It is amazing watching the president-elect react to the concept of recounting the votes. He calls it a scam even though there is a legal process to have the votes recounted. And then he proclaims without any evidence that illegal votes gave the popular vote to Clinton.
Amazing.
If it were I, I would proclaim let all the votes be recounted throughout the United States. After all, the votes are more and likely going to be counted and the results not change.
But instead, we have this reaction.
A suspicious person might begin to wonder if his harping on a rigged election wasn't another example of him putting what he does on his opponent.
Monday, November 28, 2016
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Too Much Regulations
It always makes me laugh when the Republicans complain about too much regulation and it hampering business. And people just buy it up.
The whole reason that there is regulation is because at some point, people or businesses were taking advantage of something that was deemed not good for society as a whole. The regulations were put in to stop it.
Which the whole point of a government is to keep society safe from those that would exploit, or terrorize, the rest of society. But for some reason, what is good for society has taken a backseat and now its all for the individual and how dare the government do anything to stop that individual from doing whatever they want. It seems to me we're making a trip back into the feudal system as the extreme right takes over the government.
Its kind of like how people now have been pushed into hating the unions. You know those organizations that prevent businesses from exploiting their workers. That won many things that people take for granted today like a 40 hour work week instead of an 80 or100 hour workweek.
Just look at how willing the businesses are to pay pennies for jobs overseas and people being worked to death. If it weren't for unions/regulations, businesses would be doing it here happily.
And then there's griping about the Environmental Protection regulations. There was a time when you couldn't hardly see around Pittsburgh because of the poor air quality. Then cleaner air regulations went into effect and the air got a whole lot more breathable.
But of course, regulations are bad because society as a whole should not be protected against those that want to profit at its expense. So just you wait for the coming years with the Republicans in complete control of all aspects of the government, the smog shall return.
And if they could, they'd be ruling back minimum wage too.
Uncle Scrooge would be pleased that his 10 cents a day would be a good rate.
The whole reason that there is regulation is because at some point, people or businesses were taking advantage of something that was deemed not good for society as a whole. The regulations were put in to stop it.
Which the whole point of a government is to keep society safe from those that would exploit, or terrorize, the rest of society. But for some reason, what is good for society has taken a backseat and now its all for the individual and how dare the government do anything to stop that individual from doing whatever they want. It seems to me we're making a trip back into the feudal system as the extreme right takes over the government.
Its kind of like how people now have been pushed into hating the unions. You know those organizations that prevent businesses from exploiting their workers. That won many things that people take for granted today like a 40 hour work week instead of an 80 or100 hour workweek.
Just look at how willing the businesses are to pay pennies for jobs overseas and people being worked to death. If it weren't for unions/regulations, businesses would be doing it here happily.
And then there's griping about the Environmental Protection regulations. There was a time when you couldn't hardly see around Pittsburgh because of the poor air quality. Then cleaner air regulations went into effect and the air got a whole lot more breathable.
But of course, regulations are bad because society as a whole should not be protected against those that want to profit at its expense. So just you wait for the coming years with the Republicans in complete control of all aspects of the government, the smog shall return.
And if they could, they'd be ruling back minimum wage too.
Uncle Scrooge would be pleased that his 10 cents a day would be a good rate.
Sunday, November 20, 2016
Fixing the Electoral College
Some say going to a pure popular vote would result in lots of court challenges around the country. Another is the claim that the larger population centers would control the election.
Splitting the electoral college by the popular vote is an option. But then you have the problem of nobody reaching the 270 magic number. Because nobody gets enough votes. Although that is also possible with a winner take all apprach since the numbers can add up to 269 and 269 if the states fall right.
The problem with not getting to 270 is why in my opinion with the electoral college it shouldn't be a straight proportion of the popular vote. But I think the winner take all does exactly the opposite of what it was intended since it throws the entire population of the state on one candidate since its based on representatives + senators and the house of representatives is based on population. (As mentioned before Madison and Hamilton the designers of the ec argued against the winner take all approach as not what the system was designed for and tried to get an amendment passed to block it but failed) I think the ec should be divided and there should be a threshold of like all candidates that get 20% or more of the popular vote has the electoral college split by the percentage of the that vote.
