And so it begins...

[MajGenl.Meade]

Uh Big RR... that was meant as a message to me from Guin (I do believe). I posted - she replied thereafter.

[Big RR]

You may well be right; if that is the case, sorry Guin.

[Bicycle Bill]

Handicap spots seem rather different though. All the ones I've noted here in Bloemfontein are closed off with orange cones and chains. I don't know what the handicapped do.... if there isn't a car-guard around, I guess they don't get to use those spots. I've yet to see one in use anywhere here - just always blocked off.

Same with the handicap entrances at the bank. Securely locked and one does see the occasional wheelchair person sitting patiently outside the bank waiting for someone to notice them and come unlock the door. I tried to help one chap at my bank but quickly learned that the door is LOCKED buddy, to keep people OUT!

Weird

Maybe the law says that handicapped entrances and parking spaces merely have to be provided, but says nothing about the ability or the ease of using them.  The devil is in the details.

It's kinda like the disclaimers/conditions/exceptions that flash in agate-sized type across the bottom of your TV screen for about two seconds when Squint or Im-Mobile proclaim in loud voices or big letters that they provide "unlimited data" or "will cut your current cell-phone bill in half".  They posted them; too bad you didn't have time to read 'em .....

-"BB"-

[Guinevere]

Uh Big RR... that was meant as a message to me from Guin (I do believe). I posted - she replied thereafter.

Correct, I wasn't responding to you BigRR.

I understand your point about opposing the problem, not the people, but I think you're giving the people too much credit -- the problem would not exist but for the people's behavior. And I've already seen too much hateful, nasty, emboldened behavior by the Trumpanzees.

[Big RR]

Guin--Maybe I am giving them too much credit, maybe not; but like it or not, they will be voting in future elections as well. Short of splitting the country in two (and we'd need a big swath across the middle to join the two parts of USA Blue), I'm not sure what else we can do but reach out to the more moderate of them (or at least don't push them away). As for the jerks, there's not much we can do but oppose them at every opportunity.

[Guinevere]

the popular vote gap has closed significantly and is still closing....

Michigan is still counting.....

Utterly incorrect. It's gone from 200K to 600K, for HRC, with foreign and absentee ballots still being counted.
http://www.cnn.com/election/results/president

The gap is still growing, HRC +1,000,000.

And reports coming out now of voting irregularities and voter suppression in North Carolina, no surprise there, and also Wisconsin. Paul Ryan's minions may have delivered him a presidency…

[RayThom]

In his article in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal -- Green Elites, Trumped -- Republican columnist Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. even wrote about Hillary's lead in the popular vote was nearing 800,000. I think Russian hackers were involved in rigging the Electoral College and thought it would be fun to have Hillary maniacally screaming at Bill and the grandchildren for months to come.

Whereas I would rather have had Hillary win I sure hope that she will finally quit politics and devote her time to the Clinton Global Initiative and other philanthropic endeavors. She has to know by now that she's damaged goods and it's time to fold up the tent. I wouldn't be surprised to find Hill & Bill passing the gonfalon to Chelsea so she can make a run at a state office in '18.... against the Trump kids.

[Bicycle Bill]

And reports coming out now of voting irregularities and voter suppression in North Carolina, no surprise there, and also Wisconsin. Paul Ryan's minions may have delivered him a presidency…

Paul Ryan had little to do with the elections.  It was Snottie Wanker, the CEO of the Koch Industries subsidiary formerly known as the governor of the State of Wisconsin, who got his tame legislature to pass voter ID laws (and kept fighting for them even after they had been struck down twice as being vague and/or unconstitutional) which resulted in many people, mostly the working poor or the elderly who were already on the rolls of registered voters, suddenly finding themselves being forced to present a specific form of photo ID and having to go to ridiculous lengths to be able to get it.  The same with voting absentee or voting early.  

Who knows how many of these people basically said "Screw it" and never bothered and let themselves be disenfranchised?

-"BB"-

[ex-khobar Andy]

Now 1.4 million and still growing. One projection http://www.politicususa.com/2016/11/17/ ... total.html is that it could grow to 2 million. This stopped being funny a long time ago. This now absolutely ridiculous.

