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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I said that Bloomberg should have just spent a fraction of what he spent to repair all the water in Flint, Michigan and he would have probably won a bunch more votes.
Advertising can only compensate for bad product to an extent.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 13th 2020 at 6:32:07 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.It’s simply not been updated to go with the times. Remember that the election in November it’s formally when the president is picked, that happens when the electoral college meets in December and then send their votes to Congress for checking, Inauguration used to be March, but it got moved to January in the ‘30s.
Just over a month transition doesn’t seem that absurd, especially as it’s during the Christmas-New Year period.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranOver here, the transitions is immediate. There is a lame duck period, but it is one for the new government, when they are still forming a working coalition.
I guess that comes down to who you want to be the lame duck, and when. Is it better to be one at the end of your administration, or at the beginning?
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesThe Founding Fathers had legitimate concerns about how quickly people could travel when the Constitution was written; the several month gap is partially to give people time to set their affairs in order and get to Washington DC.
Even now, there's a some need for a transition period, since there's a few thousand important executive positions that a new President will potentially need to fill, and those people will need to talk with their predecessors to get a feel for what their agencies have been up to.
Like many things in our government, the transition period is a design by founders who were overly optimistic about the idea that all everyone in the system would be generally agreeable with one another and would respect the rule of law. Our system wasn't designed for the kind of stark ideological differences it faces now.
The idea was that once you lose re-election, you have time to wrap up whatever other affairs you had in office. Come January, you peacefully hand off the office to its new occupant. Maybe give them a fist bump and a "Good show, ol' sport!" And then they fill the role now.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.The current dates are the middle ground. The original inauguration date was in March. The 20th Amendment changed it to January during WWI when by then it was obvious that communication and travel had become so much more quicker that the old lame duck period was more a hinderance than an aid for getting things wrapped up and set into place.
Edited by Parable on Sep 13th 2020 at 7:58:05 AM
Yeah the US sees a much bigger churn than most other countries do, in other countries you don’t have so many top civil-servant positions being political appointees that change with every administration.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran@ Roger Stone's statements: Regardless of whether Trump will follow through on his statements or not it fits the pattern of Trump and his allies trying to undermine the elections as much as they can.
Even if it will probably not go as far as martial law they are preparing a number of contingencies to try to secure Trump's presidency, whether it be voter suppression, voter intimidation, or legal nullification a la the 2000 election.
I also would not underestimate the number of Federal law enforcement and soldiers who would volunteer to help fight "leftist insurrectionists" or whatever they end up calling them if Trump called for it.
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I would be a little more charitable to the founding fathers and say it was more for practical reasons then anything else.
Edited by Mio on Sep 13th 2020 at 11:06:06 AM
Also, it's not just the president, the new Congress also has to be sworn in around the same time as well. The 20th Amendment changed it so that Congress comes in earlier than the president now, but back then it was all at the same time. So you'd have dozens of either returnees or newly elected Senators and Representatives traveling to and from the capital, which could be a thousand miles away depending on where you lived, mostly on horseback.
Pretty sure the President "can't" do a lot of the shit that Trump has done (though, again: Trump has been burning bridges with pretty much everyone who he'd need on board to make "martial law" something besides yet more hot air)
Edited by Reflextion on Sep 13th 2020 at 5:58:57 AM
Someone did tell me life was going to be this way.What Trump can't do is based soley on what other Institutions are prepared to do to stop him. For example Trump blatantly ignoring supreme court decisions and gets away with it because the Senate won't remove him.
So the question in this hypothetical should be "would Congress be willing to take action to stop it, and would the military refuse to listen to those orders?" At the very least the military hates Trump to the point they're not going to break the law to support him.
I'm pretty sure at this point that the military would stay neutral at least until Biden was sworn in. I'm willing to bet however that a lot of police forces would dance to Trump's tune. Remember that it was the Portland police union that called on Trump to send forces.
Edited by tricksterson on Sep 13th 2020 at 6:49:18 AM
Trump delenda estWhat would be required usually to declare martial law? Would that change if he declared a national emergency first?
Also, in a case like this, it doesn't really matter much what the supreme court thinks. By the time they have a ruling, it would already be way too late.
Edited by Redmess on Sep 13th 2020 at 1:59:59 PM
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesMartial law wouldn’t do anything, the military would ignore such a declaration because it would be illegal. Trump ability to do illegal things relies upon people willing to follow illegal orders, which the military aren’t.
The risk is what federal law enforcement like ICE would be willing to do and if governors would be willing to deploy the needed force (which might mean national guard units) to stop them.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranWall Street Journal: Tiktok's US operations sold to Oracle.
Reminder that Oracle is owned by a Trumpite.
The US military is forbidden by law from acting in a law-enforcement capability, national guard units can do so but any orders they are given have to be legal or they are required to ignore them. Also they’d have to be federalised, which I think might now require congressional consent.
So even if Trump could declare martial law he couldn’t order the military to do anything, it’d just end up going “I declare martial law”, “ very good sir”, “now sent a unit to seize the ballot boxes in Arizona”, “no sir, that’s illegal, we’re not going to do that sir”, and then he’d pout.
Edited by Silasw on Sep 13th 2020 at 12:27:48 PM
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranI'm pretty sure General Milley has said he and the Joint Chiefs will not let the military interfere in the transition of power. So, Trump calling for martial law is liable to get a "fuck off" in response.
The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -Fighteer

About as much as I believe Trump will spend his own cash as he vowed.
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