Svartalfiar
Since May 10, 2009

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So apologies, but apparently the profile list doesn;t hold formatting across..HAS to be html breaks? Sigh... I'll fix it eventually.

A working list of stuff I would do if I was given unlimited dictatorial powers for a day/week/whatever. Obviously I'd have a nice bank account filled full, but the rest is actual changes. If you're actually bored enough to come here and read this, I'm always open to suggestions, clean-ups, or other fixes.

Stuff to do if I was in charge.
A few, but not all, things that need to be done.
Note: many of these intercorrelate (ie 16/17 with taxes/voting), but are separated out into topics. Some changes may require parts of other sections to properly work.


VOTE VOTING
Election integrity should be EASY...

- Condense voting into a single weekend-ish. Polls are open 24/7 Thurs morning at 0600 until Sat night at 2200. That gives everyone almost three full days to vote, weekdays and weekend, morning, day, and night. No excuse to not have time. (Possibly condense to Fri06 through Sat22, if above is too long.)
- Indelible purple ink. Everyone dips a finger/hand/nose in it when you get your ballot. People with a purple ink hand can't vote. (Already did, duh!)
- Obviously, IDs are required. If a mostly ghetto place like India can do it for billions of people, we certainly can!
- No gimmicks like motor voter, same-day registration, provisional ballots, harvesting, etc. You vote on voting weekend, unless you qualify for either exemption below: [Possible other exceptions for elderly/medical issues? But then too easy to be abused by people that don’t truly need, or filled out by care workers instead. Hm. I think better to not have these exceptions, but open to arguments/methods otherwise. - here's an idea: only those legally disabled (80% VA or higher / equivalent) are eligible for the med absentee.]
= Early/absentee voting is ONLY for military personnel and government civilians, who are assigned overseas. (CONUS mil / other Fed is required to give soldiers/employees time to vote.) Ballots are to be sent to these people (who can request it online/phone/etc) NLT one month prior to voting weekend. (Arriving to them at that time, not being sent!) Include automatic confirmation to the voter when the ballot is received (submitted). Auto-investigation if ballot is NOT received back at all. [Possibly change this, if an online voting method is reliably and securely developed, better than a month-early ballot.]
- Every single ballot has a unique number for the voter, tear-off receipt like raffle tickets. Every submitted ballot is available online (www.vote.gov, easy!) so you can check to see how your vote was counted in the official tally. Only you know/have your number, so there's no outing of 'who voted how' info. This prevents mis-tabulations, votes being forgotten in a trunk of a car, etc etc. A high enough percentage of the populace will likely check, so faking any of this will be very difficult.
- Also, vote.gov shows complete totals for each city/county/precinct/etc, so anyone can see how many people voted in their area. [For now, metainfo saved on SD card on voting machine, uploaded later. Until we have a fully secure online-capable voting machine.]
- Every dead person is marked on the voter check-in list, and anyone attempting to vote as a dead person is held for psych eval for a minimum 72 hours (at least until voting is over) (should have a sheriff deputy at every location, State police if Sheriff's office can't handle em all at all hours).
- Voting is the location where your residence is. None of this bullcrap of letting a student town have students control the politics, when hardly any of them actually live there. Local places, however, can choose to allow non-resident voting for local stuff only (vacation home, summer home, rental home, etc owners do have a property interest in a place they may not domicile, stuff like that), but this is subject to very strict scrutiny.
- Ballots are only in the national language (English). There are extremely few cases of people who can legally vote who legitimately can't speak English: naturalized citizen, over I think 65 doesn't require English proficiency, but everyone else eligible to vote should be speaking fluent English. Requesting an interpreter requires proof of naturalization over such age.
- All total votes are reported from each precinct NLT 20min after polls close, ±5min. This prevents big cities from determining how many fake votes to add to the total when 'needed'. Each polling station has Reps from the two biggest parties (or three/four if we ever get to that point) who have to sign the count. (Or, could be just a SoS employee, but I think better to have someone from opposing major parties.) (Note this is simply total number of votes cast, not a full tabulation of how the votes went, that can be accomplished within the current usual time standards) - This is VERY simple, a hand tally by the workers of how many people come through, and compared to the tallies added from all the machines. There shouldn't be ANY surprise votes, as the total number doesn;t depend on tabulating or anything, just a count of the number of eligible people who went through each location.
- Definitely until fixes are in place, but good to keep after: EVERY SINGLE STATE is required to compare county voting lists to change-o-addresses for people moving out of each county, dead people lists, and so on. Quick n easdy way to find some places that likely have fraudulent votes.
- A minimum of 1% of counties per State, randomly determined, are audited for a full hand-recount to verify any machine counting. States with less than a 55-45 split are required to audit 2% of counties.
- All voter rolls are fully dropped (archived) after each Pres election (say, a tenday after inauguration, to give States time for any downticket runoffs before purging, but can be extended in extreme recount circumstances). You have to re-register for next time, so this helps remove dead people and people who moved to a new voting district. Also somewhat eliminates the populace that's ambivilant about voting and waits until the last minute. If you don't care enough to register on time, you obviously don't care enough to be worth an opinion in the vote.
- Registration closes two weeks before the first election day. EVERY registration is to be verified with at least one source of public info by the SoS office. Presentation of job-type identification at the time of registration is acceptable (A/B lists). .1%(?) minimum is audited each year to verify.
- All States are required to share voter info. This allows for people with vacation homes or other properties to vote in local elections affecting them (if such locality allows for it), but limits them to only primary residence for federal stuff. So really just the Pres, as States can individually determine if they allow CongressCritter voting by residents only or all property owners as well. (They shouldn't, but that's each State's call)
- And, of course, voting weekend is moved to the weekend after tax day. No-brainer. (And, tax year is shifted to match the fiscal year instead of calendar year. then voting actually lines up closely with tax time!) [THIS IS IFFY ACTUALLY. SEE TAX CHANGE SECTION]
- Mandatory minimum jail time for cases of vote fraud. These need to be serious and HURT.
- - Winning. In order to win EC votes, each State splits their votes based on their Congressional districts. (2 by State vote, rest by districts.) Note from Legislature section, these are computer-generated to be as compact and equal as possible, 50% based on population and 50% based on area. This ONLY applies as every State does it.
- Have military (NG, supplement with AD/Reserve if needed) help run/secure each voting site. They're a trusted institution, and have a much higher level of accountability and personal responsibility than Joe Shmoe off the street volunteering to help out.

