Progressive Libertarianism

NEW YORK (Reuters) - When President Barack Obama cited cost as a reason to bring troops home from Afghanistan, he referred to a $1 trillion price tag for America’s wars.

Staggering as it is, that figure grossly underestimates the total cost of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to the U.S. Treasury and ignores more imposing costs yet to come, according to a study released on Wednesday.

The final bill will run at least $3.7 trillion and could reach as high as $4.4 trillion, according to the research project “Costs of War” by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies. (http://www.costsofwar.org) Read more…

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By: Paul Graham

Have you ever seen an old photo of yourself and been embarrassed at the way you looked? Did we actually dress like that? We did. And we had no idea how silly we looked. It’s the nature of fashion to be invisible, in the same way the movement of the earth is invisible to all of us riding on it.

What scares me is that there are moral fashions too. They’re just as arbitrary, and just as invisible to most people. But they’re much more dangerous. Fashion is mistaken for good design; moral fashion is mistaken for good. Dressing oddly gets you laughed at. Violating moral fashions can get you fired, ostracized, imprisoned, or even killed. Read more…

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One of my favorite children’s books is “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.” Laura Numeroff’s entertaining tale recounts the series of requests and events that follow from giving an adorable little rodent a treat. This first act of kindness leads to a request for a glass of milk, then a straw, a napkin, and mirror to inspect his milk mustache, and so on, until — guess what? — the mouse wants another cookie.

This chain of never-ending demands and unforeseen consequences is an apt description of U.S. policy towards the Middle East.

The United States has long wanted the “cookie” of a base of operations in the Middle East. After World War II, the United States built a globe-spanning network of military bases from which to project power to deter the Soviet Union and, equally, to intervene in regional conflicts. This produced massive military bases in Western Europe, extended into Eastern Europe after 1989, and similar outposts in the Pacific, including Japan, the Philippines, and various U.S. possessions.

The principal gap in this world-wide network was the Middle East. Seeking to fill this hole has been a primary goal of American policy for decades. Such a physical presence in the region would allow Washington to stabilize the region, protect friends and allied countries, prop up pro-American regimes, and preserve the flow of oil.

This quest for bases in the Middle East leads, first, to our unshakeable commitment to Israel, a fiercely independent state that would never permit actual deployments of U.S. forces on its territory but with whom we have deep security cooperation and understandings that can be activated in crises. This deep tie, in turn, alienates potential Arab allies in the rest of the region. Read More

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In a recent article at the Huffington Post, Lynn Parramore assembled a team of economists to refute nine “myths” about the deficit. On the one hand, it was refreshing to see these economists discuss with such candor the fact that our financial system is backed up by nothing but green pieces of paper. On the other hand, it was shocking to see these economists laud the fact.

Believe it or not, the theme of the article is that all the handwringing over the federal budget deficit is misplaced, because Uncle Sam can print all the money he needs. In short, these economists think the printing press has abolished economic scarcity.

Well, it hasn’t. Printing up green pieces of paper (or adding numbers to electronic bank balances) doesn’t create more goods and services. But to see the precise errors involved, we’ll need to quote from some of the alleged myth-busting. Read More

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Everything I want to do is illegal. As if a highly bureaucratic regulatory system was not already in place, 9/11 fueled renewed acceleration to eliminate freedom from the countryside. Every time a letter arrives in the mail from a federal or state agriculture department my heart jumps like I just got sent to the principal’s office.

And it doesn’t stop with agriculture bureaucrats. It includes all sorts of government agencies, from zoning, to taxing, to food inspectors. These agencies are the ultimate extension of a disconnected, Greco-Roman, Western, egocentric, compartmentalized, reductionist, fragmented, linear thought process. Read More

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A well-stocked first-aid kit is a necessity in every home.

The first-aid kit should be kept in an easy to reach place. It is best to keep one first-aid kit in your home and one in each car. Also be sure to pack a first aid kit when you go on vacation.

