The electorial college needs to go

Yeah, that does speak to the lowest common denominator. It's embarrassing. I wish that they would make it more intellectual so that we feel like we're at least high school graduates when we get on board with their team.

 

We are not a smart population. How many of these people would also be the patriotic type to attack North Korea?

I would support a test to vote. Not of views just like basic geography and understanding of what words mean in the debate. What is Capitalism? What is Socalism?

 

There's another side to Trump's effect on the nation. For one, he's proof that if you tell the Americans you like them and love your country, they'll vote for you. BUT, if you tell Americans that the country is a racist nightmare run by white supremacy and must be changed into a communist nation as fast as possible, a whole bunch of other Americans will vote for you. For republicans neither message is acceptable as a campaign platform.

Anything they do for average Americans is a direct result that trickles down from the favors they did for the super-wealthy. In terms of elections though, the republicans strive to be the most polite politicians possible. Even when democrats are getting in their faces and accusing them of horrible bullshit, the republicans have programmed themselves to take it on the fucking chin. Romney was an excellent example of this when he was MIA on election week in 2012.

And don't forget Bush 2 wanted to "help" Americans by pushing their social security into stock accounts. Just think of the effect it would have had when Obama's recession kicked into full gear. Americans would have been ruined for a minimum of 3 generations.

Please don't think that I have any love of democrats anymore either. They can't let go of forcing people to think in ways they approve of. They're actually willing to lose another election just to prove their point and wreak havoc on all those stupid Americans who dared not vote for them (and the ones who did, but only voted once). When I saw how handily Obama dispatched Hillary, even though she was far more qualified (Obama was a rookie, a stooge propped up to "make history"), I realized the democrats were no longer going to be friendly during elections.

Instead they were going to keep to their individual kingdoms tightly. Forming coalitions as a means of expansion of their own holdings instead of banding together to help a fellow democrat defeat a republican. Sharks in a bucket!

As political fly paper, I can't think of any equal. Huey Long is close, but way too slanted. Trump is attracting all the shit. He can tweet about a fart and the media and throngs of democrats will react. He can tweet about humanitarian aid deliveries and all we hear are woodland insects. It almost seems like Trump is an indicator of the absolute disdain the left has for Americans. And yes, I do think they are hated by the left simply because the left berates them at every turn and paints them with hyperbole and various petty names instead of engaging in realistic dialog. Their plan seems to be the "Bully your way in" modus. And if that falters, discredit your opponent (even if you have to fudge some details).

I can't wait to see who ends up on stage with Trump this time around.

And I'm really enjoying all the back stabbing. Like Hillary assigning Gabbard as a "Russian asset". And the conspiracy that Michelle will swoop in at the last minute, waste Trump in the debates and slide easily into the oval office!

Bwahahahahahahaha This is the best political theater in years.

 

So is it a matter of who runs the schools? Or are Americans just fundamentally dumb and unteachable? Socialism and Capitalism are easy to define, they are both examples of old-fashioned thinking and will continue to clash with the realities of the modern world. Otherwise their individual definitions are irrelevant.

It's really time for something else, a clean slate (probably the most difficult plan to implement, unfortunately).

 

Some 40% of the population insist Donald Duck is not insane and they approve of what he's doing and don't want him impeached, which is proof that nobody is listening anymore, which is what they are assuming in every election. Divide and conquer, muddy the water enough and nobody will believe anyone and the idiots will merely vote for whoever promises the lowest tax cuts. You could create a voting competency test, and they would merely memorize the answers. Countless conservatives already get degrees by merely telling the teacher whatever they demand to hear, but one in five Americans still insists the sun revolves around the earth. Their memory isn't bad, their brain isn't bad, its their whole culture which refuses to share their words and play nice.

Their teachers are so fucking inspirational, over half the idiots debate the definition of stupid like the Three Stooges.

 

Americans have a certain view of themselves and a formula for education. We are #1 everywhere we go. Every single year of school from K-12 except 11th grade I had some sort of class on America. I learned about the Civil War for about 3 months nonstop each in grades 5, 8, and 10.

Actual goverment polices and what they mean was a one semester class. It was called Government and it was just what Democratic vs Republican meant. No discussion of what Social Democracy is or even Fascism or Communism. Just a mandatory class for students who are 17 or 18 and about to vote. There was no "wrong" answers in the class and I had class mates who were clearly not going to be liberal. Most of them were but not all. No educational indoctrination as Fox news claims.

