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The ineptness, complacency, and irresponsibility have been the rigor du jour for over a decade now..
Since Carter, I read. 14 shutdowns so far, IIRC. It's very definitely a bad sign for a continuing government, in my opinion. We have had a surprisingly long run and are way overdue for a major political upheaval, by the standards of any other major country. Not to even bother mentioning the minor ones.
Since Carter, I read. 14 shutdowns so far, IIRC. It's very definitely a bad sign for a continuing government, in my opinion. We have had a surprisingly long run and are way overdue for a major political upheaval, by the standards of any other major country. Not to even bother mentioning the minor ones.
I wouldn't take exception with your comment above were it so that the U.S.' political system be comparable to those in "other major" country that also are presidential federal democratic republics, or even merely democratic republics. Considering "other major" countries that have been formed as democratic republics, "major upheaval" doesn't much within happen at all. It happens, yes, but not with enough regularity or for consistent enough reasons that there's enough comparability to say that any one of them is "way overdue" for "major upheaval." The notion you've posited also suffers from the fact that there is only one "major country" that is in substance and form a democratic republic.We have had a surprisingly long run and are way overdue for a major political upheaval, by the standards of any other major country.
'To get a budget bill passed, like it or not, the majority party must compromise enough so enough of the minority party's members will vote for it. Devising those compromises is also part of Congress' duty because, like it or not, the U.S. government not a parliamentary one.'
Schumer is playing the shut down card this time. Not McConnell.Government shutdowns are a periodicity matters, not lack money matters. Why is that so? Because even if Congress were, say in its last continuing resolution, to have explicitly stated that there was no limit on the amount of spending/borrowing the executive or judicial branch departments, agencies, bureaus, etc., we'd still be in a shutdown situation because Congress grants spending/borrowing authority for a fixed period of time. Quite simply, money executive and judicial branch entities can have at the money in the world, but when the appropriation that provided that money expires, they can't spend it because they no longer have authorization to spend it.
One of Congress' primary duties is to pass a budget legislation. Such legislation is called an appropriation, and what an appropriation is is the authority to spend/borrow money. Congress is the only branch of government that can authorize that money be spent/borrowed. Though the Constitution's Appropriation and Statements of Account clause (Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7) does not stipulate the time period an appropriation must cover, the principles of sound management call Congress to appropriate spending authority for long enough periods that the executive branch can obtain the goods and services it needs to do its job. The absence of such a stipulation is why Congress passes continuing resolutions (CRs).
What's the difference between a budget appropriation and a CR? Well, first of all, appropriations are spending authority; they define a sum of money that can be spent/borrowed, the period of time during which that authority is valid, and who is authorized to spend/borrow various sums of money. Thus a CR is a type of appropriation, and in fact, there are three types of appropriations (appropriation bills):
Regular appropriations bills provide most of the funding that is provided in all appropriations measures for a fiscal year and must be enacted by October 1, the beginning of the fiscal year. If regular bills are not enacted by the beginning of the new fiscal year, Congress adopts continuing resolutions to continue funding, generally until regular bills are enacted. Supplemental appropriations bills provide additional appropriations to become available during a fiscal year.
(Source)
For all the "who struck John" about the current government shutdown, the inescapable fact of the matter is that the root reason the government has shutdown is because the members of the 115th Congress have shirked their duty to pass a regular appropriations bill.
The lack of a regular appropriation isn't egregiously problematic for all units and activities of the executive branch, and only rarely is it so for the judicial branch.Some activities of the government can simply pick up where they left off with little impact other than delays the costs associated with delays.
That said, activities that cannot be performed and paid for in the period covered by a CR simply cannot commence. What kind of activities fall into that realm? All sorts of them...purchases of military hardware and other capital property (fixed assets, in accounting parlance) purchases regardless of whether it's military or not, governmental process improvement initiatives, intelligence gathering equipment, upgrade and maintenance contracts, and more. The simple fact is that for a number of things the government must purchase, the most efficient (cost and process wise) and effective way to do so is via multi-year contracts.
Quite simply, certain entities of the government cannot, given the short term nature of CRs, contract to obtain the goods/services they need. They cannot because they don't know whether, upon the CR's expiration, Congress will authorize the spending authority needed to complete the project. Insofar as such long term endeavors cost tens and more millions of dollars and the government has a fiduciary duty not to assume undue risk, government managers can't very well start an initiative, pay several million or many millions on a few weeks/months worth of it, only to later find out the project has to be cancelled because Congress' next CR didn't include authorization funding the initiative's continuance.
