Actual Final Third Party Debate Tonight 204
Separate from the debate moderated by Ralph Nader last night, Free and Equal is hosting a final third party debate tonight at 9:00 p.m. EST (pre-debate coverage began at 8:00 p.m. EST). As a follow up to the October 23rd debate, only Jill Stein (Green) and Gary Johnson (Libertarian) will be facing each other for ninety minutes of questions primarily focusing on foreign policy. It appears that this one isn't being picked up by C-SPAN, but it is being broadcast on RT America on a few cable networks as well as on YouTube (which should work if you have an HTML5 browser, or via the XBMC YouTube plugin). Discuss.
Should be interesting... (Score:5, Interesting)
Because of this, I think Stein and Johnson will help to shape the Democratic and Republican party platforms if they manage to get enough votes. If Johnson ends up getting 5% of the national vote (unlikely but he's at 5.2% in national polling...) it could radically change the American political landscape.
Re:Runoff elections... (Score:5, Interesting)
No, we need "instant runoffs". You pick your choices in order and the winner is selected on points.
Hell, at least there is a semblance of a decision by the electorate in that setup. Right now we've got empty fields in Montana having as much of a say in who becomes president as a small city in the Southeast.
But any change would require an Amendment to the Constitution, or (my choice) a Constitutional Convention, which would be so heavily lobbied that we'd end up with a system where the president was chosen by the CEOs of the Fortune 500.
Maybe we have to face the fact that elections just aren't going to get us where we need to go. It's only going to happen by us becoming better citizen/consumers. The answer may not be in our political system at all.
Re:Runoff elections... (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think an amendment to the Constitution would be necessary. All the Constitution says is that states choose Electors, and the Electors vote on the President. It's up to the states how they pick Electors. In practice, they all have a first-past-the-post popular vote, but an individual state could choose to employ IRV or any other system.
Ideally, one would want a lot of states to get together and agree to all implement IRV together. Already, several states have signed pacts to all assign their electors to the winner of the national popular vote (see here [nationalpopularvote.com]). There's no reason we couldn't use the same approach to pass IRV. It's much easier to pass voting reform this way than it is through a Constitutional amendment.
Of course, the two major parties don't want it, so even with the lower bar it's unlikely to happen.
Re:5% (Score:4, Interesting)
He could have surrendered at the American embassy, or to Yemeni authorities. Not that difficult.
To rig an election convincingly you need the stats (Score:2, Interesting)
Just to recap, the OHIO REPORTING SYSTEMS DOESN'T NEED THIS SOFTWARE! It already tabulates the results as they are. What Ohio have ordered is an interface to something else. What happened in August is they were caught rigging the election, they need to improve their rigging and that needs early voting data:
http://www.themoneyparty.org/main/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Republican-Primary-Election-Results-Amazing-Statistical-Anomalies_V2.0.pdf
The Ohio vote in the Republican primaries was noticeable because the voter fraud had a linear slant. The more votes in a district the bigger the slant to Romney. So districts of size X, voted 35% for Romney, districts of size Y voted 30% for Romney and so on, regardless of anything else.
This INSANE result, showed an algorithm was at work, and comparing the districts with ES&S central tabulators against paper voting districts, showed how rigged the election was, and that this rigging was right across all the states.
http://www.themoneyparty.org/main/stolen-election-2004-plus-the-voter-fraud-scam-series/wisconsin-no-tabulator-versus-tabulator-counties/
To rig an election convincingly, you need the stats early, so that you can make just enough vote flipping near the beginning. If you set too much vote-flipping at the beginning you risk your candidate getting 80% win. If you flip it too late, your guy can lose.
They know they can't simply set constants for vote rigging because they were spotted in the statistical analysis of the Ohio Primaries vote.
Re:5% (Score:5, Interesting)
You seem to be generally misinformed on this matter, so here are a few things. The Congress passed the resolution noted in the following document: Authorization For Use Of Military Force in Response to the 9/11 Attacks [fas.org]. The Supreme Court of the United States has held this type of Congressional authorization to be equivalent to a declaration of war. If you join the enemy making war on the United States, you can be captured or killed under the law of war - no trial is necessary beforehand. All of your hand waving on these matters is just that. Your lack of familiarity with the personal involvement of an enemy combatant with attacks or attempted attacks doesn't change or weaken the findings against them.
As an American citizen you don't have a Constitutional right to join a terrorist group and attack the United States or its allies. If you join with them, you will be treated like them, i.e. captured or killed as possible or necessary. Renegade Americans may be the most dangerous of all since they know the ins and outs of American society, and can identify weak points for attack, and coach would-be attackers to be more effective. If you go renegade, you accept the consequences of war. If you want a nice trial, then surrender so that charges can be prepared and a trial set.
There is no great mystery about why Al Awlaki was killed. The man actively recruited for Al Qaida, was directly tied to numerous people making attacks, and was apparently involved in planning attacks. The man was an enemy of the American people, whom he plotted to kill in large numbers, an enemy of the state that he hoped to help destroy, and an enemy of humanity as a stateless terrorist, the very kin to pirates, hostis humani generis [wikipedia.org]. Is slavery [indianexpress.com] far behind [frontpagemag.com]?
I do not support many of President Obama's policies, but he is correct in this one, and against that man.
The United States is not rounding up or making war against people who insult the First Lady, or the President, but rather against actual and would be mass murderers, terrorists, war criminals. It is quite amazing to me that so many people get this elementary question wrong, this isn't even close to being hard to understand. Somehow I expect you will amaze me again.