Well, looking at the Cabinet that's taking shape it's gonna be a 4-year long shitstorm with a fallout that will linger far beyond that. All the worst people possible being tagged for positions of national authority and a clueless, pussy grabbing lunatic at the top. All the while the Alt-right is creaming themselves at the thought of it. They can't wait for the registrations, deportations, stop&frisk, the wall, unchecked corporatism, and the wholesale dismantling of the Constitution to begin. My only hope is that this is actually just a Matrix-like computer simulation and none of it is real.
But it is and we're stuck with it, so, sit back, pop some corn, light up a fattie and watch the show. It's gonna be a doozy. :o
Hey now, not all politicians are bad,..............some are dead.
There should be more.
I also see you read the bible once. So did I, now I'm an atheist.
Coincidence?
While I'm not defending the "chump" (he will never have any other appellation when I speak or write of him), it would appear that all his bombast is starting to fizzle. He's flaking on immigration (the wall), Hillary (criminal accusations), etc. Pics I see of him lately appear to me that he's shell shocked and realizing that he's in over his head. The fact that there was no preparation of a transition team reinforces that. All that said, I wouldn't take reassurance from it, by any means. It means that he is REALLY not fit for the job.
Quote from: Fireball on November 23, 2016, 04:30:36 AM
While I'm not defending the "chump" (he will never have any other appellation when I speak or write of him), it would appear that all his bombast is starting to fizzle. He's flaking on immigration (the wall), Hillary (criminal accusations), etc. Pics I see of him lately appear to me that he's shell shocked and realizing that he's in over his head. The fact that there was no preparation of a transition team reinforces that. All that said, I wouldn't take reassurance from it, by any means. It means that he is REALLY not fit for the job.
Last thing that I heard was, that he no longer thinks that global warming is a hoax. The guy is falling apart. If he continues like this, he will alienate all his voters.
Whatever Trump believes about climate change, his plan to gut NASA's efforts to track and understand it will please most denialists. Less pesky real world evidence for them to dismiss and ignore.
"Trump to scrap Nasa climate research in crackdown on 'politicized science'" |
The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/22/nasa-earth-donald-trump-eliminate-climate-change-research)
QuoteTrump has previously said that climate change is a "hoax" perpetrated by the Chinese, although on Tuesday he said there is "some connectivity" between human actions and the climate. There is overwhelming and long-established evidence that burning fossil fuels and deforestation causes the release of heat-trapping gases, therefore causing the warming experienced in recent decades.
[Trump adviser Bob] Walker, however, claimed that doubt over the role of human activity in climate change "is a view shared by half the climatologists in the world. We need good science to tell us what the reality is and science could do that if politicians didn't interfere with it."
It's understood that federal government scientists have been unnerved by Trump's dismissal of climate science and are concerned that their work will be sidelined as part of a new pro-fossil fuels and deregulation agenda. Climate scientists at other organizations expressed dismay at the potential gutting of Earth-based research.
Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said as Nasa provides the scientific community with new instruments and techniques, the elimination of Earth sciences would be "a major setback if not devastating".
"It could put us back into the 'dark ages' of almost the pre-satellite era," he said. "It would be extremely short sighted.
[Continues . . . (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/22/nasa-earth-donald-trump-eliminate-climate-change-research)]
Walker is lying about the consensus among climate scientists, of course.
Drumpf is so clearly unqualified for the job he's been handed that I feel there's no other recourse than to expect the worst and brace for impact. To this end, I've separated myself emotionally from whatever is going to happen and instead will simply watch it like I was watching some classless, brain-dead reality TV show.
I didn't realize that it was possible for an entire nation to do this but apparently America has jumped the shark.
Quote from: MadBomr101 on November 23, 2016, 07:40:01 PM
I didn't realize that it was possible for an entire nation to do this but apparently America has jumped the shark.
Remember that the popular vote was in Hillary's favor by well over a million votes, so don't lose hope.
By the time the counting is done, it will probably top two million.
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on November 23, 2016, 07:52:39 PM
Quote from: MadBomr101 on November 23, 2016, 07:40:01 PM
I didn't realize that it was possible for an entire nation to do this but apparently America has jumped the shark.
Remember that the popular vote was in Hillary's favor by well over a million votes, so don't lose hope.
Ye but the system is the system and if it wasn't Donald would have worked harder elsewhere and won by more, seriously, everyone knows that.
Some of the electors are refusing to vote for Trump even though they're legally obligated to, and now some people are hoping they can tip the election back to Clinton. Don't see it happening, nor do I know if it's a good idea since a lot of these idiots would likely riot, but maybe it can be the first crack to take down this asinine electoral college once and for all?
Firebird, I disagree that the electoral college system is asinine. Be assured that I am strongly on the side of whomever or whatever is against the president elect. As far as we can tell, the phony bastard won fair and square even though not by popular vote.
The electoral college method ensures that states like Wyoming with only 600,000 population is not hung out to dry. If we used the popular vote system where the most votes win, then a combination of California, Texas, and Florida could decide the outcome of the election because of population density. The voter choices from Idaho, Vermont, Montana, or South Dakota would not even matter. Actually the county that I live in has more registered voters than each of four different states. No fair that my county could defeat any individual small population state.
I reckon that the founders used the EC method to decide voting result for an entirely different reason. Lets say that a certain candidate was chosen by the citizens of Georgia or other state remote from Wash. DC. Delegates from the various states rode their horse or used a slow boat to Washington and that took a while. The delegates merely represented the will of the voters of their state. Now that we have a method to transmit voter preference in a micro second does not make the EC process any less collectively fair for all the states.
Quote from: Bad Penny II on November 24, 2016, 11:39:14 AM
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on November 23, 2016, 07:52:39 PM
Quote from: MadBomr101 on November 23, 2016, 07:40:01 PM
I didn't realize that it was possible for an entire nation to do this but apparently America has jumped the shark.
Remember that the popular vote was in Hillary's favor by well over a million votes, so don't lose hope.
Ye but the system is the system and if it wasn't Donald would have worked harder elsewhere and won by more, seriously, everyone knows that.
Maybe. Anyway, it's Thanksgiving here and I'm going to eat a lot of turkey and drink a lot of wine.
Quote from: Icarus on November 24, 2016, 09:03:28 PM
Firebird, I disagree that the electoral college system is asinine. Be assured that I am strongly on the side of whomever or whatever is against the president elect. As far as we can tell, the phony bastard won fair and square even though not by popular vote.
The electoral college method ensures that states like Wyoming with only 600,000 population is not hung out to dry. If we used the popular vote system where the most votes win, then a combination of California, Texas, and Florida could decide the outcome of the election because of population density. The voter choices from Idaho, Vermont, Montana, or South Dakota would not even matter. Actually the county that I live in has more registered voters than each of four different states. No fair that my county could defeat any individual small population state.
I reckon that the founders used the EC method to decide voting result for an entirely different reason. Lets say that a certain candidate was chosen by the citizens of Georgia or other state remote from Wash. DC. Delegates from the various states rode their horse or used a slow boat to Washington and that took a while. The delegates merely represented the will of the voters of their state. Now that we have a method to transmit voter preference in a micro second does not make the EC process any less collectively fair for all the states.
Do you really think that a vote in Wyoming should be worth approximately four times what a vote in California is worth, when it comes to presidential elections? What makes Wyoming voters so damn special? Sounds to me like it's California and other large states that are being "hung out to dry."
The Electoral College destroys the "one person, one vote" principle that is the standard for every other election in the United States. Your attempt to justify that seems completely inadequate.
QuoteComparatively, people in Wyoming have nearly four times the power in the Electoral College as people in California. Put another way, if California had the same proportion of electoral votes per person as Wyoming, it would have about 200 electoral votes.
[source (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/how-the-electoral-college-rigs-elections-for-republicans-w450749)]
Quote from: Recusant on November 25, 2016, 05:29:27 AM
Quote from: Icarus on November 24, 2016, 09:03:28 PM
Firebird, I disagree that the electoral college system is asinine. Be assured that I am strongly on the side of whomever or whatever is against the president elect. As far as we can tell, the phony bastard won fair and square even though not by popular vote.
The electoral college method ensures that states like Wyoming with only 600,000 population is not hung out to dry. If we used the popular vote system where the most votes win, then a combination of California, Texas, and Florida could decide the outcome of the election because of population density. The voter choices from Idaho, Vermont, Montana, or South Dakota would not even matter. Actually the county that I live in has more registered voters than each of four different states. No fair that my county could defeat any individual small population state.
