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[MrRoboto75]

I'm not so sure about term limits for Congress, given that, well, people should be able to choose Congresspeople pretty close to how they want them.  Lobby limits, though, definitely.

There is a bias for incumbents though, and on occasion an incumbent will win in spite of having a superior opponent.

[smjjames]

I'm not so sure about term limits for Congress, given that, well, people should be able to choose Congresspeople pretty close to how they want them.  Lobby limits, though, definitely.

Limits on lobbying would be a step forward, though it seems a bit overly focused on the White House, which isn't where the majority of the lobbyists are. And a lifetime ban on WH officials lobbying for foriegn governments seems a bit much. Not sure what that is supposed to prevent.

Senate Democrats say they'll have a postmortem published by the end of the week, it should be an interesting read.

Yeah, hopefully.

Also, I don't see the term limits getting through Congress, the article says that Mcconnel shot it right down.

[Baffler]

I'm not so sure about term limits for Congress, given that, well, people should be able to choose Congresspeople pretty close to how they want them.  Lobby limits, though, definitely.

Limits on lobbying would be a step forward, though it seems a bit overly focused on the White House, which isn't where the majority of the lobbyists are. And a lifetime ban on WH officials lobbying for foriegn governments seems a bit much. Not sure what that is supposed to prevent.

Those are three separate positions.

1) No lobbying until 5 years after your congressional service.
2) No lobbying after your white house service.
3) No lobbying by foreigners, and no lobbying if you accept money from foreigners. Before you say anything, this isn't just a bogeyman.

[wierd]

No money from foriegn interests at all, you mean.

Representatives should represent their constituency, not firiegn powers. That latter is what dignitaries and ambassadors are for.

[Reelya]

Well your only hope now is for Democrats to sweep Congress in 2018. If Trump is really off the rails then it's more likely.

BTW Trump wants to end Jus Soli (birthright citizenship). And that is something I've mentioned in the past as a direct threat to American Democracy's core. Imagine if there are now two-tiers of birth certificate. American-born Citizens, and American-born "Residents". You could have multiple generations of people who don't have voting rights or any of the various protections that require citizenship, and they will tend to be poorer and have bigger families than those that do. And once there are two tiers of people in America it won't be hard for some to justify "downgrading" born citizens who step out of line to non-citizen status. So it would be like a felon losing voting rights, but it would carry on to your children and their children. Can you imagine how much some Republicans would love if they could hit blacks and hispanics with something like that?

Recipe for a fascist republic right there.

[smjjames]

I'm not so sure about term limits for Congress, given that, well, people should be able to choose Congresspeople pretty close to how they want them.  Lobby limits, though, definitely.

Limits on lobbying would be a step forward, though it seems a bit overly focused on the White House, which isn't where the majority of the lobbyists are. And a lifetime ban on WH officials lobbying for foriegn governments seems a bit much. Not sure what that is supposed to prevent.

Those are three separate positions.

1) No lobbying until 5 years after your congressional service.
2) No lobbying after your white house service.
3) No lobbying by foreigners, and no lobbying if you accept money from foreigners. Before you say anything, this isn't just a bogeyman.

I agree with #3 completely, I wasn't arguing against that, I meant that the lifetime ban for #2 seemed a bit much. I'm just not sure what cases #2 is aimed at, besides the Clintons probably.

[Rolan7]

That's all trolling or genuine ignorance. "kek" comes from WoW, thanks to Horde and Alliance players seeing the speech of players from the opposite faction as position-shifted garbage text. A Horde player who typed "lol" would read to an Alliance player as "kek".

It's literally just "lol" but with more 'net culture and gamer in-group signaling.

"kekeke" is the Korean one, an onomatopoeia for laughter which reached cultural awareness in the Brood War scene, IIRC, and thus became associated with the Zerg. Similar form, different etymological origin.

Oh nice!  I knew about the korean onomatopoeia, but not the WoW thing.  That's cool.  I guess experienced players probably learned to read the "garbled" text (considering I learned to read Oblivion text with barely any effort).

