Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants to hold Twitch town-halls. So I say go for it
Is anything, except the idea that she would be disenfranchising all her constituents that have no idea what the fuck "Twitch" is, stopping her from doing that today?
And it will be a nice, easy drive for the people in the district to go up and visit their congresspeople.
Pull the other one, it plays... well, let's put it this way. What may be a "nice, easy drive" for you would be a day off work and two hours each way, IF I could manage to get five minutes with any of them. Do you really think it is that easy for Joe Voter to get to see his state reps? Those are smaller districts and, for me, the drivetime is half.
but A. convincing someone by email/phone/snail mail is far less efficient than in-person conversations
Which is EXACTLY why you want to have congresspeople near others of similar, good, ideas so those ideas can germinate and take hold, not wither in a sea of privacy.
as you'd basically be allowing any 30k people in an area to vote someone into office.
Thereby leaving 9 other people elected by nine other sets of 30k to vote against anything your pet rep wants. (That's using the 300k/30k numbers.) Diluting the vote of your rep by a factor of ten.
This would mean that the representatives would actually be members of a community their representing, and have jobs other than "politician".
I don't know where you get that from. If you don't think being a rep for 30k full time is not a full-time job, you're nuts. What you will have done is multiply the costs of the House as far as payroll and benefits by a factor of ten.
but the Democratic party and leaders would lose sway because 3rd party candidates would be easily competitive.
I have no idea where you get this from, either. If 5% of the people vote for some third party candidate vs. 95% for the mainstream, then it's still only 5% of your 30k district that will vote for the third-party guy. That is, unless you think you can gerrymander your smaller districts to make a third party candidate a likely winner. Then you're faced with the other nine remaining reps from the other 270k people being mainstream (you've collected all the third party voters into your twisty little maze of a district so you can get his 1/10th of a vote).
It would be a huge swing to the power structure of the US, and a net positive for the people, but a huge change to the status quo.
It would eliminate face-to-face meetings between cooperating reps to make deals to get things that you might like passed. You can deal with negotiating with 400 others -- or a significant subset of those -- but imagine trying to do the same with 4000 people spread all over the country because they are required to be in their tiny little districts 90% of the time.
You also need to face the problem of finding candidates. It's hard enough for a state with five reps to find good candidates. You want to make them find fifty candidates from districts that will be 1/10 the current size.
It will be a CF of unimaginable scale. Even moreso than what we've got now.
Why is it that people who have never served a day in public office think they know better than the founding fathers how the government should be designed?
Content creator posts public video on a public website.
You're confused. YouTube is owned lock, stock and barrel by a corporation. The fact that they have a part of the website available for free access and upload of user content doesn't make the entire website "public."
Isn't the WHOLE point of putting it on YouTube in the first place is to get views???
No. The "whole point" of this specific part of YouTube is to act as a delivery medium for content you have to pay to get.
I wonder, do any slashdotters answer their phone for unknown numbers and engage in long conversations?
And if they do answer and have time to waste on such stuff, do any of them have any compunctions against telling the telemarketer/pollster the most outrageous stuff just for fun? I sure don't. They're wasting my time, and if I'm going to spend it talking to them I'm going to have fun while doing it. "Yes, I think climate change has a direct impact on my life. It's killing my pet fish Eric."
No, they should ask, give up 10% of your standard of live, are you willing to spend 10% of your income,
In the US the news has many stories of people who are simply devastated because they have missed one paycheck -- which would be considerably less than 10% of their income.
Or are you to have your 1/2 of your standard of living cut for you, 1/2 of your income cut for you, and have everything about your life downsized by 1/2 for you, as a result climate change in 10-20 years....probably.
The problem with doom and gloom predictions is that the emotional impact of them wears off as deadlines are missed or pushed back. Or, put another way, "Malthus was wrong."
I think the increasing numbers in the polls can be attributed in some, perhaps large, part to the tendency of people to tell pollsters the "right" answer. This should be obvious. We've had lots of stories here on/. about polls being incorrect because of this effect, so why not for this topic, too? And that ignores the push-polling issue, where the answers depend almost solely on the way the questions are asked.
