Veto Power Quotes

...people in heaven will not be denied the privilege of enjoying their life just because they're consciously aware of hell. If they couldn't, then hell would have veto power over heaven.

To demand of the loveless and the self-imprisioned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that theirs should be the final power; that Hell should be able to veto Heaven…Either the day must come when joy prevails and all the makers of misery are no longer able to infect it: or else for ever and ever the makers of misery can destroy in others the happiness they reject for themselves. I know it has a grand sound to say ye'll accept no salvation which leaves one creature in the dark outside. But watch the sophistry or ye'll make a Dog in the Manger the tyrant of the universe.

Don Corleone was too weak to speak much but he wished to listen and exercise veto powers.

The world peace stays a dream and is impossible that until the veto power holders become unable to practice veto-dragon since that causes injustice, wars, and destruction.

Scripture is our norming norm and tradition is our normed norm and that in a doctrinal controversy Scripture alone has absolute veto power while The Great Tradition (orthodox doctrine) has a vote but not a veto.

As discussed earlier, an important remnant of our evolutionary past, the amygdala, rests at the core of the brain. This ancient executive center has retained veto power over our modern cortical executive centers when it detects a threat.

The power to veto or negate is the power of free will. Free will is “free won’t.”9 This connects neatly with information theory, which, as we will see, characterizes information as a reduction or ruling out of possibilities. To be informed that something is the case is to be informed that other things are not the case. Information says yes to some things by saying no to others. Free will is the power of no.

As long as there are no routes back to full employment except that of somehow restoring business confidence, he pointed out, business lobbies in effect have veto power over government actions: propose doing anything they dislike, such as raising taxes or enhancing workers' bargaining power, and they can issue dire warnings that this will reduce confidence and plunge the nation into depression. But let monetary and fiscal policy be deployed to fight unemployment, and suddenly business confidence becomes less necessary, and the need to cater to capitalists' concern is much reduced.

And if it goes against common sense, so much the worse for common sense. We don’t allow common sense to override scientific discoveries when it comes to the ethology of other species, like spiders or fish, so why should we grant it veto power over discoveries about the ethology of human beings?

We must conclude with a troubling caveat, however. The norms sustaining our political system rested, to a considerable degree, on racial exclusion. The stability of the period between the end of Reconstruction and the 1980s was rooted in an original sin: the Compromise of 1877 and its aftermath, which permitted the de-democratization of the South and the consolidation of Jim Crow. Racial exclusion contributed directly to the partisan civility and cooperation that came to characterize twentieth-century American politics. The “solid South” emerged as a powerful conservative force within the Democratic Party, simultaneously vetoing civil rights and serving as a bridge to Republicans. Southern Democrats’ ideological proximity to conservative Republicans reduced polarization and facilitated bipartisanship. But it did so at the great cost of keeping civil rights—and America’s full democratization—off the political agenda.

Before the 9/11 attack, the Bush administration cut counterterrorism funds, denied requests for more counterterrorism agents, threatened to veto additional counterterrorism spending, ignored numerous warnings about imminent attacks, and declared focusing on bin Laden a mistake.73 Later investigations would reveal, however, that at least seven months before 9/11, the Bush administration began domestic spying operations.74

the nations with the fewest veto players have the least inequality, and those with the most veto players have the greatest inequality. Only the United States has four such veto players. All four were specified in the slavery-defending founders’ Constitution: absolute veto power for the Senate, for the House, and for the president (if not outvoted by a two-thirds majority), and a Constitution that cannot be altered without the agreement of two-thirds of the states after Congress.

Instead of attempting to stay in day-to-day control, I have devised a system where I keep overall control, but do not involve myself in running a business unless I wish to get involved for a particular reason. I use the power of veto instead. By

What some people say on Earth is that the final loss of one soul gives the lie to all the joy of those who are saved.” “Ye see it does not.” “I feel in a way that it ought to.” “That sounds very merciful: but see what lurks behind it.” “What?” “The demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that theirs should be the final power; that Hell should be able to /veto/ Heaven.

Philip Blumstein and Pepper Schwartz, in their study American Couples, found that lesbians have sex less often than gay men and heterosexual couples. The sociologists believe that this happens because, as they found, in heterosexual couples the man almost always initiates sex, and the woman either complies or exercises veto power. Among gay men, at least one partner takes the role of initiator. But among lesbians, they found, often neither feels comfortable taking the role of initiator, because neither wants to be perceived as making demands.

The wrangling between Britain and the Free French throughout the war years had a further, far-reaching consequence when de Gaulle returned to power in 1958. As president of France it was he who infamously vetoed Harold Macmillan’s application to join the Common Market. In tracing exactly why de Gaulle said Non, it is, surprisingly, to the hot and noisy cities of Beirut and Damascus that we should look. The general’s experience of British machinations in both places profoundly shaped his reluctance to allow his wartime rivals to join his European club. It is a tale from which neither country emerges with much credit.

The word consecrate means to set yourself apart. By definition, consecration demands full devotion. It’s dethroning yourself and enthroning Jesus Christ. It’s the complete divestiture of all self-interest. It’s giving God veto power. It’s surrendering all of you to all of Him. It’s a simple recognition that every second of time, every ounce of energy, and every penny of money is a gift from God and for God. Consecration is an ever-deepening love for Jesus, a childlike trust in the heavenly Father, and a blind obedience to the Holy Spirit. Consecration is all that and a thousand things more. But for the sake of simplicity, let me give you my personal definition of consecration.

