>Nunes also said the CEOs of the companies should be prosecuted criminally. He also said he has been talking to fellow members of Congress and that they’re exploring their legal options. And he also called on the Supreme Court and federal judges to step in and intervene.
It is really annoying when we have government officials who fundamentally don't understand how our government or its laws work.
He knows how they work — but he also knows his constituents don't know how they work. And they don't care how they work. So he says what his voters want to hear.
It's bad faith, intellectual dishonesty, and cowardice. And sadly: it's the norm.
Too many elected officials value their political career over doing the right thing. I think that's probably the strongest argument for term limits: being a professional politician just shouldn't exist as a career track.
If they used it like Ford did I’m ok with that. If you use your ex-prez status for a force of good in the world. Building orphanages or communities and such.
If you’re just going to go golfing you can do that on your dime.
TBH, the sad part is, I can't even think of how you'd categorize usage without someone finding a loophole. Wish I could have a higher opinion of our politicians.
Really? I would have thought they submit receipts back to the secret service, like a business expense re-reimbursement? Either way, I'd love to have a travel budget like that :-)
I’m with you on campaign finance reform, but term limits have knock on effects that can create bad incentives.
Congress is already a farm league for K street and would be even more so with term limits. More experienced lobbyists would have more leverage with term limited newbies in the government.
That’s not to say there are no negatives to long serving clueless members, but term limits may not be better.
Agreed. I'm not sure having tons of new people every 2 years that have no idea how Washington works would be a good thing. We just had a president who had no idea, and that was not so good.
I used to be a big supporter of term limits for congress, but changed my mind a while ago.
Term limits don't necessarily have to be one term. I was sorta thinking 8 years like the pres. or maybe 10 for an even decade. That would give freshmen time to learn the ropes, but not long enough to get too ensconced. Especially since they still have to win re-election.
I don't see those as mutually exclusive. Also, term limits don't necessarily have to be one term. I was sorta thinking 8 years like the pres. or maybe 10 for an even decade. That would give freshmen time to learn the ropes, but not long enough to get too ensconced.
>>But if a pol is good at their job they shouldn't get pushed out; we just need to find ways so that they don't remain by inertia alone.
If you figure that one out...Let me know :-) We've had McConnell and Pelosi since the mid 80s! Inertia seems to be the main force in politics (why? I have no idea)
I think it has a lot to do with the two-party system. Many (most?) congressional districts are essentially locked to one party. Unless the incumbent did something egregious enough for their supporters to turn on them, why would their party not support them as their candidate? If they won by decent margin last time, they'll probably win again unless something major changed. Why make all the necessary investments to support a new candidate when it's cheaper and easier to support the incumbent? They would much rather put their money and time into the districts that might flip.
Parties are always going to support the incumbent as long as they will probably win, and in most congressional districts the votes are always solid along party lines. The incumbent doesn't have to be good, they just have to be not so beyond terrible as to make their constituents switch parties. There is no reason for the party to not support the incumbent otherwise.
I think you could also make the argument that after a few decades in congress, it becomes less and less likely that someone has a real sense of what life is like outside of that world, what the average citizen wants and needs from their government, and in some cases how the culture and technology of the world around them actually functions.
Even if a it means loosing a few good people, I think overall some reasonable term limits would have a positive impact overall. They don't even have to be short limits, even something like a 24 year limit would make a huge impact.
Term limits just means you need to find a candidate with integrity and willingness to support the people X times more often than with them. As for the amendment some of them are just silly.
> "The United States must not support any other governments that infringe upon the right to self-determination."
Trade deals have been our main method of influence change around the world and this would just sign away our ability to do that.
Some stuff is interesting but for every good one there is a random poison pill inside.
It's not surprising coming from Nunes. He's also failed to Sue Twitter into reveling the identity for the parody twitter account "Devin Nunes' cow" (@DevinCow). Claiming that the Cow is committing some sort of Libel.
They could simply be looking for a 14th Amendment ruling that would basically include political views as a protected class. The Supreme Court has had a long track record of expanding the scope of it so I could see it happen.
I am having lots of schadenfreude as the problems that the "libs" have been bitching about (lack of options in platforms--for example) suddenly are now biting the right wing.
See this tiny violin. I don't even have that much sympathy for you all.
So instead of recognizing your opportunity to make progress on the issue, you just enjoy watching the “other side” get poleaxed. That today’s political climate in a nutshell.
There is no "opportunity" to be had here and thinking that way wastes resources that are better spent elsewhere.
The "right" doesn't act on "policy" and never change their votes.