RELATED:
- Primaries are relegated entirely to the parties, government is not allowed to be involved aside from potentially hosting vote locations (such as libraries, schools, rec centers, fire/police stations, etc).
- Likewise, why do you associate with a certain party for elections? There should be nothing individually party-related on an official basis. We're all, supposedly, Americans.
- Parties decide how to hold their primaries, and if they're smart, they'll come up with a formula based on Govs' and State Reps' and CongressCritters' party affiliations to determine who is the most Repub/Dem, and then time their primaries in descending order. No more of this stupid "Iowa is first" bullshit. And hey, maybe we'll finally be able to get the damn corn out of our fuel tanks!
- It would be interesting to make that part of the primary process: once a week/month, each candidate is assigned a random issue of the day, and they have to do a five to ten minute explanation to old-time Americans (17/1800s) explaining both sides of it, and why they support which side. No help from aides or other staff, they have to show, themselves, that they can understand the issue and at least half-ass an explanation.
- Likewise, Pres debates are modified to mostly eliminate the moderator. Each candidate picks an equal number of topics/questions, then they discuss amongst themselves on each bit. Say, hour-long debate is three topics each, and nine-ten minutes per. Give 2-3min alternating discussion, or mostly free-talk. Moderator's only job is to keep the debate civil. -OR- see debates section below.
- It would be awesome to limit voting to landowners/military only, but that's pretty politically impossible.

PRES DEBATES
--Someone else posted a good idea about chess clocks, and I’ll expand on it much further. Two hour debate for example, each candidate gets an hour on the clock. Moderator introduces them, then flips a coin on who goes first.
--Each candidate gets a button that does four things. Mutes their own mic, unmutes the other guy’s mic, stops their own countdown clock, and starts the other guy’s clock. They can talk as long as they want, no interruptions, but they only get half the total debate time. They also get a pen n paper to keep notes for their responses to each other.
--Moderator has a button that mutes both and freezes both clocks, but his only role is to provoke conversation if the candidates hit a stop in their debate, from a list of questions/subjects whose exact wording was agreed to by both candidates prior. Or keep things civil if it gets heated/personal, but since each candidate is in full control of handing over the mic, it should remain rather calm. And move, since going slow only hurts yourself and your clock. Plus I’m sure each candidate wants to save their time to try and be the final speaker.
--After both clocks hit zero, they each get two(?) minutes for closing thoughts, muted from each other, so there’s no further debate/rebuttals/continuation of debate from whomever goes second, it’s just a short closing speech.
--The moderator can then thank both, end the night, and remind the audience about what circus is on at 8pm eastern tonight, and/or beg everyone to watch the Cowboys and try to prop up their ratings dive.

