#article v

[racefortheironthrone]

apparently the senate cannot be removed without the consent of every state so would it be feasible to amend that requirement out of the constitution then have a 2nd amendment that abolishes the senate or amend the constitution to remove the senate once every state has consented than go about pushing legislation to consent to the removal of the senate in every state?

Let's be a little bit clearer about what Roger Sherman of Connecticut inserted into the Constitution to assuage his deeply stupid fears about the need to protect the world's most meaningless political category:

"no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate."

In other words, you cannot fix the disproportionality built into the Senate - even if you manage the immense task of passing a Constitutional Amendment, it would be null and void because of Article V. And no, you can't amend the language that says you can't amend the language - judges really won't go for it.

There are been various schemes proposed to try and get around this - do it through legislation instead of amendment, pass an amendment that changes the definition of the world "equal," abolish the Senate altogether. - but I don't think any of them would work either.

However, Article V only affects the disproportionality of the Senate; anything else about the Senate is up for grabs:

The filibuster is purely a matter of internal Senate rules and potentially can be changed by simple majority vote as long as that majority is willing to change the Senate rules.

bicameralism - Article V doesn't protect the Senate's role in passing legislation - an amendment altering Article I and Article II would be entirely valid - so that you could essentially turn the U.S Senate into the equivalent of the House of Lords. In fact, technically I think you could do it by a Senate Rule basically saying "any bill passed by the House shall be considered to be passed by the Senate." The difficulty is finding a majority of Senators willing to politically neuter themselves.

[protoslacker]

The GOP has long been a radical party devoted to carrying out its ideological aims at almost any cost, but there’s a reason it’s gone particularly off the deep end under Trump: it knows the country’s demographics are rapidly shifting in a way unhelpful for their continued hold on power. That’s why the organized Right has increasingly put its hopes in anti-democratic measures like stacking the courts with ideologues, suppressing voter turnout, outright rigging elections, and, potentially, overhauling the country’s core legal rules.

Branko Marcetic at Jacobin. Can Republicans Rewrite the Constitution?

A stealth right-wing campaign to call a constitutional convention is perilously close to succeeding. Its goal: repealing the twentieth century.

[early-morning-rain]

[originalleftist]

Greenland Is Not America.

Denmark has also confirmed that by law, its soldiers will be required to resist any attack immediately without waiting for orders.

As a NATO member, Denmark could invoke NATO's mutual defence clause, obliging other NATO members including Canada, America's neighbour and a key trading partner, and the UK and France, both nuclear-armed, to come to its aid.

Tr*mp is risking world war between the US and the rest of NATO, and for what? Resources it could just buy? A dying pedophile's ego? Who does it really serve to destroy NATO?

[originalleftist]

In the last few days, numerous Ruzzian drones have crossed into both Polish and Romanian air space- both NATO countries (Sept. 14th 2025).

NATO planes were scrambled to shoot them down, with Poland stopping only 4 of 19. Ruzzia may have been trying to strike Poland's Rzeszow airport, a major supply hub for Ukraine. Poland has now said that if Ruzzian drones result in any Polish deaths, or hit Rzeszow, it will trigger Article V, NATO's mutual defence clause. As well as NATO considering direct military intervention in Ukraine to close the skies (ie, direct military conflict between Ruzzia and NATO).

‘Opinion is shifting towards this idea,’ says Polish FM Sikorski on NATO closing the sky over western Ukraine

Russia has faced little to no consequences following its brazen Sept. 10 attack on Poland, yet Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski is

This is, essentially, the Third World War that we feared all through the Cold War. If it escalates to a full-scale nuclear exchange, it means the death of the majority of humanity, including nearly every person in the Northern Hemisphere (due to where most of the bombs and missiles would be detonated and where atmospheric currents would take most of the fallout).

And I do not believe for one moment that Putin would be risking this if Biden or Harris were in office today. He's doing this because he's gambling that the US under Tr*mp will not back up its NATO allies strongly, and that either Europe won't risk fighting him without the US, or that he can win a war against Europe without the US (considering his failures in Ukraine, the only way he could even take Europe without the US would be by mass nuclear bombardment). And it looks like he's right, since as the article notes, FOTUS is already attaching unreasonable conditions (joining US tariffs on China) to further US sanctions on Ruzzia.

He's even quoted as saying the US is "not gonna defend anybody" in response to the attack on Poland. Which is effectively the US declaring its treaty obligations to NATO void, and giving Ruzzia a green light to invade Europe.

Some tankie types will no doubt cheer this on, saying that this proves Tr*mp is "anti-war" and keeping us out of World War III. But this won't actually prevent the war. It will just encourage Ruzzia to think it can win. And that ends in a nuclear exchange between Ruzzia, Britain and France that WILL fuck up the whole planet, with or without US involvement.

It came out last year (from no less a source than Bob Woodward IIRC) that during Biden's presidency Putin had considered using tactical nuclear weapons on Ukraine, but Biden had coordinated international pressure behind the scenes to persuade him not to do it.

Biden may have literally saved us from nuclear war.

But people decided he was too old, or that putting Tr*mp back in in would somehow support Palestine (how did that one work out for you, fuckwits?), or that they didn't like Harris's race and gender "laugh," and now THE MAJORITY OF THE HUMAN SPECIES MAY DIE, in the next few days/weeks, because of your stupid fucking "protest vote."

Hopefully it doesn't come to that. Hopefully we dodge World War III again, like we have a few times in the past (although all those times, we didn't have literally the least qualified and absolute worst people on Earth running the US government). Hopefully a strong show of resolve from NATO, or at least the majority of its members, convinces Ruzzia to back down.

But if it comes to it, I hope that every single motherfucker who voted for Tr*mp, or stayed home, or "protest voted" lives just long enough to realize what you did as you die in agony from radiation burns or starvation.

ESPECIALLY you pieces of shit who claimed you supported Tr*mp because he was "anti-war."

[originalleftist]

Russia redraws maritime borders with NATO countries.

The Moscow Times: Russia unilaterally decides to redraw maritime borders with Lithuania and Finland in the Baltic Sea

Russian authorities have decided unilaterally to change the country's maritime borders with Lithuania and Finland in the Baltic Sea, declari

This is exceedingly dangerous on Putin's part. By doing this, he is walking right up to the line of outright annexing NATO territory, which would trigger NATO's mutual defence clause and likely initiate World War III.

My guess? He's testing NATO. If we let this slide, he'll conclude we don't have the resolve to fight Russia, and the next step will be a full-scale invasion of one or more of the Baltic countries.

Putin must die, or the world will burn.

[protoslacker]

If a national constitutional convention were held, all of our rights under the current Constitution, and all of the government’s reciprocal obligations, would be up for grabs. Nothing in the Constitution constrains the process that would apply if a convention is actually called. Anything could go, including the process for ratification itself, and there would be no Constitution cop on the block to ensure that things don’t go seriously haywire.

Kim Wehle quoted in a report by Jay Riestenberg at Common Cause. A Common Cause Background: Memo U.S. Constitution Threatened as Article V Convention Movement Nears Success

Legal Scholars Warn of the Dangers of an Article V Convention

[early-morning-rain]