American Politics

[trystan]

2 hours ago, Astreya said:

Keep on digging: Trump team holds press conference at suburban garden centre

Rudy Giuliani details strategy in the car park of Four Seasons Total Landscaping, a suspected mixup with Four Seasons hotel in Philadelphia

yep! that's hilarious!

 

2 hours ago, Astreya said:

Out of curiosity - have there ever been discussions in the US to rework the voting system - say with proportional representation and getting rid of the Electoral College?

honestly and personally, i have NO idea.  see, i was bobbing along on my wave of i-vote-third-party blah blah, the president's the president, he stays away from me, yadda yadda, don't need to pay attention..... and i only paid attention before 2016 was when George W Bush was president, with some of his religious initiatives and stuff.  but then i was back to bobbing along on my bubble wave - until 2016.  and then Trump happened, and so i started paying RAPT attention.  and that was really when i (personally) first noted that the Electoral College was cr@p.  so.... yeah.

[Astreya]

@trystan

Frankly, I'm glad that Germany uses this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_representation

[trystan]

@Astreya - interesting!

 

one thing that some of the states have is ranked voting.  when you go to the polls you vote for your top two people.  if there's like 5 or 6 people running for whatever the office is, the person with the most votes still wins, but in the case of the president, people could still vote 3rd party and then a major party.  seems like a good idea to me

[purplehaze]

6 hours ago, Astreya said:

Out of curiosity - have there ever been discussions in the US to rework the voting system - say with proportional representation and getting rid of the Electoral College?

 

There have been a LOT of attempts, but so far all have failed. Mostly because it would require a constitutional amendment which has to be approved by 3/4 of the states.

This article from the New Yorker on Sept 21 is an interesting read on the subject https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/21/the-case-for-dumping-the-electoral-college

[Astreya]

@trystan

That would probably be a working compromise for starters.

 

@purplehaze

Thanks for linking this very interesting article. Having about eight hundred constitutional amendments between 1800 and 2016 really calls for a complete overhaul. But I guess the two big parties will not risk being forced into allowing for coalitions, even though this is not as bad as some people make it. At least a coalition means that the government always has the support of the majority of the voters.

 

The National Popular Vote plan sounds like an interesting work-around, but obviously it hasn't come far enough so far.

 

The argument of the supporters of the electoral vote that fear that the federalism could be damaged, maybe could take a look at the German system (incidentally our electoral system is always a work in progress, too - but as it is comparatively new, it probably has quite some useful ideas).. Despite having MMPR, the Länder (=States) here have their clear cut domains where the Federal government has about no say.

 

Plus we have both Bundestag (="Federal Diet", parliament, similar to the US Congress) and the Bundesrat (= "Federal Council", which has a slight similarity to the US senate). Incidentally, the Bundesrat has a somewhat similar problem as the electoral college as the smaller Länder have more weight than the larger ones (there is a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 6.Bundesrat members per state), and they take care that the Länder still have sufficient say.

[purplehaze]

5 hours ago, Astreya said:

Having about eight hundred constitutional amendments between 1800 and 2016 really calls for a complete overhaul.

No, there have not been that many amendments. There have been that many proposed to fix the electoral system. None of them have been enacted.

[Lagie]

On 11/7/2020 at 11:19 PM, AngelsSin said:

CNN just talked about a worry that I mentioned the other day. Which is that as long as Trump is still alive he can run again in 2024.

Seriously?

Even if he's in prison?

 

*tries to stay positive*

 

There will be a rescue dog in the White House!

[trystan]

8 hours ago, Astreya said:

That would probably be a working compromise for starters.

agreed.

 

9 hours ago, purplehaze said:

This article from the New Yorker on Sept 21 is an interesting read on the subject https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/21/the-case-for-dumping-the-electoral-college

i had to read it greyed out, apparently i've used up my free articles! but wow, people haven't liked it since 1800.  i blame Hamilton.

