House Dems move to amend the constitution and abolish the electoral college. Goodbye America — NOS4A2

So the true purpose/meaning of America is to have an electoral college? I'm curious as to how you would rationalize that America evaporates with the electoral college...

Do you mean to say that since the Democrats would foreseeably win the next few election cycles, the sky would fall? Are you just making a partisan quip with no supporting argument or premise?

Do you understand why the electoral college was established?

Do you understand why the electoral college was established? — Brett

Yes.

For or against?

Both.

So the true purpose/meaning of America is to have an electoral college? I'm curious as to how you would rationalize that America evaporates with the electoral college...

Do you mean to say that since the Democrats would foreseeably win the next few election cycles, the sky would fall? Are you just making a partisan quip with no supporting argument or premise?

It is my view that this is a precursor of things to come.

The Electoral College is a pivotal part of the Madisonian model, which shouldn’t be altered on some whim, apparently, because the development of mass media and the internet makes it easy to research the candidates...this from the party that arguably controls most mass media and the internet.

I prefer the electoral college simply because no one region contains the absolute majority of electoral votes required to elect a president.

They’re not going to succeed and they know it. It’s all virtual signalling.

It’s been tried many times before. But times are strange.

I've just moved up the hill, and right now my head and the restore literally in the clouds. I will therefore fulminate against the enlightenment as the source of all your troubles. Normally I allow my moniker to express my rejection, but on this occasion, I make an exception. Reason and individuality. Des-bloody-cartes!

Lauding reason as the operating principle, and the individual as the final end, enshrined a practical philosophy that objectified human society. Thus the unfeeling philosopher king institutes a mechanical view of the human and mechanises social relations. Man the cog in the social machine. Hence the production line, the mass exploitation of labour, slavery, the concentration camp all share a philosophical source and arise together. Not that there was not unpleasantness before, but dispassionate unpleasantness has no limit; it is never exhausted or sated.

And this is the inheritance of the US from Europe and Britain in particular. Man as object is valued solely by the measure of wealth and power, and those with none have no value. So the US does not waste much money preserving the lives of the poor, with health services and welfare - the minimum to keep 'them' from organised riot. It is a miserable philosophy and a miserable country. The pain has not gone.

After all, what can possibly go wrong? — Bitter Crank

Like that the American economy nosedives and everything will be far worse?

But you are already seeing the tell tale signs of how bad it has become.

I ask to people to read the following letter from the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces:

Memorandum for the Joint Force

At first it might seem just obvious statement among others during these times, but understand that this is the leadership of the US military. So you have here the Military having to say that they are with Joe Biden being their 46th Commander in Chief. And that they above all defend the Constitution and what happened was sedition and insurrection.

In a democracy it's quite unheard of that the Military has to officially acknowledge who is the winner of elections. It really isn't normal, the letter is unprecedented. And not only singed by the Chairman, but all the department heads.

This kind of letter means that they, the military, are obviously contemplating a situation where the enemy is a domestic one.

So there's the wonderful new time the Biden administration is facing.

They should focus on dealing with climate change.

They have a razor think majority in the Senate that relied on holding the VP spot, so I don't know how much will get done. Manchin is the swingiest vote, so expect a lot of pork going to West Virginia in the stimulus, the way Iowa made out on the ACA.

Murkowski is abandoning the GOP due to Trump and I can see others (Collins) doing this too. Between the House GOP not whipping votes for impeachment and McConnel potentially going along with, or not resisting impeachment, I imagine the GOP could fracture into traditionalists, and the Q Anon believing Trump worshipers. I doubt it though, Mitch will probably lose his spine and try to get a unanimous vote against impeachment. They might not try to block evidence and witnesses again though.

I do think the filibuster will go if the GOP won't vote on a stimulus. However, I doubt much gets done outside of that. I can't see a public health option, large climate change bill, tax increases on the wealthy, or certainly court packing or the Wyoming Rule to make the House and Electoral College more representative to population passing.

