Originally posted by Golden Key:
Boogie--
FYI: here, we say "potted plants" or "indoor plants". "Pot" plants are marijuana. That's illegal, on a federal level, so it would be quite a sight if they came running out with pot plants!
![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif)
quote:I think that both sides are unimpressed and blame the other one.
Originally posted by Enoch:
2. Is there some part of the US electorate that is impressed by this sort of juvenilia? If so, who and why?
quote:It might be because the USA hasn't actually passed a budget since 2009. What Congress was attempting to pass wasn't a budget this time either.
Originally posted by Enoch:
4. Why does a bicker about the budget has to produce such a drastic effect? It doesn't in other countries?
quote:No. The Separation of Powers is basically a good idea. The Executive and Judiciary don't have anything to do with this. The problem is that the Constitution provides no way out of a deadlock between the two houses of the Legislative Branch, where the House has a majority for one thing and the Senate a majority for its polar opposite.
Originally posted by Enoch:
5. More fundamentally, is this an indirect consequence of a dogmatic belief in the separation of powers?
quote:The Presidency? No. Also, remember that both sides are blaming the other: the actions of Democratic Senators now aren't going to cripple the Democratic nominee in three years' time either.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Does it mean that the GOP has already lost in 2016?
quote:I think you mis-heard that one. This is a fairly uncommon occurrence, one that last happened 17 years ago.
Originally posted by Enoch:
The story didn't say whether the failure even to make temporary arrangements was because the politicians couldn't be bothered, the system didn't allow for it, or because the opposition thought it would make some sort of point - apart from making themselves look stupid. Apparently, it isn't the first time this has happened. We are told it's happened 17 times before.
quote:The Republicans in the House of Representatives (who are the sand in the gears of government in this particular instance) claim they're "standing up for principle". Given that the "principle" in question is that the working poor shouldn't have access to affordable health care it's hard to have a lot of sympathy for their position. This is essentially an act of legislative hostage taking, threatening to shoot the government (metaphorically, of course) unless the legislative agenda rejected in last November's elections is enacted.
Originally posted by Enoch:
1. Apart from 'these people are utter prats' (a ruder word springs to mind), is there any defence for their action?
quote:Mostly the extremely far right, those who are convinced that the Affordable Care Act (colloquially known as 'Obamacare') will be the End of American Civilization As We Know It.
Originally posted by Enoch:
2. Is there some part of the US electorate that is impressed by this sort of juvenilia? If so, who and why?
quote:The U.S. federal government can spend no money that is not approved by Congress. This includes the salaries of its employees. If the Congress cannot pass an appropriations bill, the only monies going out will be those whose expenditure does not require continual re-authorization (e.g. Social Security payments). Non-essential government employees are currently home without pay. Essential government employees (e.g. the military, air traffic controllers, etc.) are expected to stay on the job and will be paid for doing so when Congress passes an appropriations bill the president is willing to sign.
Originally posted by Enoch:
3. Unless US law is quite difference from ours, the government isn't let off being liable to pay its employees. So why is it in the taxpayers' interests to manoeuvre a situation where the state has to pay people for not working for it?
quote:The U.S. federal government is deliberately designed with a number of 'veto points', where action (or, in this case, inaction) by some portion of the government can stop or thwart the actions of other branches. In theory (and often in practice) this is to prevent the accumulation of power in the hand of a few state actors who may abuse it. The current practice of using these veto points to disrupt all government action until certain demands are met is a recent aberration.
Originally posted by Enoch:
4. Why does a bicker about the budget has to produce such a drastic effect? It doesn't in other countries?
quote:See above.
Originally posted by Enoch:
5. More fundamentally, is this an indirect consequence of a dogmatic belief in the separation of powers?
quote:It goes a bit deeper than that. A large part of historical American opposition to new social programs is the fear that "those people" will benefit disproportionately from them. I think the fact that the American uninsured are disproportionately non-white is a factor for many opponents of the Affordable Care Act on the far right. In other words, it's not just about the skin tone of the current president, though I'm sure it's an aggravating factor.
Originally posted by Gramps49:
I also think there has been an underlying racism that comes into play. Frankly, there is a sizable minority of Americans that have a strong negative reaction to a black American President. This group of people were welcomed into the Republican party beginning in the 70's and it has festered within the Republican party forcing moderates out of the party.
quote:Not really. Shutting down the government never accomplishes anything. On the other hand, the average American experiences no negative effects from the government shutting down. Sucks for the people that do.
originally posted by Enoch:
1. Apart from 'these people are utter prats' (a ruder word springs to mind), is there any defence for their action?
quote:Of course some portion of the US electorate is impressed with this sort of thing. Why else would the government have been shut down 17 times before despite the fact shutting down the government accomplishes little? Who? Usually, it's the more conservative Republicans. Why? Depends on the time it was shutdown.
originally posted by Enoch:
2. Is there some part of the US electorate that is impressed by this sort of juvenilia? If so, who and why?
quote:Well, that's complicated. Some employees it pays. Some it doesn't pay. Some keep working. Some don't. Believe it or not there is a law governing what happens when government shuts down.
originally posted by Enoch:
3. Unless US law is quite difference from ours, the government isn't let off being liable to pay its employees. So why is it in the taxpayers' interests to manoeuvre a situation where the state has to pay people for not working for it?
quote:The effects aren't all that drastic. I personally don't care what other countries do. From my perspective, gridlock serves a very important purpose.
originally posted by Enoch:
4. Why does a bicker about the budget has to produce such a drastic effect? It doesn't in other countries?
quote:You mean separation of powers among the three branches of government. No not really.
originally posted by Enoch:
5. More fundamentally, is this an indirect consequence of a dogmatic belief in the separation of powers?
quote:It's more a function of the related, but separate, concept of checks and balances.
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:You mean separation of powers among the three branches of government. No not really.
originally posted by Enoch:
5. More fundamentally, is this an indirect consequence of a dogmatic belief in the separation of powers?
quote:No, they don't. The military does, along with all the other "essential employees" who are required to work without pay for the duration of the shutdown. But the "nonessential" personnel -- most of them -- are sent home, it's unpaid leave, and they are not given back pay. Why would the Congress allow them to be paid when they didn't work?
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
Normally such folks do eventually get paid.
quote:Employees who are designated as "essential" are still working, but not being paid. They will get back pay when this whole mess is over.
Originally posted by L'organist:
If, as I understand it, the result is that NO federal employees are being paid, does that mean that US forces are, technically, unemployed?
quote:It lost 2012. The majority of the vote for House representatives went to democrats in 2012, but the districts are so gerrymandered, republicans could cling to power.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Does it mean that the GOP has already lost in 2016?
quote:It wasn't. See above.
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Why else would the government have been shut down 17 times before despite the fact shutting down the government accomplishes little?
quote:No, by a weird coincidence, it's both. This used to happen more frequently when Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr, and Clinton vetoed bills, most of them more than once. The difference this time is that no bill even reached the President's desk. So whoever's to blame, it's not Obama.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:I think you mis-heard that one. This is a fairly uncommon occurrence, one that last happened 17 years ago.
Originally posted by Enoch:
The story didn't say whether the failure even to make temporary arrangements was because the politicians couldn't be bothered, the system didn't allow for it, or because the opposition thought it would make some sort of point - apart from making themselves look stupid. Apparently, it isn't the first time this has happened. We are told it's happened 17 times before.
quote:No one is signed up for it yet. Today (October 1, 2013) is actually the first day anyone can sign up for the health insurance exchanges. Interestingly, despite the government being partially shut down registering for 'Obamacare' is still possible, since the process is automated through a website and partially administered by the states (rather than being a solely federal program). There may be some problems on January 1 when the first benefits are supposed to be paid out if no appropriations bill has cleared Congress by that time, but if that's the case the U.S. will have bigger problems.
Originally posted by snowgoose:
The Affordable Care Act (the ACA, aka Obamacare) is already the law of the land. What happens to the people who have already signed up for it if Congress defunds it?
quote:That's kind of a bullshit myth of an ahistorical "Golden Age". The framers of the U.S. Constitution assumed there would be mutual suspicion and distrust between the various parts of the government. To borrow Madison's phrase, the idea behind checks and balances was to "thwart ambition with ambition".
Originally posted by TheAlethiophile:
I heard one comment this morning that it was assumed there would be goodwill between parties. So as soon as that assumption is proved false, the strict adherence to the constitution is left floundering.
quote:There isn't really a party in power unless it controls the white house, house of representatives and the senate. Right now there is disagreement on an aspect and each is holding government for ransom, standing their ground, etc., how ever one looks at it.
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
It does make me wonder if it's possible to have a puppet government in the US where the party in power is actually controlled by the opposition. If all they have to do to shut down the government is disagree on one aspect and refuse to play ball at all, then it seems the entire government is held to ransom by the opposition whenever they want to throw a hissy fit in their prams.
quote:Yes, Obama does have blame in this since he is signaling what he would veto.
Originally posted by pererin:
quote:No, by a weird coincidence, it's both. This used to happen more frequently when Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr, and Clinton vetoed bills, most of them more than once. The difference this time is that no bill even reached the President's desk. So whoever's to blame, it's not Obama.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:I think you mis-heard that one. This is a fairly uncommon occurrence, one that last happened 17 years ago.
Originally posted by Enoch:
The story didn't say whether the failure even to make temporary arrangements was because the politicians couldn't be bothered, the system didn't allow for it, or because the opposition thought it would make some sort of point - apart from making themselves look stupid. Apparently, it isn't the first time this has happened. We are told it's happened 17 times before.
quote:Why the hell not? It's not like it could be beyond the imagination of the founders that two elected bodies could ever disagree with each other. And why hasn't anythign been done about this deadlock after previous times? In Britain disagreements between the two Houses were resolved by convention and the monarch's ability to create peers at will. In 1909 the constitutional crisis between the Commons and the Lords meant it automatically forced a new election. Then the commons wrote the 1911 Act to prevent it happening again and King George forced it past the Lords to be made into law. Why the hell hasn't the US amended its own constitution in the 230 years since its foundation?
Originally posted by pererin:
The problem is that the Constitution provides no way out of a deadlock between the two houses of the Legislative Branch, where the House has a majority for one thing and the Senate a majority for its polar opposite.
quote:Indeed. In a move no one could possibly have anticipated Obama is standing behind the signature legislative accomplishment of his first term, something already passed by both houses of Congress in 2010 and upheld by the Supreme Court fifteen months ago. Who would ever have expected such a thing?
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
Yes, Obama does have blame in this since he is signaling what he would veto.
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quote:America has sometime been referred to as "the Frozen Republic" since the numerous veto points often freeze the status quo in place. The founders expected frequent deadlocks to prevent all but the most popular changes. They either didn't expect such leverages to be used in an attempt to burn the whole thing to the ground, or regarded such burnings as an occasionally necessary purgative.
Originally posted by Hawk:
quote:Why the hell not? It's not like it could be beyond the imagination of the founders that two elected bodies could ever disagree with each other.
Originally posted by pererin:
The problem is that the Constitution provides no way out of a deadlock between the two houses of the Legislative Branch, where the House has a majority for one thing and the Senate a majority for its polar opposite.
quote:From one of Abraham Lincoln's more notable speeches.
Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events.
quote:Forty-third.
Crœsos: This is what, the twenty-seventh Republican request for a "do over"?
quote:The Belgian case is nothing like this. It takes some time to form a coalition there (sometimes a looong time), but in the meanwhile government continues to function.
Zach82: We seem to forget that recent quagmires in the Canadian and Belgian governments.
quote:What Canadian Government quagmire? There were three minority governments (hung parliaments) in a row 2004-2011, but that is normal, healthy and an accepted part of our system.
Originally posted by Zach82:
We seem to forget that recent quagmires in the Canadian and Belgian governments. Things like this happen under lots of different constitutions for lots of reasons.
quote:This is a gross misunderstanding of the ACA. The ACA is not just the marketplaces. It is 24 year olds being able to be held on their parents' insurance. It is insurance companies being made to spend at least 80% of their income on care rather than overhead. It is an end to lifetime caps on coverage. It is an end to refusing coverage for preexisting conditions or dropping coverage if someone gets sick. It's probably a bunch of other stuff that's not coming to mind. Most of them are already in place and working great.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:No one is signed up for it yet.
Originally posted by snowgoose:
The Affordable Care Act (the ACA, aka Obamacare) is already the law of the land. What happens to the people who have already signed up for it if Congress defunds it?
quote:This.
Originally posted by seekingsister:
Christie is their best hope for 2016 but because he dares to disagree with some GOP policies and has problems with their darling Rand Paul, it's going to be tough for him to get the party machine behind him. And even if they did, look what running for President did to Mitt Romney, who switched from a fiscally conservative social moderate into a right wing parody version of himself.
quote:From your lips to God's ear.
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
(we should be dismantling them and introducing single-payer health care in this country, not enabling their parasitic and sleazy asses)
![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif)
for Anyuta, Snowgoose and anyone else adversely affected by this.![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
)
quote:They are fighting it because they are terrified that once it is implemented and people see the positive results (despite all the propaganda and lies) their goose is cooked. When the impending demographic tsunami breaks in this country, the Republicans will retain only a small percentage of the electorate and they cannot afford to lose the lower class whites who will undoubtedly benefit from the ACA. This insanity is just the beginning. As they lose the ability to rule by legitimate means they will increasingly seek out illegitimate ways to wield power since they believe it is "their country" and they need to "take it back" by any means possible.
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
Personally, I'm surprised that the Tea Party Republicans are choosing this hill to die on, but it's their funeral. I have a hard time figuring out what might make them look sillier; I'm not a big fan of the ACA, and regard it as a giant gimme for insurance companies (we should be dismantling them and introducing single-payer health care in this country, not enabling their parasitic and sleazy asses)--it is, however a step, however tiny, in the right direction.
quote:No, it's worse than that. You're conflating the lack of a continuing resolution, which is today's crisis, with the debt ceiling, which comes in a couple of weeks and is much, much worse.
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
Essentially this is the situation.
The Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) passed the Senate & House and became law. A highly vocal minority within the GOP wants to block this law by any means necessary, and they have taken the opportunity to try and force the issue by refusing to agree to raise the government's debt ceiling until their demands are met. If the debt ceiling isn't raised, that means the government cannot borrow money to pay employees, provide services, etc., and thus has to shut parts of the operation down until the debt ceiling is raised.
quote:
The first element of the strategy is a kind of legislative strike. Initially, House Republicans decided to boycott all direct negotiations with President Obama, and then subsequently extended that boycott to negotiations with the Democratic Senate. (Senate Democrats have spent months pleading with House Republicans to negotiate with them, to no avail.) This kind of refusal to even enter negotiations is highly unusual. The way to make sense of it is that Republicans have planned since January to force Obama to accede to large chunks of the Republican agenda, without Republicans having to offer any policy concessions of their own.
quote:Not exactly. Virtually everyone in the UK has at least some experience of the NHS. The problem here is that there are still fair numbers of the populace who haven't experienced any benefit from the ACA yet -- and indeed, a few places where those individuals may not see any benefit (like in my state, where only one entity is signed up to be our state "marketplace." No competition = no premium savings.)
Originally posted by PaulBC:
. . . repeal health care , that would be
like repealing NHS in UK .
quote:Indeed there was*.
Originally posted by Zach82:
Wasn't there a recent leak of the utterly ridiculous Christmas list republicans hoped to get in exchange for raising the debt ceiling? It really cast a pall on the idea that they are really there to negotiate.
quote:I'm not seeing any upside for the Obama administration to agree to any of these demands. All it would demonstrate is that this kind of legislative hostage taking is a tactic that works and encourage its future use.
Behind closed doors on Thursday, they laid out their demands for a debt ceiling increase that include the health law delay, fast-track authority to overhaul the tax code, construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, offshore oil and gas production and more permitting of energy exploration on federal lands.
The legislation would also roll back regulations on coal ash, block new Environmental Protection Agency regulations on greenhouse gas production, eliminate a $23 billion fund to ensure the orderly dissolution of failed major banks, eliminate mandatory contributions to the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, limit medical malpractice lawsuits and increase means testing for Medicare, among other provisions.
quote:
Originally posted by TheAlethiophile:
From my perspective on this side of the Atlantic, it is little surprise that a country that grinds itself to a halt in such a stupid way is also the country that has gifted the world biblical literalism and is a hotbed of fundamentalism.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
quote:There's always hope. They have certainly shot themselves in the foot as far as anyone except the Tea Party is concerned.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Does it mean that the GOP has already lost in 2016?
quote:Not necessarily. The ACA delivers lower premiums partly from competition but mostly from expanding the pool of insured persons. This works particularly well if the pool is expanded by adding in younger (i.e. generally healthier) people, as the ACA preferentially does.
Originally posted by Porridge:
The problem here is that there are still fair numbers of the populace who haven't experienced any benefit from the ACA yet -- and indeed, a few places where those individuals may not see any benefit (like in my state, where only one entity is signed up to be our state "marketplace." No competition = no premium savings.)
quote:The New Yorker did a demographic breakdown on the Congressional Districts of what Charles Krauthammer dubbed "the Suicide Caucus" (a.k.a. the hardcore House Republicans who signed on to Mark Meadows' letter to John Boehner). It's pretty much what you'd expect.
Originally posted by Porridge:
But back on topic, the real contest here will be how many voters believe which set of lies each party tells about whose "fault" this shutdown is.
quote:Short version: the districts represented by the most intransigent House Republicans are a lot whiter and slightly less educated than the rest of America.
Most of the members of the suicide caucus have districts very similar to Meadows’s. While the most salient demographic fact about America is that it is becoming more diverse, Republican districts actually became less diverse in 2012. According to figures compiled by The Cook Political Report’s David Wasserman, a leading expert on House demographics who provided me with most of the raw data I’ve used here, the average House Republican district became two percentage points more white in 2012.
The members of the suicide caucus live in a different America from the one that most political commentators describe when talking about how the country is transforming.
quote:I wonder what would happen if you'd compare this with a map of the districts where the most people live who need the ACA.
Crœsos: The New Yorker did a demographic breakdown on the Congressional Districts of what Charles Krauthammer dubbed "the Suicide Caucus" (a.k.a. the hardcore House Republicans who signed on to Mark Meadows' letter to John Boehner). It's pretty much what you'd expect.
quote:The government has a sorry record, too. I looked the other day at what % of our gdp the federal government already spends on medical and it is there with what other countries spend on everyone. If Obama, Reid and Boner came over to help me work on a car I'd expect them to show up with a rake, hoe and a shovel.
Originally posted by jbohn:
I'm generally not in favor of "big government" as the solution to societal problems, but the free market has shown itself in this instance to be incompetent at covering all the people at a reasonable rate. So...
quote:Which is based on payments made into the current system. Of course, if you actually look at which American programs have the best record of controlling costs* you'll see that the government has a much better record than the private sector in this area. Your argument essentially amounts to leaving the present, demonstrably less efficient system in place because health care is excessively expensive under that system.
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
quote:The government has a sorry record, too. I looked the other day at what % of our gdp the federal government already spends on medical and it is there with what other countries spend on everyone. If Obama, Reid and Boner came over to help me work on a car I'd expect them to show up with a rake, hoe and a shovel.
Originally posted by jbohn:
I'm generally not in favor of "big government" as the solution to societal problems, but the free market has shown itself in this instance to be incompetent at covering all the people at a reasonable rate. So...
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
quote:Yep. My 27 year old daughter living in Nashville TN will see her premiums more than double according to what I've thus far found.
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
The working poor in Flyover Country will benefit strongly from the ACA.
quote:Interesting. That's more or less the opposite of what the preliminary data shows on Obamacare, and what we know from the test case of Massachusetts. Can you provide any links to "what [you]'ve thus far found"? It also seems at odds with this piece from the Minneapolis Star Tribune which cites Tennessee as having the second-lowest health insurance exchange premiums in the country.
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
quote:Yep. My 27 year old daughter living in Nashville TN will see her premiums more than double according to what I've thus far found.
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
The working poor in Flyover Country will benefit strongly from the ACA.
quote:*sigh* Competition will not infallibly deliver savings in every market. People who are ill will pay whatever they can afford to get better. People who are not ill (or at least, not enough to notice it) won't bother, which is one reason why, as Croesus says, premiums are high. Because the people who are healthy enough not to need a doctor (yet) and those who are rich enough to pay any medical fees upfront do not buy medical insurance.
The problem here is that there are still fair numbers of the populace who haven't experienced any benefit from the ACA yet -- and indeed, a few places where those individuals may not see any benefit (like in my state, where only one entity is signed up to be our state "marketplace." No competition = no premium savings.)
quote:I'm just waiting to see if ACA survives this standoff before going on the exchange to purchase our insurance. My preliminary work has shown we will cut our monthly premium about in 1/2.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Interesting. That's more or less the opposite of what the preliminary data shows on Obamacare, and what we know from the test case of Massachusetts. Can you provide any links to "what [you]'ve thus far found"? It also seems at odds with this piece from the Minneapolis Star Tribune which cites Tennessee as having the second-lowest health insurance exchange premiums in the country.
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
quote:Yep. My 27 year old daughter living in Nashville TN will see her premiums more than double according to what I've thus far found.
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
The working poor in Flyover Country will benefit strongly from the ACA.
quote:How can it not survive? It's already been passed into law.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm just waiting to see if ACA survives this standoff before going on the exchange to purchase our insurance.
quote:I think/ hope/ pray you are right, but the fear is that they will kill the subsidies and the individual mandate that are what are making the whole thing work. Without that, the whole package falls apart pretty quickly-- which, of course, is precisely what the GOP wants-- the worst case scenario for the GOP is for Obamacare to go through and be revealed to be a successful cost-saving health plan that doesn't entail creepy sock puppets going up your bum (*note to cross ponders: not hyperbole. The Koch bros actually put out an ad suggesting just that*).
Originally posted by Porridge:
quote:How can it not survive? It's already been passed into law.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm just waiting to see if ACA survives this standoff before going on the exchange to purchase our insurance.
I'm sure of very little with these idjits allegedly "running" our country, but won't it take an act of Congress to kill ACA? It's already on the books. And you'll note this current Congress has produced little in the action department.
quote:Right there with ya.
Originally posted by Porridge:
Aside to President Obama, in case he's lurking on board Ship in all his *cough* spare time: if you cave on this and submit to the Tea Party's blackmail aka "request" to "negotiate," I am officially done with you, and when your term's over, you can crawl back to the arms of the six remaining moderate Republicans left in this country, where you belong.
quote:With the government already spending about the same % of gdp on healthcare to cover a little over 30% of our population that other countries spend to cover all their people, our government already has demonstrated itself to be inefficient.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Your argument essentially amounts to leaving the present, demonstrably less efficient system in place because health care is excessively expensive under that system.
quote:Just in case you don't believe him, here are the ads:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
. . . the worst case scenario for the GOP is for Obamacare to go through and be revealed to be a successful cost-saving health plan that doesn't entail creepy sock puppets going up your bum (*note to cross ponders: not hyperbole. The Koch bros actually put out an ad suggesting just that*).
quote:So repeal the law.
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
It comes down to an unpopular law that was supposed to help fix our clusterbuggered health care system but many believe is, on the whole, making it worse.
quote:House Republicans have tried to repeal it literally dozens of times. Defunding it is the latest tactic now that repealing it has failed.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:So repeal the law.
