The Conservative Cave
Current Events => The DUmpster => Topic started by: I_B_Perky on December 21, 2016, 07:08:38 PM
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This is a huge bonfire:
The Link:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028380818 (http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028380818)
The OP:
eniwetok (545 posts)
Should California Threaten Secession To Abolish Electoral College?
Last edited Mon Dec 19, 2016, 08:56 PM - Edit history (1)
PROBLEM 1: The standard for morally legitimate government was best summed up in the Declaration Of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.-- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
The Electoral College system now twice in 16 years has imposed on the nation a president who was REJECTED by the People. The EC makes a mockery of the very concept of self-determination. Like Bush2, Trump will do immense damage to the nation and further entrench the power of a toxic GOP into the fabric of government.
PROBLEM 2: The EC is unlikely to ever be abolished constitutionally. The GOP has a well documented contempt for democracy and now that the EC has a clear GOP bias, no proposed amendment will ever get out of Congress. In the Senate a mere 18% of the US population gets 52% of the seats.
PROBLEM 3: Even if a proposed amendment made it out of Congress... states with as little as 4% of the US population can block any reform. The Popular Vote interstate pact is a clever workaround but it is unlikely to ever become reality and the first time a state has to vote against its own election results, there will be a revolt in that state to leave the pact. The only solution is to abolish the EC not put bandaids over it.
QUESTION: How do citizens reform a system that is both antidemocratic and virtually reformproof? One can imagine a 50-100 year campaign to overcome all the obstacles. But how many more morally illegitimate presidents will be imposed on the nation in that time determined to make reform more difficult?
PROPOSAL: I can think of no way to reform the system internally. If you can... I'd like to hear it. The only way I can envision the EC being abolished is if a state like California threatens secession unless democratic reforms are made to the Constitution... thus creating a constitutional crisis.
Okay...
rusty fender (1,499 posts)
1. I totally agree with you
So do I. Let them go. Wave bye, bye.
Calculating (563 posts)
2. Yes
Beats living under the tyranny of the minority. Trump and company haven't shown even an ounce of bipartisanship or compromise despite losing by the popular vote. Rather than trying to heal the divide, they've ripped it open wider and poured salt in. We have a government full of bigots, science denying morons, and old white billionaires now. These people are NOT representative of the population and deserve little respect.
The founders set our country up with a rigged system, which was also rigged to be unfixable because those it benefits would need to vote to repeal it.
Butthurt loser.
eniwetok (545 posts)
4. The EC was created to benefit whites in slave states.
For a while I'd considered Hamilton's arguments in Federalist 68 to be the reason for the EC. But after much reflection I think it was designed to conceal the reason for creating an antidemocratic method of electing presidents . The real reason can be found in the minutes of the so-called Constitutional Convention. Here's Madison on July 19th 1787. He says the popular vote is best but there's a problem with it...
MADISON: The people at large was in his opinion the fittest in itself. It would be as likely as any that could be devised to produce an Executive Magistrate of distinguished Character. The people generally could only know & vote for some Citizen whose merits had rendered him an object of general attention & esteem. There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_719.asp
Slave states caused hillary to lose!!!
malchickiwick (141 posts)
3. What happens to Camp Pendleton? Vandenberg? Yosemite? Redwoods?
Secession is ripe with its own set of problems. Just ask the folks at Fort Sumter....
Better watch it mole. Dummies don't like logic in their secedemas.
eniwetok (545 posts)
6. Please Note... I said THREATEN Secession... n/a
And what happens when Trump and congress says: "See ya!"
malchickiwick (141 posts)
7. Wouldn't you have to answer those Qs to have said threat taken seriously??
Quit pissing on his secedemas parade!!
WillowTree This message was self-deleted by its author.
Response to eniwetok (Reply #6)
Mon Dec 19, 2016, 12:28 PM
Star Member WillowTree (4,000 posts)
14. So.......what? You're suggesting an empty threat that you don't intend to follow through on?
What possible good would that do?
Wait for it....
eniwetok (545 posts)
29. why would it be empty...
Look... I don't see why you're having problems with this. Secession is... we're gone. If you reform the Constitution... we'll come back.
A THREAT is all measures short of actual secession. But obviously the People of have to be willing to secede if they're not treated with respect. This can NOT be an empty threat.
OK... you don't like this idea... and your idea... drum roll.... for abolishing the EC is????
QUIT PISSING ON MY SECEDEMAS!!!!
WillowTree (4,000 posts)
36. My Dear Old Dad taught me never to threaten.
Just go ahead with your action. You don't threaten to quit your job, you quit. They can try to talk you back and you may agree to, but that would be after the fact.
