ApostleO

The leader of each house is Republican, and they control what comes up for a vote. He can encourage all he wants, he has no say in the matter.

I mean, what's he supposed to do right now? Republicans still control both houses of congress (or, at least, hold enough seats to render both houses impotent). The upcoming congressional elections matter as much as (or potentially more than) the presidential election.

Two things.

One: even removing those listed senators from the supermajority, that still leaves a majority.

Two: their original comment lamented that the Democrats never even held a vote when they had control with the intent of putting their votes on the record, so that voters would know who actually supports their rights.

Well that is scary.

It should have an option to add an event to your calendar.

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

I used to imagine, "What would a new constitution look like if we actually invoked the clause to hold another constitutional convention?"

But imagine if we voted to hold one now, when billionaires hold so much power already. I all but guarantee that they'd make sure they had control over a majority of the delegates, and we'd end up with something that was somehow even worse than what we have today.

Bump all punishments up by a tier for elected officials.

Capital offense is still a capital offense.

Life in prison becomes a capital offense.

Long prison becomes life in prison.

Short prison becomes long prison.

Large fine becomes short prison.

Small fine becomes large fine.

I also think we should make a law that says any elected official making a public statement is assumed to be under oath to tell the truth, and provably false statements made by public officials in an official capacity should be punished as harshly as perjury in court.

I personally liked Ruon Tarka. He felt like a good foil for our protagonists. Sympathetic, believable, but still squarely in the wrong. I did not, however, believe Book siding with him for so long.

But I agree the coolest parts of S4 were at the end, trying to actually learn about the 10-C for first contact.

All the more sad.

I honestly would love to see a "Utopia-Realized Level Federation" series, even a limited run, where all the plots are philosophical, artistic, interpersonal, or scientific.

Oh, nice. I'm glad we aren't ending with another stress-fest. End on a more fun note.

That's fair, and I think Starfleet HQ fits that bill. But I think (at least in my opinion of architecture as an art form, which I think starship design falls under, since people live and work there), I'd be frustrated to work on a Saturn class if that big hole did nothing, and made navigating between any two places on the ship more of a pain. That said, with personal transporters, maybe it's not an issue (assuming this ship isn't near any action that could make personal transporters inoperable). Maybe it would work well as a sort of diplomatic vessel, where having all these rooms with windows facing into the ring (like a giant round table) could be artistically conducive to discussion. Maybe they have a bunch of huge holo emitters in the ring, and they use it to project the current speaker, or just cool holo-art when not in session.