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
It comes down to an unpopular law that was supposed to help fix our clusterbuggered health care system but many believe is, on the whole, making it worse.
That's what shits me about this particular aspect of the American system. To me and my law-based way of thinking, if you want to get rid of a law you repeal it. What you DON'T do is spend your time undermining a law you don't like when it's still on the books, in this kind of passive-aggressive fashion.
I've got no respect for individuals who decide that they don't want to follow a law they don't like and yet won't face up to the consequences of disobedience. And for the same reason, I've got no respect for 'legislators' who decide that they ought to try undercutting a law on the books while not actually doing anything to take the law OFF the books.
quote:Yes, I'm aware they've failed. It seems to me that they're not aware they've failed, or refuse to accept it. They are the epitome of sore losers.
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:House Republicans have tried to repeal it literally dozens of times. Defunding it is the latest tactic now that repealing it has failed.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:So repeal the law.
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
It comes down to an unpopular law that was supposed to help fix our clusterbuggered health care system but many believe is, on the whole, making it worse.
That's what shits me about this particular aspect of the American system. To me and my law-based way of thinking, if you want to get rid of a law you repeal it. What you DON'T do is spend your time undermining a law you don't like when it's still on the books, in this kind of passive-aggressive fashion.
I've got no respect for individuals who decide that they don't want to follow a law they don't like and yet won't face up to the consequences of disobedience. And for the same reason, I've got no respect for 'legislators' who decide that they ought to try undercutting a law on the books while not actually doing anything to take the law OFF the books.
And they can't defund it, because they don't have the votes to do it. All they can do is hold up the government until they get what they want.
quote:According to the Whitehouse she would be paying anywhere from $103 to $145 after tax credit, depending on the plan. I don't know what will be happening to teachers there, though, due to Obamacare and that's probably what she will be doing within the next year. She is paying a touch over $80 now.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Healthy 27 years olds might be paying more, it's true-- being in one of the lowest risk categories, they are used to paying next to nothing, while those in the highest risk categories were paying 40 or 50% of their income... if they were able to purchase insurance at all. Now that it's shared risk, people like your daughter might indeed end up paying more-- even double if the previous rate was something incredibly cheap like $50/mo.
quote:She may end up just dropping all coverage, paying the penalty and signing up only when she needs it. That appears to be a moral hazard built in to Obamacare.
Perhaps she can take comfort in knowing, though, that it won't get cancelled and/or hiked up when she gets sick or simply gets older-- which it surely would under the old system (as happened to me many, many times)
quote:It seems I heard that before
Originally posted by art dunce:
People are against it but don't even know what it is aside from the fact that it says "Obama". America is filled with idiots.
quote:That would sure make financial concerns a bit easier, wouldn't it?
Originally posted by Zach82:
There is still, of course, hope. The rapture could happen.
quote:We seem to repeal laws about as often as we cure genital herpes.
Originally posted by orfeo:
To me and my law-based way of thinking, if you want to get rid of a law you repeal it.
quote:And I get that taking a $20 or even $50 hit feels like a lot, especially when you frame it as "doubled". But my monthly health insurance premium is $1200. Yes, $1200- more than a third of my income. I'm guessing your daughter makes more than $300/month so she's still ahead of the game. And that kind of premium is not unusual for people of my age/ pre-existing conditions. And without Obamacare, that will be your daughter too-- either sooner (if she's unlucky enough to get sick) or later (if she simply grows old). If, of course, she doesn't become so inconveniently sick that she finds herself unable to get insurance at any price. So, while it is a rough transition-- we're making a huge paradigm shift here, it's going to be hard-- IMHO she oughta consider herself fortunate to have avoided a decade or more of $1000 premiums that rest of us have had to endure.
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
quote:According to the Whitehouse she would be paying anywhere from $103 to $145 after tax credit, depending on the plan. I don't know what will be happening to teachers there, though, due to Obamacare and that's probably what she will be doing within the next year. She is paying a touch over $80 now.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Healthy 27 years olds might be paying more, it's true-- being in one of the lowest risk categories, they are used to paying next to nothing, while those in the highest risk categories were paying 40 or 50% of their income... if they were able to purchase insurance at all. Now that it's shared risk, people like your daughter might indeed end up paying more-- even double if the previous rate was something incredibly cheap like $50/mo.
quote:It's one of those collective action problems economists and sociologists are always going on about. It would be beneficial to the Republican party as a whole if the government were to go back to work, but it's enormously disadvantageous for any individual Republican to do anything to make that happen.
Originally posted by irish_lord99:
I think that they are feeling immense pressure from the tea-party and some talk-radio loudmouths to show a little 'backbone', and they're holding the government hostage simply to endear themselves to their 'conservative' base. I see the whole mess as grandstanding.
quote:
The message they're trying to get across here is to convince young people that medical care (not just medical insurance, medical care!) is invasive and gross and icky and they'd be better off without it.
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
quote:No, because the laws that establish the tax regime are separate from the laws that determine appropriations (spending), and it's the latter that have run out of authority, not the former.
Originally posted by Enoch:
And for US citizens, bearing in mind the constitution does not allow ex post facto legislation, does that means everybody's federal taxes go down by 1/365th for each day this idiocy continues? If not, why not?
quote:For sure. If there is a bad government then it is the duty of the opposition to do what is necessary to bring it down and allow fresh elections to take place. The problem here is that the US Constitution is not fit for purpose - among its many shortcomings you can count the fact it's a compromise between an ideological statement and a functional constitution that doesn't do either job properly, as seen by it not containing any procedures for how to resolve a dysfunctional legislature/executive situation.
Originally posted by Enoch:
Aren't those who argue about the merits of Obamacare or the geography of congressional districts, though, implicitly accepting that there might be other occasions when this might be an acceptable way to behave.
Could it ever be legitimate for a clique of politicians to pull the rug from under their own government, so that its functions suddenly seize up?
quote:Definitely major problems here, not that the structures allow it to happen but that they don't provide for a 'nuclear option' of forcing a resolution to it (a fresh election for the House, full Senate and Presidency in 60 days with an emergency budget measure in the interim period) if the various participants can't voluntarily solve it. As shown by the 1975 Dismissal in Australia it would be very ugly and act as a warning to future politicians to not go that far again, but it would work.
Originally posted by Enoch:
Is there something wrong with the structures of the polity that enables this to happen? Shouldn't it be possible to design things so that come what may, whatever the monkeys in Halitosis Hall get up to, the day to day running of government carries on regardless until they've sorted themselves out?
quote:The ABC has reported here in Australia that consular services are regarded as "essential" so embassies and consulates stay open.
Originally posted by Enoch:
Incidentally, for shipmates in London, does this mean the US embassy is closed?
quote:The definition of wishful thinking for sure! Even ignoring the fact that lots of the "essential" government operations are still carrying on and will need to be paid for eventually, aren't taxes calculated on a yearly basis rather than a daily rate?
Originally posted by Enoch:
And for US citizens, bearing in mind the constitution does not allow ex post facto legislation, does that means everybody's federal taxes go down by 1/365th for each day this idiocy continues? If not, why not?
quote:From your mouth to God's ear!
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Does it mean that the GOP has already lost in 2016?
quote:...which would entirely defeat the purpose of getting health care to everyone...
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
If we are going to do this, give it to everyone with both barrels. The exact same rules for everyone with no exemptions and no subsidies.
quote:I hadn't thought about this aspect, that the judiciary is also highly politicised. Not that anyone has asked them to become involved yet, but if they DO somehow become involved it could become an issue.
and as shown by even the US Supreme Court being divided on party lines
quote:As it so happens, they still get paid. It is a Constitutional thing. Even if they wanted to forego it (to show that they are one with the common pee-pul) they legally can't. Because it looks bad that they keep getting paid, some vow that, during the shutdown, they will contribute their pay to charity. Which, of course, will make for a nice deduction come tax time.
Originally posted by cheesymarzipan:
Do Congress members count as non-essential employees? Would stopping their pay till they come to an agreement have any effect?
(whether they are working or not...)
quote:Is there any doubt in anyone's mind about whether Congress is working?
Originally posted by cheesymarzipan:
Do Congress members count as non-essential employees? Would stopping their pay till they come to an agreement have any effect?
(whether they are working or not...)
quote:No doubt they had those ones under their jumpers!
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Boogie--
FYI: here, we say "potted plants" or "indoor plants". "Pot" plants are marijuana. That's illegal, on a federal level, so it would be quite a sight if they came running out with pot plants!
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
quote:Dutch writer Geert Mak wrote a couple of years ago (I'm quoting from memory): the great cultural divide in the world isn't between the West and the Islamic world, it isn't between the North and the South, it's between the rural areas and the cities.
Ariston: And so, the half of the country that believes in the Jeffersonian ideal of unregulated independent small farmers faces off with the half that sees America as a postindustrial liberal democracy—and neither side is willing to compromise on what are their core beliefs.
quote:I think President Dilma Rousseff has already said: "If the US needs money, they can borrow it from us."
Jane R: You know, back in the 1990s a colleague of mine was pontificating on what would happen to the global economy if a nation defaulted on his debts. He thought we were on the brink of meltdown.
He wasn't expecting it to be triggered by the US though. He thought Brazil was about to default on its debts.
And here we are, 30 years later...
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quote:Given that SNAP & WIC (food stamps & aid to pregnant women & children) are shut down, it would seem that "essential" = benefits the wealthy/ powerful. Feeding starving children is one of those nice feel-good extras that are fun to do at Xmas, as long as it doesn't get in the way of the really important stuff, but easy to set aside if that new cashmere sweater ends up costing more than anticipated.
It does make you wonder though, is there more broken under the surface than you might think if the government's operations can be divided up into essential and non-essential. Shouldn't governments be doing only the essential stuff all the time?
quote:I'm not sure about DC, but in many states medical marijuana is legal. And if you're a federal employee having to deal with the economic chaos of this s**t every few months, I would suggest that you need a bit of medicinal weed just about as much as anyone.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Boogie--
FYI: here, we say "potted plants" or "indoor plants". "Pot" plants are marijuana. That's illegal, on a federal level, so it would be quite a sight if they came running out with pot plants!
quote:Giving someone the power to dissolve the legislature makes them part of the political process, not independent of it. And you'd simply be moving the problem to a different political actor. Instead of Congress' intransigence leading to a government shutdown, you'd simply put that power in someone else's hands. This "solution" also seems to depend on the somewhat dubious assumption that a freshly elected U.S. Congress would not be divided along similar lines as the current one.
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
It would all go away if Obama was a Prime Minister instead of a President (i.e. only the head of government, not the head of state as well) and was able to go to the Head of State and advise them to dissolve the Congress so snap elections could be held. Such a Head of State would need to be completely independent of the US political process, and as shown by even the US Supreme Court being divided on party lines it would probably need to be somebody outside the country to act as an independent arbiter.
quote:A CNN reported asked a couple Representatives that very question (or rather, whether they'd be willing to sign off on designating themselves as "non-essential" for the purposes of future shutdowns). Their efforts to avoid answering that question directly were amusing.
Originally posted by cheesymarzipan:
Do Congress members count as non-essential employees? Would stopping their pay till they come to an agreement have any effect?
(whether they are working or not...)
quote:*sigh* Quick tangent—yes, it is legal in DC, but not on a federal level, and it was a real legislative shitstorm to get it approved, because all DC laws have to be approved by Congress. Ditto the DC budget. Oh, and only "essential" DC personnel can be on the job during a shutdown, since the District's budget has to be approved in the appropriations process by Congress—nevermind that it's city money. So, in theory, that should mean no trash pickup, close schools, shut down the community health clinics...unless the mayor and city council decide to call all city personnel essential, as they did. Welcome to the City of Washington, where the Constitution says we're under congressional control.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:I'm not sure about DC, but in many states medical marijuana is legal. And if you're a federal employee having to deal with the economic chaos of this s**t every few months, I would suggest that you need a bit of medicinal weed just about as much as anyone.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Boogie--
FYI: here, we say "potted plants" or "indoor plants". "Pot" plants are marijuana. That's illegal, on a federal level, so it would be quite a sight if they came running out with pot plants!
quote:I'm no expert in US history but I'm pretty sure that that assumption broke down within the lifetime of Thomas Jefferson. And not long after than they had a rather bloody civil war. They are probably rather better at co-operating now than their great-great-great-great-grand-congressfathers were a century and a half ago.
Originally posted by TheAlethiophile:
I heard one comment this morning that it was assumed there would be goodwill between parties. So as soon as that assumption is proved false, the strict adherence to the constitution is left floundering.
quote:I'm sure they do. Its probably fun. It would be fun to watch as well, if there wasn;t the possibility of everything going totally pear-shaped (*). And I'm pretty sure every single one of them will have watched the relevant episodes of The West Wing. And their aides and assistants and speechwriters probably know the scripts off by heart.
Originally posted by Hawk:
It's almost as though they enjoy playing this game!
quote:That was sort of the idea before the Republicans got their hands on it and the Democrats caved it. Right now they are threatening to pull down the pillars of the temple to get rid of a law they partly wrote themselves (kind of literally - there is more of Mitt Romney's old platform in this than there is of the health plan the Clintons failed to get through).
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
... I'm not a big fan of the ACA, and regard it as a giant gimme for insurance companies (we should be dismantling them and introducing single-payer health care in this country, not enabling their parasitic and sleazy asses)...
quote:That's mostly because it pays lots of that money to grossly inefficient private medical providers and insurance companies and drug companies. Who charge you more than they charge pretty much anyone else because the decisions that you make about healthcare in your country are made by those vey companies.
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
quote:With the government already spending about the same % of gdp on healthcare to cover a little over 30% of our population that other countries spend to cover all their people, our government already has demonstrated itself to be inefficient.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Your argument essentially amounts to leaving the present, demonstrably less efficient system in place because health care is excessively expensive under that system.
quote:If people start really starving, they can get angry. If a large number of people are starving they can get angry together. If this goes on too long those Congresspersons had better be careful where they go.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Given that SNAP & WIC (food stamps & aid to pregnant women & children) are shut down, it would seem that "essential" = benefits the wealthy/ powerful. Feeding starving children is one of those nice feel-good extras that are fun to do at Xmas, as long as it doesn't get in the way of the really important stuff, but easy to set aside if that new cashmere sweater ends up costing more than anticipated.
quote:I may be just an optimist, but my hope is that this will sway independents to be disgusted with the Republican party. This won't affect any Tea Party congresscritters who are safe in their seats, but any who just barely made it, and anyone who wants independents to help them become president...
Originally posted by Ariston:
As for those of you hoping for this to blow up for the Republicans in 2014/2016: don't hold your breath. If anything, this'll only make them look better in the eyes of their constituents. Ted Cruz is proving that he's doing what he was elected to do—stop Obamacare, end government intrusion into your lives, and roll back the nanny state—and will probably put this in every campaign ad from here until he runs for President.
Oh don't laugh. He's got higher aspirations than just the Senate, and everybody knows it.
So why would this reflect badly on the Republicans, except with those who don't elect them and, therefore, can't vote them out of office? If you're from very Republican Oklahoma, you probably want to vote Maryland's very Democratic congressional delegation out of Congress, since they're the source of The Problem, and vice-versa; problem is, neither side can do anything about the other's representatives.
quote:These guys aren't from districts with swing votes, alas. They are, indeed, from the most overwhelmingly conservative districts in the nation. Moderate republicans, on the other hand, are already an endangered species.
Originally posted by Gwai:
quote:I may be just an optimist, but my hope is that this will sway independents to be disgusted with the Republican party. This won't affect any Tea Party congresscritters who are safe in their seats, but any who just barely made it, and anyone who wants independents to help them become president...
Originally posted by Ariston:
As for those of you hoping for this to blow up for the Republicans in 2014/2016: don't hold your breath. If anything, this'll only make them look better in the eyes of their constituents. Ted Cruz is proving that he's doing what he was elected to do—stop Obamacare, end government intrusion into your lives, and roll back the nanny state—and will probably put this in every campaign ad from here until he runs for President.
Oh don't laugh. He's got higher aspirations than just the Senate, and everybody knows it.
So why would this reflect badly on the Republicans, except with those who don't elect them and, therefore, can't vote them out of office? If you're from very Republican Oklahoma, you probably want to vote Maryland's very Democratic congressional delegation out of Congress, since they're the source of The Problem, and vice-versa; problem is, neither side can do anything about the other's representatives.
quote:I think the rural/urban split exists within the state. In the last elections, the vote for Obama was concentrated in the metropolitan areas of Austin, El Paso, Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston, whereas the rural areas voted for Romney.
Ariston: And LeRoc: it's not so much an actual rural/urban split, as a perceived one; even Texas, which has as much of an "everything's bigger here" wide-open sky rural mythos as anywhere else, is home to four (or five, depending on how you count Dallas/Ft. Worth) of the fifty largest metro areas in America.
quote:Some of the most conservative states in the nation are also the most desperately poor, however. Populated with people who lean on WIC and food stamps. The GOP may have actually found a great way to alienate its broadest base.
Originally posted by Zach82:
These guys aren't from districts with swing votes, alas. They are, indeed, from the most overwhelmingly conservative districts in the nation. Moderate republicans, on the other hand, are already an endangered species.
quote:Not even all of the metropolitan areas. Fort Worth went for Romney. So did Galveston. But largely rural Zavala and Dimmit Counties went for Obama by a very large margin.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
In the last elections, the vote for Obama was concentrated in the metropolitan areas of Austin, El Paso, Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston, whereas the rural areas voted for Romney.
quote:You seem to be operating under a misconception. The possibility that 'Obamacare' would be popular and successful is what the Republican party is afraid of. They're not worried that the Affordable Care Act will be a failure, they're worried that it won't.
Originally posted by Jane R:
Do you think the sane Republicans (if any) will reconsider their position when they realise how many people are trying to sign up to Obamacare? Or has Reason completely flown out of the window?
quote:Totally what Kelly said.
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Some of the most conservative states in the nation are also the most desperately poor, however. Populated with people who lean on WIC and food stamps. The GOP may have actually found a great way to alienate its broadest base.
And on the subject of WIC-- I can't think of a better way of attracting the wrath of God, if you are inclined to believe in that sort of thing, than abandoning mothers and children.
quote:I hope so, but I'm also afraid that some people will keep voting for the party that fucks with them.
Kelly Alves: The GOP may have actually found a great way to alienate its broadest base.
quote:Wow. I didn't know WIC and SNAP were considered "inessential". That's horrifying.
Originally posted by sabine:
quote:Totally what Kelly said.
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
And on the subject of WIC-- I can't think of a better way of attracting the wrath of God, if you are inclined to believe in that sort of thing, than abandoning mothers and children.
sabine
quote:No, please! The elderly and disabled can't wait until this gets sorted out.
Originally posted by Antisocial Alto:
If they're calling entitlements "inessential", I kind of wish they'd cut off Social Security and Medicare while they're at it. Not because I have anything against the elderly. But you know the Republicans wouldn't have dared to bring us to shutdown if it meant the AARP would be on the warpath.
quote:Yes. One of my tea-party friends (yes, I have some) is blathering all over facebook about how some vets were locked out of a DC memorial where they were going to have some sort of commemorative ceremony (all the nat'l parks and monuments are closed). Raging about how "Obama" was deliberately hurting the vets. Which, yeah, it's too bad that vets are gonna miss something they've probably looked forward to, maybe even out some $$s if they bought non-refundable plane tickets to get there. But, really, people, perspective! Pointing out that there were people with more serious concerns than having a weekend event cancelled got me nowhere. Cuz, while veterans are (rightly) heroes, apparently everyone on WIC is just a "taker".
Originally posted by Antisocial Alto:
quote:Wow. I didn't know WIC and SNAP were considered "inessential". That's horrifying.
Originally posted by sabine:
quote:Totally what Kelly said.
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
And on the subject of WIC-- I can't think of a better way of attracting the wrath of God, if you are inclined to believe in that sort of thing, than abandoning mothers and children.
sabine
quote:Right, what I am saying is I don't think they would have shut us down in the first place.
Originally posted by sabine:
quote:No, please! The elderly and disabled can't wait until this gets sorted out.
Originally posted by Antisocial Alto:
If they're calling entitlements "inessential", I kind of wish they'd cut off Social Security and Medicare while they're at it. Not because I have anything against the elderly. But you know the Republicans wouldn't have dared to bring us to shutdown if it meant the AARP would be on the warpath.
eta: To be fair, I know you are just making a point, not advocating for cutting off SS and Medicare.
sabine
quote:Sigh. . .
Originally posted by art dunce:
Th AARP supports the ACA and have been branded an anti-American, liberal organization by the right. Conservatives have been creating their own alternative organizations for "patriotic seniors".
quote:Unlikely. The "winner take all" electoral system mandated by the U.S. Constitution optimizes the political system for the existence of two (and only two) major political parties. If you insist on thinking in Parliamentary terms, you could think of the two major U.S. political parties as coalitions of interests rather than unitary entities. The trick is to gather together enough different interests to hold a majority without representing so many conflicting interests it either splits the party or prevents effective governance.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
An earlier post talked about perhaps the Democrats splitting as well as the Republicans. It is interesting to see if the two coalition party system breaks apart into a set of smaller ideologically consistent parties as seen in parliamentary systems.
quote:Patriotic: Continually claiming to love this country while simultaneously hating everything it stands for.
Originally posted by sabine:
quote:Sigh. . .
Originally posted by art dunce:
Th AARP supports the ACA and have been branded an anti-American, liberal organization by the right. Conservatives have been creating their own alternative organizations for "patriotic seniors".
Apparently the Tea Party believes they own rights to and have the only power to define "patriotic."
sabine
quote:An alternate definition might be loving one's country and wanting it to be the best it can be.
Originally posted by art dunce:
Patriotic: Continually claiming to love this country while simultaneously hating everything it stands for.
quote:Except the best the country can be, in the eyes of the tea party, would involve turning back the clock and reasserting their primacy and privilege. My family would be either kicked out of the country or pushed back into servitude. No thanks. Their version of the best it can be is over which is why they are hysterical.
Originally posted by sabine:
quote:An alternate definition might be loving one's country and wanting it to be the best it can be.
Originally posted by art dunce:
Patriotic: Continually claiming to love this country while simultaneously hating everything it stands for.
sabine
quote:Indeed. If they truly wanted "the best it can be" they wouldn't be fighting so hard to prevent a good chunk of it's citzenry from obtaining health care. If they truly wanted "the best it can be" they would honor what is supposedly the crown jewel of American exceptionalism-- democracy-- by accepting the prior 44 decisions made through our democratic process to go forward with Obamacare.
Originally posted by art dunce:
quote:Except the best the country can be, in the eyes of the tea party, would involve turning back the clock and reasserting their primacy and privilege. My family would be either kicked out of the country or pushed back into servitude. No thanks. Their version of the best it can be is over which is why they are hysterical.
Originally posted by sabine:
quote:An alternate definition might be loving one's country and wanting it to be the best it can be.
Originally posted by art dunce:
Patriotic: Continually claiming to love this country while simultaneously hating everything it stands for.
sabine
quote:That would be mine. I wasn't talking about splitting so much as hijacking, but toward the left rather than toward the right.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
An earlier post talked about perhaps the Democrats splitting as well as the Republicans.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Point/Counterpoint.
quote:Maybe it's just me, but when you have Fox News running an article in support of Obamacare, it makes the opponents of Obamacare look like extreme right wing loonies.
Originally posted by pererin:
They already know. Yes, that's Sally Kohn, but numbers don't lie.
quote:It worked for Newfoundland.
Originally posted by IconiumBound:
There is no solution to this impasse. I have long thought the US should petition Parliament to reinstate our colonial status.
quote:This is so true; it's one of the biggest, if not the biggest part of the problem, yet little recognized. This really needs to change somehow, but I don't know how.
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:It lost 2012. The majority of the vote for House representatives went to democrats in 2012, but the districts are so gerrymandered, republicans could cling to power.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Does it mean that the GOP has already lost in 2016?
quote:I speak only for myself, but I think I'm suffering from a certain amount of compassion fatigue when it comes to victims of violence abroad (whose targets, BTW, are hardly limited to Christians).
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Tangent Alert.
About a week ago, within a few days of each other, about eighty-five Christians were killed in an explosion outside a church in Pakistan, about sixty-seven people were shot dead in a Kenyan shopping centre, and over twenty students were murdered in a Nigerian college dormitory.
To the best of my knowledge (apologies if I am wrong) none of these atrocities was so much as even mentioned on the Ship.
Is this caused by a parochialism which sees the welfare of white Westerners as more interesting than the actual lives of Africans and Asians?
Or is it simply more feel-good and fashionable to rail against Republicans, than to be caught saying anything negative about Islamist extremism?
quote:Just go the whole road that Newfoundland went and apply for admission to Canada. All we demand is that you apologize for being so rude to our sovereign lord George III (of late and happy memory), and then you can get back to being the Province of Massachusetts and the Province of New York and party like it was 1775.
Originally posted by malik3000:
quote:It worked for Newfoundland.
Originally posted by IconiumBound:
There is no solution to this impasse. I have long thought the US should petition Parliament to reinstate our colonial status.
quote:Great questions for another thread.
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
... Is this caused by a parochialism which sees the welfare of white Westerners as more interesting than the actual lives of Africans and Asians?
Or is it simply more feel-good and fashionable to rail against Republicans, than to be caught saying anything negative about Islamist extremism?
quote:I notice that you didn't care enough to start a thread on any of these topics.
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Tangent Alert.
I live in a country with quite an efficient health-care system, which I support, and from which I have greatly benefited personally.
This is a thoroughly relevant and stimulating thread, and I generally concur with the criticism of the Tea Party obstructionism.
Having said that, I am also disturbed that this issue has generated so much concern and interest, while contemporaneous and equally serious events have passed unremarked.
About a week ago, within a few days of each other, about eighty-five Christians were killed in an explosion outside a church in Pakistan, about sixty-seven people were shot dead in a Kenyan shopping centre, and over twenty students were murdered in a Nigerian college dormitory.
To the best of my knowledge (apologies if I am wrong) none of these atrocities was so much as even mentioned on the Ship.
Is this caused by a parochialism which sees the welfare of white Westerners as more interesting than the actual lives of Africans and Asians?
Or is it simply more feel-good and fashionable to rail against Republicans, than to be caught saying anything negative about Islamist extremism?
quote:I thought about doing so, and you're right, I should have done so at the time.
Originally posted by Porridge:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
[qb]
Moreover, what stops you from posting one of these concerns you hold so dear?
quote:I thought I had made it clear that it is a matter of both/and, not either/or.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
We can be concerned/ pray for/ advocate for our suffering brothers and sisters in other parts of the world while still being outraged by selfish and irresponsible pols who jeopardize the very health and wellbeing of our bros and sisters close at hand.
quote:Really? Not clear to me. But my point was that, contrary to your assertion, people DO seem to be concerned about both, at least from my observation. And they should be concerned about both-- because all three of the events (Pakistan, Kenya, and US) are literally life-and-death matters.
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:I thought I had made it clear that it is a matter of both/and, not either/or.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
We can be concerned/ pray for/ advocate for our suffering brothers and sisters in other parts of the world while still being outraged by selfish and irresponsible pols who jeopardize the very health and wellbeing of our bros and sisters close at hand.
quote:You hope you have? And what, pray tell, is the name of your new thread? (The one you've thoughtfully opened so as not to derail this one, that is.)
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:I thought about doing so, and you're right, I should have done so at the time.
Originally posted by Porridge:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
[qb]
Moreover, what stops you from posting one of these concerns you hold so dear?
Now, effectively I hope I have, if anyone takes it up.
quote:Do you have any substantive comment on the issue (pray tell) or are you only interested in being a smartarse?
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:You hope you have? And what, pray tell, is the name of your new thread? (The one you've thoughtfully opened so as not to derail this one, that is.)
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:I thought about doing so, and you're right, I should have done so at the time.
Originally posted by Porridge:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
[qb]
Moreover, what stops you from posting one of these concerns you hold so dear?
Now, effectively I hope I have, if anyone takes it up.
quote:The "lock out" was a barricade of yellow tape saying do not enter. The Park ranger there to prevent people from entering said "I'm not going to stop them, I'm a veteran, too". There was a congressman there too trying to help since he had nothing better to do.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Re: the locked out vets--
Saw on TV that someone found a way to let them in.
quote:Start a new thread, or don't, but stop derailing this one.
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:Do you have any substantive comment on the issue (pray tell) or are you only interested in being a smartarse?
Originally posted by Dave W.:
quote:You hope you have? And what, pray tell, is the name of your new thread? (The one you've thoughtfully opened so as not to derail this one, that is.)
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:I thought about doing so, and you're right, I should have done so at the time.
Originally posted by Porridge:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
[qb]
Moreover, what stops you from posting one of these concerns you hold so dear?
Now, effectively I hope I have, if anyone takes it up.
quote:Fox News favors something Obama likes? The world I know has ended.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:Maybe it's just me, but when you have Fox News running an article in support of Obamacare, it makes the opponents of Obamacare look like extreme right wing loonies.
Originally posted by pererin:
They already know. Yes, that's Sally Kohn, but numbers don't lie.
quote:Texas Republican platform of the Bush era called for ending Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
Originally posted by Antisocial Alto:
If they're calling entitlements "inessential", I kind of wish they'd cut off Social Security and Medicare while they're at it. Not because I have anything against the elderly. But you know the Republicans wouldn't have dared to bring us to shutdown if it meant the AARP would be on the warpath.
quote:The gals in the Bible Study Bunch are convinced Obama is not a Christian because he's not their brand of Christian like Bush (the "prophet of God") was. As a "non-Christian" Obama is inherently working for the spiritual enemy and must be opposed.
(by someone on page 1)The people who led to the shut down are ideologues fixated on not letting Pres. Obama win anything.
quote:So they're trying to engineer Gotterdammerung before it happens?
They're not worried that the Affordable Care Act will be a failure, they're worried that it won't.
quote:As I implied, Sally Kohn is far from the stereotypical Fox News appointment. But still...
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
quote:Fox News favors something Obama likes? The world I know has ended.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:Maybe it's just me, but when you have Fox News running an article in support of Obamacare, it makes the opponents of Obamacare look like extreme right wing loonies.
Originally posted by pererin:
They already know. Yes, that's Sally Kohn, but numbers don't lie.
quote:Let me put that into perspective because the raw numbers you cite are extremely misleading.
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
quote:With the government already spending about the same % of gdp on healthcare to cover a little over 30% of our population that other countries spend to cover all their people, our government already has demonstrated itself to be inefficient.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Your argument essentially amounts to leaving the present, demonstrably less efficient system in place because health care is excessively expensive under that system.
quote:Not like maybe go to work and start doing something about solving this mess?
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
quote:The "lock out" was a barricade of yellow tape saying do not enter. The Park ranger there to prevent people from entering said "I'm not going to stop them, I'm a veteran, too". There was a congressman there too trying to help since he had nothing better to do.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Re: the locked out vets--
Saw on TV that someone found a way to let them in.
quote:Interesting that it's so high. UK NHS funding comes to about 4% of income on a £30,000 salary according to this Telegraph calculator. A yearly income of £30,000 pays around £1233 a year, or £103 a month towards the NHS, although a £15,000pa income pays £360.00pa/£30pm which is 2.5%.
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
Premiums are to be as much as 9% of your gross income. For those who don't buy health insurance, that's a huge new budget item. Lots of my friends are bare, they just hope they never get sick.
For a couple with no kids and an income of $30,000, a pretty tight budget, they will have to pay between $600 and $2500 in premiums (plus various deductibles). calculator For health insurance compared with pre-Obamacare, that's cheap. But it's a big added expense. (OTOH, pay for it by just killing the Smart Phone or the 100 channel TV subscription! Nope, those are "essentials.")
My friend who struggles to live on an uncertain $20,000 a year will have to pay about $50 a year for the lowest cost plan.
quote:Well, yeah. If you were living in an ideal world where you weren't constrained by existing systems you'd never design a health care system along the lines of America's pre-ACA system (or even the post-ACA system). Of course, we don't live in such a world.
Originally posted by Hawk:
I suspect the US model is more expensive because it is forced to fund an existing expensive insurance company model rather than setting one up from scratch.
quote:There are a number of names which apply to such an ideal world, like Australia, Britain, Canada, Cuba, Sweden ...
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Well, yeah. If you were living in an ideal world where you weren't constrained by existing systems you'd never design a health care system along the lines of America's pre-ACA system (or even the post-ACA system). Of course, we don't live in such a world.
Originally posted by Hawk:
I suspect the US model is more expensive because it is forced to fund an existing expensive insurance company model rather than setting one up from scratch.
quote:The interesting thing about the NHS is that it was constrained by existing systems. It didn't pop into existence in 1946 out of thin air. it was based on previous welfare laws, societies, charities and insurance schemes that dated back to 1911 at least. Yet still it met without the rage and assault that the US reforms are meeting with today.
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
quote:There are a number of names which apply to such an ideal world, like Australia, Britain, Canada, Cuba, Sweden ...
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Well, yeah. If you were living in an ideal world where you weren't constrained by existing systems you'd never design a health care system along the lines of America's pre-ACA system (or even the post-ACA system). Of course, we don't live in such a world.
Originally posted by Hawk:
I suspect the US model is more expensive because it is forced to fund an existing expensive insurance company model rather than setting one up from scratch.
quote:I think we've reached the point where Congressional Republicans are fixated on "winning", but no longer remember what "winning" means for them. Maybe they never knew, other than them winning means someone else (the President? Congressional Democrats? the American people?) lost.
"We’re not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is."
- Congressman Marlin Stutzman, elegantly summing up the Republican position
quote:I'm not sure about 'hardly any opposition'. Quite a lot of people seem to be dimly aware that an awful lot of benefit claimants are in work, and are having their low wages topped up. You see, the state is just thinking about those employers, who need their wage-bill subsidizing! Well, it just shows that we're all in this together, after all.
Originally posted by Jane R:
Hawk, I think part of the reason for that was because the UK welfare reforms were introduced in 1946 - just after the Second World War, when there was a much greater sense of 'we're all in this together' (to quote one of CallmeDave's inane slogans). Everyone had been affected by the war; some lost everything they owned in the Blitz; there was a lot of sympathy for refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe (more than refugees get nowadays, anyway). And there was some opposition to the NHS, though most of it came from doctors' organisations who were worried about losing out financially under the new system.
Nowadays it's much easier for politicians to play divide and rule; look at the way the UK government is cutting back on welfare with hardly any opposition by characterising anyone who claims benefits as a scrounger. They're not out to get nice respectable people like us, oh dear me no (I understand the current code is 'hard-working families). They're after the lazy sods over there who want something for nothing.
quote:Absolutely. But I'm living in the US, which does have a clunky, outdated, inefficient system already in place. That will HAVE to be dismantled. And that will be costly, messy, painful, and people will get hurt. But we either keep living in a decrepit old house that's falling apart around our ears, or we do the hard work of tearing it down and rebuilding something better. Right now we're in the process of tearing it down while still trying to keep a roof over our heads to keep out the rain. Not easy to do.
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
quote:There are a number of names which apply to such an ideal world, like Australia, Britain, Canada, Cuba, Sweden ...
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Well, yeah. If you were living in an ideal world where you weren't constrained by existing systems you'd never design a health care system along the lines of America's pre-ACA system (or even the post-ACA system). Of course, we don't live in such a world.
Originally posted by Hawk:
I suspect the US model is more expensive because it is forced to fund an existing expensive insurance company model rather than setting one up from scratch.
quote:Every now and then this idea rears its head about what we should and should not be talking about on the Ship.
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Tangent Alert.
I live in a country with quite an efficient health-care system, which I support, and from which I have greatly benefited personally.
This is a thoroughly relevant and stimulating thread, and I generally concur with the criticism of the Tea Party obstructionism.
Having said that, I am also disturbed that this issue has generated so much concern and interest, while contemporaneous and equally serious events have passed unremarked.
About a week ago, within a few days of each other, about eighty-five Christians were killed in an explosion outside a church in Pakistan, about sixty-seven people were shot dead in a Kenyan shopping centre, and over twenty students were murdered in a Nigerian college dormitory.
To the best of my knowledge (apologies if I am wrong) none of these atrocities was so much as even mentioned on the Ship.
Is this caused by a parochialism which sees the welfare of white Westerners as more interesting than the actual lives of Africans and Asians?
Or is it simply more feel-good and fashionable to rail against Republicans, than to be caught saying anything negative about Islamist extremism?
quote:What about the parochialism that sees what is happening in the US as having to do with "white Westerners"? There are people of every color, ethnicity and nationality living here and we are deeply (and disproportionately ) affected by all of this.
Is this caused by a parochialism which sees the welfare of white Westerners as more interesting than the actual lives of Africans and Asians?
quote:This is because 'interesting' and important' are two completely different things. They may coincide, they may not. I come here to get away from what's important, have a rest, and to read and chat about what's interesting.
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Having said that, I am also disturbed that this issue has generated so much concern and interest, while contemporaneous and equally serious events have passed unremarked.
quote:Also in context there are three things that need taking into account.
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Tangent Alert.
I live in a country with quite an efficient health-care system, which I support, and from which I have greatly benefited personally.
This is a thoroughly relevant and stimulating thread, and I generally concur with the criticism of the Tea Party obstructionism.
Having said that, I am also disturbed that this issue has generated so much concern and interest, while contemporaneous and equally serious events have passed unremarked.
About a week ago, within a few days of each other, about eighty-five Christians were killed in an explosion outside a church in Pakistan, about sixty-seven people were shot dead in a Kenyan shopping centre, and over twenty students were murdered in a Nigerian college dormitory.
To the best of my knowledge (apologies if I am wrong) none of these atrocities was so much as even mentioned on the Ship.
Is this caused by a parochialism which sees the welfare of white Westerners as more interesting than the actual lives of Africans and Asians?
Or is it simply more feel-good and fashionable to rail against Republicans, than to be caught saying anything negative about Islamist extremism?
quote:The republican legislatures for those states have, furthermore, worked to make it more difficult for people to sign up for healthcare under the ACA.
Originally posted by art dunce:
From today's NYT.
'The 26 states that have rejected the Medicaid expansion are home to about half of the country’s population, but about 68 percent of poor, uninsured blacks and single mothers. About 60 percent of the country’s uninsured working poor are in those states.'
A travesty. I hope this whole fiasco can build enough momentum to boot the Republicans out of Governorships in those states and cost them seats in both houses.
quote:Ugh... Brain bleach! Now!
1: This is crazier than if the entire legislature stripped down and decided to streak naked,
quote:
Boehner does not seem to share his party’s sociopathic embrace of hostage tactics. Boehner resembles William H. Macy’s character in Fargo, who concocts a simple plan to have his wife kidnapped and skim the proceeds, failing to think a step forward about what happens once she’s actually seized by violent criminals. He doesn’t intend for her to be harmed, but also has no ability to control the plan once he’s set it in motion. In the end, Boehner's Speakership is likely to end up in the wood chipper, anyway.
quote:How sadly accurate.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
From the category of slightly gross but nonetheless accurate movie analogies:
quote:
Boehner does not seem to share his party’s sociopathic embrace of hostage tactics. Boehner resembles William H. Macy’s character in Fargo, who concocts a simple plan to have his wife kidnapped and skim the proceeds, failing to think a step forward about what happens once she’s actually seized by violent criminals. He doesn’t intend for her to be harmed, but also has no ability to control the plan once he’s set it in motion. In the end, Boehner's Speakership is likely to end up in the wood chipper, anyway.
quote:These are two different, though inter-related questions. It's legitimate for the legislature to the executive's purse strings. Control of spending was assigned to the legislature for that very reason, to serve as a check on executive power. On the other hand, it's not responsible to do so in the indiscriminate and scattershot manner that's been done in this case.
Originally posted by Enoch:
So is it legitimate for the Legislature suddenly to cut the Executive's purse strings, root and branch, clunk, just because it doesn't like something the President was elected to do?
And should the Legislature regard itself as having any responsibility for government - or is it entitled to say 'nothing to do with us - that's the Executive's job'?
quote:Not really. Most laws don't have a built-in funding mechanism included in them. For example, Congress can pass a law establishing food safety standards and even authorize an agency to maintain those standards, but funds for operations are typically apportioned on a year-by-year basis. There are fairly good, practical reasons for this. For starters, it would require an implausible level of economic forecasting. It's very hard to anticipate in 1970 what level of staffing or operations will be appropriate for the Environmental Protection Agency in 2013.
Originally posted by Doublethink:
That seems a plausible explanation.
However, if both houses and the president have *already passed* a law - surely, blackmail on this scale must be unconstitutional?
quote:Hmm, I wonder if any bribery charges will ever arise ...
The President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.
quote:Most recently in 2009.
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Except that Parliamentary systems do this too; the only difference the issue is brought directly to a head through a Confidence Vote. Canadian Governments have fallen on the their budgets and the Ontario Government will likely do so next March. The US system has no confidence votes and can't resort to a spontaneous election to resolve matters. It would probably help it it did, but that would depend on reducing the amount of gerrymandering.
![[Snore]](graemlins/snore.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I get that, but it is the stalling with the deliberate intention of sabotage - deliberate and stated intention - that seems impeachable.
quote:Since Congress is the obstructive party in this case, impeachment isn't an option. Congressmen can't be impeached, only members of the Executive or Judiciary branches.
Originally posted by Doublethink:
quote:Hmm, I wonder if any bribery charges will ever arise ...
The President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.
quote:Stuff I Don't Like != "impeachable."
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I get that, but it is the stalling with the deliberate intention of sabotage - deliberate and stated intention - that seems impeachable.
quote:No, but "stuff I don't like" can equal expulsion. What's unrealistic with that is getting two-thirds of the House of Representatives to establish a precedent that makes expulsion so easy.
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
Stuff I Don't Like != "impeachable."
Keep it realistic please.
quote:2011.
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:Most recently in 2009.
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Except that Parliamentary systems do this too; the only difference the issue is brought directly to a head through a Confidence Vote. Canadian Governments have fallen on the their budgets and the Ontario Government will likely do so next March. The US system has no confidence votes and can't resort to a spontaneous election to resolve matters. It would probably help it it did, but that would depend on reducing the amount of gerrymandering.
quote:I Think It Is A Serious Issue != it is covered by the constitution*.
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I think abuse of public office is a serious issue. (Which is covered by that part of the constitution.)
quote:Voting In Ways I Don't Like != "high crimes and misdemeanors"
Originally posted by Doublethink:
The term "high crimes and misdemeanors" includes the abuse of public office.
quote:Yes, they do realize it, which is why they're trying to push through a "lifeboat" resolution that funds the NPS, the city of Washington (which is already taking matters into its own hands), and National Institutes of Health, so that stories of tourists unable to visit Washington or children with cancer turned away from medical trials stop making the news and the shutdown can continue. Not in the lifeboat: food stamps, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control, or most anything that could regulate industry or help the poor. Draw your own conclusions.
Originally posted by PaulBC:
The Westminster system works . Both UK & Canada don't have these shocks every few years. Yes we have other shocks but the system still works. What is happening in USA is
disfunction by a small group of people closing down much of the Federal system.
I wonder if the tea party typpes realize how bad it looks to close down, The Lincoln
memorial, the Jefferson Memorial , the Washington memorial , the Federally supported museums , the National Park Service and so on. Then they wonder why some people laught at America
Hopefully someone in Washington will start acting in an adult manner and get this settled .
quote:It depends. The U.S. Constitution grants members of Congress a certain level of immunity from arrest and prosecution when Congress is in session. The exceptions to this immunity include "Treason, Felony, and Breach of the Peace". The general purpose of this is to prevent the executive branch from harassing Congress.
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I had understood 'impeachment' to be the legal term for charging someone in relation to their public office. I shall rephrase:
- If congress members accept bribes can they be charged with a crime by congress or by the police?
quote:"Damag[ing] the infrastructure of the state" is pretty vague. Technically speaking, any change in the law damages the infrastructure that existed before it by tearing it down and replacing it with something new.
Originally posted by Doublethink:
- If congress members deliberately try to damage the infrastructure of the state, at what point would that be considered a criminal offence ? E.g. Would it be legal for a congress member to threaten to reveal classified information in the house, in order to force the repeal of a law already on the statute books?
quote:No, but only if you could prove a deliberate conspiracy (once again, Treason or Felony) rather than ordinary incompetence or intransigence.
Originally posted by Doublethink:
- If a group of congress people chose to conspire to try to suspend government for long enough to cause civil unrest in order to bring down the government of the day - would that be legal ?
quote:Fortunately we have examples of corruption investigations in stock.
Originally posted by Doublethink:
....
I thought 'civil officers' would cover those
In the UK MPs can be charged with misconduct in public office. I had understood 'impeachment' to be the legal term for charging someone in relation to their public office. I shall rephrase:
- If congress members accept bribes can they be charged with a crime by congress or by the police ?
- If congress members deliberately try to damage the infrastructure of the state, at what point would that be considered a criminal offence ? E.g. Would it be legal for a congress member to threaten to reveal classified information in the house, in order to force the repeal of a law already on the statute books ?
- If a group of congress people chose to conspire to try to suspend government for long enough to cause civil unrest in order to bring down the government of the day - would that be legal ?
quote:In the USA, impeachment is the very specific term for an elected legislature proceeding to remove an executive official from their civil office. Members of Congress are by definition not executive officials due to the separation of the three branches of government, as opposed to a parliamentary system where some executive offices (i.e. Ministers of the Crown) may only be held by a person who is an elected representative of the people.
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I had understood 'impeachment' to be the legal term for charging someone in relation to their public office.
quote:If accepting (or offering) bribes is illegal for everyone, or specifically for members of Congress, I imagine that charges could be laid by the police.
- If congress members accept bribes can they be charged with a crime by congress or by the police ?
quote:That's an interesting one. It would probably fall back on whether a real criminal offence had taken place (one written in law, not the offence of annoying Somebody On The Internet) and whether there was anything protecting the member/s from prosecution at the time (such as an equivalent of parliamentary privilege in reference to your specific example).
