So Ted, Ted, Ted...

[anon_00zx5879k0jmw]

An establishment man drops out of the race!!!! Folks I know this is a football message board but buds we need to take this country back, period!!! The Establishment, that is made up of Democrats and Republicans have ruined this country and pitted it in the deepest hole on this earth. We need to get back to where we once were.

God Bless...

 

[4A 8 FAN]

“We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business..."

I hope to God we don't get more of the same...

 

[Choctaw_fan]

Please clarify. How far back do you want to go? The dysfunctional atmosphere in DC for many years has been hard to swallow. Try it as a government employee. We all get blamed!

 

[anon_00zx5879k0jmw]

DC is so corrupted and I believe its because of Lobbyist. Lobbyist should be banned from entering that city, period. Its just legal bribery.

 

[Choctaw_fan]

Funny you should say that. In 1994, I took an Ethics class in college and my term paper was title "The Ethic Aspects of Career Congressman." I did a lot research in books written by the Brookings Institute. I concluded three things were needed to fix the government, Congressional term limits, presidential line item veto, and drastic cuts in lobbying. Newt Gingrich came up with the same conclusion in his "Contract With America." The line item veto was passed then struck down by the Supreme Court.

BTW, the manpower needed to run Congress has quadrupled since the Kennedy administration. The reason for this is the number of lobbyists. If you don't take a meeting with a lobbyist, they will bad talk you in the press and to your constituents. So, many more people were hired just for these meetings. How ridiculous!

You want to cut the cost of government? Cut lobbyists!

 

[Silver King]

A president doesn't have that kind of impact unless his party has the congress also - and even then, with lots of compromise. Both parties are in a flux. Which may be positive; you never know. There's a move towards the middle in both parties because people are so tired of the extremes - the intolerant and the over tolerant alike.But as Choc-girl says, we're a rigged system from the top down.

The biggest change from either a Hillary or Trump presidency will come from one of them having an opportunity to nominate maybe three more Supreme Court Justices in addition to the Scalia nomination ( Garland). IThat could swing the balance of the court that would have a far more reaching effect on the direction of this country.

 

[Silver King]

In the end, like power from the beginning of time, here it is:

 

[Choctaw_fan]

That's another thing that irritates me. Judges, at any level, should not have a political agenda. Period!

They are interpreting the law. Their personal biases should not come into play.

 

[anon_00zx5879k0jmw]

A president doesn't have that kind of impact unless his party has the congress also - and even then, with lots of compromise. Both parties are in a flux. Which may be positive; you never know. There's a move towards the middle in both parties because people are so tired of the extremes - the intolerant and the over tolerant alike.But as Choc-girl says, we're a rigged system from the top down.

The biggest change from either a Hillary or Trump presidency will come from one of them having an opportunity to nominate maybe three more Supreme Court Justices in addition to the Scalia nomination ( Garland). IThat could swing the balance of the court that would have a far more reaching effect on the direction of this country.

NO? Ask the current guy that is in there now who passed things while the opposite party was in there. Both sides of the isle is getting greedy and they are not working for "We The People" any longer but for how much $$$ is in their pockets.

 

[jambun82]

If there is one thing that I thought the Founding Fathers might have erred on was not enough checks and balances on the Judicial Branch. These lifetime appointments with no accountability are very scary to me. Any of these Justices can take your rights away at anytime.

 

[Neutral 0bserver]

What are the justices doing that is making you afraid? Please go into detail.

 

[anon_00zx5879k0jmw]

The SCOTUS should have term limits like everybody else, period.

 

[Silver King]

What are the justices doing that is making you afraid? Please go into detail.

My friend, Neutral Observer, at the risk of HWF thinking one of us is debating himself as a morph here's a start. Lets even stick with the theme of one of Choc-girl's examples above:

Back in 2010 the court heard Citizens United vs Federal Election Commissions (FEC). Citizens United had little to do with average citizens (us Jimmys and Joes), their case was predicated that political donations were free speech protected by the 1st Amendment. The ruling in their favor broke the few chains attached by the FEC and allowed unlimited personal and corporate donations to the "Super PACs." It will take a constitutional amendment or a new Supreme Court vote to reverse that decision. And what fox guarding the hen house would want to do that from either party? Its why most of them became politicians in the first place; to get some extra spending money and chase pages around the office.

As members change so do the court's philosophies. There are the Mega issues on Abortion, Gay Marriage, etc and so on.

