Well, Congress was envisioned as a place where ordinary citizens represented their districts and then went home and back to their jobs. I realize government is more complex now but that’s not an excuse to favor career politicians. It just means that ordinary citizens have to do a better job and voters need to do a better job. Right now the choices are corrupt vs. ignorant and it’s not insane for many voters to choose ignorant.
Ah yes, the man with the magic asterisk.
Yeah, he’s the sane one. 
Gingrich was someone who I think you could actually call a little loopy, but he ran the House effectively.
Gingrich was not at all loopy. He had a cold-blooded, intelligent view of how to gain power, and that was by demonizing the other party instead of working with them. The infection has continued to spread ever since.
Wait, whose magic ass is he risking?
He was also, and remains, a pretty weird dude. Ryan is about as bookish and boring as it gets.
I remain unconvinced that “vote for people dumber than you because people smarter than you will take advantage of you” is a sound basis for a system of government. This is particularly true because smart corrupt people know that they have to keep the country running in order to keep taking advantage of it, whereas idiots can do (and have done) massive damage blithely unaware that they are doing so. I’d rather have a mugger pointing a gun at me than a toddler, in that at least the former understands the consequences of pulling the trigger.
Please stop trying to make “Idiocracy” a documentary.
I’m not yet convinced that what we have now is worse than what we had before. Obvoiusly, if we’d gone over the debt limit it would be, but Congress getting little done and controlling spending while they are at it isn’t a terrible outcome.
Except that what they are doing is spending millions of taxpayer dollars on obstructionism and partisan games which provide exactly zero benefit to the taxpayer. Their little government shutdown cost us billions. That’s a terrible outcome.
The overall numbers look good though. Spending is nearly flat since the Republicans took the House. The President lauds the shrinking deficit as a good thing, so that means it’s good. Oh, and unemployment dropped to 5%. So that’s good too. And meanwhile I’d like to hope that some of these newcomers are learning.
Remember kids: spending is Obama’s fault unless it’s shrinking in which case it’s down to the Republicans!
About what Gingrich started:
No, that was not the Gingritch congress, that was from the time Republicans were not drinking the ideocracy Brawndo punch.
Of course the science became more inconvenient for the Republicans under Gingritch. His congress got rid of the office because the Republicans were becoming less in tune with science. And the solutions they propose to deal with important issues look more like snake oil.
:rolleyes:
And so we have less of a counter to prevent the ignorant Republicans in congress from getting even chairmanships (voted in by all other Republican members of congress BTW) to do more harm by getting little done and to accuse scientists of fraud with no good reason whatsoever.
Our own Bad Astronomer can tell us what is the result of the continuous ignorant moves by the Republicans:
Remember when **adaher **wouldn’t shut up about how honest and refreshing Ben Carson was as a candidate?
Yeah, that was like, Wednesday.
How about that West Point scholarship? :D:D:D
Not if he has to lead a bunch of pols whose performance in office can fairly be characterized by words identical to those of an insanity defense to a criminal charge, they won’t.
How do you feel about the credit card stories popping up? Do you expect them to impact the view of him as a “honest candidate”?
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/11/04/marco-rubio-defends-use-of-florida-gop-credit-card/
Rubio under scrutiny over finances | Fox Business Video (please note this is a video link, I wanted to include a right-wing link as well but they aren’t writing many stories on this).
This isn’t a “gotcha” question or an attempt to point and laugh, I’m just wondering what you think. Is it something that spin gets rid of? Is it something that needs spin? I’m wondering because if all the Republican candidates start pointing out each other’s false stories, doesn’t that just damage everyone?
A campaign we can all get behind: http://www.northernsun.com/Vote-Hindsight-20/20-T-Shirt-(8495).html?id=LLydo3ok
Can you clearly state what you believe ‘“The Part Decides” theory’ is and whether or not you believe it has predictive value? Thanks in advance for your time and attention.
Just like gas prices.
It can’t really be spun, but it’s not deadly. Rubio just used poor judgment. It seems to me that they are explaining it exactly as it happened. Rubio’s bad with his personal finances.