Have heard there will be a 200+ day gap in having a MEU deployed due to a lack of amphibs. Exact dates of the gap unknown. If true, significant strategic implications for the nation. Have you heard anything about this?
I still can’t buy the “threat to democracy “ trope for Trump; do we really expect the military to back up some takeover of the U.S.? I see a threat to NatSec because he just doesn’t “get it”. I think sea power to him is beach erosion.
I’m with CharlyB above on RRM finishing a better ending to the original series. I read the prequel and knew how bad it would be. I’m watching it anyway. Dragon porn. Maybe there is a 12 stepper I can join.
Yes I've read all about that and how states like Delaware threatened to pull out of the constitutional convention The problem is now all these many years later the tail is distinctly wagging the dog ...you may have read about the predictions that before long 15 states with 70% of the population will only get 30 senators..
but this would be very very difficult if not impossible to change anyway ...All I can imagine now is that states individually try to meet the needs and desires of their citizens...
if someone in Eastern Washington state for example who is very conservative is totally dissatisfied with the much more progressive Western half of the state that dominates the political situation , they might want to move to Idaho.. similarly someone who thinks abortion should be legal and lives in Alabama might want to move to California ...we might even have to come up with some kind of tax credits to make that more possible for those that can't afford to just give up a job and go to another state.
We are catching up on HOTD and aren't overly impressed. I'm still awaiting GRRM's Winds of Winter, as I want to see how he wanted GoT to end, rather than the HBO version. I'm still hoping on some wild plot swings and a-has.
“ There are any number of political scientists and media figures who point to the decline of our modern political parties as contributors to our strained politics. Two of my favorite are Yuval Levin and Jonah Goldberg, both of whom hang shingles at the American Enterprise Institute. So the argument goes, the rise of the primary system and changes to the means by which we finance campaigns has led to the two parties exercising little or no authority over those who run under their banners.”
This was first predicted all the way back in the 1970s when the modern primary system first came into existence by political scientist James Caeser (that’s the correct spelling) in his book on The Presidential Selection Process. By the way, he still teaches at… you guessed it, our alma mater, the greatest public university in America, founded by one Thomas Jefferson, UVA!
Unfortunately, Thomas Jefferson, along with his colleague James Madison, started us down the road toward direct democracy. And down the road to nullification, secession, and civil war as well. Not deliberately, but effectively nevertheless.
Yes, he did. And I disagree with that. That has been the pattern with France, whose revolution Jefferson admired and which I do not.
He also wrote that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." But he never put himself in line to shed any of his blood.
Yes and I disagree with it too but you’ll note that in my original comment I’m praising him for his founding of UVA, to which his comments on constitutions are irrelevant.
Partially true with respect to Jefferson, less so with respect to Madison. The case of Madison is more complex. I know a Madison scholar or two and very few scholars of him would say that he started us down the road to direct democracy, or to secession, or nullification. Each of these things was in direct contravention to his work and political thinking. You’re perhaps referring to his joining of the anti-federalists/Jeffersonians against the Federalists. My reading of that choice is that while he may not have agreed with every plank in the Jeffersonian platform, he nevertheless saw them as important correction to Federalist overreach under John Adams, which was already undermining the Constitutional structure he had worked to create.
I agree that Madison was not as far down the road as Jefferson. Jefferson certainly advocated nullification in the Kentucky Resolution of 1798. Madison backed away from that a bit in the Virginia Resolution of 1799. I don't think either covered himself with honor in writing those resolutions anonymously, and IMO Jefferson should have resigned the Vice Presidency before writing his.
Neither of them wanted a breakup of the Union, much less civil war, but actions can have unforeseen consequences. The Kentucky Resolution in particular was a bad precedent, and was cited by South Carolina in the Nullification Crisis of 1828-33 and by several states during the Secession Crisis of 1860-61. They were cited again by segregationists after the 1954 Brown v. Board decision.
True. As you pointed out, Madison did not go all the way to nullification, even if he tiptoed up to it. Also, there is a serious question about where federal powers end and states’ begin. States can and should challenge federal overreach in court (rather than through nullification). But the courts in the modern era have had too wide an interpretation of federal power (interstate commerce).