Vice President Gore, Richard Clarke, and Madeleine Albright were “strong support[ers]” of the program, joining in President Clinton’s “intense” interest in it.5 Egypt’s most famous terrorist, Talaat Fouad Qassem, was “seized in Croatia, flown to the USS Adriatic, a navy warship, interrogated, then flown to Egypt for [torture and] execution.”6 Egypt’s secret police, the Gihaz al-Mukhabarat al-Amma, is widely known for its brutal torture regime, “real Macho interrogation . . . enhanced interrogation techniques on steroids” and was used by both Presidents Bush and Clinton.7 Congress attempted to end this program in 1998. The Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act slipped in a passage making it the policy of the United States not to “expel, extradite, or otherwise effect the involuntary return of any person to a country in which there are substantial grounds for believing the person would be in danger of being subjected to torture, regardless of whether the person is physically present in the United States.”8 Clinton vetoed the bill in late October,

The modern mind is like the eye of a man who is too tired to see the difference between blue and green. It fails in the quality that is truly called distinction; and,being incapable of distinction, it falls back on generalisation. The man, instead of having the sense to say he is tired, says he is emancipated and enlightened and liberal and universal.... ...we find it less trouble to let in a jungle of generalisations than to keep watch upon a logical frontier. But this shapeless assimilation is not only found in accepting things in the lump; it is also found in condemning them in the lump. When the same modern mind does begin to be intolerant, it is just as universally intolerant as it was universally tolerant. It sends things in batches to the gallows just as it admitted them in mobs to the sanctuary. It cannot limit its limitations any more than its license....There are...lunatics now having power to lay down the law, who have somehow got it into their heads that any artistic representation of anything wicked must be forbidden as encouraging wickedness. This would obviously be a veto on any tragedy and practically on any tale. But a moment's thought...would show them that this is simply an illogical generalisation from the particular problem of sex. All dignified civilisations conceal sexual things, for the perfectly sensible reason that their mere exhibition does affect the passions. But seeing another man forge a cheque does not make me want to forge a cheque. Seeing the tools for burgling a safe does not arouse an appetite for being a burglar. But the intelligence in question cannot stop itself from stopping anything. It is automatically autocratic; and its very prohibition proceeds in a sort of absence of mind. Indeed, that is the most exact word for it; it is emphatically absence of mind. For the mind exists to make those very distinctions and definitions which these people refuse. They refuse to draw the line anywhere; and drawing a line is the beginning of all philosophy, as it is the beginning of all art. They are the people who are content to say that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and are condemned to pass their lives in looking for eggs from the cock as well as the hen.

He was mainly worried that the mass poverty he witnessed would lead to political upheaval. In particular, he was convinced that only the English political system, with separate houses of Parliament for aristocrats and commoners and veto power for the nobility, could allow for harmonious and peaceful development led by responsible people. He was convinced that France was headed for ruin when it decided in 1789–1790 to allow both aristocrats and commoners to sit in a single legislative body. It is no exaggeration to say that his whole account was overdetermined by his fear of revolution in France. Whenever one speaks about the distribution of wealth, politics is never very far behind, and it is difficult for anyone to escape contemporary class prejudices and interests.

Today the campaign for world government lives on mainly among kooks and science fiction fans. One problem is that a functioning government relies on a degree of mutual trust and shared values among the people it governs which is unlikely to exist across the entire globe. Another is that a world government would have no alternatives from which it could learn better governance, or to which its disgruntled citizens could emigrate, and hence it would have no natural checks against stagnation and arrogance. And the United Nations is unlikely to morph into a government that anyone would want to be governed by. The Security Council is hamstrung by the veto power that the great powers insisted on before ceding it any authority, and the General Assembly is more of a soapbox for despots than a parliament of the world’s people. In

A pine cone cannot fall from a tree unless God is involved. A bumblebee cannot pollenate a flower or sting your arm apart from the will of God. Money cannot enter or exit your bank account apart from the sovereignty of God. Little Ernest cannot be born or be buried in that grave just a half-mile from my house apart from God’s will. Legislation cannot be passed in this country or in any other apart from God’s sovereignty. You hold this book in your hands because God sovereignly allows you to hold this book in your hands. Everything is under His sovereign rule. Some of us believe that God is a bit like the president. He has a lot of power and authority, but there are checks and balances to limit Him. He is limited by our human choices, the events of the future, the wrongs of the past, or by those who do not believe in Him. Some of His legislations could be vetoed. His popularity can ebb and flow. But God is not like that at all. There are no limits to His rule and power.

What some people say on earth is that the final loss of one soul gives the lie to all the joy of those who are saved." "Ye see it does not." "I feel in a way that it ought to." "That sounds very merciful: but see what lurks behind it." "What?" "The demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that theirs should be the final power; that Hell should be able to veto Heaven." "I don't know what I want, Sir." "Son, son, it must be one way or the other. Either the day must come when joy prevails and all the makers of misery are no longer able to infect it: or else for ever and ever the makers of misery can destroy in others the happiness they reject for themselves. I know it has a grand sound to say ye'll accept no salvation which leaves even one creature in the dark outside. But watch that sophistry or ye'll make a Dog in a Manger the tyrant of the universe.

Though we live under the form of a republic,” Justice Joseph Story said, “we are in fact under the absolute rule of a single man.” Jackson vetoed laws passed by Congress (becoming the first president to assume this power). At one point, he dismissed his entire cabinet. “The man we have made our President has made himself our despot, and the Constitution now lies a heap of ruins at his feet,” declared a senator from Rhode Island, “When the way to his object lies through the Constitution, the Constitution has not the strength of a cobweb to restrain him from breaking through it.”61

