This argument about the Senate being some sinister slave state plot is hilarious. Is the House of Lords some kind of plot too? The founders were adapting an already existing framework (the British Parliament) in a way to ensure the smaller states that they wouldn't be trampled on in order to form 'a more perfect union'. None of their logic has changed. What's changed is that compromise is seen as weakness now.
The Senate has nothing to do with preserving slavery. The founders had a few reasons for the construction of a Senate, one being they thought a mixture of porportional and equal representation was best, one being to fight corruption, one being better representation, and some others. To quote the Federalist papers:
" The people can never wilfully betray their own interests; but they may possibly be betrayed by the representatives of the people; and the danger will be evidently greater where the whole legislative trust is lodged in the hands of one body of men, than where the concurrence of separate and dissimilar bodies is required in every public act."
"The equality of representation in the Senate is another point, which, being evidently the result of compromise between the opposite pretensions of the large and the small States, does not call for much discussion. . . .
In this spirit it may be remarked, that the equal vote allowed to each state, is at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of sovereignty remaining in the individual states, and an instrument for preserving that residuary sovereignty. . . .
Another advantage accruing from this ingredient in the constitution of the senate is, the additional impediment it must prove against improper acts of legislation. No law or resolution can now be passed without the concurrence, first, of a majority of the people, and then, of a majority of the states."
There were also some other ones, like they believed Senates made represantative republics more stable by a few historical examples, and that it would provide more accountability over policy since they had longer term limits, and some bad ones, but I don't want to overload with text walls.
This is a bit like all the people who believed that the Civil War was fought over "State's Rights". It wasnt. It was fought over the institution of slavery, as is clearly identified in the Cornerstone Speech.
The Senate 100% protected the rights of slavery because slave-owning states made up less than 1/2 of the US population immediately after the ratification of the Constitution. The 3/5ths compromise was their hedge in the house, but they also always had the Senate that provided them with outsized legislative power.
Using the 1800 census and the 6th congress (seated in 1800):
Free(ish) states had approximately 2.4 million inhabitants with 18 senators
Slave states had approximately 1.6 million non-enslaved inhabitants with 14 senators.
Voting power per side: 114,338 per senator in the slave owning states, 133,604 per senator in the non-slave owning states.
That ratio will proceed to become more and more favorable to slave owning states as the country moved west.
I was probably overboard in saying the point of the senate became obsolete with the abolition of slavery, but I think it would be naive to suggest that the Southern States did not see the advantage in the Senate as it typically favors less populous states, which the Slave-owning states were at that time (indeed, it was Madison's plan to have a bicameral legislature. Madison was from Virginia, and owned slaves).
This argument about the Senate being some sinister slave state plot is hilarious. Is the House of Lords some kind of plot too? The founders were adapting an already existing framework (the British Parliament) in a way to ensure the smaller states that they wouldn't be trampled on in order to form 'a more perfect union'. None of their logic has changed. What's changed is that compromise is seen as weakness now.
Look. I dont want to poke anyone in the eye here, but please do some research on the House of Lords. It's nothing like the Senate (in terms of its power, nor how the body is selected, number of people, etc). It's really apples and oranges.
The White House just suspended the credentials of CNN reporter Jim Acosta for asking tough questions at today's press conference. That is what it is on it's own. But now Sarah Sanders has said it was because he put his hands on a female staffer. This is a straight up fucking lie. There is video tape. She clearly, for all the world to see, attempts to take his microphone from him. He never lays a goddamn finger on her. What she is saying is flat-out provable slander.
Again, this is just right out of 1984. There is video of what she is saying definitively NOT happening and yet the official White House line is that it did. My eyes work fine. And Sarah Sanders is pathetic piece of shit.
The Senate has nothing to do with preserving slavery. The founders had a few reasons for the construction of a Senate, one being they thought a mixture of porportional and equal representation was best, one being to fight corruption, one being better representation, and some others. To quote the Federalist papers:
" The people can never wilfully betray their own interests; but they may possibly be betrayed by the representatives of the people; and the danger will be evidently greater where the whole legislative trust is lodged in the hands of one body of men, than where the concurrence of separate and dissimilar bodies is required in every public act."
"The equality of representation in the Senate is another point, which, being evidently the result of compromise between the opposite pretensions of the large and the small States, does not call for much discussion. . . .
In this spirit it may be remarked, that the equal vote allowed to each state, is at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of sovereignty remaining in the individual states, and an instrument for preserving that residuary sovereignty. . . .
Another advantage accruing from this ingredient in the constitution of the senate is, the additional impediment it must prove against improper acts of legislation. No law or resolution can now be passed without the concurrence, first, of a majority of the people, and then, of a majority of the states."
There were also some other ones, like they believed Senates made represantative republics more stable by a few historical examples, and that it would provide more accountability over policy since they had longer term limits, and some bad ones, but I don't want to overload with text walls.
This is a bit like all the people who believed that the Civil War was fought over "State's Rights". It wasnt. It was fought over the institution of slavery, as is clearly identified in the Cornerstone Speech.
The Senate 100% protected the rights of slavery because slave-owning states made up less than 1/2 of the US population immediately after the ratification of the Constitution. The 3/5ths compromise was their hedge in the house, but they also always had the Senate that provided them with outsized legislative power.
Using the 1800 census and the 6th congress (seated in 1800):
Free(ish) states had approximately 2.4 million inhabitants with 18 senators
Slave states had approximately 1.6 million non-enslaved inhabitants with 14 senators.
Voting power per side: 114,338 per senator in the slave owning states, 133,604 per senator in the non-slave owning states.
That ratio will proceed to become more and more favorable to slave owning states as the country moved west.
