71–80 of 140 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A bit strange to be focused on an event from 126 years ago.
An event which laid the foundation for many of the economic issues facing Hawaii today. Resolving this issue would enrich the lives of many people currently living in Hawaii.
Conservatism should be about maintaining checks and balances that keep the government honest. IMO this is something that even Trump's supporters should be concerned about, especially if they themselves lean a bit libertarian.
even if they are usually conflated or found together, aren’t they pretty much different things?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those bureaucrats are appointed at the whim of the President, and occasionally through a senate confirmation, both of which are elected offices. > and barely answer to someone who did. Their hiring is done by elected officials. Their employment and power, aside from a few positions, which are fixed-term, is contingent on the whims of those elected officials. Just because Congress has been very busy with abdicating al…
> Their hiring is done by elected officials. No, hiring is largely done by other civil service personnel. The Secretary of State isn't deciding who works in the cafeteria - there's a number of tiers of career employees between him and that decision.
The janitor isn't the reason the DoS makes poor decisions. These decisions are made much higher up the food chain, and elected officials have direct influence over the people who make them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They only keep their jobs through the administrations when they do as they are told. If the president wants to change a department's policy, and the department pushes back, he can fire as many directors as he needs to.
There are quite a few protections for the civil service rank and file. https://www.vox.com/2018/8/27/17786324/trump-fires-governmen... > The reason he can’t is simple: Unlike his employees at the Trump Organization, about a third of federal workers belong to unions. And those unions have negotiated certain job protections for workers, which includes a process that gives workers a chance to improve their job performan…
None of the directors, or the senior administrators setting policy are unionized.
The article fails to point out that it was the Obama administration that really turned up the heat on whistleblowers:
https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/jan/10...
I suspect that at the time many Obama supporters simply didn't care. Their guy was in charge and that was that.
Short-sighted to be sure.
Far too few considered the possibility that the opposition was watching and learning what new things might be possible.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
An event which laid the foundation for many of the economic issues facing Hawaii today. Resolving this issue would enrich the lives of many people currently living in Hawaii.
That's impossible to tell and the US is the richest nation on Earth, the Federal government provides financial assistance to states.
Money is worthless in a place like Hawaii where proper land and marine management are the sole requirements for ensuring the well-being of the community. Food production is crippled as the land is destroyed to make way for suburbs and shopping malls. The "state" government routinely approves projects which divert water away from prime farmlands to fill swimming pools and irrigate massive golf courses covered in invasive grass. In Kihei they're teaching school kids that their land is a dry wasteland when everyone's grandparents remember that it was wetlands before the water was diverted.
Hosting the U.S. military has made many places in Hawaii incapable of sustaining life as they heavily pollute any area they occupy. They broke the water table on Kahoolawe and now no one can live there for thousands of years. They are currently allowing jet fuel to leak into the aquifer under red hill.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This has been on a trend of less and less true as Congress continues to abdicate its responsibilities to bureaucrats in the Executive office. It doesn't matter which party they vote for as much of the day to day lives of citizens is determined by people who never stood for election, and barely answer to someone who did.
Congress is 535 people and is filled with relatively little expertise[1]. The United States has a population of 330M and is the largest and most advanced economy in the world. Of course Congress has to delegate to executive agencies. This is not abdication. Abdication is letting lobbyists and "model legislation" outfits author the laws which legislators have been known to almost literally just rubber stamp. [1] Just…
I wouldn't automatically discount the value that a restauranteur or real estate developer could bring to office. At least it would bring a bit of diversity of opinion compared to the roomful of lawyers. Though in this case, we're experiencing the opposite problem: people who have absolutely no idea how legislation is done or how the government functions, and who cannot be convinced that they're not experts in every domain they touch.
It would be nice if people came to DC with the intent of listening, discussing, and coming to conclusions together. But the system is adversarial by design, and grows more adversarial with each passing year.
If you accept that premise, I think we have to develop systems that are humane and self-referential.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty likely that your and my (dis)taste for particular politicians and parties overlaps, but keep in mind that only one single senator voted against the passage of the Patriot Act as originally presented. My strong suspicion is that the association of W. with the modern surveillance state, while accurate, has far more to do with timing than with party.
Of course it was timing. A Democrat in office during 9/11 would have made no difference. Nobody was seeing straight at that time. Everyone wanted the federal government to do something about those darn terrorists. With the PATRIOT Act passed, it was like that quote from the Stars Wars prequels: "So this is how liberty dies: with thunderous applause..."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most unelected bureaucrats only have a job at the whims of elected representatives. Your vote for the bureaucrats, via proxy of your representative. I'm not sure why people have a hard time grasping this concept, when they grasp the concept of representative democracy (Where you vote for new legislature, or for supreme court appointments, or for executive actions, via proxy of voting for a representative of congress,…
This has been on a trend of less and less true as Congress continues to abdicate its responsibilities to bureaucrats in the Executive office. It doesn't matter which party they vote for as much of the day to day lives of citizens is determined by people who never stood for election, and barely answer to someone who did.
“Deep State” nonsense is a trope that is just plain dumb. Brought to you by the same people who cry and whine about judicial activism and appoint people specifically to change the law.