Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Yup, as said previously, to prevent tyrrany of the majority, as a pure democracy has.

Because the Senate was created to represent the states, not the people! The House represents the people, thus the 2-year election cycle and control of the purse-strings. The Senate was originally selected by the state legislatures to represent the state's interest in the federal government. That's why each state has equal representation in the Senate. The 17th Amendment changed it to direct election of Senators by the populace, thus robbing the states of representation in the federal government.

A better question is this…if Trump had the coattails to gain seats in the House, not lose the Senate, and flip 3 state legislatures to (R), how did he lose to Biden?

Oh yeah, those state legislatures matter because…it's reapportionment time next year!

----

We've got quite a ways left in the election process this cycle.

There are some real problems with at least Pennsylvania. The pre-election actions of the Secretary of State to extend acceptance of ballots by 3 days, and the subsequent order by the PA Supreme Court to uphold that policy, contravene the explicit wording of the Constitution itself, which prescribes that the state legislature alone has authority to "prescribe the times, places, and manner of holding elections". (Article I Section 4).

The legislature can act on its own to set election criteria in each state, without the consent of the executive or judicial review (no court has jurisdiction unless another part of the US Constitution would be violated). Incidentally, this is why the counting was stopped in Florida in 2000…the US Supreme Court held that the FL Supremes overstepped their authority to allow counting to continue (change the parameters of the election as set by the legislature).

The media, sadly, has just exacerbated an already-difficult situation by taking sides. They should've just let things play out and report the news. Strangely enough, Trump could still be reelected.

----

Normally these days, the electors are selected by popular vote, as provided by the legislatures of most (all?) of the states. However, it wasn't that way originally: originally, each state legislature would appoint electors to vote for the office of President, with no popular vote even held for that office!

Any state legislature can, at any time, decide to appoint their own panel of electors to the electoral college. After electors cast their votes, those votes are reviewed and accepted (or not) by the state legislature; eventually the state legislature sends the electoral votes to the US Congress (after the new Congress is seated).

Then the Congress gets to review the electoral votes provided by the states. If >=1 Rep & >=1 Senator object to the votes provided by any state, they end up debating whether or not to accept that state's vote. The Congress has final review, and can simply decide to accept or throw out those votes. Without a clear winner from the EC votes, the House votes to select the President. It used to be that the Senate votes to select the VP (since he's the President of the Senate also), but I'm not sure if that's still the case since we have a P/VP ticket system since the 12th amendment.

There's nothing that says we have to have a President, if one hasn't been duly elected and accepted by the Congress as-of inauguration day!

----

If Con- is the opposite of Pro-, is Congress the opposite of Progress?

Cheers!

---

Edited to clarify that courts do have jurisdiction over election laws that would violate another part of the Constitution, such as laws that would prevent a certain class of citizens from voting.

 

Yeah ok bud. Not much fight left I see.

 

Because enough Reps can see that he’s dangerous.

Or because the elderly (the group he lost out on the most compared to 4 years ago) took his Covid “it is what it is” attitude as a “f**k you”. So they fucked him at the voting booth.

 

This is a more insightful way to put the question. IMO the answer is that many decided to split their tickets and vote against the man Trump, but remain faithful to the GOP which better represents their to-the-right-of-NYT worldview. This is one reason why I think conservatives (or at least, moderate progressives of the usual GOP type) can overall be positive about this election, and the likely house flip in 2022.

It has become a symbol for the left as it is an obvious check on their populist goals.

 

Pray tell, what are these goals?

What are our goals, really? I for one would like to see that this alternate reality game (with respect to climate change, masks etc) comes to an end sooner than later so that we can stop sleepwalking into disaster. Maybe Marv is right about needing to Thanos our population to save the world, but that's not happening, so what can we do?

 

House is going to flip bro after TX/GA/FL are going to cook their maps to give their guys an edge. That'll seal the deal.

I wouldn't worry about it so much, this is a semi-repeat of 2010.

 

They do not even dislike Trump, they would be happy to work with him if he was into business as usual.
It does not stop them from working very hard, and as a team, on inflaming hate so the rest of us is busy with culture wars and calling each other names. So there is no time for asking questions about real issues. And there are real issues on both sides: health care, wars, disappearing jobs., permanent hold on power and corruption of the establishment, failing education, insane power of internet platforms to control our lives under the phony free market umbrella, etc, etc, etc. And the most threatening question: what did you do, Rep and Dem to fix any of this over the last 20 years?. NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING.

