Ten Ideas to Improve Our System

 By Best in Moderation

There is a lot of talk right now about how to ensure the shift in political power happens correctly. I'll leave those discussions to another OP. 

Today I want to talk about fundamental improvements to our system to make abuses less rampant and accepted. Here are ten possible solutions to systemic problems; please feel free to add more or discuss them down below.

Ranked Choice Voting:

Local and state changes to our election process will make them more representative and open to more candidates from more parties. 

You rank your choices and if no candidate meets the 50% threshold, the lowest ranked is dropped and if that was your top selection your next selection is chosen. 

This way you can safely assume your second choice isn’t automatically a person you vehemently oppose.

Presidential Elections decided by popular vote:

The EC isn’t needed. We have the ability to speedily determine which candidate wins the most support from all Americans.

The EC further shifts power to less populated states, giving Wyoming 7 times the voting power of California (more voters needed per ECV in CA). 

Eliminating the EC will in no way take power from smaller states, as the President is the representative of the People of the USA, and should be chosen by them. 

Senatorial Rebalancing:

As of this day, 12% of the nation of the USA decides 50% of the US Senate. That is a massive imbalance of power.

This can be rectified while keeping the intention of the founders to not let less populated states get swept away by adding a single modifier on the state population.

All States retain 2 Senators, no matter how far below the national population average they are. 

Any state that has double the population average gains one senator for each doubling. 

This means California, Florida, Texas and New York would see an increase of Senators (4 for CA, 3 for Texas, 2 for Florida and 1 for New York)

Based on political trends this would make for an even distribution along partisan lines. It would also mean that 50% of the Senate would now be chosen by 24% of the US population. Still out of balance, but more in line with the vision of the Framers

FYI, when founded 50% of the Senate was chosen by 37% of the population.  

Supreme Court Term Limits

The SC has become too political. An appointment will be held up or pushed frantically due only to political considerations, and cannot be undone without severe disruption.

Putting a 16 year term limit on SC Justices gives them the freedom from political influence needed while also providing for a greater representation on the court as well as limited political posturing. 

Presidential Pardon Power Limitations

America was never intended to have a king. To give one person the ability to pardon any person, no matter the crime, is a kingly power. It should be restrained.

Leave most of it in place, but as with all Constitutional power have checks on it. A pardon must go through an advisory board. 

A pardon furthermore cannot go to relatives or direct associates of the President, not the President her or himself. This prevents obvious corruption.

Penalties for lying to the American people

If something can be proven to be objectively false, then repeating this false thing to the American public will be punishable by law for any elected official. 

One infraction will earn a documented warning including the statement, the correction, and the sources proving it incorrect.

Multiple infractions will result in fines and public censor. 

Repeated infraction on the same false statement will engage impeachment and removal procedures. 

Public Servants must be held to the utmost standard of truth or leave office.

Independent Accountability Office:

The DOJ falls under the Executive branch. The SC is selected by it. The GAO has no teeth. 

There needs to be an independent office whose sole function is to check the use of power by any elected official. 

This office will rotate leadership regularly, preventing any established “deep state” from forming. 

It will consist of investigatory officials as well as representatives from all political parties, to provide a check on one another. The latter will be elected by the people of the USA.

This Accountability Office will have the power to pursue legal investigations into and make charges against elected officials only. The charges made by them will need to be reviewed in a civilian court for any criminal proceedings; however any charge serious enough to warrant removal can trigger impeachment proceedings in the corresponding government office. 

Emoluments Guarantees:

Any President of the United States must set all financial interests into a blind trust controlled by an independent party.

Furthermore, all POTUS candidates must pass a national security clearance test. If they fail, they must work with DHS to meet the criteria before being allowed on any national ticket. No government funds or government institutions may help or include these candidates. It is theoretically possible to bypass this condition with a popular election candidate not belonging to any political party or structure. 

Foreign Influence Measures:

Any candidate caught soliciting help from or materials from foreign nations or accepting the help of a foreign nation in their bid for election will be immediately removed from consideration for public office. 

