Counter-point: in the situation with California here in the US, they are contributing more to the federal coffers than the take in, and many of the red states who have more voting power than they do are taking in more than they contribute ...
So in your example, the states with more voting power are taking money from the states with less voting power.
I’ll put it in another context: We’ll hold a vote here, majority wins. Everyone’s whose name starts with the letter A has to pay everyone else $1 each. Popular vote (not many people who post here starts with A) will say “hey I am getting something for free, I’ll vote for that!” while all the minority “A” will be shelling out money because the majority said they should. Sound fair to you?
California is shelling out money because the government of red states (with less people) says they have to support them.
And again, i'm content with all that i've said and have nothing really left to add. We can agree to disagree at this point.
I don't want to go over this either and think it's a fine place to drop it but your last comments seem to have brought up a new issue in that it seems like you think Americans in the state with the most people should not have a say in who gets elected.
No; the argument is just that Americans in the state with the most people shouldn't have quite as much power as their population alone would otherwise grant them.
So, the votes of people who live in rural, whiter regions should have more weight than those who live in urbanized, more diverse regions?
I already explained a reasoning for regional voting instead of popular voting using the Canadian cities Toronto, Quebec, Halifax and Vancouver as an example.
I’ll put it in another context: We’ll hold a vote here, majority wins. Everyone’s whose name starts with the letter A has to pay everyone else $1 each. Popular vote (not many people who post here starts with A) will say “hey I am getting something for free, I’ll vote for that!” while all the minority “A” will be shelling out money because the majority said they should. Sound fair to you?
"Hey, Latinx person in Los Angeles, you don't live in Wyoming, so your vote in the presidential election doesn't count as much as this white guy in Cheyenne." Sound fair to you?
I think this would be a terribly difficult problem for even a skilled negotiator. The EU has no real reason to work with the UK; that would just encourage other states to leave the union. By not working with the UK, it demonstrates its stronger bargaining position and shows what happens to countries who try to leave the union while still preserving the benefits of remaining: embarrassment for the folks in charge and no good options for an exit deal.
Yeah but the EU is going to be hurt by Brexit - especially a no-deal Brexit. So they very much do have a reason to work with the UK - to work toward making it not happen... The idea that they would rather make an example of the UK, and eat the consequences, is frankly insane.
Like I said: Europeans should be looking for ways to become more like the US, not more like 19th-century Europe.
They wanted to leave the Union. It's not on the rest of us to bend over backwards to accommodate them. Would you let California secede without any consequences?
If I said "California don't be stupid" and California had a change of heart and California staying in the Union was beneficial to me... I would not get in thecway of them staying in the Union.
All I'm saying is, the EU shouldn't be putting roadblocks in the way of just calling the whole thing off. "Not putting up roadblocks" is hardly the same as "bending over backwards."
They're not putting up any blocks like that - the EU has made it perfectly clear the UK can choose to just cancel Brexit and revert back to the previous terms of membership (still with the veto over the Euro, keeping the rebate etc). The current debate over what to do is really nothing to do with the EU - they set out their position a long time ago and have stuck to it. The difficulty is entirely because the UK can't make up its mind.
That's largely because the political system has become paralyzed and has not sought to find a generally agreeable solution. That's not just that a second referendum has been refused, even though it's likely at this stage that a majority of people would choose to stay in the EU. I can see there is an argument for not holding a second referendum - on the grounds that would be seen as a betrayal by many people who voted leave last time. Personally I think that would be an acceptable price to avoid the sense of betrayal many others feel that their views are now being ignored, but I don't think the argument is unreasonable. What I do think is unreasonable is the consistent refusal over more than 2 years to allow Parliament the freedom to determine what it thinks the best solution is. I know doing that is not the norm - generally it's for the government to set the agenda and Parliament to agree or disagree. However, I think we're well past the point at which it should have become obvious that the norm was not working.
It's not even as though there's a clear divide on this matter between Parliament as a whole and the government. There have been 26 ministerial resignations specifically over Brexit and there's not even a majority in the Cabinet currently for May's approach to asking for an extension. The divide on this issue in the country as a whole is reflected throughout the political system. In those circumstances I think you need to change the system (as I said before, move away from a party political approach on this issue) in order to allow an acceptable solution to emerge - though it may be too late to do that now anyway.
And again, i'm content with all that i've said and have nothing really left to add. We can agree to disagree at this point.
I don't want to go over this either and think it's a fine place to drop it but your last comments seem to have brought up a new issue in that it seems like you think Americans in the state with the most people should not have a say in who gets elected.
No; the argument is just that Americans in the state with the most people shouldn't have quite as much power as their population alone would otherwise grant them.
So, the votes of people who live in rural, whiter regions should have more weight than those who live in urbanized, more diverse regions?
I already explained a reasoning for regional voting instead of popular voting using the Canadian cities Toronto, Quebec, Halifax and Vancouver as an example.
