http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...-enquirer.html

I love stories like this, that are basically sourced by every person involved under the cloak of anonymity. "Reince Priebus and Rex Tillerson were recently involved in an explosive shouting match with Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, according to all four people involved in the explosive shouting match, but whom we are not naming for some unknown reason."

Eh, it's definitely not "dwarfed". Gerrymandering alone favors Republicans by about 15-20 seats.

Concentration of liberals is clearly a major effect as well, but it can't be magnitudes larger than that.

Agree with the rest of your post, though.

Also on the Idiocracy side of the ledger, the President spends his time in the Ministry watching relatively low rated cable shows and pleading with the hosts to stop saying mean things about him or else a story detailing the already publically known information that the hosts are involved in an intimate romance will be made public.

I understand skipping over part of a post that you don't like or doesn't make you feel warm and fuzzy, but to keep pushing your point about Democrats messaging hard while ignoring so many statements about cheating, is disingenuous.

Do you think Trump is right to ignore Russia's past, current and future medling attacks?

Wow a troll's post is disingenuous? I for one, am deeply troubled by this.

What's incredible is that he actually does straight-up have the FBI/NSA/whatever at his command! We're sort of lucky that he's a pop-culture flake instead of a modern-day Nixon, because if Trump really had Nixon's competence he could call on some seriously dangerous operatives to do his axe grinding.

Russia is an example of what an evil person with actual competence can get away with given the power of a major country.

I agree the only thing separating Trump and a truly dangerous and destructive menace is any sort of emotional stability and about 50 IQ points.

To the extent our democracy was ever legitimate, it wasn't because electoral districts weren't gerrymandered. They've always been gerrymandered. Voter suppression is also not exactly a new thing.

One of these guys also believes OJ was innocent

18 USC 872

Whoever, being an officer, or employee of the United States or any department or agency thereof, or representing himself to be or assuming to act as such, under color or pretense of office or employment commits or attempts an act of extortion, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both;  but if the amount so extorted or demanded does not exceed $1,000, he shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

Neither the president's nor the vice-president's states are complying with the voter rolls request

Of course Alabama is hand-delivering theirs

It's really true. This fascist corporatist state was never really legitimate. It was a country built on the backs of enslaved Africans and murdered Native Americans.

It's a subversion of the Constitution no matter what the Court rules on. The Court has been stolen, it is illegitimate, and continuing to treat its rulings as normal and legitimate court rulings is totally insane. This Supreme Court is a farce. We must never forget that.

See, now that a seat on the court is completely and utterly stolen, it doesn't matter how they rule on anything. All the rulings are illegitimate. A stolen court can't make a legally binding determination. Preposterous.

I don't think this logically follows, especially considering the "stealing" of the seat was all about norm-violation and did not involve the breaking of any laws.

I mean if Gorsuch starts ruling in ways that are incompatible with the law I'll be right there with you but I don't think you can argue that any and all Supreme Court rulings are now affronts to the Constitution or whatever it is you are trying to say.

One thing on the voter suppression/voter ID fight... I think the Democrats need to come to terms with the fact that they are in a permanent battle on the issue as framed, and their best case is holding their ground and their worst case is becoming a permanent minority party via voter suppression.

This is because the Republican base believes that voter fraud is a thing, believes Democrats do it a ton, and believes that voter ID is easy to get and it's not a hardship. They're wrong about all of this, but it doesn't matter. They're true believers... and the Republican elites know that it's a road to permanent majority status, so they're not going to back off.

So the Democrats have a fight they can only lose, and thus they need to find a better way to play the game. Fight it until you have the majority, then introduce a bill to:

1) Require voter ID in all states, with allowable forms being driver's licenses, state ID, federal ID, etc.

2) Require all states to register all voters when they turn 18, and issue the ID over the Internet. Require states to offer voter registration at DMV when people who aren't currently registered to vote show up to renew their license.

3) Make it very easy to update your information when you relocate, etc, and automate as much of this as possible.

4) Simplify the process of obtaining federal voter ID that all states must accept if you lose documentation, etc. Make it possible to do this online or over the phone and through the mail.

5) Secure the election systems from hacking

Call it something fun like the "American Democracy Protection Act," or the "American Election Security and Improvement Act." Republicans will obviously oppose this, but you ram it through by any mean's necessary serving two purposes: improving voter turnout in your favor and taking away an issue they made up to suppress votes.

The other thing is that even if this approach fails, it tells the Republicans that they're not freerolling on the issue. Right now they're freerolling; that's UNACCEPTABLE strategy from the left.

The Seat was stolen in plain violation of the Constitution. The Supreme Court is now completely illegitimate.

So let's say I come to the committee that decides the BCS bowls or whatever. I go up to one of the legit members of the committee and just kick the **** out of them and force them out of the room. Then I sit down and start holding a meeting like I'm a legit part of the committee. Would this fly in your organization? As long as my decisions were pretty reasonable, you'd let me remain on the committee, even though you know my seat was completely 100% illegitimate?

lol einbert.

It's not without precedent for the Senate to refuse to consider a SCOTUS nominee. Andrew Johnson was so despised by congress that they actually changed the number of seats on the court rather than let him nominate someone.

Einbert what is your solution to the stolen Supreme Court seat and frankly, the illegitimacy of the Government of the United States?

The supreme court seat is not a big deal.

1. not-gop wins 50% senate, presidency.
2. kill filibuster because norms are dead, prisoners dilemma you can't cooperate after defection.
3. appoint 10 new SC justices. Snap confirm.
4. re-litigate everything. Stare decisis is a fake word.

the rules have changed. time to play by the new rules.

if you can do step 1 it's not a problem and if you can't do step 1 it's hopeless.

a return to coloring inside the lines should be a negotiated outcome, not given away on day 1.

Another spot on post.

Democrats have willingly segregated themselves (for lack of a better term) into urban areas. This leads to even non-gerrymandered HoR district borders to tightly pack the Democratic vote.

For example: Ohio. I live here. It's 4 Dem 12 GOP. And sure, a non-GOP gerrymandered map may not be 4/12, but even a reasonable map that isn't terribly gerrymandered may be 6/10 even though the aggregate vote statewide may be "deserve" to be 7/9. You can draw a district around Toledo, Columbus, Cleveland, Youngstown/Akron and Cincinnati. Makes those blue. But the Democrats vote sink themselves into cities.

And then the Senate. That's something totally else. California has two Senators. Idaho has two. It's always going to be an albatross around the Dems necks.

Kobach will be on his own enemies list.

https://twitter.com/derekwillis/stat...74911484567552

cooper reading to the president in the start here, a passage he might have heard before somewhere.