Progressive Politics

4817 readers

272 users here now

Welcome to Progressive Politics! A place for news updates and political discussion from a left perspective. Conservatives and centrists are welcome just try and keep it civil :)

(Sidebar still a work in progress post recommendations if you have them such as reading lists)

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

TokenBoomer@lemmy.world

13 Dems Help House GOP Pass Stock Trading Ban That Includes Trump Attack on Voters (www.commondreams.org)

submitted 2 days ago by TokenBoomer@lemmy.world to c/progressivepolitics@lemmy.world

4 comments fedilink hide all child comments

“If Republicans actually wanted to stop congressional stock trading, they’d pass our bipartisan Restore Trust in Congress Act,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal.

top 4 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Taking aim at Trump on Wednesday, Congresswoman Sydney Kamlanger-Dove (D-Calif.) said that "the Stock Trader in Chief made 21,000 stock trades in his first year back in office. I 100% support a stock trading ban for Members of Congress AND the president and VP. But the bill Republicans brought to the floor was only about appeasing Trump."

"It caters to Trump's election conspiracy theories by enacting haphazard voter ID restrictions, and it conveniently excludes him and JD from the ban," she added, referring to Vice President JD Vance. "I voted no."

How can you even hide voter ID restrictions in a seemingly completely unrelated law?
Don't members of congress have people who read shit before they vote on it? How can you even seriously propose a law that says "but it doesn't apply to me"? It's all so sloppy. No wonder the country is going to the dogs.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Unrelated things are jammed into bills as basically a hostage situation, and because there are no rules against it. This is fairly common.

If you want thing A that you like, well its a combo with thing B you don't like. Do you like thing A more than you dislike thing B? What will your voters and corporate PACs think?

Congress people often but not always read the bill they vote on.

How can you propose something that says 'it doesn't apply to me?' Oh easy, you're craven and nakedly corrupt.

... all of this has been true my entire life, for how Congress works. They're just more brazen about it these days.

If you... think that Congresspeople... just magically should have some morals or code of honor... that's magical thinking, its delusional. Politics doesn't work that way unless you actually force it to work that way. You force it to work that way by excercising power effectively, and by realizing that there is a meta game above/outside/around the stated game, which is the actual game that is played.

The country is going to the dogs because we willingly let the dogs sleep and shit in the bed. The dogs might make a sad puppy face if we tell them to get off the bed, but we have to do it, one way or another.

[–] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

This is fairly common.

That's what I mean. All of it is. To quote the most horrible person on this planet: "and that's a broken system!"

If you… think that Congresspeople… just magically should have some morals or code of honor…

No, but normal workplace ethics like the rest of us. Do the job they've been hired to do.

that’s magical thinking, its delusional.

No, it isn't, and I don't appreciate the insult based on your misinterpretation. This sort of behavior doesn't make you a hardcore lefty.

Politics doesn’t work that way unless you actually force it to work that way.

Exactly. And it seems the US system has way too few mechanisms in place to do exactly that.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yes, it is delusional to expect people who regularly act in one way, to instead act in another way, for no apparent reason.

It also isn't an insult, its an accurate description.

If a child is consistently bullying other children... do you just expect them to not do that, because, to you, doing that is wrong?

Not if you actually want to change their behavior.

You have to modify the punishment and reward structure of the system they exist in, to actually cause behavioral change.

You've grasped that the system our representatives is 'broken'. It is not broken. It is working as it is currently designed to work.

We need to change the system, so that it actually punishes immoral behavior, and rewards just behavior. To do that, I say step 0 is get megacorporate money out of politics... cut off the bad reward mechanism for this poor behavior.

But what would it take to actually do that?

... the answer to that question is the same answer to 'how do you force politics to actually work that way?'

If you don't have a practical answer to this question, that could plausibly or at least possibly actually be successfully done...

You don't have a serious policy, you don't have a serious strategy, you do not have a plan.

Maybe you have a different strategy, a different fundamental cause that needs to be addressed, maybe in a different way.

But if you do not have a realistic, definable plan... you are being delusional when you just expect ... represntatives to 'be better', for no apparent reason.

It is obvious that many representatives do not have the same fundamental morality as you do...

It does not make any sense for them to change that, simply because you would expect or prefer that be the case.

Not everyone is like you.