WHY THE COMMUNIST-DEMOCRAT PARTY IS A JOKE!!!

In the name of democracy, the United States has a fairly convoluted election system. There are caucuses and primaries, like the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday. Then come conventions and nominations. Then the general election and the electoral college. And then, finally, a new president will be sworn in next January. There are hundreds of steps in the process of electing the president, but do they really safeguard democracy and the power of the vote? When it comes to superdelegates, like the ones up for grabs at the Democratic National Convention, the answer is no.

Generally, primaries and caucuses work by proportionately awarding party delegates to candidates based on how votes are cast. In last Monday's Iowa caucus, Hillary Clinton received 49.9 percent of the votes, and therefore 23 of the 44 delegates for the state, while Bernie Sanders received 49.6 percent of the vote and got the remaining 21 delegates. If Sanders and Clinton split New Hampshire 66 percent to 33 percent, respectively, then Sanders will get 16 of the 24 delegates, while Clinton will get the other eight. Seems simple enough, right?

But that's where superdelegates come in. In the Democratic Party, superdelegates are current or former party leaders, including governors, senators, representatives, and former presidents and vice presidents. These superdelegates, 712 in all, aren't bound by primaries or caucus results to cast their votes — they can vote for whomever they want at the party convention in July.
 

Right now, this means that Clinton has a huge advantage. Sanders has never been a registered Democrat, whereas Clinton has been a part of the party machine since she was the first lady of Arkansas. Among the superdelegates, 359 have already publicly supported Clinton over Sanders. So despite his massive populist appeal, the Democratic elite might be unbeatable. Even if all 340 remaining uncommitted delegates join the 14 who have already pledged their support for Sanders, he's still entering the convention at a disadvantage.

Sure, 712 is less than one third of the 2,382 needed to win the nomination, but it's more about the principle of elitism than the numbers. The superdelegates have certainly earned the right to weigh in on the nomination, but that doesn't give them the right to support whichever candidate they choose. It's similar to the electoral college — if the popular vote doesn't really guarantee the victory of one candidate over another, like in the 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al Gore, then why does the popular vote exist at all? Do the American people really pick the presidential nominees, or do the party leaders actually do the deciding?

New Hampshirites are participating in the first primary on Tuesday, but even if all 24 state delegates go to Sanders, he's still fighting to catch up to Clinton's superdelegates. The democratic ideal behind the popular vote seems lost when taken in the context of this arrangement. Anyone considering the efficacy of their vote should be deeply troubled by the current system. When all the superdelegates cast their votes at the convention in Philadelphia this summer, the full scale of the misrepresentation may become apparent.

DEM PRIMARY IS A JOKE.  FIX IS IN.  DON'T EVEN BOTHER VOTING.  BORING.  NO WONDER THE LIBS ONLY TALK ABOUT REPUB PRIMARY.  

THEIRS IS BROKEN.

I PREDICT HILLARY BY A LANDSLIDE.

THERE ARE NO SUPER-DELEGATES IN THE GENERAL ELECTION.  DEMS WILL HAVE TO GO BACK TO TRIED AND TRUE TACTIS.  STEAL VOTES.

SAYING GOODBYE TO CARLY AND HILLARY   ^^^^^

This line feels quietly tragic:

“In much of the South a district, if it’s 40 percent African-American, or in some cases even 35 percent African-American, will elect an African-American-preferred candidate. African-Americans are just that cohesive politically. That’s really been a great story and a great accomplishment,” Li continues.

The fact that it's being perceived as a positive thing that a person's race should determine their politics really shows how far we have left to go in terms of race relations and the establishment of equality.  I'm not one to support Affirmative Action, even, but it just immediately stuck out to me that a person employed at a university as prestigious as NYU feels that in order to press a racial agenda it's a "great story" for all people of a race to compromise whatever other political beliefs they may hold personally.  Wouldn't we be doing a lot better, as a nation, if everybody could vote based on their personal political preferences, regardless of race, gender, religion, etc.?

Dream on.   Politicians pander and people are gullible fish.

Here's the thing that amazes me:

The Dems have convinced the poor blacks that they're looking out for them.
The Repubs have convinced the poor whites that they're looking out for them. 
Money is green and doesn't give a **** what color hand holds it. 

The only logic that makes sense is poor people, of any color, are not smart enough to realize nobody gives a **** about them.  

Posted by The Taint on 2/10/2016 8:13:00 PM (view original):
Did someone say Voter Fraud?




Shortly after North Carolina Republicans took over the state legislature in 2010, they drew up new district maps to determine the boundaries of congressional and state legislative districts, carving them up to their partisan advantage. On Friday, a federal court declared that two of those congressional districts were gerrymandered in a way that was racially discriminatory, deliberately clustering many black voters — who often vote Democratic — into large, oddly shaped districts in violation of their constitutional rights.

“Elections should be decided through a contest of issues, not skillful mapmaking,” Judge Max Cogburn wrote in an opinion posted by Raleigh CBS affiliate WRAL. “Today, modern computer mapping allows for gerrymandering on steroids, as political mapmakers can easily identify individual registrations on a house-by-house basis, mapping their way to victory.”

By clustering black voters into just a couple of districts, lawmakers deprive African-Americans from having a proportional voice in government. “What packing African-American voters into districts accomplishes is it weakens African-American voters’ weight elsewhere in the state,” says Michael Li, a senior counsel focused on redistricting at NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice. “If you drew the districts a little more naturally, you might have two African-Americans elected instead of one.”

