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posted by janrinok on Thursday November 17 2016, @07:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-is-your-vote-worth? dept.

Senator Boxer Introduces Bill to Eliminate Electoral College

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Senator-Boxer-to-Introduce-Bill-to-Eliminate-Electoral-College--401314945.html

"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 "The Electoral College is an outdated, undemocratic system that does not reflect our modern society, and it needs to change immediately.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


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  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 18 2016, @12:37AM

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Friday November 18 2016, @12:37AM (#428517) Homepage Journal

    All I can think then is that you're suffering from a severe case of confirmation bias; only seeing what you want to see and flat out ignoring anything that doesn't fit. This saddens me to see in any of the SN community.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @02:30AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @02:30AM (#428575)

    All I can think then is that you're suffering from a severe case of confirmation bias; only seeing what you want to see and flat out ignoring anything that doesn't fit. This saddens me to see in any of the SN community.

    Actually, I'm one of those conservative evangelical Christians that Republicans are supposedly trying to court and I largely agree with ed, particularly on this point:

    There is nothing moral about the Republican Party at the moment, and nearly every part of the platform I deeply feel would have offended Jesus Christ, who the Republicans just love so gosh darned much. I'm not a Christian, but damn, the goals that have been promoted are anything but spiritually aligned. All of the other goals are transparent money grabs for further privatization, which has only turned out to be bad for the American worker.

    Plus, we should point out the obvious: their candidate for President this election cycle is a travesty (and the VP pick is not much better). It pains me no end to consider that somewhere around 80% of evangelicals actually voted for Trump, a man who has openly sneered at just about everything I hold dear as a Christian; he shares nothing of my values. It actually makes me ill to think the people I sit next to in church most likely voted for him. A woman at church had been talking prior to this election about "God's people voting for God's principles". Excuse me?!? God's principles? Where are you seeing that on your ballot? Because I am sure not seeing it on mine! Certainly not on the Republican ticket! Right now I feel I need a new religious label because the old "evangelical" label has been hijacked by a bunch of jack-booted thugs. I just wonder how long it will take my spiritual brethren to notice too.

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 18 2016, @03:18AM

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Friday November 18 2016, @03:18AM (#428607) Homepage Journal

      There wasn't much of a choice for them this time around. Either the most corrupt and outright criminal person to ever run for the office or Trump with all his baggage. They did what they felt they had to do.

      This all has nothing whatsoever to do with the EC though, so I'm going to drop myself from the discussion.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday November 18 2016, @06:00PM

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday November 18 2016, @06:00PM (#428974)

      A woman at church had been talking prior to this election about "God's people voting for God's principles". Excuse me?!? God's principles? Where are you seeing that on your ballot? Because I am sure not seeing it on mine!

      And did you point this out to her, publicly?

      This is why Christians are such horrible people. It's like cops who refuse to take a stand against the bad cops. Christians are all represented by the very worst Christians, because they're the loud-mouths who push their morally repugnant values publicly, and the ones who disagree just stand silently, and continue to attend the same churches as them, in effect acting in solidarity.

      • (Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Friday November 18 2016, @09:08PM

        by Fauxlosopher (4804) on Friday November 18 2016, @09:08PM (#429113) Journal

        And did you point this out to her, publicly? This is why Christians are such horrible people. It's like cops who refuse to take a stand against the bad cops.

        Christians who do this in churches get letters from the "higher ups" telling them to stop because it could jeopardize their 501c3 tax-exempt status. Not only have I heard about this practice from far-away reports, but a close personal friend of mine also was given just such a letter. This is no reason to stop calling out political lies in churches, but it is definitely an inhibition. Sadly, most humans, Christian or otherwise, are not legendary heroes in waiting.

        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday November 18 2016, @09:26PM

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday November 18 2016, @09:26PM (#429120)

          I'm not arguing with you, but how does calling out political lies jeopardize their tax-exempt status, but the person making political lies to begin with isn't also jeopardizing them?

