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US Politics: A Game of Chicken (with Constituents lives)


Ser Scot A Ellison

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If only the FBI was this aggressive at dealing with coup plotters too...

But this is probably also a good thing; the NYPD sergeants union is not a good organization.

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41 minutes ago, Fez said:

Here in the US, political coverage loves diving into all that arcana, giving up all broader context for why things are happening, and becomes a major bore for voters. But its' not the arcana that's the problem, it's the bad coverage.

I’d argue what’s more problematic about the current state of media coverage is that it now often mirrors the worst parts of hot take sports culture. We’ve all seen clips of six talking heads yelling at each other and nobody gains anything from that.

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26 minutes ago, Fez said:

If only the FBI was this aggressive at dealing with coup plotters too...

And these jerkwaddies as well --

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/04/garland-fbi-educator-threats-515104

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2021/09/30/school-boards-ask-fbi-terrorism-over-masks-race-theory/5931428001/

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24 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I’d argue what’s more problematic about the current state of media coverage is that it now often mirrors the worst parts of hot take sports culture. We’ve all seen clips of six talking heads yelling at each other and nobody gains anything from that.

I'll add to this to point out the ridiculous format of giving equal time to pseudo science bs like we do with climate change and anti Vaxx deniers.

Unfortunately the networks aren't interested in informing the citizenry, it's all about entertainment and giving air time to Q culture conspiracy kooks which make up a influential size of conservatives.

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3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I’d argue what’s more problematic about the current state of media coverage is that it now often mirrors the worst parts of hot take sports culture. We’ve all seen clips of six talking heads yelling at each other and nobody gains anything from that.

You got this backwards.  PTI, Around the Horn, they didn't come out until the early 2000s and very clearly mimicked the talking heads shows already established on cable news.  Hell, not just cable news, Dana Carvey was hilariously making fun of the McLaughlin Group since before I can remember.

 

Anyway, to Fez's point that the media focuses on parliamentary pedantry and the like, I'm not really sure how much you can blame them.  The fact is the filibuster and subsequently reconciliation have become essential to Congress legislating over the past few decades, it'd be inaccurate and/or incomplete for political media not to emphasize their importance.  As for the debt ceiling, again, it is Congress that stupidly makes that such a big deal - although, yes, it would be nice if the media didn't buy in to the apocalyptic drama every few years, but good luck getting the media to stop being overdramatic and sensationalist.

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2 hours ago, DMC said:

Anyway, to Fez's point that the media focuses on parliamentary pedantry and the like, I'm not really sure how much you can blame them.  The fact is the filibuster and subsequently reconciliation have become essential to Congress legislating over the past few decades, it'd be inaccurate and/or incomplete for political media not to emphasize their importance.  As for the debt ceiling, again, it is Congress that stupidly makes that such a big deal - although, yes, it would be nice if the media didn't buy in to the apocalyptic drama every few years, but good luck getting the media to stop being overdramatic and sensationalist.

Well, sure. But the issue is Republicans are fuckwards, not that the rules are overly complicated. We can change (potentially, hopefully) change some of the rules to deal with the fact that Republicans are fuckwads; like the filibuster. But the other kinds of arcana that mormont complained about, like the timing of various procedural motions, are simply the standard stuff of any democracy. Stuff like Mason's Manual, Robert's Rules, Jefferson's Manual, and so on are all normal.

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3 minutes ago, Fez said:

like the timing of various procedural motions, are simply the standard stuff of any democracy. Stuff like Mason's Manual, Robert's Rules, Jefferson's Manual, and so on are all normal.

Well, yeah, I don't think that's really the problem.  The filibuster, reconciliation, even the rulings of the parliamentarian?  Sure, there's a lot of coverage of that (as well, of course, the debt ceiling currently).  But I don't really think there's that much coverage of procedural motions or other minutia like that.

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2 hours ago, DMC said:

You got this backwards.  PTI, Around the Horn, they didn't come out until the early 2000s and very clearly mimicked the talking heads shows already established on cable news.  Hell, not just cable news, Dana Carvey was hilariously making fun of the McLaughlin Group since before I can remember.

I thought the significance of those two shows was that they were the first two daily shows that only used columnists as their panel members, not that they were actually the first two sports shows with debate formats. Is that not the case?

And yeah, that clip is pretty funny.

 

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11 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I thought the significance of those two shows was that they were the first two daily shows that only used columnists as their panel members, not that they were actually the first two sports shows with debate formats. Is that not the case?

 

I mean, the only sports show with that type of format I can think of that preceded PTI/ATH was The Sports Reporters hosted by Dick Schaap which was a Sunday morning show on ESPN - and I watched a shitton of ESPN growing up in the 90s.  That show started in 1988, but even then it was basically copying the format of the Big 3's Sunday morning political shows.

