How can we expect the "ungovernable House" to govern the US?

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/shields-brooks-gop-speaker-struggle-clintons-trade-deal-dismissal/

Maybe you guys have been following the brouhaha, but basically Boehner stepped down as Speaker, Majority Leader (and heir apparent) McCarthy withdrew his candidacy, and now no one (who is capable of getting the 200+ votes to pass) wants to step up. The GOP is asking Paul Ryan to step up to the plate, but he hasn't committed yet.

Speaker is "2 bullets" away from the presidency; you'd think that our most promising legislators would be lining up to apply! But the problem is that the House is GOP majority, and a contingent of ~40 Teabaggers (the "Freedom" Caucus, or "anarchists" as Brooks called them) are basically impossible to work with unless you totally embrace the ~Norquist/Palin/Koch agenda. As Brooks said on PBS, only a "moron" would want the Speaker job now. So how did the 3rd most powerful position in US gov't become a third-rail job?

• There really isn't much benefit for a party to have a majority in the House when the other party has 40+ in the Senate and/or the White House. And it's hard to be confident that we'll have a GOP president in 2017.

• We don't live in a dictatorship where the Tea Party are the dictators, so can they espouse more reasonable and civilized goals instead? No group is ever going to get all they want, but is it so terrible to make deals to advance some of your agenda, but allow other interests to do the same (if what you have to give up is not so harmful)?

• So the GOP Speaker is caught between a rock and a hard place: he/she is expected to use the majority to advance conservatism (or at least keep the country running - pass a budget, etc.), but also find a way to get the Teabaggers to not derail the whole process (which is their stated goal if they don't get 100% of what they want, which we established is impossible).
• I don't know why the Teabaggers are so "needed"; is it because the GOP still need those 40 votes? Why not reach out to the Dems instead - can't you get 40 from them Blue Dogs? Is it just intractable polarization?

• The TP's excuse is that they are merely doing what the voters expect (obstructionism/anarchy/holding the country hostage). Well, there is no district in the US where 100% of the votes support the TP agenda. So it is wrong for them to ignore potentially 49% of their constituents (likely the % is much smaller due to gerrymandering).
• Also, this is a false pretext because polling suggest that the majority of Americans do not want gov't shutdowns and do not approve of an unproductive Congress. So why don't they just cut the crap and admit that they are serving the narrow interests of the 1% Norquist/Koch agenda?

• Should we amend job descriptions for Congress and the oath that they swear to, in order to make sure that our legislators will actually legislate in the country's interests? There are other explicit or implicit criteria like age, residency, religion, and funding - why not this? Don't we want to make sure they are qualified and able to carry out the duties of the position?
• It's like Kim Davis - she can have her beliefs, but if they're not compatible with the demands of her job, then she needs to be replaced and find a different job, right?

IMO, a dysfunctional Congress is a bigger threat to our country than ISIS. I am serious about that. Who affects our daily lives more?

Congress avoids another shutdown, passes corporate-friendly budget with Obama's blessing

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/12/us-usa-congress-budget-deadline-idUSKBN0JP23320141212

It was a tough position for Dems: agree to basically roll back Dodd-Frank regs on derivatives trading, and increase contribution limits to political parties, or risk getting an even uglier, GOP-driven budget proposal in January when the new legislators move in. It was sad to see Obama and some other major Dems fold like a cheap suit in the face of this raw deal. More left-leaning Pelosi and Warren were vehemently opposed, but were ultimately overruled.

It was reported that JP Morgan Chase literally wrote the section of the bill relating to derivatives. This is not new, but it's sad to see Obama being such a cheerleader for this bill considering his previous statements on financial reform and Wall Street abuses.

----

My mistake, it was Citigroup that wrote the rider, not Chase. But it really doesn't make a difference. It implies that the rider is in the Street's best interests, not the public's. The language relates to bailouts from losses on derivatives trading. Dodd-Frank had an exception (that would have gone live in 2015) to prohibit taxpayer bailouts for derivatives losses from trading that was deemed too risky (trying to reduce moral hazard). Well the big banks would have none of that - they are like a degenerate gambler in Vegas demanding that Bellagio cover any losses they incur (and then they try to tax dodge any gains they make). Of course the Street insists that derivatives serve to lower systemic risk, not increase it. That is true in some cases, like how gun proponents say that firearms reduce violence. But then what about the times when the opposite occurs? Banks just say, "Oh well, we tried our best. Now pay us." While global wealth evaporates but they still get their bonuses.

http://billmoyers.com/2014/12/12/unsurpriing-connection-two-odious-parts-cromnibus/

“I love the American political system, I really do, but the ability to sneak in substantive policy measures and make it take it or leave it, I think it’s appalling,” said Simon Johnson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management and a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, who is a prominent critic of the nation’s big banks.