Key Observations Regarding the Appropriations Process:
- How many FY 2018 regular appropriations bills have the 115th Congress passed? None.
Ever since their being seated in January 2017, they passed one omnibus bill to get through the remainder of FY 2017. For FY 2018, they had from January 2017 to Sept 30, 2017 to pass a regular appropriations bill for FY 2018, and they didn't pass one. Because they have yet to pass a FY 2018 regular appropriation.- While there is much about the appropriations process that is political, there is nothing political about the fact that one of Congress' duties to to pass a budget bill that enables efficient operation of the government. To fulfill that duty, Congress must pass a regular appropriations bill, not a litany of CRs.
- To get a budget bill passed, like it or not, the majority party must compromise enough so enough of the minority party's members will vote for it. Devising those compromises is also part of Congress' duty because, like it or not, the U.S. government not a parliamentary one.
You realize if you refrain from posting you would not have to complain about something you have no control over?All well and good. The House has passed required budgets for years. It's the DemocRATs in the Senate who have refused to do so for more than 7 years!
Please refrain posting in my threads when you haven't confirmed the factual and contextual veracity of the remarks you intend to make, or, if you refuse to confirm your remarks' veracity, at least bother to note in some way that you are unsure about or have not confirmed their accuracy.
- The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 (Titles I-IX of P.L. 93-344, 2 U.S.C. 601- 688) established the congressional budget process. Among other things, the POTUS is required by law to, on or before the first Monday in February, submit a budget to Congress. (IIRC, Donald Trump did not submit his budget until, IIRC, the ides of March 2017 or near it.)
- The Senate has passed an omnibus appropriations bill or a regular appropriation bills for each of the past 7 years. Anyone who makes even the most cursory effort to determine whether that's so can see as much.
- While the WH submits a budget to Congress, its doing so is merely a starting point. Congress, at its discretion modifies the budget the POTUS submits to them.
- The FY 2018 appropriations process in the House and Senate and the applicable customs, rules and procedures to which it is subject is the same one that's been in place for the past seven years. Everyone involved involved in the appropriations process was aware of that being so well before January 2017. Consequently, the people charged with orchestrating the FY 2018 appropriations process knew they had to negotiate, collaborate, give and take in exactly the same ways their predecessors did to pass the appropriations bills they did from 2010 to 2017.
'To get a budget bill passed, like it or not, the majority party must compromise enough so enough of the minority party's members will vote for it. Devising those compromises is also part of Congress' duty because, like it or not, the U.S. government not a parliamentary one.'
In defiance of federal law, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid abstained from his budget duties by refusing to allow full budget proposals in the Senate for at least 4 years. Though the House did their job, you will not find President Obama's signature on a full federal budget for FY 2011 thru FY 2014 because one was not presented to him. Through a series of CR's, appropriations then defaulted to the last passed and signed full budget - a budget with a very high level of spending. This did two important things - it froze spending at a high level at or near 2010 levels, it protected Senate Dems up for reelection from having to debate appropriations (bypassing the 'parliamentary' will of the people in the budgetary process). It also gave Obama the excuse to blame a do-nothing Congress with few questioning which party was 'doing nothing' and why.
Senate Democrats won’t pass a budget
Senate passes its first budget proposal in four years - CNNPolitics
Timeline Of Senate Democrats’ Refusal To Make Budget Plans Public | U.S. Senate Committee On The Budget
Harry Reid Shuts Down Budget Process In Senate
Congress passes first budget in 6 years
If the topic is a call for Congress to do its duty then the current situation is a vast improvement over the past - at least McConnell gives the minority party a voice and a vote, something Harry Reid did not do. I hope you were a concerned citizen then as well as now. As for Trump submitting a budget request - it is just that, a request. He's got time.
First:Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid abstained from his budget duties by refusing to allow full budget proposals in the Senate for at least 4 years. Though the House did their job, you will not find President Obama's signature on a full federal budget for FY 2011 thru FY 2014
you will not find President Obama's signature on a full federal budget for FY 2011 thru FY 2014 because one was not presented to him
All well and good. The House has passed required budgets for years. It's the DemocRATs in the Senate who have refused to do so for more than 7 years!
Please refrain posting in my threads when you haven't confirmed the factual and contextual veracity of the remarks you intend to make, or, if you refuse to confirm your remarks' veracity, at least bother to note in some way that you are unsure about or have not confirmed their accuracy.
