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[Toxi]

The more you increase the size of the House, the more you increase the extent to which the electoral outcome does not match the vote well. If you picked any 10km^2 area and looked at the people there, very few of these areas will have average demographics that will match America's average demographics, because similar people economically, socially, and racially tend to cluster. You get a sorting effect, where each district will tend to be more lopsided than if they were larger with fewer and fewer close district, and social demographics that feature less clustering will receive a disproportionately large amount of representation. In America, that's the Republicans.

(There's a fairly complicated proof of this, but you can sort of imagine: if America was a single district that elected a single person, they'd be D, because America is. If you cut America into two districts, you'd either have D/D or D/R - there's no way to cut it into R/R. If you cut America into three districts, you could have D/R/R, D/D/R, or D/D/D - you can start packing Democratic voters into just one of the districts to create more and more Republican voters. As you increase the number of districts, the extent to which the house becomes dominated by the least packed party increases. This process happens naturally just through population movement patterns.)

So if you increase the membership of the House, you do give more power to larger states, but you also make larger states more Republican in the House at the same time.

Couldn't this simply be fixed by proper districting?

...Which won't happen, and is hard to define.

Still, it rankles to see the House of Representatives not actually representative of the population.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Kids, stay in school and learn so you don't recreate this mess in the future. A walkout does nothing.

It's one day.

Frankly solidarity is needed to keep people ready to fight.

 

[DontBeThatGuy]

People keep saying this, and I don't think it's true. I've been playing with the data a bit, and what I notice is that through almost the entire race - right back from May - Clinton's share of the vote in national polls remain constant. Doesn't go up, doesn't go down, just sits pretty on about 48% - which was more or less the actual result. What does change throughout the race is Trump's share going up, Trump having a 'scandal', then Trump's share going down, and undecided increasing, then repeat. I think the overwhelming majority of undecided voters were always going to break to Trump. Comey's email drop wasn't what caused that; these were always people who were tempted by Trump's "bring back the jobs" but put off by his "pussy grabber", if you see what I mean.

It's convenient to blame Comey, but even if you remove him from the equation, I'm not convinced Clinton wins.

It really didn't help. That was a solid week and a half of negative press for Clinton, and that's some bullshit.

 

[DontBeThatGuy]

Kids, stay in school and learn so you don't recreate this mess in the future. A walkout does nothing.

Missing a half day of school to participate in something far more important is a better use of one's time.

 

[metalslimer]

Kids, stay in school and learn so you don't recreate this mess in the future. A walkout does nothing.

And neither does the protests. It's an outlet so they don't fall into despair.
One of the undertold stories of this election is how devastating it has been for kids especially those of color.

And I highly doubt these are the kids you need to worry about.

 

[whyamihere]

Vox did a good look at what's going on with Pelosi's potential fight for caucus leadership:

http://www.vox.com/2016/11/15/13637942/house-democrats-leadership-fight

You see the two sides of the party potentially fighting already in this caucus:

The strength and weakness of Pelosi’s position is that there are a bunch of different complaints with her, some of which are contradictory while others are complementary:

The party needs a new face: A Republican Party administration in Washington makes a “wave” election inspired by an anti-Trump backlash a plausible scenario for 2018. But House districts have been drawn in such a way that a wave would need to win plenty of seats that are 4 or 5 percentage points more Republican-leaning than the national average to win. Candidates running in those kind of districts would benefit from running under the banner of a leader whom Republican-leaning voters don’t already have strong preexisting negative opinions about. That means Not Nancy Pelosi, though basically anyone else on the planet would do.

The party needs to moderate to win the white working class: On Twitter, the idea of a strategy oriented toward the white working class is heavily associated with the left-wing program of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. On Capitol Hill, the members of the Democratic Party who have successfully run and won elections in heavily white working-class constituencies tend to be moderates like Joe Manchin, Heidi Heitkamp, and Joe Donnelly. These members note that Evan Bayh ran way ahead of Hillary Clinton in Indiana, and that Clinton ran on a policy platform that was much more left-wing than Barack Obama’s. They think there is a proven formula for winning elections that progressives have willfully blinded themselves to since 2010, and that now is the time to turn it around.

