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pilight
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 Posted: 12/10/19 6:54 pm ::: |
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| Yang qualified for the December debate. There are two days left, but it looks like we're down to seven candidates: Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Sanders, Steyer, and Warren. Yang is the only non-white candidate to qualify.
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toad455
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| Posted: 12/10/19 9:04 pm ::: |
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| What about Bloomberg? Isn't he forking over his own money to qualify? Steyer doesn't belong, most people don't know he exists. Should be just five at this point: Biden, Warren, Buttigieg, Sanders & either Klobuchar or Yang.
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pilight
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| Posted: 12/10/19 10:25 pm ::: |
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| toad455 wrote: |
| What about Bloomberg? Isn't he forking over his own money to qualify? Steyer doesn't belong, most people don't know he exists. Should be just five at this point: Biden, Warren, Buttigieg, Sanders & either Klobuchar or Yang. |
Bloomberg didn't meet the fundraising threshold, largely because he was late entering
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Shades
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| Posted: 12/11/19 9:32 am ::: |
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| <iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FoJ7V5dfBYQ" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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Genero36
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GlennMacGrady
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| Posted: 12/12/19 9:54 pm ::: |
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| Any politician who says they will abolish the electoral college should immediately be dismissed as a charlatan and phony. No president can abolish something that's mandated by the constitution. Only a constitutional amendment can abolish the electoral college. Such an amendment requires a 2/3 vote in the Senate, a 2/3 vote in the House, and a vote of (all legislatures) in 3/4 of the states. That will never be possible in the foreseeable future. |
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PUmatty
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| Posted: 12/12/19 10:06 pm ::: |
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| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
| Any politician who says they will abolish the electoral college should immediately be dismissed as a charlatan and phony. No president can abolish something that's mandated by the constitution. Only a constitutional amendment can abolish the electoral college. Such an amendment requires a 2/3 vote in the Senate, a 2/3 vote in the House, and a vote of (all legislatures) in 3/4 of the states. That will never be possible in the foreseeable future. |
Agreed.
The problem with the electoral college is how out of whack House Representation has gotten. If House districts were not locked at 435 and were instead able to grow and shift has population grows and moves (as it did earlier in US history), the electoral college would function as it is supposed to. So would Congressional representation.
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pilight
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| Posted: 12/12/19 10:22 pm ::: |
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| The 1929 Reapportionment Act was bad on several levels. It eliminated the provision requiring equally populated contiguous and compact districts, allowing state legislatures to draw districts at will.
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GlennMacGrady
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| Posted: 12/12/19 11:10 pm ::: |
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People are free to dislike the electoral college, and I suspect most of the Founding Fathers disliked it, too. However, they disliked the electoral college less than the two leading alternatives, which were:
1. National popular vote. The Founding Fathers, just like many people today, were very skeptical and averse to entrusting the election of a president to the populace. The masses were considered too ignorant, too consumed by partisan local issues, and too easily duped by campaign lies and other shenanigans.
2. Election by Congress. This became disfavored because it seemed that it would be inconsistent with the constitution's separation of powers principles for one branch to elect another.
So, the Founding Fathers compromised by creating the concept of a group of electors, distributing the number of electors to the states in proportion to each state's number of Senators and Representatives, and letting the states decide how to choose the electors in presidential elections. The states are not required by the constitution to select electors by popular vote, though the states now all do. For example, a state could decide that it's legislature or governor would choose the electors, skipping all popular votes.
Pure popular vote democracy has been viewed skeptically throughout world history. That's why we have a republic -- if, as Franklin said, we can keep it. |
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Shades
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Howee
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| Posted: 12/12/19 11:16 pm ::: |
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| pilight wrote: |
| The 1929 Reapportionment Act was bad on several levels. It eliminated the provision requiring equally populated contiguous and compact districts, allowing state legislatures to draw districts at will. |
That's gerrymandering, right?
Hardly a Constitutional expert, but I am still not convinced that the 'original plan' laid out there could have possibly included a viable plan to presciently account for the extraordinarily vast geographic expanses our country eventually came to encompass, and the way that lends itself to significant geopolitical divides. Just ask the Romans....they even went 300 years longer than we have thus far, but eventually it didn't end as the 'founders' might have hoped.
North Dakotans and Oregonians don't need/want what Georgian and Nevadans do. Colorado doesn't care much about Rhode Island or Vermont's concerns. And wasn't this created at a time when the wealthier, more educated were tasked with these erudite affairs of governing? Now, a far greater percentage of the population, regardless of education level or location, CAN form legitimate opinions to cast informed votes. I'd certainly think a revamping of the system is in order, looong task or not.