- If congress members deliberately try to damage the infrastructure of the state, at what point would that be considered a criminal offence ? E.g. Would it be legal for a congress member to threaten to reveal classified information in the house, in order to force the repeal of a law already on the statute books ?
quote:The more important question than "would that be legal" is of course "would that be criminal" as the US criminal justice system works on the basis of regulating illegal behaviour rather than permitting selected legal behaviours. The actual charge would need to be proven (and a real one at that, not something that somebody thinks is A Serious Issue) which would be near on impossible to prove for such a huge conspiracy and would result in an absolute circus of a trial - see my previous reference to the Nixon pardon. If the attempt to prove such a charge required the use of materials gained through illegal surveillance the trial could well do more damage than the attempt to bring down the government.
- If a group of congress people chose to conspire to try to suspend government for long enough to cause civil unrest in order to bring down the government of the day - would that be legal ?
![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
![[Waterworks]](graemlins/bawling.gif)
<--- Bohner crying at his inauguration.
quote:Well, yes, he would be crying. Because it's becoming increasingly clear to me that the Republicans don't really want the White House. Does anyone seriously think Gingrich was serious in his White House run? If they had the presidency, they'd have to actually WORK at something. It's soooo much easier and profitable to parlay a few grandstanding moves on the congressional floor (yes, Ted, I'm looking at you) into a comfy spot on Faux News.
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
What I really don't understand about this standoff is ... why is the GOP bargaining over the ACA? That's peanuts. If this is such a great political tactic, why don't the Teabaggers demand that Obama RESIGN in exchange for the continuing resolution? That's what they really want, after all. Then they can demand that Joe Biden resign in exchange for the debt limit, and John Boehner will be President before Hallowe'en.
quote:The long-term repercussions of such a move could be massive. He would never be forgiven. Essentially it requires moderate Republicans to decide that the Tea Party folk are worse than the Democrats.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Here's the thing, though -- Boehner could cut a deal with the House Dems to buck the Teabaggers, and in return the Dems would vote for him for speaker. Maybe not likely but one way of him getting through the impasse and keeping his job.
quote:Add independent electoral commissions to my fantasy wishlist. Australia used to have problems with gerrymandering, but thankfully this is no longer the case.
Originally posted by mousethief:
With the way they have gerrymandered the congressional districts, they are stuck with the Tea Party for the forseeable future. Unless they can change message in a BIG way and un-brainwash the people in those deep red districts.
quote:Yes. May it please the gods. That would be lovely.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:Add independent electoral commissions to my fantasy wishlist. Australia used to have problems with gerrymandering, but thankfully this is no longer the case.
Originally posted by mousethief:
With the way they have gerrymandered the congressional districts, they are stuck with the Tea Party for the forseeable future. Unless they can change message in a BIG way and un-brainwash the people in those deep red districts.
![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
quote:Yes, we DO. I'm talking about my wishlist for the USA, not here. As I said, we don't have those kinds of issues in Australia. And even when we did, it was at State level not federally.
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
You don't have those in Australia?
quote:But you have an independent redistricting commission in Washington....
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:Yes. May it please the gods. That would be lovely.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:Add independent electoral commissions to my fantasy wishlist. Australia used to have problems with gerrymandering, but thankfully this is no longer the case.
Originally posted by mousethief:
With the way they have gerrymandered the congressional districts, they are stuck with the Tea Party for the forseeable future. Unless they can change message in a BIG way and un-brainwash the people in those deep red districts.
quote:I assume you mean Washington and not Washington? But we need it in every state.
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
But you have an independent redistricting commission in Washington....
quote:You're missing an important piece, though, in why it's nigh impossible to get America to do something similar:
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
There are a number of names which apply to such an ideal world, like Australia, Britain, Canada, Cuba, Sweden ...
quote:And they think this is bad... why?
Originally posted by Golden Key:
And yes, I know that not all those countries listed are socialists. But their policy was/is considered socialized medicine.
quote:I read them but I'd hardly dignify them with the term 'reasons'. They're basically 'slogans'.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Orfeo--
Uh, did you read the reasons I gave in my post? They really are reasons that have been used. I've heard an awful lot of panicked, angry fuss about "socialized medicine" over the last few decades.
quote:GK, with this line of reasoning, I am mystified why the US of A ever allowed the existence of Social Security. I mean, SOCIAL! security. Looks like 'the commies' have already taken over.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
You're missing an important piece, though, in why it's nigh impossible to get America to do something similar:
S*O*C*I*A*L*I*S*M
As in "socialized medicine". As in "socialism". As in "commies". As in "Cold War".
That was the main argument against universal health care in the US for a long, long time. I haven't heard those terms much, during this particular push for coverage. But they're still there, under the surface.
And yes, I know that not all those countries listed are socialists. But their policy was/is considered socialized medicine.
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
quote:It actually was opposed for that reason when it was first passed. The only reason it was possible at the time was the Great Depression, which gave the Democrats huge majorities in both houses of Congress and made people desperate enough to try something new. The American right has hated Social Security (and the rest of the New Deal, for that matter) ever since.
Originally posted by Pooks:
GK, with this line of reasoning, I am mystified why the US of A ever allowed the existence of Social Security. I mean, SOCIAL! security. Looks like 'the commies' have already taken over.
quote:That's been obvious from the start. The problem is that conservatives have no idea what they want to use that leverage for. Essentially they've kidnapped a hostage who they've threatened to shoot unless their demands are met, and suddenly realized they don't know what those demands are.
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
It's starting to make sense to me now: Republicans are admitting that their real goal was not defunding the ACA but rather gaining leverage for the debt ceiling debate over the next two weeks.
quote:What's slightly worrying to Aussies is that the 1975 Dismissal is now being talked about in the US as a better way to do things while it's generally viewed here as the ugliest incident in the political history of Australia!
Originally posted by Enoch:
What's slightly worrying to an outsider, is that the most interesting, perceptive and useful comments all seem to have come not from those directly involved, but from Australians, also outsiders.
quote:I will consider a comment made here useful if it directly contributes to the Tea Partiers pulling their head out of their collective ass and letting a clean bill go forward in the House.
Originally posted by Enoch:
What's slightly worrying to an outsider, is that the most interesting, perceptive and useful comments all seem to have come not from those directly involved, but from Australians, also outsiders.
quote:Are any of them likely to be following this thread? If they were, at least they would realise that there are a lot of people who think the answer to the original question is a resounding and unanimous 'yes'.
Originally posted by RuthW:
I will consider a comment made here useful if it directly contributes to the Tea Partiers pulling their head out of their collective ass and letting a clean bill go forward in the House.
...
quote:I think the comparison is unfair to complete prats.
Originally posted by Enoch:
there are a lot of people who think the answer to the original question is a resounding and unanimous 'yes'.
quote:And libraries.
Originally posted by Porridge:
Not to mention that we've had "socialized" public education systems and "free" public libraries in this country since the 19th (maybe 18th in the case of libraries) century.
Of course, we're now busy dismantling socialized schools under the guise of "failing schools" and "school choice."
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quote:We don't have that many true free-thinkers in this country. The truth is that most people adopt party ideology and loyally adhere to it rather than take the time to think a situation through for themselves. This happens on both sides, of course.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:And they think this is bad... why?
Originally posted by Golden Key:
And yes, I know that not all those countries listed are socialists. But their policy was/is considered socialized medicine.
That's what mystifies me completely. Heaven forbid we actually behave as a society. I'm sure there's plenty of debate to be had about precisely what's best to organise centrally and what can be left to the private sphere, but to me medical care is one of THE great no-brainers for collective organisation. Everybody wants to be healthy, and everybody needs health care at some point. It's a perfect example of a service that should be set up on a 'you get when you need it' basis.
![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif)
quote:Not true.
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
the 1975 Dismissal ...generally viewed here as the ugliest incident in the political history of Australia!
quote:Well, the present U.S. situation is quite an ugly incident too. At least in Australia, there was a swift resolution to it all. And it involved sacking the bastards, which made everyone feel at least a little better.
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
What's slightly worrying to Aussies is that the 1975 Dismissal is now being talked about in the US as a better way to do things while it's generally viewed here as the ugliest incident in the political history of Australia!
quote:An opinionator on the radio yesterday claims these shutdowns actually result in extra money being spent. There are costs to mothballing things, then un-mothballing them, and, if the Congress decides to restore lost wages to workers, they'll be paying for work that hasn't been done. All-in-all, pretty expensive.
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
But there is the worrying thought that this plays into the hands of the people who don't want the government to function. That group have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams: far less money is being spent on government,
quote:(*tangent*) meaning what, precisely? What are you thinking of? Examples?
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
Is the rise of the Tea Party in any way connected to the retirement age of the Boomer Generation?
Boomers have been used to having their own way since the 197o's, without having to justify that with any actual reason.
quote:And you know, I'm really really glad we're paying our military. It's a good thing.
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Hmm
quote:That seems to be a foreign thought to some members of the Republican caucus. For example [Warning: autoplay video]:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I just wish someone-- anyone-- among the multitude of right-wing voices bloviating right now, would at least mention the 9 million families that have lost their supplemental food programs (WIC and SNAP). It would just be nice is someone noticed that we're apparently OK with starving kids.
quote:Congressman Terry apparently thinks no government workers have mortgage payments to make or kids in college.
Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., was blunt when asked if he would continue collecting his paychecks during the shutdown.
“Dang straight,” he said.
Terry suggested it's an irrelevant question because the situation would be resolved before long.
What about the other members who were donating or forgoing their pay?
“Whatever gets them good press,” Terry said. “That's all that it's going to be. God bless them. But you know what? I've got a nice house and a kid in college, and I'll tell you we cannot handle it. Giving our paycheck away when you still worked and earned it? That's just not going to fly.”
quote:An alternative, and to my mind more convincing, explanation is that the kind of vicious, paranoid politics associated with the Tea Party has been present in American conservatism for a long time. It's just been on hiatus since William F. Buckley and associates managed to get the John Birch Society removed from serious consideration. But just because they were out of power doesn't mean they went away.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:(*tangent*) meaning what, precisely? What are you thinking of? Examples?
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
Is the rise of the Tea Party in any way connected to the retirement age of the Boomer Generation?
Boomers have been used to having their own way since the 1970's, without having to justify that with any actual reason.
From my bottom-of-the-baby-boom (and left-wing) pov, it seems more that baby boomers have been dismissed all our lives as immature and irresponsible, to the point of being given very little power by the can-never-live-up-to "greatest generation". But perhaps you're thinking of different examples than I am.
To your point, though, it would seem that the majority of the tea party representatives involved are far too young to qualify as baby boomers. Tea party darling and leader of the pack Ted Cruz, for example, was born in 1970-- far too young to qualify as a boomer.
quote:And the Tea Party isn't immature and irresponsible?
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
From my bottom-of-the-baby-boom (and left-wing) pov, it seems more that baby boomers have been dismissed all our lives as immature and irresponsible, to the point of being given very little power by the can-never-live-up-to "greatest generation". But perhaps you're thinking of different examples than I am.
To your point, though, it would seem that the majority of the tea party representatives involved are far too young to qualify as baby boomers. Tea party darling and leader of the pack Ted Cruz, for example, was born in 1970-- far too young to qualify as a boomer. [/QB]
quote:Well, you never know who may be reading! The Tea Partiers would probably consider it a badge of honor.
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:Are any of them likely to be following this thread? If they were, at least they would realise that there are a lot of people who think the answer to the original question is a resounding and unanimous 'yes'.
Originally posted by RuthW:
I will consider a comment made here useful if it directly contributes to the Tea Partiers pulling their head out of their collective ass and letting a clean bill go forward in the House....
quote:As I understand it, Occupy Oakland got caught up in a load of existing grievances against the police, and the thing took on a "let's demonstrate against the police" tone. I know contempt of cop isn't a crime, but this was still a fairly moronic line to go down.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Protests? Well, did you watch how the Occupy protests played out, a couple years back? Especially Occupy Oakland.
The cops reacted so badly that it looked like the "shock and awe" phase of the US invasion of Iraq. ISTM that being injured and/or arrested doesn't accomplish anything good. Unfortunately, civil disobedience has consequences.
quote:Sounds exactly like the current Tea Party Gummint Blockade.
Originally posted by pererin:
The more general problem as I saw it with the whole Occupy Movement was that their objectives were largely utterly vague, and inasmuch as they were clear were totally impracticable,
quote:I don't think that's entirely fair. The Tea Party has very clear aims: 'Stop the black man from accomplishing anything he wants to, including holding the government hostage in order to stop him.'
Originally posted by Porridge:
quote:Sounds exactly like the current Tea Party Gummint Blockade.
Originally posted by pererin:
The more general problem as I saw it with the whole Occupy Movement was that their objectives were largely utterly vague, and inasmuch as they were clear were totally impracticable,
quote:The issue being used as a stalking horse by the Republicans (Obamacare) was debated in the last two presidential election debates; the legislation to provide for it was passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate; its legitimacy was upheld by the Supreme Court and so it is now the law.
We have carried an election on principles fairly stated to the people. Now we are told in advance that the government shall be broken up unless we surrender to those we have beaten."
quote:That is the problem isn't it? From here, it is easy to say that the US should stop gerrymandering constituencies as a first step but how on earth that can be done, given the current position, is beyond me.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
What do you (gen.) think we *can* and *should* do? The VOCs don't care. Much of the rest of Congress is fighting the good fight.
...
Please realize that there's no "well, if you'd just..." fix about this.
quote:And the worrying bit is, according to this the Washington Post meets Rep Ted Yoho (R-FL) article, they seem to be quite serious about their plan to force America into default.
Originally posted by L'organist:
Are these people complete prats?
No: they're far more dangerous than that.
quote:Somehow get some sort of semi-PR system?
Originally posted by JoannaP:
That is the problem isn't it? From here, it is easy to say that the US should stop gerrymandering constituencies as a first step but how on earth that can be done, given the current position, is beyond me.
quote:As I recall, they did the same thing when Gingrich shut down the gov't, back during Clinton's term.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
As noted in several places, the difference with this crisis is that the Democrats decided not to back down and concede to avoid a crisis. This is new behavior for them.
quote:Proportional Representation, I presume.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
pererin--
"PR system"??
Thanks.
quote:In part it's due to inertia. As I noted before, the American Constitutional system is set up with a lot of veto points to prevent action in cases where support is anything less than overwhelming. In practical terms, a 435-member legislative body will need someone to set the agenda and determine which bills to take action on, whether it's the Speaker of the House or some other person/group. At this point it might be useful to have a mechanism to overrule an intransigent Speaker, but such a mechanism, if it existed, could also be used stymie House action. For instance, a group with enough power to insert a bill into the agenda for consideration could simply keep inserting pointless measures to prevent action on an item they opposed.
Originally posted by *Leon*:
Now what baffles me is that the speaker has the power to completely block the passage of an important bill that would have majority support. Now I come to it, there seem to be lots of situations where US congressional procedures seem less democratic than non-Americans might expect, senate filibusters being an obvious example.
As far as I can understand (from Wikipedia), each house is actually allowed to dramatically change their rules after each election; it's not like the role of the speaker or the right to filibuster is enshrined in the constitution. So how come neither house has made any real attempt to rationalize its rules at any point?
quote:One of our local columnists described our local Congresscritter's idea of "negotiation":
Originally posted by mousethief:
Of course they don't want Obama to "negotiate." They're not willing to give up anything to get what they want. They want Obama to capitulate. Big difference.
quote:
A man approaches you on the street and says, “I’m going to kill you. I can shoot you in the head and end it right now or I can take out a knife and kill you slowly by a thousand cuts. Which would you prefer?”
“Neither,” you say.
“So,” the killer says, “you’re not willing to negotiate?”
quote:Ever mindful of Poe's Law, let me remind people that Borowitz is satire.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
On a similar note, from the New Yorker:
Destroying the earth only way to stop Obamacare
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:Ever mindful of Poe's Law, let me remind people that Borowitz is satire.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
On a similar note, from the New Yorker:
Destroying the earth only way to stop Obamacare
quote:Is it? I'm not sure the previous entry bears that out.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Ever mindful of Poe's Law, let me remind people that Borowitz is satire.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Or maybe it's just that satirists can't keep up with the amount of ridiculousness generated by the current Republican party.
quote:The current GOP makes satire very, very difficult. Somebody did a page a few weeks back that was "guess which of these headlines is real and which is from the Onion." They were all outrageous. None of them were from the Onion.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Is it? I'm not sure the previous entry bears that out.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Ever mindful of Poe's Law, let me remind people that Borowitz is satire.
quote:It's true. That's why I had to say "not hyperbole" on my earlier post where I referenced the Koch bros' creepy sockpuppet ad. Because it sure sounded like something I'd made up, but no, they're doing the writing for us these days.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:The current GOP makes satire very, very difficult. Somebody did a page a few weeks back that was "guess which of these headlines is real and which is from the Onion." They were all outrageous. None of them were from the Onion.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Is it? I'm not sure the previous entry bears that out.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Ever mindful of Poe's Law, let me remind people that Borowitz is satire.
quote:Even this brings up parts of your system that seem quite mystifying.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:In part it's due to inertia. As I noted before, the American Constitutional system is set up with a lot of veto points to prevent action in cases where support is anything less than overwhelming. In practical terms, a 435-member legislative body will need someone to set the agenda and determine which bills to take action on, whether it's the Speaker of the House or some other person/group. At this point it might be useful to have a mechanism to overrule an intransigent Speaker, but such a mechanism, if it existed, could also be used stymie House action. For instance, a group with enough power to insert a bill into the agenda for consideration could simply keep inserting pointless measures to prevent action on an item they opposed.
Originally posted by *Leon*:
Now what baffles me is that the speaker has the power to completely block the passage of an important bill that would have majority support. Now I come to it, there seem to be lots of situations where US congressional procedures seem less democratic than non-Americans might expect, senate filibusters being an obvious example.
As far as I can understand (from Wikipedia), each house is actually allowed to dramatically change their rules after each election; it's not like the role of the speaker or the right to filibuster is enshrined in the constitution. So how come neither house has made any real attempt to rationalize its rules at any point?
You could theoretically implement a rule that a House majority could force a vote, but since a House majority can also theoretically replace the Speaker this doesn't really give the majority a power it doesn't already possess.
quote:Yes, a bizarre lesson in unintended consequences.
Originally posted by Zach82:
The House ban on ear marks is one of the reasons dialogue has broken down in recent years. It used to be possible to win over a few votes by tossing in, say, a new bridge on a key representative's district. No more- republican balanced budget mooks talked everyone into getting rid of them.
quote:Hope you're right. The recovery is very fragile and the last thing it needs is a bunch of muppets indulging in a willy waving exercise. Obama needs to offer them something so they can graciously accept and get on with it. And before Asia decides to collect their money in person.
Originally posted by Zach82:
Should we start a pool? I got 100 moneys that Republicans cave on the 15th, when Obama offers spending cuts to programs that aren't the ACA.
Then we'll get to go through it all again in 2014-15. Won't that be fun! quote:I wasn't even thinking about attaching riders to bills. Just that someone has to decide whether the House (or the Senate) will be debating and voting on the resolution to fund all government operations or the bill to declare March 21 "National Alfalfa Day" (for example). It's very rare for there to be only one item on Congress' agenda, and the ability to decide which one to act on can be a very powerful tool.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:Even this brings up parts of your system that seem quite mystifying.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
In part it's due to inertia. As I noted before, the American Constitutional system is set up with a lot of veto points to prevent action in cases where support is anything less than overwhelming. In practical terms, a 435-member legislative body will need someone to set the agenda and determine which bills to take action on, whether it's the Speaker of the House or some other person/group. At this point it might be useful to have a mechanism to overrule an intransigent Speaker, but such a mechanism, if it existed, could also be used stymie House action. For instance, a group with enough power to insert a bill into the agenda for consideration could simply keep inserting pointless measures to prevent action on an item they opposed.
For one thing, the idea that people can insert provisions into Bills willy-nilly, on topics that may have nothing at all to do with the topic of the original Bill, is a very foreign one.
quote:I think you've got an overly narrow sense of what constitutes "the government". Under the American system, the legislature is part of the government. In fact, in many ways it's the most powerful of the three branches of the American government.
Originally posted by orfeo:
I suppose the whole notion of the Speaker determining what gets voted on is also foreign, but it does make some kind of sense in your context. Here the legislative program is controlled by the government, but in the US system the government isn't part of the legislature.
quote:Because holding the government hostage to get one's way is an entirely new political tactic. It's new because, until the Tea Party elections, we didn't elect people with the explicit intention of breaking the government.
Originally posted by Tubbs:
quote:Hope you're right. The recovery is very fragile and the last thing it needs is a bunch of muppets indulging in a willy waving exercise. Obama needs to offer them something so they can graciously accept and get on with it. And before Asia decides to collect their money in person.
Originally posted by Zach82:
Should we start a pool? I got 100 moneys that Republicans cave on the 15th, when Obama offers spending cuts to programs that aren't the ACA.
What I don't understand is, given that we have been here before, and the US system guarantees that we almost certainly will be here again, is why the market hasn't diversified into other currencies?
Tubbs
quote:It's not a question of currency, but one of sovereign debt. And to a small degree the market has diversified, or at least expressed some doubt about the stability of short-term U.S. government debt. You'll note that according to the preceding link, as of yesterday (October 7, 2013) the 4-week rate for U.S. Treasury Bills is 0.15%. This means that the U.S. government has to pay a higher rate of return on a 4-week loan than it does on a 13-week, 26-week, or 52-week loan. This is the opposite of the usual situation and mostly reflects the market's opinion that the debt ceiling crisis (which is different than the government shutdown) will probably be resolved in thirteen weeks, but isn't sure about what will be happening in four weeks.
Originally posted by Tubbs:
What I don't understand is, given that we have been here before, and the US system guarantees that we almost certainly will be here again, is why the market hasn't diversified into other currencies?
quote:Oh fine. Call it 'the executive' if you want. You'll find that in the UK and Australia and probably quite a few places the executive is normally called 'the government'.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I think you've got an overly narrow sense of what constitutes "the government". Under the American system, the legislature is part of the government. In fact, in many ways it's the most powerful of the three branches of the American government.
quote:Given that the shutdown seems to be part of a deliberate, long term strategy by Republicans to extort concessions from Democrats by manufacturing a series of crises, I'd say giving them their payoff will just encourage the further use of this tactic in the future. One of the reasons that there hasn't been a U.S. government shutdown in seventeen years is that the last one was such a disaster for the legislative officials who precipitated it. This may be a lesson the current batch of Republican leaders need to learn.
Originally posted by Tubbs:
The recovery is very fragile and the last thing it needs is a bunch of muppets indulging in a willy waving exercise. Obama needs to offer them something so they can graciously accept and get on with it.
quote:I'm beginning to think the Republican party should come with a warning from the Surgeon-General or something. It's clearly bad for everyone's health.
Late-breaking news, and I’ll update as I find out more: While the government is shut down, with food-safety personnel and disease detectives sent home and forbidden to work, a major foodborne-illness outbreak has begun. This evening, the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the US Department of Agriculture announced that “an estimated 278 illnesses … reported in 18 states” have been caused by chicken contaminated with Salmonella Heidelberg and possibly produced by the firm Foster Farms.
“FSIS is unable to link the illnesses to a specific product and a specific production period,” the agency said in an emailed alert. “The outbreak is continuing.”
