They're also calling for abolishing the 2 senators per state rule, because they think they deserve more (once again, showing they know zero about civics).
I wonder how the DC statehood people feel about that. After a long hard fight, the scrappy little city takes its place among the states. Its two senators are seated in that august hall. The elder member, who has long yearned for this moment, rises to present the new state's hopes and plans to the Senate. But he is told, "Will the member from DC please remain seated. The 55 senators from California are next in the speaking order."
If Airman Snuffy need a Secret or higher clearance to read an Air Force Technical Order on how to grease a trailer wheel then election officials should have that same or higher level of scrutiny when counting ballots.
But remember, people suddenly become paragons of integrity when they're in charge of counting ballots, honest.
It's very hard
not to get a Secret clearance, but I don't doubt there are election workers who would fail. What I'm thinking is the DHS SLTPS clearance program could be expanded to grant or deny national security eligibility to personnel who have access to ballots. That would be a huge number of cases, but you'd only have to do it for each person once. As long as they work the next House election, they stay within the 2 year lifetime of a national security eligibility determination. When the next election comes around, you put them in Continuous Evaluation, adjudicate any hits, and they're good to go. When the election ends, you take them out of CE.
Constitutionally, this would all depend on the state legislatures of course. They'd have to decide to do this, create an MOU with DHS, appropriate funding for it, and ensure officials took action on denials. It would be a big undertaking. Maybe the Feds, under a Republican government, could give them grants. Or maybe it's just overkill.
Where does this hatred of flyover country come from? I mean, their popular vote they love was only decided by California in 2016, and all these hotspots of contention this year are all big cities surrounded by rural, states that have cities described as “eclectic cultural centers”, or cities with minority populations that get puffy profile pieces whether it’s minorities thriving and being a big deal in society, mayors standing up to Trump, community organizers, or sites of big protests relating to BLM and social justice (Las Vegas, Atlanta, Phoenix, Philly and Pittsburgh, Detroit, and am I missing any?),
The US has always had some kind of divisional crisis, but I think the current one is heavily influenced by the mass media. The national media is headquartered in New York and California. It presents NYC and Los Angeles as normative, or at least aspirational, images of America. So the kind of people who believe what they see on TV tend to align with NYC/LA thinking, no matter where they are located. And for many years the NYC/LA media has presented flyover country as some weird place that is intrinsically unfulfilling or, at worst, terrifying. They think we all live on farms, or in bedroom communities with no character, full of housewives slowly going insane because they don't have poetry slams or whatever. And they think rural areas are full of inbreds who will rape and murder you. (I am only very slightly inbred, and would never murder anyone.) And meth. Everyone's on meth. Or are we doing oxy now? I guess it depends on whether you just binged Breaking Bad or Justified.
