Just too funny.....
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@JayHawkFanToo Don’t discount Russia’s influence on making the professor call the police when he saw a …police officer. Those Ruskies are all powerful, you know.
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Yep. If they were able to get into Hillary’s schedule and cancel all her appearance in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, who knows what they are capable of doing…those pesky Ruskies sure hate Catholics.
P.S. I am Catholic.
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@JayHawkFanToo said:
Enough politics, back to KU basketball
You see what idle minds do? Just a week off and we are already being led astray by distractions. The election’s legacy, no doubt.
We need some good old basketball-related fights! There has been way too much agreement about the team. C’mon, people. You aren’t trying!
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Amen brother.
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@JayHawkFanToo Unfortunately, I can’t tell if you are joking or if your “news” sources are telling you that there are people that believe the Russians cancelled Hillary’s stops in the rust belt. You just never know
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@approxinfinity There was an article earlier this year discussing the trouble The Onion was having coming up with satirical news stories because the real headlines were sometimes funnier.
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Of course I am joking. I don’t believe the Russians or anyone else could have cancelled those appearances…oh, wait…someone did…
Just yanking your chain a little. It’s all good.
P.S. FWIW, White House spokesman Josh Earnest just indicated there was no evidence of hacks impacting counting and/or casting of ballots.
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@JayHawkFanToo said:
Of course I am joking. I don’t believe the Russians or anyone else could have cancelled those appearances…oh, wait…someone did…
Just yanking your chain a little. It’s all good.
P.S. FWIW, White House spokesman Josh Earnest just indicated there was no evidence of hacks impacting counting and/or casting of ballots.
It’s all good.
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@JayHawkFanToo Josh needs to talk to his boss then. I’m still waiting for the light bulb to come on indicating they have finally accepted the real reason she lost. Sooner or later they’ll run out of excuses and have to face facts.
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@brooksmd Don’t blame me, I voted for Bernie
Hillary was an awful nominee.
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Then you have a legitimate beef with the DNC since it conspired to marginalize Bernie and hand the nomination to Hillary. No guessing there since it is a proven fact that even Bernie got rightfully POd about.
The sad truth is that in these elections we all held our noses and voted for who we thought was the lesser of two evils…or the less evil of two lessers…or…
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@JayHawkFanToo As “deplorable” as it is, you’re right.
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@brooksmd Wow.
On one hand, yeah, it is comical.
Second hand, its unfortunate that cops are looked upon with such distrust. BUT, they kinda did it to themselves, and I know, we cannot generalize or make snap judgements. Its not fair to everyone who wears the uniform. Not all cops are bad, etc… But seriously, how can anyone not be surprised about being looked at under a microscope if your an officer of the law?
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@Fightsongwriter Glad you mentioned Rush Limbaugh. So, you heard Rush calling all Americans “idiots”… Hmmmm…when did that happen? Are you sure he didn’t say “liberals or progressives are idiots”? That’s really odd…I always thought Rush Limbaugh loved America. Just want to make sure you weren’t a victim of fake news. Now, I know this is a longshot, but maybe the Russians hacked into your radio signal you were listening to when you conducted your Rush Limbaugh investigation - I mean, if they’re powerful enough to make Hillary the most disliked candidate ever, the sky is the limit.
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@KUSTEVE Just speculating here…In an uncharacteristically honest revelation, Rush Limbaugh probably admitted that he falls to his knees every day to thank God that Americans are such idiots.
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@mayjay The definition of ignorance is contempt without investigation.
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@KUSTEVE I believe that! That is why I read 4 papers a day, from WSJ to NYT, plus 3 to 4 online news sources, but I definitely won’t read any CIA intel reports. They made some mistakes, you know, so anything they say is ridiculous.
Just funnin’, y’all!