Grade 11 was "World History" and we covered Greece to the Second World 2 from September to May. Even then most of the class discussion and lesson came back to how does this apply to America. Like Greece is great since they were Democratic and we are Democratic. World War 2 is bad since we got involved in a war and protected Democracy. Asian history was not discussed at all. We only knew Japan attacked America in World War 2 and China is Communist which is bad.

The teacher had to skip huge periods of history. There was just not enough time. It was basically Greece, Rome, the Renaissance, and the industiral revolution. Nothing was ever super in depth. Like 6 weeks one each topic. There was a few optional history classes that discussed some European history more. They were bring to most students and it's easier to take fun classes for general education diplomas.

Europeans have plenty of time to learn in depth about their country too. Somehow they often know more than Americans about our own history too. There is time for all this in school. We just need to find it.

 

Whoa! Nice try, but the recession began during G.W.'s administration, in the summer of 2008, before Obama was even elected. Obama presided over the recovery.

 

I see. Bad=good.

Au Contraire. Ending the Iran arms deal is an invitation to war.
Ending the Iran Deal Is an Invitation to War

Some of us got one. The lion's share went to corporations and the one percent. Yes, some in the lower echelons like me got a modest one, because I happen to take the standard deduction and that went up. But the tax cut will raise the deficit to $1 trillion by 2020, and contrary to the Republican propaganda, it won't pay for itself, any more than Mexico will pay for the wall.

How did that benefit the United States? I can see how Trump got political benefits from it with Jewish and Evangelical voters, but he wasn't elected President of Israel.

You got in, and now it's "Katie bar the door". In 2018, the US House of Representatives approved $5.7bn in funding for a border wall . The Republican Senate didn't pass it. Of course, any prospect that Mexico will pay for the wall is a pipedream, despite Trump's efforts to convince us that tariffs on Mexican goods are Mexico paying for the wall--which is absurd. In July 2016, Bernstein Research, a firm that analyzes material costs, put the price tag at $15 billion to $25 billion, for a wall that stretches 1,000 miles and is 40 feet high, which was Trump’s initial desired height. The wall has become a fence. Trump's invocation of "emergency" powers to divert money from other uses to the wall raises serious constitutional issues that should give pause to anyone claiming to admire the separation of powers principle.

Trump's initial sweeping ban on immigration from Muslim countries was struck down by the courts for violating the constitution. He subsequently narrowed the excluded countries to five Muslim majority countries, and added Venezuela and North Korea as window dressing. The excluded countries are Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, Yes, I'd agree that's a dangerous bunch. But the vast majority of Muslim nations, including ones with the largest populations, are not on the list. Do you feel safer?

Nonsense. You want justices who will read your values into the law. Kavanaugh's injudicious meltdown during his confirmation hearing, complete with threats of retaliation against Democrats, should have disqualified him outright. How can he maintain the appearance of fairness? Trump’s success in appointing 92 judges to district courts, federal appeals courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court has already led to decisions that favor the rich and powerful over the weak and vulnerable. As for abortion, why should your sensibilities on the matter govern the lives of women who don't want to bring unwanted children into the world. I find it hard to believe that a blastocyst in a Petrie dish is a person entitled to rights that trump those of an adult woman. Maybe if birth control were made more readily available, we could reduce the number of abortions. Roe v. Wade's gave the state the ability to restrict or abolish abortions during the last trimester of pregnancy, which generally coincides with the fetus' attainment of a brain and nervous system.

That's a rather one-sided assessment. While most troops would probably agree with you about the rules of engagement, most support Obama's policy of building strong alliances with foreign powers, and using drones and special forces teams for precision strikes instead of large-scale military operations. Trump has weakened our alliances with NATO and the G-7 countries with his America First policy. His recent pullout in Syria betrays a loyal ally, the Kurds, who served as our infantry in the fight against ISIS.

 

Oh right, how could I forget, he just "inherited" it and fixed it by padding the accounts of cronies at places like Solyndra. Obama never signed the front of a paycheck, he was not an economic genius nor were any in his cabinet. All kinds of financial landmines are still waiting for a step. Obama was as politically useless as King Tut.

 

Current economic theories are total bullshit, which is why over 40% of all Wall Street transactions are already handled by computers, and AI will soon transform economics into a science, because politicians and the establishment could never possibly create one on their own. What's so special about Harvard and Oxford men? They confuse themselves and each other more than they confuse the rest of the world. Economics cut to the heart of reality, which is why it has remained a mystery, right up there with quantum mechanics but, Time's Up Suckers!

