"the October Surprise"

[GreyGeek]

"the October Surprise"

Democrats and Republicans. Both parties are broken and need an overhaul.

That's for sure! In the 1994 race my choice was Allen Keys, and he was the front runner. The second, third and forth places decided to hold a debate in Atlanta. Keys showed up and they had him arrested. He was hauled around in a police car until the "debate" was over and the released in an industrial part of town, over a mile from a phone. That's when I quit the Rep party. These days it is hard to tell the difference between a Dem and the Rep leadership.

And ... we now have even more questions about the popular vote versus the electoral collage, abandoning the latter.

That was last seriously debated following the 1968 election, IIRC. When our form of government was created the founding fathers had a dilemma. Bigger states had more people and on a voter distribution would have more seats in Congress. Smaller, less popular states would effectively be disenfranchised. They solved that dilemma by creating the Senate, with two representatives from each state. Congress is controlled by the popular vote and the senate is equally distributed among the states.

We are in a similar dilemma today, with the people concentrated in metropolitan areas. With out the electoral college candidates would simply campaign in NYC, LA, Denver, Huston & Dallas-Fort Worth, KC, etc. They would ignore the less populous states. Nebraska, for example, had only 5 electoral votes, but they are divided across the state. Ditto for many other states. It's not perfect but IMO it shouldn't be scrapped until a more equitable system is developed.

In today's digital age it is ludicrous to not take better advantage of the Internet for debates and reporting. The major media has proven to be totally biased and untrustworthy. When 98 "reporters" meet at a dinner sponsored by Hillary's campaign to discuss strategies ...


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[MoonRise]

Democrats and Republicans. Both parties are broken and need an overhaul.

In this election, I supported Hillary (with $ and vote). But I blame her and her team for not catching the Rust Belt voters; and for not getting those 2-3 million Democrats out to vote when that is exactly what they raised $ to do. I'm not sure Trump deserved to win; but Hillary is to blame for her losing. We can only hope that by some stroke of outsider magic, he will begin to turn some of this mess around.

And ... we now have even more questions about the popular vote versus the electoral collage, abandoning the latter.

Correct....I've always have said both sides are identical except for a few ideologicals but basically the same.

I agree, she lost that race herself thought at nearly a 50/50 run for both, the margin of error played there too.

That argument has been around a very long time. For me, it would seem that the votes should be by the popular because the electorate can go against that if they so choose. So one could say what good is our vote in the first place if a chosen few can do that.

[GreyGeek]

"the October Surprise"

One of our biggest problems is that as soon as elected politicians take office they begin soliciting funds for their campaign "war chest" 24/7/365, and hardly spend anytime doing what they were elected to do. To minimize their time at Washington they stuff all of their legislation into "omnibus bills" that are thousands of pages thick and written in dense legalese with lots of references to previous legislation. To make matters worse these bills are not printed until the night before the final vote for passage, no one can read them before they vote on them. ("If you want to see what's in it you'll have to vote for it") And to make things more worse one line items are snuck in the night before that gives pork to special interests who have bribed the politicians (Did you know that you paid TWICE for Win95, once as a taxpayer to fund its writing and then when you bought it?), and to punish targeted victims.

Then there is the puss of our Republic - lobbyists. Maybe it's time to move our Congressmen and Senators back to in-state offices and let them assemble digitally. That way the locals can keep a better eye on who they are meeting with, and where.


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[Qqmike]

The answers are found here:






Spent the whole day in the badlands yesterday.

FREE perspective!

[TWPonKubuntu]

Qqmike, the perfect place to dump a large number of our "elected" officials, except it would spoil the view...

Thanks for the pictures.

[Qqmike]

Yeah, dump them out there with adequate but minimal survival supplies, for a week or two, let them get some FREE perspective. First, dump them separately: Republicans in one badland pocket, Demos in another, Then after 10 days put them together for another 4 days. This assumes that they would survive, of course, which leaves out most privileged politicians.

