Today’s musings

Today’s ban on transgender folk serving in the military is disheartening, and is going to make a lot of people upset. On top of that I witnessed a Lummi woman being poorly represented by her public defender in court today, and wish I had known where to refer her to get proper legal assistance. I should have given her my business card. This is disheartening, and then as I was thinking whether we can make a difference I remembered than in the last 3 years we have had more election reform to true proportional representation in the United States than Germany has had in the previous 150 years. That gives me hope. When we organize, when we mobilize, when we campaign for good people and get good people into office, push for big important initiatives, and vote we can literally replace unfair and corrupt election systems with true proportional representation. That gives me hope. We can change this situation. We can make it better. We did make it better, and there is still a long ways to go. There will always be problems, nothing is ever going to be perfect, but we have to remember where we have come from to give us hope. It is up to us, the voting public to make the future better.

Since the current German system was formed the following has happened in the United States:

  1. In 1912 we got the right to directly vote for our Senators for the first time in history.
  2. In 2016 Maine became the first state in the United States to implement ranked voting in American history.

Score: America 2, Germany 0.
www.fairvote.org

Political Platform

I have written a lot on this blog over the last 9 years, and I have written about a lot of different topics. Here is a summary of my political values in a bullet format.

Local elections (Bellingham and Whatcom County)

  • Investigate the ability to have fare-free buses
  • Have a local carbon tax, like in Portland
  • Use ranked voting for all elections.
  • Expand access to high speed broadband to every household.
  • Internet access is a natural monopoly and as such should be a public service. Same with electricity. Private companies provide good service in a competitive market, but these are not competitive.

Washington State

Easy

  • Ban Multi Level Marketing Companies 
  • Comprehensive sexual education (like Our Whole Lives) in every school. Mandatory for every student.
  • Expand access to high speed broadband to every household.

Medium Difficulty

  • Increase Cascades service, study expanding a train working with AMTRAK which would serve Spokane and Tri-Cities.
  • Make it easier for people who are laid off to claim unemployment. 
  • Eliminate the statute of limitations for sexual assault

Hard

  • Implement a Carbon tax with few exemptions.
  • Make our tax code more progressive.
  • Fund the Working Families Tax Credit
  • Increase State employee’s wages to market rate for their position, in order to attract and retain talent, and it is the right thing to do.
  • Tuition free college

Practically impossible

  • Replace our sales tax with a progressive income tax. Individuals with incomes below $100,000 don’t have to pay an income tax.

Federal Level

Easy

  • Ban Multi Level Marketing Companies
  • Oppose wars which are not authorized through the United Nations General Assembly
  • Roe v. Wade is settled law, and it is the best case scenario for the issue of abortion. This is the most controversial plank of this platform.
  • FEMA must be used appropriately to fight natural disasters.

Medium

  • Increase AMTRAK service to currently under served high demand routes, and give AMTRAK the ability to increase service where there is demand. 
  • Support inner-city public transit expansion to the areas which are under served.
  • Bring back the WPA. This will function as a jobs guarantee, so people who are unemployed can go to the WPA to find work.
  • Make DARPA ARPA again, significantly increasing basic science research, supporting excellent good pay jobs.
  • Increase the number of SBA loans available, and increase the amount.
  • Public option for health insurance or Medicare for All.
  • Negotiate for lower drug prices with Medicare.
  • No bailouts for any company, no matter what their size.
  • Tuition free college at any public university.
  • Significantly increase federal grants for local schools.
  • Public schools which teach creationism lose federal funding.
  • Tuition and fees for Private schools which teach creationism are not tax-deductible.
  • Everyone has the right to move their retirement account to a different provider of their choice once per year for no fee, maintaining the normal restrictions the tax advantage comes with. Everyone has the right to change how their retirement account is allocated at any right for no penalty.
  • New gun laws:
    • Anyone of age who can pass a background check with a clean criminal record may own a gun. However, in accordance to “a well regulated militia” anyone under the age of 65 who owns a gun must be a member of the National Guard Reserves and may be called into service at anytime.
    • People under 21 may not purchase or possess a firearm unless they are enlisted as active duty in a branch of the armed services.
    • Mandatory background checks, insurance, and licensing for gun purchases.
    • Owners of guns are required to keep their guns secured when not on their body. 
    • The police may demand a firearm license for possession of a firearm outside of the home or a designated firearm range. Not carrying your license on you with possession of a firearm is a felony. Possession of a firearm which does not belong to you will come with the presumption of theft, and you will be charged for unlicensed carrying of a firearm. 
    • Allowing someone who is not licensed to get access to your guns will be a felony with a 5 year prison sentence.
    • The legal guardians of minors who get access to guns will be charged with negligence, with a minimum sentence of 5 years, and life in prison without parole if their child kills someone, as well as the owner of the firearm.
    • Possession of an unregistered firearm will be a felony punishable with a 5 year prison sentence.
    • Felons may not own or possess guns.
    • Open carry will be a felony.
    • Penalties will be increased for the second and third offenses.
    • In short, if you are of good character, and want to own a firearm, you will be allowed. But, you must keep the firearm secured, and you will be called for paid military service.
  • We need to combat human trafficking by punishing the traffickers and offering amnesty to those who were traffic.
  • Treat drug addiction as a health issue, not a military problem. End the war on drugs. Rehabilitation needs to be available and free. The only sentence anyone should have for possession and usage of drugs should be high quality rehabilitation. Usage of drugs should never send someone to prison.
  • De-escalation training for all military and police.
  • Aggressively go after and prosecute predatory lenders who mislead their clients with false promises. Pay out the damages to their victims.

Hard

  • Nationalize the railways
  • Tax capital gains as regular income
  • Implement a national carbon tax which increases exponentially over time with no exemptions for special interests.
  • Replace Social Security Old Age Insurance with a Basic Income over a 40 year transition plan. Do not cut benefits from any people currently receiving benefits. I have written why Old Age Insurance is highly flawed here. The posts on Social Security from before 2014 were before I studied economics when I was in community college, and I didn’t understand it, which is why I want to reform it significantly. At a bare minimum, allow individuals to opt to put their Social Security contributions into an IRA, which will benefit American families.
  • Have a negative income tax for low income households. Details
  • Comprehensive sexual education in every school.
  • Amend the Constitution to replace the Electoral College with a direct vote for the President.
  • Have all House of Representatives Districts be elected using Single Transferable Vote with multiple members per district.
  • Negotiate an open border agreement with Canada following a full comprehensive study on the costs and benefits to having a closed border which will likely prove that the costs exceed the benefits.
  • Increase the number of nationalities who can visit the United States visa-free based on more reasonable criteria. Nationalities which are part of the ESTA will be able to visit the United States without a visa.

Values

  • Torture is immoral and violates the 8th amendment under all circumstances.
  • The death penalty is inherently flawed and needs to be abolished as a violation of the 8th amendment.
  • Every vote must be counted accurately. Every adult American citizen needs to be able to vote. Voting should be easy to do for all adult American citizens.
  • Everybody is important. Everybody matters. Everybody deserves a chance.
  • We need to provide support to people who have been left behind by inequality, and provide financial remediation for people who have suffered from racism. People who are discriminated by the police deserve financial remediation.
  • LGBT rights are human rights.
  • People deserve to be fairly compensated for their work. We need to pursue effective policies to end the gender pay gap.

Key economic realities which inform this platform

  • Competition when possible is the best way to democratize the economy, and give everyone the opportunity to succeed in industries where there can be many competing firms. Monopolization must be countered with strong anti-trust laws.
  • Natural monopolies (electricity, internet, water, sewage) need to be public services provided by governments.
  • The single best investment we can make in our future is in the education of people, it gives dividends into the future perpetually through people having better paying jobs via more specialization, better health outcomes, and more. This needs the funding to match its return, which means tuition free public college.
  • Improving internet access is one way to significantly level the playing field.

    US border insecurity

    Statistics:

    1. The American-Canadian border is the longest shared border in the world.
    2. The American-Canadian border is the only shared border between highly developed (GDP per capita > $20,000) in North America. there are 30 such borders in the world, 3 are with Saudi Arabia and its rich gulf neighbors, and the other 26 are in Western Europe.

    More little known facts on border security:

    1. The longest open border treaty is the Common Travel Area between The United Kingdom and Ireland. It was signed by Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George. It has only come under threat recently by the Tories. The history of the relationship is fascinating and complicated about why Britain is not a member of Schengen and the Common Travel Area was not superseded by the Schengen Treaty.

    The vast majority of wealthy counties in the world which border another wealthy country are in a customs union together with free movement. There are only 4 exceptions to this, Andorra is not a member of the Schengen area, and it counts as twice since it borders both France and Spain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are in the middle of a dispute right now, and the border has been closed between the two. The only other border between wealthy countries which has customs is between the United States and Canada.

    This list grows even shorter when you consider that Andorra and the European Union are currently under negotiations to integrate Andorra into the common market. The current crisis with Qatar has to do with Saudi Arabia demanding that they cut off all relations with Iran, and unfortunately there are no signs of them cutting of Iran or Saudi Arabia backing down from their threats.

    This leaves us with the United States and Canadian border. Two very wealthy nations which rank highly in every freedom metric. Canada generally does better than us, but the United States generally does well. Both countries have similar issues regarding the treatment of minorities, as a centuries long human rights issue which hasn’t gone addressed, but this doesn’t seem to be a reason to not have a customs union between us.

    First of all, I do not expect this will be done within the next decade, mainly due to Donald Trump’s opposition to cooperation with our allies.

    If we were to further integrate our two economies we would need to have a common tariff, which would likely be done with Mexico at the same time. This would be basically an extension of NAFTA and make it so that our customs would be all integrated with countries outside of the bloc.

    The next issue to be dealt with would be with Canada alone since the possibility of an open border with Mexico is not going to go anywhere with congress. This would be a formation of an Economic Union with Canada. The main difference here would be the free movement of labor and capital. Anyone may search for work or do business in the other country with no restriction.

    Once we have a harmonized  tariff policy, we need to ensure our visa policies are integrated as well. I personally would like to replace the ESTA with pure visa-free entry, and the ETA in Canada as well, but this is unlikely to happen. The reason is that before these programs went into place there had never been even one attack on American or Canadian soil from any individual from the countries which require these programs since 1945. They seem to be more of a bother and provide basically no benefit. We would still have visas for countries where people would be likely to overstay, or state sponsors of terrorism, but for people from Western Europe there would be no visa at all. For people who need a visa they would all be multi entry visas which expire when the passport is replaced. There are currently differences in our visa policy when it comes to Mexico, Barbados, Bahamas, Brazil, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Papua New Guinea, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Cyprus, Croatia, and Hong Kong.

    This is the biggest barrier of them all really. While over the last 4 years Canada has undergone a large effort to increase trade and improve their already good image to the rest of the world by increasing the ability of people to visit Canada, the United States has barely changed, and has been bullying Canada to have more restrictive visa policies to other countries. I won’t be surprised if Parliament decides to end the ETA program and allow countries from places like Germany visit Canada again without pre-registration. Sandals and socks isn’t that bad honestly.

    There is a really big issue with our approach is outlined by Stuart Anderson in this article by Forbes describing how it is based on visa overstay rate which is calculated by the Department of Homeland Security. There is a really big issue here in that the actual numbers for who overstays their visa is highly inaccurate, andhighly flawed. It is going to be impossible to get a visa policy which accurately give the right nationalities true visa free entry as long as this is on the books. This is something which needs to be fixed as soon as possible, and an accurate method of determining who should have visas needs to be devised as soon as possible.

    The other issue with the American-Canadian border is that most people don’t know that it has only been closed for less than 100 years. The CBP tells the story on its website where the patrols were infrequent before prohibition, and the US Border Patrol was founded in 1924 to counter the importation of alcohol. If it wasn’t for prohibition, we might have never closed the border with Canada in the first place.

    Finding data on historical visa policies is difficult. Here is a collection of papers for information on this topic:

    • https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6175134/
    • https://www.imi-n.org/data/demig-data

    I will to get high quality data myself to do a comprehensive study in the future. This is going to take some time and a lot of work.

    We will probably need to harmonize our drunk driving laws, and I am personally in favor of being harder on drunk driving, but once that is done there will likely be no valid reason to keep the border closed. Ironic how the border was closed because American alcohol laws were more severe than Canada’s and in order to open it again we will need to raise the penalty in the United States for drunk driving.

    With a harmonized tariff policy and harmonized visa policy I believe the United States and Canada will see significant economic benefits and save billions of dollars every year on border enforcement. I expect we will see that an open border will be worth it.

    Status of the 2020 election, Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2019

    The 2020 election is ramping up right now, and the candidates are lining up, and there are multiple fantastic candidates right now.

    The Republican Nomination will almost certainly go to Trump in 2020, but on the Democratic side of the aisle we have several really amazing people running, or who are almost certainly going to run.

    Declared Candidates

    I am going to break them down by their current role, ordered by likelihood of getting the nomination, with their number of twitter followers on their most followed account:

    Sitting Senator

    • Elizabeth Warren, 2.2 million
    • Kamala Harris, 2 million
    • Kirsten Gillibrand,  1.33 million

    Sitting Representative:

    • Tulsi Gabbard, 242,000

    Former Representative:

    • John Delaney, 12,500

    Former Cabinet Official:

    • Julian Castro, 169,000

    The other candidates should run for congress or to be governor before they run for president, since they don’t have a record they can point to.

    This race looks like a dead heat between Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris. They both command over 2 million followers on Twitter, and have very strong progressive credentials. Neither have more followers than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but she is unfortunately not old enough to run for President, or even Senator yet. I expect she will move up quickly. She will likely succeed whoever wins this year if she pays her cards right, which I expect she will. Of course, none of them have the 104 million followers President Obama has, and it would take a historic level of legislation for another President to do that.

    Back to the Presidential race of 2020, not 2028. It seems to be a dead heat between Senators Harris and Warren when looking at their popularity on Twitter.  If we search their names on Google right now, Kirsten Gillibrand has 10.1 million hits, Kamala Harris has 38.9 million hits, and Elizabeth Warren has 175 million hits. For comparison, President Obama has 219 million hits. Elizabeth Warren has been in the Senate for a longer time than Senator Harris, which gives her the upper hand.

    When it comes to their policies, they are all strongly liberal identical from what I can tell from Govtrack’s data, and we would do just as well with any one of them. Kirsten Gillibrand started as a Blue Dog in the beginning of her career, but has become significantly more progressive over her time as a member of Congress since 2007. She used to be a Blue Dog, but now her voting record is the most progressive of the three candidates. Senator Warren is the most centrist of the three Senators in the race right now according to her voting record.

    Senator Harris is currently 54 years old, Senator Gillibrand so average for a Presidential candidate. Senator Warren is currently 69 years old, and if she wins the election she will be only a few months younger than when Trump was inaugurated two years ago. Senator Harris will be almost exactly as old as the median age for Presidents upon inauguration.

    Gillibrand and Warren as I write this at 9:00 Pacific Time on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day have not formally announced their candidacy yet however, but this doesn’t really matter in these first few months. Senator Clinton announced her candidacy a month before Senator Obama, but lost by a slim number of delegates despite winning the popular vote.

    I will probably support Senator Harris in the primary from this point on. She doesn’t compromise her principles, is standing for badly needed police reform, opposes the death penalty, and has a flawless track record stretching back over a decade as a Federal Prosecutor. We will do very well if she wins the election. She is my top result when I fill out my answers on isidewith giving me affirmation she is indeed a candidate who shares my values, on top of observing her decisions in Congress.

