First president in a skirt?

[moonshadow]

Dillon, your statement above was pure art.

There's nothing I can add to that... I shall stand back and bask in it's glow.

[Big and Bashful]

The thought of Flump in a skirt! My mind is boggling more and more these days! I thought politics was bad in the U of K, looking at the U.S. at the moment, our collection of comedians and freaks look positively normal!

[crfriend]

My main point is that anybody on the left side of the pond who isn't (a) depressed, or (b) frightened out of his wits hasn't been paying attention.

[dillon]

Let's just hope Trump picks Palin as his running mate. That should be the kiss of death for them for sure. But, I'm about ready to retire, and things are a lot cheaper down in Mexico...

[crfriend]

The way I see it, the economic elites can still ham-string Trump even if he gets "elected" to the Presidency rather easily, and failing that there's always the option of an assassination (and that's not beneath these characters). Recall that Bill Clinton got handily ham-strung over the issue of health care and never recovered from it, and Hillary had a front-row seat for that and which is why she's the logical next President as she knows to kow-tow to her masters. Trump might be a bit of a "problem" in that regard, but one never knows.

I need to do some more research about just how hard it would be to escape the travesty that the US of A has become. I already know I want out of Massachusetts. It's not safe here any more. The place looks more like 1970s-era Chile or Argentina every day.

[dillon]

There's always Cape Breton Island...good housing deals, I hear. And you're used to the cold and snow... Or come to sunny Jalisco with us... How's your Spanish?

[Disaffected.citizen]

I need to do some more research about just how hard it would be to escape the travesty that the US of A has become. I already know I want out of Massachusetts. It's not safe here any more. The place looks more like 1970s-era Chile or Argentina every day.

Ironically, it appears any transgender person might actually be better off in Argentina; a brief internet search suggests they have some of the most progressive LGBT laws anywhere! However, in law and in practice may be very different. More research will be required.

Do you think the Republicans want to field an unelectable pairing because they don't think they have any realistic candidates at present? This in the hope that whichever Democrat gets in is stymied by Congress and the Senate and left looking useless, thus paving the way for a serious Republican candidate next time, supported by a Republican majority Congress and Senate?

I'm from the other side of the pond so don't fully understand the USA system, but it seems that, unless one party controls each part of the different houses, the various parts can "check" the excesses of each other, which is why some of Obama's ideas have not come to fruition. In the UK, the general "first past the post" system, coupled with the "party whip" most often means the largest party governs and can steamroller through policies with little real challenge (in the early part of their term). Neither system works properly, but we both (as countries) believe we have complete democratic freedom (let's not kid ourselves) but that other systems around the world do not provide the same level of freedom so must be replaced. It may gall and surprise some, but Iran has a form of democracy (that we in the West seem to believe everyone around the world should at least have), women have rights, other faiths are allowed, etc, etc (the extent of such rights may be questioned) but it has long been a pariah, yet Saudi Arabia with its absolute monarchy, where women can't legally drive and religious rights mean that anything other than Islam is illegal (you can have your own faith but don't do it in public), is the middle eastern darling of the West!

[moonshadow]

I'm from the other side of the pond so don't fully understand the USA system, but it seems that, unless one party controls each part of the different houses, the various parts can "check" the excesses of each other, which is why some of Obama's ideas have not come to fruition. In the UK, the general "first past the post" system, coupled with the "party whip" most often means the largest party governs and can steamroller through policies with little real challenge (in the early part of their term). Neither system works properly, but we both (as countries) believe we have complete democratic freedom (let's not kid ourselves) but that other systems around the world do not provide the same level of freedom so must be replaced. It may gall and surprise some, but Iran has a form of democracy (that we in the West seem to believe everyone around the world should at least have), women have rights, other faiths are allowed, etc, etc (the extent of such rights may be questioned) but it has long been a pariah, yet Saudi Arabia with its absolute monarchy, where women can't legally drive and religious rights mean that anything other than Islam is illegal (you can have your own faith but don't do it in public), is the middle eastern darling of the West!

The most basic principle is most of the governing power lies in congress, which is made up of a house of representatives which has a representative elected by the people in various districts in all 50 states, and a senate which comprises of 2 senators per state elected by the people. The president has limited power, but he does have the power of the veto pen, in which any law that congress passes can be veto's by the president. However there are still ways to get a law passed, but it requires a large backing of congress.

Any law passed by congress, and signed into law by the president, can still fall under the supreme court, which in theory weighs the constitutionality of the law. If the supreme court rules a law or policy unconstitutional, then the law falls. This was the case with the ruling on homosexual marriage. The supreme court cited the 14th amendment to the constitution which basically states that no state can deny equal protection of the laws or due process. This was the amendment that freed the slaves, as prior to the 14th, slavery was indeed constitutional, as it was a state issue.