Congressional Pay tied to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):

Congress will no longer be able to decide on their own pay raises. Instead, pay raises will correspond to specific performance indicators, including state of the economy, bills passed and public approval. 

Failure to meet these criteria will not result in immediate removal but no additional recompense will be given. Downturn of the US economy and jobs will result in lowering of Congressional pay. 

Who is the Least Biased News Source? Simplifying the News Bias Chart

 

“I challenge anybody to show me an example of bias in Fox News Channel.”

Challenge accepted.

Rupert Murdoch, the founder and current chairman of Fox Corp (owner of Fox News) first said the above quote in an article on the Salon website in 2001.

And even though it’s from almost 20 years ago, I can’t think of a more telling quote about the current environment of news in America.

Was there actually any iota of truth to that statement?

“Fake news!”

“Mainstream media!”

“Hoax!”

All of these phrases seem to be shouted from the rooftops everywhere we look these days.

On TV, on the internet, social media — even in private conversations with family and friends.

This has weighed on me (and probably you too) for a while now.

Not only have normally friendly conversations turned vitriolic, but it seems a candid discussion about actual facts is getting more and more impossible every day.

My curiosity finally got the best of me and I spent a huge amount of time over the last couple of weeks collecting and analyzing related data.

I explored the subject of what truly can be considered fake news today.

• Which sites are actually biased?
• Which news sources consistently provide more fiction than facts?
• How impactful are the relationships between reliability, bias, and traffic?

I explore these questions and many more in the following analysis.

Enjoy!

Table of contents

1. Methods and sources
2. Legend
3. Interesting data
4. Which websites can be considered ‘Fake News’?
5. Which news sources should we be reading?
6. Who are the 10 most biased news sources?
7. Who are the 10 most neutral news sources?
8. Who are the 10 most liberally biased news sources?
9. Who are the 10 most conservatively biased news sources?
10. What news websites get the most traffic in the USA?
11. Which sites can be considered contributors to echo-chambers?
12. How many news sources use paywalls?
13. Graphical data and correlations
14. Website visits vs News media bias
15. Reliability vs Unique American visitors in July
16. Bias vs Reliability
17. Monthly visits per person vs Reliability
18. Commentary
19. Full list of news websites analyzed

Be extremely skeptical when reading these news sources:

1. 🔴World Truth TV — 11.6%
2. 🟢National Enquirer — 15.1%
3. 🔴The Gateway Pundit — 19.4%
4. 🔴InfoWars — 20.3%
5. 🔴NewsPunch — 22.5%
6. 🔵Wonkette — 23.9%
7. 🔴WorldNetDaily — 26.5%
8. 🔴Twitchy — 26.7%
9. 🔵Palmer Report — 27.6%
10. 🔴PJ Media — 28.7%
11. 🔵Bipartisan Report — 30.1%
12. 🔵Occupy Democrats — 31.3%
13. 🔴Breitbart — 32.2%
14. 🔵Alternet — 33.4%
15. 🔴Conservative Review — 34.1%
16. 🔴The American Spectator — 34.4%
17. 🔴The Federalist — 34.7%
18. 🔵ShareBlue — 35.5%
19. 🔵Crooks and Liars — 36%
20. 🔴American Thinker — 36.1%
21. 🔵Daily Kos — 36.2%
22. 🔴Daily Caller — 37.4%

The following 15 news sources ranked the highest under this metric.

1. 🟢AP, 79.2%
2. 🟢Reuters, 78.9%
3. 🟢Weather.com, 75.9%
4. 🟢ABC News, 73.9%
5. 🟢The Advocate, 73.9%
6. 🟢Bloomberg, 72.9%
7. 🟢National Public Radio, 72.9%
8. 🟢Wall Street Journal, 72.1%
9. 🟢The Hill, 72.1%
10. 🟢Financial Times, 71.9%
11. 🟢LA Times, 70.8%
12. 🟢PBS, 70.6%
13. 🟢Al Jazeera, 70.5%
14. 🟢CBS, 70.3%
15. 🟢Fortune, 69.8%

Avoid these sources if you value neutrality:

