyer & Clyburn for new blood?
 
J

JesseEwiak

Member
NeoXChaos said:
Speaking of ousting Boehner:

Will Pelosi ever become Speaker again? What about Hoyer? when will the leadership move away from Pelosi, Hoyer & Clyburn for new blood?
Click to expand...

Pelosi, Hoyer, and Clyburn will likely stay through the '18 midterms just in case something weird happens and there's a landslide Clinton win. After that, either Van Hollen (if he doesn't become Senator) or Berecca will become the new Leader.
 
P

pigeon

Banned
Teggy said:
And since Republicans didn't think they were doing enough to appear disfunctional, they will be trying to unseat Boehner from the speakership.
Click to expand...

Wow!

This is not a great idea for the Republicans.

thepotatoman said:
Would democrats want to vote yes on the motion to unseat the speaker? I'm not sure if that'd be a good idea or not. It would probably the only way that motion passes.
Click to expand...

It really depends. On the one hand, Boehner is the best candidate in terms of actually producing legislation and keeping the government running, which is important.

On the other hand, though, in the absence of Boehner, it's pretty unlikely that ANY GOP politician could command the 218 votes necessary to become Speaker. Mind you, the Democrats couldn't win either, but it would be kind of amazing to see the House go through a potentially infinitely long series of votes to elect a Speaker of the House.
 
G

Gotchaye

Member
pigeon said:
It really depends. On the one hand, Boehner is the best candidate in terms of actually producing legislation and keeping the government running, which is important.

On the other hand, though, in the absence of Boehner, it's pretty unlikely that ANY GOP politician could command the 218 votes necessary to become Speaker. Mind you, the Democrats couldn't win either, but it would be kind of amazing to see the House go through a potentially infinitely long series of votes to elect a Speaker of the House.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that Trump is eligible.
 
W

Wilsongt

Member
Lol Christie telling people he's going to take their pot away.

“If you’re getting high in Colorado today, enjoy it,” Christie said at the Salt Hill Pub in Newport, New Hampshire, as first reported by Bloomberg Politics. “As of January 2017, I will enforce the federal laws.”
Click to expand...

Assuming you get anywhere near the White House lol

Edit: Also, states rights, small government, etc, etc
 
F

Fenderputty

Banned
pigeon said:
Wow!

This is not a great idea for the Republicans.



It really depends. On the one hand, Boehner is the best candidate in terms of actually producing legislation and keeping the government running, which is important.

On the other hand, though, in the absence of Boehner, it's pretty unlikely that ANY GOP politician could command the 218 votes necessary to become Speaker. Mind you, the Democrats couldn't win either, but it would be kind of amazing to see the House go through a potentially infinitely long series of votes to elect a Speaker of the House.
Click to expand...

The level of disfunction could be illuminating. I can't imagine it would help hold the party together.

Wilsongt said:
Lol Christie telling people he's going to take their pot away.



Assuming you get anywhere near the White House lol

Edit: Also, states rights, small government, etc, etc
Click to expand...

Why's he so mad about pot? Was he never peer pressured as a child or something ..
 
B

Black Mamba

Member
Wilsongt said:
Lol Christie telling people he's going to take their pot away.



Assuming you get anywhere near the White House lol

Edit: Also, states rights, small government, etc, etc
Click to expand...

What a smart strategy to win over Colorado! Not like Colorado is that important in the electoral college, or anything...

It really depends. On the one hand, Boehner is the best candidate in terms of actually producing legislation and keeping the government running, which is important.

On the other hand, though, in the absence of Boehner, it's pretty unlikely that ANY GOP politician could command the 218 votes necessary to become Speaker. Mind you, the Democrats couldn't win either, but it would be kind of amazing to see the House go through a potentially infinitely long series of votes to elect a Speaker of the House.
Click to expand...

As long as there is no debt ceiling or gov't shutdown bullshit really possible before the next official speaker election, I'm all for option B at this point. Let's see what would happen.
 
F

Farmboy

Member
NeoXChaos said:
06', 08', 10' 12', & 14' cleaned out a lot of the old guard counting retirements. There are only 23 Senators left pre-00'. 97 House members left elected Pre-00'. 270 of were elected in 06' or later with the rest elected in 00', 02' & 04'
Click to expand...

Sorry to nitpick... Can I point out that the apostrophe goes before the last two digits of a year? Because it replaces the first two digits.

Just a PSA. It will change your life!
 
