GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Thursday called the Senate “the most privileged nursing home in the country.”
In response to a question about Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) apparently freezing up on Wednesday while taking questions in Covington, Ky., Haley said on Fox News that the Kentucky senator has “done some great things, and he deserves credit,” but emphasized that “you have to know when to leave.”
““No one should feel good about seeing that any more than we should feel good about seeing Dianne Feinstein, any more than we should feel good about a lot of what’s happening or seeing Joe Biden’s decline,” Haley said. “What I will say is, right now, the Senate is the most privileged nursing home in the country.”
Well what do you know? I agree with Nikki Haley on something.
She ain’t wrong (huuuge edit: ON THIS SUBJECT QUOTE)
The average age IS pretty fucking high. Fresh blood would be good, methinks. Most of these codgers are career politicians who’ve just cling to their positions for decades
I agree with you and her as far as health care but I doubt McConnell and Feinstein are actually enjoying their golden years. You’d expect a nursing home to help with that part.
Oh well I don’t feel sorry for them as they are power addicted idiots.
They look miserable. But I don’t know if Feinstein is power addicted at this point and not just entirely confused and pupeteered by other people. I wonder what she would answer if you asked her how old she is right now.
Good point.
A stopped clock is still right twice a day.
Joe Biden’s decline? Look, I don’t like having great-grandpa in the Whitehouse or Senate or Supreme Court, and I think we should have an age limit, but there’s no need to invent a “decline” to make a point.
Damn if she’s not right about that.
She is but I can’t help but think she has unstated motives for saying it.
Benching Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are her motive for starters, and there are a lot more that are only a few years younger: this isn’t about age nearly as much as it’s about freeing influence and power from a handful of titans on the D side.
It’s also about pushing the Senate closer to R control, and making it easier to target Dianne Feinstein by removing any whataboutery involving Mitch McConnell. In his own right, Mitch McConnell is also an albatross to many in his own party, so for them this is two birds with one stone.
But either way, the problem with putting in absolute age limits is that the longer you’re in Congress (either house) the more power you accrue, and when you’re good anyway this gives you the potential to be spectacularly good, and to push through legislation for average Americans that would not be accomplished otherwise, like Ted Kennedy did for Obamacare.
Another example would be Elizabeth Warren, who created the CFPB, which gives average consumers much more leverage than the usual thoughts and prayers when dealing with big banks. Because she had the seniority and committee assignments she had for as long as she did, she was able to force this through and keep it alive despite MASSIVE pressure from big banks (big donors on both sides) to shoot it down or kneecap its power in any way they could think of. And that’s just another example of what an older, long-term Senator can do for the people. In the House, Nancy Pelosi is another example of the power and influence an older legislator can accrue, and wield for the good of the country if they are true to their oaths.
In light of that, to me, it should be up to each party to cap a particular legislator’s age on a case-by-case basis, because the chronological number just isn’t enough anymore, especially now when there are razor thin margins involved in the balance of power in both houses of Congress. It can be done responsibly without ceding any power: for example, when Ted Kennedy was sick, he simply had other senators fill his committee assignments. John McCain was another who was ill for a long time. This does not have to be an issue, and in the past it would not be. But now it’s just another convenient target to shoot down all obstacles to a bicameral majority.
It’s also worth remembering that just like with the double-faced R approach to Supreme Court nominations, if age-based term limits were passed the Rs would simply carve out exceptions for whoever they wanted while continuing to insist on adherence to the letter of the law for anyone else. Same as it ever was.
Person trying to boost popularity says popular thing.
Standard GOP tactic
- Complain about how bad the government is
- Get elected
- Make government worse
- Back to step 1
Probably. Still, I’m damned sick of the gerontocracy.
Politician reads the room and adopts the most lukewarm, obvious, low-hanging-fruit take in an effort to score free publicity. Damn, really raising the bar here.
100%. We need age and term limits for all elected offices.
We don’t want a Senate with 60 Ted Cruz’s. I agree with the other guy. Money reform first. Then we can consider age and term limits.
Abolishing the senate is the right reform for the senate.
I guess the question is: what problem are you trying to solve by instituting age limits and term limits?
If the issue is the advantage of incumbency and having entrenched politicians with large campaign funding operations behind them, then maybe a better way of solving this would be campaign finance reform that prevents private dollar donations from non-individuals and heavy restrictions on how much an individual can contribute.
All that term limits and age limits in Congress would achieve is setting an artificial barrier for those who do the job well while setting up a new group of people to benefit from the legislature’s dysfunction.
Wouldn’t it be easier to “get your guy” in if they pushed rotate people through the Senate. Its not like either situation is good. But I don’t trust Nikki for shit. I still think she’s a stooge
Power corrupts. The end. The longer you are in positions of power, the more exposure you have to influence from money. It needs to be a revolving door for every elected official. Get in. Do good things. Lead by example. Move on up or gtfo.
Just look at Bernie.
I feel like that misses a lot about how politics work. Someone just getting into office is often far too ineffective for us to allow our system to be run by first and second term legislators. First term legislators are often fairly useless because they are still learning the job. I’m not saying there is no solution to that, but it would have to be coupled with massive reform around the support mechanisms for our legislatures. You think the federal government is slow moving now, just wait until everyone in office has no idea how to do their job.
Edit: Also as others have pointed out, you’d also be terming very competent legislators along with the corrupt ones. I think people overestimate the amount of corruption in the legislative branch, due to the media creating a confirmation bias. For every evil corrupt piece of shit, there are 5-10 people you’ve never heard of just doing what they think is right (even if you don’t agree with them).
Edit2: maybe a better solution is a dementia/Alzheimer’s in person test given to all legislators past 65 every year, evaluated by a 3 doctor panel. If you fail the test, you’re legally prevented from running and forced to resign if in office. If removed the political party impacted gets to appoint the replacement, otherwise if there is no political party (true independent) the executive branch of that state gets to appoint replacement.
Haley said on Fox News that the Kentucky senator has “done some great things, and he deserves credit,”
Examples?
For one, he destroyed the legitimacy of the federal judiciary & supreme court. Which is terrible, but great. Like Voldemort.
Or Galadriel with the One Ring
Republicans consider damage to the country a great thing.
“Absolutely devastating, the worse person you know just made a great point.”
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Who cares what this monster says? Yall want federal abortion bans, lgbt bans, more environmental damage and worse access to medicare?
Nikki actually doesn’t want federal abortion bans. She has advocated for a state’s only approach.
Of course, attacking McConnell’s health was part of the game plan. She’s not wrong though.
This is due to the rules of the Senate which state that committee seniority is given to the longest serving members. Both sides keep people in office as long as possible to secure these important positions.
Wow that huge bigot finally said something good. Let’s see where she is at 80.
She’s not wrong…
In the world*
