Thank you Ricky, I can read, actually.

Interesting paper so far. I'll have my rebuttal (counterpoint, really) in a bit, concerning the U. Wisconsin professor's paper.

And AGAIN I never argued against polarization, and the ills of our time in the United States, even in Congress specifically. Just that you kind of make it sound like the sky is falling. Situations change, and problems are reparable. The only thing we must feel screwed about is, feeling screwed itself.

A hefty percentage of Americans actually listen to talk radio loyally. Right? How well informed re they?

What percentage is "hefty", precisely? Can you give us an exact figure? Also, can you be a little more specific when you say you are "familiar with the noise"? Because that statement does not make it sound like you have listened to enough of it to make an informed judgment....because listening to Rush a few times and saying "God, American talk radio is NUTS!" is not what I would call an informed judgment.

I've never been stuck to that idea. I've just said that there are advantages and disadvantages of different systems. None are perfect.

Actually you've said quite the opposite of that in this thread. I am very happy to have brought you around to seeing it more...objectively.

I don't know that you can at this point.

For heaven's sake, Ricky! You just said we should do precisely that (the multiparty thing), now you're saying you don't know if it's possible at this point. Which is it?!!

You failed to answer my question, though (maybe it's buried somewhere in the paper you've given me the link to...) but how do you QUANTIFY polarization in Congress?

S:

I guess that depends on what those 'retirement arrangements' turn out to be. I do understand the sentiment that politicians are public servants and shouldn't be too well paid, but the problem with that is obvious. If you make the terms too unattractive then it discourages people from less affluent backgrounds from entering politics in the first place (not to mention successful people who would have to take a massive cut in their salary) and encourages corruption for personal gain.

Good point. The Romans of the republic didn't figure that out in time. You had to prostitute so many votes to become consul and, well, hookers are expensive; so, once you became consul (or praetor, or whatever elected Roman office) you grafted the shit out of it just to get out of debt. While I do not know the precise emoluments of a member of Congress as per their retirement packages, I know they have them. All it does is encourage them to serve well past the point of their sanity (assuming they entered into office with sanity in the first place).

Hacker

What percentage is "hefty", precisely? Can you give us an exact figure?

rickyp

The second news-related category, comprising news/talk/information and talk/personality, has far more stations: 4,012 in all, according to December 2011 Arbitron data. With 12% of Americans 12 and older listening weekly, it ranks as the second most popular format behind only country musi

http://stateofthemedia.org/2013/audio-d ... e-numbers/
Most Talk radio, 92%, is "conservative.

570: Hours of conservative talk broadcast by those radio stations each day.
254: Hours of progressive talk broadcast by those stations each day.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/ ... e-numbers/
Now, Rush is collapsing as sponsors have abdandond him... But the format seems strong. According to Roper in 1993 42% of Americans 18+ listened to some talk radio and 17% listened frequently... 20 years later, the Arbitron numbers above indicate that though the overall has eroded, there is still a strong market segment.

hacker

because listening to Rush a few times and saying "God, American talk radio is NUTS!" is not what I would call an informed judgment.

No? How many times would one have to listen to Rush, Hannity, Savage or Laura to be able to make this statement? Please be precise.
Listening once would dismay. Listening twice, would repel, Lintening thrice and one picks up the patterns and the techniques they all employ.
There is a stretch when driving between Toronto and Montreal where there are few radio signals except the talk radio across the border.... The saving grace is that NPR can often be found as well.

hacker

Actually you've said quite the opposite of that in this thread

Quote me.

hacker

For heaven's sake, Ricky! You just said we should do precisely that (the multiparty thing), now you're saying you don't know if it's possible at this point. Which is it?!