W

watershed

Banned
Has anyone ever actually watched Trump on the stump? His style is the weirdest thing ever. He is completely comfortable giving a speech, he uses different/weird tones and voices, he gestures oddly, he doesn't follow a script, talks about himself over and over, and is hardly political. It's like watching a one man stage show. I'm not sure he's a Republican, I'm not even sure he's human...

Edit: his declared positions. He wants to fix the VA. Agaisnt Common Core. Wants more legal immigration. Wants Mexico to build a wall. Anti illegal immigration. Is in favor of campaign contribution limits. Is pro social security. Is pro free trade but against our current trade deals. Against cuts to medicare, medicaid, and SS. Against gun free zones.
 
D

Diablos

Member
I don't know, I wouldn't count Trump out. He's really good at driving home his message and the more popular he gets, the more he can try to fine tune it to appeal to moderates, because he can sugar-coat it with an aggressive populist tone.
 
H

HylianTom

Banned
watershed said:
Has anyone ever actually watched Trump on the stump? His style is the weirdest thing ever. He is completely comfortable giving a speech, he uses different/weird tones and voices, he gestures oddly, he doesn't follow a script, talks about himself over and over, and is hardly political. It's like watching a one man stage show. I'm not sure he's a Republican, I'm not even sure he's human...

Edit: his declared positions. He wants to fix the VA. Agaisnt Common Core. Wants more legal immigration. Wants Mexico to build a wall. Anti illegal immigration. Is in favor of campaign contribution limits. Is pro social security. Is pro free trade but against our current trade deals. Against cuts to medicare, medicaid, and SS. Against gun free zones.
Click to expand...

It almost reminds me of a standup comedy act. Maybe the uniqueness is adding to the novelty of his appeal to voters? Democrats have LOTS of really great comedy options - often on a daily basis - while the GOP voters really doesn't have as many.. so part of me wonders if some of their voters are seeing this kind of blunt, almost-mean "comedy" of Trump, and it's fulfilling something they've been missing.
 
E

Eidan

Member
thepotatoman said:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cesmy.pdf
GxZZAPL.png


If everyone's paying the same tax rate for housing, but poor people spend more of their paycheck on housing than other things, a higher percentage of their paycheck go towards taxes.
Click to expand...

That part is easy enough to understand. Where I struggled was when alternatives were brought up. One article brought up land use tax, but I started going cross-eyed trying to figure it out.
 
E

eBay Huckster

Member
B-Dubs said:
Actually it would increase it. Lobbyists get in when the congresspeople are fairly new and don't know much. All you're doing is creating a situation where all these people would have to start planning for a new job and most people get their jobs through connections. Guess who these congresspeople are going to go to? All term limits would do is speed up the process we currently have. If you want to make lobbying weaker you need to fix campaign finance. That's how you fix it, fix the flow of money and everything else will fall into place. You're looking for a complicated solution for a problem with an easy fix.
Click to expand...

well, technically it's not an "easy" fix, just a simple one

"easy" would imply that there wouldn't be dozens of levers of institutional power fighting against the fix
 
I

ivysaur12

Banned
PhoenixDark said:
Obama is a terrible communicator and can't sell his policies, example 5458454.

It shouldn't matter though. He only needs a handful of democrats to win this thing.
Click to expand...

http://aufc.3cdn.net/e6dca770dc6d71f7d2_tgm6bxklu.pdf

New PPP poll:

A new Public Policy Polling survey finds that there’s strong support nationally for the Iran deal, that voters want their members of Congress to let it move forward, and that there’s no potential political backlash for members who do support the deal.

Key findings from the survey include:
-Only 38% of voters are opposed to the Iran deal, compared to 54% who are supportive of it. Democratic voters (75/17) are far more united in their favor for the agreement than Republicans (36/54) are in their opposition to it. Voters within every gender, race, and age group are in support of it, reflecting the broad based mandate for the deal.

-Similarly 54% of voters want their members of Congress to vote to allow the agreement to move forward, compared to just 39% who would like to see it blocked. There is very little public sentiment to let the deal fail and then see how things play out from there- voters want to see their elected officials move this along.

-There are basically no potential repercussions politically for members of Congress who do vote in support of the agreement. 60% of Americans say that if their members vote for it, they will be either more likely to vote for them in the future or it won’t make a difference either way in their future voting. Fully 79% of Democrats said they’d be more likely to support their members in the future or it wouldn’t make a difference. Just 36% of overall voters say they’ll be less likely down the line to vote for a member who supports the Iran agreement.
Click to expand...

