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Senator Boxer Introduces Bill to Eliminate Electoral College
"This is the only office in the land where you can get more votes and still lose the presidency," Boxer said in a statement. "The Electoral College is an outdated, undemocratic system that does not reflect our modern society, and it needs to change immediately. Every American should be guaranteed that their vote counts."
[...] "When all the ballots are counted, Hillary Clinton will have won the popular vote by a margin that could exceed two million votes, and she is on track to have received more votes than any other presidential candidate in history except Barack Obama," Boxer said.
Trump will be the fifth president in U.S. history to win the election despite losing the popular vote. George W. Bush won the most recent such election, in 2000.
Also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3wLQz-LgrM
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday November 17 2016, @10:42PM
Remember that when you're eating dinner that was grown in those fly-over states this evening.
The only reason any major amount of food is grown in flyover states is because the Federal government subsidizes it. This lets the real estate developers can have at the prime real estate in northeastern states like NY, NJ, CT, etc., eliminating a lot of the farms that were once producing the majority of foods for eastern markets. Eventually historians will recognize this as one of our great blunders. The ironic thing is that those northeastern states are paying the lion's share of the subsidies, they invariably pay more in taxes than the government spends there, while the red states almost invariably take in more than they pay out.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 17 2016, @10:53PM
You don't think it might have something to do with the northeast being physically incapable of supplying NYC alone?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday November 17 2016, @11:14PM
They managed fine for almost a couple centuries. NJ was not nicknamed the Garden State for nothing.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 17 2016, @11:53PM
Yeah, there was a time it was possible. Urban expansion over the last century put the last nail in that coffin very, very thoroughly though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Friday November 18 2016, @12:48AM
With advances in vertical farming, aeroponics, & co. you could probably build a few skyscraper-farms and be okay, probably; even if that'd be quite expensive at first.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 18 2016, @03:37AM
Interesting idea. Not currently economically viable I wouldn't think but in the hypothetically split union it might be. The few blue states certainly wouldn't be getting good prices from the red for simple supply and demand reasons.
California? It'd empty very quickly. One word: water. The price for a gallon of potable water would be through the roof because of the demand and the lack of regulations keeping the price down. See, California does have a lot of farmland but what happens to it when the crops can't be watered, or can be but at a much higher cost? Food prices go through the roof as well. Food and water prices going through the roof increases the minimum monthly income necessary to even survive in California. Now poor people can't afford to live there and either leave or demand more money from their employers, so labor costs go way up. Now businesses have to deal with drastically increased labor costs as well as resource costs and start looking for greener pastures. California would lose half its population and much of its economic base inside four years.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday November 18 2016, @10:38AM
That's true under the current system of water supply. I'm pretty sure California could figure out mass desalinization quickly if their feet were held to the fire.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 18 2016, @11:21AM
Quickly enough and cheaply enough? I'm fairly dubious.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday November 18 2016, @02:58PM
When the alternative is dying of thirst, the "cheap enough" calculus changes quite a bit. Also, since dying of thirst only takes 3 days, "quickly enough" would have a good deal of pressure behind it.
So, bye-bye Mono Lake, hello massive chain of nuclear power plants powering desalinization plants.
I do think if it had proper motivation, California could figure it out since they do have enough economic power and enough of a brain trust in Silicon Valley.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 18 2016, @04:50PM
Indeed but I wasn't speaking of "can it be done" cheap enough but of "can it be done in such a way as the average citizen can afford the water it produces" cheap enough.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday November 19 2016, @01:56AM
True about CA in the present political climate. But more than enough rain and snow fall on the Sierras to supply the state -- if only it was stored, rather than allowed to flow into the ocean. Of course, they'd have to construct a lot more dams.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Friday November 18 2016, @10:35AM
It's astonishing how much of the northeast has to be tasked just with trucking food and supplies in and out of NYC alone. Once you cross the George Washington Bridge or come up in New Jersey through the Lincoln or Holland tunnels, New Jersey is nothing but mile after endless mile of container depots and shipping operations and transfer stations. New Yorkers themselves have little idea of the vast machinery that has to operate to supply their comfortable lifestyles.
Washington DC delenda est.