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[Nadaka]

I'm just saying from personal experience that there's a lot more secessionist talk, or at least civil war talk, than you seem to imply. Recall the mid-term elections where Second Amendment remedies were on the table and watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants was a very common slogan. I've seen first hand how in love many Tea Party folks are with the idea of a revolution and harkening back to the retconned heroes of the revolution is more than simply a desire for the mantle of patriotism.

I live in the Red south. Yeah, there is a lot of that talk, openly around here. A lot.

[PTTG??]

This is not a case of Democrats being stupid. You’d have to be far worse than stupid not to see the correct political strategy to adopt at this point.

What has happened is that the Democratic Party is no more. It is, at this point, all about current incumbents gaining the favor of the corporate elite, lulling the public into a non-voting torpor or stupor, and of course, arguing that people worried about the nation’s future should vote for them yet again because “the Republicans are worse.”

Thank you.

[nenjin]

At this point I don't really disagree with that sentiment either. The Dems either intentionally or unintentionally squandered the power they were handed by voters and with Republicans never capable of compromising on anything, what things beneficial to the American public Obama wanted to do, he'd never be able to deliver on. And his choice of businessmen over anything else for the heads of Government agencies has really been pissing me off too. As if we didn't have enough evidence of agency capture, why not just put the heads of corporations at the helm of government? If there was a promising 3rd party candidate and they actually had a chance, I'd vote for them. But there isn't. So it's a choice between progressively worse or certifiably worst.

[Aklyon]

According to one of the news channels (wasn't really paying attention to which one it was), the house republicans are basically being told to shut up and be helpful because apparently there was a poll that said most of America thinks they're being too uncompromising.

[RedKing]

According to one of the news channels (wasn't really paying attention to which one it was), the house republicans are basically being told to shut up and be helpful because apparently there was a poll that said most of America thinks they're being too uncompromising.

Yes, but they don't care about "most of America"...they care about what the people in their district think (which is the system working as designed). For some of the Tea Party reps, their constitutents WANT them to bring the government to its knees.

There's buzz about the "Gang of Six" senators coming out with a compromise plan. Of course, the Senate hasn't been the problem in this debate because the Senate is where the grown-ups in Congress go.
By comparison, the House is like the Congressional romper room, where any numbnuts with a shiny PR campaign and good hair can get elected and propose crazy-ass legislation purely for political points back home, because they know that the adults in the upper chamber will stop them.

[dragonshardz]

...the Senate is where the grown-ups in Congress go.
By comparison, the House is like the Congressional romper room, where any numbnuts with a shiny PR campaign and good hair can get elected and propose crazy-ass legislation purely for political points back home, because they know that the adults in the upper chamber will stop them.

BAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...Oh, that's a good one.

[RedKing]

Compared to the House, the Senate is in fact, the chamber of compromise and thoughtful discussion. Remember it was Mitch McConnell who floated the idea of giving the President authority to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling. Yes, there are still some assmunch Senators, but by and large you don't find the level of ideological rhetoric and general CloudCuckoolander mess that you do in the House.

[Aklyon]

Which kinda makes sense after looking at the different term times. The crazies of the House are almost always running for re-election, while the Senators have planty of time to do things correctly without needing to score too many politipoints.

[Nadaka]

You know in startrek:first contact where Picard mentions the self destruct device because the borg have taken over almost the whole ship and whats her name from the past shouts "You can do that? Just blow up the damn ship already!" and Picard goes all emo about loosing to the borg?

Just raise the damn debt limit already!

[RedKing]

Which kinda makes sense after looking at the different term times. The crazies of the House are almost always running for re-election, while the Senators have planty of time to do things correctly without needing to score too many politipoints.

They also typically have much larger constituencies, so they have to accomodate a broader range of views. The average House district is about 700,000 people. The average Senate constituency can vary dramatically but is on average considerably larger than that. In the cases of small-population states like Alaska and Wyoming, there's two Senators and only one Representative for the whole state, so those cases represent an inversion. But consider California, where each Senator is (in theory) representing about 50 million people as opposed to 700,000.

There's actually an interesting (but utterly unworkable) proposal to go back to a pre-1929 law that required a seperate Congressional district for every 30,000 people. The idea is that it would make the House more responsible to their constituents and more accessible to the people. It would also mean enlarging Congress to about 6,600 members. So, no. Not gonna happen.

The weird thing is, you'd think that with the ever-growing size of Congressional districts, it would cause House members to moderate as they have to include a wider range of views. But it doesn't seem to work that way. I guess the 2-year election cycle has a lot more to do with it.

[Heron TSG]

I wonder what would happen if we limited the number of terms a senator/house representative could hold... Perhaps that would fix a few things. Instead of fighting for power forever they would only be fighting for power for one or two terms. I imagine that they'd then try and do something in their last term.

[Zangi]

Or they could spend that time promoting a successor who would throw kick backs their way.

[mainiac]

I wonder what would happen if we limited the number of terms a senator/house representative could hold... Perhaps that would fix a few things. Instead of fighting for power forever they would only be fighting for power for one or two terms. I imagine that they'd then try and do something in their last term.

Horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible idea.  What it does is force your good leaders to retire, resulting in an institution with no one who knows who the hell they are doing.  It puts more power in the hands of the lobbyists and results in legislation that is less well designed.

[Nadaka]

[joke]Make it a lifetime appointment. You still have elections every 2 years, but it is to fire them from office... and into the sun.[/joke]

[Aqizzar]

Interesting perspective.  Financial reporters are now saying that if the some serious sign of the debt ceiling being raised does now materialize soon, the market will start moving away from American bonds, and ultimately everything American, sometime next week.  They're not going to wait for Congress to drag its feet to August 1st.

For some perspective, Representative Joe Walsh (Tea-IL) is circulating a letter to the President through Congress, saying that he and etc. would be willing to sign a temporary agreement, to raise the debt ceiling by a little and grant more time to negotiate... on the condition that the deal contain at least $1.5trillion in cuts, another commission on taxes and credits, and absolutely no new government revenue.  Not new taxes mind you, not closed exemptions, no new revenue.

I can't find a specific link to his letter thing.  Instead, here's what he thought of the President last week, and here's Walsh exercising a fine example of message control this week.  By the way, that letter has 80 signatures.


I just wish his name wasn't Joe Walsh.  That name is reserved for awesome guitar players, he should change it.