The United States Electoral College is a term used to describe the 538 Presidential electors who meet every four years to cast the "official" votes for President and Vice President of the United States. The Constitution gives each state legislature the plenary power to choose the electors who shall represent its state in the Electoral College. The Electors never meet as a national body. At 51 (Fifty states plus the District of Columbia) separate meetings, held on the same day, the electors cast the electoral votes. As such, the collective concept of the 51 groups is the technical definition of the college. It is because of this power structure that the popular vote was overturned in the 1824, 1876, 1888 and the more recent 2000 Presidential election. What scares me about this system is that it is elitist in nature and has a cloak of anonymity that render them (the Electors) unaccountable to the general masses. The Constitution does not require the Electors to vote as pledged, but many (not all) states have enacted laws that do require their Electors to vote as pledged. This system seems to be in place to assure certain citizens that under no circumstance will an "undesired" candidate be allowed to occupy the highest positions in the land. You may wonder why the forefathers choose to wrest the power from the voting public and give it to these 538 mysterious individuals (who are they?).
There are calls to reform this antiquated system. There are those who truly want to put the power in the hands of the people. The argument for an "Electoral College" is that while the Congress is popularly elected by the people, the President and Vice President are elected to be executives of a federation of independent states. The Electoral College ensures that candidates, particularly in recent elections, pay attention to key 'swing-states' (those states that are not firmly rooted in either the Republican or Democratic party). It equally assures that voters in states that are not believed to be competitive will be disregarded.
Supporters of direct election argue that it would give everyone an equally weighted vote, regardless of what state he or she lives in, and oppose giving disproportionately amplified voting power to voters in states with small populations. Under the current system, the vote of an individual living in a state with three electoral votes is proportionally more influential than the vote of an individual living in a state with a large number of electoral votes.
The arguments for and against get bogged down with historic policy and precedence set throughout elections that are skewed by the history of the United States divisions among its political parties, voters and regions (in other words they filibuster the discussion).
Registered Voter,
Bycha Buxton
Should there be a boycott of China? Or should there be a boycott of the Olympic games in Beijing? Mario Vazquez Rana, the president the
Association of National Olympic Committees, and the International
Olympic Committee stated that "Any politician who is pushing for a boycott is
committing a serious error," Vazquez said, "For me a total
boycott, a partial boycott, is totally out of the question."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has not ruled out the possibility he might boycott the opening ceremony if China continues its crackdown in Tibet. In a recent edition of Le Monde, one of his Cabinet ministers outlined changes needed for Sarkozy to take part in the Aug. 8 ceremony. President Bush has received calls to boycott the opening ceremonies, but has not addresses the matter publicly.
The Chinese have not been the model society of humanity nor have they been receptive to international criticism. Will the IOC (International Olympic Committee) give the Chinese the same kind of propaganda boost that the1936 games gave Berlin? A boycott was called for then but largely ignored.
They saw Jesse Owens embarrass Hitler and his team of experiments based on racial superiority. After a New York Times editorial (1933) inferred that Hitlers "race doctrine" had begun. Do we let history repeat itself? Unfortunately America's goodwill, leadership and economic interests are hampered by world events to singularly take on this posture without resounding support from the world community. The world community is too bitter to come together for "human rights" because of "business rights" and personality conflicts. The Games have taken on more than a celebration of cultures and national pride. They have become a symbol of international status for host countries and platforms to propel those countries into industrial powerhouses on the backs of talented athletes and the graves of second class citizens. Do we punish the athletes who only get this world stage once every four years and maybe only once in their lifetime? Is fame, the gold medal and national pride more important than the unalienable rights every "citizen of the world" should be entitled too? Let the tanks roll and the "games" begin the show must go on...and it will be the greatest "show" on earth (all pun's and sarcasm welcome).
A Sports fanatic of Human Rights,
Bycha Buxton
When Rev. Jeremiah Wright (Barak Obama's Pastor) spoke of AIDS being put in the Black community in his much ballyhooed sermon this is why. There is precedence for this kind of action in America. Is this fear mongering? Or is this acknowledging (very real) possibilities? This (Tuskegee) experiment garnered an apology from the President twenty-five years later.
The United States government did something that was wrong—deeply, profoundly, morally wrong. It was an outrage to our commitment to integrity and equality for all our citizens. . . . clearly racist.
Apologies only begin the healing process. It does not cure the hurt. Germany has apologized (for the Holocaust) but the Jews still feel the pain and recognize the significance of never forgetting nor letting the world forget their struggle. Neither shall Black Americans forget; so when you hear the endless loop of Rev. Wright's petition to GOD damning America it stems from this experience along with, slavery, racism, discrimination and injustice that seeks to understand WHY? And how long do we have to suffer this kind of deception? And is their still this kind of government sanctioned racism going on now?