Like if the breakdown was
Candidate A gets 48%
Candidate B gets 35%
Candidate C gets 10%
Candidate D gets 7%
And to make it easy... lets say the percentages there is also the popular vote so there was a total of 100 votes. The EC on the line would be 20. Most likely the number is subconsciously based on the fact my state has 20 ec.
So Candidate A and B would divide the 20 ec by their percentage of the vote for candidates that got above 20% or 83 votes
A got 57% of the vote for the candidates that meet the threshold so they would get 12 of the 20 ec votes. 11.56 to be more precise
B would get the other 8.
Now if the election ended up with three candidates meeting the threshold with
A at 40%
B at 27%
C at 23%
D at 10%
With that there's 90 total votes among the threshold candidates. So the ec breakdown would be:
A gets 9 (8.88 to be more exact)
B gets 6
C gets 5
But anyway that's the way I think the ec should work.
Based on my system the electoral college this last election would have been:
Clinton 270
Trump 267
McMullin 1
If you decided to use fractions for the ec it would have been:
Clinton 270.8
Trump 266.9
McMullin 1.3
Splitting the electoral college by the popular vote is an option. But then you have the problem of nobody reaching the 270 magic number. Because nobody gets enough votes. Although that is also possible with a winner take all apprach since the numbers can add up to 269 and 269 if the states fall right.
The problem with not getting to 270 is why in my opinion with the electoral college it shouldn't be a straight proportion of the popular vote. But I think the winner take all does exactly the opposite of what it was intended since it throws the entire population of the state on one candidate since its based on representatives + senators and the house of representatives is based on population. (As mentioned before Madison and Hamilton the designers of the ec argued against the winner take all approach as not what the system was designed for and tried to get an amendment passed to block it but failed) I think the ec should be divided and there should be a threshold of like all candidates that get 20% or more of the popular vote has the electoral college split by the percentage of the that vote.
Like if the breakdown was
Candidate A gets 48%
Candidate B gets 35%
Candidate C gets 10%
Candidate D gets 7%
And to make it easy... lets say the percentages there is also the popular vote so there was a total of 100 votes. The EC on the line would be 20. Most likely the number is subconsciously based on the fact my state has 20 ec.
So Candidate A and B would divide the 20 ec by their percentage of the vote for candidates that got above 20% or 83 votes
A got 57% of the vote for the candidates that meet the threshold so they would get 12 of the 20 ec votes. 11.56 to be more precise
B would get the other 8.
Now if the election ended up with three candidates meeting the threshold with
A at 40%
B at 27%
C at 23%
D at 10%
With that there's 90 total votes among the threshold candidates. So the ec breakdown would be:
A gets 9 (8.88 to be more exact)
B gets 6
C gets 5
But anyway that's the way I think the ec should work.
Based on my system the electoral college this last election would have been:
Clinton 270
Trump 267
McMullin 1
If you decided to use fractions for the ec it would have been:
Clinton 270.8
Trump 266.9
McMullin 1.3
Saturday, November 19, 2016
Democrats following the Republican Plan
So the Republicans have gone so far right that they run complete buffoons in the primaries. Now the Democrats are going to do the same only to the left by embracing Bernie Sander's pick to lead the DNC.
When the past election began I hoped that it wouldn't be Trump vs. Sanders because neither sounded good to me. The only way I would choose one or the other is if a gun was held to my head and I was told to choose or else. I thought the choice was going to be Bush vs Clinton which didn't enthrall me at all but at least the choice wouldn't have been so disgusting. I hoped John Kasich would get the Republican nomination because he was the only sane one running on the Republican side. And I would have voted for him.
But instead, we got the Clinton vs Trump hell...
So despite the fact Clinton got more votes than Trump and only lost because of a system that has been misused basically from day 1, the Democratic Party is going to throw out all sanity and run to the left. That's gone so well for them in the past.
Dear DNC, the sane people are in the center. That's why the Clinton years had the longest period in US history without a recession. 10 years. Last year of Bush when he broke his word and raised taxes, Clinton years, first year of Bush 2 when he wiped out the economy by insane tax cuts. But governing from the center is how the US prospers. When the good parts of the right and left are meshed together.
But you know, go ahead and run to the left and hopefully the party will go into oblivion. The same place I hope the Republican Party goes.
Someone needs to bring back the Whigs as a moderate party. Or Federalists. Or maybe just follow Washington's advice and obliterate all political parties.