- The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 (Titles I-IX of P.L. 93-344, 2 U.S.C. 601- 688) established the congressional budget process. Among other things, the POTUS is required by law to, on or before the first Monday in February, submit a budget to Congress. (IIRC, Donald Trump did not submit his budget until, IIRC, the ides of March 2017 or near it.)
- The Senate has passed an omnibus appropriations bill or a regular appropriation bills for each of the past 7 years. Anyone who makes even the most cursory effort to determine whether that's so can see as much.
- While the WH submits a budget to Congress, its doing so is merely a starting point. Congress, at its discretion modifies the budget the POTUS submits to them.
- The FY 2018 appropriations process in the House and Senate and the applicable customs, rules and procedures to which it is subject is the same one that's been in place for the past seven years. Everyone involved involved in the appropriations process was aware of that being so well before January 2017. Consequently, the people charged with orchestrating the FY 2018 appropriations process knew they had to negotiate, collaborate, give and take in exactly the same ways their predecessors did to pass the appropriations bills they did from 2010 to 2017.
OT:You realize if you refrain from posting you would not have to complain about something you have no control over?
What exactly is a "major political upheaval?" By most folks' reckoning, it's a transition from one form of government to another by way of civil war or insurrection, or a civil war of any sort that removes one set of political leaders and replaces them with another, even if the form of government remains unchanged. Some of history's notable examples include:
Another form of "major political upheaval" is that which results from external influences. The Norman Conquest, Rome's annexation of Greece, WWI and WWII are three examples. For now, the likelihood of there being a "major political upheaval" in U.S. as a result of it being subjected to invasion is closer to none than slim.
- The American Revolution
- The French Revolution
- The signing of the Magna Carta +The English Civil Wars (first half of the 17th century)
- The Bolshevik Revolution
- The War of the Roses
- The Secession of the South
- The Reformation -- formally this was a cultural upheaval, but it's impact on the Roman Catholic Church's political influence, the power of the Papacy, is why it's listed
- The Great Schism
- The Chinese and Cultural Revolutions (1949 and later -- overthrew republic and replaced it with Socialism, but retained a Constitution that, strictly speaking, makes China be a republic, though not a democratic one)
- The Chinese Revolution (1911 -- overthrew monarchy and replaced it with a republic)
- Octavian (Agrippa) defeats Mark Antony and Cleopatra in the battle of Actium -- ended the Roman republic
- Pyrrhic victory at the Battle of Mantinea -- allowed a series of events that resulted in Phillip II becoming Greece's king, thereby allowing Alexander to later become its emperor.
- The Fall of the Western Roman Empire (One can make the case that this upheaval was due to external forces; however, were the internal situation not was it was, it's very likely that Odoacer would not have been able to depose Romulus Augustulus. Be that as it may internal and external forces were heavy influencers of The Fall.)
'To get a budget bill passed, like it or not, the majority party must compromise enough so enough of the minority party's members will vote for it. Devising those compromises is also part of Congress' duty because, like it or not, the U.S. government not a parliamentary one.'
In defiance of federal law, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid abstained from his budget duties by refusing to allow full budget proposals in the Senate for at least 4 years. Though the House did their job, you will not find President Obama's signature on a full federal budget for FY 2011 thru FY 2014 because one was not presented to him. Through a series of CR's, appropriations then defaulted to the last passed and signed full budget - a budget with a very high level of spending. This did two important things - it froze spending at a high level at or near 2010 levels, it protected Senate Dems up for reelection from having to debate appropriations (bypassing the 'parliamentary' will of the people in the budgetary process). It also gave Obama the excuse to blame a do-nothing Congress with few questioning which party was 'doing nothing' and why.
Senate Democrats won’t pass a budget
Senate passes its first budget proposal in four years - CNNPolitics
Timeline Of Senate Democrats’ Refusal To Make Budget Plans Public | U.S. Senate Committee On The Budget
Harry Reid Shuts Down Budget Process In Senate
Congress passes first budget in 6 years
If the topic is a call for Congress to do its duty then the current situation is a vast improvement over the past - at least McConnell gives the minority party a voice and a vote, something Harry Reid did not do. I hope you were a concerned citizen then as well as now. As for Trump submitting a budget request - it is just that, a request. He's got time.First:Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid abstained from his budget duties by refusing to allow full budget proposals in the Senate for at least 4 years. Though the House did their job, you will not find President Obama's signature on a full federal budget for FY 2011 thru FY 2014
If you are of mind to respond to my posts, you should read them. You should because, unlike some people, I won't publicly say "just any ol' thing" that happens to align with a preconceived notion of what happened, could have happened, may have happened, or should have happened. The fact that I don't include a link supporting assertions I make in an OP should not be construed by you or anyone else as indicative of my not having checked the factual and contextual veracity of my remarks. Nearly always, but not always, when I haven't checked the veracity of something I assert, I also state that I haven't checked.
