Summations Only

The problem is not just that the electoral college is predominantly winner take all (two states have proportional representation), but that our current voting system entrenches a two party system.Instant runoff voting would better reflect peoples real preferences ...ie -- between Clinton, Stein, Johnson and Trump for exampleClinton vs Stein → Stein
Clinton vs Johnson → Clinton
Clinton vs Trump → Clinton
Stein vs Johnson → Stein
Stein vs Trump → Stein
Johnson vs Trump → JohnsonSo Stein +3, Clinton +2, Johnson +1, and Trump 0Take these votes to the electoral college and present each state total there, then total all the votes to determine the winner.This process should be mandatory for primaries imho.[/soapbox]Enjoy

The disaster that is the Trump presidency was immanently foreseeable. No political position or outlook or other preferred candidate justified casting a vote (or not casting any vote) that improved the chances of a Trump victory, which is what everyone who didn't vote for Clinton did. I can't help but blame Trump's election on everyone who didn't vote for Clinton. Don't mistake this for an argument for Clinton. It's an argument for any sane Trump opponent who actually had a chance of winning. It just happens the person was Clinton.People in secure blue states are not off the hook, because the key states that Clinton lost (Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania) were thought secure. Living in some other supposedly "secure" blue state doesn't grant one license to have ignored the Trump threat, because there's no way one could know in advance which "secure" blue states would topple. Even living in California, Vermont, Massachusetts or some other very blue state doesn't give one an excuse, the dangers presented by Trump were so great.Election day 2016 still seems like yesterday. Trump's first year has gone by in a whirlwind of lies, accusations, meanness, racism, misogyny, ill-advised legislation, and childish Twitter rants. Before we know it it will be November 2018, and I only hope that over the months until then we don't become inured to the continual Trump assaults on our democracy and its institutions. We must turn out to vote for whoever has the best chance of winning who isn't a Republican, because the Republicans have become complicit in this Trumpian tragedy.It's important to say this now because 2018 is an off-year election, so only House and Senate (23 Democrats, 2 independents who caucus with Democrats, and 8 Republicans) members are up for election. Even if your non-Republican representative or senator won in 2016 with 98% of the vote, or even if the non-Republican candidate lost with only 2% of the vote, get out there and vote. It is that important, and we can't take any chances.--Percy

All of the votes in California were meaningless. Every single one of them. My vote in North Carolina was meaningless. Nobody in California could have done a single thing inside of their voting booth to change the outcome. They might just as well stayed home.Perhaps I am just having an issue with the word "blame". The folks in blue states did not elect Trump regardless of how they voted, but we can still wonder about their thought process if they voted for Trump, and find that thinking reprehensible. So yeah, still on the hook. I would hope not.I tried to change my avatar but could not upload a new image. Is there a problem?

Paul Ryan has been telling a story about the huge tax cut a secretary he knows received.Paul Ryan deletes tweet about tax cuts after Twitter backlash | CNN Politics

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Washington (CNN)House Speaker Paul Ryan deleted a tweet Saturday touting the GOP tax overhaul after critics called him out for appearing out of touch with the reality of low-income individuals' financial situations.

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The tweet shared the story of a secretary who, according to a report by the Associated Press, was "pleasantly surprised her pay went up $1.50 a week."
"A secretary at a public high school in Lancaster, PA, said she was pleasantly surprised her pay went up $1.50 a week ... she said [that] will more than cover her Costco membership for the year," Ryan tweeted with a link to the full article.

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Paul Ryan learned, apparently from reading the mocking responses, that $1.50 was not a big raise. I wonder how anyone might have thought that it would? CNN points out that a Costco membership is $60 dollars a year. The woman's comment sounds like something I might say sarcastically.Here is the CNN quote of the day...

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Jon Favreau, a former Obama staffer, tweeted: "As a thank you for passing a $1 trillion corporate tax cut, Paul Ryan received $500,000 in campaign contributions from the Koch brothers, which would probably cover the cost of buying a Costco."

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ABE: Corrected my math error. The raise does cover the Costco membership with enough left over to almost see a movie once per year.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

What is important to me is to promote progressives in primaries and democrats in the general election, because the country is not run by just the president.We have to live with what is and stop blaming people that you want to vote in November. Hillary lost. Get over it.There are a couple of candidates I would love to see win: Beto O’Rourke in Texas v Ted Cruz Andrew Janz in California v Devin NunesEither Randy Bryce or Cathy Meyers (preferred, but whoever wins primary) v Paul Ryanand many others.So I am voting with my campaign donations: I give directly to candidates, because I don't trust the DNC to spend campaign funds where I want them spent, especially in primaries.If we get the DINOs out in the primaries then we can win with progressive issues like $15/hr min wage, equal rights amendment, medicare for all, family leave, etc etc etcIn addition I support Working Families Party and Democratic Socialists of America[abe]
Here's another one: DINO Dan vs Progressive Marie NewmanAnd another group to watch: Brand New Congress - candidatesThere's a lot of overlap ...EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : .Edited by RAZD, : ..Edited by RAZD, : ...