How to make a First Aid Kit

Choose containers for your kits that are roomy, durable, easy to carry, and simple to open. Plastic tackle boxes or containers for storing art supplies are ideal, since they’re lightweight, have handles, and offer a lot of space.

The following items are basic supplies. You can get most of them at a pharmacy or supermarket.

Bandages and dressings:

• Assorted sizes and shapes of Band-Aids
• Sterile gauze pads and adhesive tape
• ACE bandage for wrapping wrist, ankle, knee, and elbow injuries
• Triangular bandage for wrapping injuries and making an arm sling
• Aluminum finger splints
• Eye shield, pads, and bandages
• Home health equipment:
• Thermometer
• Syringe, medicine cup, or medicine spoon for giving specific doses of medicine
• Disposable, instant ice bags
• Tweezers, to remove ticks and small splinters
• Sharp scissors
• Sterile cotton balls
• Sterile cotton-tipped swabs
• Blue “baby bulb” or “turkey baster” suction device
• Save-A-Tooth storage device in case a tooth is broken or knocked out; contains a travel case and salt solution
• Safety pins
• First-aid manual

Medicine for cuts and injuries:

• Antiseptic solution, such as hydrogen peroxide or wipes
• Antibiotic ointment, such as bacitracin, polysporin, or mupirocin
• Sterile eyewash, such as contact lens saline solution
• Calamine lotion for stings or poison ivy
• Hydrocortisone cream, ointment, or lotion for itching
• Ibuprofen for pain
• Extra prescription medications
• Anti-diarrhea medication
• Antacid (for upset stomach)
• Laxative

Miscellaneous items:

• Plastic gloves
• Flashlight
• Extra batteries
• Mouthpiece for administering CPR
• List of emergency phone numbers
• Blanket
• Dried food
• Canned goods
• Can opener
• Prescription glasses
• Eye wash solution
• Bottled water

Check your kit regularly, and replace any supplies that are getting low or which have expired.

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Via Reason Magazine

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) will introduce “bi-partisan legislation tomorrow ending the federal war on marijuana and letting states legalize, regulate, tax, and control marijuana without federal interference,” according to a press release from the Marijuana Policy Project that just hit my inbox. More from that email:

Other co-sponsors include Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO), and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA). The legislation would limit the federal government’s role in marijuana enforcement to cross-border or inter-state smuggling, allowing people to legally grow, use or sell marijuana in states where it is legal. The legislation is the first bill ever introduced in Congress to end federal marijuana prohibition.

Rep. Frank’s legislation would end state/federal conflicts over marijuana policy, reprioritize federal resources, and provide more room for states to do what is best for their own citizens.

I called Morgan Fox at MPP to ask about the chances that this bill will get any serious debate time in the House (a fair question, considering that it has only one Republican supporter at the moment). “It’s definitely going to get a serious debate, probably more in the media than on the floor of the House,” Fox told me. “But I think it needs to be debated on the floor.”

What does MPP see as obstacles?

“Someone in the prohibitionist camp could hold it up as long as they wanted, but the slew of opinion pieces that came out last week calling for the end of the failed drug war will give this momentum,” Fox said.

While Paul’s status as a declared presidential candidate should help with media pick-up, Frank is leading the press teleconference tomorrow, and Paul’s not even on the call.

Previous Frank-Paul partnerships include a 2010 op-ed to reduce military spending and a marijuana decriminalization bill introduced in the House in 2009. In the intervening two years, Arizona and Washington, D.C., have legalized medical marijuana, and the Connecticut legislature has moved to decriminalize it. Now former U.S. Attorney John McKay and Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes are organizing to completely legalize marijuana in Washington State. The time is ripe.

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The desert is a hot place, and right now we are fighting in them. How do they all keep cool in the desert, well that might surprise you. They use air conditioners to keep all of the tents cool. You’d think that would cost a lot in the middle of the desert. Well, you’d be correct in believing that, but you probably wouldn’t believe just how much it costs.