When the past election began I hoped that it wouldn't be Trump vs. Sanders because neither sounded good to me. The only way I would choose one or the other is if a gun was held to my head and I was told to choose or else. I thought the choice was going to be Bush vs Clinton which didn't enthrall me at all but at least the choice wouldn't have been so disgusting. I hoped John Kasich would get the Republican nomination because he was the only sane one running on the Republican side. And I would have voted for him.
But instead, we got the Clinton vs Trump hell...
So despite the fact Clinton got more votes than Trump and only lost because of a system that has been misused basically from day 1, the Democratic Party is going to throw out all sanity and run to the left. That's gone so well for them in the past.
Dear DNC, the sane people are in the center. That's why the Clinton years had the longest period in US history without a recession. 10 years. Last year of Bush when he broke his word and raised taxes, Clinton years, first year of Bush 2 when he wiped out the economy by insane tax cuts. But governing from the center is how the US prospers. When the good parts of the right and left are meshed together.
But you know, go ahead and run to the left and hopefully the party will go into oblivion. The same place I hope the Republican Party goes.
Someone needs to bring back the Whigs as a moderate party. Or Federalists. Or maybe just follow Washington's advice and obliterate all political parties.
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Misinformation: The fight of Conservative Web
I originally saw this argument copied into the comments section of a comic book website known as Bleeding Cool.
So the right wing sites are fighting back against the fact that Hillary Clinton is winning the popular vote. They are now claiming that absentee votes haven't been count. And that absentee votes go by a figure of 66 to 33 for Republicans.
They claim that Absentee votes are only counted by the state if they would effect the outcome of an election.
Their fight has taken them back to the 2000 election where Gore won the popular vote and Bush won the electoral college. They claim that Bush also won the popular vote of the election because again Absentee votes were not counted. They claim that California had 2 million absentee votes. And based on their percentages that 1.3 million would have gone to Bush and 600000 to Gore.
This they claim would wipe out the 500,000 difference in the popular vote just using California alone. But what if you look closer at the numbers. And the actual vote tallies.
Well based on their own argument absentee votes are only counted if they effect the state's election. As I pointed out in the thread I found it in, the actual votes for the election were a difference of 1.3 million.
The actual totals were:
Gore 5,861,203
Bush 4,567,429
So if California only counts them if they would effect an election, 1.3 is less than 2 million so the absentee votes would have been counted if they numbered 2 million like is claimed.
But the claim is based on nothing but thin air. Much like the claim that 20 million Amish were going to come out in mass and vote for Trump when the reality is there are only 250,000 Amish living in America.
So their argument as it usually is is flawed.
The reason the "evil" left wing media doesn't report on their conspiracy theories is because most people aren't interested in stores that have as much fact as stories about Big Foot and alien encounters.
Stick with the real facts please.
So the right wing sites are fighting back against the fact that Hillary Clinton is winning the popular vote. They are now claiming that absentee votes haven't been count. And that absentee votes go by a figure of 66 to 33 for Republicans.
They claim that Absentee votes are only counted by the state if they would effect the outcome of an election.
Their fight has taken them back to the 2000 election where Gore won the popular vote and Bush won the electoral college. They claim that Bush also won the popular vote of the election because again Absentee votes were not counted. They claim that California had 2 million absentee votes. And based on their percentages that 1.3 million would have gone to Bush and 600000 to Gore.
This they claim would wipe out the 500,000 difference in the popular vote just using California alone. But what if you look closer at the numbers. And the actual vote tallies.
Well based on their own argument absentee votes are only counted if they effect the state's election. As I pointed out in the thread I found it in, the actual votes for the election were a difference of 1.3 million.
The actual totals were:
Gore 5,861,203
Bush 4,567,429
So if California only counts them if they would effect an election, 1.3 is less than 2 million so the absentee votes would have been counted if they numbered 2 million like is claimed.
But the claim is based on nothing but thin air. Much like the claim that 20 million Amish were going to come out in mass and vote for Trump when the reality is there are only 250,000 Amish living in America.
So their argument as it usually is is flawed.
The reason the "evil" left wing media doesn't report on their conspiracy theories is because most people aren't interested in stores that have as much fact as stories about Big Foot and alien encounters.
Stick with the real facts please.
