DL Open Thread Monday March 27 2023
Universities and businesses closed. Millions in the street…The protests in France and Israel remind me of the all out (all in?) protests that would have followed Pence caving to Trump and preventing the EC vote count.
If mere “minority rule” turns into something even worse, I suppose we’ll still get our chance.
Tens of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets to protest after Benjamin Netanyahu fired his defence minister over his opposition to a planned judicial overhaul.
Yoav Gallant had called on the prime minister to scrap the proposals which have divided the country, led to mass protests and sparked growing discontent within the military.
Related:
Has anyone checked to see if the 14th amendment’s “equal protection” clause can be used to tear down the Electoral College and/or US Senate? That would be sweet.
The state-by-state aspect of the current system starts by dividing the nation’s more than 158,000,000 voters into 51 separate state-level silos. The current state-by-state winner-take-all system regularly enables a few thousand votes in a small number of states to decide the presidency — thereby fueling post-election controversies. The fact that a few thousand votes in a handful of closely divided states regularly decide the presidency is a recurring feature of the current system.
The presidency has been decided by an average of a mere 287,969 popular votes spread over an average of three states in the six presidential elections between 2000 and 2020. Inevitably, some of these battleground states end up being extremely close on Election Day. These close results, in turn, generate post-election doubt, controversy, litigation, and unrest over real or imagined irregularities.
In contrast, the winner’s average margin of victory in the national popular vote in these six elections was 4,668,496 — more than 16 times larger than 287,969. The danger posed by these post-election controversies in extremely close states is heightened because the country is currently in an era of consecutive non-landslide presidential elections.
Weak ass Dems will be weak ass Dems.
Biden’s FAA nominee bows out, after senators waver
…just days after the Senate Commerce Committee, which is vetting his nomination, postponed a vote to advance Washington to the Senate floor. Two senators who caucus with Democrats on the panel, Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) have been undecided on his nomination — and the committee only has a one-vote majority.
I do like how the writer mentioned that Jon Tester caucus’ with Democrats. Let’s be honest, shall we?
- Collect premiums
- Make getting claims paid impossible
- PROFIT!!! Yeah, baby!
How Cigna Saves Millions by Having Its Doctors Reject Claims Without Reading Them
Interesting question about the Electoral College. Would we trust a challenge in the Supreme Court these days? Seems the constituion cedes all rights to elect the President to the States to decide their own method of awarding votes.
http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
The people have the right, under the U.S. Constitution, to vote for U.S. Representatives. The 17th Amendment (ratified in 1913) gave the people the right to vote for U.S. Senators (who were elected by state legislatures under the original Constitution). However, the people have no federal constitutional right to vote for President or Vice President or for their state’s members of the Electoral College. Instead, the Constitution (Article II, section 1, clause 2) provides:
“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress….”
As the U.S. Supreme Court observed in the 1892 case of McPherson v. Blacker:
“The constitution does not provide that the appointment of electors shall be by popular vote, nor that the electors shall be voted for upon a general ticket, nor that the majority of those who exercise the elective franchise can alone choose the electors.” …
“In short, the appointment and mode of appointment of electors belong exclusively to the states under the constitution of the United States.”
In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore reiterated the principle that the people have no federal constitutional right to vote for President or Vice President or for their state’s members of the Electoral College..
“The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the Electoral College.”
The Constitution’s delegation of power to the states to choose the manner of selecting their members of the Electoral College is unusually unconstrained. It contrasts significantly with the limitations contained in the Constitution on state power over the manner of conducting congressional elections (Article II, section 4, clause 1).
“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations….”
In a 1919 case involving a state statute entitled “An act granting to women the right to vote for presidential electors,” the Maine Supreme Judicial Court wrote (In re Opinion of the Justices):
“[E]ach state is thereby clothed with the absolute power to appoint electors in such manner as it may see fit, without any interference or control on the part of the federal government, except, of course, in case of attempted discrimination as to race, color, or previous condition of servitude….”
Wow. OK. So, no. Asked and answered. Thanks for that.
I guess our play is to await the inevitable overreaching that is the endgame for all minority-rulers and short-sighted totalitarians. Then, to the ramparts!
I think the end game will come with a financial crisis that can’t be papered over by more tax cuts, which will end red-state posturing over “socialism” and have them begging for handouts.
Twitter source code was leaked online for MONTHS. That can’t be good, can it?:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/26/technology/twitter-source-code-leak.html
Coverage of Mississippi storms is getting predictably trite. Not “We’ve really fucked up the climate and are in for some shit”. But… “Inspiring stories of neighbors helping neighbors.”
What bullshit.
Man, that storm rumbled through an overwhelmingly Black community in the Mississippi Delta. I figure they’ll get help about the same time that the residents of Jackson, MS get drinkable water.
Lauren Witzke might finally have to pay for defamation:
https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2023/03/27/lauren-witzke-sued-defamation-parents-surrogate-twins-human-trafficking/70037086007/
Thanks for that link. It’s her religious freedom to slander and defame. She is the lowest of the low.