Threatening looks cheap. Your earlier response seemed to indicate that you were suggesting to just threaten to secede is all I was saying.
Having said that, we all thought it was silly when Texas was threatening secession and I don't necessarily think it's less so when it's a left-leaning state. But that's only my opinion.
Again with the logic.
Missn-Hitch (702 posts)
84. I didn't think Texas or the current OP is "silly".
Think of it like a divorce. We can do this without a bloody war.
North/South, East/West. Divide all assets and debts, people have two years to move to the area they want to live in.
To make it easy: One side will be led by the Obamas, Clintons, Warren, Sanders. The other side will be Trump, Pence, Palin, Ryan.
Ready, set......GO!
Be careful what you ask for... you just may get it.
Hekate (39,908 posts)
115. You cannot be serious
He is.
Missn-Hitch (702 posts)
132. I am.
Told ya
sweetapogee (1,056 posts)
240. it is silly x 10
First of all, there is the above mentioned federal property. Then, while CA is a large state it would become a small country. It would need to fund it's Coast Guard, it's standing military, it would have to fund it's ports operational expenses, provide it's own border security, on and on.
Quit throwing logic on my secedemas!!!!
eniwetok (545 posts)
315. CA LOSES money to the federal government
While my intent is NOT to have CA leave... only to use its leverage to demand reforms... like most "blue" states, CA loses a large percentage of what it pays in federal taxes to other states... about 13%. In that 87% that IS sent back to CA... already includes those services you're referring to.
That means that if CA wasn't paying those taxes... CA could keep most of that money and repurpose it for for it's own needs.
I say most... because IF it came to true secession, there would be many accounts to be settled... such as CA's share of the national debt, what it's owed from the SS trust fund, etc.
But AGAIN, my intent is to leverage CA's power... and I suspect many other states would join in... to demand some commonsense reforms to the federal system that will never get changed otherwise.
Well.... bye!
brush (10,350 posts)
332. Not entirely silly. Think about it.
California's GNP is the sixth largest in the world. Its population is larger than many other countries, it grows its own food, has ports, manufacturing, infrastructure, financial exchanges, — it would be a complicated process that would take years and require negotiations as to how to handle government property, but it could make it.
And it would save all those funds send to the Feds that goes to support little states like Wyoming who get much stronger representation in the Electoral College than California.
Putting equalizing the EC or getting rid of it on the table would make everyone sit up and take notice of the urgency of a problem that need addressing.
Cut off their water and electricity from the US states and see how that works!!!
Marengo (1,865 posts)
39. Military installations are federal property, Washington isn't going to just let them go...
Were California to attempt succession, Washington would likely force reintegration through a military solution and I doubt the terms would be kind.
Liberals and mexicans gonna die en masse is what will happen.
eniwetok (545 posts)
81. the pure fantasy is all yours
The idea that there'd ever be a military conflict is laughable. California would have the moral highground and plenty of support from tens of millions around the nation. Should it actually come to secession, something that's highly doubtful... all your details could be negotiated.
From my OP... I ask AGAIN...
I can think of no way to reform the system internally. If you can... I'd like to hear it. The only way I can envision the EC being abolished is if a state like California threatens secession unless democratic reforms are made to the Constitution... thus creating a constitutional crisis.
:lol: :lol:
That is all I am going to bring over. Way too many comments to post them all.
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The fact that there isn't a lot of opposition to California taking off I think has the left in quandary. Personally I see little negatives and hope they do leave.
My company has it's headquarters in LA and so I go there a couple times a year. I always enjoy being there but a lot of strange people also. They are though overall not as tightly wound as in the North East.
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They should really ask the southern states how that secession thing worked out for them. Gettysburg anyone?
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They should really ask the southern states how that secession thing worked out for them. Gettysburg anyone?
I think this would turn out differently. If it was put to a national referendum for the other states to vote on kicking California out of the union, then it might pass overwhelmingly.
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eniwetok (545 posts)
Should California Threaten Secession To Abolish Electoral College?
The short answer is "Yes. Abso-f***ing-lutely, YES"
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eniwetok (545 posts)
Should California Threaten Secession To Abolish Electoral College?
Bye Felicia!
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I had to stop right here, because this kind of thing drives me nuts:
Star Member WillowTree (4,000 posts)
14. So.......what? You're suggesting an empty threat that you don't intend to follow through on?
None of you DUmbasses has the power to do this, let alone "threaten it." You don't make policy, you don't decide, you don't secede a state. You're nothing.
You're talking about changing the constitution. A post at the DUmp doesn't do that, are you aware of that?