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@KUSTEVE Important clarification. He did not say “all Americans are idiots”. He said, “are we (have we become ) idiots?” It was a question for discussion (as much as allowed, right?), not a statement. Now I maybe listen once a month, and it was mildly entertaining. Probably 3-4 years ago. When you look at the cesspool of media, un-reality tv, and inane political blather, his premis, as exemplified by this story of the man in blue, may be spot on. Our minds have become so open our brains have leaked out. Our phones have become so smart our brains have leached all common sense. Thank the Lord we have Ku hoops to obsess about!!
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Cops suck. They make snap judgements about civilians all the time. Not all are very good at what they do and the poor ones give the rest a bad name. I’m still waiting to meet a good one.
If the shoe was on the other foot (given my personal experience) that student carrying a gun would’ve been tackled by several officers, experienced several broken ribs, likely been tasered 7-10 times and booked if he made it to jail alive. Then the prosecutor would go ahead and press charges. No possibilty of recourse for the student, lawyers won’t touch this stuff. (Pretty much what happened to my brother, but he didn’t have a weapon and was only 120 lbs).
Law enforcement is above the law. And that is a major problem. I’m white and I have been wronged by law enforcement, I can only imagine how minorities are treated. There needs to be an enforcement task force to police the police IA isn’t getting it done. If Kansas cops are this crooked imagine Chicago’s police force.
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@dylans I believe this one qualifies as a good one. Be sure and watch the re-match video.
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@brooksmd That second video brought tears to my eyes. People need to watch that!
Of course, now the NCAA will follow those 8 kids, rule that they received impermissible benefits, and screw up their first year of college. KU will help them out.
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@mayjay http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2016/12/13/venezuela-follows-indias-example-and-voids-half-of-its-cash/
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@KUSTEVE For all the criticism of the good old US of A, we have a pretty remarkably stable system, surviving many crises and major upheavals. Let us hope it stays that way.
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http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/12/15/facebook-introduce-warning-labels-stories-deemed-fake-news/link text
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http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2016/12/15/9-reasons-politifact-unqualified-label-fake-news/link text
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http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2016/12/16/soros-finances-group-helping-facebook-flag-disputed-stories/link text
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Censorship…coming to social media platforms.
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@KUSTEVE I thought that posting fake news on Social Media to drive ad revenue was right there in the 1st Amendment. Must be in the penumbra!
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@mayjay It is a constitutional right of this administration to lie like rugs over the “Russian hack”, and the solemn duty of the mainstream media to act as court transcribers to every lie that lefty comes up without any form of examination. I fully support their right to lie to the American people without being censored.
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@KUSTEVE lol @ Breitbart.
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@approxinfinity but i’m right…lol. love ya,man…
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It’s called…trying to steal an election: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-last-shot-bid-thousands-urge-electoral-college-to-block-trump-at-monday-vote/2016/12/17/125fa84a-c327-11e6-8422-eac61c0ef74d_story.html?utm_term=.262ad229a206link text
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I’d just note on the original story about the officer, the professor called the police because another student complained about feeling unsafe. I don’t know why that student complained, and obviously the journalists didn’t do a good job of figuring that out, but the professor was right to act on the student’s complaint. With on campus shootings happening, if you don’t know that this person is actually a real police officer, the fact that he is sitting there armed is reason for caution.
As for the electoral college, I disagree with Trump, but he won the necessary amount of states, so I would rather the electoral college finalize his victory. If he is tied to Russia and acts in his own interests, instead of the interests of the American people as a result of his conflicts of interest, I hope the Republican controlled Congress holds him responsible rather than putting party over the good of the country.
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@KUSTEVE I told my summer interns that voting didn’t matter as much as they think. It’s all up to the electoral college. One kids head nearly exploded in disbelief (his eyes are open now). Not all on the electoral college have to vote for candidate that won the vote count. I seriously doubt enough will change their vote to swing an election, but it’s a strange fact.
I appreciate what the electoral college is supposed to do: give a voice to less populated areas. However, there doesn’t actually need to be an electoral college, just the votes/points they represent as voted by the public. No need for more intervention and the corruption that goes with it. A representative republic already limits its peoples input enough!
