This is what the electoral college was put in place to do. It was always intended to protect us from ourselves. The founders understood that the greatest risk to democracy was that “we the people” would vote against having a democracy.
If the electoral college refuses to do their jobs, “You’re fired!”
Robert De Niro would like to punch Donald J. Drumpf in the face, a worthy goal indeed. But, disturbingly, he insults animals by comparing them to Drumpf in the process of telling us why he’d like to punch the Donald.
Not just yet. But, I finally do see a potential for the existence of this abhorrent construct to be vindicated for the first time in my lifetime.
Some of you may know that for years or even decades, I have been outraged by the existence of the electoral college in the United States. This constitutional load of horseshit undermines both our pretense of being a nation and our pretense of being a democracy.
A democratic nation would have a national election. We do not. We have state elections and the states send representatives to vote on our behalf … unless they don’t.
A democracy would be a country where every citizen had an equal vote. We do not. Individuals in some states have 3 times the voting power of individuals in other states.
I have hated this construct with a burning, seething, fiery passion since I first learned the details of it. It makes me sick that the founders of this once-great non-nation thought that people should not be allowed to vote for president of the United States.
How could I change my mind so radically on this important subject?
The Democratic Peoples’ Republic of the Christian States of America is just around the corner. We (the former USA) are at risk of becoming a totalitarian theocratic nation. Please please please vote! Vote early. Vote often.
This is scary as all hell. Please do read the article in detail. You may find it hard to believe. But, it’s chock full of links backing up the statements it makes.
A new PPP survey reveals that Republicans are afflicted most, with 44 percent now favoring installing Christianity as the United States’ official religion. (Lest we forget, the GOP’s roster of potential 2016 candidates is stocked with rabid believers, and even faith-faker Donald Trump is courting evangelicals.) A shocking 28 percent of Democrats are also theocratically inclined. Only 53 percent of Republican and Democratic voters combined oppose declaring Jesus jabberwocky our national faith.
They say that we get the government we deserve. I have long disagreed and thought that the government was far worse than we actually deserve. However, after reading this, I have to wonder.
Is it possible that the government is actually better than we-the-idiots deserve?
I’m sure many who read my blog have been convinced for a while that I’m somewhat of a fear monger with respect to climate change and overpopulation. Perhaps. Before you make up your mind, read this:
The figures come as one of the world’s leading environmentalists issued a warning that the global food supply system could collapse at any point, leaving hundreds of millions more people hungry, sparking widespread riots and bringing down governments. In a shocking new assessment of the prospects of meeting food needs, Lester Brown, president of the Earth policy research centre in Washington, says that the climate is no longer reliable and the demands for food are growing so fast that a breakdown is inevitable, unless urgent action is taken.
Good thing climate change is just a hoax. Dig hole in sand. Insert head. Fill in hole. Ignorance is bliss.
“Armed aggression is no longer the principal threat to our future. The overriding threats to this century are climate change, population growth, spreading water shortages and rising food prices,” Brown says.
Under the influence of the painkiller Dilaudid, and dog-tired after another day of fighting for my life with my private health insurance company, I glimpsed Mitt Romney and his running-mate, Paul Ryan, entering my Los Angeles hospital room dressed in surgical gowns with scalpels in their hands ready to fatally operate on me.
It was a drug-induced hallucination, of course. But the mirage made me sit bolt upright in bed and, fully awake, start to rethink my previous, bitterly dissenting view of Barack Obama.
250 million years ago, this planet suffered the greatest mass extinction of multicellular life in the long history of the planet. The ocean conveyor current stopped. The ocean became anoxic, meaning it had little or no oxygen. Fish died; sulfur producing bacteria thrived. As the anoxic layer of the ocean reached the surface, hydrogen sulfide gas was released into the atmosphere in toxic quantities. The sky turned green. The mass extinction was brought onto land.
95% of all species on the planet died. This was due to global warming.*
Congressman Paul Broun has publicly stated that he is deliberately failing to uphold and defend the constitution of the United States of America. As such, he should be forcibly removed from office for the failure to follow his oath of office. Here is a direct quote from this idiot who has proclaimed that the earth is 9,000 years old, and that evolution, the big bang theory, and embryology are lies straight from the pit of hell.
As you congressman, I hold the holy bible as being the major directions to me for how I vote in Washington DC. And, I’ll continue to do that.
Paul Broun’s act of legislating based on his personal religious beliefs is in direct contradiction to this famous quote.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ….
As we deal with yet another annoying presidential race, it’s probably useful to remember that it has been many years since we really had candidates or even candidate we actually liked. Most of the time, we’re voting for a lesser evil. I don’t know how we can ever break that cycle. But, here’s one very much not safe for work view of the 1988 presidential race.
Are you wealthy enough to avoid your taxes by moving your money to the Cayman Islands? If not, then perhaps you’re not wealthy enough to vote for Mitt Romney.
Well, not actually Christ. But, some who actually read the bible are finding little or no support for the Republican budget created by Paul Ryan. They’re claiming that, while he claims to be a Christian, he is instead a follower of Ayn Rand, a renowned atheist. In fact, Ryan also claims to be a Randroid. So, how can one reconcile his Ayn Randian politics with his stated Christian beliefs? One can’t.
I, for one, am not a Christian. But, as was Jesus Christ, I am a liberal. So, just as Jesus Christ would be, I am appalled by Republican politics. Anyway, here’s a couple of good clips from the Colbert Report about the Ryan budget.
I’ve titled this post Misanthropia because I believe that I have every bit as much chance of making these improvements as I do of creating a true Utopia, i.e. none.
Still, I’m going to label each suggestion either plausible or implausible. The plausible changes will be the ones I expect never to have implemented because the Koch brothers and other multi-gazillionaires own all of our politicians and control the whole system by which they are put in place. However, I expect that I would be able to convince most of the so-called 99% that these changes would be good. The implausible are the ones I feel strongly enough about to post despite the extreme likelihood that they are so radical that I couldn’t even convince a significant percentage of the so-called 99%.
Each of the following suggestions or cluster of suggestions are meant to be taken individually. I believe each on its own could help make the U.S. a better country. That said, even were all of these suggestions implemented tomorrow, I do not expect that it would fix all of our problems. I’m not that smart.
The following is an open letter to President Obama, which I also sent to his office via the interface on whitehouse.gov. Thanks to my friend Jan for the help editing the text.
Before reading the letter below, please understand that I am still very glad that we have Obama in office rather than McCain with Palin a heartless non-beat away from the presidency. I still think we’re better off without “bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran” McCain or worse, much much worse, his running mate Caribou Barbie. That said, I am still also very disappointed in results we’ve been getting from President Obama. I, for one, am feeling very short-changed.
So, without further preamble, here is the letter I sent to Mr. Obama.
Dear President Obama,
How sweet those words sounded just a bit over a year ago. During your campaign you promised change. We were thrilled that you won the election and eagerly anticipated a new era. A year later and with a Nobel Peace Prize behind you, alas there has been precious little change.
Also, check out the incredibly impressive Heart of the Adirondacks project in the Adirondack State Park, the largest park in the continental United States at twice the size of Yellowstone.