Roosevelt wouldn't interfere even when he found out that Moses was discouraging Negroes from using many of his state parks. Underlying Moses' strikingly strict policing for cleanliness in his parks was, Frances Perkins realized with "shock," deep distaste for the public that was using them. "He doesn't love the people," she was to say. "It used to shock me because he was doing all these things for the welfare of the people... He'd denounce the common people terribly. To him they were lousy, dirty people, throwing bottles all over Jones Beach. 'I'll get them! I'll teach them!' ... He loves the public, but not as people. The public is just The Public. It's a great amorphous mass to him; it needs to be bathed, it needs to be aired, it needs recreation, but not for personal reasons -- just to make it a better public." Now he began taking measures to limit use of his parks. He had restricted the use of state parks by poor and lower-middle-class families in the first place, by limiting access to the parks by rapid transit; he had vetoed the Long Island Rail Road's proposed construction of a branch spur to Jones Beach for this reason. Now he began to limit access by buses; he instructed Shapiro to build the bridges across his new parkways low -- too low for buses to pass. Bus trips therefore had to be made on local roads, making the trips discouragingly long and arduous. For Negroes, whom he considered inherently "dirty," there were further measures. Buses needed permits to enter state parks; buses chartered by Negro groups found it very difficult to obtain permits, particularly to Moses' beloved Jones Beach; most were shunted to parks many miles further out on Long Island. And even in these parks, buses carrying Negro groups were shunted to the furthest reaches of the parking areas. And Negroes were discouraged from using "white" beach areas -- the best beaches -- by a system Shapiro calls "flagging"; the handful of Negro lifeguards [...] were all stationed at distant, least developed beaches. Moses was convinced that Negroes did not like cold water; the temperature at the pool at Jones Beach was deliberately icy to keep Negroes out. When Negro civic groups from the hot New York City slums began to complain about this treatment, Roosevelt ordered an investigation and an aide confirmed that "Bob Moses is seeking to discourage large Negro parties from picnicking at Jones Beach, attempting to divert them to some other of the state parks." Roosevelt gingerly raised the matter with Moses, who denied the charge violently -- and the Governor never raised the matter again.

What the “geniuses [who] went to Philadelphia” wanted remains the subject of endless debate—a debate fueled by the real differences among them and the very real ambiguities of the compromises they forged. But James Madison did not go to Philadelphia seeking gridlock. Quite the opposite: The Virginian who played such a critical role in the nation’s founding led the charge for a powerful national government. He pushed for a new constitution specifically because its predecessor, the Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1777, had been a catastrophe—a decentralized arrangement too weak to hold the country together or confront pressing problems that needed collective solutions. Madison arrived at the convention with one firm conviction: Government needed the authority to govern.29 In the deliberations that followed, Madison stayed true to that cause. He argued tirelessly for the power of the federal government to be understood broadly and for it to be decisively superior to the states. He even supported an absolute federal veto over all state laws, likening it to “gravity” in the Newtonian framework of the new federal government.30 Most of the concessions to state governments in the final document were ones that Madison had opposed. He was a practical politician, and he ultimately defended these compromises in the public arena—the famed Federalist Papers Madison penned with his colleagues Alexander Hamilton and John Jay are an advertisement, not a blueprint—but he did so because he saw them as necessary, not because he saw them as ideal.31 Throughout, Madison kept his eyes on the prize: enactment of the more vital and resilient government he regarded as a national imperative.

ISIS was forced out of all its occupied territory in Syria and Iraq, though thousands of ISIS fighters are still present in both countries. Last April, Assad again used sarin gas, this time in Idlib Province, and Russia again used its veto to protect its client from condemnation and sanction by the U.N. Security Council. President Trump ordered cruise missile strikes on the Syrian airfield where the planes that delivered the sarin were based. It was a minimal attack, but better than nothing. A week before, I had condemned statements by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who had explicitly declined to maintain what had been the official U.S. position that a settlement of the Syrian civil war had to include Assad’s removal from power. “Once again, U.S. policy in Syria is being presented piecemeal in press statements,” I complained, “without any definition of success, let alone a realistic plan to achieve it.” As this book goes to the publisher, there are reports of a clash between U.S. forces in eastern Syria and Russian “volunteers,” in which hundreds of Russians were said to have been killed. If true, it’s a dangerous turn of events, but one caused entirely by Putin’s reckless conduct in the world, allowed if not encouraged by the repeated failures of the U.S. and the West to act with resolve to prevent his assaults against our interests and values. In President Obama’s last year in office, at his invitation, he and I spent a half hour or so alone, discussing very frankly what I considered his policy failures, and he believed had been sound and necessary decisions. Much of that conversation concerned Syria. No minds were changed in the encounter, but I appreciated his candor as I hoped he appreciated mine, and I respected the sincerity of his convictions. Yet I still believe his approach to world leadership, however thoughtful and well intentioned, was negligent, and encouraged our allies to find ways to live without us, and our adversaries to try to fill the vacuums our negligence created. And those trends continue in reaction to the thoughtless America First ideology of his successor. There are senior officials in government who are trying to mitigate those effects. But I worry that we are at a turning point, a hinge of history, and the decisions made in the last ten years and the decisions made tomorrow might be closing the door on the era of the American-led world order. I hope not, and it certainly isn’t too late to reverse that direction. But my time in that fight has concluded. I have nothing but hope left to invest in the work of others to make the future better than the past. As of today, as the Syrian war continues, more than 400,000 people have been killed, many of them civilians. More than five million have fled the country and more than six million have been displaced internally. A hundred years from now, Syria will likely be remembered as one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of the twenty-first century, and an example of human savagery at its most extreme. But it will be remembered, too, for the invincibility of human decency and the longing for freedom and justice evident in the courage and selflessness of the White Helmets and the soldiers fighting for their country’s freedom from tyranny and terrorists. In that noblest of human conditions is the eternal promise of the Arab Spring, which was engulfed in flames and drowned in blood, but will, like all springs, come again.

can impose sanctions only in limited circumstances, and in the past was often paralysed by the power of veto possessed by each of its five permanent members. The United Nations General Assembly is not subject to the veto, but its resolutions are usually not legally binding (although they are an institutionalized form of public opinion and can be instruments of political pressure).

Congress was split into two houses to assist the few in thwarting the will of the many. The President was given a qualified veto to enable the minority and the President to overcome the majority. The supreme court, too, in usurping the power to declare acts of congress unconstitutional, sought only to prevent the representatives of the majority from enforcing their will. Each of these devices has done and is doing what it was intended to do. The division of congress into two houses helps only the grafters. • If congress were divided into three houses, the situation of the grafters would be still more pleasurable to the grafters. The longer the gauntlet down which a bill must run, the greater the opportunity for grafters to knock it out.

