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Electoral College Elects Donald Trump As President (nbcnews.com)
mi writes: The drama is over, Donald J. Trump passed the 270 electoral votes necessary to become President. A few electors dissented, resulting in their prompt dismissal and replacement per their state's laws. Ironically, more dissenters turned on Clinton than on Trump... The sky may not be falling yet, but the Earth is already in peril.
Yet the media will spin like a top to call trump the next hitler and announce the apocalypse because he was elected. Dems lost because hillary sucks, period!
I fear the drama is just beginning.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
There is no stopping him; Trump will soon be president. And I for one welcome our new orange overlord. I’d like to remind him that as a trusted slashdot personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in his underground cheeto dust cave hotels.
(Disclaimer: I didn't vote for the SOB.)
I note that in all the discussion of how Clinton won the popular vote, in CalExit America, she actually lost by about half a million votes. California's vote was that lopsided.
Trump is ... an embarrassment, at best, but the overheated histrionics of the Left wore very very thin a long time ago.
I've been saying for years: Never give powers to your very favorite president in history that you wouldn't want to see in the hands of the president who horrifies you the most. The current administration has spent 8 years weaponizing the Federal government to go after his opponents. For those who applauded that... we'll see how that works out for you in the next 4-8 years.
Maybe we'll get some actual consensus that federalism and limited powers are a good thing again. If so, a Trump presidency might be just the medicine we need, no matter how bad it tastes.
This story was submitted by mi, who is pretty much a partisan hack. It's written with little substance and is very misleading about the faithless electors. Although a couple of Democratic electors attempted to switch their vote to Sanders, that's not the main reason for faithless electors from that party. And two faithless Republican electors from Texas cast a single vote each for Kasich and Ron Paul. One of the faithless Democratic electors cast a protest vote because of the North Dakota pipeline. The others were actually casting votes for Republican candidates other than Trump to try to entice Republican electors to join them and send the election to the House of Representatives. That's why three Democratic faithless electors cast votes for Colin Powell. The story is so misleading and lacks so much substance that it's an embarrassment, even for Slashdot.
It's better than having Cliton in office. You dumbass Democrats should have voted Bernie, then this wouldn't have happened. But noooo.
I hope to gods that i'm wrong about Trump. I'm worried because i'm not sure what he'll do (though it certainly seems like he's already heading in a bad direction.) And i'm worried because no one else is sure what he'll do either.
But for the sake of our country and our planet i sure hope it's everyone who voted for him saying "see, i told you so!" in four years, instead of everyone who voted against him saying "see, i told you so!" in rather less than four years.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
And so it will be best to look at who is standing behind Trump. The United States has another dull-witted Republican in charge. So, as with GWB, look at the VP and senior members of the cabinets, with the additional fun that now Trump's kids, and by all accounts Ivanka and her husband in particular, will play significant roles in the administration.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Now we get to see just how powerless the President really is, or is not.
Jan 6th is the real election. The House will never allow him to rule us.
Fun Fact: The majority of emissions in the US come from states which literally are taking action, no matter what the feds say.
Fun Fact: US solar power (in annual output per device) literally doubled in the last three months.
Fun Fact: All - and I do mean all - fossil fuels are much more expensive than both solar and wind. Today. In the USA.
Fun Fact: plug in electric vehicles - which are mostly used in cities which have green energy, and are frequently charged by solar panels - literally doubled in the US during the last six months. There's a factory in Detroit that churns out 600 of them a day. Range 200 miles on a charge. Costs less than 30k.
It really doesn't matter what you do, we're changing the world already. And we will leave you in the dust with more efficient, CHEAPER, green energy and more efficient factories.
Capitalism doesn't care about your failed ideology or your political persuasions. It literally does. not. care.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
And a barbarian sat on the throne of Rome
Drill baby drill - on Mars
She did win the popular vote though.
The popular vote is trivia. Neither side was trying to win the popular vote. They spent their time and money to maximize the electoral. If the popular was the goal then they would have spent their time and money very different and we would have a very different popular vote as a result. Focusing on the popular vote is like focusing on the fact that the losing team in a football game moved the ball more yards. Interesting but neither team was trying for that.
As opposed the the dems selling out to Saudi Arabia and going to war with Russia ?
I can only imagine the outcry, if HRC had won and the republicans were asking to ignore the votes of Americans, because they voted incorrectly. Seriously, the people who were honestly hoping that the electoral college voters would ignore the votes of the people of their states, and simply disenfranchise however many million voters it would take, just so they can get their way?
I personally think Trump will be a horrible, horrible president. I cannot imagine any good coming from his presidency. The world climate alone may never recover. My only hope is that he will do something that can get him impeached relatively quickly, before too much damage can be done. Having said that, I still cannot understand the thought process behind attempting to tell 50% of the country, "your vote doesn't count, unless you vote the way you are supposed to". If that actually happened, the utter and complete demise of any semblance of democracy in the USA would have happened, and there would either be a) a revolt, or b) a new, non-democratic country.
Um, who do you think won the popular vote?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Oh we are not fucked. The sun will still come up tomorrow, the sky isn't falling and Trump isn't going to destroy the planet. We are going to be just fine.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
Obama did a few odds/ends executive orders that could have been shut down by Congress if they cared to bother. Mostly he didn't lock up non-violent drug offenders and he didn't go out of his way to deport illegal immigrants who were holding down jobs (though his admin still did a fuck load of deporting). The right didn't care that much about #1 and actively support #2 so long as they don't have to admit it to their base (they can't get enough of that sweet, sweet cheap labor).
We don't need federalism. The federal gov't were the ones that put a stop to the farce that was "Separate but Equal". They broke up the Trusts. They enabled the Unions that created the middle class. They bring in real and effective disaster relief and keep our shipping ports open. The State governments have proven themselves powerless to stand against even the smallest tyrannies time and time again. Look at Flint, Mi's Water supply (that Gov Snyder is still fighter the cleanup of) and the complete breakdown in Democracy it represented.
What's the phrase about small gov'ts? Small enough to drown in a bathtub? That's your democracy. Small enough to drown in a bathtub...
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Well I hope other countries in the world will insist he register as a sex offender if he wishes to visit.
However I honestly doubt he will even see a year in office before he is impeached. There is no way his ego will allow him to miss opportunities to use the position of president for personal financial gain.
Will Trump ever release his tax records, no way, if he did that people would better be able to monitor what he is doing. And if people could see them they would realise he is the poster boy for the establishment, sure not the political one, but the financial establishment, the 1%, the ones who caused the financial collapse, the ones who caused people to loose their houses, their jobs, their savings, their security, their pensions.
Trump could cause irreparable damage to the US, and I think future scholars will study this period of US history trying to find out what caused the implosion of the US economy.
I voted for Johnson in a state where it didn't matter, but I wish I and most of the other Johnson voters had swallowed our pride and voted for Trump so he'd have his majority. Every passing day with every passing bit of left-wing craziness over Trump's win makes me that much more glad that Hillary lost. If her supporters are so bad-shit insane over a loss, I dread how they'd've behaved with a win.
I was going to bitch about linking that fucking goddamned WaPo article complaining about all the darned country bumpkins who are too stupid to understand AGW, but then I saw that mi was writing. I wasn't sure mi was capable of sarcasm but stranger things have happened.
The electoral college were the agreed upon rules of the competition, before the competition started. If enough people dislike the system, it can be changed. However everyone who was running for president knew all the rules before the votes were cast. Asking to go back and change the rules based on the results is never a good idea.
She did win the popular vote though.
Yes, only in America can you win by 3 million votes and still somehow lose. Thanks, Electoral College!
Somehow? There is no mystery. She was not trying for the popular vote, both Hillary and Trump were allocating time and money for the electoral vote. If the popular vote were the goal they both would have allocated time and money very differently and that popular vote would have been very different. The current popular vote is a side effect, trivia.
