The Virginia Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of High-Quality Posts

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When are Democrats ever not worried about something? Talk about overreaction. The Republican Party was subject to a hostile takeover last year and they constantly have competitive, divisive, expensive primaries (occasionally even in swing states and blue states!) Clearly that's really taking a toll on them politically.

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I honestly can't believe this needs to be stated, but really shouldn't be surprised.

Victims are never at fault. Sexual assault and sexual violence of any kind never were, never are, and never could be excused, rationalized, defended, or downplayed in their severity. Anyone who has committed any sexual transgression against another person deserves to be called out for it, no matter their age or position in society. Victims deserve to be believed by people unless/until the accused is proven innocent (which they rarely are innocent, considering a mere 2-8% of such accusations are false). Sexual assaulters and rapists very rarely ever face any serious consequences for their actions and throughout history, even today in our country, victims are made to feel ashamed and at fault when they did nothing wrong whatsoever. Blame is 100% on the perpertrator; they consciously chose to touch, force themselves upon, or make unwanted sexual comments towards another person without their consent.

If you in any way, shape, or form try to disregard a victim's testimony, downplay the severity of what had happened to them, blame them for it, or question their actions whatsoever, you are a horrible person. That's what's meant by the pervasiveness of rape culture in America. Sexual violence is an incredibly serious and far too common thing in our society; millions of people are permanently scarred by something they did nothing to cause. It can lead to depression, self-harm, PTSD, and countless other problems in a victim's life and the last thing they need is to be shamed by others. And if you think "oh it was just innocent touching," then you're trash.

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There is neither theoretical reason nor empirical evidence to claim that AV encourages "encourages please-all centrism" anymore than another system.

As for the idea of "let's keep something bad now so we can get something better later", well, it is and has always been one of the most harmful pathologies of the radical left. Seem like people just never learn...

Yes there is, although you didn't bother to listen when I explained them at the time either so I'm likely banging my head against the wall. If you don't think AV would encourage parties choosing transfer-friendly candidates (centrists) or rather rule out polarising candidates who likely cannot command the support of 50%+ of the constituency's electorate, and risk losing them their seat - I don't know what to tell you.

There are not many constituencies in the country where my politics could gain over 50% support - so not only could I look forward to an Australian Greens type scenario in terms of zero or a solitary seat for millions of votes but even where agreeable leftists have won - and can win on a plurality of votes - they'd be at risk.

Of course you're likely going to accuse me of prioritising tactical advantage over fairness but given none of the voting systems on offer even attempt to achieve fairness I feel pretty justified in my decision.

Third-party candidates are just as likely to be at the ideological extremes as they are to be in the center. You obviously had 2010 in mind when you made that post, but then 2015 came along and Labour bled quite a few votes to UKIP. I don't know if these voters would ultimately have second-preffed Labour or the Tories, but at the very least, it would have given Miliband a reason to make more populist appeals rather than try to win over the middle ground - which IIRC is exactly what you wanted.

A solid left-wing force can command a majority of the vote, if faced with a clear enough alternative. The fact that you don't believe it can shows your lack of confidence in your own values, which is another sad pathology of the left.

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A model effortpost

I thought this was interesting, so I did some research and found a law review article on the subject. I wasn't able to find a free version and its 68 pages long, so I'll just highlight some of what I consider interesting.

Forty-three states have treason statutes or constitutional provisions. The states without are Hawaii, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. Hawaii is the only state to never have a law against treason.

The legal position of treason against the states today is sort of fuzzy; treason against the states COULD be a thing, but the window of what would specifically apply as state treason would be small, as states lack jurisdiction to punish treason against the United States as a whole. Also, most of the twenty-one states which have treason as part of their constitution nowhere actually define the punishment for it. If push ever came to shove, they would likely be deemed non self-executing and not currently valid.

As for why and how long they've been there, state treason statutes go back to a June 26, 1776, resolution of the Continental Congress:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

And the topic of state treason was a hotly debated question at the Constitutional Convention. The vote on the proposal that the United States have sole power to declare punishment for treason failed 6-5.