The pandemic will get worse before it gets better. Stocks and housing are in a full bubble. Housing prices are massively outstripping rents.

The US really does not need any more unskilled labor, and immigration is obviously massively destabilizing urban housing markets and the entire political system, but I can't see them doing anything to fix it now that the Democrats have marched so far towards open borders to combat Trump, that immigration restrictions are seen as a hate crime. I mean, if the GOP couldn't hold one vote on immigration in two years of total control, why would Dems.

So we will continue to add a large city worth of people who get sucked into an underclass each year. Immigration from the third world also necessarily increases inequality since they are coming with low skills and no assets. It keeps wages low and rents high, hence why neither party will touch it, but it's a major issue they should tackle and never will. You'll never get widespread support for expanding social welfare programs, affirmative action, etc. so long as we are trending towards 25% of the population being foreign born by 2050 and about half either foreign born or with at least one foreign born parent. There will be no cohesion. Plus, it only benefits a tiny minority of people in the developing world (Bangladesh alone could supply more migrants than Europe could absorb), while it's also destabilized politics across the West, which is hurting developing nations.

In listening to the impeachment debates in Congress, one learns again the lessons taught from time-to-time; that there is always more to things than appear on the surface. The mess Trump has left behind is actually more than a mess; it was an attack, and for the moment still is an attack, across the boards against the USA. (And it is a private conspiracy theory of mine that the actors behind the scenes are the ones who gain the most, Putin's gang, they being more subtle and sophisticated than most can credit.)

And Biden is not by a long shot the first Democrat president tasked with cleaning up a Republican mess. But this is a mess with a difference. Never before have the ideological differences been so just plain anti-American. All of Trump's lies, while in some cases having immediate purpose, have been not so much to mislead or persuade as to one understanding or another, but instead to destroy the possibility of understanding itself. To destroy trust, to destroy truth itself. An old totalitarian strategy.

In my opinion, Biden knows very well who and what he is, and is not, what he can and cannot do, and how and why. I am persuaded that he will both lead and manage, mainly by choosing good and effective people. And look for Kamala Harris to be a significant part of his administration. There's a real chance she will be president someday

And it's a shame. Kennedy/Johnson inherited the messes of civil rights and Viet Nam. Carter from Nixon. Clinton from Bush 1, Obama from Bush 2. And now Biden from Trump, with this last being qualitatively different and worse. And looking back, what was so much energy and treasure wasted on? On the stupidity of racism. On the stupidity of failing even to be interested in who or what the Vietnamese people were and are. Carter the economy, Iran, oil - all innocent of any Republican help. And two Bush economies and Bush 2's war.

In sum, though, I think the US is right and ripe for an extended exercise in the good and the right. And all the more so because of the last four years. When the book on the Trump administration is finally written, in my opinion it will turn out to far worse and horrific than we knew.

I am persuaded that he will both lead and manage, mainly by choosing good and effective people. — tim wood

I commend you, as a self-admitted dinosaur, of being so positive about it where I really see no reason to believe this will be good people. Effective, sure. In protecting special interests and the status quo.

I commend you, as a self-admitted dinosaur, of being so positive about it where I really see no reason to believe this will be good people. Effective, sure. In protecting special interests and the status quo. — Benkei

You might agree that some interests and some of the establishment both should and must be protected? Blank slates are nice in theory, but any working system has in it at the least that which makes it work, that being overthrown puts the whole enterprise at peril. If nothing else, working systems, even the worst, are archives of a collected and accumulated wisdom. Besides, with us dinosaurs, hope is eternal.

You should see Biden’s pick for Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, Kristen Clarke. Early writings reveal her to be a legit racial supremacist in her younger days.

BSA President Kristen Clarke '97 wasn't here for the Jeffries lecture. But in a letter to the editors of The Crimson, Clarke made a series of assertions cerily reminiscent of the CUNY professor's racist theories. Among them, was the following: "Melanin endows Blacks with greater mental, physical and spiritual abilities--something which cannot be measured based on Eurocentric standards."