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In all actuality, rural areas are overrepresented in the electoral college.
Because each state has a minimum number of electors, and the electoral college is capped at 538, rural states tend to be over represented in the electoral college. The only real way to correct this would be to set the electoral college minimum at the smallest state (or DC), which is currently Wyoming, divide by three (the minimum number of electors currently) and then use that number to determine how many electors each other state gets.
Of course, this would vastly increase the number of electors (California would have nearly 200 under this model), but that shows just how skewed the system is since California has only 55 electors right now, compared to Wyoming’s 3. Nearly every state would see an increase in electors, and the number of electors total would soar to between 1600 and 1800 (depending on how rounding is handled).
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Just some interesting numbers. Clinton won California by 4,5 million votes. Without California, Trump wins the popular vote by 1.5 million votes. California with 55 electoral college votes provides 20%+ of the votes required to win the election. New York and Florida have 58 votes combined. These 3 states combined provide 41% of the votes need to win the elections; add Illinois and Pennsylvanian with 40 votes and these 5 states have 60% of the votes needed.
There are 3,144 counties (or equivalent such as parishes) in the country. Of these counties, 58 of the so called elite coastal counties or areas around big cities such as New York, Washington DC, Boston, LA, and Sacramento, have the same population as the rest of the remaining 3,086 counties in the country. BTW, Clinton won 500+ counties and Trump won 2,500+ counties
It makes you appreciate the wisdom of the founding fathers when they created a Representative Republic with an Electoral College as opposed to a Democracy, when selecting the form of government.
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@JayHawkFanToo why? Why should a vote in the middle of the country be worth more than a vote on the coast?
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@approxinfinity i understand. if the royals win the world series 4-1, but in the one game they lose 20-0, then Royals actually are not the champions because the other team scored more overall runs.
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How do you figure that? The number votes of the electoral college are based on the number of Congressional districts which are based on population plus one for every senator which was done so the smaller states would not completely disenfranchised. The Founding fathers thought that Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania with their large populations would dominate and the other states would have no say.
For example California has 56 congressional district with 56 congressmen plus 2 senators so it gets 58 votes; Kansas has 4 congressional districts with 4 congressman plus 2 senators for a total of 6 electoral college votes…California has just about 10 times the number of votes of Kansas. If we had a Majority Democracy instead of a Representative Republic, a few coastal states could band together and the entire central portion of the country would have no voice whatsoever. Do you really think this is what we should have?
You should read the 12th Amendment to the Constitution that outlines the Electoral College and the Federalist Papers #68 that explains in painstaking detail; the rationale behind the Electoral College.
I really should stay out of politics and restrict my comments to KU Basketball and related subjects.
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@JayHawkFanToo The overrepresentation is just in the number of electors stemming from the two senators in states with small populations resulting in only one congressional district. It is only in the 100 votes total, out of 538, so the overrepresentation is mostly offset. Not a huge deal.
The fears of regionalism were stronger than we can appreciate now.
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@JayHawkFanToo as @mayjay said, regionalism was more of an issue then. States aren’t banding together. People are voting as individuals. It is absolutely true that the electoral college (something Donald Trump once called a disaster for democracy when it appeared that Obama would lose the popular and win the college) ends up weighing the vote of some citizens more heavily than others. I ask you if that is fair. I believe every citizen who has not forfeited their right to vote should have their vote for the president counted equally, whether they decide to live in California or Kansas. Whether they rent an apartment or own serious acreage. Yes.
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@approxinfinity In a country this large, and a two party system, the only way for the smaller midwestern states to have a voice is the current system. It forces candidates to care about everyone and not just the major cities. Why would a president campaign anywhere other than NYC, LA, Seattle, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, D.C., San Fran, Philly and Miami? And why would a president/congress introduce policies/bills that help anyone but those in major cities? Do you think a small state like KS would get the same federal funding? Lol nope. Pump that into big cities and get their votes. It would become more about keeping the 55% in large cities happy and staying in office than the 45% who aren’t. Popular vote just can’t work to “give everyone a voice” if we have such a wide varieties of lifestyles. Current system does a better job of getting everyone heard than a popular vote would. At least in my opinion.