I’ll put it in another context: We’ll hold a vote here, majority wins. Everyone’s whose name starts with the letter A has to pay everyone else $1 each. Popular vote (not many people who post here starts with A) will say “hey I am getting something for free, I’ll vote for that!” while all the minority “A” will be shelling out money because the majority said they should. Sound fair to you?
"Hey, Latinx person in Los Angeles, you don't live in Wyoming, so your vote in the presidential election doesn't count as much as this white guy in Cheyenne." Sound fair to you?
Why put ethenicity into it?
72.9% of California is just as white as people from Cheyenne.
I do believe larger states need more representation. I’ve already stated that the number of seats in Congress has not changed in a century and a lot of the disparity that is seen now would be fixed by adding 50-75 new seats. But a 1 for 1 system does not work for a country as large and as diverse as places like Canada and the United States.
I can’t explain it in any more simplistic terms than the shipping tax scenario.
Federally, you want a leader of a country that wants to see growth and prosperity happen everywhere. A 1 for 1 can diminish that significantly and just focus on areas that are strong without attempting to boost other regions. What do smaller regions gain from the union?
Federally, you want a leader of a country that wants to see growth and prosperity happen everywhere. A 1 for 1 can diminish that significantly and just focus on areas that are strong without attempting to boost other regions. What do smaller regions gain from the union?
Where this argument fundamentally breaks down is that we (the USA) have a bicameral legislature, in which one of the chambers is designed to stymie the ability of the majority to utterly suppress the minority.
Since a bill requires passage in both the House and Senate, the needs of any person in a small state vs someone in a larger state are held correctly in balance. For the most part, people dont want to abolish the Senate. What we've been talking about is doing away with the Electoral college, so that when it comes to electing a *nation wide* office, such as the president, no one voting citizen has any more say than any other voting citizen.
1 to 1 voting correlations absolutely work in a diverse country, both regionally and ethnically - provided they are employed in electing a nationwide office. Frankly, they also clearly (CLEARLY) work in electing state wide office. See governorships around the country.
Federally, you want a leader of a country that wants to see growth and prosperity happen everywhere. A 1 for 1 can diminish that significantly and just focus on areas that are strong without attempting to boost other regions. What do smaller regions gain from the union?
Where this argument fundamentally breaks down is that we (the USA) have a bicameral legislature, in which one of the chambers is designed to stymie the ability of the majority to utterly suppress the minority.
Since a bill requires passage in both the House and Senate, the needs of any person in a small state vs someone in a larger state are held correctly in balance. For the most part, people dont want to abolish the Senate. What we've been talking about is doing away with the Electoral college, so that when it comes to electing a *nation wide* office, such as the president, no one voting citizen has any more say than any other voting citizen.
1 to 1 voting correlations absolutely work in a diverse country, both regionally and ethnically - provided they are employed in electing a nationwide office. Frankly, they also clearly (CLEARLY) work in electing state wide office. See governorships around the country.
Yes because governorships relate to a smaller area. There is less diversity when it comes to things that relate to GDP.
A 1 for 1 candidate might not fight another country putting a tariff on Front-end Shovel Loaders. Because people who live in places like California or New York won't care about it because it does not affect their job growth or prosperity. People living in South Dakota on the other hand might care much more, but with a softer voice wouldn't be heard.
Counter-point: in the situation with California here in the US, they are contributing more to the federal coffers than the take in, and many of the red states who have more voting power than they do are taking in more than they contribute. And yet, somehow, it's always the left who are viewed as the "moochers". This somewhat interactive article is......quite enlightening:
Graph 1. Inverse Correlation between a state's tax rate and their dependency on federal government.
General trend there that the lower the state's taxes, the more dependency. Gee, who'da thunk?
They correlate tax and dependency, and State GDP per capita and dependency. I wish they'd completed the triangle and correlated tax rate and State GDP per capita.
I wish someone would come out and make the case that high taxes leads to high per capita GDP.
Yes because governorships relate to a smaller area. There is less diversity when it comes to things that relate to GDP.
A 1 for 1 candidate might not fight another country putting a tariff on Front-end Shovel Loaders. Because people who live in places like California or New York won't care about it because it does not affect their job growth or prosperity. People living in South Dakota on the other hand might care much more, but with a softer voice wouldn't be heard.
Regardless of if every community is treated fairly by the executive, the senate prevents this from happening with any significance. Laws will not pass, and senators can stymie the executives policies if they try to hurt their state in other ways.
California has the 5th largest economy in the world. It has 40,000,000 people. I think you'll find it satisfies any reasonable comparison to another country.
As a final thought - the current system doesn't stop the executive from showing favoritism where he can either. Look at the Tax law and how it hurt SALT deductions that favore non republican areas. You literally cannot stop a zero-sum democratic political contest from rewarding the winners and hurting the losers to some extent. The electoral college just puts its finger on the scale, so one side wins more often.
Incidentally - it isn't always to the GOPs benefit. Obama in 2012 won by only 2%, but won comfortably in the electoral college. I don't think that's fair either.
