Interesting Links for 18-03-2016

[andrewducker]

Sugar tax: What is the UK's most sugary drink? (tags: sugar drinking uk tax ) Reality Check: How soon can Turkey join the EU? (tags: turkey eu ) Why Osborne’s sugar tax is half baked (tags: sugar tax uk viaPatrickHadfield ) What's going on with the UK and sin taxes? (tags: tax uk viaPatrickHadfield ) I have never wanted to be Taylor Swift more

Comments

[kalimac]

Without plunging into the existing discussions on this topic, the article on the US contingent election (that's the term for the situation being described here) is seriously half-baked.

No, Congress cannot "pick whomever they damn well please." They are limited to the top 3 candidates in electoral votes.

Second, the article completely ignores the outcry that would ensue if someone other than the leading candidate were chosen. Saying that Congress has the right to exercise its judgment misses the point: the quality of its judgment will also be judged, and the principle that the presidency morally belongs to the candidate with the greatest popular vote has grown over the years.

The article disingenuously doesn't mention what happened after the choice of 1825. Jackson and his allies were furious that he, the leading candidate, was rejected in favor of the runner-up, and they did everything they could to wreck his presidency - and succeeded, the result being that Jackson was overwhelmingly elected over Adams in a two-man race the next time around.

And if Jackson (who strongly resembled Trump in personality and governmental style) was angry, just imagine how angry the Trumpies would be.

That's leaving aside the practical problem of, if the establishment Republicans secede and run their own candidate, who are they going to get? Romney? Who'd vote for him again? He'd be lucky to do as well as Perot in '92. Ryan? Rubio? Cruz? Don't make me laugh. Remember that Trump's strength was not so much a function of his own initial numbers as of the weakness of everybody else.

2) I don't understand the article about Turkey and the EU at all. Migrants from the Mideast can be kept in Turkey only by removing the visa controls between Turkey and the EU? What?

3) I'm not asexual, but I feel their pain. I've often had the experience of being told that I'm lying about my dislikes and detestations and that I must like something that "everybody" else enjoys. Large swathes of contemporary pop music are the most frequent subject of this.