This is the exact situation that CDC and other about-to-be-furloughed federal personnel warned about last week. As a reminder, a CDC staffer told me at the time:
quote:That means that the lab work and molecular detection that can link far-apart cases and define the size and seriousness of outbreaks are not happening. At the CDC, which operates the national foodborne-detection services FoodNet and PulseNet, scientists couldn’t work on this if they wanted to; they have been locked out of their offices, lab and emails.
I know that we will not be conducting multi-state outbreak investigations. States may continue to find outbreaks, but we won’t be doing the cross-state consultation and laboratory work to link outbreaks that might cross state borders.
)quote:Frankly, I'd prefer that this current Republican leadership learnt their life lessons without buggering things up for the rest of us. But I'm selfish like that.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Given that the shutdown seems to be part of a deliberate, long term strategy by Republicans to extort concessions from Democrats by manufacturing a series of crises, I'd say giving them their payoff will just encourage the further use of this tactic in the future. One of the reasons that there hasn't been a U.S. government shutdown in seventeen years is that the last one was such a disaster for the legislative officials who precipitated it. This may be a lesson the current batch of Republican leaders need to learn.
Originally posted by Tubbs:
The recovery is very fragile and the last thing it needs is a bunch of muppets indulging in a willy waving exercise. Obama needs to offer them something so they can graciously accept and get on with it.
And in other shutdown related news:
quote:I'm beginning to think the Republican party should come with a warning from the Surgeon-General or something. It's clearly bad for everyone's health.
Late-breaking news, and I’ll update as I find out more: While the government is shut down, with food-safety personnel and disease detectives sent home and forbidden to work, a major foodborne-illness outbreak has begun. This evening, the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the US Department of Agriculture announced that “an estimated 278 illnesses … reported in 18 states” have been caused by chicken contaminated with Salmonella Heidelberg and possibly produced by the firm Foster Farms.
“FSIS is unable to link the illnesses to a specific product and a specific production period,” the agency said in an emailed alert. “The outbreak is continuing.”
This is the exact situation that CDC and other about-to-be-furloughed federal personnel warned about last week. As a reminder, a CDC staffer told me at the time:
quote:That means that the lab work and molecular detection that can link far-apart cases and define the size and seriousness of outbreaks are not happening. At the CDC, which operates the national foodborne-detection services FoodNet and PulseNet, scientists couldn’t work on this if they wanted to; they have been locked out of their offices, lab and emails.
I know that we will not be conducting multi-state outbreak investigations. States may continue to find outbreaks, but we won’t be doing the cross-state consultation and laboratory work to link outbreaks that might cross state borders.
for all those affected.quote:It isn't a matter of legality, but politics. A politician is impeached by the House -- the body that he controls -- and is convicted by the Senate, which he does not. Nonetheless, it would be an amazingly brazen act of power politics to impeach a House member for doing his job in a way that may be unpleasant but is not unlawful (a member can be impeached for whatever reason the House cooks up, so the simple fact that his actions are not illegal would not prevent that if the House so desired.)
Originally posted by L'organist:
I'm not a US citizen so my knowledge of the precise legality is sketchy at best, but I'd have thought that the actions on the part of the Speaker, Mr Boehner, in particular are sufficient to be grounds for impeachment?
quote:My understanding is that they aren't, but I'm not a US citzen either. The US system doesn't have something that forces the issue in situations like this where there is gridlock.
Originally posted by L'organist:
I'm not a US citizen so my knowledge of the precise legality is sketchy at best, but I'd have thought that the actions on the part of the Speaker, Mr Boehner, in particular are sufficient to be grounds for impeachment?
quote:Not true. According to the U.S. Constitution (Art. II, §4), officials can only be impeached for "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors*". There's some debate as to whether members of Congress are subject to impeachment, but the balance of historical evidence points to "no". Only one member of Congress, Senator William Blount, has ever been impeached and the charges against him were dismissed by the Senate on the grounds that Senators are not subject to impeachment.
Originally posted by tclune:
quote:It isn't a matter of legality, but politics. A politician is impeached by the House -- the body that he controls -- and is convicted by the Senate, which he does not. Nonetheless, it would be an amazingly brazen act of power politics to impeach a House member for doing his job in a way that may be unpleasant but is not unlawful (a member can be impeached for whatever reason the House cooks up, so the simple fact that his actions are not illegal would not prevent that if the House so desired.)
Originally posted by L'organist:
I'm not a US citizen so my knowledge of the precise legality is sketchy at best, but I'd have thought that the actions on the part of the Speaker, Mr Boehner, in particular are sufficient to be grounds for impeachment?
--Tom Clune
quote:First off, Ted Cruz is not a potential candidate for Speaker of the House for the simple reason that he's a Senator, not a member of the House of Representatives. But yes, someone like Ted Cruz from the House would likely be more intransigent. It should also be noted that the Speaker of the House is not technically selected by the majority party (in this case, the Republicans) but by the House as a whole. So technically a moderate Republican who was supported by most of the Democrats and enough Republicans could replace Boehner. Of course, the fact that the majority party (his own party) would regard his Speakership as illegitimate and/or traitorous would severely limit such a Speaker's effectiveness.
Originally posted by Tubbs:
Thing is, Boehner is caught between a rock and hard place. He doesn't appear to want a default, but wants to keep his job - and land a better one - so needs to keep both the Tea Party and the moderates sweet. Ain't going to happen. But if Boehner goes, the Republicans will select the next speaker and some of the other candidates, like Cruz, are likely to be even less co-operative. As well as having no knowledge of basic economics - defaulting to show that you're serious about tackling the deficit and then prioritizing the bills you're going to pay isn't going to work. It doesn't work if you're a householder! It just screws your credit record.
quote:Thank you for clarifying. Working out who sits where is getting very confusing.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:First off, Ted Cruz is not a potential candidate for Speaker of the House for the simple reason that he's a Senator, not a member of the House of Representatives. But yes, someone like Ted Cruz from the House would likely be more intransigent. It should also be noted that the Speaker of the House is not technically selected by the majority party (in this case, the Republicans) but by the House as a whole. So technically a moderate Republican who was supported by most of the Democrats and enough Republicans could replace Boehner. Of course, the fact that the majority party (his own party) would regard his Speakership as illegitimate and/or traitorous would severely limit such a Speaker's effectiveness.
Originally posted by Tubbs:
Thing is, Boehner is caught between a rock and hard place. He doesn't appear to want a default, but wants to keep his job - and land a better one - so needs to keep both the Tea Party and the moderates sweet. Ain't going to happen. But if Boehner goes, the Republicans will select the next speaker and some of the other candidates, like Cruz, are likely to be even less co-operative. As well as having no knowledge of basic economics - defaulting to show that you're serious about tackling the deficit and then prioritizing the bills you're going to pay isn't going to work. It doesn't work if you're a householder! It just screws your credit record.
quote:The Constitution makes no requirement that the Speaker has to be a member of the House. So Ted Cruz can be a candidate.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:First off, Ted Cruz is not a potential candidate for Speaker of the House for the simple reason that he's a Senator, not a member of the House of Representatives. But yes, someone like Ted Cruz from the House would likely be more intransigent.
Originally posted by Tubbs:
Thing is, Boehner is caught between a rock and hard place. He doesn't appear to want a default, but wants to keep his job - and land a better one - so needs to keep both the Tea Party and the moderates sweet. Ain't going to happen. But if Boehner goes, the Republicans will select the next speaker and some of the other candidates, like Cruz, are likely to be even less co-operative. As well as having no knowledge of basic economics - defaulting to show that you're serious about tackling the deficit and then prioritizing the bills you're going to pay isn't going to work. It doesn't work if you're a householder! It just screws your credit record.
quote:Please tell me you're kidding.
Originally posted by Hawk:
The Constitution makes no requirement that the Speaker has to be a member of the House. So Ted Cruz can be a candidate.
quote:One of the many articles I read said that he was arrogant enough to stand. And people would vote for him.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:Please tell me you're kidding.
Originally posted by Hawk:
The Constitution makes no requirement that the Speaker has to be a member of the House. So Ted Cruz can be a candidate.
quote:There aren't a lot of rules about eligibility for Speaker of the House.
Originally posted by Enoch:
I know this is a different constitution which I know next to nothing about, but how, please, can a person be the Speaker of a Chamber of which they are not a member? If they are not a member, they presumably aren't entitled to speak, be heard or take any part in its debates, all of which are prerequisites for being what we'd call the Speaker?
quote:So there's not requirement that the Speaker be a Representative any more than there's a requirement that the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Representatives be a congressman. Presumably being elected Speaker would be sufficient to allow one to speak (though not to vote) in the House even if not a Congressman. Despite the fact that this is a technical possibility, the House has never elected a non-member to the post of Speaker.
The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.
quote:As it applies to U.S. law, it is creating the position - the only applicable definition is to be found in the Constitution itself.
Originally posted by orfeo:
But it's not as if the Constitution of the United States suddenly invented this thing called a 'Speaker' out of a vacuum. The point of the article is to identify who gets to decide who the Speaker is, not to suddenly redefine WHAT a Speaker is.
quote:Where in the Constitution does it define the role of Speaker, though? I can't immediately see anything that tells you what it is the Speaker does. It assumes you already know.
Originally posted by jbohn:
As it applies to U.S. law, it is creating the position - the only applicable definition is to be found in the Constitution itself.
quote:It creates the role, but doesn't necessarily define it, true. Like much of the Constitution, it's open to interpretation.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:Where in the Constitution does it define the role of Speaker, though? I can't immediately see anything that tells you what it is the Speaker does. It assumes you already know.
Originally posted by jbohn:
As it applies to U.S. law, it is creating the position - the only applicable definition is to be found in the Constitution itself.
quote:link to official text
Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.
quote:It may well be an improvement over the current idiot. At least it would cry less on camera.
Originally posted by orfeo:
If you're relying on the Constitution to create the role for you, the House of Representatives could just as easily pick a goat, put a sign around its neck saying 'Speaker', and leave it to chew hay in the corner.
quote:I particularly like the way the author felt the need to mention the nation's "vast stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction" towards the end, despite not being relevant to anything else in the article.
The typical signs of state failure aren’t evident on the streets of this sleepy capital city. Beret-wearing colonels have not yet taken to the airwaves to declare martial law. Money-changers are not yet buying stacks of useless greenbacks on the street.
But the pleasant autumn weather disguises a government teetering on the brink. Because, at midnight Monday night, the government of this intensely proud and nationalistic people will shut down, a drastic sign of political dysfunction in this moribund republic.
The capital’s rival clans find themselves at an impasse, unable to agree on a measure that will allow the American state to carry out its most basic functions. While the factions have come close to such a shutdown before, opponents of President Barack Obama’s embattled regime now appear prepared to allow the government to be shuttered over opposition to a controversial plan intended to bring the nation’s health care system in line with international standards.
![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
quote:I think you mean "if anything happens to the president and vice-president", and does so in a short enough timeframe that a new vice-president cannot be appointed (cf. Ford, Gerald).
Originally posted by Golden Key:
An important thing to keep in mind about the speaker: if anything happens to the president or vice-president, s/he becomes president.
quote:They're just numbers in the ether anyway.
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Hey, I have an idea as to how our non-American compatriots can help-- have your legislators offer to reduce a percentage of whatever debt we owe your country if Congress restores the single payer option.
quote:I think you're making the mistake of believing that U.S. "budget hawks" actually care about the national debt. They don't. It's just an excuse they use to gut the social insurance programs they've always hated. In other words, you're trying to trade them something they don't care about (lower debt) in exchange for them doing something they hate (start a new social insurance program).
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Hey, I have an idea as to how our non-American compatriots can help-- have your legislators offer to reduce a percentage of whatever debt we owe your country if Congress restores the single payer option.
I bet the current budget would go through like grain through a goose.
quote:I was under the impression that the majority of government debt was owned by individuals and companies, not by other governments.
Originally posted by Boogie:
Let every country write of each other's debts and all begin again with a clean slate.
quote:No, I am suggesting their bluff be called. That's why I made the post-script about the likelihood that the current budget would suddenly become acceptable under those circumstances.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:I think you're making the mistake of believing that U.S. "budget hawks" actually care about the national debt. They don't. It's just an excuse they use to gut the social insurance programs they've always hated. In other words, you're trying to trade them something they don't care about (lower debt) in exchange for them doing something they hate (start a new social insurance program).
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Hey, I have an idea as to how our non-American compatriots can help-- have your legislators offer to reduce a percentage of whatever debt we owe your country if Congress restores the single payer option.
I bet the current budget would go through like grain through a goose.
quote:According to the U.S. Treasury Department, as of July 2013 US$5.6 trillion of U.S. government debt is held by foreign investors, of which US$4.0 trillion is held by official foreign institutions, like governments or central banks. So a little over 70% of foreign-held U.S. debt is in the hands of official foreign institutions, although this only represents about a third of total U.S. government debt (excluding U.S. intragovernmental holdings).
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
I was under the impression that the majority of government debt was owned by individuals and companies, not by other governments.
How much "foreign company" differs from "foreign government" depends on the countries involved....
quote:Croesus, it might hit somewhat harder if - joking aside - a few more people in the US realised quite how near that is to current perceptions of the crisis as it appears to many in the rest of the world.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
This is somewhat amusing. ....
quote:Absolutely. The main source of income for a majority of my clients is Social Security Disability. Since they either can't work at all, or can't earn enough at what little work they get to keep body & soul together under a reasonably leak-proof roof, what are they supposed to do when the trust fund runs out?
Originally posted by mousethief:
Why exclude intragovernmental holdings? I think it is a very important and salient point how much of the "debt" is actually owed to the Social Security Administration.
quote:Because it's both a debt and an asset. I'm not saying it doesn't count, just that it should be accounted separately.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Why exclude intragovernmental holdings? I think it is a very important and salient point how much of the "debt" is actually owed to the Social Security Administration.
quote:Yes, sorry. Typo.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:I think you mean "if anything happens to the president and vice-president", and does so in a short enough timeframe that a new vice-president cannot be appointed (cf. Ford, Gerald).
Originally posted by Golden Key:
An important thing to keep in mind about the speaker: if anything happens to the president or vice-president, s/he becomes president.
quote:Would they have to resign from the House of Representatives if that happened? Or is someone allowed to be both President and a Representative?
Originally posted by Golden Key:
An important thing to keep in mind about the speaker: if anything happens to the president or vice-president, s/he becomes president.
quote:You're only only allowed to have one position within the U.S. Government, so yes, resignation from the House would be required. You can't be both President and a member of Congress.
Originally posted by pererin:
quote:Would they have to resign from the House of Representatives if that happened? Or is someone allowed to be both President and a Representative?
Originally posted by Golden Key:
An important thing to keep in mind about the speaker: if anything happens to the president or vice-president, s/he becomes president.
quote:Much as this seems to be a lovely thought, that would mean suffering thru the current oddly orange-tinted crybaby-throwing-a-tantrum speaker for another year until the midterms and honestly, we cannot-- cannot!-- endure another year of this prat.
Originally posted by Porridge:
Actually, I'd bet, if I were a betting person, that the next Speaker of the House will be a Democrat.
quote:Unless you are the Vice President, who is also the President of the Senate and can cast tie-breaking votes.
You're only only allowed to have one position within the U.S. Government
quote:We've always been at war with Eastasia.
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
You'd almost think the Koch brothers were politicians, given their ability to ignore inconvenient stuff they've already said:
Koch brothers deny involvement in shutdown
quote:The variation there is a little high, yes.
Originally posted by L'organist:
There may well be bias in the electoral system of the US, but don't forget the skewed numbers in the UK; averaging out voters by numbers of constituencies you get the following
- 533 English constituencies average = 72522 voters
- 59 Scottish constituencies average = 66590 voters
- 40 Welsh constituencies average = 57040 voters
- 18 Northern Irish constituencies average = 66145 voters
quote:This comparison is utterly, utterly meaningless. You might as well insist that the population size of electorates for the French Parliament has to match the population size of electorates for the Slovenian one.
When it comes to representation at regional/national (as opposed to British) level the results are even more skewed:
- 0 English constituencies because no English assembly or Parliament
- 129 MSPs average = 30457 per member
- 60 Welsh AMs average = 38027 per member
- 108 Northern Irish MAs average = 11024 per member
quote:That's what you get for keeping first-past-the-post voting.
And if you think this only affects the LibDems, think again: in 2005 Tony Blair won a parliamentary majority of 60 despite Labour not even polling the most votes (Labour 35.4% Conservative 35.7%). The poor old LibDems get hammered time and time again - in 2005 they polled 23% of the vote but got only 9% of the seats.
quote:Wrong, Orfeo, completely wrong.
Originally posted by orfeo:
This comparison is utterly, utterly meaningless. You might as well insist that the population size of electorates for the French Parliament has to match the population size of electorates for the Slovenian one.
quote:Strangely this doesn't seem to produce really skewed results.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
The huge bias in US politics is in the Senate. States vary in population but each get 2 Senators. This was part of the original contract of the 13 colonies, and it's hard to see it changing.
quote:This is a big concern. If Obama compromises in any substantive way, we essentially created a new way of enacting an agenda that bypasses majority votes.
Originally posted by Zach82:
Well, we figured out why relentlessly awful person Paul Ryan has been so quiet during this affair. So he could swoop in and save the day for the republicans. Apparently he and President Obama had something of a breakthrough last night.
quote:Funnily enough, Wales and Scotland aren't different parts of the same country, either. It wasn't until recent years that I realised this.
Originally posted by Enoch:
1. France and Slovenia are not different parts of the same country.
quote:Yes, and I accepted that point about the representation in the Union Parliament.
2. The Union Parliament is supposed to be representative of all four countries, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
L'Organist has cited figures which if correct, make it clear that some (Wales and Scotland) are more represented than others.
quote:I'm aware of the West Lothian question. It's an argument that (1) England should have its own separate parliament to deal with purely English matters, or (2) non-English members of the Union Parliament should not have a vote on purely English matters.
3. There is a good argument (known as the West Lothian question) that those parts of the country that have devolved assemblies should in return have less representation in the Union Parliament which for England has to cover what for the others are devolved matters. The figures L'Organist has cited demonstrate that the electoral mathematics in the UK are skewed the opposite way. So England and English electors suffer from a pronounced democratic deficit in comparison with the other three bits.
quote:And, trying to put this politely, the analysis of both of you is a simplistic kind of counting that misses the point that you're comparing apples with oranges. Comparing the number of voters per Scottish electorate in the Union Parliament with the number of voters per English electorate in the Union Parliament is fine. Comparing the number of voters per electorate in entirely different legislative assemblies is meaningless.
4. So far as the UK constitution is concerned, this is important. L'Organist is right, and, trying to put this politely, you are not.
quote:One of the links from Nate Silver tries to run the argument that State borders are the gerrymander. But I rather think that misses the intended functions of State borders. They're not inherently designed to apportion populations evenly, and even in the cases where new States were set up to be 'equal', it had to be done on the basis of geographical area well before most of the population was in place.
Originally posted by Zach82:
Strangely, since senators don't have districts that can be gerrymandered, the Senate is presently more representative than the House.
quote:This just goes to show that there is a delicate balance between having a lower number of people represented and a legislature getting too big for that smaller representation to be of any good. The US House already has enough trouble finding intelligent representatives, the last thing needed there would be to lower the bar.
Originally posted by Zach82:
Just some more numbers to throw out there. A representative in the first United States Congress represented about 33,000 people. The average representative today represents over 700,000 people.
An MP in the Parliament of the United Kingdom represents around 97,000 people. To make the US House as representative as the UK Parliament, it would need to have 3,195 representatives-- more than seven times its present size.
quote:Sorry, I seem to be missing something here.
Originally posted by L'organist:
When it comes to representation at regional/national (as opposed to British) level the results are even more skewed:
- 129 MSPs average = 30457 per member
- 60 Welsh AMs average = 38027 per member
- 108 Northern Irish MAs average = 11024 per member
quote:I'm unimpressed. Yes the American Dream is not longer available because of globalization. It's a good thing his father was able to come in as a refugee and realize the American dream before it magically disappeared. That sounds like "I'm all right Jack".
Originally posted by orfeo:
This is just my personal opinion, but from those comments Marco Rubio actually comes off well. Doesn't mean I agree with him, but he manages to say things that don't sound deranged.
quote:Past the original 13, most states went through a process of becoming a territory before becoming a state. So you could set a population size for statehood. Also, rather than move state borders you can split the larger states. There have been proposals to split California into 3 parts since the regions don't really like each other and the results would approximate the population of smaller states.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:One of the links from Nate Silver tries to run the argument that State borders are the gerrymander. But I rather think that misses the intended functions of State borders. They're not inherently designed to apportion populations evenly, and even in the cases where new States were set up to be 'equal', it had to be done on the basis of geographical area well before most of the population was in place.
Originally posted by Zach82:
Strangely, since senators don't have districts that can be gerrymandered, the Senate is presently more representative than the House.
If you try to bring in the notion that States have to be even in population, you automatically bring in the notion of redistribution - of redrawing boundaries when populations become uneven. Of moving State borders. And that's just strange. The same article shows someone's attempt at redrawing the map of the United States to create 50 equally populous States, but rather misses the point that it's 50 equally populous States as at this particular moment in history. It's no kind of permanent solution.
(Alternatively, you have the even more radical notion of telling people where they're allowed to live: "No, the government says you can't move to California. California's full.")
quote:Well, quite. It's probably more of an issue that many of the large cities sit on state borders. Commuter tax, anyone? And funnily enough, there's a new state map of that one too...
Originally posted by orfeo:
One of the links from Nate Silver tries to run the argument that State borders are the gerrymander. But I rather think that misses the intended functions of State borders. They're not inherently designed to apportion populations evenly, and even in the cases where new States were set up to be 'equal', it had to be done on the basis of geographical area well before most of the population was in place.
If you try to bring in the notion that States have to be even in population, you automatically bring in the notion of redistribution - of redrawing boundaries when populations become uneven. Of moving State borders. And that's just strange. The same article shows someone's attempt at redrawing the map of the United States to create 50 equally populous States, but rather misses the point that it's 50 equally populous States as at this particular moment in history. It's no kind of permanent solution.
quote:There's actually a theoretical basis to how big a legislature should be to best balance representing the people with being small enough to function: the cube-root law. On that basis, the British House of Commons should have 398 MPs (instead of 650) and the U.S. House of Representatives should have 680 members (instead of 435).
Originally posted by Zach82:
Just some more numbers to throw out there. A representative in the first United States Congress represented about 33,000 people. The average representative today represents over 700,000 people.
An MP in the Parliament of the United Kingdom represents around 97,000 people. To make the US House as representative as the UK Parliament, it would need to have 3,195 representatives-- more than seven times its present size.
quote:It's just that the state boundaries run the wrong way there. Las Vegas belongs with Los Angeles and Reno with San Francisco.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
There have been proposals to split California into 3 parts since the regions don't really like each other and the results would approximate the population of smaller states.
quote:Presumably you mean either "Western Minnesota" or "join Utah".