Congress, however, stiffened, cutting off appropriations for such bombing as of August 15, 1973. In November it overrode a presidential veto to pass a War Powers Act. This required American Presidents to inform Congress within forty-eight hours of deployment of United States forces abroad and to bring the troops home within sixty days unless Congress explicitly endorsed what the President had done.56

The danger of an administrative return to an extralegal regime becomes particularly concrete when one recognizes the potential for evasion. Administrative law evades not only the law but also its institutions, processes, and rights. The central evasion is the end run around acts of Congress and the judgments of the courts by substituting executive edicts. This suggests that there can be an alternative system of law, which is not quite law, but that nonetheless can be enforced against the public. As if this were not enough, the evasion also gets around the Constitution’s institutions and processes. For example, when the executive makes regulations, it claims to escape the constitutional requirements for the election of lawmakers, for bicameralism, for deliberation, for publication of legislative journals, and for a veto. Similarly, when the executive adjudicates disputes, it claims to sidestep most of the requirements about judicial independence, due process, grand juries, petit juries, and judicial warrants and orders. The judicial evasion is particularly troubling when one realizes that it escapes almost all of the procedural rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Recognizing at least the due process problem, courts and commentators sometimes suggest that administrative adjudication is subject to a lesser, administrative version of due process. It remains unclear, however, how a fraction of a right can substitute for the whole, or how the due process of administrative power in an administrative tribunal can substitute for the due process of law in a court. This is like a substitution of water for whisky, and the fact that both are liquid does not hide the evasion.

By the same token, the executive cannot exercise legislative power, even if it has legislative authorization, for when it acts alone, it is a sort of Rump—certainly as much a Rump as the House of Commons once was. Although it would be bad enough for the two houses of Congress to exercise legislative power alone, it is worse for the president or his subordinates to do so, for he constitutionally enjoys only a negative on legislation. Put another way, if Congress cannot delegate legislative power to the two congressional bodies that ordinarily adopt legislation, how can Congress delegate this power to the body that ordinarily has only a veto on legislation? Such, however, is the current reality. The result is a strange reversal of roles. Administrative lawmaking belongs to the branch of government that constitutionally enjoys only a veto. In contrast, the veto on such lawmaking now requires full, constitutionally authorized legislation adopted by both houses of Congress and the president. Thus, whereas the adoption of legislation once arose from the branch designed to be representative and cautious, it now often comes from the branch designed for effective force. And whereas the veto arose from the forceful part of government, it now in many instances must come from a combination of all branches. Unsurprisingly, this reverses

Washington was willing to see us deprived of the right to elect the President. Washington was willing to see us deprived of the right to elect United States Senators. But Hamilton wanted the President, after a select little group had elected him, to serve for life. Hamilton wanted United States Senators, after select little groups had elected them, to serve for life. Hamilton wanted to give the President power to appoint all governors of States. And Hamilton wanted the President and the governors of States to have the power of absolute veto over Congress and the state legislatures. That we still honor the name of Hamilton is because, to this day, we know almost nothing of Hamilton. He was a brilliant man, but he was almost the last man who should have found favor in a republic. Socially, he was an aristocrat. Politically, he was a monarchist.

By the end of his second term, Bush II had issued more than 1,100 constitutional challenges to provisions of law. Further, he employed them in an unprecedented way: to effectively curtail the power of the legislative branch by threatening (via the challenge) to not enforce a law passed by Congress. In effect, Bush claimed to accomplish what the Supreme Court has deemed unconstitutional—a line item veto.

the American system of checks and balances disperses federal lawmaking authority among multiple, overlapping political forums. As a result, federal policymaking power is shared: Congress is given the primary power to draft laws, subject to the president's veto and judicial review; the executive branch is given the primary power to implement laws, subject to congressional oversight and judicial review; and the courts have the primary power to interpret laws, subject to a variety of legislative and executive checks, including the appointment process, budgetary powers, and the passage of "overrides"-laws that explicitly reverse or materially modify existing judicial interpretations of statutes.

To help them understand that they are not to blame for their deceptive brain messages, we taught Steve and Sarah about Free Won’t, a term popularized by the well-known neuroscientist Benjamin Libet. In a series of carefully executed scientific experiments completed in the 1980s, Libet studied how people decide whether and when to move their own bodies and what generated the initial desire to move. While the meaning of what he discovered is still the subject of passionate disagreement in academic circles, the bottom line for you is this: Your brain—not your mind—generates the initial desires, impulses, thoughts, and sensations, but you can veto almost any action before it starts. This means that while you are not responsible for the emergence of thoughts, desires, impulses, urges, or sensations, you are responsible for what you do with them once they arise. Libet himself interpreted his results in this way and emphasized that you have a choice in whether or not to respond when your brain puts out the call—this is the essence of Free Won’t. As he described it in one of his landmark papers:7 The role of conscious free will [aka Free Won’t] would be, then, not to initiate a voluntary act but rather to control whether the act takes place. We may view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as “bubbling up” in the brain. The conscious will then selects which of these initiatives may go forward to an action and which ones to veto and abort, with no act appearing. In other words, what Libet was saying is that you really can’t decide or determine what will initially grab your attention—your brain does. However, his research also indicated that once your initial attention is grabbed, you can determine whether you keep your attention focused on that object (and act on it) or veto it based on the principle of Free Won’t. Free Won’t turns out to be of the utmost importance because it tells us that we have, in essence, the power to veto almost any action, even though the desire to perform that action is generated by brain mechanisms entirely outside of our conscious attention and awareness. How might that Free Won’t express itself? Through Veto Power.

Many of these problems could be solved if the United States moved to a more unified parliamentary system of government, but so radical a change in the country’s institutional structure is inconceivable. Americans regard their Constitution as a quasi-religious document, so getting them to rethink its most basic tenets would be an uphill struggle. I think that any realistic reform program would try to trim veto points or insert parliamentary-style mechanisms to promote stronger hierarchical authority within the existing system of separated powers.

of the time, inertia is the most powerful force in government.  Those who seek change have to succeed at dozens of potential veto points.  Those who seek to prevent change usually have to succeed at only one.