When (non-Black) Americans hear the horror of the Black experience they want to put it in the past, tag it as "what once was", say "it's not like that anymore" until the next event that tears the scab off a wound that will ultimately leave a scar at best. So here is a reminder of why you (America) will from time to time get the vitriolic rhetoric from our gatherings at churches, rallies and demonstrations. Please pardon the anger, hurt and distrust that Black Americans have for some of America's worst offenders, bad actors and racists. It is natural to cry in pain when your healing; to be in discomfort when you've been handicapped. We are in repair.
Your (test) subject,
Bycha Buxton
The U.S. economy is definitely in an "economic downturn" the latest bailout (corporate welfare) of Bear Stearns has to be the biggest cover-up of a defunct financial market in U.S. history. Bear Stearns's capital base of $17 billion had dwindled to $2 billion in cash, and Bear Stearns told government officials that it saw little option other than to file for bankruptcy the next day. Had the government let this Investment Bank go bankrupt the entire banking industry would have stopped dead in it's tracks; no loans, hoarding of cash and the depositors (you and I) would be in a panic.
Could you imagine what you would do if the 24-news cycle told of a bank that went broke and left it's customers with no way to claim their money (Investment Banks are not federally insured [FDIC]). I know I would go down to my bank and ask a few questions while withdrawing my change (along with millions of other depositors). Thus creating a classic "run on the banks" which hasn't been seen since "the great depression" of 1929 -1939.
So this is the reason that a Sunday night deal was made to save the financial markets by rescuing Bear Stearns. Not only was the Federal Reserve Bank saving the banks but indirectly heading off a financial crisis of magnanimous proportions. Was it a corporate bail out? or did they spare America a "real depression" at the expense of our reputation abroad. The recent reforms proposed by Treasury Secretary Paulson was of direct results spurned by the mortgage crisis. So here is the fallout which will hurt us (America) abroad, continue to keep the dollar devalued, inflation rising and worldwide confidence in the greatest economy at a low.
This is an excerpt of an article ran in the
USA 2008: The Great Depression
Food stamps are the symbol of poverty in the US. In the era of the credit crunch, a record 28 million Americans are now relying on them to survive – a sure sign the world's richest country faces economic crisis
By David Usborne in New York
Tuesday, 1 April 2008
We knew things were bad on Wall Street, but on Main Street it may be worse. Startling official statistics show that as a new economic recession stalks the United States, a record number of Americans will shortly be depending on food stamps just to feed themselves and their families.
Dismal projections by the Congressional Budget Office in Washington suggest that in the fiscal year starting in October, 28 million people in the US will be using government food stamps to buy essential groceries, the highest level since the food assistance program was introduced in the 1960s.
A ticket of Al Gore for President and Barack Obama for Vice President would create an electricity and enthusiasm that would transform American politics and send shock waves of excitement throughout a world yearning for new American leadership. - Brent Budowsky (Huffington Post)
BILL HEMMER : Do the Democrats need a savior? And if so, is that savior in the shape of Al Gore? - Fox News
Democratic Senator of Illinois Barack Obama put to bed that question from a voter who donned a t-shirt reading, "Obama and Gore: Experience and Youth, Obama and Gore: Wisdom and Truth." The supporter asked the '08 presidential hopeful if he would consider taking "the wind out of Hillary’s sails" by asking Nobel prize winner former Vice President Al Gore to be his running mate before the primaries. - ABC News (Political Radar)
But let's play a little. Let's say the elders of the Democratic Party
decide, when the primaries end, that neither Obama nor Clinton is
viable. Let's also assume—and this may be a real stretch—that such
elders are strong and smart enough to act...What if they then approached Gore and asked him to be the nominee, for
the good of the party—and suggested that he take Obama as his running
mate? - Time Magazine
Not only has the media played up the "Vice President" possibility of the democratic primary front-runner, who leads in national polls, has gotten more primary votes than any candidate in history (republican or democrat) and has raised more money than any other candidate in the history of campaigns. But the establishment "Illuminati" has threatened to change the rules, make new rules or just plain overturn the will of the people (maybe that's why I'm a republican, I know who I'm dealing with [insert sarcasm here]).