Second:
If you are of a mind to include tu quoque/relative privation/moral equivalence premises in a refutation of/rebuttal to/counterargument to something I write, and do so in spite of the inherent irrationality of such lines of argumentation, at the very least, you really need to check to be sure that the premises of your argument are contextually and factually accurate. Reading and relying on whatever the hell it is you've been reading is clearly insufficient for doing so. As I've often said, "Trust, but verify."Third:
you will not find President Obama's signature on a full federal budget for FY 2011 thru FY 2014 because one was not presented to himAnd, FWIW:
- FY 2011 -- No omnibus or regular appropriation bills made it to Obama.
- 2012 Omnibus Appropriation passed the whole Senate 12/17/2011 and Obama signed it on the 23rd.
- 2103 Omnibus Appropriation passed the whole Senate 3/20/2013 and Obama signed it on the 26th.
- 2014 Omnibus Appropriation passed the whole Senate 1/16/2014 and Obama signed it on the 17th.
FWIW, when reading my posts, you'd do well to accurately determine whether the foundation of my argument is normative or positive. If it's predominantly a positive argument, it'll be rare that there are germane points of objective fact that one can use (in context) to refute the conclusions I present. If it's predominantly a normative argument, one certainly can refute the argument using germane points of fact, but I'm likely to acknowledge that one is entitled to a cogent and well presented normatively based argument/conclusion that differs from mine. I do that because I'm not going to waste my time and efforts arguing over something that's akin and substantively tantamount to "I prefer green and you prefer yellow."
Insofar as nothing in your remarks above address it, yet it is the only thing about which I remarked, am I to take it that you've tacitly retracted your "we're overdue" remark, along with doing so re: the notion that there exists another "major country" sufficiently comparable enough in its political structures and processes that there be any correlatively germane standard "of other major countries" by which it's sound/cogent to conclude there be any existential state of being "way overdue?"What exactly is a "major political upheaval?" By most folks' reckoning, it's a transition from one form of government to another by way of civil war or insurrection, or a civil war of any sort that removes one set of political leaders and replaces them with another, even if the form of government remains unchanged. Some of history's notable examples include:
Another form of "major political upheaval" is that which results from external influences. The Norman Conquest, Rome's annexation of Greece, WWI and WWII are three examples. For now, the likelihood of there being a "major political upheaval" in U.S. as a result of it being subjected to invasion is closer to none than slim.
- The American Revolution
- The French Revolution
- The signing of the Magna Carta +The English Civil Wars (first half of the 17th century)
- The Bolshevik Revolution
- The War of the Roses
- The Secession of the South
- The Reformation -- formally this was a cultural upheaval, but it's impact on the Roman Catholic Church's political influence, the power of the Papacy, is why it's listed
- The Great Schism
- The Chinese and Cultural Revolutions (1949 and later -- overthrew republic and replaced it with Socialism, but retained a Constitution that, strictly speaking, makes China be a republic, though not a democratic one)
- The Chinese Revolution (1911 -- overthrew monarchy and replaced it with a republic)
- Octavian (Agrippa) defeats Mark Antony and Cleopatra in the battle of Actium -- ended the Roman republic
- Pyrrhic victory at the Battle of Mantinea -- allowed a series of events that resulted in Phillip II becoming Greece's king, thereby allowing Alexander to later become its emperor.
- The Fall of the Western Roman Empire (One can make the case that this upheaval was due to external forces; however, were the internal situation not was it was, it's very likely that Odoacer would not have been able to depose Romulus Augustulus. Be that as it may internal and external forces were heavy influencers of The Fall.)
Nice list! I see you too have been thinking about this issue of sudden violent political change in a country. I have been rather frantically reading about revolution since summer 2016 when I realized how close the election situation looked to the 1860 election (it wasn't quite that bad in the end, but it was wild). I read three books about the 1860 elections and the 1850s issues that caused the problem. I continue to read about this subject, sudden political disintegration in a polity.
