Trump's Cabinet

Jammer wrote:Based on the lack of a correct answer to my challenge regarding the Electoral College I have to assume that the question was too difficult.  However, thoughts that come to mind even ahead of how our educational system in this country has failed us is that we conservatives have sat quietly on the sidelines and let the communists slowly transform our country into a third world socialist cesspool.  I truly hope a President Trump can reverse this trend before it is too late.

In attempt to draw attention to what I think is a very alarming state of affairs, I will once again ask anyone to point out how we have Constitutionally gotten to our present process of electing a President and Vice President.  The parts of the Constitution that apply to this question is Article II, Section 1 and the 12th Amendment.  Our current process is nowhere near the process as defined in the Constitution and I do not know of any other Amendments to the Constitution that legally changed it.  It has been a slow and continuous erosion of the Electoral College and our Constitution.

It is not bad enough that the Electoral College is a mere sliver of what it is supposed to be, but the EVIL repressive liberals now want to completely abandon it.  That will be one more huge step toward a DIRECT democracy and sure doom for our Republic.  Unfortunately, way too may conservatives are willing to sit quietly on the sidelines and let it happen.  Not me, I scream RESTORE our Constitution and our Republic every chance I get and that can begin by RESTORING the Electoral College not totally dismantling it.

In United States politics[edit]
In the United States, "running mate" refers to a candidate for vice president (federal) or, in those states where the governor and lieutenant governor are elected together, to a candidate for lieutenant governor (state). Historically, running mates were chosen by political parties in consultation with the principal candidate (i.e., the person running for president or governor). In the late 1960s, it became the practice of the principal candidate in presidential elections to announce his or her preferred choice of running mate at his or her political party's national convention. The current practice is for the presumptive nominee of a political party to announce his or her choice for running mate before the national convention which, because of the extensive primary election and caucus system, is becoming increasingly irrelevant.
Some states (e.g., Michigan) exactly mirror the federal process above for their gubernatorial elections, while others continue to hold separate votes for gubernatorial and lieutenant gubernatorial candidates; and some states have abolished or never had the office of lieutenant governor.
Meanwhile, some states, like California and Texas, still elect the governor and lieutenant governor on separate tickets, and frequently from different political parties. This was the case when George W. Bush was Governor of Texas. His first lieutenant governor, Bob Bullock, was a Democrat. In cases like this, the governor and lieutenant governor are not considered running mates because they are not elected on the same ticket.
The practice of running candidates for president and vice president together evolved in the nineteenth century. Originally, electors cast two ballots for president and whoever took second place in the tabulation became vice president. Starting in 1804, the president and vice president were elected on separate ballots as specified in the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution which was adopted in that year. As more and more states subsequently began to choose their electors by popular election instead of appointment (South Carolina being the last state to change, in 1860), candidates began to realize they could run together as a team for president and vice president instead of running completely separately for each office.
The practice of a presidential candidate having a running mate was solidified during the American Civil War. In 1864, in the interest of fostering national unity, Abraham Lincoln from the Republican Party (popular in the North) and Andrew Johnson of the Democratic Party (popular in the South), were co-endorsed and run together for President and Vice-President as candidates of the National Union Party. Notwithstanding this party disbanded after the war ended, with the result that Republican Lincoln was succeeded by Democrat Johnson; the states began to place candidates for President and Vice-President together on the same ballot ticket - thus making it impossible to vote for a presidential candidate from one party and a vice-presidential candidate from another party, as had previously been possible.
Running mates are typically chosen to balance the ticket geographically, ideologically, or personally, as when the staid New Englander John F. Kennedy was matched with the folksy Texan Lyndon B. Johnson in 1960. Or, in 1984, when male Walter Mondale was paired with female Geraldine Ferraro. The object is to create a more widespread appeal for the ticket.
Presidential candidates from smaller states sometimes choose a vice presidential running mate from a state with a large number of electoral votes - as when Walter Mondale of Minnesota (10 votes) selected Geraldine Ferraro of New York (then 36 votes). It is preferred, but not legally required, that the running mate be from a different state from the presidential nominee, because each elector can vote for no more than one candidate from his or her own state. Running mates can also be chosen from swing states in order to boost a candidate's chance of winning in the state.
A running mate can be useful to target a separate group of people from those who were initially being targeted, and therefore assist the running party in appealing to a larger basis of people. It can also have the detrimental effect of deterring voters who were initially inclined to vote for the running candidate but have been put off by the choice of the running mate. In 2008, John McCain selected Sarah Palin to be his running mate. It appeared that “conservatives’ perceptions of Palin had a strong effect on turn out and vote choice, while Palin seemed to have less influence on moderates’ decisions to turn out and vote”.[1] So while a running mate can benefit the party, the decision as to whom should be chosen, should be made wearily as it can also negatively influence the results of the election for that party.
In the 2016 presidential election, democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's nominee is Tim Kaine, senator from Virginia. On the other side, republican nominee Donald Trump is Mike Pence, governor of Indiana.
In electing a subordinate officer the Electors will not require those qualifications requisite for supreme command. The office of the Vice President will be sinecure. It will be brought to market and exposed to sale to procure votes for the President.
— William Cocke, December 2, 1803, Witcover 1992 cited by Sigelman and Wahlbeck 1997[2]

