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Senate Approves the ______Act Of____
An anonymous reader writes "Apparently the Senate was in such a rush to get out of town that it forgot to name an 'important' bill that it passed, so the bill goes to the House as The ______Act of____. That's how it appears in the Congressional Record, though the Library of Congress has it listed as The XXXXXXAct ofXXXX. As for what's in the bill, well that appears to be as mysterious as the name. It was officially announced as a bill to tax bonuses to execs who received TARP money. But then someone simply deleted the entire bill and replaced it with text about aviation security. And then it was deleted again, and replaced with something having to do with education. However, because of these constant changes, many of the services that track the bill have the old details listed. On top of that, Nancy Pelosi called the House back for an emergency vote on this unnamed bill, and anyone trying to find out what it's about might be misled into thinking its about aviation security or something entirely unrelated to the actual bill. And people wonder why no one trusts Congress." It appears that the government's new martial law plans are being passed after all.
But they keep voting for them.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The real problem now is that instead of the press harping on every thing the Congress and Presidency did while under Republicans they have suddenly clammed up.
Well thank God Fox News is finally off the air... wait, what?
There is a war going on for your mind.
The world is ending, someone made a clerical error!
At this stage are there any objections to simply unseating every single encumbent?
I don't know how every single incumbent is voting. I'm sure there are principled, effective congresspeople; voting all of them out would seem overly drastic.
Certainly a large influx of "freshmen" to the halls of congress couldn't make matters any worse.
Had something similar to that happen with the Republican revolution in the 90's. I seem to remember it making matter much worse.
When one party leads the Congress and the Presidency the American people will get the shaft.
Agreed.
The real problem now is that instead of the press harping on every thing the Congress and Presidency did while under Republicans they have suddenly clammed up.
I guess that depends on what "press" you're listening to.
I was shocked and appalled at how much the Bush administration got away with. It didn't seem like anybody was holding them accountable. Sure, there was some noise about this or that... Primarily on the "liberal" channels like MSNBC... But nothing of any substance at all.
These days the "liberal" channels don't seem all that concerned about what Obama is doing. The "conservative" channels like Fox News, however, are plenty noisy. And you still get the occasional complaint out of someone on MSNBC that Obama isn't being "liberal" enough. But again it's still just noise with no substance at all.
Nobody is holding any of these folks accountable for their actions. It doesn't matter if there's a D or an R next to the name, they're all lying through their teeth and getting away with it.
Not even the usual campaign promise white lies either... Straight-up, stupidly blatant stuff like saying "I support this" on Monday, and then claiming on Tuesday that you never said you supported anything, even while the tape rolls on-screen. And nobody cares!
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Short memory. The curse of the American people...
It works very much like public schools. People will bemoan the fact that schools are not doing well, except the school their child attends.
The same logic is used when voting for the incumbent. Congress is awful, but not my Congressman.
We won't get these guys out until our political process is open to everyone fairly. As it stands now it is near impossible to get a non Democratic or non Republican elected. They can redistrict that possibility out. If they cannot do that way they will make your source of campaign funding illegal, or you method of distributing your message.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Sounds like you need a refresher yourself. It wasn't about the question of federalism- that came later on. The Declaration was about a lack of self determination.
The problem with all these stupid calls to read the Declaration and Constitution is teabaggers seem to equate unelected tyranny with LOSING THE ELECTION BECAUSE THEY WERE THE FUCKING MINORITY.
Considering that it passed, how is that supposed to be reassuring? If a botched bill the staff messed up came up to vote on, that's one thing. To approve of it is another. We are supposed to be happy Congress voted to pass a new law they didn't even read the title of?
What we need is a body of the Legislature whose sole job is to eliminate obsolete, obscure, and unclear laws.
Since their job would be the opposite of that of Congress, I suggest a name that is equally opposite.
"Pro" is the opposite of "Con".
Therefore, I suggest we call the new body "Progress".
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Sure, if you like right-wing loon jobs.
To be fair, I find Ron Paul an incredibly principled and honest politician, though if I don't want him near any position of real power in this country because I know he probably will follow through on his disastrous campaign promises.
And nobody cares!
Honestly, the best reporting on this type of stupidity is "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." It's a shame that a news program whose explicitly stated goal is humor is the only outlet reporting this stuff.
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
I've seen a lot of this "one party control" talking point recently, but the problem is not "One Party Control" it's "Two Party Control". Voting for a Republican "in order to bring some balance" is sidestepping the problem unless you really care about banning gay marriage, abortion, stem cell research. If you care more about defense, terrorism and its laws, Iraq, Afghanistan, rampant Federal spending, Federal regulation and de-regulation, increased federal power for immigration control, the war on drugs, and the slow erosion of Citizen and Non-Citizens' rights in general, then the two parties, for all intents and purposes, are identical. They'll pull the same stunts and make the same political hay in the media no matter who's in office, who's the majority leader, or who's the minority leader because it's still the same group of people in power, the same party leaders pulling the strings.
If you want a change by all means vote out your incumbent congress-critter. But please acknowledge you're not going to get a change with someone who has a D or and R next to his or her name. Try something different with an L or a G or even an I.
the Democrats in the House, Senate, and White House have radically changed the landscape, and not for anyone's long-term benefit.
