At Jeff Pulver's 2018 Spring Monage conference, I got to see Michael Allman give a talk entitled Blockchain and Voting. While the blockchain aspect of it is probably why he was on the agenda, to me that's a secondary factor. What I found most interesting is the idea of what Allman calls "direct democracy." In this model, he commits to voting as his constituency desires, issue by issue. Allman is running on the Republican ticket and describes himself as socially progressive and fiscally conservative "almost libertarian on some issues," he says. Allman will use a system he's created called Voterfied.com to poll constituents and get their views on issues. He then commits to voting with those results, regardless of his personal preference or his party's platform.

Direct democracy is where people vote on the issues, and however they vote, that is how I will vote in Congress. Instead of me telling the voters how I am going to vote, they are going to tell me how to vote. It is giving political power back to the people, which is where it belongs.

For the first time, voters can have a say on an issue-by-issue basis. Anyone registered in my district can cast their votes on important questions of the day through a website or mobile app I have created. I will be guided by the results of these votes, not by special interests, lobbyists, or anyone else.

I love the idea. Anything that tries to move past the existing two-party, identity politics stranglehold is a good thing. Now, I can't actually vote for candidate Allman because I don't live in San Diego County, the 52nd district, where he is running, but I support what he is doing. Of course, I don't expect either party to be particularly open to this approach. They want candidates that vote along party lines. But if the people start to demand it, maybe they will have no choice. That's what Allman and his team hopes.

And his campaign accepts Bitcoin too 😃

During the campaign, Mr. Obama told us:

"As President, I will uphold the constitutional rights of law-abiding gun-owners, hunters, and sportsmen. I know that what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne."

He was responding to the landmark Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, which established that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms—not a collective one. Until this case, the Supreme Court never ruled, one way or the other on the matter, and now they have.

Then, after winning, Obama selected outspoken gun control advocate Eric Holder to serve as his attorney general. Throughout his career, Holder has argued in favor of the collective rights interpretation of the Second Amendment. During his confirmation hearings, when asked about this and his support for sweeping and restrictive gun control measures, he reluctantly said "the Supreme Court has spoken" - with a huge smirk on his face.

Such arrogance is bad news. This guy is the law now and clearly intends to ignore the Supreme Court and leading liberal legal scholars on the matter of the Second Amendment as an individual right and continue with his own interpretation of the Bill of Rights in general. Great. Didn't we have enough of such arrogance for the last eight years?

The Huffington Post has fun with their story about Richard Dreyfus' appearance on The View today, including video, showing the Academy Award winning actor railing about the Oliver Stone "W" movie (wherein Dreyfus lays down an excellent performance of Dick Cheney, BTW). They decided to make a big deal about Dreyfus being critical of Stone and the film being too soft on Bush - their headline includes the flame bait "Calls Oliver Stone A Fascist." Such is good for getting clicks to your page I guess, but it leaves out the best part of the segment.

Dreyfus goes on to explain, with some eloquence, the necessity in a democratic republic, to teach civics in public schools. The Huffington Post video cuts off before that point, but the video below includes his passionate plea (starting about 5:45 into the clip).