specinho + 470 April 3, 2019 On 4/2/2019 at 6:33 AM, Ward Smith said: Federal judge reinstates ban So, in the twilight hours of the Obama administration, he writes an executive order permanently banning Arctic drilling. Trump wrote an executive order overturning that ban. A federal judge who just happens to have been appointed by Obama reinstates the ban. Am I missing anything here? On 4/2/2019 at 8:58 AM, John Foote said: Isn't this judge a Republican, albeit a relatively moderate one. The senate basically wouldn't allow any non-conservative to come to a vote. The reason so many judges have been appointed in the past two years was the backlog from blocked seats. On 4/2/2019 at 1:30 PM, Ward Smith said: The fundamental question is why one President gets to write executive orders that "stick" but another President can't undo it? Given how many executive orders that Obama wrote were overturned by SCOTUS I'd say the rule should be next President gets to set policy since he was elected. Or we can just agree with a certain person here who's a strong monarchist. 😁 errrr........... gentlemen....... we might have forgotten a very important fact i.e. people need something to be in a "cycle of done and undone" as an indication they are occupied..... to get funding or when a particular period of time is near........... according to my basic understanding from one of the books written by John Grisham ( an international best selling author with law background) - the courts might have many back logs because lawyers need to get paid. The longer the process designated to clients who would agree to fight over inheritance of a pack of colorful play cards the longer the lawyers are going to get paid...... So.. the judge is basically passive.......... In the case when parliament goes back and forth over "should tit-bits be served to all representatives during the meeting to keep everyone awake" ..................... that is because there might be nothing new to be presented but there must be something to be discussed so that the allowance can be paid and received by the attendee of meeting in some remote countries repeatedly over the same issue............... the judge....... again.......... is passive................. (note: 1/3 of the representatives from one of the developing countries were found absent in the parliament and some of those who attended were found asleep. Extra allowance is usually paid during the period of parliament meeting..........)...... As for the executive order......... and who has the right to it.......... By the definition it might mean "the order of the person who is incharges of the floor at a given period of time".......... as things change hands........ we need the same attention given to certain issues before...... so....... we ......... of no choice......... need to pick up whatever there is and do something about it.......... or no? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
footeab@yahoo.com + 2,192 April 3, 2019 4 hours ago, specinho said: errrr........... gentlemen....... As for the executive order......... and who has the right to it.......... By the definition it might mean "the order of the person who is incharges of the floor at a given period of time"..... The USA is NOT parliamentary system. Executive orders mean next to nothing. They are not law. Only congress/senate can write law. President cannot. USA President has very little power. (Thankfully) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
D Coyne + 305 DC April 3, 2019 (edited) On 4/2/2019 at 3:43 PM, Ward Smith said: While you are correct that it's an effective way to maintain an ineffective government, (well put btw), originally as I recall senators weren't voted in by the state but were chosen by their legislators. Since it wasn't a popularity contest, the "deliberative house" was packed with smarter, better law makers. Today unfortunately it is full of grandstanding Prima Donna's pandering to the bread and circuses crowd instead of doing their job. If we had a fully population based system, California and New York would rule everything and we'd have little cohesiveness as a country. Imagine being ruled by Occasional Cortex deciding winners and losers. You think the good folk in the Bronx are expecting to Pay for all the goodies they're hoping she bestows on them? They want free food from Kansas and the poor schmucks who live there? Too bad for them. Nope, the Senate was a good idea, it's just poorly implemented. I don't know, the idea of one person one vote seems to be the way democracy should work, despite the fact that the average person is not that smart. Representative democracy is the worst possible form of government, unless one compares it to any other form of government that has ever existed, in that case it shines. The US system does a poor job of representing the people, and some people (say those in Wyoming, Montana, or Vermont) should not be favored over others. Direct election of the President would be a good idea, one person, one vote. The link below covers some of the reasons the 17th Amendment was passed, mainly corruption. https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=58 Edited April 3, 2019 by D Coyne Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ward Smith + 6,615 April 4, 2019 5 hours ago, D Coyne said: I don't know, the idea of one person one vote seems to be the way democracy should work, despite the fact that the average person is not that smart. Representative democracy is the worst possible form of government, unless one compares it to any other form of government that has ever existed, in that case it shines. The US system does a poor job of representing the people, and some people (say those in Wyoming, Montana, or Vermont) should not be favored over others. Direct election of the President would be a good idea, one person, one vote. The link below covers some of the reasons the 17th Amendment was passed, mainly corruption. https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=58 If we had pure popular presidential elections, you could win it all with just 5 counties. Washington State has a single large county that routinely buries the wishes of every other county in statewide contests. Thanks for the link, that aligns with my old memory, considering I haven't once looked at this stuff since grade school. Amusing that Illinois was (again) guilty of selling seats to the highest bidder. What recent governor from there is serving his second term in prison for just such a crime? Blogdonovich or something like that? Illinois is famous for their governors serving two terms, one in the governor's mansion and the next in the state pen. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
D Coyne + 305 DC April 4, 2019 8 hours ago, Ward Smith said: If we had pure popular presidential elections, you could win it all with just 5 counties. Washington State has a single large county that routinely buries the wishes of every other county in statewide contests. Thanks for the link, that aligns with my old memory, considering I haven't once looked at this stuff since grade school. Amusing that Illinois was (again) guilty of selling seats to the highest bidder. What recent governor from there is serving his second term in prison for just such a crime? Blogdonovich or something like that? Illinois is famous for their governors serving two terms, one in the governor's mansion and the next in the state pen. Ward, In most of the World the basic idea of representative democracy is one person one vote, which 5 counties have 50% of US voting population, and why exactly should the people living in high density population areas receive less representation? Seems like a good idea if your from Wyoming I guess. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
John Foote + 1,135 JF April 4, 2019 5 hours ago, D Coyne said: Ward, In most of the World the basic idea of representative democracy is one person one vote, which 5 counties have 50% of US voting population, and why exactly should the people living in high density population areas receive less representation? Seems like a good idea if your from Wyoming I guess. It was fundamentally put in place, along with the 2 senators rule, to protect slavery. Rightly or wrongly, there would have never been a United States without this arrangement. Two things, first the electoral college is here to stay. No way it's gets ratified out. Second, the bigger issue is gerrymandering of districts within states. So even within states the representatives are not elected in a way that reflects the population. 1 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jan van Eck + 7,558 MG April 4, 2019 42 minutes ago, mthebold said: Should I be concerned that that makes perfect sense to me? Careful now, your Mensa cardmembership is showing! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ronwagn + 6,290 April 6, 2019 On 4/2/2019 at 2:26 PM, D Coyne said: At some point the 60 vote cloture rule will become unworkable and will be abandoned. Heck rural states are already over represented in the Senate by huge margins in some states (Wyoming 226k people per Senator, California 19.77 million people per Senator so about 87 times less representation for a California citizen in the US Senate). In the original 13 colonies it was a difference of 10 to 1 (Virginia to Delaware). I guess it was the only way to come to an agreement, not a particularly representative form of government, in any case it was designed so it was nearly impossible to change. It is an effective way to maintain an ineffective government. Actually quite effective in avoiding a Second Civil War so far. The urban, rural divide may get very ugly in the coming decades. ninety percent of Illinois counties are interested in separating from Chicagoland. One advantage we have versus California and Missouri is that the liberals are tucked away in a very small area. Illinois is a fairly large state. California and Missouri have two or more dense population areas. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jan van Eck + 7,558 MG April 7, 2019 On 4/2/2019 at 1:38 PM, Ward Smith said: Jan, what I said to Sarasota above. Going forward Every President would just have to add the word "Permanent" to their executive orders and we'd be even further down the road to your (Godwin's Law) dictatorship. Your oblique reference to Godwin's Law intrigued me, as I have no heard of it. On looking it up, it seems to suggest that, at some point, every Internet thread degenerates to some reference to Hitler and the Nazis. I don't grasp the allusion. I referenced Cuba, and also pointed out the tendency of police states to develop the Geheimstadtspolitzei, which were the East German Secret Police, set up by the Soviet Union under Stalin as an outgrowth of his madness post WWII. I would not argue that Hitler et al set up a secret-police empire; he had his thugs in the SA, or Sturmabteilung, but their role was to go beat people up, or kill them, in the streets, just to show everybody who was the boss. Those guys did not keep a cadre of informants out there, the way the Comités de Defensa de la Revolución, or "CDR", that had these outposts on every block in Havana, specifically to spy on the inhabitants, act as a collection point for tips, and quell counter-revolutionary activity, roughly defined as anyone who was stupid enough to speak out against the Castro Brothers and that crowd. When I was in Havana back in the '70s, I met those actors, and they were seriously bad-ass guys. The creeps come out of the woodwork when the dictators take over. And incidentally, that phenomenon is precisely why America has its Second Amendment preventing government making laws interfering with the rights of the citizens to "bear arms;" the US Founders recognized the inherent evil of tyrants (especially when they were also monarchs! 🤔) Would any of this occur under Mr. Trump? Of course not, notwithstanding the histrionics of the Left. He loathes the "Intelligence" agencies and has no confidence in them (and he is correct in that assessment, that they are incompetent and dangerous). Those agencies comprise the so-called "Deep State," and if left unchecked would ultimately overthrow the government and take over. Ironically the man who inflated the numbers, and the budgets, of those agencies was Bill Clinton. You want to be cautious with the Clintons. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ward Smith + 6,615 April 7, 2019 9 hours ago, Jan van Eck said: Your oblique reference to Godwin's Law intrigued me, as I have no heard of it. On looking it up, it seems to suggest that, at some point, every Internet thread degenerates to some reference to Hitler and the Nazis. I don't grasp the allusion. I referenced Cuba, and also pointed out the tendency of police states to develop the Geheimstadtspolitzei, which were the East German Secret Police, set up by the Soviet Union under Stalin as an outgrowth of his madness post WWII. I would not argue that Hitler et al set up a secret-police empire; he had his thugs in the SA, or Sturmabteilung, but their role was to go beat people up, or kill them, in the streets, just to show everybody who was the boss. Those guys did not keep a cadre of informants out there, the way the Comités de Defensa de la Revolución, or "CDR", that had these outposts on every block in Havana, specifically to spy on the inhabitants, act as a collection point for tips, and quell counter-revolutionary activity, roughly defined as anyone who was stupid enough to speak out against the Castro Brothers and that crowd. When I was in Havana back in the '70s, I met those actors, and they were seriously bad-ass guys. The creeps come out of the woodwork when the dictators take over. And incidentally, that phenomenon is precisely why America has its Second Amendment preventing government making laws interfering with the rights of the citizens to "bear arms;" the US Founders recognized the inherent evil of tyrants (especially when they were also monarchs! 🤔) Would any of this occur under Mr. Trump? Of course not, notwithstanding the histrionics of the Left. He loathes the "Intelligence" agencies and has no confidence in them (and he is correct in that assessment, that they are incompetent and dangerous). Those agencies comprise the so-called "Deep State," and if left unchecked would ultimately overthrow the government and take over. Ironically the man who inflated the numbers, and the budgets, of those agencies was Bill Clinton. You want to be cautious with the Clintons. Hmm, when I read Geheimstadtspolitzei that looked like "secret police" which pretty much started with the nazis, hence Godwin. I wasn't aware that was a reference to the east German variety, but I didn't bother to look it up, trusting instead my poor German. I never took it in school but used to travel there on business regularly. As I recall from spy novels the Soviet Union hired a bunch of stassi to run their secret police, already knowing they were ex-nazis. Agree with the rest. The Clintons always had a very "special" relationship with the Intel services and were well known to have dirt on everyone in Washington. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
footeab@yahoo.com + 2,192 April 7, 2019 (edited) On 4/4/2019 at 10:52 AM, John Foote said: It was fundamentally put in place, along with the 2 senators rule, to protect slavery. Rightly or wrongly, there would have never been a United States without this arrangement. Two things, first the electoral college is here to stay. No way it's gets ratified out. Second, the bigger issue is gerrymandering of districts within states. So even within states the representatives are not elected in a way that reflects the population. LIE: Had nothing to do with slavery. Senators were made to protect religious liberties giving POWER to minorities because all the colonists came from Europe which was ravaged by sectarian violence. And the colonists HATED federal governments. Same reasoning for the electoral college. Give power to minorities so cannot be overrun by the tyranny of the 51% majority. The Puritans did not want the Quakers telling them what to do and the Quakers did not want the Anglicans to tell them what to do and the Anglicans did not want the Methodists telling them what to do and the Methodists did not want the Lutherans telling them what to do. Partially failed with the fed government assuming more and more power due to 2 parties cornering funding away from the states. Frankly, USA should limit amount of $$$ central party can give to any one canidate and LIFT the campaign finance law limiting individuals from donating to canidates. Limiting money individuals can give just gives POWER into the hands of a TINY minority at the head of the party in DC... This must be fixed ASAP or we are headed to emperors soon. I have no problem with large sums given IF everyone know WHO gave the money. This would give the power BACK to the states and local control. Edited April 7, 2019 by Wastral Forgot the last paragraph Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites