I'll bet you thought I was going to, once again, write about Benghazi. Although I borrowed Hillary's quote, that is not my intention. But I am pleased that more information is coming out. I read a lot of news on line and watch a lot of TV news shows. The past few days, every new show and a large percentage of the headlines are focused on a fat, homely, arrogant old man who knows how to make money and apparently little else. His money gives him power and privilege and a young, well sort of young, girlfriend who has as much attitude as he does.
Now, my question is, is an old racist fool really that newsworthy? If he didn't own a professional basketball franchise, this would have been a trailer to the real news and forgotten two days later. When I was growing up, a few years later than our subject, casual racism was the norm. He just never learned better.
While the press is having the screaming meemies over this idiocy, the scandal that needs and deserves their attention is an "also ran". The vicious cruelty to our American military heroes brought about by the criminal mismanagement of the Bureau of Veterans Affairs should be red meat to the hounds of the press. The press should be all over them, taking names and ripping out the causes for this mess. We should be seeing reorganizations, firings, and new faces in charge. Unfortunately, the press turn into lap dogs around anything involving their beloved liberal President's minions and in this administration, no one is held responsible.
Have you heard that the Democrats are trying to change the Presidential election laws? I'll bet you haven't. They have already persuaded ten blue states to change their Electoral College laws so that the winner of the national popular vote gets all of the states electoral votes. I realize that this is out in the weeds a little bit, but it is important. You see that this would give populous states with big cities added power to select the President. It just happens that the populous states with big cities, tend to be liberal. You don't see this in the main stream media.
There are so many things that an unbiased press should be digging into. The country is in trouble and the power hungry would make it worse. I saw a headline where one columnist said we have lost our Republic and become a nation of oligarchs. That may be true. After all, a big mouthed old rich guy from California is getting more press than the Presidents failed trip to Asia.
In terms of recent presidential elections, the 11 largest states have included five "red states (Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia) and six "blue" states (California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Jersey). The fact is that the big states are just about as closely divided as the rest of the country. For example, among the four largest states, the two largest Republican states (Texas and Florida) generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Bush, while the two largest Democratic states generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Kerry.
ReplyDeleteIn 2004, among the 11 most populous states, in the seven non-battleground states, % of winning party, and margin of “wasted” popular votes, from among the total 122 Million votes cast nationally:
* Texas (62% Republican), 1,691,267
* New York (59% Democratic), 1,192,436
* Georgia (58% Republican), 544,634
* North Carolina (56% Republican), 426,778
* California (55% Democratic), 1,023,560
* Illinois (55% Democratic), 513,342
* New Jersey (53% Democratic), 211,826
To put these numbers in perspective, Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 455,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004 -- larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes). Utah (5 electoral votes) alone generated a margin of 385,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004. 8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided).
ReplyDeleteSupport for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls: AK – 70%, AR – 80%, AZ – 67%, CA – 70%, CO – 68%, CT – 74%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, FL – 78%, IA --75%, ID – 77%, KY- 80%, MA – 73%, ME – 77%, MI – 73%, MN – 75%, MO – 70%, MS – 77%, MT – 72%, NC – 74%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NM– 76%, NV – 72%, NY – 79%, OH – 70%, OK – 81%, OR – 76%, PA – 78%, RI – 74%, SC – 71%, SD – 71%, TN – 83%, UT – 70%, VA – 74%, VT – 75%, WA – 77%, WI – 71%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%.
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, Democratic, Republican, and purple states with 250 electoral votes, including one house in Arkansas, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Oklahoma, and both houses in Colorado. The 11 jurisdictions that have enacted the bill possess 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
NationalPopularVote