Majority rules...

...but only if the majority votes.

Too many votes are decided by too small a portion of the eligible voters.

I thought of this because of the misnamed Freedom Caucus and Tea Party.

We have the freedom to govern ourselves, not to do as we please without any consideration of other people.

We have the ability to tax ourselves with representation instead of by some government we have no right to vote for.

Would it better to call the Freedom Caucus and the Tea Party anarchists? 

Immigration

Comment to “Trump cannot get its story straight…”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2018/06/18/daily-202-trump-team-cannot-get-its-story-straight-on-separating-migrant-families/5b2701f030fb046c468e6ef6/?utm_term=.4fad262b503d

Gosh, the inhabitants of this continent over a thousand years ago had a lousy immigration policy.  First they let those drunken, war-mongering Vikings in.  Then they let some murderous Spaniards in.

Pete Seeger captured this mistake with his tale of two Indians watching a little boat come ashore from a bigger boat.  A man stepped out of the little boat and said "Buenos dias, señores."  One Indian looked at the other and said, "Well, there goes the neighborhood!"

And this invasion from Europe just grew and grew until it was a flood that overwhelmed and often killed the original inhabitants.

I think these illegal aliens should go back where they came from.

Gosh!  What am I going to do?  I am a descendant of these illegal aliens.  But how can I "go back where I came from"?  I would have to be sent back in pieces.  I have known ancestors from England, Germany, and Poland, and probably as my name suggests, from Ireland.

Interestingly, many of the ancestors of these "illegal" immigrants once upon a time freely crossed the Rio Grande, moving back and forth for trade and for better weather.  Then a bunch of these Europeans decided they wanted the land north of the Rio Grande, and...

Was Hope Hicks Trump’s Jeeves?

Reading about all the tasks that Hope Hicks did for Donald Trump i couldn’t help wonder if she wasn’t Jeeves to Trump’s Bertie.

She did a lot of mundane tasks that gave him leeway to careen away, including even steaming his pants, while they were on him.

See https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/opinion/hope-hicks-resign.html, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/27/us/politics/hope-hicks-house-intelligence-committee-testimony.html,  https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/hope-hicks-refused-to-tell-house-panel-if-she-had-lied-for-senior-trump-officials-lawmakers-say/, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-communications-director-hope-hicks-to-resign among others.

The Woman Who Cost Clinton the Election

See “The Men Who Cost Clinton the Election”, Jill Filipovic, New York Times, 2017-12-01.

Jill Filipovic wrote an interesting column about the bad treatment that Hilary Clinton got from several male interviewers.  I don’t watch TV and so I don’t know the details, but I believe she is right about their bias towards Clinton and their misplaced bias in favor of Trump.

However, in many ways Clinton was her own worst enemy.  Many felt she had a sense of entitlement to the presidency.  I can think of several women who would have made better candidates: Elizabeth Warren (who supposedly decided against it), Amy Klobuchar, Kathleen Sebelius, and many others others who are already prominent in politics.

I would have gladly voted for any of them over Clinton.  However, given that her opponent was Donald Trump, I reluctantly voted for her.

Unfortunately, too many others who thought that she was not the best possible candidate stayed away and gave the election to the worst possible candidate.

Remember, the only way you throw your vote away is to stay away.

Content of character over party

Many commenters are calling for a change in or a replacement for the Democratic Party.  Isn't partisanship one of our problems?  You're either conservative or liberal, right or left.  And then there are degrees of conservative and liberal or right and left.

Maybe we should have people without labels who run for office.  Taking advice from George Washington and Martin Luther King, Jr., we should avoid factions and judge candidates on the content of their character.  We need candidates who consider the common good above special interests.  And we definitely need candidates who can change their minds with new information.

Posted at http://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/opinion/sunday/trump-resistance-radicals.html?comments#permid=24540138.

Quote of the Day: Ideas vs. Ideologies

“What unifies [a large social movement] is ideas, not ideologies.  There is a difference between the two; ideas question and liberate, while ideologies justify and dictate.” - Blessed Unrest, How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming: Paul Hawken, ©2007

Unfortunately, we seem to have politicians who have ideologies rather than ideas.  A great deliberative body cannot have ideologies.  How can one deliberate when one has fixed ideas and doesn’t want to be confused with the facts.

