A very lucrative place, at that. I just noted in a restack, explaining Cornyn’s and Tillis’s caving on Blanche, that former Senators have lifelong floor privileges, enabling them to grease their palms in perpetuity as distinctively high-priced lobbyists. But they can cash in on this only so far as, while in office, they don’t take voting positions unpopular with their peers. This should be better publicized. I learned it only last night, from Lawrence O’Donnell.
Fetterman wrote in 2021, “If Senators Manchin or Sinema are your ideal Senators, then I am *not* your candidate.”
Fucking lying fuck!
Years ago on another website, someone proposed abolishing the Senate. At first, I was shocked. But as I thought about it, it totally makes sense. As one of 40 million Californians, I should have the same representation as everybody else in this country. Why should Wyoming have 6x more representation with their 500k than my county of three million? I'm down with abolishing the Senate and defunding the police.
The problem isn't the Senate so much as it is human nature IMO. It doesn't take much power for it to go to one's head, and anything we replaced it with would degrade over time as well, as long as it is staffed and administered by humans, lol.
It’ll never happen but we really need a constitutional convention to completely reorganize our system of government. It made sense in 1787 when they had to get sovereign states of different sizes and interests to agree, and regional splits mattered more than parties which weren’t really formed in our current sense. But the system now is just absurd.
If we need a bicameral legislature (perhaps to prevent one side from easily railroading the other) it could feature one elected by districts (with far more than the 435 we have now) and one by national proportional representation. Amending the constitution and removing via impeachment should be much easier, if not as easy as passing legislation. The SCOTUS should have no power to invalidate laws (in fact, the current constitution gives no such power, it’s only tradition that we have judicial review). And states should have no role in the national government at all.
My other hot take is there should be a mechanism for letting a state secede or get kicked out of the Union. Making this impossible has a very “abusive marriage” feel towards it. The confederates tainted the idea of secession for obvious reasons but I can envision a scenario where the national government becomes so abusive towards a state that the state should be able to leave.
I like it but if we had a constitutional convention with the current makeup of states, you and I would very much not like the outcome. The right has been pretty close to running the table with the amount of small states they control for a while now. I can't imagine the horrors the Heritage freaks would come up with.
I completely agree with that last bit and, as I have said many times in the past decade, I do not see a way this country as currently constructed moves forward. In less than 100 years it will look nothing like it does now, which will be because big parts of it (starting with California and then the northeast) are going to break away. We're simply too large (geographically and in population) and our ideas of what the country should look like are irreconcilable at this point. I'd say the "experiment" has failed, as it was always bound to.
If the Senate can't be reformed (at the very least, get rid of the filibuster), it certainly does need to be abolished.
It gives elderly retirees a place to hang out?
A very lucrative place, at that. I just noted in a restack, explaining Cornyn’s and Tillis’s caving on Blanche, that former Senators have lifelong floor privileges, enabling them to grease their palms in perpetuity as distinctively high-priced lobbyists. But they can cash in on this only so far as, while in office, they don’t take voting positions unpopular with their peers. This should be better publicized. I learned it only last night, from Lawrence O’Donnell.
Fetterman wrote in 2021, “If Senators Manchin or Sinema are your ideal Senators, then I am *not* your candidate.”
Fucking lying fuck!
Years ago on another website, someone proposed abolishing the Senate. At first, I was shocked. But as I thought about it, it totally makes sense. As one of 40 million Californians, I should have the same representation as everybody else in this country. Why should Wyoming have 6x more representation with their 500k than my county of three million? I'm down with abolishing the Senate and defunding the police.
The problem isn't the Senate so much as it is human nature IMO. It doesn't take much power for it to go to one's head, and anything we replaced it with would degrade over time as well, as long as it is staffed and administered by humans, lol.
It’ll never happen but we really need a constitutional convention to completely reorganize our system of government. It made sense in 1787 when they had to get sovereign states of different sizes and interests to agree, and regional splits mattered more than parties which weren’t really formed in our current sense. But the system now is just absurd.
If we need a bicameral legislature (perhaps to prevent one side from easily railroading the other) it could feature one elected by districts (with far more than the 435 we have now) and one by national proportional representation. Amending the constitution and removing via impeachment should be much easier, if not as easy as passing legislation. The SCOTUS should have no power to invalidate laws (in fact, the current constitution gives no such power, it’s only tradition that we have judicial review). And states should have no role in the national government at all.
My other hot take is there should be a mechanism for letting a state secede or get kicked out of the Union. Making this impossible has a very “abusive marriage” feel towards it. The confederates tainted the idea of secession for obvious reasons but I can envision a scenario where the national government becomes so abusive towards a state that the state should be able to leave.
Yes, a document that was written by slave owners, that includes no enfranchisement for women is in fact a bad document.
Regardless of how many times we said the stupid Pledge of Allegiance in elementary school, it's a bad document.
Some argue it's a 'Living document,' which is sorta true but it is the zombie document of enslavers, of the wealthy white elite.
I like it but if we had a constitutional convention with the current makeup of states, you and I would very much not like the outcome. The right has been pretty close to running the table with the amount of small states they control for a while now. I can't imagine the horrors the Heritage freaks would come up with.
Yeah—if we haven’t had one in 250 years I don’t expect one now.
I completely agree with that last bit and, as I have said many times in the past decade, I do not see a way this country as currently constructed moves forward. In less than 100 years it will look nothing like it does now, which will be because big parts of it (starting with California and then the northeast) are going to break away. We're simply too large (geographically and in population) and our ideas of what the country should look like are irreconcilable at this point. I'd say the "experiment" has failed, as it was always bound to.
“Move over already,” Fetterman. He took too much time to ‘flip’ his seat. Get it on.