1 "Why should I resign when I am going to get reelected hands down" C. Rangel

2 All of that is all well and good but it doesn't mean squat if the base sits at home.

How else did the Dems take control of both houses in 2006?

3 I'm in NJ CD12, one of the most Gerrymandered districts in America. They'll always have the welfare sponges of Trenton in CD12.

4 One other thing that grits my teeth is the fact that the Supreme Court gave its blessing to gerrymandering very early in the Republic.

Of course that ruling came from the time when the court was controlled by the big government liberals of the day (the federalists) and gerrymandering was the product of one of those big government liberals. 

5 Yee-ha.  Barky's approval rating in Georgia at 37%.  Roy Barnes hardest hit.  And in hiding.

6 So Democrats not only cheat, they rig the game.  Who could have imagined this?  I mean, besides everyone not enslaved to the MFM.

7
This partly explains why the Democrats want to get rid of the electoral college for the popular vote.

8 Even without gerrymandering, I think you would see some kind of over-concentration of leftist voters.  Even in the reddest towns or counties you're going to have some libs scattered in, so that the republicans rarely get, say, more than 80% of the vote in that jurisdiction.  But because of groupthink among certain groups (and not just ethnic groups) you regulary see counties or cities that are 80+ democrat

9 Governorships and Statehouse this November are critical. I think 15 or more states are likely too see changes this year.

10 How else did the Dems take control of both houses in 2006?

Vic, I remember 2006 and it wasn't just about the base.

11 Is it just me or is the formatting screwed up on this thread?

12 This partly explains why the Democrats want to get rid of the electoral college for the popular vote. ... and conversely explains why we should defend it at all costs.

13 Vic, I remember 2006 and it wasn't just about the base.

What was it then? I didn't go in to a lot of analysis in 2006.

14 The districts in Crook county are insane in the the way they're drawn up. But I'm not too troubled by the plight of these districts since they have massive voter fraud. You can't violate the voting rights of the dead. And as someone else pointed out all of these states are headed towards popular vote so districts will be meaningless.

15 14. THANK YOU! a LOT of these extremely Dem-concetrated gerrymandered districts are havens for voter fraud - and no one would ever dare to challenge these areas, either. if we were talking about ACTUAL legal voters, we'd have no fear at all as far as removing the EC.

16 This is a good reason you need to work to get the repubs in your state house and senate.  Its redistricting time.

As an aside, with all of these places that continue to get hurt by dem policies, you would think that even people who might not be well educated and sucking from the govt teet would at some point say "these guys are killing us".  But alas, maybe I think too much, cause ya know....Detroit happens.

17 Democrats.  Petard.  Hoisting.  Some assembly required.

18 Wikipedia (to the extent it can be trusted) gives good 'assembly data' for congressional elections pointing to the same effect over and over:

Year    R%     D%     R seats    D seats
1990   44.7    52.8      167         267
1992   45.3    50.6      176         258
1994   47.8    44.0      236         198
1996   47.8    48.1      228         206
1998   47.1    47.1      223         211
2000   47.3    47.0      221         212
2002   49.6    45.0      229         204
2004   53.3    46.6      232         202
2006   46.4    53.6      202         233
2008   42.5    53.2      178         257

NB 1998, an off-year election with an equal vote resulted in a mild R majority.

Also NB that a few percentage points don't get the R's what it used to, either: In 1994 a 3.8% gap created a big majority; whereas in 2004 a 6.7% gap couldn't create as big of a majority.

19 Fear me.

20

" I'm in NJ CD12, one of the most Gerrymandered districts in America."

Come on down south - I'll show you what gerrymandering is really about. http://tinyurl.com/2c96czf

21 At least VA is doing a bang up job today, winning in court on health care and that asking citizen status is legal.

22 I liked Time Bandits.

23 O/T  A small plane has gone into the water off Cape Cod.  Great white sharks have been seen in the area.  Film at 11:00.

24 A small plane has gone into the water off Cape Cod.  Great white sharks have been seen in the area.  Film at 11:00.

Well, it is Shark Week.

(too soon?)

