The House stopgap bill blew up and illustrated that Speaker Boehner’s control of the House majority only exists on paper.
Since January 5, 2011, for John Boehner (R-OH), his position as Speaker of the House has been just a title in words not in deed. The words are those of the 1789 US Constitution. The Speaker presides over the proceedings of the House and is the highest position in the House leadership. However, the deed is that Boehner does not demonstrate leadership of the majority party. The Tea Party wing that enabled the GOP to achieve its majority status has also rendered it factious. Once again it has compromised Boehner’s speakership by its handling of a Continuing Resolution to fund the government. Once again, oblivious to public opinion, House action threatens us with a government shutdown.…
Article comments
26 - roger nowosielski
The Dems did it with their "superdelegates" count. They were so against the Clinton machine, they wouldn't tolerate Hillary in the Oval Office. Besides, their collective decision was symbolic, to go down into the history books. I'm certain that most of them by now suffer from buyer's remorse.
Even Cornel West, the radical intellectual from Harvard, is behind Ralph Nader's proposal to draft an alternative candidate to run on the democratic ticket.
27 - Tommy Mack
Congress has become like professional sports. Representatives and Senators are less people than they are corporate entities. The person becomes a franchise mediated by a law firm, accounting firm, marketing firm, management firm, advertising agency, corporate sponsors and volunteer agencies that represent them. It has a large structural pyramid that separates the elected individuals from their constituents.
Tommy
28 - jamminsue
#27 - Tommy I think everyone can agree to that, we need a different political situation, more mainstram parties so that it is necessary to have coalitions. Which would mean no one would have a majority, they would have to work together. That means each party will have more oversight. Unfortunately, no third party has managed to have staying power.
29 - Costello
To continue your metaphor, if I may Tommy, as in sports those usually shouting the loudest are usually those who know the least about the matter at hand.
30 - Arch Conservvative
Yes maybe all of our so called representatives in Congress ought to be made to wear slick, shiny Nascar style jackets all the time with the logos of each and every one of the special interest groups (and we're not just talking about corporations) that have bought and paid for them.
31 - Tommy Mack
Republicans in Washington have "a habit of becoming curiously deaf to the voice of the people. They have a hard time hearing what the ordinary people of the country are saying. But they have no trouble at all hearing what Wall Street is saying. They are able to catch the slightest whisper from big business and the special interests."
Harry Truman, 1948, at a campaign stop in Denver
Tommy
32 - Dr Dreadful
Tommy, Truman's astute observation applies equally to the vast majority of congressmembers of either party nowadays. The "us and them" mentality, in which the inhabitants of a workplace begin to perceive themselves as being in possession of privileged, esoteric knowledge while the denizens of the world outside cease to be real people and instead become some nebulous uncomprehending mob, can pervade any business; and Capitol Hill, with its quirky traditions, rules and procedures, seems particularly prone to this.
33 - roger nowosielski
Exactly, I was going to say that, but what the hell.
BTW, thanks, Dreadful, for straightening out the spam attack.
34 - Dr Dreadful
Quite an entertaining day yesterday, wasn't it, Roger?
No sooner had the first spam attack stopped than another one started up. This second one was particularly interesting because the spammer kept switching tactics in response to the time I was taking to delete. He/she/it kept at it until about 9 p.m. my time before finally getting bored and going off to pester some other website.
Everything should have been swept up now though. Until the next time... :-)
35 - Dr Dreadful
BTW, I like Archie's suggestion in #30 and can't think why the media aren't lobbying strenuously for it already.
Perhaps we could extend it to legislation: "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Brought to You By Our Friends at Kaiser Permanente".
36 - Cannonshop
#35 maybe because if that were to happen, the 'base' in both parties would be traumatized by the realization that BOTH are taking the same money, from the same interests.
37 - Tommy Mack
I like Arch's idea, #30, especially since John Boehner already has a Winston logo in one lung, Marlboro in another and carries a fat Camel wallet. Why not wear the logos (plural of logo)on his back? Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham have back space available, too.
Tommy
38 - zingzing
i say archie doesn't go far enough! tattoo that shit on their fuckin' foreheads and when space runs out tattoo their fuckin' asses! that way, politicians would have to think long and hard about their corporate sponsors and voters could see their leaders' affiliation instantly. and we'd finally get to see boehner's ass. and maybe a little of boehner's namesake.
39 - jamminsue
#30 Arch,
I do not usually agree with you, but you sure have a good idea there!
40 - Cannonshop
a fine sentiment, but it misses the point: they would not do it, if it did not work. The fault is not the donors, it is in ourselves-ourselves for letting advertising copy substitute for reasoned choices, for letting appeals to sentiment, authority, and bandwagon replace informed consent and informed dissent.