Wasn’t it Pete Seeger who sang about the best politicians money can buy and that we elect them again and again.  Not quite: “What did you learn in school today" has “elect them again and again” but not “money can buy”. See http://lyrics.wikia.com/wiki/Pete_Seeger:What_Did_You_Learn_In_School_Today%3F.  It was Morey Amsterdam who said, "Our Congress is the finest body of men money can buy.”  See http://likesuccess.com/topics/3033/finest.

http://www.blessedunrest.com/ hasn’t been updated since 2008.  However, see http://www.paulhawken.com for current updates about his activities.  The homepage features his latest book: Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming.  Maybe I’ll read it when I finish Blessed Unrest.

Quote of the day: Why vote?

"Hillary Clinton didn’t inspire anyone. Why the hell stand in line if it’s just to vote for more of the same?"
- Unnamed union official
"Can the Democratic Party Find New Voters?", Timothy B. Edsall, New York Times, 2017-06-15

The only reason I voted for Clinton was that she was not Trump.  I can name several female politicians I would rather have seen on the ballot.  Maybe we'll see one of them on the presidential ballot in 2020.

All's fair in love and war...and politics too!

Republicans are complaining that Democrats are making some points of Trumpcare political.  Gosh, where were they in supporting President Obama with the Affordable Care Act.  Do you remember the charges of "death panels"?  Taking away our "freedom of choice"?

Corporate efficiency?

Olive is software to put facsimiles of the newspaper print editions on line.  By clicking on an article, a reader can see a more screen friendly copy of an article.  Both the Duluth News Tribune and the Star Tribune have Olive editions.  I subscribe to both, partly to get the comics rather than the text of some of the articles.

But for years the Olive edition has had a major flaw; a flaw that still exists in the current version rolled out last year.  I don't know where they get o• writing about people like Je•rey.

The Olive edition of the 2017-04-17 Duluth News Tribune converted a USA Today article about North Korea to:

"The secretive state also showed o• a submarine-launched missile that it successfully fired last year.
"Analysts said that the weapons on display raised new questions about North Korea’s capacities going forward. Je•rey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, Calif., called the show 'a bewildering array of new missile-related hardware.'"

I did change the quote marks to match the standard for quoting material that includes quotes.

Given all the product recalls, the unfriendly skies of the airlines, and much more, I would say the only efficiency in far too many corporations is move as much revenue as possible to the CEOs and board members.  Gosh, I wish I could get $250,000 or more for showing up for six board meetings a year.  And many of these people, including the CEO's are on the boards of several companies.

“How to Stand Up to Trump and Win”

Nicholas Kristof gives several ideas about standing up to Trump in a New York Times article, 2017-04-13.  See https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/opinion/how-to-stand-up-to-trump-and-win.html.

When I forwarded the link to my wife, I added the comment "Don’t just hold a sign. Experts share how to resist and get results.”

U.S. Tax Preparation, special interests making our life miserable

I posted the following comment to “Filling taxes in japan is a breeze, why not here?”, T.R. Reid, New York Times, 2017-04-17.

When we lived in Italy and Sweden (1968-1974) we filled out four-page forms for those countries' taxes. And then we had to at least fill out a two-page form for the U.S. But we didn't have much investment income then.

I have tried tax software, but their question format takes longer than doing my own spreadsheet. I tried the Free-Filer that the IRS site links to, but it doesn't provide instant recalculations like my spreadsheet does.

Maybe I shouldn't say this because some lobbyist will get Congress to take this benefit away: the IRS does provide fillable PDF forms that you can fill out offline instead of handwriting the data.

I should have added to my comment the old adage: We have the best Congress that money can buy!

An apology to my regular readers

I’m sorry that I have not written much for the last several days.  I have been a bit overwhelmed with snow shoveling and the disturbing news that keeps coming from Washington. On the latter, I often feel like I am railing against the wind.

Then I take heart from Dylan Thomas:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day:
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

See http://www.bigeye.com/donotgo.htm for the complete poem.

Governor Walker's addiction?

The Duluth News Tribune, Saturday, January 07, 2017, had a misleading headline about an initiative of Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin.

"Walker takes action to combat addiction."

My immediate reaction was whose addiction?  His?  I didn't think so.  It was an initiative to reduce heroin and even prescription opiates.  For the third year in a row, opiate deaths have been greater than traffic deaths in Wisconsin.

Quotes of the Day, misdirected politics

 “It’s just more about getting the other people than worrying about the American people.” Christine Etima, quoted in "Immersed in the election, but unable to vote", Duluth News Tribune, 2016-11-05

"But not making a choice — sitting out the election — is to turn our fate over to others."  Ann McFeatters, Duluth News Tribune, 2016-11-06

Revolution if Clinton Wins?