          I agree about most humans not being heroes in waiting, but Christians are always claiming that they have moral superiority, that they have some calling to be better, etc. But instead, they're at least as bad as everyone else, and in fact, they're usually much worse, with a very few gems hidden in with all the turds. So why bother with the whole charade? It seems to me that, most of the time, church-going is really for people who actually need someone threatening divine consequences if they don't act right, and can't seem to figure out how to act decent on their own. Apparently that whole "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is just too complicated for many people and needs to be drilled into their head every week. The problem, of course, is that most churches don't teach this at all, and instead teach a bunch of right-wing BS about how God loves rich people more or that taxes are evil or something.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @09:51PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @09:51PM (#429134)

            I'm not arguing with you, but how does calling out political lies jeopardize their tax-exempt status, but the person making political lies to begin with isn't also jeopardizing them?

            Agreed, both cases are in the same bucket.

            I'm of the firm belief [soylentnews.org] that "taxation" is a criminal act in a free country, and that services requested and provided are the only cases where payment can be demanded. If you harken back to the days of landline phones and/or cable TV, "bundling" is kinda-sorta the same problem: there's one small service you wanted, but to get that one thing you also need to accept a ton of junk you don't want - except government agents tend to kill you if you try to "cut the cable" with them or try to "make your own TV show".

            Taxing churches was an insidious way to silence them politically, and I say this as a willing slave of Jesus Christ who is disgusted with the state of Christian churches in the USA.

  • (Score: 2) by edIII on Friday November 18 2016, @06:42AM

    by edIII (791) on Friday November 18 2016, @06:42AM (#428718)

    That doesn't fit part would be justice, prosperity for the working class, evidence of decreasing income inequality, etc. If I'm suffering that, then there are millions of us curiously suffering in the same way, with the same narratives, the same observations.

    Particularly good evidence would've been strong Wall Street reforms and people brought to justice, but that never happened. How many instances of injustice need to occur before it's not confirmation bias? Is Dupont seriously not going to be brought to justice for knowingly poisoning a family across generations? It would help when things like this happen, and we hear of the corruption, that it would be accompanied by the justice.

    All it would take is for some things to be getting better, but they've only been getting objectively worse for a long damn time. There have been smatterings of progress, but still a one step forward, three steps back game.

    I'll take it all back if things get substantively better for the American worker, we don't lose any of our rights (no stop-and-frisks), we don't create the internment camps, and corporations don't abuse the shit out of us when unchained. Which is highly unlikely given the fact they treat the American worker slightly above dirt.

    --
    Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 18 2016, @11:32AM

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Friday November 18 2016, @11:32AM (#428793) Homepage Journal

      How many instances of injustice need to occur before it's not confirmation bias?

      We're talking what voters are voting for here, not what they're getting. Unless you think what Democrat politicians do actually has some relation to their platform? Did you vote to live in a surveillance state, outright ignoring the 4th amendment? For prosecuting and persecuting more whistleblowers than all other administrations combined? For the President be able to use the IRS against his political enemies? For drone strikes on American citizens with no due process?

      What's good for the goose is good for the gander, yo. You really need to get to know some Republicans. They're some of the nicest, most generous people you'll ever meet when you're not calling them assholes.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @03:42PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @03:42PM (#428881)

    please reply to the questions; I have the same ones for people that voted out of principal and voted in the Republican establishment.

    The democrats became what I despised of the republicans -- and the republicans haven't changed. Your wine sipping comment makes me think of the Koch brothers -- not some 'liberal elite', whatever that means. That is how deeply entrenched the big business connation with wealth and the republican part your comment conjures in me.

    I recognize that many of the IT businesses are now the modern day oil barons and railroad tycoons. One could say those industries were not pro-union, and thus, not really fostering from management any tendencies to vote for less conservative ideals, like workplace safety and pollution controls.

    Yet conservatives seem to indicate they embrace religion--the whole stewards of the earth thing is something I never have heard them embrace, but the profit motive has always been there.

    Please tell us the principals you DO support -- besides the elimination of your perceived SJWs. Quieting their voices does nothing to eliminate their concerns; I expect you have a greater plan to allow them to seek liberty and justice without offending your own sensibilities?