You're basically proving my point about the issues with using the popular vote. Listing several states with still ongoing voting issues just goes to prove how long it would take to finalize a federal election based on popular vote. Taken at a state level, unless the number of affected votes would directly impact the results in that state, the court cases can continue while the state EC members could still be appointed. At a Federal level if any combination of results could tip the popular vote balance one way or the other then you could not finalize the election until all court cases and potential recounts are completed.
As for California, I mentioned them solely because they are an example of single state that pushed Hillary into the lead on popular vote. I don't know why you think strengthening my argument by showing they were actually MORE influential on pulling up Hillary's numbers helps your case? In fact as a few other people pointed out in this thread, if you want to go even further, New York City and Los Angeles county alone make up most, if not all, of Clinton's popular vote lead. The point is, if you make the Presidential election a popular vote contest then it takes only a few areas in the country where fraud has to occur to really impact the results.
With the billions spent on campaigning as well as the hyper partisanship from both parties at the State and local levels you don't think that if a few local politicians/campaign workers realize that they could pull a few strings to get more votes for their candidate and win the election that wouldn't happen? It already happens at a much smaller scale where the stakes are much lower (as you've so kindly pointed out with your links).
The EC effectively acts as a buffer to try and prevent local issues from becoming Federal issues.
As far as I am aware each state decides independently how their EC members are determined. They can do proportional, winner take all, a mix of the two or flip a coin. The only Federal rules are about how many representatives each state has in the EC. People who keep complaining about how the EC is run need to get out and push for reform on the State level, not the Federal.
As for a true popular vote, that is a failing solution on so many levels that it shouldn't even be mentioned in true electoral reform. On just a pure size issue, a potential recount of 250 million votes would mean election results probably wouldn't be finalized until after inauguration day. It also opens the floodgates for real voter fraud. Unlike the EC where local fraud has limited Federal impact (it can elect a single Congresspersons or even a Senator but could only impact a limited number of EC Presidential votes), in a popular vote system a few districts in a heavily populated areas could potentially impact the entire popular vote. The last election is a perfect example of this in that Hillary won the popular vote by upwards of 3 million votes but all of those votes came from a single state, California. In a pure popular vote system if a state that favors an R or D candidate decides to "loosen" their voter eligibility and let questionable voters cast ballots then potentially millions of votes would be illegally added to the federal count. Ignoring any of the as yet unproven claims about letting illegal immigrants vote in California, this type of relaxing of voter laws routinely happens even now in some districts (usually in the form of ignoring inmate rolls) but because of their limited impact nationally, all that usually happens is a couple of voter groups file lawsuits that go nowhere. If these votes were added to a federal tally then these lawsuits would most likely have to go all the way to the Supremes, adding even more time till a winner is determined.
The EC is not perfect but in a system made up of 50+ individual entities it may be as close as you're going to get.
I think there is some confusion because most reports had the shooter wearing blue jeans while the guy who asked about Republicans or Democrats was apparently wearing shorts.
That could be a matter of not really paying attention to some stranger walking by asking an odd question or maybe he pulled on some pants when he went to get his gun(s).
It is possible for multiple things to be true at the same time.
Colbert's overall ratings are up but he is still losing pretty handily to the much less political Fallon in the key demo (18-49). So his anti-Trump routine is hitting with some viewers, just not necessarily the ones advertisers care for.
It also looks like overall viewership for late night is down over the last couple of years but that may as much from competition outside of the big 3 (Fallon, Colbert, Kimmel) rather than anything their actually doing. For example, Leno's numbers from the early 2000's were routinely close to the total of Colbert and Fallon's current combined. Now that could be because he generally stayed out of politics or it could be because Netflix wasn't really a thing back then.
If you have no intentions on meeting the proposed requirements of the accord (mainly the billions in transfer payments to less developed countries) why bother continuing with the façade?
There are already too many laws/accords/agreements on the local, State/Province, Federal and International levels that have no real impact and exist solely so some politicians could look good; why bother adding another.
There was a proposed bill to the US and other developed countries but there were no penalties so even if they refused to pay nothing would really happen. As I said, just PR fodder.
The Paris accords are 100% voluntary with no enforcement procedure. Honestly, what's their point? They do call for hundreds of millions of dollars in transfers to developing countries but with no penalties if those payments aren't made. It is simple PR fodder for politicians.
Trumps cancelation of US involvement will have less than zero impact on climate change as the US is already one of the world leaders in CO2 reduction just through simple normal advancements in business practices and technology.
If you truly need a piece of paper to make you feel safe then feel free to go print up a copy of the accords and place it under your pillow at night; it will have about the same affect as all those other politicians signing it.
It's not a kick back when you actually pay for the service level you require. For years Netflix used their customer base to pressure ISPs to give them excess access to their networks above and beyond any peering agreements with their provider. They basically demanded fiber speeds while paying dialup prices.
The 'throttling' people complained about was simply ISP like Comcast stopping that practice and telling Netflix to either pay for proper network connections or deal with the customer complaints.
That's like saying the post office is double dipping by not fulfilling my request if I order a crate of car parts and the shipper puts it in the mail with a single stamp on it.
I paid for my car parts from Company A and I paid for the postal service through taxes but that doesn't allow company A to abuse the postal system by paying just the bare minimum service level for what is obviously much higher than the bare minimum. That's exactly what Netflix was doing by intentionally picking the cheapest internet provider whose peering agreements did not come close to covering their data requirements.
Sure it does but at the same time the right to say something doesn't protect you from consequences. In 41 states there isn't even a criminal charge for slander, it's entirely a civil matter, and in the remaining 9 states where a criminal statute does exists, it's one of those old laws on the books like not being able to feed your goat carrots on Saturdays that exists but is rarely if ever used.
The only speech not directly protected by the first is a call to violence or something that could lead to direct harm of others. Even the old example of not being able to yell fire in a theatre isn't actually true unless there is a reasonable expectation that doing so could cause harm to the attendees.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the voter roll public is the US. You may have to pay a fee to get a nice organized list but when you're talking about campaigns spending hundreds of million that's not an issue.
All the actual reports of hacked voter systems were for servers that held public information, as in nothing that was restricted, and even then most of the hacks came from US Federal agencies that were supposedly doing security test.
The parents already had full access to all those conversations prior to her death so there is no privacy concerns. The only change in status is that Facebook removed the parents ability to (re)read earlier posts when they changed the status on the account and locked out the previous login credentials.
She entered into what is a pretty standard agreement between kids and parents; she could have social media accounts but they would have to have the username and password for all accounts at all times. They just want to login to her account with perfectly valid login credentials that were freely given to them but Facebook, and now this appeals court (this is an appeals count because the first court agreed with them) are trying to claim possible rights violations that did not previously exist prior to her death.
The parents already had full access to her account prior to her death so there was no reasonable expectation of privacy for anyone. The issue is Facebook new policy locks the account if the named person dies and they won't allow the parent access, even with the original accounts password.
No one even knows who reported the death to Facebook.
The parents had access to the account prior to her death, an agreement she entered into with them to be permitted to create the account itself, so there was no privacy concern. All dickpicks were already accessible by the parents. The issue is Facebook locked the account after her death (which some 3rd party reported) and now the parents can't log in even using her password.
No additional consent was required, the parents already had full access to her Facebook account prior to her death. That also negates anyone else's privacy claims as the parents at all times were able to read any 'private' conversations. The fact they did not exercise that ability does not cancel out the fact it existed.
The issue is someone reported her death to Facebook and Facebook locked her account thereby preventing her parents, who had all the login information, the ability to access the account.
They already had access to her account. The issue is someone, who Facebook won't disclose, reported her death to them so they locked the account and the login information the parents have no longer works.
You'll rarely see a citation from the "they didn't earn it " crowd because actual stats don't back them up.
While current 1% have come from all socioeconomic groups the majority are truly self-made. Forbes had a sliding scale a while ago rating their top 400 (at the time) and the breakdown was roughly:
228 - started at upper middle class or below and built their wealth (about 43% of those from working class or outright poverty) 7 - given large sums by wealthy parents as jumping off point 10 - made money from a job or a (lucky?) investment they didn't actively participate in 54 - inherited a small/medium level business but grew it 43 - inherited a fortune but continue to work on it 28 - inherited wealth and have really done nothing for it
Your payment for high speed access doesn't in any way guarantee you high speed access to every service on the internet. If the site you're trying to access doesn't also pay for proper access based on their needs then you won't be able to access them at any speed higher than their connection allows. All communication drops to the lowest common denominator and in this case that was Netflix's issue, not Comcast's.
