Social media lit up after Super Tuesday with photos of and interviews with folks who stood in line for hours to vote. So much for being a “modern” democracy. This really is insane: you should not have to wait in…
Executive Branch Jobs: One Is More Than Enough
One person really shouldn’t be able to have more than one Executive branch job. For one thing, how could you manage? There’s no way Mulvaney (or Grinell or any of the others) is actually doing a good job in all…
Sides: Always There Are Two (At Least)
I like Wonkette; they’re scrupulously accurate political news, with a lefty rhetorical bias but without scrimping on the dick jokes. What’s not to like? Well. Something that creeps into their reporting occasionally (and is much more common in less scrupulous…
Unity: The Spirit Of Fascism
America has a startlingly strong fascist streak. You can see it in all the talk of politicians being a “uniter”. That’s not actually a good thing. “Unity” is not a virtue of itself. I mean, sure, it’s fine if you…
Wasted Votes: Everyone Needs To Vote At The Same Time
So, several Democratic primary candidates dropped out before Super Tuesday. That’s normal. Yeah, but it’s not good for anyone who voted for them in the earlier states or who used eary voting or vote-by-mail to vote for them in a…
Real Accountablility: Elect Tha Police
That pic up there is what came up image searching for “police site:gov”. Yeah, that’s not good. But it’s a pretty accurate depiction of how the police (and government) in the United States seems to think of themselves. OK, so…
No Party This Year: The Republicans Cancelled Their Primary Election
I really don’t understand anyone who plans to vote Republican in the general election this year. Not that I particularly understand them in any year. Even a brief perusal of this blog should make it pretty obvious that I am…
Hugo Voting: For Once We Should Pay Attention To An Industry Award
The Hugo Awards are a fan-voted series of awards for Science Fiction and Fantasy writers and fans. They use ranked-choice voting. (Which I discussed in No Spoilers: Ranked Choice Voting, and which I’ll be abbreviating below to “RCV” when I…
Third Party Time: Two, Three, Or Many Political Parties
One of the essential problems with the way the United States does elections is that it inevitably results in just two political parties. Inevitably. Electoral systems that use single-choice ballots, where the voter marks a single choice from the field…
Elections Have Consequences: How To Choose A Candidate
Apparently American voters, for the most part, actually are choosing their candidates based on who they’d want to have a beer with (or a wine, maybe?). This is not a good standard. In fact, it’s a really, really bad one.…