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Author Topic:   The 2017 Republican Controlled U.S. Congress
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


(1)
Message 18 of 86 (798605)
02-03-2017 6:00 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by xongsmith
02-03-2017 5:42 PM


1954?
http://www.constitution-billofrights.com/...church-and-state
Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution - Wikipedia
1964 (Johnson) amendment 24 -- amendments can't be overruled by a president -- it takes 2/3rds of house and senate. That won't happen.
quote:
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.[1]
Congress Refuses To Free Churches From Lyndon Johnson Gag Order
Congress Refuses To Free Churches From Lyndon Johnson Gag Order (2002)
Trump Attacks Separation Of Church And State With Vow To Totally Destroy Johnson Amendment
Trump Attacks Separation Of Church And State With Vow To Totally Destroy Johnson Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution - Wikipedia
quote:
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.[1]
About Joe Crow, Not about separation? I'm confused, but I don't think I am the only one.
Enjoy?
Edited by RAZD, : .
Edited by RAZD, : ..

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This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


(1)
Message 26 of 86 (798738)
02-05-2017 8:07 AM
Reply to: Message 25 by Tanypteryx
02-04-2017 11:31 PM


H.R. 622 withdrawn
quote:
Facing backlash, Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz withdraws bill to transfer federal land to the states
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, withdrew legislation Thursday that would have transferred 3 million acres of land from federal to state ownership, citing objections from constituents who complained that the move would limit access to public hunting and fishing grounds.
The Disposal of Excess Federal Lands Act, which would have shifted federal holdings to state governments in Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Wyoming, prompted an outcry among hunters and anglers' groups. Introduced three weeks after House Republicans enacted a rule change to make it easier to sell off federal land, the measure prompted two separate rallies in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Helena, Montana, this week that drew hundreds of people opposed to the measure.
"I am sensitive to the perceptions this bill creates in the current environment," Chaffetz wrote in his letter to House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop, R-Utah. "As a proud gun owner, hunter and public lands enthusiast, I want to be responsive to my constituents who enjoy these lands. I look forward to continuing to work with stakeholders in the broader public lands discussion in a collaborative manner."
On Wednesday evening, Chaffetz posted a photo of himself hunting with his dog, signaling his intent to withdraw H.R. 621, writing that it "would have disposed of small parcels of lands [President] Clinton identified as serving no public purpose," but added that he recognizes the concerns it had sparked. The congressman, who introduced the bill Jan. 24, had offered similar legislation in several previous Congresses.
A wide array of outdoors groups praised the move.
Aaron Kindle, Western sportsmen's campaign manager for the National Wildlife Federation, said in a statement that his group appreciates "that Mr. Chaffetz listened" to those opposed to the bill.
"This loss would have forever robbed the American people of the amazing bounty these and all public lands provide," Kindle said. "Another good move would be to withdraw the recently approved House rule that devalues public lands and makes them easier to dispose of."
Katie McKalip, communications director for the Montana-based Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, said in an email that its members and others "have sent a clear message, in no uncertain terms, that Americans greatly value our nation's public lands and waters and that we will not tolerate actions by our elected officials that diminish them."
There is hope.
Enjoy

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This message is a reply to:
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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 36 of 86 (799418)
02-10-2017 7:52 AM
Reply to: Message 35 by Tanypteryx
02-09-2017 8:45 PM


SCOTUS on gerrymandering?
So, Are Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Republican Congress going to protect the voting rights of millions of qualified voters who want to register and who want to vote or are they going to ignore or encourage the barriers to voting that red states have and plan to enact?
I believe the SCOTUS is going to take up a case on gerrymandering.
quote:
U.S. Supreme Court Takes Up Racial Gerrymandering
The U.S. Supreme Court returns Monday to the issue of race in politics when it hears claims that North Carolina and Virginia packed African-Americans into a small number of voting districts to limit their statewide electoral power.
Both cases present challenges to new maps drawn after the 2010 census. In North Carolina the issue is the boundaries for its congressional districts, while in Virginia state legislative districts are contested.
Both states say they face two competing pressures. The Voting Rights Act requires them to consider race when redistricting so that minority voting rights are not diluted. But past Supreme Court rulings have held that race cannot be the predominant factor when the maps are redrawn.
North Carolina is accused of packing African-American voters into two congressional districts the First, which the challengers describe as "a behemoth sprawling from the rural Coastal Plain to the City of Durham," and the Twelfth, a narrow band than arcs from Charlotte to Greensboro and has been described as the nation's most oddly shaped district.
That should be interesting.
Enjoy

we are limited in our ability to understand
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RebelAmerican☆Zen☯Deist
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This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 38 of 86 (799429)
02-10-2017 9:36 AM
Reply to: Message 37 by 14174dm
02-10-2017 8:56 AM


