New Brexit stuff

Thanks, and I will clarify further that the compromise struck by the founding fathers that the Senators were appointed for life, not elected, so that they could be more deliberative and not be overly influenced by having to get re-elected.  It wasn't until the 20th century that changes were made to the Constitution to make them elected officials with unlimited 6-year terms of office. The Senate is far more influenced by money these days than the Founders intended because they need copious amounts of it to get re-elected. I think the Senate should be an elected body with either a single term or at most 2 terms so they may become less concerned with personal self interest in perpetuating their stay in office.

I totally agree with your comments regarding the House of Lords which needs abolishing and replaced with something totally different.  Currently only appointed life peers (mostly) can vote but there are no limits on the numbers of them and they are appointed by the government of the day. Useless.

All very good points.

I believe some states attempted term limits for members of Congress, but then realized (or were told by the Supreme Court) that they can't do that without an amendment to the US Constitution, which makes sense because the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and the state laws would have contradicted the Constitution.  It was around the time of Newt Gingrich... *quick Google*... yes.  Yes, that happened.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_limits_in_the_United_States#Congress

Thanks, and I will clarify further that the compromise struck by the founding fathers that the Senators were appointed for life, not elected, so that they could be more deliberative and not be overly influenced by having to get re-elected.  It wasn't until the 20th century that changes were made to the Constitution to make them elected officials with unlimited 6-year terms of office. The Senate is far more influenced by money these days than the Founders intended because they need copious amounts of it to get re-elected. I think the Senate should be an elected body with either a single term or at most 2 terms so they may become less concerned with personal self interest in perpetuating their stay in office.

I totally agree with your comments regarding the House of Lords which needs abolishing and replaced with something totally different.  Currently only appointed life peers (mostly) can vote but there are no limits on the numbers of them and they are appointed by the government of the day. Useless.

Ummm, actually I think it was in the 1700s that they set the terms at 6 years. (1786? 87?)  The senators were elected by the state legislatures until the 17th amendment (? I can never keep the numbering of the amendments straight!) in 1913, when they went to a direct vote of the population.

[Edit - I googled and found this. Very helpful history. https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Direct_Election_Senators.htm ]

Politics (and many other things).....go figure. When I hear someone say they understand somebody else's point of view....I automatically call BS. If you understood their point of view....you would agree with them. All you can do is TRY to understand their point of view. Good luck.

Brexit- some people love it....at the same time (and with the same evidence) some people hate it.

Trump!- what a guy! Some people like him.......I just don't understand. I don't think I'm able to. I can understand why people voted for him.....just to shake things up. But......can I explain why a person who considers themselves religious/evangelical eagerly supports him? Nahhhh, beer helps though.....

Ummm, actually I think it was in the 1700s that they set the terms at 6 years. (1786? 87?)  The senators were elected by the state legislatures until the 17th amendment (? I can never keep the numbering of the amendments straight!) in 1913, when they went to a direct vote of the population.

[Edit - I googled and found this. Very helpful history. https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Direct_Election_Senators.htm ]

Thanks for the correction, much appreciated.

Above you stated that Northern Ireland was populated by the English. I had always understood that it was the Scottish who populated Northern Ireland, formerly known as Ulster.

The counties of Ulster (modern boundaries) that were colonised during the plantations. This map is a simplified one, as the amount of land actually colonised did not cover the entire shaded area.
The Plantation of Ulster (Irish: Plandáil Uladh; Ulster-Scots: Plantin o Ulstèr)[1] was the organised colonisation (plantation) of Ulster – a province of Ireland – by people from Great Britain during the reign of King James VI & I. Most of the colonists came from Scotland, the majority having a different culture to the natives. Small private plantations by wealthy landowners began in 1606,[2] while the official plantation began in 1609. Most of the land colonised was forfeited from the native Gaelic chiefs, several of whom had fled Ireland for mainland Europe in 1607 following the Nine Years' War against English rule. The official plantation comprised an estimated half a million acres (2,000 km²) of arable land in counties Armagh, Cavan, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Tyrconnell and Derry/Londonderry.[3] Land in counties Antrim, Down and Monaghan was privately colonised with the king's support.[2]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantation_of_Ulster#/search

Trump!- what a guy! Some people like him.......I just don't understand. I don't think I'm able to. I can understand why people voted for him.....just to shake things up. But......can I explain why a person who considers themselves religious/evangelical eagerly supports him? Nahhhh, beer helps though.....

I will never understand, not in a million years. I have family members who still support him, and post things about respecting the POS. My father voted for him, but said he didn't trust him. I asked why  he voted that way. Well, he hadn't voted anything but Republican since 1980. A neighbor who voted for him believed the lies...but has since stopped drinking the kool-aid, and I suspect will vote blue this year. As for the evangelicals, there's not enough beer in the world to help explain that one. ..   

