Questions tagged [united-states]
Questions relating to the government or the politics of the United States of America
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Why did Alaska introduce ranked voting for the general election but not for the primary?
As explained in How did Alaska "change its primary system recently" and was it "to dilute the possibility of a conservative or Trump-inspired challenger"?:
Alaska Ballot Measure 2 ...
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Would it be constitutional in the US to have age limits for SCOTUS justices?
As DeSantis said, in Florida
“We have age limits for justices,” DeSantis said. “The minute I got elected to office, three of the four liberal justices were off the court, because of age. So, I was ...
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DeSantis' "US Constitution’s 'leverage points'... to exercise the 'true scope' of presidential power"; something new or based on existing theories?
CNN's May 26 2023 DeSantis is going after Trump like never before includes the following:
Now, DeSantis is making the case that he is better suited to deliver on the promises that Trump himself ...
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How can the US deny access to G7 markets?
Source
In a bid to further isolate Russia, Washington has warned countries, including the UAE and Turkey, they could lose access to G7 markets if they do business with entities subject to U.S. ...
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social security vs debt ceiling [duplicate]
If social security funds are held in a trust fund, why would not raising the debt ceiling impact social security payments? Wouldn't the trust fund be paying the beneficiaries from its reserves? At ...
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NAACP Florida travel advisory really about traveling to/in Florida, or about moving/living there? How often to they issue political travel advisories?
In the May 20, 2023 NAACP press statement NAACP Issues Travel Advisory in Florida the actual text of the travel advisory can be found, titled "NAACP Travel Advisory for the State of Florida"....
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What was the cause of the MAGAcommunism movement?
I know what I am saying sounds nonsensical at first. But I am referring to a group of Communists who unironically support Trump.
This movement and way of thought was established by the YouTuber Haz ...
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Does the US Constitution guarantee the "certain unalienable rights" asserted in the Declaration of Independence?
To a helpful comment under Political origin/etymology of the political term "constitutional carry" - by extension can we have "constitutional marijuana"? (rhetorical)
...Can you ...
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Political origin/etymology of the political term "constitutional carry" - by extension can we have "constitutional marijuana"? (rhetorical)
How did I get to this question? Reading Politico's May 19, 2023 DeSantis’ weakness as Trump slayer has GOP rivals smelling blood I saw the quote:
And that might not be the end of it. New Hampshire ...
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Was socialism popular on US college campuses around 1920?
I'm reading Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel Oil! It is well-known that he was a socialist, and of course, the notion of socialism is a strong theme in his writing. In Oil!, a young man is enrolled in a ...
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How can citizens have a vote when it comes to the deficit spending and paying it back since it is our money? [closed]
How can citizens vote on deficit spending and paying back when it comes to government programs? Including who pays more taxes and where that money goes.
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Has any US president tried to reclaim office after he lost it?
Donald Trump has confidently declared himself the “45th and 47th” US president. While it´s not sure that he´ll become the next president or even a candidate, he defenetly want to run for office again. ...
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Can you provide an historical analysis of the influence exerted by different offices within the US government on the formation of its foreign policy?
You frequently hear critics of US foreign policy such as Mearsheimer or Chomsky say that the US president has rather little power over it and that well-established officials and bureaucrats actually ...
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How many Cuban doctors are working in the US?
I saw a couple of old articles that reported how the US opened in the past to immigration by Cuban doctors, which sometimes was seen as encouraging them to defect.
I would like to know what is the ...
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What is the theory behind using the 14th Amendment to ignore the debt ceiling?
President Biden raised a few eyebrows in that he's said he isn't ready to invoke the 14th Amendment and ignore the debt ceiling... yet. From Reuters
President Joe Biden said on Friday he was not yet ...
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What would happen if the US exhausts extraordinary measures, debt limit is not increased, and Treasury decides to ignore limit and issue new debt? [closed]
Treasury Secretary Yellen said this would be a "constitutional crisis". What would that entail? Would it be up to SCOTUS to tell the executive it can't do that? And then SCOTUS would what... ...