- Likewise, Pres debates are modified to mostly eliminate the moderator. Each candidate picks an equal number of topics/questions, then they discuss amongst themselves on each bit. Say, hour-long debate is three topics each, and nine-ten minutes per. Give 2-3min alternating discussion, or mostly free-talk. (Or hey, now that it's figured out, do chess method above!) Moderator's only job is to keep the debate civil.

- multi-debates. Do 1-2 debates per candidate, where they can pick 5-10 moderators, then other campaign selects from that group. Then do direct above. Then last 2-3 debates follow the chess clock method, so moderators don't really matter, but maybe pull from some less-political people. This gives the first 2 or 4 debates where candidates can pick questions to push themselves or really go after the opponent, then the less moderated one where they can go back and forth on some agreed topics. More civil, hopefully.

** Note all of these debates are to be held in a neutral location (stadium/arena, civic center, hotel ballroom, ampitheatre, zoos, convention centers, etc.), scattered around the countrry, and can be attended/reported on by any press organization. No "home crowd" at the CNN or MSNBC or Fox studio. Candidates are REQUIRED to attend these debates to be eligible for election. Each campaign gets 1/3 of the audience tickets to be handed out at their discretion, the other 1/3 can be split between the host location, city host mayor, and debate sponsers (something's gotta pay for the location rental, AV, snacks, etc.).



Legislature
- Every single vote is on record. None of this bullshit deeming something passed, or voice vote, or such. If it's official, it's recorded.
- A Senator in Congress shall be subject to recall by 3/5 vote of their respective state legislature. (Reps already have a recall process)
- Term limits for CongressCritters. No person may be elected to a Senate seat more than twice, nor may any person be elected to a House seat more than three times.
- Repeal the 17th.
- Senators receive 1.5x the average salary for the State they represent. Likewise, Reps get 1x the average salary of their district.
- They each get 5x that average salary to spend on all staff, irregardles of number. Required to pay federal minimum wage or minimum wage of their district/State, whichever is higher. NO unpaid interns.
- Unless the President calls an emergency session, all CongressCritters are required to return home for two weeks every two weeks and stay within their district. This does not count as a recess. This is not a vacation or for campaigning, this is for working within their district and meeting with constituents.
- Travel for this is expensed at the lower of mileage or an economy-class seat, using the cheapest seat out of the 4 biggest airlines.
- Other travel is not expensable, except as paid for out of committee budgets for "fact-finding" missions or DoS or other such. Of course, committees have limited budgets.
- Increase House seats to limit people/rep. Original was 1/30M, which would be ~11M reps today. That is a little excessive, so let each rep do 300M people, giving just over 1,000 Reps. Add 100 seats every off-Pres election, until total is met. Any seats a State gains are considered State-at-large elections until redistricting. States have option to redistrict every time, or wait until Census? (if formula is used, just redistrict that year.)
- Require Congressional districts to be as compact and equal pop as possible (maybe weight land area and pop equally to draw them, so some may not be equal numbers of people). Can't be Gerrymandered if it's a math formula! Maybe the formula that adjusts for shortest boundaries of each district? (Post link to article when found)
- Contributions.
- No limit on contributions. Spend as much $$ as you like.
- No anonymous contributions. Campaign have to make all corporate donations publicly accessable, but all private ones have to be maintained, but not public. States are required to audit 1% of campaign contributions per election to verify.
- Any political contributions are limited to your district. NO outside $$ at all. So governors have to raise $$ from their own State, mayors their own city, etc. Only Pres can raise nationwide. This is based on your primary residence. For companies, it's based on the current definition of "tax nexus". Big part of audit above is verifying this line.
- Living quarters are provided, with a condo-style building. Basic 1/1, with kitchen, living area, small office. Nothing too fancy. Utilities (water/power/gas) are provided, with basic internet access. (Or make it military-style barracks. After all, they won;t be here as often as they currently are!)
- Similar setup is provided for staff, with availablity of 3 spaces per CC. Anything more will have to be offsite (MD/VA)
- Small cafeteria is provided, with very basic meals. Army style, not AF. Hell, it's an Army-provided DFAC!
- NO PENSION WHATSOEVER. All CC / Staff have a 401k option, with MAX 1:1 matching up to 5%.
- I would say lobbying jobs are prohibited for 5/10 years after they leave, but those can be vague / is it lobbying? almost lobbying? / etc so whatever. Hard ban to really enforce.
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Legislation
- All bills are required to be simple and to the point, using the most user-friendly language as possible while still being legally accurate and precise.
- None of this stupid "using the definition from section xxx part 3,". Just reprint the definition for that section.
- Except for the once-a-year general budget, any bill is required to be wholly related to itself. no omnibus bills.
- Bills must include a presection that describes why/how it falls under the power of FedGov to do. (basically just quote whatever part of Art1Sec8.)
- All bills have a sunset provision, at the very most of 8 years. Renew is flat up/down, if amendments then new bill needs to go through process, to replace the old one.
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- FULL audit of every single section of law. Why are so many of them Federal and not State? Do they need to be Fed-level? Are they even under a Con Federal power?
- This will get rid of tons of stuff, allowing the renewal process to not take up the entire legislative session.
- Likewise, not really part of this but States need to do the same thing. Huge amounts of laws they really don;t need to have. Just because they can legally have the power and not FedGov, doesn't mean it can't simply be left with the people.
- Filibusters are actual filibusters. Granted, this is more of a majority leader needs to find his balls and push the vote unless he gets a real filibuster, than it is a needed legislative change.
- Balanced Budget requirement is moot, since the bill is just sent to States (see long tem tax changes section). They have say in process because they control Senate, as originally intended. So, pass balance budget requirement until those changes are in place.



Judiciary
- Needs lots of fleshing here.
- Jurisdiction. Separation of State/Federal chain of command. There are SOOOOO many lawsuits in the news that should be figured out at the State level, and have no need to touch the Fed courts. Especially for how much we're cutting the FedGov out of places they ought not to be; likewise, they have no judicial jurisdiction over the same.
- Level of applicability: Even if Fed Statute, if a State law covers the issue at hand, then it has absolute priority unless it's a FedGov department or Fed individual involved in the issue, in which case it start in State but can move to the Fed system.
- SC term limits, maybe set to ~18 or 20 years? 24 is a good combo of 6- and 4-year terms from other positions.
- obviously authority. Judges can only issue "nationwide" injunctions within their area of jurisdiction. If they want to do anything outside of their little fiefdom, they have an accelerated back door to request that the lowest court with the jurisdiction required issue an emergency whatever-it-is, no more than one or two levels higher than their current seat. SCOTUS (maybe even lower circuits) has an option to force a recall attempt if a judge is doing this too much.
- Incompetence. Every judge's rulings are recorded and kept track of/made public for final disposal. On the anniversary of their swearing-in date, every judges' caseload (from that seat) is looked at, and those with more than 10% of their rulings having been overturned in higher courts are automatically fired, and ineligible for any other judgeship within that State, or Federally, for ten years. A higher court can overrule this, but no more than once every three years for any individual judge.

Crappiest Judicial stuff (add short explanation on each at some point)
Kelo
Roe v Wade, Wade v Dolton(?)
Dred Scott
Obamacare
Obergefell v Hodges
US v Cruikshank
Presser v Illinois



TAX CHANGES (pretty sure I have a good full typed out version somewhere, compare with this when found)
= Temp fix
= All rates are set to flat 10 (or 15)%. Every person filing gets a $10M deduction, plus $10M if married/jointly, and $5M per dependant. After that almost NO deductions or credits or anything.
= Possible voting restriction, must show proof you paid taxes previous year. If not, you aren't eligible to vote.
= Any credits that do remain, are NEVER allowed to be refundable.
= Corporations are the same, only base deduction is higher, maybe $1MM. Or perhaps scale up from $10M to $1MM, as revenue increases, so small ones still have some skin in the game. They can, however, deduct salaries paid (these are taxed on the person, not the company), and certain capital investment. MAYBE more in line with current deductions, but the big objective heere is to simplify taxes, not maintain them. BUT, still need to prevent corps from being an easy backdoor way to hide your income from taxation.