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1994/11/4/clarke-should-retract-statements-pbtbwo-years/

Sick shit.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-kristen-clarke-doj-civil-rights-division

Yes, I can well imagine you genuinely sickened that someone would say black people might be better at some stuff than white people. Those uppity black people, eh.

What? You believe that pseudoscience? Figures.

If Kavanaugh can rape women during his student years and get a cushy job as a SCOTUS judge, which you defended tooth and nail, how about you apply the same principles here?

What principle would that be? The presumption of innocence?

What? You believe that pseudoscience? Figures. — NOS4A2

I'm reserving judgment, I just believe you when you say you're sickened when someone says black people are good at stuff.

The Electoral College is a pivotal part of the Madisonian model, which shouldn’t be altered on some whim, apparently.... I prefer the electoral college simply because no one region contains the absolute majority of electoral votes required to elect a president. — NOS4A2

It was/is their business and purpose, though, to keep bad people from being elected and in that they failed. And if it be argued they could not have in any case prevented Trump's taking office, then their future is properly questioned.

That’s all she is to you, eh? “some black people”?

She’s the Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights division.

Here more of what she wrote:

"Please use the following theories and observations to assist you in your search for truth regarding the genetic differences between Blacks and whites [sic]," Clarke wrote. "One: Dr Richard King reveals that the core of the human brain is the 'locus coeruleus,' which is a structure that is Black, because it contains large amounts of neuro-melanin, which is essential for its operation.

"Two: Black infants sit, crawl and walk sooner than whites [sic]. Three: Carol Barnes notes that human mental processes are controlled by melanin -- that same chemical which gives Blacks their superior physical and mental abilities.

"Four: Some scientists have revealed that most whites [sic] are unable to produce melanin because their pineal glands are often calcified or non-functioning. Pineal calcification rates with Africans are five to 15 percent [sic], Asians 15 to 25 percent [sic] and Europeans 60 to 80 percent [sic]. This is the chemical basis for the cultural differences between blacks and whites [sic].

"Five: Melanin endows Blacks with greater mental, physical and spiritual abilities -- something which cannot be measured based on Eurocentric standards."

the "it's been so long ago don't let it ruin his career" principle.

Do you think it’s OK for the the assistant attorney general of the civil rights division to have held, at any point in their lives, beliefs of racial supremacy?

That’s all she is to you, eh? “some black people”? — NOS4A2

What?!? Even by your standards that makes no sense.

She’s the Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights division. — NOS4A2

Yup, and back then she was a kid at college. Btw I've now read the letter. She never once argues for black racial supremacy.

Difficult to see this as anything other than more racists jumping to condemn someone put in office because they happen to be black.

I would find that problematic, except that it's apparent from the letters she wrote that she did not hold those beliefs.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1994/10/28/blacks-seek-an-end-to-abuse/

The juxtaposition as a reaction to those defending the Bell Curve seems rather obvious to me. Racist theories about white superiority can be discussed but racial theories about black superiority are a no go? It's that context in which the letter was written. The whole drama and various reactions and explanations that she doesn't necessarily believe in the melanine theory can all be found at the Crimson.

But nice gutter journalism there. You once again reinforce my very low opinion of you.

It’s “problematic” to have someone who espoused racist pseudoscience lead the civil rights division. The appeals to hypocrisy only confirm that your principles, if you had any, move like a windsock.

as usual you're acting like an idiot. She has explained in 1994 in another letter she doesn't believe in the theory but that it should have the same attention as the Bell Curve got. She wasn't espousing it, she was demonstrating a point about a book that was being taken seriously at that time that shouldn't. So since you have no evidence of her holding these views or arguing in favour of them and there is direct evidence what she did mean from her own hand at the end of 1994 you have no point.

All strength to them, and every success.