The saga of the obstructionist #Mehmo continues

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Central Contention Of Nunes Memo Now In Doubt

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We don’t want to get too deep into the weeds here but this is a really important development in the memo story that’s being reported by the New York Times, The Washington Post, even Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal. The central contention of the Nunes memo was that the Justice Department didn’t tell the FISA court the whole story, that the Steele dossier (dirt on Trump) was paid for by the Clinton campaign and therefore politically motivated. It was, for all intents, The Department of Justice out to get Donald Trump. Or, maybe not.

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Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee allege the court was never told of this political bias when DOJ asked for warrants to wiretap a Trump campaign aide. But in fact, according to sources for three major newspapers, the court WAS told a political campaign paid for the information that led to the surveillance.

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As noted above, the intelligence agencies often used biased material, but they vet it, such as by using testimony from Papadopoulus, to justify the wire tap.Then each renewal for another 90 days needs to show positive results, not just the old evidence.One blatant attempt to obstruct justice. Enjoy

The memo has turned out to be next to nothing. I find the entire episode amusing. Perhaps the Democrats should have taken a different approach prior to the release of the memo because at this point, the biggest partisan questions surround their objections to the release.Meanwhile, the GOP issue with declassifying material for such minimal political gain seems a substantial issue.

Beto O’Rourke is pretty impressive in person. Now, I would vote for Jabba the Hutt over Ted Cruz, but at least I feel pretty positive about Beto. Good guy, I think.

Indeed, I have followed him for some time on facebook, and it seems that every day he is out traveling the district and talking to the people.That alone qualifies him imho compared to Cruisin CruzHis numbers are rising as he introduces himself to more people, and his fundraising is outstripping corporatist CruzEnjoy

Indeed, that was my opinion from the start. Well the DNC had to get their take on it into the record.I think they should simply have said that the memo was doctored to present a false impression that would only serve a partisan sycophantic purpose, and that if release that it would make the rebuttal memo declasified as well. Indeed, and many republicans are crying foul as well.Meanwhile Mueller is sitting in the center of the spider web taking every tingle and twinge. It keeps adding up to obstruction of justice (remember Dean and Nixon) and cover up, and the list of individuals taking plea bargain deals grows ... now including Carter Paige ... adding to the evidence of corruption and treason.Enjoy

He said, in Garza County, that an official in Stonewall County had complimented him on being the first Senatorial candidate in living memory to visit beautiful Aspermont, Texas. The two counties combined might have 8000 inhabitants.

Even Nunes is admitting that the courts were told that the source of the controversial dossier was political in nature."A footnote saying something may be political is a far cry from letting the American people know that the Democrats and the Hillary campaign paid for dirt that the FBI then used to get a warrant on an American citizen to spy on another campaign."--Nunes
Republicans concede key FBI 'footnote' in Carter Page warrant - POLITICOJust to keep score on this, Hannity over at Fox News has dubbed the pseudo-conspiracy the worst scandal in US history, above Watergate and presumably Iran-Contra. The scandal? The DOJ and FBI weren't specific enough on the political source for the dossier which was just one piece of evidence amongst many. On top of that, the target of the surveillance wasn't even a member of the Trump campaign at the time, and according to some in the Trump administration he was never a member of the campaign.Yeah, worse than Watergate, obviously.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

But not for the reasons the right wing echo chamber likes to pretend.obstruction of justice got Dean and NixonArticle II: Section 4. The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and MisdemeanorsAnd treason is defined in Article III: Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.Does failure to impose sanctions on Russia, after they were overwhelmingly approved by bipartisan supermajority, NOT constitute giving aid and comfort to Russia, a known enemy?Mueller spins his web, Trump tweets obliviously ...Enjoy

Is this a serious question? One of the things that I thought liberals had over our more right-leaning brothers was our lack of propensity to throw around charges of treason lightly.Trump today accused Democratic legislators of treason based on not applauding his work at the state of the union address. I was considering making a post about that, but now I see little reason to bother.

There's a lot of irony here.Whether or not there was any Trump campaign conspiracy with Russia, Trump's still obstructing justice by doing all he can to impede the Mueller investigation. It doesn't matter whether the Trump campaign did anything wrong at all, he's still obstructing justice.I'm an independent who doesn't believe there was any conspiracy to steal the election between the Trump campaign and Russia. I'm just basing this on currently available information. There was apparently a lot of communications and meetings between members of the Trump campaign and Russian agents, but for the moment it doesn't appear that much came of it, certainly not enough for a conspiracy charge to stick (collusion, apparently, isn't illegal, but I don't think collusion happened either).Then why is Trump working so hard, and so naively openly and overtly, to obstruct the Mueller investigation? Because he can't accept that his election was aided by the Russians, can't accept that it was the result of anything more than his own wonderfulness. He probably believes he ran the most marvelous campaign in the history of political campaigns.And that's where the irony comes in. Trump should just let the Mueller investigation run its course, because it's unlikely to find anything more than some, in the overall scheme of things, minor misbehaviors by people associated with his campaign, but he's doing his darndest to impede the Muller investigation, and so despite that he likely did nothing wrong with Russians, Mueller will probably conclude he engaged in obstruction of justice. Of course, the Republican Congress will not act on this finding, but that's what the Mueller investigation will find.I have no idea when the Mueller investigation will conclude. If Ken Starr's investigation is any guide then it will be years from now, but while Mueller appears to be proceeding in a deliberate fashion, he also seems to be moving at a faster pace, so my guess is late this year.--Percy