    Bernie Sanders and his supporters

    There are already articles popping up online on sites like Jacobin criticizing issues with existing candidates for not doing enough, this article about Senator Harris is one example, and while they are fair criticisms from her record as a prosecutor, we live in an electoral system in every state except for Maine which punishes people for voting third party. The spoiler effect is a very real problem which must be addressed.

    We deserve to have a robust debate in the primary with the candidates who are running and fully examine their records. But, at the same time the number one goal of 2020 is to ensure Trump leaves office and that the Democrats recapture the Presidency and hopefully the Senate as well. We made very important progress in 2018, picking up governorships in Nevada, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Michigan, Kansas, Illinois, and Maine. This will make a tremendous effect on the federal House of Representatives for the next 12 years since the governors of those states have the authority to veto gerrymandering, which will make a much more competitive House. We now need to continue that progress into 2020 and get the first Democratic federal trifecta in a decade.

    Senator Sanders might run in 2020. If he won he would be the oldest President in history at 79 years old on inauguration day. He would be 83 when he would run for reelection, or in all honesty, more likely retire. He will not live forever, and we need to foster new candidates like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez who have his level of integrity and service to our country.

    Any of the candidates I listed at the top of this piece would be fantastic presidents, and none of them are perfect, but no one is. We need to fight like hell for what we want and deserve, and remember that the idea of production possibilities frontier is very much part of politics as much as it is in economics. It can only be reached by fully striving for what you want, realizing you probably won’t get everything, which is the optimal strategy.

    The question starts with, who are the best candidates in 2020? Of the top 10 sitting Senators in 2017 (excluding Al Franken), both Harris and Gillibrand are on that list. Only Sanders (VT), Merkley (OR), and Markey (MA) are more progressive than Kirsten Gillibrand. Van Hollen (MD) and and Reed (RI) are between Gillibrand and Harris. We already have two of the most progressive senators in America in the race, so not voting for one of them for not being progressive enough would be counter productive. Based on my knowledge of biology which I have learned from working in a lab and being around biologists for the vast majority of my life, I oppose GMO labelling because it is fear mongering, which is one of a handful of issues I disagree with Senator Harris on. But this doesn’t mean I will oppose her and stomp my feet and cry about it, because I agree with her on the vast majority of issues. We already have two of the best candidates America can offer today.

    Other potential sources of Candidates

    What about Governors however? Well, currently if we take a list of current Democratic Governors who have been office since at least 2016 (since it would be very unusual for someone to be elected with only 2 years of experience) and will be less than 70 then Governor Cuomo of New York has the most Twitter followers with 848,000 followers. No Governor has the level of familiarity and popularity they will need to successfully win the candidacy. Governor O’Malley’s record in Maryland was as close to stellar as you will ever find, massive reductions in police brutality given reforms he signed into law, college tuition was going down, and the quality of life in Maryland is one of the best in the country. That was not enough to win the Presidency however. The next President will almost certainly come from the Senate.

    This is why I am expecting it will be a dead heat between Senators Harris and Warren. they are extremely similar candidates, Harris is to the left of Warren according to GovTrack data, and Warren is still a very progressive politician. Harris already has donations from every state in America to her campaign and will win the Presidency if she is nominated.

    Going Forward

    With two outstanding progressive candidates with two of the best records you will ever find, the big question now is how do we get candidates down ballot in every race in the country and ensure our election system is fair.

    The most important reform right now which is needed is ranked voting for as many races as we can possibly get. America cannot afford another spoiler effect. We deserve a political system which fulfills the three goals of politicians working together to solve problems, a civil body politic, and rewards candidates for being true to what they say. Ranked voting does both of these, by punishing candidates who simply bombast another candidate with no merit so they don’t get the second choice votes from other candidates, and ensuring there will likely be a likely challenger from all sides for moderate candidates. Single Transferable Vote also fixes gerrymandering as long as you have at least 3 candidates per district, while also not giving the power to the hands of unelected party elites. Some will argue that it fails the participation criteria, which is true, but given the choice between the mutual majority criterion (the candidate who wins must win a majority of the vote) and the participation criterion, I believe the mutual majority criterion is more important, particularly after living through the Presidencies of both Bush and Trump.

    This year and In 2020 we are going to have legislative races in every state, local races all across America, and that is where great leaders are born. the current status of partisan trends is as follows (from Ballotpedia):

    • Democratic Trifectas (14)  – Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Illinois, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine
    • Republican Trifectas (24) – Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida
    • Democratic Governor, Republican Legislature (8) – Montana, Kansas, Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia,North Carolina, Louisiana,
    • Republican Governor, Democratic Legislature (4) – Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maryland,

    We finally have fewer than half of the states in the United States under a Republican Trifecta, however 27 million more Americans live in states with and  Republican Trifecta than a Democratic Trifecta.

    Due to the fact that states range in population so much, despite Republicans holding 27 governorships in the country, Democrats have won more votes for governor over the last election for every state, according to the data I have collected from Wikipedia. Unsurprisingly, Democrats wasted almost 3 million votes in California in the last election, as well as 1.2 million in New York. The only state where Republicans wasted over a million votes was unsurprisingly in Texas. However, when you add it all up Democrats have received more votes despite not controlling a majority of governorships.

    The closest governor’s race which went to the Republicans in the last elections with margins of less than 2% of the vote were in Florida, Georgia, New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Dakota. We are going to have to wait until at least 2022 to get back Florida, and Georgia which are the two states which really matter. The way to do this is to fight election fraud in the courts by using the justice department to enforce the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  This will only happen if we win the Presidency in 2020 which will likely happen. We are unfortunately too late to do this in time for the redistricting after the 2020 census, so these legislatures are lost until 2030. Oh well, #Jillnothill.

    2020 is not going to be a really big year for picking up seats in state legislatures unfortunately, but 2022 is going to be the year where we are going to have a gigantic slate of new progressives running in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Minnesota, potentially turning them into Democratic  Trifectas. If we get the Presidency in 2020, than we can use the justice department immediately to go after gerrymandering in Ohio, and Florida which will make competitive state legislatures in both of those states. We need to go after gerrymandering of the Congressional Districts at the same time. The big issue here is that there are going to be a whole bunch of judges who were appointed by Trump in the district and appellate courts who will likely stop any effort to overturn illegal gerrymandering in a partisan manner. Oh well, #Jillnothill. We are going to need to get the Presidency for a full 8 years in order to be have any chance at all to replace one conservative justice on SCOTUS. Our only possible way out is if it turns out that Donald Trump’s Presidency is unconstitutional (which it probably is) then every decision he has made is also unconstitutional, and we might be able to make all of his decisions null and void under the constitution. This has never been tested before because we have never had a situation like this before in American history. If that is the case than the appointments of both Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh are unconstitutional, and their place on the court is null and void. This would give the winner in 2020 two SCOTUS appointments from day 1 and also the ability to appoint successors in their place. This is probably the easiest way out of our current constitutional predicament given how yuong Kavanaugh and Gorsuch are. The other option is to increase the court size by 2 which would effectively nullify their appointments. We then just have to make sure United Russia does not take back the Presidency any time in the near future so we can keep them on the court for a while. We could do this in 2021 assuming we take the Senate as well.

    Speaking of the Senate, that was beyond a mess. Democrats pulled 59.3% of the vote and lost two seats. Losing North Dakota was a bummer, but even more disappointing was losing Florida by 0.2% of the vote (10,000 votes), especially considering the voter discrimination going on there. Indiana was another particularly close election. We need to fight voter discrimination as much as possible.

    In next year’s Senate elections Democrats have two good pickup opportunities, in Maine and Colorado. Alabama will probably be lost which will put the Republicans at 52 seats and Democrat sat 46. In 2022 we will have opportunities in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. The earliest probable date for a Trifecta at the moment given the losses last year is going to be 3 January 2023. This is less than ideal, but the best realistic shot we have.