How many American citizens are going to have to suffer having their rights ripped from them because of these policies?? Though, I guess in this case, the question is how many American citizens who are 9-years old are going to be detained by border agents for over a day based on absolutely nothing. Or maybe (just maybe) this isn't about stopping undocumented immigrants at all. Maybe it's been malevolent from the get-go. (Narrator: it was):
They were crossing so they could get to school on time. Her passport is a legal document that states her status as a US citizen. The agents took her into custody and tried to invent a human trafficking scenario out of thin air.
This is what happens when you create this climate. Everyone of Hispanic descent is assumed illegal until proven not illegal. Their "rights" as citizens are conditional to the whims of individual border patrol, ICE and law enforcement agents. Which means they have none at all.
Mueller has completed his report. Now we have to wait to see how much of it, if any, will be made public. I'm hoping we can see all of it.
I'll go ahead and make my last prediction. I still don't think it's going to implicate Trump in conspiracy with Russian agents. I think there's a chance that it will implicate him for obstruction of justice or some other crime related to the investigation. Regardless of its contents, I do not think it will result in Trump's impeachment due to GOP control of the Senate.
I'm also going to predict that a lot of people across the country are going to claim they were proven right, regardless of the contents of the report.
I don't think this will exonerate Trump of more than a handful of the charges made against him over the past 2 years.
The Starr Report was made available in totality IMMEDIATELY. If this one isn't, it will simply be yet another double-standard. No "briefing" or "summary" from William Barr is acceptable. Release the report in it's totality.
At any rate, it's good that the Mueller investigation caught some of the criminals in our government and recovered several millions of dollars by uncovering tax fraud.
At any rate, it's good that the Mueller investigation caught some of the criminals in our government and recovered several millions of dollars by uncovering tax fraud.
Yeah, but I can drive a nail with my electric impact driver. That doesn't mean it's the best tool for the job compared to a hammer.
Ken Starr was an independent counsel covered under a now expired statute. Robert Meuller is a special counsel which current law places under the AG and DOJ. Ken Starr didn’t report to anyone while RM reports to the DOJ. Kinda crappy.
“Even though Mr. Mueller’s report is complete, some aspects of his inquiry remain active and may be overseen by the same prosecutors once they are reassigned to their old jobs within the Justice Department. For instance, recently filed court documents suggest that investigators are still examining why the former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort turned over campaign polling data in 2016 to a Russian associate whom prosecutors said was tied to Russian intelligence.”
This one paragraph gives me the impression Barr shut down the investigation before it was ready to be concluded.
The article also states that Mueller will not recommend and more charges:
Mr. Mueller will not recommend any new charges be filed, a senior Justice Department official said.
So I do think a lot of people who have connected the dots with Trump’s involvement will be very disappointed with the report.
Haven't seen the report yet obviously but most of the news orgs seem to be pretty convinced that no new indictments are forthcoming and that this is more or less over with. I am also reasonably sure we will see the report in full or mostly in full, sooner or later.
Assuming this is indeed true, are we ready to call the Russian Collusion conspiracy, the whole cause of the investigation and a myth peddled from all corners of the left wing and even parts of the anti trump right wing establishment, a conspiracy yet? Will any public figure or media organizations credibility be harmed by spreading this conspiracy? The top Democrat in the Senate Intelligence Committee said there was "enormous amounts of evidence" of this just earlier this month. Does anything matter anymore, but winning against the other side?
I predict nah, it won't matter that politicians and the media spread a conspiracy with no evidence, made several outright false reports in the process, based many of their assertions of collusion based on duping an ignorant public about what is and is not ordinary political behavior and failed to contextualize such because providing accurate information was never their goal.
I also predict Trump will never shut up about the fact that nearly the entire media- with the biggest lies it's always nearly the entire media establishment, go figure- he claims is Fake News endlessly cheerleaded this conspiracy and made it a primary focus of their reporting day in and day out and not only did that but did such a bad job of it because they wanted to get him so bad that people got fired from major organizations over it and Mueller's office themselves had to step in to correct the record at one point.
And you know what? He will be exactly right and all of his supporters will think so.
It will further divide the country and it won't be Trump that is to blame. Not that I expect Democrats will ever acknowledge this fact.
It's times like these that I wish Trump had a vocabulary above the fourth grade level, because if he did he could easily articulate the utter worthlessness of these institutions using merely the available facts and a half decent speech writer, and it would go a long way.
Using the ridiculous dossier as actual evidence in a FISA court, Comey admitting to leaking under oath in order to form the special council itself, the FBI talking about removing Trump via the 25th amendment because he fired Comey who admitted to leaking info to get back at Trump...
this whole investigation was clown world and any honest media apparatus would have at least discussed these things in a serious manner, because they are serious things that our intelligence community is doing and something that needs to be discussed as to whether or not it as at all appropriate, because it doesn't look like it.