If you accept that the massive influx of government spending is the proper response to a dead economy (I do), and that it is temporary (god I hope so), what specifically are you referring to? The healthcare bill got watered down to the point where all it did was set up a competitive price exchange for healthcare... sort of the Amazon.com of getting sick. They changed student loans to be a bit more fair, and expanded Pell grants for needy students. They passed an act where if your landlord gets foreclosed upon but you have a lease, your lease survives. And if you don't have a lease, you have 3 months to find a new place. They passed a few credit-card acts counteracting some of the more egregious offences, and giving business owners some rights. They passed a toothless wall-street reform act.
What bills, specifically, are you referring to? I'm not asking facetiously. I know we tend to filter news through our own perceptions, and I wonder what I missed.
And saying this is as bad as Bush II is going too far. We're not stuck in any new intractable wars, we haven't lost all of our allies, and we haven't had any new worldwide economic collapses.
The ______ Agenda
There already is such an institution: it's called Supreme Court.
Or maybe there isn't. It's hard to tell these days.
http://www.moonlight3d.eu/
Intelligent folk should be above it. Both parties are broken, neither party aligns with your beliefs. Government isn't a sports game - the only real winners or losers are the people. The people of the US are giving up their independence and freedom to numbing mountains of laws and bureaucracy. They are ignorant of government spending and its resultant inflation and debt. The almighty dollar is the foundation we all stand upon and if you don't recognize the need for concern, you need to start paying attention to what our own accountants are saying - your Congressmen are not.
Humour is one of the safest ways to report the truth.
The comedians are the last ones to go before protest and news goes entirely underground.
Serious people aren't too hard to shut down. Those that appear unserious, are much harder. When they actually shut down the satire, your society is a few breaths away from actual insurrection.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
And nobody cares!
And there is the real problem.
It's hard to really blame the politician when the people just plain don't care or aren't interested enough to really find out what someone really stands for (if anything).
Not that I'll defend said politician, of course. Wrong behavior is wrong :)
“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act”
~ George Orwell
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
That's judicial activism, don't you know.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
As Nancy Pelosi said of Obamacare "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." What she means is that nobody could learn what was in the bill by reading it.
Here's the full quote:
But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.
It seems more likely to me that she meant that all of the nonsense spouted by the extreme right (death panels and whatnot) made it impossible to have a reasonable discussion on what the bill was about. And that once it was passed all of that FUD would probably stop dominating the news so that the real information wouldn't be obscured anymore.
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Republican voters, certainly. I'd think Dr. Paul's libertarian followers should have left shortly after the idiots hijacked his populist movement and turned it into the pointless anti-Obama mob it has become.
I don't think the current teabaggers are not embarrassed at all about Bush. These guys aren't moderates- they're the die-hards. They're the undoubting sheep who can't see any fault with Republicans past or present, no matter how Bachmann-esque. Sure- they don't yearn for Bush as much as they yearn for Regan, but I think that's a matter of charisma and nostalgia. They're content with the current wars, "trickle-down economics", and complete deregulation- all Bush policies. They love the idea of Palin running things, so how could they possibly believe 43 was the lousy president he was?
The country is sick, and you want to blame the snot coming out your nose?
Lobbyists aren't the problem: they're a symptom.
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
"What's funny is that the mortgage industry and derivative trading schemes that caused the implosion were mostly passed by a Republican congress and Democratic president... "
"The idea that Clinton somehow brought on the mortgage crisis by forcing banks to lend to poor people is simply ludicrous."
The financial crisis brought about by mortgage fraud and securities manipulation was brought on by the cumulative actions of several Administrations and Congresses. It is not a simple as CRA, but fundamentally goes back to repealing Glass-Steagell and the S&L scandals.
To try and pin it on one party or President is misguided, and misses the salient points; that our government permitted unsound and failing financial regulation to be enacted, that the financial industry saw th opportunity to profit from it without concern for their inevitable failure, and that much of that process was driven by a huge segment of the financial industry that sponsored or committed criminal fruad on several different levels, and has not yet faced judgment. Indeed, they played the gambit that we would bail them out, if the problem got too big, and we did.
Until we see many (thousands) of financiers, analysts, executives, brokers, and other agents do the perp walk, we are not done fully undestanding the cause and prevention of this sort of problem. CRA was just a part of this. Glass-Steagell was the precipitator of this chain of events. The S&L scandals predated and predicted this, and another attempt to do the same favor for the credit unions should be expected. The NCUA has so far been able to refuse the Congress' largesse.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
When the system for legislation gets so confusing that not even the people passing the bills can keep it straight, I think it shows that there is some fundamental flaw in the system, or it didn't scale well or something.
Do we have to go back to Schoolhouse Rock?
I've been looking at the constitutions of other countries, past and present, and ironically, I think the best solution to this was actually included in the Confederate constitution during the Civil War. They banned the practice of sneaking in pet projects on the back of a bigger ones:
"Every law, or resolution having the force of law, shall relate to but one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title."
Keeping legislation to one topic both simplifies the process and eliminates logrolling, at least outright. If we were to vote on a new round of amendments to the Constitution, this would be near the top of my list. I'm so tired of reading about a slew of pet projects on the back of a bill completely unrelated to the subject... things like grants for local agencies tucked into a defense bill.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel