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- Manlobbi
Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy❤
No. of Recommendations: 18
If you want to vote for Republicans for every office other than the Presidency, that's your business. But a vote for Trump is a vote against America.
"In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution."
Those are Dick Cheney's exact words. If you think you know more about American politics than he does, consider the possibility that you're wrong about that and that you could be making one of the gravest errors of your lifetime.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/republican-former...
No. of Recommendations: 3
Those are Dick Cheney's exact words.
So? Shrug..
Of course Cheney will not vote for Trump. He hates Trump.
Trump made a laughingstock out of his daughter Liz Cheney and she lost
her reelection bid.
No. of Recommendations: 2
No, it’s not.
If you want to beat Trump, run competent candidates. Have coherent policies.
If you don’t want to do that, that’s on you, not us.
No. of Recommendations: 2
It's amazing that Trump Hate catapults Dick Halliburton Iraq War Patriot Act Cheney.....into status of a Constitutional Champion.
The only good part of he gets his way is you people get shoved into more wars.
Another trillion dollar bill is due.
I'm confident Cheney-Harris is on it.
Because she has no idea but the people around her will.
Ask George W how that works.
No. of Recommendations: 11
DOPE: run competent candidates. Have coherent policies.
Oh, the irony.
No. of Recommendations: 4
DOPE: run competent candidates. Have coherent policies.
Oh, the irony.
****
Trump:
Secure the border with Mexico.
Harris: Yeah, me too. That!
Trump:
Tarrifs
Harris: Yeah me too. That!
Trump:
Fracking is good. Frack away.
Harris: Yeah, me too. That!!!
Harris copies Trump. I guess that means Trump holds her leash too in addition to Obama and Biden's people along with Cheney and Halliburton.
No. of Recommendations: 3
I’m convinced that a lot of our sparring partners don’t really know anything about politics and/or the people they “support”. It’s just too easy to see that they have no idea what’s going on in Kamalaland like you just did…
No. of Recommendations: 14
If you want to beat Trump, run competent candidates. Have coherent policies.
How odd that a in the last 35 years the Republican Presidential candidate has managed to get more votes than the Democrat exactly once.
Didn’t do it in 1992. Or 1996. Or 2000. Or 2008. Or 2012. Or 2016. Or 2020.
Did manage it in 2004.
The Republicans have scraped by hanging onto the office roughly half the time thanks to the long outdated system of weighting set up 250 years ago by our farmer forebearers. Like the theory that Senators should be selected by State Legislatures, not the people, I remain confident that this anachronism will be removed at some point, or that the Republic will fail as it continues to enshrine a minority leader over the will of the majority.
Meanwhile, how’s that log in your eye?
No. of Recommendations: 6
Glass houses, there, Dope1. You're supporting the convict.
I don't plan to watch the debate, but if I have nothing else to do I might. They aren't really debates, anyway.
My vote is already set (against the convict and rapist). I would have a quandary if Harris was of similar character. Fortunately, she's not.
As a side note, it would be humorous -to me- if the convict was responsible for the first female POTUS. Especially because another MAGA-moron (McSally) was responsible for the Reps losing BOTH senate seats in AZ. If Harris wins, it will in no small part be due to the odiousness of the convict.
No. of Recommendations: 3
...I remain confident that this anachronism will be removed at some point,...It's already in-process. States are -slowly- enacting a pact wherein the candidate with the popular votes gets the electoral votes. They don't have enough states yet, but it seems inevitable as more agree to the pact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vot...
No. of Recommendations: 13
DOPE I’m convinced that a lot of our sparring partners don’t really know anything about politics and/or the people they “support”. It’s just too easy to see that they have no idea what’s going on in Kamalaland like you just did…
ME No, Kamala's position on tariffs is very different.
SNIP: Vice President Kamala Harris has backed the Biden administration’s targeted tariffs on only certain Chinese imports – such as a 100% rate on electric cars and a 50% rate on solar panels – arguing it will bolster domestic manufacturing without causing wider economic damage.
Former President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has proposed an across-the-board rate of “more than” 60% on Chinese imports, and a rate of 10% – or even 20% – on all other imports, in order to revive the U.S. manufacturing sector and reduce reliance on foreign trade.
ME: Fracking? Her view is different and adopted before she became VP.
SNIP Harris told CNN’s Dana Bash that she believed progress on climate change was possible without a ban on the oil extraction practice, pointing to the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act that included investments in clean energy...
...Harris had called for a fracking ban in 2019 while campaigning for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 presidential primary.
She switched her view on fracking after dropping out of the primary race and before President Joe Biden selected her as a running mate. SNIP
ME: Border? Very different, and I just discussed part of it with 1pg, so please read that."