Extraction costs for offshore oil will only increase as they move into picking higher and higher hanging fruit.
When you talk about "offshore oil", you do realize that being underwater means the "higher hanging fruit" would actually be easier to get to because it isn't as deep, right?
The extraction costs of wind and solar are basically zero.
"Basically zero" means "isn't zero but I don't want to say that."
You mean the perjury that a judge ruled to be immaterial.
He was impeached for perjury. Perjury is not just "fibbing". It can only happen after someone has sworn to tell the truth to a court, and then LIED to the court about something. "It's immaterial" doesn't mean "didn't happen". In fact, it is a clear statement that the perjury did happen. Whether the judge considered the lie in forming a verdict is irrelevant.
He was NOT impeached for abuse of his office
I didn't say he was. You tacitly admitted that you know it is a fact he did it because you know he lied when he denied it. You try to wave it off as "fibbing", which means you consider the fact to be trivial -- on the order of saying "no" when your wife asks if this dress makes her look fat.
The truth is, sexual harassment and sexual abuse is a serious issue. People are going to jail for doing it. People are losing their jobs based solely on accusations. But it's not a serious thing when the President of the US does it. Why do you feel that way?
Now, you can whine about how it isn't a "high crime", but the law might differ with you today. And it's irrelevant whether it rises to the level of an impeachable offense because nobody here claimed it was. It is a lot more serious than you're trying to make it out to be, however.
but I can think of a BIG reason such a man might later lie about it that has nothing to do with his office (hint, he was married to it).
You've just proven yet again why it is a much more serious offense than a word "fibbing" would justify.
Read TFA properly. The last one was during the 2016 campaign.
Oh, I have to read it "properly" to find the transgression. I'm sorry, but I read this, quoted from the article:
"The Journal reported that a man named John Gauger, owner of RedFinch Solutions and chief information officer of Liberty University in Virginia, was given more than $12,000 by Cohen in 2015..."
And can't figure out a way of converting "2015" into "2016" no matter how much I might hate Trump. The payment for the services may have taken place after the services were provided, but the alleged rigging attempt allegedly ordered by Trump, based solely on the word of a proven liar, was in 2015.
Show me anyplace in the Constitution where it mentions a "popular vote" for the office of President of the US. Nobody campaigns for the fictional "popular vote", and the only time those words are ever used referring to the US Presidential elections is when someone is trying to claim their candidate actually won "the election", even though they lost the real election by a large margin.
The rest of your comment is, well, fascinating babble.
Good for you. What you want isn't the point. You're not going to pay enough to support all the journalists. Nor will Joe American who expects to see news for free when he turns on the TV. Move "The Six O'Clock News" over to a pay cable channel and guess who won't be watching the six o'clock news anymore.
And yes, it is convenient that Journalists can be so easily manipulated. Except it's not.
Except for the journalists that work at the Washington Times, Fox, etc, right?
The trick works for polls you don't commission yourself too, btw.
My response had nothing to do with the "trick" working, it was with your statement that step 1 was to commission a poll. Neither poll was commissioned by Trump. Nor did he win either poll.
They're all right wing all pro-corporate all the time.
It's clear you don't watch what you are so ready to condemn.
What I find both astonishing and scary is all the GOPers chirping "So, what LAWS were broken?".... Really, your bar for the leader of the "civilized" world is that low?
When it comes to talking about impeachment and the claims of criminal acts, the bar should be pretty high. Much higher than "someone said someone told him to do something that wasn't illegal... and then reimbursed him when he submitted his expense report." So, sure, express your dismay that some people still believe the rule of law requires evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, and the Constitution requires a conviction prior to impeachment.
It was illegal campaign spending. TFA says he did it during the campaign
A 2014 CNBC poll was "during the campaign"? And the Drudge poll that TFA reports as being before Trump announced his candidacy was "before the campaign"?