Veto is like if you make big sandwich—careful and nice you make it—and I come over and eat sandwich. No question asked. This is how veto works.

Humans have natural rights in the state of nature but they do not have civil rights. Civil rights are derived from membership in a society. The Republicans who controlled both houses of Congress after the Civil War knew this. They also knew that, before conferring civil rights, they had to once and for all abolish slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment ending slavery was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865. Republican support for the amendment: 100 percent. Democratic support: 23 percent. Even after the Civil War, only a tiny percentage of Democrats were willing to sign up to permanently end slavery. Most Democrats wanted it to continue. In the following year, on June 13, 1866, the Republican Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment overturning the Dred Scott decision and granting full citizenship and equal rights under the law to blacks. This amendment prohibited states from abridging the “privileges and immunities” of all citizens, from depriving them of “due process of law” or denying them “equal protection of the law.” The Fourteenth Amendment passed the House and Senate with exclusive Republican support. Not a single Democrat either in the House or the Senate voted for it. Two years later, in 1868, Congress with the support of newly-elected Republican president Ulysses Grant passed the Fifteenth Amendment granting suffrage to blacks. The right to vote, it said, cannot be “denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.” In the Senate, the Fifteenth Amendment passed by a vote of 39 to 13. Every one of the 39 “yes” votes came from Republicans. (Some Republicans like Charles Sumner abstained because they wanted the measure to go even further than it did.) All the 13 “no” votes came from Democrats. In the House, every “yes” vote came from a Republican and every Democrat voted “no.” It is surely a matter of the greatest significance that the constitutional provisions that made possible the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Fair Housing Bill only entered the Constitution thanks to the Republican Party. Beyond this, the GOP put forward a series of Civil Rights laws to further reinforce black people’s rights to freedom, equality, and social justice. When Republicans passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866—guaranteeing to blacks the rights to make contracts and to have the criminal laws apply equally to whites and blacks—the Democrats struck back. They didn’t have the votes in Congress, but they had a powerful ally in President Andrew Johnson. Johnson vetoed the legislation. Now this may seem like an odd act for Lincoln’s vice president, but it actually wasn’t. Many people don’t realize that Johnson wasn’t a Republican; he was a Democrat. Historian Kenneth Stampp calls him “the last Jacksonian.”8 Lincoln put him on the ticket because he was a pro-union Democrat and Lincoln was looking for ways to win the votes of Democrats opposed to secession. Johnson, however, was both a southern partisan and a Democratic partisan. Once the Civil War ended, he attempted to lead weak-kneed Republicans into a new Democratic coalition based on racism and white privilege. Johnson championed the Democratic mantra of white supremacy, declaring, “This is a country for white men and, by God, as long as I am president, it shall be a government of white men.” In his 1867 annual message to Congress, Johnson declared that blacks possess “less capacity for government than any other race of people. No independent government of any form has ever been successful in their hands. On the contrary, wherever they have been left to their own devices they have shown a consistent tendency to relapse into barbarism.”9 These are perhaps the most racist words uttered by an American president, and no surprise, they were uttered by a Democrat.

He entertained what one adviser termed “pet ideas” of building strategic military bases around the globe controlled by what he called the “United Nations”; the U.N. would keep the United States committed to the wider world after the war, and offer a forum for Soviet engagement with the West. An elite security council within the organization would give smaller nations a voice while providing the great powers with a veto.

veto power can obscure personal agency and accountability in relationships. A partner who says, “I must break up with you, I have no choice because my primary partner demands it,” is, in fact, choosing to end that relationship. Shifting responsibility for this choice onto a third party (or phrasing a breakup decision in terms of “we,” when only the primary partners comprise that “we”) may be a rhetorical sleight-of-hand to deflect personal accountability while hurting someone.

First, said Niebuhr, pride in one’s people is a good thing, but when the power and prosperity of the nation become unconditioned absolutes that veto all other concerns, then violence and injustice can be perpetrated without question.68 When this happens, Dutch scholar Bob Goudzwaard writes: ... the end indiscriminately justifies every means. . . . Thus a nation’s goal of material prosperity becomes an idol when we use it to justify the destruction of the natural environment or allow the abuse of individuals or classes of people. A nation’s goal of military security becomes an idol when we use it to justify the removal of rights to free speech and judicial process, or the abuse of an ethnic minority.

Not only had Congress passed the Case-Church Amendment, but in November 1973, over Nixon’s veto, Congress enacted the War Powers Resolution. It required that the president obtain congressional support within ninety days of sending American troops abroad for military action. The North Vietnamese knew that no such support would be forthcoming.

Indeed, Bio Coronavirus has compelled the world to isolate in quarantine as weaponless warfare. However, not only it since that has also struck down and astonished the veto-power-offenders of the United Nations Security Council without resolutions. Factually, it is a need of time to change the policies now, based on distinctive and evil motives, for global peace and submission to God.

The man who organized the Bilderberg Group, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, has the power to veto the Vatican's choice of any Pope it selects. Prince Bernhard has the veto power because his family, the Hapsburgs, are descended from the Roman Emperors. Prince Bernhard is the leader of the "Black Families." He claims descent from the house of David and thus can truly say that he is related to Jesus. Prince Bernhard, with the help of the CIA, brought the hidden body of the Illuminati into public knowledge as the Bilderberg Group. This is the official alliance that makes up the world governing body.