-NYT

----

It's hard to oppose the subtle, gradual rollbacks and changes that are eroding our democracy and "the soul of America". It's not like there was a coup and all of a sudden an evil regime took power. It's easy to fight back when it's a "Red Dawn" scenario, but Americans are lazy/easily distracted and we don't want to do the hard work of citizenship if it's not glamorous or urgent. The people who value power/profit are patient (and wealthy), so they chip away at our values bit by bit, at each election cycle and session of Congress/Supreme Court that the public barely pays attention to.

Reagan declared that we don't torture, and he was far from a dove. Now you have modern-day GOPers making all sorts of excuses to condone torture (or even argue that it's patriotic). In hindsight, Cheney was such a disaster for US ideals - and I think he had more of a negative impact on history than people like Qaddafi and Kim Jong Il (at least those guys practices overt evil, and were therefore easier to oppose). After the deaths of old-schoolers (and mostly straight shooters) like McCain and Hagel, I really fear what direction the GOP will go with unqualified political animals like Cruz and Ryan as the prominent voices. I mean, we already see the direction now: corporate plutocracy, oppression of women/minorities/foreigners, a disdain for science/logic, and unrestrained security state, to name a few.

I don't have much knowledge on this matter, but my personal feeling is that presidents who have the most reform potential have a greater view of themselves vs. the office of the president. What I mean by that is - they are either self-assured iconoclasts/visionaries like Lincoln, tremendously principled and conscientious like the Roosevelts, or chip-on-the-shoulder megalomaniacs like Nixon. They want to mold America into their image, and won't just be passive presidents who don't rock the boat and piss off the powerful. They never ask "is this what a president would do?" They do it because they know it's right, and they don't care if the pollsters and establishment approve or not (the opposite of Hillary).

That is the kind of leader we need to fight the negative trends now - and Sanders/Warren strike me as that type of personality, however their electability and charisma are another issue. Many thought Obama was going to be one of those reformers (he was mostly a DC outsider, "post-partisan", and one of the few presidents who grew up poor), but alas he is just a weak-willed bureaucrat who couldn't influence Congress, and deferred to the Pentagon and Wall St. to our detriment. He's a great campaigner but not a great leader of men. Considering the hand he was dealt, I wouldn't say he was a bad president, but he is a colossal failure in terms of missed opportunities (and the fact that some key issues got worse under his tenure - but not the things that the Tea Party would complain about). That's what's kind of ironic/tragic about Obama, both the left and right curse him for different reasons, which maybe suggests he doesn't have a good sense of his political identity, and tries to float in the center to please everyone, even though it's impossible. And unfortunately the modern US center is further to the right than most prominent European conservative parties. It's been scientifically shown that the US center has drifted right significantly since WWII.

Congess' outrageous insider trading

Corporate executives, members of the executive branch and all federal judges are subject to strict conflict of interest rules. But not the people who write the laws.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57323527/congress-trading-stock-on-inside-information
http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/07/news/congress_insider_trading/index.htm?section=money_topstories

"60 Minutes" had a recent report exposing the egregious insider trading conducted by members of Congress that is technically not illegal for them, but would put normal people in the slammer. Sensing that the gig is up and anticipating public outcry, the Senate is now resuscitating 2004's STOCK Act: a failed bill to explicitly ban insider trading by Congress, and require more frequent public disclosure of lawmakers' trading activities. In order to look ethical leading up to an election year, the bill has currently attracted 171 co-signers (possibly a record), whereas it couldn't get an ounce of support during its original drafting. Some critics say that the bill is unnecessary because regular trading laws already apply to Congress, and they are not "insider" employees of the companies whose securities they trade. But of course neither was Martha Stewart.

As an example, take September 2008. Lehman was about to go under, and the whole system was on the edge. Paulson and Bernanke called a select group of lawmakers for ultra-secret meetings to break the bad news and plan responses. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but one of the attendees, the ranking GOP on the House Fin. Svcs. Cmte., AL's Spencer Bachus, suddenly bought a massive amount of options that would pay out if the market tanked. Bachus was one of our elected officials who was supposed to avert the crisis, yet he had a clear financial incentive to let the market plummet. WTF?

Maybe another coincidence, but current House Speaker Boehner was trading in health insurance stocks during the health reform debate. Shortly before Washington decided to kill the public option proposal, Boehner bought shares of private insurance companies when everyone else was bearish on them. And of course with the news of the public option's demise, insurer's stock prices rose and he made money.

