The Trump Presidency 13: The (James) Baker's Dozen

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The president is the one and only official that is elected by voters in all states. In the presidential election, voters actually are electing a slate of electors and the number of electors correlates to the number of Congressional districts each state has. Back at its founding, the smaller states were concerned they'd be dominated by the larger states and this was a way to level the playing field. The example most often cited from the 2016 election is described in a quote below from History Central, a non-partisan website set up by writer Marc Shulman primarily as an aid for students and educators.
The electoral college is also part of compromises made at the convention to satisfy the small states. Under the system of the Electoral College each state had the same number of electoral votes as they have representative in Congress, thus no state could have less then 3. The result of this system is that in this election [2016] the state of Wyoming cast about 210,000 votes, and thus each elector represented 70,000 votes, while in California approximately 9,700,000 votes were cast for 54 votes, thus representing 179,000 votes per electorate. Obviously this creates an unfair advantage to voters in the small states whose votes actually count more then those people living in medium and large states. Link
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Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist Papers,
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. It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief.
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It can be argued that the election of someone like Donald Trump -- a divisive demagogue, a person of disrepute and low character, largely unqualified to be president, someone who lost the popular vote by a considerable margin, who is viewed negatively by a majority of citizens, but who was able to manipulate public opinion -- was exactly what Hamilton and the founders sought to prevent.

Again, Trump lost the 2016 election by 2.7 million votes but won in the Electoral College by virtue of less than 200,000 votes in two states out of 140 million cast in fifty states and Washington DC. He won in the Electoral College by winning in both Florida (113,000 votes) and Pennsylvania (68,000 votes), states that helped elect Barack Obama in 2012. (Obama also won the popular vote by almost 5 million votes.) If Trump had lost those two states, Hillary Clinton would have had 277 Electoral votes and been president.
 
It's a thankless job.

(by the way, my earlier post was about your "I'm" rather than "My,", which I assume was an autocorrect thing. Can't believe people still use that thing.)
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1108095863715450880



Document and relevant quote embedded in tweet.
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Page 624 of Appendix A.
They should have had Jonnie Goodboy Tyler in there just for kicks.

Interns
Student interns provide invaluable help with research projects, day-to-day operations, and fact-checking. Interns during the previous year were

Brittany Amano, Jackson Bailey, Rana Bansal, Christian Brown, Lydia Byrom, John Cleese, Alexis Cirrotti, Jesse Dennis, Mackenzie Dickhudt, Adam Donoho, Troy Durie, Michael Everett, Isabelle Holland, Wesley Huang, J. T. Hutt, Kathryn Janeway, Mostafa Kamel, Ayesha Karnik, David Laszcz, John Leo, Eugene Liu, Kacey Manlove, Aunt May, Kevin Nguyen, Katherine Olsson, Sarah Park, Peter Parker, Pragya Parthasarathy, Arjun Ramani, Kriyana Reddy, Steve Rogers, Jake Rosen, Joshua Siegel, John Snow, Nirali Trivedi, Bruce Wayne, Amanda Wilcox, and Jacob Ziemba.
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JoeMorgue said:
Trump to sign an Executive Order on Campus Free Speech

Trump is expected to sign an Executive Order today, instructing colleges to support Free Speech on their campuses or risk losing Federal funding, several sources report.

Politico: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/20/trump-free-speech-devos-1230490
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A couple of interesting points in that article:

...it’s not clear how the policy set to be unveiled on Thursday would work.

To me it sounds like this may be an executive order that is so vague that it will probably end up being useless.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has said she doesn’t believe “government muscle” should be used to address campus free speech issues. “A solution won’t come from defunding an institution of learning,” she said last fall.

I think that says something if even DeVos (of the "I've never been in a public school" fame) doesn't agree with your approach.

I think the issue of free speech on campus is tricky... is free speech absolute, what level of counter protests are allowed, how to handle security issues when the potential for violent conflicts exists. If the U.S. had a competent president, there may be valid room for discussing these issues. Sadly, with Stubby McBonespurs in charge, such discussions will never take place.
 