I think Biden staying hurts down ticket Democrats. People tend to go to the polls for President then also vote in local elections. Some people who don’t want either of these two back in the White House will just sit it out. With a different Dem at the top, it could make a difference.
The apathy I mentioned above is part of the reason I have the very unpopular opinion that direct election for Senators is an experiment whose time should end. Having your state’s Congress select the state’s representatives in the Senate makes local elections more than just an afterthought.
I do not agree with your opinion of Mr. Trump, but I do agree with your position that we need to kick American politics off bottom dead center. Both parties have become caricatures of their advertised best intentions. At the present time (please note the caveat), Mr Trump appears to hold the better hand. And the Democrat Party may not be able overcome that by Election Day. They could, however, position themselves quite well for 2028 if they showed themselves willing and able to choose a different path this year. But I do not believe them capable of changing their spots, as regards the means by which they currently choose presidential candidates. “Super Delegates”, having greater weight than their own single vote is decidedly *not* democratic, but it does fit the Tammany Hall approach to politics.
That will all depend on whether or not rioting Democrat operatives, like ANTIFA and BLM will prevent people who believe in the Constitution to get to the polls. I phrase it that way, based on past riots. Every riot this country has ever seen has been the product of those left of center, usually of the far left. And before you start wasting everyone’s time yelling about January 6th, I will point out that the only violence that day was begun by federal authorities, and for which no one will ever pay a penalty. We could talk about the demonstrator who was shot by Capitol Police or we could talk about the agents provocateurs the FBI embedded here and there among the demonstrators. Video evidence makes my point. As for me and my house, we will be voting in November 2028, even though the process is being actively corrupted by voting day registration without ID, and other efforts, by those in power in other states.
You are forgetting all the lethal KKK and police riots in the South during Reconstruction and then again during desegregation. And my home-town Tulsa Race Massacre. All done by good ole boy white conservatives.
Why not throw out Trump also and put in....Liz Cheney? ( not as politically feasible, just as what the Republican citizens deserve)
Someday you should expand upon the idea that we have too much direct democracy and not enough representative democracy. Given the electoral college, two Senators for every state regardless of population, the filibuster and a House that's remained the same size since 1910, I think it's the other way around. ( compare electoral college results versus popular vote)
Biden also won enough primary votes but now his mental and or physical condition are in question... I believe similar questions exist for Trump's health
If you believe in “one person, one vote”, then you have to believe Mr Trump has legitimately won the votes of sufficient delegates to give him the nomination of his party. That is the way this thing is supposed to work, right?
If you take "one person one vote" to the presidential election, then we must have a direct popular election, which, IMO, would be a Pandora's Box. No major democracy elects its equivalent to the U.S. President by mass popular vote.
I was only referring to how the votes of people in many small states have more clout than the votes of individuals in larger states.
"Why the Electoral College is poorly suited for an era of high income inequality and widespread geographic disparities:
The problems outlined above illustrate the serious issues facing the Electoral College. Having a president who loses the popular vote undermines electoral legitimacy. Putting an election into the House of Representatives where each state delegation has one vote increases the odds of insider dealings and corrupt decisions. Allegations of balloting irregularities that require an Electoral Commission to decide the votes of contested states do not make the general public feel very confident about the integrity of the process. And faithless electors could render the popular vote moot in particular states.
Yet there is a far more fundamental threat facing the Electoral College. At a time of high income inequality and substantial geographical disparities across states, there is a risk that the Electoral College will systematically overrepresent the views of relatively small numbers of people due to the structure of the Electoral College. As currently constituted, each state has two Electoral College votes regardless of population size, plus additional votes to match its number of House members. That format overrepresents small- and medium-sized states at the expense of large states."
And yet…..it’s states with larger populations that have a more consistent record of voting fraud and other irregularities.
The Brookings Institute couldn’t be more wrong about the value of the Electoral College. The EC is the only reason politicians pay any attention at all to what the coastal population refers to as flyover country. Eliminate the EC, or bypass it, and you may very well generate the violence you hopefully are trying to avoid, because the republic known as the United States will have ceased to exist. History shows that if you take away hope, chaos will reign.