- Long term fix.
- Repeal 16/17th.
- FedGov passes budget. $$ cost is split by 535 (##CC), and then each State is responsible for raising the amount that their CCs bring home.
- Any further bills passed throug the year are cost-split the same way.
- FedGov definitely tariffs, all this revenue goes to paying debt. Once debt is zeroed, this goes to rainy day fund / rolling account (cover $$ States owe but haven't paid in yet), max of 5% of previous year's GDP. Once that account is topped off, all revenue goes to dropping the next payment due from the States, split as per the bills.
- User fees, museum entrance, etc are to be reduced to as close an estimate to cost as possible. Agencies keep up to 10% of their budget of these as a budget pad (growth projects, boni[maybe]), then rest goes into same as tariffs.
- All bills are split into four equal payments, with States responsible for one quarter-payment per quarter.
- States are responsible to remit their $$ to FedGov by the last day of the first full quarter after the bill is passed, then the end of the next three quarters thereafter.
- States that don't remit their share of the payments lose voting power in Congress.
- States one quarter behind have each Senators' vote be worth 1/2.
- States two quarters behind have no votes in the Senate and 1/2 votes for each Rep.
- States three quarters behind have no voting power in Congress
- States one year behind are appointed a federal Daddy to come in who has a decent amount of power over State finances to fix why they are a full year behind. This post remains until the State is no more than one quarter behind current payments, and with the certification by him that the State will catch up within two quarters further.
- States that cannot catch up within a ten?-year period are reverted to territory status.
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- With all of this, people shouldn't see hardly any FedGov interference, unless they're visiting museums in DC or on mil bases, or perhaps the few legit monuments like Rushmore, ancient ruins, old forts, historical people's houses, battlefields, etc. And at most that interference would be paying the small entry fee. Otherwise, the average person shouldn't have to deal with FedGov hardly at all.
- Also, we don't need a debt limit fight or anything, as there is 'no' debt: it's all $$ coming from the States. It's self-limiting, since the States can't just print money to pay for this.



Social Security/Retirement/Welfare
- SS needs to be fully eliminated. Pay out every account currently active, straight into private IRAs. Based on wages in, plus multiplier for interest/COLAs. Anyone currently receiving can be grandfathered in and stay on SS if they choose, or take lump based on age/time to average life expectancy, but no new people to be enrolled. It'll then die off itself in a few years.
- Medicare the same. Let the States have a program if they want, but $$ in follows the employee, it doesn't stay with the State (Otherwise NY would hardcore screw over FL)
- All of this would essentially mean almost every SINGLE PERSON'S pay would increase up to 15%. (7.65% employee taxes, plus the employer's side of FICA, all on the first I think $135M of wages)
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- ALL FedGov welfare is GONE. States and private charity can handle it. The only thing FedGov can keep is FEMA, but they are limited to Federal Property, territories, etc. They can assist with management/interstate cooperation, but provide NO financial support, and only administrative logistical support.
- Same goes for all the farmer/oil subsidies and crap. Tesla/Solyndra free $$. Gone. See legislation section about 1:8.
- This needs some fleshing out. I'd like to kill ALL subsidies, period. BUT, some are likely necessary for national defense/critical industry type stuff. Also, how to work research grants and the like? Milkitary is clearly necessary, but why random $$ going all over for who-knows-what kind of studies and underwater basket-weaving grants.
- If States want more help, they can talk to AD. Requires minimum 75% of Guard currently called up (allows for some already out on training, or those in the affected area don't need to be called up) to pull anyone in from bases that weren't already affected, then they can request assistance from Navy/Big Army, at their discretion.
- All Federal retirements (Cities/States should too!) are based solely on base pay. There is no option to boost your final 3 or whatever by working stupid OT. Any retirement pensions or other wage-based stuff is only calc'd off of your base salary.



