The 114th Congress: Two More Years!

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: The 114th Congress: Two More Years!

I carry water for no one.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The 114th Congress: Two More Years!

We've been reading your posts for years and frankly, my dear, this is bullsh-t. There's a reason InfoWars is the first edition of what Fox News will run later in the day. If you don't realize that, that means you're even more naive than you appear from your posts.

Fox Snooze spends most of their time talking about celebrities, last I actually watched that crap.

[Kepler]

Re: The 114th Congress: Two More Years!

I carry water for no one.

We've been reading your posts for years and frankly, my dear, this is bullsh-t. There's a reason InfoWars is the first edition of what Fox News will run later in the day. If you don't realize that, that means you're even more naive than you appear from your posts.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The 114th Congress: Two More Years!

And yet you fall hook, line and sinker for one of them.

That's the thing I don't get about you. You know we're the lamb and they're the two wolves voting what's for dinner. But then you turn around and carry water for one of the wolves???

I carry water for no one. You already do the work on one of the wolves, so why should I have to beat a dead horse?

[Kepler]

Re: The 114th Congress: Two More Years!

Two parties is a distraction to keep the populace divided. They're one in the same.

And yet you fall hook, line and sinker for one of them.

That's the thing I don't get about you. You know we're the lamb and they're the two wolves voting what's for dinner. But then you turn around and carry water for one of the wolves???

[Kepler]

Re: The 114th Congress: Two More Years!

We don't have the intelligence for more than two. So, scratch that.

Oh, Scooby. Never change.

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The 114th Congress: Two More Years!

Our problem is being locked into 2 parties.

We don't have the intelligence for more than two. So, scratch that.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The 114th Congress: Two More Years!

I don't think you fight Caesarism by removing party affiliation. I know what you're getting at, but parties do serve a useful purpose making a vote more than just for a candidate and instead for a shared platform.

Our problem is being locked into 2 parties.

Two parties is a distraction to keep the populace divided. They're one in the same.

[Kepler]

Re: The 114th Congress: Two More Years!

Remove ALL party identification on the ballot.

I don't think you fight Caesarism by removing party affiliation. I know what you're getting at, but parties do serve a useful purpose making a vote more than just for a candidate and instead for a shared platform.

Our problem is being locked into 2 parties.

[Kepler]

Re: The 114th Congress: Two More Years!

I think the RED country loves him. And the RED country is getting REDDER and REDDER every minute. It would take a drastic change in the election laws to change things now.

I think part of the country is simply the opposite color of whatever the current power structure is. When that was Dems they were "red." Now that it's Republicans they may become "blue." Really they're just flying the Jolly Roger and think they're a cross between the Minutemen and Raider Nation.

The old Democratic party would have had no trouble assimilating them. The problem is the new Democratic party are like New Labour in Britain: corporatist sleaze who have turned their backs on their IWW roots.

[MaizeRage]

Re: The 114th Congress: Two More Years!

Irony is dead.

To be accurate, Trump didn't criticize getting rid of ethics office, he just criticized the timing of it. The emperor doesn't like waiting in line for his tax handout.

[busterman62]

Re: The 114th Congress: Two More Years!

Each chamber of Congress can set its own rules without input from any other governing body, so long as they don't venture into Constitutionally questionable matters.

Thanks. That's what I assumed but you know what can happen when you do that.

I think the RED country loves him. And the RED country is getting REDDER and REDDER every minute. It would take a drastic change in the election laws to change things now.

My solution: 1)Require the voter to pass the same test that is used for naturalization. 2)Remove ALL party identification on the ballot.
I'm sure this makes me a racist, misogynist, or some other type of ist.

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The 114th Congress: Two More Years!

I think the dynamic is different too -- there are fewer undecideds and fewer moderates. The result is bigger ideological swings. But incumbency may be poison in a highly partisan environment, since the incumbent becomes identified with the problems the country faces and the problems are worse because the government is dysfunctional because of the highly partisan environment. The way to gain power is to lose it and vice versa.

By 2020 we will not have had a one term presidency in 28 years. Trump will never be more popular than the second before he takes office -- after that he becomes the insider everybody is running against. The GOP policies will start to pinch and people who could not grasp the consequences of losing health care or environmental protection when they were abstractions won't need to use their imagination. And the Democrats just relearned the lesson of not gifting the nomination to the good soldier with the longest service time.

I can see a big wave coming -- not so much a wave of Democratic support, but of revulsion against the Versailles presidency and its Republican sycophants.

I think the RED country loves him. And the RED country is getting REDDER and REDDER every minute. It would take a drastic change in the election laws to change things now.

[St. Clown]

Re: The 114th Congress: Two More Years!

Question from someone who took civics too long ago: Is this a procedural issue or does this require a signature from POTUS?

Each chamber of Congress can set its own rules without input from any other governing body, so long as they don't venture into Constitutionally questionable matters.

[Kepler]

Re: The 114th Congress: Two More Years!

Question from someone who took civics too long ago: Is this a procedural issue or does this require a signature from POTUS?

Not an easy answer. Depends if this office is statutory. Some (like committees) are simply creations of the Congress for conducting its own business and can be declared or abolished by the will of the majority. Others are established by statute and have to go through the whole legislative process.

I don't know what the distinction is and whether it itself is governed by "meta-rules," other than obviously Congress can't abolish an executive agency on its own.

Here is background on this office, why it was created and by analogy why the Republicans want it abolished. The implication from the article is that this office is under the jurisdiction of the House Rules Committee which means the president has doodly-squat to say about it.