For those of us that enjoy the American spectacle every leap year and the fulfilment and joy that comes with it. Who's in, who's out? Who'll win and who'll claim it's all rigged? Who'll have the best party and who the longest hangover?
Awesomespectacle.
Awesomejoy.
Awesomehangover.
Whatever.
For those of us that enjoy the American spectacle...
???
Trump 2020?
Where's the vomit bag?
My bag was full of that "awesome" rubbishing word.
But there was that TV commercial where a girl calls (a call-center…) and realizes she's talking to her sister, likely continents away!
"The only one I know who says that is… Julie?"
The reasons for out-sourcing call-centers is obvious: Remnants of the British Empire, still trying to recover from their exploitation, using the only tools they gained.
What tools, you ask? Passably coherent English (…no RJ's need apply!) and the willingness to work for less money than anyone else.
The reasons for out-sourcing call-centers is obvious: Remnants of the British Empire, still trying to recover from their exploitation, using the only tools they gained.
What tools, you ask? Passably coherent English (…no RJ's need apply!) and the willingness to work for less money than anyone else.
Swedish companies outsource their call-centers to places like Moldova. It obviously cannot work, and doesn't, but they do it anyway, for reasons only known to themselves. It works pretty bad even when Finnish companies outsource call-centers to Estonia (related languages and close-by locations, but still).
Swedish companies outsource their call-centers to places like Moldova. It obviously cannot work, and doesn't, but they do it anyway, for reasons only known to themselves. It works pretty bad even when Finnish companies outsource call-centers to Estonia (related languages and close-by locations, but still).
Dutch and Flemish companies sometimes outsource that stuff to South Africa. The fun thing about Afrikaans is that you think it sounds like Dutch but you often have no idea what they're saying. It's a very disorienting feeling. Vice versa it's even worse I'm told, because Afrikaans has the simpler grammar that contact languages often have.
I'm learning much… But I'm too old; I suspect I won't learn enough…
"I'm learning much... But I'm too old; I suspect I won't learn enough..."
A lifelong problem, I suspect.
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.clipartkid.com%2Fimages%2F0%2Fkid-smile-clipart-clipart-panda-free-clipart-images-V8mo4w-clipart.jpg&hash=8aae34a3868fdbb44c0d2d22432cd872" rel="cached" data-hash="8aae34a3868fdbb44c0d2d22432cd872" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://www.clipartkid.com/images/0/kid-smile-clipart-clipart-panda-free-clipart-images-V8mo4w-clipart.jpg)
Yup, Jaybro… But I still try. :)
Swedish companies outsource their call-centers to places like Moldova. It obviously cannot work, and doesn't, but they do it anyway, for reasons only known to themselves. It works pretty bad even when Finnish companies outsource call-centers to Estonia (related languages and close-by locations, but still).
The spectacular story of outsourcing this week comes from Norway, from Statoil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statoil), the Norwegian oil&gas company. They have outsourced their IT to India, and according to internal reports not very successfully, including a particular incident in 2014:
IT error in India causes shutdown of production at Statoil refinery … in Norway (https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/north-sea/122918/error-india-causes-shutdown-production-statoil-refinery-norway/)According to Norwegian media, evidence has been uncovered which shows 29 incidents where Indian IT workers have broken down barriers to platform.
Amongst some of the incidents, an IT worker is said to have stopped production at the Mongstad refinery in 2014 because of a typing error.
NRK provided more details, Tastefeilen som stoppet Statoil (https://www.nrk.no/norge/xl/tastefeilen-som-stoppet-statoil-1.13174013)
An IT employee of the big Indian company HCL would perform maintenance on a server in Norway. The customer was Statoil. Maintenance work had been delayed. In the eagerness to finish the job, the IT consultant accidentally hit the wrong key on the PC. The typing error led him into the wrong server. A server he should not have had access to.
He was behind the firewall in the computer system to the country's largest refinery Mongstad.
The server was marked and it was evident that it led him into a production facility at Statoil. The Indian still did not realise where he had entered. To solve the problem he would restart his PC.
The computer system warned the Indian IT consultant against proceeding. He ignored the warning.
The Indian IT worker soon realised that he had made a mistake when he started up the PC and went into the server. He panicked and asked colleagues in India for help. In a short time there were 22 unauthorised logins in Statoil's computer system from India to restart the server.
They failed. Production stopped. [...]
Statoil had luck on their side this May day at Mongstad. Experienced staff were in place and acted quickly. When the computerised production collapsed, the Norwegian employees took control manually. After a few hours of interruption the production and loading could start again just after nine o'clock the same morning.
Then only a small part of the fuel mixture had spilled into the sea. The pollution was limited. Statoil were in danger of losing 30-40 million on the event, but the loss was limited to less than one million.
Loose change for Statoil, but the incident showed something far more serious: Statoil had no control of who had access to all facilities.
The account is garbled, with roles given to ignorant Indians and heroic Norwegians (who evidently resented the outsource). However clearly at some point the traditional "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" line of problem solving was tried, and #fail ensued.
The issue isn't really the Indians, but that the Statoil managers weren't in control of their business processes. Outsourcing is fine in principle, you do what you are best at, they do what they are best at, you don't necessarily need an inhouse wheel inventor staff. The access and security problems are just symptoms that the process was not properly thought out, and not properly refactored into things we do, things they do, and how they should interact.
Outsourcing is fine in principle, you do what you are best at, they do what they are best at, you don't necessarily need an inhouse wheel inventor staff.
Yes, they do what they are best at, except that they are supposed to be doing it *for you.* So, yes, they are inhouse in that sense. If you think that's unnecessary, you are not really thinking properly.
Yes, and I do agree with your original post. Corporate bosses, in Scandinavia as well, have an unfortunate tendency to be suboptimals, staffed with a stream of Vice Presidents of Maximising My Stock Options.
