Bring back ARPA

I just learned this. DARPA was originally known as ARPA when it was founded in 1958 at the request of President Eisenhower. The D stands for defense, it was added in 1972 by Richard Nixon.

America was investing not just because it had military applications, we were investing because it improved society, because it made us a better country, because there are real tangible social benefits to living in an advanced society with opportunity for all. It's entire purpose was to advance the frontier of science with high-risk projects across all fields. This is when ARPANET was invented.

What this means is that the Internet was not invented solely for the military, it was invented for the sake of science, discovery, opportunity, economic growth, and more. Military wasn't the main focus. This is the America we were for a short period of time, this is the America we will be again.

The 1960s were also the period of time with the highest economic growth in American history.

In 1973 DARPA was dedicated to only programs with short-term benefits directly meant for the military. Our GDP growth has never been as high as the 1960s since then.

2018 elections

The US Senate is a dire tossup this year, and the House will almost certainly go Red, but this is the last time the Democrats can pick up enough Governorships to have a majority of Governorships in the country and they will also have veto power over redistricting plans for Congress and their State Legislatures for over 10 years from now. This is where money and votes can make a gigantic impact this year, the impact of which will be directly felt until 2030. Simply being able to veto gerrymandered maps will make a gigantic impact for a generation to come. This November will determine the outcome.

There are no fewer than 8 easy Governor pickups for @TheDemocrats this November. This is our last chance to get a majority of Governorships until 2022. Go #VoteBlue2018! Governors have the ability to veto unfair redistricting maps. Get Democratic Governors this year, get the House of Representatives and numerous legislature pickups in 2022. Otherwise, we might not get control of Congress again in the next decade. The two most important easy pickups this year are in Michigan and Wisconsin, so we can pick up a bunch of seats there. Florida and Ohio are both toss ups, which together send 43 Representatives to Congress, almost 10% of the House. Between Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, and Ohio, the winners of these blue/purple states will sign off on the redistricting of 65 seats of the House of Representatives, 15% of Congress. #VoteBlue2018

The 8 states Democrats can fairly easily get the Governor's mansion are Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

Potential New Democratic Governorships

If Democrats win this year in these 8 states, we will have a very good shot at taking the House of Representatives and several state legislatures in 2022. The Democratic Party is likely to take a majority of the vote in every House election until the Republican Party becomes less extreme, given how the Democrats have a stance far more in line with most Americans on almost every issue.

We will break Republican Trifectas in Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, New Hampshire, and if we get lucky and win both toss ups we will break the trifectas of both Ohio and Florida. We will gain trifectas in Illinois by gaining the governorship.

Broken Republican Trifectas

We must pick up two seats in the Colorado State Senate this year in order to gain a Trifecta.

We need to pick up one seat in the Connecticut State Senate in order to gain a Trifecta.

We need 6 seats in the Iowa State Senate and 10 seats in the Iowa State House of Representatives, along with the governorship to make a Trifecta. It will not be easy, but it is doable.

We could take a trifecta in Maine by flipping one seat in the State Senate. Gaining the governorship as well (which is likely) will make a Democratic Trifecta.

We can gain the Minnesota Senate this year by taking one seat. The House will be more difficult where there is a 77-56 Republican lead.

We can gain a Trifecta in Nevada by maintaining both houses and taking the Governorship.

New Hampshire will need 4 pickups out of a 24 seat Senate, and 43 pickups in the House out of a 400 seat chamber.

Gaining the governorship of New Mexico will deliver a Trifecta.

We need to gain the Senate in New York, only one seat flipping will deliver a Democratic Trifecta.

Maintaining the Governorship of Pennsylvania will allow us to gain a trifecta in 2022 by having fair legislative maps.

Republicans have a 2 seat majority in both chambers in Virginia. We could make a Democratic Trifecta in Virginia this year.

We MUST maintain our majority in Washington State.

We could potentially gain the Wisconsin State Senate, we only need to pick up two more seats to accomplish that. Gaining the Governorship as well will mean that in 2022 we only need to pick up the State Assembly to gain a Trifecta.

If we succeed in this, the map of trifectas in 2019 will look like this, dark colors are currently held, light colors are pickups from gaining governorships and legislatures.

Potential new Trifecta Map

These 10 new Democratic Trifectas and 2 new Republican Trifectas which are fairly easy to get will have a direct effect on 90 House districts for the Democrats and 19 House districts for the Republicans. 74 House Districts will be put in a position where they will now need to have some agreement between both parties as opposed to one party unilaterally choosing the boundaries for legislative and congressional districts, which usually ends up hurting the other party significantly. These numbers will of course change slightly because of the new 2020 Census, but they won't change too significantly.