We could spend months debating your first assertion about voting fraud.
Wouldn't legislators from Wyoming, Idaho and Texas pay attention to their own constituents ? What we have now is most states are a known quantity, we know where their EC votes are going, so a handful of smaller states ( swing ) determine the outcome.
Agreeing to disagree is fine and has a long history.
That sounds like what Kevin Roberts of Project 2025 had to say the other day. The Senate is very powerful and can block much of what either the president or House may try to do. We now have a situation where Wyoming with 1/2 million people gets the same clout in the Senate as California with 40 million.
Usually at this point I'm told that "we in corn patch Oklahoma don't want Los Angeles telling us what to do." My suggestion is consider some sort of local board consisting of 100 members. Forty want to keep the old science textbook in local schools, sixty want a new one. Which should prevail? Often in our current federal system the 40 prevail time after time after time.
My example was based off of a school board where the members are elected ( the case where I live) . So they are already representatives..no need for the people to vote again unless they want to replace or recall board members. My point was whether 40 should almost always prevail against 60.
And if this were the summer of 1787, that argument could have also been made. If you are not familiar with the New Jersey Compromise, I urge you to read up on it. Essentially, if states with smaller populations had not been able to counter the overwhelming political force of states with larger populations, a great number of our states would not have ratified the Constitution, and we might still be rattling along as a loose grouping of separate nations under the Articles of Confederation. The downsides of that do not bear discussion. That Compromise is why we have two parts to the Legislative Branch, and a good reason we are still hanging onto at least part of our republican (v. pure democracy) form of government. Pure democracies tend to eliminate the rights of their minorities, pursuant to eliminating those minorities altogether. Woodrow Wilson did his level best to devolve the country into a pure democracy by means of the 17th Amendment. We don’t need to pursue that path any further.
We aren't going to change the two Senators per state, so even as one who is skeptical of states' rights arguments, I'm beginning to embrace it. I'm also embracing the old "no taxation without representation." So if states with very large populations are going to lose out in D.C. because of the electoral college/two Senators/filibuster etc, they shouldn't be paying income taxes to the Fed based on population. Using the Senate model, all states would pay the same amount of income taxes.
The House is the "theoretical" solution to population discrepancies, except that it isn't. 435 members since 1910 AND what can the House do exactly without Senate buy-in?
Although we have not increased the total number of representatives since 1910 (using the one representative for every “X” persons formula), we have been changing the number of representatives per state based on the decennial census. And that surely provides for equal representation. Since Americans move more freely today than in previous centuries, I could go along with a census every five years for the purposes of representation. I also believe representation should be based on the number citizens in a state as opposed to the number of persons in a state. Persons in the country illegally do not deserve representation in Washington.
The "one person one vote" idea hasn't really been true for a long time. California has 52 House members, Wyoming one. Yet California has 80 times the population. I don't think there's any good reason today to not increase the size of the House, especially when they could vote virtually.
But as long as we keep sending a divided congress ( i.e. dysfunctional) to D.C. we're back to how to make life bearable where you live. So leave representation alone, respect states' rights ( no federal laws on abortion, contraception etc) and make income taxes reflect the distribution of power in the Senate.
Of course that last one would probably mean a defense budget that was much, much smaller.
Have heard there will be a 200+ day gap in having a MEU deployed due to a lack of amphibs. Exact dates of the gap unknown. If true, significant strategic implications for the nation. Have you heard anything about this?
I still can’t buy the “threat to democracy “ trope for Trump; do we really expect the military to back up some takeover of the U.S.? I see a threat to NatSec because he just doesn’t “get it”. I think sea power to him is beach erosion.
I’m with CharlyB above on RRM finishing a better ending to the original series. I read the prequel and knew how bad it would be. I’m watching it anyway. Dragon porn. Maybe there is a 12 stepper I can join.