[Baffler]

That's all trolling or genuine ignorance. "kek" comes from WoW, thanks to Horde and Alliance players seeing the speech of players from the opposite faction as position-shifted garbage text. A Horde player who typed "lol" would read to an Alliance player as "kek".

It's literally just "lol" but with more 'net culture and gamer in-group signaling.

"kekeke" is the Korean one, an onomatopoeia for laughter which reached cultural awareness in the Brood War scene, IIRC, and thus became associated with the Zerg. Similar form, different etymological origin.

Oh nice!  I knew about the korean onomatopoeia, but not the WoW thing.  That's cool.  I guess experienced players probably learned to read the "garbled" text (considering I learned to read Oblivion text with barely any effort).

Counterpoint.

That's the top result if you search for kek on Google. The new meaning is starting to overshadow the old one.

[wierd]

More than likely it is just a substitution cipher, like rot13.

Would explain why a vowel was still the middle letter.

I never played world if warcrack, so have no experience here. Too old, don't care.

[Dostoevsky]

It lacks much in the way of detail, but for folks who are interested there is now https://www.greatagain.gov/. [Apologies if someone has already mentioned it, but this thread is now moving far too fast for me to catch up after work.]

Doesn't quite overlap with his 100 day plan, at a glance. Can't say I'm terribly fond of many of the things he has in mind, but given that he's the next President I'll hold my tongue for now and hope that the Republicans are able to govern again. Debt ceiling (and potential debt default) will be as soon as March.

In other news, looks like the current favorites for Cabinet Secretaries are his supporters and titans of industry. Probably a 'noted climate skeptic' heading up EPA, oil & gas industry leading Interior and Energy, and a Goldman Sachs person for Treasury. Giuliani for AG, Gingrich for Secretary of State. We shall live in interesting times.

2018 is going to be an awful election for Senate Democrats with little exposure for Republicans and unless something really disrupting happens the Republicans will likely gain seats. House-side the same dynamics that have locked R seats in will remain in place. House dynamics won't change until 2022 at the earliest, is my bet. Senate could possibly flip in 2020, depending on how bad 2018 goes for the Ds.

[mild edit for clarity]

[Reelya]

2016: where the wild ride never ends.

It's at times like this you wish Romney had won, because we would have skipped this.

[wierd]

The penalties for denialism rarely diminish with time.

[Dostoevsky]

It's at times like this you wish Romney had won, because we would have skipped this.

I think Obama was a good President in the net sum (bad in some ways, good in others), but I've often wondered what would've happened if McCain won in 2008. How would 2010 have gone? Would the tea party have still emerged?

At this point, however, better to do what one can within the world one finds themselves in.

[Frumple]

Limits on lobbying would be a step forward, though it seems a bit overly focused on the White House, which isn't where the majority of the lobbyists are. And a lifetime ban on WH officials lobbying for foriegn governments seems a bit much. Not sure what that is supposed to prevent.

Those are three separate positions.

1) No lobbying until 5 years after your congressional service.
2) No lobbying after your white house service.
3) No lobbying by foreigners, and no lobbying if you accept money from foreigners. Before you say anything, this isn't just a bogeyman.

Yeaaah... see, the problem with those lobbying restrictions? We've got this thing called the first amendment. Spending, campaign funding? We can work around that, to a fair degree, and there's a lot that could be done to bring lobby influence in line from that angle. Actually stripping people of their right to engage politicians in political discourse (i.e. lobbying, i.e. legally protected free speech)? Especially a lifetime ban? It's going to be real hard to convince anything that's paying attention that that's not buckets worth of unconstitutionality. And I'unno about y'all? But supporting the guy that's stated his intent to screw the first amendment to start screwing the first amendment isn't something I'm entirely comfortable with. Lobbying reform and restriction, sure. But this ain't how it should be done in the US. Get money in line, maybe some kind of individual daily contact limit or somethin', tidy up and tighten the current rules, definitely. Deny our citizens or foreign guests the rights promised them by our constitution? Noooooo.

Incidentally, when I mentioned a bit upthread about how some of them looked more reasonable than they actually where? Example the first.

[wierd]

Money is not speech.

Enforce that money is not speech, and the rest follows.

Expect howling and snarling.