Sen. Dianne Feinstein's Deterioration

[Elixir]

Can we stop with the stereotyping of people based on age!

... and color! and wealth! and education! and.... and ...


No, we can't. Humans integrate their perceptions in terms of prior perceptions.

 

[TomC]

Oh no...

I dunno.
I'm not big on forced retirement. Although, generally, term limits seem like a good idea.

But, for now, Ms Feinstein can help choose and anoint a successor. Surely she has a pretty good idea of who she would prefer took over, if she keeled over. At this point she could influence the decision a great deal. That could end suddenly on any given day.
Tom

 

[Keith&Co.]

As a senior, but I'm probably in the minority in say this: " If there is an limit already in place for the president (must be 35) then perhaps there should be a ceiling cap on age also...say 66. That would make them 70 after one term, and I honestly think that's old enough.

No.
Some people are functional way longer than others.

Maybe in the post-trump era, we can legislate that political candidates release their taxes, their stock holdings, and their test scores? Person, woman, man, camera, TV...

 

[Politesse]

I don't support forced retirement, let us be clear, in any profession.

But Senator Feinstein should not be re-elected. I say this as someone who has voted for her several times and who profoundly respects the work she has done in the Senate. This is partly why I don't like the thought of being obliged to vote against her in the next race. She deserves every accolade, but not another term.

 

[OLDMAN]

As a senior, but I'm probably in the minority in say this: " If there is an limit already in place for the president (must be 35) then perhaps there should be a ceiling cap on age also...say 66. That would make them 70 after one term, and I honestly think that's old enough.

No.
Some people are functional way longer than others.

Maybe in the post-trump era, we can legislate that political candidates release their taxes, their stock holdings, and their test scores? Person, woman, man, camera, TV...

lol This is the typical American response to change. Some people are more mature at a younger age than others...but no problem with the 35 age discrimination?

 

[southernhybrid]

I used to be against term limits but now I think they would be a great idea. Not just because of age, but sometimes individuals seem to get too power hungry, corrupted or stagnant when they are in a position for 20, 30, 40 or so years. I think there should also be term limits for judges. It's insane to appoint anyone for a lifetime, imo. It might have made sense when the country started, but people didn't usually live well into their 80s or 90s back then. It will probably never happen, but that's my two cents.

There have been Congress members and judges that stayed in their positions into their 90s, after being in office for many decades. Even if they were still sharp, that's too long to be in such a powerful position. It gives one person to much power and we never know who will abuse that power. Thank goodness that we have term limits for presidents. We need it for all positions, imo.

 

[Keith&Co.]

As a senior, but I'm probably in the minority in say this: " If there is an limit already in place for the president (must be 35) then perhaps there should be a ceiling cap on age also...say 66. That would make them 70 after one term, and I honestly think that's old enough.

No.
Some people are functional way longer than others.

Maybe in the post-trump era, we can legislate that political candidates release their taxes, their stock holdings, and their test scores? Person, woman, man, camera, TV...

lol This is the typical American response to change. Some people are more mature at a younger age than others...but no problem with the 35 age discrimination?

How would you establish that, though? How do you measure maturity?
We can demonstrate cognitive ability and it's decline. Publish the scores, let the voters decide.

What does a maturity test look like?


And, no. The 'typical' American response would be "It's in the Constitution, man! Who the fuck are you to question the god damned founding fucking fathers of the greatest nation on earth you faggot!!??!"

 

[OLDMAN]

Ha, your right, but one can't help wonder if the decline of the American society is due to continuing policies that once did but now no longer work?

 

[Keith&Co.]

Ha, your right, but one can't help wonder if the decline of the American society is due to continuing policies that once did but now no longer work?

Okay, but the solution to this sort of problem is not allowing the next Bieber or Miley to run for president the year their legion of fans turn old enough to vote.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Ha, your right, but one can't help wonder if the decline of the American society is due to continuing policies that once did but now no longer work?

Okay, but the solution to this sort of problem is not allowing the next Bieber or Miley to run for president the year their legion of fans turn old enough to vote.

Well, we allowed Trump to be President, so....

 

[lpetrich]

Colleagues worry Dianne Feinstein is now mentally unfit to serve, citing recent interactions

When a California Democrat in Congress recently engaged in an extended conversation with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, they prepared for a rigorous policy discussion like those they’d had with her many times over the last 15 years.

Instead, the lawmaker said, they had to reintroduce themselves to Feinstein multiple times during an interaction that lasted several hours.

Rather than delve into policy, Feinstein, 88, repeated the same small-talk questions, like asking the lawmaker what mattered to voters in their district, the member of Congress said, with no apparent recognition the two had already had a similar conversation.