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If a US citizen were born on US military base abroad, would they be considered as born on US soil and thus eligible to be elected US president?
As we know, the US Constitution provides that only a US citizen born on US soil can be elected US president. How about a hypothetical scenario of a US citizen born on a US military base abroad?
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Has a majority of one political party in one house of Congress ever voted in opposition to the same party in the other house in the same Congress?
Has there ever been a case where a majority of a political party votes one way on some bill in the Senate but a different way on the same bill in the House of Representatives?
For example, has a ...
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Who should I contact to urge support for a state bill stuck in committee?
I'm not sure if I'm looking at this correctly, but, if I want to encourage support for a bill stuck in committee, is it inappropriate to email the chair of said committee? Otherwise, should I just ...
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Does the debt ceiling have any purpose? [duplicate]
The debt ceiling was created, more or less, by mistake - a remnant of a program where the other half was ruled unconstitutional.
Less debt is better than more debt, but the only thing the debt ceiling ...
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Has the Congress of the US ever passed an "Amnesty law" and are such laws constitutional?
Amnesty laws are laws that reduce the penalty of or allow the release of prisoners convicted of various offences i.e someone is convicted of an offence with a mandatory minimum imprisonment without ...
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Can a discharge petition be used to advance judicial nominations during Senator Feinstein's absence?
Democrats hold a thin 11–10 majority in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator Dianne Feinstein is currently absent from the Senate due to health issues. Without her vote, the committee is deadlocked ...
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Pennsylvania mail in return rates 2023 primary? [closed]
In Pennsylvania, there is a municipal primary happening with Election Day on May 16. I have not been able to find data on Pennsylvania's mail request data but I have a feeling it exists because such ...
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How does the logic work for no prosecution exceptions to the right to not self incriminate in the presence of different jurisdictions?
In many democratic countries there is some sort of a right for an accused to not have to answer police questions to prevent people being forced to incriminate themselves. In the USA this is in the ...
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Why does Sen. Schumer decide to vote against his cloture motion at the last minute? [duplicate]
Today, the Senate voted on cloture on a resolution related to the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. Two republicans senators voted Yes, but apart from that it was along party lines (with ...
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Why is it the President's job to resolve conflicts in Congress?
Yesterday the Republican-led US House of Representatives passed a bill to raise the debt ceiling, but it includes many spending cutbacks that are objectionable to Democrats. The Democrat-led Senate is ...
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How did H.R. 8393 not pass the Senate? [closed]
Who was against it? Surely a majority of Democrats would be in favor of having another Democratic seat, to say nothing of the horrendously undemocratic status quo?
Did the Republicans threaten to ...
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What is the meaning of “qualified connection” in Federalist No. 51 by James Madison?
In the sixth paragraph of Federalist No.51, James Madison wrote,
But it is not possible to give to each department an equal power of self-defense. In republican government, the legislative authority ...
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What benefit does Ron DeSantis gain by delaying his Presidential campaign?
By this point, two things are more or less universally understood about Ron DeSantis among observers of current US politics.
He's planning on running for President in the 2024 elections.
He's the ...
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If the IRS has the info needed to accept/reject tax returns, why do Americans have to file?
A friend of mine had her tax return rejected because one of the numbers she entered didn't match the data the IRS had. This made me wonder, if the IRS has all the data it needs to determine if you ...
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Why doesn't the US ratify treaties that have been widely ratified elsewhere?
The Wikipedia article List of treaties unsigned or unratified by the United States lists, among others, some famous treaties that have been widely ratified like the Convention on Rights of Persons ...
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Is the Federal government (Bureau of Reclamation etc.) legally required to provide any compensation if it diverts a river [in Western US]?
Does the Federal government have to provide any legal compensation for proprietors downstream of a river whose waters are largely diverted? Any notable examples when such compensation was provided? E....
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Why hasn't the Attorney General investigated Justice Thomas?
It sounds like Justice Thomas has made clear and egregious mistakes in disclosure,
Over the past two decades, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has reported on mandatory financial disclosure ...
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What does Emmanuel Macron mean exactly when he said “We want allies, but we want to be able to choose them” in his recent speech in The Hague?
I can't find a transcript of the whole speech, so I can only rely on what I read in media. For example, the journalist Dave Keating says:
President Emmanuel Macron is right now delivering a landmark ...
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"America is a marshmallow" statement from president Putin in 2016 after Trump was elected [closed]
I am looking for more information on a quote that I heard in 2016 and barely remember.
After President Trump was elected in 2016, a reporter on a NPR news program mentioned that Putin mentioned in a ...
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Where do I send a nomination for the Presidential Medal of Freedom?
I want to nominate someone posthumously for the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Where do I send my nomination?
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What decides the scope or limits of presidential executive orders in the US? [duplicate]
An executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government
I searched around on the internet, and it seems like there isn't even a formal ...
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What is the role of the U.S. Marines under contemporary joint warfare doctrine?
Is the U.S. Marine Corps, as a separate branch, largely a historical artifact, or does it fulfill a distinct purpose within the context of modern joint warfare doctrine?
Please note, this is not ...
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What would happen if the FDA refused to follow the order on mifepristone?
Yesterday a Texas judge said the FDA’s 2000 approval of mifepristone – one of the drugs used to terminate a pregnancy – must be halted.
What would happen if the FDA said they refuse to follow that ...
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Is the US support for Ukraine significantly because of Biden
Is US's position on Ukraine significantly the result of Biden himself?
On other questions, I keep reading assumptions - stated or not - that the US supports Ukraine only because Biden does.
On the ...
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In what sense did Trump put a notch on his belt? [closed]
The following extract is from UStoday site:
Trump's lawyer, Joe Tacopina, told NBC's "Today" show on Friday that Trump was initially "shocked" when notified of the grand jury's ...
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Are there studies on whether either the US left or right make more use of snarl words?
In my last question, I attempted to avoid any answer saying that one political party was more likely to abuse snarl words without proof as I deemed such an attack plausible and unconstructive to my ...
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Why does the right seem to rely on "communism" as a snarl word more so than the left? [duplicate]
Both political parties use snarl words to denigrate policies or views they don't like. I have a bit of a rant on what a snarl word is in another question I answered. While that question is primarily ...
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Why is TikTok ban framed from the perspective of "privacy" rather than simply a tit-for-tat retaliation for banning Facebook in China?
There's currently tons of disputes in the media over the extent to which TikTok is supposed to be "spying" on US users and (afaik) the planned ban, if executed, will be done on the grounds ...
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Did Trump authorise a 2016 negative political ad against the Jewish elite? [closed]
There is a negative political ad floating around that is alleged to be from the 2016 Trump campaign. Its content is the standard anti-globalist fare. The ad implies that Democrat presidential ...
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How exactly could a TikTok ban be enforced?
Let's say TikTok is banned tomorrow by Congress. How would they be able to actually enforce the ban, assuming TikTok refused to cooperate?
They could definitely convince Apple and Google to remove it ...
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Why is Saudi Arabia primarily buying weapons from the United States?
Background. Saudi Arabia is a key U.S. ally in the Middle East. Saudi
Arabia's security forces have relied on U.S. equipment, training, and
service support for decades, officially as a counterbalance ...
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What is the point of TikTok congress hearing when most of the lawmakers believe CCP can have full control of TikTok?
I watched some video clips about TikTok congress hearing and one thing is clear that most of the lawmakers believe CCP can have full control/influence of TikTok. It is a bipartisan unity that nothing ...
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Have US forces not pulled back from the Turkey-Syria border (along the entirety of it)? If so, when did this turn in policy happen?
I somewhat vaguely recalled that Trump agreed to a pullback of sorts of US forces from parts of northern Syria, reported in the press at the time as practically complete in that area:
Amid growing ...
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Is the text of the "Hamburg ceasefire agreement" public?
I read that:
In 2017, the US, Israel, Russia and Jordan reached a four-part agreement over southern Syria, with Moscow essentially committing to keeping Iran-backed groups away from the border. But ...
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