One thing I learned is that revolution is not the only possibility. In fact, the American Revolution surely wasn't one (colonists becoming independent from far away is nothing like the beheading of Charles I). As that word was used for the first time in the French Revolution a few years later, it's easy to see how the confusion of words started. Secession is the issue I'm most concerned about: an obvious danger for this huge, huge nationstate with clear area-dependent cultural differences. A revolution now means sovereignty becomes lodged in a wholly different set of people than before --- in France, the National Convention instead of the King, and later, the Paris Mob and the Committee on Public Safety (Robespierre) instead of the Convention. And after them, Napoleon: but that was not a revolution, that was a coup d'état. When one person (Hitler DID stage a coup, but only 1-2 months after he got in the normal way) or a small group take over a government, like Chavez or Napoleon, that's a coup or putsch, and I've sure been worried about that Comey guy: it was pretty obvious to BOTH political parties what he had in mind, IMO. Getting rid of Comey was the best cooperation so far between the Dems and GOP. And Comey was not the first to be considering coup d'état: I totally believe in the Stanley Darlington Butler testimony in the 1930s, another time like Vietnam which was very iffy for the continuation of these United States.
Agreed with your point that invasion is a common way for a polity to break up or be drastically changed --- poor Poland. But also 1066 and all that. Re an invasion of the USA, the second Red Dawn is easier to watch than the first and IMO not implausible re an invasion force coming in through Mexico. I don't know where else they COULD come in through, with the needed staging area. Certainly it's what the Germans had in mind when they sent the infamous Zimmerman Telegram asking Mexico to do just that in 1917 and promising their help to get back the whole of the Southwest for Mexico. I don't agree it's impossible: the original Red Dawn II movie had Chinese invading, but the State Department put its foot down and they had to substitute North Koreans (same as in the "Olympus Has Fallen" movie where the White House is taken by NoKos). That's implausible, but invasion by China is not implausible: they do, after all, have between four and five times our population, and MOST of them are male, since so many more females are aborted. Europe is being invaded by mostly young Muslim males now: millions. If that's not an invasion, I don't know what to call it. Not every invasion is headed by a general or other single leader, after all. The Crusades. Spanish in Mexico. But wow, do they disintegrate a political system.
The country simply shattering is what I would expect most of all. That's what happened to the Soviet Union within a few days in 1991. When any such change happens, it has to happen very fast or not at all. One Russian political scientist and ALLLLL the scifi writers today assume we will blow apart into about six separate countries. The Russian scientist didn't have a good feel for the areas each would contain: any American could make a better guess than he did, I think. We know how we divide.
So I'd guess a sudden national shattering and during the confusion after that, China invades from Mexico.
I know, can't happen here. That's what everyone says, like Norman Angell's famous 1910 book about how a European war was totally impossible, because the bankers would never allow it. It was a best seller for years: well, until 1914, anyway. Still, somehow, as your list shows, things do happen even though it's always impossible to imagine.
We have had a surprisingly long run and are way overdue for a major political upheaval, by the standards of any other major country.
???One thing I learned is that revolution is not the only possibility. In fact, the American Revolution surely wasn't one (colonists becoming independent from far away is nothing like the beheading of Charles I). As that word was used for the first time in the French Revolution a few years later, it's easy to see how the confusion of words started.
That was not a coup; it was a usurpation pr consolidation of power/authority. It was not a coup d'etat because Hitler and his Nazi party already held political sway. His actions increased the scope of power vested in him, rather than in other organs of government.Hitler DID stage a coup, but only 1-2 months after he got in the normal way
When one person (Hitler DID stage a coup, but only 1-2 months after he got in the normal way) or a small group take over a government, like Chavez or Napoleon, that's a coup or putsch
???Getting rid of Comey was the best cooperation so far between the Dems and GOP.
I've sure been worried about that Comey guy: it was pretty obvious to BOTH political parties what he had in mind, IMO. Getting rid of Comey was the best cooperation so far between the Dems and GOP. And Comey was not the first to be considering coup d'état
Re an invasion of the USA, the second Red Dawn is easier to watch than the first and IMO not implausible re an invasion force coming in through Mexico.
Again, it's very implausible. It's not impossible.That's implausible, but invasion by China is not implausible: they do, after all, have between four and five times our population, and MOST of them are male, since so many more females are aborted.
Europe is being invaded by mostly young Muslim males now: millions. If that's not an invasion, I don't know what to call it.
Not every invasion is headed by a general or other single leader, after all. The Crusades. Spanish in Mexico.
Again, what collection of pivotally causal similarities are there between the current U.S.' socioeconomic and sociopolitical status and that of the 1980s and 1990s USSR are so similar that they can be considered probative for asserting that they augur for "simply shattering" being a likely happenstance (I don't in substantive conversations dwell in the realm "anything's possible"), let alone so similar as to be imminent enough that such an occurrence may rightly be qualified as "way overdue?"The country simply shattering is what I would expect most of all. That's what happened to the Soviet Union within a few days in 1991.
