February 21, 2017

ELECTORAL COLLEGE: AFFIRMATIVE ACTION FOR SLAVE OWNERS?

Why did we end up with an antidemocratic abomination like the EC which could override the presidential vote of the People?
Here's a segment of the debate on choosing a president from the "Constitutional Convention"... July 19th 1787

Madison argues for a popular vote, but...

The people at large was in his opinion the fittest in itself. It would be as likely as any that could be devised to produce an Executive Magistrate of distinguished Character. The people generally could only know & vote for some Citizen whose merits had rendered him an object of general attention & esteem. There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections.



http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_719.asp

February 21, 2017

FY17 Projected Deficit: $559 Billion. And Trump wants TAX CUTS???

https://www.cbo.gov/topics/budget

But then the GOP has addicted voters to getting a Free Lunch. Since 1981 We The People have pissed away some 19 trillion on ourselves that we refuse to pay for. Instead of each generation paying its own bills, we simply have stolen this money from future taxpayers who will be saddled with massive interest payments that will buy them nothing... estimates are as high as 800-900 billion in a decade... and they'll be paying more in taxes to get less.

And as the GOP continues to make the tax code less progressive... any paying down of the debt will fall less on the rich... even if much of the debt was from giving them irresponsible Starve The Beast tax cuts designed TO CREATE MORE DEBT.

February 21, 2017

Holy Shit.... Anyone else watching Rachel?

Trump's Russian Connection is being fleshed out...

February 20, 2017

Health Care Spending: Why Is America Soooooooo Stupid?

Here are OECD comparative per capital health care spending numbers by nation measured in 2010 US dollars.

We spend $8714.90 where Canada spent about 50% of what we do: $4289 and THEY COVER EVERYONE.

Obviously Canada has wrung the inefficiencies out of their system while we haven't. Any weaknesses in the Canadian system critics complain about could easily be fixed if they just went to 60 or 70% of what we spend.


Australia 4 164.2
Austria 4 451.2
Belgium 4 120.0
Canada 4 289.0
Chile 1 595.5
Czech Republic 2 166.4
Denmark 4 484.5
Estonia 1 613.1
Finland 3 628.0
France 4 027.9
Germany 4 772.3
Greece 1 994.1
Hungary 1 676.6
Iceland 3 712.7
Ireland 4 730.3
Israel 2 292.3
Italy 2 954.1
Japan 3 930.7
Korea 2 480.3
Latvia 1 229.8
Luxembourg 6 758.8
Mexico 956.2
Netherlands 4 885.6
New Zealand 3 184.0
Norway 5 926.4
Poland 1 527.9
Portugal 2 319.4
Slovak Republic 1 916.9
Slovenia 2 353.3
Spain 2 896.9
Sweden 4 906.9
Switzerland 6 062.3
Turkey 974.8
United Kingdom 3 755.9
United States 8 714.9


You can recreate this data here http://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?DataSetCode=HEALTH_STAT

Variables used to create the proper chart...
Health expenditure and financing
FUNCTION = Current expenditure on health (all functions)
FINANCING COSTS = All financing schemes
PROVIDER = All providers
MEASURE= Per capita, constant prices, constant PPPs, OECD base year

February 20, 2017

URGENT NEED TO REFRAME 2016 ELECTION

How many times have you seen news reports on the 2016 election that make claims similar to "Trump was elected to be a disruptor", or "Trump was elected by angry white blue collar workers"? Worst, Trump's win is seen by some as a continuation of BREXIT when BREXIT was a vote by real voters, and the EC vote was not. These are both false narratives... yet once out there can take on a life of their own.

Leaving aside that no one group alone ever makes a difference in a normal election any more than the last run in a ballgame wins the game... everything is cumulative, these reports are making the logical error that what the antidemocratic EC did, reflects what real voters did. But those real voters REJECTED Trump by nearly 3 million votes.

The EC has no "motives". The EC is a mindless, antidemocratic, winner take all, voting scheme that has little to do with the REAL motivations REAL voters had. So say otherwise gives false moral legitimacy to the Trump Junta.

I suggest that whenever we come across such reporting we write the news source to complain and correctly reframe the 2016 election.

February 18, 2017

What Are Those "Second Amendment Remedies"

Question to lunatic right wing fringe Gun Nuts: What are those "Second Amendment remedies" to having imposed on our nation a morally illegitimate president... massively REJECTED by the People... a president who is obviously incompetent, some argue is mentally ill, and who may be a Manchurian Candidate subject to blackmail by a hostile power?

Or are those alleged Second Amendment "remedies" just for women or black presidents who happen to be Dems?

February 17, 2017

TRUMP IS A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER!

Trump's emotional immaturity, intellectual dishonesty, pathological narcissism and ability to deceive himself, continue to prove this man not just unqualified but mentally ill and a clear and present danger to the nation.

The American Psychological Association has what they call the Goldwater Rule:

On occasion psychiatrists are asked for an opinion about an individual who is in the light of public attention or who has disclosed information about himself/herself through public media. In such circumstances, a psychiatrist may share with the public his or her expertise about psychiatric issues in general. However, it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement.

Damn it... these professionals BETTER BREAK THIS RULE AND START WARNING THE NATION that Trump is mentally ill and needs to be removed from office he must be removed from office ASAP though the use of the 25th Amendment. Pence may be just as distasteful politically, but he doesn't appear to be mentally ill.

4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President
shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

February 11, 2017

HOW OUR ANTIDEMOCRATIC FEDERAL SYSTEM SHAFTS DEMOCRATS

We already know that the EC has imposed a president on the nation, someone REJECTED by the People by a 2.9 million vote margin.

In the gerrymandered House the GOP gets 50 extra seats when they only won 1.34 million (1.1%) more votes than the Dems.

What about the Senate? If my spreadsheet is correct... using the July 2016 US Census estimate for the population of each state... (splitting the number in half if a state splits its vote) the
GOP Senators represent 144.1 million people
Dem Senators represent 177.2 million people.
Independents represent 874k.

In all three cases we see the GOP getting an advantage from an antidemocratic system. If the system was fair by democratic standards the Dems would have the Senate and the presidency... and the rabid right would would have 220 House seats instead 241 and the Dems would have 214 seats instead of 194.

When will Dems wake up? From past discussions here... I suspect never.

January 26, 2017

Did Bill Cosby Really Say This....

Looking back at old threads of why MSNBC never interviews someone like Noam Chomsky I found this

RufusTFirefly (8,812 posts)
5. MSNBC is to the left what a strip show is to actual sex

I'm with Bill Cosby, who never understood the attraction of strip shows: "I mean, when you're hungry," Cos once remarked. "You don't go watch a guy cooking a steak."

Now we know what Cosby meant.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024771888#post5

January 11, 2017

GIVE TRUMP A BREAK!!!

It's not as if the report said HE peed on the bed!!