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Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

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Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#91

Post by khuey »

adamors wrote: post #63
khuey wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What actually happened is that a group of squishy Democrats and Angus King didn't actually want the filibuster nuked so when they realized Republicans weren't going to extend the ACA subsidies they called the whole thing off without even reading the bill they were going to pass. The hemp ban isn't even the shadiest part, the self-dealing of allowing certain Senators who were connected to a putsch to loot the treasury…

The fact that all 8 are either retiring or not facing reelection in 2026 means that this was probably orchestrated by the minority leadership. It’s exactly 8 senators, safe seats, no comments from Schumer. There is no coup.

I didn't say those 8 were the only 8 members of said group.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#92

Post by petcat »

redserk wrote: post #34
treetalker wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My pet view is that the fundamental flaw in the Constitution is its decreasing ability to enable coordinated change as population grows and more states enter the Union. Thus, change becomes progressively more difficult over time, whereas changes are increasingly necessary as time passes. Yes, one of its main goals was to make change difficult. But political-party and legislator capture of the system has taken hold (e…

I can’t imagine the framers of the Constitution envisioned having 50 states, either. 26 Senators is a substantially different shape of legislative body than the current 100.

There were already 25 states (50 Senators) by the time James Madison died in 1836. The original Constitution framers had already seen the explosive growth of the US during their lifetimes. So I can't imagine they didn't envision it.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#93

Post by vjvjvjvjghv »

mullingitover wrote: post #10

[flagged]

This whole process has shown again that a democracy can only function if everybody or at least most politicians act in good faith and respect the rules . If you constantly ignore boundaries, the whole things falls apart. I honestly have no idea how the US can return to some level of sanity. It just gets worse and worse. Lots of energy is being wasted on posturing and coherent long term policy is basically impossible. I really worry where this is going.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#94

Post by ahmeneeroe-v2 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #4

The Senate is fundamentally a ridiculous way of representing 350 million people and we’re going to continue to get absurd unrepresentative outcomes for as long as it remains a relevant body. There’s no getting around this and it will structurally just get worse and worse. Simply no way something like it exists 200 years from now, it is probably the biggest flaw in the US political structure right now.

The insane thing about the US is that 350M people are being represented. The government needs to represent a minority of people in order to become functional again.

That said I bet the Senate exists in 500 years.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#95

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

tehjoker wrote: post #44
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Senate was absolutely one of the best features of government. Unicameral legislatures are uniformly godawful. In as much as it is imperfect, it is only so because Congress has become more unicameral-like... senators are little more than representatives that stay in office six years instead of two.

The senate was explicitly designed to provide a brake on the democratic aspirations of the lower classes by the founders. American government is a system of baffles designed to frustrate democratic will and preserve the property and political control of elites. The senate should be abolished along with the undemocratic supreme court (as currently constituted with lifetime appointments and the ability to overrule cong…

>American government is a system of baffles designed to frustrate democratic will

The "democratic will", like the people who manifest it, is so bizarrely stupid that there are no insults strong enough to properly insult it. If it can be tolerated at all, then it is so only when there are brakes strong enough to slow it down and force it to think carefully.

>To be honest, we need a new constitution that promotes democracy.

Why would I (or anyone like me) ever agree to a new constitution that someone like yourself approves of? The whole point of the constitution as written was that people like yourself couldn't easily come in and change all the rules when our vigilance relaxed a bit, but here you are not even trying to hide it: you want to change all the rules in one fell swoop. No thanks. Do it the hard way to prove to yourself (and the rest of us) that a vast majority want those changes.

I think senators should be appointed by the states again, repeal the 17th.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#96

Post by MangoToupe »

hemp_is_canvas wrote: post #65
mothballed wrote: post #46

Even the legal weed state senators were voting for this. It is mostly about shifting profits from mom and pop, low regulation hemp industry to wealthy corporations that own dispensaries that have gargantuan regulatory costs that gatekeep out most the competition. This ensures profits are captured by the wealthy rather than small family type setups. Wealthy former hemp companies will shift to the "legal" weed market,…

76/100 senators voted to keep this provision.

I'm not sure how this relates to the above comment.

EDIT: I'm assuming this is to point out it's a bipartisan effort. Well, yes, there isn't exactly a pro-people party.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#97

Post by hemp_is_canvas »

mothballed wrote: post #32
whalesalad wrote: post #6

The alcohol lobbyists did this. > And in a letter Monday obtained by MJBizDaily, representatives from major alcohol lobbies urged senators to thwart Paul’s efforts. > His “shortsighted actions could threaten the delicately balanced deal to reopen the federal government,” a Nov. 10 letter from the American Distilled Spirits Alliance, Distilled Spirits Council, Wine Institute, Beer Institute and Wine America reads. htt…

The wealthy weed stock / dispensary people wanted it as much as anything else. Note many of the senators voting against the amendment to fix it, were pro-marijuana senators from legal weed states. Hemp was a way for mom and pops to get in the game because the regulatory overhead was much lower. They were small private operators that could enter with low start-up costs, in a free-market like environment. No one could…

Both senators from NY, Washington, California, and Illinois voted for this.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#98

Post by ahmeneeroe-v2 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #61
potato3732842 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The senate kind of makes more sense the bigger the country is. You need something that essentially represents each whole state as a unit. This is also why they originally weren't directly elected. When you consider that the OG federal government mostly dealt in issues that were common to the states or very clearly interstate the reason they chose the architecture they did for the senate seems even more sensible. They…

> You need something that essentially represents each whole state as a unit. You can have a group of people that represent each state as a unit. Political power should absolutely be proportional to population represented though.

The only reason we have the US is that we rejected this notion.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#99

Post by hemp_is_canvas »

MangoToupe wrote: post #96
hemp_is_canvas wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

76/100 senators voted to keep this provision.

I'm not sure how this relates to the above comment. EDIT: I'm assuming this is to point out it's a bipartisan effort. Well, yes, there isn't exactly a pro-people party.

It says that weed supporting stats voted for this. They did.
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