The Medusa Fora

Mike from Boston wrote:Great point DzM. I believe at least a few Presidents have been elected without winning the popular vote. However, I don't seem to remember any real effort to abolish the Electoral College, at least in my lifetime.

The Electoral College is enshrined in the Constitution. Good luck getting an amendment passed that would switch us to a direct democracy.

I suspect that the main reason there has never been a real high profile drive to change (or abolish) the Electoral College is that there have only been four instances when the EC system resulted in a candidate being elected that did not also have the popular vote (turns out the most recent example of this was ... wait for it ... Prs. George W. Bush in 2000). With less than a 10% failure rate the political will just doesn't exist to change it. On the other hand voting laws are passing at a state level that risk disenfranchising certain blocks of voters are ostensibly aimed at addressing a voter-fraud problem (which, in fairness, having faith the legitimacy of cast votes IS important) that has a much, much smaller impact of the outcome of an election. As WikiPedia (the repository of all knowledge) notes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_ID_ ... prevention

Some instances of voter fraud may, however, be overstated. A 2012 investigation of 207 alleged dead voters in South Carolina found only 5 instances unexplained by clerical errors. For instance, sometimes a son with the same name as his dead father was accidentally recorded as voting under the father's name. A study of dead voters in the 2006 Georgia midterm election concluded that only 15 of the 66 alleged instances of dead voting were potentially fraudulent. All but four of the dead votes were cast absentee, and most of the absentee voters in question cast early ballots but died before the election, giving the impression of voter fraud.

So the political will DOES exist to potentially disenfranchise underserved voting blocks in order to keep 5 potentially fraudulent votes from the South Carolina tallies, but the political will does NOT exist to fix a system that ignores the popular vote 9% of the time.

It's a crazy system we have here. Crazy.

I won't be voting for Trump but there is one thing I like about him. Because he has plenty of his own money he is not beholden to special interests like most other candidates. On the Democrat side Bernie is in a similar position for different reasons. DzM rightly points out that "change" candidates are very prominent. To me, the change that is needed is campaign reform to get special interests out of the political system. I believe that if we fix that issue we could make tremendous progress in fixing so many of the issues we have in this country. It is impossible to take most elected officials at their word today because so many of their positions are derived from where their money comes from. I would guess the vast majority of voters agree this is a problem that needs to be fixed. Tea Partiers and socialists can even agree on this. However, too many elected officials are in power because of exactly this issue so it is impossible to fix right now.

If Trump does not get the nomination, I would love to see him devote his considerable following and influence toward pushing for campaign finance reform.

kmurray105 wrote:I won't be voting for Trump but there is one thing I like about him. Because he has plenty of his own money he is not beholden to special interests like most other candidates. On the Democrat side Bernie is in a similar position for different reasons. DzM rightly points out that "change" candidates are very prominent. To me, the change that is needed is campaign reform to get special interests out of the political system. I believe that if we fix that issue we could make tremendous progress in fixing so many of the issues we have in this country. It is impossible to take most elected officials at their word today because so many of their positions are derived from where their money comes from. I would guess the vast majority of voters agree this is a problem that needs to be fixed. Tea Partiers and socialists can even agree on this. However, too many elected officials are in power because of exactly this issue so it is impossible to fix right now.

If Trump does not get the nomination, I would love to see him devote his considerable following and influence toward pushing for campaign finance reform.

While I agree that Trump spends a lot more of his own money than they other candidates, I believe you should recognize two things:

1) He spins this in a way that is not entirely accurate. About 60% or so of the campaign's funding comes from Trump (~$12mm), most of that has been in the form of loans rather than donations (~$10mm). What that means is that he expects that his campaign will pay it back at some point. This is different than a donation.

2) I'm honestly uncomfortable with the volumes of money being spent regardless of whether they come from self-funding or donors. The piles of cash essentially mean that only the fabulously wealthy and/or the financially indebted can run for a nation wide public office.

I agree with you, kmurray105, that it would be awesome to see someone with a hell's-chance of making a difference, make fixing the funding of campaigns (national or otherwise) a priority.

Just a couple of quick comments related to voter fraud

1) Saw a bit on 60 Minutes last night on how some states are stilll using paper files to track deaths. Based on Social Security records (based on the lack of a death record), there are over 6000 people in the US over the age of 111! Obviously, this is incorrect, but "they" could still be voting and/or collecting SS.

2) Back in the day, MA Senate President Billy Bulger (D) (brother of gangster Whitey Bulger) used to host the South Boston St. Patrick's Day Breakfast before the parade. At the same, or some similar St. Patrick’s Day breakfast, President Bulger welcomed the Parish Priest of St. Augustine’s. In welcoming the pastor, he emphasised, in a remark that will have some resonances here in this country, the importance of that parish in local
politics. "You never know the result of the election" he said "until the votes are counted
from St. Augustine’s Cemetery." Indeed, on another occasion he was heard to say "I want
to be buried in St. Augustine’s Cemetery, so that I can remain politically active after I am
dead!".