 

and - there's only 27 amendments to the US Constitution, but wiki says there's been "[a]pproximately 11,770 proposals to amend the Constitution have been introduced in Congress since 1789 (as of January 3, 2019)" so there's that.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution )

  

13 minutes ago, Lagie said:

There will be a rescue dog in the White House!

yaaay!!

also, "Donald Trump is the first president since James K. Polk to not have a presidential pet while in office!" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_pets) - Polk was president from 1845-1849!

 

Edited November 9, 2020 by trystan

[Ruby Eyes]

8 hours ago, Astreya said:

Plus we have both Bundestag (="Federal Diet", parliament, similar to the US Congress)

I just followed that link (because I couldn't believe that it really translates to "diet") and then moved on to "Diet (Assemly)", which in turn led me to the "Diet of Worms" Learn something new every day - it's not food!

 

27 amendments. This seems to be a really petrified piece of paper you got there ...

[trystan]

1 minute ago, Ruby Eyes said:

27 amendments. This seems to be a really petrified piece of paper you got there ...

well yeah, it was drawn up in 1787!

but that wiki link also said that each Congress (House and Senate) draw up about 200 amendments.  you see how well they get to be actual amendments. so DC and PR won't get to be states, and the ERA won't be an amendment either, because the government can't get that many states to agree on anything.  if i could afford it, i'd get a new country.

[Astreya]

13 hours ago, trystan said:

 the government can't get that many states to agree on anything.  if i could afford it, i'd get a new country.

We have that problem with 16 Länder already. I don't want to imagine the squabbling with 50 States!

[Ruby Eyes]

I don't remember the context anymore, but I once read about a study that said that the largest group in which you can negotiate effectively was about 20 people. Beyond that, grasping all the details becomes difficult for the participants, and they start splitting off into smaller groups to handle that - which becomes an issue then to bring the various subgroups back together.

 

Clearly, the Allied Forces did Germany a favour by combining a few federal states, e.g. Northrhine and Westfalia leaving us after the reunion with *only* 16 states!

[trystan]

and the thing of it is, the states are ALL SO Different!!  and not just the geography, either.  i'm glad i'm in PA, where i had a good education, my kids have had a good education... while we don't have the money to outright pay for college for them (crazy expensive!!), we have good credit so they can have loans with me or hubby as a co-signer.  i have access to good doctors too.  unlike some of the southern states (Alabama, Mississippi, Florida...) where those things are hard to come by.  Alabama is always ranked as #50 out of all the states in everything. ugh.

[Astreya]

6 hours ago, Ruby Eyes said:

Clearly, the Allied Forces did Germany a favour by combining a few federal states, e.g. Northrhine and Westfalia leaving us after the reunion with *only* 16 states!

The only drawback (particularly for foreigners) is that this left our Länder with monumental names like

- Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Mecklenburg-West Pomerania aka MeckPom or MV)

- Rheinland-Pfalz (Rhineland-Palatinate)

- Baden-Württemberg (this was actually Baden, Württemberg-Baden, and Württemberg-Hohenzollern by the Allied Forces and a referendum in 1952 merged the three into BaWü)

- Schleswig-Holstein (this formation actually predates the re-design of the Länder by the Allies which one can see from the rather dated English name Sleswick-Holsatia)

- and of course Nordrhein-Westfalen (North Rhine-Westfalia aka NRW).

Edited November 10, 2020 by Astreya

[trystan]

so we have North Dakota and South Dakota; North Carolina and South Carolina; Virginia and West Virginia.

 

then we have a state that just changed it's name.  the smallest state had the longest name - The State of Rhode Island & Providence Plantations.  now they're just called The State of Rhode Island.  

[anetofstars]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/09/politics/georgia-runoff-key-dates/index.html

 

Georgians have until December 7 to register to vote in Senate runoff and other key dates.