Now that said....

I'm from the other side of the pond so don't fully understand the USA system

Basically, we all worship money. God's even on our currency. That's why it says "In God We Trust".

Don't let those evangelicals fool you over there....

Chick-fil-a boasted 12% increased sales as a result of their anti-gay views. They knew what they were doing. Make no mistake.... God is money, money is the root to all evil, hate sells, so we hate... a lot. Any good that is done is also done to increase profits. Any charity drive done in a business is done to bring customers into the store and give the business good PR in the community. Nobody does good just because "it's the right thing to do".

LBGT will be embraced once it becomes a source of considerable profit, and not before, and slavery never ended, it just goes by various other names these days. The 14th, in making everyone U.S. citizens made us collateral for the debt. In essence, it enslaved us all. We have toiled ever since for industrial tycoons, while they get richer and richer.

Everything the U.S. does has a financial agenda. Someone's getting rich... tell me I'm wrong.

Sorry mods if I overstepped my bounds.... but this is how I see it, and it's hard to tiptoe around without just calling it for what it is...

[Disaffected.citizen]

Thank you for the brief explanation.

The most basic principle is ....

My rudimentary understanding wasn't a million miles wide of the mark, even though I failed to convey it so.

As for the "money" part, the same goes here.

[moonshadow]

My rudimentary understanding wasn't a million miles wide of the mark, even though I failed to convey it so.

Oh it gets much more complex from there.... you could fill a library with federal law and policy.... then we get into the matters of the states and localities.

As for the "money" part, the same goes here.

That's too bad. Although I'm not surprised.... As it's been said that the same people who pull our strings pull you all's too.

We [the peasants] are all in this together. Someday, maybe we will all lay our petty differences aside, unite, and take the world back from those who have exploited us for far too long.

[Sinned]

In Animal Farm the pigs started off as bottom of the food chain but became less indistinguishable from the farmer they replaced as the story went on. So even if we had the revolution brothers would anything really change?

I am reminded of Thomas Cromwell and his comments on the Parliament in the 1650's. Listen to the comments in this film clip http://americandigest.org/mtarchives/am ... ld_hav.php. From someone on this side of the river nothing has really changed. Corruption still rules as much as it ever did and many MP's are as immovable as ever. From what I can understand things are really no better on the left side of the Atlantic river. Maybe we should try and have a rule that any MP, Senator or whatever can only ever have two terms of office and can never stand for office ever again. Over here we should also have a rule that any MP should also have a minimum of 10 years experience in industry and many of our leaders have come through Eton or some other private school, Cambridge or Oxford and then straight into government thus having no experience of the real world. Leaders who don't even know the price of a loaf of bread or a pint of milk. One only has to look at our David Cameron or George Osborne, millionaires both and raised in privilege, to see examples of what we working class despise. But as our Civil Service is filled with many of the same the deck is not only stacked against us they also know the order of the cards in the deck. To say we can't win ....

[moonshadow]

Listen to the comments in this film clip http://americandigest.org/mtarchives/am ... ld_hav.php.

It says "page not found"

[Fred in Skirts]

Sinned wrote: Listen to the comments in this film clip http://americandigest.org/mtarchives/am ... ld_hav.php.

I get the same when I try it. Error 404 Page not found.

Fred

[Sinned]

Try again:

http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/a ... ld_hav.php

This works for me now.

[Pdxfashionpioneer]

As far as I'm concerned, we both have the best term limitation mechanism known to mankind, it's called the ballot box. The proposal you cited (at least 10 years' experience in industry ... no more than 2 terms) would have precluded Winston Churchill from running at all and taken him out of eligibility for electoral office right when the WORLD needed him the most.

We Yanks made a BIG mistake letting the Republicans ram through the term limits on the office of President. It was only done to prevent another Franklin Roosevelt. In a way they were prescient, I believe if it hadn't been for Presidential term limits Ronald Reagan would have been impeached. I mean if selling top secret weapons to a declared enemy of the country to obtain money to thwart the will of Congress isn't a "high crime or misdemeanor" (treason comes to mind), I don't know what is. The Democrats didn't press the issue because it would have been an uphill slog and he couldn't run for reelection. He could have easily run out the clock. If there was a chance he could have run again, the Democrats would have landed on him line a ton of bricks and he would have been exposed for what he really was.

By the same token, Clinton probably would have run again and won, saving us from the disaster known as George W. Bush.

Just the way my mind works.

Speaking of Churchill, let's not forget what he said, "Democracy is a terrible form of government. Indeed, it's the worst, except for all of the others."