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NEVERENDING ♾️ The NEVERENDING Political Discussion Thread

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Better than any TV show -

GOP Reps. Mace, Greene spar over Rep. Boebert's Islamophobic comments

Talk about trading insults.
It appears to be a momentous time as the great minds of the conservative world battle for supremacy in dictating what the prevailing world view will be for their followers.


 
You know it's not going to be a good day for some folks in the building when there are multiple news crews in the office parking lot at 8:00 a.m.

This latest school shooting hits way too close to home. The woman in the office next to mine has a son at the high school where yesterday's shooting occurred and lives right across the street from the school.
 
I saw this quote in an article recently and thought it was quite appropriate:

"For a substantial wing of the Republican party, beefing on Twitter has apparently supplanted serious political discussion."
 
Our state legislature is continuing its downward spiral into lunacy.

NC House Bill 220 would ban local governments from mandating the types of energy used in new construction, such as banning natural gas appliances in favor of electric. No cities or towns have considered that here, but Republicans are concerned about mandates in California.
 
Our state legislature is continuing its downward spiral into lunacy.

NC House Bill 220 would ban local governments from mandating the types of energy used in new construction, such as banning natural gas appliances in favor of electric. No cities or towns have considered that here, but Republicans are concerned about mandates in California.
Yes, you know, like supporting local control... which the Republican party used to like. Decentralized government is better. Local level is better than the big, bad, federal government I thought. Or is that only when cities do what you want them to do?
 
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The grocery chain's founder's grandson represents my Congressional district. Good time to speak up ... the store is not just a place for family reunification after a tragedy, a place to buy tissues, candles, black clothing ...
 
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I saw this quote in an article recently and thought it was quite appropriate:

"For a substantial wing of the Republican party, beefing on Twitter has apparently supplanted serious political discussion."

That last element is a stretch... I'm saddened that there are no adults in the room, and that our level of discourse is where it is.
 
Two things:

Yesterday I learned that the son of another coworker is good friends with one of the kids injured in Tuesday's shooting. Yet another coworker is also an elected official in the village where the recent school shooting took place and he could barely keep it together during an online staff meeting this morning. Every day this seems to hit closer and closer to home.

Immediately after that co-worker's remarks this morning, we had some much needed comic relief from another coworker who is a University of Iowa graduate and commented that he hopes that no matter what the outcome of this weekend's football game that nobody vandalizes his office.
 
Sorry, @WSU MUP Student but it could be anytown, USA next time. And there will be a next time, because we have to have our guns free and unfettered.

Not unironically, the pro-life conservatives are simultaneously planning on stripping half the country of a constitutional right enjoyed for 50 years.

What's next, overturning Brown v. Board? Reinstating Plessy v. Ferguson? If they can take one away, they can take them all.
 
I meant to include in my earlier post: There has been a significant number of school closings in the region today (and already a bunch for tomorrow) due to online threats and fears in neighboring districts. I believe our district is one of the few in the immediate area that isn't closed today. I am not glad our schools are open as usual as I generally feel that the fears of a copycat event are overblown, but I certainly understand why others are closed. Running past our high school this morning, it looked like the student parking lot was exceptionally empty, but then again, I can never quite figure out what's going on there, especially since the kids get the first hour off if they don't have a class or something like that.

I wonder how and when students will return to class at the school where the shooting occurred? I wouldn't be surprised if they just shut things down until after the holidays.

I hope that those kids who have made threats face some sort of stiff punishment. I crossed out "kids" because I wonder if there's a certain number of online trolls of any age in Tennessee or Colorado or Rhode Island or Moldova who just watch the news and see something like this in location X and just go online to stir up some sh!t in those other locations.
 
I meant to include in my earlier post: There has been a significant number of school closings in the region today (and already a bunch for tomorrow) due to online threats and fears in neighboring districts. I believe our district is one of the few in the immediate area that isn't closed today. I am not glad our schools are open as usual as I generally feel that the fears of a copycat event are overblown, but I certainly understand why others are closed. Running past our high school this morning, it looked like the student parking lot was exceptionally empty, but then again, I can never quite figure out what's going on there, especially since the kids get the first hour off if they don't have a class or something like that.