But the ramifications of an intelligence service playing the part of political operatives in underhanded ways in order to influence who is sitting in office is not important to the media. Because it hurts Republicans, you see.
I would find it incredibly sad if people draw the conclusion that the investigation was pointless simply on the grounds that no Americans were charged with conspiracy. Folks act like "conspiracy with Russia" was the only crime that was ever alleged, and that simply isn't true. People act like that theory was the only one that mattered, and it wasn't. You know, this investigation also didn't charge anyone with jaywalking, prostitution, or armed robbery. But that doesn't mean it was a waste of time, because the other crimes that were committed, mattered.
The Mueller investigation was much broader than that, and it served an incredibly important purpose: removing criminals from the United States government. I said long ago (I believe all the way back in 2016) that the truly important thing was for this investigation to catch criminals, regardless of who they were.
The investigation caught multiple criminals during its tenure. Roger Stone, Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, Konstantin Kilimnik, Sam Patten, Rick Gates, George Papadopoulos, Michael Flynn, and Alex van der Zwaan, along with numerous Russian officials, were snared by this investigation. Without the Mueller probe, these people would still be committing crimes to this day, undetected. I do not think anyone would view that as a superior alternative.
@WarChiefZeke, you portray this entire investigation as if it were a media decision of some sort. This has always been a criminal investigation, and it did its job. Lots of people, including in the media, did speculate about its results, but they did so for one simple reason: the Mueller investigation was kept confidential, and it never disclosed which officials were under investigation for which alleged crimes.
Why did people suspect that Trump committed a crime? Because Trump's closest associates and top advisors kept getting convicted of felonies, all while Trump repeatedly defended these same people's innocence and attacked the FBI for doing its job.
You act as if there should be some sort of punishment for anyone in the media who suggested that Trump committed a crime, or that they should be discarded or distrusted because of it. That's not how these things work. All of us were kept in the dark, and we all made our respective predictions based on that.
You know, I've predicted the same thing you have since the day this began. But if we turn out to be right about this, I'm not going to lay judgment on people who weren't, and I'm not going to fault the people who were so strongly advocating for government scrutiny while the Trump administration struggled so desperately to thwart it.
Haven't seen the report yet obviously but most of the news orgs seem to be pretty convinced that no new indictments are forthcoming and that this is more or less over with. I am also reasonably sure we will see the report in full or mostly in full, sooner or later.
Assuming this is indeed true, are we ready to call the Russian Collusion conspiracy, the whole cause of the investigation and a myth peddled from all corners of the left wing and even parts of the anti trump right wing establishment, a conspiracy yet? Will any public figure or media organizations credibility be harmed by spreading this conspiracy? The top Democrat in the Senate Intelligence Committee said there was "enormous amounts of evidence" of this just earlier this month. Does anything matter anymore, but winning against the other side?
I predict nah, it won't matter that politicians and the media spread a conspiracy with no evidence, made several outright false reports in the process, based many of their assertions of collusion based on duping an ignorant public about what is and is not ordinary political behavior and failed to contextualize such because providing accurate information was never their goal.
I also predict Trump will never shut up about the fact that nearly the entire media- with the biggest lies it's always nearly the entire media establishment, go figure- he claims is Fake News endlessly cheerleaded this conspiracy and made it a primary focus of their reporting day in and day out and not only did that but did such a bad job of it because they wanted to get him so bad that people got fired from major organizations over it and Mueller's office themselves had to step in to correct the record at one point.
And you know what? He will be exactly right and all of his supporters will think so.
It will further divide the country and it won't be Trump that is to blame. Not that I expect Democrats will ever acknowledge this fact.
It's times like these that I wish Trump had a vocabulary above the fourth grade level, because if he did he could easily articulate the utter worthlessness of these institutions using merely the available facts and a half decent speech writer, and it would go a long way.
Like Hilary’s emails?
Like Benghazi?
Like the Birther movement?
Like pizza Gate?
It’s going to come down to them not having enough evidence to convict them nothing more nothing less and I bet it had to do with Barr prematurely killing the investigation.
That isn’t the same as a conspiracy theory. Don jr did meet with Russian officials in a hotel, it’s just we can’t prove what they actually talked about or if actually lied to Congress. I will also note it is the DoJ position not to indict a sitting president, that is up to congress.
Even so, it is always better to have an investigation to prove something didn’t happen to actually stop the rumour mill from taking over the narrative.
But you are right. Trump is going to use this to attack EVERYONE and every other democratic inquiry into his conduct since becoming president and it’s going to work to get him re-elected.
Now maybe we can start talking about real issues like how our new Democratic Party Governor (Governess?) here in Michigan is trying to get a back-door $0.45/gallon carbon-tax disguised as a way to 'Fix our damned roads'. Even my liberal co-workers thought it was a horrible idea. Can't wait to see what other 'great ideas' our new crop of young liberal Democrats come up with...