Also its not the electoral college that is the problem. The Electoral College only has a small effect itself, a small bump due to the two electors every state gets that correspond to their Senators, the remaining number of electors corresponding to their House representation which is proportional to population. The real huge bump is due to the states going winner take all. That is a state problem, not a federal problem. Some states do proportional rather than winner take all. Two states?
My only hope is that he will do something that can get him impeached relatively quickly, before too much damage can be done.
Trump has already put a fail-safe in place for that. Unless someone really wants to see Mike Pence as president, they would do their very best to make sure that doesn't happen.
The mountains of madness have many little plateaus of sanity - Terry Pratchett.
I honestly believe that the incoming President Trump showed great insight when he said this:
https://twitter.com/realDonald...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Clinton had more faithless electors than Trump. She had at least 7 - 2 voted for Bernie, and 3 for Powell. One voted for the governor of Ohio, and another for “Faith Spotted Eagle”. However most of those votes didn't count because the elector was automatically replaced or their vote was annulled, depending on the laws of the particular state.
Better known as 318230.
I can only imagine the outcry, if HRC had won and the republicans were asking to ignore the votes of Americans, because they voted incorrectly. Seriously, the people who were honestly hoping that the electoral college voters would ignore the votes of the people of their states, and simply disenfranchise however many million voters it would take, just so they can get their way?
I personally think Trump will be a horrible, horrible president. I cannot imagine any good coming from his presidency. The world climate alone may never recover. My only hope is that he will do something that can get him impeached relatively quickly, before too much damage can be done. Having said that, I still cannot understand the thought process behind attempting to tell 50% of the country, "your vote doesn't count, unless you vote the way you are supposed to". If that actually happened, the utter and complete demise of any semblance of democracy in the USA would have happened, and there would either be a) a revolt, or b) a new, non-democratic country.
Can you imagine the outcry if China had hacked the RNC and tipped the election so that HCR won? Do you really think that all we'd have at this point would be a bipartisan call by the handful of remaining still rational Rep. and Dem. senators for action, a call that will come to nothing, and a few media personalities expressing 'concern'? We'd have a full scale armed uprising on our hans complete with convoys of camo coloured pickup trucks full of tacticool 2nd amendment people carrying tricked out M4s and AK-47s cruising through the streets and sweeping house to house looking for 'librul China lovin traitors'.
... Trump isn't going to destroy the planet. We are going to be just fine.
On the other hand, "the planet" and "we" are not one in the same.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
The Dems? Last I checked, it was the Bushes who had relationships with members of the House of Saud so close that they were considered part of their family and co-owned businesses with the Binladens.
Democrats haven't been this mad since Republicans freed their slaves
You are equally at fault. You should have elected literally any other candidate in the Democratic primary.
Somehow, viable Democrats (Bernie is really an Independent) seem to have stayed out of the primary this year. Its really strange, there was no Democratic incumbent running for re-election. There should have been a wide selection of viable candidates like in 2008, as happens all the time in non-incumbent years. But somehow, no big names but Hillary showed up. Yes there was the token opponent who mostly agreed with Hillary and said she would be a good President; and there was the Independent Bernie who re-registered to run as a Democrat. How was there not a contested field like in 2008?
My only hope is that he will do something that can get him impeached relatively quickly, ...
By a Republican controlled House of Representatives *and* Senate? Don't hold your breath.
From: Impeachment in the United States:
The House of Representatives has the sole power of impeaching, while the United States Senate has the sole power to try all impeachments. The removal of impeached officials is automatic upon conviction in the Senate.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Except that the whole point of the electoral college is that electors can block the winner if they don't like the result. If you take faithless electors out of the equation, then there's no longer any point to having an electoral college.
It was whitelash.. Wait, no it was fraud... Oh, no it was fake news... What? wait - didn't I say it was Russian hackers? I can't think straight while under all this sniper fire!
Tards - plain and simple.
I can get a 4 door death mobile (Versa/Elantra/Fit/Yaris) for 1/3 that. Yeah, I won't survive a crash with an SUV, but looking at what I'm driving you gotta ask yourself, do I want to?
And your right about Capitalism. It doesn't give a rats ass. When food becomes scarce because of climate change that's just more profits for the folks who own the farms. Sure, 10% of the population will starve (that seems to be the # you can really take a dump on before you get problems) but hey, Capitalism doesn't care about anything. Especially morality and human suffering.
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To be fair over 50% of the country already got told that their vote doesn't count. The electoral system is a farce that can't die soon enough. I had hoped that enough of the electoral college defected from Trump that it would get smashed afterwards by him even if he won.
So you'd prefer a "People's Republic" over a "Union of States"? I agree that the Electoral College should be abolished, but we need something more on the lines of one State one vote.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
I voted for her too, mainly because "None of the above" was not an option.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
The Estimates 25 mill saudi arabia donated to the clinton foundation ?
Obama weaponized the IRS against his foes, he expanded all the spying regimes, started killing US citizens with drones in deliberately targeted attacks, and prosecuted more leakers than ever. Inasmuch as this is the most transparent administration ever, we have Wikileaks to thank for that.
What kind of fake news have you been watching, CNN?
Still racist, sexist, islamophobic, cis-centric, and culturally appropriating away that which rightly belongs to the curvature of spacetime. How's arithmetic?
Somehow, viable Democrats (Bernie is really an Independent) seem to have stayed out of the primary this year. Its really strange, there was no Democratic incumbent running for re-election. There should have been a wide selection of viable candidates like in 2008, as happens all the time in non-incumbent years. But somehow, no big names but Hillary showed up. Yes there was the token opponent who mostly agreed with Hillary and said she would be a good President; and there was the Independent Bernie who re-registered to run as a Democrat. How was there not a contested field like in 2008?
Interestingly, the Wikileaks dump had this snippet about Joe Biden:
Ron Klain, a Democrat stalwart who served as chief of staff to Biden and Vice President Al Gore, sent an email to Podesta suggesting the Clinton campaign wasn’t sitting idly by while Biden was agonizing as to whether or not to stage a campaign for president, just months after the tragic death of his son Beau.
“It’s been a little hard for me to play such a role in the Biden demise – and I am definitely dead to them — but I’m glad to be on Team HRC, and glad that she had a great debate last night,” he wrote to Podesta and Clinton Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri.
I make no judgement about this - it's how politics is done - but note that Joe Biden would probably have been a stronger opponent than HRC was.
China won't go to war because Trump phoned with the president of Taiwan. They may not like it but they're not such fools as to start a war over it that would be bad for anyone involved.
There is no stopping him; Trump will soon be president. And I for one welcome our new orange overlord. I’d like to remind him that as a trusted slashdot personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in his underground cheeto dust cave hotels.
Dude, awesome post!
Except that the whole point of the electoral college is that electors can block the winner if they don't like the result.
Or one could say the point of the electoral college is that sometimes the popular vote is a bad choice.
"His name was James Damore."
A guy who claims he knows more than all the generals.
Which, of course, explains why he's hired complete lap dogs like General "Mad Dog" Mattis. Mattis is well-known for his soft-spoken manner, desire to "go along to get along" and his political finesse. The troops hate him and his military record is a joke.
OK, there's only so much sarcasm I can spew before I choke. Point being, Trump is doing what any skilled executive does and that's surrounding himself with people who are damn good at what they do. Trump is shoring up his weak points by finding strong people. You may not like his picks but it's difficult to argue that each one of them aren't formidable in their own arena.
I don't think you're the least bit frightened of a bad President Trump. You're terrified he'll be a good President. You're scared he WON'T destroy civil liberties, round up gays, or wipe his ass with the Constitution. That'd be the ultimate terror attack on your ideology, wouldn't it? That his policies might be effective and actually good for the country, thus proving your ideas are, at best, not worthwhile.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Also, Democrats seem to like the idea of a limited federal government again.