State treason language, while mostly sticking to the "comfort or aid" language above, has changed and varied over time. For example, South Carolina's 1805 statute that made it treason to connect oneself, directly or indirectly, “with any slave or slaves in a state of actual insurrection within this state” or to “excite, counsel, advise, induce, aid, comfort or assist any slave or slaves to raise or attempt to raise an insurrection within this state.

Since the ratification of the Constitution, state courts have completed only two treason prosecutions, both of which occurred over 150 years ago. The first was Rhode Island's 1844 prosecution of Thomas Dorr; the second was Virginia's 1859 prosecution of John Brown. There were a few before the constitution as well, Respublica v. Carlisle (High Treason against Pennsylvania in 1778) being a good example. The Dorr trial is really interesting; Dorr tried to enforce a "People's Constitution" with universal manhood suffrage over the existing government still based on the royal charter. Details here. In both cases, defense counsel argued that treason could only be a federal crime and in both cases the defendants were found guilty.

There were a few more recent cases that were dropped, including some of the strikers in the Homestead Strikes. The most recent was Ohio v. Raley in 1954. In that case, three defendants were separately indicted for contempt of the Ohio Un-American Activities Commission. After having been sworn as witnesses before the Commission, the defendants each refused to testify in response to certain questions and were after charged with treason. They were found guilty, but the case was reversed on other grounds by SCOTUS.

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For those of you who don't know the story behind this, a while ago Admiral President made a timeline called "Misfire", where Oswald's gun jams and JFK Lives. The first reply was a comment by FDB saying "go on", and there were quite a few people (including me) who empty quoted this. Eventually, one user said our empty quoting had gotten out of hand, but another user decided to not only again empty quote FDB's go on, but to empty quote the user who had said the empty quoting had got out of hand, and to merge these two empty quotes. From then on the entire thread was just people merging empty quotes to see just how big we could get this empty quote. The final empty quote, dear reader, before a mod deleted the thread, looked like this:

[snip]

"Misfire" - the greatest thread in the history of forums, deleted by a moderator after 3 pages of heated empty-quoting,

I wasn't going to delete each empty-quoting post.

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Voted for Mussolini being worse, but I have to say this: Berlusconis, i.e. those who do not have the interest of the population at heart, make corrupt systems even more corrupt and rotten, and manage to win people's confidence like snakes only to line their own pockets while doing absolutely nothing for the people or the country, create the perfect breeding ground for dictators like Mussolini.

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The reality is that Donnelly is still going to face millions of dollars in attack ads claiming that he supports terrorism, that he supports illegals etc etc.

Sure I get not pulling a Gillibrand and opposing everyone; but if the Republican Presidential Nominee opposes Haspel, as a Democrat you've got every right to oppose her.

There's nothing worse than this sort of virtue signalling politics (a word I hate to use), if you support torture, if you support the Bush era CIA tactics then great support Haspel. But don't support her because you think it's going to somehow win you some imaginary voter

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His first mistake is believing that politicians in general are good role models for kids. The one good thing about the Trump era is we can ditch the stupid idea that the America President represents an epitome of the ideal person, rather than whatever random hack managed to slime their way into the big job.

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Opinion of Giulio Andreotti?

Other than 'hilarious person', you mean? An intriguing figure: a genuinely devout man widely accused of believing in nothing, the 'right wing' DC who headed up the two most left-wing (in terms of policies) governments in the history of the Italy, the fervent anticommunist and key component of Gladio who was the PCIs contact with the political establishment during the last decades of the First Republic and who had good personal relations with many important figures in the Kremlin, the man of impeccable personal probity who deliberately filled his faction with the most brazenly heinous crooks in a notoriously crooked party, the kindly giver of alms who had some sort of relationship - exactly what is still unclear and always will be - with the Sicilian Mafia and was almost certainly in part responsible for the murder of a journalist who was blackmailing him, and (of course) the politician who clearly had some kind of relationship with the Sicilian Mafia who launched the State's somewhat belated but rather fierce all the same crackdown on it.

