Actually, I think we are all worse off. It’s easy to say the days of the two parties working together to compromise are over, but that’s the only way for the system to maintain a semblance of rationality.
It’ is a smoke screen. They haven’t been working together for awhile. This was a bullshit process that only worked if the other side allowed it. Time to tell the emperor he has no clothes on.
Understood, but I’m so unhappy with the way things work now, or rather, don’t work. We pay these people gobs of money to do nothing but obstruct one another. And the majority of them don’t seem to care about a damned thing but lining their own pockets. I wish I had solutions to offer, but I don’t.
We’re not the only country with this problem. I just no longer believe in anything that has power simply because tradition says it does. We know at least one party will piss all over tradition to grab more power. It either needs to be a real thing that can’t just be scrubbed when the Majority believes it should or gone.
Japan’s cow walk probably isn’t official either, but it sure slows things down. I suppose you could hire someone to push them forward.
That’s precisely what bugs me about this. We seem to move ever-closer to a system where whoever is currently in power implodes whatever came before. How does progress ever get made with a system like that?
Trump and the GOP is not the first nor will they be the last to try and stack the deck all in their favor to do whatever they want to do. We sill have the courts, and despite popular belief and the GOP talking points, some of the decisions they didn’t like had conservative judge backing. Even this asshole judge might stop short of telling us the president has the right to round up all the non-whites and Jews and gas them, might.
Our system of government is based on checks and balances, but they aren’t necessary for a functioning democracy. The English system explicitly gives all power to the majority in Parliament, full stop. And they have survived for a few centuries, despite the occasional misstep.
The thing about checks and balances is that they make it easy to shift blame, which enables all sorts of shenanigans.
The realization that one will be held fully accountable for any and all pain one causes is rather sobering.
Re: polarization, we absolutely need to bring earmarks back. In a first past the post non-proportional representation system, having a little pork to distribute seems to be the only way for members of Congress to have something to offer their constituents apart from ideological purity. When their primary opponents attack them for “working with the evil Demopublicans!!1!” they can point to a new school/clinic/overpass/whatever and say “bipartisanship helped me get that for the district/state.”
The infinitesimal federal moneys saved are not worth the dysfunction that our national politics have become.
“Ever closer”? You’ve been paying attention the past three months, right?
Yes, more than I have…ever.
Well, there are “checks and balances”, they’re just different. The UK government doesn’t get to appoint Supreme Court (or any) judges. A majority of parliament can effectively kick out the prime minister. The House of Lords, where the government usually has a minority, can at least delay legislation and in some cases block it. Legislation is subject to the constraints of the ECHR.
But, yes, by and large the government of the day gets most of what it wants. That said, what it wants is usually constrained by the existence of a permanent civil service (deep state!). Departments have a life of their own and an institutional momentum beyond that of the executive.
We’ll get to implode Trumpism in a few years. It will swing around.
I don’t think what you say really contradicts the idea that there are no formal checks on what Parliament can do.
Sure, the House of Lords has a say, but they are part of Parliament.
The fact that Parliament can kick out the prime minister emphasizes the fundamental subservience of the executive to Parliament.
Likewise, the Supreme Court, unlike our SCOTUS, cannot throw out an act of Parliament.
Legislation has to conform to the ECHR only for as long as Parliament wants it to, which may not be much longer.
I eagerly await Trump losing a case before the supreme Court, and not understanding why Gorsuch doesn’t have to do what he says, and then trying to rescind his nomination.
Y’all still assuming that Trump/Bannon/Putin ain’t got video footage of Gorsuch pissing all over a group of pre-teens, set to the tune of “Remix to Ignition.”
4D chess, y’all. Got no fewer than FOUR DEEZ
Deeeeez nutz
Lol good job guys
Trump is playing 7D chess compared to the checkers all his haters are capable of. He has pieces that the Libtards can’t even comprehend, much less counter! WINNING!
Seriously though, I have zero faith that Gorsuch is going to be some sort of anti-Trump zealot now that he’s on the Court. Trump’s a complete moron but I have to believe he had at least some discussions with the guy before nominating him. Or whatever that show he put on was.
I don’t think that he’ll be specifically anti-Trump but he’s clearly a believer in the rule of law and the actual Constitution. I can’t say that I love his views but he’s definitely not going to be in the corner of kleptocracy.
Ok, this cheeses me off to a really amazing degree. The way that republican senators have behaved themselves is totally unconscionable. Seriously, at what point is it treason?
Here’s what happened:
Scalia dies. On March 16, 2016, almost 8 months before the election, Obama nominates Merrick Garland. The republican-controlled senate refuses to even give him a hearing, and tells this enormous lie:
All we're doing, Chris, is following a long standing tradition of not filling vacancies on the Supreme Court in the middle of a presidential election year." -- Mitch McConnel, R-KY, senate majority leader
This is a total lie. There is no such tradition. Supreme court justices generally do not retire in election years, so it almost never comes up. Out of four supreme court vacancies in election years in the last 100 years, 3 of them got filled. Look it up.
Republicans also give the excuse that:
"The American People should have a voice in the selection of their next supreme court justice" -- Senator Mitch McConnell, R-KY
"We should let the American people decide the direction of the court" -- Paul Ryan, speaker of the house
"We’re going to have a debate, a national debate, between the Democrat nominee and the Republican nominee about what kind of justice the American people want on the Supreme Court, that’s what the American people deserve, and that’s what we’re going to let the people decide." -- Chuck Grassley R-IA
Yeah, yeah, I know, when democrats are elected, it doesn’t count. Even though Obama was, you know, overwhelmingly popularly elected. Twice.
Now, here’s something interesting you’ll notice. The American people didn’t elect Trump. The electoral college did. Did these guys say “We should let the electoral college decide the direction of the court?” Hm, no they didn’t. So, logically they should oppose Trump’s nomination, right? No, no, just being silly, of course if you’re a republican it counts even if you lose.
Meanwhile, republicans are saying out loud that they won’t let Clinton nominate any supreme court judges either:
"If Hillary Clinton becomes president, I am going to do everything I can do to make sure four years from now, we still got an opening on the supreme court" -- Senator Richard Burr R-NC, now chair of the senate intelligence committee
"There is certainly long historical precedent for a Supreme Court with fewer justices. I would note, just recently, that Justice Breyer observed that the vacancy is not impacting the ability of the court to do its job. That’s a debate that we are going to have." -- Senator Ted Cruz, R-TX
"I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up." -- Senator John McCain, R-AZ
Oh, ok, so, it’s important that the American people decide, as long as they decide in favor of a republican; except it’s still ok if they choose a democrat as long as their choice is overturned by the electoral college. Gotcha.
So now every republican senator has voted to change an actual senate tradition, which is allowing filibusters on supreme court nominations. So, to summarize:
Republicans said they wouldn’t even hold a hearing on Merrick Garland because of a non-existent senate tradition; and because the American people should have a voice. Except they will prevent any appointment by a democratic president. And now, in order to confirm a nominee made by a republican president that was not chosen by the American people, they will change actual senate traditions.
You’ll notice I haven’t said anything about the “qualifications” of Garland or Gorsuch. There are literally no constitutional qualifications to be a supreme court justice. You have to be 35 and a citizen to be president; you have to be 30 and a citizen to be a senator, you have to be 25 and a citizen to be a representative. You can be a 3-year old Guatemalan child and still be qualified to be a US supreme court justice.
I also think Gorsuch will be a terrible justice, but that’s a completely separate argument. The problem here isn’t with him, but with the republican senate, which basically hates the United States and the Constitution.