Thanks Banjo

We've heard of an up and coming poet named after you :)

We here at the NSA really appreciate the rendition of "O Holy Night" you've sent to us at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITIaYoWCPkE&ab_channel=EmerBarryandAffiniti

Looking at that youtube and http://www.affinitimusic.com/biography .

It is a truth of life that Ireland produces the most beautiful woman. But also the "uglist men".

So in that regard all of us at the NSA are Irishmen, more or less :)

We say.

Nollaig Shona do chách! To all the gang at OLO.

David,
You're still making the mistake of assuming this is all about the meaning of the constitution. But surely in reality it's about the facts?

To determine whether the appointment of electors was "in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct" you need to know what the state legislature has directed. Rather than blindly assuming there's a problem, you need to read the state electoral law. Because unless the state has contravened that, the argument that there's a constitutional problem is untenable.

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Dear plantagenet,

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Here is one of my namesake’s bush poems with an Irish flavour I thought you might like :

How M'Ginnis Went Missing

« Let us cease our idle chatter,
Let the tears bedew our cheek,
For a man from Tallangatta
Has been missing for a week.

Where the roaring flooded Murray
Covered all the lower land,
There he started in a hurry
With a bottle in his hand.

And his fate is bid for ever,
But the public seem to think
That he slumbered by the river,
'Neath the influence of drink.

And they scarcely seem to wonder
That the river, wide and deep,
Never woke him with its thunder,
Never stirred him in his sleep.

And the crashing logs came sweeping
And their tumult filled the air,
Then M'Ginnis murmured, sleeping,
"'Tis a wake in ould Kildare."

So the river rose and found him
Sleeping softly by the stream.
And the cruel waters drowned him
Ere he wakened from his dream.

And the blossom-tufted wattle,
Blooming brightly on the lea,
Saw M'Ginnis and the bottle
Going drifting out to sea »

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Thanks Banjo

I haven't heard "How M'Ginnis Went Missing" before.

I reckon your namesake's got a big future :)
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Here's another:

THE LOST DRINK (1891)
by Banjo Paterson

I had spent the night in the watch-house --
My head was the size of three --
So I went and asked the chemist
To fix up a drink for me;

And he brewed it from various bottles
With soda and plenty of ice,
With something that smelt like lemon,
And something that seemed like spice.

It fell on my parching palate
Like the dew on a sunbaked plain,
And my system began to flourish
Like the grass in the soft spring rain;

It wandered throughout my being,
Suffusing my soul with rest,
And I felt as I "scoffed" that liquid
That life had a new-found zest.

I have been on the razzle-dazzle
Full many a time since then
But I never could get the chemist
To brew me that drink again.

He says he's forgotten the notion --
'Twas only by chance it came --
He's tried me with various liquids
But oh! they are not the same.

We have sought, but we sought it vainly,
That one lost drink divine;
We have sampled his various bottles,
But somehow they don't combine:

Yet I know when I cross the River
And stand on the Golden Shore
I shall meet with an angel chemist
To brew me that drink once more.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Lost_Drink
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I'm signing off for a bit.

Merry Christmas

#Banjo
You state:
"I, personally, am inclined to think that the State legislature should fix the rules – even if it’s only to confirm current practise so far as Pennsylvania and perhaps some of the other States are concerned as well if their electoral rules have been modified since inception."

The problem is that the State Legislatures did not fix the rules. They were changed by persons other than State Legislatures. Was this constitutionally permitted?

That is what the Supreme Court needed to rule on - and it shirked its duty and indeed its obligation to do so.

#Aidan:
You state:
"To determine whether the appointment of electors was "in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct" you need to know what the state legislature has directed."

The State Legislature directed nothing. Some of the changes were as a result of court proceedings in which the State Legislature was not even a party.

Was that constitutional or not? The Supreme Court refuses to clarify either way and therein lies the current problem.

Every American voter is entitled to be told by the highest court in the land and respect that decision - even if one disagrees with it.

That is how the system should work.

Donald Trump has been right all along about voter fraud:

http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/officials-finally-found-a-case-of-a-dead-person-voting-accusing-a-republican-of-pretending-to-be-his-dead-mum-to-vote-for-trump/ar-BB1c7xTk