I tend to think that the key to understanding him is to accept that the common view that he believed in very little politically is false; that actually all of the paradoxes can be explained by the white-hot intensity of his political beliefs. Essentially he believed in the need to protect two things: the Catholic Church and the Italian State. Anything could be justified in order to do this; anyone who might help could be an ally, anyone or anything that presented as a threat had to be destroyed or at least neutralised. And he would not be in a position to do this if he were not in a position of power, therefore anything was also justified in order to gain and maintain political influence. Sorrentino's film Il Divo basically made this argument and his reaction to it was interesting: he normally responded to anything he regarded as criticism with a shrug and a witticism and then moved on, but not in the case of that film. Firstly he angrily walked out of a screening of it and made vague threats of litigation, then (when a little time had passed) he began to argue that while the film was admittedly well made* and that he felt a little flattered that a film about him was up for award and winning them it was still a pack of lies, thirdly (when further time had passed) he started suggesting that perhaps he should be awarded a share of the royalties. A very uncharacteristic set of reactions that hints - I suspect anyway - that the film got pretty close to the bone.

_{*Incidentally, Andreotti was a personal friend of Fellini and once wrote an excellent little article about the meaning of La Strada.}

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Every public statement and action since the election has lowered my opinion of the man.

The idea that Obama was "early" also strikes me as incredibly wrong. His politics have already aged poorly, and started looking dated as early as the Recession and the rise of the Tea Party.

The reality is that he has more in common with the Democratic Party of the '90s then the one that is emerging today, and nothing meaningful to say about the major challenges facing the country. Even if he did, his time in office exposed much of his 2008 campaign rhetoric as either empty or hypocritical.

It's not difficult for ex-presidents to remain popular, though - after all, somehow W., Bush Sr., and Bill Clinton remain so.

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Crabcake at her best:

Probably the most incompetent russian leader since Nicholas himself (although obviously not the most malevolent). In fact that doesn't even begin to cover it: he was a vain, intellectually limited gangster hack who was a devoted and zealous shill for the Party till he realised it would be more advantageous to reinvent himself as a liberal.

The Yeltsin administration was, from start to finish an antidemocratic, surreally corrupt and aggressively neoliberal disaster that poisoned the well of democracy for a generation and led the country to far worse depths than what it reached in the latter days of the USSR.

To name a few examples: the "democratic hero" shelled the elected parliament in 1993, killing hundreds, when they refused to rewrite the constitution to enhance his own personal power; he gave away over 200 billion dollars of state property to his cronies, which the state received only 7 billion; he presided over one of the largest recessions in history with GDP falling by 50 percent and a huge swathe of the population pushed into poverty, he initiated the Chechen Wars which rival the greatest crimes of the Russian military in Afghanistan and Hungary in their depravity. At some points the corruption was so bad government officials were found simply walking out of the buildings with tens of millions of American dollars in briefcases. Then his whole rule was capped off by the1998 financial crisis and finally the naming of Putin as his successor. What a legacy!

Bizarre that anybody would dislike Putin, but like Yeltsin. When Boris was alive he never offered more than muted criticism of the man. They are of the same ilk.

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An awful human being and war criminal who led a presidency defined by failure and malevolence. The idea that he should be given plaudits for giving a few pretty speeches on 9/11 is sickening: it was his administration that sleptwalked on the issue of terrorism (focusing on geopolitics instead) and ignored warning signs (this is not to lend credence to the disgusting conspiracy theories of truthers, but a competent administration could have stopped it even without the expanded security state enforced after 9/11). The administration then whipped up a hysterical tubthumping nationalist sentiment through the pliant media, which they used as reason to ram through agendas unrelated to the attacks, notably the long-term GOP goal to remove Saddam Hussein, invading Iraq in a flagrantly illegal act that eroded international goodwill and diverted attention away from Afghanistan and, um, finding Osama Bin Laden and the men actually responsible for the attacks.

