Oct
19
2025

Just Sayin': I Have a Fix For This

This has been a sore spot for me for a long time, Mario. I proposed my fix back in 2017. In the 8 years since I thought it up, I've only grown fonder of the idea. It is a "proportional representation" scheme where I am not kidding about the proportionality.

What does it mean to be "represented" in (specifically) the US House of Representatives? Since 2017, my CongressCritters have been steadfast Democrats, who (frankly) have shown zero interest in even listening to the (approximately) 45% of voters who voted against them.

The problem is our "winner take all" elections. I found this particularly absurd in 2016, when my district sent Carol Shea-Porter to Washington, where she wielded one entire vote in the House, after only getting 44.3% of the vote in the general election.

My reform would be simple, although requiring some Constitutional tinkering: Any candidate for the US House of Representatives who receives greater than 1% of the popular vote in the general election shall be entitled to a vote in the House equal to the fraction of the vote he or she receives.

I hasten to add this would also "solve" gerrymandering issues, much in the news of late.

So far the world has failed to embrace my fix, but I keep telling myself: it's only a matter of time.

Also of note:

  • Did you go to your local "No Kings" rally yesterday? Yeah, me neither. But Reason's Nick Gillespie did, and reported thusly: What I saw at today's No Kings rally in New York City.

    More surprisingly, the messaging, both through signs and in conversation, was focused on the real and imagined personal failings of Trump and key points of his domestic agenda, especially Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. The first demonstrations I attended were in college during the 1980s, and I always expect a smorgasbord of barely related causes to be represented at any political event. As an undergrad journalist at Rutgers, I covered tons of rallies that were supposed to be about divesting university endowment funds from companies that did business in apartheid South Africa. Two or three speakers in, the focus would inevitably wander to start talking about the funding of the contras in Nicaragua, or the need for a higher minimum wage in America, or universal health care, or stopping nuclear power, or whatever. At today's No Kings march in New York, there wasn't speechifying, but there was a surprisingly tight focus on Trump as a tyrant who needs to be impeached, stopped, or voted out.

    Yet whenever I asked someone what they hated about Trump, the answer was almost always the same: "Everything!" This was true of men and women, young and old, black and white. When pressed, they would detail a list of personal qualities and moral failings. He was gross, vulgar, a rapist, disgusting, vile, fat, stupid, mentally deficient. No one seemed particularly fazed by tariffs or spending, though some signs denounced ICE as an agency and dispatching National Guard troops to cities.

    The one exception to this general lack of specificity concerned Israel. As I already noted, I was surprised by the relative absence of kaffiyehs and anti-Israel signage. Which isn't to say there were none. There were a number of signs twinning Trump with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and accusing both of genocide. When I talked to several people wearing Palestinian flags or carrying "Jews for Palestinian Freedom" signs, they foregrounded American support for Israel at the top of Trump's sins. "Didn't he end the war, though?" I asked. "It won't last," they said, or it came too late. When I asked if Trump was as bad on Israel as Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush before him, they said yes, but Trump was the president now.

    I think people were encouraged to leave their Hamas cheerleader pom-poms at home.

  • How commie can Maine get? I guess we'll find out between now and next November. One of the candidates is getting really pushed by "progressives"; Jim Geraghty invites us to Meet the Real Graham Platner. (archive.today link)

    Barely two months ago, little-known Senate candidate Graham Platner announced his bid to unseat Republican Susan Collins and was immediately celebrated by the New York Times with a largely-glowing profile. But in recent days, other big mainstream media institutions have turned their attention to Platner and found all manner of controversial past statements, starting with CNN:

    Graham Platner, a Marine veteran turned oyster farmer who is now a rising Democratic Senate candidate in Maine, once called himself a “communist,” dismissed “all” police as bastards, and said rural White Americans “actually are” racist and stupid, according to deleted social media posts reviewed by CNN’s KFile.

    In one now-deleted Reddit comment from 2021, Platner responded to a thread about people becoming more conservative as they age by saying: “I got older and became a communist.” The comment was made on a subreddit called r/Antiwork, a far-left forum “for those who want to end work.”

    The defense from Platner is that, “I don’t think any of that is indicative of who I am today, really.” He insists that he is not a communist.

    The posts are from 2021, a whole five years ago. Platner was 37 at the time.

    Yeah, it's pretty tough to claim "young and stupid" as a defense when you're 37. Jim notes revelations from other sources, so this smells like a coordinated opposition-research thing.

    It appears Platner will be running against current governor, Janet Mills in the D-side primary. Jim also reported on her:

  • Fascists are everywhere! Check under the bed! I imagine that's a nighttime routine in the Todd Wolfson house, based on Jonathan Turley's report: AAUP President Demands Weapons Boycott on Israel and Attacks Trump Supporters as “Fascists”.

    The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has long been criticized for far-left policies and activism. Some of us have criticized the organization for ignoring academic priorities and the record-low polling on public trust in higher education. Its president, Todd Wolfson, is now taking that activism global with a boycott policy that leaves little room for faculty members who support Israel.

    I previously criticized the selection of Wolfson as the head of the AAUP. Wolfson, a Rutgers University anthropologist and former union leader, is a highly political activist who doubled down on the ideological intolerance that now defines higher education. His election was a defiant statement by faculty members that they will not yield in preserving the current ideological echochamber in our universities and colleges. He promised to keep AAUP as a “fighting organization” for liberal causes.

    And of course he was out there fighting yesterday:

Recently on the movie blog:


Last Modified 2025-10-22 6:12 AM EDT

The Naked Gun

[2 stars] [IMDB Link]

[Amazon Link]
(paid link)

I loved the old Police Squad TV show. It only lasted for six episodes in 1982.

I watched the resulting movie series with Leslie Nielsen, in 1988, 1991, and 1994. My recollection: generally OK, but not as good.

And the latest installment in the resulting movie series was free-to-me on Paramount+, my Saturday night was free, so …

Well, the comedy dropoff continues. There's a lot of mugging for the camera. (One great thing about the TV show: Leslie Nielsen and Alan North were just about always deadpan.) There's a lot of absurdity that seldom manages to be actually funny. The best jokes are the ones stolen from the previous entries.

Anyway: Liam Neeson plays Frank Drebin, Junior, trying to follow in Dad's footsteps. He's a parody of a cop who doesn't play by the rules, shooting first, asking (no) questions later, which puts him constantly at odds with his superiors. His billionaire antagonist, Richard Cane, is hatching a scheme to loose violent anarchy upon the nation, aided by a gadget named "Primitive Online Transmission", or a P.L.O.T device. (That actually got a grin from me.)

Pamela Anderson plays the love interest, who also is seeking revenge for her dead brother, sent to his doom by Cane. She's better than I would have expected!


Last Modified 2026-04-13 11:27 AM EDT