USPS
- OT only counts for base pay, 1.5x. You get ZERO pension inflation, or any other perks from working tons of OT.
- Trim deliveries. Go to a M/W/F/Sat delivery schedule, or even M/Th/Sat. Managers can make the decision to do more if the amount of mail justifies additional delivery days.
- Trim deliveries. Some newer neighborhoods (like Gonzo's) have started putting group mailboxen in a small common area in the neighborhood (within easy walking distance of every house in that group). This means less driving around, easier route planning, and easier delivery. The only things direct to houses are packages over a certain size, but all normal mail goes to your group box. Plus, this has the added benefit of putting more common grounds in neighborhoods, which can often be hard to find nowadays. Households with no way to get there (temporary injury, too old, etc) can apply for direct-to-home for all mail.
- Pension funding. Why are we doing pensions? Hardly anyone in the private sector is doing those, there's no reason USPS shouldn't move into a 401k-type program, like almost every municipal job has (2:1 matching up to 14:7 is pretty generous, USPS can always stick to 1:1). Eliminating future obligations for USPS and instead making them current payments to employees is not bad at all. Hell, even the military split their pension into a half-pension/half-401k.
- Eliminate much of the crazy discounts for all the spam mail. Especially the discounts for Chinese shipments!



DC
- Why does DC have ANY residents? The only ones, maybe, should be Pres/VP and immediate families. Everyone else maintains residency where they're from. Really, Pres can do that too.
- DC is to be split: it'll retain any museums/monuments, actual government buildings, and what little utility/infrastructure is physically required to support those buildings.
- The ONLY residences it keeps are the WH (duh), and a couple military-style barracks for CongressCritters when in session. Mandatory WH staff (SS, chef, etc) can stay at WH or barracks or commute, but all maintain residence at their non-DC home. CC Staff can commute.
- All other residential, commercial, non-gov't land is to be returned to MD. (FYI all parts of DC from VA have already been returned, a while ago.)
- City "mayor" is reduced to a manager position - After all, it's a federal enclave which Congress has exclusive jurisdiction over. There's no need for a city council or such, other city staff stuff is limited to bare essentials. Contract what you can (landscaping, janitorial, garbage) then DoD can cover some (security, chow hall, etc) and only hire what little is truly required (street/building maintenance, utility workers).
- eliminate the 3 DC electoral votes. If no one lives there...
- Not sure on this. Either farm out what few departments are Constitutional, or probably keep their HQ in DC. Perhaps none of the lower level stuff, but all top-level HQ is in DC (bare bones).



More stuff, needs detailing or just a one-part idea that doesn't need its own section
- Pull alot of FedGov restriction power. ie FDA can only advise on medication usage, have no power to prevent docs and patients from using what is best for the patient. DEA/whoever has no control over drug sales/bans. Up to States.
- Related, kill off a LOT of Fed Departments. most of em are unCon anyway.
- Federal land is CUT. outside of military facilities, courthouses, docks, arsenals, etc; all National Parks and such are to be returned to their States.
- Constitutional Amend to add monuments of national importance to the list in 1:8. These are limited to very specific national monuments, and cannot simply be a park/forest or other large land area. Largest ones allowed are perhaps battlefields from Rev/WBTS/TXInd/Tribes/etc. National parks can be a specific monument or feature (Yellowstone geyser), but not massive tracts of just land with no other significance.
- Why the f*** do we have BLM, NPS, FWS, USFS, etc? Why can't one agency run all the Federal lands outside of courthouses and DoD facilities?
- ConAmend to allow FedGoiv to create national 'police' force. Similar to TX Rangers mission, special group that only looks into interstate crimes, or crimes against Federal stuff, or non-State stuff (territories, etc). Maybe some stuff like FBI HRT or similar SpecOps that can assist States ONLY when requested, and only for major stuff (terrorism, serial killers, etc).
- Subdept includes regular cops for DC, federal facilities, etc. ABSOLUTLEY NO jurisdiction outside of very limited spaces.
- Full eliminate affirmative action and any kind of 'race' or sex quotas. Everything is merit/cost based, ONLY exception is military veterans receive hiring preferences.
- "Indian" reservations are eliminated. They're US citizens, they don't need all the fancy crap. Each tribe keeps their land and can divy it up how it wants, but now it's just part of the State, not a fancy reservation or anything. Likewise, any references to such (tribes or tribe members) is eliminated from Law.
- Eliminate Fed unions. they don't need it, and it's just a simple EO!
- Get rid of all gov't unions at the State/city/county levels also. Maybve not ban, but just don't interact with union reps.
- definitely ban ANY union work while clocked in. Taxpayers should NOT be supporting this crap! Any union work functions like a second job.
- Clarify shutdown furlough rules: ONLY essential employees that actually work get backpay, no free paid vacay for everyone...
- As long as they're around, public schools should have every single classroom with a camera/mic that streams the entire day. Parents are free to watch as much as they want, and see what their kids are actually learning. Probably have a login that all parents are given, dunno if this really needs to just be free viewing online. Eh.
- Private schools should do the same, but that's their prerogative.
- Gov't office hours. This is more for local gov't, but every gov't office should be required to hold night/weekend hours. It's extremely difficult for working folks to have to take a day/half-day off every time they have to do something gov't related. Every office that has regular public interaction can close on Tues or Wed, and be open all day Sat. Hours should also be extended, can alternate days to open at 05, then close at 2100. This gives people the chance to do stuff before/after work, not just during. Any offices that do not have regular public interaction, but do have some, are required to have at least one employee available to come in on the weekend or nights as needed.
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One of my good posts on race and "racism"