But simply put the audacity to pull out all the stops (including the Tanya Harding 'Knee Cap'em Strategy') shows either a desperate attempt to win or a prejudice that extends beyond just the DNC. It is absurd and insulting to the millions of Americans to think that even when your winning you are a loser. That is the message being broadcast by the media, insinuated by the opposition and projected by the pollsters. Presidential hopeful Barak Obama handled it well stating, "I can promise you that as President I will have him (Al Gore) involved in our administration in a very senior capacity in his role...having won the Nobel peace prize and an Oscar that being Vice President again would be probably a step down for him." It seem as though certain factions do not, will not and cannot allow the "front runner" status of Senator Obama the feed the hopes and fears of this nation. If you wont let him be the "front runner" is it a stretch to say you wont let him be President?
Our democracy,
Bycha Buxton
When an agricultural shift in production causes farmers to abandon crops for human consumption to grow crops for energy consumption the markets are thrown out of balance. There is only so much agricultural land for crops. If that land is now used to produce grains, soybeans and switch grass for ethanol, who's growing wheat? Who's producing corn for the myriad of fructose syrups and solids (not that they're healthy) that are in most all of the products that fill our cupboards and fridge's? Who's planting cotton?
Wheat is at an all time high. Great for farmers and the commodity exchange brokers ; bad for Moms across the globe and countries that rely on the generosity of prosperous nations that give these grains to help with famine. Corn-feed for chickens, hogs, farm raised fish and yes even cows has put the burden on household economics.
As the illustration (above) suggests it is not better for the environment in fact studies suggest that rapeseed which the EU wants to use in biodiesel produces copious amounts nitrous oxide more harmful than CO2 gases from fossil fuel. Creating ethanol based fuels does stimulate an economy with a new industry and that creates jobs; but the cost of living is impacted so greatly that alternative energy not alternative fuel is a better solution.
Looking for a better way,
Bycha Buxton
Clinton's faith is grounded in the Methodist beliefs she grew up with in Park Ridge, Illinois, a conservative Chicago suburb where she was active in her church's altar guild, Sunday school, and youth group. It was there, in 1961, that she met the Reverend Don Jones, a 30-year-old youth pastor; Jones, a friend of Clinton's to this day, told us he knows "more about Hillary Clinton's faith than anybody outside her family."
Under Jones' mentorship, Clinton learned about Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich—thinkers whom liberals consider their own, but whom young Hillary Rodham encountered as theological conservatives. The Niebuhr she studied was a cold warrior, dismissive of the progressive politics of his earlier writing. "He'd thought that once we were unionized, the kingdom of God would be ushered in," Jones explains. "But the effect of those two world wars and the violence that they produced shook his faith in liberal theology. He came to believe that the achievement of justice meant a clear understanding of the limitations of the human condition." Tillich, whose sermon on grace Clinton turned to during the Lewinsky scandal, today enjoys a following among conservatives for revising the social gospel—the notion that Christians are to improve humanity's lot here on earth by fighting poverty, inequality, and exploitation—to emphasize individual redemption instead of activism.
Niebuhr and Tillich's combination of aggressiveness in foreign affairs and limited domestic ambition naturally led Clinton toward the GOP. She was a Goldwater Girl who, under the tutelage of her high school history teacher Paul Carlson (whom Jones describes as "to the right of the John Birchers"), attended biweekly anticommunist meetings and later served as president of Wellesley's Young Republicans chapter. Out of step with the era's radicalism, Clinton wrote Jones from college, lamenting that her fellow students didn't believe that one could be "a mind conservative and a heart liberal." To Jones, this question indicated that Clinton shared Niebuhr's notion of Christians needing to have "a dark enough view of life that they can be realistic about what's possible."
Two decades later, while Bill was campaigning for president, Clinton picked up that theme once more, displaying a theological depth that conservative believers could appreciate. In an interview with the United Methodist Reporter, she expressed regret that her church had focused too much on social gospel concerns in the '60s, '70s, and '80s, "to the exclusion of personal faith and growth." The spirit, believe theological conservatives, matters more than the flesh. Clinton added that she was happy to see her liberal denomination becoming more salvation centered in the '90s.
When Clinton first came to Washington in 1993, one of her first steps was to join a Bible study group. For the next eight years, she regularly met with a Christian "cell" whose members included Susan Baker, wife of Bush consigliere James Baker; Joanne Kemp, wife of conservative icon Jack Kemp; Eileen Bakke, wife of Dennis Bakke, a leader in the anti-union Christian management movement; and Grace Nelson, the wife of Senator Bill Nelson, a conservative Florida Democrat.