"His name was James Damore."
So the ECOTUS voted for the POTUS, and then the POTUS can try to appoint a new SCROTUS to sit on the SCOTUS and interpret the COTUS for the POTUS.
Mind you, the ROTUSES on the HOTUS can block any SCROTUS chosen by the POTUS to sit on the SCOTUS.
So, 4 years of status quo at worse, and impeachment at best,
The only slips of paper that mattered this election said "pay to the order of" or were green.
voting, does not matter. It does not matter who the POTUS is, who the FLOTUS is, who the SCROTUSES or even ROTUSES are. Your nearest lobbyist is your point of contact to get the job done.
Writing letters to the ROTUSES, CMOTUSES, or even the POTUS is about as useful as praying.
I would imagine the reverse if Hillary had been supported by Chinese hackers (according to most experts in this alternate reality).
In reality, the whole point of the electoral college is to 1) double-guess the voters and 2) maintain power for slave states. I think there is no hope that the electoral college can do 1, because if the EC had called HRC due to defectors, then the far right wing probably would've violently responded. It honestly could've been worse than Putin-supported Trump. So that point of the EC is impotent. The electors won't check ignorance in or deception of the populace, even in the case of foreign influence. Things are simply too partisan for the electors to function as a safety valve.
And 2 is hardly a good reason for the electoral college, though it no doubt was essential in getting the slave states agree to become part of the US. And we still have traces of this racist past in felon laws, voter ID laws, removal of sufficient polling places in certain districts, etc.
So I think the EC is largely an artifact of the past. If we just went with a straight popular vote, it'd be more fair, and it'd require appealing to a wider voter base. Perhaps Trump could've still won, but he probably couldnt afford quite so many winks and nods toward the real racist elements in our population (who were not a majority of his voters but were his most ardent supporters). And that would be a superior result.
The main arguments against going for such a system is that it shifts the balance of power away from disproportionately favoring certain voters. So it's unlikely to change anytime soon.
It might be for the best if defectors were simply not allowed.
Um, who do you think won the popular vote?
Nobody, because there is no "popular vote" for President of the US.
"Popular vote" is a fiction invented by those who are unhappy that their candidate lost the election, or by those who won and want to claim some "huge mandate from the public" to do something. The rest of us know what it takes to win.
It is ridiculous to assume that the "popular vote" would be the same were it the actual system in use to elect the President, and that's why it is ridiculous to assume it means anything when it is not. If the voters (and candidates) operated under a "popular vote" system, the results could be, and probably would be, very much different. There are too many instances of people who don't bother voting because they know their state will go to the "other person". For example, if you live in California why bother voting for a Republican president when you know that the Democrat is going to win anyway? Many of those non-votes would have voted had "popular vote" been the rule of the day, and it is unlikely that the California statewide vote total would have been as lopsided as it was. Or maybe it would be. That's the point -- you can't know until it happens, and it didn't happen.
If we just went with a straight popular vote, it'd be more fair...
For whom? People who live in the smaller states that have different interests than those of the more populous ones? I know it's hard to remember, but the US is the United States, a union of states.
and it'd require appealing to a wider voter base.
Oh, please. It would result in appealing to the people in the most populous states and ignoring those in smaller states, which is not "a wider voter base".
It might be for the best if defectors were simply not allowed.
It might be for the best if the electors were not harassed and threatened by members of the loser's party to try to get them to ignore their pledge and promise and vote for the loser.
Absolutely on target. And with the Department of Justice behind him, anyone who claims that he isn't the best president ever will be sued into silence, permanently.
Can you imagine the outcry if China had hacked the RNC and tipped the election so that HCR won?
You mean after the sitting Republican president had already claimed there was no evidence of any such influence?
But yes, I can imagine the outcry. It would be a larger version of the rioting and looting and burnings and shootings every time the Daley machine rigged the elections in Chicago. Oh, wait, the Republicans didn't riot or loot when that happened ...
I think they call your "argument" projection. You know what you'd do, and you assume that others would do the same thing. Or you just want to insult others and spread fear.
Seriously, I shouldn't bother posting in political threads. The butt hurt is so strong, I only ever get modded down, despite not trying to troll, but simply not repeating the same line as everyone else. But I'm a glutton for punishment, so I'll bite, again.
The "whole point" of the electoral college is not to block a winner that the college doesn't like. The main effect has always been to elevate the voice of lower population centers. It was clear, even at the start of the country, that more rural areas of the country, while being lower in population, need to have a way to have their voice heard, and their interests protected. The electoral college provides votes for states based on population, but gives a larger voice to the smaller population states. While it is true that states like Florida, California, and New York have very large populations and therefore more electoral votes, the voice of those states alone cannot dictate the course of the country.
But whatever... I'm sure I'm just an ignorant troll, so mod me down accordingly.
94.5% of voters voted for one of the two worst major-party presidential candidates in history.
This country is getting what it deserves.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Or one could say the point of the electoral college is that sometimes the popular vote is a bad choice.
No, the point of the electoral college is that the President is president of the united states and needs to have the interests of ALL the states in mind, not just the few most populous ones. "Bad choice" is highly subjective; the result of the election is a quantitative measure.
But that doesnt use the same fallacious logic as the great grandparent.
"His name was James Damore."
Well, you can spend the next 8 years complaining about Trump and his supporters, or spend the next 4 years coming up with something positive for the Dems to be for (not identity politics, that's inherently negative). If all you've got by then is someone who's against Trump, it will be 2004 all over again. See you in 2020.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
When I think about this election. I can not help but think of Issac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy.. And the various eras of leadership and government the foundation went through.
;)
Maybe we are transitioning from the era of the modern profession elite career politician (which I think may have started with Kennedy). And now it has ended with poor corrupt incompetent status quo leadership. Ending with presidents, Clinton, Bush and Obama. They were not bad presidents, they just were not very good at the job.
To the new era of Corporate Business Tycoons (no elite political background). But (I hope) strong leadership and competence. Maybe the next 50 years will be a succession of Business Tycoons from both political parties. And in 50+ years Business Tycoons will be the corrupt incompetent status quo. And something new will arise.
But that will be for future generations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiro_Agnew
They pretty much use a similar system to pick their candidate for the election. In an odd coincidence she lost the 2008 primary even though she "won" the popular vote. If the dems think the electoral college sucks they can do a test run and show everybody how well the popular vote would work by using it in their primaries. Have the primaries all on one day and popular vote decides the winner. Lets see how that works out.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Yes, it'd be more fair for more people than the current system. That seems as objective of a measurement as we're likely to come up with.
I think that appealing to people proportionately is more fair than giving certain people almost an order of magnitude more voting power per person than others.
Both candidates played under the electoral candidate rules. If the electoral college did not exist they would have used a completely different strategy.
Can you imagine the constitutional crisis had the electoral college not elected Trump? Total loss of faith in the process for at least 1/3 of the population. Pretty much would guarantee a civil war.
They have plenty of other ways to fuck us over.
It was a bit of a worry seeing her in a photo of a meeting between Trump and the Japanese delegation.
Even more of a worry is that since then Japan has legalized casinos (for the first time) and ratified the TPP.
Expect a Trump casino in Japan and expect a Trump backflip on the TPP.
Some of us are not Democrats and still don't like the idea of a King.
Well, the GOP establishment was the most useless bunch of wankers in modern politics, so no loss there. If you object to rule by family line, I can only hope you were against both Clinton and Bush this time around. If you're against the president having too much power, well, the Constitution is a start - now if we could only get a few SCOTUSlings who respected it.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
They could be good in a stopped clock being right kind of way, but they will be good policies for Trump and not necessarily for America.
