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Why we aren't getting any stimulus

1. America's retirement system is woefully inadequate for the majority of Americans. After paying 13.4% of their income into Social Security, the average American doesn't have any money left over to save in an index fund. This means the majority of Americans both struggle in retirement and have no rainy day fund for if they lose their job before they retire.
2. Amway and other Multi-Level Marketing scams donate billions to the Republican Party.
3. Betsy DeVos becomes the Secretary of Education to undermine our education system. The DeVos family made their billions from Amway. By having fewer college graduates, Amway has more people they can prey upon. It also gives this predatory industry a voice at the table of every cabinet meeting.
   
4. America hits a recession and the Federal Government provides only a one time payment to average Americans. The $4 trillion stimulus package ($6000 per capita) mostly goes to large companies.
5. Small businesses have to lay off their employees, and many shut down permanently.
6. Millions of Americans are out of work and without any money saved due to our inadequate retirement system, regressive tax code, and lack of aid to average Americans. Because of this, millions of Americans are looking for anything to pay their bills.
7. Multi-Level Marketing companies target the millions of Americans who are unemployed and unable to pay their bills, knowing full and well that they will make BILLIONS off of people struggling, and that it is going to be a long time until our economy restructures due to a lack of a functioning government.
8. Wages are driven down and for a time the largest companies who got bailed out are able to pay lower labor costs.
9. Banks don't have money to lend out to new businesses, slowing the growth of our economy, keeping the competition for labor at a minimum, which drives wages down.
10. Small companies are going to have a hard time finding customers without any stimulus boosting our demand curve, making starting a business a daunting task. Getting investment without customers is impossible.
    

I despise every company whose business model is built on harming people.

Thank God we avoided Hillary Clinton's emails.

In November we will choose whether we will elect a man who is downplaying the extent of the damage of this epidemic, and using this opportunity to eliminate the competition for the businesses he and his cabinet own.

Our alternative is to vote for the man who was Vice President when health care was expanded to include disabled Americans.

Remember to vote for Joe Biden in November.

General Lee was no hero

Ike was wrong about General Lee. Lee was a slaveholder and had no loyalty to these United States. As soon as Virginia seceded from the Union, Lee saw nothing wrong with being the leading general in the war which killed more American soldiers than any other war.

He was a veteran of the Mexian American War, but in my opinion when he decided to lay arms against his country because of his conflict of interest as a slaveholder, he lost all honor.

If I had an array of men responsible for killing more American soldiers than any other, General Lee would have to be on that list.

Ike having a picture of General Lee in the White House is a slap in the face to every family like mine who lost loved ones defending the United States in the Civil War.

Respect the troops.

https://youtu.be/mOrtOlU8f9Y

Jen Perelman for Congress

On January 20, 2005 George W. Bush was sworn in for a second term. He had successfully eroded our civil liberties with the PATRIOT ACT, gotten us into an oil war with Iraq, and was already starting to rattle sabres with Iran. Virginian Terry McAuliffe was the chair of the DNC during this election. The Republican party gained another 4 seats in the Senate for  a total of 55 seats and another 5 seats in the House for a total of 232 seats. Terry McAuliffe was then replaced as the chair of the DNC by Vermonter Howard Dean. In 2006 we got the House, along with 6 governorships, and in 2008 we got the first Democratic trifecta since 2 January 1995. The future looked very bright. We had a young and popular President who supports universal health care, free community college, and expanding AMTRAK. If this wasn't good enough, he also was the first person of color in the office. He preserved more land than any other President in history, and he wouldn't have been able to do any of that if it wasn't for Chair Howard Dean's leadership. We had a majority of State Legislatures, briefly had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, and over 300 seats in the House. Howard Dean had done a phenomenal job of historic proportions.

In a fairly unorthodox move, he stepped down after providing the biggest victory for progressive politicians in American history and he was replaced by Virginian Tim Kaine. A few things went very wrong at that point. Democratic politicians who did not cooperate on major issues, including health care, education, and transportation, were not held accountable for their votes by the party. As a consequence there was no party unity on major issues and the Republicans got a majority of governorships in a census year as well as a majority in the House. By doing this, they were able to gerrymander many different states, guaranteeing continued Republican dominance of the House for the next 8 years.

Kaine rightfully stepped down after that defeat which he had engineered. He engineered it by continuing to support Democrats who stepped away from the party line, which made a lot of voters feel like there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans. By giving them that much leeway, he significantly weakened President Obama and many voters, myself included, feel betrayed to this day. Tim Kaine significantly contributed to the animosity of the Democratic National Committee by Progressives by allowing too much leeway for members of Congress. We live in a country which uses first past the post, and because of this we have a two party system. We don't have a third party to hold conservative Democrats accountable. If he had held Democrats accountable by guaranteeing that they will be primaried if they do not support the President, they would have towed the line and we could have gotten a majority in 2010 by expanding our turnout.