That is according to a fellow Congressmember, who does not want to be named.

Four U.S. senators, including three Democrats, as well as three former Feinstein staffers and the California Democratic member of Congress told The Chronicle in recent interviews that her memory is rapidly deteriorating. They said it appears she can no longer fulfill her job duties without her staff doing much of the work required to represent the nearly 40 million people of California.

Sometimes she is nearly as mentally sharp as in past decades, like when questioning KBJ, but at other times, she does not recognize her colleagues.

Some of these people bristle at singling out Feinstein, when congressional history is filled with aging male politicians who remained in office despite their declining state.

...
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in a statement to The Chronicle, said she had not noticed a decline in Feinstein’s memory and noted her work on the recent reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act and the Supreme Court confirmation.

How much does NP interact with DF?

She rarely engages with the public outside her official duties as a member of Senate committees, including the Senate Intelligence Committee, which handles sensitive national intelligence, nor does she do extended sit-down interviews with the media. She does field questions from the press in the Senate hallways, but often responds by saying she doesn’t know enough to comment or gives nonspecific responses.

Feinstein has not had a town hall since 2017, according to the congressional tracker LegiStorm, and has not held any local events this year.

Talk about going downhill.

But there are signs of her struggles. Feinstein has at least one staff member with her at essentially all times in the Capitol. And the senator is guided by staff members much more than her colleagues are.

...
The episodes of the politician struggling to keep up with Senate business stand in sharp contrast with the Feinstein of years ago. In 2013, on the same Judiciary Committee, she sparred with Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas on his criticism of her landmark legislation to ban assault weapons, responding off the cuff and chiding him for implying she didn’t know constitutional law. “I’m not a sixth-grader,” she admonished.

...
Staff turnover has increased in her office in recent years, with more departures from her office each year since 2017, according to the congressional tracking service LegiStorm.

One top Democratic fundraiser who lives in the Bay Area said Feinstein’s fundraising operation has virtually shut down. She raised $5,566 last year, according to campaign filings, an extremely small amount for such a prominent politician.

The FEC filing: FEINSTEIN, DIANNE - Candidate overview | FEC

Though the Senate runs on a lot of staff work, the former staffers for Feinstein described an environment in which it was challenging to get things done due to her frequent inability to recall previous conversations or follow complicated discussions.

 

[Toni]

The article included this table:

Who	C Age	D Age
Rep. Conyers (D-MI-13)	87	35
Rep. Young (R-AK-1)	83	33
Rep. Johnson (D-TX-30)	81	33
Rep. Roybal-Allard (D-CA-4)	75	30
Rep. Serrano (D-NY-15)	73	30

C age = Congressperson's age, D age = district members' median age

That table was composed in 2017. What has happened since:

• Rep. Conyers (D-MI-13) -- resigned in 2017 (died in 2019) -- his successor, Rashida Tlaib, is 44
• Rep. Young (R-AK-1) -- re-elected in 2020
• Rep. Johnson (D-TX-30) -- re-elected in 2020
• Rep. Roybal-Allard (D-CA-4) -- re-elected in 2020
• Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY-15) -- retired in 2020 -- his successor, Ritchie Torres, is 32

Surely there is discussion of Sen. Chuck Grassley? He’s 88.

 

[lpetrich]

Feinstein pushes back on accounts that she is mentally unfit to serve as senator - The Washington Post

“The real question is whether I’m still an effective representative for 40 million Californians, and the record shows that I am,” she said in a statement Thursday.

...
In her statement, Feinstein said she spent much of her time over the past year caring for her late husband Richard C. Blum, who died in February at age 86 after battling cancer. But she said she has remained steadfast in representing her constituents despite the significant personal loss.

“I remain committed to do what I said I would when I was re-elected in 2018: fight for Californians, especially on the economy and the key issues for California of water and fire,” she wrote. “While I have focused for much of the past year on my husband’s health and ultimate passing, I have remained committed to achieving results and I’d put my record up against anyone’s.”

San Francisco paper says Feinstein should resign if she is mentally unfit | The Hill

“It remains impossible not to be troubled,” the editorial read. “If Feinstein’s mental fitness has indeed deteriorated to the point where it’s an open secret that she’s incapable of doing her job, Democrats need to forgo the jokes and say so openly.”

I like what someone commented, that she should resign before her mental deterioration gets any worse. She has had a long and distinguished career, and she ought to quit while she is ahead.

 

[Toni]

Feinstein pushes back on accounts that she is mentally unfit to serve as senator - The Washington Post

“The real question is whether I’m still an effective representative for 40 million Californians, and the record shows that I am,” she said in a statement Thursday.