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It appears that these nutsacks still don't understand what happens in a real democracy. It's gets real ugly in a hurry.
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Mexifornia, hell.
In 2 years it would be Venezfornia. Broke, starving, and a dictatorship.
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Their whole schtick about losing on the tax flow is crap, they're completely overlooking how much of their tax base is due to Federal contracts. Those aerospace, marine, and many other contracts disappear along with the payments they are counting if the Feds pull out, and all the supply and service jobs around Federal activities like bases dry up on top of that. Nor am I convinced that disbursement ration is even correct when it comes to counting things like schools, Section 8 housing supplementation, law enforcement block grants, and various forms of entitlement and welfare payments to which Federal money is applied, or the 95% pf a State National Guard budget that is actually Federal Title 32 money.
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Their whole schtick about losing on the tax flow is crap, they're completely overlooking how much of their tax base is due to Federal contracts. Those aerospace, marine, and many other contracts disappear along with the payments they are counting if the Feds pull out, and all the supply and service jobs around Federal activities like bases dry up on top of that. Nor am I convinced that disbursement ration is even correct when it comes to counting things like schools, Section 8 housing supplementation, law enforcement block grants, and various forms of entitlement and welfare payments to which Federal money is applied, or the 95% pf a State National Guard budget that is actually Federal Title 32 money.
:II:
such as CA's share of the national debt, what it's owed from the SS trust fund
Remember, that's not your money. It belongs to the government, ....... right? It's an entitlement, ..... right? :whistling:
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Their whole schtick about losing on the tax flow is crap, they're completely overlooking how much of their tax base is due to Federal contracts. Those aerospace, marine, and many other contracts disappear along with the payments they are counting if the Feds pull out, and all the supply and service jobs around Federal activities like bases dry up on top of that. Nor am I convinced that disbursement ration is even correct when it comes to counting things like schools, Section 8 housing supplementation, law enforcement block grants, and various forms of entitlement and welfare payments to which Federal money is applied, or the 95% pf a State National Guard budget that is actually Federal Title 32 money.
That is it,you can torture statistics to the point where they will confess to anything.
San Fran alone was said to get a billion federal dollars a year with roughly half direct and the other half funneled through the state.
My guess is that direct half is not accounted for in the ratio of taxes paid to federal dollars returned.
Given the federal land grabs of several western but lower population states it all but assures those will be deemed "welfare" states as well.
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Poor, stupid DUmmies just can't deal with the fact that the EC is never going away.
They also haven't figured out yet that California is far more than San Francisco and L.A. In reality, only about ten counties in the state would want to secede, and the rest would much prefer to stick with the USA. Good luck with being self-sustaining when the folks in Fresno or the central valley decide that they aren't interested in selling their food to the kooks in the cities who are broke and can't pay their bills.
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I'll need to remember this the next time the DUmmies try to portray all conservatives as evil rednecks who want to secede and re-establish the Confederate States.
" The GOP has a well documented contempt for democracy."
WE have a contempt for democracy?
You on the Left only believe in democracy when it supports your side. When it doesn't, you dismiss the people as dumb rednecks who shouldn't have the right to vote, and try to use the courts and other sneaky ways to override democratically- approved policies. Case in point: Prop 8.
Mexifornia, hell.
In 2 years it would be Venezfornia. Broke, starving, and a dictatorship.
Probably also diseased, as the gays there will undoubtedly demand to regain the right to donate blood, and the government will undoubtedly grant it to avoid seeming homophobic. This will ultimately lead to them developing an AIDS epidemic that would rival what's seen in South Africa.
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I'll need to remember this the next time the DUmmies try to portray all conservatives as evil rednecks who want to secede and re-establish the Confederate States.
" The GOP has a well documented contempt for democracy."
WE have a contempt for democracy?
You on the Left only believe in democracy when it supports your side. When it doesn't, you dismiss the people as dumb rednecks who shouldn't have the right to vote, and try to use the courts and other sneaky ways to override democratically- approved policies. Case in point: Prop 8.
Probably also diseased, as the gays there will undoubtedly demand to regain the right to donate blood, and the government will undoubtedly grant it to avoid seeming homophobic. This will ultimately lead to them developing an AIDS epidemic that would rival what's seen in South Africa.
With all their distrust of vaccines most of them will be wiped out with a measles or polio outbreak.
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Mexifornia, hell.
In 2 years it would be Venezfornia. Broke, starving, and a dictatorship.
Broke? Being there, doing that.
Dictatorship? Plausible.
