mdrobot retweeted
Hamilton's vision of the electoral college was that the electors would provide a buffer against mob rule; they would vote their consciences, ensuring that the populace did not elect someone completely unqualified. This has happened 0 times.
The Electoral College was basically a compromise. The Founders wanted the president chosen with the people’s support, but they didn’t want a straight national popular vote or to just hand the decision to Congress.
At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, they talked for months about how to pick a president. A direct popular vote worried them. Bigger states would almost always win. A lot of voters wouldn’t really know candidates from other parts of the country. And someone who was just good at stirring people up in one area could end up winning.
Letting Congress pick the president worried them even more. The president would end up depending on Congress, which goes against the idea of keeping the branches separate. It also opened the door to backroom deals, corruption, or other countries trying to influence the choice.
So they settled on the Electoral College. Each state gets electors equal to its number of House seats plus its two senators. Those electors cast the actual votes for president. You need a majority to win. If no one gets it, the House decides, and each state gets one vote. The states get to decide how they pick their electors.
This setup treated the country as a union of states instead of one giant population. It gave smaller states more of a voice, kept the president from being controlled by Congress, and still let the people’s choice matter.
Alexander Hamilton explained it in Federalist 68. He said the people’s voice still counts because they choose the electors. The electors would be people who could actually study the candidates and make a careful choice. Meeting in their own states (instead of all in one place) would make it harder for chaos, bribery, or foreign influence to take over. And the president would still depend on the people, not Congress, to stay in office.
Hamilton also pointed out that being good at “the little arts of popularity” might get someone ahead in one state, but it would take real ability and character to win the confidence of the whole country. He thought the system made it very likely only someone highly qualified would end up as president.
That’s the idea they were going for: a capable president with support across the country, protection for smaller states, and an executive that stayed independent. Things changed later with political parties and the winner-take-all system most states use now, but the basic structure is still what the Constitution set up.
The Electoral College must be protected at all costs— it’s common sense in a country filled with lunatics.
Spacing the vaccines out is likely to just double the amount of times baby screams.
I deleted my previous post because I don’t want to come across as an anti-vaxxer. I’m 100% pro-science and pro-vaccination. But today was one of the scariest experiences I’ve had as a first-time mom.
My almost 10-week-old baby, who barely ever cries and is usually all smiles, suddenly started screaming bloody murder after he received his 2 months routine vaccines. The kind of screaming that makes you think your child is in excruciating pain. I was absolutely hysterical.
At 7 p.m., I found myself calling 911 and the pediatrician, terrified something was seriously wrong.
Here’s what made it so frightening: the rotavirus vaccine carries a very rare risk of intussusception, a potentially life-threatening condition where part of the intestine slides into another, causing severe abdominal pain. One warning sign is sudden, intense crying in waves and that was exactly happening.
At the same time, his thighs were red, swollen, and extremely painful from the injections. He was screaming, kicking his legs, and appearing to have cramps. Was it intestinal pain or pain from the injections? I had no idea.
After nearly an hour of trying to comfort him, he finally calmed down. We suspect his legs were hurting, but we can’t know for certain without an examination.
What would I do differently?
I would discuss spacing the vaccines about a week apart with our pediatrician, while still following the recommended age limits and completing every vaccine.
Not because I question vaccines or their benefits, but because experiencing several possible side effects simultaneously made it incredibly difficult to understand what was happening to my baby.
I understand that giving vaccines together is well studied and recommended as safe, and that spacing them out isn’t proven to reduce serious reactions.
But after today’s experience, I want to have that conversation before his four-month vaccinations.
1
98
mdrobot retweeted
When I pick up a bow again for the first time in 18 years in The Elder Scrolls VI: Sentinel. @BethesdaStudios
Do these people ever consider that the people closest to the issue of concern actually have been waiting it out and considered the possible outcomes?
An unbelievably poor decision. It would have been wiser to simply wait it out. Decisions of such consequence and scale should never be made at the height of emotion and media hysteria.
Everything passes. This too shall pass.
139
Holding a big sign saying "i am a useful idiot".
I have come to the conclusion that Hakeem Jeffries is the most serious threat to the progressive agenda in the country, more so than Trump himself, and that any progressive not loudly, actively opposing Jeffries is actively betraying their movement.
1
73
mdrobot retweeted
The 49ers have Keenan Allen, Christian Kirk, Mike Evans and Deebo Samuel at WR
If they have to play a game in 2022, they're gonna dominate through the air
To be fair, forecasters are literally supposed to divine hidden truths (the future results). Thats what they are forecasting.
Colom deserves a lot of credit for (probably) beating the odds, but the reality is, this is just what the data pointed to for most of the cycle. Forecasters can't be expected to divine hidden truths.
5
178
mdrobot retweeted
People said this was an unrealistic reaction for Homelander and then every conservative started acting like this after the midterms lol
mdrobot retweeted
“Hint of Lime” is an astonishingly dishonest name for a tortilla chip that tastes like it was manufactured during an industrial accident at a lime processing facility
mdrobot retweeted
I think the Chargers are, by far, the worst team that was supposed to be good that I've ever seen. There have been worse teams, like the winless Browns and whatnot. But we knew they would be bad. This Chargers team is an absolute zero.
mdrobot retweeted
KB@uwcommentorNov 8
The color commentator is amazed by Barner’s new TD dance he’s been doing his whole career
10
5
630
14,694
In what way is a book for LGBTQ youth not also a book for teen boys?
Percy Jackson and Harry Potter are both now older than any of the teens reading them. (21 & 29 years old.)!They’re far closer to Hatchet and Redwall than current stuff. (39 & 40 years old.)
Three to one, that’s how skewed the teen books I’m getting at my library are, in terms of (general) girl interest vs boy interest.
I see almost as many books for LGBTQ+ youth as for teen boys.
And that’s including the large number of books I get from Japan, where it is a lot more balanced in target audience.
Also note, I said girl/boy *interest,* not *protagonist.* There are books with a girl protagonist written for boys, and visa versa.
My data for this year: 28% books that are targeted more for boys. Boy books with a boy protagonist? 22%.
Also, as for ‘women have to follow male protagonists,’ how so? And when are you talking about? Things have changed massively in publishing over the past 30 years.
1
95
mdrobot retweeted
I'm so glad Haley Stevens self immolated. There's long been a feeling on the left that dems would rather lose than win with a leftist. Seeing the entire institutional democratic party circle the wagons around Abdul should be a good reminder that dems really really do want to win.
