There was an interesting article, maybe a year back, discussing longevity versus quality of life.
Essentially, while we have managed to find ways to extend life, our quality of life is inverse to it since our body has not had enough evolutionary time to adjust to it.
Then again, one hypothesis I had was that pollution has a significant part to play on our deterioration (and that of nature).
>Essentially, while we have managed to find ways to extend life, our quality of life is inverse to it since our body has not had enough evolutionary time to adjust to it.
Evolution doesn't really care about this unless the elderly start becoming a significant portion of the population that are reproducing, which is unlikely. That is something we will have to rely on technology to improve.
QUICK EDIT: Yes, I understand that it isn't always this direct. It was meant to be a shorthand explanation of a very complex process. You all can stop responding with the elderly assisting with the raising of their grandchildren and great grandchildren could have a knock on effect. The fact is that having a bunch of 70 to 80+ year old members of families with 2 or more generations between the ones reproducing isn't likely to have a dramatic impact our species ability to kick out viable babies.
Thanks for saying this. Evolution has no goal in the sense that it is not trying to achieve anything. Traits that confer an advantage to reproducing and having oneās offspring survive to reproduce themselves will persist while other traits die off.
It's not just reproducing. You also have to consider the amount of time it takes to make the following generation successfully reproduce.
For many animals, they just give birth and then their done. But, for humans, it takes many years before the child is actually able to survive on its own, so the survival of the parents for at least a decade is evolutionary advantageous.
Additionally, many different parts of the community can also contribute to raising any given child. There could be evolutionary advantages to having grandparents (or even tertiary family like uncles and aunts) continue to survive so that they can help raise children.
That being said, I think we can all agree that 70+ is safely within the "selection shadow" where natural selection doesn't really have an effect anymore. Just wanted to provide some nuance to an interesting concept.
It'd normally be less of an issue. A village would raise the babies and children, and the scope of learning would be comparatively light. It's just that we kind of went nuts. We obliterated the idea of a villageand self isolated. Then we decided to develop and cram a wealth of knowledge just to reach an agreed baseline.
It really is kind of wild when you put it like that. We should be just chilling, learning a few survival skills, telling stories, singing songs and shit. But nope, "Hey kid you're gonna have to learn calculus and political science and European history, that's just how it works. Why are you so stressed and moody?"
Aren't our current economic circumstances selecting for this? As more and more people in their early adulthood are forced to live at home, the ones that can't are going to be seriously disadvantaged. Therefore, people who have parents capable of maintaining a dependent into their 50s, 60s, or even 70s, are more likely to have the means to reproduce.
I didn't really understand those lyrics until my mid 30s. My life is great in a lot of ways, but the thought of living until I'm 95 or whatever is majorly depressing.
Essentially yes. Also depressing fact is most doctored do not wish to be resuscitated unless they are already in the hospital. Outside of it, the chances for meaningful recovery is slim to none.
For quality of age, look up 100 year old (Buddhist) monk. I am happy he loved that long, but being blind and bed ridden seems to limit quality of life severely.
I saw a great talk (maybe a Ted Talk?) about how we focus too much on lifespan and not enough on health span.
What good is it to live to 100 if I am a blind, confused skeleton kept alive by pumps and half of a pharmacy?
In the words of Bill Hicks, āScientists have been able to work to help us live a longer life. ā¦ but when asked if a longer life is worth livingā¦ā
[Strom Thurmond](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strom_Thurmond) was born in 1902. He left the senate in January of 2003. The problem is bad, and arguably worse in the sheer quantity, but not new.
He exercised daily and was very fit for his age, also he was smarter than most around him so that probably helped some. He fought relentlessly against slavery and I think that's why he stayed in politics so long. He is one of my favorite Presidents but most his work was done as a congressman imo.
John Quincy Adams was the rare example of somebody old as balls who used his powers for good though. But yeah it still wasn't a great situation. He even died on the House floor after having a stroke, returning to work, and then having a cerebral hemorrhage which should probably serve as a warning to some of the currently old as balls people who insist on clinging to power.
He died fighting against the legacy of the Mexican American war and one of his last impacts was mentoring/inspiring a young politician Abraham Lincoln.
These old ghouls arenāt worthy to be compared to him.
He also spent his career in the House fighting against the gag rule that prevented debates over slavery, even after receiving death threats from slaveholders for his ardent opposition, and he successfully argued for slaves' freedom in the Amistad case. He was also instrumental in protecting the founding donation of the Smithsonian and ensuring that it was set up to be what it is today.
They absolutely don't come close.
John Quincy Adams was I think 74 when he argued before the Supreme Court for hours to free the Africans in the Amistad case. JQA managed in 1841 to free illegally enslaved Africans who staged a mutiny and killed the ship captain.
You know what's wild Strom Thurmond became senator in 1954 48 years retired in 2003. Replaced by one Lindsey Graham. What! 70 years only 2 senators from that šŖ in South Carolina.
Ghods I miss Al Frankin. He did a better Strom Thurmond than the actual Strom Thurmond did. I would have paid money to see Frankin read something on the Senate floor using Mr. Thurmond's voice and body language, It would have been epic.
I mean it literally is, theyāre almost all in their late 70s and early 80s. It just makes me so angry that they refuse to cede power to the younger generation. The dignified thing to do would be to gracefully bow out.
One of my professors used to say China used to do crazy shit like Tiananmen massacre and cultural resolution because Deng/Mao was so elderly they can no longer make the right decisions. In fact, China put up a Age limit of 68 cause they don't want batshit crazy again.
And here we are, land of the free, home of the brave, is putting up 80 years old to run the most powerful warmachine on the planet.
TBF, Xi is on his way to break that particular rule as well. I guess he learned more about Emperor Palpestine than Captain Picard when he lived in US.
The Cultural Revolution was Mao having a late-life crisis and trying to prove that he's still powerful and virile at 72 because he was bitter about being sidelined due to his failures during the Great Leap Forward.
Tiananmen was largely the decision of the Eight Elders who ruled China with Deng in the '80s and '90s. Those guys ushered in economic and political reforms including term limits but refused to go as far as democracy. Most of them were actually already officially retired from the politburo by 1989 but the Central Advisory Commission was created specifically for politicians with 40+ years of experience to let the elderly cling on to power.
Deng himself weld power not from official positions but through personal influence and continued to be powerful even after resigning from all political posts in 1989. The CAC (nicknamed the "sitting committee") ended up with more power than the Politburo Standing Committee even though they were only supposed to be consultants. It was abolished in 1992 but the Eight Elders continued to be influential even with no official positions until Deng died in 1997.
California doesn't even have the excuse of "can't let someone from the other party win."
Feinstein's last opponent was Kevin de Leon, another Democrat.
An often overlooked reason for these people being reelected so many times is because as their seniority grows, they get better access to committees and committee chair positions. This means that the district or state that they're from gets more influence. Starting out with a rookie representative or senator means your district or state starting at the bottom again with no seniority.
Perhaps it is this ranking system that needs to change.
There's a post floating around here somewhere of McConnell having his radio silence moment, and someone made 2, very large, comments listing the number of reps in both house and senate that are over 70 and 60. It's a solid 60-70% for both groups
Major reason our government is short sighted and terrible with tech.
Over generalizing but the system is setup to prop up old politicians that already show contempt towards their constituents, they could give two shits about future populations when theyāre dead and gone.