Friday, November 11, 2016
Voter Turnout a 20 year low
Voter Turnout was at a 20-year low this year. It is believed that 55% of eligible voters cast votes this year. Guess all the attempts by the Republicans were successful in suppressing the vote. They should be really proud of themselves. Isn't it a great party that's only chance for success is to keep people from performing their right?
As I said in an earlier post, it is ridiculous that there were 2.5 hour waits in Washington County, PA this year. There is absolutely no excuse to have so few places to vote that it is like that. And its all the result of Republicans doing their best to make it as hard as possible to vote. And they want to add to the delays by having photo ids. I'm not interested in standing in line waiting while every person in front of me is checked to make sure that they are who they say they are.
If the people checking the names don't know the person, then fine. Let them check the ids. But when the people know the person, its ridiculous to have to wait while ids are brought out. My cousin is sitting across the table and knows me. My neighbor two doors down is also across the table. They know me. And between them and the other two people sitting there that I didn't know, they probably know a good many people voting.
But there is no excuse for the election to be held one day and on a weekday even. A person who has made up his mind once the campaigning begins should be able to cast a ballot when he wants to. Also there should be a system to allow voting online.
But that's all anathema to the Republicans. They want to make sure people can't do anything fraudulent. Even though their followers are the ones that are usually found to be doing it.
Another reason that people are not interested in voting is the fact that the system makes it kind of pointless for some to bother. Think of all the Republicans in California and the Democrats in the south. Do they really have a reason to vote? Here in Pennsylvania, I live in the rural area that is dominated by tea party people. I never get the Representative in the House that I vote for. I never get the candidate I want in the State legislature. And because of the Electoral college I didn't have a say this year in the Presidency. So why bother voting in the future when nothing I vote for has a chance to win? It's a waste of time. If PA is now going to be a Republican state for the Presidency, I will probably be looking out of state for employment and move.
As I said in an earlier post, it is ridiculous that there were 2.5 hour waits in Washington County, PA this year. There is absolutely no excuse to have so few places to vote that it is like that. And its all the result of Republicans doing their best to make it as hard as possible to vote. And they want to add to the delays by having photo ids. I'm not interested in standing in line waiting while every person in front of me is checked to make sure that they are who they say they are.
If the people checking the names don't know the person, then fine. Let them check the ids. But when the people know the person, its ridiculous to have to wait while ids are brought out. My cousin is sitting across the table and knows me. My neighbor two doors down is also across the table. They know me. And between them and the other two people sitting there that I didn't know, they probably know a good many people voting.
But there is no excuse for the election to be held one day and on a weekday even. A person who has made up his mind once the campaigning begins should be able to cast a ballot when he wants to. Also there should be a system to allow voting online.
But that's all anathema to the Republicans. They want to make sure people can't do anything fraudulent. Even though their followers are the ones that are usually found to be doing it.
Another reason that people are not interested in voting is the fact that the system makes it kind of pointless for some to bother. Think of all the Republicans in California and the Democrats in the south. Do they really have a reason to vote? Here in Pennsylvania, I live in the rural area that is dominated by tea party people. I never get the Representative in the House that I vote for. I never get the candidate I want in the State legislature. And because of the Electoral college I didn't have a say this year in the Presidency. So why bother voting in the future when nothing I vote for has a chance to win? It's a waste of time. If PA is now going to be a Republican state for the Presidency, I will probably be looking out of state for employment and move.
Thursday, November 10, 2016
The Electoral College
It appears that like in 2000, the losing candidate received more votes than the winning candidate. This is one of the absurdities of the Constitution. Or at least how it has come to be used.
The original intent of the Electoral College is very different from what is has become. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison came up with the system. In their version the people elected electors to go to a convention to discuss who should become President and to examine the qualtities of the candidates that wanted to become President. So essentially there would be many many different campaigns by people across the states telling people what they would look for in a President. And then there would be an election and the people would select the thinkers who would get together for the actual Presidential election.
Once the Electors were chosen, they would go on to the convention or meeting and then they would hammer out who they were going to select to be President.
Soon the states began to force all the electors from their state to select the same person, ie a Party candidate. They did this in order to get more influence in the election. Madison and Hamilton both objected to this. They said it was not the intent of the system to have the districts all vote the same way in a state. They argued that the electors were supposed to get together and analyze who would be the best President. To go to the meeting already predisposed toward a candidate meant they were violating Article 2 of the Constitution because they were not getting together to analyze.