Politicians take the money, because it works, and the money-men give it, because it works, and it works, because the American People Allow it to work.
WE are the ones that consent to let our judgement be swayed by attack ads, by empty promises, and by pretty faces. WE are the ones that turned the choice of leadership into a perverted version of "Star Search" or "America's Top Model", WE are the ones that let us down, that allowed this to happen. It wasn't the Government that made people WANT to buy shit they could not afford, the People demanded government help in buying shit they could not afford, and when the bills came due, We The People are the ones that can't pay it.
The Consumer Culture is not something imposed from without, it was chosen from within, the wars in the Middle East weren't decided by secret cabals in smoky rooms, WE the People DEMANDED them, then could not bear to live with what we have wrought.
Likewise for every bad policy from both sides of the political aisle-TARP because we permitted ourselves to be frightened, GM's bailout because...frankly, because we WANT a car company, but we don't want to buy the cars it makes. Same with Chrysler, same with Bear Stearns, the Mortgage mess, the present recession-these are the undesired outcomes of letting our hearts rule our heads, letting our fears rule our choices, and letting someone else offer us 'Free Lunch' and 'Free Stuff'.
We, the People, have done this to ourselves.
41 - Glenn Contrarian
zing -
Actually, it would be cheaper to tattoo Boehner than anyone else since the artist wouldn't have to worry about using any orange ink....
42 - Glenn Contrarian
Cannonshop -
Two things -
One, that's why we - the Progressives - want ALL donations out of campaigns, for all campaigns to be publicly financed by the government. Why should the taxpayer foot the bill for this? Because then the politicians aren't beholden to ANYone, not a corporation, nor a major donor, and they don't spend over half their time in Congress raising money for reelection.
But I forget - we Progressives are the really bad people who caused all the problems in the world.
Two - We the people were all over attacking Afghanistan since the Taliban wouldn't give up bin Laden directly to us...but we the people were LIED into the Iraq war by Bush. If you want to argue about it we can do that, but there is a wealth of evidence that Bush was informed that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and had little or nothing to do with al-Qaeda, but still he told us - while we were still hot about 9/11 - that Saddam was a-comin' with WMD's at his beck and call.
The Iraq war was a classic case of military adventurism by a militaristic regime, Cannonshop - lay the blame where it belongs - on the Bush administration. you can't lay the blame on those who supported the Iraq war, because they did not know the facts. All they had was the lies being fed to them by the Bush administration.
And there's many, many cases of wars in the past where the people were lied into supporting a war. I don't have to tell you. You know what they were. And yes, Vietnam was one of them.
43 - Cannonshop
#42 Glenn, Iraq was just an extension of the first Gulf War-which never really ended, so which Bush are you talking about, First or Second? and what about the Democrat in-between that kept it going?
44 - Cannonshop
On your public financing pitch:
Glenn...that just makes the pols more loyal to the boards, and creates a mandarin class in the Government that parcels out the money as THEY see fit. It's the fox and the henhouse, Glenn, we already have a long running historical problem with Gerrymandering, it doesn't solve the base problem in the slightest.
The Fundamental problem isn't the price of campaigns, nor is it money-those are THINGS. The problem is US-we the people, who let advertising copy make our minds up for us, that is the problem, and it is we the people that are the only real solution.
Campaign financing reform is fiddling with the battery while the engine's grinding itself to powder, because it's not the money that's the problem, it's the people that money is being spent to influence that are the problem-it's US, WE decide to let ad-men and television tell us what to do.
Until we stop letting other people do our thinking for us, as a society, it doesn't matter WHO pays for the elections, we're all going to get bipartisanly screwed.
45 - Tommy Mack
Meanwhile, we are all in for another Republican shutdown threat in just seven weeks, on November 18, when the temporary spending bill approved by the Senate on Monday runs out. Their next targets will likely be funding for the EPA with a side of nutrition programs for women and children.
House leadership could easily have passed a full year’s spending resolution, but that’s not what their agenda is about. The Tea Party contingent wants to run the shutdown gambit as often as they can. The more fear and uncertainty they can generate, the better they figure their chances and retaking the country.
At least we know where they are coming from.
Tommy
46 - Glenn Contrarian
Cannonshop #43 -
The Iraq war "never ended" after Bush Sr. kicked them out of Kuwait???? I think there's a whole lot of us who served in the years afterward, during the entire Clinton administration, who would disagree with that.