Not even getting into the folly of the surreally irresponsible Bush Tax Cuts, lumbering around in the financial crisis with Paulson letting Lehman fail, putting some dude from the Arabian Horsefondlers Association in charge of FEMA and subsequently, letting Katrina drown, the hilariously blunder filled Medicare Part D, the worse than useless NCLB, the anti gay hysteria calculated to win a few measly votes in Ohio, the failed attempts to privatise Social Security, the Flag Desecration amendment, the pervasive anti-intellectualism, the punting on climate change etc.

I remember seeing something that was really indicative to what kind of man Bush is. He was being interviewed about his painting career or whatever, and the dude asked him what the worst moment of his presidency was. A normal person - someone with moral scruples - would have said something meaningful like, I dunno, the realisation that his actions had left scores of American young soldiers or Iraqis or New Orleans residents dead. His response was that he felt affronted when Kanye West called him racist. What a goddamn gutless coward! You create untold misery in the lives of the non-elite with your blundering and disregard for human life in the pursuit of the greater good; and then you have the tenacity to play victim cause some rapper was a bit mean on the teevee?

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This Sunday, August 26, the consulta popular anticorrupción (anti-corruption popular consultation/referendum) will be held in Colombia. It consists of seven separate questions.

Boring but important legal background: A 'consulta popular' (popular consultation) is one of the mechanisms of civic participation established by law (Law 1757 of 2015 and Law 130 of 1994T), legally distinct from a referendum or plebiscite. A 'consulta popular' may be held at any level of government (national, departmental, municipal etc.), and it is defined as "a general question on a matter of national, departmental, municipal, district or local importance", which may require legal changes if adopted. A national 'consulta popular' may be held at the initiative of either the president or at least 5% of registered voters (currently equivalent to over 1.8 million voters), subject to approval by the Senate. In contrast, a plebiscite may only be called by the president on a given public policy decision of the executive branch, subject to approval by both houses of Congress. A referendum may be held at any level, at the initiative of the government, local authorities or a given number of citizens to approve or reject any bill or to repeal an existing law or constitutional reform, again subject to approval by Congress (in the form of a law).

Once a 'consulta popular' of popular initiative has gone through all the steps -- verification of signatures submitted by the Registraduría, approval of the promoting committee's financial statements by the CNE, certification issued by the Registraduría and a go-ahead from the Senate -- the President sets the date for the consulta popular by decree. To be adopted, besides an absolute majority of valid votes answering in the affirmative, there is a turnout quorum of at least one-third of voters. The turnout quorums for plebiscites and referendums are different (higher and lower, respectively). The adoption of a decision in a consulta popular is legally binding, and Congress is obligated to adopt the necessary laws needed to make it effective. Congress has one year to do so, if it fails to act within that period, the President adopts the required legal changes by decree.

As you've probably guessed, jumping through all the hoops and hurdles and making it to the finish line is lengthy and difficult for any form of civic participation in Colombia. Indeed, most of them never make it to the end. In fact, this anti-corruption popular consultation is the first national consulta popular to be held (the mechanism was instituted by law in 1994) -- and only the third (legally-recognized) national refernedum/plebiscite/consulta to be held since the adoption of the 1991 Constitution, after the 2003 referendum and 2016 plebiscite.

Since I'm probably the only one who has Strong Opinions on Colombian legal terminology, the terms consulta popular and referendum can probably be used interchangeably.

The story of this consulta popular: Colombia is corrupt, and its politics are particularly dirty. In 2017, it ranked 96th out of 180 in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index -- more corrupt than Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, Costa Rica, Cuba, Guyana, Suriname (what the f?) [as well as the entire EU-28, US/Canada, India and China], tied with Brazil, Panama and Peru but less corrupt than Mexico, the rest of Central America, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay and Venezuela.

Corruption has always been around in Colombian politics, but in the past few years, thanks to many major corruption scandals and growing popular discontent with the political system, corruption has become a major political issue and cause for indignation among the mass public. Although the constitution and laws now provide more and more safeguards against corruption, notably with new and improved requirements for transparency or punishments for corrupt/criminal parties and politicians, many still feel that the current laws are too weak, lax or easily abused and that there needs to be new, much tougher rules to limit corruption and the perceived causes of corruption in public life.