Yes I've read all about that and how states like Delaware threatened to pull out of the constitutional convention The problem is now all these many years later the tail is distinctly wagging the dog ...you may have read about the predictions that before long 15 states with 70% of the population will only get 30 senators..
but this would be very very difficult if not impossible to change anyway ...All I can imagine now is that states individually try to meet the needs and desires of their citizens...
if someone in Eastern Washington state for example who is very conservative is totally dissatisfied with the much more progressive Western half of the state that dominates the political situation , they might want to move to Idaho.. similarly someone who thinks abortion should be legal and lives in Alabama might want to move to California ...we might even have to come up with some kind of tax credits to make that more possible for those that can't afford to just give up a job and go to another state.
I like Eve Best
We are catching up on HOTD and aren't overly impressed. I'm still awaiting GRRM's Winds of Winter, as I want to see how he wanted GoT to end, rather than the HBO version. I'm still hoping on some wild plot swings and a-has.
Yes! Back to a convention that actually decides who the nominee will be rather than merely ratifying a fait accompli.
Wouldn’t it be grand if both parties did that? Alas.
“ There are any number of political scientists and media figures who point to the decline of our modern political parties as contributors to our strained politics. Two of my favorite are Yuval Levin and Jonah Goldberg, both of whom hang shingles at the American Enterprise Institute. So the argument goes, the rise of the primary system and changes to the means by which we finance campaigns has led to the two parties exercising little or no authority over those who run under their banners.”
This was first predicted all the way back in the 1970s when the modern primary system first came into existence by political scientist James Caeser (that’s the correct spelling) in his book on The Presidential Selection Process. By the way, he still teaches at… you guessed it, our alma mater, the greatest public university in America, founded by one Thomas Jefferson, UVA!
Unfortunately, Thomas Jefferson, along with his colleague James Madison, started us down the road toward direct democracy. And down the road to nullification, secession, and civil war as well. Not deliberately, but effectively nevertheless.
Jefferson wrote in later life that the constitution should be written from scratch every generation or two.
Yes, he did. And I disagree with that. That has been the pattern with France, whose revolution Jefferson admired and which I do not.
He also wrote that "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." But he never put himself in line to shed any of his blood.
Yes and I disagree with it too but you’ll note that in my original comment I’m praising him for his founding of UVA, to which his comments on constitutions are irrelevant.
You are correct.
He did
Partially true with respect to Jefferson, less so with respect to Madison. The case of Madison is more complex. I know a Madison scholar or two and very few scholars of him would say that he started us down the road to direct democracy, or to secession, or nullification. Each of these things was in direct contravention to his work and political thinking. You’re perhaps referring to his joining of the anti-federalists/Jeffersonians against the Federalists. My reading of that choice is that while he may not have agreed with every plank in the Jeffersonian platform, he nevertheless saw them as important correction to Federalist overreach under John Adams, which was already undermining the Constitutional structure he had worked to create.
I agree that Madison was not as far down the road as Jefferson. Jefferson certainly advocated nullification in the Kentucky Resolution of 1798. Madison backed away from that a bit in the Virginia Resolution of 1799. I don't think either covered himself with honor in writing those resolutions anonymously, and IMO Jefferson should have resigned the Vice Presidency before writing his.
Neither of them wanted a breakup of the Union, much less civil war, but actions can have unforeseen consequences. The Kentucky Resolution in particular was a bad precedent, and was cited by South Carolina in the Nullification Crisis of 1828-33 and by several states during the Secession Crisis of 1860-61. They were cited again by segregationists after the 1954 Brown v. Board decision.
True. As you pointed out, Madison did not go all the way to nullification, even if he tiptoed up to it. Also, there is a serious question about where federal powers end and states’ begin. States can and should challenge federal overreach in court (rather than through nullification). But the courts in the modern era have had too wide an interpretation of federal power (interstate commerce).
I think Biden staying hurts down ticket Democrats. People tend to go to the polls for President then also vote in local elections. Some people who don’t want either of these two back in the White House will just sit it out. With a different Dem at the top, it could make a difference.
The apathy I mentioned above is part of the reason I have the very unpopular opinion that direct election for Senators is an experiment whose time should end. Having your state’s Congress select the state’s representatives in the Senate makes local elections more than just an afterthought.
