Have we entered the twilight zone?
Low blood sugar. 100%. Get that man a Snickers stat and he’ll be back to his sex trafficking, child raping self.
Rofl
The stocks thing isn’t new. He, AOC and others actually co-sponsored a bill banning members of Congress from owning individual stocks.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/matt-gaetz-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-congress-stock-ban-bill/
Watch Gaetz run for governor (and then president?). Run, Gaetz, run. Most old school Regan Republicans would never go for this stuff. Limiting their own terms? Banning donations from lobbyists? Limiting SCOTUS terms and risk losing the theocratic supermajority? Gudouttahere.
Gaetz knows this. He also knows the establishment right wing media (Fox) is trying to make him the villain, “It’s not that Republicans can’t govern, it’s just that this one guy is an asshole.”
When Gaetz does shit like this, it makes him sound almost reasonable, right? Republican voters say, ok I think all that stuff would be good, so why won’t the rest of the party go along with it? Hmm, maybe Gaetz is right about House Republicans being part of the swamp. Maybe Gaetz is a true fighter for America and not the asshole that blonde lady on Fox said he was.
That’s the game. Gaetz is building some serious media coverage and name ID. I have to admit, the shit heal is making the most out of his time in the spotlight.
shit heal
Chaotic evil clerics are the worst.
+16 HP
-100 Dignity
Fucking Sharrans.
This….sounds…reasonable…? I’m with OP - confused
Like, I’m expecting to find out all his accounts have been hacked or Bernie Sanders has a gun to his head or something
He’s playing Fox New’s game against them. GOP and their media outlets want to make him him the bad guy for canning one of their own.
So he’s getting out ahead of it and saying all this stuff he knows Republican voters will agree so anyone who tries to smear him looks like deep state establishment that are entrenched in Washingtons ways. Not that he probably expects it to pass but it will give him a leg up if or rather when he tries to get Florida Governor in 2026 sincr DeSantis can’t run again due to term limits.
Same dude… I can’t figure out what he stands to gain other than just being contrarian. I never thought I’d say this but I’m actually agreeing with something that representative butthead said. Strange times we live in.
yeah. a tad shocking… like, whats the angle here? guess we will see what shakes out.
Gaetz is trying to raise his own profile and is only in this for himself. Basically the attention economy. Which he is getting plenty of by ousting the Speaker. Older politicians are facing more scrutiny and passing a term limits law would look good right now. He may be positioning himself to run for Florida governor in '26. Which means most of the stuff in Khanna’s reforms wouldn’t hurt him if he runs for state office.
I’m all for term limits and if by some weird chance Gaetz being his prick self gets it passed, then sure why not. However, I really doubt a bill like that would get passed by a republican controlled house.
appreciate the considered reply. 👍
Motion to Vacate is now what I’m calling my morning poo.
Matt Gaetz is what I call my morning poo.
Uhh, WTF?
Right??
Noted MAGA Republican Matt Gaetz, who just ousted Conservative Speaker for daring to work with Democrats, is now demanding…
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Ban money from lobbyists and political actions committees to congressional candidates
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Ban members of Congress from trading stocks and from ever becoming lobbyists
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Term limits for members of Congress
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Term limits for Supreme Court justices
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An ethics code for Supreme Court justices
What in the actual fuck?
Listed out like that, it’s not completely out of left field. The MAGA wing has been advocating for a few of those items on the list. It’s just bizarre that it’s being brought up as a bargaining chip /now/. You know - after obliterating the last R that worked with Dems. Like…what…?
he’s running the populist playbook.
Ah, yea that makes sense. It doesn’t seem inconsistent if I think about it that way.
Populism over party has a few positives. These are the sort of things Trump advocated for in his campaign that got him so much support on the right and from people who traditionally we’re “fed up” with politics in America.
His biggest rivals in the house right now are senior GOP members, not Dems. So if he can use the Dems to force his rivals out of office… well it just looks good for him.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day or something like that… still feel really awkward when I find myself agreeing with him. He’s gotta a couple of other things right too. Don’t like the man at all but I can give credit where/when it’s due.
Out of curiosity, what else has he gotten right?
If he knows he’s toast with the GOP & is defecting, we don’t want him.
Hes not defecting hes just taking advantage of the chaos. If he can term limits put through then suddenly about half or more of thr GOP in the house are not eligible to run in 2024 and he suddenly gets to be in a position of seniority and will use that freedom to prep for a 2026 Florida Governor election
The irony here is Gaetz and several other junior GOP members have pissed off the GOP seniority. So they are going to shut him down at every turn while he is trying to build steam and reputation for a '26 governor run in Florida.
So with GOP leadership locking him out, he needs to do the cardinal GOP sin of working with Democrats and actually legislate and govern to get his name on anything, and if he somehow gets term limits passed then suddenly a lot of that GOP leadership trying to control him suddenly will be out of office after 2024 and then he can really pander to his GOP base.
He rapes, but he saves.
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Term limits would just add more power to lobbyists
Can you explain why? I have a vague idea of why you would say that but can you help me clarify why term limits would empower lobiests?
If they know they are going to get fired, they will maximize the amount of money they can get paid by greasing as many hands as possible before they are kicked out.
If they know they’re going to be a Congress member for life… they’re also going to maximize the amount of money they can get paid lol
This is a very good counterpoint imo. I know it’s a bit of a slippery slope argument, but thinking about this as an “in for a penny, in for a pound” kind of scenario really does empirically align with human nature. If you’re willing to sell out for something comparably small at the start, you’ll think less of it next time your donors ask for more, and it goes on and on with no end in sight.
There’s a big gap between “congress for life” and “term limits”, and that gap mostly consists of “winning re-election”.
Winning reelection in America is more about who you know than appealing to voters. The Party protects its incumbents.
What are you gonna do? Vote for the other Party? 😂
The plan would seek to enact term limits for Congress members and Supreme Court judges, ban congressional stock trading, create a judicial code of ethics for all federal judges and Supreme Court justices, and prohibit candidates running for federal office from accepting donations from lobbyists or political action committees.
You can only do that by constitutional amendment.
I’m not familiar with a constitutional ban on term limits, and the idea has been floated by people at fairly high levels. Where do you think the restriction is, and do you think any limits could apply to new justices even if the currents are grandfathered in?
The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.
Unlike for President, Senators, and Representatives, no term is given for Federal Judges, which includes the Supreme Court Justices. They “shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour.” Once a Federal Judge, always a Federal Judge.
I’m neither a lawyer nor scholar but that wouldn’t seem to preclude term limits or explicitly establish lifetime appointments.
How long is the term of a Supreme Court Justice?
The Constitution states that Justices “shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour.” This means that the Justices hold office as long as they choose and can only be removed from office by impeachment.
But what’s the definition of “Office” in this context? The Office of the President, for example, is defined as a span of four years. President is the title and Office includes both title and time, as do many other political positions.
So what I’m saying is that there’s nothing there that says Congress cannot pass a law saying the Office of a Supreme Court Justice is defined as holding the position for six years.
Because the Constitution specifies term lengths for President, Senators, and Representatives, it is clear that the authors knew when those things needed to be specified. The absence of specifying a term length for Justices means that it is a life term; if the authors had intended there to be a term measured in years, one would have been mentioned.
While I am not a lawyer, I have read enough about intepreting the Constitution to know that that is the very longstanding way to interpret this, and that it is pretty universally accepted.
For the record, I’m playing advocatus diaboli here. I agree that your interpretation is the traditional one.
That said, it has not been challenged, as far as I know, and attributions of original intent (and by now even the application of previous rulings) are the subject of legal argumentation and opinion. My point was that the Constitution does not explicitly set a temporal component to the term of a federal justice, and it does not explicitly forbid one. This it would not take a constitutional amendment to set a term limit, but rather a finding that the law did not violate the constitution (which again would come down to an interpretation since it’s not explicitly set).
Not the term limits, the donations. The supreme court already rule via Citizens United that money is free speech, which is how PACs and dark money became legal. So to undo that, either the court has to reverse it (yeah right), or there has to be a constitutional amendment (which even the SC can’t overturn).
which even the SC can’t overturn
Technically they can by using torturous logic, but then they’d swiftly be impeached.
