No Mueller, no taxes

The Whitaker challenge reminds me of Mark Twain's famous saying about the weather: Everyone who cares about the Mueller investigation says "This must not stand," but absolutely nobody has a practical idea as to how to stop Trump's toady from toadying. A legal argument like this one is pointless, because nothing can force Trump or Whitaker or the Senate or the Supreme Court to do the right thing. One might as well debate the desirability of belling the cat.

Ruthless, conscience-free people are exercising power. Do not expect anything but brutality and self-interest from these creatures.

But we in the blue states also have power -- a power greater than Trump's, a power that cannot be negated by the Supreme Court. We control the money. We produce the money. Without us, the cupboard is bare.

My idea: Blue state tax rebellion. No Mueller, no taxes. Just don't pay.

They can't jail tens of millions of people. Remember, the red states are leech states -- they take more from the federal government than they pay. The blue states are the productive states; Democrats in New York and California fund shitholes like Alabama, Kansas, Arizona, West Virginia and Tennessee.

It's finally starting to dawn on everybody that we don't have democracy in this country. The Senate is an inherently undemocratic institution, as is the electoral college. Gerrymandering has rendered the House far less democratic than it should be. Most people understand that computerized vote fraud is real.

No taxation without representation. That's the slogan which kicked off the first revolution. Let it be the slogan of the next.

Money is power, and blue states control the money. And if we are going to exercise that power, let's not stop at protecting the Mueller probe.

Let's address the real issue. It would behoove Dems to prepare a Constitutional amendment which fixes our elections.

Do NOT fall for the delusion that a Constitutional Convention is the remedy. Such a convention will be dominated by libertarians or worse. We don't need Paul Ryan or anyone like him in that room -- and neither do we need Bernie Sanders or anyone like him. No auntie Ayn; no uncle Karl. No economic idealists battling for their competing visions of utopia.

The only thing we need to do is to fix the process of voting. Once the process is repaired, once true democracy is in place, most other problems will find their solutions. Ten years down the line, perhaps we will veer toward libertarianism -- or maybe we'll head in a more socialist direction. Fine by me either way. I don't care. The only thing I care about right now is democracy.

My suggestions:

1. Get rid of the electoral college. Let us directly vote for president.

2. Forbid the use computers in the official recording and tabulation of votes.

3. Insure that votes are counted openly, in an utterly transparent fashion.

4. Make recounts easy.

5. Institute a federal "template" for how all elections are to be carried out on the national, state, and local levels. 

6. Address the concerns of the Republican who think that in-person voter fraud is a real problem. It's not a real problem, but let's set their minds at ease anyways, while simultaneously making it easier to vote. We should institute a system of Voter ID which will insure "one person, one vote." I'm thinking of a card with a magnetic stripe and perhaps a photo -- even a fingerprint. (But no hidden tracking devices!) This system will invalidate state laws requiring photo ID, street addresses and so forth. Registration could be automatic. When you move to a new City, simply swipe your card at a machine downtown, and you are ready to participate in local elections. If you go overseas, if you're homeless, if you are in the process of moving, this system will still allow you to vote for President.

7. Institute strict penalties for anyone who would interfere with the process. Perhaps the death penalty.

Seth Meyers. I just saw a comedy bit in which Meyers dissed the alleged inaccuracy of exit polls. In other countries, if exit polls differ markedly from "official" tallies, international election observers presume that the official tallies have been tampered with. Only in this country do we operate in the slap-happy delusion that the system is impossible to rig.

Shame on Seth. Normally, I'm a fan of his work -- but he got this one very wrong.

A European Army. Macron now considers the United States of American a potential enemy power. He is right to do so.

Will this measure injure NATO, perhaps mortally? Yes. One of the appalling aspects of Trumpism is that even his enemies are now forced to take steps which serve Putin's aims.