3. Have sites you own pick up the story of you "winning" the poll.
He didn't "win" the poll. There was no winner in the poll. it was a list of 100 people he wasn't on. He didn't win the Drudge poll (which he also didn't commission), he came in fifth.
If we paid more for news and had more journalists as a result
If Americans had to pay more to get access to news, fewer Americans would access news and there would be fewer journalists. The only reason there are as many journalists getting paid today as there are is because advertisers pay money to ride along on the delivery of the news.
This is how you manipulate the institution of media to do bad things.
You just conveniently explained why journalists are so ready and willing to be manipulated, and then blame those who do it.
During the Clinton administration, the GOP set the bar at fibbing about an extramarital BJ.
When you lie about simple facts, you look biased and partisan. The impeachment was for perjury in front of a grand jury, which is not "fibbing". What the perjury was about is irrelevant.
By the way, if abusing one's office and thus committing sexual harassment is such a trivial matter, as you seem to trying to make it out to be, why did Clinton lie about it to a grand jury, and why are so many people being tried and convicted (and losing their jobs) over it?
But no, that's falling into your trap of trying to redefine what the Constitution actually requires. What Cohen did isn't grounds for impeachment of the President.
"other High Crimes and Misdemeanors." Yes, it does have to be a high crime, which is why the word "other" appears. (That means, for the people whose primary language is not English, that "Bribery" and "Treason" are considered high crimes.) If you think an impeachment is proper for a simple misdemeanor, you're, well, wrong.
Be that as is may. You've not shown any crime yet, nor that it was committed by Trump, much less a high crime. "and Conviction of". You skipped that part, it seems, too.
Huh... I thought the goal was to detect and stop foreign interference in our elections.
Heh heh. Nice way to ignore context. The statement which shows a goal of "impeach" was this:
"Finally, they find an admission that could technically become the subject for an article of impeachment... ". That impeachment is clearly not for Cohen, but for... maybe you can figure it out.
explains why you cheered for a 4+ year investigation into the Benghazi attack
Make stuff up, much?
Patriots cheer for the country, partisans cheer for their team.
And patriots pay attention to the Constitution and the rule of law, one of which requires "high crimes" for an impeachment, the other is based on "innocent until proven guilty". We've not even been shown a crime, much less a "high crime", and no proof that Trump committed it. And yet "patriots" are clamoring for impeachment. Good to see which kind of patriot you are.
It seems you missed the critical points in your rush to condemn. You do realize that "impeach Cohen" is not the goal, it's "impeach Trump". This requires Trump to have actually done this (which you have only Cohen's claim for) AND that it actually is something illegal to begin with, much less a "high crime" as required as a grounds for impeachment.
Finally, they find an admission that could technically become the subject for an article of impeachment...
Someone said that someone else told them to give fake data to an online poll... you seriously think that rises to the level of a "high crime" that justifies impeachment? Cohen's lied before and you think NOW he's telling the gospel truth?
If you cannot at the very least sign a CR, then screw you.
So then you think the Congress can put whatever they want into, and leave out things that they've already approved, for a CR and the President is just supposed to rubber stamp it? Is that what you think the President's authority is limited to? Shame shame.
It is quite common, in fact a standard practice these days, for Congress to put multiple things in a single bill
Yeah, that's what a comprehensive budget is for.
Nice way to pull a quote out of context to help your straw man. That quote was referring NOT to a "comprehensive budget", but to the common practice of Congress stuffing lots of unrelated things into a normal bill, hiding behind something the President has asked for, and then claiming the President was vetoing the bill because it contained what he asked for, when the truth is that it was vetoed because of the things he did not.
and a legal replacement has yet to be enacted
By which you mean a Constitutional Amendment is needed.
No, that is not what I mean. Because you've now started putting words in my mouth, you can go debate all by yourself. You might even win that way, although I have my doubts.
Slashdot Mirror
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants to hold Twitch town-halls. So I say go for it
Is anything, except the idea that she would be disenfranchising all her constituents that have no idea what the fuck "Twitch" is, stopping her from doing that today?
And it will be a nice, easy drive for the people in the district to go up and visit their congresspeople.