Maybe the Youths saw this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw9eV6K_yHg
 
H

hydragonwarrior

Member
I'll find the article, but is Hilary going to clarify if she'll allow Keystone or not? Because if she just directly says she won't support it, I'll be a lot happier.
 
C

Coriolanus

Banned
El Trumpo said:
Donald J. Trump
‏@realDonaldTrump
06:58 - 29 jul 2015

I truly LOVE all of the millions of people who are sticking with me despite so many media lies. There is a great SILENT MAJORITY looming!
Click to expand...
Yes, the caps are his.

Which, as smbc pointed out, becomes much more amusing if you follow the appropriate conditions.
1438181559-20150729.png
Click to expand...
 
T

titiklabingapat

Member
The Koch brothers working behind the scene to stop the Trump Train.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/kochs-freeze-out-trump-120752.html

Despite a long and cordial relationship between the real estate showman and David Koch, as well as a raft of former Koch operatives who are now running Trump’s presidential campaign, the Koch political operation appears to have concluded that Trump is the wrong standard-bearer for the GOP. And the network of Koch-backed policy and political outfits is using behind-the-scenes influence to challenge Trump more forcefully than the Republican Party establishment — by limiting his access to the support and data that would help him translate his lead in the polls into a sustainable White House campaign.
Click to expand...


They know this will only push Trump to resort to scorched earth tactics, right? The only thing worse than two wealthy crying man-babies is a similar wealthy crying man-baby with a bigger ego (especially a hurt one) and a bigger megaphone. ::popcorn::
 
B

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
S

speculawyer

Member
Apparently the GOP has known about those Planned Parenthood tapes for a while. And that lead to some incoherent answers to the question "So why didn't you then investigate this matter earlier?"

But never mind that . . . why now? Some people theorized that having this Planned Parenthood tape story would steal the oxygen away from Donald Trump. And also force him to speak on the topic of abortion, a topic on which he was solidly pro-choice in the past.

But it doesn't look like it worked. Nothing stops the Donald Train.
 
N

NeoXChaos

Member
ivysaur12 said:
Tammy Duckworth up 6 points over Kirk, 42-36

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2015/07/kirk-unpopular-trails-duckworth.html

With favorables like that, I don't know how he can do to recover except for Tammy to just fall apart on her own, which I don't foresee. She's a good candidate.

ALL HAIL THE DUCK
Click to expand...

On the Democratic side Clinton is dominant. She gets 60% to 23% for Sanders, with Martin O'Malley at 4%, Jim Webb at 3%, and Lincoln Chafee at 1% rounding out the field. Clinton gets at least 54% within every group we track by ideology, gender, race, and age with her support peaking among African Americans with whom she gets 76% and Hispanics with whom she gets 72%.
Click to expand...

Excellent News. Hopefully Tammy can win a second term. That seat is notorious for one terms.
 
B

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
speculawyer said:
Apparently the GOP has known about those Planned Parenthood tapes for a while. And that lead to some incoherent answers to the question "So why didn't you then investigate this matter earlier?"

But never mind that . . . why now? Some people theorized that having this Planned Parenthood tape story would steal the oxygen away from Donald Trump. And also force him to speak on the topic of abortion, a topic on which he was solidly pro-choice in the past.

But it doesn't look like it worked. Nothing stops the Donald Train.
Click to expand...

There's two reasons it didn't work:

1. Everyone in the media remembers James O'Keefe and his bullshit so no one will run this since it stinks of him, even if he isn't involved it feels like something he'd do.

2. Trump is just too entertaining. The media has no reason to sink him. If they do they'll just have to go back to covering Hillary 24/7 and that's boring. Trump is exciting, you never know what he's going to say but you know it's gonna be good.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

GAF Museum - The Greatest OTs of All Time (or at least, some of the great ones)
|OT|
4
2K
Komatsu replied
  • Locked
PoliGAF 2017 |OT6| Made this thread during Harvey because the ratings would be higher
338 339 340 341 342
17K
2M
UselessNapkin replied
  • Locked
PoliGAF 2017 |OT5| The Man In the High Chair
395 396 397 398 399
20K
2M
RDreamer replied
  • Locked
PoliGAF 2017 |OT4| The leaks are coming from inside the white house
396 397 398 399 400
20K
2M
ShironRedshift replied
  • Locked
PoliGAF 2017 |OT3| 13 Treasons Why
393 394 395 396 397
20K
2M
Zaraki_Kenpachi replied
Top Bottom