US POLITICS: AMERICANS, PLEASE WELCOME YOUR NEW PRESIDENT... SCOTT BROWN!

propositions are my favorite thing about california, now that i no longer live in california

Propositions, for those of you who know your CA history, we're implemented in the progressive era to insure that powerful money interests (railroads, primarly) couldn't entirely dominate the assmebly. Should the bar be higher for putting them on the ballot? Of course, but I wouldn't get rid of them entirely.

I have no problem w/the two term limit for President. The American Presidency is very, very powerful and FDR was the only president not to respect the tradition of a limit of two terms, and the last time he ran, he knew how ill he was - it was very irresponsible and it didn't particularly help his party groom new candidates.

I don't necessarily have a problem with term limits for Congress, either but I think they should be tailored to the institution. While one may fear life-long politicians, I also fear constant waves of susceptible neophytes, too, unless we get to some utopia where you could abrogate the First Amendment and put term limits on lobbyists careers, too. Maybe three terms for Senators and ten for Reps, say?

Should the bar be higher for putting them on the ballot? Of course, but I wouldn't get rid of them entirely.

yeah I agree with this

I think I said this before but the real problem here is that Republicans actually understand how federal government works

I don't think the GOP understands how the government actually works - just look at how they mismanaged Iraq reconstruction, Katrina, the SEC, etc. during the Bush years. What they do understand is political theater. In that arena, they do have one natural advantage over the Dems. The Dems believe that government can be a positive force for change - that it has some role besides bombing Arabic-speaking countries back to the Stone Age and maintaining highways. Crafting good government policies is hard work and it takes up a lot of the Dems time. Meanwhile on the GOP side, their policy prescription is easy and universal: whatever the government is doing now, do less of. So that leaves them with lots of time to come up with good political theater: ie., misinformation, obstructionism, proposing symbolic measures that have good optics but do little.

As it is, any crackpot, single-issue group can put something on the ballot, banning us from eating horse-flesh or whatever, instead of concetrating on exerting political pressure on our representatives in the Assembly or State Senate. The problem with democracy in a state of over 30 million people is that it will quickly become a demogoguic tyranny and the problem with the hybrid we have now is that instead of creating a people's escape valve for an unresponsive class of representatives, we regularly just bypass the normal channels of representation and plebescites and referenda are too often the tyrant's path to legitimacy.

yes but michael, back then, it was the railroads. now it is the homosexuals.

maintaining highways

I don't think the GOP even believes in this tbh

I don't think the GOP understands how the government actually works - just look at how they mismanaged Iraq reconstruction, Katrina, the SEC, etc. during the Bush years.

I think you are conflating "actually" with "supposed to" in my sentence.

and plebescites and referenda are too often the tyrant's path to legitimacy

what, you mean like installing an action movie star over a duly elected but corrupt and inept pol as governor

I'm not really sure how you can objectively measure which party knows how the government works better than the other. What metrics do you use, exactly? My suspicion is that both sides of the aisle think the other is better/worse than the other. I'm pretty sure most Republicans think that the Democrats are way better at ginning the system and creating a state of dependent citizens.

Basically, I am looking at this from the standpoint of "which party is the better obstructionist, given the checks and balances nature of Congress". My experience leads me to conclude that Democrats are more likely to let Republicans do whatever they want than Republicans are to let Democrats do whatever they want.

what, you mean like installing an action movie star over a duly elected but corrupt and inept pol as governor

Eh, I didn't vote for the Governator, but I give him the same C-, I gave Gray. It's neither's fault that the State is essentially, kind of like the U.S., ungovernable. Did you hear what Gray told Ahnold when he took office? Essentially, it was there are two things that will largely determine your popularity and success as Governor of California; how much snow falls in the Sierra (or rain) and how the global economy is doing, neither of which is under your control. "Have fun!"

haha classic

Arnold's been pretty good on the energy/ecology end of things, I'll give him that

I really think the whole Davis recall/Schwartzenegger election was kind fo a Bill the Cat gamble: A Desperate Choice for Desperate Times

And ever so slightly less of a dick on the parole end of things, too.

what do people make of this?

sounds pretty right-on to me at first glance

Basically, I think that if a hugely famous and charismatic moderate Republican with no real obligations to the State Republican party can't get anything done, no-one can. The Repubs are far too tea-baggish/Xtianist and the Dems too beholden to their own constituent interests to actually get naything reformed.

Someone was saying the other day that if banks get too small to fail, maybe we should make them smaller.

what do people make of this?

sounds pretty right-on to me at first glance

Give O some credit. This is much tougher than anything people were contemplating happening this year.

Er, I meant too big to fail...

I like the first version better.

speaking of constituent interest: guessing this has been discussed but what about small pop states and the level of consituent scrutiny? it seems like dudes like Burns enjoyed influence that was "undue" not just becuase he represented much less people than say Clinton, but also because those people -didn't pay as much attn-

I am happy to generalize and say that yr avg rural Western voter is less civically engaged with natl politics than someone in Cali, and has fewer outlets for unbiased information. also, they're really just physically far away from where politics happens (both in state and nationally). couple that with highly influential extractive industries and you've got major pressure points for interests opposed to "progressive" change.

I guess this is what you refer to Danny Boy?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/01/relieved.php

Again, this is something that has actually been made law today:

Justices Overturn Key Campaign Limits
By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: January 21, 2010
WASHINGTON — Sweeping aside a century-old understanding and overruling two important precedents, a bitterly divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections.

The ruling was a vindication, the majority said, of the First Amendment’s most basic free speech principle — that the government has no business regulating political speech. The dissenters said allowing corporate money to flood the political marketplace will corrupt democracy.

The 5-to-4 decision was a doctrinal earthquake but also a political and practical one. Specialists in campaign finance law said they expected the decision, which also applies to labor unions and other organizations, to reshape the way elections are conducted.

“If the First Amendment has any force,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority, which included the four members of its conservative wing, “it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.”

Justice John Paul Stevens read a long dissent from the bench. He said the majority had committed a grave error in treating corporate speech the same as that of human beings. His decision was joined by the other three members of the court’s liberal wing.

Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, an author of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, called the ruling “a terrible mistake.”

“Ignoring important principles of judicial restraint and respect for precedent, the Court has given corporate money a breathtaking new role in federal campaigns,” said Mr. Feingold, a Democrat.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader and a longtime opponent of that law, praised the Court’s decision as “an important step in the direction of restoring the First Amendment rights of these groups by ruling that the Constitution protects their right to express themselves about political candidates and issues up until Election Day.”President Obama issued a statement calling on Congress to “develop a forceful response to this decision.”

“With its ruling today,” he said, “the Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics. It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/politics/22scotus.html?hp

I hadn't read that but yes, that is exactly what I am referring to.

like why doesn't Alaska look like fucking Norway, wrt social services? they're sitting on a ton of oil and other resources, they should be taxing the -shit- out of the companies that operate there, and yet they don't. it's not like they're gonna take their business elsewhere! you're ALASKA. but instead you get the Alaska general fund (or whatever it's called) which is a basically a really cheap bribe and that very likely does little to improve the lot of alaskans.

Jesus that ruling is just horrible

not if we can get Doctor Bronner to headline a coalition dedicated to buying Congress seats

we have some of the worst human beings on our supreme court

and i hate the court most when kennedy writes the opinion

“the Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics. It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”

It is a victory for those industries and the pols who openly accept money for their influence.

Fucking pathetic.

I know, some will say "Big deal, politicians have always been bought and sold by corporations."

But that was a century when there WERE limits on corporate political spending. What's coming will make that seem like the GOLDEN ERA of true democracy.

Fucking lead the charge, Obama. DEMAND change. Use your bully pulpit. Have the GS guys that you nominated renounce Big Banks.

It's such an obvious issue, it ties into the populist rage. It allows him to fite Congress, too.

If special interest purchasing (and here's looking at you, Ben Fucking Nelson) is so bad, why does everyone keep accepting the bribes?

I see what Stevens is doing: he's framing his dissent around the conservative SCOTUS of pre-1935's curious decision to treat corporations as "persons," and as such deserving Fourteenth Amendment protection.

to get all Morbs for a second, Obama's the last guy who should be protesting here. Wall Street had lined his pockets for months before 2008.

And he was jerking off the health care industry under the table trying to get a deal done with HCR too

Guys, we can make this Court ruling work for us. See, all we need is a bunch of TV ads endorsing GOP candidates paid for by, say, the adult video industry, or PETA, and we can ensure keeping them out of office.

Also, this shit makes me want to destroy capitalism forever. Like, fuck corporate personhood, and fuck limited liability for officers and shareholders.

i know maybe we should all lobby our states to take away limited liability and tax corporations like persons

it'll work

http://people-press.org/reports/images/578-20.gif

from here:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/01/in-health-care-reform-new-iraq-war.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

look at the boldface among those who favor, obv

We could get mobs in the streets over this SCOTUS decision if only they'd also ruled Conan O'Brien can't make contributions.

Dalia Lithwick is awesome on this ruling: http://www.slate.com/id/2242208/

btw lol I said Burns (Monty) when I meant Stevens (Ted)

anyway, carry on

I don't know, a lot of horrible shit has happened in the government in the past 10 years, but can someone please explain to me why this SCOTUS thing isn't WAYYYYYY worse than any healthcare bill failing and possibly the worst of the last decade?

was this decis

I see what Stevens is doing: he's framing his dissent around the conservative SCOTUS of pre-1935's curious decision to treat corporations as "persons," and as such deserving Fourteenth Amendment protection.

is this what the majority opinion is based on? that is, that spending limits are infringing on the first amendment rights of corporations?

I was hoping it wasn't because that is just so patently disgusting.

isn't corporate personhood as a legal concept important for individuals who want to sue corporations?

ignore iPhone gaffe plz