 

For Georgians wondering about the schedule, here are some key dates to remember as the second round of the races kick off, according to the Georgia Secretary of State's website:

 

November 18: Earliest day for a registrar to mail an absentee ballot for the general election runoff

 

December 7: Voter registration deadline to vote in the federal runoff election

 

December 14: Advanced in-person or early voting begins for the general election runoff for federal offices

 

January 5, 2021: Federal runoff election day
 

[Astreya]

*sorry stupid me had too many tabs open and this was the wrong thread for the reply*

Edited November 11, 2020 by Astreya

[Lagie]

Well, this is worrisome:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/us/politics/emily-murphy-trump-biden.html

And likely behind a paywall, so here's Robert Reich's take on it:

 

The administrator of the General Services Administration, a little-known federal agency, is refusing to sign a letter that ascertains Joe Biden as the president-elect and allows the presidential transition to officially begin. Delaying the ascertainment means that the Biden administration can’t access $6.3 million in federal money to fund the transition, can’t move into government offices, can’t communicate with the federal agencies they’ll be staffing, and can’t receive briefings about ongoing projects.

It is nearly unprecedented for the GSA Administrator to refuse to ascertain the president-elect. The results of this election are not in dispute: Joe Biden won the presidency by a wide margin. No amount of flimsy legal challenges launched by the Trump campaign will overturn the outcome. It’s one thing for Trump and his GOP lackeys to refuse to congratulate Biden or delude themselves into thinking Trump can still win. It’s entirely another for the federal government to purposefully undercut Biden’s presidential transition, and work to hamstring his presidency before it has even begun. Biden has the enormous task of getting this pandemic under control and preventing more needless deaths. He needs every second between now and January 20th to prepare, and the GSA Administrator is blocking that work. Disgraceful.

[trystan]

Just now, Lagie said:

The administrator of the General Services Administration, a little-known federal agency, is refusing to sign a letter that ascertains Joe Biden as the president-elect and allows the presidential transition to officially begin. Delaying the ascertainment means that the Biden administration can’t access $6.3 million in federal money to fund the transition, can’t move into government offices, can’t communicate with the federal agencies they’ll be staffing, and can’t receive briefings about ongoing projects.

yep.  i first saw this on monday night.

there is nothing normal about this regime.

[AngelsSin]

The good thing is Biden came out on tv saying while it is embarrassing for Trump to do this, that it doesn't affect him going forward with his plans and planning,etc. That it would be helpful but not necessary. Guess him being VP before helps him out in the end despite Trump's attempt to hamper Biden's successful transition. And just makes Trump look like a petty child throwing a temper tantrum because he's a loser on multiple levels! 😁

Edited November 12, 2020 by AngelsSin

[Astreya]

I wonder if President elect Joe Biden clandestinely meets with the people that Mr.Trump just threw out as they are on top of every important current news about their departments anyway. ^

[trystan]

48 minutes ago, Astreya said:

I wonder if President elect Joe Biden clandestinely meets with the people that Mr.Trump just threw out as they are on top of every important current news about their departments anyway. ^

well, he did name Dr. Rick Bright to his coronavirus task force ~

 

Quote

Biden's transition team earlier Monday morning announced the group of public health experts that will make up his coronavirus advisory board, which includes Rick Bright, a whistleblower from the Trump administration who alleged that his early warnings about the pandemic were ignored and ultimately led to his removal.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/09/politics/biden-coronavirus-advisers-experts-rick-bright/index.html

[AngelsSin]

1 hour ago, Astreya said:

I wonder if President elect Joe Biden clandestinely meets with the people that Mr.Trump just threw out as they are on top of every important current news about their departments anyway. ^

 

I do believe it was said that he has people who if there is something serious he needs to know they would pass that information on to him. Regardless of what Trump wants. Trust that despite Trump there are still people who would do the right thing even if it temporarily cost them their job. I know that it is hard to believe that anyone is left who is not loyal to Trump but there are many people in many different areas of the government that were not and do not get put in there position by Trump and don't answer to him.

[TacticianLyra]

The amount of people that are still denying the election results is really scaring me here.

[purplehaze]

14 minutes ago, TacticianLyra said:

The amount of people that are still denying the election results is really scaring me here.

It is very concerning. And Trump is doing his best to keep them in denial. Sadly Republican leaders are too cowardly to stand up to him and so they are being very cautious by humoring him.

 

Interesting article in Vox that addresses the theory that Trump is attempting a coup. Their take is that he is not, but that his actions are still undermining our democracy by calling the fairness of this election and our election system into doubt. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/11/14/21561952/trump-coup-2020-election-biden-president