In January 2017, then senator Claudia López (Green) registered a committee to collect signatures to hold an anti-corruption referendum, supported by her partner and then representative Angélica Lozano (Green) and other members of the Green Alliance, including Antonio Navarro, Antonio Sanguino and Ángela María Robledo. In July, they submitted 4,236,681 signatures to the Registraduría, of which 3,092,138 were ruled valid in September -- far and above the 1,762,083 signatures it required. The '4 million signatures' were a major political success for Claudia López and her team, and the consulta popular anticorrupción has become her 'baby' and main political cause; while it wasn't enough to ensure her a presidential candidacy this year, it certainly served as a basis for the very successful senatorial candidacy of her partner (and 'successor' in the Senate), Angélica Lozano.

After that, however, the CNE, because of its usual incompetence, lethargy and political makeup, took its sweet time to revise and approve the financial statements of the committee, which is an obligatory legal step before the Registraduría may certify the signatures. The financial statements were given to the CNE in August 2017, and only in late January 2018, after López and her friends began complaining, did it finally approve the financial statements. This allowed the Registraduría to certify the signatures, allowing the matter to be sent to the Senate. In April 2018, the Senate, following an agreement between Claudia López and the uribistas (senator Paloma Valencia), agreed to postpone consideration of the issue until June so as to not coincide with the first round (in exchange, uribistas agreed to support it). On June 5, 2018, the Senate voted 84-0 to approve the consulta popular. Because it was election time and no politician wanted to be seen voting against 'anti-corruption', even if they don't like it. Even the crooks, criminals, heirs and thieves who aren't generally associated with 'anti-corruption' supported it! The list of those who voted in favour included all four Opción Ciudadana senators (lol), Conservatives like Hernán Andrade, Juan Manuel Corzo, Olga Suárez, Nadia Blel, Yamina Pestana and Samy Merheg, Liberals like Arleth Casado and Mario Fernández, CR folks like Antonio Guerra, Daira Galvis, Bernabé Celis, Arturo Char, Partido de la U people like Eduardo Pulgar, Andrés García, José Name, Mauricio Lizcano and of course the near-entirety of the CD bench (led by Álvaro "mientras no estén en la cárcel" Uribe).
On June 18, President Santos decreed that it would be held on August 26.

The questions: There are seven questions, each to be voted on separately (no option for a straight-ticket yes/no).

Q1: Reduce congressmen and senior public officials' salaries from 40x the monthly minimum wages (currently US$10,510) to 25x the monthly minimum wage (US$6,569). A maximum salary of 25x the monthly minimum wage would be set for senior public officials listed in article 197 of the Constitution -- according to the MOE, 1,803 public servants would see their salaries cut, including ministers, comptroller, inspector general, ombudsman, magistrates of the three highest courts, AG, governors etc.

Colombia is one of the most unequal countries on the planet, but its congressmen earn a fortune (and cost a lot of money). Colombian congressmen rank fourth among their Latin American counterparts in terms of their salaries: Mexican, Chilean and Brazilian congressmen earn even more.

Q2: Full jail terms for everyone convicted of corruption or crimes against the public administration (no possibility for house arrest or other special forms of incarceration), banning them from ever entering into contracts with the state and allowing the state to unilaterally terminate contracts with them without compensation.

Currently, officeholders can serve their jail sentences in special reclusion centres. In addition, even if a contractor is convicted of corruption, he may cede his contract to another contractor and, if the contract is liquidated, the state has to pay a compensation.

Q3:Standardized, uniform bid/tender specifications for all contracts with public entities.

This would impose the use of standardized, uniform bid/tender specifications for all contracts with any public entities, at any level of government. The idea is to reduce the manipulation of contracts, rigged tenders, tailor-made tenders, 'handpicked' bids (bids with only one/abnormally low number of offers).

