Political science, economics, data science, and environmentalism
This is a very simple argument.
In the United States, people are innocent until proven guilty. The only way to prove guilt in our legal system is in a court of law.
Self-defense is a right as well.
As long as a person under arrest does not try to attack a police officer, under which the police officer may legally defend themselves under self-defense statutes, any non-violent person shot by a police officer is legally innocent.
Which means that almost every police shooting is a homicide.
In 2000 Al Gore probably won the Presidential election, the Supreme Court in a 5-4 majority stopped the vote counting in Florida, handing Bush the presidency. Bush would be reelected in 2004 which is how John Roberts and Alito got onto the Supreme Court. This was one opportunity to create a liberal majority that was lost.
In 2016 Hillary Clinton also probably beat Donald Trump, based on numerous reports of voting irregularities in counties that saw large swings toward Trump in swing states. But regardless, enough people felt she wasn’t “good enough” to get their votes, so they voted third party, and Trump became President. it would have taken fewer than 100,000 extra votes each in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania for her to have become President. On top of this, there were leaks of her emails on Wikileaks which people used to say that the DNC was biased against Bernie, and so a large number of people didn’t vote. At the core of the problem, Hillary Clinton’s speeches veered too far to the right in a nation that is moving to the left, making her unappealing to many voters. Clinton and the DNC didn’t campaign in the right places and didn’t pay attention to counteract Republican campaigning in key states with Republican governors. The DNC and Obama administration didn’t do enough to bring states to court for voter disenfranchisement. The number of missed opportunities by all Democratic leadership is immense. But none of this is an excuse for people who didn’t see that Trump was as dangerous as he was and chose to clutch their laurels and not vote for the better candidate. We don’t have ranked voting, voting third party is not an option.
At the end of the day, Clinton’s vote total was within 100,000 votes of Obama in 2012, and Trump got 2 million more than Romney did in 2012. Clinton won the popular vote, but there were large declines in the Democratic vote total in Michigan (300,000), Wisconsin (300,0000) for the Democrats, and a surge of votes for Trump in Pennsylvania, which gave Trump the victory by very narrow margins. They abandoned the 50-state strategy, and people didn’t vote for them.
The consequence of this election is that Trump became president despite losing the popular vote by 2.9 million votes. This was the fifth time in history that a candidate who lost the popular vote became President.
Hillary Clinton is a relatively moderate Democrat, she always has been. But, she was never as conservative as Donald Trump is today. She would not have rolled back progress from the Obama administration, and she would have never appointed a conservative to the Supreme Court. Her husband nominated both Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, two of the most liberal Supreme Court justices we have had in the last 50 years and served under Obama when both Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayer were appointed to the Supreme Court. She was clearly better than Trump.
The consequence of not electing Hillary Clinton is simple. Abortion is about to be outlawed in almost every state. Only 4 states have laws that make it so abortion is legal on request. Those states are Washington, New York, Alaska, and Hawaii. Abortion is illegal in some if not all cases in every other state. Even states like Illinois, Vermont, and Minnesota have laws that make abortion illegal. The repeal of Roe v Wade is imminent, and it will impact almost every person in this country.
So, with abortion being illegal on the horizon, we know how we got here. We got here because Clinton didn’t become President.
So what can we do in the future?
The answer is painfully obvious. We need to vote. We can legalize abortion nationwide through congress and pack the Supreme Court to nullify Trump’s appointees next year.
We need to keep the House, and we need two more seats in the Senate to nullify all Republicans, including Manchin and Sinema, and then we can make abortion legal nationwide through US Code.
We can also legalize gay marriage at the same time, and by packing the courts we can make it so that the Republican Party cannot legislate through the courts.
The alternative to this plan is we do not win the Senate, we don’t campaign like hell in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin. We don’t defend Senators in Georgia, and Arizona. The alternative is we go back to tried and failed party policies which chose which races are forgone lost, not based on any real evidence, and we surrender our country to Republican extremists.
For the average citizen, what we can do to codify abortion is to vote, donate money if possible, phone bank for candidates if possible, and then win two more seats in the Senate and then codify abortion access in January.
But most importantly, no matter where you live, you need to vote in every election.
My life is going through a massive transition right now as I go through a sad breakup, and I’m sitting in a hotel right now which is owned by the Marriott family.
I read through the Wikipedia page of Bill Marriott and I learned that he is a leader of the LDS church.
Which made me have a few thoughts…
Three things should never touch directly, religion, state, and business.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”
I also believe that if someone chooses to serve in politics, they should put all of their investments in a trust which they cannot access until they leave office.
We need to analyze what happens when the three mix.
When state and business mix we get politicians who make decisions to their own benefit, not for the benefit of the people they are entitled to serve. Perfect case in point is when Donald Trump did what he could to keep his hotels open, the health of the nation be damned. People in business can run for office, but they need to sell their assets before they take office.
When state and religion mix you get theocracy. Laws reflect the personal beliefs of the religion, and they won’t reflect the needs of society. You get theocracy which is never a good thing.
When religion and business mix you get more conflicts of interest. Religious leaders need to be focused on the well being of the world. If they also try to run a business at the same time they will make decisions which fail to serve the public but instead serve their own personal financial benefit. You end up with a corrupt religion which often will exist not for the well being of people but for the financial gain of the religious leaders.
Source the Holocaust museum. Bootlicking tankies will get really upset and Twitter will ban you from the website forcing you to appeal.
But if you are a Republican you can spread lies about how the election was stolen (it wasn’t) and they won’t do anything.
Fuck Twitter.
I have a thought, if we were to find similar parties to the main caucuses in the American political spectrum, what would they be?
We have 6 major parties in the United States. They are:
When it comes to major issues we can break them down into the following, the first is the most left wing, to the most right wing position:
The easiest way to compare will be to compare health care and education. Almost no party in Europe besides the Tories in the United Kingdom support privatizing infrastructure.
Based on Foreign Trade, Education, and Health care alone we can get a pretty good idea of where each candidate stands.
When it comes to health care and education, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is on par with the European consensus. Moderate Democrats are on par with the Tories. Republicans only really compare with candidates like Marine La Pen.
When it comes to free trade, almost no one in American politics today is on par with the majority of European parties. Moderate Democrats are on par with the Tories. Progressive democrats are on par with Jeremy Corbyn and other Eurosceptic parties. The Republican Party can only find itself in alliance with Marine La Pen.
So, if Biden was a European, he would be very alone on education and health care issues. He would have almost no support, almost no allies, and he would be a minor candidate. There is no major party in Germany, France, or the United Kingdom which shares his views. On foreign trade he is very similar to the Tories.
Politicians like Joe Biden cannot succeed in European politics.
That’s the truth.
Fact: There is nothing stating in the US constitution that electors in the electoral college must be chosen by the people of that state.
Fact: The tenth amendment clearly states powers not delegated to the federal government are delegated to the states, or the people. This clearly falls into the state rights category.
With these two facts in mind, if Georgia and Arizona had used this tool (the two Republican trifecta states Biden won narrow pluralities in) then that would not have flipped the election.
But this could potentially swing a major presidential election, we only have to go as far back as 2012.
Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Florida had Republican state trifectas in 2012. If those states had passed laws stating that the state legislature would appoint electors and determine how they would vote via a winner takes all vote by the state legislature, the 2012 Presidential map would have looked like this:
Which would have given Romney the Presidency.
For the sake of democracy itself, we need to abolish the Electoral College and elect the President of the United States using ranked voting with a direct popular vote.
This is one more reason why I was so excited when Gretchen Whitmer won in 2018.
This is also why Democrats need to play hard ball to defend our democracy and win elections (without breaking the law) or they won’t be able to play at all.
Yesterday Trump was acquitted for his very obvious crimes in attacking the United States Congress. The impeachment process is over, and we will never need to focus on it again.
Which means there is no excuse to get business done, pass the stimulus and for congress to do everything in their power to end this epidemic which is ravaging our country.
The very obvious list of priorities include:
A majority of Americans support all of these main tenants. They are important goals which will make a real difference in people’s lives, and will help galvanize support for Democrats. After losing impeachment, the Democratic Party needs some really large wins in order to keep voters motivated over the next year. Fortunately for Democrats, mobilizing their base and improving the State of the Union require the same policies.
If Democrats need to destroy the filibuster in order to work on these 4 goals, it will be worth it, because it will galvanize support.
Which leads us to the Senate elections in 2022. There are several important pickups which Democrats can do if they can mobilize voters in a positive matter like they did in 2018.
I believe Democrats can potentially pickup seats Republicans in the following states:
We need to defend Georgia and Arizona with effective mobilizing of course, but this is definitely possible.
My reasoning for each state:
Florida has been a swing state for a long time. Marco Rubio won 52% of the vote in 2016 and won against former Republican Patrick Murphy. Florida has been hard hit by coronavirus, and if Democrats are able to control the epidemic and get the vote out among people most impacted by coronavirus (which will be easy to find which zip codes are hardest hit) then there is a path to victory. We should run a strong progressive for the seat in Florida. New Democrats are on a 26 year losing streak in the state. Every New Democrat Presidential nominee has lost that state since Clinton won it when I was 3 years old. Let’s not make that mistake again. Unfortunately we have Val Demings who is a New Democrat and Alan Grayson who opposes the independence of the Federal Reserve. I don’t think we will win Florida.