He was replaced with Floridian Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She followed Tim Kaine's strategy which follows four major tenants:

1. Do not support state legislative races. They need to raise money first on their own in order to get any support. This is what I heard from my party leaders in my local legislative district.
2. Members of Congress have almost complete leeway in how they vote. If a Democrat votes against the party line, oh well.
3. Do not rile Republicans. This means if they decide to gerrymander states and erode federal laws regarding voting rights and other critical laws, that is their right in our Jacksonian democracy. Do not exercise our power to bring rogue states in line with Federal law using the courts.
4. We must appeal to the median voter.

In 2014 we lost the Senate as a result of these policies, and as a direct consequence of Wasserman Schultz's utter incompetence and fear of doing something meaningful, combined with having Tim Kaine as Vice President, whose biggest legacy is the Speakership of both John Boehner and Paul Ryan, Hillary Clinton lost the Presidency in 2016. As a consequence of the actions of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh are probably both going to be on the Supreme Court until around 2050.

After working in politics for 5 years, my conclusion from talking to thousands of voters is that median voter theorem is complete bullshit.

Also, a consequence of having some political experience under my belt is I believe very strongly that every inaction when you are in a position of power is itself an action.

She is still in the House today after engineering the election of Donald Trump through her cowardice. I do not believe she is qualified to be a canvasser for the Democrats or any left of fascist initiative after her gross incompetence and negligence put us in this situation.

Fortunately, for the people in her home district, there is a fantastic opportunity to end the career of the person who put Donald Trump in power through her actions. Over the last week on her twitter account, Jen Perelman has endorsed paid family leave, has spoken out about moderates trying to rehabilitate the image of the war criminal George W. Bush, she is the co-chair of her local League of Women Voters, and an attorney.

But most importantly, she did not engineer the election of Donald Trump.

If you are able, please donate to her campaign today https://secure.actblue.com/donate/jen2020.

If you are able to donate or not, please follow her on her Twitter @JENFL23.

These are the 10 things people don't realize about elections

George Washington

1. First Past the Post comes with several major flaws. It creates the spoiler effect which means that with more than two candidates no candidate can win a majority, and this can lead to politicians getting elected who most of the voters oppose.

2. The only system that is worse for people than First Past the Post is a delegate system. This is what we use for the Electoral College and Presidential Primaries. Delegates are worse because they make the minority vote in states have no say in the general election outside of Nebraska and Maine. Even within Nebraska, if you are in the minority in your congressional district, your vote has no impact on the national result. This is contrary to the idea of one person one vote, which is the fundamental principal our democracy is based on.

3. There have been 4 times in American history where the next President lost the popular vote. The first time was with John Quincy Adams versus the genocidal maniac who had an unhealthy addiction to duels, Andrew Jackson. The second time was Rutherford B. Hayes being defeated by Samuel J. Tilden in 1876. The third time was when Al Gore beat George W. Bush. The 4th time was when Hillary Clinton became the first woman to win the popular vote, in 2016. To date, no woman who has been nominated to their party has lost the popular vote for President

4. The Electoral College was formed to defend slavery. If slaves had not been counted as 3/5 of a person, than abolitionist President John Adams would have been elected over known rapist slaveholder Thomas Jefferson in 1800. The Electoral College defended slavery again in 1824, and millions of people were held in bondage for 60 more years because of that most peculiar of American Institutions.

5. The American Primary System was completely reformed in 1972. Before then, most States didn't have a popular vote for the Presidency at all, and the Presidential candidates were selected by party insiders. In 1972 that changed and soon everyone had the opportunity to vote for the Presidential Primary.

6. The Presidential Primary drives down turnout. The Presidential Primary is detrimental to American democracy in several ways. Combined with the peculiar institution of the Electoral College it fully shuts out third party voices and gives significant power to those who are already well connected. It starts in two of the whitest states in the United States, and by the time most people have voted, many candidates have already dropped out. It makes America's election season last over a year, unlike any other country. This draws on the American psyche, distracting from what our government is currently doing, distracts from local races, and is bad for Democracy.

7. America's original system was more similar to the Parliamentary systems of Europe. The first thing that people forget is that Electors weren't originally locked into the votes of the People. Similar to a Parliamentary system where the ordinary person has almost no say at all on who their head of government will be. Whereas in the UK the Prime Minister is elected by Parliament, our Electoral College is equal in size to Congress (until the 23rd amendment which granted the District of Columbia 3 electoral college votes) and the electors were decided on a state by state basis. The Marshall Court in the early years of the United States significantly moved us towards a more centralized government, particularly with multiple decisions that moved power from the States to the Federal government.

John Marshall

8. America didn't vote for our Senators until 1913. Until then they were elected by our State Legislatures. In the early days you had to own land to vote at all in most states. Suffrage in the United States has been constantly expanding ever since independence, and the movement now for universal absentee voting and ranked voting, is just continuing that American tradition of constantly expanding freedom further. Being the first modern democracy with the oldest extant Constitution in the world gives us a unique standing among the world's democracies in terms of what has been tested and tried here first, or has been adopted from abroad.

