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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
It eventually elected such a guy, if southern slave states hadn’t gotten extra votes due to their slave population a Lincoln-like figure probably would have been elected much sooner.
The voter power imbalance is bad right now due to state size, but it was much worse when some states had extra electoral college votes due to a non-voting population who the voting population were dramatically opposed to.
Slave owners effectively got to vote on behalf of their slaves, this also applied to men voting on behalf of women (though with no real geographical imbalance), parents voting on behalf of their children (again no real geographical imbalance) and in the modern day citizens effectively voting on behalf of their state’s non-citizen population (which does have a geographical imbalance). It’s a core problem with assigning voting power based on raw population but not allowing everyone to vote.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
A big part of why we have the electorial college that we don't talk about, is because state identies were much, much stronger when the constitution was written. Remember, we had just come from the articles of Confederation, which was a loose alliance of Sovereign States, and although the need for a stronger Federal Government was recognized, the founders were wary on stepping on the states toes too much.
The electorial college is at least in part, an extension of that. (Other than fear of a what an the "unwashed masses could do unchecked.)
edited 4th May '18 8:01:22 AM by megaeliz
Speaking of the voting system, a friend in Utah posted how that state is set to switch from FPTP voting to a run-off system for the 2020 elections. It'll be interesting to see, if it turns out to be a success for the state, how quickly it spreads around to other states.
That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - SilaswRemember the "China People" guy? Apparently the story gets even wierder.
'Don Blankenship, West Virginia Candidate, Lives Near Las Vegas and Mulled Chinese Citizenship
Mr. Blankenship, a Republican loyalist of President Trump, is running an America First-style campaign and calls himself an “American competitionist,” but he admires China’s state-controlled economy and has expressed interest in gaining Chinese citizenship.
The former coal mining executive is widely known for spending a year in prison for his role in a mining explosion that claimed 29 lives. Yet ahead of the May 8 primary election, he is running as a champion of miners and has bought TV ads that challenge settled facts about his role in the disaster.
And even as Mr. Blankenship seeks to join the Republican majority in Washington, a “super PAC” linked to the party establishment is attacking him as a “convicted criminal” and a hypocrite.
No Republican candidate in the 2018 midterms embodies so many contradictions as pointedly as Mr. Blankenship, who was found guilty of conspiracy to violate mine safety standards in federal court and yet has plenty of supporters in coal country.
He is one of three leading Republican contenders heading into the primary, even though he is lugging around enough political baggage to disqualify a candidate most anywhere else.
That Mr. Blankenship retains a political hope is a consequence of West Virginia’s sharp shift to the right, driven by seething hostility to the Obama presidency, both its social changes and its perceived “war” on coal. The emergence of a former coal boss with a criminal record as a potential Senate nominee seems partly an expression of many West Virginia voters’ desire to poke a thumb in the eye of the Washington establishment, Republicans very much included.
Mr. Blankenship offers no apology for his many contradictions and personal and business decisions, some of them previously undisclosed. Though he lives a baronial lifestyle thanks to a fortune built on coal scratched from West Virginia’s mountains, he says the size and origins of his wealth are no one’s business. He is the only candidate in either party in the Senate race who has not disclosed his personal finances as required by law to the Senate Select Committee on Ethics. There isn’t “much of a penalty” for flouting the law, he explained in an interview, justifying his refusal.
“I don’t personally think anybody should have to disclose private information,” he said while awaiting the start of a “meet the candidates” event last week in Cabin Creek, W.Va.
National Republican leaders are alarmed that Mr. Blankenship could emerge as the winner of the primary, which they fear would cost them a winnable seat in November against Senator Joe Manchin, a vulnerable Democrat.
In a highly unusual move, a super PAC linked to Mitch Mc Connell, the Kentucky senator and Republican leader, began saturating the West Virginia airwaves last week with an ad attacking Mr. Blankenship for poisoning local drinking water from his former coal mines. The nearly $745,000 campaign of TV and digital ads is meant to boost the chances of two conventional Republicans in the race, Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Representative Evan Jenkins. A Fox News poll conducted last week found a fluid race, with Mr. Blankenship trailing his rivals but about one in four voters undecided.
On Monday, responding to the attack ads, Mr. Blankenship brought up Mr. Mc Connell’s marriage to Elaine Chao, the secretary of transportation, and questioned whether the majority leader faced a conflict of interest in foreign relations. Ms. Chao’s father is “a wealthy Chinaperson,” Mr. Blankenship said, speaking on a West Virginia radio show, adding, “And there’s a lot of connections to some of the brass, if you will, in China.”