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GlennMacGrady
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| Posted: 12/13/19 12:00 am ::: |
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Shades, I'm not sure I understand your post about Trump's 2012 tweet. Yes, years before he become a politician Trump expressed dislike of the electoral college, but I'm sure he's changed his mind. More important to my point, Trump, then or now, has never claimed a president could abolish the electoral college.
I'm talking about some of the Democrat candidates' over-the-top "promises" on this issue. I have no problem if candidates for or holders of political office say they wish the electoral college could be abolished, but they are phony charlatans if they promise, claim or even suggest that they, alone, can do it. The president has no role in the constitutional amendment process; it's all in the hands of Congress and the states. |
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Shades
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| Posted: 12/13/19 12:32 am ::: |
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| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
| Shades, I'm not sure I understand your post about Trump's 2012 tweet. |
You feign lack of understanding because it embarrasses you. You just admitted Trump is a phony politician, something most of us already knew.
| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
| Yes, years before he become a politician Trump expressed dislike of the electoral college, but I'm sure he's changed his mind. |
No kidding, just because he won with the electoral college. It doesn’t make him any less of a phony. He’s stupid and doesn’t know right from wrong, or more likely doesn’t care. Anybody that would defend him shares his lack of empathetic qualities.
| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
| More important to my point, Trump, then or now, has never claimed a president could abolish the electoral college. |
You’re the only one who brought up the president abolishing it. Why would it be up to him? Are you getting used to the president being king?
| Quote: |
| Under the most common method for amending the Constitution, an amendment must be proposed by a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress and ratified by three-fourths of the States. |
| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
| I'm talking about some of the Democrat candidates' over-the-top "promises" on this issue. I have no problem if candidates for or holders of political office say they wish the electoral college could be abolished, but they are phony charlatans if they promise, claim or even suggest that they, alone, can do it. |
You must be confused again. Trump’s the only one that doesn’t realize that the three branches of the government are supposed to work together. If a political candidate states that the abolishment of electoral college is a goal of theirs, I have no problem with that. Just like with Medicare for All, it’s going to take a cooperative effort.
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GlennMacGrady
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| Posted: 12/13/19 2:28 am ::: |
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| Shades wrote: |
| If a political candidate states that the abolishment of electoral college is a goal of theirs, I have no problem with that. |
So we agree. Good. |
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GlennMacGrady
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| Posted: 12/13/19 1:34 pm ::: |
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| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
People are free to dislike the electoral college, and I suspect most of the Founding Fathers disliked it, too. However, they disliked the electoral college less than the two leading alternatives, which were:
1. National popular vote. The Founding Fathers, just like many people today, were very skeptical and averse to entrusting the election of a president to the populace. The masses were considered too ignorant, too consumed by partisan local issues, and too easily duped by campaign lies and other shenanigans.
2. Election by Congress. This became disfavored because it seemed that it would be inconsistent with the constitution's separation of powers principles for one branch to elect another.
So, the Founding Fathers compromised by creating the concept of a group of electors, distributing the number of electors to the states in proportion to each state's number of Senators and Representatives, and letting the states decide how to choose the electors in presidential elections. The states are not required by the constitution to select electors by popular vote, though the states now all do. For example, a state could decide that it's legislature or governor would choose the electors, skipping all popular votes.
Pure popular vote democracy has been viewed skeptically throughout world history. That's why we have a republic -- if, as Franklin said, we can keep it. |
After writing this brief history of the Founding Fathers' rejection of a popular vote for the president, I coincidentally watched Ben Shapiro's recent speech at Boston University. It reminded me that until the 17th Amendment was passed in 1913, the original constitution provided for 134 years that senators were appointed by state legislatures.
The Founding Fathers wanted only the House members to be directly elected by the populace, and only for two years, so the House would represent an ever-changing patchwork quilt of local interests. The Senate was to be a sort of analog to the English House of Lords, with educated members appointed by the states for long periods to represent the more general, non-local and longer-lived interests of each state as a whole.
So, our original constitution was not structured around direct popular elections other than for members of the House, and there was no original concept of "one man, one vote" until the Supreme Court invented that concept in the 1960's based on the post-Civil War 14th Amendment. |
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pilight
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| Posted: 12/13/19 2:10 pm ::: |
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| The electoral college no longer serves a useful purpose. That's reason enough to abolish it.
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toad455
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| Posted: 12/13/19 2:41 pm ::: |
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| pilight wrote: |
| The electoral college no longer serves a useful purpose. That's reason enough to abolish it. |
Conservatives are the ones who typically disagree with this. If the electoral college didn't exist, Al Gore would have won in 2000 and Hilary would have won in 2016.
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GlennMacGrady
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| Posted: 12/13/19 3:33 pm ::: |
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Biden calls Boris Johnson 'a physical and emotional clone' of Trump
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The Democratic presidential candidate also said that Johnson was able to win because the rival Labour Party had moved too far left.