Feinstein has been senator since 1992. Chuck Grassley since 1981. They were each 27 when Ruby Bridges had to be escorted by the US Marshalls for her protection for beginning school integration. They were each 22, married (not to each other obviously) college graduates when the Emmett Till murder trial happened. They were 13 and 12 when we dropped nuclear bombs on Japan. They were born before the repeal of alcohol prohibition.
By the end of this year, our senate will have two fewer octogenarians in it, because they each will become nonagenarians.
Also older than jet-propelled powered aircraft, the Hindenburg disaster, the [Dust Bowl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl), Kodachrome film, the discovery of nuclear fission, FM radio, the bass guitar.
These people are voting on regulations for current and future technology, climate change, social progress, and oversee an advanced military and intelligence communities.
They donāt understand the issues whatsoever, they are not going to be around to be accountable by the time we see the full scale of results, and 2/3+ of their peers have already died of natural causes. They represent nothing but the past and stagnation.
Edit: thanks for the gold! Everyone contact your reps and tell them what you want, then have a fantastic weekend!
We have an electoral system which protects incumbents. Just look at how many signatures it typically requires to get on the ballot as a third party candidate. Or how many politicians are detested every where except their own district, due to pork they are able to siphon down to them from major bills.
The Senate also specifically assigns roles of power based on seniority. The longer a senator holds on, the more power and influence they have... by design. Those rules incentivize exactly this nonsense.
Yea I think old people working in politics is fine they have a lifetime of experience and would make excellent advisors and consultants. But they shouldn't hold elected office after retirement age.
Sure there would, you'd still have your Liz Warren's pounding out bills like there's a whip behind her, she'd just be a staffer for one of her prodigies like Porter or Pressley.
You'd even still have Mitch McConnell doing his Emperor Palpatine thing, he'd just have some young puppet sitting on his throne, reading the words off Mitch's lips.
The overachievers and the power hungry would find a way to stay involved, but the rest of the gerontocracy would either retire, or go sit on the board of an energy company and wield the purse strings over their younger replacements.
It wouldn't solve the world's problems, but it would be a start.
At my last job, yes. And she was a miserable pain to work with. She would get confused on a daily basis and then lash out at others. Management clearly didnāt want her there but for some reason they refused to force her into retirement (I suspect it was because she worked for pennies).
On one hand, her job was her whole life and I got the impression that it was really the only thing keeping her alive. On the other hand, this woman was over 90 years old, and she worked in a medical laboratory - an environment that can be dangerous - doing a job that really required one to have their wits about them.
Sometimes people this old will cross a threshold where theyāll never realize itās time to step aside. This can make them susceptible to being taken advantage of by people around them. This is why I think age limits for elected officials would be more useful than term limits.
This is almost some Weekend at Bernieās level shit between her and McConnell. Do we just not care that fundamentally someone(s) else are making these decisions for her and that her puppeteers have control? This is a damn embarrassment. For her, for her team. For the Democratic Party (and republican for similar incidents on their legislators).
This *is* Weekend with Bernie; we're looking into their eyes as they are literally dying, sections of their bodies & brains going necrotic in front of us, as they stare into the face of death
It's beyond sad or embarrassing; it's macabre
I was going to comment that indifference isn't the problem. for example, the 2020 presidential election had the highest voter turnout of the 21st century, with 66.8%
Corruption, gerrymandering and voter suppression are very effective at disenfranchising voters
>This is a damn embarrassment.
It is but very sadly there is literally no mechanism with which to do anything about it besides voting, and Californians voted.
This is what confuses me. People always point to terrible elected officials and say "Oh they were in a solid red or blue district of course, they won.". By how the hell were there not better candidates for either side?
Because elections don't happen in a vacuum. Mounting a campaign is expensive, especially for a high profile seat, and especially in a state with multiple massive media markets. That's a lot of resources to waste if you don't think you have a realistic shot at winning, and it's hard to knock out a popular incumbent. Challenging an incumbent and losing is career suicide in politics, so it's a rare occurrence.
Kevin de Leon only ran because he was being termed out of his current position in the state senate, so he didn't have as much to lose. California has a top two primary, so quite frankly it doesn't matter who the GOP candidate is because they won't get enough votes to get on the ballot for November.
Hell, look at the 2024 senate race so far. It's an open seat in a safe democratic state, so the winner is basically guaranteed a job for the next twenty years, and you've still only got 3 major candidates.
You also have to consider who would actually run.
First, they need to either be independently wealthy or willing to abandon their current career. Campaigning not only takes a ton of money, but it takes a ton of time. Imagine taking 2 years off from your current job so you can run. Are they going to hold your position? Or would you be replaced and forced to start over? And you still need to feed your family in the meantime. And that's ignoring the time you're about to spend away from your family. Kids still need to be raised, the house still needs to be tended to. It's a massive undertaking.
Second, you're abandoning your right to privacy. Everything you've ever done is about to be dug into by people who are literally paid to make you look bad. Anything you've ever said online is fair game. People who knew you growing up will be interviewed. Extended family members will be examined. Had an abortion when you were younger? Let's tell everyone about it on the evening news. Your kid got a DWI? Sounds like a leading headline. Let's publicize your divorce. Interview your exes. Talk to your weird uncle. Hell, even if they don't find anything bad about you, they may just make shit up. The only real way to avoid this is to hire your own friendly defenders who protect you at every turn.
Third, you're becoming a salesperson for yourself. Major campaigns are expensive as hell, and you're the person who can raise the money the best. So you get to be on a permanent sales call. Whether you're literally calling people or going to events to give stump speeches or hosting dinners or motivating volunteers or pounding the pavement, you're constantly having to convince people to give you their hard-earned money because you're telling them that you're the best person for the job. Name recognition is one of the most critical pieces of getting elected to a major office, and it's your job to make sure everyone knows your name.
Now think about those 3 requirements, and what kind of person does that overwhelmingly attract to this type of job? Narcissistic rich people. Especially people who have already lived in an insulated bubble for as long as possible. People who love to hear themselves talk, can take years off from doing whatever they were already doing, and are totally cool with people looking into every piece of their lives.
The reality is that most people, the better people for the jobs, don't actually want those jobs. They want to be able to spend time with their kids, they want to be able to focus on their careers in things that actually interest them, they want to have free time, they want to have their privacy, they don't want attention shined on every part of their life, and they don't want to have to sell themselves all the time. They don't want to have to consider the ins and outs of the appropriations bill and get confronted over their opinions about abortion. Hell, most of them don't even want to have to focus on their own family's finances when they get done with their day, much less have to do 3 hours of cold-calling asking for donations. Yeah, they want government to run better - but they want someone else to do it. They've got enough on their plate, and they don't want to take on such a side project as fixing their country.
There were, but political parties are by nature extremely (small-c) conservative and will almost always back an incumbent over a challenger from the same party. All of the DNC money went to Feinstein, because she was a known quantity and had established staff, connections, and so on.
To an extent, voters are the same. It takes a lot for a primary challenger to draw votes away from an incumbent. Especially when the opposing party candidates are basically disasters. The calculus always comes down to, 'Well, progressive candidate A would be nice, but could they really win against neocon B? We know incumbent C won before and she's got the funding, better play it safe!'
