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tfan
Joined: 31 May 2010
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 Posted: 03/14/19 7:15 pm ::: |
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| Genero36 wrote: |
| I might as well run for president. Everyone else is running. |
And I saw a graphic on a news show today that had 12 other people listed as potential candidates. The ones I remember were Biden and Stacey Abrams.
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Shades
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Genero36
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| Posted: 03/19/19 3:47 pm ::: |
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Elizabeth Warren Calls for Ending Electoral College
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Ms. Warren’s remarks came during an hourlong CNN town hall at Jackson State University, a historically black college in the capital of the deeply Republican state. While reiterating her familiar positions on regulating corporations and upending Washington lobbying, Ms. Warren also sought to present new ideas to a national audience that is still getting to know her.
“I believe we need a constitutional amendment that protects the right to vote for every American citizen and makes sure that vote gets counted,” Ms. Warren said in response to a question about voter disenfranchisement. “We need to put some federal muscle behind that, and we need to repeal every one of the voter suppression laws that is out there.” |
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-town-hall-electoral-college.html
It will never happen.
Electoral college was put in place to uphold slavery. Should have been deleted a long time ago (well obvs should never have existed). Today, it creates voter disenfranchisement where people are discouraged from voting in "red" or "blue" states, and we wait with bated breath to see who Florida chooses/rigs it for.
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tfan
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: 03/19/19 5:21 pm ::: |
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| The Electoral College has cost Democrats two presidential elections in a 16 year period. I don’t understand why they aren’t pushing to remove it at every chance they get. Even if it will take time and work, at least call for it. That should have been the main talking point after the 2016 election, not Russia.
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tfan
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| Posted: 03/19/19 6:00 pm ::: |
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SF meets Andrew Yang, a presidential candidate who’s attracting support from Millennials
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| The unlikely presidential run of Andrew Yang, who is proposing a $1,000-a-month “freedom dividend” to every adult in America, rolled Friday into San Francisco, where some 3,000 supporters listened to the New York tech entrepreneur warn about how artificial intelligence and robotics are taking jobs. |
He talks about losing jobs to automation, as have Zuckerberg of Facebook and Musk of Tesla. All 3 talk about a guaranteed income in the future. None of the 3 talks about our continual import of people. We won't have enough jobs, but we will need more people?
In US presidential race, how old is too old?
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| Washington (AFP) - With a septuagenarian president preparing his re-election bid, and two likely main challengers in their late seventies by 2020, Americans are facing an inevitable question: does age matter in White House politics? |
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Stonington_QB
Joined: 05 Jul 2013
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Stonington_QB
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| Posted: 03/20/19 3:34 pm ::: |
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| So the frontrunners in the Democrat race right now are the two white guys with the most money behind them.
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jammerbirdi
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| Posted: 03/20/19 6:01 pm ::: |
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| tfan wrote: |
| The Electoral College has cost Democrats two presidential elections in a 16 year period. I don’t understand why they aren’t pushing to remove it at every chance they get. Even if it will take time and work, at least call for it. That should have been the main talking point after the 2016 election, not Russia. |
You know for most of my politically aware life I was strongly against the electoral college. And if a thumbs up choice were given to me to decide for everyone I guess I would get rid of it. It IS an undemocratic system. But we don't live in a democracy. And I think more than having a complete opposition to all things relating to the electoral college, which I can't say I still have, I would be inclined to get rid of it because I'm seriously not so sure that our governmental system is continuing to work.
I mean, come on. Saying the American system of government isn't working is a very hard notion for a lot of folks to accept or admit. People constantly harp on the longevity of our great constitutional experiment. So it wasn't a democracy to begin with. Landowning white males were the only people allowed to vote. Then women were given the vote. Then, IN MY LIFETIME, black people. Million other things. And the result has been a corrupt system that is owned by those with the biggest checkbooks. So just because I think things suck so bad I would say let's get rid of this one clearly undemocratic thing that has backfired twice in the last 20 years.