The budget for NASA is 19 billion dollars. The cost of air conditioning a lot of tents in the desert? 20 billion

We are spending more than our entire budget for the space program to keep some tents cool in the middle of a desert, fighting a war that we shouldn’t even be involved in, which costs several hundred billions of dollars. On top of that we’re downsizing the space program.

In a nation that is financially broke, we should be taking every measure we can to save money, but things like this occur every day and hardly anyone bats an eye. If that is not insanity then I don’t know what is. Peace and progress over war and destruction!

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By: Stephen Carter -  stephen@icarter.com

We have been at war in order to introduce good, liberty oriented American values to everyone else in the world and prevent tyranny since we got involved massively on the world stage in world war one. This has been the line of thinking, that we’re so heavily involved in the world in order to make it a better place. How have we fared? Read more…

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If you want to see a good GOP nominee that will bring some actual positive change to a country obsessed with war and debt, get yourself and everyone you know out to the primaries next year.

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Andrew Froy, MD recently put out a very good article that analyzes some of the financially harmful aspects of the current health care system. His thoughts, being a doctor, are that the patients do not have enough control over their interactions with doctors and hospitals, and that the current system has been design to limit choice and make unwise choices more appealing than they otherwise would be.

Giving control of care back to patients rather than a government bureaucracy is a big part of the solution that will get us back to a good healthcare system.

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The United States of America may potentially be on the precipice of a Greek-style debt crisis within a few years, and our economy is increasingly looking like it may be at risk of entering another recession - and the Financial Crisis 2.0 could make the Great Recession look tame. Simply put, the Fed and Treasury have bloated their balance sheets to such grotesque levels to fight the deflationary forces sparked in the economy as a result of the housing collapse that there will be no more temporary “smoke-and-mirrors” fiscal and monetary options to circumvent another downturn.

Certainly, the Fed will likely give QE3…QE4…QE5, a shot if the economy becomes completely unglued, but similar to what has occurred in Japan for the last 20 years, it will not work. We have already seen what Mr. Bernanke’s money printing in the form of QE2 has wrought - it has robbed the middle class blind, while benefiting the entrenched corporate, banking, and political elite, along with wealthy Americans. The vast majority of Americans do not have sufficient financial assets such as bond, stock, commodity and hedge fund portfolios to offset the rise in food and energy prices that Bernanke has unleashed on the country due to his policy of Dollar devaluation through money printing.

The entire burden of a falling Dollar as a result of QE2 and the United States’ exploding debt has been placed on the middle and working classes, while the elite have benefited from rising prices for financial assets. It is a scam. Furthermore, it hasn’t provided one iota of benefit for the vast majority of American citizens. The unemployment rate continues to hover at 9.1% and very likely could hit double digits by next year. Read More

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Gary Johnson is the Rodney Dangerfield of the GOP’s 2012 field. He gets no respect. Despite being a successful former two-term governor of New Mexico who shrank state government by wielding his veto pen with fervor, an entrepreneur who sold the 1,000 person construction business he built from scratch, and an accomplished athlete (who else in the field has summited Everest?) Johnson has struggled to break through – with voters or the press.

The latest insult? CNN – which saw fit to invite Herman Cain, the former CEO of a third-rate pizza chain who has never held elected office, to its debate in New Hampshire the other night – told Johnson to take a hike because he’s polling below 2 percent.

That’s a shame, because in an interview with Rolling Stone, Johnson proved himself to be one of the more honest – and certainly more unorthodox – politicians in the running.

Johnson calls himself a “classical liberal,” though others might prefer “libertarian.” He favors legalizing marijuana (he says he toked up as recently as 2008) and prostitution and supports a woman’s right to choose, liberal immigration reform and an anti-war foreign policy – even as he’s called for draconian spending cuts and for dropping the corporate tax rate to zero as a means to jumpstart jobs creation. Read More

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Richard Flaherty has watched the assessed tax valuation for the buildings and properties of his Port Orchard manufacturing firm skyrocket while, he believes, their actual values have plummeted.