I foresee conservative media jumping on this as a means of exonerating Trump, and the idea bothers me. I'm guessing that the exact same people who so thoroughly castigated the law enforcement community for merely doing its job are now going to immediately turn around on the subject and cite it as if they hadn't spent the past 2 years trying to destroy its credibility.
I would actually be very surprised if law enforcement genuinely didn't consider the firing of Comey to be obstruction of justice. Trump admitted that the firing was done specifically to weaken the investigation.
Using the ridiculous dossier as actual evidence in a FISA court, Comey admitting to leaking under oath in order to form the special council itself, the FBI talking about removing Trump via the 25th amendment because he fired Comey who admitted to leaking info to get back at Trump...
this whole investigation was clown world and any honest media apparatus would have at least discussed these things in a serious manner, because they are serious things that our intelligence community is doing and something that needs to be discussed as to whether or not it as at all appropriate, because it doesn't look like it.
But the ramifications of an intelligence service playing the part of political operatives in underhanded ways in order to influence who is sitting in office is not important to the media. Because it hurts Republicans, you see.
So in one post, you hold up the report (which no one has seen) as evidence of it being nothing, and then turn around less than 30 minutes later and say that those who started the investigation can't be trusted in the first place. And Comey didn't illegally leak anything. He provided his own memos to the New York Times. Are you suggesting he didn't have a right to his own personal memos?? Or are you just repeating it because that is what Trump has been tweeting on a nearly daily basis for the last two years?? Comey provided his memos to the media because Trump was claiming (per the very article YOU cite) that he had secret recordings of him and Comey talking (which was, of course, a total lie). There was nothing illegal about what Comey provided, and no serious person has ever suggested it was.
So what, Comey was just supposed to fade away into the shadows after the President admitted in a nationally televised interview that he fired him SPECIFICALLY because he wouldn't stop the Flynn investigation and (in his version of events) lied about what took place?? And the true scandal here is that Comey gave contemporaneous memos to a news outlet?? Really?? Trump walked into an interview with Lester Holt and ADMITTED he fired Comey to stop the Russia investigation.
There's no evidence that Barr killed the investigation, but if you do think that it opens the door to all sorts of other conclusions. Why should I possibly believe the same Comey who admitted to leaking information to get revenge on Trump handled her case fairly? We can play this game but it will get us nowhere.
Incidentally, in his report he is required to name any instances in which the investigation was blocked, and there was none.
I foresee conservative media jumping on this as a means of exonerating Trump, and the idea bothers me. I'm guessing that the exact same people who so thoroughly castigated the law enforcement community for merely doing its job are now going to immediately turn around on the subject and cite it as if they hadn't spent the past 2 years trying to destroy its credibility.
I would actually be very surprised if law enforcement genuinely didn't consider the firing of Comey to be obstruction of justice. Trump admitted that the firing was done specifically to weaken the investigation.
The whole reason this is a 'nothingberder' is because of the way it was portrayed in the press. They can reap what they sow as far as I'm concerned. I personally won't vote for Trump next time if the Dems nominate somebody halfway decent. So far Beto is the only one I like (that I know much about anyway). This Mueller Report debacle will definitely solidify the rest of my family in Trump's corner though. I have no chance in any argument with them now, not even with my sister who I almost had convinced about Trump...
I foresee conservative media jumping on this as a means of exonerating Trump, and the idea bothers me. I'm guessing that the exact same people who so thoroughly castigated the law enforcement community for merely doing its job are now going to immediately turn around on the subject and cite it as if they hadn't spent the past 2 years trying to destroy its credibility.
I would actually be very surprised if law enforcement genuinely didn't consider the firing of Comey to be obstruction of justice. Trump admitted that the firing was done specifically to weaken the investigation.
I'm already hearing that Comey was fired because Trump 'knew' he was innocent and wanted to 'send a message' to the establishment. Yeah, the far right is going to have a field day...
There's no evidence that Barr killed the investigation, but if you do think that it opens the door to all sorts of other conclusions. Why should I possibly believe the same Comey who admitted to leaking information to get revenge on Trump handled her case fairly? We can play this game but it will get us nowhere.
Incidentally, in his report he is required to name any instances in which the investigation was blocked, and there was none.
It's amazing how in the last few days it seems you have unilaterally decided when we will stop talking about something in thread. When it came to the electoral college, you just declare "there is nothing more to discuss, let's drop it, I'm not interested in it anymore". Now here we have "we can keep playing this game, but I don't want to".
@WarChiefZeke if you go up and read the post above your long one (it’s probably because we were typing it at the same time) I gave my speculation on why I think it was killed early by Barr.
Why are investigators that were part of the mueller team still investigating a Russian connection with Manafort about giving campaign polling data to Russians?
Once again, that may actually turn up nothing, but it doesn’t sound like the team had finished investigating a Russian Trump team connection, so why is Mueller handing in his report now?
Isn’t that a type of question that people should be asking regardless of what’s in the report?
