This is just too funny not to share and make sure more people see this.
I am done with this topic for now but I reserve the right to rant more on it someday.
Did you know that you can have these articles emailed to you? Click on the Email link in the upper right corner Subscribe section, fill out the details, and you are set. No one will see your email address and you won’t get more spam by doing this.
John McCain said in a speech that he would ask Congress for an American equivalent of the Prime Minister “Question Time” that occurs in many parliamentary governments. There have been some editorials on this from George Will and the New York Times as well as some blogging on the concept.
I think most people miss the point (although Mr. Will probably comes the closest to getting it right, in my opinion). In most Parliamentary Government systems, the voters elect the Parliament and they, in turn, elect the Prime Minister (in the UK countries this is slightly different in that the Monarch actually appoints the PM but in modern history the Monarch appoints the choice of the Parliament). So in this government, the Prime Minister serves at the pleasure of the Parliament.
To compare this to the US would mean that the offices of Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader would combine to satisfy the role of the Prime Minister (not exactly of course, but close).
As any 7th grade US student should be able to describe, we have 3 separate and equal branches of government. The Senate and House form the Legislative branch and the President forms the Executive branch. The Executive branch is not more answerable to the Legislative branch than vice versa. They are equals.
So while I think more open dialog in our government is important, Mr. McCain would be wise not to adopt the British form that is also broadcast on CSPAN. He doesn’t answer to Congress anymore than Congress answers to him.
Instead, if Mr. McCain is elected and decides to implement this idea, it needs to expand:
I think that all of this would make for an interesting addition to the political process. It would add more transparency to the process and allow the US President to remind Congress to get their jobs done. It would also allow Congress the opportunity to force the President to explain his/her decisions and reasons.
I am done with this topic for now but I reserve the right to rant more on it someday.
Did you know that you can have these articles emailed to you? Click on the Email link in the upper right corner Subscribe section, fill out the details, and you are set. No one will see your email address and you won’t get more spam by doing this.
In my opinion the best way to quickly drop the price of crude oil is to announce that the US is going to build 30 nuclear reactors in the next decade.
This would send a strong message to the world community that we are serious about energy independence. One of the big perils with electric cars is the lack of availability of infrastructure to charge them.
We need to stabilize the world energy market and this would show everyone that we see serious about getting our house in order.
I know that John McCain has advocated a similar suggestion but I haven’t heard anything of this from Obama.
I am amazed that this is not being made a bigger issue. I guess Obama is paying everyone off with his millions of dollars so that they don’t talk about his millions of dollars.
Obama promised that if he was nominated, he would use public money for his campaign. Now he is backing out of that promise and is going to forgo those restrictions so that he can outspend John McCain by what some think will be 5 to 1.
Obama will run the richest campaign ever for the office of the US President!
While I have a hard time saying that people can’t give money to their favorite candidate, I do have problems with massive amounts of money being used to “buy” the campaign. Never before has the disparity between candidates been so massive. John McCain will only have 84M from the government to spend on the election and Barack Obama will be able to spend as much as he can raise and estimates say that could be 300-400M!
BARACK OBAMA – YOU NEED TO HONOR YOUR PROMISE TO USE PUBLIC FUNDS! DON’T BE A TYPICAL POLITICIAN AND CHANGE YOUR OPINION WHENEVER IT IS CONVENIENT!
I am done with this topic for now but I reserve the right to rant more on it someday.
Did you know that you can have these articles emailed to you? Click on the Email link in the upper right corner Subscribe section, fill out the details, and you are set. No one will see your email address and you won’t get more spam by doing this.