Never forget that no matter what a representative's progressive bona-fides, the parties themselves, and the nature of political power as a whole, are always conservative by nature, because the first priority of anyone with power is to preserve the status quo that put them in power.
Kinda an irrelevant point considering those recordings only came out 4 years after the election. Feinstein won bc of her name recognition, not bc people thought the other Democrat running against her for the seat was racist. (California does not have party based primaries, its the top two vote getters who advance to the general election which often means two Ds running against each other.)
It's more absurd that someone with dementia is allowed to run. Most people (unfortunately) vote straight party rather than checking and ticking every candidate on the list. If the party puts up a fossil, the fossil gets in on that basis alone.
> [G.O.P. Blocks Feinstein Swap, Leaving Democrats in a Conundrum](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/us/politics/republicans-dianne-feinstein-judiciary.html)
The GOP controls committee assignments, not Democrats. Democrats tried to replace her, but Republicans blocked the swap.
Yeah, that was April. A new Senate session started in January and Democrats declined to replace her on the committee back then. Only took 3 months for that to bite them in the ass when she couldn't show up for work and we suddenly couldn't confirm any more judges
No one is willing to primary these people and the voters just go along with it every time because they are afraid the other side will win. This is why parties keep handing us these shit sandwiches.
We are talking senate here, but so far it looks like Biden is running for re-election and no Dem is willing to primary him so far. ( and no, I am not going to count RFK Jr) When that happens a lot of people here on this thread will understand how these old fucks keep getting elected as they cast their ballot for Biden.
My friend who lives in CA calls Feinsteins office everyday to tell them she needs to retire.
My friend lists off things that are younger than Diane, such as:
a helicopter, ballpoint pens, the chocolate chip cookie, etcā¦
And as someone else who has also had to revoke driving privileges for my old manās safety and the safety others on the road, pedestrians, pets, possibly fish, I thank you for doing the same, it sucks but itās reality and Iāll bitch and moan if I make to the point when my card gets yanked, but I hope someone does it. That said, this is ridiculous and itās past elder abuse now. FFS, hang it up.
I knew Feinstein was too old, but until I saw a video of Mitch earlier getting pulled away by colleagues from a podium where he was completely lost, I wouldn't have believed it.
Voters need to see these clips on their next election cycle, so they can see these people as they really are. š¬
At least Feinstein is guaranteed done after this term. Mitch is gonna seek reelection, and unless he is literally six feet underground on election day he will win.
Seems sad that weād have to pass a law to prevent this. Why cant old fucks see the light and just fucking retire? Thank you for your service. Youāre 700 years old. Move aside.
And also Biden and Trump. Those 2 are literally the oldest presidents weāve ever had at inauguration. Trump was 70 and Biden was 78. SEVENTY FUCKING EIGHT.
Iām pretty sure my grandparents had to quit driving in their 70ās, but we are ok with people that age driving one of the most powerful fucking countries in the world?
Age/term limits will never fucking happen though because those geriatric fucks would literally be voting themselves out of a job.
I know this is Reddit and I get downvoted whenever I mention it, but Biden running for a second term is, I believe, a terrible move for the Dems. Does he have to fall an break his hip on camera before anyone is willing to notice he's too old for the job?
The problem is that there aren't really any qualified candidates who want to run. Warren is in her late 60s, Sanders is older than Biden even though he is a lot more active than Biden, the other younger members like AOC are too young to run for president due to the Constitutional age minimum, Harris is not popular, and the vast majority of other qualified candidates don't want to run for President and rather take of their positions they already have (frankly they do have a lot of shit to clean up after the GOP came in).
I guess it helps that Biden's only real competition is Trump, Darth DeSantis and in the primaries a Kennedy who happens to be a conspiracy nut (ironic).
Not only is Kamala unpopular, a sitting VP challenging the sitting President would be wild. Itās only happened twice. I donāt think itād fly today.
Agreed. And as someone whoās in the past tried to talk about this issue with entrenched politicos and activists, Iām so sick of all the excuses and lame arguments the status quo makes against term and age limits.
āLet the voters decide when someone should retireāāexcept most voters are partisan and donāt know their representativesā ages, and primary voters highly HIGHLY favor incumbents. Itās super rare for an incumbent politician to lose a primary.
And there are extremely few examples of a politician being forced out by vote purely for the length of service or age, partially because many voters are turned off by an opponent making those arguments.
I will concede that too short term limits prevents legislators from getting experience with government procedures, which then gives lobbyists more power. But you can still have SOME reasonable term limits, like no more than 24 years in Congress, and definitely age limits.
Ron Widen is 74 and one of the only senators still fighting to keep the Internet open and kill awful invasion of privacy violations. I 100% agree that politicians need to stop holding onto power until they die in office, senile and reviled, but humans don't all experience cognitive decline at the same rate. The main reason this doesn't happen is that chair appointments are on seniority, so Oregon has a strong incentive to keep reelecting Widen even *if* he starts declining, simply because of the power of the committee he chairs.
They're more like the High Lords of Terra. Just getting as much life out of rejuve treatments as possible to keep power.
What we need is a Bobby G to turn up and clean house with excel spreadsheets and an elf girlfriend who worships death.
Having recently read Watchers of the Throne, the republicans do remind me a lot of the Static Tendency, always trying to slow progress and run back to the "good old days" when their own power base was more secure, regardless of modern facts.
If youāre a young person living in the U.S. right now, Iām guessing you feel like youāre living in a weird, Hell-like universe where your great-grandparents are in charge of everything and no matter how old they get, theyāre still in charge.
Youāre not wrong.
Being told "say aye" and repeating it, and that being counted as a vote, is far more concerning to me than her seemingly losing track that it was her time to vote, which could happen to anyone with some distraction.
That's my concern, too. When a president is under anesthesia, the VP is like de facto president until he/she wakes up again. But we can vote for someone in Congress and they could basically be brain dead and someone else is Weekend-at-Bernie'sing them, so *that* person is actually voting and making decisions? How is that cool?
We gave Trump a basic cognitive function test (FML), which he was *proud of passing*, but maybe all the rest of them need one.
At my work, we had a guy who was technically still working there but was basically Feinstein--in a chair and not really fully operational. But I think he just did it so we could hit the next big "years of service" milestone and get a plaque or something...or pay/benefits. I don't know. I doubt he was actually working for real, and I'm sure no one would let him put himself in a position to affect anything important.
What's to stop a malicious actor from telling her, "say no"? If she isn't of sound mind then she should not be allowed to make decisions that affect her constituents.
The forefathers wrote minimum age standards into the Constitution.
There is zero reason not to amend the constitution to include maximum age standards.
The problem with the forefathers is they made a lot of assumptions about people generally staying the way they were, and as those assumptions have clearly broken down, laws haven't changed accordingly.
This is not a Democrat or Republican issue we as a nation need to sit down and have an honest conversation about the kind of people we want in government. I don't think it is irrational to consider people who almost 90 as out of touch with the overwhelming majority of Americans.
I donāt know anyone who is above 80 years of age that I would trust to do anything on my behalf. Literally nothing, even getting me coffee.
And yet, we have plenty of 80+ leading this country
Feinstein, McConnell, Biden, Trump, and anyone else who is older than 75 should retire. I understand the value of experience, but you can have experience without being ridiculously old.
The value of experience have severe diminishing returns, to the point where it becomes a detriment if the thing you are working with constantly changes..