I was probably overboard in saying the point of the senate became obsolete with the abolition of slavery, but I think it would be naive to suggest that the Southern States did not see the advantage in the Senate as it typically favors less populous states, which the Slave-owning states were at that time (indeed, it was Madison's plan to have a bicameral legislature. Madison was from Virginia, and owned slaves).
This argument about the Senate being some sinister slave state plot is hilarious. Is the House of Lords some kind of plot too? The founders were adapting an already existing framework (the British Parliament) in a way to ensure the smaller states that they wouldn't be trampled on in order to form 'a more perfect union'. None of their logic has changed. What's changed is that compromise is seen as weakness now.
Look. I dont want to poke anyone in the eye here, but please do some research on the House of Lords. It's nothing like the Senate (in terms of its power, nor how the body is selected, number of people, etc). It's really apples and oranges.
I used the word 'adapting' not 'imitating'. I never said they were the same, nor implied it.
I used the word 'adapting' not 'imitating'. I never said they were the same, nor implied it.
I'm not going to argue semantics. You said it was "adapted" from an existing "framework" (The House of Commons is somewhat similar, but the House of Lords is totally and completely different), and you specifically compared the two.
All the while, that does nothing to refute the assertion that the Senate was proposed (mostly) by someone who owned slaves, was representing a slave owning state, and which very directly benefited states that supported slavery. A refutation that seemed (to me) to be the purpose of your post when you said that the "senate being some sinister slave state plot is hilarious".
The White House pulled Jim Acosta's press pass. Earlier today Jim said "why do you call the migrant caravan INVADERS". Trump pulled a Brett Kavanaugh response and clutched his pearls in indignation and anger "why I've never been so offended blah blah blah.".
One day after midterms Trump is going full authoritarian. This is bad. Anyone who hoped for reconciliation after the midterms had better reconsider.
Hours after the midterms Trump is obstructing justice and breaking the first ammendment of the Constitution. This will not end well.
The White House just suspended the credentials of CNN reporter Jim Acosta for asking tough questions at today's press conference. That is what it is on it's own. But now Sarah Sanders has said it was because he put his hands on a female staffer. This is a straight up fucking lie. There is video tape. She clearly, for all the world to see, attempts to take his microphone from him. He never lays a goddamn finger on her. What she is saying is flat-out provable slander.
Again, this is just right out of 1984. There is video of what she is saying definitively NOT happening and yet the official White House line is that it did. My eyes work fine. And Sarah Sanders is pathetic piece of shit.
It looks like this is a photo of "putting his hands on a female staffer".
I'll admit he's deflecting her from grabbing the mic, but to pretend that this somehow equates to an aggressive action by Acosta is flatly absurd.
The White House just suspended the credentials of CNN reporter Jim Acosta for asking tough questions at today's press conference. That is what it is on it's own. But now Sarah Sanders has said it was because he put his hands on a female staffer. This is a straight up fucking lie. There is video tape. She clearly, for all the world to see, attempts to take his microphone from him. He never lays a goddamn finger on her. What she is saying is flat-out provable slander.
Again, this is just right out of 1984. There is video of what she is saying definitively NOT happening and yet the official White House line is that it did. My eyes work fine. And Sarah Sanders is pathetic piece of shit.
It looks like this is a photo of "putting his hands on a female staffer".
I'll admit he's deflecting her from grabbing the mic, but to pretend that this somehow equates to an aggressive action by Acosta is flatly absurd.
There are a lot of people who have been listening to Trump's lies and going along with them. Either because they want to believe them because it's politically convenient or for whatever reason.
If you really care about America it must stop.
Again these guys are the worst they pretend that Kavanaugh was falsely accused of sexual assault. He wasn't there was years old credible accusations in his case. But now Republican operatives have falsely accused Robert Mueller and today Jim Acosta. Totally disgusting.
The White House just suspended the credentials of CNN reporter Jim Acosta for asking tough questions at today's press conference. That is what it is on it's own. But now Sarah Sanders has said it was because he put his hands on a female staffer. This is a straight up fucking lie. There is video tape. She clearly, for all the world to see, attempts to take his microphone from him. He never lays a goddamn finger on her. What she is saying is flat-out provable slander.
Again, this is just right out of 1984. There is video of what she is saying definitively NOT happening and yet the official White House line is that it did. My eyes work fine. And Sarah Sanders is pathetic piece of shit.
It looks like this is a photo of "putting his hands on a female staffer".
I'll admit he's deflecting her from grabbing the mic, but to pretend that this somehow equates to an aggressive action by Acosta is flatly absurd.
That is barely an incidental arm brush, much less "putting his hands on her". There is a full video, everyone can watch it.
I'd absolutely take a net gain of 10 electoral votes in California and 5 or 6 in New York as a starting point (and at the same time subtracting about 10 from those States where barely anyone lives as they go from 3 to 1). Keep in mind this would also give Texas more as well. The main point of these posts has always been showing how even the House is not representative because there is a cap on the number of Reps, and to show how the imbalance has gotten, to say the least, at tad out of control in one direction. I don't oppose protecting small states, all I'm arguing (and will continue to argue) is that it has gone well beyond that. "Protecting small states" has, in terms of Presidential elections, made the votes of people in small States 4x more powerful than those in large ones. In regards to the Senate, it has made some of them almost 80x more powerful.
One the one hand, I agree that House representation is out of alignment with the current population and really needs to be addressed. On the other hand, do we really want national elections to be decided only by people in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis, Houston, Miami, and New York City? Do you believe that voters in New York City and Los Angeles have your best interests at heart, given that they do not live in your area?
Yes.
First, let's say that hypothetically, a really rich family bought the entire state of Wyoming, minus public land, and now only 100 people live there.
100 people have 1/50th the Senate representation, and 1/435th the House representation, and 1/535th the electoral college of a country of 320,000,000 people.
You can really say, with a straight face, that that's intended by the framers of the Constitution?