I reckon that the founders used the EC method to decide voting result for an entirely different reason. Lets say that a certain candidate was chosen by the citizens of Georgia or other state remote from Wash. DC. Delegates from the various states rode their horse or used a slow boat to Washington and that took a while. The delegates merely represented the will of the voters of their state. Now that we have a method to transmit voter preference in a micro second does not make the EC process any less collectively fair for all the states.
Do you really think that a vote in Wyoming should be worth approximately four times what a vote in California is worth, when it comes to presidential elections? What makes Wyoming voters so damn special? Sounds to me like it's California and other large states that are being "hung out to dry."
The Electoral College destroys the "one person, one vote" principle that is the standard for every other election in the United States. Your attempt to justify that seems completely inadequate.
QuoteComparatively, people in Wyoming have nearly four times the power in the Electoral College as people in California. Put another way, if California had the same proportion of electoral votes per person as Wyoming, it would have about 200 electoral votes.
[source (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/how-the-electoral-college-rigs-elections-for-republicans-w450749)]
Quote from: Recusant on November 25, 2016, 05:29:27 AM
What makes Wyoming voters so damn special?
(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F67.media.tumblr.com%2Ftumblr_mbhsu3sLCJ1ror6v2.gif&hash=b6e70a11ff35b50fbdbc989971cb0c490f5a6aa3)
I want to know.
Woe is me! I think that I have put my foot in it. OK here is a Civics 101 recitation mostly for my own learning benefit.
The electoral college thing is imperfect but it works most of the time. The rules of the game are somewhat similar to a Chinese fire drill.
First; delegates within the states are appointed in accordance with the number of representatives plus two for the senators. The appointed delegates were originally intended to be the intellectuals who were considered to have better judgement than the common less informed citizens of the state. There are 538 of them in all. The necessary 270 votes to name the new president is a wee tad more than half.
All the states except Nebraska and Maine currently require the delegates to vote for whomever the majority of the voters selected. There is our system of checks and balances at work. No oligarchs are to usurp the power of the people or notions to that affect.
Once informed of the result of the voting, the governor of the state will issue a certificate of ascertainment that tells who the delegates are supposed to vote for. It does not always work that way but most of the time it does.
The fun begins the first Monday after the second Wednesday of December (no shit that is the rule) The senate and the house will then assemble to learn of the decision of the delegates. ....The votes will be counted in a joint session of congress on January 6. Two tellers will read the results from the various state delegates in alphabetic order. The VP presides over this session. The senate president then calls for objections if any. If objections are noted the session will retire to settle the case.
The whole process is a freaking mess and I was hasty in claiming that it was not asinine. Just the same the idea is valid. It went to hell because of the presumption that only the betters could be delegates. That turned into something that resembled aristocracy or "rule of the ruling class", which runs counter to the concept of Jeffersonian Democracy. Lo and behold over time a bunch of ordinary slobs intermingled with the more sophisticated delegates. Then the concept of super delegates came to pass. They can vote for whomever they damned well please without regard to the will of the people.
Well what the hell.....maybe it is an asinine method. The whole structure is built on the reality that we are a Republic not a Democracy.
As for Wyoming.... It is surely to be accorded some special consideration because Dick Chaney lives there and he can shoot federal judges without consequence. In addition they have Teton National Park and no threat of petroleum pipelines just yet.
I will go to my room now.
No problem,
Icarus. You've demonstrated yet again that unlike hidebound doctrinaire ideologues, you're capable of reassessing your position. You da man. :thumbsup:
One quibble: "Superdelegates" is a comparatively new term, and that's because it developed after the two main parties went to the primary system for choosing their candidates. There are no superdelegates in the Electoral College system.
QuoteIn the first decade of the 1900s, states began to hold primary elections to select the delegates who would attend national nominating conventions. The introduction of these primary elections mitigated the corrupt control of party and state bosses. But the widespread adoption of primary elections was not immediate and so they did not play as strong a role in determining a party's candidate as they do today.
[source (https://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/elections/political-primaries.html)]
Quote from: Recusant on November 26, 2016, 01:08:22 AM
No problem, Icarus. You've demonstrated yet again that unlike hidebound doctrinaire ideologues, you're capable of reassessing your position. You da man. :thumbsup:
Hear hear.