“I read in books that people think he’s soft on China,” he said of Mr. Mc Connell.
China, as it happens, is a topic of personal interest to Mr. Blankenship. His fiancée, Farrah Meiling Hobbs, was born there. The two met on a flight from Atlanta to Las Vegas about eight years ago, Mr. Blankenship said. According to the website of an international trading company Ms. Hobbs founded, she is “a former Chinese professional basketball player and part-time model” who moved to the United States in 1996.
In 2016 Ms. Hobbs and Mr. Blankenship paid $2.4 million in cash to buy the palatial home near Las Vegas that Mr. Blankenship claims in court papers is his principal residence. It is a six-bedroom, eight-bath Spanish-style mansion with marble floors and a dolphin sculpture beside the pool, according to an online real estate site. (He also owns a residence in West Virginia.)
It was purchased just before Mr. Blankenship began a one-year prison sentence following his conviction on a misdemeanor count related to the 2010 explosion at Upper Big Branch mine, the deadliest mine accident in the United States in 40 years.
Though Mr. Blankenship stepped down that year as chief executive of the Massey Energy Company, he exited with his sumptuous earnings intact. Massey paid him $17.8 million in his last year. He gained an additional $86.2 million when the company was later sold, by one estimate.
Part of Mr. Blankenship’s assets are now paying for some $2 million of TV and digital ads — far more than his rivals — that seek to muddy the picture of his 2015 conviction by painting him as a victim of a politically driven “Obama judge” and “Obama prosecutors.”
Family members of the 29 Upper Big Branch victims said it was crushing to watch those ads, in which Mr. Blankenship portrays himself as a champion of safety and refuses responsibility for the loss of life.
“I want Mr. Blankenship to say he’s sorry, I want him to feel contrition, I want him to feel compassion,” said Dr. Judy Jones Petersen, whose brother Dean Jones died in the explosion. “People have to understand that Mr. Blankenship is a bad man. Your character doesn’t change.”
In his campaign, Mr. Blankenship positions himself as a West Virginia populist, an “American competitionist” who stands for unfettered capitalism. The heart of the government’s case against him at trial was that he rapaciously sought profit while ignoring mine safety.
Yet he identifies the new frontier of uninhibited capitalism as China. In a telephone conversation he recorded in 2009, introduced at his trial, Mr. Blankenship said he might move to Asia where governments enforce fewer regulations.
“I’m actually considering moving to China or somewhere and being more like George Washington if I can get citizenship,” he said. “I can probably get citizenship in India. I’d rather be in China.”
In the interview, he repeated this sentiment and freely discussed his financial history in China, though he said foreign citizenship was no longer a priority for him — perhaps dual citizenship would be useful, he mused.
He expressed admiration for how Beijing exercises central control over its economy.
“Americans confuse the words communism and dictatorship,” he said. “The Chinese are running a dictatorial capitalism and it’s very effective. That’s the way corporations are run. Corporations are not a democracy.”
Before his foreign travel was restricted after his arrest in 2014, Mr. Blankenship was a frequent enough visitor to China that he opened a bank account there. “When I go over there I don’t have to carry a lot of money with me,” he said in the interview. “If you go over there and you spend some time, you can easily spend a good bit of money.”
Ms. Hobbs and Mr. Blankenship formed a business together in 2012, Generator World, to import home generators made in China. According to records from Panjiva, which tracks global trade, a shipment of 386 items was sent from Fuzhou, China, the next year to Ms. Hobbs’s company, Amerasia International.
“They arrived and we did sell them, but we didn’t grow the business or continue it,” Mr. Blankenship said. “I wasn’t in a position to do that.” It was a dry reference to his trial, sentence and one-year parole, which will end the day after the May 8 primary.
In the absence of much public polling, the clearest sign that Mr. Blankenship is a threat in the race is the hefty advertising budget of national Republicans who seek to disqualify him with voters.
Otherwise, signs of his support can be elusive. He draws sparse crowds to his events, and when he appears at multicandidate gatherings, he shows little knack for political skills. Rather than working a room, he keeps to himself, as he did at the Mineral County Lincoln Day dinner on Friday in Keyser.
“I don’t think someone who’s on parole at this moment in time should be running for office,” Jessica Imes, a voter at the dinner, said.