Cutting costs is generally sensible, including for support staff. If you get more better in Bangladesh, so be it. But make them work for you, and report to you. Don't consider them to be a cost to be externalised, more than you are yourself. If fact, you'd be better off in integrating them into the organisation, to learn from actual experience, preferably with a VP of Why Our Customers Have Problems With What We're Doing.
I see outsourcing as nothing but another business holy graal. Did reengineering already finished?
If the western world wants better business processes, give the children a better school, instead the idiot factory that school is today.
Focus on the people, then processes will improve. Outsourcing is a particularly bad solution.
But it's so much easier to just kick the problems down the road & out of sight instead of actually dealing with them!
I think the phrase is "kick the can down the road," Mac… That would be a tin can. If dealing with actual problems is the task of governments, why do you keep looking for others? (Other governments…) Where do you live now, and why?
(And where don't you live now, and why? :) )
Apparently, you want the U.S. to adopt the policies that made you flee two countries already… Why?
Perhaps you're a "YYY" individual! Well, welcome back, Carrot!
Thanks for blocking my messages before I'd made any, BTW. You apparently take me much more seriously than I do… Why do I take you seriously? Well, once upon a time we'd talk.
I take it, you don't do that anymore.
Yup, Jaybro... But I still try.
When you stop trying you're dieing.
Somebody somewhere said that, as the votes are being counted now, Trump is leading by 7 votes. Go America! :lol:
Anything less than 10,000 votes in a locality is questionable! That's one of the advantages of our electoral college system: Imagine a re-count in a nation of 160,000,000 voters… :)
Imagine a re-count in a nation of 160,000,000 voters… :)
160,000,000 voters? That's a quite optimistic number.
From 218,959,000 Americans eligible to vote, only 146,311,000 are registered.
126,144,000 Americans did vote in the 2012 Presidential election. It looks like participation will be lower this year than it was 2012.
source (http://www.statisticbrain.com/voting-statistics/)
Can't wait for "The Awesomesauce of the 2017 German and French Election(s) " thread!
Can't wait for "The Awesomesauce of the 2017 German and French Election(s) " thread!
Yes. Who will win, Germany or France? Place your bets.
Well, there's some history… :)
160,000,000 voters? That's a quite optimistic number.
A quibble,
krake: It was a ballpark figure; and given the level of awareness of most voters it was a
pessimistic number! :)
Who will win, Germany or France?
Not too much different from the lousy American elections. A contest between the worst ones.
Does Portugal even do elections anymore? :)
Well, now the games begin in earnest.
Nah. I have no interest in affecting Portugal's government. In fact, the governance of the U.S. is my sole political concern…
Well, your favourite, Cruz, lost his shot at the presidency.
They got what they deserved. I think it's safe to say that the era of double terms is over.
Ah, wait, but we still have to see if Trump accepts the election result :D
Well, your favourite, Cruz, lost his shot at the presidency.
This election… In 2020, things may be different. (He's a young man, still.) And four years of a Trump presidency might make people think twice… :)
I think it's safe to say that the era of double terms is over.
That depends upon Trump being another Carter or Johnson — doesn't it? :)
Yes, I expect him to be…
Trump is more likely to become the death of the Republican party than of the country, but he may grievously wound both.
Like I said before, the US system was designed to stop people like Trump, but it has never truly been tested before. I think the system will win, but I am not yet sure.
@rjhowie,
@Belfrager,
@krake may snap at the country, but it is from the safety of knowing it's there. Though if we had to, we'd probably survive the Post-American era.
I don't care that much about France, it's France after all, but Le Pen is unlikely to win. Not in a Trump "better not" sense, but in a purely probabilistic sense, she really doesn't have the numbers. But even with a different one we can already say that a year from now the US and France both will have a dimwit for president.
Putin is past his "best before" date, as is
Iznogood Erdoğan. Modi and Xi will probably both eventually end up in the "deplorable" basket, their authoritanism can lead to some intermediate good.
A little diversion from the election aftermath. The pundits got it wrong; now they're telling us why they got it wrong. There should be an open hunting season on pundits.
Which brings me to this:
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua7Bnpvw14k[/video]
Much appreciated, Jaybro! (The term is "comic relief," isn't it?)
I still have to deal with young children… That the internet allows me to teach them via the gentle and genuine humor of The Great Dane is a marvelous boon.
That so many others remember him helps me accept the possibility that we'll survive, and maybe even get along!
Long List of Top Democrats Have 2020, and Money, on Their Minds (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/02/us/politics/democrats-president-2020.html)
In interviews, more than three dozen leading Democratic donors, fund-raisers and operatives agreed that it was the earliest start they had ever seen to the jockeying that typically precedes the official kickoff to the campaign for the party’s presidential nomination. It is a reflection of the deep antipathy toward President Trump among Democrats, and the widespread belief that the right candidate could defeat him, but also of the likelihood that the contest for the nomination could be the longest, most crowded and most expensive in history.
“They used to start coming to talk to you two years before the election. Now, it’s six months after the last presidential election,” said the Wall Street billionaire Marc Lasry, a major political donor who has met recently with several Democrats mentioned as prospective presidential candidates.
We haven't recovered from the last election :faint:
Ah, Mr T, what a very appropriate distraction!
It's only 967 days left until election day, so
Trump to "keep America great" in 2020 (http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-03/12/c_137033401.htm)
Trump has showed strong interest in his next presidential term, announcing his bid by naming his former campaign advisor Brad Parscale as his new campaign manager in late February, earlier than any former president.
The previous record was held by Barack Obama (http://search.news.cn/language/search.jspa?id=en&t=1&t1=0&ss=&ct=&n1=Barack+Obama), who made his second campaign announcement 582 days before the general election date. Trump broke the news 980 days before election day, U.S. media reported.