Q4: Mandatory public consultations in budgetary processes (participatory budgeting), deciding the breakdown and prioritization of investment funds at the national, departmental and municipal level, as well as accountability in their actual use.

Currently, the breakdown and prioritization of public investment budgets are unknown, which allows for the funds to be negotiated and split up in secret meetings and backroom deals with the executive, congressmen and their local allies -- which gave rise to the infamous 'marmalade' under Santos.

Q5: Mandatory, public annual accountability for congressmen and all other members of elected collegial bodies (assemblies, councils etc) on their attendance records, votes, lobbying, private interests managed, public investments managed and public offices for which they have nominated candidates.

Currently, congressmen are under no obligations to publicly report on their work and activities. Only their attendance and votes are made public, although that information is difficult to find online on official websites.

Q6: Tax returns, income, assets, conflicts of interest for all elected officials to be made public, as a condition to assume and hold the office. Possibility to begin criminal proceedings and seizure of assets for elected officials and their potential network of strawmen.

Currently, congressmen must declare their assets and income, but this information is not published.

Q7. Three term limit for Senate, House, assemblies, municipal councils and neighbourhood boards (JALs).

There are no term limits for congressmen or elected members of other collegial bodies. Senator Roberto Gerlein (Conservative), who retired in 2018, served 44 years in the Senate (and 5 years in the House before that).

The campaign: This is the fourth time in six months (since March) that Colombians are being called to the polls, so there is bound to be voter fatigue, particularly in a low-turnout country like Colombia. This means that the real challenge will not be getting yes votes on all questions, but rather to get a third of voters to show up -- that is to say, at least 12,075,756 votes. As things stand, I don't think that it will reach that turnout quorum. The referendum's proponent have set an ambitious target of 15 million votes.

Turnout was high in the 2018 presidential election, 19.6 million voters in the first round, but it was the highest turnout in a national-level election since 1998, so it isn't a turnout level which, for now, we can expect to see replicated in any vote. For comparison, in the 2016 plebiscite, turnout was only 13.06 million (37%); in the 2003 referendum, despite Uribe's active support and promotion, turnout was just below 25% for all but one of the questions (less than 6.3 million).

In the Senate, every party voted in favour of holding the consulta popular, although some did so claiming that they disagreed with its contents but that it should be put to a vote, while others said that they had their doubts but that doing something was better than doing nothing. Since then, several columnists and politicians have come forward to criticize the consulta popular on several grounds: claiming that several questions are unconstitutional, that it is useless in the fight against corruption, that most measures already exist, the high costs of organizing it etc. But these columnists or politicians are mostly speaking to the small circles of the país político, since the average voter doesn't care about constitutionality issues or even about costs.

Although the anti-corruption referendum has been in the news for months, by the time the campaign began - right after the presidential runoff - everybody, including the journalists, were tired and relatively little attention has been given to it or the campaign in the media. Even if every party voted in favour of holding it, and the CD indicated that it would actively campaign in favour, none of the traditional parties have actively campaigned for it, although some of their members and individual politicians have been campaigning in favour. Obviously, none of the traditional corrupt/clientelist machines will be mobilizing their networks on Sunday, although the recent presidential election showed that these machines don't necessarily drive turnout as much as they one did. Without many politicians actively campaigning, little enthusiasm from the parties and with little money or other resources for the yes campaign, the campaign for the referendum is primarily a grassroots one driven by individual citizens (primarily young people, students), small networks, unions, volunteers, social media and civil society. Without much attention from the media or politicians, they're betting on grassroots campaigning in the streets, on social media and in public forums being held. While this sort of grassroots campaign worked for Petro in the presidential election, it won't necessarily work this time -- and even if it did, Petro's grassroots 'multicolour campaign' only got 8 million votes in June 2018, so it wouldn't even be enough if they all showed up.

