Neo

I don't think profit is the only bias in journalism, but I'll agree it's a big one. Thank heavens!

Wasserman Schultz - another one bites the dust. I hope she negotiated a Supreme Court seat, or something. Wasserman Schultz will not preside over her own convention. I look for the national news reporting "chaos and deep division" at the beginning of the convention. Certainly this rises to the level of the RNC voice call on day one of its convention. Chaos. I know a little bit about Tim Kaine. Probably as much as I do about Pence. I generally prefer governors. I don't go much deeper in my analysis. Most interesting of all, in my mind, about the choice of Kaine is what it says about HRC. She reached to no ideology, no left, no right, no gender, no race. She found someone who could be presidential, period. This is HRC saying "I've got this thing". It's the choice of a confident candidate. It's the choice of a remarkably confident Democrat.

I can't find anything where there are limits in the Constitution, beyond citizenship and age, where the choice of candidate is checked. I also can't find anything in my posts where I've said there are no limits with regard to branches, roles, and power in the Constitution. Your last sentence goes to my point. They didn't want to eliminate the choice of candidates, age and citizenship status acknowledged. The DNC wanted to have an impact on the choice of candidate. I'm not the person who introduced the Constitution. TrueBlue couldn't square my observation with my appreciation of the document. I can't see what one has to do with the other. I'm aware there are steps, compromises and mechanics in our Constitutional government. As an aside, pigeons congregate on window ledges. Edit - maybe this will help me be more clear in my thoughts. The Constitution intended many things, including limiting power. It established a representative, occasionally multi-step process to do that. Representation was once, sometimes twice, sometimes three times removed. The Constitution did not intend to limit who voters selected to exercise that power. Reflective afterthought where I don't know the answer. Race and gender were limits on those doing the choosing. Age and citizenship were limitations on those being chosen. I'm not sure if there's over lap. For instance, could white men have voted for an African American woman? I have an assignment! I'm grateful, now, that we can all vote for one another.

If I choose you to choose for me, I've made my choice. The Federalist papers address the power of unconstrained government, the mechanism, not the power of the people's choices in the various representative roles. I guess you could say anything other than anarchy, any structure, eliminated choice. That's definitional, isn't it, when you're consenting to be governed? My point will stand or fall. I can do no better.

Biblical Proportions ..

I have to post! I agree with everything Mr. DeLuca says. "Momma, kids, come read this!" To add: OK, I'd go deeper than 1%. The unlikely allegiance stands.

Agree, agree. I'm grateful, though, that revulsion is always fresh.

I agree with your first point and agree with your agreement in your second!

I agree! I oppose voter ID as a form of poll tax, as modest as it may be. Different fact set, for sure. I was sincere, though, in my response. Different implications exist for different subsets of voters, all of whom are disenfranchised to some extent.

Shock? None. Revulsion? Lots.

I know. Who was the EC initially selected by? Who selected those who'd do the selecting? Two step, no check on the underlying voters. Additional layers of selection exist in the EC. The root of each layer is the people. Again, I see no law broken or no Constitutional trespass in the Wiki/DNC release. That's not my claim. My point is only that you can object to the DNC role while having Constitutional fidelity.

So, the differences are: 1). The RNC blatantly tries to suppress votes, making an outcome more likely. 2). The DNC blatantly tries to tilt a field, making an outcome more likely. 3). Both parties wheel and deal, but one's a far cry from the other. 4). One is nothing to see, the other is, what?

^. To PA. I'm not sure where I am on the EC. I'd entertain alternatives. I explained my view on the College, checks, power and voter choice in a post, above. I believe they're both issues, but separate issues. How do you feel about the voter ID check? That's directly associated with voter choice.

I think they believed in limiting the power of the respective roles filled by representives, not the process by which those representatives were selected by voters. They checked power, not choice. I understand the Electoral College's two step inconsistency. Still, those voting in the College are the unchecked representatives of the people's choice. The two-step is mechanically indirect. The choice is direct.

I'll take no "offer up"! I, too, want SS'rs together. Grateful, all. I can find a third or fourth seat. America's wang is funny.

One of the more curious aspects of our times.

I'll acknowledge that a representative republic isn't a democracy. There are constitutional mechanics. I can't think of any mechanic the DNC ignored. I'm not pointing to a broken law or Constututional trespass. If the Constitution allows you to vote, and sets the framework, you can still object to parties arranging their votes in a less representative way. My objection isn't legal or Constitutional, it's ethical. I can't think of how my Constitutional appreciation precludes concern with voters having choice. I understand it's not one man, one vote, pure across the board. Checks on voters? Checks on their choices? We're lost! @themessagenotmessenger.

It does the party no good. I'm more interested in the good it does in giving voters their choice.

It depends on who you see their responsibility to. Did they have a responsibility to Sanders backers? They claim they did. I believe they did.

You are at a place I'm not yet at. I may be. I'm weighing idealism and conscience against pragmatism. I will feel bad holding my nose and voting, or I will feel bad for choosing someone I'd not want to see win in any other circumstance I can imagine. Pragmatism is up 11 slots, and idealism is down 2, in my personal political-activity power ranking.

This makes me sad.

So succinct and spot on. I agree with PA to the extent that the public has no "right" to see a private political party's correspondence. That's not the point. Once seen, we can evaluate the two parties and their fidelity to their obligation to voters. Superdelegates and behind the scenes "baking of cakes" were designed to limit voter choices. The RNC ended up with the candidate its elites dreaded because its voters chose that candidate. The DNC ended up with the candidate it paved the way for, all the while claiming not to pave and condemning allegations to the contrary. I suspect Secretary Clinton would've won, anyway. We'll never know. Most insightful, We've ... although the parties are different, it is just this "inside Washington" corruption at the expense of the will of the people that makes an outsider like Trump attractive. It made Senator Sanders attractive, too. Trump was too strong, or the RNC was too weak, to be stopped. HRC and the DNC were both too strong and their agendas coincided. I don't think for a moment that a theft like this couldn't happen in the RNC. The rules and relative balances of power simply didn't align. With HRC and the DNC, they did align. Accordingly, it's now on our plates. Bernie never had an equal chance. Democrat primary voters never had an equal chance. Someone up thread expressed surprise that the revelation isn't being discussed here. Who'd find profit bringing it up? This thread is littered with the flattened carcasses of Republicans and Sanders Democrats who raised transparency, ethics, and competancy issues while staring into the face of the HRC steamroller. Back to succinctness, and to quote a former stateswoman, "What difference does it make?". Well, when you're HRC, your point is correct when asking that rhetorical question. "None, they nodded". #nothingtoseehere. I shook my head sadly when the "news" broke. Was it really news? Posting seemed pointless until someone not typically aligned with my views posted. "Perhaps", I thought, "Perhaps this one is just so obvious ...". You can blame We've's conviction for my word dump. Machiavelli moves up four slots, and Jefferson down six, in the most recent power rankings. Prediction: I'm reading Trump will reach out to Sanders supporters in light of the Wikileaks revelation. I hear Sanders supporters asking "You're kidding, right?". #somuchtoseehere, #justlook, #baptistsdontvoteforjews

WildCard ... What's "left" for me? I'll need at least two and at most three. With two, I'll send Neo's Legacy (son) and my daughter (wore Rob Ray jerseys as a middle schooler in Tampa; awesome sauce). With three, I'll fly up and join them. I don't want to be greedy. Consider others and let me know!

^. You are a man who strives to understand human beings without lenses or prejudice.

1). Two 2). Five 3). Two 4). Kucherov My guesses