Re: SCOTUS on gerrymandering?
The NC districts for 1973-1982 seem to be the most reasonable. Does anyone know what happened between then and now that produced the travesty of the current districting? Is it just that computer data mining is so detailed now that it supports the wishes of the politicians to split the voters so finely?
Two things: republican take over of state house and senate and governor and new census giving new population data. The latter usually triggers district adjustments not wholesale revisions.
To me, the party (neither are pure in this) drawing these districts is saying three things:
1. We want to be in power (fine, that's the point of the political party).
2. Our policies, actions, etc. won't win the majority of voters.
3. We won't adjust our policies, actions, etc. to win the majority because we are right not the voters.
The minimal good I can see from SCOTUS is the requirement for an independent bi-partisan board to do districting.
The maximal good I can see would be a requirement that districts should proportionally reflect the people of the state -- ie population is 10% black districts should have 10% black elected representatives. Of course this would also mean 1/2 representatives should be women ...
My own opinion is that state/federal representatives should be chosen by lottery from the voting public and it should be considered civic duty (like jury duty) to serve 2 years and then return to previous job (like national guard returning from oversea assignments). It might (might) make people more attentive to the political issues.
I also think that the two senators for the state should be elected by ranked voting of all candidates and the two ending up with the most votes are elected.
One can hope. Probably too rational ...
Enjoy
Edited by RAZD, : .

we are limited in our ability to understand
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RebelAmerican☆Zen☯Deist
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Replies to this message:
 Message 39 by Riggamortis, posted 02-10-2017 7:18 PM RAZD has replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 41 of 86 (799556)
02-11-2017 7:07 AM
Reply to: Message 39 by Riggamortis
02-10-2017 7:18 PM


Re: SCOTUS on gerrymandering?
I'm more a fan of the idea of merging direct democracy with representative democracy. Basically what we have now but with a mechanism for the public to vote directly on important/contentious issues annually. ...
Well I'm certainly in favor of public vote as a check on representative votes, and while we have that in theory with the election of representatives and senators, that has rarely been true in practice.
Certainly when it comes to things that directly benefit the politicians, like pay and health benefits and retirement plans, etc., and that these should be subject to the votes of the people paying the bills, not the politicians (Massive conflict of interest).
And I am in favor of having ballot initiatives for things like gun controls and minimum living wages, where there is broad public support but can't seem to get anywhere in congress.
... The public vote doesn't necessarily have to be the final say, we could have the public vote count for 50% of the total vote and the reps vote count for the other 50% for example. This would give the public a way to measure how well their reps are actually representing them and the reps a good measure of public opinion. It would also give the general public more reason to pay attention to political issues and a greater feeling of involvement. My 2 cents.
Well that is sort of done with polling, and that could be more formalized, plus there are town halls where people can discuss things with their reps.
Protesters swarm Chaffetz town hall
Protesters Grill Democratic Senator About His Vote for Trump’s CIA Chief
Using prevote polls could help them avoid confrontational town halls.
Seems people are a bit more involved with politics since the last elections ...
Enjoy

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RebelAmerican☆Zen☯Deist
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This message is a reply to:
 Message 39 by Riggamortis, posted 02-10-2017 7:18 PM Riggamortis has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 42 by Riggamortis, posted 02-11-2017 8:58 PM RAZD has replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 43 of 86 (799630)
02-12-2017 7:32 AM
Reply to: Message 42 by Riggamortis
02-11-2017 8:58 PM


Re: SCOTUS on gerrymandering?
Lemme put it back on topic
Possibly the only good thing to come of it. I still find it depressing that third party support is so low in the US, given the candidates. We're off topic though so we should find somewhere else if we want to continue this discussion.
Because of the way US elections are run it defaults to two parties. Every time a third party does happen to beat one of the established parties that party usually disappears.
This is how the republicans in collusion with the democrats control elections. They set the standards other parties have to meet (15% approval rating to be in debates) and the criteria for being on the ballots.
Republican have managed to take this to such an extreme that it is difficult for anyone of any other party to get elected in republican controlled states.
Enjoy

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 49 of 86 (799651)
02-12-2017 2:48 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by ringo
02-12-2017 2:08 PM