Border crossings have dropped precipitously due to Biden's efforts of "right way" and "wrong way" for asylum, etc., that discourages border crossings. I'm still puzzling over parts of it, but it is very different from the inhumane threats of internment camps, mass deportations made by a desperate Trump.
But for some right wingers ignoring and pretending is a way of life.
No. of Recommendations: 4
How odd that a in the last 35 years the Republican Presidential candidate has managed to get more votes than the Democrat exactly once.
Thanks for illustrating the genius of The Founders, who were wise enough not to allow a few ill-informed areas of the country dominate our politics.
And thanks for playing.
No. of Recommendations: 3
With modern lawfare anyone can become a convict. If Trump was HALF as bad as you say, you’d know that. But since he isn’t, you don’t.
Literally none of you folks knows a thing about Harris. You’re just voting for her because 1) she has a ‘d’ after her name 2) she’s a woman and 3)you hate Trump more than you love your favorite sports team. Every post makes my point for me.
I vote on policy; liberals, on emotions. It’s really that simple.
No. of Recommendations: 6
Literally none of you folks knows a thing about Harris. You’re just voting for her because 1) she has a ‘d’ after her name 2) she’s a woman and 3)you hate Trump more than you love your favorite sports team. Every post makes my point for me.
This illustrates my point that ignoring and pretending is a way of life with some right wingers.
No. of Recommendations: 3
Thanks for illustrating the genius of The Founders, who were wise enough not to allow a few ill-informed areas of the country dominate our politics.
And thanks for playing. - Dope
---------------
I find a little irony that the liberals bemoan the electoral college where six or seven swing states decide the outcome of the election. Their remedy of direct popular vote reduces the deciding factor to just three or four high population states.
No. of Recommendations: 4
I find a little irony that the liberals bemoan the electoral college where six or seven swing states decide the outcome of the election. Their remedy of direct popular vote reduces the deciding factor to just three or four high population states.
They don’t pay attention to details because all any of them care about is winning. Getting and keeping power, the power to exert their will over others is all they’re about, sadly. Principles and wanting to do the right things aren’t in the equation.
No. of Recommendations: 9
Thanks for illustrating the genius of The Founders, who were wise enough not to allow a few ill-informed areas of the country dominate our politics.
And thanks for confirming what we already knew; you hate democracy.
No. of Recommendations: 12
With modern lawfare anyone can become a convict
First you admitted you don’t believe in democracy.
Now you claim you don’t believe in our legal system.
Certainly explains why you’re a Trump supporter.
No. of Recommendations: 10
I find a little irony that the liberals bemoan the electoral college where six or seven swing states decide the outcome of the election. Their remedy of direct popular vote reduces the deciding factor to just three or four high population states.
Mike,
The Senate was designed to give disproportionate power to small states.
Giving that same disproportionate power to small states in a national election is clearly undemocratic. The electoral college has allowed minority rule which is NOT how a democracy works.
One person one vote. That’s how democracy works.
The Founding fathers figured out how to limit the tyranny of the majority (Bill of Rights, Senate) but they didn’t put limits on the tyranny of the minority because they didn’t envision its possibility.
No. of Recommendations: 6
They don’t pay attention to details because all any of them care about is winning. Getting and keeping power, the power to exert their will over others is all they’re about, sadly. Principles and wanting to do the right things aren’t in the equation.
Irony is dead.
No. of Recommendations: 16
Their remedy of direct popular vote reduces the deciding factor to just three or four high population states.
No it doesn’t. It makes a vote in New York count exactly the same as one in Montana. Or anywhere else. I’m not amazed that Conservatives can’t understand this, since it would remove the obvious advantage in having rural votes count more than suburban or urban votes.
But if you think the way to preserve a Republic is to give some people greater vote than others, that’s your right. It’s shortsighted and stupid, but it’s your right.
“Some are more equal than others”. Remember?
No. of Recommendations: 6
I find a little irony that the liberals bemoan the electoral college where six or seven swing states decide the outcome of the election. Their remedy of direct popular vote reduces the deciding factor to just three or four high population states.
We'd have much less of a problem if y'all didn't scheme to suppress the vote and gerrymander to the extreme, and then deny it. Every once in a while someone on your side says the quiet part out loud.
No. of Recommendations: 2
Their remedy of direct popular vote reduces the deciding factor to just three or four high population states.
No it doesn’t. It makes a vote in New York count exactly the same as one in Montana.
Yes, each person's vote has the same weight, but obviously, the weight of a state's vote is proportional to its population.