He bought four lots with wetlands for $12,500 in February 2006, and their assessed valuation increased to $104,400 in October 2010.

“I was not happy,” said Flaherty, “but I figured that, with an approved short plat and the entitlement rights in place, this was probably high but the cost of receiving the right to install entitlements added some initial value.”

Then the Kitsap County Assessor’s Office upped the land’s value again to $478,150 in 2010.

That really upset Flaherty.

“The property stands today exactly as it stood a decade ago, without any utilities, proper entry road, storm pond or other entitlements other than the approved short plat,” he said. “In its current state, the property is essentially worthless even with the short plat approval and entitlement rights until the wetlands are mitigated and the full range of entitlements are installed.”

He bought seven other lots in 2004 for $230,000.

The next year, they were assessed at $290,240, and increased to $483,750 in 2006.

In 2007, their value shot up to $1.06 million, and they were assessed, in 2011, to be worth $2.4 million.

On those properties alone, Flaherty said, he saw a 1,048 percent increase. Read More

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Over the last decade, the share of U.S. national income taken home by workers has plummeted to a record low.

As shown by the chart below the decline began with the brief recession that followed 9/11 in 2001. But it continued even as the economy picked up again, and got even worse once the Great Recession hit. In the weak recovery since then, workers’ share of income just kept on falling.

Why is this you ask? It is because there are so many complex and burdensome laws, regulations, and taxes that upstarts and smaller businesses face which prevent them from emerging as real players in the market. The established businesses like this just fine because they don’t have to change the way they do business, they’re not worried about the competition. They can get by with paying lower wages, providing fewer benefits, and employing fewer workers because the law largely prevents other businesses from challenging their position. Big Business tends to prefer economic suffering, because it helps to line their pockets, and they love to use government power to do so.

It comes down to laws and regulations that are presented to people as a safety measure, competition fairness, or as a means to protect workers. That’s not to say that all of them are bad, but this is generally the form these entitlements to companies take so that they may be easily passed. A prime example of this is Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s recent budget bill that also imposed high costs on small beer brewers at the request of a larger business in the brewing industry. These new regulations did not help or protect anyone, it just helped the larger brewers by imposing unnecessary restrictions on the smaller ones that the bigger players can easily handle.

We see this in all areas of the market, where a politician crafts a bill that is favorable towards the established businesses by making it hard for the smaller ones to compete. We must focus on simplifying laws and regulations, removing unnecessary taxes, and getting rid of regulations that are only serving to help big businesses. We’re not talking about regulations that actually protect people here, but everything else that was either implemented as a once conceived “great idea” for business flow, or to intentionally suffocate smaller businesses so they would have a disadvantage against the bigger ones. We don’t have to live in a society with stagnating wages, high unemployment, and little financial mobility, but it will be this way until we unwind the massive tangled web of laws, regulations, and taxes that prevent the average person from making something for themselves while keeping the rich at the top. Too much regulation is strangling good jobs to death.

This video below is but just a small example of what the problem is.
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Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson was excluded from CNN’s New Hampshire GOP debate even though he qualified for the debate and polls higher than other candidates that were invited. In this video, Gary Johnson answers the questions that were asked of the other candidates and gives answers unlike any of the other candidates.

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Citing a series of fatal malfunctions dating back to 1777, flag manufacturer Annin & Company announced Monday that it would be recalling all makes and models of its popular American flag from both foreign and domestic markets.

Representatives from the nation’s leading flag producer claimed that as many as 143 million deaths in the past two centuries can be attributed directly to the faulty U.S. models, which have been utilized extensively since the 18th century in sectors as diverse as government, the military, and public education.