I foresee conservative media jumping on this as a means of exonerating Trump, and the idea bothers me. I'm guessing that the exact same people who so thoroughly castigated the law enforcement community for merely doing its job are now going to immediately turn around on the subject and cite it as if they hadn't spent the past 2 years trying to destroy its credibility.
I would actually be very surprised if law enforcement genuinely didn't consider the firing of Comey to be obstruction of justice. Trump admitted that the firing was done specifically to weaken the investigation.
The whole reason this is a 'nothingberder' is because of the way it was portrayed in the press. They can reap what they sow as far as I'm concerned. I personally won't vote for Trump next time if the Dems nominate somebody halfway decent. So far Beto is the only one I like (that I know much about anyway). This Mueller Report debacle will definitely solidify the rest of my family in Trump's corner though. I have no chance in any argument with them now, not even with my sister who I almost had convinced about Trump...
Exactly. 100%. Democrat politicians and their media lackeys portrayed it as collusion, and being compromised, etc. countless times. Over and over and over and over again.
Now all of a sudden we're just supposed to forget previous statements, history, context, our own memories.
We're just supposed to forget that this the way they framed it, this was the basis of the investigation, this is how the whole thing got started and the pretext for all of it. Of course Trump supporters would see it as vindication, when a claim is made consistently over the course of over 2 years as though it were gospel truth and it turns out to have zero evidence of being true.
Comments
So in your example, the states with more voting power are taking money from the states with less voting power.
California is shelling out money because the government of red states (with less people) says they have to support them.
Taxation without representation.
"Hey, Latinx person in Los Angeles, you don't live in Wyoming, so your vote in the presidential election doesn't count as much as this white guy in Cheyenne." Sound fair to you?
They're not putting up any blocks like that - the EU has made it perfectly clear the UK can choose to just cancel Brexit and revert back to the previous terms of membership (still with the veto over the Euro, keeping the rebate etc). The current debate over what to do is really nothing to do with the EU - they set out their position a long time ago and have stuck to it. The difficulty is entirely because the UK can't make up its mind.
That's largely because the political system has become paralyzed and has not sought to find a generally agreeable solution. That's not just that a second referendum has been refused, even though it's likely at this stage that a majority of people would choose to stay in the EU. I can see there is an argument for not holding a second referendum - on the grounds that would be seen as a betrayal by many people who voted leave last time. Personally I think that would be an acceptable price to avoid the sense of betrayal many others feel that their views are now being ignored, but I don't think the argument is unreasonable. What I do think is unreasonable is the consistent refusal over more than 2 years to allow Parliament the freedom to determine what it thinks the best solution is. I know doing that is not the norm - generally it's for the government to set the agenda and Parliament to agree or disagree. However, I think we're well past the point at which it should have become obvious that the norm was not working.
It's not even as though there's a clear divide on this matter between Parliament as a whole and the government. There have been 26 ministerial resignations specifically over Brexit and there's not even a majority in the Cabinet currently for May's approach to asking for an extension. The divide on this issue in the country as a whole is reflected throughout the political system. In those circumstances I think you need to change the system (as I said before, move away from a party political approach on this issue) in order to allow an acceptable solution to emerge - though it may be too late to do that now anyway.
Why put ethenicity into it?
72.9% of California is just as white as people from Cheyenne.
I do believe larger states need more representation. I’ve already stated that the number of seats in Congress has not changed in a century and a lot of the disparity that is seen now would be fixed by adding 50-75 new seats. But a 1 for 1 system does not work for a country as large and as diverse as places like Canada and the United States.
I can’t explain it in any more simplistic terms than the shipping tax scenario.
Federally, you want a leader of a country that wants to see growth and prosperity happen everywhere. A 1 for 1 can diminish that significantly and just focus on areas that are strong without attempting to boost other regions. What do smaller regions gain from the union?
Where this argument fundamentally breaks down is that we (the USA) have a bicameral legislature, in which one of the chambers is designed to stymie the ability of the majority to utterly suppress the minority.
Since a bill requires passage in both the House and Senate, the needs of any person in a small state vs someone in a larger state are held correctly in balance. For the most part, people dont want to abolish the Senate. What we've been talking about is doing away with the Electoral college, so that when it comes to electing a *nation wide* office, such as the president, no one voting citizen has any more say than any other voting citizen.
1 to 1 voting correlations absolutely work in a diverse country, both regionally and ethnically - provided they are employed in electing a nationwide office. Frankly, they also clearly (CLEARLY) work in electing state wide office. See governorships around the country.
Yes because governorships relate to a smaller area. There is less diversity when it comes to things that relate to GDP.
A 1 for 1 candidate might not fight another country putting a tariff on Front-end Shovel Loaders. Because people who live in places like California or New York won't care about it because it does not affect their job growth or prosperity. People living in South Dakota on the other hand might care much more, but with a softer voice wouldn't be heard.
Graph 1. Inverse Correlation between a state's tax rate and their dependency on federal government.
General trend there that the lower the state's taxes, the more dependency. Gee, who'da thunk?