Takeaway message:

The big message of this post is that yes, the Federal Government is going to stay in the hands of the Republicans. We might be able to barely break the Trifecta by getting a one seat majority in the Senate, but this is going to be very difficult. The big battle this year is in the states. Democrats can make huge substantial gains in Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The biggest state we must defend is Washington State, because the trifecta hangs by a thread. The outcomes of the elections in these 16 states will have massive implications for the outcomes of elections for the next 20 years. This is where people who have money to donate need to be putting their money, this is where people who wish to volunteer need to put their time. This is a huge battle this year for the soul of America, let's hope that the side of equality, opportunity, and freedom wins.

On top of this, there are elections going on in cities and counties across America right now. Vote in your local elections, because that is where great leaders begin.

Remember also that in 1994 a 33 year old man was elected to the State Senate in the South Side of Chicago. he served for 10 years and then became the Senator for Illinois in the 2004 election (his second run for Congress), and in 2008 Barack Obama became the President of the United States.

Your State legislature is the major source for Federal politicians, and your governor and other state executives ultimately determines how the elections of your state are run (along with the Federal Courts, but those cases can be delayed by 5 years or more.). They determine if polling places are easy to get to, if you have mail in voting, how long polls are open, whether your state uses ranked voting or first past the post, and the outcomes of these elections determine massively important issues regarding our health care, education, infrastructure, net neutrality, access to natural areas, environment, and many many more issues. All of this is at stake in November. Every part of this matters.

Remember to vote.

Democrats should take on Multi-Level Marketing

I am nearing the end of my job hunt right now, I will be receiving a large dataset to train my algorithm on tomorrow, and if I do well today will be the last day I will be unemployed against my will for the last day in my life.

But, one thing which has gotten in the way in my networking has been network marketing scams. I have been contacted by Amway, Powur, and several others as well over the last year. They are very demanding, and because they are not upfront about what is going on, and how some of them convince you that you are starting a business, they can sometimes be overbearing in their methods. They force people to pay in money from the beginning, and most people never get money from the scam they are peddling.

On top o this, there business model is a pyramid scheme, plain and simple. They say they are not a pyramid scheme and say some bullshit when praying on people who are down on their luck, along with a lot of other untrue statements, but at the core of it, that is all they are, from the top to the bottom. They are illegal, and the FTC is supposed to regulate them, but Republican presidents have helped Amway expand, such as in 2005 to China (New York Times) as a condition to join the World Trade Organization. The Republican Party is peddling businesses which peddle business practices which are illegal in order for companies to join the WTO. It doesn't get much more corrupt than that.

Doing research on companies such as Amway is very, very difficult. If you try to look up connections between Amway and Obama the Internet is simply full of articles with Amway trying to convince you that Obama is in on it as well, that they are bipartisan. If you look a little deeper you will find a not-so-subtle hint  that President Obama is not in favor of Amway, with how he hid the logo with a giant American flag at the Amway center in Orlando, Florida. You don't hide the names of companies you are proud of.

That statement, you don't hide the name of companies you are proud of is very true and the opposite of what recruiters do. Once an MLM becomes well-known enough, they fill the Internet with bogus websites which try to make them look like legitimate businesses, they have people give them glowing reviews, when in reality they are just scamming people, and if you look up their name with a clear head you will realize they are the worst of the worst.

This has a deeper meaning for the Republican Party as a whole. The Bush family is tied to Amway, with W speaking at their ceremony in China in 2016, and HW spoke to them in Japan when he was President. Gerald R. Ford was at the founding of Amway. Donald Trump went so far as to hide the veil and appoint Betsy De Vos as Secretary of Education. The Amway corporation is as much a part of the Republican Party as the Koch Brothers. The De Vos Family has almost no connection to the Democratic Party.

Regardless of how many political donation they make to the Republican Party, what Amway is doing is illegal, and they need to be shut down and be forced to give every single dollar back to every single individual they have scammed. Once the Democratic Party comes back to power with a trifecta in 2021, which given Trump's approval rating is definitely a possibility, we need to fully prosecute them for their criminal actions to the fullest extent of the law. That is the job of the Court system, the Department of Justice, and the President.