What if it was 45 states with 100 people each and 5 states with 80 million people, each? Does this not seem absurd?
"Ridiculous", you say.
California has more people in it than 21 states COMBINED, and ALMOST 22 states.
Second, we've been fixed at 435 by statutory law for almost 90 years. Thanks for that, Republicans.
"In 1921, Congress failed to reapportion the House membership as required by the United States Constitution. This failure to reapportion may have been politically motivated, as the newly elected Republican majority may have feared the effect such a reapportionment would have on their future electoral prospects. Then in 1929 Congress (Republican control of both houses of congress and the presidency) passed the Reapportionment Act of 1929 which capped the size of the House at 435 (the then current number). This cap has remained unchanged for more than eight decades. Three states – Wyoming, Vermont, and North Dakota – have populations smaller than the average for a single district. " -Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_apportionment
Now, with computers, and teleconferencing, this cap should be removed. Or build a bigger U.S. Capitol building.
I mean, the Senate races are decided by popular vote. This is democracy in it's most basic form. What's the problem.
Wyoming with 50 people gets 2 Senators and millions upon millions in California get two Senators. That's the problem.
And the House of Representatives gives seats by population, ensuring more populated states have more representation. Still don't see any actual issue.
They don't though, as I've proved with numbers a myriad of times. States like California are underrepresented by at least 20%.
California is over-represented because the rules of the House favor them: illegal immigrants or other non voting citizens still count towards electoral votes and the question about citizenship is not asked, and California has a few million more than most and a million more than the second most given the most recent government estimates.
I don't know what numbers you are talking about because I've never seen them, but if it doesn't take that fact into account it's probably not accurate.
I really don't see what's unfair with a set of mostly self-governing states where each state is represented and the people in each state are represented. Other than the fact that democrats lose.
Democrats are supposed to run everything because they're 52% as opposed to 48% or whatever. It's funny how every majority is akin to tyranny to them except when they're the majority.
The system is working as intended...
It's more than that, it's more like 55%-45%."
How lopsided does it have to be before conservatives acknowledge "Ok, there's really more of them, they should get the government?"
Know where elections REALLY don't matter?? For people who live in Washington DC. They have no votes in the House, and no Senators. All 3 of them (1 House member, 2 Senators) would be Democrats if they did. What possible justification is there for Wyoming residents being represented by 2 of 100 Senators while the nearly identical (and of course, black) population of Washington DC has no representation at any level legislatively??
I'm not bothered by D.C. not being represented that much.
First, it's THE CAPITAL.
Second, it's not like there's not neighboring states the residents of D.C. can move to. Or failing that, find a way to redistrict them into those neighboring states in some manner. By geography, by apportionment, by whatever.
Third, I am more concerned about the citizens outside the contiguous U.S. who are getting screwed. Puerto Rico is just the biggest and most obvious. There's Guam, American Samoa, Northern Marianas Islands, and U.S. Virgin Islands.
Now that I think about it, it would be entirely possible to split up even smaller states simply to gain an electoral advantage. Wyoming has the power to split into two states if it wants to, and Wyomingites would gain an extra 2 senators as well as more power in presidential elections. All it would take is a partisan consensus on exploiting the system.
As nonsensical as our state borders are, splitting up big states could actually set a bad precedent. One party could all but guarantee control of the White House and the Senate if they were willing to abuse the system, and the other party wasn't.
That seems a little far-fetched and too obvious of an exploit (it would be comparable to FDR's court packing scheme), but we've seen some breakdowns in democratic norms lately. It's not completely out of the range of possibility.
I would say there probably needs to be a minimum size, like 10 million people.
I think splitting up California would be a good thing. It's probably the least representative state there is. 4 million Californians voted Trump in 2016. Their Senate race was Democrat vs. Democrat. A Republican was not on the ballot. You could divide California up into 3 red and 5 blue or 2 red and 6 blue and it would be more representative in general, and a net gain for the democrats.
But the real reason I would support it is because California should have a right to do it if they want, as should any state. State's rights should be maximized, because in my opinion that's how you can have a real effect on politics; the more localized things are, more influence you tend to have and the further your vote goes.
As for the fact that population disparity has grown: this is true, but as the population grows in bigger states they gain more House seats to offset what disparity exists in the Senate. The system accounts for this. But that doesn't mean splitting up huge states is necessarily a bad idea, it has its merits.
The same should happen for Texas. Functionally, it's at least 3 or 4 states. Issues along the Rio Grande Valley are not the same as issues in San Antonio, which are not the issues of DFW metroplex, which are not the issues of greater Hicksville (That sea of solid red, and I don't mean that entirely disparagingly. There's 10,000 cities of less than 3,000 people it feels like). And I don't even know about Houston but it's different than SA and DFW.
One the one hand, I agree that House representation is out of alignment with the current population and really needs to be addressed. On the other hand, do we really want national elections to be decided only by people in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis, Houston, Miami, and New York City? Do you believe that voters in New York City and Los Angeles have your best interests at heart, given that they do not live in your area?
Yes.
First, let's say that hypothetically, a really rich family bought the entire state of Wyoming, minus public land, and now only 100 people live there.
100 people have 1/50th the Senate representation, and 1/435th the House representation, and 1/535th the electoral college of a country of 320,000,000 people.
You can really say, with a straight face, that that's intended by the framers of the Constitution?
It may not be what they intended but it is the system we have. You don't have to like it but until the Constitution becomes amended you do have to live with it.
Once the Democrats take control of the House in January I suggest that those of you who find this system to be a problem contact your Representative and urge them to do something about it. They won't, of course, because it isn't an issue for them, but at least you voiced your opinion to them.
The White House pulled Jim Acosta's press pass. Earlier today Jim said "why do you call the migrant caravan INVADERS". Trump pulled a Brett Kavanaugh response and clutched his pearls in indignation and anger "why I've never been so offended blah blah blah.".