Trump is reportedly in good standing financially for his campaign, compared with his would-be competitors.
Doesn't matter who is in the White House the massive poverty numbers in the country the jail records regular school massacres, violent police and the world corporate imperialism will continue. Wish our television news dealt much less with the nutjob corner. Might as well put another damn star on their flag!
What's the other star for?
There is a thing jax about this thread I overlooked and forgot to mention and tht is it's title.
Yanks are forever using the word "awesome" to describe even ordinary things and it is influencing elsewhere and even a couple of tv adverts here in GB. Even in my hobby of railway simulator building we get a regular thing where a routine route built is awesome an makes me groan.
We can rest assured you would never overlook something of such an importance.
My bag was full of that "awesome" rubbishing word.
My point is that it is now becoming a silly direction. It is basically another example of American stuff being brained into people. We also get expressions here like 'law enforcement' then that bright spark Tony Blair copied the US by dispensing with the Lords court thing and we got a 'Supreme Court.' Using 'awesome as a standard expression is simple, and over does even minor things which get the label so you are as guilty as other people who have their grey ells interfered with. Smal wonder the ex-colonies have a mass grey cells problem. :faint:
There's a special category for language peeving here: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=62 :P
Nah. To me it shows how easy it is for nutjobland to influence outside of politics and world military controls.
What "politics" and what "world military controls" would you be referring to, RJ? :) —That's one of the problems with not speaking English on this forum: It's quite difficult to get your point across… :)
Imagine a Yank thinking their corner is good at English! :lol:
In this thread there is not a reasonable electoral system and in hard terms only two parties get anywhere and both linked to corporates and full of the jingostic stuff that they want to control the world in militarism and corporate controls. Internally tens of millions who suffer and the place is a nationalist crazy land. Don't have a problem with taking a national flag into a respect status but the damn thing is everywhere over there except the toilet. Over the top stuff as usual. Nice to see you have woken up Oaky! :no:
Incoherency is not really an excuse, RJ. But since it's the only one you have — stick with it! :)
Unable to answer charges and fall back on slagging. Insulting your own brain but fair enough seems easy.......
Doesn't matter who is in the White House the massive poverty numbers in the country the jail records regular school massacres, violent police and the world corporate imperialism will continue. Wish our television news dealt much less with the nutjob corner. Might as well put another damn star on their flag!
Rjhowie's got a point, depressing as it is.
But maybe things they are a-changin...
What's the other star for?
No idea. Maybe Puerto Rico?
I honestly wish they would change Macallan. Having visited the place twice years ago. I met a couple from Philadelphia when I was returning from a day rail trip to DC. Moved a bit so the husband could sit with his wife in the waiting room and they appreciated that. So we got into a great chat and before they got off at Philly said if I was ever there again to contact them. Two years later I was back based in NYC and phoned them and went down staying with them for 2 nights. Both enjoyed each other's company and they were full of questions .Both were retired professionals although I did nearly scratch my head when asked if there was coloured tv in Scotland (honestly!). Also wondered if i knew what French Toast was for breakfast. They dug out a book of Robert Burns poems and asked me to repeat a couple due to the Scots accent into a tape recorder. On my trip down to them I got into chats with people travelling to Florida on the same train and ended up teaching kids Scots songs. Getting off at Philadelphia meant I had to weave off a crowd at the windows!
So I am aware of the decents and sensibles in the ex-colonies and there is one from the early days of the forum when on the Opera corner where we both keep in touch from both sides of the pond. It is just so damn sad that although there are plenty of decent and intelligent folk over in the USA they are tragically saddled with a very unfortunate system and that includes the political system which I still say is flawed, controlled and lacking. Two parties are the thing and if outside of them no chance. Sad really.
Two parties are the thing and if outside of them no chance. Sad really.
Yes. I recall when the Republican Party had no chance… :) How'd that work out?
I honestly wish they would change Macallan.
I think I owe you some context.
I grew up ( for small values of 'grew up' ) in eastern Germany. When the wall came down I was 15. After finishing school I ended up in West Berlin. Then, after some university and such, thanks to shenanigans at the old Opera Forum, I ended up in Florida, and then Tennessee. I've been living in the US for 14 years now, married to a fellow former Opera Forum user.
I had no idea how fucked up and downright ridiculous things are around here. A lot of what I thought of as eastern bloc propaganda Way Back When actually turned out to be true, at least since the 1980s, and especially since 2017.
That said, a lot of younger Americans just about had it with the old crap. And hopefully they will vote.
AfD country in other words, with Berlin/Brandenburg and some other exceptions.
How is Mynx doing, long time no post?
Yes. I recall when the Republican Party had no chance...
I am pretty sure nobody said "no chance", by the way the election system goes they had and have a pretty good chance, also in 2020. What I did say, and would be happy to repeat, is that if Trump were elected there is a good chance that would destroy the Republican party. Were that to happen I would say good riddance, they are clearly putting partisan interest over anything else (which may be the case with the Democratic party as well, but we are not yet in the position to know).
The Republican party has tied themselves to the mast of the Trump ship, and will go down with it. This mix of fear, hate, lies and blinding stupidity is not serving America well, and the reaction is likely to be harsh, but probably not that well thought out.
Well Macallan , I do hope to be frank that younger Americans do try and get by the two-party control freakery and much else that is not positive or good for the future.
That they inherited from the British. The American separatists, after winning the war of independence, revolutionised about everything else, but kept the British election system. Furthermore, the reforms they added exacerbated the weaknesses of the British system. The system very strongly favours two parties, and those parties in power will have strong advantages in the system remaining just as it is. Even if the Republican party collapses the Democrats won't change the system, and neither would whatever successor party to the Republicans that would emerge.
To see how hard this system is to change, look to Britain. When the once-in-a-blue-moon event of a hung parliament happened, forcing a coalition with a third party, and the third party set an electoral reform referendum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote_referendum,_2011) as a requirement, still this baby step reform failed badly.
