question

[fishinwrench]

He appeared to begin in the land down under and zig-zag/spiral his way back to the NP.   Russia, North Korea, and the Holy land are either fly over countries, or they have radar blocking capabilities. 🙄 

 

[Old plug]

On 12/23/2019 at 2:39 PM, fishinwrench said:

I'm in !   When ya wanna go?  Can we stay at Phil's ?

I would love to go with you and Mitch down there and fish for a couple days.  Cannot do it anymore. I drove I and Pat to Versailles a couple days ago. He's had to take over to park the car and the rest of the driving for that trip. Going to try to come up and wish you all a happy new year Wrench. We will see. Most of my driving is no father then Laurie.

[Mitch f]

1 hour ago, Old plug said:

I would love to go with you and Mitch down there and fish for a couple days.  Cannot do it anymore. I drove I and Pat to Versailles a couple days ago. He's had to take over to park the car and the rest of the driving for that trip. Going to try to come up and wish you all a happy new year Wrench. We will see. Most of my driving is no father then Laurie.

Well we need to next year buddy!

[Old plug]

On 12/24/2019 at 9:28 PM, snagged in outlet 3 said:

On 12/24/2019 at 8:56 PM, Mitch f said:

Well you need to care enough to get the right Supreme Court judges in at the very least

True Mitch They should be voted in not set up for life. If they cannot follow the rule of Law and not only for one party or the other that will get you a dictator. We are well down that road already. Would love it if all Judges would be required to drop any party allegiance. I see you put up a pic of Hilary. Ever since that thing happened in Benghazi. I have really wondered who was really to blame. You Know I spent 36 years in that place on page I think. I was buried in all sorts of military records and history. I have seen it all. I was no Hilary fan, but, From my experience I think I have a idea just what happened over there. Like Pearl Harbor, there is almost always someone like a low ranking officer who ordered the shutdown of the radar even after the report of Large number of aircraft. Ultimaely he is the one to blame for no early warning.   

I think what really happened in Benghazi Was a big under estimate of the enemy. I remember at the time reading in the news about numerous small  attacks.  In military terms I think those little attacks and disruptions would be called faints.  It causes mental lapses in security thinking. Basically somewhere in the local command  just got out smarted.   

i  

 

[rps]

1 hour ago, Old plug said:

True Mitch They should be voted in not set up for life.

Sorry old plug. I am afraid I will have to call you on that. If judges were voted rather than appointed, Plessy vs. Ferguson would never have been overturned. Separate but equal would still be the law of the land. I don't think you would want to go back to segregated schools, water fountains, whites only and such. You will remember that following Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas, Warren was vilified by the conservatives. You probably remember the John Birch Society billboards.

Without his independence, we would not have one man = one vote because Baker vs. Carr and Reynolds vs. Sims ruled states could not make voting districts with different size populations.

Without his independence, we would not have Terry vs. Ohio. That was the case that ruled the police could not search you unless they had reasonable suspicion you were committing or were about to commit a crime.

Warren was a Reublican that ran as Dewey's vice president candidate in 1948  and was governor of California. Eisenhower appointed him. In other words all the things you proposed to change about the SC were true of him.

[Al Agnew]

Throughout most of the years I've been aware enough of the Supreme Court to judge, it seems like there is always one or two justices that are not guaranteed to vote one way or the other, and in my opinion THAT'S a good thing.  It seems impossible to have all the justices be politically neutral.  And in fact, you cannot expect them to be politically neutral.  People have paid lip service to wanting justices to decide according to the Constitution or the rule of law, but the fact is that nearly all the cases they consider are difficult precisely because the Constitution doesn't address them.  Take, for instance, the Citizens United case.  None of the writers of the Constitution could have imagined the size, scope, wealth, and influence of so many large corporations today.  There is nothing in the Constitution addressing whether a huge corporation should be considered to have the same rights as an individual.  So the Supreme Court had to make a decision on whether or not a corporation "is a person".  In effect, they ruled that yes, corporations have the same "free speech" rights as people, after long ago deciding something else that wasn't addressed specifically in the Constitution--that giving money to campaigns is the same as free speech.

Now, I'm afraid the Supreme Court just doesn't have that swing justice.  You may like the decisions it makes with its present makeup, but there is something disquieting when everybody can easily predict which way ANY decision will go.  With the ambiguity of the Constitutional provisions of most cases, a Supreme Court that is easily predictable is NOT a Supreme Court that is even making an attempt to decide cases on rule of law and Constitutionality, they are ruling on ideology.

It's a big problem I have with the polarization and tribalism so common in politics today, and in voters.  If you are on the Conservative or Liberal "team", your team can do no wrong and the other team can do no right.  But, if the other party is so uniformly terrible, then what you are really wanting is a one party system.  And we all know what happens with one party systems.

[fishinwrench]

5 minutes ago, Al Agnew said:

With the ambiguity of the Constitutional provisions of most cases, a Supreme Court that is easily predictable is NOT a Supreme Court that is even making an attempt to decide cases on rule of law and Constitutionality, they are ruling on ideology.

That is a bothersome and profoundly true statement.  

[rps]

Al and Wrench, thank you for thinking. I honestly do not care whether I agree with your votes, but I am tickled to see you do more than spout party talking points.

 

[Mitch f]

1 hour ago, Al Agnew said:

If you are on the Conservative or Liberal "team", your team can do no wrong and the other team can do no right.  But, if the other party is so uniformly terrible, then what you are really wanting is a one party system.  And we all know what happens with one party systems.

I agree wholeheartedly 

[Devan S.]

The media plays up the "team" narrative. In reality those hardcore party elitist groups are a relatively small portion of the votes.  

Most people fall somewhere in the middle and even bend which side they vote for fairly often. That's why we historically vote in the other party for president fairly often, and always hear about "flipping" states and districts. 

You might get 60+% voter turn out for president and 40+% for mid-terms which means that a large percentage of voters literally don't give a flying flip at all. Since they don't care, then they likely aren't tied to the extreme left or right they are somewhere in the middle otherwise they would be voting and beating that drum. Unfortunately the people that don't show up to vote are often the ones that could and would make the most difference in who is elected. 

Presidential elections usually get the highest voter turnout but one could argue that that they ultimately mean the least compared to voting for congress and senate. Unless there is a SCOTUS seat up for grab. At this point in our democracy, any SCOTUS ruling will be premised on ideology because the constitutions isn't clear as drinking water on a lot of what brought forth today. It's exactly why there is even a debate about the 2nd amendment because someone can use the "Yes, but" psychology to twist the constitution to fit their ideology.

Alternatively you can think its really all a charade. Candidates are chosen before the votes are ever cast by the elite, corporate money, and media that determine how the game is played and who gets to play(regardless of what Trump really thinks). The actual vote is just lip service democracy to pick between the 2 chosen options.