Okay...I overlooked your earlier citation of a movie, a work of fiction, as merely a convenient illustrative foil. Now, however, you've moved to actually citing (albeit unspecifically) the works of fiction writers as a legitimate basis for portending and accepting as not only possible, but plausible enough that there's just cause to ascribe to the notion that "we will blow apart into about six separate countries." I'm sorry, but that bald assertion, if it's even to be entertained in any meaningful (non-entertaining) way by serious readers/observers, needs far more sound/cogent support than you've provided.One Russian political scientist and ALLLLL the scifi writers today assume we will blow apart into about six separate countries.
Still, somehow, as your list shows, things do happen even though it's always impossible to imagine.
'To get a budget bill passed, like it or not, the majority party must compromise enough so enough of the minority party's members will vote for it. Devising those compromises is also part of Congress' duty because, like it or not, the U.S. government not a parliamentary one.'
In defiance of federal law, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid abstained from his budget duties by refusing to allow full budget proposals in the Senate for at least 4 years. Though the House did their job, you will not find President Obama's signature on a full federal budget for FY 2011 thru FY 2014 because one was not presented to him. Through a series of CR's, appropriations then defaulted to the last passed and signed full budget - a budget with a very high level of spending. This did two important things - it froze spending at a high level at or near 2010 levels, it protected Senate Dems up for reelection from having to debate appropriations (bypassing the 'parliamentary' will of the people in the budgetary process). It also gave Obama the excuse to blame a do-nothing Congress with few questioning which party was 'doing nothing' and why.
Senate Democrats won’t pass a budget
Senate passes its first budget proposal in four years - CNNPolitics
Timeline Of Senate Democrats’ Refusal To Make Budget Plans Public | U.S. Senate Committee On The Budget
Harry Reid Shuts Down Budget Process In Senate
Congress passes first budget in 6 years
If the topic is a call for Congress to do its duty then the current situation is a vast improvement over the past - at least McConnell gives the minority party a voice and a vote, something Harry Reid did not do. I hope you were a concerned citizen then as well as now. As for Trump submitting a budget request - it is just that, a request. He's got time.First:Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid abstained from his budget duties by refusing to allow full budget proposals in the Senate for at least 4 years. Though the House did their job, you will not find President Obama's signature on a full federal budget for FY 2011 thru FY 2014
If you are of mind to respond to my posts, you should read them. You should because, unlike some people, I won't publicly say "just any ol' thing" that happens to align with a preconceived notion of what happened, could have happened, may have happened, or should have happened. The fact that I don't include a link supporting assertions I make in an OP should not be construed by you or anyone else as indicative of my not having checked the factual and contextual veracity of my remarks. Nearly always, but not always, when I haven't checked the veracity of something I assert, I also state that I haven't checked.
Second:
If you are of a mind to include tu quoque/relative privation/moral equivalence premises in a refutation of/rebuttal to/counterargument to something I write, and do so in spite of the inherent irrationality of such lines of argumentation, at the very least, you really need to check to be sure that the premises of your argument are contextually and factually accurate. Reading and relying on whatever the hell it is you've been reading is clearly insufficient for doing so. As I've often said, "Trust, but verify."Third:
you will not find President Obama's signature on a full federal budget for FY 2011 thru FY 2014 because one was not presented to himAnd, FWIW:
- FY 2011 -- No omnibus or regular appropriation bills made it to Obama.
- 2012 Omnibus Appropriation passed the whole Senate 12/17/2011 and Obama signed it on the 23rd.
- 2103 Omnibus Appropriation passed the whole Senate 3/20/2013 and Obama signed it on the 26th.
- 2014 Omnibus Appropriation passed the whole Senate 1/16/2014 and Obama signed it on the 17th.
FWIW, when reading my posts, you'd do well to accurately determine whether the foundation of my argument is normative or positive. If it's predominantly a positive argument, it'll be rare that there are germane points of objective fact that one can use (in context) to refute the conclusions I present. If it's predominantly a normative argument, one certainly can refute the argument using germane points of fact, but I'm likely to acknowledge that one is entitled to a cogent and well presented normatively based argument/conclusion that differs from mine. I do that because I'm not going to waste my time and efforts arguing over something that's akin and substantively tantamount to "I prefer green and you prefer yellow."
First:
Per your own words - "Congress job is to pass a budget...". Per my words in brief - CR's + CA's + OA's≠Budget. It is/was/and remains a fact that Senator Harry Reid held the Senate back from passing a budget for a number of years. Documentation of that fact has been provided.
