(01-21-2021 04:35 PM)mrbig Wrote:  

(01-21-2021 01:48 PM)georgewebb Wrote:  One thing I was thinking about was the flurry of executive orders, mostly countermanding previous orders, which in turn mostly countermanded orders before that. The fact that so many important policy decisions occur by executive fiat is troubling.

I am in agreement with you here. I wish Congress would grow a pair of gonads and take a bigger role. It feels like they have been deferring more and more to the President and executive orders, which is not how things are supposed to work. I understand why Presidents of both parties have resorted to executive orders ... but the problem is really that Congress spends too much time bloviating and campaigning and not enough time legislating.

Relatedly, instead of passing a new rules package every new Congress, I think they should pass a statute that lays out a number of the rules that govern based on the size of the majority caucus. Include some measures that still retain some minority party strength (probably enhancing the power of the minority party in the House and reducing it in the Senate) while not allowing the minority party to completely gum up the works.

(01-21-2021 01:48 PM)georgewebb Wrote:  On a lighter note: the climate accord participants committee a HUGE marketing failure by signing it in Paris and putting "Paris" in the title. A London or Frankfurt Ciimate Agreement would have much less of an image problem.

I think it is silly that they often name each set of accords, treaty, agreement, etc. after the place where the meeting was. Get more original!

Especially Paris! When I played Quiz Bowl, we had a running joke that if you didn't know the name of a historical diplomatic event, just buzz in and answer "Treaty of Paris" and you had a good chance of being right. Check out the Wikipedia disambiguation page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris

On the other hand, really long treaty names like Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo seem like a mouthful. The Peace of Westphalia is an enduring name. Even more so (though a meeting rather than a treaty) is the Diet of Worms, which can't fail to prompt laughs in any Western Civilization class.