Tag: Popular Vote

Time To Graduate From The College

This time I am referring to the Electoral College…..time for the country to move past this antiquated system and move on to a more reliable popular vote.

Since I began analyzing politics some 50 years ago I have been opposed to the electoral college….and ever election since those dark days have done nothing to give me confidence in the EC as necessity for this republic.

Now that we have an election, 2018 mid-terms, are quickly approaching maybe it is time for me to once again insert my objections to this archaic system.

My attacks on the EC here on IST began back in 2008, although I had written many articles of condemnation the old fashioned way, by paper…..

Source: Can The Electoral College Be Killed? – In Saner Thought

After the Bush win in 2000 the calls have been getting louder, it is as if the American people are starting to wake up from their idyllic slumber….and it has gotten louder since the Trump win in 2016.

assault on the heels of Donald Trump’s victory last November—the second time in five presidential races the popularly elected candidate lost the election—but it’s not due to any groundswell in Congress for a constitutional amendment to adopt a national popular vote. Instead, the most viable campaign to change how Americans choose their leader is being waged at booze-soaked junkets in luxury hotels around the country and even abroad, as an obscure entity called the Institute for Research on Presidential Elections peddles a controversial idea: that state legislatures can put the popular-vote winner in the White House.

It was mid-February, inside a four-star resort in a third-world country, when I heard the pitch to transform American democracy. The institute flew 11 political journalists to Panama for an “educational seminar” on election reform. (My peers included reporters representing outlets ranging from Breitbart to U.S. News & World Report.) The trip presented a bargain: three days of sunshine, sightseeing, fine dining and free cocktails on the institute’s dime, in exchange for being educated by seminar coordinators in the pool, at the bar, overlooking the Panama Canal—and most aggressively, during the five-hour workshop in a windowless conference room—about the history and weaknesses of the Electoral College, and the potential of a radical alternative.

Source: Is the Electoral College Doomed? – POLITICO Magazine

To be fair if my reader is not well versed of the EC and his not too familiar with its functions then I would like to help out…..

Source: What Do You Know About The Electoral College? – In Saner Thought

Source: The Electoral College Wasn’t Meant to Overturn Elections – In Saner Thought

To be fair….not everybody thinks the EC is a worthless piece of crap……in case you need more info before you choose a side…..

Source: Electoral College: Reasons Not To Abolish – In Saner Thought

The Scariest Russian Is Popular

I recently wrote a post about the mysterious death of Stalin…..included in the post was a link to another site that says that the popularity of Stalin is on the rise….even under the leadership of Putin.

Here is that link from the post……

Source: Stalin More Popular Than Putin, Russians Say

After I posted the article I read a couple more reports that confirm that Stalin’s popularity is on the rise within Russia…

A competition has been launched to find the “Name of Russia” – one Russian from history who should go down as a national symbol and the nation’s biggest hero. Joseph Stalin, despite being one of the most vicious tyrants of the 20th century (and an ethnic Georgian), makes it on to the initial long list of 500 names, and is expected to garner a fair few votes.

Since Winston Churchill won the BBC’s Great Britons series, other countries have thought that the concept is a rather good idea. But while the German broadcaster ZDF has said that Adolf Hitler and all other Nazi leaders will be barred from running in the “Our Best” series due to start soon, the Russian version includes Stalin and several other Bolsheviks involved in the Great Terror in its long list.

Source: The Big Question: Why is Stalin still popular in Russia, despite the brutality of his regime? | The Independent

Then another Journal has published a survey into the popularity of Stalin…..

Stalin still sells. In Moscow-based independent pollster Levada Center’s latest representative survey on the ten most outstanding personalities “of all times and all nations,” published at the end of June, 38 percent of 1600 respondents in Russia included Stalin in their lists. Putin and Pushkin were each named by 34 percent, followed closely by Lenin. The first non-Russian name on the list was the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, mentioned by 9 percent of interviewees.

Although the Levada Center frequently publishes surveys on all kinds of sociological topics, the results of this particular poll gained broad media coverage – and not only in Russia, but abroad as well as it seems to provide further proof that Stalin has been rehabilitated in post-Soviet Russian society.

Source: Stalin Reloaded? | Berlin Policy Journal – Blog

Lots of evidence that Stalin is returning in Russia…..there are some that will say “so what”?…those would be the people that do not remember what Stalin was capable of doing…and now he is becoming more popular….