That's not a problem for me and is as it should be since it's truly democratic: one person, one vote. How the U.S. is divvied up into states - or even if there were no states at all - should make no difference to the implementation of Democracy. The Electoral College is a relic that has to go.
No. of Recommendations: 2
The Republicans have scraped by hanging onto the office roughly half the time thanks to the long outdated system of weighting set up 250 years ago by our farmer forebearers. Like the theory that Senators should be selected by State Legislatures, not the people, I remain confident that this anachronism will be removed at some point, or that the Republic will fail as it continues to enshrine a minority leader over the will of the majority.
A local right winger wrote an op-ed for our little weekly newspaper extolling the virtues of the electoral college, when it has no virtue in a democracy. He also repeated the right wing lie that justifies minority rule: our nation is a republic not a democracy. Wrong. It is a democratic republic. The framers of the Constitution didn't put the word democracy into the document but in other writings they frequently referred to the fledgling nation as a democracy.
The electoral college is probably the single worst mistake in the Constitution. It disenfranchises all the voters who don't live in the handful of states whose electoral college votes count. It gives the voters of states with tiny populations, like Wyoming, vastly more power than voters in populous states like California.
The most important vote we get to cast is the only one where the majority does not win. Ridiculous. And I can guarantee you, that if the electoral college was benefitting Democrats, the GOP would be saying it must be changed.
No. of Recommendations: 4
DOPE I’m convinced that a lot of our sparring partners don’t really know anything about politics and/or the people they “support”. It’s just too easy to see that they have no idea what’s going on in Kamalaland like you just did…
Says the guy who supports a blithering IDIOT!
You are irony in the flesh.
No. of Recommendations: 3
First you admitted you don’t believe in democracy.
Now you claim you don’t believe in our legal system.
Certainly explains why you’re a Trump supporter.
To support Trump is to deny reality.
It is a cult.
No. of Recommendations: 2
hey don’t pay attention to details because all any of them care about is winning. Getting and keeping power, the power to exert their will over others is all they’re about, sadly. Principles and wanting to do the right things aren’t in the equation.
Really? And you support a fascist wannabe? Wow.
No. of Recommendations: 3
The arguments for national popular vote -
Some made here - are as specious as they get.
It’s irrelevant who wins the popular count because the Presidency isn’t contested that way. If it was, the whole thing would be treated differently.
These schemes of trying to rig the electoral college are dead the second they hit federal court.
No. of Recommendations: 3
The arguments for national popular vote -
Some made here - are as specious as they get.
We wouldn't have such a problem with it if it wasn't for voter suppression and extreme gerrymandering by the GOP. You're not satisfied with the thumb on the scale the founders compromised on.
No. of Recommendations: 2
And I can guarantee you, that if the electoral college was benefitting Democrats, the GOP would be saying it must be changed. - ges
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No doubt. But the question is, would you libs stand on principle, and join the Republicans push for elimination even though it eliminates a dem advantage?
No. of Recommendations: 2
No doubt. But the question is, would you libs stand on principle, and join the Republicans push for elimination even though it eliminates a dem advantage?
You Republicans need to eliminate voter suppression tactics and gerrymandering first- then we'll discuss principles.
No. of Recommendations: 10
The arguments for national popular vote -
Some made here - are as specious as they get.
Why?
How about this...
Renowned Constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky was asked what would he fix if he could only fix one thing in the US Constitution. He replied: "If I could pick any reform in the Constitution, I would eliminate the electoral college".
But he also says he can't think of a way to get rid of the electoral college except by Constitutional amendment and that is nearly impossible. The states that benefit from the electoral college aren't going to vote to eliminate it.
When the Constitution was written the difference between the most populous and least populous states was bout 9 to 1. Now the difference between California and Wyoming is 68 to 1.
To protect the less populous states we've already got the 2 senators per state regardless of population. The electoral college was a mistake at the outset and was a compromise that helped get the slave states to sign on. It is undemocratic. The nation-wide election of POTUS should be by popular vote. Arguments for the electoral college are what is 'specious'.
Right now the minority rule system we've got is helping the Republicans, thus their "we're a Republic not a democracy" and the "electoral college was handed down by God" nonsense. If the situation was reversed and this skewed system was helping the democrats the Republicans would be screaming about getting rid of the electoral college.
No. of Recommendations: 1
He replied: "If I could pick any reform in the Constitution, I would eliminate the electoral college"
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My choice would be term limits for congress.
No. of Recommendations: 0
My choice would be term limits for congress.
Universal right to bear arms and a Swiss-style debt brake. I’ll be posting about that later.