    In order to win, Democrats need to run in every race in the United States, adopt proportional representation as part of the national party platform, and continue to stand for the principles of justice, science, and progress. Democratic Candidates in every race need to be well supported and we need good principled people running everywhere to accurately represent their communities and make a better country. It can only start at the local level by getting fantastic people into state legislatures. Occasionally an incredible candidate like Representative Ocasio-Cortez will come out of the woodwork to the national spotlight in no time, but this isn’t true the vast majority of the time. President Obama spent 10 years in the Illinois State Legislature before being elected Senator in 2004, which is a much more normal progression. The Congressional Research Service has excellent statistics here. Presidencies are won in legislative districts. If the Democratic Party does this well, it will control government for decades to come given how out of touch the Republican Party is today with American values. We need to move the Overton Window to be more focused on justice and equality.

    Summary

    • We have about as progressive a slate of candidates as possible for 2020.
    • Democrats need to hold together as a voting bloc in 2020.
    • After gaining the Presidency the new President needs to push as hard as possible to fight voter disenfranchisement across America.
    • Democrats need to take control of the Senate after the 2022 elections.
    • The Democratic Party needs to support candidates in every legislative district in the country and fight for control at every level.

    Free transit for King County now!

    Sawant calls for free transit during Viadoom — could it work?

    We all know that once people get used to not paying $104 a month for a monthly pass and then more for peak hours that it will be very difficult to make it extremely expensive again. On top of that, the easiest way to increase transit usage is to make transit free so people who might not necessarily use it every day will be more inclined to use it a few times a month. Multiply that by 2 million people for just King County and that is not an insignificant amount of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide etc. being blasted into the air we breathe. It will encourage people who visit the metro area from outside to park at the closest transit stop, or take the train to Seattle because they won’t have to pay a minimum of $5 per day per person to go to Seattle, assuming no transfers. That amount adds up and can quickly become more expensive than parking. This is a common sense reform which will make our state more livable.

    Design a Carbon Tax Now! Or, how to make a more efficient legislature to solve our problems.

    Abstract

    Thoughts on how to design a more effective legislature to solve important issues like global warming by using ranked voting.

    Introduction

    It is now 2019. We are about to start the legislative session with the largest Democratic Majority in Washington State for 70 years, and if we are ever going to get progress done in our state, now is the time.

    This means we need to do it right, there are multiple issues plagueing our state. The 5 which most concern me are:

    1. The lack of any policy to reduce carbon emissions
    2. First Past The Post Voting
    3. Insufficient transit in the Seattle Metro Area
    4. Underfunded schools at every level.
    5. The most regressive tax structure in the United States of America.
    6. Police brutality in Washington is in the 13th highest in the nation

    Now, when the legislature convenes on 14 January we are going to need to get a lot of progress done. The budget is going to be on the minds of every legislator, and it is going to effect everyone in our state, every agency, and every issue. We are going to need to make big decisions in the next thirty days which are going to have immense consequences for everyone in our state.

    One issue which stymies progress is literally everyone has their own agenda and what they believe should be done first. Historically this has a history of people blocking other proposals which are related to theirs because they are not identical in some way.

    This is immature, destructive, and hurts everyone in our state. We need a better politics to solve problems effectively and efficiently. My education makes me believe that ranked voting has one answer. A fairly strong speaker of the house is another answer, though not as preferable.

    Now, in the most ideal world where everyone was working for the greater good, this wouldn’t be an issue. But, news flash, we don’t live in a world remotely similar to that world. Shocker, right?

    Ranked voting to design bills

    A way to do this would be to have legislators propose general topics, and have them consolidated into one list by the leadership of the legislature and the next day have every legislator from each house would vote on the issues by importance using ranked voting. The votes would be tallied within minutes and then would go down the list from the most important to least important in terms of how bills would be proposed to the chamber. The obvious advantage to this is every legislator has a say in the priorities, and have literally no incentive to block legislation because it isn’t their pet project first. There would be some granularity to this, so a carbon tax would be separate from a potential income or capital gains tax, etc. which would give the first issue priority. The budget would not be on the list because it is going to be negotiated regardless and the content is already proposed by the governor. I wouldn’t touch that process because the state budgets are so sweeping. From that point the bills from each house of the legislature would be proposed in the order which every member already had a say in, meaning it will be fairly democratic. They have an incentive to get them through the first step quickly, because that lets them get onto other proposals. At that point they will all go through the normal committee/public hearing process which already exists.

    But then there is another issue which is that the bills proposed will be presented by both houses and you could end up with major issues between the two issues. This slows the process down and is inefficient at providing real solutions. A way to solve this from the beginning so we don’t end up with 3 or more bills doing similar things in contradictory ways is that every member of the legislature votes on issues and which pieces to include in the bills as one body in the first week using ranked voting. The votes of every Senator could be worth twice the votes of every Representatives to keep it proportional (in the case of how the Washington State Legislature is structured, since there are twice as many representatives as senators) and they would vote together on how to construct the proposals from the beginning. This gives every bill the highest likelihood of success, guaranteeing every piece of the bill has majority support before it is even compiled.

    In the case of a carbon tax, there are several pieces to it:

    1. How much will the tax start at?
    2. How much and in what way will the tax change over time? (linear vs. exponential vs. flat)
    3. Who/what is exempted from the bill?
    4. Where does the money go?

    Every other tax will work in a somewhat similar way, an income tax would look like so:

    1. How much will the tax be? Will it be done by brackets or a smooth function? How much will different income levels pay?
    2. What will be exempt?
    3. Will the tax change over time?
    4. Where does the money go?

    An expenditure bill would work like so:

    1. How much money is the legislature willing to spend on this project?
    2. How should the money be distributed?

    This would solve the issues I have seen above, and probably make for a more efficient legislative session with less infighting, because everyone has already had a say on the year’s most important pieces of legislation before it is even written. Once the vote is done it would take only a couple days for a few professionals to write the bill out the way the legislators wanted. At that point, it should be fairly easy to get good legislation done quickly, solving the problems which plague our state.

    The advantage to this method over a strong speaker is the power is spread evenly between every member of the legislature. This gives as close to a guarantee as I can figure out that they have majority approval before they even go to committee, without free riders which the majority of legislators and citizens oppose. If a legislator was obstinate about not getting exactly what they want on a regular basis they can always be censured by the legislature, for acting on bad faith, and could potentially cost them their seat in the next election. This would be made even easier by having ranked voting for all elections in our state.

    1. Legislators propose topics for legislation
    2. Legislators choose which topics are the most important
    3. Legislators vote on which specific proposals should be enacted for each topic. Proposals will be done with ranked voting. Complimentary proposals would both be included if they have majority support.
    4. Bills are presented to the legislature, use our existing process, guaranteeing every section has majority support.

    Ranked Voting for Elections

    Ranked voting will make a better politic for our state (and eventually country) because we will no longer have a two party system given time. More liberal Democrats will split from more centrist Democrats, and the Fascist Tea Party will split from Eisenhower Republicans. This will mean that members of one party who do not accurately represent their constituents will have a real challenger in the general election. This will give a more accurate representation of what people in our state want to have happen. This will benefit everybody. The top two system is better than party primaries, but still does not guarantee an accurate representation the way single transferable vote does.

    Conclusion

    By using ranked voting for both designing policies and electing our elected officials we should be more able to solve the problems plaguing our state, our country and our world. It should eliminate waste, corruption, and encourage legislators to focus on solving the very real problems facing our world.

    Use economics to make life decisions

    Data available

    Life insurance

    Is life insurance a good deal? Dave Ramsey sells it, and certainly thinks it is a good idea. He is opposed to Whole Life Insurance, and I agree with him there. Life insurance pays out in the case of the death of the policy holder, for the amount you claim. If you don’t die in the term, you lose 100% of your money. If you miss a payment, your policy is cancelled, and you lose 100% of your money.

    You are literally betting you will die in the term specified by the life insurance. It is truly one of the most cheerful of economic instruments.