We already know that most legislators leave DC much richer than when they arrived (and it's not because of their generous salaries). They make decisions with millions or billions at stake, so of course private interests attempt to sway their opinions with bribes. It's not as bad as Nigeria or Iraq, but it happens here plenty. On top of that they need to play the markets too? Aren't they too busy running the country and serving their constituents to trade on the side? Most of us don't even have 5 min a day to watch the tickers, but trading is much easier when you are way ahead of the information curve. It's ridiculous, they are beyond shame.

Take this other example involving IPOs:

If you were a senator... and I gave you $10,000 cash, one or both of us is probably gonna go to jail. But if I'm a corporate executive and you're a senator, and I give you IPO shares in stock and over the course of one day that stock nets you $100,000, that's completely legal.

Look at Pelosi's reaction to questions about her profiting from the 2008 Visa IPO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0LMAP0L5G4

She claims to fight the big banks and help ordinary Americans, yet she accepted shares in Visa while helping to kill CC reform legislation back then that could have saved Americans billions during this horrible recession. The specific reform was eventually signed into law in 2010, but banks got 2 precious years to restructure their revenue models in anticipation of this change. So clearly it's not just a GOP problem.

I would go further than the STOCK Act: Congressmen can't trade in any equity, real estate, or international securities while in office, AND one year thereafter. Maybe bar their immediate families too. They get the pension anyway, why the need for more cap. gains? They can park their money in a 1% CD or money market account like the rest of us saps. They are public servants after all, and servants sacrifice, they don't get rich. How bad would it look if a US soldier in Iraq was in charge of protecting a BP facility, but one night insurgents blow it up? Then later his superiors find out that he was shorting BP stock a week before the incident. As far as I know, FDA employees aren't allowed to trade in stocks of the companies they're auditing, and I think employees at the Fed and Treasury have to sell all their financial stock before taking the job too. It's common sense, so why is Congress somehow exempt? Are they saints? I would also copy China and EXECUTE public officials convicted of corruption, fraud, etc. I'm against capital punishment except for this. I know China's policy hasn't fully stopped the problem, but at least it sends a message that people can't just profit with impunity and make a mockery of the law/public office. But this is America, the country that pardoned Tricky Dick. So tired of this crap.  

From "60 Minutes":
But what baffles Baird even more is that the situation has gotten worse. In the past few years a whole new totally unregulated, $100 million dollar industry has grown up in Washington called political intelligence. It employs former congressmen and former staffers to scour the halls of the Capitol gathering valuable non-public information then selling it to hedge funds and traders on Wall Street who can trade on it.

Baird says its taken what would be a criminal enterprise anyplace else in the country and turned it into a profitable business model.
Baird: The town is all about people saying-- what do you know that I don't know. This is the currency of Washington, D.C. And it's that kind of informational currency that translates into real currency. Maybe it's over drinks maybe somebody picks up a phone. And says you know just to let you know it's in the bill. Trades happen. Can't trace 'em. If you can trace 'em, it's not illegal. It's a pretty great system. You feel like an idiot to not take advantage of it.

Threat of gov't shutdown

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ap_on_re_us/us_spending_showdown

Let me see if I get this straight: the House GOP threatened to shut the gov't down unless the Dems agreed to their draconian spending cuts (keep tax breaks for the rich - because that creates jobs of course, keep the military rolling, but cut aid for the poor and other liberal junk). The Dems compromised on like 90% of their demands last week, but still they didn't budge an inch. Their political posturing and theatrics took the country to the brink, despite a last-minute deal. As of a few hours ago, a shutdown appeared so likely that much of the gov't worked overtime this week to get millions of furlough notices drafted and plans in place to close down or seek alternative funding.

So in these uncertain, stressful times, just think of all the man-hours of lost productivity spent preparing for a looming shutdown that fortunately didn't materialize (not to mention the anxiety and distraction of worrying about it). If this budget battle was supposedly about cutting spending from the get-go, imagine all the millions of dollars wasted by our gov't agencies, because they had no choice but to prepare two action plans depending on what Washington did today.

If the GOP really cares about reducing the deficit, they have a funny way of showing it by engaging in totally unnecessary, reckless behavior that only caused more waste. They could have gotten their spending cuts days ago, without pulling this expensive, shameful poker bluff bitch-move on America, just so they could placate their base that they "worked down to the wire" to de-fund Planned Parenthood and de-claw the EPA. But they don't feel the externalities of their actions, so they don't care. They scared the crap out of millions of Americans who depend on a gov't paycheck or services. But why should we expect them to understand? The median net worth of Congress is over $800K, while overall US median household worth is $96K (that figure is down 23% since 2006, due to the recent recession mostly caused by Washington de-regulation and their Wall Street pals' excesses).

http://www.gobankingrates.com/savings-account/us-family-net-worth-drops-23-percent-during-recession/
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/01/wealthy-freshmen-raise-congres.html