Jeff Beal

... The cards with diagrams for the legal moves for the chess pieces. He's still trying to figure out how Knights work

Welcome to asymmetric warfare

But... If the companies raised their prices to cover the tariffs and get a refund on the tariffs, that IS a windfall

Consumers paid higher prices. Corporations get refunds. That's the American way.

"Least favorite cabinet member" is a tight race, but Bessent's infinite smugness keeps him in the running.

Seems worth pointing out that if the self-driving car manufacturers were confident in their safety, this wouldn't even be an onerous regulation

We need one regulation for self-driving cars: the manufacturer assumes full responsibility for all accidents. Insurers should refuse to insure self-driving cars

I always thought that what made us great was our commitment to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

Who is the moron who's not Tim Miller? And why do we care about anything he says?

"I just wouldn't vote" is such a stupid stance to take. Every election is the choice for the lesser of two evils; vote for the lesser evil so the greater evil doesn't win.

(Notice how I ignored third parties? Yeah)

I'd rather read a dozen different biased sources than a single source that claims to be neutral.

I bet some engineer had this idea and shipped an AI-generated concept to production for "user testing" without ever going through legal review.

Normally, "I don't know" or "I don't recall" avoid perjury charges and this guy maybe should have stuck with that. But, he has to be the smart guy, so of course he understands it... He just can't explain it

Seems like saying you understand something, but then that you don't, should count as perjury, right?

Do you understand DEI? Yes
What is it? What it said in the EO, but I don't remember that

I would be happy to vote Colbert for President. (Imagine the collaboration between him and fellow comedian Zelensky!)

TACO only applies when he is personally at risk

I wonder how one particular electric car manufacturer will fare under the global surge in oil prices?

Imagine the current Cabinet, but instead of nominated by and reporting to the President, they were elected by the People. They each have sole responsibility over fairly distinct areas, and if there's conflict between them somehow, it seems like Congress should be able to sort that out

(Missed some words)... If the Constitution made it clear that the government cannot infringe on people's right to live as they choose (isn't this the "pursuit of happiness"?) there could be no question on what should be fundamental rights

... writing it down in the Supreme law of the land, maybe the slaveowners realized the bind that would put them in)

The religious rights culture wars against LGBT rights and abortion if the "pursuit of happiness" were enshrined in law

The Declaration says that "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are inalienable rights, but that has no legal value if those are not also guaranteed in the Constitution.

And they're not. (Why not? Probably slavery. It was a great ideal to start the Revolution, but when it came to...

Theseus's Ship -- if you've replaced all the wood in a ship is it still the same ship?

We can theoretically rewrite via the Amendments process, but I think (for example) the First Amendment should be more than a sentence and the preservation of liberty needs to be a foundational duty of gov

Politics just means "affairs of the city(state)"

We are all in it. We can choose to be active participants or victims of others choices

The sorts of questions that have been raised about the Executive just... Not doing stuff... Are things I think we need to fix. How does the Judiciary enforce subpoenas against the Executive Branch if the US Marshals refuse to enforce contempt?

Congress doesn't use their checks (impeachment). I think a lot of this stems from the two party system, so maybe fixing our elections would result in a Congress willing to impeach the president, but I think we need to make the Executive secondary to the Legislative

Yes; I think the Founders were too afraid of direct democracy. At minimum, We the People need the ability to enact laws via referendum and probably amend the Constitution as well

Yeah, but lots of the Founders also owned slaves. They were wrong about things. I think they were wrong about needing a president.

What about having three Houses of Representatives with different areas of focus?

- one for civil rights / individual liberty protection
- one for most domestic regulation
- one for foreign policy

(why stop at three? What other areas would we like to be able to vote more directly on?)

Executive does not have to be a President though. The Federal government needs the ability to execute and enforce the laws, but that does not necessarily require a single person at the top

1:30,000 is a ratio.

1:10,000 is a ratio.

1:2 is a ratio

1:2 exceeds 1:30,000

I think if they wanted to limit the number of people represented by a Representative they would have said "no representative shall represent more than 30,000 people"

Regardless, this is a great example of why we need to amend/rewrite

But in your table, Congress has never interpreted it that way. The House has always been smaller than your math says is required. It's a subtle ambiguity in the language, but most people read that as "the [total] number", because that's the most natural interpretation