Pull the other one, it plays ... well, let's put it this way. What may be a "nice, easy drive" for you would be a day off work and two hours each way, IF I could manage to get five minutes with any of them. Do you really think it is that easy for Joe Voter to get to see his state reps? Those are smaller districts and, for me, the drivetime is half.
but A. convincing someone by email/phone/snail mail is far less efficient than in-person conversations
Which is EXACTLY why you want to have congresspeople near others of similar, good, ideas so those ideas can germinate and take hold, not wither in a sea of privacy.
as you'd basically be allowing any 30k people in an area to vote someone into office.
Thereby leaving 9 other people elected by nine other sets of 30k to vote against anything your pet rep wants. (That's using the 300k/30k numbers.) Diluting the vote of your rep by a factor of ten.
This would mean that the representatives would actually be members of a community their representing, and have jobs other than "politician".
I don't know where you get that from. If you don't think being a rep for 30k full time is not a full-time job, you're nuts. What you will have done is multiply the costs of the House as far as payroll and benefits by a factor of ten.
but the Democratic party and leaders would lose sway because 3rd party candidates would be easily competitive.
I have no idea where you get this from, either. If 5% of the people vote for some third party candidate vs. 95% for the mainstream, then it's still only 5% of your 30k district that will vote for the third-party guy. That is, unless you think you can gerrymander your smaller districts to make a third party candidate a likely winner. Then you're faced with the other nine remaining reps from the other 270k people being mainstream (you've collected all the third party voters into your twisty little maze of a district so you can get his 1/10th of a vote).
It would be a huge swing to the power structure of the US, and a net positive for the people, but a huge change to the status quo.
It would eliminate face-to-face meetings between cooperating reps to make deals to get things that you might like passed. You can deal with negotiating with 400 others -- or a significant subset of those -- but imagine trying to do the same with 4000 people spread all over the country because they are required to be in their tiny little districts 90% of the time.
You also need to face the problem of finding candidates. It's hard enough for a state with five reps to find good candidates. You want to make them find fifty candidates from districts that will be 1/10 the current size.
It will be a CF of unimaginable scale. Even moreso than what we've got now.
Why is it that people who have never served a day in public office think they know better than the founding fathers how the government should be designed?
... that the whole US lives in just 98% of the households. I wonder who lives in the other 2%?
Content creator posts public video on a public website.
You're confused. YouTube is owned lock, stock and barrel by a corporation. The fact that they have a part of the website available for free access and upload of user content doesn't make the entire website "public."
Isn't the WHOLE point of putting it on YouTube in the first place is to get views???
No. The "whole point" of this specific part of YouTube is to act as a delivery medium for content you have to pay to get.
I wonder, do any slashdotters answer their phone for unknown numbers and engage in long conversations?
And if they do answer and have time to waste on such stuff, do any of them have any compunctions against telling the telemarketer/pollster the most outrageous stuff just for fun? I sure don't. They're wasting my time, and if I'm going to spend it talking to them I'm going to have fun while doing it. "Yes, I think climate change has a direct impact on my life. It's killing my pet fish Eric."
No, they should ask, give up 10% of your standard of live, are you willing to spend 10% of your income,
In the US the news has many stories of people who are simply devastated because they have missed one paycheck -- which would be considerably less than 10% of their income.
Or are you to have your 1/2 of your standard of living cut for you, 1/2 of your income cut for you, and have everything about your life downsized by 1/2 for you, as a result climate change in 10-20 years....probably.
The problem with doom and gloom predictions is that the emotional impact of them wears off as deadlines are missed or pushed back. Or, put another way, "Malthus was wrong."
I think the increasing numbers in the polls can be attributed in some, perhaps large, part to the tendency of people to tell pollsters the "right" answer. This should be obvious. We've had lots of stories here on /. about polls being incorrect because of this effect, so why not for this topic, too? And that ignores the push-polling issue, where the answers depend almost solely on the way the questions are asked.
Extraction costs for offshore oil will only increase as they move into picking higher and higher hanging fruit.