For a while Comcast and others did allow Netflix access above and beyond what they were paying for but then they decided it was time for Netflix to pay their fair share. Netflix relied on customers like you who would complain enough to their ISPs, without understanding the actual issue, to put pressure on them to accept the uneven deal but Comcast and a few others decided they wouldn't buckle and waited Netflix out.
The fact the hardware allowed for the traffic to exceed agreed upon limits doesn't mean anything. It like claiming the government are being 'assholes' for not allowing me to drive a full size 18 wheeler using my motorcycle plates. The roads can handle the traffic so why should they make me abide by my agreement to restrict my mode of transportation to the type I was licensed for? Or are the folks at Hertz 'assholes' for not allowing me to take that Chevy Suburban when I paid for the Ford Fiesta?
By all accounts Netflix was trying to go cheap and try and talk ISPs into footing the bill for their bandwidth usage by claiming it was a benefit for all. Some ISPs folded and agreed to increase access at no additional fee, and often at their expense, while others, like Comcast, simply said no and decided to play hardball. While not great for the customers Comcast simply decided to stop Netflix's abuse of their system and the slow downs were merely a result of forcing them to live within their agreed upon limits. Once the limits were renegotiated Comcast then upped the bandwidth available to Netflix CDNs and peering partners to the new levels. Nothing in the entire Comcast/Netflix saga was related to or impacted by the net neutrality rules.
The NRA isn't really concerned about gun sales, just access. They are a guns rights/education group. The amount of money they get from manufacturers pales in comparison to their normal income from members dues.
The NSSF, on the other hand, is the gun manufactures and sellers lobby group and they must be feeling a little schizophrenic about Trump; sure they can continue to build and sell their products but they don't have the Obama threat to push sales.
The only problem being there is absolutely no enforced compliance. As long as a company pays their dues they can stick whatever the hell they want on that sticker with no worries about any type of blowback seeing no one from Energy Star is actually checking their numbers.
In one round of tests from an outside lab they found that energy star ratings were on average 35-50% off the actual energy used. As it exists and has always existed it's just a federally run marketing scheme and nothing more.
It effectively the same as allowing Coke and Pepsi to just make up the calorie count on their products out of thin air and then praise them for including calorie information.
Modern coal and nuclear plant designs allow for pretty quick response times.
The current batch in use in the US may be much more limited in load adjustments but the technology exists and is already in use in newer plants worldwide. For example, German coal plants are capable of dropping to as low as 20% load and can be brought up to max in under 30 minutes. French nuclear reactors can drop to 30% and be brought to max in even less time.
You do know tax brackets have nothing to do with the individual; they are simply a level of tax applied to income at certain levels. The person doesn't move into a different tax bracket, just the money they earn above the previous bracket. If you allow ANY deductions at all you are, in most cases, allowing people to reduce their tax at the highest possible rate.
So if brackets are 0-20,000 @ 10%, 20,001 - 50,000 @ 15% and 50,001 - 100,000 @ 20% a person making $60,000 doesn't pay 20% of 60k, they pay 10% on their first 20k, 15% on their next 30k and then 20% on that final 10k for a total of $8,500 or a little over 14% of total. Deductions, by definition, are generally applied at the top down so if they can reduce their income by $10,000 they save $2000 in taxes but if they reduce it by another $10,000 they only save an additional $1500.
I think what you're advocating is to remove all deductions and just give credits instead. A credit, in this case, would be a fixed percentage rebate that doesn't reduce your actual tax amount. So your taxable amount stays $8,500 but you could get back 12% for credit A (to a max of $5,000) and 7.5% for credit B (to a max of $7,000).
The current tax system is a hodgepodge of deductions and credits based almost entirely on which special interest can push their agenda on whoever happens to be in charge at a given time. Converting deductions into credits may be a good start but reducing the number of both is what needs to be done to simplify the tax code.