The party needs to move to the left: This is the view of the Sanders wing of the party, which now regrets that Rep. Keith Ellison is running to chair the Democratic National Committee because he seems like the kind of member who could theoretically spearhead a cross-racial left-wing coalition to recommit House Democrats to progressive policies. Pelosi herself was considered a leader of the party’s left wing 15 years ago, but a decade spent in leadership growing closer to donors and vulnerable members at a time when the party as a whole has shifted left has somewhat cut her out from her base.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Couldn't this simply be fixed by proper districting?

...Which won't happen.

Not really, no. It's... actually close to impossible to draw districts that don't favour the Republicans. The reason is that urban areas are SUPER heavily Democrat, but rural areas are only somewhat Republican. Imagine that your state was in 2D. Its voter distribution looks like this:

R R D R R D {D D D}

The bit in the brackets is a city, to the left are rural voters. There are 5 Democrats and 4 Republicans, but you'll note that it is not possible to draw contiguous districts that don't favour the Republicans. The most compact is this:

| R R D | R R D | {D D D} |

So we get 2 Republican representatives and 1 Democratic representative, just because you can't draw it any other way and the Democrats are more clustered.

It's hard to convey in 3D so you'll forgive the 2D example for being pretty simplistic, I hope, but the US 'naturally' gerrymanders over time because all the Democrats move to the same place. Even if you had computer-algorithm determined districts which sought to maximize equal-population compactness and nothing more, there would still be a fairly large Republican bias to the House - iirc about +4 or something. That's still less than now because there are also partisan gerrymanders on top, so there's room to be done, but your suggestion - increasing the size of the House - actually increases the Republican bias even with entirely non-partisan redistricting.

The only way to overcome this is: to encourage Democrats to move out into the sticks OR introduce multimember districts, one of which is impossible and the other unconstitutional.

Basically: the House will always have a Republican bias as long as it is the party of rural voters, and there's basically nothing you can do about it. Because there are more rural states than urban states, the Senate will always have a Republican bias, and there's basically nothing you can do about it, and for the same reason, the electoral college will always have a Republican bias, and, once again, very little you can do.

This doesn't mean that the Republicans will always win, obviously, because the electorate might end up with a Democratic lean given current demographic changes - even if rural voters are overweighted, soon they'll be outnumbered. But it will probably always be true that the Democratic party would get less representation than the Republican party for the same amount of votes.

This is true of almost all FPTP systems - the party of the rural vote almost always has an advantage. It's not always true - the UK briefly went the other way for the '00s because between the 2001 and 2011 censuses there was a movement from the cities to the countryside (a suburbanization) which meant that there were less people in urban seats than rural ones, which sort of corrected the normal gap, but it didn't last long and is unlikely to be seen often because the movement towards cities is the story most modern economies.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

Why did Christie humiliate himself considering that he put Trump's son-in-law's dad in prison?

What did he think was going to happen?

 

[numble]

If California's incompetence with regards to counting votes leads to a false narrative developing...

That state is so great so why can't it count votes?

Californians just need to postmark their mail-in ballots by Election Day. They can put their ballots in the mail that afternoon and it might not get to the registrar for a couple of days.

 

[metalslimer]

So I completely agree there that there needs to be compromise at the state level to win races and we can't run far left candidates in KS and expect to win. So yeah where I'm getting lost in some of the Sanders wing arguments is that they are arguing that the caucus is not left enough?

Maybe I'm wrong but after the Obamacare fight I've always had a respect for Pelosi.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

So I completely agree there that there needs to be compromise at the state level to win races and we can't run far left candidates in KS and expect to win. So yeah where I'm getting lost in some of the Sanders wing arguments is that they are arguing that the caucus is not left enough?

I think they believe you can appeal to these people by going far left and explaining why the far left is better and how the right has failed them.

I'm not convinced that's a winning strategy at all.

 

[Abinash117]

Vox did a good look at what's going on with Pelosi's potential fight for caucus leadership:

http://www.vox.com/2016/11/15/13637942/house-democrats-leadership-fight

You see the two sides of the party potentially fighting already in this caucus:

All the sides are right. We need to be progressive to run on Hillary/Bernie -like platform, but not reach too far that can turnoff people that will be critical to have, and a message to appeal to some of the WWC. We also need more younger leaders.