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
This is all unlikely to happen. There's apparently a move in Western Colorado to secede from the state and form a new state as the eastern more populated region turns bluer. It's not clear if they are asking to be a separate state or join a Dakota.
quote:Interesting. A few weeks ago, a batshit crazy former Speaker of my state's House used this same slavery trope. It seems unlikely they both just "stumbled" onto this metaphor, because it's so bizarre, so I wonder which Koch brother thought it up?
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Re: earlier linked CNN article about "top conservatives"--
I was surprised to see that the brilliant surgeon Ben Carson is in that "top conservative" fold. Details on his bizarre (IMHO) comments here.
This guy has done successful, radical brain surgeries on babies. If someone like that can become a batshit-crazy variety of conservative,...
quote:You obviously haven't been following the current trends in the use of the Senate filibuster. It's possible for Senators representing ~10% of the U.S. population to block actions attempted by the Senators representing the other 90%.
Originally posted by pererin:
quote:Strangely this doesn't seem to produce really skewed results.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
The huge bias in US politics is in the Senate. States vary in population but each get 2 Senators. This was part of the original contract of the 13 colonies, and it's hard to see it changing.
quote:Close, but not quite. The precedent of threatening to destroy the world economy to extort domestic political concessions was already set during the debt ceiling crisis of 2011, when the Republican-controlled House of Representatives got budgetary concessions in exchange for not shooting its hostage (the economy). Critics at the time noted that it was setting a dangerous precedent.
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
This is a big concern. If Obama compromises in any substantive way, we essentially created a new way of enacting an agenda that bypasses majority votes.
<snip>
Perhaps I'm overreacting but this could potentially create a new political nuclear bomb that can be abused by anyone - liberal or conservative - to short circuit the democratic process. I think our democracy is in peril.
quote:That's not what I meant. What I was getting at was that one party isn't winning CA, TX, NY, FL, IL, PA, OH, GA, and MI — representing a majority of the population — and getting royally screwed over by a party representing the 41 smaller states. The size of the state electorates does not correlate with voting patterns.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:You obviously haven't been following the current trends in the use of the Senate filibuster. It's possible for Senators representing ~10% of the U.S. population to block actions attempted by the Senators representing the other 90%.
Originally posted by pererin:
quote:Strangely this doesn't seem to produce really skewed results.
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
The huge bias in US politics is in the Senate. States vary in population but each get 2 Senators. This was part of the original contract of the 13 colonies, and it's hard to see it changing.
quote:Because I can't resist the math, I started wondering what the minimum representation of any purely partisan filibuster block would be, given the current partisan breakdown of the U.S. Senate. Interestingly, a filibuster could be sustained with Democratic Senators representing ~21% of the country (using 2010 Census data, assuming each senator represents half a state's population, and that Angus King and Bernie Sanders will continue to caucus with the Democrats) or with Republican Senators representing ~26% of 2010 U.S. population (given the same assumptions).
Originally posted by pererin:
That's not what I meant. What I was getting at was that one party isn't winning CA, TX, NY, FL, IL, PA, OH, GA, and MI — representing a majority of the population — and getting royally screwed over by a party representing the 41 smaller states. The size of the state electorates does not correlate with voting patterns.
Why filibusters happen is because the Senate is (perhaps surprisingly) actually quite representative of the country not having a three-fifths majority for anything much. I doubt there are many issues of any significance that have a 90/10 split.
quote:Of course the other assumption there is that all the people who didn't vote for successful senatorial candidates effectively support third parties — whether actual third parties, or just the issue of New York Republicans being a rather different sort of Republican from, say, Tennessee Republicans. To some extent, this must be false and some of the wasted votes cast for losers will support whatever filibuster other states' senators are conducting. So even that 21 or 26% is rather unlikely.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Because I can't resist the math, I started wondering what the minimum representation of any purely partisan filibuster block would be, given the current partisan breakdown of the U.S. Senate. Interestingly, a filibuster could be sustained with Democratic Senators representing ~21% of the country (using 2010 Census data, assuming each senator represents half a state's population, and that Angus King and Bernie Sanders will continue to caucus with the Democrats) or with Republican Senators representing ~26% of 2010 U.S. population (given the same assumptions).
quote:Fair point. The precedent has already been set.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Close, but not quite. The precedent of threatening to destroy the world economy to extort domestic political concessions was already set during the debt ceiling crisis of 2011, when the Republican-controlled House of Representatives got budgetary concessions in exchange for not shooting its hostage (the economy). Critics at the time noted that it was setting a dangerous precedent.
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
This is a big concern. If Obama compromises in any substantive way, we essentially created a new way of enacting an agenda that bypasses majority votes.
<snip>
Perhaps I'm overreacting but this could potentially create a new political nuclear bomb that can be abused by anyone - liberal or conservative - to short circuit the democratic process. I think our democracy is in peril.
What the Obama administration is trying to do now is put the genie back in the bottle/put the toothpaste back in the tube/other metaphor for something that's difficult or impossible to undo once done.
quote:The problem is that to maintain his viability as a potential GOP nominee for 2016, he has to occasionally say things that do sound at least a little deranged (and he has). To be a Republican politician nowadays (unless you're a House member in a safely gerrymandered district)you have to appear crazy enough to appeal to the activist base who vote in the primaries, while at the same time seeming sane enough to win the moderates. I think Rubio is not deranged, but I also think he's a politician, and so willing to pander to the deranged electorate. (This beings back memories of the Firesign Theater's Papoon for President routine. The slogan was "Not Insane." For Republicans these days, the bar has been lowered to "not all that insane, compared to the alternatives").
Originally posted by orfeo:
This is just my personal opinion, but from those comments Marco Rubio actually comes off well. Doesn't mean I agree with him, but he manages to say things that don't sound deranged.
quote:I've been quite impressed by Chris Christie's leadership at various times.
Originally posted by L'organist:
I see that Governor Christie of New Jersey is pointing out that he is able to work with people of all parties and none and has been pointed in his criticism of Boehner, Cruz and friends.
quote:Actually, if you're a Republican in "a safely gerrymandered district" you have to say even more crazy stuff than your standard Republican Congressperson. They've go nothing to fear from a Democratic challenger, but do have to worry about being primaried by a Tea Party true believer because they were insufficiently pure.
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
The problem is that to maintain his viability as a potential GOP nominee for 2016, he has to occasionally say things that do sound at least a little deranged (and he has). To be a Republican politician nowadays (unless you're a House member in a safely gerrymandered district) you have to appear crazy enough to appeal to the activist base who vote in the primaries, while at the same time seeming sane enough to win the moderates.
quote:Agree on all points. Christie was a darling of the GOP until hurricane Sandy, when Christie put aside politics for the good of his citizenry. He has been a pariah ever since-- even though his popularity among the general electorate increased substantially. That exact ability-- to put aside politics and ideology to do what's best for the people-- is precisely what's missing right now.
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
quote:I've been quite impressed by Chris Christie's leadership at various times.
Originally posted by L'organist:
I see that Governor Christie of New Jersey is pointing out that he is able to work with people of all parties and none and has been pointed in his criticism of Boehner, Cruz and friends.
He would make a very viable candidate for president in 2016, but of course the problem with the Republican Party at the moment is that everything which would make him a good presidential candidate to face up to the blue team (not being a Tea Party douchebag for a start) would count against him in the battle to win the candidacy. That's a pity, because a competitive election with two high-quality candidates would surely be a good thing for the USA.
quote:Joining Minnesota is an unlikely choice for people who are trying to flee the liberals.
Originally posted by pererin:
quote:Presumably you mean either "Western Minnesota" or "join Utah". [/QB]
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
This is all unlikely to happen. There's apparently a move in Western Colorado to secede from the state and form a new state as the eastern more populated region turns bluer. It's not clear if they are asking to be a separate state or join a Dakota.
quote:I'd ask again, do those responsible for this prattery realise this, understand it or care what they have done to the good standing of their great - I'm inclined to say 'once great' - country?
Originally posted by L'organist:
... Meanwhile, one of the new winners of the Nobel Prize for Economics has weighed in with his view that the antics are causing untold damage to the US's reputation for responsibility and gives the warning that the world won't forgive the uncertainty. ...
quote:he was talking about the press. It was, and remains, fair comment on the press. It can now just as validly be said of the House of Representatives.
"power without responsibility — the prerogative of the harlot through the ages",
quote:There's racism involved, but I'm not sure it's the "pure and simple" motive. There is a segment of the Republican party that regards the White House as rightfully "theirs" and will regard any Democrat as an interloper. We saw the same general pattern of behavior with Bill Clinton, including the impeachment. So yes, racism is a convenient (and, for many involved, familiar) avenue to express this, but that's not all that's going on here.
Originally posted by L'organist:
It has to be said - shouted even - that what this all boils down to is that there are many Republicans who just do not accept that they lost the 2012 election (and the 2008 come to that).
They come up with all sorts of madness - the birthers in particular - but really what they're saying is "We don't want a black man in the White House and we won't accept an African-American even if he's won more votes than the other man."
Bottom line: Racism, pure and simple.
quote:Indeed. The bigger the country, the less representative its government is of the people. The less representative the government is of the people, the less democratic the country is.
Originally posted by Zach82:
Just some more numbers to throw out there. A representative in the first United States Congress represented about 33,000 people. The average representative today represents over 700,000 people.
An MP in the Parliament of the United Kingdom represents around 97,000 people. To make the US House as representative as the UK Parliament, it would need to have 3,195 representatives-- more than seven times its present size.
quote:You wouldn't even have to necessarily go to that extreme. not-quite-doubling the House of Representatives to 827 members would give each state two representatives (using 2010 Census data). Each representative would represent about 373,000 people, with the largest districts (Vermont) containing 449,000 people and the smallest (Wyoming) containing 313,000. That's a lot closer to parity than the current apportionment, where the largest district (Montana) contains 989,000 people and the smallest holds 526,000.
Originally posted by Zach82:
Just some more numbers to throw out there. A representative in the first United States Congress represented about 33,000 people. The average representative today represents over 700,000 people.
An MP in the Parliament of the United Kingdom represents around 97,000 people. To make the US House as representative as the UK Parliament, it would need to have 3,195 representatives-- more than seven times its present size.
quote:In many states primaries are open. Meaning members of another party can vote in them.
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Of course, if they set up a separate party - 'Traditional Republican' for example - then they couldn't be 'primaried' by people who weren't members ...
quote:I'd say the Continental Congress (the central government of the United States during the Revolutionary War and its immediate aftermath) was set up more like the EU Parliament. The configuration of the U.S. Congress under the current Constitution is a lot less like a federation of states than was the case under the Articles of Confederation.
Originally posted by Jane R:
Congress is more like the EU Parliament though - the US was deliberately set up as a federation of states that retained (quite a lot of) autonomy. That's part of the problem.
quote:It's like saying "I'll take my finger off the detonator, but only if you give me a bigger bomb to use next time."
In addition, the House proposal would forbid the Treasury from taking what it calls extraordinary measures to prevent the government from defaulting as cash runs low, in effect requiring hard deadlines to extend the federal debt ceiling.
quote:Perhaps you could campaign that if your Representatives won't provide you with government, why should they continue to be able to collect federal taxes. It doesn't quite follow from 'no taxation without representation', but since they presumably are arguing that taxation is there to fund government, if they terminate government, shouldn't their entitlement to tax you also terminate?
Originally posted by Porridge:
Various groups keep filling my inbox (yours, too?)with emails urging me to transmit my electronic ire at various congresscritters.
There's no evidence this works.
I'm surprised I'm not being urged to march on Washington. Frankly, since those allegedly representing us are busy selectively barricading / dis-barricading assorted public sites, I think I'm about ready to join others in barricading these assholes into their respective chambers until they (A) open the damn gummint and (B) swear to pay the bills they've already run up and (C) raise the damn debt limit until after the next election.
I volunteer to bring all my damn clients, whose services will be toast about 2 days after we default. Let's occupy Congress. I have clients labeled as "retarded" who could manage better than these fools.
quote:This may be one of the reasons for Republican intransigence. They've campaigned for a very long time on the idea that the federal government is a problem and should be either eliminated or greatly reduced. The wholly predictable outcome when you elect people who have a vested interest in destroying the government is that they will use their government positions to destroy the government.
Originally posted by Enoch:
Alternatively, you could campaign that if the Federal legislature won't govern, it has defaulted on its raison d'etre. So its functions all fall back to the states.
quote:Yup. Except I doubt the Tea Party members of Congress CARE what non-supporters think...other than regard it as a sign that the Tea Party is on the right path.
Originally posted by orfeo:
No, they don't care, because they are mostly living in an echo chamber which tells them they are saving the country. It's taking a while to realise that outside the echo chamber, most folk see things rather differently.
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
I can't even imagine all the wasted billions this shutdown will cost. It makes me sick at my stomach. I know this, though: my clients, with their tiny, meager, ragged-edge-of-nothing lives, will end up paying for it.
quote:Not only have the Teabaggers made Abraham Lincoln a liar, they`re about to tank the world economy because they want to get rid of the Muslim terrorist secretly-gay non-President. They deserve the same respect they give everyone else - zilch.
... government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. ...
quote:Is that what this is all about now? One man keeping his job? We've gone from "Stop Obamacare" to "Reduce Federal Spending" and somehow ended up at "Save John Boehner's Leadership Position".
“Of all the damage to be done politically here, one of the greatest concerns I have is that, somehow, John Boehner gets compromised,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who entered the House in 1995 and was involved in several coup attempts at the time against Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). “You know, I was involved in taking one speaker down; I’d like to be involved in keeping this speaker, because, quite frankly, I think he deserves it.”
Graham and others said Boehner’s latest strategy was as much about salvaging his tenure as speaker as it was about advancing conservative policy goals. Before the House GOP again surrendered, those Senate Republicans had said they believed that another failure would further imperil an already historically weak House speaker.
These Boehner friends do not expect him to be removed as speaker, but they worry whether any Republican policy goals will be able to make it through the House going forward.
quote:You mean someone who will keep sending appropriation bills to the Senate with a bunch of crazy demands attached and who might be willing to shut down the whole federal government if he didn't get his way?
Originally posted by Porridge:
Because removing him will leave the job open for Somebody Much, Much, Worse.
quote:You know, at this point -- when my state is making plans for furloughs, and my own job may not have funding beyond Oct. 30 -- the power of mere words to discombobulate me disappeared about a week ago.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
The Huffington Post has a page of articles on the shutdown--including a link to " Jon Stewart Calls Out Republicans For Not Owning The Shutdown: 'Don't Fart And Point At The Dog'."
Porridge--
FYI: There's a headline that you'll find offensive. Someone referred to the Tea Party as a word that's an insult to your clients. But the headline also says that people on both sides rejected it.
quote:Have you tried searching on Google to see if they have the page cached? I don't want to treat you like you're a tech novice, but the number of people I've told about that over the years who would seem to be highly proficient in all things electronic is staggering.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Ha. It's affecting my work now. Went to verify that a document could be found on a US government website. Discovered the whole website is shut down. The URL of the page you're redirected to includes the word 'pardon', which seems apt.
quote:This is the exact danger - the US could well default purely because everybody believes it couldn't possibly happen when Somebody Else always comes riding in to save the day. The problem is that Somebody Else must have resigned or been defeated at the last election, I looked on Wikipedia and couldn't find a Representative S. Else or a Senator S. Else on the list of current Congress members.
Originally posted by Boogie:
They'll take it to the wire. On the 11th minute of the 11th hour a deal will be struck. It won't be long term.
quote:Truth be told, in the context it wasn't actually important that I read the document. I was trying to verify the signpost to it that exists in a piece of legislation, a note that says "[it] can be found at...". It could be interesting to float the idea that in the next equivalent piece of legislation, I make the note say something like "when the US government is operational, [it] can be found at... otherwise try Googling and see if it's cached"
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
quote:Have you tried searching on Google to see if they have the page cached? I don't want to treat you like you're a tech novice, but the number of people I've told about that over the years who would seem to be highly proficient in all things electronic is staggering.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Ha. It's affecting my work now. Went to verify that a document could be found on a US government website. Discovered the whole website is shut down. The URL of the page you're redirected to includes the word 'pardon', which seems apt.
quote:I don't have time to look stuff up for you, but if you want to do it:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Returning to what I've been banging on about, these prats - I think we're unanimous on this verdict - couldn't behave like this if they didn't have the luxury of a Constitution that gives them power without responsibility.
Are there states that are run by the Tea Party or other similar fanatics? If so, what's their record? How do they handle power when they actually have to use it? Do they remain dogmatic asses? Or do they do a reasonable job, even if you don't agree with them?
quote:He's not smart enough to be a Teabagger.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
I'm not sure if (former?) Gov. Perry of Texas is formally in the TP, but he's probably a sympathizer.
quote:So they say. Neither house has voted on it yet. It'll probably pass the Senate. At that point, it's "turn or burn" for the House. As in, they turn, or we all burn.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
They've just done a deal, haven't they? Maybe it's temporary.
quote:If the Beeb is to be believed it has to get past the House (which it suggests will happen-the tea party can win by parts but not against everyone).
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
They've just done a deal, haven't they? Maybe it's temporary.
quote:"Permanent" is a relative term, given that no Congress can tie the hands of a future Congress, as this debacle has so amply illustrated.
Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
If the Beeb is to be believed it has to get past the House (which it suggests will happen-the tea party can win by parts but not against everyone).
But then it is temporary although with a committee to work on the permanent agreement.
quote:Fair call. For permanent read "An agreement not explicitly targeted to time out before the completion of whats already been passed as a budget."
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:"Permanent" is a relative term, given that no Congress can tie the hands of a future Congress, as this debacle has so amply illustrated.
Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
If the Beeb is to be believed it has to get past the House (which it suggests will happen-the tea party can win by parts but not against everyone).
But then it is temporary although with a committee to work on the permanent agreement.
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
(that's probably still wrong but tough)
quote:I have heard no dissent on this thread from a loud yes to the question, "Are they prats?". Yes there are states that are run by Tea Party types. The tea party representatives are indicative of the views in their districts. Not everyone, but the problem is exacerbated by the money being poured into this by people like the Koch Brothers, who are currently pretending the shutdown was not their intention.
Originally posted by Enoch:
Returning to what I've been banging on about, these prats - I think we're unanimous on this verdict - couldn't behave like this if they didn't have the luxury of a Constitution that gives them power without responsibility.
Are there states that are run by the Tea Party or other similar fanatics? If so, what's their record? How do they handle power when they actually have to use it? Do they remain dogmatic asses? Or do they do a reasonable job, even if you don't agree with them?
![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif)
quote:I can't imagine it will make them feel any better, though, since the exchanges already required income verification.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
It looks like the only thing the Tea Party got (aside from maintaining the federal budget at sequester levels) is "Income verification for recipients of subsidies under Obamacare’s newly-established exchanges".
quote:Just a few months ago, they were screaming about the evil IRS taking over health care to kill conservatives. It appears they have forgotten their own talking point.
Originally posted by Zach82:
I can't imagine it will make them feel any better, though, since the exchanges already required income verification.
quote:Which means that the vote violated the "Hastert Rule", since 87 Republicans voted in favor of the bill and 144 opposed it.
Originally posted by Zach82:
Good news. The House vote was 285 for, 144 against. Only 33% of the House wants to explode the world economy to prevent the poor from having healthcare.
quote:Their transcript doesn't match the audio file, so here's my own.
As the House finished their vote to reopen the federal government and raise the debt ceiling, the House stenographer decided it was a good time to let everyone know her feelings about God, Congress, and the Freemasons.
quote:So, random religious fanatic seizing her moment of national press attention, or exactly what you'd expect when Republicans make staffing decisions*?
He [God] will not be mocked. He will not be mocked. Don't touch me! He will not be mocked. The greatest deception here is this is not one nation under God. It never was. Had it been, it would not have been. No! It would not have been! The Constitution would not have been written by Freemasons. They go against God. You cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve two masters. Praise be to God, Lord Jesus Christ!
- Molly, the [ex-]stenographer of the House of Representatives
quote:Phew! But they have scheduled a repeat preformance in 2014. Won't that be fun!
Originally posted by Zach82:
Good news. The House vote was 285 for, 144 against. Only 33% of the House wants to explode the world economy to prevent the poor from having healthcare.
quote:It's to be hoped that said congresscritters have 'outed' themselves as potential global economic saboteurs. Whether that will put off voters I'm not sure as there seem to be plenty who believe the End Times are upon us, so economic meltdown doesn't matter a whole lot. OTOH, if that doesn't matter, why does the ACA? You tell me.
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
So why did people vote for teabagging congresscritters that campaigned to get the job with the sole intent of sabotaging the business? Less government is one thing, crashing it is another. Can't voters tell the difference?
quote:The difference is that ours don't have quite such a dramatic effect. And we're kind of clawing our way out - Ireland has announced that it won't need any more bailout money, seems to have repaid much of what it borrowed and that austerity is almost over. Some of the other countries are saying similar things. It's fragile though.
Originally posted by Zach82:
Europe has had its own swing to the right and episodes of economic brinkmanship recently.
quote:Yep, Ted Cruz really was born in Canada:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
... PS Question for the Ship's US posters, is Cruz really a Canadian? Some of the more "interesting" comments on Bloomberg kept mentioning this as he apparently wants to run for President in 2016. ...
quote:(emphases mine] Cruz
In order to fulfill his promise to the voters, Cruz must therefore submit proof that he is a U.S. citizen, which will be trickier for him than for most people. Cruz has thus far released only his Canadian birth certificate, which confirms that he was born in Calgary, Alberta, in 1970, and additionally states that his mother was born in Wilmington, Dela. The second part is crucial – Cruz’s only claim to U.S. citizenship through his mother – but it is also hearsay. The birth certificate is primary evidence of Cruz’s own birth, but the entry about his mother merely records her assertion to the Alberta Division of Vital Statistics. Even though I don’t personally dispute what he says, “My mother said so” is not what is usually meant by “proof.”
...
But even that presents a problem. Only one of Ted’s parents was a citizen when he was born (his father is a Cuban émigré who did not take U.S. citizenship until 2005), and he therefore falls under a special section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that applies to “Birth Abroad to One Citizen and One Alien Parent.” Under that provision, Cruz only qualifies for American citizenship if his mother was “physically present” in the United States for 10 years prior to his birth, five of which had to be after she reached the age of 14. The only definitive way to prove Eleanor Cruz’s 10 years of physical presence would be with documents such as leases, school registration, utility bills or tax records. ...
quote:Thank you.
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
quote:Yep, Ted Cruz really was born in Canada:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
... PS Question for the Ship's US posters, is Cruz really a Canadian? Some of the more "interesting" comments on Bloomberg kept mentioning this as he apparently wants to run for President in 2016. ...
quote:(emphases mine] Cruz
In order to fulfill his promise to the voters, Cruz must therefore submit proof that he is a U.S. citizen, which will be trickier for him than for most people. Cruz has thus far released only his Canadian birth certificate, which confirms that he was born in Calgary, Alberta, in 1970, and additionally states that his mother was born in Wilmington, Dela. The second part is crucial – Cruz’s only claim to U.S. citizenship through his mother – but it is also hearsay. The birth certificate is primary evidence of Cruz’s own birth, but the entry about his mother merely records her assertion to the Alberta Division of Vital Statistics. Even though I don’t personally dispute what he says, “My mother said so” is not what is usually meant by “proof.”
...