Mike from Boston wrote:Just a couple of quick comments related to voter fraud

As I noted above - I agree that the electorate needs to have faith in the outcome of an election and know that votes were legitimate. I don't think potentially disenfranchising (intentionally or otherwise) some groups is the right way to do it though.

1) Saw a bit on 60 Minutes last night on how some states are stilll using paper files to track deaths. Based on Social Security records (based on the lack of a death record), there are over 6000 people in the US over the age of 111! Obviously, this is incorrect, but "they" could still be voting and/or collecting SS.

And that would suck. None-the-less, if every single one of those probably-dead voters nationwide had cast a fraudulent vote in 2000 it would not have made a difference in the outcome. Yet the Electoral College total and the Supreme Court did, in fact, have an impact and rejected the popular vote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St ... tion,_2000
Popular vote
Bush: 50,456,002
Gore: 50,999,897

So which is the greater risk to poisoning an election and effectively circumventing the legitimate determination of the voters? 6000 presumably dead people, or the Electoral College that has been PROVEN to have subverted the popular vote in 9% of presidential elections?

For me - I'm more angry about how the EC in every election makes my vote count less than voters in a different state AND that the EC has ignored the will of the people 9% of the time than I am about the prospect of 6000 fraudulent votes in a nation of 350 million citizens (of which 146 million are registered voters). I'd MUCH prefer to see my congresspersons try to fix the EC system than waste time on silly ID schemes designed to fix a rounding error.

2) Back in the day, MA Senate President Billy Bulger (D) (brother of gangster Whitey Bulger) used to host the South Boston St. Patrick's Day Breakfast before the parade. At the same, or some similar St. Patrick’s Day breakfast, President Bulger welcomed the Parish Priest of St. Augustine’s. In welcoming the pastor, he emphasised, in a remark that will have some resonances here in this country, the importance of that parish in local
politics. "You never know the result of the election" he said "until the votes are counted
from St. Augustine’s Cemetery." Indeed, on another occasion he was heard to say "I want
to be buried in St. Augustine’s Cemetery, so that I can remain politically active after I am
dead!".

Yep. Corruption in politics and the voting rolls is nothing new. It is also a considerably smaller problem now (or so the studies tell us) than it was 50 years ago when these things were said.

Just adding to the conversation DzM. Actually, if I had a choice, my change would be term limits for elected representatives. Even more so, term limits for positions like Speaker of the House and State Senate. I am friendly with my State Rep (at the MA State Level), nice woman, but she has basically been in power her whole adult life. I once complained to her about supporting some legislation and she told me, she "had to, or else the Speaker won't let any of my legislation see the light of day!" So limit the Speaker to a two year term and the Senate President to a six year term (both at the state and National level). Back in the 1970s and 1980s,
the above mentioned Sen. Billy Bulger ruled the state-both by his own considerable power and by the perception, never really denied, that if you crossed him, you also were crossing Whitey Bulger. It was always a joke in local circles that then Gov. Mike Dukakis was running for President of the US, he was totally controlled by Sen. Bulger.

I quite like that idea. Not necessarily artificially short terms of service at all (I believe that there is value in learning how to do your job well, and then having some time with which to use that skill set), but in term limits on the leadership positions and committee positions, and requiring the rank-and-file to have a non-private vote for the next occupants of the positions. My knee-jerk reaction to that is "yeah, that sounds like a good idea."

DzM wrote:2) I'm honestly uncomfortable with the volumes of money being spent regardless of whether they come from self-funding or donors. The piles of cash essentially mean that only the fabulously wealthy and/or the financially indebted can run for a nation wide public office.

I agree with you, kmurray105, that it would be awesome to see someone with a hell's-chance of making a difference, make fixing the funding of campaigns (national or otherwise) a priority.

I absolutely agree that the amount of money being spent is a big problem and that the fact that Trump can run the way he is because he has so much money (or easy access to it) is a problem. That's why we need campaign finance reform. Bernie Sanders has been more impressive this year because he is not a rich man, but he is not going to win the nomination.

I also agree with term limits for leadership positions. As for elected officials, I'm not sure what to do because I agree it's good to have experience but it's bad to have career politicians running things. I think term limits is the lesser evil.

kmurray105 wrote:

DzM wrote:2) I'm honestly uncomfortable with the volumes of money being spent regardless of whether they come from self-funding or donors. The piles of cash essentially mean that only the fabulously wealthy and/or the financially indebted can run for a nation wide public office.

I agree with you, kmurray105, that it would be awesome to see someone with a hell's-chance of making a difference, make fixing the funding of campaigns (national or otherwise) a priority.

I absolutely agree that the amount of money being spent is a big problem and that the fact that Trump can run the way he is because he has so much money (or easy access to it) is a problem. That's why we need campaign finance reform. Bernie Sanders has been more impressive this year because he is not a rich man, but he is not going to win the nomination.

I also agree with term limits for leadership positions. As for elected officials, I'm not sure what to do because I agree it's good to have experience but it's bad to have career politicians running things. I think term limits is the lesser evil.

