The Bluesky thread on the midnight session where Johnson tried to ram through a 5 year approval with significant revisions no one had seen is gobsmacking. Most transparent, only if you are looking for most transparently corrupt and evil administration ever. This is such a vile thing to do to a democracy.
https://bsky.app/profile/lizagoitein.bsky.social/post/3mjpar...
America's greatest digital senator (by country miles) has also ongoingly been posting up a storm about how the current usage of FISA has more Bush era secret interpretations they won't tell us, that is authorizing them to spy broadly on Americans. One of many examples:
https://bsky.app/profile/wyden.senate.gov/post/3mjkquz34uc2a
This is actually an issue where almost anyone calling their electeds in the House and Senate will probably reach someone where the is a tiny, marginal effect.
And regardless of your feelings on his political positions, in his extremely lengthy time in the House and Senate, he has only gotten three bills he sponsored passed - two renaming post offices, and a VA benefit increase.
Despite having a position of power for a very long time, he has been completely ineffective at wielding that power to achieve any of his goals.
If he was not able to change policy in any way as a Senator, how would he be able to do so as a President?
He can veto a bill then get it overridden. He has already proven 100% he lets the more conservative parts of Congress walk all over him - he can have the best ideas in the world but that won't change a thing.
If you want someone to make people discuss ideas - great, you can be at a think tank. The point of electing someone to political office is to get bills passed, so that things actually change.
Your claim is his acting as a voice for America abroad has not benefited the US?
"Walk all over..." when he is clearly out numbered not just in Congress but by voters. You want him to show up with a flamethrower and show what he's really made of?
You're not at all engaged in a sincere discussion. Coming off like an intentional astroturfer just out to propagate Bernie hate
Don't get me wrong I am not a Bernie Bro. Just aware there is a world outside him working against him this whole time too.
He can do that without being an elected congressman.
If you are elected to congress, your job is to get bills passed.
If you like his politics, there are other people like Elizabeth Warren that have remarkably similar political positions, yet are some of the most highly effective politicians in the sense of enacting policy.
Oh, but she is a woman. So better support Bernie instead.
The conspiracy of people who hate the left are the ones who prop of Bernie, because he is a joke. The more the left supports Bernie, the more people like Warren struggle to get elected, and the authoritarian likes that because Warren is actually a formidable foe, so they want to prop up ineffective people like Bernie instead.
> If you are elected to congress, your job is to get bills passed.
This is a vast oversimplification. Your job is to represent your consistuents. In many cases, this means your job is to stop bills from getting passed, especially in the current political situation.
> The more the left supports Bernie, the more people like Warren struggle to get elected
This is a very strange take. Sanders and Warren are mostly close allies and rarely compete. Both are successfully elected Senators, from separate states. Warren declined to run for President in 2016 and appeared to be supporting Sanders. In 2020 they both ran for President, but guess what, neither one of them won the Democratic nomination. In any case, it's important to recognize that elections are popularity contests and not competency tests, as should be obvious from our current President.
The issue is not even "the left." Sanders is more popular than Warren, indeed more popular than almost any politician of any party (including male politicians, if you insist on making this about gender), among political independents. Because of his popularity among independents, he's the most popular politician in the US and would have a better chance of winning the Presidency than any Democrat (of any gender), but the Democrats nonetheless refuse to nominate him. If Warren were equally popular among independents, then Democrats should nominate her, but she's not. Of course this lack of popularity among independents is not specific to Warren: most non-Democrats dislike Democrats.
In 2016, Sanders put up an unexpectedly stiff challenge to Clinton, who was considered an overwhelming frontrunner at the beginning of the race. The natural next step for the left would be to build on that momentum and push Sanders over the top in 2020. In my opinion, it's quite delusional to expect that the left would for some bizarre reason abandon Sanders in 2020 and throw their support behind Warren instead. That would make little sense. Why start over from scratch? In any case, I doubt that Warren would have fared better. The establishment doesn't want a leftist, no matter who, and they quickly conspired to consolidate around Biden, who didn't even pick Warren as his running mate.
True. Maybe Ro Khanna/Massie. Honestly those good tickets have minimal support. People don't pay attention enough. Will get more establishment figures. Probably Rubio vs Newsom. No reason to vote then.
If you think the democrats and the republicans are equivalent you are purposefully ignorant.
We are getting what would be admin ending scandals every other day for over a year and actual Americans are being killed because of their poor governance.
Goddamned Americans had it too easy for too long an forgot how much infrastructure and planning goes into running a superpower.
It is not possible to eye roll hard enough at this.