So that's what I would do but I am now completely sympathetic to the idea of the coasts, made up of massive thriving metropolitan centers of commerce and education as well as incredible hypocrisy, under-reported inequality, homelessness, despair, etc... those parts of the country dominating the governmental decision making processes for the vast VAST rest of the country and all who live there. I also don't think that solutions should be based on just trying to ram down the throats of these people, living in THEIR part of the country, with ITS realities and struggles, the way people clustered in the cities and on the coasts want them to live. That is Hunger Games insanity and it will never work.
The electoral college is a way of making a strong and rich part of the country aware that this other part is out there living in a different world entirely and that it must be considered in deciding the direction of the country and especially as those decisions effect this other part of the world.
And look. Let's get real as real can get. Read the NYTimes and the pieces that do still manage to leak into the paper. Listen to people on the ground on the coasts talking about the absolutely INCREDIBLE failures on every level to fix or address chronic social and political ills and inequalities in these elite blue state strongholds. The shit is literally not to be believed. And then you're trying to tell other people in different parts of this country how they should live. It's gross.
So I don't know._________________ Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17 |
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pilight
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 03/20/19 6:14 pm ::: |
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| The electoral college serves no useful purpose today. OTOH, the move to eliminate it is symbolic action at its most obvious. It is an illusion of progress.
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jammerbirdi
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| Posted: 03/20/19 6:22 pm ::: |
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| pilight wrote: |
| The electoral college serves no useful purpose today. |
I don't know what you mean by that or the word useful. It's certainly not some impotent anachronism from days of yore.
I'm inclined, ironically because I used to mock the empty fields and woods getting a vote, to think that the vast empty fields and woods should get to vote as well. Because that shit is vast and it is owned by someone. Families, even. And a family of four that owns and is responsible for 50 thousand acres in Montana or New Mexico should, I'm inclined to believe, have more of a say so than a family of four living in an apartment in LA who doesn't own shit. Maybe far more. Like, Electoral College more._________________ Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17 |
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pilight
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| Posted: 03/20/19 6:59 pm ::: |
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| jammerbirdi wrote: |
| It's certainly not some impotent anachronism from days of yore |
That's exactly what it is
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Luuuc
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| Posted: 03/20/19 7:04 pm ::: |
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| Surely impotent is the opposite of what it is. It is hugely influential, for the entire world. It might be old but it is still 8 inches long and rock hard.
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justintyme
Joined: 08 Jul 2012
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| Posted: 03/20/19 7:37 pm ::: |
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| jammerbirdi wrote: |
| Families, even. And a family of four that owns and is responsible for 50 thousand acres in Montana or New Mexico should, I'm inclined to believe, have more of a say so than a family of four living in an apartment in LA who doesn't own shit. Maybe far more. Like, Electoral College more. |
So, people with money should have more of a say than those without. Good to know.
We should continue along this line of thinking. A person who is responsible for employing 50,000 people should have more votes in our election than a person who employees no one.
Yes, we should award power to someone's vote based upon whatever arbitrary standard we desire, to make sure that their undersized interests are represented. Who cares if that means that people are no longer represented fairly and are effectively disenfranchised.
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Howee
Joined: 27 Nov 2009
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Location: OREGON (in my heart)
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| Posted: 03/20/19 10:10 pm ::: |
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| jammerbirdi wrote: |
| I mean, come on. Saying the American system of government isn't working is a very hard notion for a lot of folks to accept or admit. People constantly harp on the longevity of our great constitutional experiment. So it wasn't a democracy to begin with. Landowning white males were the only people allowed to vote. |
"Isn't working" may be an overstatement. Referencing your previous analogy of a human body having a systemic problem (ulcers, congestion, infection, whatever, with a pimple on top) reminds us that most bodies may have systemic concerns BUT REMAIN QUITE ABLE-BODIED, with the ability to regenerate and heal, AND continue to grow in strength and efficiency. Your reference above to our beginnings, in contrast to where we're now at, is proof of that: it IS better than before, with the capacity to improve even more.