    With this in mind, here are the numbers for someone with my height and weight in my zip code (your numbers will vary) who doesn’t use drugs:

    Mid-20s

    Age: 26
    Term: 30 years
    Limit: $1,000,000
    Monthly payment: $51.93

    Total payments: $18,694

    Probability of death: 1:15

    ACTUAL VALUE: $66,666

    Stock market value (assuming average S&P 500 yield which is 8% annually, compounded monthly): $72,626.82

    Local Bond yield (assuming a 6% return annually, compounded monthly): $50,309

    Don’t buy. The stock market will give you a better return than your expected value weighting for the probability of death. If you don’t, then you will fit into the next category for your renewal policy. This life insurance policy is better than local bonds however, but significantly more risky because you have a 100% loss if you don’t die, losing the down payment on a house for no benefit.

    Middle aged

    Age: 56
    Term: 30 years
    Limit: $1,000,000
    Monthly payment: $556
    Total payments: $200,160
    Probability of death: 50%
    ACTUAL VALUE: $500,000
    Stock market value: $777,595
    Local bond yield: $538,651

    Don’t buy, the stock market is still a better value for your money. Even municipal bonds are a better investment.

    These all assume you are perfectly healthy. In both cases the expected value of life insurance is a worse deal than a standard index fund. Life insurance is an extremely risky bet for a number of reasons:

    1. If you don’t die you take a 100% loss on every dollar you spent.
    2. The return once you factor in risk is not as good as it seems without calculating your probability of death.

    My recommendation is to start an investment account with Acorns for the same amount you would put into a life insurance policy, because it is significantly less risky (you would only lose all your money in the case of economic Armageddon, whereas with life insurance it is all but guaranteed) and gives a good return compared to other accounts.

    Older Senior

    If you are lucky enough to live to be 84 in this case, what is your probability? the calculator does not give rates for people over 85. It also limits me to whole life and $40,000 for this scenario.

    Age: 84
    Term: Whole Life
    Limit: $40,000
    Monthly payment: $683
    Time until stock market matches limit: 4 years 3 months
    Time until municipal bonds match limit: 4 years 5 months

    Life insurance makes absolutely no sense for seniors to purchase under any circumstances.

    References:
    http://www.candidmoney.com/calculators/death-probability-calculator
    https://www.policygenius,com/life-insurance

    Buy a House

    One of the biggest decisions in life you can make is to buy a house, it is a long-term asset, and means you never need to pay rent again. But, is it worth it?

    If you were to rent out a room in a house, you should expect to pay between $600 and $1000 per month, to live in a shared living situation. This will cost between $7200 and $12,000 per year.

    If you were to buy a $200,000 house, you would first take out a mortgage for that amount. You can expect to pay $946 per month for 30 months with a 3.92% interest rate under this system, for a total payment of $340,427.

    The obvious advantage of buying a house is that if you move you can sell your house, or rent it out for income, and this means that you can recover the majority of what you spent.

    However, this is still not accurate because a home equity line of credit is a better deal still. A Home Equity Line of Credit is going to save you money by putting all of your income into your line of credit when you receive it and then withdraw the money from the home equity line of credit for your monthly expenses. You can further reduce your monthly payments by purchasing on a credit card and then paying off monthly from your line of credit. Do this for two reasons,

    1. Credit cards only charge you on the balance you carry over monthly. If you pay off monthly, you do not pay interest on that card.
    2. You get rewards for using a credit card, if you get the right one. In my experience, airline credit cards offer the best value.
    3. By only withdrawing from your line of credit at the end of the month you reduce your interest owed on your line of credit, saving you years of your life and tens of thousands of dollars.

    If you were to do this, on a $200,000 home equity line of credit, with the same 3.92% interest rate, with $4000 of income per month, withdrawing $2000 for your cost of living (this includes everything) you will pay off your mortgage in 11.5 years and spend $41,582 in interest, for a total payment of $241,582.

    The best part of all is that after you are done paying your HELOC off, it continues as a line of credit, increasing your credit score.

    Also, by using credit cards to reduce interest owed on your HELOC you have saved thousands of dollars, as long as you pay them off monthly. All of this goes to increase your credit score by having multiple accounts with large balances with constantly reducing your percentage of credit used. This works as long as you pay off your cards monthly and stick to the plan.

    On the other hand, if you were to take out a $200,000 mortgage as I outlined above you would have spent $340,427.

    You can pay more on your HELOC because you can withdraw later if needed, only paying your 3% interest rate as opposed to a 20% credit card interest rate (unless if you have American Express, which is lower). If you had only left the same $946 per month on your Home Equity Line of Credit you would have paid $335,035. This won’t save you much money, but it is still better than a mortgage, saving you $5000. Paying off as much as possible every month is the best deal, and you will not receive fees for doing so.

    If you were to rent a room however for that thirty year period (at $750 per month), it would cost you $270,000, and you would have no equity.

    Buying a house with a home equity line of credit is obviously the best option.

    Buy an annuity

    The stock market is too risky you say. You don’t feel good about real estate investing. Some slick financier comes to you and says “buy an annuity from me.”

    Should you?

    I ran some numbers on Charles Schwab:
    If I get myself a $2000 monthly income annuity starting on December 16, 2057, I would have to pay $96,434 in my premium for a guarantee for the rest of my life.

    If I have 30 years of retirement than I would receive $720,000 of income in today’s money for paying $96,434. This is about the same amount of money as I would receive if I had just taken $2000 per month out of a retirement account where I had deposited the same $206.06 per month for the next 39 years. HOWEVER, when I die at 95 in 2087 after investing in the stock market I would have almost $3 million saved up ON TOP OF the amount that I had already withdrawn for my living expenses, which I could do with as I please.

    Or I could just give those three million dollars to a major multinational bank with an annuity. Guaranteed income… for the bank.

    Stock market too risky? Then you could also put your money into municipal bonds, but you will not make enough interest to cover your payments to force you to drain your account by the time you are 95, leaving you with only $100,000 at 95 years old. Going only into municipal bonds is foolish.

    You will definitely get the money for life in an annuity, but the return is millions of dollars less than you would make by having a diversified stock portfolio.

    If you die early, you would need to pay more upfront for the privilege of getting your money back. Otherwise, the bank takes the cake. How nice of you.

    Given the medical advancements which continue in today’s world, I do not think this is a good idea. It does not beat a diversified portfolio in the long run.

    My Uncle Wayne died last April at the age of 101. My Onkel Jurgen died at the age of 104 last year. My Auntie Gloria died two weeks ago at the age of 97, the xlast of my great-great aunts. Getting a 20 year guarantee would cost me a lot for no benefit (in all likelihood) and I would probably lose money (taking into account opportunity cost) with an annuity.

    A diversified index fund is a better deal.

    Divide between stocks and bonds

    50/50 split each year, withdrawal from each account

    Is it a better idea to move from stocks to bonds in retirement? Is this going to reduce your risk? It will certainly reduce your standard deviation, but this is NOT THE SAME THING AS RISK!

    The attached spreadsheet makes this clear. If you put the money you would have spent on that annuity into a diversified index fund, you will hit $2 million in your 100th year and your municipal bond fund will be in the red, assuming you take half of your withdrawals from each account, and deposit half in each account. Sounds like a deal to you?

    For comparison, in a diversified stock fund you will hit $4 million in your 100th year.

    Sound like a deal to you?

    Move money from stock account to bond account after 65

    Everything is the same until your 65th birthday, as in all of your money goes into a diversified stock portfolio

    Another “safe” strategy is to move money from your stock account to your bond account after your 65th birthday. Let’s say you do this, and you move half of your monthly interest from your stock account to your bond account for “safety”.

    Keep in mind that you will retire with half a million when you retire at 65 regardless, and this is from paying only $206 per month each year you work, the same amount the annuity required.

    When you turn 100 you will be $807,210.36 short of where you would have been if you had just kept your money in the stock market in your retirement.

    Does that sound safe to you?

    Keep in mind in the case of economic Armageddon, bond yields will drop to nothing as well.

    Learn economics

    The stock market is the best investment out there today, as long as you have it through a diversified index fund.