When the "outrage" dies out because it's not being fed by propaganda, the "right" will completely forget about election security, tech monopolies, etc. and will go back to opposing all those things because they are proposed by "The Libs".
And those of us working toward those things will simply continue to slog through the hard work of slowly building support.
>There is no "opportunity" to be had here and thinking that way wastes resources that are better spent elsewhere.
The "left" doesn't act on "policy" and never change their votes.
>When the "outrage" dies out because it's not being fed by propaganda, the "left" will completely forget about elections, demonopolization, free speech, etc. and will go back to opposing all those things because they are proposed by "The Conservatives".
>And those of us working toward those things will simply continue to slog through the hard work of slowly building support.
But hey, who are we kidding, there aren't two sides. It's crazy all the way around.
> There is no "opportunity" to be had here and thinking that way wastes resources that are better spent elsewhere. The "left" doesn't act on "policy" and never change their votes.
The left does act on policy and actually does punish their representatives--FAR more so than the right. We have the studies on this. They were even posted in here.
So, I have to ask, why didn't you quote those studies when changing my words to make an erroneous statement contradicted with evidence?
Congratulations: people like you are exactly the reason why this isn't an opportunity. People like you are more interested in whataboutism, false equivalence, and spreading false information rather than in working on positive policy changes.
34 comments
[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 122 ms ] threadIt is really annoying when we have government officials who fundamentally don't understand how our government or its laws work.
It's bad faith, intellectual dishonesty, and cowardice. And sadly: it's the norm.
Too many elected officials value their political career over doing the right thing. I think that's probably the strongest argument for term limits: being a professional politician just shouldn't exist as a career track.
We won't get any real change until we get term limits (and then campaign finance reform) and we won't get that till the current incumbents are out.
1) https://brandnewcongress.org/
What floored me was learning ex-prez's get a $1 million travel allowance/year! That seems a bit excessive, to say the least :-P
If you’re just going to go golfing you can do that on your dime.
TBH, the sad part is, I can't even think of how you'd categorize usage without someone finding a loophole. Wish I could have a higher opinion of our politicians.
Congress is already a farm league for K street and would be even more so with term limits. More experienced lobbyists would have more leverage with term limited newbies in the government.
That’s not to say there are no negatives to long serving clueless members, but term limits may not be better.
I used to be a big supporter of term limits for congress, but changed my mind a while ago.
But if a pol is good at their job they shouldn't get pushed out; we just need to find ways so that they don't remain by inertia alone.
If you figure that one out...Let me know :-) We've had McConnell and Pelosi since the mid 80s! Inertia seems to be the main force in politics (why? I have no idea)
I think you could also make the argument that after a few decades in congress, it becomes less and less likely that someone has a real sense of what life is like outside of that world, what the average citizen wants and needs from their government, and in some cases how the culture and technology of the world around them actually functions.
Even if a it means loosing a few good people, I think overall some reasonable term limits would have a positive impact overall. They don't even have to be short limits, even something like a 24 year limit would make a huge impact.
> "The United States must not support any other governments that infringe upon the right to self-determination."
Trade deals have been our main method of influence change around the world and this would just sign away our ability to do that.
Some stuff is interesting but for every good one there is a random poison pill inside.
- 9/11 never happened. - Jews were responsible for the propagation of Communism. - New Testament is false
See this tiny violin. I don't even have that much sympathy for you all.
The "right" doesn't act on "policy" and never change their votes.
When the "outrage" dies out because it's not being fed by propaganda, the "right" will completely forget about election security, tech monopolies, etc. and will go back to opposing all those things because they are proposed by "The Libs".
And those of us working toward those things will simply continue to slog through the hard work of slowly building support.
>There is no "opportunity" to be had here and thinking that way wastes resources that are better spent elsewhere. The "left" doesn't act on "policy" and never change their votes.
>When the "outrage" dies out because it's not being fed by propaganda, the "left" will completely forget about elections, demonopolization, free speech, etc. and will go back to opposing all those things because they are proposed by "The Conservatives".
>And those of us working toward those things will simply continue to slog through the hard work of slowly building support.
But hey, who are we kidding, there aren't two sides. It's crazy all the way around.
The left does act on policy and actually does punish their representatives--FAR more so than the right. We have the studies on this. They were even posted in here.
So, I have to ask, why didn't you quote those studies when changing my words to make an erroneous statement contradicted with evidence?
Congratulations: people like you are exactly the reason why this isn't an opportunity. People like you are more interested in whataboutism, false equivalence, and spreading false information rather than in working on positive policy changes.