Saying a strategy should be followed, and that it will or can be followed are two different things Hacker....
I say that my obese friend Fred should cut down on his caloric intake and get regular exercise. But I despair that he ever will...He isn't wired that way.

hacker

While I do not know the precise emoluments of a member of Congress as per their retirement packages,

The financial benefits of being a conressman are not limited to the formal compensation and benefits offered for their serivce. The greatest reward comes from the payoff when they enter into private business and sometimes when the benefit from the ability to make lucrative stock transactions based on insider information that would get them convicted of a crime if they were anyone else.
(The third link I offered oin my response to your "what corruption" line of thought.

So far, on the paper on Gingrich Senators. Some of it I do not know what to make of it. I am not going to just believe him because he's a college professor and he used a lot of sources. Then again, he could be right.

There is one problem with his thesis: the back shows "The 33 Gingrich Senators". Take a look at their "tenure". 15 of them are no longer in Washington, some by many years, too. So there's really only 18, right? He does not say how that would affect the count and the statistics. If his stats are truly dependent on all 33 of these Gingrich senators, then his stats would be off the mark quite a bit, right? In fact, the footnote says that Sen. Gramm of TX, the data only reflects his service as a Republican, not as a Democrat. So how does that affect the stats? Some of it I am not entirely clear on, I have to go through it again. By the way, some of it does seem to be very pro-democratic in its leanings, rather than truly "objective" and "academic". Those 18 senators that are still there on the Gingrich list of his, well, there are, what another 30 Republicans besides them? Interesting that he is only using the Republican senators data....but again I am not making a real judgment for or against this paper.

12%. Hefty percentage, buddy. No I can't go through 28 pages and quote on your that, and you still do not seem to realize that Wall Street is the better place to make money legally but shadily than Washington. NEVER said there is no corruption or shenanigans on the Hill. And I find your comment on "saying a strategy should be followed..." about your friend's caloric intake as you used as an example, to be quite fatuous. Unnecessary, too.

And you realize, the Center for American Progress isn't exactly, uh, friendly to anyone not on the Left, do you? While I sympathize with your comment about how much should one listen to Hannity, Rush, etc, yes it's a little.......tiring. But you said "to be informed" and it takes more than a few minutes usually to be informed about something. I think Churchill said it best: the greatest argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

And what "what corruption line of thought"?

hacker

No I can't go through 28 pages and quote on your that, and you still do not seem to realize that Wall Street is the better place to make money legally but shadily than Washington

You know what Insider trading is Hacker? What Martha Stewart went to jail for?
Congressmen are legally allowed to engage in insider trading... And they do so to great advantage.
http://www.thewire.com/national/2011/11 ... aft/44928/

Hacker

And what "what corruption line of thought"?

Neither you nor I can say for sure exactly what goes on in the backrooms of the Capitol Building...because neither you nor I have been in the backrooms of the Capitol Building

No clue what you mean by "insider trading". And I've never heard of Martha Stewart. Nope, neither rings a bell.

So this thread has come full circle and we're back where we began. How depressing. It was a pretty good thread for the most part.

forgive my sarcasm, but yes of course I know what insider trading is. Actually I wasn't aware that congressmen are allowed to engage in it. I was told by someone who works in Washington, that they have to put their stocks and stuff into a blind trust when they get elected (or even run for office for that matter).

Alas, Martha Stewart is not running for Congress. If she had, it would have probably gone better for her...though she'd probably just piss off the President by telling him about proper table linens and centerpieces at state dinners.

BTW Ricky, I am not saying out of hand that I disbelieve you or the paper from the political journal you showed me, just to be careful that you believe everything that is in any kind of political journal. They do (thankfully) tolerate a vast range of political opinions. And Just as I have never met a reporter without an opinion, I have never met a political science professor without an opinion. Sadly, enough, they don't always withhold them from their students...or their published papers.

In summation however, I suppose it's possible. But like I said, only 18 "Gingrich Senators" are still in Congress. Not 33. Look at the table in the back. I fail to see how the remaining 15 could still be poisoning the political system whilst in retirement.

