US Politics - A Society in Meltdown

Welcome to 12 hours ago.

Thanks pal.

What is she proposing though, doing away with separation of powers? Replacing the president with a PM?

The vast majority of the major problems in the US could be sorted overnight by the ending of corporate political donations and a low cap on private ones. But how would you get that passed when all the politicians are bought and paid for already :joy:

Well no chance as they wouldn’t cut their nose off like you say. But at then end of that clip AOC points out, correctly, that there are similarly no restraints on the president recieving donations, making executive decisions etc etc but thats a key element of the US Constitution, that the presidents office operates free from oversight or control in that way. Its not ideal but im just wondering what her suggestion is to change that

PACs, specifically super PACs, are the main problem, there are reasonable limits on individuals ($2,500).

It’s quite hilarious though that people are bashing Trump over campaign financing, as HRC raised almost double his amount in 2016, $1.2B versus $650M, begging the question which party is more beholden to special interests. Trump was elected the old fashioned way, slogging through states and holding rallies, including multiple visits to states Hillary didn’t bother her ass going to because they were full of “deplorables”. Way to win Hillary!

Not quite free of oversight or control, the president has limited powers. Every president has used executive orders, I think Carter set the record. Congress can overrule them though (and the president can veto congress), and they can be challenged and overturned in the courts as Trump’s travel bans were.

With RBG MIA and trump picking brett and Co, that ultimate oversight is limited. Unitary theory and all that. Still dont see what AOC thinks can be done

You don’t think it’s possible to introduce legislation regulating political donations? Or disallowing involvement in legislation relating to a lobby group you’ve had donations from? Why? Seems pretty straightforward.

The second one, possible, the first suggestion politically impossible really. I was looking for actual changes that could be brought in, not fantasy ones

It’s easy to introduce legislation, getting it passed is the issue. What has happened historically is the party that is out of power in congress complains loudly about corruption and reforming the system, but when they get into power do nothing. The best that can be hoped for is to break the link between lobbying and legislation, and maybe limit campaign donations to individuals only.

Will this Bezos thing prove to be Trumps watergate @anon7035031? Looks like there’s a lot of the story still to come.

How did they get the messages for a start.

Bezos is well able to take on all comers as well given his financial clout and media ownership etc

I have no idea wtf is going on but it did give us the headline “Bezos exposes Pecker” :joy:

I’m not sure who’s the bigger cunt between Bezos and Trump so hopefully there’s some sort of double KO situation

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Candace Owens is described as “a rising star of the conservative movement”.

Here she is telling a London audience that the problem with Hitler was what he did outside Germany.

These loonies aren’t even trying to hide their love for fascism and Naziism anymore.

1.2 billion on a campaign? :rofl::disappointed_relieved: It’s the sickest country in the world.

The US congress has an approval rating of less than 20%, so four out of five people think they are doing a shit job. Hard to argue with the 80% when through massive mismanagement the national debt is $22 trillion and growing at almost $1 trillion a year. If there is one thing we know from the past two decades of Republican and Democratic control, government can only be trusted to spend far more than it gets in revenue. In this respect the EU is no different, the combined 28 member states debt is similar to the US.

The solution that is being proposed by AOC and being embraced by several Democratic presidential hopefuls is a massive increase in government and government spending, specifically about $40 trillion to pay for government managed programs (free health care, jobs for all, eliminating fossil fuels, eliminating air travel, etc).

It will be a very hard sell to convince the US public that a government that has created $22 trillion of debt, which future generations will have to repay, should be trusted with another $40 trillion.

… and she still lost :joy:

https://youtu.be/066WAeG5muE