361–370 of 583 posts
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Done!
You abolished the senate?
Amazingly some guys thought it up hundreds of years ago. Is your issue that it is bicameral? If so what advantage would one house have?
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8 individual democrats, the exact number needed for the vote to pass, all of whom are either out the door or safe from reelection in 2026. Quite the coincidence.
Those 8 people still needed to agree to change their vote and the responsibility is ultimately on them. And this is yet another political trope: Democrats are always blamed for everything by everyone including their own voters. Republicans have majorities in the entire federal government, but the shutdown is the Democrats’ fault because they wanted a bill with healthcare preserved. The majority party isn’t blamed for…
Cool, so we're hoping for a Christmas Carol to come in and show them the error of their ways in a dream?
Its the rest of the senator's responsibility to convince them. As it is their constituents. We're all a bit at fault here.
>When will anything be the GOP’s fault?
The evil within will always be worse than the evil you know. No one expects the devil to turn another leaf, but will chastise Judas for betraying Jesus.
Meanwhile the GOP has embraced the evil. They made things very easy for themselves.
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If you are from a smaller state, you would think it would still make sense. Otherwise the rural concerns just get steamrolled by the urban concerns. The point still stands about trying to level out concerns between smaller and larger states, which is why it was created with years of debate and a majority even if it wasn't consensus.
I've yet to understand why 'land' should have a stronger vote than 'people'
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Legal weed senators were voting for it because their constituents include people growing legal weed. The hemp product market competes with these constituents. The anti-weed senators were voting for it because they are anti-weed.
Honest question but how is hemp competing with weed? Are these different plants?
THCa/Delta8/similar products are produced under an oversight in the hemp legislation and different businesses are taking advantage of that than those involved in the legal marijuana trade.
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Legal weed senators were voting for it because their constituents include people growing legal weed. The hemp product market competes with these constituents. The anti-weed senators were voting for it because they are anti-weed.
Honest question but how is hemp competing with weed? Are these different plants?
Cannabis needs to be reclassified. I think this is the right thing to do, actually, but only if it came at the same time as reclassifying. This is a drug market that should be regulated, but not class 1.
People upthread are arguing about the senate as a system, but how much does that really matter when wildly popular things, like legalizing marijuana, are not even considered by anyone in congress? A majority of Americans are in favor of this, and have been for over a decade .
Many Republicans are just against it out right, and many Democrats are either indifferent or know that promising to legalize it will mobilize a subset of voters who prioritize it above else (or may just not vote at all otherwise, over 30% of Americans don't vote after all).
It'd explain why there's been so many opportunities to reschedule the drug, and why in some states even when they had the numbers to pass legalization, they still don't. Or do so with extra incentives (often the actual sale of it) to come later (vote next cycle!).
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Point is, they would not have different roles, but instead work as a single house which votes on issues and laws and then delegates the result to the executive branch. No dual ”clubs” or houses with separate votes or separate elections. This is how my country works.
Part of the point of the split when the US Congress was designed was to intentionally make it difficult for bills to pass, because they had to pass votes in two independent houses, that (presumably) were focused on differing agendas. This inherent difficulty was the intended outcome to try to assure that only bills which had strong support overall from different perspectives and viewpoints would make it through the d…
House ----- Impeach Purse Break Electoral Tie for President
Senate ----- Try the impeachment Break Electoral Tie for Vice President Ratify treaties Confirm executive appointments
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The worst laws come from direct amendments and petitions because only the stuff no lawmaker actually wants their name on (or could pass) goes there - and it gets gamed to hell. See the CA propositions - they turn into insane population wide gaslighting competitions.
I'd rather have CA's props than an elected congressman who ignores the will of the people
So you can see even if you literally amend the constitution in california by popular referendum, those in power can just tell the populace to go fuck themselves and they won't be recognizing it, no matter that the constitution is the supreme law of the state.
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My take on some of the Senate's advantages: - No gerrymandering - Longer terms mean that senators can spend more time governing, less time running for election, and they can take a longer view on the impact of their decisions - Filibuster means that a tiny minority cannot force legislation through
“No gerrymandering”. Wut? The Senate is the most egregious example of anti-democratic systems in any country you could reasonably call democratic. It’s far worse than the worst examples of gerrymandering.
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That's less because Bavaria makes beer, otherwise the wine states would also impede cannabis. The problem is that Söder and his CSU are obviously following the old Nixon attitude of targetting cannabis to hit left-wings [1]: > You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with hero…
In my experience (of friends who drink and/or smoke weed) weed isn’t replacing drinking wine, it’s replacing drinking beer and booze.
Police was infamous for kicking in your door if a random copper walked home and smelled weed. "You smell like you got some weed on you" was a popular excuse the cops used at Munich Central Station to fleece everyone they deemed to look like a punk or, worse, Black person.
And the latter, well, it's certainly not a coincidence that the cops asked for, and got, the weapon ban zones in train stations giving them back the authority to fleece people at will, right after the cannabis legalisation came in force last year.
It's not about cannabis, it's not about the guns, it's all about the ability of the fucking cops to abuse their power whenever they goddamn want to, and Bavarian police are notable in Germany for being particularly aggressive and ignorant.