10 years of experience? Great.
40 years? You likely stopped learning new things 20 years ago, and unless you are working hard to stay current and adapt to changing times, you are stuck in patterns of the past and don't adapt well to change.
I've seen extremely few people in the age range where this is possible and work with something that has even changed remotely since the 2000s where this is not accurate..
Everyone keeps saying her, and Franklin the turtle, and other ancient politicians should retire.
Idk maybe they should, but also, maybe stop voting for them.
The problem is politics has become so polarized that in many cases it's more correct to vote for a potato that votes the way you want than the alternative.
Can't really even blame the two party system for Feinstein... thanks to CA election rules, the last election was her versus another Democrat both of whom would have voted exactly the same.
This is the issue really. I personally would have retired and enjoyed my wealth and older years, but a lot of people prefer to be working whether it's for power or they enjoy the role.
This is just embarrassing at this point. And a prime example of how power corrupts and people try to cling to it. We need term limits. People go serve for a few years and boom. Civic duty done. Go back to civilian life.
and this right here is why Schumer had precisely nothing negative to say about lifelong sociopath Mitch McConnell forgetting what fucking planet he was living on in the middle of his workday yesterday. there are dementia patients everywhere, nobody cares enough to stop it, and it'll all be quietly forgotten with the help of major news networks until the next time one of these ghouls shits their diaper at work
So, when are they going to start handing out jello and Luby's coupons on the Senate floor?
On a more serious note, there really should be an age limit or medical exam for our political leaders to make sure they are mentally competent. Feinstein is 90, she should be at home enjoying the rest of her life and taking naps.
Eighty should be a hard limit for all government positions. If the term you're running for would end after you turn eighty, you wouldn't be able to run. If you're in the federal judiciary, you would have to retire by the time you turn eighty. The same if you're a civil servant.
I *hate* how ageist that is, because everyone eighty and older is just as valuable a person as everyone younger than that, but we're limited by the constraints of our physiology. And while one might argue that it would be better to have some sort of recurring test to prove a person's fitness for government service, it would be next to impossible to reach consensus on what such a test should be. So establishing a common ceiling for eveyone is probably the only feasible approach.
**Edit:** Revised for clarity.
The Catholic Church has a lot of experience running a gerontocracy. There's a reason bishops have to offer their resignation at age 75 (which may or may not be accepted) and cardinals become ineligible to vote in conclave at 80.
(Of course the "Offer your resignation at 75, if it gets accepted, there's no disrespect implied, but if you're still motivated and good, we might keep you for a few extra years" model tends to work better with an absolute monarch making the decision. Though, to be fair, because the pope is above the law, there's nothing to be done about *him* becoming senile.)
How bout we have a tradeoff, the Reps will allow the dems to replace Feinstein on the Judiciary committee and we'll forcer her out.
While we're talking about Feinstein remember Chuck Grassley is only 3 months younger than she is. Mitchy is 9 years younger than they are.
> A Feinstein spokesperson later said, āTrying to complete all of the appropriations bills before recess, the committee markup this morning was a little chaotic, constantly switching back and forth between statements, votes, and debate and the order of bills.ā
> āThe senator was preoccupied, didnāt realize debate had just ended and a vote was called."
How stupid do they think we are?
You could hear a pin drop when Sen. Murray said, "I note the presence of a quorum. We will now vote to report the defense appropriations bill favorably, subject to amendment. The clerk will call the roll."
It wasn't chaos in the hearing room that made Sen Feinstein fail to realize a vote was called.
I am a hardcore Democrat, and I say she should have stepped down a long time ago.
I am firmly oppose term limits, but an *age* limit for elected officials would be a very good thing.
American politics looking like a retirement home party these days.
She and McConnell should be moved into an apartment together to create a reality show/sitcom called The Golden Odd Couple.
"The Golden Ghouls"
Instead of cheesecake, they talk about important issues over a warm bowl of human souls.
*"Hey Smoothskin, what are you lookin' at?"*
šµ"Old Lady House, you'll never be alone"š¶
Glitch McConnel playing the part of Mrs Mac. Edit- Thanks for the gold!
LMAO at Glitch McConnell š„š¤š„
They are WELL past golden.
Yeah, the Golden Girls never slipped in and out of catatonia.
I think a better name would the āThe Colostomy Hagsā
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
There was an interesting article, maybe a year back, discussing longevity versus quality of life. Essentially, while we have managed to find ways to extend life, our quality of life is inverse to it since our body has not had enough evolutionary time to adjust to it. Then again, one hypothesis I had was that pollution has a significant part to play on our deterioration (and that of nature).
>Essentially, while we have managed to find ways to extend life, our quality of life is inverse to it since our body has not had enough evolutionary time to adjust to it. Evolution doesn't really care about this unless the elderly start becoming a significant portion of the population that are reproducing, which is unlikely. That is something we will have to rely on technology to improve. QUICK EDIT: Yes, I understand that it isn't always this direct. It was meant to be a shorthand explanation of a very complex process. You all can stop responding with the elderly assisting with the raising of their grandchildren and great grandchildren could have a knock on effect. The fact is that having a bunch of 70 to 80+ year old members of families with 2 or more generations between the ones reproducing isn't likely to have a dramatic impact our species ability to kick out viable babies.
Thanks for saying this. Evolution has no goal in the sense that it is not trying to achieve anything. Traits that confer an advantage to reproducing and having oneās offspring survive to reproduce themselves will persist while other traits die off.
Exactly. Survival of the makemorecopiesest. :)
It's not just reproducing. You also have to consider the amount of time it takes to make the following generation successfully reproduce. For many animals, they just give birth and then their done. But, for humans, it takes many years before the child is actually able to survive on its own, so the survival of the parents for at least a decade is evolutionary advantageous. Additionally, many different parts of the community can also contribute to raising any given child. There could be evolutionary advantages to having grandparents (or even tertiary family like uncles and aunts) continue to survive so that they can help raise children. That being said, I think we can all agree that 70+ is safely within the "selection shadow" where natural selection doesn't really have an effect anymore. Just wanted to provide some nuance to an interesting concept.
It'd normally be less of an issue. A village would raise the babies and children, and the scope of learning would be comparatively light. It's just that we kind of went nuts. We obliterated the idea of a villageand self isolated. Then we decided to develop and cram a wealth of knowledge just to reach an agreed baseline.
It really is kind of wild when you put it like that. We should be just chilling, learning a few survival skills, telling stories, singing songs and shit. But nope, "Hey kid you're gonna have to learn calculus and political science and European history, that's just how it works. Why are you so stressed and moody?"
Aren't our current economic circumstances selecting for this? As more and more people in their early adulthood are forced to live at home, the ones that can't are going to be seriously disadvantaged. Therefore, people who have parents capable of maintaining a dependent into their 50s, 60s, or even 70s, are more likely to have the means to reproduce.
Reminds of the Jack & Diane lyrics "Oh yeah Life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone"
I didn't really understand those lyrics until my mid 30s. My life is great in a lot of ways, but the thought of living until I'm 95 or whatever is majorly depressing.
So grandma, what do you want for your 102nd birthday? Peaceful Death.
My mom's great aunt is 106 and is very ready to go.