Re: SCOTUS on gerrymandering?
... We've had significant third parties at least as far back as the 1920s and 30s - notably Labour, Progressive, CCF, Social Credit - when there was little or no regulation.
Ballot access restrictions are part of the equation: http://www.sciencedirect.com/...rticle/pii/S0176268004000527
quote:
... The findings show that higher filing fees reduce both the number of major-party and minor-party candidates. However, filing fees are more effective in deterring minor-party candidates from contesting political office than major-party candidates. More stringent signature requirements reduce the number of major-party candidates.
For instance neither Jill Stein nor Gary Johnson were on the ballots in all states. The requirements vary from state to state.
Two-party system - Wikipedia
quote:
The reasons why a country with free elections will evolve into a two-party system have been debated. A leading theory, referred to as Duverger's law, states that two parties are a natural result of a winner-take-all voting system.
quote:
Duverger's law:
In political science, Duverger's law holds that plurality-rule elections (such as first past the post) structured within single-member districts tend to favor a two-party system and that "the double ballot majority system and proportional representation tend to favor multipartism".[1][2] The discovery of this tendency is attributed to Maurice Duverger, a French sociologist who observed the effect and recorded it in several papers published in the 1950s and 1960s. In the course of further research, other political scientists began calling the effect a "law" or principle.
A two-party system often develops in a plurality voting system. In this system, voters have a single vote, which they can cast for a single candidate in their district, in which only one legislative seat is available. In plurality voting (i.e. first past the post), in which the winner of the seat is determined purely by the candidate with the most votes, several characteristics can serve to discourage the development of third parties and reward the two major parties.
Duverger suggests two reasons this voting system favors a two-party system. One is the result of the "fusion" (or an alliance very much like fusion) of the weak parties, and the other is the "elimination" of weak parties by the voters, by which he means that voters gradually desert the weak parties on the grounds that they have no chance of winning.[6][7]
A prominent restrictive feature unique to this system is purely statistical. Because the system gives only the winner in each district a seat, a party which consistently comes third (or even second) in every district will not gain any seats in the legislature, even if it receives a large minority of the vote. This puts geographically thinly spread parties at a significant disadvantage. ...
In the US presidential elections the winner must have >50% of the electoral votes, so third parties can disrupt this from happening (throwing the election into the House to decide who they want to be president, and it doesn't have to be a candidate -- this is what should have happened between Bush jr and Gore).
The electoral votes are won by "first past the post" (most votes whether majority or not), but all the electoral votes are then allotted by "winner take all" in every state but two, and this tends to put 3rd parties at an extreme disadvantage. This filters to down ballot candidates when people vote for all the party candidates with a single pick on the ballot.
For example Perot (running as independent) predominantly took votes from Bush senior in many states, so Clinton won those states by "first past the post" and took all their electoral votes by "winner take all" and that gave him the election.
So it is a two-step process, get more votes than other candidates to get all the state electoral votes to win the presidency.
Enjoy

we are limited in our ability to understand
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RebelAmerican☆Zen☯Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


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This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by ringo, posted 02-12-2017 2:08 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 50 by ringo, posted 02-12-2017 2:55 PM RAZD has replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 52 of 86 (799660)
02-12-2017 4:31 PM
Reply to: Message 50 by ringo
02-12-2017 2:55 PM


Re: SCOTUS on gerrymandering?
... but what about the Senate and House? What prevents third parties there?
We do see more in state houses, there has even an independent Governor fairly recently.
Many rep and sen votes are because of entire ticket votes, and the two parties fighting for president become strong parties in the states. The party in power as governor rules how elections are run, how the ballots are organized and what you have to do to get on the ballot.
Then you have issues like gerrymandering that affect how the opposition party, to say nothing of 3rd parties, can get elected.
The system is rigged by the party in power, which means you need a strong single contender to beat it.

we are limited in our ability to understand
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RebelAmerican☆Zen☯Deist
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This message is a reply to:
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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


(1)
Message 81 of 86 (825380)
12-14-2017 11:45 AM
Reply to: Message 80 by Pressie
12-14-2017 4:31 AM


"and the south shall rise again" ... except they lost. Badly.
I agree with you that there was no other choice for Britain and the US, but those Poles don't see it that way.
This compares to the southerners that refuse to believe that the south was defeated, and continue to promote racist hatred of the north and blacks. They have had a resurgence under Trump.
Sadly, almost any war I know of left some people angry with the results. In and Japan, while most people have embraced the result, there are factions that don't. For example the swastika waving boneheads in Germany. Lots of anger.

we are limited in our ability to understand
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RebelAmerican☆Zen☯Deist
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