Second:
It is quite reasonable, despite the discomfort it may cause, when singling out this particular Congress for dereliction of duty so to speak, to question one's stance on the behavior of previous Congresses'.
Third:
I'm doing quite well, thank you.
Per your own words - "Congress job is to pass a budget...". Per my words in brief - CR's + CA's + OA's≠Budget.
Okay...we have reached the limit of my will to forbear off-topic discourse. I've been willing, up to now, to engage in this line of discussion because it's somewhat intriguing and you've been civil and articulate enough that I don't at all mind participating in the discussion, but it's not lost on me that what we're chatting about has nothing to do with Congress' duty to pass "proper" appropriations bills nor with the deleterious impacts of it not doing so and instead passing only CRs. Consequently, if you care to pursue this line of discussion, please either PM me to do so, or use the series of posts below as the rubric for a new thread.
You are right that it's all off topic, but the government shutdown is over for the moment, so perhaps people will be tolerant of OT --- and anyone could join in. You are right, it should be a separate thread, but I am seriously hung up making supper and doing some other things right now.
Insofar as nothing in your remarks above address it, yet it is the only thing about which I remarked, am I to take it that you've tacitly retracted your "we're overdue" remark, along with doing so re: the notion that there exists another "major country" sufficiently comparable enough in its political structures and processes that there be any correlatively germane standard "of other major countries" by which it's sound/cogent to conclude there be any existential state of being "way overdue?"
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Perhaps I missed it, but I noticed nothing in your reply that militates for there being, or even postulating that there is a temporal tipping point that has been passed in the post-Civil War period of America's history.
I don't think there are any TEMPORAL tipping points.....or indeed any other kind that I focus on. Like, after 100 years we all curtsey and change partners? But no, I certainly don't retract my belief that America is wildly overdue for split up. I've been thinking about it the last few years. It doesn't matter at all what political system a given polity has: they all go. The map of Europe looks a whole lot different whether one is reading Latin studies or Renaissance historical novels. A WHOLE lot different. The land stays the same, but the borders shift and divide and recombine, like amoebae. The frequency is a lot faster than the 153 years we've had since the last big attempt at a split up. I wonder why America has so abnormally managed to stay intact so long. I personally think it's the homogeneity we enjoyed for so long; now we have lost that, and so will shatter. Usual thing, unusually delayed.
Okay.....what to call the "American Revolution" is a bit fraught. The word had not been invented then, it was a French construction. Civil War works. If revolution is replacing sovereignty radically, well, we did that, too. The American Civil War was certainly not a revolution, as the government set up in Richmond was substantially similar to the government in Washington. It was called the War of Northern Invasion at the time; and The War Between the States when I was a child in the South.
- The fact of the matter is that the American colonists were English subjects. The Thirteen colonies were part of England's empire, everyone on the planet who knew about England and the colonists acknowledged as much, begrudgingly or otherwise.
- I don't much care what name one assigns to it, there is no other way to describe the American War of Independence (American Revolutionary War) as anything but a civil war. What else is there to call it when, if the revolters lose their quest for independence, they remain subjects of/citizens of the nation against which they belligerently revolted?
The only reason the American Revolution isn't typically described as a civil war is because the colonists won and formed a new nation. (I suppose Tories who remained in the U.S. may have called it a civil war. They're long gone, however. LOL) The Civil War would be called something else too were the South to have won.
[Hitler's] was not a coup; it was a usurpation or consolidation of power/authority. It was not a coup d'etat because Hitler and his Nazi party already held political sway. His actions increased the scope of power vested in him, rather than in other organs of government.
My objection is based on having studied in some depth, several books, the burning of the Reichstag Feb. 27, 1933, which was the crucial moment in Hitler's rise to dictatorial power, less than a month after he became Chancellor. I am NOT one of those silly people who thought the Nazis actually burned it themselves: the event was meticulously researched (well, they were German) and of course it was just that Dutch mentally deficient guy. But Hitler used it amazingly, opportunistically, to take power from the parliament and especially the many communists and consolidate it in himself and start the concentration camps. We know pretty much what he and others said that night (they were very upset, it was QUITE a fire, and they were recorded) and I think he actually believed communists did it for at least some time. Of course, Marinus van der Lubbe WAS a communist, if you can call a pretty severely impaired person anything, nobody really accepted him in any group, but he tried. But it doesn't count. He was really not a well person. So this is why I call it a coup, of sorts: Hitler took over as dictator from that moment, which was NOT in keeping with the Weimar government, obviously, and so dramatic was the fire that the people supported him widely (and many had already, in any case), so he got away with it. Even a coup must have some sort of support, or at least not active opposition. Same thing happened with Napoleon.