[GreyGeek]

Been there, seen that! Great place to visit but tough to live there. Sort of like Washington D.C.

BYW, Remember the Truman photo hold a newspaper headline about Dewy winning? Well, it happened in this election!
http://nypost.com/2016/11/08/newswee...-even-happens/

[GreyGeek]

Chris Matthews definitely does NOT have a tickle up his leg on this one. My jaw dropped to the floor when I listened to this:

[GreyGeek]

What a tangled web we weave when we practice to deceive...
(The "protests"/riots are organized by MoveOn.org, which is funneled money from Soros through David Brock)

[TWPonKubuntu]

GG That's not just a web, it is the swamp which needs draining...

What mess, no wonder so few people wade into politics these days.

[Qqmike]

I have never seen the liberals/progressives as mobilized and determined as I have since HRC lost to Trump. The far-Rights in Congress had better hang on for another hard ride. As I've said, Trump won fairly (AFAIK), and so we owe it to the country to stand with him as the Prez and root for his success. But this ain't over, this political divide. And it's complicated. Ironically, Trump can not get away with wholesale mistreatment of the lower classes and middle class without angering BIG TIME his own base! He must deliver some sort of liberal or at least moderate agenda. Any bets? Anyone bet that Trump will try to go it alone without/against Paul Ryan and his like? Fact is, perhaps Ryan is the dangerous one amongst them, as he would hope to dismantle programs like Medicare, and he has the budgeting knowledge to attempt such things. How many people receiving and depending on Soc Sec do you know who are happy with their 0% (or 0.4%) legal annual increases against their increasing costs of living? Liberals own guns, too, ya know. But I really think that Trump may surprise us all and begin to turn things around for all/most of the people. We'll see ... because some of his campaign rhetoric was downright confusing (at best).

Here's one (I'm posting it actually without reading it in detail yet, but I've read such things in opinion blogs for quite some time now and some of you have done a similar analysis in the past):

Ten True Facts Guaranteed to Short-Circuit Republican Brains

https://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/...wed-america-is

[GreyGeek]

I have never seen the liberals/progressives as mobilized and determined as I have since HRC lost to Trump.

How old are you?

You must have been too young to witness the 1965-1975 era. I was in grad school during the first part and teaching physics and math at a small midwest college during the second half. What's happening today is child's play. Back then Bill Ayers (Obama's buddy) was head of the Weathermen Underground and was planting bombs around the country. He was and is an unrepentant Marxist whose goal was to overthrow our government and replace it with a Socialist form. He never apologized, and never paid the price for his violence. His wife, Dorn, planned and planted the bomb that killed a policeman but avoided conviction for murder on a technicality. In 1968 the Chicago Eight successfully led the capture of the Democrat Party at their convention. It quickly shifted to the Left end of the political spectrum. This is demonstrated by Howard Dean's message to the Party of European Socialist (PES) just before their 2009 convention. Bill Clinton spoke at that meeting and explained how "Progressive causes in America, Europe and around the world had difficulty following the collapse of the Soviet Union". I wonder why that was?

The far-Rights in Congress had better hang on for another hard ride. As I've said, Trump won fairly (AFAIK), and so we owe it to the country to stand with him as the Prez and root for his success. But this ain't over, this political divide. And it's complicated. Ironically, Trump can not get away with wholesale mistreatment of the lower classes and middle class without angering BIG TIME his own base! He must deliver some sort of liberal or at least moderate agenda. Any bets? Anyone bet that Trump will try to go it alone without/against Paul Ryan and his like?

Conservatives appear "Far Right" because most Democrats have moved so far Left that nearly everyone on the political spectrum is to the right of them. The Left's attempt to juxtapose Conservatives with the KKK is ludicrous. The KKK was created by Democrats to sustain the Democrats political hold on the South and prevent Blacks from exercising their Constitutional rights, and Sen Byrd, a former KKK leader, was embraced by Hillary Clinton. The worst thing that happened to the Blacks was the 1968 Great Society Act. It reversed years of rising literacy, drove Black fathers out of their homes and created several generations of dependent children raised by their grandmothers. It was created, according to Johnson, to "keep them *** voting Democrat for the next 100 years" but it has also sucked in other races as well. Instead of the Great Society it became the grate society, creating lots of homelessness.