...
In her statement, Feinstein said she spent much of her time over the past year caring for her late husband Richard C. Blum, who died in February at age 86 after battling cancer. But she said she has remained steadfast in representing her constituents despite the significant personal loss.

“I remain committed to do what I said I would when I was re-elected in 2018: fight for Californians, especially on the economy and the key issues for California of water and fire,” she wrote. “While I have focused for much of the past year on my husband’s health and ultimate passing, I have remained committed to achieving results and I’d put my record up against anyone’s.”

San Francisco paper says Feinstein should resign if she is mentally unfit | The Hill

“It remains impossible not to be troubled,” the editorial read. “If Feinstein’s mental fitness has indeed deteriorated to the point where it’s an open secret that she’s incapable of doing her job, Democrats need to forgo the jokes and say so openly.”

I like what someone commented, that she should resign before her mental deterioration gets any worse. She has had a long and distinguished career, and she ought to quit while she is ahead.

I don’t disagree. Some of the reasons people hang on longer than they should, ego aside, is that with length of tenure comes key committee assignments and chair positions = power and influence. Their successor, even if elected from the same party does not assume those assignments ts. Depending on the composition of either chamber, this could /often does mean relinquishing key positions to the opposition.

The other thing is that there is a learning curve to being a senator or congressman. I don’t think it is necessarily a bad thing to stay in office for several terms.

I was glad that younger people ran for office; I’ve been appalled at who was elected. Yes, we need to encourage good younger candidates to run and to help those who have demonstrated their dedication to public service and competence to gain office. But yikes! When we look at the latest bunch of incompetent attention whores who have been elected recently. Not all of them. Few who are at all unbiased would argue that AOC is NOT both qualified and capable. Marge 3 names? Cawthorne? Boebert? Hard nope.

 

[Rhea]

I agree that she should resign. I’m not a supporter of people who refuse to take an advisory role as their energy declines. It creates several unwanted problems, IMHO:

• It prevents the strong continuity we could have with active/emeritus partnerships
• It risks chaos with sudden deaths
• It risks decline of effctiveness if they are genuinely declining in capability
• It risks decline of effectiveness if they are declining in energy.

Overall - I do not want my representatives to be in. Their 80s at all. If they are still spry, they can do much good from an emeritus position.

 

[lpetrich]

Surely there is discussion of Sen. Chuck Grassley? He’s 88.

Yes indeed, but without comparison of his age to the median age of his state.

Source: How Old is Congress? | Quorum

 

[Toni]

Surely there is discussion of Sen. Chuck Grassley? He’s 88.

Yes indeed, but without comparison of his age to the median age of his state.

Source: How Old is Congress? | Quorum

Median age of Iowa is 38.2 years.

 

[lpetrich]

The other thing is that there is a learning curve to being a senator or congressman. I don’t think it is necessarily a bad thing to stay in office for several terms.

Good argument against term limits.

I was glad that younger people ran for office; I’ve been appalled at who was elected. Yes, we need to encourage good younger candidates to run and to help those who have demonstrated their dedication to public service and competence to gain office. But yikes! When we look at the latest bunch of incompetent attention whores who have been elected recently. Not all of them. Few who are at all unbiased would argue that AOC is qualified and capable. Marge 3 names? Cawthorne? Boebert? Hard nope.

Are you saying that AOC is unqualified and incapable? I think that she's very good.

But I agree on Marjorie Taylor Greene, Madison Cawthorn, and Lauren Boebert.

 

[Toni]

The other thing is that there is a learning curve to being a senator or congressman. I don’t think it is necessarily a bad thing to stay in office for several terms.

Good argument against term limits.

I was glad that younger people ran for office; I’ve been appalled at who was elected. Yes, we need to encourage good younger candidates to run and to help those who have demonstrated their dedication to public service and competence to gain office. But yikes! When we look at the latest bunch of incompetent attention whores who have been elected recently. Not all of them. Few who are at all unbiased would argue that AOC is qualified and capable. Marge 3 names? Cawthorne? Boebert? Hard nope.

Are you saying that AOC is unqualified and incapable? I think that she's very good.

But I agree on Marjorie Taylor Greene, Madison Cawthorn, and Lauren Boebert.

Nonono! I made a typo! Anyone except a partisan bigot would see AOC as imminently qualified.

Now going to try to fix my post!

 

[Derec]

Nonono! I made a typo! Anyone except a partisan bigot would see AOC as imminently qualified.

P.S.: You say she is "imminently qualified". So you contend that she is not qualified yet, but will be very very soon?