 

[StopMakingSense]

Californians just need to postmark their mail-in ballots by Election Day. They can put their ballots in the mail that afternoon and it might not get to the registrar for a couple of days.

And the resources for vote counting after election day are hilariously small.

 

[excelsiorlef]

I will says I love that hindsight on Clinton and Wisconsin


Also accepting full scale the narrative that it's all Clinton's fault and only Clinton's fault will fucking doom the party moving forward.

 

[Brawly Likes to Brawl]

Why did Christie humiliate himself considering that he put Trump's son-in-law's dad in prison?

What did he think was going to happen?

I think attaching himself to Trump was a panic button Christie pressed because of how big that bridgegate scandal was.

 

[Brawly Likes to Brawl]

Audio of the chant mentioned earlier

Interesting seeing the deplorables rushing to throw shade at teenagers in the #dcpswalkout hashtag

Video of a teen protester being interviewed

 

[Loudninja]

Kids, stay in school and learn so you don't recreate this mess in the future. A walkout does nothing.

What is your deal seriously?

These kids trying to make their voices heard something we all should be proud of.

 

[IggyChooChoo]

Not really, no. It's... actually close to impossible to draw districts that don't favour the Republicans. The reason is that urban areas are SUPER heavily Democrat, but rural areas are only somewhat Republican. Imagine that your state was in 2D. Its voter distribution looks like this:

R R D R R D {D D D}

The bit in the brackets is a city, to the left are rural voters. There are 5 Democrats and 4 Republicans, but you'll note that it is not possible to draw contiguous districts that don't favour the Republicans. The most compact is this:

| R R D | R R D | {D D D} |

So we get 2 Republican representatives and 1 Democratic representative, just because you can't draw it any other way and the Democrats are more clustered.

It's hard to convey in 3D so you'll forgive the 2D example for being pretty simplistic, I hope, but the US 'naturally' gerrymanders over time because all the Democrats move to the same place. Even if you had computer-algorithm determined districts which sought to maximize equal-population compactness and nothing more, there would still be a fairly large Republican bias to the House - iirc about +4 or something. That's still less than now because there are also partisan gerrymanders on top, so there's room to be done, but your suggestion - increasing the size of the House - actually increases the Republican bias even with entirely non-partisan redistricting.

The only way to overcome this is: to encourage Democrats to move out into the sticks OR introduce multimember districts, one of which is impossible and the other unconstitutional.

Basically: the House will always have a Republican bias as long as it is the party of rural voters, and there's basically nothing you can do about it. Because there are more rural states than urban states, the Senate will always have a Republican bias, and there's basically nothing you can do about it, and for the same reason, the electoral college will always have a Republican bias, and, once again, very little you can do.

This doesn't mean that the Republicans will always win, obviously, because the electorate might end up with a Democratic lean given current demographic changes - even if rural voters are overweighted, soon they'll be outnumbered. But it will probably always be true that the Democratic party would get less representation than the Republican party for the same amount of votes.

This is true of almost all FPTP systems - the party of the rural vote almost always has an advantage. It's not always true - the UK briefly went the other way for the '00s because between the 2001 and 2011 censuses there was a movement from the cities to the countryside (a suburbanization) which meant that there were less people in urban seats than rural ones, which sort of corrected the normal gap, but it didn't last long and is unlikely to be seen often because the movement towards cities is the story most modern economies.

I've heard people say that Dems are naturally inefficiently distributed (self-packing) before, but this is a very helpful illustration of the concept.

 

[Gruco]

After the fact the 47% of country could support an incompetent insane racist fascist demagogue, the most surprising thing about the election is learning that Yglesias had this kind of fire buried in him all this time.

 

[Joeytj]

Tulsi Gabbard does seem like an "inspired" choice to replace Pelosi, but obviously she lacks the seniority. Steny Hoyer will likely fight for the position, but maybe Xavier Becerra could too?

That's the problem the Democrats have right now. There's no Obama or obvious leader waiting in the wings.

There's Warren, Bernie right now doing a good job of saving the Dems some face after Hillary's loss, Keith Ellison, etc. But none of them are sure leaders four years out.

My biggest fear is that the Democrats end of nominating in 2020 another Dukakis or Mondale in the face of Trump (not that he's a Reagan...).