I think you are in for a long series of shocks that will shake you out of your naive optimism - it's not just gays that are going to get a raw deal.
No, you have it 180 degrees wrong.
Trump does not care what YOU think of him, it is how he views himself that counts.
Look at how he thinks he is a great businessman, truth is he would be in a better position if he had just put the money in the bank earning interest.
He thinks being a "great negotiator" is short changing contractors who don't have the financial means to fight back
He has lost BILLIONS of dollars of other peoples money being "great"
If Trump thought that starting a Nuclear war with China would "make the US Great again", he would do it just so the history books would be full of his name. And the thing is, he probably believes he knows more about war than anyone in the armed forces.
Trump will go his grave believing he was the greatest president ever, the rest of the world will have a different opinion, but that won't matter to Trump.
He's got a track record, so no, he's done very poorly by both measures for his entire life. A noisy amoral trust fund baby that treats everything like a game is unlikely to hatch like a butterfly and achieve your fantasy of being capable.
You really went there? It used to be that opposing autocrats who wished for the power of Kings was very much American instead of anti-American.
29 states plus the District of Confusion have laws that penalize so-called "faithless electors". You can look it up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
One thing's for sure, this has been one long, painful, throbbing election that has lasted a hell of a lot longer than 4 hours!
slashdot: A failed experiment.
We can not force the rest of the world to not emit CO2. The best way to stop them is to make renewable/less polluting power less expensive than coal. In California, we have drought - which is famous for lots of sun and few clouds. Think we can find a better use of land than growing almond trees?
Once we perfect solar, we can bankrupt Texas dirty manufacturing with power that literally falls on us for free from the sky. In the process, we are going to bring lots of jobs and revenue into the state and build up technology export industry for the rest of the world.
Wallowing in self pity over Trump is not solving any problems. Even with Hillary, we would have hard time convincing China, India and Russia to do much about greenhouse gases. Anyone who claims want to save the Earth needs to actually get their hands dirty.
a. Bullshit. The IRS went after a few Right wing 'nonprofits' because they were so obviously political they were easy pickings for lazy auditors. The left doesn't do that because there's a multi-billion dollar media machine that savages them (fox news, briebart, etc, etc)
b. So what? Every president expands the spying regimes. I don't like it, and fuck if I'll defend it, but if you want to get away from that crap then your only way out is to take away the _reason_ people are spying: money. We need this spy network to keep tabs on terrorists. We have terrorists because we have to meddle in other countries affairs so we can all have personal automobiles that guzzle gas. Build a real public transit system. Start up a UBI program so we're not at each other's throats all the time. Get some God Damned Worker Solidarity for Christ's sake and stop letting the mega corps pick you apart like that snake picture of the old colonies.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
but at 6' it's uncomfortable as heck for me and it's also a death trap. My point is that Capitalism isn't going to correct for shit. I'll skip the Yaris and the Plugin. At $30k I'll take half of that, but a 2 year old entry level Sedan, save a few thousand on top of that and put it in my gas tank. I'll also survive the crash I get in (without injuries) like clockwork every 5 years when some numskull on his third week of 7 consecutive 12 hour shifts finally falls asleep at the wheel (thanks again Capitalism).
And Capitalism created White Flight (google it) and the slums that mean I can't safely live anywhere near I work. Buddy of mine lives in one of those 'cheap' houses. He had to stay home a few days this year because somebody shot up his house (stray bullets) and his wife was shook up).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Actually if you read the history of the Electoral College, the framers thought that each state would have the people elect the electors by district and entrust them with finding a suitable candidate. In fact, they assumed the House would decide the election most of the time. Then we had political parties and that stopped pretty damn quickly.
I don't have a problem with the fact that smaller states are overrepresented given the federal nature of our government, and that is the effect, but it was never explicitly the intent. I do have a problem that whoever attains the most votes (even if it isn't a majority) gets all of the electors. They should be assigned by way of proportional representation. Half the votes gets you half the electors. Any reasonable method is acceptable for determining splitting of fractional electors.
The "whole point" of the electoral college is not to block a winner that the college doesn't like.
True. That's a BS claim created out of a misreading of Federalist 68, promoted recently by people like Lawrence Lessig and the so-called "Hamilton Electors." I'm not going to bother rehashing all of this here, because I already explained Federalist 68 in detailed historical context in a post here.
The main effect has always been to elevate the voice of lower population centers.
Well, that's partially true. But if that were the main concern of the Founders, they could have just had Congress pick the President. Or they could have just assigned a set of weighted abstract "votes" to states based on Congressional representation numbers. Instead they chose to have actual Electors. Why? Again, I already explained it before in posts here and here.
For those who need a TL;DR explanation...
Basically, the Electoral College was conceived by the Founders at a time when political parties didn't exist and they couldn't imagine consensus over any candidates extending much beyond state borders. So, they first thought of having people on the national political scene (e.g., Congress) select the President, but they were afraid of corruption. So they came up with this wacky system of the Electoral College which was both designed in very specific (and arcane) ways to make regional candidates "float to the top" (you'll have to read my previous posts to understand how) AND put that power of in the hands of Electors who held no government office (and thus were less likely to collude or be corrupted). They built in all sorts of safeguards to prevent this collusion among Electors, which is why (among other things) they meet in separate states instead of all together.
Anyhow, the entire system was basically rendered useless with the emergence of political parties in 1796. It served some vague function for the next few decades, but became completely useless by the 1820s when most states adopted "general ticket" party-chosen slates of electors, rather than independent free thinking educated folks selected by the states to choose the President.
All of these other more modern justifications for the existence of the Electoral College are post hoc and don't take into account the situation the Founders were originally in.
They still got a way or two of controlling the black population for free, but it's not as easy as on the old times.
It's amazing that we live through this twice. Back in 2008, Obama beat Hillary by focusing on delegates when she just kind of assumed she was going to win. Same bad strategy there and assuming her team could just win everything for her. It's amazing she can manage to get the press to go along with the seeming inevitability of her win when she's lost so much.
Speaking of which, for anyone who didn't see the Newsweek special edition that got recalled, one of the articles about her is entitled "Queenmakers." You can't make this stuff up. It's on p. 92-93 if you have a copy. Here's a sample from the end of the article:
Snopes says this is just a cover. I have to wonder if the same article is in the Trump version, which I don't have? It's completely focused on her and only mentions him in passing, so I kind of doubt the Trump one is just a cover swap.
That's complete bullshit. The EC only happens to just slightly amplify the vote of just the very tiniest of states. It's not a significant effect, and certainly doesn't make candidates pay any more attention to Wyoming.
Except Florida is a swing state, so yes, they DO single-handedly decide the election, and roll right over all the small states (some years). Ditto for Ohio. This year it was mostly Pennsylvania that swung the election...
Anybody noticing these are NOT small states? The electoral college makes small states EVEN MORE IRRELEVANT than they would be on a pure popular-vote basis. It makes big states with nearly even partisan divides incredibly valuable, and every one else's vote is practically worthless.
That's probably why even SMALL STATES have enacted National Popular Vote legislation, as well as large ones. We're 2/3rds of the way to eliminating the electoral college... Just a few more states joining on will make it a reality.
The electoral college only makes sense as a way for slave-holding states to use their slave population numbers (at least three-fifths of them) to multiply the value of the white population's votes. Obviously this was important for ensuring more populous states couldn't out-vote them and push to eliminate slavery. Today, it's a nuisance we don't need.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
He is divesting his businesses to his sons ...
With whom he will not discuss anything of national significance for the remainder of his term in office. Except when they or their sister sit in on the meetings of course. With the various foreign leaders whose countries host Trump properties, Trump-branded properties, or Trump investments. Nothing to see here.
Those penalties are unconstitutional, but they're minor and so therefore unlikely to ever be challenged.
You know, instead of signalling your worry, you might try being "hopeful". Like the title to your post.
