21–30 of 146 posts
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/06/14/senate-st...
(Legislators rely on their staff for input, research, background and assistance in making decisions)
Not an excuse at all but part of the problem of our system, why they run home so fast, is they are constantly fundraising for their next election. They spend a massive amount of time in office just fundraising. Not sure how this can ever be fixed.
easy solution: term limits
They just create a bigger incentive for a revolving door between industry and legislative office.
With a few exceptions nobody in congress seems to actually care even a bit about the people, but only how to drive the personal agenda forward.
It's the same in Europe. Apparently representatives are actually paid by attendance, so what they do is, they come to the session, sign in their names, and then leave.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't it his job as the elected Senator to call out Clapper on his 'lies' as he says them? If all Sen. Paul was going to do was watch the video of his testimony later then why schedule a hearing at all?
How would he know what are lies? He isn't on the Senate Intelligence Committee, the 15 people in Congress privileged enough to know the truth.
Not an excuse at all but part of the problem of our system, why they run home so fast, is they are constantly fundraising for their next election. They spend a massive amount of time in office just fundraising. Not sure how this can ever be fixed.
easy solution: term limits
It seems that rather than attracting the best of the best to lead this country we managed to arrive at a process that reliably picks the most self serving crooks this country has to offer and allow them to run this country. With a few exceptions nobody in congress seems to actually care even a bit about the people, but only how to drive the personal agenda forward. It's the same in Europe. Apparently representatives…
It's understood in the commercial sector that you have to pay (both on benefits, quality of work/life balance, pay, etc.) to attract and retain the best and brightest talent.
How can we all take that very important lesson and completely throw it away when considering the leadership of an entire nation?
I'm not sure I'd take Pres. Obama or Rep. Boehner's jobs for a million bucks, so how are we supposed to get the "best of the best" leading the country, when they're off leading the Fortune 500?
EDIT: People, there are reasons I mentioned things other than actual cash compensation when I referred to pay and benefits. You can almost literally watch the President of the United States age in front of your very eyes nowadays.... so I'm not saying the job of public service doesn't pay enough, I'm saying the job is so stressful that it's not possible to pay enough, as money quickly loses its motivational appeal once you make enough to live comfortably.
Our government is broken. It is no longer by the people for the people. Politicians are skipping out of their responsibilities. Politicians spend much of their time in office fundraising for re-election. Politicians raise much of their election financing from corporate interests, not the people, and thus have a diminishing obligation to the people.[1] A vast minority of people elect our politicians because 50% of eli…
> Our government is broken. It is no longer by the people for the people. Are there good grounds for thinking it was ever much more "by the people for the people" than it is now?
Teddy Roosevelt's national parks.
It seems that rather than attracting the best of the best to lead this country we managed to arrive at a process that reliably picks the most self serving crooks this country has to offer and allow them to run this country. With a few exceptions nobody in congress seems to actually care even a bit about the people, but only how to drive the personal agenda forward. It's the same in Europe. Apparently representatives…
Has no one ever noticed how poorly the leadership of our democracies are treated? It's understood in the commercial sector that you have to pay (both on benefits, quality of work/life balance, pay, etc.) to attract and retain the best and brightest talent. How can we all take that very important lesson and completely throw it away when considering the leadership of an entire nation? I'm not sure I'd take Pres. Obama…
To that I would say the members of congress are exempt from insider trading laws (why?), and it turns out that many members of congress make the majority of the wealth from stock trades after they join congress. (now, that might be hear-say. I read this somewhere, and I have no good way to verify this).
Here they bring in one side of the story for a secret Powerpoint presentation, no doubt with a high degree of spin to it, and publicly call Snowden a traitor. Then they complain that nobody shows up.
This isn't a bake sale or a dog and pony show, it's supposed to be the workings of the U.S. Senate. This sounds much more like an effort to CYA from the committee chair and NSA than it does an actual investigation or anything useful. Not going to make much progress continuing to operate in this fashion.
It IS interesting, however, that both sides here feel that, if only the other side knew more about what was actually going on, they would agree with them. But then the government insists on keeping it all secret. Meh.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would he know what are lies? He isn't on the Senate Intelligence Committee, the 15 people in Congress privileged enough to know the truth.
Then how do we know that Clapper is lying? We're not on the Intel Committee either, are we? At least Sen. Paul gets invited to these things, we have no access at all, so Sen. Paul is still in a much better situation to call out Clapper on what we are all so convinced are a constant stream of lies.
Apart from that, I am personally unaware of any instances where DNI Clapper has publicly lied.
Additionally, DNI Clapper appears to only answer prepared questions (i.e. forwarded to his office prior to the discussion). I'm not sure if this is standard protocol for Congress, and for obvious reasons I also don't know if this applies to private briefings.