I do not agree with your opinion of Mr. Trump, but I do agree with your position that we need to kick American politics off bottom dead center. Both parties have become caricatures of their advertised best intentions. At the present time (please note the caveat), Mr Trump appears to hold the better hand. And the Democrat Party may not be able overcome that by Election Day. They could, however, position themselves quite well for 2028 if they showed themselves willing and able to choose a different path this year. But I do not believe them capable of changing their spots, as regards the means by which they currently choose presidential candidates. “Super Delegates”, having greater weight than their own single vote is decidedly *not* democratic, but it does fit the Tammany Hall approach to politics.
Will there be an election in 2028?
That will all depend on whether or not rioting Democrat operatives, like ANTIFA and BLM will prevent people who believe in the Constitution to get to the polls. I phrase it that way, based on past riots. Every riot this country has ever seen has been the product of those left of center, usually of the far left. And before you start wasting everyone’s time yelling about January 6th, I will point out that the only violence that day was begun by federal authorities, and for which no one will ever pay a penalty. We could talk about the demonstrator who was shot by Capitol Police or we could talk about the agents provocateurs the FBI embedded here and there among the demonstrators. Video evidence makes my point. As for me and my house, we will be voting in November 2028, even though the process is being actively corrupted by voting day registration without ID, and other efforts, by those in power in other states.
You are forgetting all the lethal KKK and police riots in the South during Reconstruction and then again during desegregation. And my home-town Tulsa Race Massacre. All done by good ole boy white conservatives.
Conservatives, yes. Democrats for the most part, but conservatives.
Most of the KKK were white Democrats.
Alan Gideon's point was about Leftists, not Democrats. The KKK and white-supremacist LEOs were not Leftists. They were "conservative" Democrats.
No point in me commenting on ANTIFA etc. We're in alternate realities.
You will vote in 2028, if there is actually an election held. If Trump becomes president and follows Project 2025, who knows.
I agree that we are in different realities. Trump didn’t do anything to prevent the 2020 election.
Why not throw out Trump also and put in....Liz Cheney? ( not as politically feasible, just as what the Republican citizens deserve)
Someday you should expand upon the idea that we have too much direct democracy and not enough representative democracy. Given the electoral college, two Senators for every state regardless of population, the filibuster and a House that's remained the same size since 1910, I think it's the other way around. ( compare electoral college results versus popular vote)
Why not replace Trump on the Republican ticket? Because he won sufficient votes to give him enough delegates to take the nomination.
Biden also won enough primary votes but now his mental and or physical condition are in question... I believe similar questions exist for Trump's health
No, it would be because no Republican delegate would dare to cross him for fear of being the target of an armed and angry mob of seditious Trumpsters.
If you believe in “one person, one vote”, then you have to believe Mr Trump has legitimately won the votes of sufficient delegates to give him the nomination of his party. That is the way this thing is supposed to work, right?
If you take "one person one vote" to the presidential election, then we must have a direct popular election, which, IMO, would be a Pandora's Box. No major democracy elects its equivalent to the U.S. President by mass popular vote.
I fully agree that the country should remain a republic.
I was only referring to how the votes of people in many small states have more clout than the votes of individuals in larger states.
"Why the Electoral College is poorly suited for an era of high income inequality and widespread geographic disparities:
The problems outlined above illustrate the serious issues facing the Electoral College. Having a president who loses the popular vote undermines electoral legitimacy. Putting an election into the House of Representatives where each state delegation has one vote increases the odds of insider dealings and corrupt decisions. Allegations of balloting irregularities that require an Electoral Commission to decide the votes of contested states do not make the general public feel very confident about the integrity of the process. And faithless electors could render the popular vote moot in particular states.
Yet there is a far more fundamental threat facing the Electoral College. At a time of high income inequality and substantial geographical disparities across states, there is a risk that the Electoral College will systematically overrepresent the views of relatively small numbers of people due to the structure of the Electoral College. As currently constituted, each state has two Electoral College votes regardless of population size, plus additional votes to match its number of House members. That format overrepresents small- and medium-sized states at the expense of large states."