I wonder how and when students will return to class at the school where the shooting occurred? I wouldn't be surprised if they just shut things down until after the holidays.

I hope that those kids who have made threats face some sort of stiff punishment. I crossed out "kids" because I wonder if there's a certain number of online trolls of any age in Tennessee or Colorado or Rhode Island or Moldova who just watch the news and see something like this in location X and just go online to stir up some sh!t in those other locations.

Some over on this side of the state as well. Juvenile thinking: "hey I can just make a threat, and we'll have a long weekend!"

I'm glad that the parents have been charged; apparently they are now on the run.

One report advised that the school will need a lot of maintenance, after lengthy evidence collection, and the damage done by bullets and barricading doors.
 
DeSantis proposes a new civilian military force in Florida that he would control

reestablish a World War II-era civilian military force that he, not the Pentagon, would control.
If Florida moves ahead with DeSantis' plan to reestablish the civilian force, it would become the 23rd active state guard in the country,
 
I hope that those kids who have made threats face some sort of stiff punishment. I crossed out "kids" because I wonder if there's a certain number of online trolls of any age in Tennessee or Colorado or Rhode Island or Moldova who just watch the news and see something like this in location X and just go online to stir up some sh!t in those other locations.
They are not kids anymore. They are monsters. It's all about malicious intent. It's all about mayhem. Anyone who makes death threats toward a school should be put away 20+ years, regardless if that threat is carried out and regardless of whether they are underage or not. Because the minute these threats are not taken seriously and not dealt with the harshest punishment imaginable, then these cretinous little punks will relish in the chaos and the mayhem that they create and continue with impunity. This is because they know that they will just get a slap on the wrist.

As for this little monster in Oxford, I am well beyond the belief that killers under 18 should not be put away for life because they are mere children and their brains are not fully developed or some hor$ehit like that. I say let them fry. Because I am goddamn sick of the shootings.
 
They are not kids anymore. They are monsters. It's all about malicious intent. It's all about mayhem. Anyone who makes death threats toward a school should be put away 20+ years, regardless if that threat is carried out and regardless of whether they are underage or not. Because the minute these threats are not taken seriously and not dealt with the harshest punishment imaginable, then these cretinous little punks will relish in the chaos and the mayhem that they create and continue with impunity. This is because they know that they will just get a slap on the wrist.

As for this little monster in Oxford, I am well beyond the belief that killers under 18 should not be put away for life because they are mere children and their brains are not fully developed or some hor$ehit like that. I say let them fry. Because I am goddamn sick of the shootings.


What really angers me about this whole thing is that the father was not responsible enough to property secure his weapon. If you can't do that to keep it out of the hands of a child that clearly has troubling behavior, then they should not have a weapon in the house. I applaud the DA for filing charges against the parents.

I would also love to know why his backpack was not searched when he had a meeting with school admin and his parents that morning. Hell, I check my kids lunch box to make sure that he is not bringing root beer to school in his lunch. I also wonder about the administration's handling of these threats leading up to that day. There was enough communication that some kids didn't come to school that day out of concerns. Around here they would shut down the school and conduct a full investigation to keep the kids safe.
 
I think that the school officials did F*$# this one up and should be held partly accountable as well.


I get it, they thought his drawing was about a video game... but I think they are just using that as cover. There was enough concern that some students stayed home that day.
 
Y'all been watching Impeachment (American Crime Story) on FX? I just started Episode 4. What an excellent show! I absolutely love Sarah Paulson as Linda Tripp! Amazing acting! And Clive Owen is a dead-ringer for Bill Clinton!
Sarah Paulson was great in the first season (People vs. OJ Simpson) as Marcia Clarke, as well.
 
Sarah Paulson was great in the first season (People vs. OJ Simpson) as Marcia Clarke, as well.
I saw that series, too. I didn't like her in that. (However, I thoroughly enjoyed John Travolta as Shapiro! What a gas!)