9. In 2004 Howard Dean broke against tradition by focusing on small donors and extending his social media as a major campaigning tool. Until this time, Democrats had focused substantially on bigger donors. Howard Dean soon became the Chair of the DNC after his failed Presidential bid. As chair his leadership gave Democrats the Senate, then the house, and then Barack Obama used the same strategy to win the primary and then win the general election in a historic landslide, becoming only one of two men since 1960 to win a majority of the popular vote twice. Politics has taken a long time to adopt content marketing. Politics has taken a long time to adopt content marketing. There is a huge opening to become a dominant player in this subsection of the market this November with legislative and congressional races happening across the United States, and also in other democracies. This could be the year that this changes. Since Howard Dean focused on smaller donors in 2004, this led to Barack Obama leading a successful grassroots campaign in 2008 which led him to win the Presidency. Content marketing could be the next major political innovation in politics which determines who wins and loses campaigns. HieroFlux is ready to be the company which leads the way in this sector. Focus on legislative and local races has significantly increased over the last 10 years, and out of 7,383 state legislators in the country, there is a lot of room for an increase in marketing in this area which will determine winners and losers in the election this November.

10. America is right now going through a significant shift in our election system. For the first time in history, multiple states used ranked voting in the Democratic Primary and 2020 will be the first Presidential election in history where one state will use ranked voting. Ranked voting ensures that every vote counts as long as the voter fills out their ballot properly. Many other states have growing FairVote movements today to continue to improve our elections, so that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from this Earth.

Published using Hieroflux

2020-2022 election analysis

So, there is a Wikipedia list which shows you the current political party strength in every state in these United States. I downloaded this into a Jupyter notebook today and did some Python magic on it this morning to start to understand what is really going on with the partisan spread in the United States.

First, for historical background it is really new that no matter which state you live in, the parties will be very aligned.

OK, to prevent this from being a giant historical essay, let's start by doing some real analysis into the current patterns in the United States.

This map shows the current state level Trifectas in the United States. As you can see from the map above, most trifectas are currently held by Republicans. This is a very different story from before the 2010 census.

But what this simply colored map doesn't show are HOW these Trifectas are formed. Breaking this down further, if we show only states which have total alignment (a trifecta and voted for the President of the same party in 2016) the map looks like this:

20 states do not have a split government representation when you take into account the partisan balance of both state legislatures, their governor, their Senators, their US Representatives, and how they voted for the President in the last election. There is one caveat to this, Nebraska has a technically non-partisan state legislature, so they should technically be colored red.

Every state in grey is a target for each party to expand their power.

Republicans are one step away from taking over the following states in grey:

• Alabama (US Senate)
• Alaska (State House)
• Iowa (2 seats in the US House)
• Kansas (Governor)
• Kentucky (Governor)
• Louisiana (Governor)
• North Carolina (Governor)
• Ohio (US Senate)
• West Virginia (US Senate)

Democrats are one step away from taking over the following states in grey:

• Colorado (US Senate)
• Maine (US Senate, although Angus King is technically Independent, he caucuses with the Democrats)
• Maryland (Governor)
• Massachusetts (Governor)
• Minnesota (2 seats in the State Senate)
• New Hampshire (Governor)
• Vermont (Governor, although Bernie Sanders is technically Independent, he caucuses with the Democrats)

If all of these changes occur, our map will look like this:

The remaining 5 states are the ones which are by this count the most swingy of them all.

Arizona and Pennsylvania have the closest margins in their state legislatures which makes them relatively easy for the Democrats to gain control over redistricting. All that needs to happen than in Arizona is to win the Gubernatorial election in 2022 and the Democrats will have a trifecta there. In Pennsylvania we need to pick up 4 seats in the Senate and 9 seats in the House (out of a very large State House), so these are very likely to be added to the list of Democratic trifectas in the next two and a half years if people turn out.

Michigan has a wider margin, particularly in the State Senate, but it is theoretically possible for the Democrats to win back the State House where they only need 4 more seats, and with Gretchen Whitmer as governor it is very likely that the map will be at least balanced in 2022 which means that a Democratic trifecta in Michigan in 2023 is very likely.

In Montana the Republicans are two steps away from total domination, but they have a popular moderate Democratic senator, so it is very likely that Montana will continue to not be dominated for a while.

In Wisconsin it is a similar story to Michigan. We need to pick up one of the Senate seats, and 2 more House seats to dominate their congressional representation. With a Democratic governor the map in 2022 will be at least balanced, which means the Democrats have a high probability of getting complete control in Wisconsin over the next 2 years.

Now, it is totally possible that voters will continue their divided governments in these states as well, these are just how it looks for now.

There are very few states in the US right now with close state legislatures. If we look at the Presidential margins as well we see that the only three states which do not have divided government which saw no candidate take an outright majority in the 2016 Presidential election were North Carolina and Florida.

North Carolina will have a tight US Senate election this year, the polls put both Thom Tills and Cal Cunningham in a dead heat. PaddyPower betting doesn't favor either party in winning the Presidential election either. Roy Cooper is expected to win his election this year, which will mean that North Carolina will likely have a more balanced state legislature and US House map this time around. Assuming these voters vote down ballot as well, it might be possible to pick up a few more seats in the State legislature where we need 4 in the Senate and 5 in the House to have a tie. There were 9 different races which Republicans won by less than 10% in 2016, and with the right candidates this time around, combined with the president being unpopular, it is definitely possible that Democrats could take one or both houses, forcing the Republicans to have a less gerrymandered map. This will have massive implications nationally because North Carolina has 13 seats in the House, so getting a fair map in North Carolina is important in maintaining control of the US House of Representatives.

Florida's size makes it necessary to discuss. Democrats need 4 seats to take over the State Senate (out of 40 seats), and significantly more in the States House. It is the same story for Florida as with North Carolina, but even more so because it has as many house seats as New York. Given that Trump failed to get a majority, it is very much in play. The gubernatorial election in 2022 will be very important to watch since Ron DeSantis won by only 33,000 votes, or .4% of the people who voted. But, since Democrats lost in 2018 I fully expect that the State legislature and US House districts will be fully gerrymandered after this year's census. The 2030 Gubernatorial election is going to be very important.


At first glance, Iowa is very strongly Republican right now, but this wasn't the case 10 years ago. Kim Reynolds won the election by 50.3% of the vote in 2018 and followed up by passing one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the United States. Given that the Iowa PVI is only R+3 I believe it is possible to run the right candidate against her to at least take back the Governorship in 2022. Ohio is a similar story, given that Mike DeWine won with only 50.4% of the vote. If the Democrats are able to take back the governorship hopefully we can bring the state to court to get a more fair legislative boundary map some time around 2025.

Georgia is the final state I am going to look at in this list. Stacey Abrams almost won in 2018, and if enough people turn out to vote in 2022 it is possible that Georgia could have a Democratic governor in 2023. There needs to be better oversight of our elections because of what happened in 2018 with the Governors race, ideally foreign observers. Georgia allows anyone to register to vote absentee for any reason, and the ticket to winning the Governors race in 2022 is to get as many people registered to vote absentee as fast as possible. This gets around the voter ID laws which are probably unconstitutional, and ensures everyone can have their voice count.


Based on all of this, my final prediction for what state level government trifectas will look like in 2023 as a best case scenario for Democrats is as follows:

This is assuming Democrats only see gains, and we pick up the governorships which Republicans won by under 5 points:

• Florida
• Georgia
• New Hampshire
• Iowa
• South Dakota
• Ohio

 We pick up Senate seats in states which voted for Clinton and have a Republican Senator:

•  Colorado
• Maine

We pick up State Senates where the margin is under 5%:

• Minnesota

We pick up State Houses where the margin is under 5%:

• Arizona
• Iowa
• Michigan
• Pennsylvania
• North Carolina

We also win every state in the Presidential election which Clinton lost by under 5%:

• Florida
• Pennsylvania
• Michigan
• North Carolina
• Arizona
• Wisconsin
• Nebraska, 2nd district

This will create the following most probable best case scenario for the Democrats:

If everything possible goes right for the Republicans, the best case scenario for 2023 they can reasonably hope for using  he same criteria will be:

They can pick up the following governorships:

• North Carolina
• Wisconsin
• Connecticut
• Montana
• Nevada

They pick up Senate seats in states which voted for Trump and have a Democratic Senator:

• Alabama
• Arizona
• Montana
• Ohio
• Pennsylvania
• West Virginia
• Wisconsin

They pick up State Senates where the margin is less than 5%:

• Colorado
• Virginia

There are no Democratically controlled State Houses where the margin is less than 5%.

They pick up states where Clinton won with a margin of victory under 5%.:

• Colorado
• Nevada
• Minnesota
• New Hampshire

This will create the most probable best case scenario for the Republican Party:

Now there are many reasons why this unlikely. Trump is polling below 50%, most betting pools are betting that Joe Biden will win, COVID-19 is showing the quality of Republican leadership and if Republicans are disproportionately affected due to the patterns of which states are opening up early, than this will definitely reduce the number of people voting for Republicans in November.

This bring us to one final map, which is where these two maps agree:

This map makes it pretty clear that most Americans live in a State which has at least one major partisan control (legislature, governor, senators, or Presidential votes) at risk in this current election cycle based on previous election trends.

The truth in a few years will likely be somewhere in the middle of these two extremes, but the takeaway from this I have is that nothing is written in stone, and history is what we make it. Every single person needs to vote. The majority of Americans are liberal according to issue based opinion polls, and we deserve to have a government which reflects these values. Almost everyone lives somewhere where either their governor, representative (which I did not examine in this post), state legislature, senator, or their votes for the Electoral College are truly up for grabs.

This map also makes one error, which I am aware of. It makes Washington (my home) look like a safe state. This appears to be true, but in my data if you take an average of the partisan split in each house Washington is next to Montana in terms of how closely divided our legislature is. In fact, we are one of only 11 states where both houses have a margin of under 10% of the seats. In fact, 21 states in total have at least one chamber with a 10% majority or less. If we remove these states from our "safe state" map to get only the ultra safe states the map looks like this:

These are the only states where the following criteria are true:

• The margin of victory for President was over 5%
• The party in power of both state legislature chambers has a margin of over 10% of the seats
• The governor won their last race by at least a 5% margin
• Both Senate seats are held by the same party
• Only one party dominated both houses of the Legislature, controls the governorship, and has both seats in the Senate

This is the reality of American politics today. Very few states are completely safe in every possible way. Everyone needs to vote, and you need to vote for every race on your ballot. Even if you live in a state legislative district considered safe, you should still vote, because it can still make a difference. Michigan voted for the Democrats every Presidential election from 1988-2012, but voted for Trump in 2016. The Washington State Legislature was divided for most of the 2010s, but a surge in turnout in 2018 gave the Democrats a large majority which has allowed them to pass legislation on a wide variety of issues.