We needed a greater sense of urgency.” So the management team decided that field managers would not be eligible for promotion unless their branch or group of branches matched or exceeded the company’s average scores. That’s a pretty radical idea when you think about it: giving customers, in effect, veto power over managerial pay raises and promotions. The rigorous implementation of this simple customer feedback system had a clear impact on business. As the survey scores rose, so did Enterprise’s growth relative to its competition. Taylor cites the linking of customer feedback to employee rewards as one of the most important reasons that Enterprise has continued to grow,

As I wrote in Still Broken, many factors contributed to the failure of past reform efforts.11 They include that paranoid “political culture” rooted in an “ambivalence toward government and . . . bias toward private solutions to public problems”;12 the absence of a strong labor movement; race, especially during the period prior to the 1960s when Southern Democrats dominated the Congress; and the structure of government, which gives veto power to even small numbers of opponents. The fact is that many different bodies—most important, the two houses of Congress—must agree to pass a major piece of legislation, but it takes only a few determined individuals to kill it.13 But

They were in his house playing pool and laughing like usual at one of their stupid stunts out in the streets. Green told him he should’ve overridden Ruxs’ decision. Called a veto, and maybe they wouldn’t have got in so much trouble. They’d laughed it off that night. But two weeks later Green had actually yelled that word –veto – when Ruxs was going to kill a drug dealer for raping a twelve-year-old girl as collection for a debt. To his astonishment, Ruxs had lowered his weapon and walked away. That was four years ago. Now veto power was something they both had and could use on the other. But it was only used in complete seriousness. Green

For example, at any given time in my life I would say I care about what approximately five people think. These people have been carefully vetted through intense secret-keeping challenges, my study of their behavior during mental breakdowns I occasionally release from the vault, and my judging basically every move they make and grading them on character merit. Even after all this, I still hold complete veto power.

I demand the same rights to control access as the caretaker of Blackwell Keep.” “Your contentment is irrelevant,” Marat said. “The arrangement cannot be altered.” “Except by mutual agreement between the caretakers,” Celebrant said smoothly. “We won’t change the arrangement,” Kendra said. Celebrant glared at her for a long moment. “Then we may find ourselves in conflict. If I were to become the sole caretaker, the power to come and go from Wyrmroost would reside with me. You have been warned.” “Are the applicants acceptable?” Marat asked. Celebrant drew his head near Kendra and Seth again, sniffing one, then the other. Kendra held still and kept her gaze away from his eyes. Celebrant swung his head over to Marat. “I will accept the candidates on one condition,” Celebrant said. “Make it official right now. Give up your post and instate them as caretakers immediately. Otherwise I will deny them the opportunity.” “Normally we verify our choice with Lord Dalgorel of the Fair Folk,” Marat said. “That is a matter of courtesy, not necessity,” Celebrant said. “Dalgorel has no power to veto our selection. It will be as

demand the same rights to control access as the caretaker of Blackwell Keep.” “Your contentment is irrelevant,” Marat said. “The arrangement cannot be altered.” “Except by mutual agreement between the caretakers,” Celebrant said smoothly. “We won’t change the arrangement,” Kendra said. Celebrant glared at her for a long moment. “Then we may find ourselves in conflict. If I were to become the sole caretaker, the power to come and go from Wyrmroost would reside with me. You have been warned.” “Are the applicants acceptable?” Marat asked. Celebrant drew his head near Kendra and Seth again, sniffing one, then the other. Kendra held still and kept her gaze away from his eyes. Celebrant swung his head over to Marat. “I will accept the candidates on one condition,” Celebrant said. “Make it official right now. Give up your post and instate them as caretakers immediately. Otherwise I will deny them the opportunity.” “Normally we verify our choice with Lord Dalgorel of the Fair Folk,” Marat said. “That is a matter of courtesy, not necessity,” Celebrant said. “Dalgorel has no power to veto our selection. It will be as

Congress has the power to make laws, but the president can veto them, and vetoes can be overridden only by congressional supermajorities. The president and his executive branch enforce the laws, but there is congressional and judicial oversight. The judiciary interprets the Constitution and the laws, but judges are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

You can agree to this whole RAPID® process, but if there’s always a manager who can just veto the whole thing, the person who in theory has the decision really doesn’t. That’s the opposite of empowering a single-threaded leader. You say they have the authority to make decisions, but if you second-guess or, worse, veto those decisions, you’re actually just giving them agency in name, not in actions. They’ll be afraid to make decisions, and will delegate most things upward to you. I think of this as the great destroyer of intrinsic motivation.

The saddest thing about being enslaved person is the longest you remain silent, the more comfortable you be. Slavery can also look like a home when the oppressors are highly happy or busy. You need to voice out, speak and most importantly, "fight". Remember never to cry in front of the oppressor. In my tedious opinion, tears signify weakness. In addition, when your oppressor sees that you are weak, this gives them veto power to prolong your freedom.

Amazon Bar Raisers receive special training in the process. One participates in every interview loop. The name was intended to signal to everyone involved in the hiring process that every new hire should “raise the bar,” that is, be better in one important way (or more) than the other members of the team they join. The theory held that by raising the bar with each new hire, the team would get progressively stronger and produce increasingly powerful results. The Bar Raiser could not be the hiring manager or a recruiter. The Bar Raiser was granted the extraordinary power to veto any hire and override the hiring manager.

Addiction occurs through choices, but somehow it also happens behind our backs. No one consciously sets out to devote themselves to the machine, to become its addict. Its veto power over all other possible attentions takes place, cumulatively, through every apparently free choice made as a user. We drop into the dead zone, the ‘ticker trance’ of feed addiction, by increment. The way the chronophagic machine fights for our attention recalls what Eastern Christianity used to call the demon of acedia. This was a predecessor of the modern concept of melancholia, and it was used in monasteries (those ancient writing machines) to describe an affliction of the devoted. In the original Greek, ‘akedia’ meant ‘lack of care’. In the Latinized Christian use propagated by Evagrius of Pontus, it described a lack of care about one’s life; a listless, restless spiritual lethargy. The condition left one yearning for distraction and continual novelty, exploiting one’s petty hates and hungers. It dissolved one’s capacity for attending, for living as if living mattered, into a series of itches demanding to be scratched. Ultimately, it was dehumanizing, corrosive of meaning: it was spiritual death.