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You're basically proving my point about the issues with using the popular vote. Listing several states with still ongoing voting issues just goes to prove how long it would take to finalize a federal election based on popular vote. Taken at a state level, unless the number of affected votes would directly impact the results in that state, the court cases can continue while the state EC members could still be appointed. At a Federal level if any combination of results could tip the popular vote balance one way or the other then you could not finalize the election until all court cases and potential recounts are completed.
As for California, I mentioned them solely because they are an example of single state that pushed Hillary into the lead on popular vote. I don't know why you think strengthening my argument by showing they were actually MORE influential on pulling up Hillary's numbers helps your case? In fact as a few other people pointed out in this thread, if you want to go even further, New York City and Los Angeles county alone make up most, if not all, of Clinton's popular vote lead. The point is, if you make the Presidential election a popular vote contest then it takes only a few areas in the country where fraud has to occur to really impact the results.
With the billions spent on campaigning as well as the hyper partisanship from both parties at the State and local levels you don't think that if a few local politicians/campaign workers realize that they could pull a few strings to get more votes for their candidate and win the election that wouldn't happen? It already happens at a much smaller scale where the stakes are much lower (as you've so kindly pointed out with your links).
The EC effectively acts as a buffer to try and prevent local issues from becoming Federal issues.
As far as I am aware each state decides independently how their EC members are determined. They can do proportional, winner take all, a mix of the two or flip a coin. The only Federal rules are about how many representatives each state has in the EC. People who keep complaining about how the EC is run need to get out and push for reform on the State level, not the Federal.
As for a true popular vote, that is a failing solution on so many levels that it shouldn't even be mentioned in true electoral reform.
On just a pure size issue, a potential recount of 250 million votes would mean election results probably wouldn't be finalized until after inauguration day.
It also opens the floodgates for real voter fraud. Unlike the EC where local fraud has limited Federal impact (it can elect a single Congresspersons or even a Senator but could only impact a limited number of EC Presidential votes), in a popular vote system a few districts in a heavily populated areas could potentially impact the entire popular vote. The last election is a perfect example of this in that Hillary won the popular vote by upwards of 3 million votes but all of those votes came from a single state, California. In a pure popular vote system if a state that favors an R or D candidate decides to "loosen" their voter eligibility and let questionable voters cast ballots then potentially millions of votes would be illegally added to the federal count. Ignoring any of the as yet unproven claims about letting illegal immigrants vote in California, this type of relaxing of voter laws routinely happens even now in some districts (usually in the form of ignoring inmate rolls) but because of their limited impact nationally, all that usually happens is a couple of voter groups file lawsuits that go nowhere. If these votes were added to a federal tally then these lawsuits would most likely have to go all the way to the Supremes, adding even more time till a winner is determined.
The EC is not perfect but in a system made up of 50+ individual entities it may be as close as you're going to get.
I think there is some confusion because most reports had the shooter wearing blue jeans while the guy who asked about Republicans or Democrats was apparently wearing shorts.
That could be a matter of not really paying attention to some stranger walking by asking an odd question or maybe he pulled on some pants when he went to get his gun(s).
Well except for that time Ted Kennedy actively attempted to get the Soviets to help the Dems against Reagan .
It is possible for multiple things to be true at the same time.
Colbert's overall ratings are up but he is still losing pretty handily to the much less political Fallon in the key demo (18-49). So his anti-Trump routine is hitting with some viewers, just not necessarily the ones advertisers care for.
It also looks like overall viewership for late night is down over the last couple of years but that may as much from competition outside of the big 3 (Fallon, Colbert, Kimmel) rather than anything their actually doing. For example, Leno's numbers from the early 2000's were routinely close to the total of Colbert and Fallon's current combined. Now that could be because he generally stayed out of politics or it could be because Netflix wasn't really a thing back then.
If you have no intentions on meeting the proposed requirements of the accord (mainly the billions in transfer payments to less developed countries) why bother continuing with the façade?
There are already too many laws/accords/agreements on the local, State/Province, Federal and International levels that have no real impact and exist solely so some politicians could look good; why bother adding another.
There was a proposed bill to the US and other developed countries but there were no penalties so even if they refused to pay nothing would really happen. As I said, just PR fodder.