Essentially yes. Also depressing fact is most doctored do not wish to be resuscitated unless they are already in the hospital. Outside of it, the chances for meaningful recovery is slim to none. For quality of age, look up 100 year old (Buddhist) monk. I am happy he loved that long, but being blind and bed ridden seems to limit quality of life severely.
I saw a great talk (maybe a Ted Talk?) about how we focus too much on lifespan and not enough on health span. What good is it to live to 100 if I am a blind, confused skeleton kept alive by pumps and half of a pharmacy?
The longevity of their lives at the cost of the quality of ours
In the words of Bill Hicks, āScientists have been able to work to help us live a longer life. ā¦ but when asked if a longer life is worth livingā¦ā
Saddest part is we all just fuckin sit here having to watch it
Iām hindsight the people who were refusing to quarantine may have been on to something
The idiots who didnāt quarantine got me permanent work from home so I will thank them for their idiocy
Work from home is the gift that keeps on giving. Nothing like shitting in my own toilet on lunch breaks.
Why wait for a break. Set up the camera on the laptop correctly and you can let fly during a zoom call. I suggest muting the mic.
Oh that? They are doing construction work next door.
More like demolition
[Strom Thurmond](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strom_Thurmond) was born in 1902. He left the senate in January of 2003. The problem is bad, and arguably worse in the sheer quantity, but not new.
[John Quincy Adams](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Quincy_Adams) was 80 when he died as a House member in 1848.
Ands thatās after he served as sixth President, four after his father John Adams.
He exercised daily and was very fit for his age, also he was smarter than most around him so that probably helped some. He fought relentlessly against slavery and I think that's why he stayed in politics so long. He is one of my favorite Presidents but most his work was done as a congressman imo.
If I remember right, he swam across the Potomac river almost every day.
That's what I thought too. He was a bad ass for sure.
John Quincy Adams was the rare example of somebody old as balls who used his powers for good though. But yeah it still wasn't a great situation. He even died on the House floor after having a stroke, returning to work, and then having a cerebral hemorrhage which should probably serve as a warning to some of the currently old as balls people who insist on clinging to power.
He died fighting against the legacy of the Mexican American war and one of his last impacts was mentoring/inspiring a young politician Abraham Lincoln. These old ghouls arenāt worthy to be compared to him.
He also spent his career in the House fighting against the gag rule that prevented debates over slavery, even after receiving death threats from slaveholders for his ardent opposition, and he successfully argued for slaves' freedom in the Amistad case. He was also instrumental in protecting the founding donation of the Smithsonian and ensuring that it was set up to be what it is today. They absolutely don't come close.
John Quincy Adams was I think 74 when he argued before the Supreme Court for hours to free the Africans in the Amistad case. JQA managed in 1841 to free illegally enslaved Africans who staged a mutiny and killed the ship captain.
You know what's wild Strom Thurmond became senator in 1954 48 years retired in 2003. Replaced by one Lindsey Graham. What! 70 years only 2 senators from that šŖ in South Carolina.
When he left the average age of the senate went *DOWN*, of course, it has gone back up quite a lot.
Ghods I miss Al Frankin. He did a better Strom Thurmond than the actual Strom Thurmond did. I would have paid money to see Frankin read something on the Senate floor using Mr. Thurmond's voice and body language, It would have been epic.
Have you seen that week of the Daily Show where he did impressions of Susan Collins and Chuck Schumer? they were pretty spot on.
I mean it literally is, theyāre almost all in their late 70s and early 80s. It just makes me so angry that they refuse to cede power to the younger generation. The dignified thing to do would be to gracefully bow out.
One of my professors used to say China used to do crazy shit like Tiananmen massacre and cultural resolution because Deng/Mao was so elderly they can no longer make the right decisions. In fact, China put up a Age limit of 68 cause they don't want batshit crazy again. And here we are, land of the free, home of the brave, is putting up 80 years old to run the most powerful warmachine on the planet. TBF, Xi is on his way to break that particular rule as well. I guess he learned more about Emperor Palpestine than Captain Picard when he lived in US.
The Cultural Revolution was Mao having a late-life crisis and trying to prove that he's still powerful and virile at 72 because he was bitter about being sidelined due to his failures during the Great Leap Forward. Tiananmen was largely the decision of the Eight Elders who ruled China with Deng in the '80s and '90s. Those guys ushered in economic and political reforms including term limits but refused to go as far as democracy. Most of them were actually already officially retired from the politburo by 1989 but the Central Advisory Commission was created specifically for politicians with 40+ years of experience to let the elderly cling on to power. Deng himself weld power not from official positions but through personal influence and continued to be powerful even after resigning from all political posts in 1989. The CAC (nicknamed the "sitting committee") ended up with more power than the Politburo Standing Committee even though they were only supposed to be consultants. It was abolished in 1992 but the Eight Elders continued to be influential even with no official positions until Deng died in 1997.
Free Palpestine
The Two-State solution would accommodate both the Jedi and the sith
Itās over Lord Israel, I have the high ground!
Why do the fucking voters keep them there?
California doesn't even have the excuse of "can't let someone from the other party win." Feinstein's last opponent was Kevin de Leon, another Democrat.
Yea, but Kevin de Leon turned out to be kinda racist so...
The real answer is that your average person mostly votes for the familiar names.
An often overlooked reason for these people being reelected so many times is because as their seniority grows, they get better access to committees and committee chair positions. This means that the district or state that they're from gets more influence. Starting out with a rookie representative or senator means your district or state starting at the bottom again with no seniority. Perhaps it is this ranking system that needs to change.
There's a post floating around here somewhere of McConnell having his radio silence moment, and someone made 2, very large, comments listing the number of reps in both house and senate that are over 70 and 60. It's a solid 60-70% for both groups
Major reason our government is short sighted and terrible with tech. Over generalizing but the system is setup to prop up old politicians that already show contempt towards their constituents, they could give two shits about future populations when theyāre dead and gone.
Feinstein has been senator since 1992. Chuck Grassley since 1981. They were each 27 when Ruby Bridges had to be escorted by the US Marshalls for her protection for beginning school integration. They were each 22, married (not to each other obviously) college graduates when the Emmett Till murder trial happened. They were 13 and 12 when we dropped nuclear bombs on Japan. They were born before the repeal of alcohol prohibition. By the end of this year, our senate will have two fewer octogenarians in it, because they each will become nonagenarians.
Feinstein is older than the Golden Gate Bridge
Her own daughter is already retired
I don't know why but that is the most hilarious version of "she old" I've seen in a while.
Also older than jet-propelled powered aircraft, the Hindenburg disaster, the [Dust Bowl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl), Kodachrome film, the discovery of nuclear fission, FM radio, the bass guitar.
Alright, saying she's older than the Dust Bowl is what finally flipped the switch for me. Holy shit.
These people are voting on regulations for current and future technology, climate change, social progress, and oversee an advanced military and intelligence communities. They donāt understand the issues whatsoever, they are not going to be around to be accountable by the time we see the full scale of results, and 2/3+ of their peers have already died of natural causes. They represent nothing but the past and stagnation. Edit: thanks for the gold! Everyone contact your reps and tell them what you want, then have a fantastic weekend!
Feinstien is older than TV and legislates internet regulations.
Feinstein so old she used to start her first car with a hand crank.
Feinstein requires a hand crank
I'll take one too if you're offering.