It hasn't really occurred to the left, but Trump is more capable and has more integrity than they give him credit for.
I will give you competence maybe and I would have given you intelligence if you had asked. Clearly people have underestimated Trump. If you think that trump might have integrity you need your head examined. Take a look at the details of the Trump University case - there is a reason the thing was settled out of court. If that's not enough have a look into trumps charity or ask yourself what is the deal with the obvious nepotism and failure to disengage with current business activities on the grounds of conflict of interest. Imagine that the same things were being said of Obama and see how ok you are with it.
This is obvious when you consider all their predictions have been wrong, in every case. Trump won't win the nomination, Trump is melting down, Trump has *completely* melted down, Trump will never win the election, and on and on.
To be fair the best information we had put Hillary way ahead this wasn't just the left, for instance the people offering bets on the outcome of the election had the odds at 5:1 against trump a week from the election those odds did schrink to 2:1 against the day before the election - I would say these people had a pretty strong motivation to accurately predict the winner.
Why should we believe anything the left says, when none of their past predictions have come true?
It's also obvious because everyone is running around looking for the "why" of his success. I mean, it's Russia, it's Wikileaks, it's white supremacists, it's "fake news", it's Breitbart, it's Clinton, and on and on. Do you think that maybe Trump is more capable than you gave him credit for?
Part of the reason this is so hard to accept is because the man is so clearly full of shit. It's really hard to accept that anybody would think it a good idea to go with the guy who when asked a question repeats the same phrase again and again without actually saying anything coherent. I know that politicians are generally good at this but trump takes it to a whole new level. In the cases where Trump did propose policy it did not match the rhetoric.
And now everyone is running around with their hair on fire over every subtle thing he does. And I mean *really* "hair on fire" over some of his appointments: he'd going to dissolve the EPA and make our pollution worse than China,
The reason that people think that Trump is going to dissolve the EPA is because he himself said that he wanted to eliminate the EPA. More recently he softened that stance to strongly limiting the powers of the EPA. The question then is - did he say those things because he wanted to appeal to the red team or because he wants to limit the powers of the EPA? Judging from the appointments made I would lean it favour of the later
he's going to stage a military coup and install a fascist regime, [non-political] industry leader appointees are not "draining the swamp", an actual brain surgeon will be incompetent because he has no experience, and on and on.
Many of those appointments (but not all) do look like the opposite of draining the swamp, it's not just the left saying this. Being a surgeon doesn't particularly qualify for being in charge of housing policy, I am genuinely supprised that somebody would think that it would.
A lot of us on the alt-right get a big chuckle over the histrionics and fake emotion. We like seeing your heads explode over these things. You, for example, are signalling deep worry, in a way meant to infect everyone else into a state of deep worry. Go for it! (*snicker*)
We on the alt-right are noticing that a) he's not the president yet, b) he's appointing capable people, and c) he's still inten
There was a slim hope people would come to their senses and Trump would not be elected. Now that it's official, the last thing I want to see is him getting removed from office in one way or another.
Trump is an idiotic con man who managed to convince enough scared old white people to vote for him. He's repulsive, has no redeeming qualities, and will quite probably run this country into the ground while Putin does a happy dance in Moscow. But Pence...Pence is in an entirely different category. He is a malicious theorcrat that has more in common with the Spanish Inquisition. He's the composed christian version of ISIS.
If I have to choose between a white version of Hector Macho Camacho or Voldemort Jesus leading the country, I think I'll stick with Comacho.
~X~
Are you a moron or something? Those political nonprofits were trying to register AS POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS. Maybe you don't understand this, but there is a distinct category of nonprofit status just for organizations like them. The lazy auditors figured it out because the applicants checked the "political" box on the form.
The problem is that all but one or two of the left wing applications sailed through without a hitch, and a whole bunch of right wing groups got stuck in the IRS tar baby. Yes, the left does do that too. Some of them are still waiting, 2 elections later.
This was in the run up to the 2012 elections. Do you get that? Obama's administration actively suppressed the ability of citizens to organize opposition to his reelection campaign.
See that "Preview" button?
+1 to that.
And that gives us president Pence. Be careful what you wish for.
The thought process is the standard SJW thought process "Those people don't agree with me therefore they should have no voice, ever, until they agree with me."
Shit I'd vote for Camacho if he was running. Better than the two main choices this time.
Don't forget that the Reps were abandoning him in droves right before the election. Trump is NOT a Republican and they will let him stay in power only as long as he dances to their tune. If he goes against them to much he'll be tossed out and Pence will be given his place.
You cite snopes and the LA Times to rebut somebody's arguments about crooked Democrat politics in CA - that's like asking the PR Department for the Klan to be critical of David Duke. I've no idea if the Klan HAS a PR department, because unlike the DNC and the mainstream press I have never met a Klan member and do not have any of them on speed dial.
That snopes bit is a 100% deceptive article It keeps arguing a DIFFERENT point, namely that the CA "motor voter" does not make it lawful for illegals to vote (strawman argument since nobody is claiming THAT). Snopes repeatedly dodges the actual argument and the TRUTH which is that "motor voter" in CA puts a voter registration form into each driver's hands and only requires them to check a box indicating they are eligible to vote (with NO verification by the state and NO prosecution for violators and NO effort to enforce). The point is that it does a wink-and-nudge play, enabling illegals to register (and then vote, of course) while making a big point that nobody will ever look for fraud... it is an enticement and encouragement to vote ILLEGALLY (NOT legally which is the scenario snopes cleverly argues about), which is precisely what snopes cleverly avoids fact checking, and why they cannot be trusted to factcheck for facebook
Then you double-down by asserting that it's some sort of crazy talk to question whether the California Secretary of State (and by implication California Attorney General) is doing his job..... More hyper-partisan Democrat political hacks who NEVER do their damned jobs! California is Obama's America on steroids - a place where all laws are political, and laws are not enforced if Democrats do not want them enforced. These two corruptocrats have made it their standard practice to NOT uphold the rule of law in California.
The main effect has always been to elevate the voice of lower population centers.
That may be the effect but it was never the intention. The intention was a compromise between those who supported a popular vote vs those who supported a president elected by congress. The founders never foresaw California or New York being strong centers for a certain party (obviously I would think).
I want to add my amazement at needing to point this out. Where is public school civics? How do we as a nation not know the purpose of the electoral college?
Or divide and conquer, if you prefer. Trump is claiming that he prefers to keep other countries from bidding under American workers, but I'm already convinced he was lying when he promised to return good jobs to the former industrial states. He just wants the low bidders to be other states, and in this case of high tech jobs, Florida lost the race to the bottom.
Then again, I also suspect he was lying when he said he would prevent other countries from doing the same to American workers. Can't really tell yet. He's said pretty much everything on every issue, but I think it's going to come down to his personal and family profits. In other words, he'll make some deal with China to keep making his ties there and then lie to his supporters about it. Worked great so far.
Still expecting the Donald to get Bill-Cosby-ed out of office within a few months.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Actually its quite the opposite. Trump supporters have always taken him seriously and not literally. There's a reason he got tens of thousands of people to attend his rally's. But Democrats never listened to him, and never will, and only go by strictly what he says as gospel. So yeah, will be interesting to watch.
I think the worst thing about Hillary (from an outside non US view) is: she simply is ugly.
Trump is ugly, too.
However people seem to prefer an ugly man over an ugly woman all the time (no idea if that is a general rule, but it looks to me like it is).
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Camacho was a charismatic and dynamic leader who was wise and humble enough to seek a domain expert's assistance in solving a problem he was himself incapable of solving. He did demand results on a somewhat unreasonable time line however.
94.5% of voters voted for one of the two worst major-party presidential candidates in history.
This country is getting what it deserves.