Getting great people into state legislatures allows them to pass great bills which can solve real problems which effect your community. With a great slate of state legislators, it becomes much easier to win races for Congress and to have fantastic governors. We can have excellent mayors who can fight homelessness and expand transit. With these great leaders at all levels of our democracy we can then get phenomenal Presidents who can expand access to health care, increase the number of Americans who can go to college, and solve our looming retirement crisis which will only grow as long as we don't implement solutions.

But this will only happen if you vote for your state legislator. Great state legislators will only get elected if you volunteer to phone bank in your legislative district to get great leaders into positions of power where they can make our world a better place. That is the only way that we can get great Senators and Governors, which is the only way we will elect great Presidents. It will only happen if you get involved in the politics of your legislative district today.

It's the courts, Stupid!

Yesterday a bunch of Bernie Bros got Souter trending on Twitter, claiming that if Joe Biden is elected we will get a conservative Supreme court Justice.

Let's get some detail on that one:

Nominee	Year/President	Vote	Biden's vote
John Paul Stevens	1975, Ford	98-0	Yea
Sandra Day O'Connor	1981, Reagan	99-0	Yea
William Rehnquist	1986, Reagan	65-33	Nay
Antonin Scalia	1986, Reagan	98-0	Yea
Anthony Kennedy	1988, Reagan	97-0	Yea
David Souter	1990, George H.W. Bush	90-9	Yea
Clarence Thomas	1991, George H. W. Bush	52-48	Nay
Ruth Bader Ginsburg	1993, Bill Clinton	96-3	Yea
Stephen Breyer	1994, Bill Clinton	87-9	Yea
John Roberts	2005, George W. Bush	78-22	Nay
Samuel Alito	2006, George W. Bush	58-42	Nay

Here is the thing, on every controversial Republican pick, Biden voted no. He voted with the majority of the Democratic party the majority of the time, and if he wins the election he will probably nominate court justices like RBG, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayer, and Elena Kagan.

There are also a lot of lower courts which Trump has had the ability to pack over the last 3 years, given how McConnell refused to give Obama his appointees which was I believe was technically unconstitutional. If Trump wins another term, he will probably replace either RBG or Stephen Breyer by 2025. If that happens, here are the court decisions which are likely to be overturned:

1. Obergefell v. Hodges
2. Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey
3. Massachusetts v. EPA
4. Texas v. Johnson
5. Grutter v. bollinger

and more.

This is what you are voting on.

End this epidemic recession now

America is currently spiraling into a recession, and we need to have effective policy as soon as possible to end it.

This recession is a classic demand side recession. People are staying home, cutting their spending, which is going to cause both deflation and a reduction in GDP. This is going to inevitably cause layoffs, which is going to deeply harm the economy.

The key now is to replace the consumer spending as fast as possible so that businesses can keep people employed, so that individuals can continue to spend money to keep the economy moving. The easiest way to do that right now is by simply sending money out to everybody as fast as possible to counteract our declining demand.

This is why Congress should pass an immediate temporary basic income to every American right now. Every American should get a check, $1000 or $2000, either deposited to their bank account or sent to them as a physical check as soon as possible.

Democrats are wrong that the check should be means tested. First of all, every means tested program will inevitably miss people who should have received benefits. 75% of American households make under $100,000 per year, and our annual median household income is $52,657. The majority of people will greatly benefit from this policy. The key right now to preventing a depression (3 or more quarters of economic decline) is speed.

Source: https://personalfinancedata.com/income-percentile-calculator/?min_age=18&max_age=100&income=40000#results

Republicans are wrong in having it be done as handouts to already well off companies. This will not help our economy.

But, even more important than the economy is our lives. We need to have access to as many tests as possible, and be able to get as many people cured from coronavirus as possible, as soon as possible. The economy is far less important than protecting human lives.

There will be more opportunities to fight inequality in bigger ways soon. The biggest thing will be through making a more progressive tax code, and that is something we need to do, but right now Congress should have only two priorities, and that is to ensure that the Coronavirus epidemic ends as soon as possible, and that our economy is protected. Long term structural macroeconomic policies which we should have focused on a few years ago will need to wait.

End this recession now.

Absentee voting

Across the United States, millions of Americans are going to stand in long lines this year to vote for President, Senators, their Representative, and state and local officials across the country. This has been a tactic used by the Republican party in particular over the last few years to reduce the number of people who are able to vote in areas which primarily vote for Democrats, particularly African Americans. This significantly impacted the 2016 election, and helped Trump win slim majorities (by the official count) in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, which gave him the Presidency.