 

Whoa! Nice deflection.

 

Gee? What happened to what I was responding to?

Another mystery?


Amazing, it's back!!!

 

WP, the US stock market, under Trump no less, has done pretty well. I suspect, over time, assuming we don't turn into some leftist nightmare, that equities will outperform the Treasuries that the social security system relies on. Not saying it should be 100% equities, but neither should it be an IOU from one hand of an insolvent government to another hand.

 

Hong Kong is already predicting a recession, and Wall Street is not far behind. Now is the winter of our despair, when the party is fucking over and the bills are due. Roughly a trillion dollars.

 

Do you feel lucky? An investor with a long time horizon, say ten years or more, might "suspect" that equities will outperform Treasuries. For an elderly retired person on a fixed income though it would be risky business to have one's social security contingent on the stock market. There was, of course, that Great Recession back in 2007-8 that took us quite awhile to recover from, before that the recessions of 2001, 1990-1; and 1981-82.. As for the Stock Market, that's notoriously fickle. In 2018, the S&P 500 lost over 6 percent- its worst showing since the Great Recession. The Wall Street selloff in December, 2018, wiped out all the stock-market gains for the entire year. Our bull market is now the longest in history, and you might think it will surely go on forever. Or you might think as many investment analysts do, that it is a bit long in the tooth and due for a recession. There are ominous signs of imminent recession on the horizon: the slowdown of the global economy and China's economy, with international ripple effects; the escalating geopolitical trade wars between the U.S. and key trading partners pushed by Trump, which most economists think are a bad idea; growing uncertainty and anxiety resulting from Trump's erratic policies; uncertainties over Brexit and U.S. budget policy; the inverted yield curve; etc. Maybe it won't happen before the 2020 election, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it. Probably, Trump's policies of de-regulating environmental protection have helped to buoy the economy up somewhat, and the tax guts goosed it for a couple of years, but there are signs those effects may be wearing off, and the $1 trillion deficit threatens the long-term future of Social Security. In fact, that's the other shoe to drop: a deliberate Republican plan to provide a pretext for revamping and gutting Social Security--only Paul Ryan is no longer around to see it through. So I'm in rare agreement with Writers Panic that if the Bush plan for privatizing Social Security had gone into effect, a generation of elderly Americans would have been up the proverbial creek without a paddle by now. You are 62, and I gather fairly well-healed, so you may be able to weather the storm and come out ahead. Many won't.

 

I am neither. I'm assuming you mean well heeled, a term I associate with wealth and privilege.

[oops, I made an error in answering this, oh well]

I went to public schools, served in the military and paid my own way through college with punitive student loans that took a decade to pay off. Only in the last 15 or so years have I managed to get a little further, but I learned the hard way that as you rise in income, different IRS traps spring into action. As I realized this was happening, I shifted from investing to simply shedding debt and paying off the house. But the fed and the state still managed to pork me pretty well.

Then the bottom fell out of the work I do and the only jobs are in the Middle East. And I'm not going back there. So I finally took a "real" job, making less than 2/3 of my average and have had to get used to commuting for the first time in 20 years. So I'm up and down in the middle class. I have wealthy relatives, who think I deserve handicapped parking for making less than 6 figures a year. And I work for a wealthy asshole who insists we all hang around the office like it was the 80s. He hangs out on Fridays to make sure nobody leaves early without him getting a chance to interrogate them about it.

And he wonders why turnover is so high. I'm a department of 1, so all he wants is a page and frame count from me. I keep him off my back by working far more than a 40 hour week. He rides the ones who hit the door at 5:01, but it's still a stupid, arrogant way to micromanage people.

 

my recollection is that it wasn't you I was addressing.

 

LOL sore loser gang..

 

The term "sore loser" might be appropriate during normal conditions, where the winner does not represent a threat to the constitutional order. That's never been the case with the Trumpster and his followers. He's a monster and his followers are essentially mindless cult devotees. His lawyers seriously argued in court recently that he can indeed commit murder in the middle of Fifth Avenue and that nothing can be done to him while he's in office. This is no game. Trump and his Putin-loving thug followers need to go, before they destroy the country.

 

He does have the power to torture and kill anyone he wants, granted to him by congress. The same congress that granted him the power to divert a billion dollars away from the air force. His lawyers are arguing that congress is absurd, because they are fucking absurd, and are impeaching a mindless idiot they encouraged the mindless masses to vote for. When the lights are always left on because nobody is really home, there are no fucking winners.