With 43% absenteeism, with the lowest turnout in the last 20 years. That 95.5% doesn't seem that impressive once you put it in its proper context. No matter what, both candidates were shit.
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." -Mencken
If he's the King of Birthers, it's only because Hillary tossed him the scimitar
I'm not saying HRC is an angel, she is a shitpile just like Trump. But your entire response amounts to "she did something stupid, so Trump gets to do something stupid too."
If that's how you want to role, go for it. I won't be the one to get in your way towards 3rd-grade levels of thinking.
No no, can't do that! Superdelegates are guarding the interests of the elite. Somebody has to do it...
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
As in: 'constitution'?
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Same is true of California, well, not "most", except that in California they're not displaced New England snowbirds. One-in-four Californians are foreign-born (about 10M people), and about 1/4th of those is an illegal alien, i.e. every fifteenth "Californian" is an illegal alien.
Not that there's anything wrong with legal immigrants living in California or anywhere else they chose to live, but I do wish California would make a significant effort to prevent *illegal* aliens from voting in US elections. Yes, yes..."There's no proof illegal aliens voted..." but that's at least partly because asking anyone to prove they are entitled to vote (and I might add, a valid, legal resident of the district in which they are attempting to vote) is somehow racist.
http://www.ppic.org/main/publi...
California is home to more than 10 million immigrants—one in four of the foreign-born population nationwide. In 2011, 27% of California’s population was foreign-born, about twice the U.S. percentage. Foreign-born residents represented more than 30% of the population of seven California counties: Santa Clara, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Mateo, Imperial, Alameda, and Orange. And half of the children in California had at least one immigrant parent.
Most immigrants in California are documented residents.
Almost half (47%) of California’s immigrants are naturalized U.S. citizens, and another 26% have some other legal status (including green cards and visas). According to the Department of Homeland Security, about 27% of immigrants in California are undocumented.
That liar whose treacherous testimony to the UN gave us the war in Iraq?
Hillary destroyed Lybia
No, then I'd prefer a Trump.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Cobb County in Georgia is a strong conservative area (Tom Price represents in Congress) albeit with a decent Libertarian presence and also home of many Never-Trump voters, especially soccer-moms who would have voted for any other Republican from the primaries but could not vote for Trump.
I suspect that had Walker, Cruz, or Kasich had won the primaries, Clinton's Georgia results would look a lot more like they have in the past: very strong red state.
The smear-job against Mrs. Clinton was well under way before Bill was elected. The way I recall, it was something like, "Who is this educated cunt telling me I need to pay for some one else's health care?!?"
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
...we must nuke Russia immediately...
I'm so happy your candidate didn't win...
Now, please go back to the the comments section where you seem to be coming from.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Sorry, I STILL can't figure out the hatred of Hillary Clinton.
She's a regular machine politician, serving the same interests as Trump. This has been more than obvious since the family entered the business. Her 15 year grooming for the presidency could not have been more cynical.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
If climate change is indeed caused by increasing CO2, the CO2 will increase agricultural output and will do the opposite of becoming scarce...
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Great comment! :)
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
LMAO!
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
You forgot #5:
5. Annoy enough people with 1-4 that they vote for your opponent.
You can't even say that. The campaigns and elections were based on the rules of the Electoral College. Everyone planned their strategy for campaigning based on garnering EC votes. Voters in locked-in states made their Election Day decisions to perhaps stay home knowing their candidate had basically already won (or lost) their state.
Based on the final score of a football game played under the current rules you can't say who'd have won if 2 points were also awarded based on each first down gained, because team strategies would change based on the different rules in effect at the time of the game. If fouls in a basketball game resulted in 2 points being deducted from your team score rather than allowing the other team the chance to shoot 1+1 or 2 free throws, think the game would be played differently?
If we elected the President based on elections allocated by Congressional district one vote per district plus 2 statewide votes, think the campaigns and votes would be different? So the same is true of saying "popular vote". We don't have a "popular vote", so saying Clinton (or Gore) won the "popular vote" is not true.
It is true that when aggregating the votes across all states, that they had pluralities. But that's like saying Clinton had 658 yards of total offense (she had 68.5M votes) and Trump had 629 yards of total offense (62.9M votes), and saying she should have won. But the fact is, that despite moving the ball up and down the field somewhat better than Trump, she turned the ball over 5 times (lost 5 state that Obama carried twice) and failed to score points when it counted. Someone crying about total yards off offense is readily countered with "Scoreboard!".
If you want to play "what if" for ex post facto results, imagine "what if" we had had instant run-off, where the people who voted for Gary Johnson (4+M) and Jill Stein (1+M) and the 800k "other" voters had selected a 2nd-choice vote? How many Libertarians and Greens would have selected Trump and Clinton as their second choice? How many of those L and G votes were "protest" votes in "safe" states. Personally, I have voted Libertarian for years in Georgia confident that my L votes would never crack the Republican lock and accidentally elect a Democrat for Senate or President.
Many of which would also fuck themselves.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
We should elect the President by having the members of Congress vote? I'll just point out the Republicans have a majority in both houses...
How could she not manage to beat Trump? Trump!?
She managed to lose to the most loathsome, odious person to ever run for the office. What's that say about her?
Not much we didn't already know, she (along with Kerry, Biden...) was after all duped into voting for the Bush wars by an idiot President who couldn't walk and chew gum a the same time.
The point of a democracy is to represent people, this is why the popular vote is important. The electoral college was not designed to give one bunch of people more representation than another bunch. It was designed sensibly for a bunch of conditions present in 1776, but had sadly become obsolete by about 1800.
We are not a democracy however. We are a constitutional republic. The electoral college was designed to form "a more perfect union" and to balance states rights thereby preventing a tyranny of the majority (i.e. the popular vote). Those conditions have not changed. It is no coincidence that the number of electors is equal to the each states combined representation in congress.
In addition, the electoral college was established by the Constitutional Convention of 1787, not in 1776, and the first election was not held until 1789 which is a mere 11 years from when you say the conditions for it became obsolete (without any supporting arguments).
The more you know...
The drama has only just started.
The problem is that all but one or two of the left wing applications sailed through without a hitch, and a whole bunch of right wing groups got stuck in the IRS tar baby
Nope. The keyword-based targeting snagged more left-wing groups than right-wing.
But the claim sells a lot of page views, so it's very frequently repeated.
By every other measure Trump won in a landslide.
http://www.investors.com/polit...
Number of states won:
Trump: 30
Clinton: 20
Trump: +10
Number of electoral votes won:
Trump: 306
Clinton: 232
Trump: + 68
Ave. margin of victory in winning states:
Trump: 56%
Clinton: 53.5%
Trump: + 2.5 points
Popular vote total:
Trump: 62,958,211
Clinton: 65,818,318
Clinton: + 2.8 million
Popular vote total outside California:
Trump: 58,474,401
Clinton: 57,064,530
Trump: + 1.4 million
We are a union of independent states. You must win a preponderance of states to win the presidency. All states matter.
To slightly more than half the country, feminism=murder.
Nothing more need be said.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Unless someone really wants to see Mike Pence as president, they would do their very best to make sure that doesn't happen.
Pence's positions are far closer to the Republicans in the House than Trump's positions. If Trump gives them sufficient excuse, they will happily work to install Pence.
The main effect has always been to elevate the voice of lower population centers.
That's the Senate's job, not the Electoral College's job.
The size of each state's Electoral College delegation is primarily defined by the number of House seats. The founders intended there to be no more than 100,000 people per House district, but Connecticut's ratification of that amendment was literally lost in the mail. They did use that formula for number of House seats for roughly the first hundred years. Then the number of people per district started creeping up, mostly due to logistical issues. By the 1910s, we had crept up to 200,000 per House district....and we stopped expanding the House. So now we get fun things like Los Angeles county having more people in it than 40 US states, but Los Angeles county only has 18 House districts.
If we kept going at 200,000 people per district, then the House would have about 1200 seats, and the Electoral College would be utterly dominated by the most populous states. The Electoral College is only "elevating the voice of lower population centers" because of the fluke of not expanding the size of the House for a century. Keeping the size of the House stagnant for so long was never intended.
TL:DR: We vote for three federal offices.
1) Senate, over-represents small states by design.
2) House, over-represents small states by not expanding the House for the last 100 years.
3) President, over-represents small states due to #2.
Only #1 was intended by the founders. #2 and #3 were not.
One thing I think many Clinton supporters miss: Not convicted != innocent. There are many things which look shady even if they can't prove anything definitively. Consider, for example, the Clinton foundation receiving $1,000,000 from Qatar for Bill Clinton to speak. Yet in their mind, despite being a one time donation for a special purpose, that wasn't an unexpected increase in funding which was supposed to be reported. Even if bribery wasn't proven, the conflict of interest issues were huge.
Yes, Trump's conflicts of interest are potentially larger. However, the media didn't make much of them during the election. Perhaps because doing so would have drawn more attention to the crap HRC pulled? Instead, in the week that Qatar donation was reported, a 10 year old video of Trump being a sexist pig got almost all of the airtime.
Even though I think HRC was a better choice overall, the thumbs on the scales in her favor worked against her.
"Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny! Free men pull in all sorts of directions" -- Havelock Vetinari
Which is also why leftists in the US have been importing and placing the immigrants into Conservative States
If you believe leftists are hiding underneath your bed, you need professional help.
CHUMP is the end of the world.
Could you imagine the outrage if Jeb ran his campaign with the statement "It's his turn"?
love is just extroverted narcissism
"how is it possible that decades of savage partisan investigation have somehow never managed to lead to an arrest for ANYTHING?" You can't seriously be that naive. Powerful elite people like Hillary have connections and influence to insure that that would never happen.
Yeah, we all wondered about that. Your leaders are meant to represent the best of you.... well thats the theory.....however that barrel must be pretty damned empty cause you are scrapping the bottom of it now.
ZZ
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I think the worst thing about Hillary (from an outside non US view) is: she simply is ugly.
Trump is ugly, too.
However people seem to prefer an ugly man over an ugly woman all the time (no idea if that is a general rule, but it looks to me like it is).
Considering Trump's long-term involvement with beauty pageants (for women, of course), I can't decide if that's funny or insightful.
Anyway, if elections were beauty pageants, I don't see how that could make them any more ridiculous than this last one.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Well... Basically just noting that I agree with you about certain people, but I still have trouble believing such people are numerous. Genetic (or social?) regression to the mean since we've mostly removed the selective pressures?
Then again, I've been told a large percentage of America believes in Noah and the flood.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Having lived through those days, I'm pretty sure that's partly revisionist history. I'm not sure if healthcare was part of the campaign in 1992, but Hillary picked up the issue later on, after she was already first lady. What I can remember of that campaign was mostly the circus-like atmosphere around Perot and my ongoing disgust at Quayle as he normalized Alt-Right idiocy (though that label didn't exist yet). In those days I associated Alt with the newsgroups (which the google finally killed a few years ago).
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
That is NOT my point, but it is the kind of sloppy thinking that allowed Trump to get so many votes. I specifically said "arrest" because "indictment" is not sufficiently meaningful and I said NOTHING about being convicted or not being convicted.
If she had ever been arrested, I'm pretty sure it would have made the news. Almost as sure regarding indictment, but she could have been named as a co-conspirator with a ham sandwich, as the joke goes.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Irrational. 'Nuff said.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
right??? i mean al copone never killed anyone either right??? he was nothing more than a simple tax cheat. i mean we never pinned anything on him so it never happened right??
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
We are talking about a constituency that contains people..... who are OK with letting Syrian orphans and Central American children die before spending a penny
i dont think anyone said anything along those lines, Im pretty sure people are more worried about that fact that as a country we are 20 trillion dollars in debt and can barely feed and house our own people, and maybe just maybe we should take care of things at home before we go around trying to fix the rest of the world.
and you have the nerve to talk about how the other side runs on emotion? thats called projecting, look it up
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
good question, still havent gotten a good answer
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
They were not registering as political organizations. They were registering as 501(c)(4)'s, which are social welfare organizations. They are allowed to engage in political activity, but it cannot be their primary focus. Many of these organizations were created exclusively to engage in political activity. They were breaking the rules, it's not anyone's fault but theirs that they got caught.
Are you suggesting that anyone spent comparable amounts of money investigating Al Capone? Of course, the largest flaw in your "evidence" is that he did get arrested.
Or are you trying to suggest that Hillary Clinton is a criminal mastermind? In that case you just forgot to say anything?
From your tone, I don't think you want to prove my point. Not even clear about that. However you do seem to be providing additional evidence about one of my other points (in other discussions) about some of the people who voted for Trump, so I guess I should thank you?
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
the point is to show that the numbers in that one state dont translate to the country as a whole. pretty simple
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Look, it is not rational. People hate HRC, that's it. There is no point in arguing.
Um, who do you think won the popular vote?
None of the above: when you factor in the ~ 50% who couldn't in good conscience vote for either.
So you have about 75% saying no to Trump and about the same saying no to Clinton.
We really need ranked choice voting.
In a democracy we count the votes of people who voted. Not the imaginary votes of people who stayed at home.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Bunkum. The electoral college is affirmative action for rednecks. It's time it was gone.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Not really, since "themselves" are a small bunch making the decisions that don't really care if the rest of their nation bleeds. China is autocratic.
:-)
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
If you want someone to blame, blame the Democrats who crossed over to vote Trump in the primaries instead of voting for Bernie (of whom I know many), who certainly would have won Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. Ohio and Florida is debatable, but then again there are other states like Utah, Georgia, and North Carolina where he had a large cult following that evaporated when Clinton won.
That being said, Trump will likely go through with the H1-B wage floor hike, which will drive visas into Silicon Valley, whose companies are already used to paying top dollar for talent, and away from the tech sweat shops like Tata and Infosys who are abusing the system. So I'm pretty happy about that.
The real path to male liberation
Not only did you miss his joke entirely, you're attacking someone who appears to be nominally on your side.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
what i am saying is simply just because she is the teflon don, doesnt mean she didnt break the law. comey said she broke the law for fuck sake!
they had to get capone on tax fraud because they couldnt prove his criminal empire was run by him (eventhough EVERYONE knew it) so yes, im saying the clintons are criminal masterminds
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
also i didnt vote for trump so im not sure how im helping prove any point about trump voters
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I read your previous comments that you have linked. They were very informative, and i learned a few things. Thank you for not being baited into the trash talk the other side bullshit that slashdot has become over time. We need more people like you to help educate some of us younger people, who only care about them self and fuck what your opinions are. I look forward to reading more comments from you in the future.
There's a lot of reasons that things have gotten this bad. Hopefully this will serve as a wake-up call to the parties, or the people.
Even autocrats have to be careful. Piss off too many of your people, and you're in deep shit. And crashing your own economy will piss off a lot of people, and some of them will have a lot more power than the average peasant.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Anybody else who had done half of what she had would have been arrested. It is a simple fact, backed by names of people sitting in federal prison.
Open corruption. But happening in one of your blind spots. Cognitive dissonance gives people blind spots, duh. Understand it, examine the possibility that you are the one disconnected.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
"Which, of course, explains why he's hired complete lap dogs like General "Mad Dog" Mattis. Mattis is well-known for his soft-spoken manner, desire to "go along to get along" and his political finesse. The troops hate him and his military record is a joke."
Please cite some sources, because I've had several Marines tell me how great his is.
