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Taft Point. 

Yosemite National Park, CA. 

July 22, 2016.

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This excellent visual representation of that old scam, “trickle down economics”, has been all over Twitter recently.

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Three Reasons To End The Outdated Electoral College

“Ah, the Electoral College: that thing that no one but Americans and Italians understand…and most of them don’t really get it either. I’m going to trust that you can do the research as to what the EC actually is on your own, and instead focus here on why it’s at best outdated and at worst tyrannical. In other words: three reasons (and I have many more) why we need to get rid of or replace the Electoral College.

1. The Electoral College increasingly does not reflect the will of the majority of American voters. Only four times in the past couple hundred years or so has the popular vote gone to the loser of the EC. Make that five. Two of which have been in the last 16 years. Before that? 1888. That’s not a good trend, especially when you consider that most recently, Clinton will have lost the EC but won the popular vote by just about a million. Let’s repeat that, it helps emphasize the absurdity. A MILLION.  The plain fact of the matter is the voters have spoken…and the system has ignored them. Let’s be clear on that: the system heard them, our votes were counted–they just don’t matter. They were purposefully ignored, in favor of a system which was modeled in large part after how cardinals choose a pope. Even leaving out the inherent racism and sexism which has plagued its history, this is more than a little problematic for a democracy. And before you say it, it’s problematic for a republic or representative democracy also. Why? Because the people need to be heard in any and all of those systems. Remember what that liberal nutcase Republican Lincoln said: of the people, for the people, by the people.

2. With the Electoral College, the odds are good that your vote doesn’t really matter that much, if at all. Right now, the system is set up so that even a tiny minority wins all the EC votes. So, if there are 10 million voters in a state, and 5,000,001 vote for one candidate and 4,999,999 for the other, that tiny, tiny fraction wins all the EC votes. So if you live in a blue state and vote red, or a red state and vote blue, your vote may be counted initially, but has no value to the system. Even if you live in a swing state but end up losing the vote…all for naught. That’s fundamentally broken for a lot of reasons, not the least of which being it promotes voter apathy. Why vote if the odds are very, very, very good that the system will not value your vote? Right now there are about a dozen states that are “swing” or close enough to matter. That leaves about 38 that don’t, and that’s not a good ratio. So that means almost 80% of states have voters that have no effect on the presidential election. The argument that the EC keeps candidates from concentrating on only a few states is clearly undercut by this same notion. When was the last time a candidate spent a significant amount of time in Vermont or Oklahoma? Or Texas? California?

3. The Electoral College values land over people. Ever see those maps which show the counties won by candidates, and notice how much more land is covered in one color? That’s because people in general increasingly live in cities. The EC, however, gives people who live in big spaces a disproportionate vote. That map, in essence, is saying that how much land you own or live on is more important than the fact that you are an American and your vote should count. California gets one electoral vote per 700k people, give or take. Wyoming gets one per 200k. Texas: one per 700k. Vermont: one per 200k. This isn’t a liberal versus conservative issue. It’s an issue of whether we think people are more important than land. I don’t live in a city. I like to live out in the woods. But how could I, in good conscience, insist that because I do, my vote should mean more than someone who lives in an urban area?”

Bill Stratton [guest writer and all-around good guy]

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Obama returns back to the ocean, not because his job in finished, but simply because he is out of time.

As a wave succumbs him back to the depths, Obama takes a final glimpse at the citizens whom he had once truly loved. 

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“Planned Parenthood confirmed that yes, people are putting their money where their tweets are. Of 160,000 donations made to Planned Parenthood since the election, 20,000 have been made in Mike Pence’s name, according to a spokesperson. That’s 12.5 percent of all donations.”

loves it

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We blindfolded 15 homophobes and asked them to hit piñatas with a stick. The piñatas were actually deadly Asian giant hornet nests. What happens next will warm your heart.

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Trump voters are afraid Clinton voters might criticize their language or their Halloween costumes; Clinton voters are afraid that Trump voters will hurt or kill them.

Busy, tired, sad, and fearful. And you? (via azspot)

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sexual texts on your dash?

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Life is so weird. I was super close with this girl, sleepovers every weekend, laughing with each other until we couldn't breathe and here we are now, 4 years later, on the same bus pretending not to see each other to avoid awkward conversation

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my new favorite thing

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hillary: he

trump: