Mike Johnson made a scary graphic so let me translate it for you, because fear only works when you don't know what you're looking at.
I am sharing this info from a forum, mentioned below, that I follow and adding my own insights for additional clarification.
Equal state representation was a compromise between large and small states at our founding.
It made sense when the biggest state was 12 times the smallest.
Today California is 68 times the size of Wyoming and they still get the same number of senators.
Germany's constitutional court judges serve 12-year terms. France's serve 9.
In the US a president who wins by slim margins appoints judges who shape law for 40+ years with zero accountability.
Clarence Thomas has been on the bench since 1991. The country has changed entirely. His seat hasn't. Most functioning democracies put limits on this kind of power.
The US doesn't. It is due time to change this.
For most people using it, it means redirect some funding to mental health response and crisis intervention, to aid the police in their work.
Some activists did push for more sweeping cuts — but the mainstream policy conversation is about why armed police respond to mental health crises, homeless calls, and noise complaints?
Finland requires police to train for 3 years and pairs them with social workers.
Norway does the same.
The US has 337.7 million more people than Norway and Finland combined.
There's room to ask whether the current model is the only option and if it can be better.
There is no candidate running on this.
The EU has open internal borders between 27 countries — a French citizen can drive to Germany without a passport and civilization holds.
What people are actually proposing is a functional immigration system instead of one that costs billions, separates families, and still doesn't work.
This country was built upon the backs of immigrants.
The word "amnesty" only became a political weapon when it stopped being useful to the party that created it.
The Pentagon has failed to pass a full audit every single year since audits became mandatory in 2018. That doesn't mean the money disappeared — it means the largest military in the world cannot fully account for how it spends almost a trillion dollars a year.
Asking questions about that isn't anti-military. It's basic oversight and accountability for our taxpayer dollars.
Before that, immigration enforcement existed under the INS since 1933.
America handled immigration for 227 years without ICE and the INS became overworked, understaffed and missed all of the dangers and warnings ahead of 9/11. An additional agency and staff was needed.
So ICE was created under the Department of Homeland Security following the Homeland Security Act of 2002.
Since its creation there had not been another 9/11. This is paramount not to forget.
The agency ONLY became overly aggressive and abusive under Trump 2016.
Since then the agency has been at the center of family separations, child detention controversies, and documented abuses in detention facilities — sometimes in coordination with other agencies.
Questioning a now 23-year-old agency that is being hijacked by its federal government to act as a rogue force IS NOT the same as wanting to eliminate borders or allow entry for all persons.
If a new administration can do as the Obama administration did and REFORM ICE back to what it once was, there would be no reason for calling to abolish it.
The US spends roughly $12,500 per person per year on healthcare — the highest in the world — and consistently ranks behind peer nations on outcomes like life expectancy and infant mortality. Americans die rationing insulin.
They set up GoFundMes for chemo. They avoid ambulances because a ride costs over a thousand dollars.
Every other developed nation figured this out.
The EU launched its Green Deal in 2019 targeting climate neutrality by 2050 with hundreds of billions in investment.
China produces more solar panels than the rest of the world combined and leads in EV manufacturing.
Germany gets roughly half its electricity from renewables.
The US is still debating whether climate change is real while its own cities flood, burn, and run out of water.
Bailed out GM and Chrysler. Bailed out the airlines during COVID.
Government picks up the tab every time a corporation fails but when anyone suggests the public should see a return on that investment, suddenly it's communism.
Meanwhile countries like Norway built a $1.7 trillion sovereign wealth fund from their natural resources and their citizens get world-class public services.
Meanwhile the Trump administration has broken modern U.S. economic precedents by routinely acquiring direct equity stakes and exercising strategic veto controls in private corporations.
This “non-emergency, standing interventionist policy” spans roughly 30 companies, most notably including a passive 9.9% share in Intel and a "golden share" arrangement in U.S. Steel, let us not forget.
Different model, same question: who benefits when public money is on the table?
Mike Johnson is counting on you not knowing any of this.
Now you do.” - Shannon Coleen via Facebook