The most visible and active grassroots campaigns in favour have been led by the Greens (Claudia López, Angélica Lozano, Antanas Mockus, Antonio Navarro), the Polo (Jorge Robledo) and Petro's Colombia Humana/Decents -- that is to say, the alternative (opposition) parties, largely on the left of the political spectrum. Some mayors have been actively campaigning in favour of the referendum, like the atypical maverick Rodolfo Hernández in Bucaramanga or Rodrigo Lara Sánchez in Neiva (Huila). In comparison, the 2016 plebiscite was publicly supported by all parties in the governing coalition, the government/presidency, most of the mainstream media and many civil society organizations, and it was on an historic and transcendental topic which had dominated the news for years -- and even then, it only got 13 million voters out, and only 6.3 million in favour.

The CD kind of committed itself to campaigning in favour of the referendum when it was approved in the Senate, and doing so would show that their incessant complaining about Santos' 'corruption' for four years was genuine and not political bullsh**t... but since President Iván Duque was inaugurated, most uribistas have changed their mind and began criticizing the referendum. Iván Duque's new government has presented a package of anti-corruption and political reforms to Congress, three of which correspond to questions in the referendum (Q3, Q6, Q7). While Duque and his new administration have reiterated that they support the referendum and insist that their proposed reforms only complement the referendum, the active proponents of the referendum have said that presenting proposals which take up three of the referendum's question risks dampening public enthusiasm and cutting the ground from under their feet. On the other hand, the leader of the CD, Álvaro Uribe, publicly said that he would not vote in the referendum, arguing that he felt it was more appropriate to support Duque's proposed reforms through Congress than with the referendum. Given the quasi divine worship of Eternal President Uribe in the CD, he likely speaks for the vast majority of the party. Ernesto Macías, the CD President of Congress and high school graduate, has said that he would vote 'no' to the first question (i.e. he doesn't want a pay cut).

It is said that the uribista bases are unenthusiastic if not opposed to the referendum. In the typical nihilism and cynicism of the Colombian right, the referendum is bad because it is supported by people who dislike them (ing babies) or that the referendum is bad because it is only being used to boost the political ambitions of its leaders (Claudia López's likely candidacy for mayor of Bogotá in 2019) or is all part of the castrochavista plot to impose communism because the mamertos (leftists) are behind it.

I also suspect that the uribista idiots on social media and their fake news machines are behind the lies and fake news being spread about the referendum: that it would lower the salaries for every single civil servant, that it would lower policemen's pensions and salaries, that it will lower the minimum wage etc. etc.

To mobilize (young) voters to turn out on Sunday, Semana columnist and YouTuber Daniel Samper (the nephew of former President Ernesto Samper, ironically) has released a hit viral 'reggaeton of corruption' starring (all dressed up) Claudia López (Greens), Angélica Lozano (Greens), Antonio Navarro (Greens), Jorge Robledo (Polo) and Luis Fernando Velasco (Liberal). It has over 1.5 million views in just 2 days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nacvZmMwZuo

My bets: I would be pleasantly surprised if the referendum passed the turnout quorum of 12 million votes.

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Been reading about 19th century US political history recently, and I cannot believe how utterly contemptuous the Whig Party was on almost every level. It's not so much that their policies sucked, in fact they were probably better than Democrats on the issues (although that doesn't mean very much), but that they were the lamest bunch of boring Moderate Heroes, whose uniting ideology seems to have been "nationalism is good, guys!" while being totally devoid of of political principle in letting literal secessionists into the party even though they completely disagreed with the Whig platform, just because they wanted more votes. And even worse than that, they sucked. All the Whig Presidents were either incredibly terrible, died in office, weren't actually Whigs or were some combination of the three. Their most prominent political leader was a perennial loser in Presidential contests. In 1836 the party ran with the dumbest Electoral College strategy in the history of American politics. And as soon as slavery became the top national issue the Whig Party was wiped out because they couldn't formulate a stance on slavery other than "please don't talk about it". Good riddance.  

It's like if the Democratic Party collapsed after a Trump landslide so the Resistance joined forces with NeverTrumpers to form an opposition party based on bland slogans of constitutionalism and national prosperity with a centrist technocratic economic policy, and for President they decided to run generals with zero political experience all the time because hey everyone loves war heroes. Oh, and they're also the ones who engage in xenophobic immigrant-baiting too. Man I hate the Whigs.