25 So funny, corrupt liberal career politicians torpedo liberal politics.

26 Remember the Democrats' down-ticket drive to elect Secretaries of State? Considering the election engineering we have in our country, expect that investment to start having more impact while the GOP isn't looking. It's not the votes that matter; it's who's counting them. Fascists unite!

And yeah, gerrymandering is one of the most obscene "democratic" constructs to have ever been devised. An honest system would use longitudes or latitudes and just shift lines uniformly to create equal-sized population blocks as opposed to the freeform monsters we have now.

There oughta be a law...

27 24 O/T  A small plane has gone into the water off Cape Cod.  Great white sharks have been seen in the area.  Film at 11:00.

What's so scary about a bunch of lawyers being in Cape Cod waters?  .

28
While we have these "Democrat-safe-seat" strongholds up, we should look at the quality of life of the people living in them.

Per capita income, education, home ownership, births-out-of-wedlock, high school dropout rate, crime, etc.

The Democrats have created hell-holes for these people.

29 27 Remember the Democrats' down-ticket drive to elect Secretaries of State? Considering the election engineering we have in our country, expect that investment to start having more impact while the GOP isn't looking. It's not the votes that matter; it's who's counting them. Fascists unite!

One of Screamin' Dean's greatest ideas.  Got to hand it to the corrupt bastard.

30 That Dim move towards a popular vote doesn't seem like a real good idea. In any year they have a less then motivated base and the Pub's have a lead going in - many Blue state voters may stay home, rather then have their vote go for the other guy.

31

another unintended consequence of race based districting is that no candidate has to run to the center anymore. In the old days, a politician had to go to every neighborhood, hear them out and try to please them all just a little.

32 This partly explains why the Democrats want to get rid of the electoral college for the popular vote.
-------------

Bingo!
Yes.. the Dems would MUCH rather have the heavily populated blue districts (including most big cities) decide for the rest of us.  Fuck 'em.

33 Sharks gotta eat, too.


_{Too harsh?}

34 A lot of these districts are urban areas which were not so super safe a generation ago. There is a positive feedback loop to this evil. Dems take over a city, they start pushing their agenda, and the R's leave. You end up with a super safe district with no industry, other than social services, law, and government. (New Jersey, Detroit, ..)

35 OT - USAF To Retain F-22 Raptor Tooling   LINK
(Politico via Weekly Standard)

Excerpt:

The Air Force will hang on to its F-22 tooling at Lockheed Martin's Marietta, Ga., production plant even after it stops making the fifth generation fighter jet in 2012, according to Flight International's Stephen Trimble.

36 Redistricting is one of the last means of influence the State legislatures have over their Federal legislators. Without the threat of being gerrymandered out of existence - most federal critters would simply ignore the statehouses.

37 You know what they call this in polisci class?  "benign gerrymandering".  Shit you not.  The idea is, that you need to be represented by someone who has the same pigmentation as you do, rather than someone who mose closely reflects your ideology.

38
Speaking of tragic deaths...

aren't we overdue for another Kennedy death?

39 >>>One other thing that grits my teeth is the fact that the Supreme Court gave its blessing to gerrymandering very early in the Republic. It sort of mandated it. Early on Reps were apportioned according to arbitrary stuff like county lines. The Supreme Court found that violated one-man one vote (as some counties had a lot more people than others, so votes might count more in some and less in others) and required districts be drawn according to latest census data to be as even as possible. Of course once you have new line-drawing every ten years the question becomes who draws the lines and what limitations do they have in drawing those lines. The answer to the latter turned out to be "almost none."

40 In Russia, Food Eats You.

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering a crackdown on farm dust, so senators have signed a letter addressing their concerns on the possible regulations.

The letter dated July 23 to the EPA states, "If approved, would establish the most stringent and unparalleled regulation of dust in our nation's history." It further states, "We respect efforts for a clean and healthy environment, but not at the expense of common sense. These identified levels will be extremely burdensome for farmers and livestock producers to attain. Whether its livestock kicking up dust, soybeans being combined on a dry day in the fall, or driving a car down the gravel road, dust is a naturally occurring event."

Be prepared for higher food prices if you can find any.

41 aren't we overdue for another Kennedy death?

I've had Patches in my dead pool for a while now. 