Thanks for the correction, much appreciated.

Above you stated that Northern Ireland was populated by the English. I had always understood that it was the Scottish who populated Northern Ireland, formerly known as Ulster.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantation_of_Ulster#/search

My bad. You're absolutely right. There are times when my brain goes into the "Irish" and "those English Invaders" mode. (Courtesy of my relatives who lived through both the Troubles and those other ones who got shot at or had loved-ones shot by the English during the independence movement. "Tell me a story" time when I was a tot with Grandma/Grandpa was usually not going to be about Flopsy/Mopsy/and Peter.  )

So yeah, the settlers were primarily Scottish. Planted there by the English.    

I will never understand, not in a million years. I have family members who still support him, and post things about respecting the POS. My father voted for him, but said he didn't trust him. I asked why  he voted that way. Well, he hadn't voted anything but Republican since 1980. A neighbor who voted for him believed the lies...but has since stopped drinking the kool-aid, and I suspect will vote blue this year. As for the evangelicals, there's not enough beer in the world to help explain that one. ..   

Seriously.

I don't speak to what's left of my family in Texas. But from other relatives who do, I'm informed that they are rabidly pro-Trump. They are also said to not be able to have a sit-down, rational discussion about him or his doings, but immediately get thrown into foaming-at-the-mouth fervor. Kinda reminds me of the McCarthy Era rolled up with the Nazis. Same propaganda mechanisms. Apparently the same type of audience who falls in line. As far as my family goes, they are just educated enough to be dangerous, but not educated enough to see when they're being manipulated. They have always tended to yell to try to drown out opposing viewpoints. So that would fit right in with that role model. 

Oh, well.

The Evangelicals - the last I'd heard, some of the big names in that movement have stopped backing Trump.

I'm afraid we're going to have to live with him for four more years, though (barring an Act of God). Because those idiot Democrats can't line up behind an electable candidate. Bernie won't back down, but he can't win the conservative sector - he's too socialist for the masses of middle-America. (I used to like him, but, quite frankly, lately he's been coming off as a real jerk. So not a lot of improvement over T. He won't be able to bring the country back together, or some semblance thereof.) Buttigieg is young and energetic, with good credentials, but he's gay so that'll never happen. (Maybe someday.) Warren would be competent, but she's a woman and there are people who will not vote for a woman to lead. So it's unlikely to happen, although Clinton did get a larger popular vote than Trump and that is encouraging. The latest one I've seen join the pack - Bloomberg - has enough money and may be a middle-ground candidate acceptable to a large proportion of Dems who won't go for the others because they're not "like them" enough. But he is Jewish, and there is still a portion of America that won't go for that. (Which is insane, the guy is a highly-competent businessman.)  The others... probably not much of a chance, but could pull votes away from a viable candidate.   At this point in the process I would really have liked to have seen a unified Democratic Party, rallied behind a viable candidate and really pushing to defeat Trump. It's not there.

What I think I'd really like to see is for Bernie to back the heck off for the good of all, and a Joe Biden/Joe Kennedy ticket. Kennedy is still a little green, but he's good at what he does, is from the tradition (although a bit more conservative than the other Kennedys), is relatively inoffensive, and could step in and function if Biden was unable to perform his duties because of age/illness (God Forbid). Biden came up the ranks of the political machine, a poor boy who made good. And he's been Vice Pres before so he knows how to make the machine work. (That, I think, is the critical skill that's needed in a president - someone who knows how to run the machine of government properly. Not talk about it, not fracture it into warring parts or put it at odds with the other branches, but who can make the Executive branch functional again.)

But that's probably not going to happen. I do expect to see JK way more visible in the "future presidential candidate" pipeline over the next decade, though. (People remember JFK. The cachet of the name alone might be enough to balance out MAGA. But I tend to overestimate people.  )

I'd settle for a Biden/Warren ticket, or a Biden/Bloomberg ticket. (Although I don't think it'd do as well - the Jewish thing. Sadly.) At this point, if they'd just get behind one set of candidates and stop all this nonsense... the field is still way too big at this late date. There needs to be a united front.  Otherwise, we'll get four more years of T.  (They can impeach him, but his party controls the Senate, so he'll not get booted out of office.)

Yeah. Well. This, too, shall pass....

The only good thing about the evangelical's support for Trump is that it makes perfectly clear, even to the dumbest of the dumb how  immoral that how movement is.  I'd even go so far as to say that it's all the proof you need that God doesn't exist, certainly not the one they are talking about.  Bit ironic for the evangelicals.