No. of Recommendations: 5
Universal right to bear arms and a Swiss-style debt brake. I’ll be posting about that later.
Why is a Universal right to bear arms important to you?
Tromp added trillions to the debt and he's your guy. No cognitive dissonance?
No. of Recommendations: 12
"I find a little irony that the liberals bemoan the electoral college where six or seven swing states decide the outcome of the election. Their remedy of direct popular vote reduces the deciding factor to just three or four high population states."
Huh?
Maybe you don't understand how a popular vote works. It doesn't depend upon states. It depends upon individual people regardless of where they live. A person's vote in Wyoming is the same as a person's vote in California. When you stupidly vote for Trump, your vote counts the same regardless of which state you are in.
How can you not understand this?
Now, maybe you are just playing dumb because you know Republicans and Trump would constantly lose badly under a popular vote. They have only won one national popular vote in 32 years and they needed the sympathy of 9/11 to do that. Republican policies are very unpopular. The only reason they can win is because of an archaic Electoral College from a long ago different era.
No. of Recommendations: 2
Their remedy of direct popular vote reduces the deciding factor to just three or four high population states."
No, it simply means everyone's vote counts, regardless of where they live. Instead of having the POTUS elected by a handful of states. The electoral college was a mistake, a bug, not a feature.
No. of Recommendations: 2
The electoral college was a mistake, a bug, not a feature.
No, it wasn't.
The process for selecting the President was always intended to preserve the prerogatives of States as States, and not be a direct election by popular vote. At the time the new Constitution was drafted, States were very much viewed as sovereign governments - not political subdivisions of the national government. It's sort of a blend between a federation of countries (like the EU) and a Parliamentary system.
In the EU, the member states' representation in the European Parliament is not entirely proportional to population. It's a recognition that European Parliament is not governing a single unified governmental body, but is in fact a grouping of individual sovereigns that as sovereigns have interests that are different and distinct from a collection of individuals.
Similarly, in Parliamentary systems the head of state isn't chosen directly by the people at all - they are chosen by the MP's. Since it is possible, even common, for a party to have a majority of the MP's without a majority of the popular vote (witness recent UK elections), it's very ordinary for a Prime Minister to be selected by a party (and from a party) that did not garner a popular vote majority.
The Electoral College, like the Senate, was deliberately designed to protect the interests of the smaller sovereign governments from being "overpowered" by the larger populations in the larger states.
We've tried to convert the Presidential election from that hybrid Parliament/"EU-style" system into a direct national election. It doesn't fit entirely well to that purpose. That doesn't mean that this is a bug in the system - we're just trying to use it differently from what it was designed to do.
No. of Recommendations: 1
The process for selecting the President was always intended to preserve the prerogatives of States as States, and not be a direct election by popular vote.
True, that ended up in the Constitution, but it was by no means seen by all the delegates as the best way to elect the POTUS. It was a contentious issue and a means to get the southern states to sign on.
It sure as hell is not the way we should be electing the POTUS now.
No. of Recommendations: 2
True, that ended up in the Constitution, but it was by no means seen by all the delegates as the best way to elect the POTUS. It was a contentious issue and a means to get the southern states to sign on.
Yes. That's the point. The union was formed based on an agreement that there would be a structural guarantee that low-population states would have outsized representation in the Senate and in selecting the President, as an inducement for them to give up the sovereign prerogatives that would come from being independent of the union. Same as with the EU. Countries gave up some of their sovereignty, with the expectation that the EU government would not be purely proportional to population.
It sure as hell is not the way we should be electing the POTUS now.
Not a given. While we've eroded the sovereignty of States (as States) over time (notably the 16th and 17th Amendments), they still have a unique and important role in our government that's different than almost any other nation on earth. Almost everywhere in the world, smaller administrative regions are the creation of the national sovereign and have no independent sovereign authority. We're almost the opposite here - there are vast areas of government where the States and only the States have power to operate, and the national government is the creation of the States - not the other way around. In that way, we're still very much like the EU government. France and Germany and Italy and Spain and all the other countries created the EU; the EU did not create those countries. Which is why the EU continues to have disproportionate representation, to respect and prioritize the sovereignty of the smaller government members.
It's a compromise, and one that still has important effects that line up with the original "bargain" where low-population states gave up their full sovereignty.
No. of Recommendations: 1
No, it simply means everyone's vote counts, regardless of where they live. Instead of having the POTUS elected by a handful of states. The electoral college was a mistake, a bug, not a feature.
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A wise candidate will promote policies that have been purged of any negative effects on those four or five high population states. If you live say in South Dakota, your concerns may not get the same consideration.
