The random political thoughts thread (Part Deux)

[JWBear]

Originally Posted by Alex

25 for the House, 30 for Senate, 35 for president, none for Supreme Court (the president could nominate an infant if the Senate was willing to confirm).

Would that be necessarily be a bad thing?

[Alex]

Depends on the infant, I imagine, and its view on whether Roe is settled law.

[Morrigoon]

Okay shmartypants... at what political level does it become necessary to reveal one's personal financials?

[JWBear]

Originally Posted by Morrigoon

Okay shmartypants... at what political level does it become necessary to reveal one's personal financials?

Well… I imagine that most infants wouldn’t have any financial information to reveal; unless they are well advanced enough to be considered for the Supreme Court, then that may different.

Should the parents of infant Supreme Court nominees be expected to reveal their financial information?

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Morrigoon

Okay shmartypants... at what political level does it become necessary to reveal one's personal financials?

Depends on what you mean by reveal. There is no requirement at any level (so far as I know) for providing the public with detailed personal financial information such as releasing tax returns. That is just something candidates are bullied into by the media, opposing candidates, and to a lesser extent the voters.

However, there are various regulations and body bylaws requiring various elected officials to make various less detailed disclosures (such as "I own between $50,000 and $500,000 in a DJIA indexed mutual fund; I own between $500,000 and $3 million in real estate, etc.). I know that congressman and senators have this requirements. I don't know if the president does (since I don't think Congress could force it on the president -- separation of powers -- it would seem to me voluntary).

That's my understanding of it, anyway.

[Strangler Lewis]

Appointing infants and toddlers would be an invitation to multiple impeachment proceedings since federal court judges are only entitled to hold their office during periods of good behaviour.

[scaeagles]

I believe I could name some people who htink like infants that have been on the supreme court.

[innerSpaceman]

Perhaps infants would be better, when douchebags like Antonin Scalia say this week, "Get over it. It's so old by now" about critics of the Court's kingship ruling that put Bush in the White House ... as if a fundamental perversion of the Constitution in overthrowing the people's right to elect someone to the highest position in the government should be brushed aside in less time than the !RS requires us to keep our financial records.

[scaeagles]

How funny and yet ridiculous at the same time.

[scaeagles]

I continue to be amused at what is either ignorance or (more likely) preying on the ignorance of the electorate by Obama and Clinton when it comes to oil.

Clinton's attacks on oil prices as artificially inflated, Enron-style, keep escalating, and today she appeared to threaten to break up the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

"We’re going to go right at OPEC," she said. "They can no longer be a cartel, a monopoly that get together once every couple of months in some conference room in some plush place in the world, they decide how much oil they’re going to produce and what price they’re going to put it at," she told a crowd at a firehouse in Merrillville, IN.

"That’s not a market. That’s a monopoly," she said, saying she'd use anti-trust law and the World Trade Organization to take on OPEC.

What exactly is that going to accomplish? SQUAT! Our laws and the WTO have absolutely no jurisdiction.

Not to be outdone....

The Obama campaign points out that Clinton has not signed on to cosponsor a bill that aspires "to make oil-producing and exporting cartels illegal."

Again, we can pass a law that makes OPEC illegal? What a dork.

There are two solutions to our oil issue. One, use less. However, it isn't going to happen easily. Our economy runs on oil. The other is to increase domestic production, and sadly (to me anyway) the environmental lobby will wrap any such thing up in court for years. We need a President who will not address the symptoms of the problem, but eliminate it, and none of the three have the guts or will to do it. The only way to weaken OPEC is to take away their market, which we can do.

One argument Bill Clinton made in 95 against drilling in ANWR was that we wouldn't see any oil from it for 10 years. Well, here we are 13 years later and our situation is worse. Politicians suck because it is all about what benefits them in the short term with rarely any vision beyond the next election.

REVOLUCION!!!!!!!!!!!!