Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[megaplayboy]

Yeah, I smelled a grift coming from the Greens a mile away.

[gewing]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/22/nasa-earth-donald-trump-eliminate-climate-change-research?CMP=twt_a-science_b-gdnscience

 

Trump plans to cut funding for NASA's Earth Science division and more or less eliminate their climate science division. #WASF

Anti science morons are too common.    

[gewing]

Based upon what we've seen so far, Trump's level of corruption will make the Clintons look like Knights Templar.

he appears to be so unpopular within the so called leadership of the party that I suspect he will be impeached post haste...

[gewing]

Actually, I regard allegations of corruption by the Clintons as absurdly overblown, but even taking it as a given, Trump still looks set to blow that away. He appears to be trying to conduct personal business with foreign leaders at the same time he is conducting the business of the country as president-elect(and soon to be president).

unfortunately the President is apparently exempt from some of those laws.   

 

Damnit...

[megaplayboy]

Not the constitutional prohibition against emoluments, though. It's generally understood to be an impeachable offense.

[gewing]

Not the constitutional prohibition against emoluments, though. It's generally understood to be an impeachable offense.

The problem is he has violated so many standards to no apparent loss...

[Old Man]

No, the problem is that he'll never be impeached by a Republican House and a Republican Senate, unless he threatens their own profit margins.

 

Meanwhile, I found a fascinating story on the extremely profitable business of fake right wing news.

[Doc Shadow]

You know, I think Maine has the right idea here:

 

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/maine-makes-it-harder-elect-trump-likes-so-will-rest-us-follow-suit-1593600?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=rss&utm_content=/rss/yahoous/news&yptr=yahoo

 

BTW the video has nothing to do with it. You have to read the article

 

I would very much be in favor of the rest of the country following their lead.

[Badger]

To be honest, sounds like one of those good on paper things that only create headaches in the real world.

 

Might work in the primaries and caucuses however.

[Old Man]

No, game theory proves that FPTP is the reason we have a firm two-party system and a highly divided electorate.  It almost guarantees the election of an extremist.  Ranked-choice voting allows people to vote for the candidate that most closely matches their preference without having to worry about "electability" or otherwise throwing away their vote.

[Badger]

Yeah, if you go start up a national crusade to force people to learn some crap about 3rd parties, then we can talk.

 

Theoretically, a 3rd party could sneak in I suppose.  It would be because Green/Libertarian sounded like a kewl name, so why not throw my 2nd choice to them for a giggle.  Then wake up the next day to find "Who the **** is that" just won the election.  I'd like more 3rd party power, but this is obviously not the way.

[Starlord]

You know, I think Maine has the right idea here:

 

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/maine-makes-it-harder-elect-trump-likes-so-will-rest-us-follow-suit-1593600?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=rss&utm_content=/rss/yahoous/news&yptr=yahoo

 

BTW the video has nothing to do with it. You have to read the article

 

I would very much be in favor of the rest of the country following their lead.

 

The optimism it takes to think enough of the American electorate - many of which thought Trump became President-elect when he won the primary and many of which think he's already the President- could understand that system impresses me, sir. 

[Old Man]

I would argue that voter education is an entirely separate issue. Though certainly no less important.

[Badger]

The optimism it takes to think enough of the American electorate - many of which thought Trump became President-elect when he won the primary and many of which think he's already the President- could understand that system impresses me, sir. 

 

Pretty much what I was thinking.  Might want to keep the KISS method (Keep It Simple, Stupid) for the electorate.  They barely understand it as is.  We just about need to reward with a cookie those who vote for the candidate they intended to vote for

[assault]

It's basically the way Australia does it.

 

If voter education is an issue, allow optional preferencing. That means you don't need to rank all the candidates, and your vote is still valid.

 

So you could just vote 1, and it would be valid. Of course, if your candidate doesn't have the first or second highest number of votes, your vote will be "wasted" as per the current system.

 

Or you could vote 1,2, and it would be valid. Thus, you could have voted for Stein, and then had your vote transferred to Clinton.

 

Or 1,2,3. Say, Stein first, then the Libertarian, then Trump.

 

Or 1,2,3,4, which would be identical to the option above in a four horse race.

 

If someone voted 1,2,2,2, presumably it would be treated as just voting 1, or it could be treated as an invalid vote, depending on the rules. But at that point we'd have to start looking at the implications of computerized voting versus stubby pencils and hand counting.