Turns out that striking a balance between having amateurs run things and having cynical old bastards running things is hard. I think I could get behind term limits if the limits were long enough to let experience work, but short enough to prevent a professional political class... Perhaps at a national level I could imagine a 12 year (six term) limit on House seats, and an 18 year (3 term) limit for the Senate. I'd also really like to see limits on the Supreme Court judges of, perhaps, 30 years. That would guarantee a churn within the court allowing new legal views and interpretations while still allowing the justices to (ostensibly) be free from political influence.

Haaard.

Hend Amry ‏@LibyaLiberty Feb 27

If you're an American confusedly watching the darkest forces of ur nation rally behind a demagogue-maybe u can understand the Mid East now.

https://twitter.com/LibyaLiberty/status ... 0081304576

Well, this is interesting!!

Amazing more people. On and on.
Civil rights activist Charles Evers is endorsing Donald Trump for president, touting what Evers refers to as the current Republican front-runner's business acumen.

"I believe in him first of all because he's a businessman. I think jobs are badly needed in Mississippi," he said.

Evers is the brother of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, who was assassinated in front of his Jackson home in 1963.

When asked about Trump's controversial remarks regarding immigration and an incident Tuesday when 30 black students were reported to have been removed from the candidate's rally in Valdosta, Ga., Evers responded, "I haven't seen any proof of him being a racist."

However he added, "all of us have some racism in us. Even me."

A demagogue can be attractive to all types. May they be happy with each other.

Couldn't resist posting this (from the Onion)

MIAMI—Surreptitiously grabbing the explosive device stashed inside her lectern and pulling its pin as soon as she heard moderator Jorge Ramos mention her support for the Iraq War and the Wall Street bailout, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton reportedly threw a flash grenade onto the stage during Wednesday night’s Democratic debate to divert attention away from a question about her Senate voting record. “That’s an important question, Jorge, and one I’m happy to answer,” said the former secretary of state just as the military-grade M84 stun grenade exploded, emitting a deafening blast and blinding flash of white light that prevented anything on stage from being seen or heard for the duration of Clinton’s answer. After cowering with their hands over their ringing ears for approximately 70 seconds, rattled audience members, the debate’s moderators, and fellow candidate Bernie Sanders were said to have regained their vision and hearing just in time to make out the final sentence of Clinton’s response: “And that’s why I’ve always stood on the side of the middle class and working families.” At press time, a misty white gas was seen pouring from the base of Clinton’s podium toward the moderators’ desk as Ramos cited Clinton’s changing positions on gay marriage, the Keystone XL pipeline, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Mike from Boston wrote:Couldn't resist posting this (from the Onion)

MIAMI—Surreptitiously grabbing the explosive device stashed inside her lectern and pulling its pin as soon as she heard moderator Jorge Ramos mention her support for the Iraq War and the Wall Street bailout, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton reportedly threw a flash grenade onto the stage during Wednesday night’s Democratic debate to divert attention away from a question about her Senate voting record. “That’s an important question, Jorge, and one I’m happy to answer,” said the former secretary of state just as the military-grade M84 stun grenade exploded, emitting a deafening blast and blinding flash of white light that prevented anything on stage from being seen or heard for the duration of Clinton’s answer. After cowering with their hands over their ringing ears for approximately 70 seconds, rattled audience members, the debate’s moderators, and fellow candidate Bernie Sanders were said to have regained their vision and hearing just in time to make out the final sentence of Clinton’s response: “And that’s why I’ve always stood on the side of the middle class and working families.” At press time, a misty white gas was seen pouring from the base of Clinton’s podium toward the moderators’ desk as Ramos cited Clinton’s changing positions on gay marriage, the Keystone XL pipeline, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

That is very funny. Very well imagined. Or did it really happen

As far as I can make out from this side of the pond, if Trump does get the nomination to run it would be Hillary's best chance of becoming President if she too gets the nomination. Is that how you guys see it?

That is very funny. Very well imagined. Or did it really happen

As far as I can make out from this side of the pond, if Trump does get the nomination to run it would be Hillary's best chance of becoming President if she too gets the nomination. Is that how you guys see it?

That is about it. It seems the Republicans took a field of about 16 candidates with varying degrees of abilities and temperaments but all with almost identical policy positions and then added Trump to the mix and have now narrowed it to two of the worst humans in America. That said, even though Cruz has an inability to get along with anyone and has a wont to steer the system into the ditch by having the US default on our debt or shut down the government, it is widely agreed -- even by me -- that he is imminently more sober and responsible than Trump. But being thoughtful and reasonable is an Obama quality, so the wild eyed faction of the loyal opposition seems to be bent on going for the demagogue Trump.

But as Churchill has said -- you can count on America to do the right thing, after it has exhausted all other possibilities. So expect Clinton to be the the President, partly because things are not nearly as bad as Trump says so it makes sense to elect a moderate, but also because most Americans aren't crazy -- say maybe 53% of the electorate.