It doesn't have to be this way.

Most states in the United States allow voters to vote absentee for no reason, simply by filling out a form with their county auditor. The ballot is then sent to them in the mail, and then their vote is counted. This can increases voter turnout by 3% once other factors are taken into account. In states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Florida, this can make a significant difference in the overall election.

Every American who lives in a green state should register to vote absentee as soon as possible.

The easy way to solve this problem is if the Democratic Party does a deliberate information campaign to teach voters about their rights about absentee voting in every state as soon as possible. Every county Democratic Party, and every candidate for every office should have absentee voting registration forms at every event in every green state. Getting voters registered to vote absentee whenever possible will significantly reduce one significant voter disenfranchisement tactic the Republican Party has been using over the last decade to ensure that the voice of the American people is heard.

I am 27 years old, born during the twilight of George H.W. Bush's presidency. In my entire life the Republican Party has only won the popular for the Presidency once. People need to have their voices heard and the easiest way to do that is to have as many people vote absentee as possible. Millions of Americans, myself included, rely on this to guarantee that our health care continues. Until the Republican Party removes the abolition of the Affordable Care Act from their platform this is going to be the biggest issue for me. The other big issue are the Geneva Protocol violations that the Republican Party has been doing with their control of ICE over the last few years. We need to improve these problems as much as possible, as soon as possible.

As long as one party campaigns to significantly harm the lives of Americans, I will be partisan.

The easiest way to guarantee that Joe Biden will be the next President of the United States is to make sure people are able to vote so that he can undo a lot of the damage which Trump has done over the last 3 years. The easiest way to make sure people are able to vote is to get as many voters registered to vote absentee in as many places as possible over the next 8 months.

Every state legislator, governor, member of congress, and local official in this country should do everything in their power this year to get as many people voting absentee as possible. Simply expanding people's rights and letting people know about the rights which they already have will make a tremendous difference this year, which will help us flip critical Senate seats, and ensure that Donald Trump is a one term president. the sooner he is out of office, the sooner the State of New York will prosecute him for his financial crimes, and the sooner the people of New York can get the tax money they are owed. It will allow us to end the civil liberty violations on the border, and expand freedoms in so many other ways in the 2020s.

But only if people are able to vote.

https://www.nonprofitvote.org/documents/2011/03/pew-effect-of-non-precint-voting-reforms.pdf/
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/reports/2018/07/11/453319/increasing-voter-participation-america/