42 Don't Disenfranchise the Dead

43
I mentioned this before, but it's important that everyone is aware.

Speaking of gerrymandering...

there's been a bill in the House on the back burner for a while that TAKES AWAY THE STATE LEGISLATURE'S POWER to form Congressional districts.

44
After the Census numbers are tabulated and fudged by Obama, expect some shenanigans on redistricting powers.

45
Am I sounding too Glenn Beckish?

46 OKLAHOMA CITY -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering a crackdown on farm dust, so senators have signed a letter addressing their concerns on the possible regulations.

Be prepared for higher food prices if you can find any.

Posted by: Guy Fawkes at August 02, 2010 01:00 PM (yT8z7)

Sharks gotta eat but if a few billion people starved to death, Gaia could heal.

47 You know what they call this in polisci class?  "benign gerrymandering".

Is that sorta like a friendly punch to the face?

48 39
Speaking of tragic deaths...

aren't we overdue for another Kennedy death?

----------------

Naahhh.. they took out John Kennedy Jr. to make room for Obama.. that was the last real threat..

You didn't think that plane crash was an "accident", did ya?

49

My gerrymandered district which repeatedly elects corruptocrat Jim Moran is extremely oddly shaped. Even the dems hate Moran because he's such an arrogant asshole and makes constant antisemitic comments. However, they say that he "votes right" --meaning he has a D after his name. The two areas he represents are both highly highly educated so these people are aware that they are hypocrites.

Rush on the "hopeful news" out of Va.

50

I'm pretty sure this is a byproduct of the racial gerrymandering of oddly-shaped districts to well-nigh guarantee a minority Representative.

You can only survive on these kinds of legalistic tricks for a finite amount of time.

We are very near the point at which {Negro babies + Mexican Indian babies} will be an absolute majority of all births in the USA, and, at that point, the USA [as we knew Her] will be effectively dead.

"Limited Government/Rule of Law" candidates might still be able to win in the near future [2012, maybe 2016], but circa 2020, the demographic window slams shut forever, and the GOP will never again be able to win a national election.

At that point, our choices will be secession, or death [of all the ideals which motivated our forefathers, and which, at least ostensibly, are supposed to be motivating us - although, in places like Zimbabwe, folks like us face not only the death of the old ideals, but the actual, physical death of the living corpus, via murder by rampaging mob].

Of course, the unsustainable burden placed upon our society by the Negroes & the Mexican Indians & the barren, Blue State Baby Boomers [as they move into retirement] will cause the entire system to collapse and implode, so something like a secessionist movement will necessarily have to arise to replace the old [failed] society [and its unworkable systems].

That much is a mathematical certainty.

 

51

" I'm in NJ CD12, one of the most Gerrymandered districts in America."

Come on down south - I'll show you what gerrymandering is really about.

Gawd. I thought district 11 here in California was gerrymandered. We got nothing on that sh*t. Actually district 11 is reverse gerrymandered, with conservatives gerrymandered into the district out of district 10, and 16.

52

Hate to disturb the narrative, but the GOP has been doing racial gerrymandering as much as they can, with the beauty that they can claim that the Voting Rights Act "Demanded" that they do this!  That's why they won the lawsuit over the gerrymandering in Texas - creating all-black districts that were guaranteed to elect black representatives (like Sheila Jackson Lee) was found to be a legally sufficient reason to justify the plan, even if that DID mean that her district was 95% Democrat, and that left all the neighboring districts Republican enough to keep the Dem's from touching them.

 

53
I can't believe it's been 13 years since we lost John John.

/fake weeps

54 OT - USAF To Retain F-22 Raptor Tooling LINK (Politico via Weekly Standard) Excerpt: The Air Force will hang on to its F-22 tooling at Lockheed Martin's Marietta, Ga., production plant even after it stops making the fifth generation fighter jet in 2012, according to Flight International's Stephen Trimble. Posted by: mrp at August 02, 2010 12:58 PM (HjPtV) Best news I have heard in a long time.

55 Oddly enough, back in the 50's, a Sen. John F. Kennedy sought to end the electoral college but was told by party insiders that it favored Democrats, so he dropped his effort.

56 well, how long is it going to take for a Carter appointed judge to fix this problem? Rules are for suckers.