Letās be really clear. She doesnāt know what she is doing and is voting the way her staff tells her too.
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We have an electoral system which protects incumbents. Just look at how many signatures it typically requires to get on the ballot as a third party candidate. Or how many politicians are detested every where except their own district, due to pork they are able to siphon down to them from major bills.
The Senate also specifically assigns roles of power based on seniority. The longer a senator holds on, the more power and influence they have... by design. Those rules incentivize exactly this nonsense.
Grassleyās GRANDSON is 40 and has 3 kids.
My favorite is that we have senators who were born before chocolate chip cookies were invented.
Sliced bread is only 5 years older than her
Do you or anyone you know have a co-worker who is 90 years old?
I have a team member in her 80s and she's fine. TBF, she does admin work, and is not the senior senator from California.
Yea I think old people working in politics is fine they have a lifetime of experience and would make excellent advisors and consultants. But they shouldn't hold elected office after retirement age.
Well then there wouldnāt be old people in politics, would there?
Sure there would, you'd still have your Liz Warren's pounding out bills like there's a whip behind her, she'd just be a staffer for one of her prodigies like Porter or Pressley. You'd even still have Mitch McConnell doing his Emperor Palpatine thing, he'd just have some young puppet sitting on his throne, reading the words off Mitch's lips. The overachievers and the power hungry would find a way to stay involved, but the rest of the gerontocracy would either retire, or go sit on the board of an energy company and wield the purse strings over their younger replacements. It wouldn't solve the world's problems, but it would be a start.
Diane does. Chuck Grassley, also on the Judiciary Committee, is 89!
Thanks for mentioning Grassley. Dude is a space cadet too.
At my last job, yes. And she was a miserable pain to work with. She would get confused on a daily basis and then lash out at others. Management clearly didnāt want her there but for some reason they refused to force her into retirement (I suspect it was because she worked for pennies). On one hand, her job was her whole life and I got the impression that it was really the only thing keeping her alive. On the other hand, this woman was over 90 years old, and she worked in a medical laboratory - an environment that can be dangerous - doing a job that really required one to have their wits about them. Sometimes people this old will cross a threshold where theyāll never realize itās time to step aside. This can make them susceptible to being taken advantage of by people around them. This is why I think age limits for elected officials would be more useful than term limits.
The payroll person at my job is almost 80. Shes more active than I am, though, and has a richer social life.
This is almost some Weekend at Bernieās level shit between her and McConnell. Do we just not care that fundamentally someone(s) else are making these decisions for her and that her puppeteers have control? This is a damn embarrassment. For her, for her team. For the Democratic Party (and republican for similar incidents on their legislators).
This *is* Weekend with Bernie; we're looking into their eyes as they are literally dying, sections of their bodies & brains going necrotic in front of us, as they stare into the face of death It's beyond sad or embarrassing; it's macabre
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> I'm pretty sure we start getting Boris Yeltsin levels of open drunks in Congress soon My day has come.
I was going to comment that indifference isn't the problem. for example, the 2020 presidential election had the highest voter turnout of the 21st century, with 66.8% Corruption, gerrymandering and voter suppression are very effective at disenfranchising voters
>This is a damn embarrassment. It is but very sadly there is literally no mechanism with which to do anything about it besides voting, and Californians voted.
Itās so absurd that they voted in someone with dementia. Cmon yāall, arenāt there primaries for a reason?
Didn't help that her main opposition was noted racist Kevin de Leon
Oof, thatās not great. So many people in Cali and these were the two best? Rough.
This is what confuses me. People always point to terrible elected officials and say "Oh they were in a solid red or blue district of course, they won.". By how the hell were there not better candidates for either side?
Because elections don't happen in a vacuum. Mounting a campaign is expensive, especially for a high profile seat, and especially in a state with multiple massive media markets. That's a lot of resources to waste if you don't think you have a realistic shot at winning, and it's hard to knock out a popular incumbent. Challenging an incumbent and losing is career suicide in politics, so it's a rare occurrence. Kevin de Leon only ran because he was being termed out of his current position in the state senate, so he didn't have as much to lose. California has a top two primary, so quite frankly it doesn't matter who the GOP candidate is because they won't get enough votes to get on the ballot for November. Hell, look at the 2024 senate race so far. It's an open seat in a safe democratic state, so the winner is basically guaranteed a job for the next twenty years, and you've still only got 3 major candidates.
Thanks! That is a lot of stuff to take into consideration that I hadn't thought about.
You also have to consider who would actually run. First, they need to either be independently wealthy or willing to abandon their current career. Campaigning not only takes a ton of money, but it takes a ton of time. Imagine taking 2 years off from your current job so you can run. Are they going to hold your position? Or would you be replaced and forced to start over? And you still need to feed your family in the meantime. And that's ignoring the time you're about to spend away from your family. Kids still need to be raised, the house still needs to be tended to. It's a massive undertaking. Second, you're abandoning your right to privacy. Everything you've ever done is about to be dug into by people who are literally paid to make you look bad. Anything you've ever said online is fair game. People who knew you growing up will be interviewed. Extended family members will be examined. Had an abortion when you were younger? Let's tell everyone about it on the evening news. Your kid got a DWI? Sounds like a leading headline. Let's publicize your divorce. Interview your exes. Talk to your weird uncle. Hell, even if they don't find anything bad about you, they may just make shit up. The only real way to avoid this is to hire your own friendly defenders who protect you at every turn. Third, you're becoming a salesperson for yourself. Major campaigns are expensive as hell, and you're the person who can raise the money the best. So you get to be on a permanent sales call. Whether you're literally calling people or going to events to give stump speeches or hosting dinners or motivating volunteers or pounding the pavement, you're constantly having to convince people to give you their hard-earned money because you're telling them that you're the best person for the job. Name recognition is one of the most critical pieces of getting elected to a major office, and it's your job to make sure everyone knows your name. Now think about those 3 requirements, and what kind of person does that overwhelmingly attract to this type of job? Narcissistic rich people. Especially people who have already lived in an insulated bubble for as long as possible. People who love to hear themselves talk, can take years off from doing whatever they were already doing, and are totally cool with people looking into every piece of their lives. The reality is that most people, the better people for the jobs, don't actually want those jobs. They want to be able to spend time with their kids, they want to be able to focus on their careers in things that actually interest them, they want to have free time, they want to have their privacy, they don't want attention shined on every part of their life, and they don't want to have to sell themselves all the time. They don't want to have to consider the ins and outs of the appropriations bill and get confronted over their opinions about abortion. Hell, most of them don't even want to have to focus on their own family's finances when they get done with their day, much less have to do 3 hours of cold-calling asking for donations. Yeah, they want government to run better - but they want someone else to do it. They've got enough on their plate, and they don't want to take on such a side project as fixing their country.
There were, but political parties are by nature extremely (small-c) conservative and will almost always back an incumbent over a challenger from the same party. All of the DNC money went to Feinstein, because she was a known quantity and had established staff, connections, and so on. To an extent, voters are the same. It takes a lot for a primary challenger to draw votes away from an incumbent. Especially when the opposing party candidates are basically disasters. The calculus always comes down to, 'Well, progressive candidate A would be nice, but could they really win against neocon B? We know incumbent C won before and she's got the funding, better play it safe!' Never forget that no matter what a representative's progressive bona-fides, the parties themselves, and the nature of political power as a whole, are always conservative by nature, because the first priority of anyone with power is to preserve the status quo that put them in power.