Technically, the VP candidate is chosen by the party delegates at the convention. That used to be more than a formality, when the conventions did more substantive business, but the last time a president didn't get his pick was 1956, when Adlai Stevenson didn't pick anyone and left it up to the convention.

The process isn't formalized and very little of it is public, but outside of the inner circle of the campaign, I'm sure the candidate also consults the leadership of the party.

There is no one way that a candidate picks a running mate.  Ultimately, the simplest answer to your question is a candidate should select the person who will best help get the nominee elected. That's a thoroughly fact-based analysis. Where is the candidate weakest? What parts of the country? Amongst which demographics? Does he or she need help within the party? Who can best fill in those gaps?

Another factor is whether or not they get along. And it goes without saying that the running mate has to be willing to be on the ticket.

Jammer wrote:Oh Skeptical my old friend, you have just proven my point.  We are in such a world of hurt.  It is no wonder that the repressive liberals have gained so much ground in this country.  Way too many of us conservatives are poorly informed on the issues.  When we can't even recognize what the problem is, just how in the world will we ever be able to fix it?  And if our generation of conservatives doesn't know the very BASICS of these issues, how can we expect the younger generations to understand them?

I urge you to try again.  The question is since the method for electing our President and VP are clearly outlined in the two portions of the Constitution that I mentioned and what we do today is NOT anywhere close to that, how did we CONSTITUTIONALLY get there.  My question was to show me where did we amend the Constitution in order to change our process?  The answer is you are not going to find it.  So then how did we get to this point?

Well it has been decades of repressive liberals ignoring and going around our Constitution and CONSERVATVES have allowed it to happen.  And to compound the problem is that we have not even considered the consequences for these actions.  But once again if Americans don't even understand why the Founders did what they did or in this case maybe even WHAT they did, how can we OBJECT when socialist fundamentally TRANSFORM our country?

I will make a statement that if a conservative does not understand this issue around the Electoral College, they have no business even worrying about who is appointed to the Supreme Court.  Just because somebody claims to be a conservative doesn't ensure that they understand the Founding Principles of this country and what is needed to defend them.  If you listened to Trump during his 60 Minutes interview he openly said that he was opposed to the Electoral College.  That was alarming, but even more alarming is that the universe of CONSERVATIVES in this country was not up in arms over the fallacy of his thoughts.

Way too many conservatives are grossly uninformed and it has cost us dearly.  I hope it is not too late.  Unless conservatives are willing to dig in and learn, we will be condemned to playing Google footsie with repressive liberals until they have hoodwinked us into allowing them to steal our liberties and our country.

Dr. Evil wrote:

Jammer wrote:Oh Skeptical my old friend, you have just proven my point.  We are in such a world of hurt.  It is no wonder that the repressive liberals have gained so much ground in this country.  Way too many of us conservatives are poorly informed on the issues.  When we can't even recognize what the problem is, just how in the world will we ever be able to fix it?  And if our generation of conservatives doesn't know the very BASICS of these issues, how can we expect the younger generations to understand them?