Regarding the Impeachment series, I am now up to Episode 9, and I am now a full-fledged Paulson supporter - she deserves wide recognition for her role as Tripp!
 
NYC has passed a law that will allow non-citizens to vote in municipal elections. I'm honestly not sure how I feel about this. My gut reaction is I think I don't like it. But I need to learn some more before I have a firm opinion.
 
NYC has passed a law that will allow non-citizens to vote in municipal elections. I'm honestly not sure how I feel about this. My gut reaction is I think I don't like it. But I need to learn some more before I have a firm opinion.
I'm with you and a reliable story link would be helpful.
 
I'm with you and a reliable story link would be helpful.

It covers legal permanent residents who have lived in the city for at least 30 consecutive days and are green card holders or are legally authorized to work in the U.S. They will not be permitted to vote in state and federal elections.
It isn't exactly like they are illegal immigrants, which I am sure is what the counter-argument will contend. I also think that at some point there should be advantages to those who are willing to become citizens, though...

With that said, we need to do better at making that reality possible in a timely manner for people. But that is another issue completely.
 
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It isn't exactly like they are illegal immigrants, which I am sure is what the counter-argument will contend. I also think that at some point there should be advantages to those who are willing to become citizens.

With that said, we need to do better at making that reality possible in a timely manner for people. But that is another issue completely.
I don't know. Still seems to undercut a fundamental central tenet of our representative form of government.
 
NYC has passed a law that will allow non-citizens to vote in municipal elections. I'm honestly not sure how I feel about this. My gut reaction is I think I don't like it. But I need to learn some more before I have a firm opinion.
I'm with you and a reliable story link would be helpful.


It isn't exactly like they are illegal immigrants, which I am sure is what the counter-argument will contend. I also think that at some point there should be advantages to those who are willing to become citizens, though...

With that said, we need to do better at making that reality possible in a timely manner for people. But that is another issue completely.
I don't know. Still seems to undercut a fundamental central tenet of our representative form of government.

My question is what is the difference between a "non-citizen" referenced in the article and an "illegal immigrant". I agree with @Hink regarding the immigration process as it is yet another example of government red-tape. The article notes that NYC is a city of immigrants. So are several states... so is the United States... the question comes up of where does this stop?

In Michigan, a person can live in the county outside of the incorporated area but have a city address. Should they vote for the City's Mayor? In NC there are three levels (County, Extra Territorial Jurisdiction, and Corporate Limits, and only those in Corporate limits pay City taxes and are able to vote for City elections. Some people have addresses for a City, but live in a different county than the City is located in. What if I am doing work in NYC for the Month of November, but reside in a different state. Should I be able to vote in their elections since I "live there" for the month of November?
 
NYC has passed a law that will allow non-citizens to vote in municipal elections. I'm honestly not sure how I feel about this. My gut reaction is I think I don't like it. But I need to learn some more before I have a firm opinion.

I'm all for this.

There are some small communities in Minnesota (IIRC, but maybe it was somewhere further west) that have been allowing non-citizens to vote in local bond, municipal, and school elections for close to 20 years now. They began doing that as a way to promote community engagement and had really surprising turnout and results. At the time the communities had very significant numbers of people from Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, and a few other areas in East Africa and a plurality of students in the schools were from these areas but even though the residents had been in the community for years and were here legally, they generally had no path to citizenship (or they'd have to wait years and years longer) and they had next to no say in how their communities were run.

If a community wants to allow non-residents to vote in these elections, more power to them.

I also agree with allowing 16-year-olds to vote in local school board elections (or even better, lowering the legal voting age everywhere to 16).

I'm generally in favor of just about any effort that works to increase community engagement.


In Michigan, a person can live in the county outside of the incorporated area but have a city address. Should they vote for the City's Mayor? In NC there are three levels (County, Extra Territorial Jurisdiction, and Corporate Limits, and only those in Corporate limits pay City taxes and are able to vote for City elections. Some people have addresses for a City, but live in a different county than the City is located in. What if I am doing work in NYC for the Month of November, but reside in a different state. Should I be able to vote in their elections since I "live there" for the month of November?