Oh for goodness sake what a load of codswallop saying that they inherited our system. It was corporates who created the revolution and cobbled a system to ensure it stayed the way they wanted. The new "democracy" was well controlled and two-faced. The founders included slave owners like the people I have mentioned here before so you are not being balanced at all but warping history to pat your intelligence on the head. It is not accurate it is guff.
"It was who created the revolution and cobbled a system to ensure it stayed the way they wanted."
You might briefly explain that statement.
Oh concisely, it was the upper money class that organised the Revolution and as principled as little (!). They even included slave owners and the basis for the future corporate control of the country. So a bit of unfair continuiyt there dear man.
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Strangely appropriate spam for this topic.
Strangely appropriate spam for this topic.
Indeed.
Anyway I doubt that the next elections will bring any better results. Probably Trump again, if not, something even worst.
America has initiated a divergent course from Europe and there's no way they will ever return back.
Like lemmings, they run into their own catastrophe.
And finally the race for 2020 is fully on. From now on it will be all election all the time, and now we can dispense with all this civility nonsense. This is going to be deep and dirty.
Yea it is.
To think of it, just two years from now we may have President-Elect Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Hillary is by now an emotional and physical wreck, ripe for retirement. She would survive another campaign only if she got the right drugs at the right time, a lot of them, even though I guess there is an overdose threshold for her too. She needs constant attention by handlers. She is unpresentable as a president of any country, in a different way than Trump, but not in a better way.
Hillary is by now an emotional and physical wreck, ripe for retirement. She would survive another campaign only if she got the right drugs at the right time, a lot of them, even though I guess there is an overdose threshold for her too. She needs constant attention by handlers.
Enough for the the Land of Freedom.
Very strange things are happening in such Land but no ones speaks about it. Except here and a few places more.
Anyway, Europeans have to pay attention to USA, Russia and China. The three at the same time.
WA Supreme Court Upholds Fine Against Presidential Electors Who Failed To Cast Vote In Accordance With Popular VoteIn this latest episode of electioneering in American politics, [three presidential electors in Washington State] took it upon themselves to decide who they believed deserved election and not support that of the common voter. In this case, three electors reportedly perceived that then Candidate Donald Trump would win the election and to at least in a hail Mary type of stunt forestall this by casting their vote for Colin Powell instead of Hillary Clinton who won the state's popular vote.
[...]
Strangely, the penalty afforded was only civil in nature and in a comparatively weak fine....
Here a third of the electors (four of twelve) delegated to Washington abandoned their duty to elect the Clinton ticket. Had instead all twelve voted for the Powell ticket they would have effectively disenfranchised the entirety of the Washington electorate and collectively suffered in total twelve thousand dollars.
Yes, the fine is small compared to the blatant act of spitting at ordinary voters' decision, but why institute a political office where the function is to simply reaffirm what the voters already decided? Since the voters already decided it, it should move on to implementation. The fine is ludicrously small and weak, but the whole presidential electors thingie, as instituted in Washington State, is completely unnecessary.
Background Facts:
... The people of the state do not vote for presidential electors. Rather, they vote for presidential candidates. The nominees of the party that wins the popular vote are appointed by the legislature to be Washington State’s presidential electors....
... Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine won the popular vote in Washington State....
... Appellants did not vote for Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine, as required by their pledge, but instead voted for Colin Powell for president and a different individual for vice-president....
That dated idea needs replaced.
It is an additional ambiguity. How independent are the electors? If the choice is "not at all", why have them?
This is a constitutional crisis waiting to happen. If once presidential candidate wins the most electors, but sufficient electors switch side so that another candidate wins, what happens next?
Abolishing them before that happens would be the sounder choice.
This is a constitutional crisis waiting to happen. If once presidential candidate wins the most electors, but sufficient electors switch side so that another candidate wins, what happens next?
From what I understand to allow for exactly that scenario is basically the entire purpose of the electoral college.
It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.
It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.
Yes, there are two interpretations: The electors as a safety valve and the electors as an obsolete elaboration. As long as there are many of one and many of the other, a LOT of people are going to be really, really, really unhappy and angry if this situation occurred. This situation would be worse than Trump, and harder to manage.
Complicating the picture state legislations have their own rules for their electors. It could be Republicans vs Democrats, states vs federation, courts against Congress.
The electors as a safety valve
Its common use for that today is a retcon. That it's meant to muddle up some sort of totalitarian power grab seems counter-intuitive. Laws requiring electors to follow popular votes are meant to ease peoples minds about that being used for the exact opposite result. Tho, the stipulation still predated the necessary analytics that make manipulation of voting districts so rampant nowadays.
In its purest form it's meant to keep the election process from breaking down. When hijacking a wagon carrying the vote or , more likely, an Indian raid could inadvertently prevent a tally in D.C. the electors could still act on behalf of, and in accordance with, their understanding of their regions likely outcome. So they'd not even have a vote to reference in cases where constitutional necessity was applied. Other than that following the popular vote was the expected and an understood responsibility.
Add 200yrs of band-aids to the understanding of it and look at the mess we have now. Removing it never seemed the be a solution tho. (smh)
Political history is a sequence of retcons, but US political history is particularly creative. I think it is because of the need to combine two things:
- Invoke the wisdom of the founding fathers
- Account for that today's political system and realities are very different to 200 years ago
The role of the president is very different from expected, and the early electoral colleges were appointed. The differences are larger than the similarities. But "the electoral college was designed so as to handle whatever issue people care about in [year]". The electoral college was not about small vs large state, or state vs federation, though those were important issues of the day, and still matters.
