[ronald reagan]

You are once again attempting to waste a lot of our time. Your premises are very unlikely, so debating your hypothetical scenarios do not seem to be worth the effort.

I am not a conservative who believes that the polls were wildly wrong in the 2016 presidential election. Most results were within the margin of error and shifting a relatively small number of votes among the battleground states could have easily given Hillary the election.

However, I am extremely suspicious of the current polls. I see absolutely no enthusiasm for the Biden/Harris ticket. Joe Biden is suffering from dementia and will likely be humiliated if he participates in the upcoming debates. Democrats have been supporting both Black Lives Matter and Antifa for months as they have made many American cities unsafe for decent American citizens. Democrats are also attempting to set the stage for chaos and widespread ballot harvesting with their mass mailing of unsolicited ballots across the country.

You assumption that Joe Biden will win the presidential election is very premature, and that is being charitable. The man becomes confused when reading any number large enough to be delimited with one or two commas. His staff is handing out questions to the media and he is trying to answer them using a teleprompter. The only thing certain about this election is that Democrats intend to attempt to steal it. Voter fraud on a scale never before seen in this country would not be necessary if the Democrat Party had the confidence that you have in Biden's ability to win a fair election.

New laws to govern elections would be a waste of time. Democrats in elected office do not follow existing laws now and there is no reason to believe that they would follow new ones. The Republican Party is not squeaky clean but it has never threatened violence and attempted to use intimidation to win national elections. Democrats have a long history of such tactics going back to their creation of the KKK. The color of the masks have changed but the tactics are eerily similar.

I love it when someone belittles another's post, declares it a waste of time -- and then proves that they read it, cared enough to respond with several hundred words and 5 paragraphs, spent considerable time formulating their opinion and typing it out in a nice format. haha. Good stuff.

Reminds me of Trump when he says, "I don't know who (Fill in the blank with a harsh critic) even is..." And then spends the next 15 minutes explaining to us exactly who the person is.

In regards to the OP, here are my thoughts:

Explain to me what term limits would accomplish in SCOTUS and in Congress? I appreciate your thoughts on the matter, but I find them laughable at best -- if you are suggesting that it will change anything.

Take Congress for instance... whats the first thing that happens, day 1 when a new congressman is sworn in? They immediately get their kneepads out and "get to work". Notice, this doesn't happen after they've been in office for 20 years. No, it happens day 1, hour 1, second 1. So your proposal for congressional term limits will accomplish what? What issue will limiting the House and Senate to 12 years actually fix?

Every 2 years, the american people get to decide if they support term limits or not. They can say they support them until their tongues break off from over use -- but when they ACTUALLY have a chance to put their money where their mouth is, they vote against it, and vote for the same person AGAIN. AND AGAIN. AND THEN AGAIN.

And SCOTUS, once more, what will an 18 year term accomplish? The facts show that the median term length for SCOTUS has been about 12 years over the last 2+ centuries. What on earth would a rotating selection of SCOTUS judges do that the current format wouldn't do? Other than cause violent swings in philosophy and overturning of precedent on a frequent basis?

Say what you will, but I'm an institutionalist and originalist. The founders were not fools. And further more, those selected to SCOTUS are literally the brightest and best minds in the legal world. Regardless of their political philosophies, no one can say with a straight face that these people aren't of impeccable character, brilliant jurists, and generally just the best of the best at what they do. So how would a rotating SCOTUS makeup change things?

And as far as "rules" go for selecting SCOTUS -- we already have them. And they've worked for 240 years now: The Constitution.

There's been 28 different "last year nominations" since the nation was founded. 10 were confirmed. The rest were either withdrawn, or no action was taken. The rules are simple:

1)A vacancy occurs.
2)The president selects a nominee.
3)The Senate can choose to hold hearings, or not.
4)The Senate has 3 possible options: a)confirm, b)deny, c)take no further action.
5)If confirmed, they take their seat. If denied, the president chooses another candidate. No action? Then the voters will determine if they supported that decision or not in the next election.

Its silly to suggest that we need more clarity than that.

With that said, I read an interesting article recently and I can't find it anywhere as I write this. It was from a bipartisan report from a thinktank about ways to change SCOTUS. One of the suggestions was that 5 new seats be added to SCOTUS. The traditional 9 would be selected as they are currently. The other 6 would be selected by SCOTUS itself and require unanimous votes for the new members, The rationale was that SCOTUS is overworked as it is. They have limited slots to hear cases. Many people don't realize that each member of SCOTUS is assigned to a specific appeals court and is actually the de facto chief justice of that court as well.

The way it would work would be similar to an appeals court today. 3-5 justices would be assigned at random to hear/try a case. Their decision would be binding as if all 9 of todays justices were involved. If the decision is unfavorable, a petitioner could ask for an "en banc" hearing of all 15 judges. To overturn the decision, it would require a super majority of justices agreeing, say -- 9 or 10 of the 15, for instance.

The idea is pretty interesting to me. I'm not sure its interesting enough to get my support. But its the first "new idea" in decades that I believe is worthy of our study.

Last point, before I wrap this up... money in politics.

I'm assuming that the 2012 case you cited is actually the 2010 case called Citizens United v Fec? right?

1st off, CU absolutely did NOT give corporations the 'same rights as humans'. Thats 100% false. I would bet my entire life that you didn't read Citizens United. You could also be talking about ATM vs Bullock out Montana in 2012. But that case offered no opinion, held no arguments, or issued any dissents. So CU is the likely culprit here.

Facts matter buddy. And the fact is, CU did not extend the same rights as humans have to corporations. In fact, it UPHELD THE BAN on donations to political parties and campaigns. Simply put: Amazon can NOT give Joe Biden a single penny for his campaign. Not before 2010, not during 2010, and not after 2010.

What CU said was that it would be a violation of the 1st, 9th, and 14th amendments rights to not allow a business to publicly state who they would prefer as president. Why would anyone be against allowing a group of men and women who own a business, from publicly stating as much and being able to try to convince you of the same?

It is my opinion that CU didn't go far enough. I believe that constitutionally speaking, corporations should be able to fund campaigns directly. But CU upheld that ban on contributions. All that it actually did was allow them to run ads, and make statements as long as they were 100% independent of the campaign.

Its inaccurate information like that, that makes other people continue to spread outright lies. Just stop.

Which leads to the final questions (in addition to the several above):

What would removing ALL money from politics accomplish? If the average man or woman can't use THEIR money the way that THEY see best fit.. whats the result of that? How will Campaigns fund themselves? You'd rather see the federal government give them the money to run ads with? haha. So.. basically, we should remove the people from campaigns, and replace it with the federal government? Because thats less corporate? Gimme a break.



Anyways.. you have some questions to answer.

1)What will SCOTUS term limits accomplish and how? What would be different with a judge on the bench for 10 years, compared to one with 20 years?
2)What would congressional term limits accomplish? How would a congressman with 8 years, be different from one with 18 years?
3)Without money for campaigns, after you removed "All money from politics"... who would fund them? Why do you not want ME to be able to spend MY money how ME AND MY FAMILY best see fit, supporting the candidate of MY choosing?

go.