Both Hamilton and Madison wanted to add an amendment to the Constitution that forbid the states to send electors to the meeting that had to vote a certain way. They wanted all the electors to be free agents, independent thinkers, or deliberative representatives.
But the amendment did not get accepted.
So today we have this system in place that the original founders did not like and spoke out against. And really the whole point of the system was to help find the best candidate possible by having the electors come together and discuss things. Instead, it does the opposite where no discussion happens.
And supporters today claim that it helps the smaller states by diminishing the voice of bigger states. But think about it.
The number of electors is based on the number of representatives in the House and the 2 Senators in the Senate. Since the House is based on population, so are the number of electors. So that means a bigger state by not having its vote split among different candidates has a bigger say than the smaller states.
Many supporters of the EC say that California's say would dwarf all the smaller states if it was popular vote based. But with 55 electors it does anyway when the smallest states have 3.
By making it winner take all, California's voice in the Electoral college is actually increased. In a popular vote system, its vote would be split in 2016 with 5.5 million voting for Clinton and 3 millions voting for Trump. With the Electoral college as it currently runs, its like 8.5 million voted for Clinton.
The system as it currently runs is exactly what the founders were against. So those saying the founders' system is brilliant and should not be changed are actually arguing against the founding fathers since they objected to the winner take all system. The founders would be arguing against the current system as they did when the system was in its infancy..
Based on their argument they gave later in life and their attempt to get an amendment passed, they would be for either making the electoral college be distributed by percentage of the popular vote or they would go straight to popular vote. Because the original intent of the Electoral College was to send smart people together to determine who was the best potential candidate.
The people's say originally was simply who do they send to the conference to discuss it by district.
The original intent of the Electoral College is very different from what is has become. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison came up with the system. In their version the people elected electors to go to a convention to discuss who should become President and to examine the qualtities of the candidates that wanted to become President. So essentially there would be many many different campaigns by people across the states telling people what they would look for in a President. And then there would be an election and the people would select the thinkers who would get together for the actual Presidential election.
Once the Electors were chosen, they would go on to the convention or meeting and then they would hammer out who they were going to select to be President.
Soon the states began to force all the electors from their state to select the same person, ie a Party candidate. They did this in order to get more influence in the election. Madison and Hamilton both objected to this. They said it was not the intent of the system to have the districts all vote the same way in a state. They argued that the electors were supposed to get together and analyze who would be the best President. To go to the meeting already predisposed toward a candidate meant they were violating Article 2 of the Constitution because they were not getting together to analyze.
Both Hamilton and Madison wanted to add an amendment to the Constitution that forbid the states to send electors to the meeting that had to vote a certain way. They wanted all the electors to be free agents, independent thinkers, or deliberative representatives.
But the amendment did not get accepted.
So today we have this system in place that the original founders did not like and spoke out against. And really the whole point of the system was to help find the best candidate possible by having the electors come together and discuss things. Instead, it does the opposite where no discussion happens.
And supporters today claim that it helps the smaller states by diminishing the voice of bigger states. But think about it.
The number of electors is based on the number of representatives in the House and the 2 Senators in the Senate. Since the House is based on population, so are the number of electors. So that means a bigger state by not having its vote split among different candidates has a bigger say than the smaller states.
Many supporters of the EC say that California's say would dwarf all the smaller states if it was popular vote based. But with 55 electors it does anyway when the smallest states have 3.
By making it winner take all, California's voice in the Electoral college is actually increased. In a popular vote system, its vote would be split in 2016 with 5.5 million voting for Clinton and 3 millions voting for Trump. With the Electoral college as it currently runs, its like 8.5 million voted for Clinton.
The system as it currently runs is exactly what the founders were against. So those saying the founders' system is brilliant and should not be changed are actually arguing against the founding fathers since they objected to the winner take all system. The founders would be arguing against the current system as they did when the system was in its infancy..
Based on their argument they gave later in life and their attempt to get an amendment passed, they would be for either making the electoral college be distributed by percentage of the popular vote or they would go straight to popular vote. Because the original intent of the Electoral College was to send smart people together to determine who was the best potential candidate.
The people's say originally was simply who do they send to the conference to discuss it by district.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)