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We're going to need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to expose all the misdeeds of the current administration, even if it's only limited to one term. I will be furious if the next administration just quietly drops all pretense of holding them accountable.

That's what coalition politics is all about--make a deal with other groups, give a little to get a little, etc. My take: In practice, when you give a demographic minority not just disproportionate political power but strategically important political power, they will use it for "rent extraction"(i.e., to get stuff they want, including "extra stuff", if possible). They can also use it to "stuff" the majority, blocking anything that might be proposed, for naked partisan gain. I'm speaking specifically of the US Senate, where two facts obtain: 1) The 15 largest states, mostly blue and purple states, represent about 2/3 of the population but only have 30 seats in the Senate The 35 smallest states, a mix of red, blue and purple, represent about 1/3 of the population but have 70 seats in the Senate 2) The legislative filibuster amplifies the power of small state senators immensely, since you only need 41 votes to block legislation from going forward We have a situation where legislation of immense importance to majorities living in urban areas lies fallow in the Senate after passing through the House, because small state senators see little benefit in spending money on urban areas or doing things that primarily aid urban areas. This, to be blunt, is dysfunctional as hell. Dystopian, even. There's also the matter of "maker" and "taker" states: in practice, large and/or wealthy states wind up "sending" some of their federal tax revenues to smaller, more rural "taker" states. 70% of the US population live in communities of 50k+ population(i.e., urban or dense suburban), 10% live in communities between 2500 and 50k(suburban/exurban, dense rural), and 20% live in communities smaller than 2500(rural). Demographic trends point in the direction of this disparity getting more pronounced over time. I understand the argument about local vs state politics in big states with large urban areas and significant rural population, but, again, my advice would be to network with other "out" groups and form coalitions to get things they need.

Too soon?

Jeff Yang (Drifters Game Workshop)‏ @DrifterWorkshop Follow Follow @DrifterWorkshop More The perfect character backstory doesn't exi- 4:45 AM - 18 Jan 2020

No, but...I would like for a few things to be passed to the federal level, to be more centralized and more consistent...specifically, public education curricula and funding. An equal quality education everywhere in the country. It's frustrating to hear that, say, Mississippi ranks 48th or whatever in public education, and for people to be perfectly fine with that kind of disparity existing between states.

True. My suggestion was that it's far easier to just increase the number of representatives, diluting the distortive effect of the EC, rather than getting 2/3 of the House and Senate and 3/4 of the states to pass an amendment that would reduce the electoral power of small states(of which there are more than 12). All you have to do is overcome a filibuster.

The one major change I do support is passing a new Apportionment Act, substantially increasing the membership of the House of Representatives(and, by doing so, increasing the size of the electoral college and diluting the population distorting effect of adding two electors per state for the Senate). It reduces the likelihood of a "fluke" EC win and popular vote loss while making the House more representative of the diversity of the population. Third party candidates would also have a more meaningful chance of winning, running in smaller congressional districts. And I'd package it with provisions for non-partisan, independent redistricting commissions to cut way down on partisan gerrymandering.

The trial of an overwhelmingly guilty president who everyone expects to be acquitted anyway starts next week.

Tucker has basically transformed into "Richard Spencer with a primetime Fox show".

He thinks it takes away from fighting the invasion of brown people from the south. 👻* *not a ghost

I think they're going to withhold it just long enough to make their point about the fairness of the process in the Senate.

Trumpism is fairly unambiguously white identity politics. Or "white grievance politics", if you will.

Well, life support can protect one from temperature extremes, and environmental movement can negate penalties for being in water, it seems like one could suss out the net benefit of protection from precipitation. You could do it with a 1 PD Force Field, 0 END, 2 points active, only to keep precipitation off character, real cost 1 point.

We have Hero Designer. It does "the math" for you. But if I'm a new player, it's still 100 pages of character creation(4th edition) or 200-400 pages(5th/6th). The math is only a portion of what makes character creation complicated. There are dozens of powers, each with at least a half page writeup/explanation, some with a multipage explanation. There are dozens of power advantages and limitations. There's over 100 skills. Martial arts is replete with options. All of these have their own text descriptions and explanations. Ditto for perks, talents and so forth. Nobody looks at a 2 inch thick rulebook on character creation and thinks "oh that looks easy to learn".