They correlate tax and dependency, and State GDP per capita and dependency. I wish they'd completed the triangle and correlated tax rate and State GDP per capita.
I wish someone would come out and make the case that high taxes leads to high per capita GDP.
Regardless of if every community is treated fairly by the executive, the senate prevents this from happening with any significance. Laws will not pass, and senators can stymie the executives policies if they try to hurt their state in other ways.
California has the 5th largest economy in the world. It has 40,000,000 people. I think you'll find it satisfies any reasonable comparison to another country.
As a final thought - the current system doesn't stop the executive from showing favoritism where he can either. Look at the Tax law and how it hurt SALT deductions that favore non republican areas. You literally cannot stop a zero-sum democratic political contest from rewarding the winners and hurting the losers to some extent. The electoral college just puts its finger on the scale, so one side wins more often.
Incidentally - it isn't always to the GOPs benefit. Obama in 2012 won by only 2%, but won comfortably in the electoral college. I don't think that's fair either.
They were crossing so they could get to school on time. Her passport is a legal document that states her status as a US citizen. The agents took her into custody and tried to invent a human trafficking scenario out of thin air.
This is what happens when you create this climate. Everyone of Hispanic descent is assumed illegal until proven not illegal. Their "rights" as citizens are conditional to the whims of individual border patrol, ICE and law enforcement agents. Which means they have none at all.
I'll go ahead and make my last prediction. I still don't think it's going to implicate Trump in conspiracy with Russian agents. I think there's a chance that it will implicate him for obstruction of justice or some other crime related to the investigation. Regardless of its contents, I do not think it will result in Trump's impeachment due to GOP control of the Senate.
I'm also going to predict that a lot of people across the country are going to claim they were proven right, regardless of the contents of the report.
I don't think this will exonerate Trump of more than a handful of the charges made against him over the past 2 years.
I am aware.
Doesn't mean that those low-tax states can't be hypocrites by shifting their effective state expenditures on federal expenditures.
Yeah, but I can drive a nail with my electric impact driver. That doesn't mean it's the best tool for the job compared to a hammer.
This one paragraph gives me the impression Barr shut down the investigation before it was ready to be concluded.
The article also states that Mueller will not recommend and more charges:
Mr. Mueller will not recommend any new charges be filed, a senior Justice Department official said.
So I do think a lot of people who have connected the dots with Trump’s involvement will be very disappointed with the report.
Assuming this is indeed true, are we ready to call the Russian Collusion conspiracy, the whole cause of the investigation and a myth peddled from all corners of the left wing and even parts of the anti trump right wing establishment, a conspiracy yet? Will any public figure or media organizations credibility be harmed by spreading this conspiracy? The top Democrat in the Senate Intelligence Committee said there was "enormous amounts of evidence" of this just earlier this month. Does anything matter anymore, but winning against the other side?
I predict nah, it won't matter that politicians and the media spread a conspiracy with no evidence, made several outright false reports in the process, based many of their assertions of collusion based on duping an ignorant public about what is and is not ordinary political behavior and failed to contextualize such because providing accurate information was never their goal.
I also predict Trump will never shut up about the fact that nearly the entire media- with the biggest lies it's always nearly the entire media establishment, go figure- he claims is Fake News endlessly cheerleaded this conspiracy and made it a primary focus of their reporting day in and day out and not only did that but did such a bad job of it because they wanted to get him so bad that people got fired from major organizations over it and Mueller's office themselves had to step in to correct the record at one point.
And you know what? He will be exactly right and all of his supporters will think so.
It will further divide the country and it won't be Trump that is to blame. Not that I expect Democrats will ever acknowledge this fact.
It's times like these that I wish Trump had a vocabulary above the fourth grade level, because if he did he could easily articulate the utter worthlessness of these institutions using merely the available facts and a half decent speech writer, and it would go a long way.
this whole investigation was clown world and any honest media apparatus would have at least discussed these things in a serious manner, because they are serious things that our intelligence community is doing and something that needs to be discussed as to whether or not it as at all appropriate, because it doesn't look like it.
But the ramifications of an intelligence service playing the part of political operatives in underhanded ways in order to influence who is sitting in office is not important to the media. Because it hurts Republicans, you see.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-fbis-counsel-told-congress-11553209575
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-25th-amendment-removal-fbi-justice-department-a8783191.html
https://www.nbcnews.com/card/comey-i-leaked-my-memos-hopes-special-prosecutor-n769821
Forever in our American Lexicon from henceforth...
The Mueller investigation was much broader than that, and it served an incredibly important purpose: removing criminals from the United States government. I said long ago (I believe all the way back in 2016) that the truly important thing was for this investigation to catch criminals, regardless of who they were.
The investigation caught multiple criminals during its tenure. Roger Stone, Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, Konstantin Kilimnik, Sam Patten, Rick Gates, George Papadopoulos, Michael Flynn, and Alex van der Zwaan, along with numerous Russian officials, were snared by this investigation. Without the Mueller probe, these people would still be committing crimes to this day, undetected. I do not think anyone would view that as a superior alternative.