But even that presents a problem. Only one of Ted’s parents was a citizen when he was born (his father is a Cuban émigré who did not take U.S. citizenship until 2005), and he therefore falls under a special section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that applies to “Birth Abroad to One Citizen and One Alien Parent.” Under that provision, Cruz only qualifies for American citizenship if his mother was “physically present” in the United States for 10 years prior to his birth, five of which had to be after she reached the age of 14. The only definitive way to prove Eleanor Cruz’s 10 years of physical presence would be with documents such as leases, school registration, utility bills or tax records. ...
It's going to be fun watching the birthers explain that Hawai'i is a foreign country but Canada isn't, and that it's ok for a USA president to be born in another country, as long as it's not Kenya.
quote:I actually would welcome a chance to see the law changed to allow a naturalized citizen to be president as long as the person had been a citizen for a while. I doubt Cruz is the candidate who could get that law changed, even if he were naturalized, but I think it would have to be a Republican, maybe a confluence of a Republican and a Democrat...
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
It's going to be fun watching the birthers explain that Hawai'i is a foreign country but Canada isn't, and that it's ok for a USA president to be born in another country, as long as it's not Kenya.
quote:Depends on what you mean by "this". Refusing to authorize spending (the shutdown) or refusing to raise the debt ceiling (the threatened default).
Originally posted by Enoch:
Yebbut. Everyone can breathe easy because government has resumed, but it doesn't cure the fact that the Constitution is deeply flawed. There's nothing to stop another (or the same) group of loonies doing this again.
quote:Well, the control of money by Congress is in the Constitution, which states "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law". The only way the U.S. can appropriate money is with a law, and only Congress can make laws ("All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives"). Shutting down "the whole shebang" when no appropriations are made is more a basic economic consequence of not paying for stuff.
Originally posted by orfeo:
I mentioned somewhere along the line an article that explains it's NOT the Constitution that's flawed, but a combination of Acts - one of which says Congress gets to control the money in this way, and another that says you've got to shut down the whole shebang when there's a problem.
quote:Post-traumatic stress syndrome. The poor woman deserves a purple heart and an honorable discharge.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
And I'm not sure whether to file this under "random weirdness" or "the insanity is contageous".
quote:Their transcript doesn't match the audio file, so here's my own.
As the House finished their vote to reopen the federal government and raise the debt ceiling, the House stenographer decided it was a good time to let everyone know her feelings about God, Congress, and the Freemasons.
quote:So, random religious fanatic seizing her moment of national press attention, or exactly what you'd expect when Republicans make staffing decisions*?
He [God] will not be mocked. He will not be mocked. Don't touch me! He will not be mocked. The greatest deception here is this is not one nation under God. It never was. Had it been, it would not have been. No! It would not have been! The Constitution would not have been written by Freemasons. They go against God. You cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve two masters. Praise be to God, Lord Jesus Christ!
- Molly, the [ex-]stenographer of the House of Representatives
quote:Anyone born outside the U.S. but whose parents are U.S. citizens is considered a U.S. citizen from birth. This was a law passed by the first congress in 1790.
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
In 1968 George Romney (Mitt's dad) ran for the GOP nomination for President. I don't remember anything being said about it at the time (I was still a mere teenager), but George was born to American parents in Mexico. His grandparents (one grandfather with three wives IIRC) moved there because of the polygamy laws in the U.S. I assume he was a U.S. citizen, but he was not a natural-born citizen, which one must be to be PECUSA.
quote:The stenographer originally identified as "Molly" has been more accurately identified as Dianne Reidy and is currently being evaluated at a Washington hospital. Here are further accounts from International Business News and CNN.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Post-traumatic stress syndrome. The poor woman deserves a purple heart and an honorable discharge.
quote:That may be true, but it doesn't actually resolve the question of what is meant by a "natural-born citizen" as mentioned in the constitution, a question that has not been conclusively tested by a US court.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Anyone born outside the U.S. but whose parents are U.S. citizens is considered a U.S. citizen from birth. This was a law passed by the first congress in 1790.
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
In 1968 George Romney (Mitt's dad) ran for the GOP nomination for President. I don't remember anything being said about it at the time (I was still a mere teenager), but George was born to American parents in Mexico. His grandparents (one grandfather with three wives IIRC) moved there because of the polygamy laws in the U.S. I assume he was a U.S. citizen, but he was not a natural-born citizen, which one must be to be PECUSA.
quote:Her case actually reminds me of my late mother. At the end of her life she was profoundly deaf and completely bedridden, though still very sharp mentally. At one point during her long convalescence, due to a glitch in setting up her TV/audio enhancement system, for a period of several weeks she wasn't able to change channels, but instead watched a steady diet of Faux News 24/7. Prior to that it had been one of her favorite channels (a diehard Republican). During the period of those several weeks of nonstop Faux-insanity, I watched her dissolve practically into madness-- extreme paranoia, nihilism, etc. As soon as my techy husband resolved the TV problem mom started watching a wide variety of programs/perspectives-- and avoided Fox of her own volition. Within days we saw a noticeable difference in her affect and general disposition-- back to her optimistic (despite miserable circumstances), intelligent, and reasonable self.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:The stenographer originally identified as "Molly" has been more accurately identified as Dianne Reidy and is currently being evaluated at a Washington hospital. Here are further accounts from International Business News and CNN.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Post-traumatic stress syndrome. The poor woman deserves a purple heart and an honorable discharge.
quote:Since the Naturalization Act of 1790 actually uses the phrase "natural born citizens" to describe those born abroad to American parents, how much clearer do you want them to make it?
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
quote:That may be true, but it doesn't actually resolve the question of what is meant by a "natural-born citizen" as mentioned in the constitution, a question that has not been conclusively tested by a US court.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Anyone born outside the U.S. but whose parents are U.S. citizens is considered a U.S. citizen from birth. This was a law passed by the first congress in 1790.
quote:She should be given medical treatment -- perhaps under the provisions of the affordable care act -- and when she has recovered, she should have a job back. They wouldn't sack her for a bout of appendicitus - why should they sack her for a bout of mental illness ?
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:The stenographer originally identified as "Molly" has been more accurately identified as Dianne Reidy and is currently being evaluated at a Washington hospital. Here are further accounts from International Business News and CNN.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Post-traumatic stress syndrome. The poor woman deserves a purple heart and an honorable discharge.
quote:I'm no expert but does the presence or absence of a hyphen between 'natural' and 'born' make a difference? People are fussy about the hyphen in same-sex marriage on semantic grounds.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Since the Naturalization Act of 1790 actually uses the phrase "natural born citizens" to describe those born abroad to American parents, how much clearer do you want them to make it?
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
quote:That may be true, but it doesn't actually resolve the question of what is meant by a "natural-born citizen" as mentioned in the constitution, a question that has not been conclusively tested by a US court.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Anyone born outside the U.S. but whose parents are U.S. citizens is considered a U.S. citizen from birth. This was a law passed by the first congress in 1790.
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:I'm no expert but does the presence or absence of a hyphen between 'natural' and 'born' make a difference? People are fussy about the hyphen in same-sex marriage on semantic grounds.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Since the Naturalization Act of 1790 actually uses the phrase "natural born citizens" to describe those born abroad to American parents, how much clearer do you want them to make it?
What hyphen? Neither the Naturalization Act of 1790 nor the U.S. Constitution (see Art. II, §1, cl. 5) hyphenates "natural born citizen". The only difference between the two is that the Constitution capitalized "Citizen", whereas the Naturalization Act does not. I'd say that's more an artifact of idiosyncratic eighteenth century capitalization than an attempt to make a legal distinction between "Citizens" and "citizens".
quote:I suspect her toxic workplace was at least a contributing cause of the mental illness. She should seek worker's comp.
Originally posted by Doublethink:
quote:She should be given medical treatment -- perhaps under the provisions of the affordable care act -- and when she has recovered, she should have a job back. They wouldn't sack her for a bout of appendicitus - why should they sack her for a bout of mental illness ?
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:The stenographer originally identified as "Molly" has been more accurately identified as Dianne Reidy and is currently being evaluated at a Washington hospital. Here are further accounts from International Business News and CNN.
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Post-traumatic stress syndrome. The poor woman deserves a purple heart and an honorable discharge.
quote:Just to be clear, I only wrote it using a hyphen in my previous post because that's how I would naturally write it - based on how I learned Australian Standard English at school.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:I'm no expert but does the presence or absence of a hyphen between 'natural' and 'born' make a difference? People are fussy about the hyphen in same-sex marriage on semantic grounds.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Since the Naturalization Act of 1790 actually uses the phrase "natural born citizens" to describe those born abroad to American parents, how much clearer do you want them to make it?
quote:I really shouldn't post before my morning coffee. Obviously I meant POTUS, not PECUSA! (George Romney never wanted to be PECUSA!)
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
...I assume he was a U.S. citizen, but he was not a natural-born citizen, which one must be to be PECUSA.
![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif){kind=icon}
quote:As of last night, I was thinking that the answer is "nothing" as far as the debt ceiling goes, but my son sent me this link to an article that indicates otherwise. In trying to find out more, I came across this NY Times article that seems to do a better job* explaining it.
Originally posted by orfeo:
So what's actually going to change in 3 months?
quote:
Did Congress just accidentally kill the debt ceiling?
It could certainly look that way, given the legislative text. The default prevention section of the bill seems to imply that going forward, the president has the authority to increase the countrys debt burden unilaterally, and that Congress can only stop him by passing a bill. Given that the president could veto that bill, it would take a supermajority to stop him from raising the debt ceiling.
<snip>
But not so fast, Senate aides said.
quote:How many places require explicit spending bills to be passed each year, and how many places have what is effectively an automatic continuing resolution, where the previous rates continue until they get changed?
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The shutdown isn't a type of flaw in the U.S. Constitution that's not found in any other system. Where there's a big pot of money someone is needed to authorize disbursements.
quote:That "or whatever" is intriguing. Is Congress assuming it will be February? Could Obama set a new limit to get us past elections (assuming more than a third of Congress would go along)?
Originally posted by Carex:
The actual wording (having read the full text linked to previously) is that Obama has 3 days to set a new limit to get us to February or whatever, and then either (or both) house(s) can introduce a resolution to rescind it.
quote:From what I've read, the conservative Republicans in the House strongly approve of Boehner's leadership in this. It's the moderate Republicans that they are blaming for caving.
Originally posted by Tubbs:
PPS I hope the speaker survives. Purely on the basis that he seems to be doing the best with what he's been landed with - and some of the alternatives are scary.
quote:No, there is a specific end date included.
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
Could Obama set a new limit to get us past elections (assuming more than a third of Congress would go along)?
quote:Turns out the entire House elects the Speaker so it may be harder to shift him than I first thought. And the moderates and Dems are unlikely to vote for a Tea Party fave.
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
quote:From what I've read, the conservative Republicans in the House strongly approve of Boehner's leadership in this. It's the moderate Republicans that they are blaming for caving.
Originally posted by Tubbs:
PPS I hope the speaker survives. Purely on the basis that he seems to be doing the best with what he's been landed with - and some of the alternatives are scary.
quote:Of course the conservatives approve of Boehner's leadership. His "leadership" essentially consisted of giving free rein to the agenda of conservative Republicans long past the point where it was politically feasible. Why would they object?
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
From what I've read, the conservative Republicans in the House strongly approve of Boehner's leadership in this. It's the moderate Republicans that they are blaming for caving.
quote:I don't know, but some people are wondering if they'll be letting Boehner keep his job.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Why would they object?
quote:The thing that matters most to the Tea Party isn't effectiveness, it's purity. What would have caused a Tea Party revolt against Boehner's Speakership would have been re-opening the government after only a day or two, or avoiding a shutdown in the first place. By waiting until the literal eleventh hour, Boehner demonstrated the sufficiency of his dedication to The Cause.
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
I did come across one article that claimed the Democrats privately offered to help Boehner keep his job if he brought the matter to the floor and that Boehner responded with "I'll get back to you." A Boehner staffer later responded to a question about this (after everything was resolved) with "That's silly." (Sorry, I didn't save a link.)
quote:Then nothing will be structurally different on February 7th?
Originally posted by Carex:
quote:No, there is a specific end date included.
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
Could Obama set a new limit to get us past elections (assuming more than a third of Congress would go along)?
quote:The staffer's eyes then glowed and, after he/she returned to Boehner's inner office/prison cell, Boehner was heard screaming in terror.
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
I did come across one article that claimed the Democrats privately offered to help Boehner keep his job if he brought the matter to the floor and that Boehner responded with "I'll get back to you." A Boehner staffer later responded to a question about this (after everything was resolved) with "That's silly." (Sorry, I didn't save a link.)
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
quote:No, that's not correct. In Parliamentary systems the Executive and Legislature are fused. If the Executive cannot secure funds from the legislature, that is a Vote of Non-Confidence and the Government is dismissed. Either a new one can be formed from the existing Legislature or a general election may be held. It takes from a day to two months at most to resolve the issue firmly one way or another.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:Depends on what you mean by "this". Refusing to authorize spending (the shutdown) or refusing to raise the debt ceiling (the threatened default).
Originally posted by Enoch:
Yebbut. Everyone can breathe easy because government has resumed, but it doesn't cure the fact that the Constitution is deeply flawed. There's nothing to stop another (or the same) group of loonies doing this again.
The shutdown isn't a type of flaw in the U.S. Constitution that's not found in any other system. Where there's a big pot of money someone is needed to authorize disbursements. (The alternative system, where anyone can just take what they want/need, has its own fairly obvious flaws.) If the authorization of spending is controlled by a person or group, they can shut things down by not authorizing spending. Sure, you can specify that if they don't then some other person or group can take action to correct this, but you're only expanding the size of the group that can stop everything. For example, if all spending has to be authorized by X, then X can let everything grind to a halt by not authorizing spending. If Y can fire and replace X for not authorizing spending, then X and Y working together (or possibly just Y blackmailing X over X's job) can refuse to authorize spending.
In other words, it's not a peculiarity of the U.S. Constitution, it's a standard feature of accounting controls.
quote:...except the Supremes would have a vested in the result. What do you do if they *all* need to recuse themselves??
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
I would hope that if the President brought a case to the Supreme Court that the debt ceiling law would be found to violate the 14th amendment. A nice case to claim standing would involve citing the need for the president to pay the supreme courts payroll.
quote:In many other systems, once a person is appointed Speaker, they are expected not to be partisan any more. They are supposed to eschew their party loyalties, not bat for their political chums. They owe their duties to the chamber as a whole and are supposed to endeavour to be fair to all sides.
Originally posted by Zach82:
... Honestly, I can't think of anything less democratic than the powers the Speaker of the House has under the current rules. Constitutionally, the Speaker is supposed to be the representative of the House, not his party.
quote:Guessing that 'Supremes' means the judges of the Supreme Court rather than some celebrated lady singers, judges here don't recuse themselves over something that applies to everybody, or to a major part of the the population. They are only expected to do so if there is something specific to them which could be construed as giving them a personal interest that might affect the way they decide.
Originally posted by Golden Key
...except the Supremes would have a vested in the result. What do you do if they *all* need to recuse themselves??
quote:Andrew O'Neill suggested that to the Republican spokesman on yesterday's politics show on BBC. He looked as if he was going to pass out due to the horror and common sense of it all. The Republican cheerfully admitted they were going to do it all again come February and then looked taken aback when O'Neill told him a few home truths. The phase "banana republic" was mentioned. It's worth a watch just for the sheer comedy value.
Originally posted by Zach82:
The United States is practically the only country to even have a debt ceiling. It would make most sense to merely not have one at all.
quote:Indeed, that's what the House Speaker is sworn to do, and what Speakers could generally be expected to do up until one Newt Gingrich and his heir, Dennis Hastert.
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:In many other systems, once a person is appointed Speaker, they are expected not to be partisan any more. They are supposed to eschew their party loyalties, not bat for their political chums. They owe their duties to the chamber as a whole and are supposed to endeavour to be fair to all sides.
Originally posted by Zach82:
... Honestly, I can't think of anything less democratic than the powers the Speaker of the House has under the current rules. Constitutionally, the Speaker is supposed to be the representative of the House, not his party.
quote:Agreed. One should be taken to be aware of the state of the books.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Authorizing spending should automatically authorize borrowing if borrowing is required for the spending. That it does not is inane.
quote:It used to be the case under what was known as "the Gephardt Rule". Any appropriations bill passed was "deemed" to have an appropriate adjustment of the debt ceiling attached. That all ended with the Gingrich Speakership.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Authorizing spending should automatically authorize borrowing if borrowing is required for the spending. That it does not is inane.
quote:Is it just me, or does that name pop up every time one examines anything that is wrong with congress these days?
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:It used to be the case under what was known as "the Gephardt Rule". Any appropriations bill passed was "deemed" to have an appropriate adjustment of the debt ceiling attached. That all ended with the Gingrich Speakership.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Authorizing spending should automatically authorize borrowing if borrowing is required for the spending. That it does not is inane.
quote:Gingrich is the poster child for an intransigent and dysfunctional Republican-led House.
Originally posted by Zach82:
Is it just me, or does that name pop up every time one examines anything that is wrong with congress these days?
quote:
The Insufficient Craziness Theory
Every time Republicans suffer a rejection of the most right-wing items on their agenda, a significant number decide they havent been sufficiently crazy.
quote:Because the Tea Party's attempt to make the USA look like a third-rate banana republic failed, now the progressives feel compelled to have a go themselves?
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Hmmmm. According to a HuffPost article, I'm not the only one who thinks legal action should be taken against the involved members of Congress. There's mention of a petition...
quote:They could do what the Bush appointed Judges did in Bush v. Gore: Ignore the conflict of interest.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
quote:...except the Supremes would have a vested in the result. What do you do if they *all* need to recuse themselves??
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
I would hope that if the President brought a case to the Supreme Court that the debt ceiling law would be found to violate the 14th amendment. A nice case to claim standing would involve citing the need for the president to pay the supreme courts payroll.
quote:Much though I sympathise with the emotions that underlie this, surely it must be a non-starter. How could one argue that it was a criminal offence for elected representatives to use their votes in the chamber in one political way rather than another, unless one could prove they were taking payments under the counter or instructions from a foreign government? I don't think anyone's suggesting either.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Hmmmm. According to a HuffPost article, I'm not the only one who thinks legal action should be taken against the involved members of Congress. There's mention of a petition...
quote:My connection's not good enough to pull up something right now. But in one article, I saw a citing of (IIRC) 14 USC, then a section listed after that big squiggle thing. (Which looks like the offspring of several musical clefs.)
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:Much though I sympathise with the emotions that underlie this, surely it must be a non-starter. How could one argue that it was a criminal offence for elected representatives to use their votes in the chamber in one political way rather than another, unless one could prove they were taking payments under the counter or instructions from a foreign government? I don't think anyone's suggesting either.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Hmmmm. According to a HuffPost article, I'm not the only one who thinks legal action should be taken against the involved members of Congress. There's mention of a petition...
quote:Yeah, I'm not quite sure what you're saying. The "other tribunal" bit is throwing me. Do you mean that because speakers in other legislative bodies are bipartisan, the Speaker of the House must be, too? Or just that taking sides gets in the way of the job?
I don't know enough about the US constitution to know whether the following might be a runner. Could one argue that the Speaker cannot bind him/herself to act in accordance with self introduced rules which are incompatible with a Speaker in other tribunal's duty to be bipartisan because that is unlawfully fettering his/her discretion? That's probably unfamiliar language borrowed from other jurisdictions with different takes on things. It may not make sense to US ears.
quote:Not sure. We've got the whole "checks and balances" thing.
I'd suspect also that there may be some foundation principle that the national legislature is not amenable to judicial intervention in a way that might apply to lower tribunals.
quote:14 USC appears to be the law enabling the US Coast Guard. Not sure why anyone would be citing that in an argument about this stuff.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
My connection's not good enough to pull up something right now. But in one article, I saw a citing of (IIRC) 14 USC, then a section listed after that big squiggle thing. (Which looks like the offspring of several musical clefs.
quote:If they were "conspiring" to have it repealed or modified, that's actually part of their job as legislators. Indeed, it could be argued that for those who campaigned with the dismantling of ACA as one of their policies it is actually their duty to do what they can to dismantle it.
Anyway, IIRC, it had something to do with one or two members of Congress conspiring to do something to a valid law. (IE the Affordable Care Act.)
quote:Something must be done. Arresting political opponents standing in the way of Supreme Leader Obama is something. We must do it.
Look, I know charging members of Congress with sedition is a serious and extreme thing. But so was what they did. They caused person, medical, and financial hardship to many Americans. IIRC, the gov't wasted billions of dollars during the shutdown. They've damaged our credit rating. They nearly tanked the world economy.
*Something* has to be done, or they'll do this again--like in January and February 2014, when next deadlines arrive. They need to be punished. If nothing else, a drive to charge them with sedition is at least a shot across their bow. The Tea Party may be too crazy to even notice. But some of the saner, long-time members of Congress might wake up and do something.
quote:We went over this on the previous page, the Constitution doesn't actually say anything about the Speaker's role, just that there must be a Speaker. It's also been well-established over the last month that the US Constitution is not fit for purpose, not having a mechanism for calling an immediate election to resolve a deadlock between the two houses.
Yeah, I'm not quite sure what you're saying. The "other tribunal" bit is throwing me. Do you mean that because speakers in other legislative bodies are bipartisan, the Speaker of the House must be, too? Or just that taking sides gets in the way of the job?
quote:I thought "checks and balances" meant the judiciary could intervene to strike out a law if it was proved to be illegal under the constitution, not that they could take over the elected legislature on a whim.
Not sure. We've got the whole "checks and balances" thing.
quote:
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
) Along with the Founding Folks.)quote:The giant cheeseburger's point - which I agree with - is attempting to characterise their actions in those terms is a massive stretch.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Depending on how you characterize what they did--attempted coup? seized property of the US?--possibly some scope for action.
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Ok, I finally was able to pull up info on sedition.
From the Cornell Law School site:
18 USC § 2384 - Seditious conspiracy
[QUOTE][qb]
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
quote:I’m not sure precisely what you’re referring to with your term “a bill.” While I agree that legislators can hardly be prosecuted for voting on bills, it’s important to remember that the Affordable Care Act is now law – and that’s what (initially, at least) the TPs claimed to be trying to “prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of.”
Originally posted by orfeo:
The giant cheeseburger's point - which I agree with - is attempting to characterise their actions in those terms is a massive stretch.
The simple fact is there isn't any kind of obligation to vote in favour of a bill. Any such proposition negates the very purpose of a legislature.
quote:That's interesting and quite surprising. In other systems the Speaker sits alone, out in front, facing everyone else. His or her function is to control the debate, the chair, call people to speak, make sure everyone who needs to gets their chance to speak, enforce the rules of debate, shut people up when they break them, and then call votes.
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
...
The role the US Speaker plays would traditionally be called something like "Leader of the House" in a conventional parliament. ...
quote:1. Of course I'm not talking about the Affordable Care Act. That's not what they were refusing to vote for. It's the reason WHY they were refusing to vote for something else.
Originally posted by Porridge:
I’m not sure precisely what you’re referring to with your term “a bill.” While I agree that legislators can hardly be prosecuted for voting on bills, it’s important to remember that the Affordable Care Act is now law – and that’s what (initially, at least) the TPs claimed to be trying to “prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of.”
