Here is what ABSOLUTELY MUST happen now. GOV must be frozen until we get this sorted out

[demtenjeep]

no new policies

no executive orders

no more confirmations

no more FUCKING Playing as if he were in the military.

NOTHING


DO NOT LET THEM DO A GOD DAMN THING

know who your critter is and deluge them with mail and phone calls

Give them this message. DO NOTHING ELSE untill the Russian investment stuff is resolved

[canetoad]

1. Had lunch with friends today

Celebrating R's mum's 82nd birthday. After about a bottle and a half of wine each, talk turned to politics, specifically how Australian and USA political systems differ.

My lunch friends are not particularly political, nor are they intellectual; just decent, working 60-ish battlers. We agreed that the US system is fucked and you venerate the founding fathers without looking too closely at the errors they made. We all agree that they could never have imagined a situation like today's.

We've had a few dropkicks win election here in Aus. Luckily the parliamentary system takes care of them pretty quickly. OK, I know your guys were coming off a war (of independence, no less) and were determined to do things their way, that is, reject centuries of experience and knowledge because that is the OLD way, and we fought for something NEW......

You need to organise compulsory voting ASP if not sooner. All that money spent wooing voters to the polls, all that bullshit spewed, the lies repeated ad naseum; that money could be saved. Cut your campaigns down to, oh, something less that three and a half years?

Your suggestion that government be frozen is moot. Your system does not allow for it. Your system needs updating to reflect the 21st century, no disrespect to the founding fathers. They would probably agree, cos they were decent, cluey men.

[zentrum]

4. Thanks canetoad.

Spot on.

And all elections should be paid for by public money. And the compulsory voting thing? It should go for at least three days, including a weekend.

But America is "exceptional" you know---despite having lower upward mobility than England, the largest income disparity in the industrialized world, and ditto with health and infant mortality--we're the "best"! Such constant self congratulation makes it impossible to self-examine and update!

[canetoad]

6. Quick moment of uncertainty

After that post. Glad you took it in the spirit intended. Cheers.

[icymist]

7. Problem is that all that 'money spent' on 'wooing voters' and 'that bullshit spewed' is from private

donors that want such political chaos. And our Founders weren't as simple like you describe as they figured that political parties, which they never provided for, would not go as low as the Republican Party has. They, the Founders, thought that the generations that followed would love their Country more so than over a mere political party.

[MrModerate]

13. Ironically, the Founders rejected . . .

A parliamentary system because they want to avoid "the parties taking power over the people."

[zentrum]

17. Actually, I think

...that wording is part of the mythology about the Founding Fathers. The only people they really cared about were white landowners such as themselves. It wasn't at all our understanding of "the people".

Also, need to check how much the preservation of slavery was involved in preventing a parliamentary system---that is, the deal Jefferson struck with the southern planation owners (in West Virginia I think), about who was and who wasn't defined as a member of "the people", to get them to sign onto the Constitution.

I'm not sure about all this without further research---but the importance of baking slavery, economically and socially, into the Constitution, is the thing that's deformed the system that was created from the very start.

[MrModerate]

18. I don't see a three-armed federal government being any less or more favorable . . .

. . . to slavery than a parliamentary system.

[zentrum]

20. Because the South

....would have objected too much and not signed on. A Parliamentary system distributes power more equally among opposing parties. The South needed to be reassured that this would not happen. They needed to know that their lesser population of white landed gentry would always have the same power as more populous (and abolitionist) states.

I think slavery might have been defeated sooner and less bloodily if we'd had a true parliamentary system. But of course, then, we'd probably not have had the original 13.

But we need a better historian than me to explain this more clearly.

[world wide wally]

2. Best idea I've heard yet

[demtenjeep]

3. this should be the end game of all the protestors

if what we have witnessed over the last two weeks, we have the power to make those demands

[Oldtimeralso]

5. Amen WWW n/t

[Hugo24601]

8. This is what needs to happen.

[icymist]

9. Do you really think this is going to happen?

Last edited Sat Mar 4, 2017, 06:42 AM - Edit history (1)

Turtle face and Eddie Munster will simple shut everything down until all this is sorted out?

[SammyWinstonJack]

11. Of course not, instead it's full steam ahead.

[kentuck]

10. Call Rex Tillerson home immediately.

If we have no State Department in place, we have no government structure in place. We cannot continue like this. It is up to the GOP to decide which direction they want to go?

[tomp]

12. well, of course. but remember...

...we are represented by democrats, masters of wimpery and sellout. do not expect to get what you wish for.

the only thing that will change anything is larger and larger mass demonstrations, over and over again.

[dancePop]

14. LOL! Sessions and the Russia thing will be ignored by the media again in a few days.

They will be focusing on healthcare or something else as soon as they can.

No chance anything comes of this unless the CIA releases new information, which they probably won't.

[Cosmocat]

15. IF 1/100th of what we know happened w a Dem

This is what Rs would be screaming.

[oasis]

16. Shut it down!

[MineralMan]

19. Unfortunately, nobody has the power to do that.

At least not on their own. Now, it is possible for someone to seek an injunction against specific things in federal court, as happened with the original immigration ban EO. But there is no authority that has the power to stop the President from doing anything that within his constitutional powers.

It's a nice thought, but can't be done. If you think about it, you'll understand why it cannot be done.

[demtenjeep]

21. we can't keep playing like we used to. This is a whole new realm

we and our congresspeople MUST understand

if they think they can get away with all of this russia stuff, no telling what else they might do.

It is a whole new world

[demtenjeep]

22. don't let him do one god damn thing. He is likely to start a war tonight

if he is cornered