Just another day in Paradise
No. You're wrong. The EC was set up to preclude the possibility of (for example) one extremely populous state (or "two;" think CA and NY) with a preponderance of the nation's population voting *one* way and getting a President elected, even though (in theory) 48 *other* states voted *another* way. Think about it. If you can't see the real issues addressed by the EC, I feel sorry for you.
-- "I'm not in a hurry; I'm in Hawaii." The Homeless Guy
The latter is caused by the former and wouldn't have occurred if I had caught the joke.
:)
I'm so sorry now...
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
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Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
So how do you explain the incompetence of all of the so-called Republicans who have failed to arrest her for all these years? Or maybe you're just saying they are insincere or blind or whatever?
I don't have any doubts about their sincerity, but even if they were as stupid as I think many of them are, how is it possible they have failed to arrest her? I suppose for that matter we can ask why you haven't provided your incontrovertible evidence to the proper authorities?
Is it possible you are wrong?
Is it certain that this "discussion" is pointless and closed?
Let me be clear that at this point I don't care about your motivations. You might be nuts or you might be paid to fake it. No one cares.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Hmm... I guess it has to do with the nature of truth?
There are some truths that really are indisputable. 2 + 2 = 4. Objects are attracted to objects by gravity.
Popular opinion and feelings are not that sort of truth. Yes, it is a real thing that many people have a certain option or feel certain ways. However those things can be manipulated.
I would content that Trumpists think there is no meaningful or important difference between those types of truths. They can't understand why changing popular opinion about the law of gravity wouldn't change how gravity works. Or as Trump's favorite accountant put it when asked how much is 2 plus 2:
"How much do you want it to be?"
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
You [ganjadude] are so inconsistent and erratic and unlinked to reality that it is only natural to assume that you are probably lying about your vote, too. I can't recall that you have actually said anything in support of your claim to dislike the Donald. If I'm incorrect in my interpretation of the probabilities, then I suppose I should apologize, but I really see no reason to value you or your opinion that much.
What I can say is that if I am presented with data, then I am obliged to evaluate it. Many people have presented what they claim to be data showing that Hillary committed some criminal action, notwithstanding decades of her not being arrested. I have even done what I could to evaluate the accuracy and credibility of the evidence. It was lacking, and there is no need to evaluate the same evidence again. (Actually, I can't recall that you have even bothered with anything resembling evidence.)
Appears to me that this discussion is pointless and closed. There are no witches and Hillary is not a witch.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
You know why she lost
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
You forget that some of them have already been involved in crashing their own economy earlier. Mao didn't do it alone. It was a long time ago but some of the ruling members of the party had relatively high levels of responsibility in the 1970s or even 1960s.
All the drama about recounts and "renegade electors" meant that Hillary Clinton lost three times. Which is great.
Too bad that meant Donald Trump won three itimes.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
Of the 538 electors, 438 are proportioned according to state population, or 81%. Is this better than a pure popular vote? Yes. Does it really protect the less populous states from the more populous ones? Not at all. And if you think this system is working, just wait until California and Texas finds something they agree on.
Those who think the electoral college should continue to exist should also go back to middle school.
The electoral college was designed to prevent an unfit presidency voted by mass hysteria. If the electoral college simply votes as representatives of their poulation and doesn't serve as a safety check, it no longer serves a purpose. Popular vote instead should be used. There's no need to bin groups to a representative, it merely causes the type of silly campaign process we currently have where only a few states matter during the election.
You can put another conservative in power but Trump is no conservative, he's a sociopathic clown that's a disgrace of this country. Some small part of me is happy he won, if nothing else, as a perfect example of the joke our current governmental system and society has degraded to. It highlights the true values and nature of a vast majority of our population.
All hail big business.
I promise the founding fathers were far more educated and experienced in the ways of business and governing than a few 20~30 somethings that haven't had nearly the challenges that tempered them into adults.
People I know to be very intelligent have seemingly turned off their brains and have been using words like 'sociopath', 'degradation', 'Hitler', etc and 'literally' have no idea what those words really mean.
All hail big business.
Do you really think a bunch of broke altruistic redneck colonists banded together in 1776 to form a more perfect union? Or do you think savvy businessmen and statesmen colluded to create an environment that would protect and provide the freedom required to maximize the return on their investments?
It was rich people that paid for weapons, uniforms, and payroll for government offices that made this nation possible. Do you really think starting a new government is free?
As for Trumps opponent. Regardless of who was opposing trump, I am certain you would agree that any president needs to be someone that has stamina, willpower and perseverance when the going gets tough. Trumps opponent quit on the first night of counting, before the counting was even close to being done. That's like the coach of the football game leaving at the third quarter because the margin for victory wasn't large enough. His opponent may have won the popular vote, but that count came long after the opposing party gave up and left the game.
If you were interviewing a possible hire, and they grumbled and left when the questions got tough, then protested outside the building calling you and your business all kinds of nasty names and vandalizing the place? would you call them back later and offer them the job? The real honest answer is 'Not a chance in hell'.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
The FBI even admitted that other less fortunate people would go to jail for what she did, even if the email thing is a distraction from the far bigger offenses of weapons smuggling to terrorists in Syria from Libya through Turkey, and there's still Whitewater, and the family's involvement in Iran/Contra. She is untouchable because her "prosecutors" would be taken down with with her, a classic *Mexican standoff*. And your denials and incessant trolling is a classic public exposition of projection that you will once again confirm in your response...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
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Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
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Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
You must use a lot of tissues
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Now on video. Hope you liked it, which must be the case, since it reflects your desires
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
No, I am not. I really am not.
Actually you are. The big complaint about the electoral college is that it weighs certain states more heavily than others. (Swing states) The primary process also has a similar issue but there are now they're caused by two issues. Swing states are still an issue but voting order is now another issue. Doing badly early in say Iowa and New Hampshire can knock out a candidate that might have been stronger later on which would give those states more political power. (Neither of which is a large state.) By the time California gets around to voting in June its effect is effectively meaningless even though it has the most delegates because the contest is effectively over.
Yes I realize the chances that this will be changed are near zero but still easier, or actually a better way to say it would be less difficult than actually changing the electoral process. (I mean other than that end round with the electoral college compact.) I say that because again it's easier to get one side to make a change to how they do things than changing the electoral system which would require congress and state legislatures and the votes of both republicans and democrats to get it to happen. Of course I'm also not one to call the electoral college result "bogus" since both sides knew the rules of the game and played it according to the rules. (Calling it bogus because "oh popular vote is the real vote" is another lie people repeat without thinking. I mean unless you think campaigning doesn't work.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
since damn near every armchair politico questions the need for a strong federal government. But as for indoctrination, the only one I got in Public School was non-stop love for capitalism, to the point where if competing economic systems were even discussed it was only in regards to the horrors they caused. Noone ever questioned if National Socialists and Democratic Socialist were different things, ya know. I bet you haven't either.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
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Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
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Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
You lost, and will keep on doing so. The party is your reflection
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Your responses explain it perfectly
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
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Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
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Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Your childish little game is a failure.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
And checking it twice. Thanks again for being so revealing to the whole world, a petulant little troll
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
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Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
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Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
so.... instead of looking at the data that shows comey saying without any doubt that what she did was a violation of the law, saying that if you or i did it we would be arrested is of no matter, and then you go and talk down to me ignoring the points i bring up and try and change the topic to make it about me????
sorry dude you failed your own evaluation of the data
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
The cops should keep an eye on you
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
This guy is a molester
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
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Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
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Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
What part of "pointless and closed" were you unable to understand?
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
It's all you ever amount to
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
There obviously should be.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Such stamina!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
If you follow this guy's comment history and JEs, you will see the kind of childish troll he is... I just like to poke him with a stick so he fills his comment page with his puerile fantasies..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
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Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
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Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
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Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
We know what you're doing right now
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Whacking off in front of the whole world
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
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Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
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Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.