Using [veto power] might neutralize one set of threats, but it’s going to create other problems that won’t have a quick fix.[8]  — Mistress Matisse

veto power is the slow death of any relationship.

that gave Marcus control over military matters in the provinces and veto power in the Senate

The constitution neither carries nor supports the right of Suo Motu in its judicial context; it is the self-adopted right of the chief justice. However, this right has no constitutional power, such as the Veto, which rejects all the resolutions approved by the majority.

Intended Safe Zone for mining. Voted name: Safey McSafe Zone. “Oh, Hell no!” Marc said. “You'd better believe I'll be using veto power on some of these names.

including veto power over the Spartan Assembly (the Apella).

Interactions between the national and state governments are characterized by interdependence, which necessitates the development of cooperative, mutually beneficial arrangements between “working partners” to make federalism “work” (Sundquist and Davis 1969). But American shared governance is not always a smooth relationship, rather it is “an uneasy partnership” in which negative power to veto each other’s actions has to be taken into account in policy implementation (Williams 1980: 44).

Is Israel really the biggest, baddest wolf on the block? Heck no. Even if you put every single one of Israel’s mistakes under a microscope, they still wouldn’t come close to those of many other countries around the world. In Saudi Arabia, Chop Square is literally a place for weekly public decapitations. In Dubai, the working class are literal slaves. In China, disappearances are normal and Muslims are being tracked and put into camps. In Turkey, journalists and activists are imprisoned and killed. In Iran, LGBTQ+ people are executed. In Syria, the government uses chemical weapons against its own people. In Russia, there is arbitrary detention, and worse. In Myanmar, the army is massacring the Rohingya Muslim population. In Brunei, Sharia law was just enacted. In North Korea—no description needed. All over the world, millions of people are dying because of tyrannical leaders, civil wars, and unimaginable atrocities. But you don’t see passionate picket lines against Dubai or Turkey or even Russia. The one country that’s consistently singled out is… Israel. The UN has stated values of human dignity, equal rights, and economic and social advancement that are indeed fantastic, and they are the values upon which Israel was established and is operating. The sting is it that countries that certainly do not adhere to some or any of these values are often the ones who criticize Israel while keeping a straight face. “Look over there!” those leaders say, so the world will not look at their backyards and see their own gross human rights violations. All this led to a disproportionate number of UN resolutions against the only Jewish state and the only democracy in the Middle East. Israel is an easy punching bag, but this obsession over one country only is being used to deflect time and energy away from any real discussion of human rights in the world’s actual murderous regimes. And Israelis aren’t the only ones who have noticed this disproportionate censorship. The United States uses its veto power to shut down almost every Security Council resolution against Israel, and it does this not because of “powerful lobbies” (sorry to burst your bubble). The reason the US shuts down most of these resolutions is because the US gets it. In a closed-door meeting of the Security Council in 2002, former US ambassador to the UN John Negroponte is said to have stated that the US will oppose every UN resolution against Israel that does not also include: condemnation of terrorism and incitement to terrorism, condemnation of various terrorist groups such as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, and a demand for improvement of security for Israel as a condition for Israeli withdrawal from territories. If a resolution doesn’t include this basic and rational language, the US will veto it. And it did and it does, thank the good Lord, in what we know today as the Negroponte Doctrine.

Britain meant to withhold the substance of these two crucial concessions from the Palestinians, as the Zionist movement was to have effective veto power, which it would obviously use.72

The events of 1989 were a seismic upheaval. With the disintegration of the Soviet bloc, which opened up the prospect of enlarging the EC to the East, German unification also became possible. But Kohl needed Mitterrand’s support: both for formal reasons because France, as an occupying power, had the right to veto German unification; and, pursuing the policy initiated by Brandt, to ensure that new eastern relationships did not undermine the EC and the Franco-German partnership. Mitterrand saw the single currency as the way to anchor Germany irrevocably in the EC system, and hence as a condition for German unification; and this ensured for Kohl the necessary support in Germany to proceed with the project (Map 1

The League of Nations became characterized as ineffective; unfortunately, the United Nations and Security Council have also been ineffectual and have failed at every corner since 25 June 1945. Avoid dreaming and hoping in the presence of the White Horror and Veto powers.

The essence of autonomy is feeling trusted to make decisions. If someone else can just veto whatever decisions you make, then you’re not really all that autonomous.

No other country joined the United States in recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan, but U.S. recognition is still significant. Yet this is far from the first time that the United States has directly undermined international law for Israel’s benefit. Since 1972, the U.S. has used its veto power at the UN Security Council to shield Israel from forty-four resolutions criticizing its behavior or calling on it to comply with international law and UN

In their desire to root out tyranny once and for all, the members of the state conventions who drafted the new constitutions stripped the new elected governors of much of the power that the royal governors had exercised. No longer would governors have the authority to create electoral districts, control the meeting of the assemblies, veto legislation, grant lands, establish courts of law, issue charters of incorporation to towns, or, in some states, even pardon crimes.

How would you bring peace and eliminate racism in the presence of hegemony powers, carrying veto as well?

this is far from the first time that the United States has directly undermined international law for Israel’s benefit. Since 1972, the U.S. has used its veto power at the UN Security Council to shield Israel from forty-four resolutions criticizing its behavior or calling on it to comply with international law and UN resolutions.3 That is by far the highest total of vetoes of any country over that time span, and it doesn’t account for resolutions that countries abandoned or withdrew because of the threat of a U.S. veto. That would be a far greater number.