One day after midterms Trump is going full authoritarian. This is bad. Anyone who hoped for reconciliation after the midterms had better reconsider.
Hours after the midterms Trump is obstructing justice and breaking the first ammendment of the Constitution. This will not end well.
I watched that press conference, how the reporter behaved was disgusting.
Trump answered his question but the reporter wouldn't accept the answer.
The question was "why do you describe the caravan as an invasion." The answer was, "because I consider it an invasion."
Quite straightforward, and it's not the reporters job to arbitarily decide that the answer is not acceptable. A lot of people would agree with Trump, a lot of people would disagree with Trump.
Since when is it a two bit reporter's job to decide what people think?
The only danger to democracy I see from this side of the Atlantic is the endless stream of Democrat supporters refusing to accept the result of elections. Thinking that if they make enough noise and trouble, they get to overturn results.
And if you want to talk about reconciliation, how about leading by example?
I used the word 'adapting' not 'imitating'. I never said they were the same, nor implied it.
I'm not going to argue semantics. You said it was "adapted" from an existing "framework" (The House of Commons is somewhat similar, but the House of Lords is totally and completely different), and you specifically compared the two.
All the while, that does nothing to refute the assertion that the Senate was proposed (mostly) by someone who owned slaves, was representing a slave owning state, and which very directly benefited states that supported slavery. A refutation that seemed (to me) to be the purpose of your post when you said that the "senate being some sinister slave state plot is hilarious".
To be fair it does seem reasonable to me to say that the House / Senate model was an adaptation of the British parliamentary system. Although there were obviously considerable differences even at the time the US constitution was written, the model was closer then than it is now.
One of the ways the British system has changed is that the Parliament Act of 1911 removed the ability of the Lords to veto legislation proposed by the Commons (they can still refer it back to the Commons and delay it by up to 2 years). The equivalent position in the US would be to no longer allow the Senate to veto legislation from the House, but I don't think doing that would be appropriate in the US. The change in the UK was to make Parliament better reflect the will of the people. In the US system it is the case, as @WarChiefZeke says, that both the House and Senate already reflect the will of the people. Obviously some people are more equal than others at the moment in that system, but that's as much or more to do with the system for recognizing states as the principle of the House / Senate divide. The UK is a country where the national Parliament is clearly supreme and local government essentially only has powers given to it by national government. In the US federal system, states have a separate legal identity and couldn't simply be abolished by national legislation - that needs to be recognized somehow, even if the existing method of doing that through the Senate now seems unbalanced.
The only danger to democracy I see from this side of the Atlantic is the endless stream of Democrat supporters refusing to accept the result of elections. Thinking that if they make enough noise and trouble, they get to overturn results.
This is false. 100% false, and objectively false.
Democrats from folks in this thread (I was one of them) to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton themselves affirmed the validity of America's democratic elections before, during, and after the 2016 elections. When Clinton was asked if she would respect the results of the election in the final debate, she said yes without hesitation (Trump said he would "keep you in suspense"), and the day after the election, she issued her concession. Barack Obama even explicitly called on Americans to wish Donald Trump good luck as president and hope for his success.
The notion that Democrats don't accept the results of elections is a falsehood. Democrats at the highest levels have done precisely the opposite, multiple times.
I'd absolutely take a net gain of 10 electoral votes in California and 5 or 6 in New York as a starting point (and at the same time subtracting about 10 from those States where barely anyone lives as they go from 3 to 1). Keep in mind this would also give Texas more as well. The main point of these posts has always been showing how even the House is not representative because there is a cap on the number of Reps, and to show how the imbalance has gotten, to say the least, at tad out of control in one direction. I don't oppose protecting small states, all I'm arguing (and will continue to argue) is that it has gone well beyond that. "Protecting small states" has, in terms of Presidential elections, made the votes of people in small States 4x more powerful than those in large ones. In regards to the Senate, it has made some of them almost 80x more powerful.
One the one hand, I agree that House representation is out of alignment with the current population and really needs to be addressed. On the other hand, do we really want national elections to be decided only by people in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis, Houston, Miami, and New York City? Do you believe that voters in New York City and Los Angeles have your best interests at heart, given that they do not live in your area?
The population of the U.S. is 328 million. Those cities combined have a population of 19 million (about 9 million of that to NYC). That's under 6% of the total national population.
One thing those cities do share is that (non-Hispanic) whites make up a minority of their populations. Why should minority-majority regions of the country have their votes be given less weight than those from predominantly white areas?
300+ protests Nationwide. Needless to say, bigger crowds than Trump has ever drawn.
It won't happen if the newly installed acting MAGA-AG recuses himself and let's Rosenstein continue to oversee the Mueller probe.
It's on.
Trump got a taste of claiming vindication after a rigged investigation with the Kavanaugh confirmation and is doing it again. It's a wonder he was able to control himself until after the midterms. But once it was over and he held his third solo press conference as President he decided it was time to break the USA.
I watched that press conference, how the reporter behaved was disgusting.
Trump answered his question but the reporter wouldn't accept the answer.
The question was "why do you describe the caravan as an invasion." The answer was, "because I consider it an invasion."
Quite straightforward, and it's not the reporters job to arbitarily decide that the answer is not acceptable. A lot of people would agree with Trump, a lot of people would disagree with Trump.
Since when is it a two bit reporter's job to decide what people think?
He didnt - it's his job to ask questions. I think he was a little brusque about it, but then, why should he be remotely respectful of the president given the president's reaction? Are you okay that the president called him a "A rude and terrible person"? Acosta didnt levy any personal attacks, only Trump did. Let's not give him a pass on that.
The only danger to democracy I see from this side of the Atlantic is the endless stream of Democrat supporters refusing to accept the result of elections. Thinking that if they make enough noise and trouble, they get to overturn results.