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/its-time-to-abolish-the-electoral-college/
And yet…..it’s states with larger populations that have a more consistent record of voting fraud and other irregularities.
The Brookings Institute couldn’t be more wrong about the value of the Electoral College. The EC is the only reason politicians pay any attention at all to what the coastal population refers to as flyover country. Eliminate the EC, or bypass it, and you may very well generate the violence you hopefully are trying to avoid, because the republic known as the United States will have ceased to exist. History shows that if you take away hope, chaos will reign.
We could spend months debating your first assertion about voting fraud.
Wouldn't legislators from Wyoming, Idaho and Texas pay attention to their own constituents ? What we have now is most states are a known quantity, we know where their EC votes are going, so a handful of smaller states ( swing ) determine the outcome.
Agreeing to disagree is fine and has a long history.
If you don't understand why we have to keep 2 senators per state, you need to be prevented from voting, by lethal force if necessary.
That sounds like what Kevin Roberts of Project 2025 had to say the other day. The Senate is very powerful and can block much of what either the president or House may try to do. We now have a situation where Wyoming with 1/2 million people gets the same clout in the Senate as California with 40 million.
Usually at this point I'm told that "we in corn patch Oklahoma don't want Los Angeles telling us what to do." My suggestion is consider some sort of local board consisting of 100 members. Forty want to keep the old science textbook in local schools, sixty want a new one. Which should prevail? Often in our current federal system the 40 prevail time after time after time.
Local vs. National. Also, the textbooks would be decided by a vote of people who show up on the day the decision is made.
And considering the tendency of certain people to believe "Evolution is real, but not genetics", you might want to keep older science textbooks.
My example was based off of a school board where the members are elected ( the case where I live) . So they are already representatives..no need for the people to vote again unless they want to replace or recall board members. My point was whether 40 should almost always prevail against 60.
As far as U.S. Senators go, I'd be very happy to see them chosen the way that they were in Lincoln's day, by state legislatures.
And if this were the summer of 1787, that argument could have also been made. If you are not familiar with the New Jersey Compromise, I urge you to read up on it. Essentially, if states with smaller populations had not been able to counter the overwhelming political force of states with larger populations, a great number of our states would not have ratified the Constitution, and we might still be rattling along as a loose grouping of separate nations under the Articles of Confederation. The downsides of that do not bear discussion. That Compromise is why we have two parts to the Legislative Branch, and a good reason we are still hanging onto at least part of our republican (v. pure democracy) form of government. Pure democracies tend to eliminate the rights of their minorities, pursuant to eliminating those minorities altogether. Woodrow Wilson did his level best to devolve the country into a pure democracy by means of the 17th Amendment. We don’t need to pursue that path any further.
We aren't going to change the two Senators per state, so even as one who is skeptical of states' rights arguments, I'm beginning to embrace it. I'm also embracing the old "no taxation without representation." So if states with very large populations are going to lose out in D.C. because of the electoral college/two Senators/filibuster etc, they shouldn't be paying income taxes to the Fed based on population. Using the Senate model, all states would pay the same amount of income taxes.
The House is the "theoretical" solution to population discrepancies, except that it isn't. 435 members since 1910 AND what can the House do exactly without Senate buy-in?
Although we have not increased the total number of representatives since 1910 (using the one representative for every “X” persons formula), we have been changing the number of representatives per state based on the decennial census. And that surely provides for equal representation. Since Americans move more freely today than in previous centuries, I could go along with a census every five years for the purposes of representation. I also believe representation should be based on the number citizens in a state as opposed to the number of persons in a state. Persons in the country illegally do not deserve representation in Washington.
The "one person one vote" idea hasn't really been true for a long time. California has 52 House members, Wyoming one. Yet California has 80 times the population. I don't think there's any good reason today to not increase the size of the House, especially when they could vote virtually.
But as long as we keep sending a divided congress ( i.e. dysfunctional) to D.C. we're back to how to make life bearable where you live. So leave representation alone, respect states' rights ( no federal laws on abortion, contraception etc) and make income taxes reflect the distribution of power in the Senate.
Of course that last one would probably mean a defense budget that was much, much smaller.