I also think that any system which allows legislators to pass into law bills which require the expenditure of funds without also requiring said legislators to appropriate said funds is nuts.
quote:Yes, but these people are the ones who are specifically given the power to make, amend or repeal laws. It doesn't actually mean anything when supporters of the Democratic Party put their fingers in their ears and shout "it's the law, it's the law, you can't touch it, lalalalala I can't hear you."
Originally posted by Porridge:
While I agree that legislators can hardly be prosecuted for voting on bills, it’s important to remember that the Affordable Care Act is now law ...
quote:TGC: Good grief. I don't know who is sticking fingers in ears; it's not me. I know legislators can amend and/or repeal laws. The T-bags have been trying to repeal ACA since it passed, failing more than 40 attempts. If that's not sticking fingers in ears, then perhaps a different portion of the anatomy is involved.
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
Yes, but these people are the ones who are specifically given the power to make, amend or repeal laws. It doesn't actually mean anything when supporters of the Democratic Party put their fingers in their ears and shout "it's the law, it's the law, you can't touch it, lalalalala I can't hear you."
Please let me know if you need to be told this yet again, maybe in single syllables.
quote:Then 'the country' can punish them at the ballot box. Not in a trial.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
It's not about the way they voted. It's about holding the country hostage.
quote:If you have evidence that a member of Congress has broken a law and that a warrant for their arrest should be issued, you should go to the police. I'm sure that the leadership of the Democratic Party is also more than capable of this, and the fact that they haven't would probably show that they haven't found any indictable breaches of the law to report to the relevant police force - or that there is a gentleman's agreement between the two parties to not obstruct legally elected members of Congress from fulfilling their duties.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
But I'm not talking about arresting them for being the opposition. I'm talking about holding them responsible for laws ... that they may have broken.
quote:It's my impression that the Congress makes its own rules, and is capable of enforcing them by passing a motion to expel a member.
... and Congressional rules ...
quote:My apologies. My answer was based on the evidence presented, not on esoteric theories where there is actually some law dictating which way a member of the House of Representatives must vote when presented with a bill or resolution.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
O.--
Even if it turns out they *have* broken a law?
quote:There are a few such laws. Most of them deal with casting votes in return for bribes. Well, bribes by those outside the legislature. Casting votes in return for considerations offered by a fellow legislator (e.g. I'll support your bill if you support mine) is usually considered "deal making" or "horsetrading", not "bribery" in the legal sense of the term.
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:My apologies. My answer was based on the evidence presented, not on esoteric theories where there is actually some law dictating which way a member of the House of Representatives must vote when presented with a bill or resolution.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
O.--
Even if it turns out they *have* broken a law?
quote:The issue is that they were holding a gun to the nation's head in order to get what they couldn't get through the normal, legitimate legislative process. The issue is extortion, and the indifference to the suffering their power play caused.
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I thoughtthe issue was not what way they voted on a bill, but the a bill was blocked from being put before the house to vote on ?
quote:In the House, yes, allowing a straight up-down vote on the "clean" Senate CR would have ended the shutdown.
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Yes, but the mechanism was not permitting a budget bill to be tabled wasn't it ?
quote:This isn't the kind of law that any kind of police would enforce--except maybe the Capitol Police (?), if they were so ordered by the attorney general. And Atty. Gen. Holder is exactly who people are contacting. They're asking him to look into possible charges of sedition, etc. And I *think* some may be asking him to investigate outside influences, like the Koch brothers. (Some very rich guys who AIUI were behind a good deal of the economic crash of several years ago, and who reportedly have put a lot of money into using a shutdown to try and stop the Affordable Care Act (already a law!) from being implemented.)
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
quote:If you have evidence that a member of Congress has broken a law and that a warrant for their arrest should be issued, you should go to the police. I'm sure that the leadership of the Democratic Party is also more than capable of this, and the fact that they haven't would probably show that they haven't found any indictable breaches of the law to report to the relevant police force - or that there is a gentleman's agreement between the two parties to not obstruct legally elected members of Congress from fulfilling their duties.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
But I'm not talking about arresting them for being the opposition. I'm talking about holding them responsible for laws ... that they may have broken.
quote:It's my impression that the Congress makes its own rules, and is capable of enforcing them by passing a motion to expel a member. [/QB][/QUOTE]
... and Congressional rules ...
quote:In international terms, that's curious. To most foreigners, being partisan would appear self-evidently to be in conflict with the role of a proper speaker.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Enoch--
Re the speaker's duties:
The speaker does do the administrative things you mentioned (e.g., calling on representatives to speak). But s/he ALSO does political stuff.
quote:NO. They WANTED a shutdown. They did what they did in order to CAUSE it. They did it INTENTIONALLY. They've been open about that.
Originally posted by orfeo:
The key problem with any analysis trying assert 'force', or even 'blackmail', is that what they actually DID wasn't to shut down the government. Shutting down the government was a consequence of what they did, but the direct action involved here is simply not voting Yes.
quote:I don't agree with either of your analyses.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
quote:NO. They WANTED a shutdown. They did what they did in order to CAUSE it. They did it INTENTIONALLY. They've been open about that.
Originally posted by orfeo:
The key problem with any analysis trying assert 'force', or even 'blackmail', is that what they actually DID wasn't to shut down the government. Shutting down the government was a consequence of what they did, but the direct action involved here is simply not voting Yes.
quote:And, no matter how some shipmates might like to claim otherwise, that all applies equally to the senators who voted No in the first place.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Enoch, I completely agree 'they are answerable for their actions'.
The question is simply answerable how.
And I think it's so utterly fundamental that the role of legislators is to vote on matters - hopefully very aware of the consequences of their vote, otherwise what the blazes are they doing in there.
And because of that, the notion of making them answerable in a court of law for the consequences of their vote (because we really, really didn't like the consequences) is just completely repugnant to the very system of law that Western democracies operate on. There is simply nothing in our system of governance that suggests that individual members of the legislature can be targeted in this way.
The decisions of the legislature as a whole can be challenged in a court of law, on the grounds that they are not in accordance with the Constitution (eg the Defense of Marriage Act). But that is a very different thing to saying that individual members can be taken to court on the basis of whether they agreed with passing a particular measure or disagreed with passing it.
And no matter how much some other Shipmates bleat about 'it's not their vote we disagree with', it quite obviously is. Because what those Shipmates wanted the legislators do was vote Yes. Voting Yes is what ended the impasse and hence the shutdown.
The legislators who resisted voting Yes are answerable at the ballot box. And not otherwise.
quote:Analyses? Are you fucking kidding me? Analysis is not required to determine what happened. It's a matter of recent historical record.
Originally posted by Enoch:
I don't agree with either of your analyses.
quote:I'm not sure what you're getting at here, since the Senate as a whole managed to pass an amended version of the House's appropriation bill. Are you arguing that saying 'Yes' to an amended version is the same as saying 'No', or that the individual senators voting against the measure (practically the Senate's entire Republican caucus) should be held accountable for their ultimately unsuccessful opposition at the ballot box?
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
quote:And, no matter how some shipmates might like to claim otherwise, that all applies equally to the senators who voted No in the first place.
Originally posted by orfeo:
The legislators who resisted voting Yes are answerable at the ballot box. And not otherwise.
quote:Yes, 'fraud so. Unless we're talking about taking bribes or taking up arms against the state, if you don't like what your elected representatives do, that has to be the way you get back at them. If, which I suspect is what some are fearing, over 50% of your fellow electors like what they've done, or if you're not in their electoral district, that's democracy. Hard luck.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
... or that the individual senators voting against the measure (practically the Senate's entire Republican caucus) should be held accountable for their ultimately unsuccessful opposition at the ballot box?
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Links don't work for me either. The first one goes to the front page of the Huff Post, the second gets cut off after eric-. Missed the rest of the URL perhaps? Send me the correct URLs or post them here and I'll be happy to fix them for you, if you like.
Thanks, Gwai, and profuse apologies, everyone.quote:And if they simply vote a way we hate, that's what we do--try to vote them out of office, contact them to express our opinions, cuss 'em out in the media and at home. We're well versed in that, thank you.
Originally posted by Enoch:
Yes, 'fraud so. Unless we're talking about taking bribes or taking up arms against the state, if you don't like what your elected representatives do, that has to be the way you get back at them. If, which I suspect is what some are fearing, over 50% of your fellow electors like what they've done, or if you're not in their electoral district, that's democracy. Hard luck.
quote:I can't speak for the giant cheeseburger but here are a few reasons.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
TGC--
Um, why are you so worked up about the politics of another country??
quote:The question is, why are you so convinced that 'shutting down the government' is capable of being a treasonous act?
Originally posted by Golden Key:
quote:And if they simply vote a way we hate, that's what we do--try to vote them out of office, contact them to express our opinions, cuss 'em out in the media and at home. We're well versed in that, thank you.
Originally posted by Enoch:
Yes, 'fraud so. Unless we're talking about taking bribes or taking up arms against the state, if you don't like what your elected representatives do, that has to be the way you get back at them. If, which I suspect is what some are fearing, over 50% of your fellow electors like what they've done, or if you're not in their electoral district, that's democracy. Hard luck.
This is about purposely shutting down the gov't and causing great harm--and asking the attorney general to look into any EXISTING laws, acts, statues, parts of the Constitution, to see if they've been broken.
Do you get that??? It's not about trumping something up 'cause our feelings got hurt. It's within and about the law.
" vs. B: "It's not about their vote! They must be punished by existing laws for holding the gov't, Americans, and the world's economy hostage".quote:The voting system means that our Parliament is unrepresentative. The Irish have a much better system.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Enoch—
--I'm pretty much with you down through the first paragraph of part 5.
--What is the bit of your constitution that you feel is messed up?
quote:That sort of veneration is a very serious problem. It's a sort of idolatry and a bit like Gilbert and Sullivan's Lord Chancellor. It means no one ever asks the questions they ought to be asking, such as 'is this democratic?' and ''couldn't we do this better?'.
--Re: part 6: I don't think a lot of US gov't attention is put into comparing our constitution with others--at least, not publicly. American culture has quite a bit of veneration for the Constitution. (To varying degrees; for some people, it's just about on level with the Bible. Goes with the whole "Christian nation with a manifest destiny" thing.)
quote:So it should be. It is dodgy states that keep changing their Constitutions because their executive can't get its own way.
It is very, very hard to make an amendment to the Constitution. We don't change it lightly nor easily.
quote:Orfeo, who understands these sorts of things, has said that this wouldn't require a change in the Constitution, just the adoption by the two houses of Congress of more sensible rules of debate.
Even on the Supreme Court, there's a divide between justices who go for a strict "constructionist" (?) interpretation ("interpret it just the way the Founders meant it", AIUI), and the justices who allow more breathing room.
I think we need some kind of amendment, or change to Congressional rules, or whatever will work, to keep any faction of Congress from doing this ever again.
quote:I repeat what Orfeo, the giant cheeseburger and I have been saying. What 'law' have these people broken? Unless they have committed what are clearly proper offences, e.g. can be shown to have taken bribes, conspired with foreign states against their own country etc, this isn't 'criminal' territory. To concoct some vague sort of 'common law' offence so as to imprison your political opponents for behaving obstructively would not just be a first step towards tyranny but several steps down that road.
Given the fight for past amendments, it will be a lonnnnng time, if ever, before that change is made. Or any other. And changing to a parliamentary system will happen sometime after “the twelfth of never, and that's a long, long time".
--Where we're missing each other is A: "You're punishing them for their vote!
Several of us Americans have said B, in various forms, again and again, explaining why and linking to media coverage. **We're not making anything up.** It's all right there in the news. For Pete's sake, kids have gone without food because of these jerks. Do you not believe that???
As usual, power and money are deeply involved.
But some of us saying B are being met with bitter nastiness from A supporters, with arguments that don't include a hair's breadth of humility that maybe someone who's looking at the situation from another country just might miss something.
Want American democracy to continue? Then let us use our existing laws to deal with people who purposely broke it, and may do so again, in a few months.
Working with laws is part of a democracy, too.
quote:I was hardly saying that the two situations were the same. I was pointing out that political paralysis over issues vital to the world economy is not a uniquely American problem.
To answer Zach’s question – Greece’s collapse and exit would have caused huge problems within the Eurozone and the markets but wouldn’t have had the impact of a US default.
quote:I have many criticisms about the actions taken by the EU over the Greek crisis, but political paralysis isn't one of them.
Zach82: I was pointing out that political paralysis over issues vital to the world economy is not a uniquely American problem.
quote:I can't account for what you remember, but I distinctly remember the "Will they/won't they save the world economy by bailing out Greece" debate, with the stock markets teetering on the edge til the last minute. The debate centered mostly around whether Germany would foot the bill.
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:I have many criticisms about the actions taken by the EU over the Greek crisis, but political paralysis isn't one of them.
Zach82: I was pointing out that political paralysis over issues vital to the world economy is not a uniquely American problem.
quote:Nope, anyone who is well versed in the history of the markets etc would be able to rattle off other examples. (Sadly not me!)
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:I was hardly saying that the two situations were the same. I was pointing out that political paralysis over issues vital to the world economy is not a uniquely American problem.
To answer Zach’s question – Greece’s collapse and exit would have caused huge problems within the Eurozone and the markets but wouldn’t have had the impact of a US default.
quote:I guess we're talking semantics here, but I wouldn't call a decision not to bail out Greece 'political paralysis'. Whether you'd agree with this decision or not, at least they'd have decided something.
Zach82: I can't account for what you remember, but I distinctly remember the "Will they/won't they save the world economy by bailing out Greece" debate, with the stock markets teetering on the edge til the last minute. The debate centered mostly around whether Germany would foot the bill.
quote:I don't think the ordinary people of either Greece or Iceland would say that things have "happened to turn out well for them". Perhaps your television doesn't show the poor in Athens being fed in church run soup kitchens.
Originally posted by Zach82:
Besides the EU bailout of Greece, Iceland declared it just wasn't going to pay its bills in the face of warnings of dire peril. It happened to turn out well for them, but it's still an example.
quote:Yes, it can be a serious problem, depending on the form it takes. IIRC, the Lord Chancellor is from "The Mikado"? I know little about the play. I'm more of a "Pirates of Penzance" fan.
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:That sort of veneration is a very serious problem. It's a sort of idolatry and a bit like Gilbert and Sullivan's Lord Chancellor. It means no one ever asks the questions they ought to be asking, such as 'is this democratic?' and ''couldn't we do this better?'.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
--Re: part 6: I don't think a lot of US gov't attention is put into comparing our constitution with others--at least, not publicly. American culture has quite a bit of veneration for the Constitution. (To varying degrees; for some people, it's just about on level with the Bible. Goes with the whole "Christian nation with a manifest destiny" thing.)
quote:Well, they do have to answer in terms of getting re-elected. But that depends on people actually voting (and not that many do), and on whether Big Money wants them back in office. (I don’t think anyone can make it in American politics without getting their hands dirty. Too much money needed to run, and too much power at stake.)
From outside, as I've said earlier in the thread, belief in the separation of powers as a sacred dogma means the legislators aren't actually responsible for running anything. They don't have to answer for whether what they do works - or, as I've said before, in this case, refuse to do.
It also means the Executive doesn't have to answer from day to day to anyone for what it does. There's no 'Presidents Question Time'. Hence the drastic, all or nothing, threat of impeachment, which more or less died out here in the eighteenth century.
) who got it in gear again.quote:But it took 203 years…27th Amendment. Seriously!
quote:So it should be. It is dodgy states that keep changing their Constitutions because their executive can't get its own way.
It is very, very hard to make an amendment to the Constitution. We don't change it lightly nor easily.
However, there have been amendments. According to Wikipaedia, the last one was as recently as 1992, and it doesn't look as though it was about anything very profound.
quote:That may well be, but "sensible" isn't exactly a Congressional watchword.
quote:Orfeo, who understands these sorts of things, has said that this wouldn't require a change in the Constitution, just the adoption by the two houses of Congress of more sensible rules of debate.
I think we need some kind of amendment, or change to Congressional rules, or whatever will work, to keep any faction of Congress from doing this ever again.
quote:Ain't likely to happen.
From what has leaked out in the course of this thread, I would also say that the practice of having partisan Speakers rather than impartial ones, is indefensible and something that both houses should change immediately.
quote:Did you read the 18 USC 2384 quote I posted upthread? That's the law that I've seen mentioned. It's about sedition, not treason. Doesn't involve other countries at all. I haven't said anything about concocting a common law offense. As I've said, over and over, this is about having the US Attorney General look into that law and see if he finds it—or others--applicable.
I repeat what Orfeo, the giant cheeseburger and I have been saying. What 'law' have these people broken? Unless they have committed what are clearly proper offences, e.g. can be shown to have taken bribes, conspired with foreign states against their own country etc, this isn't 'criminal' territory. To concoct some vague sort of 'common law' offence so as to imprison your political opponents for behaving obstructively would not just be a first step towards tyranny but several steps down that road.
If you want to punish them, you have to wait for the next next election and vote them out, or hope that meanwhile they get caught doing something quite different, fiddling their taxes, driving too fast, or trying to import a Kinder Egg.
quote:"Democracy is the worst system--except for all the others!"--Mark Twain (attr.).
Originally posted by Zach82:
If it helps you sleep at night or feel better about yourself believing that the United States is exceptionally undemocratic, inept and evil, then go right ahead.
quote:I read it, but a few parts which struck my eye
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Did you read the 18 USC 2384 quote I posted upthread? That's the law that I've seen mentioned. It's about sedition, not treason. Doesn't involve other countries at all. I haven't said anything about concocting a common law offense. As I've said, over and over, this is about having the US Attorney General look into that law and see if he finds it—or others--applicable.
quote:make it pretty obvious to me that this doesn't at all apply to the Republican maneuvers in question.
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
quote:Sorry, but if the only people who can hold the President to account are a rat-pack of squabbling journalists, then things are more seriously wrong than I thought. It's worse even than having a partisan Speaker.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
... As to questioning the president: well, that's what the White House Press Corps is for. ...
quote:I wasn't suggesting that. I was questioning the reasoning that underlay your post.
If it helps you sleep at night or feel better about yourself believing that the United States is exceptionally undemocratic, inept and evil, then go right ahead.[
quote:Yes, but the AG has to first sort out what he thinks of the matter. And he might well decide that what they did wasn't illegal; or that he could never win the case, even if their actions were illegal. In the US, prosecutors tend to choose cases they think they have a good chance of inning.
Originally posted by orfeo:
Actually, it's something for the
courts to sort out, should the Attorney General attempt to have someone prosecuted.
quote:Golden Key, I think your suggestion is far more likely to accomplish exactly the opposite - it would confirm the Tea Partiers in their conviction that Obama is really a tin-pot dictator who wants to suppress dissent and throw his political opponents in jail, and no Republican (however moderate or even just pragmatic) could deny it because that's exactly what he'd be trying to do.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Raising the specter of sedition charges--even if no charges are ever filed--might just "scare *them* straight". (Scared Straight refers to a program to keep troubled/criminal kids out of prison, by showing them exactly what it's like, up close.)
quote:The birther movement is out there, too, but that doesn't mean it's not crazy.
There's been media coverage about MoveOn's petition. If nothing else, at least the idea is out there.
quote:Yeah, that. Time will tell, but I think his "let 'em hang themselves" approach will win out.
Originally posted by orfeo:
What Dave W said. Which is why, Golden Key, I think there's an element of wild fantasy in your proposition. To me it's so obvious that Obama would be proving his enemies right about how oppressive he is that I'm amazed you can't see it.
quote:And let us not forget his tireless efforts to criminalize blowjobs. That's definitely something more attorneys-general should spend a lot more time on.
Originally posted by L'organist:
He's a darling of the Tea Party. He's anti-abortion, anti-immigration, would remove US citizenship from children of illegal immigrants, would refuse unemployment benefits to non-English speakers, etc, etc, etc.
quote:My imagination has just gone into overdrive speculating about his opponent's election literature.
Originally posted by Crœsos:
And let us not forget his tireless efforts to criminalize blowjobs. That's definitely something more attorneys-general should spend a lot more time on.
quote:He aligns himself with the "Tea Party" movement, whose adherents in Congress (the opposite of pro-gress
Originally posted by Enoch:
There's no obvious connection between what people can and can't do in the privacy of their bedrooms and bringing your country's government to a shuddering halt.
) created the shutdown fiasco.
quote:1. Maybe. OTOH, people might have been afraid of making things even more tense.
Also-- well, TBH, I wondered about the idea of sedition, too, GK, but two things: 1. the Teabag contingent stated their battle plan well ahead of the time they implemented it. If it were illegal, somebody would have mentioned it. 2. Even if the President decided to let them hang themselves on an act of sedition, a substantial portion of the House would be jail by now, because sedition is just not something let pass. If there was a case, it would have been made by now.
Like orfeo said-- an election circuit is coming up. That is when we will see some karma.
quote:Actually, I was responding to your comment (in the paragraph about the “Kinder egg”) that maybe they’d get arrested for speeding or for fiddling with their taxes.
Besides, if you're really serious, rather than just making a despondent joke, that a congressperson would not be at risk if they were clearly found to have taken bribes or conspired with a foreign state, they are at no risk of prosecution just for being obstructive, and as they see it, doing their duty by the American people.
quote:I'm not sure O would even have to approve an investigation, given that we’ve had large-scale investigations of sitting presidents. And the Republicans in Congress swore from the beginning that they wouldn’t approve any bill that O was for. It's unlikely they'd think any worse of him, no matter what he did about anything.
Originally posted by Golden Key:quote:Golden Key, I think your suggestion is far more likely to accomplish exactly the opposite - it would confirm the Tea Partiers in their conviction that Obama is really a tin-pot dictator who wants to suppress dissent and throw his political opponents in jail, and no Republican (however moderate or even just pragmatic) could deny it because that's exactly what he'd be trying to do.
Raising the specter of sedition charges--even if no charges are ever filed--might just "scare *them* straight". (Scared Straight refers to a program to keep troubled/criminal kids out of prison, by showing them exactly what it's like, up close.)
Hell, he'd probably drive away plenty of his own supporters too.
quote:No, people are apt to forget, or go into deep denial, or just push the shutdown off to the back of their minds. If they do remember, they may do nothing for fear of rocking the country's boat. That's the way people tend to be.
quote:Yeah, that. Time will tell, but I think his "let 'em hang themselves" approach will win out.
Originally posted by orfeo:
What Dave W said. Which is why, Golden Key, I think there's an element of wild fantasy in your proposition. To me it's so obvious that Obama would be proving his enemies right about how oppressive he is that I'm amazed you can't see it.
And all the nonsense and smokescreens being throw up are exactly that. People aren't going to forget the shutdown, and they are not going to forget the pathetic goalpost-shifting that follows.
quote:Although I'm sure the boundary between legitimate lobbying and bribery gets smudged, a person convicted of bribery is not a disinterested authority on this - or for that matter an authority of any value at all. All he seems to be saying is 'It's not fair. I got caught, but lots of other people haven't been'.
Originally posted by Golden Key:
"Ex-lobbyist: Most in Congress accept bribes"--USA Today.