57 The answer to the latter turned out to be "almost none."

Essentially the area has to be contiguous. That's about it. 10 feet wide, crooked, and 600 miles long is perfectly OK. 

58

I'm divided on wanting to get rid of a corrupt dem or having the dems infect many other districts.

It's a tough call.

It's probably better to keep them in one place to hold down the voter fraud.

Interestingly the Catholic Church does the same thing. They will identify a uber-libtard parish and direct all the uber-heretics there to preserve the rest of the parishes. Recently, they have decided to move the priest that went to Mass to fawn over Teddy's corpse. His little kingdom may be revamped, pissing off his libtard flock.

59

-#54

which is why we enjoyed a majority for so long after redistricting in the 90s.

 

If we have an OVERWHELMING victory in November in the governors and statehouse races...we will control redistricting for yet another 15-20 congressional districts.

 

We can re-gerry even more

60 Ya know what John-John missed the most on that fateful flight? The runway. Tip your waitstaff. I'm here all week.

61 Lions and Tigers roam the lands far and wide. Insects congregate in collective hives. It is nature.

62 I'm pretty sure this is a byproduct of the racial gerrymandering of oddly-shaped districts to well-nigh guarantee a minority Representative

Actually the Supremes did rule in 1993 that race based gerrymandering was unconstitutional in Shaw v Reno (5-4 with Sandra Day O'Flipflop joining the conservatives).

Latter in 2001 in a case involving virtually the SAME NC district the court effectively reversed in Easley v. Cromartie where they ruled that the gerrymandering was not based on race, but how the population voted! (5-4 with Sandra D. Flipflop voting with the liberals).

So what we have now is race based gerrymandering but only because they vote Dem.

Folks you can't make this shit up. It is illegal to gerrymander based solely on race, but it is OK if they gerrymander solely based on voting behavior.

63 Gerrymandering actually helped the GOP take back the NC House in the 90's.  But in the 2000 redistricting, the GOP won enough seats to control the NC House, but Rep Decker sold his vote for $50,000 cash.  Paid for by the Democrat Speaker.  They are both in jail, prosecuted by a Fed DA appointed by Bush.  Unfortunately the redistricting that they did still stands today.

It is critical that you all work to make sure at least one of the legislative houses in your state is controled my the GOP.

Gerrymandering?  Look at NC 12.  Mel Watts district goes from Charlotte up I-85 to Greensboro.  Mel Watt is the most liberal MFer I have ever known.

Is a fucking Commie.

64 Look at this map of NC 12!  The district is 100 miles long.

http://tinyurl.com/2c96czf

65 62 Ya know what John-John missed the most on that fateful flight?

The runway.

Tip your waitstaff. I'm here all week.

Posted by: Lame Comic at August 02, 2010 01:17 PM (8WOM0)

I was going to say an 'instrument rating'.

     

66 It's just another instance that proves liberalism is a mental illess or at the very least the symptom of a form of mental retardation.

67 Look at this map of NC 12!  The district is 100 miles long.

http://tinyurl.com/2c96czf

Posted by: Kemp at August 02, 2010 01:42 PM (2+9Yx)

Kemp; that NC-12 district is the one that was the subject of those two conflicting cases I referenced above.

68 #70

I be knowings that.

69 OT: Mexican drug cartel puts $1 million dollar bounty on Sheriff Joe Arpio.

70 72 OT: Mexican drug cartel puts $1 million dollar bounty on Sheriff Joe Arpio.

Posted by: Guy Fawkes at August 02, 2010 02:03 PM (yT8z7)

I'm betting on Sheriff Joe kicking their asses, any takers?

71

Protecting crooked incumbents has always been the game in Illinois. After the 1980 census they tried to give troublesome Republican State Senator, Judy Koehler, then in rural Illinois, a very long long, narrow district as retaliation.  She was honest, outspoken and a pain in the side of both parties. She fought it in court and won.

 

72 52

...Of course, the unsustainable burden placed upon our society by the Negroes & the Mexican Indians & the barren, Blue State Baby Boomers [as they move into retirement] will cause the entire system to collapse and implode, so something like a secessionist movement will necessarily have to arise to replace the old [failed] society [and its unworkable systems].