    But, let’s say you want to fully understand how to prevent risk? The best way to do this is to learn economics. In order to do this, make sure you study the following before you start:

    1. Calculus 1 and 2
    2. College level Statistics

    Economic models which are necessary to understand these concepts are built on these three classes more than anything else.

    Then, do the following:

    1. Microeconomic
    2. Macroeconomics

    If you are enjoying this so far, continue with these four classes (which I find to be the most useful day in and day out)

    1. Intermediate Microeconomics (how the microeconomic model is derived)
    2. Intermediate Macroeconomics (Solow model)
    3. Economics of Money and Banking
    4. Public Finance, understand how government budgets work and interact with the economy.

    This is how you understand the market to ensure you can make good decisions. Ensure you know calculus, statistics, and the first two microeconomics and macroeconomics courses. These provide you with the tools you need to be able to at least tell which economists on TV are telling the truth and which are liars.

    There are three podcasts I highly recommend to learn, and that people should follow, those are Planet Money and the Indicator by NPR and Freakonomics. Freakonomics is longer than Planet Money in terms of each episode. The Indicator is nice because it is always about 5 minutes long, and covers a different topic every day. They have guests who are PhD economists, and are together with some introductory courses in micro and macroeconomics an excellent way to get started in the field.

    This is one investment which will definitely be good for your financial future. High-quality education is always worthwhile.

    After you learn these introductory concepts, you will be prepared to do the calculations I did above, saving yourself millions of dollars.

    Non-contradicotry proposals

    Economists usually say this:

    • Don’t bail out the banks, that’s bad. Let them survive in a free market as they demand.
    • Please don’t bail out big companies.
    • Please make it easier to start a business.
    • Everyone should have the right to own their work.
    • Please don’t collectivize everything, that’s happened before, it didn’t work. 
    • Private industry is good.

    But we also usually say:

    • We hate Comcast, they over charge and provide lackluster service. ISPs should be run by the public sector.
    • Nationalize the railways!
    • Public parks are wonderful!
    • Health care must be available to all! 

    These follow a few basic values which most of us hold dear, and those are that quality of life is the ultimate goal of society. Make a more equitable and wealthier society without compromising the environment. Holding these three goals in tangent creates these basic ideas as generally accepted ideas. Studying over two centuries has made these 10 points understandable. The 4 places where I list things we think the government should have a large role are natural monopolies, or have monopolistic tendencies (such as medicine), and hence in order to increase quantity provided only a government can provide those 4 services.

    More importantly, looking at the economy through a monoscopic lens of “government good, private industry bad” or “government bad, private industry good” misses the point entirely. the ultimate goal, to increase the quality of life for everybody doesn’t fit neatly into such one dimensional boxes. But a more detailed understanding of political theory and morality which is truly multidimensional (rich, equitable, sustainable) suggests policies which if fully implemented would truly make the world a better place.

      Proposal to expand Schengen

      The Schengen Treaty is without a doubt one of the most important treaties in the world. It comprises 26 states, most of which are members of the European Union, have a GDP of $15 trillion and a population of 419 million people. People are free to move within this area, they can live and work in any other member state, as there are no customs whatsoever between any of these countries. Most members are EU members, with a few exceptions, Iceland, Liechstenstein, Monaco, Norway, San Marino, Switzerland, and Vatican City.
      The Schengen Area
      This is the pure liberal dream. The idea is that without trade barriers between these countries that people will have less of a desire to go to war with others. And it has worked along with the free trade area which has grown out of the European Coal and Steel Community which was founded in the 1950s. Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, and Romania are currently pending the next council meeting.

      The question now is, should Schengen be expanded, and if it is, how? As the title of this article suggests, I am in favor of expansion. The Schengen Treaty, as a legal document presents very clear rules on what is to move in between borders. The bulk of the laws are included in section 1, under the 14 June 1985 convention. The rules are laid out in the following titles as follows in this convention:

      1. Definitions
      2. Abolition of Checks at Internal Borders and Movement of Persons
        1. Crossing Internal Borders
        2. Crossing External Borders
        3. Visas
          1. Short-Stay Visas
          2. Long-Stay Visas
        4. Conditions Governing the Movement of Aliens
        5. Residence Permits and Alerts for the Purposes of Refusing Entry
        6. Accompanying Measures
        7. Responsibility for Processing Applications for Asylum
      3. Police and Security
        1. Police Cooperation
        2. Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters
        3. Application of the Ne Bis In Idem Principle (No double jeopardy)
        4. Extradition
        5. Transfer of the Enforcement of Criminal Judgements
        6. Narcotic Drugs
        7. Firearms and Ammunition
      4. Schengen Information System
        1. Establishment of the Schengen Information System
        2. Operation and Use of the Schengen Information System
        3. Protection of Personal Data and Security of Data in the Schengen Information System
        4. Apportionment of the Costs of the Schengen Information System
      5. Transport and Movement of Goods
      6. Protection of Personal Data
      7. Executive Committee
      8. Final Provisions

        All of the laws and regulations are already in existence already, and the rules for Schengen are really straight forward and reasonable. Basically, control the borders, Mutual recognition of each other’s visas, police need to cooperate and respect the laws and decisions of other countries in the area, sharing of information between countries when it comes to visa relevant information, a common tariff policy, don’t leak data, and each member has a seat in the executive committee. That’s the entire agreement in a nutshell.

        There is also, notably, no requirement of a country to be in the European Union or even Europe to join the Schengen Area in the original document. This means, theoretically, that the Schengen Area could be expanded to outside Europe if I am not missing another law which regards Schengen membership. This seems to be the case because Switzerland joined in 2008, and it is not a member of the EU, and Liechtenstein joined in 2011 after the Treaty of Lisbon, the last major amendment to European law. This means that non-member states can indeed join the Schengen area.

        The question then becomes… who should be included? Prospective countries to join the Schengen treaty could be established by fitting the following criteria in my mind:

        1. Adopt the European Charter of Rights and Freedoms as law, or have comparable laws on the books already.
        2. Have a Corruption Perceptions Index at least as high as the Schengen member with the lowest score.
        3. Have a better Press Freedom Index then the member state with the lowest score. This is a useful proxy for how well the Charter of Rights and Freedoms are respected.
        4. Have an economic system which makes it easy for businesses to flourish, using the Ease of Doing Business Index. We want the member country to be fully engaged in the common market.
        5. Have no significant domestic terrorism. This can be measured by homicide rate.

        These are 5 things which can easily be implemented.

        https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Corruption_Perception_index_2017.svg
        Corruption Perceptions Index

        https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Press_freedom_2018.svg
        Press Freedom Index

        The Schengen member with the highest (worst) Corruptions Perception Index currently is Greece, at 44. they ranked #69 in the world as of 2017, which leaves 43 potential members by that metric.

        The Schengen member with the highest press freedom score currently is still Greece, though Bulgaria will likely acede soon and it has the worst score, but they will likely not be chosen due to the factors which cause them to fare so poorly on the press freedom index, so that leaves Greece as the lowest score. They rank #70 in the world as of 2018 (yes, these are significantly correlated indexes) and that again leaves 44 potential members by this metric.

        The obvious choices for membership by these two metrics combined are:

        1. New Zealand
        2. Canada
        3. United Kingdom
        4. Australia
        5. United States
        6. Ireland
        7. Japan
        8. Uruguay
        9. Chile
        10. Taiwan
        11. Botswana
        12. Cape Verde
        13. Costa Rica
        14. Georgia
        15. Cyprus
        16. Mauritius
        17. South Korea
        18. Namibia
        19. Croatia
        20. Romania
        21. Senegal
        22. South Africa
        23. Suriname

        This map is interesting for many reasons. Following this logic there are countries which are qualified to join the Schengen Area using my first two criteria on every continent. Some countries which have expressed interest are missing from the map, Israel is blank because their press isn’t free enough, Bulgaria is blank despite being considered to join the Schengen area because they are too corrupt,  Ukraine is both too corrupt and their press is not free enough.