All that hype about Trump being dangerous is just blather coming from the Leftist media. You know, the ones who attended a dinner on April 9, 2015 and April 10, 2015 at Hillary's campaign manager's house, a month before she announced, to discuss who's going to be riding with Hillary on her bus, and other "reporting" tactics.

... But I really think that Trump may surprise us all and begin to turn things around for all/most of the people. We'll see ... because some of his campaign rhetoric was downright confusing (at best).

As I suspected, Trump has already begin to spin around. According to some press reports (how much can you trust them after learning that they were in the tank for Hillary and not honest at all?) he is already thinking about hanging onto some aspects of the ACA. He's crazy if he does. That hybrid beast should be killed. Either get the government entirely out of health care, except to regulate it, or establish a one-payer system with the government being the payer. Then we'll be in the same mess that Canada, England and France are in.

Illegals have been getting free health care at emergency rooms for years, something I cannot get, because it's mandated by the government, but not funded. Many hospitals have shut down their emergency rooms because of the financial drain.

Here's one (I'm posting it actually without reading it in detail yet, but I've read such things in opinion blogs for quite some time now and some of you have done a similar analysis in the past):

I'm fairly confident that all 10 of those "brain exploding" points can be busted by the same way they were created, cherry picking the sources. For example, Forbes reported that Obama's and Pilosi's 2010 proposed budget, passed by a Democrat controlled Congress, had a 22% increase in deficit spending, not the 1.4% the Kos article claims. However, with careful cherry picking, and using lies, white lies, and statistics, I can cite an article which shows Obama had a -1.4% decrease! All that digital glad-handing vaporizes when one realizes that the first Obama/Pilosi budget called for $1.35 Trillion in deficit spending!. (The graphs in that last link are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The current political strife is nothing compared to what has gone on in the past. A couple hundred years ago politicians had fights on the floor of Congress, and engaged in duels. They were passionate about their politics and so are we!

[Qqmike]

You must have been too young to witness the 1965-1975 era.

Actually I do remember those years, was also in grad school 1971-1977. I was really thinking more recent, like Internet-era.

Conservatives appear "Far Right" because most Democrats have moved so far Left

I think of Far Right as Tea Party/ Freedom Party types. "Most" Democrats? I don't think so. Most Democrats are moderate, IMO, or at least want to be moderates.

All that hype about Trump being dangerous

He could be dangerous in inciting violent riots (civil unrest) by saying things that are too "off" socially.

As I suspected, Trump has already begin to spin around.

And that is my question -- challenge. What do you want to bet that he ends up in reality as a moderate: a liberal GOP or a conservative Democrat in his actions?

Illegals have been getting free health care at emergency rooms for years, something I cannot get, because it's mandated by the government, but not funded. Many hospitals have shut down their emergency rooms because of the financial drain.

I'm peeved at this because a big percent of our property taxes go to fund a local state University hospital which delivers much of its patient services to indigents, illegals, people without health insurance, the ER being a very big issue locally. I've always maintained health insurance on myself and wife--even self-employed and paying high monthly premiums (that I really struggled at times to pay). But, as we know, no one said any of this is fair.

[GreyGeek]

Qqmike, you have to listen to this video I found a few minutes ago. I've marked it to start at nearly the beginning of an audio portion of a conversation between Trump, "Morning Joe", and his co-host. You won't believe it. Then back up the tape a minute or so before the audio and hear Joe pontificate on how he just wants the facts, etc.... (Ignore Kristo, he's just a blow hard) Pay careful attention to the audio at the 5:00 mark. You'll know what I mean.

[Qqmike]

Interesting. Maybe I've been exposed to too much of this stuff! but not quite sure what you mean about

You'll know what I mean.