I urge you to try again.  The question is since the method for electing our President and VP are clearly outlined in the two portions of the Constitution that I mentioned and what we do today is NOT anywhere close to that, how did we CONSTITUTIONALLY get there.  My question was to show me where did we amend the Constitution in order to change our process?  The answer is you are not going to find it.  So then how did we get to this point?

Well it has been decades of repressive liberals ignoring and going around our Constitution and CONSERVATVES have allowed it to happen.  And to compound the problem is that we have not even considered the consequences for these actions.  But once again if Americans don't even understand why the Founders did what they did or in this case maybe even WHAT they did, how can we OBJECT when socialist fundamentally TRANSFORM our country?

I will make a statement that if a conservative does not understand this issue around the Electoral College, they have no business even worrying about who is appointed to the Supreme Court.  Just because somebody claims to be a conservative doesn't ensure that they understand the Founding Principles of this country and what is needed to defend them.  If you listened to Trump during his 60 Minutes interview he openly said that he was opposed to the Electoral College.  That was alarming, but even more alarming is that the universe of CONSERVATIVES in this country was not up in arms over the fallacy of his thoughts.

Way too many conservatives are grossly uninformed and it has cost us dearly.  I hope it is not too late.  Unless conservatives are willing to dig in and learn, we will be condemned to playing Google footsie with repressive liberals until they have hoodwinked us into allowing them to steal our liberties and our country.

Ya Skeptical, listen to Jammer.  You don't know Shiit!!

Jammer wrote:It is not just our lack of knowledge of the Electoral College that is troubling.  We conservatives are deficient in so many areas of our history that we are in danger of losing it.  The following article points out what ONE conservative is doing to prevent that from happening.

http://barbwire.com/2016/11/17/one-woman-battles-to-restore-real-not-revisionist-history-to-the-classroom/

The repressive liberals are EVIL CRETINS.  They will stop at nothing to reach their goal of destroying our great country.  The only thing that stands in their way are courageous women like Cynthia Dunbar.  I pray every night that others will follow her into to this battle to save not only our history but also our country.

I hope you noticed the comment in the article that when you use search engines like Google to find information, you are deceptively taken to information that is misleading at best and more than likely an outright like at worst.  That is why playing Google footsie with the EVIL repressive socialists will never lead to anything good.  At best you learn or confirm inaccurate information in your mind, at the worst you end up spreading it further on the internet.

I encourage conservatives to learn our REAL history and the Founding Principles that were used to build this great country.  And hopefully that will only be your first step as you will then use your talents to pass that knowledge on to other GOOD Americans rather than wasting your time playing Google footsie with assholes like Jackoff Jones.

Dr. Evil wrote:

Jammer wrote:It is not just our lack of knowledge of the Electoral College that is troubling.  We conservatives are deficient in so many areas of our history that we are in danger of losing it.  The following article points out what ONE conservative is doing to prevent that from happening.

http://barbwire.com/2016/11/17/one-woman-battles-to-restore-real-not-revisionist-history-to-the-classroom/

The repressive liberals are EVIL CRETINS.  They will stop at nothing to reach their goal of destroying our great country.  The only thing that stands in their way are courageous women like Cynthia Dunbar.  I pray every night that others will follow her into to this battle to save not only our history but also our country.

I hope you noticed the comment in the article that when you use search engines like Google to find information, you are deceptively taken to information that is misleading at best and more than likely an outright like at worst.  That is why playing Google footsie with the EVIL repressive socialists will never lead to anything good.  At best you learn or confirm inaccurate information in your mind, at the worst you end up spreading it further on the internet.

I encourage conservatives to learn our REAL history and the Founding Principles that were used to build this great country.  And hopefully that will only be your first step as you will then use your talents to pass that knowledge on to other GOOD Americans rather than wasting your time playing Google footsie with assholes like Jackoff Jones.

Where did you get the silly notion that anybody here cares?

Despite Trump's anti-Beltway "drain the swamp" pledge, all three candidates have or have had official positions in Washington. Flynn, who was pushed out of the Defense Department in 2014, runs a firm that does lobbying. And Sessions and Pompeo come directly from Congress, which has a near-historic low approval rating.