[Guinevere]

Now 1.4 million and still growing. One projection http://www.politicususa.com/2016/11/17/ ... total.html is that it could grow to 2 million. This stopped being funny a long time ago. This now absolutely ridiculous.

Thanks EKA, I was going to post an updated today.

[Lord Jim]

The latest updated NYT count has it at about 1.1 million:

http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president

[Joe Guy]

From what I've heard and read regarding the popular vote, if you leave California out of the total count, Trump has the majority vote.

Isn't that why we have the Electoral College? So a state like California couldn't decide every presidential election? It seems to me that the system worked. What am I missing?

[Lord Jim]

From what I've heard and read regarding the popular vote, if you leave California out of the total count, Trump has the majority vote.

This would seem to back that up:

How dominant is California when it comes to driving Hillary Clinton’s more than 1.2 million popular vote lead over President-Elect Donald Trump?

The overall numbers obscure the fact that one state gave Clinton her edge: Populous California.

Clinton popular vote lead overall: At least 1.23 million.
Clinton popular vote lead in California alone: At least 3.1 million.

(The “at least” comes into play because California was still counting unprocessed ballots as of November 16 – more than 3.4 million of them – but since the state went so large for Clinton, it’s expected that California will just add to her margin even more.)

California contributed more than 10% of Clinton’s overall popular vote tally. Without California in the popular vote totals, Trump leads the rest of the states combined by more than 1.87 million popular votes.

Five states contributed to more than 35% of Clinton’s popular vote totals.

Here are the latest popular vote totals for the 2016 presidential election according to a spreadsheet compiled by Dave Wasserman and Cook Political Report:

Clinton: 62,568,373
Trump: 61,336,159

If you removed only California’s popular votes from the total, this is the result you would get, as of November 16:

Clinton: 55,889,446
Trump: 57,760,819

Trump also leads in the swing states as a whole:

Trump: 22,056,165
Clinton: 21,182,086
Trump swing state popular vote lead: 874,079

http://www.investors.com/politics/comme ... ote-loser/

Regardless of any of this, the fact still remains that if just 120,000 of the millions of Obama voters from 2012 that didn't turn show up for Hillary had turned out in three states, (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan) Clinton would have won an Electoral College majority.

[Big RR]

From what I've heard and read regarding the popular vote, if you leave California out of the total count, Trump has the majority vote.

Isn't that why we have the Electoral College? So a state like California couldn't decide every presidential election? It seems to me that the system worked. What am I missing?

Is that why we have the electoral college--to dilute the vote of larger states? And even if it is, the votes in a purely why should a purely national election be tracked on a state by state basis and not just on the total vote--it's not like that state of California (or NY or whatever) controls the votes of its residents. Indeed, in statewide elections we don't track the votes on a county by county basis and declare the winner based on the county winners--indeed, if any state tried, I'd bet it would run afoul of the voting rights act one man/one vote guarantee. Why should the votes of voters in other states count more than the votes of voters in California? Am I missing something?

[Long Run]

Why should the votes of voters in other states count more than the votes of voters in California? Am I missing something?

Have you been to California? Best weather, best mountains, best valleys, best coastline, best trees, best flowers, best lakes, best whatever. They have to be second best at something!

[Crackpot]

Lakes?! They don't have shit on Michigan.

[Long Run]

“surely the fairest picture the whole world affords.”

[dales]

Lakes?! They don't have shit on Michigan.

Lake Michigan and sh-t?

Now that's funny!

[Econoline]

If you don't like Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, Lake Huron, or Lake Erie (which really should be called "inland seas" rather than "lakes") there are plenty of others...

• The American state of Michigan borders four of the Great Lakes. The number of inland lakes in Michigan depends on the minimum size: there are 62,798 lakes ≥ 0.1 acres, 26,266 lakes ≥ 1.0 acres, 6,537 lakes ≥ 10.0 acres, 1,148 lakes ≥ 100 acres, 98 lakes ≥ 1,000 acres, and 10 lakes ≥ 10,000 acres.

(Only "fairest"? Regardless of what Mark Twain wrote in 1871, Michigan has the mostest and the bestest!)

[Crackpot]

Seas generally have salt in them.