“It has come to our attention that, due to the inherent risks and hazards it poses, the American flag is simply unfit for general use,” said Annin & Company president Ronald Burman, who confirmed that the number of flag-related deaths had noticeably spiked since 2003. “I would like to strongly urge all U.S. citizens: If you have an American flag hanging in your home or place of business, please discontinue using it immediately.” Read More

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Was Thomas Jefferson a great president? One’s answer to that question depends on how one defines “greatness.” If we define greatness as how far a president leads the United States down its historically determined path toward the centralized interventionist state, then Jefferson fails to qualify. On the other hand, if we define greatness as how well a president defended the true and original principles of the federal Constitution and the economic and civil liberties for which Americans had fought the Revolution, then Jefferson deserves to be ranked among the better presidents. Yet he also deserves to be ranked as one of the most disappointing, since there was so much that he could have done, was expected to do, but did not do.

As we survey his presidency, it will be useful to keep in mind three questions. First, did Jefferson’s election to the presidency and the Republican capture of Congress in 1800 constitute “a revolution in the principles of our government as that of 1776,” as Jefferson himself contended ten years after he had retired to Monticello?[1] Second, was Jefferson a true and consistent classical-republican statesman whose policies were consistent with his professed political and economic philosophy of small government, strict construction, states’ rights, low taxes, free trade, noninvolvement in foreign affairs, and peace? And third, does his presidency constitute a model for future leaders of a classical liberal and constitutional-federalist persuasion to follow?

The short answers to these questions are that Jefferson failed to carry through a revolution which he himself had helped to originate, that he was consistent in many ways but inconsistent in others, and that his presidency constitutes a useful model but also a warning. Read More

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According to a recent Congressional Budget Office report, the increased use of ethanol is responsible for a rise in food prices of approximately 10 to 15 percent.

Why?

We’re turning corn into fuel — a highly inefficient one, at that — instead of food.

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy points out that “mixing food and fuel markets for political reasons has done American consumers no discernable good, while producing measurable harm.”

However, perhaps summing up the issue most succinctly is Mark J. Perry, professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan-Flint:

Anytime you have Paul Krugman agreeing on ethanol with such a diverse group as the Wall Street Journal, Reason Magazine, the Cato Institute, Investor’s Business Daily, Rolling Stone Magazine, the Christian Science Monitor, The New York Times, John Stossel, The Ecological Society of America, the American Enterprise and Brookings Institutions, the Heritage Foundation, George Will and Time magazine, you know that ethanol has to be one of the most misguided public policies in US history.

But Brazil seems to have made it work. Using just 1 percent of its arable land, Brazil produced 6.57 billion gallons of sugar ethanol last year, roughly half the annual oil production of Iraq. Ethanol accounts for about 50 percent of Brazil’s automotive fuel. General Electric and Brazilian aircraft maker Embraer are working to develop ethanol suitable for powering commercial aircraft, with a test flight possible by early 2012. Most importantly, Brazil relies on imported oil for only 10 percent of its energy needs today — due in large part to its ethanol industry.

So, what’s Brazil doing right?

The answer is simple. Unlike the United States, Brazil makes its ethanol from sugar, which yields over eight units of energy for each unit invested, whereas corn-based ethanol yields a paltry one and a half units of energy for each unit invested. Sugar-based ethanol is also cheap to produce, at only 60 cents a gallon. Read More

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A short, revealing history on the Pledge of Allegiance.

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This chart from the Consumer Federation of America (via HuffPo) shows just how much Wall Street is in fact regulated.

Of course, what they want — and what might make a lot more sense — is a system like this.

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Copyright law’s grip on film, music and software barely touches the fashion industry and fashion benefits in both innovation and sales, says Johanna Blakley. At TEDxUSC 2010, she talks about what all creative industries can learn from fashion’s free culture.

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By: Marko Kloos

Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it.

In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gangbanger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.