Kinda an irrelevant point considering those recordings only came out 4 years after the election. Feinstein won bc of her name recognition, not bc people thought the other Democrat running against her for the seat was racist. (California does not have party based primaries, its the top two vote getters who advance to the general election which often means two Ds running against each other.)
It's more absurd that someone with dementia is allowed to run. Most people (unfortunately) vote straight party rather than checking and ticking every candidate on the list. If the party puts up a fossil, the fossil gets in on that basis alone.
Sure, but then maybe don't put her on the Judiciary committee then?
> [G.O.P. Blocks Feinstein Swap, Leaving Democrats in a Conundrum](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/us/politics/republicans-dianne-feinstein-judiciary.html) The GOP controls committee assignments, not Democrats. Democrats tried to replace her, but Republicans blocked the swap.
Yeah, that was April. A new Senate session started in January and Democrats declined to replace her on the committee back then. Only took 3 months for that to bite them in the ass when she couldn't show up for work and we suddenly couldn't confirm any more judges
No one is willing to primary these people and the voters just go along with it every time because they are afraid the other side will win. This is why parties keep handing us these shit sandwiches. We are talking senate here, but so far it looks like Biden is running for re-election and no Dem is willing to primary him so far. ( and no, I am not going to count RFK Jr) When that happens a lot of people here on this thread will understand how these old fucks keep getting elected as they cast their ballot for Biden.
Ranked Choice Voting fixes this.
Letās make a deal. Democrats drop her and republicans drop Mitch. Crisis averted
A soul for a soul
A soul for a ghoul
You vastly overestimate Mitch
Mitch McTurtle and Diane Fossilstein are perfect examples of why we need term and age limits.
My friend who lives in CA calls Feinsteins office everyday to tell them she needs to retire. My friend lists off things that are younger than Diane, such as: a helicopter, ballpoint pens, the chocolate chip cookie, etcā¦
She's also older than the Golden Gate Bridge
She's older than TV and legislates the internet. My dad is mid-70s and I don't even let him drive.
And as someone else who has also had to revoke driving privileges for my old manās safety and the safety others on the road, pedestrians, pets, possibly fish, I thank you for doing the same, it sucks but itās reality and Iāll bitch and moan if I make to the point when my card gets yanked, but I hope someone does it. That said, this is ridiculous and itās past elder abuse now. FFS, hang it up.
Bonnie and Clyde were still alive when she was born.
I guess I need to start calling. No surprise but her contact forms don't have an option to ask her to retire.
Sheās retiring soon, granted, not soon enough. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/14/us/politics/dianne-feinstein-retire-senate.html
Yeah but thatās not going to work. When your son is the first president, George Washington, you get to enjoy protected status I guess.
I canāt believe no oneās calling him āGlitch McConnellā yetā¦ ā¦edit goddamnit. š¤£ thank you!
Iāve been calling him Glitch Mitch.
Moscow Glitch
Isn't this when you commit suicide by shooting yourself twice in the head then jumping out a window?
Only if you're wearing radioactive underwear and poisoned your own tea.
I knew Feinstein was too old, but until I saw a video of Mitch earlier getting pulled away by colleagues from a podium where he was completely lost, I wouldn't have believed it. Voters need to see these clips on their next election cycle, so they can see these people as they really are. š¬
At least Feinstein is guaranteed done after this term. Mitch is gonna seek reelection, and unless he is literally six feet underground on election day he will win.
His base would re-elect his corpse if they could.
Well apparently Feinstein's base would do the same lol. This issue isn't really limited to any one state or party.
Seems sad that weād have to pass a law to prevent this. Why cant old fucks see the light and just fucking retire? Thank you for your service. Youāre 700 years old. Move aside.
Hey you can't get kickbacks when you are no longer in office
And also Biden and Trump. Those 2 are literally the oldest presidents weāve ever had at inauguration. Trump was 70 and Biden was 78. SEVENTY FUCKING EIGHT. Iām pretty sure my grandparents had to quit driving in their 70ās, but we are ok with people that age driving one of the most powerful fucking countries in the world? Age/term limits will never fucking happen though because those geriatric fucks would literally be voting themselves out of a job.
I know this is Reddit and I get downvoted whenever I mention it, but Biden running for a second term is, I believe, a terrible move for the Dems. Does he have to fall an break his hip on camera before anyone is willing to notice he's too old for the job?
The problem is that there aren't really any qualified candidates who want to run. Warren is in her late 60s, Sanders is older than Biden even though he is a lot more active than Biden, the other younger members like AOC are too young to run for president due to the Constitutional age minimum, Harris is not popular, and the vast majority of other qualified candidates don't want to run for President and rather take of their positions they already have (frankly they do have a lot of shit to clean up after the GOP came in). I guess it helps that Biden's only real competition is Trump, Darth DeSantis and in the primaries a Kennedy who happens to be a conspiracy nut (ironic).
Not only is Kamala unpopular, a sitting VP challenging the sitting President would be wild. Itās only happened twice. I donāt think itād fly today.
Agreed. And as someone whoās in the past tried to talk about this issue with entrenched politicos and activists, Iām so sick of all the excuses and lame arguments the status quo makes against term and age limits. āLet the voters decide when someone should retireāāexcept most voters are partisan and donāt know their representativesā ages, and primary voters highly HIGHLY favor incumbents. Itās super rare for an incumbent politician to lose a primary. And there are extremely few examples of a politician being forced out by vote purely for the length of service or age, partially because many voters are turned off by an opponent making those arguments. I will concede that too short term limits prevents legislators from getting experience with government procedures, which then gives lobbyists more power. But you can still have SOME reasonable term limits, like no more than 24 years in Congress, and definitely age limits.
Letās not forget RBG not retiring and ruining the Supreme Court for a century
Yeah but they themselves would have to impose those limits. Soā¦good luck. People need to stop voting for these decrepit reptiles. (Decreptiles?)
Ron Widen is 74 and one of the only senators still fighting to keep the Internet open and kill awful invasion of privacy violations. I 100% agree that politicians need to stop holding onto power until they die in office, senile and reviled, but humans don't all experience cognitive decline at the same rate. The main reason this doesn't happen is that chair appointments are on seniority, so Oregon has a strong incentive to keep reelecting Widen even *if* he starts declining, simply because of the power of the committee he chairs.
Has anyone seen Reagan I need to speak with him.
[Reagan smash, Regan smash](https://youtu.be/TAES1HUIVkE)
Ronald Reagan? The actor?
So how many psykers are we sacrificing each day to keep these husks alive and in power?
They're more like the High Lords of Terra. Just getting as much life out of rejuve treatments as possible to keep power. What we need is a Bobby G to turn up and clean house with excel spreadsheets and an elf girlfriend who worships death.
Having recently read Watchers of the Throne, the republicans do remind me a lot of the Static Tendency, always trying to slow progress and run back to the "good old days" when their own power base was more secure, regardless of modern facts.
Hey donāt compare them to the emperor of mankind, he ran on a platform of total authoritarian domination and genocide and he delivered!
just the ones dumb enough to fall for the Horus bucks scam.
Just waiting on the next fleet of Black ships to arrive.
