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763 points tartoran | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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mikeyouse ◴[] No.45682307[source]
> Tim Rieser, former senior aide to Senator Leahy who wrote the 2011 amendment mandating information gathering, told the BBC the gateway's removal meant the State Department was "clearly ignoring the law".

We're in a really bad place... with a servile congress, it turns out there aren't really any laws constraining the executive branch. When everything relies on "independent IGs" for law enforcement inside executive branch departments, and the President can fire them all without consequence or oversight, then it turns out there is no law.

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wffurr ◴[] No.45682445[source]
The answer is impeachment, but when Congress is stuffed with boot licking toadies, then there is no recourse.
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AndrewKemendo ◴[] No.45682910[source]
If a population decides to let themselves be run this way then who is at fault?

People get the leaders they deserve

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jkestner ◴[] No.45683176[source]
We love to blame the common clay, don't we. You can win a majority of voters and lose an election. There are systemic problems, starting with money in politics, two senators per state, the electoral college and gerrymandering.
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1. tastyfreeze ◴[] No.45683767[source]
We already bastardized the senate by electing senators by popular vote. Senators are supposed to represent each states government, not the people of the state. As a single member of the union a state doesn't need more senators. Making ingredients the proportional to population just makes the senate another house. The people have the house. The cap of representatives has also been harmful to the voice of the people being heard. Representatives are the face for too many people for them to truly represent their constituents.
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2. jkestner ◴[] No.45690067[source]
Well, yes, the senate is useless. It was useful to check the South’s power in the Great Conpromise, but now the most deliberative body is not needed when the House can slow things down all by itself. Unicameral works for me.

Representatives would be more representative if not for gerrymandering.

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3. tastyfreeze ◴[] No.45699079[source]
It doesn't for me. That is an acceptance that we are a single federal government and the states are nothing more than administrative units of that federal government. For states to remain as sovereign entities that have collectively created the federal government the entity of the state must have representation at the federal level.

As for returning back to the original state appointment of senators, that is required for the senate to appropriately represent the state government at the federal level.

The original house apportionment had representatives that had about 35000 people. The size of the house was locked at 435 in 1913. Before then the number of representatives grew slower than population but still grew. After the last 2020 census there are 761,000 people per representative. The unevenness of how many constituents a representative from Wyoming has vs a representative from California has is a point of contention in higher population states. The complaint is that the representatives from smaller states have more proportional power. I think that is a bit ridiculous but that is what some Californian's told me. Increasing the size of the house to have a more proportional representation would alleviate that point of contention between states.

Gerrymandering is a side effect of not increasing the size of the house.