Could be instructive to compare with the EU, a far looser organisation where the member countries call the shots. In our case we have no founding fathers to worry about, we are clearly making this up as we go along. Similar issues though, except that nobody cares very much who are going to become presidents of the EU, up for (s)election now. In a way the EU presidents are closer to the original intent than the US president is.
The role of the president is very different from expected
Indeed, the role wasn't as critical upon its written conception as it became in practice, being directly influenced by the founding fathers sitting in the position. Several were irked by the pointlessness of it all. Without running too far into and IIRC; it wan't until Madison watched the White House burn that the office really started to shape up to be more recognizable for what it is today.
In another thread I mentioned the Dems focusing on legislative seats, mostly the Senate. For my purpose that's to reel in some powers that have only been scratched at since Bush II. Trump is the perfect one to help that too.
The role of the president is very different from expected
Indeed, the role wasn't as critical upon its written conception as it became in practice...
The role was comparable to kings elsewhere, so surely they would have been aware how critical it is. They wanted a king of their own, only term-limited and elective. In fact, in medieval Europe many kings and princes were elective (by aristocrats and oligarchs) and sometimes also term-limited, such as in Poland, in the Balkan countries, in several German and Russian states. If the founding fathers were who they are cracked up to be, they knew about these historical precedents - and likely they knew, because they were emulating these precedents.
Compared to modern democracies, the president of the USA combines the roles of the president and the prime minister. This is quite critical.
See most specifically the historical office of stadtholder (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadtholder), directly referenced by some of the American Founding Fathers as a blueprint for the US President. Note that for the Dutch Republic the stadtholder was initially mostly an ersatz king born from a then perceived necessity. With limited power compared to some kings, of course, but that was well-precedented in the Low Countries and abroad. The fact that the Spanish king didn't agree with said historical precedents was the root of the problem.
The role was comparable to kings elsewhere, so surely they would have been aware how critical it is.
Well yes and no. The position didn't exist under the first constitution ( The Articles of Confederation ). A lot of the "Republic" ideas from that carried over. The power was meant to be retained by a legislative body. Washington is credited with setting precedence but moreover he didn't push any boundaries. He wanted to be, or at least was, the Anti-King. Adams and Jefferson had different opinions. Adams being more of a realist and Jefferson was always too idealistic. If memory serves both resented the office which was there for little more than a mediator. Veto power was looked at much like the electoral college, as insurance. Madison found out how valuable the title "Commander and Chief" was. A commander of nothing and chief of congress' will[ingness to do nothing].
The Electoral College is a source of stability and proper representation. It gives those in the smaller states, especially in the heartland, a say in their own destiny, and with it a sense of citizenry. They are active participants, and at times great influencers, in the nation's decisions, and not just the flotsam and jetsam floating wherever the irresistible tides as dictated by California, New York, Florida, or Texas propels them. After all, if the mechanics of the nation in which you live is to simply cater like rural serfs to several urban pockets of that country far removed from your own parochial interests and beliefs, and if you know that you will never have a voice, then why stay in this nation at all? Those pushing for majority rule at the expense of the very foundations of an electoral system that has served us as well as any can when applied to so large and diverse a country as ours are unwittingly sowing the seeds of disunion. If any of them had been taught anything about our history besides slavery, Indian genocide, and Viet Nam, they would understand the fire they are playing with. The last time secession was tried it didn't go so well.
Electoral College versus not has nothing to do with secession. It has to do with principle: Are people voting for the president or not? According to the US Constitution, the answer is no, absolutely not. Instead, the Electoral College votes the president in. Also according to the US Constitution, the electors are *appointed*, not voted by the people.
For the electors to truly vote, their conscience should be free and not bound by the popular vote. (And the electors should not be threatened with fines for not voting as per popular vote (https://jonathanturley.org/2019/06/01/wa-supreme-court-upholds-fine-against-presidential-electors-who-failed-to-cast-vote-in-accordance-with-popular-vote/).) According to the US Constitution, the people should not be able to vote at all. The people should be de-indoctrinated from their current misconception that the people are voting for the president either directly or indirectly. This is how it should be according to the US Constitution.
Or else amend the constitution to abolish the Electoral College.
........Or else amend the constitution to abolish the Electoral College.
I wouldn't hold my breath about that happening.
Amendments have been offered over 11,000 times since the late 1700's, & of those only 33 have ever been successfully approved by Congress (Super Majority affirmative votes of both the House & Senate), much less sent to the States for Ratification by the People....by 3/4's of the States (38 of the 50 States).
Outside of the Bill of Rights (the first 10 Amendments) only 17 Amendments were successfully ratified by the States.
Only One (1) Amendment to the US Constitution has ever been repealed.......The 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment, which was a prohibition on booze.
The last Amendment, the 27th Amendment, made it through the process successfully back in 1992.
Being that the First 10 Amendments are the protected Rights of the American People, it has been suggested by SCOTUS that they may not be repealed, or possibly even amended, but nothing is impossible as long as an amendment process exists.
So, if there is any chance that an amendment might make it through the process & become Law of the Land, I would have to think it would have to be either extremely important, extremely popular, or a mixture of both.
Abolishing the Electoral College, IMHO, would probably fall far short of having enough support to pass the rigorous test....
My point was not to suggest improvements, but to point out the deficiencies. US people operate under the delusion that they are electing their president, thus making evident their lack of knowledge of their own constitution. The politicians and politologists (such as the one quoted) work to perpetuate the ignorance of the people. This situation is irreparable.
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.smileyfaze.tk%2Fslides%2Fimthinkin6.gif&hash=d3b8ba470c323200435f56f3eb67c896" rel="cached" data-hash="d3b8ba470c323200435f56f3eb67c896" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://www.smileyfaze.tk/slides/imthinkin6.gif)
My point was not to suggest improvements, but to point out the deficiencies. US people operate under the delusion that they are electing their president, thus making evident their lack of knowledge of their own constitution. The politicians and politologists (such as the one quoted) work to perpetuate the ignorance of the people. This situation is irreparable.