Quote from: Icarus on November 25, 2016, 11:43:45 PM
As for Wyoming.... It is surely to be accorded some special consideration because Dick Chaney lives there and he can shoot federal judges without consequence. In addition they have Teton National Park and no threat of petroleum pipelines just yet.
:eyebrow:
"My Advice on Coping with Trump's America"
Find an internet forum where you can vent.
HAF will no doubt benefit from Trumpology.
Yey, silver linings.
I'm afraid advice to "sit back and enjoy the show" comes from a place of privilege that many cannot afford.
I'm already watching as women's reproductive rights are dropping away, state by state. It's fucking horrifying and will not just sit back and watch.
:this: For instance, the fetus funeral laws (https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/fetus-funerals-the-dystopian-new-turn-in-the-fight-against-abortion-rights) aren't just a symbolic sop to the Christians--they're actually another way of making access to abortions more difficult and expensive.
The Satanists are willing to challenge that particular tactic, though. "The Satanic Temple Claims Immunity From Rule Requiring Fetal Burials" | Snopes (http://www.snopes.com/2016/12/02/satanic-temple-claims-immunity-rule-requiring-fetal-burials/)
Ohio has just passed a law banning all abortions after 6 weeks, when a heart rate first becomes detected.
Most women are not even aware they are pregnant at 6 weeks.
It should also be noted that Tom Price, Trump's pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services, is opposed to the Public Health and Prevention Fund (http://www.nature.com/news/trump-s-pick-for-us-health-secretary-has-pushed-to-cut-science-spending-1.21066?WT.mc_id=FBK_NA_1611_FHNEWSTOMPRICE_PORTFOLIO), instituted to support public health programs, and is a staunch opponent of women's reproductive rights. (https://www.bustle.com/articles/197478-these-tom-price-quotes-on-womens-reproductive-rights-suggest-hard-times-ahead)
There appears to be a few member of the EC - the so-called "Hamilton Electors" - who are refusing to vote for Trump in an effort to block his Presidency from even beginning and positioning another member of the GOP as President in his place. Someone less disastrous. I applaud the effort of these few men/women of conscience but, to be realistic, their numbers are few and it would require a minimum of 37 of them to block Trump. There's about 15 of them so far and the kind of backbone they're showing probably doesn't exist in numbers high enough for this to work.
Not being a pessimist, just being a realist. That being said, I would LOVE to be proven wrong.
I fear the electoral college choosing an entirely new candidate. Many of the Republican nominees were even worse than Trump, and with the mind to be sneaky about it rather than a blundering buffoon. IF they were to choose to vote for someone else, I think it should be Hillary, as she did win the popular vote by a large margin. Not just "well we like this dude".
Hillary has no chance of being selected given that the cooperation of the GOP electors is critical for this strategy to work. So long as it's not Cruz, I'm open to another Republican if that's how it has to be.
Someone moderate.
**Edited to Add: Let me just reaffirm my doubts that this strategy will work given that it depends on the political courage and personal integrity of people heavily entrenched in establishment politics. A few will have the spine for it while the majority of them will simply do what's expected and hand the Presidency over to an obvious lunatic with the IQ of ham salad.
And this country will burn.
There is a vanishingly small chance that faithless electors will have any effect at all. Even if they did, the most that might be achieved is hanging the Electoral College (as in "hung jury"). Then the responsibility for choosing the president falls on the House of Representatives, and it's a dead cert that Trump would be their choice.
As for "This country will burn," I'm don't think so. Yes, the coming years will be shit, and there will likely be some unrest. I don't doubt that Trump, assisted by Ryan and McConnell, will do some serious damage to the country. Perhaps even enough that the control of Congress will swing to the Democrats in two years, but I wouldn't bank on that outcome.
I think you're greatly underestimating the damage Trump's sociopathic administration is going to have. His cabinet appointments are proof of the direction he plans to go and by the end of his term the economy will be a trainwreck, the environment will look like a rape victim, unrestrained corporatism will be the norm, look forward to new wars, probably with Saudi Arabia and/or Iran, Xian indoctrination in our schools, and the dismantling of as many social safety nets as they can kill. Also, pussies everywhere will be in danger of being grabbed. It won't just be NY, LA, and Miami.
If Trump takes office, I stand by my assertion the country will burn. If you're not part of the wealthy elite, bend over.