Updated Presidential Rankings

Ranking of American Presidents

1. Lyndon Baines Johnson - For his efforts on combating poverty, willingness to lead the country with his bully pulpit, and signing the civil rights act. His Great Society lifted millions out of poverty. No president comes close to his astonishing human rights record. Vietnam escalated under his presidency but he did everything in his power to end the conflict. He had the ability to get people to do what had to be done. His biggest blunder was not letting Americans know that Nixon was committing treason.
2. Abraham Lincoln - for his effort in keeping the United States together and the Emancipation Proclamation. He respected the constitution with the suspension of Habeas Corpus. He didn’t free slaves in the North.
3. Franklin Delano Roosevelt - For his efforts and success in setting a strong foundation for the 20th century economy. He was responsible for the incarceration of thousands of Japanese Americans.
4. John Fitzgerald Kennedy - For his efforts towards science and combating poverty, and the second best human rights record in our history after his successor, but blundering foreign policy
5. Barack Obama - For his efforts towards universal health care, ending the Iraq war, and standing up to warmongerers, improving education, environmental regulation, he harmed Social security benefits, improved financial regulation, second most progressive social issues president in history, opened travel to Cuba
6. John Quincy Adams - For his economic wisdom, respect of Native Americans, establishing colleges, abolitionism, and expanding infrastructure
7. George Washington - for his formation of treaties and respect of Native Americans. He ranks lower for signing the Fugitive Slave Act.
8. Thomas Jefferson - For his exploration of the American west, preserving trade in the Mediterranean, and diplomacy
9. Dwight David Eisenhower - For his diplomacy, protection of the economy, and prophetic farewell speech. He set up the foreign policy blunders of the next decade.
10. Harry Truman - For his continuation of building the foundation for the 20th century his predecessor built. He is ranked lower for his dropping of the bombs. He helped escalate the Cold War.
11. Warren G. Harding - for supporting the 8 hour work day, child labor laws, opposition to lynching, and good neighbor policy
12. Benjamin Harrison - For his advocacy of civil rights, reformation of the civil service, and
13. Ulysses S. Grant - For his continuation of Reconstruction and supporting equal rights. Corruption was rife in his cabinet.
14. Theodore Roosevelt - For his valiant efforts in preserving America’s treasures and national parks, he is ranked lower for his interventions in Latin America.
15. William McKinley - For his advocacy of human rights at home and abroad
16. Martin Van Buren - his cowardice in face of anti-Mormonism which he opposed demotes him, he kept peace with Mexico, advocated free trade, and opposed slavery
17. James Earl Carter - for his strong efforts towards peace around the world and attempts to gain energy independence for America. However, he signed the establishment of the NSA.
18. James Madison - he opposed the national bank which hurt our economy, he started the War of 1812, and protected Native Americans.
19. Zachary Taylor - For his attempts to set up the Western states as free states
20. James Monroe - He started the Seminole Wars, did the Missouri compromise meaning each slave state had to be matched with a free state, his expansionist Monroe doctrine,
21. Chester Alan Arthur - For his signing of the Pendleton Act which put rules against favors, he opposed Mormon polygamy (bad), opposed racism against the Chinese (good), and favored better relations with Native Americans.
22. John Adams - His largest accomplishment was the Alien and Sedition Acts
23. Bill Clinton - he passed no great laws and he signed the Commodities Futures Modernization Act, DOMA, DADT, and failed to pass meaningful health care reform. But he balanced the budget and didn’t hurt Medicare, which prevents him from falling further. He was led by pollsters and didn’t lead, he followed.
24. James K. Polk - He was extremely expansionist,
25. Woodrow Wilson - For his breaking his promise on World War I, anti-German sentiment, his support of the League of Nations keeps him from falling farther.
26. Gerald Ford - environmental regulations, strengthened AMTRAK, pardoned Nixon
27. Grover Cleveland - For racism, opposition to labor, and imperialism
28. Herbert Hoover - For his obsession with the deficit, protectionist policies, and limited response to the great depression.
29. Calvin Coolidge - His small government rhetoric and lack of leadership made his Presidency unsuccessful albeit popular
30. William Howard Taft - for his attacks on President Roosevelt’s environmental policy
31. Richard Nixon - EPA, improved relations with China, set up AMTRAK, worked against the Vietnam peace agreement which was treason. He entered office and destroyed the economy with deflationary monetary policy.
32. John Tyler - For his refusal to form a national bank in the face of an economic collapse
33. Franklin Pierce - For his unsuccessful compromise with the Kansas-Nebraska Act
34. Rutherford B. Hayes - For ending Reconstruction
35. Andrew Johnson - For his opposition to Reconstruction
36. Millard Fillmore - For passing the Fugitive Slave Act
37. James Buchanan - For his unwillingness to use his power to keep the Union together
38. Andrew Jackson - For his deportation of Native Americans, and his fiscal policy which crashed the economy.
39. Ronald Reagan - For negotiating with terrorists to hold Americans hostage until he was President, selling arms to Nicaraguan terrorists, attack on Grenada, and deregulation of the financial sector. As soon as he entered office he destroyed the economy with deflationary economic policy. His negotiations with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan betrayed America, making his administration a literal state sponsor of terrorism.
40. George H.W. Bush - For vetoing every good bill that came his way and using the United States military to his benefit (an oilman used the US military to defend a major oil exporter with dreadful human rights, I’m sure there is no conflict of interest.)
41. George W. Bush - For attacking Iraq, destabilizing the financial markets, the PATRIOT ACT, No Child Left Behind Act,
42. Donald Trump - Made America’s tax code more regressive, constant racist rhetoric, first President to restrict American travel to another country in decades, trade war with China, shutting down the government because Democrats won’t give him everything he wants.

Elizabeth Warren 2020

Roosevelt and Truman refused to prosecute the corporate CEOs who illegally use labor from the Holocaust. Johnson refused to prosecute Nixon for sabotaging his Vietnam peace talks. Carter covered up everything the Nixon administration did by not prosecuting the crimes he committed. Clinton refused to prosecute the Reagan/Bush administration for the Iran Contra Affair and Iran Hostage Crisis. Obama refused to prosecute the Bush administration for the 9/11 commission reports (I'll write more about that scandal later) and refused to prosecute states for violating the Voting Rights Act.

Democrats have a long history stretching back as long as the party has existed in its current form of playing nice and then getting defeated through illegal behavior in the next election through Gerrymandering, corruption, and back dealing by the Republican Party. Trying to appease brainwashed voters never works, and refusing to stand up for what is right when it comes to the quality of our government hurts every American.

Today Elizabeth Warren announced that she will set up a commission to prosecute the current members of the Trump Administration for violating the law. I believe very strongly in equal justice under the law, and it shouldn't matter who you are in the United States, if you are on American soil the law must apply to you as equally as every other person (to use the word the 14th amendment uses) on American soil. This doesn't matter if you are an average citizen, a foreigner, or even the President of the United States, all three should have the law apply to them equally. The President needs to be impeached first in order to have the full brunt of the law apply to them, but after they are removed from office they are just another citizen, and the crimes they committed in office are the second they are no longer President can be prosecuted. Likewise, if someone is on American soil, or an American military base, and they are accused of a crime, the full laws of the United States apply to them, including the protections in the Bill of Rights. Those civil liberties do not stop anyone who is guilty from being prosecuted, they only protect the innocent from being wrongly imprisoned, when they are followed.

If President Elizabeth Warren is going to use the full power of the Presidency to hold the Trump administration accountable for their crimes, which no President has ever done before, and every President since Washington has sworn to do, then just imagine what is going to happen to States which violate the Voting Rights Act, police forces which repeatedly violate civil liberties through excessive force, and every single person who is currently held by ICE without a trial, which the 14th amendment and 5th amendment together very clearly show is completely unconstitutional.