After Obama leaves office, he and the rest of the party, everyone (even the Clintons) need to take the election of a new DNC chair as a time for massive soul searching and strategizing. By that time (March 2017), we will know exactly what kind of president Trump will be and they can more clearly work on that.

 

[metalslimer]

I cant see Gabbard leading a bag of rocks let alone being minority leader.

 

[TheOfficeMut]

Anyone have statistics on what the electorate makeup is expected to be by 2018 and 2020 and how they will compare to 2016?

 

[Doc Holliday]

Keepin' 1600 is up

 

[excelsiorlef]

Tulsi Gabbard does seem like an "inspired" choice to replace Pelosi, but obviously she lacks the seniority. Steny Hoyer will likely fight for the position, but maybe Xavier Becerra could too?

That's the problem the Democrats have right now. There's no Obama or obvious leader waiting in the wings.

There's Warren, Bernie right now doing a good job of saving the Dems some face after Hillary's loss, Keith Ellison, etc. But none of them are sure leaders four years out.

My biggest fear is that the Democrats end of nominating in 2020 another Dukakis or Mondale in the face of Trump (not that he's a Reagan...).

After Obama leaves office, he and the rest of the party, everyone (even the Clintons) need to take the election of a new DNC chair as a time for massive soul searching and strategizing. By that time (March 2017), we will know exactly what kind of president Trump will be and they can more clearly work on that.

Tulsi literally is only spoken of because she endorsed Sanders ... that's her entire "qualification"

 

[Dominican Power]

Christie keeps getting sonned.

 

[Debirudog]

Gabbard...

Why on earth do people want Gabbard.

 

[Gruco]

http://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=149CA4EF-C494-4824-88D4-D0DBA7820980

With the U.S. presidential transition underway, Vladimir Putin has said in recent days that he wants to improve relations with the United States. We should place as much faith in such statements as any other made by a former KGB agent who has plunged his country into tyranny, murdered his political opponents, invaded his neighbors, threatened America’s allies, and attempted to undermine America’s elections.

The Obama Administration’s last attempt at resetting relations with Russia culminated in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and military intervention in the Middle East. At the very least, the price of another ‘reset’ would be complicity in Putin and Assad’s butchery of the Syrian people. That is an unacceptable price for a great nation. When America has been at its greatest, it is when we have stood on the side those fighting tyranny. That is where we must stand again.

McCain is never running for office again and is primarily motivated by media praise and spitting in the eyes of the people he lost elections to. He didn't lose to Trump, but close enough.

Along with Paul, Murkowski, Collins, and maybe a couple others, he is someone to watch.

Grahm and McCain together could make life hell for Trump if they so chose.

 

[Plinko]

http://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=149CA4EF-C494-4824-88D4-D0DBA7820980




McCain is never running for office again and is primarily motivated by media praise and spitting in the eyes of the people he lost elections to. He didn't lose to Trump, but close enough.

Along with Paul, Murkowski, Collins, and maybe a couple others, he is someone to watch.

Grahm and McCain together could make life hell for Trump if they so chose.

Everybody keeps talking about making life hard for Trump.

We need people to make life hard for Paul Ryan.

 

[studyguy]

Californians just need to postmark their mail-in ballots by Election Day. They can put their ballots in the mail that afternoon and it might not get to the registrar for a couple of days.

My girlfriend's sister apparently didn't bother till the night of to mail it out. I was like... I don't even know when they'll count those if at all.

Keepin' 1600 is up

Keepin' it SERIOUS AS FUCK now

 

[Totakeke]

http://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=149CA4EF-C494-4824-88D4-D0DBA7820980




McCain is never running for office again and is primarily motivated by media praise and spitting in the eyes of the people he lost elections to. He didn't lose to Trump, but close enough.

Along with Paul, Murkowski, Collins, and maybe a couple others, he is someone to watch.

Grahm and McCain together could make life hell for Trump if they so chose.

Definitely, if he ever wants to redeem himself this is the time to do it.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

I don't think Gabbard would go for minority leader - she'll be harboring presidential ambitions.

 

[Hindl]

Everybody keeps talking about making life hard for Trump.

We need people to make life hard for Paul Ryan.

There's nothing we can really do about Paul Ryan. Just gotta hope McConnell is smart enough to realize that this is a very flimsy wave election and that people are expecting things to be better, and block a lot of Ryan's crazier ideas.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Gabbard...

Why on earth do people want Gabbard.

Because she chose Sanders and no knows anything else about her and they don't care to either.

Same reason Tim Canova became a guy to support

 

[whyamihere]

So I just noticed that last Tuesday was Danny Tarkanian's 5th (!!) loss.

2004 Nevada State Senate: Lost to Democrat Michael A. Schneider
2006 Secretary of State: Lost to Democrat Ross Miller
2010 U.S. Senate: Lost to Republican Sharron Angle in the primary (came in 3rd)
2012 NV-4: Lost to Democrat Steven Horsford
2016 NV-3: Lost to Democrat Jacky Rosen

 

[excelsiorlef]

I don't think Gabbard would go for minority leader - she'll be harboring presidential ambitions.

What a fucking disaster that would be.

 

[whyamihere]

I don't think Gabbard would go for minority leader - she'll be harboring presidential ambitions.

Gross.

 

[Plinko]

It's one day.

Frankly solidarity is needed to keep people ready to fight.

Missing a half day of school to participate in something far more important is a better use of one's time.

And neither does the protests. It's an outlet so they don't fall into despair.
One of the undertold stories of this election is how devastating it has been for kids especially those of color.

And I highly doubt these are the kids you need to worry about.

What is your deal seriously?

These kids trying to make their voices heard something we all should be proud of.

Believe me--I feel for these kids. I do. Every person of color, every person in the lower- and lower-middle class (like myself) is going to suffer over the next few years. I'm right there with them in feeling this way.

I'm not against protests. Let's be honest, though: a high school walkout produces what? They walk out today, come back tomorrow and realize, "Oh wait, nothing changed." Do it again, and nothing changes. Won't that have a negative effect on this group? The feeling that you actually don't make a difference? You think the furthest right party we have had in control in ages is going to care what these kids do on a day or two? We've got a party leader willing to destroy Medicare, which provides health care to the biggest voting group for his own party. These people in power DO NOT CARE. Of course the democrats care, but they're ALREADY fighting this.

That's why I said they would be better off staying in school. Pay attention in government classes. Learn how to be involved. Learn how to run for office. Take over and fix things. I love these kids for this. As a teacher, I'm very, very proud of them. Just think it would be better time spent focusing on other things.

 

[whyamihere]

@passantino
Breaking: Denver becomes first city in US to allow pot in bars, restaurants - AP

POT IN BARS! POT IN BARS!

(Until AG Kobach does raids on every single marijuana supplier)

 

[Gruco]

Random thought.

The 2008 election, and to a lesser extent 2012, has endless dialogue about Wall Street vs Main Street. Never came up in 2016. But I think people may underestimate how helpful this rhetoric was for Obama.

 

[BotoxAgent]

I don't think Gabbard would go for minority leader - she'll be harboring presidential ambitions.

fuck no

 

[metalslimer]

Random thought.

The 2008 election, and to a lesser extent 2012, has endless dialogue about Wall Street vs Main Street. Never came up in 2016. But I think people may underestimate how helpful this rhetoric was for Obama.

Never came up? It was the theme of the Democratic primaries.

Also Gabbards speech at the DNC nominating Bernie blew.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Gross.

Why? I don't have a strong opinion either way, because as I've said before, I don't think anyone should be judged until the 2020 primaries, but Gabbard's policy positions are better than a lot of Democrats. The only worrying stuff is what her stance used to be on LGBT rights, but she changed her stance in 2004 and actively campaigned for gay marriage from 2013 onwards, which means her gay marriage timeline is... basically the same as Clinton's. I feel like most of you don't like Gabbard because she spoke out quite strongly against Clinton, which seems somewhat hypocritical when you make fun of 'the Sanders wing' for disliking people on no other basis than speaking out against Sanders.

 

[Plinko]

Check out @AJentleson's twitter for a rundown of what Harry Reid just said in the Senate. Great stuff. Demanding Bannon be not let anywhere near the White House.

Reid is going to be fun to listen to over the next few years.

 

[B-Dubs]

POT IN BARS! POT IN BARS!