The Fellowship's ideas are essentially a blend of Calvinism and Norman Vincent Peale, the 1960s preacher of positive thinking. It's a cheery faith in the "elect" chosen by a single voter—God—and a devotion to Romans 13:1: "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers....The powers that be are ordained of God." Or, as Coe has put it, "we work with power where we can, build new power where we can't." Coe has been an intimate of every president since Ford, but he rarely imposes on chief executives, who see him as a slightly mystical but apolitical figure. Rather, Coe uses his access to the Oval Office as currency with lesser leaders. "If Doug Coe can get you some face time with the President of the United States," one official told the author of a Princeton study of the National Prayer Breakfast last year, "then you will take his call and seek his friendship. That's power."
"If you're going to do religion in public life," concurs Schenck, a Jewish convert to fundamentalist Christianity who's retained his sense of irony, Coe's friendship is a kind of "kosher...seal of approval."
The Fellowship's long-term goal is "a leadership led by God—leaders of all levels of society who direct projects as they are led by the spirit." According to the Fellowship's archives, the spirit has in the past led its members in Congress to increase U.S. support for the Duvalier regime in Haiti and the Park dictatorship in South Korea. The Fellowship's God-led men have also included General Suharto of Indonesia; Honduran general and death squad organizer Gustavo Alvarez Martinez; a Deutsche Bank official disgraced by financial ties to Hitler; and dictator Siad Barre of Somalia, plus a list of other generals and dictators. Clinton, says Schenck, has become a regular visitor to Coe's Arlington, Virginia, headquarters, a former convent where Coe provides members of Congress with sex-segregated housing and spiritual guidance.
Throughout her time at the White House, Clinton writes in Living History, she took solace from "daily scriptures" sent to her by her Fellowship prayer cell, along with Coe's assurances that she was right where God wanted her. (Clinton's sense of divine guidance has been noted by others: Bishop Richard Wilke, who presided over the United Methodist Church of Arkansas during her years in Little Rock, told us, "If I asked Hillary, 'What does the Lord want you to do?' she would say, 'I think I'm called by the Lord to be in public service at whatever level he wants me.'")
Source: MotherJones
LADIES - If you accidentally over-salt a dish while it's still cooking, drop in a peeled potato and it will absorb the excess salt for an instant "fix-me-up."
REAL WOMEN - If you over-salt a dish while you're cooking, that's too damn bad. Please recite with me, The Real Women's motto: "I made it and you will eat it and I don't care how bad it tastes."
LADIES - Cure for headaches: Take a lime, cut it in half and rub it on your forehead. The throbbing will go away.
REAL WOMEN - Take a lime, mix it with tequila chill and drink. You might still have the headache, but who cares!
LADIES - Stuff a miniature marshmallow at the bottom of a sugar cone to prevent ice cream drips.
REAL WOMEN - Just suck the ice cream out of the bottom of the cone, for Pete's sake. You're probably sitting on your butt on the couch, with your feet up anyway.
LADIES - To keep potatoes from budding, place an apple in the bag with the potatoes.
REAL WOMEN - Buy boxed mashed potato mix and you don't have to worry about the potatoes growing arms and legs.
LADIES - When a cake recipe calls for flouring the baking pan, use a bit of the dry cake mix instead and there won't be any white mess on the side of the cake.
REAL WOMEN - Go to the bakery - they'll even decorate it for you.
LADIES - Brush some beaten egg white over pie crust before baking to yield a beautiful glossy finish.
REAL WOMEN - Sara Lee frozen freakin' pie directions do not include brushing egg whites, so I don't do it.
LADIES - If you have a problem opening jars, try using latex dishwashing gloves. They give a non-slip grip that makes opening jars easy.
REAL WOMEN - Go ask the very HOT neighbor guy to do it.
And finally the most important tip....
LADIES! - Don't throw out all that leftover wine. Freeze into ice cubes for future use in casseroles and sauces.
REAL WOMEN - Leftover wine??
Recent Comments
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Indiana said:
[this is good]read more
on Who holds the Power in America (538 most powerful people in the U.S.A.) -
Schomer said:
Exactly. What will end it? I don't see the good in what Rev. Wright is screaming to his church members.... read more
on Why some [Black Americans] distrust the U.S.A. (Understanding the Black Experience) -
Indiana said:
Apologies and money do not address the trust and justice issues that an experiment like this creates.Which goes back to... read more
on Why some [Black Americans] distrust the U.S.A. (Understanding the Black Experience) -
Bycha (bye-chay) said:
While the role of those Black Americans (Nurse Eunice Rivers, Dr. Eugene Dibble and Dr. Reginald D. James) are questionable... read more
on Why some [Black Americans] distrust the U.S.A. (Understanding the Black Experience)
For what its worth, the constitution also had Senators elected by state representatives, not popular vote within their state. The... read more
on Who holds the Power in America (538 most powerful people in the U.S.A.)