Did I ask you guys if you've seen the movie The Iron Lady? I was trying to flip through the thread to see if I have, but having some problems getting to previous pages.

Nah, never seen it. Tbh it doesn't really interest me to watch a biopic about a politician who still feels really recent. I guess 25 years is quite a long time in politics but memories of the Thatcher years are still fresh in this country.

On politicians and insider trading - as insider trading is illegal anyway, of course politicians "can't" do it. On the other hand, there are ways to profit from such things without being obvious - such as you get a friend to invest for you.

I have not seen Iron Lady. Not really much of a fan of Streep anyway - at least not when she is trying to be a 'character'. I will see Pride soon though, which is about the Miners' Strike and the common cause found between gay activists and trade unionists (that they felt the Thatcher government was hitting them hard).

There really weren't a lot of open-minded liberals in the coal mining communities back then. Even today you're far more likely to find examples of every kind of bigotry down your local working men's club than most anywhere else in the country.

danivon

On politicians and insider trading - as insider trading is illegal anyway, of course politicians "can't" do it

Actually, they can. They are exempt from insider trading laws...

A 60 Minutes report on Sunday examined the ways that members of Congress trade on inside, privileged information to make themselves rich — without breaking any laws. Even though many positions in the federal government are bound by conflict of interest laws, Congresspeople are exempt from insider trading rules and are perfectly free to make business deals based on information they learn through their jobs

.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... ns/308692/

this is an inddepth article on the astounding legal loophole

Ricky: by the way, I looked up those so-called "Gingrich Senators" from the paper you showed me. Interestingly enough, the data on how often these @#$! vote with their party or "cross the floor", as a percentage, doesn't square with the data I collected on the GOP senators in Congress currently. Which there are 18 of, not 33, as I pointed out. Somewhat, but not entirely. And this is only the Republican senators I've checked (I wonder why the professors who wrote the article only concentrated on the GOP senators on the back page, and didn't mention the other group of senators he was talking about, who were Democrats). I could, if you want me to, check all 100 current senators to see the percentage of time they voted with the party line. It might put some doubts into the professors' thesis, here.

I'm curious Ricky. I salute your efforts to seek out and find only information that precisely supports your point of view...I don't doubt that maybe some of them get away with what's clearly illegal, good for you to point that out to me. Thank you very much. However, I'm curious how you do it. The moment someone argues something here, you Google it to prove them wrong? (or failing that, Washington Post it?)

While I admit that's normally what someone does to prove a point in an argument (bring up facts to support their viewpoint, etc.), have you ever tried to look for sources to prove yourself wrong, just in case? Or just for giggles?

I understand what you're saying Danivon, about things that are illegal but some people do them anyway. It's difficult to protect against that, and you're right I think: the minute you pass a law, someone finds a clever way to avoid it. And most of these bastards were lawyers anyway.

Yeah it always makes me giggle when a lot of my gay confreres have an AFL-CIO or some such sticker on their bumper...right next to one from Equality Maryland. Well, no, not giggle at all really. But you get the idea.

The Maryl Streep movie: it got me thinking about something one of you said here. Well, a line from (it was either The Iron Lady or The House of Cards)...one of you said something about "strong government with the ability to act." Well, they always talked about "the smack of firm government" under Thatcher, I understand (and under Francis Urqhuart as well).

If they did indeed say it under Thatcher, do you now see what I mean about being rather alarmed to hear someone from a perfectly good western democracy talk about requiring "strong government"? The smack of firm government sounds kinda fun, in a kinky sorta way, but a Smack is a Smack. I think there's a happy medium between Stalin and anarchy. If Thatcher is still hated in your country, perhaps government should smack a little less firmly?

Sorry I don't mean to resurrect that. I just saw the movie the other day (and The House of Cards) and it got me thinking about that...

I dunno, man, I loved Streep in The Devil Wears Prada. Hilarious. I think she's a pretty versatile actor (but that's probably a topic for another thread!)