 

Changing the system would cause a higher rate of voting errors to begin with, but people would get used to it soon enough.

[Lord Liaden]

I find myself wondering if this election has shifted some Team Iron Man supporters to Team Captain America.

[Ranxerox]

I would think that it would go both ways.  Probably some Trump supporter who were previously Team Cap are now Team Iron Man.  After all, if you can get behind registering Muslims why not registering super power freaks?

[Iuz the Evil]

Tom Price is the next HHSA Secretary. Yeesh.

 

So block grants to replace Medicaid, privatizing Medicare, and tax rebates/HSA/removal of state regulation as replacement for ACA. Could be worse, but hard to imagine what that would look like. (Edit: Got it! Logan's Run, with Carousel as the Medicare reform)

 

Basically wants to implement Ryan's "a better way" repeal of the ACA.

 

The only good news is that some elements are being kept because they are too popular to repeal: keeping people on parents insurance to 25, no pre-existing conditions (though there's a state "high risk pool" worth keeping an eye on), and so on.

 

But it's an appointment in line with the others so far, ugly if you are poor or have serious health conditions. I'm dying to see how they do with the privatizing Medicare. Mail the elderly a coupon for their health care, let's see how that goes.

[Badger]

I find myself wondering if this election has shifted some Team Iron Man supporters to Team Captain America.

 

Which candidate was Team Captain AMerica?  (gary Johnson probably.  The others seem varying degrees of Iron Man to me)

[Hermit]

It's basically the way Australia does it.

 

If voter education is an issue, allow optional preferencing. That means you don't need to rank all the candidates, and your vote is still valid.

 

So you could just vote 1, and it would be valid. Of course, if your candidate doesn't have the first or second highest number of votes, your vote will be "wasted" as per the current system.

 

Or you could vote 1,2, and it would be valid. Thus, you could have voted for Stein, and then had your vote transferred to Clinton.

 

Or 1,2,3. Say, Stein first, then the Libertarian, then Trump.

 

Or 1,2,3,4, which would be identical to the option above in a four horse race.

 

If someone voted 1,2,2,2, presumably it would be treated as just voting 1, or it could be treated as an invalid vote, depending on the rules. But at that point we'd have to start looking at the implications of computerized voting versus stubby pencils and hand counting.

 

Changing the system would cause a higher rate of voting errors to begin with, but people would get used to it soon enough.

 

Yeah, I like the system and hope other states adopt it.

[Old Man]

Hillary's popular vote margin is now in excess of 2.5 million votes. This is by far the largest popular vote victory margin of any electoral college loss, and is one of the bigger popular vote margins of any presidential election.

[Badger]

This actually shows a Dem weakness,  they've clustered into a handful of states and cities.  Doesnt matter how much you win CA by you're only getting 55 points.

 

Of course, it has already been noted how unfair this may be.  I believe it is also has (or should have) been pointed out that otherwise.  It would be the United States of CA, TX, NY maybe FL and 46 no-names who dont matter, ever.

[Old Man]

On the contrary, it would mean that a presidential vote in one of the 46 no-name states would be equivalent to a presidential vote in CA, TX, NY, or FL.  The entire point of the EC is to make presidential votes in some states more valuable than those in other states.  This might have made sense 240 years ago but today it does not, as shown by this absurd result.

[TheDarkness]

This actually shows a Dem weakness,  they've clustered into a handful of states and cities.  Doesnt matter how much you win CA by you're only getting 55 points.

 

Of course, it has already been noted how unfair this may be.  I believe it is also has (or should have) been pointed out that otherwise.  It would be the United States of CA, TX, NY maybe FL and 46 no-names who dont matter, ever.

In fairness, while the electoral college serves a purpose, the current system actually does not serve that purpose well. Further, the actual maps of Republican and Democrat voting patterns turn almost the entire country purple. There are a number of false maps floating around that depict islands of blue in a sea of red, they are about as accurate as that guy from Pulp Fiction who tries to shoot Jullian at the beginning.

[Badger]

That's partly right.  A simple blue or red per county, would show a whole lot of red.   But, a whole lot of the red werent exactly huge percentage wins.  So yeah, if you purple-ized counties that were within a certain percentage difference, yeah it would be a huge amount of purple.

 

If I remember (without looking for it) my area looked purple, though Trump won by about 7 percent in my county.  And all the counties in my immediate area are save one also went to Trump.