They cannot currently cancel state charges, but the GOP is trying to change that. It is one of a raft of measures underway. Some are truely frightening, such as using Red State National Guard troops against non-compliant Blue States. Check out Project 2025 - the Republicans are even trying to hide their planned dictatorship.

Unfortunately they strongly signalled this move in the oral questioning bit. It was pretty much expected. Now bonking a porn star will become classed as an official act.

There’s move afoot by the GOP to get any state charges against the president to be elevated to the Federal court.

Guess who can pardon himself or have federal charges dropped?

I hear what you are saying, and I agree with some of it, but not several key points. I have supported a couple of different parties and regularly hand out how to vote cards at different elections and have done so for decades. The idea that voters slavishly follow party advice couldn’t be more wrong. One in two voters snub the cards outright, many rudely so. Contrary to popular opinion, on the day, the vast majority of voters know which box they are going to pick.

Secondly, your point about minor parties struggling in Australian elections. Well, so what? There is no constitutional imperative to either favour or disfavour small parties. Or large ones, for that matter. That you think that this is important is neither here nor there constitutionally. Myself, I think that it would be better if it were so, but no system should put its weight behind it. When the constitution was put into force in 1901, parties were not enshrined, candidates were.

I don’t necessarily think that the best system is the one that favours minor (or major) parties. The reason for the success, or otherwise, of minor parties involved a hundred variables.

The best electoral system makes the best value of a person’s personal vote. That might be minor or major party candidate or even an independent.

Don’t know those systems so you could be right?

Chill, mate. Go for a walk…

I disagree. I too have been involved in elections in my country (Australia) and preferential voting system is pretty popular. As candidates get eliminated your vote keeps moving to your next choice. What could possibly be fairer?

If only that was an accurate summary of the flaming autopsy of a show.

I agree, better him than Trump, but let’s not minimise Biden’s interpretation of Monty Burns.

I agree with everything but the comment on the moderators. It’s not their job to hold the candidates to account, that’s the job of the dude standing right next to the speaker. If a presidential candidate needs to rely upon a journalist to correct disinformation in a debate that he himself is participating in, they shouldn’t be the candidate.

I’m a smooth-brained imbecile, but everytime that Trump opened his mouth I had 14 better responses than Biden had. He permitted the most outlandish untruths to go on the record unchecked. Biden would have done a better job by just replying “bulls*hit” in answer to Trump’s ramblings. The moderators just ask questions. They are not supposed to prop either side up.

The constitution is decided by the Supreme Court in the end. The American system of government makes the selection of justices political appointees for life. That is why you have Republican and Democrat justices. Political. So the constitution gets bent into any political shape according to power possession.

Don’t for a second believe that the United States can’t sleepwalk into a dictatorship. People are already describing Jan 6 as an ordinary tourist visit. What will it take for the public to see the danger with their own eyes.

I think that it’s Project 2025, but everything else you described is spot on.

Agree.

You went into a ton of detail, thank you. But it is meaningless under the original definition of the act.

“The term shall also include the frame or receiver of any such weapon, any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and any combination of parts from which a machinegun can be assembled if such parts are in the possession or under the control of a person.”

A bump stock modifies the frame of the gun which converts it into a fully automatic weapon. Don’t just get stuck on the trigger part of the action. The act covers everything, you just can’t cherry pick a single clause and ignore everything else. Otherwise they just might make you into one of Trump’s Supreme Court justices.

Thank you for your detailed explanation.

The problem appears to be a lack of enforcement of already established law. Well, if you were permitted to ignore the law why the hell wouldn’t you? That is my entire thesis. Stop allowing “important” public figures flout the law.

I’m not sure of the person you refer to (sorry, not American) but surely that’s the problem. Not applying the law equally. Can a common murderer or thief decide that a legal direction doesn’t apply to them?

So much twaddle and dancing around definitions. You could definitely qualify for a spot on Trump’s Supreme Court.

All they are a modification to turn a semiautomatic gun into a full automatic weapon. That’s it. All the intricate dribble into the contrary doesn’t change that. Water is wet, sky blue, and modifications allowing automatic fire are machine guns.

What I find fascinating is the total number of numbskulls and cartoon villains, all collected under the Trump banner, and that lunatic mob may very well take government.

What’s the hell wrong with American voters?

Never said he was. The constitution doesn’t have categories of importance.

That excellent quote of the text you provided spells out that any modifications to a gun that allows any more than a single shot is to be prohibited. A court that is very big on textual meaning, as it purports to be, would readily agree, unless bias is in the driver’s seat.

This conservative supreme court despised regulatory agencies . For decades the US government has relied upon such agencies as subject experts and has allowed them to regulate their areas. This court just wants to reverse this common sense and established way of doing things. I might remind you that the bump stock thing wasn’t a democrat initiative, but a bipartisan Trump one.