The term "Hispanic" refers to anyone from countries/areas that were colonized by Spain, Spain itself, or their descendants. Which is the majority of Mexico and south, as well as large parts of the Caribbean. Basically, native Spanish-speakers. So that excludes places like Brasil (Portugal), Guyana (Britain), Suriname (Netherlands), French Guiana (still owned by France today), Belize (Britain), and much of the Caribbean, yet does include many from these US. Technically, everything west of the Mississippi, Florida, and southern Alabama/Miss were all under Spanish control at some point, so many people from those areas could be accurately labeled as "Hispanic".

Next up, "Latino" refers to anyone from Latin America: basically anything south of these US. There are other definitions for this one, some of which include any countries whose language is in the Latin/Romance branch. But the more widely used one in society, and how the US Census defines it, is basically anyone south of the border.

To add in even more stuff, people also started using the term "Chicano", which is specifically Mexicans that live in these US. I don't know if that term includes dual citizens, or is only Mexican citizens living here. Or if it includes their descendants or just first generation immigrants.

The term "Mestizo" is anyone of mixed European and tribal American blood. While most people only think of Mayan/Aztec heritage in the Mexican/Central American area, it does technically include Chocktaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Inca, Seminole, Nazca, Blackfoot, etc etc etc heritage as well. Most people in these US probably fall under this category by now. Really, likely almost everyone in N/S America.

And of course, "African-American". Ever ask a black guy what part of Africa he's from? The huge majority of American blacks have never been to Africa, much less come from there. They might have African-American heritage, but they themselves are only American. This is one of the dumbest colloquial terms in my opinion. Is a black guy from England an "African-American"? Why not? Isn't he black? I've met two people at work, one's pretty white, the other mostly is (leans more towards his Spanish side), and both are Afrikaaners, so from South Africa, before they moved here. They are, actual, real-life, African Americans. But somehow they aren't black?
Oh, and hey, one of the most well-known people nowadays, Elon Musk, is an African American. Guess it's racist to block him from buying Twitter, no?

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Next we'll get into the actual 'races' within humanity. While our race is really just "human", you *can* break us more into subspecies. Similar to how all dogs are one species, or 'race', but are broken into the various breeds/subspecies. Likewise, humans can be broken into several breeds within our race, which are generally referred to as 'races'. Scientifically, there's not a full consensus on exactly which ones are/aren't, but it's usually 3-5 options. Negroid, Caucasoid, and Mongoloid are the main ones, then some will add a fourth, Australoid (ususally included in Negroid), and others occasionally use Esquimaux (Mongoloid), Capoid (Negroid), Polynesian/Pacific (Mongoloid), American Tribes (Mongoloid), and other even more minor ones.

Most of these classifications are based on skull shape, and other physical definitions, not really skin color. (There's light-skinned Negroids, and dark-skinned Caucasoids. Mongoloids tend to be more middling-light, but some of them can get pretty dark.) But, there's a bunch of scientists nowadays that don't even use these race classifications, and say there's just no such thing as race. They like the term "ethnicity" better, and conveniently break it up into 5,000+ different groups, instead of three or four.

For most US government documents, the "race" column is completely arbitrary, confusing, and not well designed. Useless, really. I always check "other" and write-in "human". There was actually potential legislation ten or twenty years back about amending the definition of Hispanic to include Portugal/Portuguese countries, but it failed. So that obviously tells you that "race" isn't a set, defined characteristic at all.