The Michigan thing is sort of a holdover from when townships, for the most part, had very little power/responsibility. Many areas of the state were still using "Rural Route" addresses into the '80s so folks out in the sticks would just add the name of the closest city to make things a little easier for the people sorting the mail since RR could cover quite a large geographic area. After the introduction of ZIP Codes, this slowly started going away, and went away even faster after the introduction of ZIP+4.

When you drop a letter or package in the mail, the first thing the multiline optical reader will read is the ZIP Code, followed by the street number and then the street name and then the street prefix/suffix. Once it reads the ZIP Code and the street number it can accurately assign the +4 (if you haven't already included it) something like 98% of the time, without even looking at the street name or prefixes or suffixes. The city, village, or township name is the last part of the the address read by the machine... if it's read at all.

When I was in the Marines I used to like to test out the mail system so I would send home letters or post cards with various forms of the address or my parents Rural Route number on them (RR3!) to see what sort of differences it would make. I could leave the township off completely, put the name of the closest city on there, or even put "Detroit" which was 30 miles away, and all would get there just as fast.

This is sort of like people in Michigan who say they live in "Adair" or "New Hudson" or "Drayton Plains" and even use that as their addresses. These were tiny population concentrations that hat had ceased being villages or cities years ago (if they ever were). Just because somebody says they live there doesn't mean it exists in any political or statistical sense... but you're mail will still get there.

Or if you live in Jamaica or Astoria or Kew Gardens in Queens you can write put any of those (or "Queens" or "New York" or "NYC") in the space for your city and your mail will get there just as quickly.

I am fascinated by the post office and the act of actually sorting and delivering mail...

(When we were in combat zones we could use free postage where we could just draw a square and write "FREE" in the upper right corner of a letter or small package and it would be delivered. Since it was free in those areas, I used to like to test that out too so I'd use anything as a postcard and write "FREE" to see if it would get delivered. My dad still has a collection of old pieces of cardboard from MREs, a baseball, a couple business cards, a glossy 7x5 photo from some random promotion or awards ceremony, a cut-out of Count Chocula's face from a box of cereal, and the sole of a boot that I slapped a label onto and used as makeshift postcards from Kosovo. One of the few things I tried to mail home that never made it was a $1 bill and 200 or 1,000 Yugoslavian Novi Dinar. I doubt these got stolen by some postal worker, rather I suspect that they were too flimsy and small and got eaten up by the machines somewhere along the way. I had a friend who used to do this too and somehow got hold of a coconut while we were there. He slapped a label on that and it made it back to his family too. We were bored and easily amused).
 
I also agree with allowing 16-year-olds to vote in local school board elections (or even better, lowering the legal voting age everywhere to 16).

I was about to make a comment about can we trust someone who is 16 to do the right thing.... then I remembered the number of people who still think that Trump is a good person and actually won the 2020 election...
 
I was about to make a comment about can we trust someone who is 16 to do the right thing.... then I remembered the number of people who still think that Trump is a good person and actually won the 2020 election...

By that logic we should probably also take away the vote from anybody over the age of 60.
 
This is a phenominal idea:


Most of the pro-gun people that I know and associate with would support something like this. But the biggest question will come with enforcement of it.
The friend of mine that own firearms stores them appropriately in locked gun safes. My friends are not everyone. Children should not have access to firearms without adult supervision (and even then...) period.

As I've said before, we should treat ownership of firearms similarly to vehicle ownership and driving privileges.

1. Universal serial numbers similar to VINs searchable electronically (records are slowly being able to be searched electronically as of late)
2. Title & Registration, searchable electronically.
3. Some kind of written and practical test about firearm safety, storage, and local laws.
4. Liability Insurance.
5. If a firearm is lost or stolen, it becomes flagged as such, repeat reporters should be scruitnized.
 