@WarChiefZeke, you portray this entire investigation as if it were a media decision of some sort. This has always been a criminal investigation, and it did its job. Lots of people, including in the media, did speculate about its results, but they did so for one simple reason: the Mueller investigation was kept confidential, and it never disclosed which officials were under investigation for which alleged crimes.
Why did people suspect that Trump committed a crime? Because Trump's closest associates and top advisors kept getting convicted of felonies, all while Trump repeatedly defended these same people's innocence and attacked the FBI for doing its job.
You act as if there should be some sort of punishment for anyone in the media who suggested that Trump committed a crime, or that they should be discarded or distrusted because of it. That's not how these things work. All of us were kept in the dark, and we all made our respective predictions based on that.
You know, I've predicted the same thing you have since the day this began. But if we turn out to be right about this, I'm not going to lay judgment on people who weren't, and I'm not going to fault the people who were so strongly advocating for government scrutiny while the Trump administration struggled so desperately to thwart it.
Like Hilary’s emails?
Like Benghazi?
Like the Birther movement?
Like pizza Gate?
It’s going to come down to them not having enough evidence to convict them nothing more nothing less and I bet it had to do with Barr prematurely killing the investigation.
That isn’t the same as a conspiracy theory. Don jr did meet with Russian officials in a hotel, it’s just we can’t prove what they actually talked about or if actually lied to Congress. I will also note it is the DoJ position not to indict a sitting president, that is up to congress.
Even so, it is always better to have an investigation to prove something didn’t happen to actually stop the rumour mill from taking over the narrative.
But you are right. Trump is going to use this to attack EVERYONE and every other democratic inquiry into his conduct since becoming president and it’s going to work to get him re-elected.
I would actually be very surprised if law enforcement genuinely didn't consider the firing of Comey to be obstruction of justice. Trump admitted that the firing was done specifically to weaken the investigation.
So in one post, you hold up the report (which no one has seen) as evidence of it being nothing, and then turn around less than 30 minutes later and say that those who started the investigation can't be trusted in the first place. And Comey didn't illegally leak anything. He provided his own memos to the New York Times. Are you suggesting he didn't have a right to his own personal memos?? Or are you just repeating it because that is what Trump has been tweeting on a nearly daily basis for the last two years?? Comey provided his memos to the media because Trump was claiming (per the very article YOU cite) that he had secret recordings of him and Comey talking (which was, of course, a total lie). There was nothing illegal about what Comey provided, and no serious person has ever suggested it was.
So what, Comey was just supposed to fade away into the shadows after the President admitted in a nationally televised interview that he fired him SPECIFICALLY because he wouldn't stop the Flynn investigation and (in his version of events) lied about what took place?? And the true scandal here is that Comey gave contemporaneous memos to a news outlet?? Really?? Trump walked into an interview with Lester Holt and ADMITTED he fired Comey to stop the Russia investigation.
Incidentally, in his report he is required to name any instances in which the investigation was blocked, and there was none.
The whole reason this is a 'nothingberder' is because of the way it was portrayed in the press. They can reap what they sow as far as I'm concerned. I personally won't vote for Trump next time if the Dems nominate somebody halfway decent. So far Beto is the only one I like (that I know much about anyway). This Mueller Report debacle will definitely solidify the rest of my family in Trump's corner though. I have no chance in any argument with them now, not even with my sister who I almost had convinced about Trump...
I'm already hearing that Comey was fired because Trump 'knew' he was innocent and wanted to 'send a message' to the establishment. Yeah, the far right is going to have a field day...
It's amazing how in the last few days it seems you have unilaterally decided when we will stop talking about something in thread. When it came to the electoral college, you just declare "there is nothing more to discuss, let's drop it, I'm not interested in it anymore". Now here we have "we can keep playing this game, but I don't want to".
Why are investigators that were part of the mueller team still investigating a Russian connection with Manafort about giving campaign polling data to Russians?
Once again, that may actually turn up nothing, but it doesn’t sound like the team had finished investigating a Russian Trump team connection, so why is Mueller handing in his report now?
Isn’t that a type of question that people should be asking regardless of what’s in the report?
Exactly. 100%. Democrat politicians and their media lackeys portrayed it as collusion, and being compromised, etc. countless times. Over and over and over and over again.
Now all of a sudden we're just supposed to forget previous statements, history, context, our own memories.
We're just supposed to forget that this the way they framed it, this was the basis of the investigation, this is how the whole thing got started and the pretext for all of it. Of course Trump supporters would see it as vindication, when a claim is made consistently over the course of over 2 years as though it were gospel truth and it turns out to have zero evidence of being true.
Why isn't it a conspiracy theory again?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/here-are-18-reasons-why-trump-could-be-a-russian-asset/2019/01/13/45b1b250-174f-11e9-88fe-f9f77a3bcb6c_story.html?utm_term=.3d990602958d