Our system is flawed. It certainly isn't working at maximum efficiency for every resident of our Land of The Free. At the age of nearly 300 years old, 'we' are a young entity on the stage of human civilizations and cultures. I have to remain optimistic--the cancerous lesions (Trump and his brand of corruption) can be removed, and healthy living restored and FURTHERED.
| Luuuc wrote: |
| Surely impotent is the opposite of what it is. It is hugely influential, for the entire world. It might be old but it is still 8 inches long and rock hard. |
(....well, I don't know where THAT came from, but....*I'M* impressed!) 
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jammerbirdi
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| Posted: 03/20/19 10:54 pm ::: |
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| Luuuc wrote: |
| Surely impotent is the opposite of what it is. It is hugely influential, for the entire world. It might be old but it is still 8 inches long and rock hard. |
Not according to Stormy Daniels._________________ Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17 |
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jammerbirdi
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| Posted: 03/20/19 11:49 pm ::: |
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| justintyme wrote: |
| jammerbirdi wrote: |
| Families, even. And a family of four that owns and is responsible for 50 thousand acres in Montana or New Mexico should, I'm inclined to believe, have more of a say so than a family of four living in an apartment in LA who doesn't own shit. Maybe far more. Like, Electoral College more. |
So, people with money should have more of a say than those without. Good to know.
We should continue along this line of thinking. A person who is responsible for employing 50,000 people should have more votes in our election than a person who employees no one.
Yes, we should award power to someone's vote based upon whatever arbitrary standard we desire, to make sure that their undersized interests are represented. Who cares if that means that people are no longer represented fairly and are effectively disenfranchised. |
I already said I'd do away with the electoral college if it were up to me. Is that all good to know or is it not useful to you?
So as far as whether we should award power (future tense) to anyone and or people being no longer (also future tense) represented fairly, I’m doing no such thing. We're talking about the system that has been in place from the beginnings of our nation.
So the question is why it might or could have some usefulness and purpose all these years later as per the founders intentions so long ago. And I think the issue of cities running roughshod over vast swaths of the country where far less people live has come to give the EC some possible usefulness it was intended to help mitigate.
I really don't think people are taking into account the realities on the coasts in the most liberal and affluent and powerful and influential sections of this country. California and the Acela corridor back east. You seem to be painting this picture of a downtrodden inner-city dweller being deprived of his equal voting franchise because of the electoral college. But I live here. In fact, I've lived in both worlds. While you SEE in your imagination massive populations of regular people trying to be heard in the voting booth, I see the opposite. I see the affluence of the coasts, the centers of elite power and control, where I also see misery and homelessness and renter's rights trampled and New York City STILL without properly integrated schools and just on and on and on... and my concern is this vast wealth and arrogance and a penchant for selfishness and disregard for the rules and ideas of fairness etc. that we SOCIALIZE the rest of the country to believe in... I'm concerned with what the future is going to look like as this part of the country continues to try to overrun the rest of the country.
So this here electoral college thing has always been there. We have a grand democratic experiment that's the envy of the rest of the world! Didn't you know that? Electoral College has always been a part of that. 
I'm serious though. Here's what I see. One example. Multiple pieces in the New York Times in the last year that expose the fact that the schools in New York are not integrated. Okay? No, go find the articles! This isn't even a joke or an exaggeration. They never accomplished it. Politically, New Yorkers fought for integration of public schools a half century ago. Optically, New York liberals used their wealth and power and influence, as much as any demographic would have participated in this incredibly important social and civil rights moment in our history, to TELL America to end school segregation wherever we might find it.
But New York has failed to do this. And they have largely escaped being exposed for their failures until lately.
But here's the thing. This wasn't some accidental failure. Fucking affluent New Yorkers knew exactly what they were doing. You don't oops accidentally fail to allow black kids into your white schools. They didn't want their kids mixing it up with kids from the ghetto. Ghetto the hell outta here!
Because that is who the affluent, or the relatively affluent, who live on the coasts are. If there's one place where societies ills should be getting the best solutions it is IN these massively wealthy and powerful liberal strongholds. You have all the smartest people, people supposedly with the best intentions, all the money in the world, and YET, these are the places in this country where you see the worst of the worst of our society's failures. If you don't know, because you don't live on the coasts, EVERYTHING comes down on the side of the haves. Everything. Meanwhile there's so much pressure on people to try to keep a roof over their heads here.