“Some Donald Trump Voters Warn of Revolution if Hillary Clinton Wins”
Ashley Parker and Nick Carasaniti, New York Times, 2016-10-27
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/us/politics/donald-trump-voters.html

Those threatening "revolution" if Donald Trump loses the Presidential Election don't really know the U.S. Constitution.

As to the elections being "rigged" consider

"Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections...of its own Members..."

- U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 5

This means that the outgoing House and Senate get to judge the elections to keep themselves in office or to judge the fairness of the election of their replacements.  If the Clinton "landslide" many are predicting comes true, wouldn't many members of Congress be out of office?  Do you really think there are so many Republican members of Congress who believe the elections are "rigged" that they would nullify the election of their successors?  Given the number of congressional Republicans disavowing Trump, I seriously doubt they would nullify the election of their replacements.

As to having a "revolution" consider

"The Congress shall have the power "To provide for calling forth the Militia to ...  suppress Insurrections..."

U.S Constitution, Article I, Section 8

Whatever the result of the election, would not most members of Congress, Republican or Democrat, be repulsed by an insurrection in support of a defeated Presidential candidate?

Election rigged in Trump's favor?

If Timothy Egan's sister's preacher said that Trump's election is part of God's plan, then I would say the election is rigged in Trump's favor.

Posted to Timothy Egan's "Final Plea to Trump's America
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/opinion/campaign-stops/a-final-plea-to-trumps-america.html

Politics as game show

Maybe our problem is that the "debates" are not real debates like Lincoln-Douglas but game shows. And Trump understands this, but serious politicians don't.

My comment to Frank Bruni's "Trump's Ideology of Applause".

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/opinion/sunday/donald-trumps-ideology-of-applause.html?comments&_r=0#permid=19756890

EU Vote and markets: false linkage

Phil Anderson wrote an interesting article in the Duluth Reader about the linkage between the Brexit vote and the reactions of stock markets.  See
http://duluthreader.com/articles/2016/07/06/7525_speculating_on_the_eu_vote.

I’ve often wondered how the stock markets could turn on a dime based on some event or another.  It seems more that commentators need to justify their salaries rather than provide insight for investors.  Oops!  That should be traders!  Anderson describes investors those who are in for the long haul.  Traders now will sell stocks within seconds of buying them.

I remember crossing the old Broadway bridge over the Mississippi River in the late ‘70s when the market news was a new high on the New York Stock Exchange of 54 million shares.  Today, 2016-07-13, the NYSE volume was 836,762,854 shares; a week ago it was 1,050,701,150 (Wall St. Journal, http://www.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3021-tradingdiary2.html).  That’s about 20 times what it was over 30 years ago.  Probably the big difference is online trading, then you had to call your broker who then placed the order on a teletype.

Still, I agree with Phil Anderson, how can so many people be in lockstep because of certain events?

Republicans are undemocratic?

Republicans claim to believe in democracy, but they seem to be doing everything possible to limit democracy to only those who have their views.

They want voter restrictions or oppose making it easier to vote because there will be more Democrats voters.

If they restrict voting because more people might vote against them, are not the Republicans opposed to democracy?

Why you should always vote!

I would rather see a 90% turnout with 60% voting for someone I didn't like than a 60 % turnout with 60% voting for someone I liked.

Think about it!  In the first case 54% of the eligible voters elected the winner.  This is democracy.  A government by "the people".

In the second case 36% of the eligible voters elected the winner.  This is oligarchy, government of the few.

Always vote!  You may not like your choice, but if you don't vote for "the lesser of two evils" you may get "the greater of two evils".

Also never ever believe polls.  Did they ask you who you would vote for?  Chances are better than 90% that they did not even call you.

Never respond to polls.  If you don't respond you increase the uncertainty of polls.  By increasing the uncertainty you will decrease the uncertainty of people who might not vote because their candidate was "down" in the polls.

Polls have another bad effect on democracy.  Candidates may change their messages to align with the polls.  If candidates ignored polls, they would work harder to convince you of their solutions.  if candidates adjusted their messages to match the polls, they might give you solutions which they have no intention of implementing.

Finally, my favorite mantra that I have yet to see elsewhere:

Always vote!
The only way you throw you vote away
Is to stay away!