        The one other variable which could be useful in determining whether a country would be able to join the Schengen Area would be the Ease of Doing Business Indicator. The reason for this one is the acquis on the free movement of capital, and if a country doesn’t allow ease of movement of capital within its own borders it will not be able to join Schengen. This significantly reduces the number of countries which are eligible to join down to 17 prime candidates. The economies of Botswana, Cape Verde, Namibia, Senegal, Suriname, and Uruguay are less free than that of Malta, the Schengen member with the least free economy, which means that the best candidates for joining the Schengen map looks like this:

        Every country shaded in red on this list has a Corruptions Perceptions Index, Press Freedom Index, and Ease of Doing Business Index ranking better than the worst performer currently in the Schengen region.

        The top performer not currently in Schengen currently is New Zealand when you multiply the CPI, DBI and divide by the PFI. The order of this ranking follows as Canada, Australia, Ireland, United Kingdom, Costa Rica, United States, Taiwan, Chile, Cyprus, Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Mauritius, Romania, South Africa, and then Croatia. If the current member states of the Schengen Area and these 17 countries chose to unify their customs into the Schengen area this would be mutually beneficial.

        The countries which would most benefit from joining would honestly be the United States and Canada. With the world’s longest border, highly developed economies and being among the most free in the world, we could benefit in joining.

        Another factor when it comes to opening up your borders to another country is safety. This is easily measured using homicide rate as a rough approximation of the relative safety of one country or another. Three countries unfortunately have homicide rates which the European Union will likely find unacceptable, and those are Costa Rica, South Africa, and my home, the USA. The country with the highest murder rate in the Schengen area is Lithuania with a homicide rate of 5.25 people per 100,000. The United States unfortunately has a homicide rate of 5.35 meaning if the Schengen Area would not allow new members due to an intentional homicide rate we are just above the threshold.

        This problem deserves special attention because we are so close to having a low enough murder rate to qualify for Schengen Membership, if this was a qualifier. Looking at murder rates by states and territories, the ones which have a higher murder rate than Lithuania are in descending murder rate (by latest available data): Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, Maryland, Arkansas, Alaska, Alabama, Mississippi, Illinois, South Carolina, Tennessee, New Mexico, Georgia, Oklahoma, Ohio, Indiana, Arizona, Kentucky, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. Reference

        This deserves an article of its own, and we need to focus on reducing our murder rate as a country.

        This still leaves 14 countries around the world which have the proper statistics to join the Schengen travel area, from every continent. These 14 have low corruption, and are safe. Schengen is estimated to boost the trade and economics of the member states, and there is overwhelming economic evidence that increasing trade reduces the likelihood of war. For these reasons I believe it would be wise for the Schengen Treaty to be expanded outside of Europe, the UK and Ireland should join Schengen (which I know is unlikely due to the whole Brexit debacle) because it is the logical next step to fostering peace in the world we live in.

        Countries which could theoretically join Schengen.

        Election 2018 Recap and future elections

        It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It set the victory, it set the failure. The beginning came at the same time as the end, and for totally different reasons.

        What a night. This was one of the most exciting elections I have ever seen, with several major victories, and major losses as well.

        The headline in the New York Times tomorrow will undoubtedly be Democrats take the House, but the sub-headline should read, Democrats also take 4 additional trifectas, and lose two key Senate races by less than 100,000 votes.

        Needless to say, there were some major victories tonight for the Democratic Party. Taking the House is no laughing matter. But, when the President has been under investigation for a full 2 years, his policies are wildly out of line with what the majority of Americans believe, and Americans are being turned away from the polls because they literally don’t have enough ballots for everyone (but only in minority precincts), or simply can’t wait 4 or more hours in a line to go to the polls,  we know that there were people who tried to vote but didn’t have their voice heard, and that did swing the election in several really important ways tonight.

        When it comes to the Senate:

        • Florida, one state which we know has been merging precincts and under preparing their polling places for the numbers of people in their precincts, had their Senate race came within 60,000 votes. This is a crime, and is one place the Democratic Party or Eric Holder when he was Attorney General needed to bring the state and Republican Party to court for violating the rights of Americans.
        • Texas deliberately confused voters in order to suppress the vote. https://www.revealnews.org/blog/texass-voter-id-law-is-confusing-voters-into-disenfranchising-themselves/ and then their senate seat came within 200,000 votes, in a state with 28 million people.
        • Arizona made it hard for citizens to vote as well, and their election is being extremely close. The final numbers are not in as I write this article. It is going to be very close, and still undetermined.

         These three states will likely give the Republicans a 54 seat majority as opposed to a potential 52 seat majority if people had been able to vote.

          The Governor’s races were even worse:

          • Stacey Abrams voters in Georgia were very clearly discriminated against tonight, Kemp has a 3% lead on her, and will likely be elected governor. Voter suppression is one Southern tradition which refuses to die.
          • In Ohio, voter purging among other issues significantly reduced turnout for tonight’s election. DeWine will win with just over 50% of the vote. He will have the veto pen over redistricting about 18 seats for the House after the 2020 census.
          • Iowa has seen neither candidate get a majority in a classic spoiler effect.
          • Florida: With massive voter suppression, the Republican is squeaking ahead with a minority of the vote. He will have the veto pen over the redistricting over 27 seats in the Census for the 2020 Census.
          • Surprising no one, Alaska is now a Republican Trifecta. This was their biggest gain of the night, besides damage control. This was basically unavoidable.

            However, there were many bright spots:

            • Michigan: Gretchen Whitmer won! This is a huge step in the right direction, and will prevent Michigan from being gerrymandered in the 2020.
            • Nevada: We won the governor’s race, picking up a trifecta.
            • Wisconsin: Scott Walker is gone! Good riddance.
            • Kansas has a Democratic governor again.
            • New Mexico is a brand new Trifecta.
            • Nevada is a brand new Trifecta.
            • Maine is a brand new Trifecta.
            • Illinois is a brand new Trifecta.

            The worst thing of all about these races for the Senate and Governor’s races is that literally every single one of the close Republican victories coinciding with voter suppression has no-excuse absentee voting. We need to get minority voters registered to vote absentee in every state, but particularly on these states where there votes collectively will swing. Not just that, but in every one of these states they can permanently register as a no-excuse absentee voter, meaning they will never have to sit in line again. We should have been doing this aggressively since all of these laws were passed, and this needs to be talked about a lot more. The Democrats basically gave all of these vital positions to the Republicans by not bringing them to court for violating the VRA and not working as hard as possible to get people registered to vote absentee to counter their voter discrimination.

            At the state legislative level, some good news:

            • Washington: Democrats picked up a seat in the Senate, and 7 more in the House.
            • Minnesota: Democrats took the House, we are literally one seat in the Senate from a trifecta in Minnesota now.
            • Michigan: we had some gains in both houses, and with the governorship we can now degerrymander. The 2020s will be a Democratic decade for Michigan. Republicans are still in control of the legislature, but Whitmer will veto any gerrymandered district map, making Michigan competitive 4 years from today.
            • New Hampshire: Democrats picked up the State House, breaking yet another Republican Trifecta.

            And one piece of bad news:

            • Republicans picked up a trifecta in Alaska, taking the Senate and the governorship.

            When we entered this election cycle, Democrats had 8 trifectas and Republicans held 26. Starting in January Democrats will have 14 trifectas and Republicans will have 23. The ability to push progressive legislation at the state level has now increased significantly in those 5 new trifectas (Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Illinois, New York, and Maine) which will give us an opportunity to make new progressive bills to benefit the United States on many issues.

            In summary, the main takeaway points are:

            • Taking the House of Representatives for the first time in a decade is a historic event. We can have a full investigation into Trump which will significantly cripple his political power and potentially send him to prison for election manipulation.
            • Democrats made several very important improvements by taking the governorships of Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Kansas, Maine, and Illinois.
            • Democrats gained trifectas in Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Illinois, New York, and Maine.
            • Democrats broke Republican trifectas in Kansas, Wisconsin, Michigan, and New Hampshire.
            • Republicans gained a Trifecta in Alaska.
            • Democrats won more overall votes for the Governors which were up for election, and almost certainly won more votes for the House as well. This does not bode well for Trump.