Elizabeth Warren alone has a life long career of protecting the weakest in society in ways which really do matter. Millions of Americans have been able to get their money back due to the law enforcement through the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She hits the right balance between stating how she will use the power of the Presidency to make a more just government, but she also has no desire to waste time if a bill isn't likely to pass through the Senate. While I of course wish we could just go make an initiative which would significantly strike at two major issues confronting our country and make it pass, I literally worked on the most progressive proposal I've ever seen, which was Initiative 732, I also learned from that the importance of building coalitions to pass legislation. Dead legislation does nothing. Compromised legislation is like a compromised vehicle.

So, we should have a President who will do everything she can to reverse all of the executive orders Trump has passed over the last 3 years to make America more just. We need a President who has a 30 year long proven track record of strategically moving forward proposals which pass and then significantly help people. We need someone who moves strategically, but who also never claims that we can't dream big and believes that we should make a world which brings the greatest good to the greatest number of people.

I have never seen a candidate in my life who more closely matches my values than Elizabeth Warren who will also successfully make a major difference by using her political power as President in a way to maximize good. If she becomes the nominee I know she will be elected. She will almost certainly use her candidacy to stump for Senate candidates in vulnerable states, which she did in 2012, raising over $1 million for Senate candidates, before she was even elected. You cannot say the same about any other Senate candidate. In 2016 Politico ran a piece Did Donald Trump Just Hand the Senate to Elizabeth Warren? when she had only been in office for 4 years. No other Freshman Senator could do that in a political piece. It is basically common knowledge among politicos that Bernie Sanders was late in announcing his candidacy in 2016 because he was expecting Elizabeth Warren to run and he would have backed her in that situation. No other politician has so much respect from their colleagues to the point that their allies will delay their candidacy to the highest office in the land because of so much trust.

In 8 years as Senator she has sponsored 9 pieces of legislation which have become law according to Govtrack.

Sanders has only sponsored 7 laws in 30 years.

Her values are pure, her strategy is proven, and I fully believe that if Senator Elizabeth Warren is elected she will have the balance between being effective in her strategy, while having a moral compass which points true, which will make America a more free country. With some major executive wins in the first two years that will give us the momentum to win the Senate in 2022, giving the brain behind the CFPB the first Democratic Trifecta in over a decade. I believe her strategy of making strategic wins against a Republican Senate will work.

I want to see that trifecta more than anything else in politics, and it is only going to happen if we have a President in 2021 who will use her strategy to mobilize voters through as many meaningful victories as possible. She will continue to stump for and support Democratic candidates for the Senate which will work yet again.

If that wasn't enough, Senator Warren endorses a carbon tax, which is known to economists as the most effective way to fight global warming. Sanders has shifted his stance and isn't talking about carbon taxes as much as he used to. Carbon taxes are actually not that controversial among candidates, as this Washington Post survey shows, Sanders and Gabbard are the only candidates who oppose it.

If you want a candidate who supports carbon taxes, ending the electoral college, and ending the filibuster, then there is really only one candidate you should vote for.


Elizabeth Warren deserves your vote.

My family's economic history

I am the first in 4 generations of my family to not become a professional grade school teacher. My grandfather is a veteran. My family fought in Vietnam, World War II, the Civil War, and the Revolutionary War. I work for a state college. You will never find someone with a longer family history of public service than me, which literally stretches back to the founding of our republic. I look at my great-grandmother who was a teacher in California, and when she died, there was nothing left for our family. She had a traditional pension. I look at my grandparents on the other side of my family who have IRAs, and they are quite comfortable in their retirement. Not because of higher wages, but because their retirement has a balance which upon their death instead of going to the billionaires who manage their money will go to their children, grandchildren, and if me, my brother, or cousins have children before they pass, their great-grandchildren. The money they earned will stay in our family for the first time in 250 years, instead of going to the billionaires like my great-grandmother's pension.

My family has served this country since its founding, and the creation of the IRA is what finally moved us out of poverty.

The Trump Administration's attempt to invade Iran is pathetic

Say it with me. Iran is Shiite. Saudi Arabia and Al Qaeda are both of the Salafi interpretation of Sunni Islam. There are MANY movements among Sunni Islam, of which the Salafi are just one. The attempt by the current administration to try to paint a connection between Iran and Al Qaeda is patently false and is playing on the lack of knowledge the average person has on religions besides their own. Iraq is one of a few countries which has many Sunni and Shiite, so keeping Iraq in chaos serves the interests of Saudi Arabia and extremist Christians in fostering the idea that religions cannot coexist. This is the same type of bullshit like what happened in Poland under Soviet Occupation where there was massive ethnic cleansing, fostering the same idea which is that people of differences cannot coinhabit the same area.

The religious extremists who control Saudi Arabia want to dominate the world.

That is why the United States is trying to invade Iran. The rest of the story should now be fairly obvious.

We should all do ourselves a favor and learn the basics of all the world's major religions. This doesn't mean you have to believe in them, but to understand all of the major religions is clearly an important step to world peace.