Starving? Ummmm, no. So far from it that CA ships food all over the US and exports food around the world. And I'm not referring to just wine, fruits, and nuts.
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Broke? Being there, doing that.
Dictatorship? Plausible.
Starving? Ummmm, no. So far from it that CA ships food all over the US and exports food around the world. And I'm not referring to just wine, fruits, and nuts.
Assuming the "farming" areas (which voted for Trump) went with the fruitcakes. They wouldn't.
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Their whole schtick about losing on the tax flow is crap, they're completely overlooking how much of their tax base is due to Federal contracts. Those aerospace, marine, and many other contracts disappear along with the payments they are counting if the Feds pull out, and all the supply and service jobs around Federal activities like bases dry up on top of that. Nor am I convinced that disbursement ration is even correct when it comes to counting things like schools, Section 8 housing supplementation, law enforcement block grants, and various forms of entitlement and welfare payments to which Federal money is applied, or the 95% pf a State National Guard budget that is actually Federal Title 32 money.
Such stats can get really slippery just through complexity. For example, consider L3 Communications. It's a multi-billion dollar company headquartered in NY, heavily involved in defense. Its >$100M/year Electron Devices Division is based in California. L3 EDD's biggest customer is L3 Communication Systems West, in Utah. So, is L3 EDD's >$100M/year being accounted as federal $$ going to CA, UT, or NY?
And how do Progs view the base closings in CA of the 1990s? Mare Island, a major factor in the City of Vallejo's bankruptcy. Alameda NAS (I'll bet that "helped" Oakland's employment marketplace!). Moffett NAS. Fort Ord. Mather AFB. McClellan. Who was President during most of the 90s? Which party rammed the "peace dividend" base closings and budget slashes through Congress?
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Assuming the "farming" areas (which voted for Trump) went with the fruitcakes. They wouldn't.
The secession fruitcakes aren't proposing breaking up the state.
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # #
STDs? Anti-vaxers? C'mon, get real! Those stereotypes are only a little less dumb than DU-folks' stereotypes of conservatives. Just because the sane Californians who feed and design/produce products for much of the world don't make headlines or lead the TV evening skews programs doesn't mean we don't exist.
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I think this would turn out differently. If it was put to a national referendum for the other states to vote on kicking California out of the union, then it might pass overwhelmingly.
Wouldn't it be a hoot if the rest of the country voted for them to leave and mexifornia all of sudden wanted to stay? :rotf:
Personally I think it needs broken up into three states. We could have:
Fruits&nutsafornia- the coastal cities
East California - middle part
West California - western part
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The secession fruitcakes aren't proposing breaking up the state.
Actually the question has been asked around, just not in this thread, about the Red counties seceding from coastal blue strip if they tried this, and either remaining independent or staying with the US.
Such stats can get really slippery just through complexity. For example, consider L3 Communications. It's a multi-billion dollar company headquartered in NY, heavily involved in defense. Its >$100M/year Electron Devices Division is based in California. L3 EDD's biggest customer is L3 Communication Systems West, in Utah. So, is L3 EDD's >$100M/year being accounted as federal $$ going to CA, UT, or NY?
And how do Progs view the base closings in CA of the 1990s? Mare Island, a major factor in the City of Vallejo's bankruptcy. Alameda NAS (I'll bet that "helped" Oakland's employment marketplace!). Moffett NAS. Fort Ord. Mather AFB. McClellan. Who was President during most of the 90s? Which party rammed the "peace dividend" base closings and budget slashes through Congress?
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There are even more definitional or assumption issues in what is a Federal expenditure that benefit the state. For the inland western states, the massive blocks of Federally-owned land are more of a curse than a blessing, and the Federal money spent on maintaining, controlling, and policing the use of them is spent for the goals of the central Government, not so much the benefit of the State or the people in it.
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Broke? Being there, doing that.
Dictatorship? Plausible.
Starving? Ummmm, no. So far from it that CA ships food all over the US and exports food around the world. And I'm not referring to just wine, fruits, and nuts.
How much of the farming depends on water flowing into California from other states?
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Broke? Being there, doing that.
Dictatorship? Plausible.
Starving? Ummmm, no. So far from it that CA ships food all over the US and exports food around the world. And I'm not referring to just wine, fruits, and nuts.
How much will they be exporting if the Feds, Nevada and Arizona cut off the electricity and water spigot flowing from Hoover Dam?
I can see all of the above flipping Cascadia the Fickle Finger of Fate should they decide to leaving the US and go out on their own.
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How much of the farming depends on water flowing into California from other states?