When you talk about "offshore oil", you do realize that being underwater means the "higher hanging fruit" would actually be easier to get to because it isn't as deep, right?
The extraction costs of wind and solar are basically zero.
"Basically zero" means "isn't zero but I don't want to say that."
But why is that a bad thing?
I don't see where I said it was.
A corporation has a clear motivation to provide high quality service in order to keep my business.
Explain that to Comcast. Or AT&T. Or Ma Bell in 1960. I think the motivation you think exists doesn't always.
That's like complaining you hate your government and then complain you can't drive anywhere because you can't use the roads they built.
I think that was the point he was trying to make -- Amazon has reached a level similar to government services.
You mean the perjury that a judge ruled to be immaterial.
He was impeached for perjury. Perjury is not just "fibbing". It can only happen after someone has sworn to tell the truth to a court, and then LIED to the court about something. "It's immaterial" doesn't mean "didn't happen". In fact, it is a clear statement that the perjury did happen. Whether the judge considered the lie in forming a verdict is irrelevant.
He was NOT impeached for abuse of his office
I didn't say he was. You tacitly admitted that you know it is a fact he did it because you know he lied when he denied it. You try to wave it off as "fibbing", which means you consider the fact to be trivial -- on the order of saying "no" when your wife asks if this dress makes her look fat.
The truth is, sexual harassment and sexual abuse is a serious issue. People are going to jail for doing it. People are losing their jobs based solely on accusations. But it's not a serious thing when the President of the US does it. Why do you feel that way?
Now, you can whine about how it isn't a "high crime", but the law might differ with you today. And it's irrelevant whether it rises to the level of an impeachable offense because nobody here claimed it was. It is a lot more serious than you're trying to make it out to be, however.
but I can think of a BIG reason such a man might later lie about it that has nothing to do with his office (hint, he was married to it).
You've just proven yet again why it is a much more serious offense than a word "fibbing" would justify.
Read TFA properly. The last one was during the 2016 campaign.
Oh, I have to read it "properly" to find the transgression. I'm sorry, but I read this, quoted from the article:
And can't figure out a way of converting "2015" into "2016" no matter how much I might hate Trump. The payment for the services may have taken place after the services were provided, but the alleged rigging attempt allegedly ordered by Trump, based solely on the word of a proven liar, was in 2015.
The GOP has not won a the popular vote
Show me anyplace in the Constitution where it mentions a "popular vote" for the office of President of the US. Nobody campaigns for the fictional "popular vote", and the only time those words are ever used referring to the US Presidential elections is when someone is trying to claim their candidate actually won "the election", even though they lost the real election by a large margin.
The rest of your comment is, well, fascinating babble.
How about "Presidential candidate X told me to lie to congress so he can make $500M off a real estate deal in Russian"... does that meet your bar?
Sdinfoserv told me to lie to congress. Does that meet YOUR bar for you being prosecuted for anything?
before Trump announced his candidacy was "before the campaign"?
Correction: was "during the campaign?"
we want news.
Good for you. What you want isn't the point. You're not going to pay enough to support all the journalists. Nor will Joe American who expects to see news for free when he turns on the TV. Move "The Six O'Clock News" over to a pay cable channel and guess who won't be watching the six o'clock news anymore.
And yes, it is convenient that Journalists can be so easily manipulated. Except it's not.
Except for the journalists that work at the Washington Times, Fox, etc, right?
The trick works for polls you don't commission yourself too, btw.
My response had nothing to do with the "trick" working, it was with your statement that step 1 was to commission a poll. Neither poll was commissioned by Trump. Nor did he win either poll.
They're all right wing all pro-corporate all the time.
It's clear you don't watch what you are so ready to condemn.
What I find both astonishing and scary is all the GOPers chirping "So, what LAWS were broken?".... Really, your bar for the leader of the "civilized" world is that low?