Posted by: Lindsey Grahamnesty licking Rahm Emanuel's salty, shaven balls at August 02, 2010 01:07 PM (soAcT)

Take a hike racist.  Birth rates among African-Americans is about the same or lower than caucasions, and Mexico is at zero population growth already... their immigration cannot continue long.

73 54 Hate to disturb the narrative, but the GOP has been doing racial gerrymandering as much as they can, with the beauty that they can claim that the Voting Rights Act "Demanded" that they do this!

Um, the Voting Rights Act, where it applies, DOES demand that they do this.  The mandate for a certain number of "majority-minority" districts forces Southern states to gerrymander those districts into existence under the supervision of the Justice Department, which under the VRA has the power to throw out their redistricting plans if it deems the racial gerrymandering to be insufficient.

Louisiana is about to provide a prime example of how fucked up this whole thing is.  The state has experienced dramatic population loss over the last decade and is going to lose a congressional seat as a result of this Census.  Because of Hurricane Katrina, the bulk of that population loss was from the 2nd District (New Orleans) and the 3rd District (Houma, the Missississippi Delta, the Atchafalaya, etc.).  One example of a sensible redistricting plan that takes the loss of one seat into account would be to expand the 2nd District to take in about half of the current 3rd; and then expanding the 7th District (Lafayette and Lake Charles) eastward to swallow up the other half.  This would turn the current overwhelmingly-Democrat 2nd into much more of a swing seat, and really there's no justification for New Orleans, with its population down to around 300,000, to continue to enjoy the little geographical carve-out it currently has.

Thanks to the VRA, Louisiana won't be able to do this or anything else like this that would actually make sense.  Instead, it HAS to keep the 2nd District, which now accomodates a city a little over half the size it was a decade ago, basically as-is or the Justice Dept. will just throw the state's proposed map right back in its face.  The seat from which most of the population loss came will be untouched; instead, the state will be forced to fuck around with the lines of the other five districts.  Blacks will continue to be packed into the 2nd in exactly the manner Barone's article describes, because the state will have no other choice.

But don't you ever suggest that the 45-year-old VRA is long overdue for some serious revision, or John Lewis will march up to a microphone and tell the world that it's just like he's having fire hoses turned on him all over again.

74

Take a hike racist.  Birth rates among African-Americans is about the same or lower than caucasions, and Mexico is at zero population growth already... their immigration cannot continue long.

Those numbers are simply false.

Negro TFRs are above replacement level, and Mexican Indian illegal alien TFRs are astronomical.

Caucasian TFRs have been below replacement level since 1972, and Blue State Causcasian TFRs are at extinction levels [in the general vicinity of 1.47 children per woman per fertile lifetime].

Before you comment on a demographics thread, you really ought to learn a thing or two about demographics.

BTW, the Mexican Indian illegal aliens cost the taxpayer $19,588 per family per year when they first arrive, and $22,449 per family per year after they are mainstreamed into the welfare state.

So your average Caucasian child, born circa 2000, will, when he graduates from college, circa 2022, be asked to come up with more than $20,000 per year in taxes just to support the 50% of his compatriots who are either Negro or Mexican Indian.

And that's on top of the $30,000 or more he'll be needing to cough up for his Baby Boomer grandparents on Social Security and Medicare.

The numbers just don't add up - kids can't graduate from college with a $40,000 or $50,000 per year ad infinitum millstone hung about their necks.

The system will necessarily implode, collapse, and disappear - too many low IQ fertile young people and high IQ barren old people is a recipe for extinction.

 

75 Do be careful: one drop of that could turn you all into hermit crabs.

76 Majority-minority or majority-moronity?

77 Child, puhleeze!

I'll show you gerrymandering!

78 I've been saying for a while now that gerrymandering only works during "normal" times.  When times are abnormal and the electorate irate, it can generate massive swings.

79

As soon  as People  go the the welfare office they ask "are you a registered DEMOCRATE yet"  They go to the front of the line while if you say Im already registered in another party you go to the Back... With the amount of Jobs lost you can see How the Dems will fill the voting gap .. that and granting amnesty and citizenship to all of Mexico...