This does not surprise me at all>
Hip-hop artist Kanye West's third-party 2020 presidential campaign hid ties and payments to Republican operatives, in possible violation of federal law, according to documents obtained by The Daily Beast.

West, a longtime friend of former President Donald Trump, launched his dubious bid in the summer of 2020, although he did very little actual campaigning and failed to get on the ballot in most states. The New York Times reported last year that Republican activists in at least a half-dozen states were involved in getting West's name on the ballot, raising suspicions that the effort was intended to siphon Black voters away from Joe Biden. If that was indeed the plan, it was not effective: West only ended up getting about 67,000 votes nationwide.
 
The year I turned 14, being really small for my age, I was able to break up a fist swinging melee in the dining room between my mother and two brothers in one corner, and our 300 lb mean drunk wife beater stepdad. With no chance of getting in any meaningful licks, I pulled down our 30 caliber bolt action, locked and loaded a round, and braced on a door frame to steady my aim. Fat boy, as we called him, caught sight of me in his peripheral view, and threw up his hands to end the match.
 
...

In Michigan, a person can live in the county outside of the incorporated area but have a city address. Should they vote for the City's Mayor? In NC there are three levels (County, Extra Territorial Jurisdiction, and Corporate Limits, and only those in Corporate limits pay City taxes and are able to vote for City elections. Some people have addresses for a City, but live in a different county than the City is located in. What if I am doing work in NYC for the Month of November, but reside in a different state. Should I be able to vote in their elections since I "live there" for the month of November?
Fake news. Voter registration is done by ZIP code. As an example, my former office had a Grand Rapids address, but it was located in Cascade Township. When the SOS sends voter information (which arrives via postal mail), it informs the voter of the location of their polling place.
Townships have clerks, and they run their own elections for their respective jurisdiction.

If you were doing a locums gig, you would vote absentee on a ballot issued by your permanent address's jurisdiction.
 
Fake news. Voter registration is done by ZIP code. As an example, my former office had a Grand Rapids address, but it was located in Cascade Township. When the SOS sends voter information (which arrives via postal mail), it informs the voter of the location of their polling place.
Townships have clerks, and they run their own elections for their respective jurisdiction.

If you were doing a locums gig, you would vote absentee on a ballot issued by your permanent address's jurisdiction.

As usual, you didn’t read my post. I asked “should a person…”
 
So what happens now...


I have not gone deep into the details, but there were somethings in there that I supported, some that I thought were a bit of a government overreach. I don't think that the effort is dead, however I will be interested to see how it adapts.
 
This does not surprise me at all>
Hip-hop artist Kanye West's third-party 2020 presidential campaign hid ties and payments to Republican operatives, in possible violation of federal law, according to documents obtained by The Daily Beast.

West, a longtime friend of former President Donald Trump, launched his dubious bid in the summer of 2020, although he did very little actual campaigning and failed to get on the ballot in most states. The New York Times reported last year that Republican activists in at least a half-dozen states were involved in getting West's name on the ballot, raising suspicions that the effort was intended to siphon Black voters away from Joe Biden. If that was indeed the plan, it was not effective: West only ended up getting about 67,000 votes nationwide.

I got nothing other than this:

 
So what happens now...


I have not gone deep into the details, but there were somethings in there that I supported, some that I thought were a bit of a government overreach. I don't think that the effort is dead, however I will be interested to see how it adapts.
If the Dems have any sense, they quit wasting their time with Manchin and Sinema. Pull all the BBB funding from WV and AZ, give it to AK and ME and try to sway Murkowski and Collins.
 
I have a question for the group; How long do you think you can work in a place that is basically totally at odds with your personal beliefs? My position is non-partisan, and I do not advertise my beliefs. That goes with ICMA Code of Ethics. The day to day job is good. Politics on that level generally are not an issue. Yet, I know some of the councilors are big time conservative. I am no flaming liberal, probably around Biden on the spectrum, but to them I would be a communist. I bury it, but it's tough. At the end of this year my ethical minimum is over. I hoped to stay until my son graduates in 2025, but I am not sure I can. You see F Biden signs in yards here, etc
 
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