Wave out!

 

[Choctaw_fan]

Yeah, now that the politician have unlimited Super PAC funds, all they do is campaign for the next election. How many votes did Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Bernie Sanders miss in Congress? Did we really need most of them running for all those months only to drop out early and not do the job they were elected to?

One thing Florida does right is make a politician resign from their current office if they want to run for another one. I wish that rule would be adopted for Congress. And, if you miss a set number of days while Congress is in session, you are automatically resigned and replaced. We pay them to do a job and they should be held to the same standard we are!

 

[gatorman-uf]

The SCOTUS should have term limits like everybody else, period.

Actually, at no point were term limits ever put into our Constitution until the 22nd Amendment passed after FDR's election a 4th time. George Washington chose to serve only 2 terms (he could have served more if he wanted). Our Congress has no term limits (they do have a set term of 2 or 6 years though). Our judicial branch was designed to not to be held responsible by the people. The whole idea is that we want judges to make the right decision, not the popular one. If they have to constantly worry about re-upping on their term, they are making decisions to get them re-elected, not interpreting the Constitution.

 

[jambun82]

Gatorman-uf, if you think that most of these Justices are "Interpreting the Constitution", I think that you need to pay closer attention. These Judges are unaccountable for their decisions, and why do you think that hearings for new Supreme Court Justices are so contentious? I stand by my point-of-view that the founding fathers left the Judicial Branch too powerful. The Legislative process in this country is still the key to our laws of the land.

 

[Choctaw_fan]

And no terms limits were put in the constitution because Congress was never intended to be a full-time year-round job. The founding fathers expected the duties to be rotated between men in communities, not held by one person for 40 years. You went to DC for a few months, did your job as a Congressman (just like in Florida), then returned home to your family and farm or business.

Now Congress is a career. Something has to change!

 

[gatorman-uf]

Gatorman-uf, if you think that most of these Justices are "Interpreting the Constitution", I think that you need to pay closer attention. These Judges are unaccountable for their decisions, and why do you think that hearings for new Supreme Court Justices are so contentious? I stand by my point-of-view that the founding fathers left the Judicial Branch too powerful. The Legislative process in this country is still the key to our laws of the land.

They are contentious because we are cynical bastards and always believe everybody has an angle. Ask a liberal if they think this court is conservative, they will name 5 high profile cases that they think the court decided wrongly. Ask a conservative if the court is liberal and they will do the same thing. The reality is that each judge interprets the laws and constitution based on numerous different factors, including what they believe the role of the judiciary is.

In any decision there are people who are upset... People thought Brown v. Board of Education is/was judicial activism, a court case that said separate can never be equal thus overturning Plessy v. Ferguson and the doctrine of separate of equal.

Your argument basically suggests that those judges should have been thrown out because they were too powerful or went against the will of people. I would suggest that those Justices were able to act because they did not have to worry about re-election.

 

[jambun82]

They are cynical bastards because they know that some of these Justices will just rule however they feel with no regard for precedent or Constitutional law. I once heard a Supreme Court Justice state that he disregards previous rulings and any other precedent because he felt that he was smarter than anyone else, so he ruled how he felt that law should be. I heard another Supreme Court Justice state that she considers experiences that she had as a child to determine and rule on major cases. What is the check and balance on the Judicial Branch other than a one-time nomination by the Executive Branch or a one-time hearing, and one-time vote by the Legislative Branch?

 

[Silver King]

Gatorman. Partially correct; I'm one of those cynical bastards. That's because with undergrad and Master's degrees in Poli Sci, and because I worked for two governors as a policy analyst, I can't help watching politics unfold any better than I can pass up a good SEC game on a fall Saturday.

I saw the inner workings in the smoked filled rooms of government - for the 4th best run state govt in the nation at the time. I am now cynical because I have watched America play out the way the cynical bastards of my generation told me it would years ago, and I fought all these years hoping they were wrong. My cynicism is not a snap decision.

And with all due respect, those of you that don't see a problem, must be reincarnated and heard Nero's fiddle playing while Rome was burning. Part of what the establishment has aspired to create through diversion and mass marketing on every thing that makes noise from aluminum foiled TV antennas to today's cell phones.

 

[Choctaw_fan]

They probably also think we get football broadcasts for free when everyone knows we pay a pretty penny for every product advertised so we can see those game broadcast every week.

You can always fools some people but not everyone.