A truly simple election system

Election day is coming up, and you have received your ballot in the mail. (I live in Washington State, everyone has mail in voting here) You open your ballot and you see the following list of candidates:

1. Joe Schmo, (D, Centrist)
2. Tom Bob, (D, Progressive)
3. Grace Moon, (D, Progressive)
4. Mary Polly, (D, libertarian leaning)
5. Betsy Ford, (D, establishment)
6. Jackie Ronald, (R, Trumpist)
7. Andrew Todd, (R, establishment)
8. George Adams, (R, Tea Party)
9. Ronald John, (Libertarian)
10. Nick Verde, (Green)

What are you to do? With 10 choices you need to decide how to vote. Let's assume you are a heavily leaning Democratic voter with progressive tendencies. There are three basic ways at the voter end this could look, in increasing simplicity:

1. First Past The Post, Top Two Primary
You simply vote for the candidate you like the most and you are done. Sounds reasonable, right? But wait... who is my neighbor voting for? Is this a fringe candidate? I live in a district with about 55% Democrats and 45% Republicans. If we all vote equally for these candidates of our leaning we will have 11% for each Democrat and If the Republicans fall in line between their three candidates each will receive 15%, which will mean that we will have two candidates who the majority of voters don't like. I'm going to make my best shot based on who my neighbor is voting for so at least one candidate of my party gets to the generic ballot. Hopefully I will be right.

First Past the Post, Voter Primary
I will cast my ballot for the candidate in my party I like the most. If I am not registered as a member of the party then I cannot vote however, so I might get disenfranchised. But since I live in a State with an open primary I am going to vote for the candidate I like most. But I am a Progressive, so we might end up with our ballot being split in two, yielding a moderate, who I could live with, but I would rather have someone who more represents my values. I will have to guess whether Tom or Grace will attract more voters.

Party List
I don't have a choice of which individual represents me. I'll vote for the Democrats nominate, and hope we get enough seats so at least one progressive gets into office and that they are high enough on the list.

Ranked Voting
It doesn't really matter what my neighbors or the party think of the candidates, my vote is mine and it will get reallocated if the candidate I choose is not the top pick, so my vote counts as long as I finish filling out my ballot. I will vote for Grace, Tom, Joe, Mary, Betsy, Nick. Ronald, Andrew, George, and then Jackie as my least favorite candidate. Great, I'm done and my vote will count no matter what.

Ranked voting is the easiest election system for voters to understand. You don't have to be strategic, you vote for whoever you think is best, and your vote will count no matter what.The thought process is simple, you only have to worry about your personal preference, it doesn't matter how your neighbor votes as long as you fill out your ballot your vote will count.

Also, congratulations Maine on maintaining Ranked voting. Hopefully another state will follow in your footsteps soon.

Role of government, after a conversation with one of my favorite conservatives

When talking about economics it is very interesting when talking to conservatives. I had a good conversation with my grandfather today, and he is of the impression that if the government will do it, it will be inefficient and bad, because they are taking my money, what benefit do I see? He also has a problem with government borrowing.

The way I see government spending is fairly moderate. I do not believe the government must be involved in every sector of the economy, but I do see them as having a very important role. I see a role for government regulation, to protect against fraud, abuse, and pollution, but I also do see a very important role for the free market and allowing people to innovate, because this is a major role for economic growth.

Our conversation was starting to get louder, which was unnecessary when I posed a question, if you can borrow at 2% interest and spend it in a way to get a 4% return, should you borrow the money? This got my grandfather to think and it makes sense, so I posed the proposal that when a government is deciding whether to change taxing, spending, and borrowing they need to consider the following:

1. What will be the cost to the economy if we tax or borrow X amount of dollars?
2. What will be the net benefit to the economy when we spend X amount of dollars?

The overall long-term impact to the economy of various taxing and spending proposals vary widely. Education, food stamps, and health care have very large benefits to the economy as a whole. Military tends to have a smaller multiplier at the level that America spends on our military. When deciding between all of these programs in an uber-utilitarian framework where your goal is to minimize externalities, increase GDP growth, and minimize inequality, in my political beliefs, there are a lot of different ideas which need to be considered in order to determine the proper course of action.

This means that the proper course of action for the economy depends on a wide variety of factors. I take a very Keynesian approach to economics myself, where the government should act as a counterweight to the economy as a whole.

American democracy is strong

The fact that the President of the United States is being investigated by the FBI right now, after betraying our country and very probably working with a foreign state to undermine our democracy shows that our system works.  The fact that the Speaker of the House is not running for reelection with the writing on the wall saying he complicit the Republican party was in undermining our democracy shows that our system works.

There are issues with our system, the electoral college is a relic of slavery and African Americans are disproportionately targeted by our judicial system. But the fact that the president of the United States is being taken down by the FBI shows that our system is strong.

More evidence points in the same direction

Today I was wondering about betting pools for various political issues, and at the top of the page for the 2020 Presidential election I saw this:

Disregarding my nerdy tabs and applications, Kamala Harris is currently projected as the most likely Democratic Nominee for the 2020 Presidential Election. #2 is long-time favorite of mine, Elizabeth Warren.

Unless if someone else comes out of nowhere in the next year, a Kamala Harris candidacy just looks more and more likely.