            This means that Democrats can make improvements in the states they gained trifectas in, such as:

            • Universal mail in voting to ensure people are able to vote, or at a bare minimum so anyone can opt in to a mail in ballot.
            • Ensure those states are not gerrymandered after the census in 2 years at a bare minimum. Ideally push for proportional representation.
            • Guarantee health coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
            • Improve local transit and AMTRAK.
            • Reduce the cost of college.
            • Fully fund our schools, and make curricula which are better than what we have currently.
            • Implement more progressive tax codes and push for EITC like plans at the state level, which significantly help working class families.

            Local Washington State Analysis:

            The results are not complete yet, but there are currently several sitting Republicans who might be kicked out of office. The Democrats are guaranteed a majority, but the question is by how much. Half of the Senate is up,  they hold office for 4 years. Every Representative is up for election. Here are the seats which might be flipping:

            • 5th LD (East King County): Two House seats could be pickups for the Democrats.
            • 6th LD (Spokane County): There is a dead heat between Dave Wilson (D)  and Jenny Graham (R) for the House, it could go either way as late ballots come in. Graham is ahead by 295 votes as of this morning. Currently held by a Republican.
            • 10th LD: Dave Paul (D) leads Dave Hayes (R) by 367 votes for the House. Currently held by a Republican.
            • 19th LD: Dead heat between Erin Frasier (D) and Jim Walsh (R) for the House. Currently held by Walsh.
            • 26th LD (Gig Harbor): Emily Randall (D) leads Mary McClendon (R) by 423 votes for the Senate. Currently Republican
            • 28th LD (Fort Lewis/McChord): Mari Leavitt (D) leads incumbent Dick Muri by 676 votes.
            • 35th LD (Mason County): The Republicans are all ahead by at least 1000 votes as of right now. (Tim Sheldon has caucused with the Republicans)
            • 42nd LD (Whatcom County): All three races are in a dead heat right now and could go either way.
            • 47th LD (Auburn): Joe Fain (R) leads by 90 votes. Mark Hargrove (R) will likely be replaced.
            • 48th LD (Redmond): Patty Kuderer leads Rodney Tom and will win. Rodney Tom caucused with the Republicans.

            What this means for 2020 and 2022

            Senate

            The Senate was basically a complete clusterfuck. The Republicans should have 52 seats, but they won 54 because of voter discrimination. There are going to be 4 or 5 seats which we can pick up fairly easily in 2020 in Arizona, Iowa, Maine, Colorado, and Georgia. If we get lucky we might be able to pick up West Virginia and North Carolina as well. This means I expect that the Republicans will have probably a maximum of 51 seats after the 2020 election where Democrats pick up Iowa, Maine, and Colorado. The odds of this go up significantly if we have massive campaigns to get voters registered to vote absentee in those 5 states, all of which currently have no-excuse absentee voting to counter their voter suppression. In the very best case scenario where we pick them all up we could have 53 seats in total, and a Trifecta.

            What is horrible about this is that without an aggressive ground game to register as many voters as possible as absentee before this election is we could have almost guarantee to have had a Trifecta in 2021 if we had taken Arizona and Florida this week. But because the Democratic Party did not make a major point to register as many people as possible as absentee (because the odds are very much in our favor when it comes to values) before this week’s election the chance of having a Trifecta in 2021 is almost null. There were many factors which played in, but the lack of a ground game in those states to get people to become absentee, with phone banking and knocking on doors was the clincher because it would have been so easy to set it up.

            House

            This will be the last election with districts based on the 2010 census. I expect we will have a small majority because after Trump and co. are going to trial the Republicans will be at a major disadvantage. Reduced gerrymandering in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania due to this week’s gubernatorial elections will make the 2020s a lot easier to get Democrats elected to the House. Not having the governorships of Ohio and Florida will make it harder than it needs to be.

            Governors

            We will probably lose Louisiana next year.

            I predict few changes in 2020 for the Governor races. We might be able to pick up Vermont and New Hampshire, and will potentially lose North Carolina. But, North Carolina has no-excuse absentee voting which can counter any voter disenfranchisement, giving us an advantage in North Carolina.

            In 2022 the same governors who were elected will be up again. This will be our chance to take Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, and Iowa. We might be able to get Massachusetts and Maryland as well. These will be won by ensuring voters have access to voting. We will probably lose Kansas.

            In the best probable scenario, I predict that in 2023 Democrats will be able to pick up Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Vermont, on top of keeping most of the states we picked up this year, specifically New Mexico, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine. This will mean 12 more states will have Democratic Governors in 2023 for a total of the 16 we currently have, for 28 in total and a majority of the population of the United States. The stretch goal will be Texas given the slim margin in the Senate this week between O’Rourke and Cruz, especially given changing demographics.

            President

            Oh yeah, the President. If the election had been held this week, Trump would have lost to almost any candidate. His approval rating is negative in states representing over half the votes of the electoral college. He will likely be the first one term president in 28 years (since George H.W. Bush) due to his sinking popularity and scandals. Democrats only need to pick up Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania in order to win. Registering as many voters as possible to vote absentee in Florida, Georgia, and Ohio will significantly help ensure that Trump is a one term president, which given his actions on a wide variety of issues.

            The final question is who will be the candidate. Kamala Harris is leading the betting pools right now right behind Donald Trump, with Beto O’Rourke leading  right behind her, and I expect that once the field narrows the Democrat will be on top of the betting pool yet again. Despite this Elizabeth Warren is leading the Democratic Nominee. I highly doubt Joe Biden will run. I would be happy with anyone of these three likely candidates to run, any one of them will easily defeat Trump, and I will support any one of them. My biggest bet is on Kamala Harris right now, given she has a trip booked to Iowa already, and she is very good at her job and would be a fantastic president. She will have no trouble defeating Putin, I mean Trump.

            The biggest thing the Democratic Party can do right now to ensure that they win in 2020 is to register voters to vote absentee in (decreasing importance): Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, and Georgia.

            Absentee ballot information:

            • Georgia (you must register within 180 days of each election): http://sos.ga.gov/index.php/Elections/absentee_voting_in_georgia
            • Florida: https://dos.myflorida.com/elections/for-voters/voting/vote-by-mail/
            • Ohio (You must register for an absentee ballot for each election): https://www.sos.state.oh.us/elections/voters/absentee-voting/#gref

            These are the most important states for the Senate, but for any other state just search “ absentee ballot application” on Google to see the rules for your particular state. Most states have this option available. 8 states and DC also allow permanent absentee status. The NCSL has all of the information on the options for your state.

            Final takeaway:

            It is  not time for compromise. It is not time for backing down. There are serious problems in this country which need to be fixed, and Americans voted in Democrats looking for solutions to problems which plague our lives. Student loans with poor job prospects, the dream that we can get health care in our own country, high quality cities with good transportation, and for the love of God, I can’t believe I have to say it in the United States, lead free water. My generation is both extremely angry and extremely optimistic. We have not given up on democracy, we believe very strongly in it. We voted this year, we elected Democrats, and we are going to hold their feet to the fire. I am going to lobby as much as I possibly to make sure we make progress, and get the change that our country needs. I am going to try to work with the Democratic party to make plans to eliminate voter discrimination, enforce the law, and ensure that our votes count. The fact Republicans took the Governorship of Florida significantly hurts our chances of maintaining our majority in the house after redistricting. This is a serious issue, and it must be dealt with.

            But for now, don’t get complacent, there is much work to be done. We have opportunities to make a big difference now, and now we, the people, need to work to pressure our legislators to do the change we voted for. 2020 is going to be the year we retake the Presidency and maybe the Senate. The 2020s will be bright.

            Keep fighting.