FYI, Bush Sr. specifically said that he didn't want to continue on to Baghdad because there was no viable exit strategy, so he ended it at the border. AFAIK Clinton didn't touch Iraq proper. And it's well known that within a week of taking his oath of office - almost eight months before 9/11 - Dubya held a cabinet discussion on going to war with Iraq.
So how, exactly, did the Iraq war "never end" after Kuwait? Are you sure that this isn't another symptom of conservative-mind syndrome? It shouldn't be - Bush Sr. was the one who ended the first war. But then, Bush Sr. would be seen as a socialist and persona non grata among today's "conservatives".
47 - Dr Dreadful
Iraq was just an extension of the first Gulf War-which never really ended, so which Bush are you talking about, First or Second?
Cannon, you know perfectly well which Bush he means. The First Gulf War only "never really ended" in the sense that it became a truce. The belligerents all still remained viable: they just assumed "we'll agree to differ" positions and resumed snarling at and intermittent bombing of each other. Offically, the Korean War never ended either, but you really can't call it an ongoing conflict in spite of the occasional sabre-rattling that goes on across the 38th parallel.
It was GW who changed the game completely, without any substantial provocation.
48 - Glenn Contrarian
Cannonshop #44 -
Until we stop letting other people do our thinking for us, as a society, it doesn't matter WHO pays for the elections, we're all going to get bipartisanly screwed.
But what you're not getting is that when corporations and the mega-rich (and even the unions) are not allowed to contribute funding, it is no longer the corporations, the mega-rich, or the unions who determine what positions the politicians are going to support.
You know as well as I do that politicians support positions that get them reelected by the people, right? Right. But in order to advertise and finance their campaigns, the politicians MUST support whatever it is that the corporations, mega-rich, or unions want...and then they have to put these positions into words that are palatable by the people in order to gain votes.
BUT if the corporations, mega-rich, and unions are taken OUT of the equation, then the politicians no longer have to do what these organizations want, but only what their actual constituents want.
Thomas Jefferson stated plainly the danger of allowing corporations to have too much influence in government...and remember a certain RINO (in the context of the times, a Progressive in all but name) called Teddy Roosevelt who took on the robber barons. The Supreme Court ignored these with Citizens United...and as progressive as I certainly am, I'm fairly certain that we're not only an oligarchy now but will remain one for a generation or more...and perhaps until America goes the way of Rome.
And who was it that decided Citizens United? The five conservatives on the Supreme Court. But don't forget, now - it's us Progressives who are the REAL problem!
49 - Dr Dreadful
remember a certain RINO (in the context of the times, a Progressive in all but name) called Teddy Roosevelt
In name too, Glenn. Roosevelt ran for the presidency in 1912 as the Progressive Party candidate.
50 - Glenn Contrarian
true - I'd forgotten that - I only remembered that he had been a Republican and also a part of something called the Bull Moose party.
51 - Dr Dreadful
There've been a number of different entities over the course of US history called the Progressive Party: the "Bull Moose" party was the nickname for Roosevelt's incarnation of it.
TR survived an assassination attempt in the early stages of his 1912 presidential bid thanks to a 50-page speech he'd stuffed into his jacket pocket, which slowed down the bullet enough that it didn't penetrate any of his vital organs. In fact, he carried on and delivered the speech anyway, which isn't something you can picture any of today's sorry lot doing.
When asked later if the injury might render him unable to cope with the strain of a presidential campaign, he famously declared, "I'm as fit as a bull moose!" - hence the nickname.
52 - roger nowosielski
Not to mention TR's national parks legacy.
53 - Cannonshop
#46 Glenn, I sat in the desert, and friends of mine sat in ships offshore, and we held that country under seige for long after Bush 1 "declared victory".
We were "enforcing sanctions" while we watched the late Saddam Hussein gas thousands of people-admittedly his own-that Bush Sr. incited to rebel against him.
For MOST of us, the war wasn't really over, we kept wondering when we would be allowed to either LEAVE the theatre, or finish the bastard off-preferably before he got around to finishing off the folks WE incited to rebel against him.
Anyone with multiple 179 1/2 day tours in the Gulf region, that war wasn't 'over' even as far as the war in Korea (which is still going on, a cease-fire is not peace.)
From the perspective of the guys who had to sit there and starve those people out, it wasn't over, it was just a siege with a different name. Split political hairs all you want, when USN personnel are tossing refrigerators into the ocean to enforce 'sanctions', that's not 'peace', when Army ADA personnel are sitting there wishing the choppers dropping Sarin would just ONCE deviate from their corridor into no-fly space, that is also not peace.
I don't know what you civilized types call it, but it is NOT peace, no matter how much the elected stuffed-shirt claims it is.
