This is a big deal.
Just a small number of air traffic controllers don’t go to work, enough to cause a tiny amount of delay of flights, and poof, shutdown over.
If we actually could get our shit together and had a huge general strike that caused significant economic damage we could easily demand the abolishment of the electoral college, abolishment of the senate, end of gerrymandering, undo citizens united, ratify the equal rights amendment, etc. etc.
Let me know when I can stop going to work.
Join these guys, and they’ll let ya know. Assuming nobody works for you. If I’m wrong about that, then you’re not welcome.
Topic of the day at work turned into someone loving Schultz and not knowing about Starbucks labor practices and use of prison labor and now this: 2 millionaire senators introduce plan to make sure Congress is only for the rich – ThinkProgress
Boy that’s fun.
Election Fraud by the Republican Party in North Carolina
This seems like an appropriate thread to post this in. “This Land” by Gary Clark Jr.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KgNaRQ_J-c
"Clark wrote it after a confrontation with his own neighbor near his new 50-acre ranch outside Austin, where Clark lives with his wife, model Nicole Trunfio, and their toddlers, Zion and Gia. One day, Clark drove over to tell the neighbor his donkey had wandered onto Clark’s property. “He was very disrespectful to me in front of my kids,” says Clark. “And I don’t play with that shit. He started saying, ‘You don’t live here. There’s no way you could live here. Who really owns this place?’
“It pissed me off,” says Clark. “I got a good chunk of property. I worked my ass off to be able to buy a place that my people can enjoy and run around — and to have this guy question me?”
It mentions that they would be sued to block the laws but I have no clue on what grounds they could sue. Most states already laws that dictate how a state’s electoral college representative must vote, usually in keeping with the popular vote in the state, and these are considered acceptable as far as I know. Moreover those are state laws as there is no federal law about how electoral college representatives must vote; by federal law they can vote for whoever they want. One of the straws grasped at to keep Trump out of office was a hope that electoral college reps would break their state laws and vote for Clinton.
Check it out, I believe with Colorado this is the first time where if every state with the NPVIC roaming around it’s legislature actually manages to pass it, it will have over 50% of the EC votes and effectively be law.
I’m confused, according to this article:
"Currently, the compact has 172 electoral votes from the 12 states that have enacted the legislation: Rhode Island, Vermont, Hawaii, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Washington, New Jersey, New York, Illinois, California and the District of Columbia.
Colorado’s House and Senate passed the bill, which is ready for Gov. Jared Polis (D) to sign, bringing the count to 181. New Mexico, whose House has passed the bill, too, is viewed as the next state to join on."
How does that get us to over 50% of the Electoral College votes?
Edited to add: I think there’s some confusion between the total number of Electoral College votes (538) and the number of Electoral College votes necessary to win the presidency (270).
Colorado passing the bill will be over half the votes necessary to win the presidency, but that’s still a long way to go to effectively negate the Electoral College
So it gets us nowhere until they sign something into law, but the wiki article for the NPVIC seperates states into 3 categories: Have written it into law, are in the process of writing it into law or have done nothing.
What I was trying to say, was basically “last I looked adding groups 1 and 2 together yielded less than 50% of the votes (538). As of Colorado groups 1 and 2 combined yield 59.7% of the votes (321 votes).”
This is excellent news for me personally as I was getting pessimistic after seeing CT try to pass it once from the house side and watch it die in committee and then again almost die in committee when introduced from the senate.
There’s still a lot to do, but it was disheartening to see that even if everything on the table went through it still wouldn’t take effect, now it would. It gives me hope.
I don’t think Colorado specifically put us over the 50% mark but it was what promoted me to check out where we stood since I last did. The situation has decidedly improved.
Ok so here’s the way the NPVIC works as I understand it. Once states with EC votes totaling 270 have joined the NPVIC it takes effect immediately and becomes binding. The next winner of the popular vote has 270 guaranteed EC votes.
Ah, that makes more sense. I agree that the situation continues to improve. But there’s still a long way to go unfortunately.
Right, I get that part. I guess I’m not including states who haven’t passed the NPVIC into my calculations. With Colorado, there are 181 votes pledged to this.
Unless there are at least 270 though, it doesn’t matter.
One quibble, I don’t think Colorado has made it law yet, it’s just gone through the hard part (legislature). If it’s not veto’d then it’s law.
I know nothing of the executive of Colorado. Hope they’re a goodun’
They just elected Jared Polis, the first openly gay governor and Friend Of The Internet.