You think Democrats are the "only danger to democracy" - when we have a president who has direct oversight into an investigation designed to see if stole an election? When we a president who will revoke a reporter's press credentials over completely fraudlent changes (You said you watched it. Would you categorize Acosta as attacking the woman trying to take his mic?).
Pretty much no one thinks that making noise and trouble overturns results. However, we do think that the 2010 redistricting in the USA was blatantly advantageous to the GOP. The Democrats won by between 7 and 9 points in the popular vote for the house. In most elections, that would be called a landslide. When the districts are heavily gerrymandered? Not so much. So we do what we can - protest. March. Complain. Non violently. Show me how this hurts the country and the world? I'll wait.
And if you want to talk about reconciliation, how about leading by example?
Dont know what to do with this one. Democrats pushed a popular member of its senate out due to inappropriate behavior towards women. Republicans elected a president that was quoted ON TAPE as gloating about being able to sexually assault women.
Republicans pushed a supreme court judge through despite an attempted rape allegation without even compelling the only other witness in the room to testify.
The question was "why do you describe the caravan as an invasion." The answer was, "because I consider it an invasion."
Quite straightforward, and it's not the reporters job to arbitarily decide that the answer is not acceptable. A lot of people would agree with Trump, a lot of people would disagree with Trump.
Also, just so we're looking at the same thing. Here's a literal transcript of the exchange:
"As you know, Mr. President, the caravan is not an invasion," Acosta said. "It's a group of migrants moving up from Central America towards the border with the US--" Trump, sarcastically, replied, "Thank you for telling me that, I appreciate it." Acosta: "Why did you characterize it as such?" "Because I consider it an invasion. You and I have a difference of opinion." "But do you think that you demonized immigrants?" "No, not at all. I want them to come into the country. But they have to come in legally." That's what the migrants are trying to do — they say they intend to seek asylum. Acosta said: "They're hundreds of miles away, though. They're hundreds and hundreds of miles away. That's not an invasion." "You know what? I think you should," Trump started to say, pointing at Acosta. "Honestly, I think you should let me run the country. You run CNN. And if you did it well, your ratings would be much better." "Okay, that's enough," Trump said as Acosta tried to ask another question.
Read that. Was Acosta being forward by saying "You know that's not an invasion"? Sure. But then, he asked questions (his job). His framing was antagonistic. Trump attacked him somewhat personally, and doesnt really actually answer the questions.\
The White House pulled Jim Acosta's press pass. Earlier today Jim said "why do you call the migrant caravan INVADERS". Trump pulled a Brett Kavanaugh response and clutched his pearls in indignation and anger "why I've never been so offended blah blah blah.".
One day after midterms Trump is going full authoritarian. This is bad. Anyone who hoped for reconciliation after the midterms had better reconsider.
Hours after the midterms Trump is obstructing justice and breaking the first ammendment of the Constitution. This will not end well.
I watched that press conference, how the reporter behaved was disgusting.
Trump answered his question but the reporter wouldn't accept the answer.
The question was "why do you describe the caravan as an invasion." The answer was, "because I consider it an invasion."
Quite straightforward, and it's not the reporters job to arbitarily decide that the answer is not acceptable. A lot of people would agree with Trump, a lot of people would disagree with Trump.
Since when is it a two bit reporter's job to decide what people think?
I agree the reporter's behavior was questionable, but that doesn't make Trump's behavior OK.
The original point of contention was over whether the caravan was an invasion. By any normal definition of the word it clearly isn't. If Trump had said something like it was a "potential invasion" or "could become an invasion" that would at least be defensible, but he specifically didn't say that (and backed up his words with actions by sending thousands of troops to the border to turn away people that weren't there).
The subsequent actions in banning the reporter reflected another lie. If he had been banned for being rude to the President or for breaching protocol by not sitting down when asked that would also have been defensible, though no doubt would have been attacked as an over-reaction. However, he was banned for placing his hands on a young woman. You can see the video here, to judge for yourself whether that statement has any credibility.
To be fair it does seem reasonable to me to say that the House / Senate model was an adaptation of the British parliamentary system. Although there were obviously considerable differences even at the time the US constitution was written, the model was closer then than it is now.
I wont pretend to know as much about the House of Lords as you, but arent there some rather enormous and dramatic differences between the two? House of Lords has a lot of members (more than the house of commons, right?) Dont know if that was the case in the 18th century, though. House of lords werent really elected (they still arent, right? They're picked not, they used to be somewhat hereditary, right?). The House of Lords isnt designed as a check on the lower house by virtue of its body being specifically irrelevant with respect to its population, right? I kind of always imagined it was a check on class - Nobility given weight in determining things so that the lower classes cannot "run amok".
Edit: I guess my argument is that these differences, being rather substantial from the Senate, mean that they arent all that similar. Unless we want to end the conversation at "Bicameral".
I mean, I think it'd be fair to say that the Roman senate is also influential in the creation of the senate in the USA. Where do we draw the line, then?
This argument about the Senate being some sinister slave state plot is hilarious. Is the House of Lords some kind of plot too? The founders were adapting an already existing framework (the British Parliament) in a way to ensure the smaller states that they wouldn't be trampled on in order to form 'a more perfect union'. None of their logic has changed. What's changed is that compromise is seen as weakness now.
Actually, the House of Lords was a "plot" to keep power in the hands of hereditary noblemen. When the monarchy was briefly overthrown in 1649 by Oliver Cromwell, the House of Lords was disbanded by an act of Parliament stating "the House of Lords is useless and dangerous to the people of England."