Jammer wrote:

Gomezz Adddams wrote:

Jammer wrote:

Jammer wrote:Chris Christie is poison, I wouldn't name him dog catcher.  However, his experience with "Bridgegate" does provide him a lot of firsthand knowledge with transportation problems.

Mike Pence is cleaning up the mess that Chris Christie has already created.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/11/16/pence-removing-lobbyists-from-trump-transition-team.html

Christie is pure poison.  I hope Trump is smart enough to not even give him a minor role in his administration.  He is nothing but bad news, will create problems wherever he goes and has enough baggage that the NY Times will never run out of negative stories.

While I am personally opposed to the presidential nominee picking his own running mate, Trump's selection of Mike Pence for VP was EXCELLENT and I hope foretells of his future decisions.  That is not how our Constitution says it should be done and I challenge anyone to show me where the Constitution was amended to select VP candidates the way we do.  I think what you will find is that this was just one more little progressive change the REPRESSIVE LIBERALS made to help them establish their tyrannical rule of the United States.  In any event, Mike Pence is truly a good and noble man as well as effective leader.

The Constitution only speaks to as how the President and Vice President are selected in the Electoral College. It is silent as to how individual parties select their nominees. Party rules determine how VP candidates are nominated.

Your reply illustrates the dangers of letting repressive liberals PROGRESSIVELY transform our country.  The Founders knew that direct democracies never work, so they carefully crafted a Constitutional Republic where the only direct election by the people was for their REPRESENTATIVE.  So while you accurately explained how we do it today, you totally missed the point about how we SHOULD do it.

The changes have been subtle along the way as the political parties have wrestled control of the process away from the people.  The Founders established a system where each state chose their representatives for the process and they were called ELECTORS.  These ELECTORS nominated the POSSIBILITIES.  Based upon the nominations if a candidate had a majority of the votes, they were elected.  If not, then the choice went to the House of Representative where each state had one vote.  

Here is the 12th Amendment, the only change made in the Constitution to HOW we should elect our President and VP.  I see no place where it says political parties.  Even before FDR, at least the political parties left it to a vote of their national conventions.  However, that was not acceptable to the tyrannical FDR who demanded that HE and ONLY HE choose his running mate.  Well, once the precedent was set we were on step closer to a direct democracy and tyrannical rule.

Amendment XII
The electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;--The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;--the person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President. The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

Here is a pretty good article with information on the Electoral College.

https://nccs.net/2010-11-elections-in-america-battle-of-the-parties

Where the article wrote:Google Mexican American Heritage and the search engine will return dozens of articles, all hit pieces savaging the textbook as nothing but racism.

Jammer wrote:That was a fairly typical response from a left leaning individual whose main source of knowledge comes from using Google to find websites that spew out liberal deception.   That is why I cautioned conservatives (obviously you are not one) to be very careful when using Google as it is controlled by repressive liberals who quide Google users in the wrong direction by directing them to deceptive and demeaning information put out by repressive liberals.

I pointed out the article:

http://barbwire.com/2016/11/17/one-woman-battles-to-restore-real-not-revisionist-history-to-the-classroom/

Where the article wrote:Google Mexican American Heritage and the search engine will return dozens of articles, all hit pieces savaging the textbook as nothing but racism.

Repressive liberals did not like what the book presented by Ms Dunbar said, so they do what they always do, attack the source and demean it hoping that “low information” voters will fall for their deceptive attack and thus dismiss the obstacles to their repressive liberal agenda.   Unfortunately way too many conservatives fall for this petty approach by the EVIL CRETINS.

Well since you are such a “self-identified” genius, perhaps you can provide your list of errors or revisions in what was stated about the Electoral College?  Otherwise we will be able to assume that you are either one of those “low information” voters who are unable to comprehend without the use of Google or worse yet, one of Jackoff Jones’ comrades in disguise.  You and he do seem to have a lot in common and have so much fun together.