(Until AG Kobach does raids on every single marijuana supplier)

How long until a pot bar opens? We all need to make a pilgrimage to Denver.

Why? I don't have a strong opinion either way, because as I've said before, I don't think anyone should be judged until the 2020 primaries, but Gabbard's policy positions are better than a lot of Democrats. The only worrying stuff is what her stance used to be on LGBT rights, but she changed her stance in 2004 and actively campaigned for gay marriage from 2013 onwards, which means her gay marriage timeline is... basically the same as Clinton's. I feel like most of you don't like Gabbard because she spoke out quite strongly against Clinton, which seems somewhat hypocritical when you make fun of 'the Sanders wing' for disliking people on no other basis than speaking out against Sanders.

What about her stance on Muslims? She's islamophobic. It ain't good, and neither are her ties to Mohdi. Frankly she's not the person I want running the party given what it's winning coalition looks like.

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

Why? I don't have a strong opinion either way, because as I've said before, I don't think anyone should be judged until the 2020 primaries, but Gabbard's policy positions are better than a lot of Democrats. The only worrying stuff is what her stance used to be on LGBT rights, but she changed her stance in 2004 and actively campaigned for gay marriage from 2013 onwards, which means her gay marriage timeline is... basically the same as Clinton's. I feel like most of you don't like Gabbard because she spoke out quite strongly against Clinton, which seems somewhat hypocritical when you make fun of 'the Sanders wing' for disliking people on no other basis than speaking out against Sanders.

Are you saying her Islamophobia isn't worrying?

 

[whyamihere]

Why? I don't have a strong opinion either way, because as I've said before, I don't think anyone should be judged until the 2020 primaries, but Gabbard's policy positions are better than a lot of Democrats. The only worrying stuff is what her stance used to be on LGBT rights, but she changed her stance in 2004 and actively campaigned for gay marriage from 2013 onwards, which means her gay marriage timeline is... basically the same as Clinton's. I feel like most of you don't like Gabbard because she spoke out quite strongly against Clinton, which seems somewhat hypocritical when you make fun of 'the Sanders wing' for disliking people on no other basis than speaking out against Sanders.

No. I don't care about Gabbard's opinion on Bernie. I've already stated many times my support of Keith Ellison for DNC chair. I don't like her because of her history of Islamaphobia, which has been well-documented and pointed out many times.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Believe me--I feel for these kids. I do. Every person of color, every person in the lower- and lower-middle class (like myself) is going to suffer over the next few years. I'm right there with them in feeling this way.

I'm not against protests. Let's be honest, though: a high school walkout produces what? They walk out today, come back tomorrow and realize, "Oh wait, nothing changed." Do it again, and nothing changes. Won't that have a negative effect on this group? The feeling that you actually don't make a difference? You think the furthest right party we have had in control in ages is going to care what these kids do on a day or two? We've got a party leader willing to destroy Medicare, which provides health care to the biggest voting group for his own party. These people in power DO NOT CARE. Of course the democrats care, but they're ALREADY fighting this.

That's why I said they would be better off staying in school. Pay attention in government classes. Learn how to be involved. Learn how to run for office. Take over and fix things. I love these kids for this. As a teacher, I'm very, very proud of them. Just think it would be better time spent focusing on other things.

It is one freaking day. They aren't dropping out of school to protest forever.

Your argument is nonsense. They aren’t going to miss those lessons over one day.

 

[Gruco]

Never came up? It was the theme of the Democratic primaries.

In the general I mean.

Even in the primaries I heard much more in the way of "break up the banks" than "policies are good for wall street but bad for main street"

 

[Nazgul_Hunter]

So; if Hillary Clinton had won the presidency with 1m+ fewer votes than Trump, the GOP would be calling her an illegitimate president, no mandate, etc.

Should Dems do that? Do they even have it in them to do it? I think Warren would be a perfect attack dog for that.

 

[Plinko]

It is one freaking day. They aren't dropping out of school to protest forever.

Your argument is nonsense. They aren’t going to miss those lessons over one day.

Read it again. That wasn't my main point. The more important part is them realizing at an early age that they have no real influence. That leads to apathy.

Look--if these kids are walking out and spending all that time calling Senators and Representatives, I'm all for it. I doubt that is what is happening.