I do not see this as a good thing….how about you?

The Nation’s Biggest Joke

Yes, there is something that is funny about the conditions in the US….that is if the middle class circling the drain is not funny…..banks controlling everyone’s lives is not funny…..loss of many many jobs is not funny…..but there is humor in the US…….what could make anyone smile?  The Congress of the United States…..that is what deserves a belly laugh…..

Here is a group, elected by the people, or so we are told to believe,  that does nothing to help the very people they claim to represent….the Senate is worse than a dysfunctional family…..this group NO LONGER works for the common good of the country and the House is closing in on the same spot…..

Their sole functions, these days, is to bring the gears of governance to a grinding halt…..no longer are they the voice of the people but rather the voice of their own egos, interests and silly political loyalties…..no longer is theirs the voice of reason as it was intended from the start of the country……they are puppets with the hands of special interests up their butts working their mouths….

Gone are the days of the people, by the people and for the people……America is suffering and suffering badly, yet nothing is moving in Washington with the exception of the mouths of opposition and it is special interest opposition not something people are opposed to in any way…..

It seems to appear that the American people are waking up to the circus that is Washington and especially to the clowns that are the Congress….NO one wants to compromise, but that is what the three branches is all about…..NO one wants to compromise on behalf of the people that sent them to Washington…..No one wants to earn their salary as a Congressperson, instead they want to play at the theatrics of politics…they play to the camera….they play to the sound bite……if I do not produce at my job I am thrown to the wolves, but yet these ass clowns can play and go on retreats after working a week and they get re-elected……..what are you people thinking?

It is time to drop the curtain of the THEATER OF THE ABSURD……they had their shot and the critics are panning them……time to move on and find answers to problems….not create more problems for the problems…..

If you have had enough then DO SOMETHING about it!  You have a vote…USE IT!

Can The Electoral College Be Killed?

This old piece of garbage is long overdue for the scrap heap.  It is NO longer need and no longer wanted.  This is a synopsis of a piece written by Pamela Prah:

First it was the presidential primary calendar that state legislatures across the country upended to give their voters a greater say this year in choosing candidates. Now a few states are orchestrating an overhaul of the way voters select the U.S. president.
Voters this fall will still use the Electoral College to determine the next occupant of the White House, but a movement is bubbling at the state level to bypass the process and instead ensure future presidents are the candidates who get the most votes nationwide — an outcome not always guaranteed under the current system.
Those who remember their history classes know that American voters don’t directly elect a president — states do through “electors” who typically vote for the candidate who drew the most votes in their state.
“Why are all the other elections in this country based on the popular vote except for the most important one, the presidency?” asks Barry F. Fadem, president of the National Popular Vote, a group based in California that aims to persuade state legislatures to implement a nationwide popular election of the president. He called today’s system “flat-out, wrong” and expressed optimism that enough states will pass the legislation in time for the 2012 presidential election.

National Popular Vote was launched in 2006 and is largely founded by its chairman, John R. Koza, a scientist best known for inventing the rub-off instant lottery ticket used by state lotteries and his work in genetic programming at Stanford University. In the 1980s, he and Fadem, an attorney, were active in promoting adoption of lotteries in the states

Calls to reform or abolish the Electoral College were common after the 2000 presidential election, when former Vice President Al Gore won the popular vote, but didn’t have enough votes in the right states to carry the electoral vote over Republican George W. Bush. While Bush won the popular vote in 2004, he could have lost the election if John Kerry (D) had won Ohio.
Despite the hand-wringing over what many call an obsolete election system, little has happened, largely because dumping the Electoral College means changing the U.S. Constitution, an arduous task that requires two-thirds approval of Congress and three-fourths of the states. The National Popular Vote would keep the Electoral College, but change the way electoral votes are awarded.

Under the current system, candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, or pay attention to the concerns of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind, Fadem said. For example, presidential nominees have long ignored California because the state is considered a solid “blue” state that will award its 55 electoral votes to the Democratic candidate.

As was said everything, everywhere is a popular vote, then why is not the president chosen that way.  It is time for the Electoral College to be put in the museum next to T Rex, it is a dinosaur and is an extinct mode for an election.