The Paris accords are 100% voluntary with no enforcement procedure. Honestly, what's their point? They do call for hundreds of millions of dollars in transfers to developing countries but with no penalties if those payments aren't made. It is simple PR fodder for politicians.
Trumps cancelation of US involvement will have less than zero impact on climate change as the US is already one of the world leaders in CO2 reduction just through simple normal advancements in business practices and technology.
If you truly need a piece of paper to make you feel safe then feel free to go print up a copy of the accords and place it under your pillow at night; it will have about the same affect as all those other politicians signing it.
It's not a kick back when you actually pay for the service level you require. For years Netflix used their customer base to pressure ISPs to give them excess access to their networks above and beyond any peering agreements with their provider. They basically demanded fiber speeds while paying dialup prices.
The 'throttling' people complained about was simply ISP like Comcast stopping that practice and telling Netflix to either pay for proper network connections or deal with the customer complaints.
That's like saying the post office is double dipping by not fulfilling my request if I order a crate of car parts and the shipper puts it in the mail with a single stamp on it.
I paid for my car parts from Company A and I paid for the postal service through taxes but that doesn't allow company A to abuse the postal system by paying just the bare minimum service level for what is obviously much higher than the bare minimum. That's exactly what Netflix was doing by intentionally picking the cheapest internet provider whose peering agreements did not come close to covering their data requirements.
Sure it does but at the same time the right to say something doesn't protect you from consequences. In 41 states there isn't even a criminal charge for slander, it's entirely a civil matter, and in the remaining 9 states where a criminal statute does exists, it's one of those old laws on the books like not being able to feed your goat carrots on Saturdays that exists but is rarely if ever used.
The only speech not directly protected by the first is a call to violence or something that could lead to direct harm of others. Even the old example of not being able to yell fire in a theatre isn't actually true unless there is a reasonable expectation that doing so could cause harm to the attendees.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the voter roll public is the US. You may have to pay a fee to get a nice organized list but when you're talking about campaigns spending hundreds of million that's not an issue.
All the actual reports of hacked voter systems were for servers that held public information, as in nothing that was restricted, and even then most of the hacks came from US Federal agencies that were supposedly doing security test.
The parents already had full access to all those conversations prior to her death so there is no privacy concerns. The only change in status is that Facebook removed the parents ability to (re)read earlier posts when they changed the status on the account and locked out the previous login credentials.
She entered into what is a pretty standard agreement between kids and parents; she could have social media accounts but they would have to have the username and password for all accounts at all times. They just want to login to her account with perfectly valid login credentials that were freely given to them but Facebook, and now this appeals court (this is an appeals count because the first court agreed with them) are trying to claim possible rights violations that did not previously exist prior to her death.
The parents already had full access to her account prior to her death so there was no reasonable expectation of privacy for anyone. The issue is Facebook new policy locks the account if the named person dies and they won't allow the parent access, even with the original accounts password.
No one even knows who reported the death to Facebook.
The parents had access to the account prior to her death, an agreement she entered into with them to be permitted to create the account itself, so there was no privacy concern. All dickpicks were already accessible by the parents. The issue is Facebook locked the account after her death (which some 3rd party reported) and now the parents can't log in even using her password.
No additional consent was required, the parents already had full access to her Facebook account prior to her death. That also negates anyone else's privacy claims as the parents at all times were able to read any 'private' conversations. The fact they did not exercise that ability does not cancel out the fact it existed.
The issue is someone reported her death to Facebook and Facebook locked her account thereby preventing her parents, who had all the login information, the ability to access the account.
They already had access to her account. The issue is someone, who Facebook won't disclose, reported her death to them so they locked the account and the login information the parents have no longer works.
You'll rarely see a citation from the "they didn't earn it " crowd because actual stats don't back them up.
While current 1% have come from all socioeconomic groups the majority are truly self-made. Forbes had a sliding scale a while ago rating their top 400 (at the time) and the breakdown was roughly:
228 - started at upper middle class or below and built their wealth (about 43% of those from working class or outright poverty)
7 - given large sums by wealthy parents as jumping off point
10 - made money from a job or a (lucky?) investment they didn't actively participate in
54 - inherited a small/medium level business but grew it
43 - inherited a fortune but continue to work on it
28 - inherited wealth and have really done nothing for it
Your payment for high speed access doesn't in any way guarantee you high speed access to every service on the internet. If the site you're trying to access doesn't also pay for proper access based on their needs then you won't be able to access them at any speed higher than their connection allows. All communication drops to the lowest common denominator and in this case that was Netflix's issue, not Comcast's.
