Daily Topics - Friday July 8th, 2011

Get the new IPhone App for Thom Hartmann
Watch! Thom Hartmann on the News...
Hour One: "Brunch With Bernie" - Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) takes your calls
Hour Two: Geeky Science Rocks - Ireland...Guiness beer, the blarney stone and...polar bears?!
Hour Three: Latest on the ExxonMobil Yellowstone River oil spill - Governor Brian Schweitzer (D-MT) / Plus, new poll shows Americans don't want cuts to Medicare - Former Congressman Billy Tauzin
Comments

Name one law that could have been overturned faster judicially than legislatively? All of them. When has the legislature ever repealed an Unconstitutional law before the judiciary got to it?
If reversing unconstitutional laws through the legislature were faster, you'd be able to give us examples, Thom.
It seems to me that if the Supreme Court is deciding what is and isn't constitutional, then ultimately government is in their hands. If the people are deciding what is and isn't constitutional, then ultimately government is in their hands (especially if we eliminated the Senate). So I guess we should take a look at the Constitution to see what we should do.
I forget, does the US Constitution start with The Supreme Court of The United States of America in order to form a more perfect union.... or does it begin with We The People....?
I always thought it was the duty of the courts to interpet the meaning of a law and apply it appropriately, not decide if a law is or is not appropriate. Perhaps that is why the founding fathers gave the court judges lifetime seats, because they assumed that they would have the most limited power, but would be made up of people with ever increasing experience with interpeting laws.
I also still wonder why we need the executive branch of Government. I'd be happy with the dismantling of the Senate, limiting of the Supreme Court power, and just letting the Speaker of the House be the one who assumes the duties and powers of the current Executive branch. I think that our founding fathers were too used to having a titular head when they created the Executive branch.
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TOM!
They negotiate better drug prices ....get a great deal....and stick it in their own pockets. Because there is no competition among these health care providers.
Well a good example of an admendment that congress passed then repealed would have been the 18th. It was put into effect because of popular demand, and removed because of popular demand. The constitutionality of it though I doubt was ever in serious question. But that happened pretty fast, less than 20 years.
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That's an amendment, not a law, Maxrot. The Supreme Court couldn't have repealed that.
The point of my statement was about how the people could vote in and then vote out something. I'm quite certain, that that could and would be done with any other legislation deemed undesirable by the people, and the case of the 18th admendment was my example of it.



Well Thom, in regards to your question about why won't any democrats speak up about how the Republicans ran up the debt that they're currently sqwaking about; I can only hope that we're closing in on the moment in which a single voice states that the emperor has no clothes, and that the surrounding crowd of citizens are not deaf. I think we are nearing the time where the citizens can no longer put up with their willing blindness to the situation they're in, but who knows.
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