Segnosaur said:
I think the issue of free speech on campus is tricky... is free speech absolute, what level of counter protests are allowed, how to handle security issues when the potential for violent conflicts exists. If the U.S. had a competent president, there may be valid room for discussing these issues. Sadly, with Stubby McBonespurs in charge, such discussions will never take place.
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The whole "Colleges are just librul brainwashing factories that silence patriots and REAL Americans" is pretty well established at this point. It's hard to see this anything other then a response to that.
 
alfaniner said:
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1108095863715450880

Document and relevant quote embedded in tweet.
Click to expand...
Page 624 of Appendix A.
Student interns provide invaluable help with research projects, day-to-day operations, and fact-checking. Interns during the previous year were

Brittany Amano, Jackson Bailey, Rana Bansal, Christian Brown, Lydia Byrom, John Cleese, Alexis Cirrotti, Jesse Dennis, Mackenzie Dickhudt, Adam Donoho, Troy Durie, Michael Everett, Isabelle Holland, Wesley Huang, J. T. Hutt, Kathryn Janeway, Mostafa Kamel, Ayesha Karnik, David Laszcz, John Leo, Eugene Liu, Kacey Manlove, Aunt May, Kevin Nguyen, Katherine Olsson, Sarah Park, Peter Parker, Pragya Parthasarathy, Arjun Ramani, Kriyana Reddy, Steve Rogers, Jake Rosen, Joshua Siegel, John Snow, Nirali Trivedi, Bruce Wayne, Amanda Wilcox, and Jacob Ziemba.
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Ok, I recognize many of these names as fake... JT Hutt (StarWars), Aunt May/Peter Parker/Bruce Wayne/Aunt May/Steve Rogers (Comics), John Snow (Game of Thrones), Kathryn Janeway (Star Treck), John Cleese (Comedic actor).

Are they all fake? Or did they have a few real interns in there (mixed in with the fakes)?
 
At least a few are real. A quick google search of a couple picked at random shows Linked profiles for students in later years of studying Economics or related fields at various universities.
 
Segnosaur said:
Ok, I recognize many of these names as fake... JT Hutt (StarWars), Aunt May/Peter Parker/Bruce Wayne/Aunt May/Steve Rogers (Comics), John Snow (Game of Thrones), Kathryn Janeway (Star Treck), John Cleese (Comedic actor).

Are they all fake? Or did they have a few real interns in there (mixed in with the fakes)?
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[engage pedant mode]
The Game of Thrones character is actually Jon Snow. - also a British broadcaster ;)

John Snow was a 19th century doctor who is something of a hero of mine, for his groundbreaking work on epidemiology tracking a cholera outbreak through graphical cartography.

I doubt that's what they were going for though ;)
 
JoeMorgue said:
I think the issue of free speech on campus is tricky... is free speech absolute, what level of counter protests are allowed, how to handle security issues when the potential for violent conflicts exists. If the U.S. had a competent president, there may be valid room for discussing these issues. Sadly, with Stubby McBonespurs in charge, such discussions will never take place
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The whole "Colleges are just librul brainwashing factories that silence patriots and REAL Americans" is pretty well established at this point. It's hard to see this anything other then a response to that.
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I agree that there are (often) overblown claims from the political right wing that "OMG Free speech is dead on campuses!". But incidents can happen that contribute to that particular narrative.

About a decade ago, Anne Coulter (whom I think is a horrible human being who should be shunned by anyone with a brain) was scheduled to give a speech at the University of Ottawa in Canada. The speech ended up getting cancelled, in part due to protests by students. Now, I'm not saying Coulter had anything valuable to say, but to me it did raise the issue: the right to protest is covered by free speech, but what if by exercising that right you affect the ability the free speech of others.
 
Worm said:
[engage pedant mode]
The Game of Thrones character is actually Jon Snow. - also a British broadcaster ;)

John Snow was a 19th century doctor who is something of a hero of mine, for his groundbreaking work on epidemiology tracking a cholera outbreak through graphical cartography.

I doubt that's what they were going for though ;)
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The question, which comes to my mind is the following.
Is this some kind of sabotage or prank by somebody in the Whitehouse?
Or is there something else in that report, which we won't notice, because we're focused on this funny piece?

My cynical me, suggests it is the second possibility.
 
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