1. 🔵Wonkette, -31.15
2. 🔴InfoWars, 31.05
3. 🔴American Thinker, 29.82
4. 🔵Palmer Report, -29.37
5. 🔴NewsPunch, 28.58
6. 🔴The Gateway Pundit, 28.55
7. 🔵Occupy Democrats, -25.59
8. 🔴Conservative Review, 25.3
9. 🔵ShareBlue, -24.95
10. 🔴Life News, 24.75

News media to consider the most neutral sources:

1. 🟢The Hill, 0.09
2. 🟢Forbes, 0.2
3. 🟢Christian Science Monitor, -0.21
4. 🟢Business Insider, -0.38
5. 🟢Fortune, 0.43
6. 🟢Marketwatch, -0.54
7. 🟢Financial Times, 0.62
8. 🟢Bloomberg, -0.85
9. 🟢Reuters, -0.95
10. 🟢AP, -1.06

Based on the data and in my opinion, the following websites are harming the news industry and our political discourse.

1. 🔵Palmer Report — 27.6% reliability score, 8.2 average monthly visits
2. 🔵Crooks and Liars — 36%, 6.2
3. 🔵Daily Kos — 36.2%, 5.3
4. 🔴Breitbart — 32.2%, 5.3
5. 🔴Twitchy — 26.7%, 5.1
6. 🔴Fox News — 41.8%, 4.9
7. 🔴The Gateway Pundit — 19.4%, 4.8
8. 🔴PJ Media — 28.7%, 4.4
9. 🔴InfoWars — 20.3%, 4.3
10. 🔵FreeSpeech TV — 38.7%, 4.0
11. 🔴RedState — 41.3%, 3.7
12. 🔵Wonkette — 23.9%, 3.6
13. 🔴American Thinker — 36.1%, 3.6
14. 🔵Alternet — 33.4%, 3.2
15. 🔴Daily Caller — 37.4, 3.1
16. 🔴Daily Wire — 38.1%, 3.0

Far more details for inquiring minds:

https://towardsdatascience.com/how-statistically-biased-is-our-news-f28f0fab3cb3

This does not bring us together.

It leads to us doubting our neighbors, our friends, our parents, and other important people in our lives.

Eternal distrust.

You can’t believe what you hear.

Every man for himself.

It seems that many people these days, mistakenly in my opinion, search for sources based on what they already want to hear.

They look for articles to confirm their suspicions. Their thoughts and feelings.

Right or left, it doesn’t matter. If you search on Google for something to back up your feeling on a subject (regardless of truth) — you will find it.

There’s an article for everything now.

Opinions being added to the news cycle has corrupted the impartiality of it.

This is not how we come together as a world, as a nation.

We must be better than this.

It’s my belief that many of these websites, their owners, and their anchors are one of the largest absolute causes of anger in the world today.

Be better, people.

J.J. Pryor  Sep 9·19 

How A Pro-Trump Militia Sees The Election

Where's Waldo (Antifa, BLM, evil democrats, the militia, 

the partisan media, etc.)

Part of a broadcast yesterday of an episode of This American Life, Squeaker, was based on a reporter embedded in a heavily armed Virginia militia group. The militia was prepared to fight Antifa and BLM to defend the election. NPR broadcast the program yesterday. The broadcast is here and this ~21 minute segment is called Act 1, Virginia.

Summary: The militia members anticipated election interference and fraud. They wanted to engage to stop interference in the election. They believed that would happen because Trump said so. The group went to various polling places and found no evidence of any interference with voting. There were lots of nice, polite people, but no Antifa, BLM or whatever else there might be trying to disrupt the voting, intimidate voters or commit fraud.

After the election was over, the group still believed that democrats were committing fraud in the ballot counting because Trump said so. No evidence was cited, just allegation of fraud. When asked if Trump conceded and said that Biden won the election, the militia (or at least the member interviewed) said he would absolutely not believe that Trump could lose by any means other than fraud. There is no way those folks could ever believe the 2020 election was free and fair.

That is more evidence of just how powerful Trump's blatant lies are with some people, even when they are faced with contrary evidence they themselves experienced directly. These minds cannot ever accept actual truth for whatever reasons, e.g., tribe loyalty, intense fear and/or hate of democrats, deep distrust in the media and/or democrats, etc.  

An Early Skirmish With America's Christian Nationalist Supreme Court

The Satanic Temple logo

A press release from The Satanic Temple (TST) states that the TST has lost its Supreme Court motion to disqualify Justice Amy Coney Barrett, alleging it is reasonable to believe that she cannot impartially consider a case involving abortion. The press release comments:

TST's complaint was initially filed when TST member Judy Doe, seeking an abortion in Missouri, was forced to accept literature that asserted the position that life begins at conception and then was made to endured a three-day waiting period that was designed to instill guilt and shame for her decision. TST argued that the imposition of this arbitrary view on when life begins violates their religious beliefs of science and bodily autonomy and creates an unconstitutional undue burden on Doe's religious practices. The Eighth Circuit Court dismissed the case and held that Missouri's proclamations do not violate Doe's free exercise of religion, even though they are rooted in Catholic dogma. TST appealed this decision to the Supreme Court.

In its motion to disqualify, TST stated that "any objective observer would reasonably believe it is unlikely Justice Barrett could set aside her deeply-held religious beliefs on the illegitimacy of abortion and barbarity of [Roe v. Wade] to render an impartial decision on the Petition." TST spokesperson and cofounder Lucien Greaves states, "We cited numerous examples in our motion that unequivocally display Justice Barrett's hostility towards the act of terminating a pregnancy. Yet, the Supreme Court refused to recognize that her dogmatic conclusions related to abortion, which she announced publicly, can reasonably affect her ability to impartially rule on our religious freedom claims."

Greaves continues, "Federal law states that judges must disqualify themselves in any proceeding in which their impartiality might reasonably be questioned. Because the Supreme Court has essentially removed any basis for asserting bias, they invite questions about the legitimacy of the legal system as a whole. When the Supreme Court considers if they will hear our abortion case in conference on November 20, we hope for the sake of upholding fair and impartial jurisprudence that they will make decisions justified by established legal precedence."

Barrett has made her bitter opposition to abortion perfectly clear. Her impartiality can reasonably be questioned. She is clearly biased and should recuse herself. But under our Christian Nationalist Supreme Court, concerns like this will routinely be swept away. A major point of the Evangelical radical right putting her on the court was to get rid of Roe v. Wade once and for all.

TST religion is not a religion

The other, equally or more concerning aspect of this is the decision Eighth Circuit Court that dismissed Doe's case and held that Missouri's law did not violate Doe's free exercise of her religion. Doe is a member of TST, which is an officially recognized religion under US law. She adheres to the TST religion. In essence, the Eighth Circuit did not recognize the TST as an official religion, at least implying that the Missouri law could not be a burden on her religious exercise. 

TST religious dogma on abortion is clear. TST abortion tenets hold that women have bodily autonomy and members should act in accordance with scientific evidence. TST describes its religious abortion ritual like this:

The Satanic Temple has announced that its Satanic abortion ritual exempts TST members from enduring medically unnecessary and unscientific regulations when seeking to terminate their pregnancy. The ritual involves the recitation of two of our tenets and a personal affirmation that is ceremoniously intertwined with the abortion. Because prerequisite procedures such as waiting periods, mandatory viewing of sonograms, and compulsory counseling contravene Satanists’ religious convictions, those who perform the religious abortion ritual are exempt from these requirements and can receive first-trimester abortions on demand in states that have enacted the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

First, the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause as well as several state Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRA), protects religious practices and beliefs from government interference. Second, state laws governing abortions commonly serve no medical purpose and do not result in better health outcomes. Therefore, they unlawfully hinder access to the Satanic abortion ritual.

White Christian Nationalist Ideology

Both the Eighth Circuit court decision and the Supreme Court decision are in accord with the tenets of Christian Nationalism, a religiously chauvinistic ideology that takes a hostile view of other religions and a place for them in American society. The group Christians Against Christian Nationalism describes it like this:

Christian nationalism seeks to merge Christian and American identities, distorting both the Christian faith and America’s constitutional democracy. Christian nationalism demands Christianity be privileged by the State and implies that to be a good American, one must be Christian. It often overlaps with and provides cover for white supremacy and racial subjugation. We reject this damaging political ideology and invite our Christian brothers and sisters to join us in opposing this threat to our faith and to our nation.

As Christians, we are bound to Christ, not by citizenship, but by faith. We believe that:

People of all faiths and none have the right and responsibility to engage constructively in the public square.

Patriotism does not require us to minimize our religious convictions.

Government should not prefer one religion over another or religion over nonreligion.

America’s historic commitment to religious pluralism enables faith communities to live in civic harmony with one another without sacrificing our theological convictions.

This kind of intolerant, radical white Christian theocracy is the new normal that we can probably often or always expect to come from the federal courts for the next 20-30 years. That is what happens when the GOP turns authoritarian and intolerant of democratic norms.

Tracking Viral Misinformation About the 2020 Election

 Every day, Times reporters will chronicle and debunk false and misleading information that is going viral online.

Republican distrust of news may be helping election misinformation spread.

Research from Oxford University’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism has found a long and steady decline in trust in traditional media among more conservative Americans. In its place, they are increasingly relying on right-wing media outlets like Breitbart News and One America News and conservative pundits with a history of spreading falsehoods.

This week, Politico published a poll finding that 70 percent of Republicans do not believe the election was free and fair.

OTHER HEADLINES:

No, Dominion voting machines did not delete Trump votes.

Conservatives, feeling muzzled on social media, are switching to apps like Parler.

We called officials in every state. None had evidence of significant voter fraud.

There is no proof that people stole maiden names to vote.

For those who still believe in Rightwing Conspiracy theories concerning the election, please read:

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/2020-election-misinformation-distortions

From The Flogging Dead Horses Department: There Was No Widespread Voter Fraud

The president, and various pro-Trump sources and politicians continue to claim widespread voter fraud tainted the 2020 election. The claims continue to be false. Such claims have reached a point where they are lies in view of existing evidence. The AP writes:

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s hard to put it any more bluntly: “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised.”

Rejecting President Donald Trump’s persistent claims and complaints, a broad coalition of top government and industry officials is declaring that the Nov. 3 voting and the following count unfolded smoothly with no more than the usual minor hiccups.

It was, they declare, resorting to Trump’s sort of dramatic language, “the most secure in American history.”

The statement late Thursday by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency amounted to the most direct repudiation to date of Trump’s efforts to undermine the integrity of the contest, and echoed repeated assertions by election experts and state officials.

The New York Times writes:

WASHINGTON — Hours after President Trump repeated a baseless report that [a Trump lie follows] a voting machine system “deleted 2.7 million Trump votes nationwide,” he was directly contradicted by a group of federal, state and local election officials, who issued a statement on Thursday declaring flatly that the election “was the most secure in American history” and that “there is no evidence” any voting systems were compromised.

The rebuke, in a statement by a coordinating council overseeing the voting systems used around the country, never mentioned Mr. Trump by name. But it amounted to a remarkable corrective to a wave of disinformation that Mr. Trump has been pushing across his Twitter feed.

The statement was distributed by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is responsible for helping states secure the voting process. Coming directly from one of Mr. Trump’s own cabinet agencies, it further isolated the president in his false claims that widespread fraud cost him the election.  

Across the country, election officials have said the vote came off smoothly, with no reports of systemic fraud in any state, no sign of foreign interference in the voting infrastructure and no hardware or software failures beyond the episodic glitches that happen in any election. (emphasis added)

Authoritarian Trump and the authoritarian GOP are directly attacking democracy

In continuing the charade, the president and GOP are undermining democracy, elections and the rule of law. The Washington Post writes: 

Republicans’ private talking point about how they can continue to aid President Trump in denying election results boils down to what a senior Republican told The Washington Post this week: What’s the harm in humoring him?

Plenty, say national security officials who are concerned about how other countries — and the coronavirus — could take advantage of a slowed transition for President-elect Joe Biden. Plenty, say democracy experts who warn that the Republican Party is undermining the foundations of the U.S. electoral system and that the GOP is mirroring authoritarianism.