Abby Finkenauer has experience winning elections, though she lost in 2020. Neither candidate is ideal, hopefully Abby Finkenauer can squeak out a win. The other candidate has never won an election.
Tim Ryan is going to be the candidate. He supports Medicare for All. He has consistently won elections in the 13th congressional district which sometimes votes Republican. I think he can win. I hope he does.
John Fetterman has already won a statewide election. Malcolm Kenyatta would be good. Connor Lamb is a New Democrat.
We have to go with John Fetterman on this one. He has proven he can win Pennsylvania. He will win the election.
Mandela Barnes is going to win. He has already won statewide elections and is the Lieutenant Governor. He is leading in the polls. He has been endorsed by Elizabeth Warren and John Fetterman. Mandela Barnes is going to be the next Senator from Wisconsin.
I think we are almost certainly going to win in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. We have great candidates who have proven they can win statewide elections. I think there is a chance we can win Ohio as well, which will give us 49 Democrats, 47 Republicans, 2 Independents who caucus with Democrats, and 2 Dixiecrats who vote with Republicans. That’s enough to abolish the filibuster and pass legislation next year.
That is how Democrats can gain control of the Senate this November.
1 out of 3 Fortune 500 cities are headquartered in 6 metropolitan areas. New York has 65, Chicago has 33, Dallas has 22, Houston has 21,and Minneapolis and San Francisco have 18 each.
We’re going to ignore Texas because of the great blackout of 2021, which is bad for business.
Which leaves us with 4 cities. New York and Chicago were historically much larger than the Bay Area, and Minneapolis punches far above its weight.
What makes Minneapolis and San Francisco outpace Los Angeles and Washington DC?
Well… let’s look at the following facts:
In the 1990s Arne Carlson was a very moderate Republican governor of Minnesota. He invested heavily in transit and education. Minneapolis led the country in investing heavily in building one of the most educated workforce in the nation. This was work which had been built up over multiple decades with Minnesota having a fairly bipartisan consensus which led them to having one of the most successful economies in the world. In a region which is dominated by a former over-reliance of manufacturing and economic inflexibility, 20 years of government in Minnesota built a modern workforce diversified into many different industries which made them the richest state in the Midwest.
The same story can be found in California. In the 50s and 60s California invested heavily into education, and in the 1970s there was one region in this country with a large educated workforce, a growing transit network, and many quickly growing companies. That area is the San Francisco Bay Area.
At the same time that Chicago was selling off the Skyway, New York failed to maintain the subway, Texas has unreliable power, and almost every other city in the United States was busy selling off their transit systems and becoming car dependent, Minneapolis and San Francisco grew that great combination of great transit and world class education which allow them to punch above their weight.
The only other city in the United States which has the potential to punch above their weight like San Francisco and Minneapolis is Denver, which has the good transit network which is necessary to build a well functioning metropolitan area.
In every other major city in the United States if a company wants to expand it needs to ensure that there will be enough parking for all of their employees. But this is not the case in the Bay Area, New York, Chicago, and Minneapolis. There can be improvements in local route connections, but compared to any other major city they stand out.
Boston is another city with great transit, excellent education, and Massachusetts boasts the second highest average income in the nation. I think their economy is less dominated by giants. In a way this is more healthy for Boston and the competition probably contributes significantly to Massachusetts having the second highest income in the nation.
If you look around the United States, nothing looks like it will change.
Looking towards the future, cities which I expect to only grow in the future have a large population, high educational attainment in their state (at least 30% of their states population have at least a bachelors degree), and good quality transit (at least one system needs at least 1000 riders per mile, which is a quality metric, and be at least 160 km long, showing that it is long). Those cities have followed the California formula which is what created Silicon Valley. They also have stable electric grids, sorry Texas, you need to fix your shit. These cities also have at least 2 million people so they have enough people to compete on the world stage. Those cities are:
The reasons for these are the following:
This is why no other city in the United States compares. No other city in the United States is going to grow to beat the wealth which is found in these four cities for at least another 50 years unless if there are some major policy changes in the very near future which plan not just on fulfilling the needs of past growth, but also future growth.
Welcome to the Bay Area, the hub of American tech.
References:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2018/11/01/fortune-500-companies-list-cities/38215229/
First of all, Mississippi was not a state when it was part of the Confederacy. If that was true, then it would never have needed to be readmitted into the union. The fact it was readmitted (along with all the other treasonous states) means they were not states of the United States when they joined the confederacy.
In order to be a state a state needs to ratify the entire US constitution on the day it is accepted by congress. The states must then submit a state constitution to congress, all of which state that they accept the US Constitution as the highest law of the land in whole as it stands when they become states.
For 49 different states this is not an issue, and for all but one state which was a state in the Confederate States of America, they ratified all existing amendments when they became states.
Except for Mississippi. Mississippi had not ratified the 13th amendment until 2013, which means it was wrongfully given congressional representation in 1870.