The Senate has nothing to do with preserving slavery. The founders had a few reasons for the construction of a Senate, one being they thought a mixture of porportional and equal representation was best, one being to fight corruption, one being better representation, and some others. To quote the Federalist papers:
" The people can never wilfully betray their own interests; but they may possibly be betrayed by the representatives of the people; and the danger will be evidently greater where the whole legislative trust is lodged in the hands of one body of men, than where the concurrence of separate and dissimilar bodies is required in every public act."
"The equality of representation in the Senate is another point, which, being evidently the result of compromise between the opposite pretensions of the large and the small States, does not call for much discussion. . . .
In this spirit it may be remarked, that the equal vote allowed to each state, is at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of sovereignty remaining in the individual states, and an instrument for preserving that residuary sovereignty. . . .
Another advantage accruing from this ingredient in the constitution of the senate is, the additional impediment it must prove against improper acts of legislation. No law or resolution can now be passed without the concurrence, first, of a majority of the people, and then, of a majority of the states."
There were also some other ones, like they believed Senates made represantative republics more stable by a few historical examples, and that it would provide more accountability over policy since they had longer term limits, and some bad ones, but I don't want to overload with text walls.
This is a bit like all the people who believed that the Civil War was fought over "State's Rights". It wasnt. It was fought over the institution of slavery, as is clearly identified in the Cornerstone Speech.
The Senate 100% protected the rights of slavery because slave-owning states made up less than 1/2 of the US population immediately after the ratification of the Constitution. The 3/5ths compromise was their hedge in the house, but they also always had the Senate that provided them with outsized legislative power.
Using the 1800 census and the 6th congress (seated in 1800):
Free(ish) states had approximately 2.4 million inhabitants with 18 senators
Slave states had approximately 1.6 million non-enslaved inhabitants with 14 senators.
Voting power per side: 114,338 per senator in the slave owning states, 133,604 per senator in the non-slave owning states.
That ratio will proceed to become more and more favorable to slave owning states as the country moved west.
I was probably overboard in saying the point of the senate became obsolete with the abolition of slavery, but I think it would be naive to suggest that the Southern States did not see the advantage in the Senate as it typically favors less populous states, which the Slave-owning states were at that time (indeed, it was Madison's plan to have a bicameral legislature. Madison was from Virginia, and owned slaves).
Madison's Virginia Plan called for a bicameral legislature with *both* houses apportioned by population, one elected by the people and the other appointed by state legislatures (Virginia was the most populous state at the time). The New Jersey Plan called for a single house, apportioned equally to each state. The Connecticut Compromise blended the plans (and added the rule that all spending bills must originate in the House as a nod to the populous states that the purse strings should be with the people).
The plot of the slave-holding states to maintain power was the Three-Fifths Compromise.
The Missouri Compromise of 1820 *was* made to maintain the balance of power between free and slave states (requiring that one free state be admitted for each slave state).
I still believe in America, and I always will. And if you do, then we must accept this result and look to the future. Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and a chance to lead. Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power. And we don't just respect that; we cherish it.
I don't know where people get the idea that Democrats don't believe in democratic elections, but it didn't come from us. If you want to know the Democratic party's opinion on elections, all you have to do is listen to our own words.
It's not like we haven't been open about our support for American democracy. We've made our views on its legitimacy very clear. We support it.
And this speech came out when the elections didn't go our way. Even when we lost the election, we still supported American democracy.
@BallpointMan I had in mind their functions rather than membership in suggesting there were similarities. At the end of the 18th Century it had been established that Parliament had authority over the king, but this was split between Lords and Commons - both had to agree for legislation to pass, as in the US system. Another point of similarity was that the Commons was specifically responsible for raising and spending money (the ability for the House to do that was directly based on the British system). The Committee structure used by Congress is also taken directly from Parliament.
I agree of course that there are major differences as well. One of the founding principles of the US system was the separation of the judiciary through the formation of the Supreme Court. That's actually something where the UK has pretty recently (2009) fallen into line - prior to that the House of Lords also acted as the Supreme Court (although conventions had grown up that only certain members had the ability to act as Law Lords).
Quite straightforward, and it's not the reporters job to arbitarily decide that the answer is not acceptable. A lot of people would agree with Trump, a lot of people would disagree with Trump.
Since when is it a two bit reporter's job to decide what people think?
Comments
This is a bit like all the people who believed that the Civil War was fought over "State's Rights". It wasnt. It was fought over the institution of slavery, as is clearly identified in the Cornerstone Speech.
The Senate 100% protected the rights of slavery because slave-owning states made up less than 1/2 of the US population immediately after the ratification of the Constitution. The 3/5ths compromise was their hedge in the house, but they also always had the Senate that provided them with outsized legislative power.
Using the 1800 census and the 6th congress (seated in 1800):
Free(ish) states had approximately 2.4 million inhabitants with 18 senators
Slave states had approximately 1.6 million non-enslaved inhabitants with 14 senators.
Voting power per side: 114,338 per senator in the slave owning states, 133,604 per senator in the non-slave owning states.
That ratio will proceed to become more and more favorable to slave owning states as the country moved west.
I was probably overboard in saying the point of the senate became obsolete with the abolition of slavery, but I think it would be naive to suggest that the Southern States did not see the advantage in the Senate as it typically favors less populous states, which the Slave-owning states were at that time (indeed, it was Madison's plan to have a bicameral legislature. Madison was from Virginia, and owned slaves). Look. I dont want to poke anyone in the eye here, but please do some research on the House of Lords. It's nothing like the Senate (in terms of its power, nor how the body is selected, number of people, etc). It's really apples and oranges.
