The 2016 United States Presidential Election

Yes and no. He could have signaled that he would veto any bill that lacked a public option. He chose not to. In hindsight (and in a most foresights), the public option would have really helped with lowering costs in many states.What I still find funny about the whole thing is how obvious the Republican's bias is. The Affordable Care Act is the Republican plan. It is almost identical to a plan the Republicans put forward with Clinton was in office. Funny how Obama repeats their own policies back to them, and the Republicans suddenly don't like that policy. Conservative states who reflexively rejected the ACA because it came from a Democrat are not going to offer public options, and they sure aren't going to extend Medicaid.

But what would that achieve? They didn't have the votes. The bill would not have passed with the public option, it wouldn't have even gone to a vote due to the fillibuster.

Mod argues: I think this was that brief period, with Al Franken finally allowed to take his seat and Ted Kennedy still alive, that the Dems had a filibuster-proof congress.Sadly, Ted did die soon and the stooge that replaced him had no seniority. Then Massachusetts rejected Martha Coakley for the truck driver and the Republicans now could filibuster anything.Obama was naive and thought the Repugnants might meet him half way. But the wheeling and dealing continued and the insurance company money kept pouring in. They were lucky to get anything at all from the assholes in the GOP.

The opposite can be true as well. Why vote for a bill without the public option if it will just be vetoed? What would that achieve?

Was this in fact what was expected. We know that Obama did not push extremely hard for a public option, but did he actually indicate that he would not accept one if offered?

Which is an effective use of the veto power if there is a prospect of a vote, which - xongsmith's point aside - there wasn't.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Detailed report from the New York Times: --Percy

Can we now put to bed the ridiculous claim that Hillary Clinton was the candidate more likely to escalate tensions and cause war? Today's Washington Post describes Trump's threat to begin a new nuclear arms race: A tense new battle over nuclear arms erupts between Donald Trump and his staffAnd here the New York Times describes Trump's desire to expand Israeli West Bank settlements, escalating tensions between Israelis and Palestinians: Trump Pressures Obama Over U.N. Resolution on Israeli SettlementsIf Trump's actual message is, "I'm crazy so everybody better back off," I think he's convinced everyone of the first part. What we've got here is four years of The Apprentice writ large, with the world playing the role of apprentice.--Percy

What if every state did their Electoral College the way that Maine & Nebraska do?
Or even going so far as to awarding fractional electors by proportional share to avoid round-off errors for the tiny states?I made a spreadsheet from 2016 United States presidential election - Wikipedia and uploaded it to http://xongsmith.webs.com/vote2016.html.The bottom line came out

total        Clinton       Trump     Johnson     Stein    McMullin    others
538 	    256.5525     250.0876    18.1131    5.8222     3.1995     4.2325

What does this mean? Since no one got more than 269.0, it would have been thrown to the House of Representatives, who probably would have picked Trump anyway.Oh well.

Agreed. You and I might find this policy alarming, but this is what the base wants and now, this is the nature of main stream politics for the next bit. Apparently, Israel reached out to Trump to pressure Obama to veto the current UN resolution.Extreme Pro Israel politics is red meat to wingnuts and evangelicals. For the rest of the world including for much of Israel, settlements in the West Bank has always been a bad idea. For much of the base, anything other than agreeing with every bad policy out of Israel is makes you anti-semitic. His choice for foreign ambassador, Freedman considered Jewish folks who disagree with this policy to be worse than kapos (a name for Jewish collaborators in concentration camps) .Trump on Israel.

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"The bond between Israel and the United States runs deep, and I will ensure there is no daylight between us when I'm president...

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The rest of the world (from wikipedia)
International law and Israeli settlements - Wikipedia

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At present, based on the result of numerous UN resolutions that cite Article 49 of the Geneva Convention, the consensus view of the international community is that Israeli settlements are illegal and constitute a violation of international law.[10][11][12][35][36] According to the BBC, every government in the world, except Israel, considers the settlements to be illegal.

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They might well have picked Pence. I am no longer sure if that would have been even worse.

Obama did not use the US veto to derail the UN resolution. I think most folks saw that coming.US abstains as UN demands end to Israeli settlements | CNN Politics

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The United States on Friday allowed a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement construction to be adopted, defying extraordinary pressure from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government in alliance with President-elect Donald Trump.

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ABE:

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But Trump -- who has vowed to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and has nominated an ambassador in David Friedman who is supportive of settlers -- pledged that the Palestinians would no longer have a platform at the UN when he is inaugurated next month.

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Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

From the LA Times: Americans who voted against Trump are feeling unprecedented dread and despair. I think this article pretty well sums up how those of us who voted against Trump feel, and why we're right in feeling this way. Some excerpts:

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People are mourning because the fate of their country will now be in the hands of an intellectually disinterested, reckless, mendacious narcissist.
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In a series of tweets the day after the election, Frum predicted that Trump will engage in massive self-enrichment and, once the media and Democrats begin investigating and criticizing his actions, he will retaliate by means fair or foul, utilizing the powers of the presidency and aided and abetted by a compliant Republican Congress.

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Construction of the apparatus of revenge and repression will begin opportunistically and haphazardly, Frum wrote. It will accelerate methodically.

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No one certainly no Republican contemplated such a scenario when Reagan was elected, or when George H.W. Bush or his son took office. Nobody thought a victory by Sen. John McCain in 2008 or Mitt Romney in 2012 would have threatened democracy. This time that concern is widespread and far from irrational, given Trump’s words, actions and erratic, bullying temperament.
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It is ordinary Americans of all classes and races who fear that, under Trump, environmental protections will be dismantled, limits on Wall Street greed will be removed, the rights of minorities and women will be undermined and American foreign policy will be run by dangerously unseasoned amateurs with a crush on Vladimir Putin. Such fears are not based on feelings or fake news stories; they are confirmed by the composition of Trump’s Cabinet.

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--PercyEdited by Percy, : Fix link.

IFF they vote according to that allotment -- the 30 some odd electors could choose to vote for either top 2 candidates.This is where ranked voting would help.Enjoy

The link in your post took me to some site reporting IOS phone usage. A quick use of peek suggests that it was not my fault... A little help?