So to allow the coasts, with all this power and wealth they already have, to run roughshod over the far less affluent mid-section of the country is an inherent disaster waiting to happen. Maybe the founders were the extreme geniuses they're credited to be. And if the electoral college they put in place can forestall the inherent disaster of the unscrupulous affluent overrunning the goober states out there, then maybe it's better left in place.
When you talk about the electoral college, I think you see a different dynamic in place. You see it holding back the will of the people. I used to have this all REAL simple, just like that. One person, one vote. I'm just saying that it isn't that simple. As few things are. The electoral college quite possibly might be holding back the more powerful and affluent from having their way with the less fortunate. Just to pull back and look at the country as a whole. Just sayin'.
My basic thing is this. With the Republicans you get all the evils we've been articulating for decades. With the Democrats, the incredibly affluent Democrats on the coasts, you get the Hunger Games. Pick your poison. And a LOT of America already sees it this way, even if they don't know the Hunger Games from the coloring books at Chucky Cheese's. The coasts have been turning off the rest of the country for years now. Separate but related subject is the absolute abuse all these political celebrities heap on absolute nobodies out there on Twitter. These people out here, Kathy Griffin, Bette Midler, mostly a bunch of people I can't even remember their names but you would recognize their faces, they are redefining punching downwards, putting their true selves, their TRUE capacity for cruelty, on vivid display.
I'm just saying. Putting an end to the electoral college is NOT the way to deal with about half the country population wise and about 85% of it geographically. Of course, I'm inclined to think it's too late to see a bringing together of these two parts of the country anyway. But I will always blame the more educated and affluent who have been making the mistakes I've been complaining about since the 1960s in trying to deal with this other part of America because they really should have known better than to give into their own worst impulses in trying to 'fix' all the parts of America they don't live in and don't understand.
Gotta go. Or I'd just keep typing.  _________________ Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17 |
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pilight
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Shades
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| Posted: 03/21/19 10:05 am ::: |
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| So Biden is only a year younger than Sanders. He only looks about 10 years younger.
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justintyme
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| Posted: 03/21/19 1:41 pm ::: |
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| How about Abrams take Biden as her VP....
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jammerbirdi
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| Posted: 03/21/19 1:54 pm ::: |
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So this is the madness._________________ Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17 |
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pilight
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| Posted: 03/28/19 8:14 am ::: |
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Wayne Messam
http://wayneforamerica.com/
| Quote: |
| Washington is not working for the American people, and these big issues need fresh eyes and bold ideas from someone closer to the people, so our voice can be heard. Together, we can fundamentally change our country for the better and tackle these challenges with actions that match the scale and urgency of this moment. |
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tfan
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: 03/28/19 6:32 pm ::: |
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Poll: Biden, Bernie, Beto lead Democratic pack
This must give Biden encouragement to jump in:
Biden 29%
Sanders 19%
O'Rourke 12%
Harris 8%
Buttigieg 4%
Warren 4%
Booker 2%
Klobuchar 2%
Castro 1%
Hickenlooper 1%
Undecided 14%
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toad455
Joined: 16 Nov 2005
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| Posted: 03/28/19 8:17 pm ::: |
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| Mayor Pete is gaining momentum and getting noticed. I think in a month or so he passes Harris and possibly O'Rourke.
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tfan
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| Posted: 03/29/19 11:28 am ::: |
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| toad455 wrote: |
| Mayor Pete is gaining momentum and getting noticed. I think in a month or so he passes Harris and possibly O'Rourke. |
It is significant that a South Bend mayor has pulled ahead of two Senators and tied another. And Castro is on cable news all the time criticizing Trump. Saw an article where a donor class woman from the San Francisco Area compared Buttigieg to a young Bill Clinton as far as communicating and connecting with people. She said that she and her friends wrote him a check immediately after seeing him on CNN to help him meet the debate criteria.
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Shades
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| Posted: 03/29/19 11:32 am ::: |
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| Hasn’t 2016 taught people not to trust polls? All Presidential polls are worthless and people shouldn’t be influenced by them.
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