True, & they, along with most of the western world are under the delusion that America was founded as a democracy.
Far from it.
The American Founding Fathers despised the thought of instituting a democracy. They set out to create a Republic....A Constitutional Republic, based loosely on a few democratic principals true, but a Republic controlled by the US Constitution, written by the People, with the People as the sole source of all power to govern, which is granted through the consent of the governed.
"I believe Everyone in the world should be able to vote for the US president, because it has an impact on all of us"
Pamela Anderson!
https://twitter.com/pamfoundation/status/1170010553462513667
I suppose that's as shallow as I'd expect. While we're ankle deep in thought; Wow, she's still alive!?
She is still an item with Julian Assange, a Non-American that has had greater influence on US elections than most Americans, so that should be all good. He couldn't hold a candle to the influence-peddling of another Australian, Rupert Murdoch, but he is an American now. The US is the biggest democracy money can buy. Bloomberg/Zuckerberg should be the dream ticket.
The 2024 pre-election has recently started.
I was very pleased with Bernie Sanders win in New Hampshire. The DNC is making the same mistakes the RNC did with Herr Trumpenfuehrer, and Bernie being the nominee looms ever closer. Only potential challenge I see is that rotten bourgeoisie, Bloomberg with his billions to waste.
There is nothing awesome about US Presidential Elections and unfortunately they border on farce.
The speaker comes on and yaks away not very detailed in much and a crowd of the brained in rows behind he/she waving cards like a bunch of children. Both the Democrat and Republic big events are in the same mode. Does not look very mature nor adult. Both those two parties are in their own ways big money involved and any other party has not got a chance of being noted. I do feel sorry for intelligent Americans and they also have to through the immature looking conferences as they are stuck with.
Some schmucks commenting on Sanders vs. Biden debate before it even started, "Sanders already lost - he is wearing a blue shirt."
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhHe0xzZMfI[/video]
Folk over in America are basically stuck or controlled really by two corporate controlled parties and not much routine practical democracy.
This week (or month) we'll see if the man responsible for more US deaths than all the wars since World War 2 and 11 September combine is going to be re-elected by the same Americans, or not.
Americans do not elect their president. Americans are under collective delusion that they are electing their president. This was very clearly manifest in the previous elections.
There are in hard statistics over 40,000,000 poorer Yanks to him it makes sod all who is in the White House. Did Obama reduce that? Nope. So does not matter a jot what is supposed to be wonderful assessment the serious deficiencies continue under the two lots and if not a Democrat or Republican you might as well emigrate as principle just a word.
the man responsible for more US deaths than all the wars since World War 2 and 11 September combine[d]
You don't often "go off the deep end,"
jax: To what do you refer?
Very difficult choice today for our American friends.
Specially if we consider that besides having two decide between two intellectual nullities to command their national destiny they are also asked to have an huge responsibility in world policy without any candidate able to perform at such level.
Yes would sympathise with that assertion regarding both Trump and Biden and the whole mess rubbishes the pompous ideas that Yanks have of being the greatest democracy.
The candidates are so awful that the race is pretty close. Trump hasn't prematurely declared victory yet https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/
This has to stop.
We can't do another election like this. I don't mean the outcome — I don't anticipate being happy about that, either, but as I write this on Tuesday, it's still unknown. Nor do I mean the election process proper — proposals like moving to a national popular vote (which would require a constitutional amendment) or changes to voting method (which would take state-by-state legislation).
I mean what we commonly call "the election," which is more precisely the presidential campaign season, an utter fiasco that consumes half our public attention half the time and makes our country meaner, stupider, and more frightening. The way we are "helped" to choose our presidents is not conducive to choosing well, nor does it advance us in the necessary task of living with each other after the choice is made.
We can't do another election like this.
So says Bonnie Kristian, a pontificator at large... Her qualification(s): Master of Arts in Christian Thought 2016 (Bethel Seminary, summa cum laude; thesis: “A Political Theology of the Atonement”) and Bachelor of Science in Political Science 2009 (Bridgewater College of Virginia, summa cum laude). I'm impressed by her gall!
And yours,
ersi: Choosing sources according to their propensity to agree with you (...in this case only? :) ) seems like something you'd reject as more appropriate to the Twitter-verse and Facebook blogs...
I'm also still amazed at how many people argue from the "If I were King…" standpoint!
You don't often "go off the deep end," jax: To what do you refer?
That's not going off any deep end, though I did make a slight miscalculation (Vietnam doesn't count, does it?). On revised counting the total US post-war war deaths are about 103k, plus another 3k in 2001. The number of Covid-19 deaths today is around 231k. So that would have to make Donald Trump responsible for about 50% of the US deaths, which is higher than I would be comfortable with. But the year is still young. (Not so much the Covid fatalities. Unlike the soldiers, likely in their twenties, they have a median age in the seventies)
The death toll Trump is personally and directly responsible for is significantly smaller. This study (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3722299) "conclude that the rallies likely led to more than 700 deaths (not necessarily among attendees)."
So how many lives were cost due to the administration's mismanagement and misinformation, compared to a typical administration and an ideal administration? Many factors are not up to an administration anyway, like demographics and geographics, Some a single administration has little influence on, like state of health system, some they have a lot, like pandemic readiness and actual policy when it strikes. As a federal country, state administrations play their part.
The mismanagement is more likely to cost lives earlier on (though there are plenty of opportunities further on), while misinformation have a longer trajectory. Actual studies a year or two from now will give a more precise estimate, but it would be tens of thousands of deaths directly attributable to the Trump administration, a large proportion to Donald Trump himself.