54 - Cannonshop
#48 instead of conflicting interests that might cancel one another out, you mean?
I find it far less threatening to have teh power-mongers at one another's throats, than forcing them to work together to screw the rest of us over.
Think about how Military Procurement actually works-and how often Procurement officers get plum no-work-high-pay-jobs at the companies that seek contracts, and you'll see the exact pattern your "Electoral Funding Board" will follow-instead of Unions, Super-Rich and Corps having to disclose exact numbers and money, you end up with a situation where the Mandarins take 'delayed bribes' to put candidates who'll play ball in a favoured position-the only difference in your treatment, is how much LESS influence, in the end, constituents will actually have.
Any time you create a new, centralized source of political power (and this would be SO centralized), you do two things:
1. You attract the corrupt to it.
2. It corrupts the people in the mechanism.
Seriously, who mans this, who selects the decision-makers who distribute the funding in your Public Funding structure, who decides which candidates are 'serious' and deserve funds, and which are jokes? It won't be the voters. Your treatment of a single symptom just makes the disease worse...and harder to treat.
55 - Glenn Contrarian
Cannonshop -
I was there, too, guy. What we were doing is what any nation does AFTER a war. FYI, after a war, no nation just picks up and leave. Read all the history you want, and you'll find that almost without exception, wars end when combat operations end.
Of course you're entitled to your opinion - but I'm getting used to those who readily ignore science or education or history just so they can say something different from what us eeeeeevil liberals say.
BTW - do you realize that - by your metric - WWII STILL isn't over since we still have bases on our side of what used to be the Iron Curtain, since our bases are there to ostensibly 'protect' Western Europe?
And you never did address the small matter of Bush Jr. calling a cabinet meeting during his very first week in office on going to war with Iraq. Of course that might raise some...uncomfortable questions for you.
56 - Glenn Contrarian
Cannonshop #54 -
That entire diatribe is your assumption - and that's all it will ever be since you're:
(1) assuming that big business and the unions would somehow work together to 'screw the rest of us over'. Your assumption is based on zero fact, zero history. What WOULD happen is that the unions would be significantly stronger because individual voters - when they're not under the thumb of Big Business - tend to vote pro-union. The unions would love for America to have only publicly-financed politics!
(2) complaining about "delayed bribes" - but they're the norm RIGHT NOW...and since it's the norm RIGHT NOW, exactly how is it going to get worse with only publicly-finance campaigns????
FYI, my friend who just left Immigration was a District Adjudicating Officer - his skills and experience are worth a lot of money. But he's not allowed to work in anything related to immigration for two years. This is the kind of system we need in place for ALL high-ranking government officials.
But you're afraid that there will be a revolving door between Congress and the lobbying industry. Problem is, Cannonshop, that revolving door is ALREADY THERE.
57 - Tommy Mack
Civilian bureaucrats in charge of a professional military have been a conundrum ever since George Washington put on a uniform and became a General officer. Elected bureaucrats are what elections produce.
Meanwhile, the next Republican government shutdown threat will be on November 18, when the new temporary spending bill runs out. When it does, the GOP will likely link funding for the Environmental Protection Agency and for nutrition programs for low-income women and children to the next stopgap measure. Call it déjà vu all over again.
If they are successful in the 2012 election, the use of our military will suffer the fate of any other budget chip.
Tommy
58 - Dr Dreadful
Civilian bureaucrats in charge of a professional military have been a conundrum ever since George Washington put on a uniform and became a General officer.
Yeah, but it wasn't as much of an issue in Washington's day, when the divide between civilian and soldier was not as stark as it is now. Washington, though at heart a country gentleman, knew soldiering and had spent a significant part of his life on military campaigns.
That lack of distinction is why the Founding Fathers regarded a quickly mobilizable militia as crucial to national defence. For one thing it was a lot cheaper than a standing army and for another, its members could largely be relied upon to know how to fight already.
Let's also keep in mind that Washington wasn't that far removed in history from the era in which rulers were soldiers, and personally led armies into battle.
59 - Cannonshop
#55 Not really, Glenn. The questions aren't uncomfortable to me, I knew a lot of people who wanted to get rid of the monster we put in Iraq, just like we did in Panama, You may believe it or not at your leisure, but a LOT of people outside of the beltway considered leaving Hussein in power to be a truly bad idea.
Some of those folks even belong to YOUR party. Some of them INSIDE the Beltway were telling Clinton that Saddam was making nasties he wasn't supposed to have...
But the Iraq war and the politics surrounding it are a sideshow issue here, Glenn. Let's get back on topic-or rather, back on a topic that we can actually discuss without getting mutually abusive, shall we?