In the US (and to a lesser extent, the UK), you vote for whichever you believe to be the least bad candidate, or tactically for whoever will keep whoever you believe to be the most bad candidate out of office.
It is exceptionally uncommon that you get to vote for someone rather than against.
when will the dems learn that the dnc is just republican lite
we need completely new thought to unseat "both" sides of the US government and return it to washington's ideal of "political parties fucking suck" (paraphrased)
58 comments
Left publication also has a scoop on the negotiations with Freedom caucus too that proceeded this; rather interesting: https://prospect.org/2026/04/17/mike-johnson-fisa-fiasco-sec...
America's greatest digital senator (by country miles) has also ongoingly been posting up a storm about how the current usage of FISA has more Bush era secret interpretations they won't tell us, that is authorizing them to spy broadly on Americans. One of many examples: https://bsky.app/profile/wyden.senate.gov/post/3mjkquz34uc2a
Despite having a position of power for a very long time, he has been completely ineffective at wielding that power to achieve any of his goals.
As a Senator he is invited around the world to discuss his ideas
If he was not able to change policy in any way as a Senator, how would he be able to do so as a President?
He can veto a bill then get it overridden. He has already proven 100% he lets the more conservative parts of Congress walk all over him - he can have the best ideas in the world but that won't change a thing.
If you want someone to make people discuss ideas - great, you can be at a think tank. The point of electing someone to political office is to get bills passed, so that things actually change.
"Walk all over..." when he is clearly out numbered not just in Congress but by voters. You want him to show up with a flamethrower and show what he's really made of?
You're not at all engaged in a sincere discussion. Coming off like an intentional astroturfer just out to propagate Bernie hate
Don't get me wrong I am not a Bernie Bro. Just aware there is a world outside him working against him this whole time too.
If you are elected to congress, your job is to get bills passed.
If you like his politics, there are other people like Elizabeth Warren that have remarkably similar political positions, yet are some of the most highly effective politicians in the sense of enacting policy.
Oh, but she is a woman. So better support Bernie instead.
The conspiracy of people who hate the left are the ones who prop of Bernie, because he is a joke. The more the left supports Bernie, the more people like Warren struggle to get elected, and the authoritarian likes that because Warren is actually a formidable foe, so they want to prop up ineffective people like Bernie instead.
> If you are elected to congress, your job is to get bills passed.
This is a vast oversimplification. Your job is to represent your consistuents. In many cases, this means your job is to stop bills from getting passed, especially in the current political situation.
> The more the left supports Bernie, the more people like Warren struggle to get elected
This is a very strange take. Sanders and Warren are mostly close allies and rarely compete. Both are successfully elected Senators, from separate states. Warren declined to run for President in 2016 and appeared to be supporting Sanders. In 2020 they both ran for President, but guess what, neither one of them won the Democratic nomination. In any case, it's important to recognize that elections are popularity contests and not competency tests, as should be obvious from our current President.
The issue is not even "the left." Sanders is more popular than Warren, indeed more popular than almost any politician of any party (including male politicians, if you insist on making this about gender), among political independents. Because of his popularity among independents, he's the most popular politician in the US and would have a better chance of winning the Presidency than any Democrat (of any gender), but the Democrats nonetheless refuse to nominate him. If Warren were equally popular among independents, then Democrats should nominate her, but she's not. Of course this lack of popularity among independents is not specific to Warren: most non-Democrats dislike Democrats.
In 2016, Sanders put up an unexpectedly stiff challenge to Clinton, who was considered an overwhelming frontrunner at the beginning of the race. The natural next step for the left would be to build on that momentum and push Sanders over the top in 2020. In my opinion, it's quite delusional to expect that the left would for some bizarre reason abandon Sanders in 2020 and throw their support behind Warren instead. That would make little sense. Why start over from scratch? In any case, I doubt that Warren would have fared better. The establishment doesn't want a leftist, no matter who, and they quickly conspired to consolidate around Biden, who didn't even pick Warren as his running mate.
We are getting what would be admin ending scandals every other day for over a year and actual Americans are being killed because of their poor governance.
Goddamned Americans had it too easy for too long an forgot how much infrastructure and planning goes into running a superpower.
But I suppose others are downvoting for your combativeness.
> No reason to vote then.
It is not possible to eye roll hard enough at this.
In the US (and to a lesser extent, the UK), you vote for whichever you believe to be the least bad candidate, or tactically for whoever will keep whoever you believe to be the most bad candidate out of office.
It is exceptionally uncommon that you get to vote for someone rather than against.
we need completely new thought to unseat "both" sides of the US government and return it to washington's ideal of "political parties fucking suck" (paraphrased)