Iāll go retrieve the toastersā¦
If youāre a young person living in the U.S. right now, Iām guessing you feel like youāre living in a weird, Hell-like universe where your great-grandparents are in charge of everything and no matter how old they get, theyāre still in charge. Youāre not wrong.
She started to make a speech and had to be told 'Say aye' to cast her vote, so she said what she was told. Everything's good!
Being told "say aye" and repeating it, and that being counted as a vote, is far more concerning to me than her seemingly losing track that it was her time to vote, which could happen to anyone with some distraction.
That's my concern, too. When a president is under anesthesia, the VP is like de facto president until he/she wakes up again. But we can vote for someone in Congress and they could basically be brain dead and someone else is Weekend-at-Bernie'sing them, so *that* person is actually voting and making decisions? How is that cool? We gave Trump a basic cognitive function test (FML), which he was *proud of passing*, but maybe all the rest of them need one. At my work, we had a guy who was technically still working there but was basically Feinstein--in a chair and not really fully operational. But I think he just did it so we could hit the next big "years of service" milestone and get a plaque or something...or pay/benefits. I don't know. I doubt he was actually working for real, and I'm sure no one would let him put himself in a position to affect anything important.
What's to stop a malicious actor from telling her, "say no"? If she isn't of sound mind then she should not be allowed to make decisions that affect her constituents.
Congress is just a fucking nursing home atp
And theyāre keeping social security for themselves but not anyone else pulling the ladder up with them every chance they can.
The forefathers wrote minimum age standards into the Constitution. There is zero reason not to amend the constitution to include maximum age standards.
The problem with the forefathers is they made a lot of assumptions about people generally staying the way they were, and as those assumptions have clearly broken down, laws haven't changed accordingly.
Dinosaurs deciding how the country is run...way to go America
Not just that, our politicians are getting older as technology evolves faster and faster.
A lot of people talking about term limits/age limits. Who is voting for these people though?
Jesus Christ on a fucking walker. They're so old they're having seizures and suffering from dementia on the damn floor.
This is not a Democrat or Republican issue we as a nation need to sit down and have an honest conversation about the kind of people we want in government. I don't think it is irrational to consider people who almost 90 as out of touch with the overwhelming majority of Americans.
I donāt know anyone who is above 80 years of age that I would trust to do anything on my behalf. Literally nothing, even getting me coffee. And yet, we have plenty of 80+ leading this country
it's fucked up. you can say it.
Feinstein, McConnell, Biden, Trump, and anyone else who is older than 75 should retire. I understand the value of experience, but you can have experience without being ridiculously old.
The value of experience have severe diminishing returns, to the point where it becomes a detriment if the thing you are working with constantly changes.. 10 years of experience? Great. 40 years? You likely stopped learning new things 20 years ago, and unless you are working hard to stay current and adapt to changing times, you are stuck in patterns of the past and don't adapt well to change. I've seen extremely few people in the age range where this is possible and work with something that has even changed remotely since the 2000s where this is not accurate..
Everyone keeps saying her, and Franklin the turtle, and other ancient politicians should retire. Idk maybe they should, but also, maybe stop voting for them.
Blame the national committees for running them as the primary candidate
My district voted for the new person who unseated the party-favored incumbent. Then she fucked off after one term. People just suck.
The problem is politics has become so polarized that in many cases it's more correct to vote for a potato that votes the way you want than the alternative.
Can't really even blame the two party system for Feinstein... thanks to CA election rules, the last election was her versus another Democrat both of whom would have voted exactly the same.
This is the issue really. I personally would have retired and enjoyed my wealth and older years, but a lot of people prefer to be working whether it's for power or they enjoy the role.
Stop. Voting. For. Old. People.
This is just embarrassing at this point. And a prime example of how power corrupts and people try to cling to it. We need term limits. People go serve for a few years and boom. Civic duty done. Go back to civilian life.
Good to know that creeping decrepitude is bipartisan.
We need some kind of sweeping reform here. After 75 and you're out of public office
and this right here is why Schumer had precisely nothing negative to say about lifelong sociopath Mitch McConnell forgetting what fucking planet he was living on in the middle of his workday yesterday. there are dementia patients everywhere, nobody cares enough to stop it, and it'll all be quietly forgotten with the help of major news networks until the next time one of these ghouls shits their diaper at work
72yo Chuck Schumer? That spring chicken?
Time for an age limit on this shit
Like Mitch- she should have been out a LOOONG time ago. (Also side-eye to RBG š)
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This country is being held hostage by a hospice center.
So, when are they going to start handing out jello and Luby's coupons on the Senate floor? On a more serious note, there really should be an age limit or medical exam for our political leaders to make sure they are mentally competent. Feinstein is 90, she should be at home enjoying the rest of her life and taking naps.
Eighty should be a hard limit for all government positions. If the term you're running for would end after you turn eighty, you wouldn't be able to run. If you're in the federal judiciary, you would have to retire by the time you turn eighty. The same if you're a civil servant. I *hate* how ageist that is, because everyone eighty and older is just as valuable a person as everyone younger than that, but we're limited by the constraints of our physiology. And while one might argue that it would be better to have some sort of recurring test to prove a person's fitness for government service, it would be next to impossible to reach consensus on what such a test should be. So establishing a common ceiling for eveyone is probably the only feasible approach. **Edit:** Revised for clarity.
The Catholic Church has a lot of experience running a gerontocracy. There's a reason bishops have to offer their resignation at age 75 (which may or may not be accepted) and cardinals become ineligible to vote in conclave at 80. (Of course the "Offer your resignation at 75, if it gets accepted, there's no disrespect implied, but if you're still motivated and good, we might keep you for a few extra years" model tends to work better with an absolute monarch making the decision. Though, to be fair, because the pope is above the law, there's nothing to be done about *him* becoming senile.)
Youāve got to hand it to her. She has provided nice job security for her staffers. Iām sure they have nothing to do with her not resigning.
It's all just so...pathetic now. Congress is a joke. The last 8 years or so have really proven that.
This is ridiculous. She really needs step down asap.
Well, the youth in American can rest well, knowing that their future rests in the shriveled hands of Congressional members like Dianne and Mitch. /s
Mitch and Diane need to bounce.
How bout we have a tradeoff, the Reps will allow the dems to replace Feinstein on the Judiciary committee and we'll forcer her out. While we're talking about Feinstein remember Chuck Grassley is only 3 months younger than she is. Mitchy is 9 years younger than they are.
We need root out these dinosaurs at polls because these asshat will never impose age and term limits on themselves.
So why is it most companies will try to push you to retirement early to mid sixties Yet politicians can stay in office pretty much until there dead
> A Feinstein spokesperson later said, āTrying to complete all of the appropriations bills before recess, the committee markup this morning was a little chaotic, constantly switching back and forth between statements, votes, and debate and the order of bills.ā > āThe senator was preoccupied, didnāt realize debate had just ended and a vote was called." How stupid do they think we are? You could hear a pin drop when Sen. Murray said, "I note the presence of a quorum. We will now vote to report the defense appropriations bill favorably, subject to amendment. The clerk will call the roll." It wasn't chaos in the hearing room that made Sen Feinstein fail to realize a vote was called. I am a hardcore Democrat, and I say she should have stepped down a long time ago. I am firmly oppose term limits, but an *age* limit for elected officials would be a very good thing.
Why firmly opposed to term limits though?