So, Oakdale, you are here on this forum for profound competent fair and balanced political analysis, not snarky sneer? Then why do you only provide snarky sneer yourself? :)
Anyway, Trump of course can't contain himself, which is one of the few consistent things about him https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-claims-victory-states-undecided-supreme-court-white-house
Der Spiegel trying to clickbait the lede or something? That first sentence strikes me as almost Trumpishly inaccurate.
Democracy in the United States has long been regarded as the great, shining example for many countries around the world. No longer. That U.S. President Donald Trump would prematurely declare himself the winner of the presidential election and accuse his political opponents of fraud, even though hundreds of thousands of ballots still haven’t been counted, is grotesque, absurd -- and anti-democratic.
Specially if we consider that besides having two decide between two intellectual nullities to command their national destiny ...
It's more on stake than only the national destiny of a country.
One of those "nullities" is the proclaimed leader of the civilized world while the other one might become his successor.
Der Spiegel trying to clickbait the lede or something? That first sentence strikes me as almost Trumpishly inaccurate.
Nah, it's just reflecting the way American media reports about it. Also Fox understood that Trump declared victory. Having given it a listen on Youtube, I'd say Trump's message comes across as a mixture of triumph and defiant refusal to acknowledge the results.
The word 'democracy' is yakked about in the US of A but in practice and history a farce.
"Highly competitive elections in US tarnished by legal uncertainty and unprecedented attempts to undermine public trust, international observers say"
https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/469440
Yes highly competitive an election but a farce in a way regarding broad balance and common sense. In addition I am fed up to the teeth with that election going on and on in our media and for heavens sake even concentrated programmes on the media about it. Makes that country look daft to put it mildly.
To Herr Trumpenfuehrer:
https://youtu.be/T33U5kLn9QA
..
The word 'democracy' is yakked about in the US of A but in practice and history a farce.
The American Founding Fathers truly despised Democracy, & the mere thought of their new American Nation they founded ever becoming a Democracy infuriated them to no end.
America is NOT a Democracy, & it was NEVER Intended to be one. America is a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC, merely incorporating some Democratic Principals.
When you hear Americans saying they have a Democracy......it isn't a true Democracy they're speaking of, it's only an American version/type/form of Democracy.....not a true "Majority Rules" Democracy practiced elsewhere.[VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFXuGIpsdE0[/VIDEO]
..
When you hear Americans saying they have a Democracy......it isn't a true Democracy they're speaking of, it's only an American version/type/form of Democracy.....not a true "Majority Rules" Democracy practiced elsewhere.
Elsewhere practices representative democracy with separation of powers, checks and balances, and so on. Not direct democracy. What a lot of elsewhere doesn't practice is winner takes all.
So it starts making sense.
He's the President of the United States - not of the United People. Hence, he is elected by the states, not by the people.
Well, it's still nonsense anyway, but it seems somewhat coherent at least.
Here's where it stands today:
Six states to decide the election
Joe Biden is now the favorite to win the presidency, and Republicans are favored to keep Senate control — but both results are far from certain. And Democrats failed to win the resounding victory that pre-election polls had suggested they could.
Here’s where we stand after a topsy-turvy election night, in which the situation shifted multiple times:
The outcome is unclear in six swing states — Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — and all are still counting votes. We may get some final vote counts today, while others could take a few days.
“Biden’s the favorite, even if narrowly, just about everywhere,” Nate Cohn of The Times tweeted, listing five of the six states above (all but North Carolina). Sean Trende of RealClearPolitics agreed: “Would probably rather be Biden than Trump.”
The outstanding ballots are mostly mail-in ballots, which are likely to favor Biden, because more Democrats than Republicans voted early this year. He leads in the current vote count in Nevada and Wisconsin, while Trump leads in the remaining four. “I don’t think people have fully internalized how Democratic these mail and absentee ballots will be in MI/PA/WI,” Nate wrote.
If Biden holds onto his lead in Nevada and Wisconsin, he would need to win only one of three states — Georgia, Michigan or Pennsylvania — to secure a majority of electoral votes (and could still lose North Carolina).
The counting of ballots seems likely to be slowest in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Officials in Pennsylvania have said they expect all votes to be counted by Friday.
Even with Biden’s seeming advantages at this point, the country has never experienced an election with such heavy voting by mail, which creates significant uncertainty. It is entirely possible that Trump will retain his lead in the states where he now leads and win the election.
The situation in the Senate is different — and more favorable to Republicans. They appear to be in a strong position to retain Senate control, which would give them a veto over nearly all of a President Biden’s legislative plans.
Democrats needed to win at least five of the 14 competitive Senate races and have so far won only two. Six races remain up in the air. The only incumbent Republicans to have lost are Martha McSally in Arizona and Cory Gardner in Colorado.
[New York Times, newsletter... :)}
As many people (and organizations) have noted, the "news" stations do not determine the outcome of the election. No matter how much they want to...
@
Barulheira: You've got it right. I wish some others would grasp the simplicity of the matter: The U.S. is not nor was it ever meant to be a democracy... But it can be and often is a united people.
Wait and see.
President-elect Joe Biden gains 132 more votes from Milwaukee after Trump campaign pays $3 million for another recount.
https://www.tmj4.com/news/election-2020/biden-netted-132-extra-votes-after-milwaukee-county-recount
Biden got the electoral college vote.
Joseph R. Biden Jr. was affirmed as the president-elect on Monday as members of the Electoral College pushed him past the 270 threshold to win the White House, all but ending a disruptive chapter in American history in which President Trump sought to use legal challenges and political pressure to overturn the results of a free and fair election.
The president-elect passed the threshold after California cast its 55 votes for Mr. Biden on Monday evening, capping a day marked by heightened security in battleground states and an unusual level of scrutiny for what is normally a formal, procedural affair.
Trump fires Barr for not pushing the voter fraud narrative blindly enough.
President Trump said on Monday that Attorney General William P. Barr would depart next week, ending a tenure marked by Mr. Barr’s willingness to advance the president’s political agenda and criticism that he eroded the post-Watergate independence of the Justice Department.
