I have seen more than a few replies to this that are some version of “what about article 2?!?!?,” and the answer is, the state legislative power to set the manner in which states allocate electors has never been understood to be absolute, at all times.
meaning, states legislatures can say how they will choose electors at any point up to the election. but once they choose, and once the election is held, they are bound by that choice.
the new theory is to say, in essence, that they are not bound by the choice, and state legislatures can retroactively change the manner in which they choose electors, provided some pretext. which is obvious nonsense.
put another way, if this were a thing that could be done, it would have already happened! the first twenty years of competitive presidential elections saw state legislatures regularly change their methods of allocating electors to whatever would bolster their party’s choice.
exactly this! the foundation of the theory is the idea that state legislatures in some way precede the authority of state constitutions, and are not subject to any constraints, as if they somehow represent the organic general will of “the people” of the state
also “republicans take responsibility for the actions of your party” challenge
“character” as lewis seems to define it here is overrated and does not have that much bearing on presidential decision making but if we’re evaluating candidates using conventional measures of “good character” then it is a little weird to make obama a foil to, say, romney.
it makes sense that american political observers would obsess over language to explain political outcomes to the exclusion of material and ideological realities, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating to see
the “independent state legislature” theory that state legislatures have plenary power to control elections up to and including throwing out the results is well on its way to GOP orthodoxy theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
of course, the theory makes no sense — state legislatures are not independent entities that somehow precede all other political authority — but whether it makes sense is less important than whether it provides a pretext for the unrestrained exercise of power, and it does.
also, as a few folks have noted, we ostensibly settled this question of state legislative authority in a little conflict we like to call the American Civil War
rewatching BLACK DYNAMITE and i have to say that the fight between black dynamite and the fiendish dr. wu is legit good and well choreographed
also! i always forget how funny tommy davidson is in this
underrated gag is when the black dynamite/nixon fight moves to the lincoln bedroom and nixon grabs “the gun that assassinated abraham lincoln,” which is just mounted on the wall
this is what i want to see. let’s just start dropping the predator in different periods of time. give me a predator set in meiji-era japan, or one set in the late republic era of rome.
for what it’s worth, i really liked that PREDATORS movie, the one with adrian brody
yeah, from the predator’s perspective humanity is just like, the ultimate hunting challenge. and so every so often some top predator warrior shows up on earth to prove their worth