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Just one more point on this: It wouldn't happen regardless. And everyone who knows how Washington works, gets that. Democrats need to win back the senate and pass a law to increase the number of justices. Taking back control of the senate is far from guaranteed. They would also need to do away with the filibuster, since Republicans would block such a measure. And would ending the filibuster even get to 50 or 51 votes, when there are 50-52 Democratic senators? Doubtful, to put it mildly. And secondly, where would this end? The next Republican president adds even more seats and once we have a 50 member Supreme Court? This whole thing of packing the court was never anything other than a talking point to fire up the base (that would later be disappointed).

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

This thread is intended for high quality (effort)posts, people.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Credit where it's due.

I'm a burgeoning student of British Monarchical history.

Given what I have read, biographies and such, I feel Henry Tudor, or Henry VII, was the best of the dynasty in terms of being an effective, generally fair, and balanced leader.

Henry took, both by popular support and force of arms, a kingdom which had been divided in successive civil wars, and helped secure it into becoming a modern state. This was a man who wasn't born knowing how to govern; he wasn't taught from a young age. Yet he took a poverty stricken and war ravaged land and in 24 years turned it into a land with a gigantic treasury.

He also did look to the poor, and in many ways crippled the power of the nobility and local lords, which allowed for a freer people and a less corrupt nation.

He didn't really engage in anything we could truly call tyranny.

He also didn't get England involved in any foreign wars.

I say he was a terrific monarch who is forgotten by many because of his more (in)famous son, and his beloved granddaughter.

Now, let's move onto Henry VIII.

Henry VIII started out a fair and just leader, like his father. But Henry also had no interest in truly governing, and left much of that to Cardinal Wolsey. Wolsey did the hard work of daily governance while Henry ruled the land and played. That said, everything Wolsey did, he did with Henry's explicit approval, or with Henry coming up with the idea in the first place. Henry, for the first 20 years of his reign, was beloved by not only his people, but abroad. He was called the most beautiful Prince in Europe. He was considered kind and tolerant by others. He was said to have the 'common touch.' He was a humanist, a friend of Erasmus, a poet, songwriter, and musician. He was a rockstar, besides being King.

He also truly did love Anne Boleyn, despite what happened later. He spent 7 years in a unconsummated affair and practically tore apart his kingdom both to secure the succession (he feared civil war would resume after his death if he did not produce a male heir) and to have Anne Boleyn with him. What's not realized is everything Henry did, he did with the desire to protect England from falling back into civil war upon his death. That meant securing his dynasty, which to Henry, as far as history had shown, meant having a son. He felt that Mathilda's failure to hold power showed a woman would not be accepted as a ruler.

What people forget when they think of the obese, tyrannical, paranoid and monstrous man he became was that Henry suffered a severe head injury during a round of jousting in 1536, when he was 45 years old, almost 30 years into the reign. He was unconscious for two hours. After the incident, his personality went under a marked change that many, in and outside of his court, observed. His mood swings were wild. He became to prone to being easily angered and suffered from memory lapses. He tended toward deep sadness, weeping for hours and deep swayings of emotion. He began to binge eat, and had a painful, pus ridden ulcerated leg wound that wouldn't heal. He suffered from almost daily headaches.

With a ruined leg, and emotion fueled binge eating (he had as many as 13 meals a day and 10 pints of ale), Henry began to bloat rapidly. He developed diabetes and the complications of such. When he started his reign, the young King stood just over 6 feet tall, with a broad chest and a 29" waist and a shoulder length head of auburn hair. He was lean, healthy, and athletic, engaging in many sports. By his death, his waist was over 50" wide and he could no longer walk; he also could barely see. He was bald, and prone to illness.

Not long after the head injury in 1536, Anne Boleyn is executed. And his string of 4 more wives begins.

Henry was a man who probably suffered severe trauma to his brain in 1536, turning a just and fair king into a tyrant. But it should not be forgotten that he helped to develop Britain's modern navy - a major accomplishment.