Trump’s precious wall has been breached 13 times.
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Shit like this can’t be legal. The whole point of the appropriations process is that the money is supposed to go towards what it was appropriated for, not so it can be slushed around so Donald can have his internment camps.
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Life according to the GOP: “What man hasn’t committed sexual assault in his youth?”
Admittedly, even I was thinking “well, he was a minor at the time…” at first, but then I paused and reconsidered due to the severity of the actual crime. This wasn’t a case of underage vandalism or petty theft. This was serious crime, second perhaps only to murder in its seriousness, and it should be treated as such. The irony that the GOP is often in favor of adult penalties for minors who commit serious crimes isn’t lost on me in this case.
All of us who haven’t, raise our hands. 
Even going back to my initial “he was a minor” thoughts, I thought back to when I was 17 (which is barely a minor) and I knew better than to do shit like that. He, and the rest of the GOP, have no excuse.
Shit’s going down. This is a developing story.
Pay attention.
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From what I can see, it’s Trump, et al trying to spin it as “he’s going to resign” so they can replace him, and Rod basically flailing and screaming “No I’m fucking not, you prick!” so that they (maybe?) can’t.
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My understanding is that the White House leaked the story about Rosenstein supposedly conspiring against Trump last year, the NY Times ran with it, and that was what the White House was going to use as their ammo against Rosenstein. They wanted him to resign because they have complete power to replace him if he resigns. If he’s fired, that’s a different matter (although the White House will likely try to push it anyways). So him refusing to resign is pretty much him attempting to protect Mueller as long as possible. He knows that if he’s fired, the Democrats could possibly stall an appointment over legal issues. And with midterms coming up, another flagrant breaking of the law could galvanize Democrat voters even more.
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This is all stupid, the way this works. The entire process is stupid. The consequences for breaking the law? Well the opposing’s parties voters will maybe actually show up on the day they pick different people for jobs related to yours that will make it harder for you to do what you wanna do.
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It is stupid, and it’s why any system of government where we rely on people to enforce laws that are aligned with a political party is screwed up. The lack of independent review and external decision making is broken and fucked.
But look at it this way: When the Democrats had a bad egg (Franken), they pushed him to leave. When the Republicans are exclusively bad eggs, they circle the wagons. The best way to change this now is to vote out Republicans, and work to change the system entirely over time.
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Not gonna happen, and some would argue shouldn’t happen. They may be a minority country wide but they exist and theoretically deserve proportional representation.
If they were proportionately represented they would have zero political power at the federal level.
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Part of the problem is that our system of government was formed assuming that political parties wouldn’t be a thing. George Washington himself spoke out against “factions,” as he put it. Of course, it all started going to hell after his second term.
If parties didn’t exist, the system would probably work reasonably well as people would only be loyal to their constituents back home and the country as a whole. Throw in party loyalty and everything goes to hell in a hand basket.
I also will add in a fundamental disconnect in philosophy between hard-core conservatives (the kind that won’t ever compromise, which sadly seem to be the majority of those in power and those who vote for them) vs. liberals. Liberals seem to be mostly interested in promoting policies and acting in the interest of society as a whole, or at least they try to give that appearance (to allow for corruption since no group is completely perfect). So many conservatives seem to only care about “owning the libs.”
“What? You’re taking away my health care? Awesome! Way to own the libs!”
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I think you’re partially correct, but I think you’re leaving out another important factor.
The Founding Fathers assumed that their value system would continue, and as a result, didn’t codify into law a lot of the norms and standards that they followed. By this I mean that they placed a huge emphasis on personal reputation and honor. As a result, we’ve come to the point where politicians (especially Republicans like Trump and McConnell) don’t care about their reputation or honor anymore, so the norms and standards that might have been binding on previous politicians are powerless today.
Having just watched the Hamilton musical a couple weeks ago, it still boggles my mind that men routinely challenged each other to duels over perceived insults to their honor and reputation. So much of the Constitution is based on that. Today though, who cares what your reputation is as long as you can pack the court or win the next election cycle.
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Liberals are also attached to an appearance of following all the rules and being legitimate thinking it wins them long-term points, which is great except the Republicans don’t follow the rules ever, and what real Leftists tend to want is just a shutdown of all the bullshit.
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Having done no research into things like states, votes, vs individual votes, etc. I’m just gonna pull a number outta my ass and run with it.
I’m gonna guess something like 30% of all Americans are republican. A definite minority but a far cry from 0, assuming we’re going like actual proportional. Like one person per vote style.
You can look at it that way. However, alternatively, you could ask who the parties actually help and represent. Republican policies only actually help roughly 1-5% of the population of America. So they should have basically no control since their policies don’t help anyone who actually needs it.
Short of 51% means you never get your way.
So you’re ok living in a political system where the Tyranny of the Majority controls everything? Because as opposed as I am to Republican ideology and politics, straight up majority rule is not something I want either. The minority viewpoint deserves some representation.