When it comes to talking about impeachment and the claims of criminal acts, the bar should be pretty high. Much higher than "someone said someone told him to do something that wasn't illegal... and then reimbursed him when he submitted his expense report." So, sure, express your dismay that some people still believe the rule of law requires evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, and the Constitution requires a conviction prior to impeachment.
It was illegal campaign spending. TFA says he did it during the campaign
A 2014 CNBC poll was "during the campaign"? And the Drudge poll that TFA reports as being before Trump announced his candidacy was "before the campaign"?
1. Commission an online poll.
It was a CNBC poll. Trump didn't commission it.
3. Have sites you own pick up the story of you "winning" the poll.
He didn't "win" the poll. There was no winner in the poll. it was a list of 100 people he wasn't on. He didn't win the Drudge poll (which he also didn't commission), he came in fifth.
If we paid more for news and had more journalists as a result
If Americans had to pay more to get access to news, fewer Americans would access news and there would be fewer journalists. The only reason there are as many journalists getting paid today as there are is because advertisers pay money to ride along on the delivery of the news.
This is how you manipulate the institution of media to do bad things.
You just conveniently explained why journalists are so ready and willing to be manipulated, and then blame those who do it.
During the Clinton administration, the GOP set the bar at fibbing about an extramarital BJ.
When you lie about simple facts, you look biased and partisan. The impeachment was for perjury in front of a grand jury, which is not "fibbing". What the perjury was about is irrelevant.
By the way, if abusing one's office and thus committing sexual harassment is such a trivial matter, as you seem to trying to make it out to be, why did Clinton lie about it to a grand jury, and why are so many people being tried and convicted (and losing their jobs) over it?
But no, that's falling into your trap of trying to redefine what the Constitution actually requires. What Cohen did isn't grounds for impeachment of the President.
Be that as is may. You've not shown any crime yet, nor that it was committed by Trump, much less a high crime. "and Conviction of". You skipped that part, it seems, too.
Huh... I thought the goal was to detect and stop foreign interference in our elections.
Heh heh. Nice way to ignore context. The statement which shows a goal of "impeach" was this: "Finally, they find an admission that could technically become the subject for an article of impeachment... ". That impeachment is clearly not for Cohen, but for ... maybe you can figure it out.
explains why you cheered for a 4+ year investigation into the Benghazi attack
Make stuff up, much?
Patriots cheer for the country, partisans cheer for their team.
And patriots pay attention to the Constitution and the rule of law, one of which requires "high crimes" for an impeachment, the other is based on "innocent until proven guilty". We've not even been shown a crime, much less a "high crime", and no proof that Trump committed it. And yet "patriots" are clamoring for impeachment. Good to see which kind of patriot you are.
It seems you missed the critical points in your rush to condemn. You do realize that "impeach Cohen" is not the goal, it's "impeach Trump". This requires Trump to have actually done this (which you have only Cohen's claim for) AND that it actually is something illegal to begin with, much less a "high crime" as required as a grounds for impeachment.
Finally, they find an admission that could technically become the subject for an article of impeachment...
Someone said that someone else told them to give fake data to an online poll ... you seriously think that rises to the level of a "high crime" that justifies impeachment? Cohen's lied before and you think NOW he's telling the gospel truth?
Wow.
If you cannot at the very least sign a CR, then screw you.
So then you think the Congress can put whatever they want into, and leave out things that they've already approved, for a CR and the President is just supposed to rubber stamp it? Is that what you think the President's authority is limited to? Shame shame.
It is quite common, in fact a standard practice these days, for Congress to put multiple things in a single bill
Yeah, that's what a comprehensive budget is for.
Nice way to pull a quote out of context to help your straw man. That quote was referring NOT to a "comprehensive budget", but to the common practice of Congress stuffing lots of unrelated things into a normal bill, hiding behind something the President has asked for, and then claiming the President was vetoing the bill because it contained what he asked for, when the truth is that it was vetoed because of the things he did not.
and a legal replacement has yet to be enacted
By which you mean a Constitutional Amendment is needed.
No, that is not what I mean. Because you've now started putting words in my mouth, you can go debate all by yourself. You might even win that way, although I have my doubts.