This sort of case is not uncommon, Li explains. America on the whole, and North Carolina in particular, have a rich history of legal battles around redistricting. But the conversation around packing minority voters into a single district has changed, says Li. “It used to be that African-Americans wanted districts with a high African-American percentage because African-Americans voted at lower rates and had lower voter-registration rates. Unless you had a high percentage of African-Americans in the district you might not elect the African-American-preferred candidate.”

But now, across the American South and in many communities elsewhere, African-Americans actually have higher voter registration rates and turn out to vote in higher numbers than their white neighbors. They also tend to vote reliably Democrat.

“In much of the South a district, if it’s 40 percent African-American, or in some cases even 35 percent African-American, will elect an African-American-preferred candidate. African-Americans are just that cohesive politically. That’s really been a great story and a great accomplishment,” Li continues. “But what you saw is that white Republicans in the South continued to pretend, I think because it was to their advantage, that you needed to pack African-Americans into districts in order to give them the ability to elect. And the defense in all of these cases has been saying, ‘We were just trying to help African-Americans,’ and African-Americans say ‘No, no, you’re actually hurting us.'”


This effort — to draw districts along racial lines — led to some strange results. North Carolina journalists often describe the 1st District as resembling an octopus perched in the northeast portion of the state, with one long tentacle dangling down into the center. The lawsuit points out that this huge district’s meandering perimeter is 1,319 miles, the distance from Chapel Hill to Austin, Texas. Further west, the 12th District is snake-like, and wriggles from north to south, crisscrossing Interstate 85 for roughly a hundred miles. These bizarrely shaped districts cover diverse areas where aside from race, voters have little in common.

Activist groups that have been a thorn in the side of the conservative North Carolina legislature celebrated Friday’s ruling. “This ruling by all three judges is a vindication of our challenge to the General Assembly of North Carolina writing racially biased ‘apartheid’ voting districts to disenfranchise the power of the African-American vote,” Rev. William Barber, president of North Carolina’s NAACP chapter, told the Raleigh News & Observer. Barber is a leader of the coalition of protesters who, in a series of events dubbed “Moral Mondays,” have spoken out against policies put in place by the state legislature and Republican Governor Pat McCrory, including redistricting, the state’s voter ID law, restricting access to abortion clinics, and legislation to opt out of the Obamacare Medicaid expansion.

The Republican leaders responsible for the district maps denounced the decision, which they say was released too close to the state’s March 15th primary. In the 12th District, WRAL reports, a few hundred absentee ballots already have been cast. “This decision could do far more to disenfranchise North Carolina voters than anything alleged in this case,” said Sen. Bob Rucho and Rep. David Lewis in a joint statement. The court gave lawmakers two weeks to draw up new maps, which would require a special session of the legislature.

While it’s not ideal, “certainly maps can be redrawn that fast,” responds the Brennan Center’s Michael Li. “Redistricting legislation rarely offers great options.” The Supreme Court could also grant an emergency stay of the federal court’s decision, which the defendants already have requested.

Voting advocates in the state are also awaiting another redistricting decision from federal court, this one dealing with the state’s legislative districts, which conservatives also redrew in 2011. What’s more, a federal court recently heard a challenge by the NAACP, the Justice Department and others to the state’s controversial voter ID law, which could disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of North Carolina voters.

In the wake of controversy around the 2011 redistricting, good government groups are arguing that it is time for North Carolina to follow the lead of other states, and find a new way of drawing district boundaries. In the 2015 off-off-year election, Ohio voters overwhelmingly supported a redistricting reform measure, setting stricter rules and ensuring the minority party more of a say in the determination of district lines. This year, nine other states are attempting to make similar reforms.

The recent federal court ruling “once again shows the need for North Carolina to establish a nonpartisan system for drawing our state’s voting maps,” said Common Cause North Carolina director Bob Phillips. “For years, partisan gerrymandering has led to costly litigation and deprived North Carolina voters of having a real choice and a voice in our elections. Fortunately, a growing number of citizens and leaders across the political spectrum agree that North Carolina should adopt an independent redistricting process.”

TOO LONG AND BOO HOO HOO! 

YOU CREEPS PULLED THIS OFF ON AMERICA PRIOR TO  ALL OF MY YOUNG AND INNOCENT YEARS PLUSEWISE  ALL OF MY ADULT LIFE!

DECADES OF DEMOCRAT BOSS HOGG AND NOW YOU WANT CHANGE?

WHEN DID YOU DEVELOP A CONSCIOUS?   OR SHOULD I SAY WHERE?  

NORTH CAROLINA?  NEVER MIND.

NOBODY CARES BECAUSE IT'S JUST ANOTHER LIBERAL CUT AND PASTE.

IF YOU CARED ABOUT VOTER FRAUD…YOU"D SAY SOMETHING THE NEXT TIME THEY FIND A TAXI CAB FULL OF 200 UNCOUNTED BALLOTS.  ALL FOR AL FRANKIN.  RECOUNTS THAT ALWAYS GO TO THE DEMOCRATS.  SENATE SEATS!  GOVERNORSHIPS!  THAT'S VOTER FRAUD!

HILLARY CLINTON AND SUPER DELEGATES!  THAT'S VOTER FRAUD.

CLEAN UP YOUIR OWN COMMUNIST PARTY BEFORE YOU CUT AND PASTE WHINEY BEOTCH BLAH BLAH.

NO BLAH BLAH BLAH!