US Senators Introduce Resolution to Allow Remote Voting During Emergencies

Those hours spent on the road are hours that people could be spending with their family, at work, or doing whatever else they like.

According to the Census Bureau, 128 million today commute daily in the US. Let's say they spend an average of 30 minutes on the highway at a top speed of 65 mph. If we raised the speed limit by 50% (to 97.5 mph), then the average commute would become: 30 / 1.5 = 20 minutes.

Each individual would save 10 minutes a day. With 252 working days a year, that's 2520 minutes saved a year -- which is a total of 42 hours saved per year. That's a lot of time. Across 128 million commuters, we'd save 5.376 billion hours per year. If people earned an average of $20/hour, that would be $107 billion of added economic activity per year. Whereas even 1% of gas savings would not be more than $2 billion saved per year.

Tons of people on both sides of the isle agree that implementing things like the national speed limit and drinking age of 21 by withholding federal funding from the states that don't goose step in line is a backhanded way of enacting legislation and/or an end run around the constitution.

Sure you can do things that way, but you have to ask yourself if it's really worth it in the long run to normalize that kind of legislative behavior in exchange for getting whatever policy point you want a couple years sooner.

Edit: To reply to your comment below I guess you could say, "no the federal government doesn't have jurisdiction, but that hasn't stopped them in the past"

Oh, and it can't be too significant, because the Supreme Court shut down the Medicaid expansion requirement (expand Medicaid or lose all related funding) in the ACA because the funding was too much of states' budgets.

It's a fine line to walk.

1. https://indiancountrytoday.com/

I'll take a stab at it. I agree with you that Fox actually does have some decent news output at various points in the day (dearly departed Shep...), but I simply don't think that CNN has any equivalent to the Fox opinion programming. MSNBC comes closer but it still doesn't have hosts spouting outright disinformation on a regular basis.

I was sharing a personal anecdote of something that happened to me. Why would I add “CNN/MSNBC” to the sentence when I didn’t watch those channels?

Nowadays, outside of a couple of notable exceptions (Fareed Zakaria’s GPS and Perhaps one or two others) all of the stations are absolute total garbage. They are only worth watching when a live, raw feed of a major event is occurring and I turn it off when the commentary starts.

1. Yup - the News Hour is where like 90% of the MSM consumers I know get their news now.

1. Use of women and children as weapon delivery systems, or shields. (Former US Navy Seal Jocko Willink once described a reoccurring situation whereby his team would be clearing homes in a contested territory and the families would act "strange" until they realized that one of the "family members" was not actually a family member at all.)

2. There are no laws. They can deploy whatever weapons and tactics they wish against both our forces and civilians alike. We are bound by rules of engagement (which aren't as obvious or straightforward as they might sound) which severely handicaps our ability to just "go get the bad guys" even if we know exactly where they are.

3. Extremism. Whether it is religiously motivated or not, extremism leads to predictable results. It's easy for propaganda to spread and to vilify anyone, but it's much easier when there's an actual "enemy" you can see. That effect is multiplied further when we inevitably make mistakes.

War is hell. War should always be the absolute last resort. Unfortunately, the people who decide when we go to war aren't the people who actually have to put their lives and limbs on the line to fight it.

[EDIT] my point being that resistance against one's own government, which has turned evil & brutal but still has the support of its military, is not exactly a case in which I'd expect private small arms per se to turn the tide of battle, or have much effect at all compared with other factors, really.

Sometimes technology introduces more potential problems.

You don't need a separate identification card. You can register to vote for free electronically or via mail, some state even allow in-person enrollment on the same day as the election.

In most states, the county maintains the voter registration. They should be removing people through a fair process as they become ineligible (die, move, felony, etc). They could track down most eligible people, but at what cost? As a citizen, it's not just your right to vote, but it is also your duty. The individual should apply, not be tracked down. This a how a democracy is supposed to work - citizens doing what's best for their country instead of waiting on the government, a government which is supposed to be a body of the people.

If you are concerned about the rights and freedoms of people without a photo ID being trampled, then you should be opposed to TSA since you need a photo ID to fly, or even ride a bus. You should be opposed to the ATF since you need a photo ID to buy a gun. You should be opposed to the DMV because you need a photo ID to drive. Even many states require the addition of photo ID when fishing to validate it against your fishing license. The fact is, you need a photo ID for literally anything you do. Your neighbor could even wrongly claim someone is breaking into your home and when the police show up, you have to prove you live there and are not a burglar. This lack of photo ID argue is soooooo old. Most states will issue an ID card good for 4-7 years for a very minimal cost, usually much less than even a driver's license.

Now, I'm not saying that political games aren't being played. Both sides play them on various issues, especially concerning timing, wrongfully expanding power, or botched implementation. But the trickery of the individuals involved should not be used as a defense against the underlying concept.

There are some closed door hearings with sensitive information, where such security precautions would be needed, but that’s no excuse for not at least restarting the hearings and actions that would have been public before.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WySzEXKUSZw

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compromise_of_1790

To my sibling comment - "reliably blue" lol. Only in the last 3 presidential elections, and the House & Senate are split evenly.

https://www.270towin.com/states/Colorado

https://www.270towin.com/elected-officials/colorado

1) You fill out the ballot, there is no identifying information on the ballot.

2) You put the ballot into a privacy sleeve, and then put the ballot into the envelope.

3) You seal and sign the envelope; then put it in the mailbox.

4) Your mail carrier takes the envelope and delivers it to the election commission.

5) The sealed envelopes are examined in person during the counting process to check that the signature is valid. (3rd parties can observe the counting process to make sure procedures are being followed)

6) The ballot in the privacy sleeve are removed from the envelope and placed in a separate box.

7) Boxes of ballots are counted by separate poll workers.

(If by "secret ballot" you mean people can sell their vote, mailed ballots can be cancelled with a "cancellation form". You can then request a new ballot by mail, or vote in person.)

- The signature on on the envelope, not the ballot. You put your ballot into a privacy sleeve and then into an envelope. You seal the envelope, sign the envelope, and then mail it.

-- The signature has to match (as judged by a human). If it doesn't, they contact you for additional verification.

-- The ballots are separated from the signed envelopes and put in a separate bin before they are counted. The counting process has election observers (just like all states do) so I'm sure this procedure is properly followed.

- Ballots are supposed to arrive 2 weeks before the election. If you don't get your ballot, you fill out a "vote cancellation form" and they invalidate your missing ballot: https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/voters/

-- This prevents other people from voting for you, but it does require attention on your part.

- Additionally, ballots are assigned a random ID with a detachable QR code. The ID is specific to the individual paper ballot, not the voter. Once ballots are opened and counted, this ID will published online so that you can make sure the paper ballot you filled out was counted.

-- This doesn't prevent anything, but it does let us know if someone is dumping/replacing ballots. It builds confidence that your vote is actually counted.

It's only a problem for the people who don't get it. And judging from the point total on my post, the vast majority of people got it.

It would've been corrected in minutes. McCain knew he was the deciding vote and the media firesform would've alerted him to an incorrect vote almost immediately.

All of these people have large teams monitoring their coverage and managing their PR. A voting mistake would be caught.