There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we’d be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger’s potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat–it has no validity when most of a mugger’s potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that’s the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.

Then there’s the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don’t constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that’s as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weightlifter. It simply wouldn’t work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn’t both lethal and easily employable.

When I carry a gun, I don’t do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I’m looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don’t carry it because I’m afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn’t limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation…and that’s why carrying a gun is a civilized act.

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Text of speech:

There is a story of a young, but earnest Zen student who approached his teacher, and asked the Master, “If I work very hard and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen? The Master thought about this, then replied, “Ten years.” The student then said, “But what if I work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast – How long then?” Replied the Master, “Well, twenty years.” “But, if I really, really work at it, how long then?” asked the student. “Thirty years,” replied the Master. “But, I do not understand,” said the disappointed student. “At each time that I say I will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?” Replied the Master, “When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the path.” Read more…

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By: Stephen Carter

Identity and credit theft by all logic, should not exist. The agencies responsible for protection against this are government and business, and neither are doing enough to help the victims involved or deter criminals from committing the fraud. This is clear because this type of theft is still widespread.

It is the responsibility of the government to provide part of these protections as this is the primary function of government, which is to enact laws that ensure a person or party’s actions do not infringe on the rights of others, specifically the right to be safe from theft of property. Currently, existing laws do more to take action after the fact, rather than deter and prevent theft before it happens. We must rely on businesses to prevent the theft up front, rather than have the credit card companies sort it out after the fact, which causes expenses to go up, thereby causing consumer expenses to go up.

Purchasing with a stolen identity is not the only problem either. Gaining employment through the use of another person’s identity is a major problem as well, and causes all sorts of headaches and expenses in having to deal with the IRS. Businesses must be held accountable in this area as well. Our goal should be to ensure that the victim is never held liable in any manner for the wrongdoing of others. This currently is not the case, as any identity theft victim can attest to. Read more…

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When adding in all of the money owed to cover future liabilities in entitlement programs the US is actually in worse financial shape than Greece and other debt-laden European countries, Pimco’s Bill Gross told CNBC Monday.

Much of the public focus is on the nation’s public debt, which is $14.3 trillion. But that doesn’t include money guaranteed for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, which comes to close to $50 trillion, according to government figures.

The government also is on the hook for other debts such as the programs related to the bailout of the financial system following the crisis of 2008 and 2009, government figures show.

Taken together, Gross puts the total at “nearly $100 trillion,” that while perhaps a bit on the high side, places the country in a highly unenviable fiscal position that he said won’t find a solution overnight. Read More

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A once-sleepy movement that would upend the Electoral College, reverse two centuries of constitutional practice and elect presidents by direct popular vote has quietly picked up momentum in recent days, with Republican Party leaders scrambling to stanch a steady stream of defections by GOP state lawmakers to the plan.

Shawn Steel, a former chairman of the California Republican Party, is so worried by the support building for the so-called “National Popular Vote Compact” that he is organizing an effort to put the Republican National Committee on record against the idea at its August meeting in Tampa, Fla.

“This is a very clever idea that bypasses the orderly process of amending the Constitution,” said Mr. Steel, who is now an RNC member from California. “It’s an extraordinarily radical idea, and we need to get some rollback going.”

But it is Mr. Steel’s home state that could provide the next major boost for the idea, as California lawmakers may be well on their way to throw the state’s 55 electoral votes - the biggest single Election Day prize - into the compact kitty. As governor, Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger twice vetoed the idea, but new Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, has not said what he would do if the bill reaches his desk.

Under the idea introduced in 2006 by Stanford University consulting professor John Koza, states that join the NPV compact pledge to give all of their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the national popular vote - even if a majority of the state’s voters supported another candidate. If a group of states with an accumulated tally of 270 electoral votes - the bare majority - sign on, the practical effect would be that the popular-vote winner instantly becomes the Electoral College winner as well. Read More

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