But there’s an issue here… and its a big one. Mississippi didn’t fully ratify the 13th amendment until 2013 when it finally got the paperwork in to Congress about its ratification of the 13th amendment, which means it didn’t technically fulfill the requirements of statehood until I was in college!
But what’s more, Mississippi never ratified the 17th, 21st, 23rd, 24th, 26th, or 27th amendment.
Also, if we look at the original text of An Act to admit the State of Mississippi to Representation in the Congress of the United States it does not state that Mississippi had fully ratified the US constitution, meaning that law is unconstitutional and should be overturned by the Supreme Court. Each US State is required to ratify the entire US constitution as it stands when it becomes a state, as the Constitution of Washington State says:
SECTION 2 SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND. The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land.
Since Mississippi has never fully ratified the constitution in full at any point since it was given representation of congress since it left the union, Mississippi has never once ratified the entire constitution at any point in time since it left the union, meaning it is still not legally a state until it finishes ratifying the US constitution. This means that to this very day it is not entitled to representation in the US Senate, US House, or the Electoral College.
What are the consequences of this action?
It’s time to get this right. Mississippi needs to finish ratification.
First of all, let’s analyze Trump’s treaty with the Taliban.
This means Trump’s treaty with the terrorists was never legal, especially for the first two reasons. Afghanistan now is at the very bottom of the Democracy Index for this year, as a result of Trump and Biden’s unilateral decision making and dealings with terrorists. For this reason, while the previous Afghanistan government had problems, it was not the right time to leave because it created the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. It was created by Reagan, Trump, and Biden.
The second thing is the Syrian Civil War has been funded, armed, and fought by the Russian army. It has seen massive crimes against humanity which would not have happened if it wasn’t for Russian support.
The third thing is that Russia supports North Korea to this day. As long as Putin is in power, the Kim dictatorship will have a powerful ally.Wikipedia
But how does all of this relate to Ukraine? Very simply, as long as the United States was willing to use our resources to help Afghanistan develop (which we did for 20 years) it was clear that the United States foreign policy was in at least one place preventing the worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st century to date. It gave clear evidence of deterrence that if Russia overstepped its bounds in Ukraine or Georgia there was good reason to believe that the United States would step in and intervene, preventing Russian war crimes in Eastern Europe. We supported Syrian rebels against Russian aggression, another example of deterrence against the Russian dictatorship. Also, the 2014 war in Ukraine died down simply because Obama threatened getting involved if Putin invaded the rest of Ukraine.
That threat worked. Deterrence works both directions.
But when the United States left Afghanistan and Biden blabbered on and on about how he doesn’t want to be using military force and want to focus on his (now failed) domestic agenda, it gave Putin the signal. In Putin’s eyes following Biden’s honoring of Trump’s dealings with terrorists, which again Congress never approved, the United States was now an insular and weak country in his eyes, and it took less than a year for Putin to start amassing his troops on the Union State’s border with Ukraine.
The fact that it took him several months to amass his troops on the border with Ukraine was no mistake. He did that because he was testing whether the West would show a sign of strength in the sign of Russian aggression. If the West had shown strength in Putin’s eyes before the war started, I doubt the war would have began at all, because it would have shown clear proof to Putin that invading Ukraine would be a tragic mistake.
Also, Putin will never use nuclear bombs. Anyone who thinks that needs to go study some international relations. As soon as he does that in a war of aggression in the modern era (especially considering nuclear bombs are significantly stronger than the ones the United States dropped on Japan) he is a dead man. He won’t do it. Putin never does anything which he believes will threaten his reign of terror. That’s how he has stayed in power for so long.
After amassing troops on the Ukrainian border for months, with no sign of Western retaliation (that would have been a great time to give Ukraine immediate NATO membership, it would have saved thousands of lives) and no strong sign of strength from the United States or the European Union, Putin saw a green light that now was a time to attack.
In the west you poke bear, in Russia bear poke you.
Why has the war gone on so long? Well, granted that Russia won’t use the nuclear bomb (because of mutually assured destruction, which doesn’t necessarily have to be from nuclear weapons, military tactics like the bombing of Dresden are just as effective) and NATO hasn’t done everything it can to end the war scared that sending more weapons to Ukraine will prompt Russia to use the bomb (again, a bad hypothesis of people who don’t understand game theory, Realpolitik, mutually assured destruction, or politics in general) Russia continues to test the limits of how it can invade the west. Economic sanctions won’t be enough.
It’s 1938 and this is Sudetenland. The withdrawal of Afghanistan was the annexation of Austria. Putin is Hitler. Biden is Chamberlain.
The only way to make sure that we don’t see the invasion of Poland (which would be World War III) is to make sure that this is the last action Putin does in his life.