For a while Comcast and others did allow Netflix access above and beyond what they were paying for but then they decided it was time for Netflix to pay their fair share. Netflix relied on customers like you who would complain enough to their ISPs, without understanding the actual issue, to put pressure on them to accept the uneven deal but Comcast and a few others decided they wouldn't buckle and waited Netflix out.
The fact the hardware allowed for the traffic to exceed agreed upon limits doesn't mean anything. It like claiming the government are being 'assholes' for not allowing me to drive a full size 18 wheeler using my motorcycle plates. The roads can handle the traffic so why should they make me abide by my agreement to restrict my mode of transportation to the type I was licensed for? Or are the folks at Hertz 'assholes' for not allowing me to take that Chevy Suburban when I paid for the Ford Fiesta?
By all accounts Netflix was trying to go cheap and try and talk ISPs into footing the bill for their bandwidth usage by claiming it was a benefit for all. Some ISPs folded and agreed to increase access at no additional fee, and often at their expense, while others, like Comcast, simply said no and decided to play hardball. While not great for the customers Comcast simply decided to stop Netflix's abuse of their system and the slow downs were merely a result of forcing them to live within their agreed upon limits. Once the limits were renegotiated Comcast then upped the bandwidth available to Netflix CDNs and peering partners to the new levels. Nothing in the entire Comcast/Netflix saga was related to or impacted by the net neutrality rules.
The NRA isn't really concerned about gun sales, just access. They are a guns rights/education group. The amount of money they get from manufacturers pales in comparison to their normal income from members dues.
The NSSF, on the other hand, is the gun manufactures and sellers lobby group and they must be feeling a little schizophrenic about Trump; sure they can continue to build and sell their products but they don't have the Obama threat to push sales.
Just posting to kill my accidental -mod.
(They really shouldn't have funny and overrated next to each other on the mod list.)
The only problem being there is absolutely no enforced compliance. As long as a company pays their dues they can stick whatever the hell they want on that sticker with no worries about any type of blowback seeing no one from Energy Star is actually checking their numbers.
In one round of tests from an outside lab they found that energy star ratings were on average 35-50% off the actual energy used. As it exists and has always existed it's just a federally run marketing scheme and nothing more.
It effectively the same as allowing Coke and Pepsi to just make up the calorie count on their products out of thin air and then praise them for including calorie information.
Modern coal and nuclear plant designs allow for pretty quick response times.
The current batch in use in the US may be much more limited in load adjustments but the technology exists and is already in use in newer plants worldwide. For example, German coal plants are capable of dropping to as low as 20% load and can be brought up to max in under 30 minutes. French nuclear reactors can drop to 30% and be brought to max in even less time.
You do know tax brackets have nothing to do with the individual; they are simply a level of tax applied to income at certain levels. The person doesn't move into a different tax bracket, just the money they earn above the previous bracket. If you allow ANY deductions at all you are, in most cases, allowing people to reduce their tax at the highest possible rate.
So if brackets are 0-20,000 @ 10%, 20,001 - 50,000 @ 15% and 50,001 - 100,000 @ 20% a person making $60,000 doesn't pay 20% of 60k, they pay 10% on their first 20k, 15% on their next 30k and then 20% on that final 10k for a total of $8,500 or a little over 14% of total. Deductions, by definition, are generally applied at the top down so if they can reduce their income by $10,000 they save $2000 in taxes but if they reduce it by another $10,000 they only save an additional $1500.
I think what you're advocating is to remove all deductions and just give credits instead. A credit, in this case, would be a fixed percentage rebate that doesn't reduce your actual tax amount. So your taxable amount stays $8,500 but you could get back 12% for credit A (to a max of $5,000) and 7.5% for credit B (to a max of $7,000).
The current tax system is a hodgepodge of deductions and credits based almost entirely on which special interest can push their agenda on whoever happens to be in charge at a given time. Converting deductions into credits may be a good start but reducing the number of both is what needs to be done to simplify the tax code.