Let's address your points in post #56:
1) They already do. Albeit not with any sort of willing show of it, and often without meaning to, but they already DO work (and contribute) together in the political arena against the rest of the people for their own advantage. I'm not talking so much about unions that actually represent the interests of their members, I'm talking about Union Leadership that uses the members as a lever and a food source. Recall, Glenn, I AM active in a Labor Union, and have worked as Union worker in more than one industry, and as a Union worker in several different places-from Laborer's to Carpenter's to Teamsters and now as an Aircraft Machinist. I have some experience WITHIN the world of Unions. Some represent the interests of their members, but others are basically just extensions of the Political Class-extensions that take members' dues, and spend them on electing people who put those members out of work with Regulations and taxes generated as unintended consequences of stances held in unrelated (cosmetically) areas.
But, per the Beck decision, the Union must obtain the conscious and willing consent of members before spending their money on an Election, so I don't have a problem with that (though I do have a problem with 'leaders' who can't see past the end of their nose and don't recognize that a pol might talk a good game of supporting unions, but said pol will do everything otherwise to make sure there are no union jobs outside of government offices otherwise. At least a Republican won't pretend to be your friend while plotting your trip to the Unemployment office.)
I've worked in non-union shops where the owner was down under the house hanging duct with the rest of us and eating top-ramen while we took home more than he did, and Union shops where the steward/business rep went golfing with the owners and the site was an OSHA nightmare with rolling personnel changes, and I've worked in Union shops where the old guys didn't do any work because the boss was frightened to demand it (that place didn't last long after I left), and in union shops where things actually WORKED.
A Union is a representation of the involvement of the members-good ones have involved, alert, and informed membership that will hold their leaders and representatives accountable, and bad ones are often led by demagogues and snake-oil merchants.
But it's a good model for what I'm trying to get across to you: It's NOT THE MONEY.
It's the VOTERS.
As long as the voters will fall for snake-oil and free stuff, we're going to continue to have the problem we have, and no amount of 'campaign finance reform' is going to fix it.
and you didn't answer my question: Who chooses who gets to dole the money out? How are they to be chosen, and how are you going to keep them from becoming just-another-layer-of-corruption?
It's the fundamental flaw that you're ignoring, the unintended and un-hoped-for negative outcome that, given other such boards, is inevitable. It will either end up being more power to the Party leaderships (thus making ANY chance of serious internal change and adaptation impossible), or it will be Mandarins from the Civil Service-whom will always end up being just as bad as the system you're proposing to replace, only less vulnerable to legal consequence, and more buffered from practical consequence.
I had a Campaign Reform fantasy too: Make it the law that in order to contribute, one must meet Residency Requirements in the district, State, or Country where one is spending the money, dependent on the level of the election. So, for instance, to influence elections in, say, Bremerton, for instance, Boeing would need an office in BREMERTON, same if Greenpeace, the UAW, NRA/ILA or somesuch wanted to contribute money in, say, Marysville Wa.-they'd need to have a 24 hour facility IN MARYSVILLE.
Neat fantasy, huh? Can you find the weak spot, 'cause I found it...
The weakness is the 1st Amendment and Supreme Court case law that treats political contributions as political speech, and thus protected under the 1st Amendment of the Constitution.
Eliminating all access, as you propose, is limiting the political speech rights of individuals and non-individual entities, equally.
A broader offense is still an offense, Glenn.
Neither of our "reform fantasies" however, addresses the real problem-that problem being that in a media saturated culture where displaying education is socially reviled, the collective of the people have chosen to be what Trial Lawyers might call "Good Jury choices"-that is, easily manipulated by repetition and appeals to emotion, particularly those appeals crafted by social scientists in the employ of Advertising Agencies.
Neither your fix, nor my fix, will actually fix the problem-Yours hides it from the public eye, mine simply changes the address.
The REAL fix, is an aware Public that votes with their head, and that doesn't seem all that likely to happen in a climate where we register everyone with a driver's license, resident or not, then let them not show up to prove they're alive, then let voters register their place of residence as the Elections office, and vote without having to prove they are...y'know, THEM.
When people CARE about voting, they tend to spend it with great care, and seriousness, if they have to work for it, they'll value it more than if they are simply given it-you have kids, how many things did you give them, as gifts, that lasted more than the time it took them to forget, vs. how many things did you make them EARN, and thus they treasured?
People, in my limited experience, tend to work that way. As long as elections are frivolities, a circus, a sporting event, something unserious to the majority of voters, we're going to get MORE GW Bush's, and MORE Barack H. Obamas, and LESS Harry Trumans, John Kennedys, and Teddy Roosevelts.