Yours is not the correct question. Basically, CA farming gets it water from ground water, from local streams, and from the Sacramento and San Joaquin River systems (ultimately, the snowpack in the Sierras). The Inyo Valley might be an exception, but it's not that large compared to the Central Valley. So not much water for CA farming comes from out of state. What does receive water from outside of CA is the Land of LA - western Los Angeles County and Orange County. San Diego County may, too, but I'm not sure. That's the answer to the correct water question.
The other correct critical infrastructure question wrt CA is power. During his 1970s Goobernorship, Moonbeam shut down most projects to build new power generation facilities. Some have been built since, but not much. CA gets a lot of its power from the Columbia River hydroelectric plants, the border between OR and WA.
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Yours is not the correct question. Basically, CA farming gets it water from ground water, from local streams, and from the Sacramento and San Joaquin River systems (ultimately, the snowpack in the Sierras). The Inyo Valley might be an exception, but it's not that large compared to the Central Valley. So not much water for CA farming comes from out of state. What does receive water from outside of CA is the Land of LA - western Los Angeles County and Orange County. San Diego County may, too, but I'm not sure. That's the answer to the correct water question.
The other correct critical infrastructure question wrt CA is power. During his 1970s Goobernorship, Moonbeam shut down most projects to build new power generation facilities. Some have been built since, but not much. CA gets a lot of its power from the Columbia River hydroelectric plants, the border between OR and WA.
I remember something about CA farmers getting pissed because their water use was being restricted and some irrigation was being curtailed.
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I remember something about CA farmers getting pissed because their water use was being restricted and some irrigation was being curtailed.
Expanding on my previous post, Central Valley farmers use ground water or water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River watersheds. These two major rivers come together in a a delta and flow into San Francisco Bay. In the delta is a small fresh water fish that is on the endangered species list. San Joaquin Valley farmers have had their water deliveries from the San Joaquin River slashed by court order. This all came down several years ago, and it has hurt San Joaquin Valley farmers and communities badly - people driven from farms their families cultivated for generations, towns with 40% unemployment. The feds control the water, but it comes from mountains that are within the State of California.
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Is it just me or does there seem to be a certain incongruity with people who think America is so hopelessly racist and evil they must either flee to Canada or have California secede...
...but they insist the nation be flooded with foreigners to live amongst those they deem racist and evil.
Their mania for immigration has nothing to do with humanitarianism. It's nothing more than them wanting to drown America in invaders because they hate this nation for not making them kings.
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Is it just me or does there seem to be a certain incongruity with people who think America is so hopelessly racist and evil they must either flee to Canada or have California secede...
...but they insist the nation be flooded with foreigners to live amongst those they deem racist and evil.
Their mania for immigration has nothing to do with humanitarianism. It's nothing more than them wanting to drown America in invaders because they hate this nation for not making them kings.
I disagree. The libs want the illegals in this country for votes. They are assuming that soon or later they will become citizens and even if they don't, they will get their kids votes when they come of age. All of this is because the blacks are killing each other off in the inner city hell holes.
I have always said if the hispanics were to vote GOP en masse there would be a wall on our southern border that would make the Great Wall of China look like a picket fence.
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I disagree. The libs want the illegals in this country for votes. They are assuming that soon or later they will become citizens and even if they don't, they will get their kids votes when they come of age. All of this is because the blacks are killing each other off in the inner city hell holes.
I have always said if the hispanics were to vote GOP en masse there would be a wall on our southern border that would make the Great Wall of China look like a picket fence.
The Dems want their votes and the GOP wants the cheap labor. Just another reason Trump's message resonated with people that work.
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The Dems want their votes and the GOP wants the cheap labor. Just another reason Trump's message resonated with people that work.
Bingo. The problem has gotten to where it is because the 'Establishment' parts of both parties see advantages for themselves and their inner circles in it. I'd love to see them all driven off a cliff by hungry cannibals. With more hungry cannibals waiting at the bottom.
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I think this would turn out differently. If it was put to a national referendum for the other states to vote on kicking California out of the union, then it might pass overwhelmingly.
Not the entire state...just the red parts....like Lost Angels and San Gommorah
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The Dems want their votes and the GOP wants the cheap labor. Just another reason Trump's message resonated with people that work.
That is the thing that gets me about the GOP. They are cutting their own throat. :thatsright:
Bingo. The problem has gotten to where it is because the 'Establishment' parts of both parties see advantages for themselves and their inner circles in it. I'd love to see them all driven off a cliff by hungry cannibals. With more hungry cannibals waiting at the bottom.
Greedy bastard is what they are. DC needs an enema and I hope Trump gives it to them. :cheersmate: