What I'd really like to see would be a return to how the President AND Vice President were chosen.

Right now we have the President getting to choose his own "running mate" who also becomes the President of the Senate.
Meaning that gives the executive branch the deciding vote in the Senate in case of a tie.

That was never meant to happen.

The way it was done in the beginning was that the guy who got the most votes became President. His opponent became Vice President.

In other words the Vice President wasn't the "running mate" of the President and instead was the leader of the OPPOSING party. Which made it far more fair because the Vice President is the Senate President and gets to cast any deciding vote in the Senate.

Imagine if it had been Al Gore as Bush's Vice President.

Or if Hillary were to be Trump's Vice President. :)

Robbie

US Constitution
Section. 3.

WTF?

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxii
That is Constitutional Law
Amendment 12

Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied in election of 1800 the constitution was changed for that reason.
I learned that in 10th grade American History class.

You're right.

I was thinking for some reason that it was the opposing party candidate that got to be Vice President.

But it was actually the President and Vice President running independently. So you could still have the Vice President as the same party.

In other words...it wasn't the loser of the Presidential race who became Vice President. It was the winner of the Vice Presidential race who became Vice President.

Anyway...I still think it would be a cool idea. :)

And it would take away the executive branch having that tie-breaking vote in the Senate if the Vice President was from the opposing party.

What would be the logic on getting the loser to break the tie -- more gridlock?

Depends on where you stand -- I would not mind a very gradual change -- no crisis here.

I would rather go with a 4 party race like I said and let the Electoral College do its job as contemplated by the constitution. I think the intent was a more towards multi-party elections in the USA rather than a rubber stamp endorsement of the 2 party system.

Oh noes! The USA might have competition in politics ...
Since when is fair competition such a bad thing?

If all 4 parties gained seats in the House and Senate then they would need to make coalition compromises to enact legislation. 3 parties could form a super majority vote that could over-ride a President's veto. The peoples' elected representatives now would have a majority voice on issues that they can agree on, laws that would move the nation forward. There can be wisdom in numbers of clear majority. On the next issue, it may only pass on a simple majority and be subject to veto. More might be accomplished this way -- and it is all possible under laws in force now -- that is the beauty of it.

This was the framer's intent IMHO -- to encourage political diversity. Or, make a seat for every ass ...

I agree. The Republicans and Democrats have ruled for far too long. And they have taken steps over the years to consolidate that power. Making it very hard for anyone who isn't a Dem or Rep to even get on the ballot in most elections.

I don't think the framers really wanted the govt. to do a lot of "getting things done". That's just my opinion.

The govt. was set up so that it is hard to get bills passed. And even with that...they have made so many federal laws over the years that nobody even knows for sure how many there are. At least I haven't been able to find a definitive number of them by googling it. :(

Yeah, the President needs to submit a budget to Congress by the end of Feb. each year (something that Pres. Obama failed to do many times). And the Senate needs to pass that budget even if they argue about it and amend it (which they are supposed to do).
Harry Reid and the Democrat led Senate failed to do it for the entire Obama Presidency until 2013! :(

Anyway, other than that...I really don't think we need MORE laws passed by Congress. How many more laws do we need to simply be able to live our lives and function as a society?

I guess I'm one of those people who think it's a good thing when there is "gridlock" (except on the budget).
I'm also a person who wonders why they even bother with the "Debt Ceiling".

First Congress passes the debt ceiling law to make sure they are forced to not run up any more debt. And then every year like clockwork...they amend it and raise the ceiling. It's one of the most stupid things I've ever seen.

Something to consider. We were never able to kill civilians on such a grand scale before. Planes and bombing were new. We always look back and think they were making reasoned decisions. Think about how no one had ever done it before, and they were trying out new weapons in real time. In hindsight they were war criminals but since it was us no one wants to say that. Almost no one had targeted civilians to such an extent.

Through out history the civilian casualty rate was about 1 to 1 with soldiers. It started to sky rocket in the 20th century and is now more like 4 to 1.

The winners write the history books.

Never before or since has their been an atrocity like those 2 atomic bombs being dropped on those two cities.

Was worse than Holocaust IMHO :2 cents:

then you should shut the fuck up about shit which you know nothing.

it's unbelievable to think that in 2016 some people think we should have let the Japs do to US what they did to the Chinese, the Filipinos and others AND blow off Pearl Harbor prior to US kicking Jap asses.

File photo taken on March 31, 1939 by a Japanese army surgeon shows Japanese soldiers posing for a photo after they beheaded a Chinese in east China's Jiangxi Province. During WWII, around 400 million Chinese people were involved in the war of resisting against Japan's aggression. A large number of them suffered starvation, illness, injury and torture from Japanese invaders who had committed crimes of destruction, pillage, rape and slaughter since they invaded northeast China in September 1931. As of a full-scale invasion on July 7, 1937, random killings and indiscriminated bombings not only made mass casualties of innocent civilians but also rendered tens of thousands people homeless.

Some 35 million Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed or injured during the war which lasted until 1945. (Xinhua)

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/ph...411324091n.jpg

Whole war planned from New York beforehand :2 cents:

unit 731

https://www.google.com/#tbm=isch&q=u...aC0eeo9CjiM%3A

I don't know. It seems to me that the media and the other candidates know full well that the military has and WOULD carry out what they are deeming "illegal" things such as killing families in a war.

As this argument shows...most people are all "for" it in the case of the Japanese in WW2.

I'd also like to point out that when Nixon had the military go into Cambodia during the Vietnam War it was also "illegal" and yet the military did it anyway.

And when Reagan bombed and killed Quadaffi's 15 month old daughter...the military knew damn well that was his family's house but didn't care.

So for Chris Wallace to sit there and tell Trump that the military would disobey him if he gave orders to take out terrorist's families was pretty disingenuous.

Yeah, theoretically I suppose they could say "no". But it's never happened to my knowledge.

And Wallace knew that. And so did Rubio onstage. And yet they all pretend to be horrified at Trump.
Ridiculous.

Back on the subject of this topic and the destruction of the Republican party..

Isn't it quite ironic that it was Republicans themselves whom brought about this whole ant-establishment vendetta as an attempt to win votes. Yet their little Frankenstein has come to destroy their own party rather than the Democrats.

The irony is on overload..

He's not destroying their party. They are.

He represents the more liberal wing of the Republican party and the conservative wing (which has been in charge since Reagan) is fighting him tooth and nail.

Imagine if they were actually treating him like the frontrunner and eventual nominee that he is. None of this would be happening.

Trump is what used to be called a "Rockefeller Republican"
New Yorker with money who isn't a social conservative. Today they call them "RINO" (republican in name only)

And the weird thing is...they were hated by the Southerners. Which is why the Democrat Party was so strong in the South all of my life up until Reagan perfected Nixon's "southern strategy" and took the South from the Democrat Party.

I say it's weird because the Southern states...which are supposed to be super conservative and religious...were all won by a loud "yankee" from New York who doesn't give a damn about all that religious stuff.
Cruz and Rubio should have won those states.

So anyway, in my opinion...the people fracturing the Republican Party are the establishment party leaders. They have had power for almost 40 years in the Party. And now they see that being taken away from them by the actual Republican voters going for Trump instead of their handpicked boy Bush.

They treat him like this, because he can't seem to stop saying stupid shit. If Jeb Bush said we are going to bomb the families of terrorist or called Mexicans rapist they would do the same to.him.

Let's say you get your wish and that does happen. What do you think happens after that? That the whole world will hold hands and sing?

As you pointed out, the very nature of warfare itself has dramatically changed. Governments and their armed forces can do a lot more damage and civilians get in the way. During WWII we carpet bombed entire cities, destroying them completely and killing the entire civilian population.

This is why we now have the Geneva Conventions.

You libtards go on and on about Trump calling the criminals "rapists" yet Obama calls them "gangbangers"

Wheres the outrage?

"We should not be encouraging illegal immigration," he remarked to the group. "What we should be doing is setting up a smart legal immigration system that doesn't separate families but does focus on making sure that people who are dangerous, people who are, you know, gang-bangers, who are criminals that we're deporting as quickly as possible."

Gangbangers are all gangbangers. But not all Mexicans are rapists.

You think that the two atomic bombs dropped were worse than the Holocaust? 100 Illogical thought processes.

Bomb the Airfields and factories making te planes. No Airforce. Invasion of the UK, no Desert Campaign, Russian Convoys are impacted, No US involvement, Second Front, Germany wins.

Tokyo had not been bombed to the extent an Atom bomb would have impacted. It wasn't bombed because it was where the hierarchy were based. The people who could surrender.

A better system is a limit to the amount of money spent. And all donations being public.

The atrocity level is why there are no more major wars.

From this side of the pond. Republicans seem to be the Party who want to cut taxes, spending and big Government. Yet when in office, do none of those.

Trump is promising to halve taxes and spend billions of the Armed forces. So from the same team.

2 realistic choices:

1) bend over to the USA and end up like "iraq" or the middle east

2) take the mother fuckers down with you


if its too much to ask to be left alone in your own country, without mickey mouse US politics fucking up the entire region, then option #2 seems mighty attractive...I know americans will not understand because they figure theres nothing wrong with bombing others etc...but Id pick option #2 every single time...

You didn't answer my question. That's because you know exactly what will happen. Either Russia or China will become the next super power and they'll do all the same shit the US is doing or worse.

come on now. i know you can google tokyo ww2 and see for yourself. i mean jeez the very first air raid USA did on japan was the Doolittle raid on Tokyo just months after Pearl. we bombed the living shit out of that city for years. and remember, japanese architecture at the time was paper mache. literally, the buildings, homes, structures, everything was wood and paper.

The Doolittle Raid was less about doing damage and more about boosting American morale.

Not entirely and beside the point I was making, which was Tokyo was obliterated after years of bombing runs starting with Doolittle. Doolittle also was a proof of concept that b-29s could be launched from aircraft carriers and return.

I agree with most of this. This seems to be a reaction to the polarization of the party. Making candidates go so extreme to get the nod has backfired as normal folks were left out of the loop.

The Geneva Convention was first written in 1860 or so. Rules of warfare were common through out world history. We just chose to ignore them on a grand scale. And still do as the US opts out of a lot of that stuff like land mines.

it is the direction the USA is pushing the world in....the USA that is 5% of the planet spends on war like the other 95% combined...

no peaceful solution will result...you know this, I know this...everybody knows it :2 cents:

2 possible scenarios:

1) technology will advance and the other 95% of the world will just keep taking it up the butt and not arm the fuck up

2) the world will arm the fuck up...small countries will have "off switches" to life on earth...




thanks USA! :thumbsup

Again you dodged the question. You know I'm right. The US disappears tomorrow, Russia and China battle it out for the alpha role, and everything continues as it did before. Your blind hatred of the US isn't based in rational thought.

I clearly wrote "off switch to life on earth" why are you mentioning russians and china?...

delivering a nuke against the USA is clearly not an option, but building a fucked up one that you point down and not up, that splits the globe in half, solves the delivery problem...

or

bacteria...delivers itself...

small countries have the right to be left alone, or they have the right to take the invaders down with them...you are the one who is being irrational with your "let hillary and trump bomb you and shut up about it" stuff...

Nothing would change if the US stepped back. We'd just be dealing with another alpha country doing the same shit.