Mr. Morrisey, the attorney general, moved easily among the party activists dining on stuffed chicken breast and mashed potatoes beneath a giant stuffed moose head at the local Order of Moose hall. His campaign has spent little time attacking Mr. Blankenship, in the belief that primary voters recognize that Republicans should not run a convicted criminal in the general election.
“I think he would get crushed in the fall, crushed,” Mr. Morrisey said.
“The hypocrisy runs deep in this race,” he added. “He’s a Nevada resident. He abandoned West Virginia when we really needed people to stand up to Barack Obama.”
Although Mr. Blankenship maintained in numerous court proceedings that his principal residence was Nevada, he still owns a home in West Virginia, in Mingo County not far from where he was raised. He said he paid property taxes in West Virginia but not income taxes.
There is nothing legally barring him from seeking a Senate seat from the state if he declares a primary residence elsewhere.
He scoffed at the notion that voters might regard him as an outsider, even a carpetbagger, because he lives mostly in Nevada.
“Many people have two homes,” he said. “Most coal miners now have one in Tennessee and one in West Virginia.”
edited 4th May '18 8:14:29 AM by megaeliz
You know, two years ago I'd say "YES PLEASE WIN THE PRIMARY" because I'd assume there's no way he could win the general. Now I just plain don't know.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
There was also the fact that several of the Slave States had Populations that didn't want to have a discussion about Slavery at all; not supporting or condemning it, just ignoring it as hard as they could. That's why 4 of the Southern States with the largest Populations/Voting Power in the EC didn't vote for Breckenridge, the Southern Democrat; Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky voted for the Constitutional Unionist John Bell, and why Missouri was the only State to fully vote for Northern Democrat Douglas.
Although, even with these 4 States united behind Breckenridge (and potentially 3 votes from New Jersey), he would've only got 126 Electoral Votes, and would've still lost to Lincoln because the Northern/Western Voters were united against Slavery (at least, it's expansion).
@De Marquis: The only way that the farmers turn on Trump is if he well and truly screws them on these trade deals. Now that might actually happen, and if it does we may have an opening to reach them.
Unless that happens however, trying to court the non-poor, non-minority rural population is a fool’s errand.
And frankly even if Trump does screw them on trade you can not underestimate the power of White Nationalism to keep the loyal to the almost literal death.
Trade and Farmers
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/07/us/politics/trump-trade-china-politics-heartland.html
Trump's morning Tirade.
Because Jobs in the U.S. are doing so well, Americans receiving unemployment aid is the lowest since 1973. Great!
NBC NEWS is wrong again! They cite “sources” which are constantly wrong. Problem is, like so many others, the sources probably don’t exist, they are fabricated, fiction! NBC, my former home with the Apprentice, is now as bad as Fake News CNN. Sad!
Going to Dallas (the GREAT State of Texas) today. Leaving soon!
And this may or may not have been written by him:
That one's kind of funny though (presumably unintentionally).
edited 4th May '18 10:13:18 AM by megaeliz
So, I think I figured out what Rosenstein meant when he said the the DOJ will not be extorted.
It's based on this little bit from a NY Times article
This sounds illegal.
edited 4th May '18 10:53:30 AM by megaeliz
The Electoral College is meant to force elected officials to cater to the needs of everyone in the nation versus, say, California electing a guy on the platform of enslaving the people in Kansas to feed them for free.
I feel its extremely good as an idea and far superior to a straight majority.
All that does is make a collection of the Midwest kingmakers in every presidential election, completely outsize to their actual economic or demographic value. Ignoring the wishes of three million Californians so that a smattering of ten thousand people across two or three states can elect the President is not a triumph of representative government.
edited 4th May '18 10:50:52 AM by CrimsonZephyr
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."A little local corruption:
Crapo campaign used D.C. condo 78 times at no cost
http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article210469294.html
The new details from Crapo's re-election committee came in a response to a Federal Election Commission inquiry.
The Statesman has reached out to Crapo's office for comment.
The campaign used the townhouse for "kitchen cabinet" meetings, fundraising events and other campaign-related meetings. The campaign did paid for catering, cleaning, telephone calls and staff expenses associated with each use of the townhouse.
"However, the committee did not pay for or report the costs of each use of the townhouse rental space, which the committee understood to be in-kind contributions from Ms. Vicki Hart," states the April 26 letter from Crapo's campaign treasurer, Paul Kilgore, to the FEC.