Dr. Evil wrote:

Jammer wrote:That was a fairly typical response from a left leaning individual whose main source of knowledge comes from using Google to find websites that spew out liberal deception.   That is why I cautioned conservatives (obviously you are not one) to be very careful when using Google as it is controlled by repressive liberals who quide Google users in the wrong direction by directing them to deceptive and demeaning information put out by repressive liberals.

I pointed out the article:

http://barbwire.com/2016/11/17/one-woman-battles-to-restore-real-not-revisionist-history-to-the-classroom/

Where the article wrote:Google Mexican American Heritage and the search engine will return dozens of articles, all hit pieces savaging the textbook as nothing but racism.

Repressive liberals did not like what the book presented by Ms Dunbar said, so they do what they always do, attack the source and demean it hoping that “low information” voters will fall for their deceptive attack and thus dismiss the obstacles to their repressive liberal agenda.   Unfortunately way too many conservatives fall for this petty approach by the EVIL CRETINS.

Well since you are such a “self-identified” genius, perhaps you can provide your list of errors or revisions in what was stated about the Electoral College?  Otherwise we will be able to assume that you are either one of those “low information” voters who are unable to comprehend without the use of Google or worse yet, one of Jackoff Jones’ comrades in disguise.  You and he do seem to have a lot in common and have so much fun together.

Science is biased, schools are biased, historians are biased, media is biased, the internet is biased, internal investigations within our government are biased, our government's regulatory institutions are biased, do you ever wonder if you're just fukcing wrong???

Well since you are such a “self-identified” genius, perhaps you can provide your list of errors or revisions in what was stated about the Electoral College?

Gomezz Adddams wrote:

Well since you are such a “self-identified” genius, perhaps you can provide your list of errors or revisions in what was stated about the Electoral College?

Putting aside your insults, here's a few errors that Earl Taylor and Gary Alder made in their "history" of the Electoral College. Chew on these:

1)  "The Constitution added a new innovation-a bi-cameral Congress with one chamber representing the people (being elected directly by the people), and the other representing the state governments (being chosen by the state legislatures)." COMPLETE BULLSHIT - YOU MISSED THE POINT OR SHOULD I SAY GOOGLE NEVER UNDERSTOOD THE POINT

Bicameralism existed long before the US Constitution, two examples being the Roman Senate and Plebeian Council and Britain's Parliament with it's House of Lords and House of Commons.

2) "The Framers intelligently designed a unique Electoral College system to select the best possible presidents"

The Electoral College is not unique.  Electoral colleges have existed for a long time. In fact the structure of our Electoral College has it's roots in the Roman Republic Centurial Assembly.

3) "The secret to understanding the original system is that the Electors were to nominate presidential candidates-not elect the president."

And off into the weeds we go. While some Framers, primarily George Mason with his supposed prediction of "nineteen times in twenty", envisioned a second round of voting in the House of Representatives in reality this has happened only twice with the election occurring in the first round. Mason felt this would be the case because of the Electoral College mandate that electors could only vote for one person from their State leaving them to vote for individuals from other States that they would have little knowledge of. Mason stated, "the extent of the Country renders it impossible that the people can have the requisite capacity to judge of the respective pretensions of the Candidates." The Anti-Federalists argue against the Electoral College with this very argument. See Anti-Federalist #72.

I'm short on time right now, but I'll continue later with an argument that the Framers weren't all that anti-democracy nor is the Electoral College.

Darth Cheney wrote:In case you haven't read "The 5000 Year Leap" I would encourage you to do so. I found it very enlightening. Its been a few years though...

1) "The Constitution added a new innovation-a bi-cameral Congress with one chamber representing the people (being elected directly by the people), and the other representing the state governments (being chosen by the state legislatures)." COMPLETE BULLSHIT - YOU MISSED THE POINT OR SHOULD I SAY GOOGLE NEVER UNDERSTOOD THE POINT

Gomer wrote: Bicameralism existed long before the US Constitution, two examples being the Roman Senate and Plebeian Council and Britain's Parliament with it's House of Lords and House of Commons.

Dr. Evil wrote:Seems simple enough...

Is slavery the reason for Electoral College?
http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2016/11/22/why-was-the-electoral-college-created-slavery-orig.cnn