For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” —Luke 6:45 (NIV) One morning before a church meeting, I made the sign of the cross over my mouth as a quick prayer to keep me from saying negative or critical things. All went well until the end, when we discussed trying a new form of worship. Suddenly, a quick criticism fell right out of my mouth: “The powers that be won’t like it, and they’ll probably veto it.” I immediately felt a twinge of guilt, but I pretended nothing was wrong. After the meeting I knew it was time to visit the prayer chapel. As I knelt, I recalled that last Sunday in class we’d seen a video where the speaker had two glasses filled to the brim with beads. When he knocked them together, several beads popped out of both of them because of the impact. The speaker explained that we can’t blame other people for bringing out the worst in us because nothing can come out of us that’s not already in there to begin with. I left the chapel knowing I had been forgiven, but I still felt I’d let down God and myself. Driving home, I hit road-construction traffic and turned off on a street I rarely take. As I was passing a church, my eye caught a message board sign out front. “Jesus still loves you” was all it said. I let out a deep cleansing breath, thankful that not only are God’s mercies new every morning but so is His unchanging love. Dear Jesus, show me the hidden places inside of me where I need Your mercies every morning, so I can live better days for You. Amen. —Karen Barber Digging Deeper: Jl 2:12–13; Heb 4:16

Here are the words of Osama bin Laden from a videotape released on September 8, 2007: “To preface, I say: despite America being the greatest economic power and possessing the most powerful and up-to-date military arsenal as well; and despite it spending on this war and its army more than the entire world spends on its armies; and despite it being the major state influencing the policies of the world, as if it has a monopoly on the unjust right of veto; despite all of this, 19 young men were able – by the grace of Allah, the Most High - to change the direction of its compass.

At least one anointed bar raiser would participate in every interview process and would have the power to veto a candidate who did not meet the goal of raising the company’s overall hiring bar.

Veto and United Nations *** * The legalized offence, as a veto, even having consensus, displays and depicts the United Nations and its organs. * The Security Council's veto embarrasses and ignores the United Nations core principle of small and large states equality; indeed, it's the judicial truth. * The world peace stays a dream and is impossible that until the veto power holders become unable to practice veto-dragon since that causes injustice, wars, and destruction.

Experiments published in 1983 clearly showed that subjects could choose not to perform a movement that was on the cusp of occurring (that is, that their brain was preparing to make) and that was preceded by a large readiness potential. In this view, although the physical sensation of an urge to move is initiated unconsciously, will can still control the outcome by vetoing the action. Later researchers, in fact, reported readiness potentials that precede a planned foot movement not by mere milliseconds but by almost two full seconds, leaving free won’t an even larger window of opportunity. “Conscious will could thus affect the outcome of the volitional process even though the latter was initiated by unconscious cerebral processes,” Libet says. “Conscious will might block or veto the process, so that no act occurs.” Everyone, Libet continues, has had the experience of “vetoing a spontaneous urge to perform some act. This often occurs when the urge to act involves some socially unacceptable consequence, like an urge to shout some obscenity at the professor.” Volunteers report something quite consistent with this view of the will as wielding veto power. Sometimes, they told Libet, a conscious urge to move seemed to bubble up from somewhere, but they suppressed it. Although the possibility of moving gets under way some 350 milliseconds before the subject experiences the will to move, that sense of will nevertheless kicks in 150 to 200 milliseconds before the muscle moves—and with it the power to call a halt to the proceedings. Libet’s findings suggest that free will operates not to initiate a voluntary act but to allow or suppress it. “We may view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as ‘bubbling up’ in the brain,” he explains. “The conscious will then selects which of these initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and abort…. This kind of role for free will is actually in accord with religious and ethical strictures. These commonly advocate that you ‘control yourself.’ Most of the Ten Commandments are ‘do not’ orders.” And all five of the basic moral precepts of Buddhism are restraints: refraining from killing, from lying, from stealing, from sexual misconduct, from intoxicants. In the Buddha’s famous dictum, “Restraint everywhere is excellent.

large organizations are designed for stability and control, and are full of people with veto power over new ideas and initiatives. They are the “designated doubters.

He clasped the amulet around her neck. "It's only a symbol," she said in a drowsy kind of way. "Only a symbol of the power inside me." "Then feel that power," Veto urged. She glanced at him. It was too late. But as she continued to stare into Veto's fading eyes something happened. She realized instinctively that the real power had always been inside her. It was something no one could steal from her. She could feel the energy building, pulsing through her like a jaguar in the night. Her gift of premonition and the amulet were only symbols. She understood now that Maggie had wanted her to realize this for herself; she had never stopped being a Daughter of the Moon. If Maggie had simply told her that she had the ability to stand against evil without using violence, or her gift, then she never would have found the self-confidence and faith that she felt rising in her now.

In Poland, the governing Law and Justice Party had several of its initiatives blocked by the Constitutional Tribunal—the country’s highest authority on constitutional matters—between 2005 and 2007. When the party returned to power in 2015, it took steps to avoid similar losses in the future. At the time, there were two openings in the fifteen-member Constitutional Tribunal and three justices who were approved by the outgoing parliament but had yet to be sworn in. In a dubiously constitutional move, the new Law and Justice government refused to swear in the three justices and instead imposed five new justices of its own. For good measure, it then passed a law requiring that all binding Constitutional Tribunal decisions have a two-thirds majority. This effectively gave government allies a veto power within the tribunal, limiting the body’s ability to serve as an independent check on governmental power.

The exact definition of veto disregards the small and the developed states, and it is also a visible idiocy of the member states of the United Nations that they confer a veto right on those powers that are already superpowers of the world. Such states exercise their hegemony and devious interests to oppress and victimize weak states. Change is necessary to eliminate judicial bigotry and unfairness, global racism, and unjust international conduct for the sake of peace and prosperity in every society.

Consensus certainly has its merits. There is something very appealing about having unanimous support for an agreement or decision. But the more people who have veto power, the fewer the degrees of freedom you have to structure a satisfactory deal, because there are too many demands on the limited resources available.

Consensus deals can be shortsighted. As the number of parties with veto power increases, the degrees of freedom for deal structuring decreases.

Being the World’s Most Powerful Leader is Easier Than You Think One of my first executive orders was to impose a moratorium on any new federal government hiring. That got the “Incredible Shrinking Government” meal simmering. Veto stamps branded into any Congressional salary increase proposal added a certain singed aroma.