Mr. Barr had in recent weeks fallen out of favor with the president after acknowledging that the department had found no widespread voter fraud, but Mr. Trump sought to play down their differences, saying in a tweet announcing Mr. Barr’s departure, “Our relationship has been a very good one, he has done an outstanding job!”
Still, his resignation allows Mr. Barr to avoid any confrontation with the president over his refusal to advance Mr. Trump’s efforts to rewrite the election results.
Trump fires Barr for not pushing the voter fraud narrative blindly enough.
Even given the Times' typically "editorialized" report, your
lede is lurid, and fact-free!
Mr. Barr, 70, who also served as attorney general in the George H. W. Bush administration, was viewed initially in Washington as a stabilizing force in the chaotic Trump era, but that expectation dissipated as he took aim at the Justice Department’s own investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia that had long antagonized the president. [Underlining added]
Katie Benner does a fine job, of upholding the standards of the Times. "Was viewed" by whom? By those who never thought they'd be called out, let alone caught?
Durham continues his criminal investigation as special counsel...
The descent of the Republican party into totalitarianism has been a long time coming, Trump only accelerated the fall. For a while you could reasonably say that the Democratic party was the party of more government and the Republican party one of less government.
Now the Republican party has become the party of taking and holding control by any means possible. Thus the US have a two-party system comprising the Democratic Party and the Totalitarian Party. That is not a very healthy state. Hopefully for the country the GOP will start reform from within before it gets another stab at power.
Magyar divides the autocrat’s journey into three stages: autocratic attempt, autocratic breakthrough, and autocratic consolidation.
“The populist does not de jure eliminate the separation of powers,” Magyar writes, “but he connects the branches through his competences of appointment in a single vertical of vassalage.” The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, calls it the “vertical of power.” What allows the aspiring autocrat to transform the institutions of government is either a supermajority in parliament or, in a presidential system, a monopoly on political power—a situation in which the Presidency and Congress are held by the same political parties. Americans aren’t used to thinking of a monopoly on political power as a problem; on the contrary, we think that these are the conditions necessary for a President to be able to carry out his political agenda. In fact, with the power to confirm Presidential appointments concentrated in the Senate, Trump didn’t even need the House. In four years, Trump has created a “vertical of vassalage” that runs from him to Barr to the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, and to the courts. Its extension is Fox News, which has served as the fourth branch of Trump’s government.
By Declaring Victory, Donald Trump Is Attempting an Autocratic Breakthrough (https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/by-declaring-victory-donald-trump-is-attempting-an-autocratic-breakthrough)
Breaking the Democrat Party's hold on power is a Republican "descent into totalitarianism"? Appointing constitutionalists to federal courts is "packing" them? Frustrating the long-established progressive legislate-from-the-bench approach is a necessary reform...
Of course, the Democrats would claim a "vertical of vassalage" (Barr, McConnell, court appointments): That's all they know; they see the Republicans as versions of themselves. They can't understand a sincere commitment to constitutional government.
Calling Fox News the "fourth branch of Trump's government" is the kind of silliness Democrats have practiced since the advent of talk-radio, ala Rush Limbaugh. (Remember Hillary Clinton's "Right Wing Conspiracy"? Obama bemoaning Rush's "three hours a day"?)
Having
almost all of the media in their pocket is not enough! There must be no dissent! :)
Why am I not surprised, that everything the Democrats were, and are, guilty of -- is now being placed at the doorstep of the Republicans?
The media and academe are fairly united, in their defense of the Democrats. As this article (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/11/12/republican-party-trump-authoritarian-data/?campaign_id=134&emc=edit_db_20201216&instance_id=25085&nl=debatable®i_id=123391380&segment_id=47059&te=1&user_id=f5c1e4b11bbbbae6bb552e9ee1d2efdf) shows, their myopathy is staggering!
As with a large swath of social "scientists," the failure to understand the structure of the U.S. government leads to opinions such as this:
And experts were warning even a decade before that American democracy was showing signs of trouble, as Amanda Taub and Max Fisher have written for The Times. “Constitutional scholars said that the bill was coming due for horse trading compromises the framers had made among one another 200 years earlier,” they explain. “Political scientists said those founders’ had built cracks into the system that had been slowly widening ever since.”
Two such cracks are the Senate and the Electoral College: They have always made American democracy unusually undemocratic, but in recent years they have made it even more so, and in ways that advantage Republicans: The Senate now heavily favors, more than it has before, a minority of voters controlling a majority of the seats, while the Electoral College has become more likely to deny victory to the winner of the popular vote.
(email from the NYT)
Majority rule was not, is not, and should not be our goal!
Protesters Storm Capitol, Electoral College Debate Halted“We will never give up, we will never concede,” Mr. Trump told supporters gathered on the Ellipse near the White House around noon, as he implored Vice President Mike Pence and Republicans to work to overturn the election results. “You don’t concede when there is theft involved.”
[...]
City officials had braced for potential violence in a repeat of unrest stemming from earlier pro-Trump gatherings. As debate got under way on the House and Senate floors, a mob of protesters broke into the Cannon House Office Building, prompting police to order an internal evacuation. About an hour later, the chaos forced both chambers to recess.
Republicans are now attempting the turn to totalitarianism that they have been warning about. We'll see how Trump's version of Reichstag fire (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire) plays out. Hopefully with failure, as has his entire career.
In (un)related news, Trump recently made a phone call to Georgia administration (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/03/us/politics/trump-raffensperger-georgia-call-transcript.html) requesting them to hand him the win, stating "I won this election, there's no way I lost Georgia" and "there’s nothing wrong with saying that you’ve recalculated." This is quite an awesomesauce to top off the insane Trump presidency.
It is starting to look like Biden won.