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7 hours ago, Zorral said:

I kind of think Garland ought to really look at the instigators related to education, such as Tucker Carlson and pale beardy guy who are claiming teachers are indoctrinating students and turning them into evil little socialists. They advocated all summer for live feeds into all classrooms. At what point does Tucker explicitly telling his audience to confront people in the streets, in school board meetings, etc. put him on the FBI list?

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1 hour ago, DMC said:

I mean, the only sports show with that type of format I can think of that preceded PTI/ATH was The Sports Reporters hosted by Dick Schaap which was a Sunday morning show on ESPN - and I watched a shitton of ESPN growing up in the 90s.  That show started in 1988, but even then it was basically copying the format of the Big 3's Sunday morning political shows.

Thanks. I'm only a few years younger than you, but my parents separated in '97 and I went a few years without cable after that. There were still Sunday pre/post game debate shows, but it's nothing like what spawned after PTI. And I was also conflating radio with T.V. Maybe a better way to try and make my point is looking at how sports and political programing have to balance informing and entertaining its viewers. I feel like in my younger years both wanted to inform you while keeping you entertained enough to stay tuned, but over time they flipped those priorities. Just from my perspective as someone who has consumed a lot of each it always felt like sports media went off the rails before a lot of the political coverage did. It hasn't helped that journalism in both fields has taken a massive beating.

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56 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Just from my perspective as someone who has consumed a lot of each it always felt like sports media went off the rails before a lot of the political coverage did. It hasn't helped that journalism in both fields has taken a massive beating.

Eh, that definitely wasn't my impression.  I think an example that can provide some insight is Jon Stewart lambasting and embarrassing Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala for ruining this country on Crossfire in 2004.  Crossfire debuted in 1982, and Stewart certainly wasn't talking about just the past few years.  If I had to peg the timeframe of when political media's downfall started, it'd be the mid 90s when FNC and MSNBC launched - and it mirrored the toxicity at the elite level of the Clinton/Gingrich era that fomented affective polarization.

As for radio that's a difficult comparison because politically it's dominated by fascist old white assholes, starting with Rush who broke out ~ 1990.  Of course Imus and Stern preceded that as shock jocks but hard to call either that political.  The only sports shock jock I listened to growing up was Jim Rome, and he broke out about five years after Rush.

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Lawmakers, inspired by 'Pandora Papers,' to push new anti-corruption bill
The bill would require lawyers, PR firms, accountants and others to check if clients’ money is dirty.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/05/pandora-papers-anti-corruption-bill-515177

Quote

 

Members of Congress inspired by the “Pandora Papers” corruption revelations are planning to soon unveil a bill designed to make it harder for lawyers, accountants and others to help kleptocrats and other malign actors hide their money.

The bill, dubbed the ENABLERS Act, will likely be introduced on Friday. It is one of several recent bipartisan efforts in Washington to tackle global corruption, which President Joe Biden has described as a threat to U.S. national security.

“It is incumbent upon us democracies to purge the dirty money in our systems, deny corrupt foreign officials safe haven, and stand with the victims of kleptocracy,” Reps. John Curtis (R-Utah) and Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), the co-chairs of a new congressional caucus against kleptocracy, said Tuesday in a joint statement.

Their statement referenced the Pandora Papers, a still-unfolding expose led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, that has deepened concerns about a growing parallel world of hidden transactions and assets.

 


 

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12 hours ago, Fez said:

The electoral college and the senate make-up are election problems, not governance problems. We need to address them for sure, if we can, but they are not the kinds of things mormont brought up. My point was that all those arcane procedural rules we have are actually par for the course for democracies and aren't the reason why nothing gets done in the US.

Electoral problems are governance problems. Every system will be gamed - the secret is to ensure that gaming the system is also resulting in a good outcome. 

The senate makeup and how fucked it is directly influences how the country is governed. The way potus is elected does that too. The filibuster and that whole fuckup is a direct result of that too. All of these things stem from the system the US has. 

 

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4 hours ago, DMC said:

I mean, the only sports show with that type of format I can think of that preceded PTI/ATH was The Sports Reporters hosted by Dick Schaap which was a Sunday morning show on ESPN - and I watched a shitton of ESPN growing up in the 90s.  That show started in 1988, but even then it was basically copying the format of the Big 3's Sunday morning political shows.

Well,  these guys did it earlier than that and were more fun watching growing up in the mid 80s...but your general point on talking heads and hot takes holds in general regardless of the history of the sports show version...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sportswriters_on_TV

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42 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bidens-approval-rating-isnt-bouncing-back/

It appears the liberal expectations that Biden’s approval would climb as Afghanistan faded from memory were being a bit optimistic.

Biden's turned out much better than I thought he'd be, and to a large extent, I have no regrets that I voted for him. At the time, it was hard, but a lot of his agenda is aligned more with progressives than (what appears to be) the dying breed of centrist reps who have stalled progress for decades.

I truly hope he bounces back. He's running again in 2024 he's said, but his rating also likely will have a direct impact on the upcoming midterm elections.

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