Video: Trump, CNN’s Jim Acosta had a heated exchange during post-election press conference
https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2018/11/07/video-trump-cnn-jim-acosta-midterm-election-press-conference?fbclid=IwAR1YX_TGhuifNApR8HigdB_ZoEqrER5t05tZS4JkqsCtuvIrElEgMfqQWPwUPS Freight, Teamsters to workers: Vote “yes” or face lockout and lose your health care
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/11/07/frei-n07.html?fbclid=IwAR0wU9QlqYfX7OS5mYSVk7RVSVJgYC_Ig-8DgUAS74Tl_1dsrmpcNu5ePg0Dennis Hof, Dead Brothel Owner, Cruises to Victory in Nevada State Election
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/us/politics/dennis-hof-dead-pimp-nevada.htmlAgain, this is just right out of 1984. There is video of what she is saying definitively NOT happening and yet the official White House line is that it did. My eyes work fine. And Sarah Sanders is pathetic piece of shit.
These days the right is still using euphemisms. "Protecting jobs" really means "hating mexicans". The "war on terror" is a mask for islamaphobia.
All the while, that does nothing to refute the assertion that the Senate was proposed (mostly) by someone who owned slaves, was representing a slave owning state, and which very directly benefited states that supported slavery. A refutation that seemed (to me) to be the purpose of your post when you said that the "senate being some sinister slave state plot is hilarious".
One day after midterms Trump is going full authoritarian. This is bad. Anyone who hoped for reconciliation after the midterms had better reconsider.
Hours after the midterms Trump is obstructing justice and breaking the first ammendment of the Constitution. This will not end well.
It looks like this is a photo of "putting his hands on a female staffer".
I'll admit he's deflecting her from grabbing the mic, but to pretend that this somehow equates to an aggressive action by Acosta is flatly absurd.
If you really care about America it must stop.
Again these guys are the worst they pretend that Kavanaugh was falsely accused of sexual assault. He wasn't there was years old credible accusations in his case. But now Republican operatives have falsely accused Robert Mueller and today Jim Acosta. Totally disgusting.
This alternate Trumpian reality must stop.
First, let's say that hypothetically, a really rich family bought the entire state of Wyoming, minus public land, and now only 100 people live there.
100 people have 1/50th the Senate representation, and 1/435th the House representation, and 1/535th the electoral college of a country of 320,000,000 people.
You can really say, with a straight face, that that's intended by the framers of the Constitution?
What if it was 45 states with 100 people each and 5 states with 80 million people, each? Does this not seem absurd?
"Ridiculous", you say.
California has more people in it than 21 states COMBINED, and ALMOST 22 states.
Second, we've been fixed at 435 by statutory law for almost 90 years. Thanks for that, Republicans.
"In 1921, Congress failed to reapportion the House membership as required by the United States Constitution. This failure to reapportion may have been politically motivated, as the newly elected Republican majority may have feared the effect such a reapportionment would have on their future electoral prospects. Then in 1929 Congress (Republican control of both houses of congress and the presidency) passed the Reapportionment Act of 1929 which capped the size of the House at 435 (the then current number). This cap has remained unchanged for more than eight decades. Three states – Wyoming, Vermont, and North Dakota – have populations smaller than the average for a single district. "
-Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_apportionment
Now, with computers, and teleconferencing, this cap should be removed. Or build a bigger U.S. Capitol building. I'll answer BS with more BS.
There's something like 2 million illegal immigrants in Texas, over-representing Texas. I guess Texas should lose a House seat (or 3) too. It's more than that, it's more like 55%-45%."
How lopsided does it have to be before conservatives acknowledge "Ok, there's really more of them, they should get the government?" I'm not bothered by D.C. not being represented that much.
First, it's THE CAPITAL.
Second, it's not like there's not neighboring states the residents of D.C. can move to. Or failing that, find a way to redistrict them into those neighboring states in some manner. By geography, by apportionment, by whatever.
Third, I am more concerned about the citizens outside the contiguous U.S. who are getting screwed. Puerto Rico is just the biggest and most obvious. There's Guam, American Samoa, Northern Marianas Islands, and U.S. Virgin Islands. I would say there probably needs to be a minimum size, like 10 million people. The same should happen for Texas. Functionally, it's at least 3 or 4 states. Issues along the Rio Grande Valley are not the same as issues in San Antonio, which are not the issues of DFW metroplex, which are not the issues of greater Hicksville (That sea of solid red, and I don't mean that entirely disparagingly. There's 10,000 cities of less than 3,000 people it feels like). And I don't even know about Houston but it's different than SA and DFW.
NOBODY IS ABOVE THE LAW—MUELLER PROTECTION RAPID RESPONSE
https://www.trumpisnotabovethelaw.org/event/mueller-firing-rapid-response/search/?fbclid=IwAR2OCiWd1kPfLSSMI9g8ISIAaj85d9ikSa7VQ8_8xp5lPE-NmbGE9vkHvrkAbrams campaign: We don't accept Kemp declaring himself the winner in Georgia governor race
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/07/politics/stacey-abrams-brian-kemp-georgia-governors-race/index.html?fbclid=IwAR2BzCRvJJqpBPkalFfYnc6FUaZJvGw1043y0xISGDFvnZs90cs6kIOoULwIt may not be what they intended but it is the system we have. You don't have to like it but until the Constitution becomes amended you do have to live with it.
Once the Democrats take control of the House in January I suggest that those of you who find this system to be a problem contact your Representative and urge them to do something about it. They won't, of course, because it isn't an issue for them, but at least you voiced your opinion to them.
I watched that press conference, how the reporter behaved was disgusting.
Trump answered his question but the reporter wouldn't accept the answer.
The question was "why do you describe the caravan as an invasion."
The answer was, "because I consider it an invasion."
Quite straightforward, and it's not the reporters job to arbitarily decide that the answer is not acceptable.
A lot of people would agree with Trump, a lot of people would disagree with Trump.
Since when is it a two bit reporter's job to decide what people think?
The only danger to democracy I see from this side of the Atlantic is the endless stream of Democrat supporters refusing to accept the result of elections. Thinking that if they make enough noise and trouble, they get to overturn results.