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@Kcmatt7 OK, but Kansas already gets the least federal grant money per dollar of federal taxes paid: https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal-government/2700/
The federal government should do what is right for all of its citizens. I have a hard time believing that this funding is dependent upon the existence of the electoral college. Are North Dakotas electoral votes so cherished to warrant 5 dollars of fed funding on the tax dollar?
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If you’re a person living in a rural state with only one Congressperson, like North Dakota, Montana or Wyoming, it’s pretty nice to have your vote count for as much as two or three votes in a more densely populated state like New York or California.
I posted a graphic a while back when we were talking about populations and showing how votes were cast. The current maps show mostly red because most of the states voted GOP. I did one of Kansas, with population weightings
The top map is colored to show only counties with at least 100,000 population. The bottom is colored to show only counties with at least 15,000 in population filled in, with those over 25,000 in the darker shade.
Notice that in both maps, the bulk of the state is blank. It presents a much different picture, even in a state that is very dominantly Republican like Kansas, than the map that colors every area in, regardless of population, with no differentiation for population.
The Electoral College (and the Senate structure) were both created as compromises to the Rural South to keep the more populated North from outlawing slavery simply by having more population (and the political power that comes with it). Let’s remember that the South created the embarassing three fifths compromise (whereby slaves were counted as three fifths of a person for population purposes to give the South more Congressional seats and electors) to keep the slaves from being considered people while still using them for political influence.
The founding fathers could not have ever envisioned that one state would have over 60 times the number of people as another state. At this current time, Wyoming, Vermont, and Alaska all have populations small enough that they technically don’t qualify for one full Congressional Seat. Think about that for a moment. Those three states have a very much outsized influence on the politics of the US when considering their population, and that shows up particularly in the electoral college, where having their two senators added to their one Congressional representative substantially overrepresents their population.
We do this in Kansas as well, with many of the rural house and senate districts having only 90% of the population of an ideal district (the size of a district based purely on population) while many of the urban and suburban districts have 105% or more of the population of an ideal district. So much for one person, one vote.
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@approxinfinity Wow! Bless the cotton pickin’ lil heart of federal-government-despising SC!
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@justanotherfan and without the electoral college, we would forget about places like Vermont, Wyoming and Alaska. Do they have more influence than population they represent? Absolutely. Is that fair? Absolutely. If we didn’t do that, we wouldn’t hear their voices.
You as a minority should understand better than anyone on this board that having your voice heard the same as anyone else is important. By having the electoral college we give people that would otherwise be forgotten, a louder voice on a much more level playing field. It makes EVERY state get heard. If we switched, that wouldn’t be the case. If we switched to a popular vote, I wouldn’t ever vote. Because my vote wouldn’t help me. My vote would go to someone who doesn’t care about me and doesn’t even have to think about my existence.
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@approxinfinity no their oil is what is worth $5 on the dollar…
If we went to a popular vote it would be a disaster. In a two party system, well it would be pointless. I wouldn’t vote. Because neither candidate would be in it for my best interest. Or would even have to think about me. Maybe if we did the popular vote a viable 3rd party would appear. But more likely than not, it wouldn’t. It is too difficult to start one up from the ground up. There is too much campaigning to do across the midwest in order to hit every state you would have to in order to gain enough votes to matter. And there wouldn’t be even close to the amount of funding needed for that. So, essentially, that will never happen in my lifetime. And I hope the switch to a popular vote doesn’t either.
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Put simply, I don’t want to switch to a purely popular vote, because I don’t want to go to war with California. Another civil war does no good.
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They may have the numbers, but we cling to our guns in the Midwest. Lol
