When are people going to start seriously discussing the DC nuclear option?

(Admitting DC as several hundred states so we can amend the Constitution unilaterally)

If you have the majority to expand SCOTUS in order to "pack the Court," then the same majority can "pack the union" as well. Cheering on a 10-1 Virginia map and a 12-6 liberal SCOTUS is no different than a 177 State solution to fascism.

#127StatesofDC

harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-13...

Is the Kirkland brand product the best quality product? No.

Is the Kirkland brand product the best combination of quality and cost? Yes.

Kash ringing up the SPLC's KKK division:

So the real solution to gerrymandering is to recognize that single winner districts are the actual problem and that "fair" maps are a kludge at best to fix a portion of the problem, but they don't solve the real issue of voters' votes not being directly tied to electoral outcomes.

Proportional systems like multi-member districts elected via single transferable vote or party vote proportional voting are straightforward methods to achieve the proportionality that is artificially created via a "fair" map, but in ways where voters are choosing their representative directly.

"Fair" maps use the veneer of overall proportionality to mask that voters in same-party safe districts "subsidize" their party's voters in other-party safe districts. Since only 50%+1 of the vote is needed to elect someone, the excess doesn't matter within the district, but the excess helps overall.

The issue is that the notions of a "fair" map are tied to overall proportionality of party seats to party vote in an indirect way, not to a principle that every voter's vote directly influences the political power of the party/candidate for whom they vote.

For example, Republicans in the Portland area district and Democrats in the Eastern Oregon district are effectively disenfranchised their entire lives, even if the maps are "fair" by the usual definition used. Rural Virginians complaining today are no different than these Oregonians.

The thing about gerrymandering "not allowing voters to choose their politicians" is that even with "fair" maps as they are normally drawn, there are vast swathes of voters who for their whole lives never vote for a congressional candidate that is elected to represent their preferences.

there is a path. its called turning DC into 127 states and then amending the constitution to finish reconstruction.

As I've been saying...

harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-13...

It's funny because whenever Democrats complain about Republican tilts in the Senate map allowing for GOP Senate majorities, their response is just "stop complaining and win some elections." To the Republicans I say:

Yeah, it's correct that higher costs of construction will lead to less housing being built, which makes prices higher than they should be based on supply and demand, but if more housing gets built relative to no housing being built, than prices will be lower no matter the costs of construction.

Imagine watching what has happened in LA and Minneapolis with ICE and having the gall to say that Virginia is under hostile occupation.

The enemy gets a vote.

Correct, it's not a good thing; it's great!

I think the thing that animates ancaps to deny common ownership of or free access to land is they feel like there are certain people who "deserve" to own and control land and some who don't, so a theory of land ownership that allows for all to have land would undermine this.

My argument has always been that a land value tax is just the standard land sale contract where the current owner pays for exclusive use, but they pay the money to all that are excluded, which happens to be everybody else, rather than just the previous landowner.

The thing is that Georgism has a very clean, voluntary, and contractual solution to land ownership, but a unilateral "I own it because I said so" justification for land ownership has remained the standard for ancaps despite its obvious reliance on force.

Ancaps are completely unserious because their defense for not stealing the bread of a baker is that it was due to their labor and is therefore "theirs," but their defense of land ownership can't be universalized from their "don't steal the baker's bread" rule so they prevaricate.

With the help of the Sandy Hook families, The Onion has reached a long-awaited deal to take over InfoWars.

We've enlisted the help of @timheidecker.bsky.social, who will be InfoWars' Creative Director.

Please stand by for more.

It's missing the bar for you to hold on.

"I have enough cheap access to productive land" and (possibly more importantly) "I feel others have enough cheap access to productive land so as not to diminish my cheap access to productive land" would do so much to assuage a lot of feelings of conflict, resentment, and precarity.

Note: the claim below was not true during the Open Frontier period.

Equitable access to natural resources (opportunity) helps prevent scarcity mindset, malthusianism, nativism and social darwinism!

To learn more, read George.