And if you want to talk about reconciliation, how about leading by example?
One of the ways the British system has changed is that the Parliament Act of 1911 removed the ability of the Lords to veto legislation proposed by the Commons (they can still refer it back to the Commons and delay it by up to 2 years). The equivalent position in the US would be to no longer allow the Senate to veto legislation from the House, but I don't think doing that would be appropriate in the US. The change in the UK was to make Parliament better reflect the will of the people. In the US system it is the case, as @WarChiefZeke says, that both the House and Senate already reflect the will of the people. Obviously some people are more equal than others at the moment in that system, but that's as much or more to do with the system for recognizing states as the principle of the House / Senate divide. The UK is a country where the national Parliament is clearly supreme and local government essentially only has powers given to it by national government. In the US federal system, states have a separate legal identity and couldn't simply be abolished by national legislation - that needs to be recognized somehow, even if the existing method of doing that through the Senate now seems unbalanced.
Democrats from folks in this thread (I was one of them) to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton themselves affirmed the validity of America's democratic elections before, during, and after the 2016 elections. When Clinton was asked if she would respect the results of the election in the final debate, she said yes without hesitation (Trump said he would "keep you in suspense"), and the day after the election, she issued her concession. Barack Obama even explicitly called on Americans to wish Donald Trump good luck as president and hope for his success.
The notion that Democrats don't accept the results of elections is a falsehood. Democrats at the highest levels have done precisely the opposite, multiple times.
One thing those cities do share is that (non-Hispanic) whites make up a minority of their populations. Why should minority-majority regions of the country have their votes be given less weight than those from predominantly white areas?
300+ protests Nationwide. Needless to say, bigger crowds than Trump has ever drawn.
It won't happen if the newly installed acting MAGA-AG recuses himself and let's Rosenstein continue to oversee the Mueller probe.
It's on.
Trump got a taste of claiming vindication after a rigged investigation with the Kavanaugh confirmation and is doing it again. It's a wonder he was able to control himself until after the midterms. But once it was over and he held his third solo press conference as President he decided it was time to break the USA.
Pretty much no one thinks that making noise and trouble overturns results. However, we do think that the 2010 redistricting in the USA was blatantly advantageous to the GOP. The Democrats won by between 7 and 9 points in the popular vote for the house. In most elections, that would be called a landslide. When the districts are heavily gerrymandered? Not so much. So we do what we can - protest. March. Complain. Non violently. Show me how this hurts the country and the world? I'll wait. Dont know what to do with this one. Democrats pushed a popular member of its senate out due to inappropriate behavior towards women. Republicans elected a president that was quoted ON TAPE as gloating about being able to sexually assault women.
Republicans pushed a supreme court judge through despite an attempted rape allegation without even compelling the only other witness in the room to testify.
Right. Democrats arent leading by example at all.
"As you know, Mr. President, the caravan is not an invasion," Acosta said. "It's a group of migrants moving up from Central America towards the border with the US--"
Trump, sarcastically, replied, "Thank you for telling me that, I appreciate it."
Acosta: "Why did you characterize it as such?"
"Because I consider it an invasion. You and I have a difference of opinion."
"But do you think that you demonized immigrants?"
"No, not at all. I want them to come into the country. But they have to come in legally."
That's what the migrants are trying to do — they say they intend to seek asylum.
Acosta said: "They're hundreds of miles away, though. They're hundreds and hundreds of miles away. That's not an invasion."
"You know what? I think you should," Trump started to say, pointing at Acosta. "Honestly, I think you should let me run the country. You run CNN. And if you did it well, your ratings would be much better."
"Okay, that's enough," Trump said as Acosta tried to ask another question.
Read that. Was Acosta being forward by saying "You know that's not an invasion"? Sure. But then, he asked questions (his job). His framing was antagonistic. Trump attacked him somewhat personally, and doesnt really actually answer the questions.\
The original point of contention was over whether the caravan was an invasion. By any normal definition of the word it clearly isn't. If Trump had said something like it was a "potential invasion" or "could become an invasion" that would at least be defensible, but he specifically didn't say that (and backed up his words with actions by sending thousands of troops to the border to turn away people that weren't there).
The subsequent actions in banning the reporter reflected another lie. If he had been banned for being rude to the President or for breaching protocol by not sitting down when asked that would also have been defensible, though no doubt would have been attacked as an over-reaction. However, he was banned for placing his hands on a young woman. You can see the video here, to judge for yourself whether that statement has any credibility.
Edit: I guess my argument is that these differences, being rather substantial from the Senate, mean that they arent all that similar. Unless we want to end the conversation at "Bicameral".
I mean, I think it'd be fair to say that the Roman senate is also influential in the creation of the senate in the USA. Where do we draw the line, then?
The plot of the slave-holding states to maintain power was the Three-Fifths Compromise.
The Missouri Compromise of 1820 *was* made to maintain the balance of power between free and slave states (requiring that one free state be admitted for each slave state).
And here's Clinton's speech:
I picked a quote from a completely random time, at 8:50: I don't know where people get the idea that Democrats don't believe in democratic elections, but it didn't come from us. If you want to know the Democratic party's opinion on elections, all you have to do is listen to our own words.
It's not like we haven't been open about our support for American democracy. We've made our views on its legitimacy very clear. We support it.
And this speech came out when the elections didn't go our way. Even when we lost the election, we still supported American democracy.
I agree of course that there are major differences as well. One of the founding principles of the US system was the separation of the judiciary through the formation of the Supreme Court. That's actually something where the UK has pretty recently (2009) fallen into line - prior to that the House of Lords also acted as the Supreme Court (although conventions had grown up that only certain members had the ability to act as Law Lords).
You just described Fox News. Two bit reporters - er opinion journalists or whatever orwellian phrase they use - telling people what to think.