What exactly is the nature of cooperation you imagine existed in Trump's firing Comey?
I think perhaps you're conflating cooperation and acquiescence. I suspect that were the House majority Democratic, Trump would have been impeached for firing Comey because, at the time of the firing, Comey (the FBI) was actively investigating matters that had the potential to uncover misdoing by Trump, being it complicit/implicit or explicit wrongdoing. If the House's declination to impeach a POTUS (any POTUS) who fires an official leading an investigation into the POTUS' motivations and actions is your notion of cooperation, I had rather we have no more of it.
- Trump fired Comey; nobody else did. Comey was not collaboratively removed from his position as FBI Director.
- Trump, as POTUS, had the power and authority to fire Comey.
"Conflating" is a truly wonderful word.
I see that you did not read the Hillary Clinton mea culpa "What Happened," but I did. Every third page Hillary is saying, it's all Comey's fault!! Of course, it's really all my fault, she says, but really it's Comey's fault!
And I agree with her. I am obviously no Hillary voter, but I might have been had Trump not run, what a lame clown-car crew that GOP lot was without him, and I don't have the animus against her many men do. I think she is right: Comey tipped her over the edge. She's been real, real clear about that and a lot of Dems agree with her. And what does Comey do the moment, the MOMENT Hillary is out of the way? He goes after Trump. Oh, yeah, that man wanted to be prez himself. That was a coup in the making and Trump knew it too and got rid of Comey forthwith. That was the most dangerous man I've seen in government since Dick Cheney.
And yet, after I expressly and politely asked that additional discourse on this line be taken elsewhere, you respond here rather than starting a new thread or PM-ing? Seriously???You are right that it's all off topic...
Yet Congress' duty to fund the government predates and will endure past any given shutdown. That is why the topic of the thread is what it is and why the OP makes but fleeting reference to the recently ended shutdown. The point of the OP is to engender discussion about Congress fulfilling its duty to pass appropriations bills, regular and/or omnibus ones rather than CRs, and the impacts of doing or not doing so.You are right that it's all off topic but the government shutdown is over for the moment, so perhaps people will be tolerant of OT --- and anyone could join in.
You are right, it should be a separate thread, but I am seriously hung up making supper and doing some other things right now.
Mexico would have no motivation for allowing an invasion by China, first of itself and then of the U.S. And nothing to gain. I would think it would be obvious that no one would ask the permission of Mexico, anymore than anyone ever asks the permission of Poland before they march straight through.
- What motivation would Mexico have for allowing such a thing to happen?
- What has Mexico to gain, and that outweighs all potential and foreseeable downsides, by preferring that any of America's sovereign enemies, via war, become its nextdoor neighbor to the north (in fact or by dint of puppetry), thereby acquiescing to, or actively aiding and abetting, such an invasion?
- Even if the Mexico were to allow such a sequence of actions that might reasonably portend the invasion of America by one or more of its sovereign opponents, what makes you think the U.S. government/military would stand idly by and allow such an invasion to actually happen?
No one in Europe wanted this incredible flood of illegal aliens from Africa, Afghanistan, and the Middle East. I am sure you are aware of that.Perhaps you have some more considered events you care to offer in support of your assertion that not every invasion is headed by a general or other single leader?
- If you're attempting to assert normatively (or more preposterously, positively) that legal immigration constitutes a form of invasion, by all means do so, but in doing so, be sure to deal cogently/soundly with the fact that nobody who's invited to a place can be termed an invader. Individuals and groups thus welcomed may become something disdainful to their hosts, but that something isn't an invader.
Again, what collection of pivotally causal similarities are there between the current U.S.' socioeconomic and sociopolitical status and that of the 1980s and 1990s USSR are so similar that the likelihood of "simply shattering" can at all be considered probative to effecting such a happenstance, let alone so similar as to be imminent enough that such an occurrence may rightly be qualified as "way overdue?"
If you're aim was to focus on cultural upheavals, a la the Reformation, fine, but none of your illustrative cases, aside perhaps from the oblique reference to Muslims immigrating to Europe (presumably European countries other than Albania, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and, of course, Turkey, all of which are about 50% or more Muslim and quite happily so) and draw from that genre of transformative "upheaval."
That unimaginable things, be they great or small, happen is agreed upon by everyone.