The townhouse is the same one that drew attention earlier this year, after Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt rented it from Hart and her husband, J. Steven Hart, for well below D.C. market rates.
Vicki Hart is a health care lobbyist. J. Steven Hart is chairman of a large lobbying firm and a lobbyist for HSBC, a British bank.
Crapo's committee reported a $1,000 in-kind contribution from Hart in 2015, but none since.
"Hart recently informed the committee that the cost of the event space is $100 per use," states the letter.
On April 20, the campaign reimbursed Hart $6,700 for 67 campaign-related events held in the space during the 2016 election cycle and $1,100 for the 11 campaign-related events held in the current election cycle.
That step came after a watchdog group, Campaign for Accountability, filed a complaint with the FEC against Crapo and Vicki Hart.
The group says it plans to file an amended complaint with the FEC Monday.
"Given how extensively Crapo's campaign used the condo, there are a lot of questions about whether his campaign broke any laws," said Daniel Stevens, Campaign for Accountability executive director.
I think the North Korea thing is having a pretty major effect, because it actually undercuts one of the big things people have been upset about. Moon Jae-in, in thanking Trump, credited Trump for the peace arrangement by saying that he did a good job of playing "Bad Cop".
This is a powerful win for the Republicans, because one of the things that people have been freaking out about over the last year is that Trump's strongman rhetoric would kick off a nuclear war. Now, with this comment from Moon Jae-in, it looks to those same people like it was all a calculated move by two brilliant political masterminds.
So now some people are going, "Wow, Trump actually IS a lot smarter than we thought. This wasn't a raving madman kicking a nuclear hornet's nest after all! It was a genius strategy that resulted in an amazing outcome! Maybe he's not such a bad guy after all."
Cue a rise in his approval ratings. And it's going to make it harder to talk about the other boneheaded things he does, because now people are going to see them and going, "He's not being a belligerent idiot. He's just employing some master strategy that we don't know about yet. I want to see where this goes!"
The North Korean peace has legitimized Trump's intellect, which will strengthen his agenda. Now, trying to argue against his ridiculous assertions on the grounds that they're baseless idiocy is going to warrant a response of, "Remember North Korea? Yeah, you only think it's dumb because you aren't as smart as him." And that's going to sound reasonable to some people who aren't Trump loyalists, especially if he gets that Nobel Prize.
This is really bad. It can easily be his 9/11; there is a distinct possibility that North Korea just won Trump re-election in 2020.
edited 4th May '18 11:58:16 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.![]()
.
My one ray of hope is that the Nobel Prize Committee is caught up in a major sex scandal
, so they'll be leery about giving Trump any award because of the bad press surrounding him and his numerous sexual assault allegations.
I think calling this his 9/11 is super overselling it. It's a minor poll bump. Bush's approval rating spiked by 40 percent after 9/11, and he was 1) much less unpopular to begin with, and 2) not facing a criminal investigation of himself, his family, and much of his top administration.
Saying "this is what could win him 2020" is staggeringly premature.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.The Nobel Prize committee
also doesn't seem like the type to award Trump the prize on a collaborative effort that would endorse his overall policy agenda.
We'll see about that. North Korea still has its nukes and the overall geopolitics of nuclear disarmament (Trump re: Iran deal) casts the US as the party that will break faith. This story isn't finished.
edited 4th May '18 12:12:40 PM by CrimsonZephyr
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."Yeah, I wouldn't go anywhere near that far. You could attribute a bump that small to basically any political event, it's well within the range we'd expect to see as far as normal political fluctuations.
I'd also like to point out that North Korean success is contingent on, well, actual North Korean success, which won't be decided until the upcoming summit and is by no means a sure thing.
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The situation in Korea worked in spite of Trump's actions, not because of them. This isn't a stopped clock situation.
edited 4th May '18 12:11:56 PM by archonspeaks
They should have sent a poet.Trump is simply benefiting from good timing — that mountain was going to collapse sooner or later, and with it North Korea's nuclear testing.
We shouldn't be so eager to give Trump credit and look for silver linings in this administration.
edited 4th May '18 12:12:46 PM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprisedThe only way trump contributed to this is if one of the reasons they signed it now was realization there was a man incompetent enough to actually bomb them.
And I don't exactly see that as a positive attribute.
Read my stories!

Whether they voted for Trump or not, all they got was lies. And they know it, and they are angry. I happen to think that some Trump voters can be swung, and that we can use progressive values to do it.
Minority opinion, I know.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.