 

It took a while but we can finally agree that the guillotines have to come out!

Curious as to how you and others square these two thoughts. I'm 43, had kids late. They are 5 years old and won't be college age until 2032 ish. If the price trajectory of college doesn't change significantly, I do not expect us to be able to afford to send them to college at all. These days I assume they won't be going and will have to work out some kind of alternate path to employment.

I'm not sure what I would do if they were going to be graduating from high school in the near term. What's your thinking?

 

Obamacare was set to kick me in the balls at the time. I made too much to benefit, but not enough to afford my own. My employer also didnt provide options. So I was about to be in the position of paying for someone elses care while I just... walk shit off, I guess. It was "Health insurance? Or car?" Penalized for not being poor enough.

 

Trades are a great path to a good career.

I am the shop engineer in a smallish industrial repair facility near San Francisco. I ran the shop for about 5 years just prior.

We literally cannot find manual (no CNC) machinists, qualified mechanics or welders.

very few people under 40 have pursued the trades. It’s a shame we adopted the “college grad or failure” mentality some 50 years ago.

 

I was tralla surprised when I was in the States nearly 20 years ago and most of the stuff for sale at Walmart was already made in China. I was working for a US based company at the time which when they set up shop in China and Korea. They decided that bringing Gasbarre presses, which they used in the US, to those places was too expensive. So they showed the drawings they had to local suppliers in order for them to make cheaper copies. I found that to be a strange approach. On the other hand when Germany decided not to build a magnetic levitation train track and the Chinese bought the technology for transportation Shanghai to Shanghai airport the Chinese got the whole technology paying close to nothing.

 

In my biased opinion, that's a very good mix of interests and potential skillset to have. An increasing proportion of biology-related research require better computational techniques to make good sense of data, but most biologists/botanists/insert-appropriate-profession don't have the computing skills necessary to do so. If he's able to get a good enough grasp of plant biology to understand and incorporate botanical theory into realistic models, and have the computing skills to code them into efficient algorithms, I think that he would have a relatively rare combination of skills that would be in high demand by plant research companies that know what they are doing.

 

Trade school is the way to go right now. A good chunk of my family are electricians and they all make great money. I have cousins in their early 20's making $70k per year already as fresh journeymen. One of my older cousins is a top guy at the Detroit local IBEW and he tells me they are struggling to find apprentices.

 

Speaking as someone who enjoys school a lot more than he lets on, I can see why higher (i.e. postgrad) education or even UG stuff can be viewed as a luxury— in a way it's a means to get knee-deep into something you just happen to find interesting, with improved job prospects just happening to come incidentally. I'm still set on getting that stupid degree but it's almost more because I've invested a lot of time into it that not finishing it would be like pissing on myself almost— the bulk of work I've taken on has been in the form of freelance writing for magazines or had to do with marketing crud, and while it might be argued that what I studied might technically apply that's a stretch.

Loads of people I know don't even seem to pursue careers in what they studied, with few notable exceptions. I talked with an older coworker back when I was an intern at a hospital and the way I understand it sometimes job qualifications ask for 4-year degrees just so they know the people they hire can commit to something. What the flick even. I know education here isn't up to the standards of other countries necessarily (we only adopted the K to 12 system in 2013) but requiring a college degree minimum to work as a cashier or store clerk is ludicrous.

No shortage of tradespeople on my end, even if a lot of the people seem to be half-there at best (I'm still mad that a carpenter we had over scratched my old Bifrost), so maybe other countries can learn not to go down chasing the same dragon that seems to be bucking some western-hemisphere folks off— the notion that just because you invest heart-sinkingly large volumes of cash into a degree means you're guaranteed to do well after you get that diploma.

Re: dragon fruit farming, make sure he reads up on tulip bulbs too )

 

Trade jobs are fantastic and an alternative to college. I think the notion that everyone needs to have a college education was pushed too much. In the construction/service industry, trade workers are being paid top dollar because of demand. Hell, a friend of mine services elevators and he makes more than me programming. It can be hard job. In my industry (new construction/service) -- imagine servicing a rooftop industrial a/c unit, in the Texas, in the middle of summer.

I steered some of my family members into trade jobs (my second cousin is making $17/hr as an apprentice electrician) and that will only go up once he becomes a Journeyman. As Marv said, it's just we don't have a system put in place like in Germany. Now I see companies like mine going out to high schools, with tv sets to play dvds on what trade jobs are and how to start down the path of one. It sets up the next generation of trade workers to be available for us as they're our lifeblood.