Yep. Obama didn’t even pardon Manning. He only commuted her sentence. The difference being that pardoning removes it from your record while commuted is just “time served.”

As much as I liked Obama, his government would take any chance at spying on others.

As a senator, Obama missed around half his votes due to campaigning. During 2008, he missed close to 2/3.

But he made sure to be back in Washington in July to vote for the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to retroactively give immunity to AT&T for cooperating with a massive illegal wiretapping operation for the secret services. That was the point where I knew where Obama would stand on mass surveillance.

Congress is like the only job where you can take off as much time as you like and use it to apply for a better job.

Congress also gets to decide their own salary hikes.

political jobs were meant to is how sports was a century back.

Being a pro was actively frowned on in many competitions, you were supposed to play part time and still excel.

Political office never paid well, most politicians had farms and other businesses to keep them afloat. Presidents were famously responsible for hosting functions at the White house, some died broke . Also travelling between d.c and your home state was a significant effort for many so extended breaks was needed.

The rules made sense then , they don't now, however given congress makes laws and it's own rules not much can be done to fix it without constitutional amendments.

Congress gets to decide salary for the next congress.

Limiting it to the next congress doesn’t help when they’re career politicians and just get re-elected.

I mean... it helps, because they can't simply pocket the treasury outright. There is presumably some limit where the voters wouldn't stand for it.

The fact that incumbents are generally reelected does certainly weaken the mechanism.

Any constitutional lawyer will take advantage of the constitution's shortcomings.