"Boris Johnson is winning in a walk,” Biden said Thursday, predicting that headlines would say, “Look what happens when the Labour Party moves so, so far to the left. It comes up with ideas that are not able to be contained within a rational basis quickly.”
“You’re also going to see people saying, my god, Boris Johnson, who is kind of a physical and emotional clone of the president, is able to win,” Biden added. |
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GlennMacGrady
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| Posted: 12/13/19 3:43 pm ::: |
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NBC: Corbyn's UK defeat was bad news for Sanders, Warren and America's left
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| But it’s also hard to ignore that the results in Britain last night were bad news for Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and America’s left — just 52 days before the Iowa caucuses. |
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| . . . last night’s election showed the limits of campaigning and winning on ideology. A socialist or very left-leaning message — inspired to turn out young voters and unite the working class — simply didn’t work. |
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| And it shows the limits of the Twitter Left. |
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Shades
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| Posted: 12/13/19 4:14 pm ::: |
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| GlennMacGrady wrote: |
NBC: Corbyn's UK defeat was bad news for Sanders, Warren and America's left
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| But it’s also hard to ignore that the results in Britain last night were bad news for Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and America’s left — just 52 days before the Iowa caucuses. |
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| . . . last night’s election showed the limits of campaigning and winning on ideology. A socialist or very left-leaning message — inspired to turn out young voters and unite the working class — simply didn’t work. |
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| And it shows the limits of the Twitter Left. |
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You left out these parts.
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| Always beware of drawing conclusions from one country’s election to another. |
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| Make no mistake: Neither Sanders nor Warren are as unpopular as Corbyn is in his country; in fact, Sanders and Warren have similar favorable and unfavorable ratings to Joe Biden’s. |
Here’s something you probably didn’t realize. The UK already have a national healthcare program. How much more left leaning do they need to be? In the USA, people are being brainwashed that healthcare isn’t a human right in an evolved civilized world. In the USA, universal healthcare is being sold as a radical left wing program when it’s actually what most people want.
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GlennMacGrady
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| Posted: 12/13/19 5:04 pm ::: |
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There are many articles and commentators in both liberal and conservative media pointing out the historical, logical and political parallels between the UK election and the U.S., but I'll just excerpt one more.
Corbyn's bloodbath defeat in UK election sends 'catastrophic warning' to 2020 Dems
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| “Maybe this is the canary in the coal mine,” Democratic presidential hopeful Michael Bloomberg . . . told reporters Friday. . . . And I think it’s sort of a catastrophic warning to the Democratic Party . . . ." |
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| “One lesson from the UK: if the Democrats don't stop their hard-left slide, they'll suffer the same fate as Labour,” commentator Andrew Sullivan tweeted. “If they don't move off their support for mass immigration, they're toast. Ditto the wokeness. Left Twitter is not reality.” |
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Former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan warned also about the Twitter bubble, and that Democrats should be careful about picking someone too far on the fringes.
“Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren both share Jeremy Corbyn's socialist agenda and both appear to be as popular as him on Twitter,” Morgan said in an op-ed. “But Twitter's not the real world.” |
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| On Friday, Trump suggested that just as the 2016 Brexit referendum foreshadowed his own presidential win a few months later, the 2019 U.K. election forecasts a win for him in 2020. |
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Howee
Joined: 27 Nov 2009
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| Posted: 12/13/19 5:25 pm ::: |
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| Shades wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Always beware of drawing conclusions from one country’s election to another. |
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Ahhhh, yes. Pundits will always enjoy creating click bait that's so easily derived from (what seems to be) obvious parallels.
I promise you, the British are NOT the Americans. For example, in juxtaposition to this seemingly parallel *thing*, most Brits abhor Don the Con, who--aside from ugly blond hair--resembles Boris in little else.
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mercfan3
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| Posted: 12/14/19 10:16 pm ::: |
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| toad455 wrote: |
| pilight wrote: |
| The electoral college no longer serves a useful purpose. That's reason enough to abolish it. |
Conservatives are the ones who typically disagree with this. If the electoral college didn't exist, Al Gore would have won in 2000 and Hilary would have won in 2016. |
They'll disagree until Texas goes blue.
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pilight
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| Posted: 12/14/19 10:28 pm ::: |
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| mercfan3 wrote: |
| toad455 wrote: |
| pilight wrote: |
| The electoral college no longer serves a useful purpose. That's reason enough to abolish it. |
Conservatives are the ones who typically disagree with this. If the electoral college didn't exist, Al Gore would have won in 2000 and Hilary would have won in 2016. |
They'll disagree until Texas goes blue. |
At which point the left will disagree
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taropatch
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| Posted: 12/19/19 2:06 am ::: |
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| After all that happened on Wednesday, tomorrow its going to be, "Debate? What debate?"
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