Hoping that Ruth Bader Ginsburg hangs on.

It shouldn't be this way in the United States; the Founders did not want the Judiciary to be a partisan whip, which the minority can use as a means of terrorizing the majority, but, that's the way things are turning out to be. Trump, to stay in power, has no choice but to cater to the Far Right, who are prepared to tolerate his "sins" and crimes, as long as he gives them far-right SCOTUS judges.

Hi Dawn.

I hope so too! And the USA government is in a mess. Soon public workers will not be paid I hear? I hope all is sorted out soon, my Americane cousins deserve better!

Celia xx

The Parliamentary system of Great Britain is simply better than the US system of the 3 Powers; it is definitively a time for a "Vote of No Confidence" here in the USA.

Celia Eriksson wrote:Soon public workers will not be paid I hear?

Today is payday in most of the Federal System. No pay and to rub it in the face of those who are REQUIRED TO WORK, they are getting paycheck stub with ZERO pay.

There are essentially three type of workers affected by the shutdown:

• Essential workers such as air traffic controllers, some police officers, Coast Guard, etc. These individuals will get paid, at some point in the future.
  
• Furloughed workers who are sent home,and because of the Anti-Deficiency Act cannot even use a phone if provided by the government. These individuals will get paid (maybe - no work, no pay), at some point in the future.
  
• Contractors. These individuals range from janitors to the highest level in the government. THEY WILL NOT BE PAID.
  

This does not take into account the businesses who rely on a paid Federal or Federal contractor worker - i.e., a local restaurant, dry cleaner, multiple types of stores - and they will not recover lost revenue.

Jehanne wrote: Parliamentary system of Great Britain is simply better than the US system of the 3 Powers

Hold your horses. A parlimentary system simply removes the executive from a popular vote.

A parlimentary system, while it may seem efficient, is only efficient if you are in the same stream of political/economic/state thought as the party in control of the parliment.

At least in the U.S. we have the ability to slow government in a direction most people don't want their government to go - hence a 2018 vote overturning a majority in one segment of the legislative branch.

What I see as the major problem in the U.S. government is the amount of power we (Congress)
have agreed to give to our Executive. The reason Trump wants to declare an emergency is the National Emergencies Act with broad ill-defined powers. Trump will likely declare an emergency this week, and it will be stalled by action of our Judicial branch which will frustrate Trump and he will stomp his feet louder.

This dumb fuck (ooops, I mean Trump) is thinking about robbing emergency funds from the hurricane recovery of Puerto Rico (these are U.S. citizens) and from the extensive recovery of areas ravaged by fire in California to build his wall. (BTW, there are $1.8 Billion in the current budget for a wall AND HE HASN'T USED A PENNY OF THOSE FUNDS).The dumb fuck (ooops, I mean Trump) doesn't know that most of the victims of the Northern California fire are red-state voters.

Rather than move towards a parlimentary system, we need for the Legislative branch of government to re-define what the Executive branch can do, when it can do it and for how long it can do it.

Getting back to the original thread:

RBG will not last the year, despite her real bravery and 100% physical effort. She is 85 and her health is deteriorating rapidly.

If she leaves the SCOTUS she will be replaced by another Federalist Society appointed judge moving the SCOTUS further to the right and removing as many civil/voting/progressive initiatives as they can fit into a court calendar.

Without RBG, we will be left with Stephen Breyer (80 y/o and in apparent good health), Sonia Sotomayer (64, and in apparent good health) and Elena Kagan (58, and in apparent good health) as Justices reliably considered progressive.

If we lose Breyer, then the only hope we have of keeping whatever resembling a progressive society would be for a huge elephant to fall on the right wing members of the SCOTUS or a progressive government (Legislative/Executive) packing the court with a bunch of progressive anti-Federalist Society judges.

As bad as Trump and a rightwing controlled Senate is, they can be removed by vote over the next couple of years. A far rightwing conservative SCOTUS will be with us for over a generation.

THIS KEEPS ME UP AT NIGHT!

That will be Trump's legacy, the only thing that he "accomplished", the packing of the federal courts with right-wing nut-jobs (or, blowjobs, depending on one's POV).