if you voted for JFK... some quick maths here... voting age in 1961 was 21. So, if you voted for JFK in 1960, that would make you at least 79 years old. What do I win?
yes voting was a higher age them n and the draft was 18 . ever read of ballot stuffing or voting off the board of course not . bye the way the old rivals crew is back see you and tmb soon .
opinion post from DK The sadism of the modern Republican Party Sunday May 13, 2018 · 12:00 PM CDT The modern GOP personified Spoiler Just hours after Democratic then-New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman was accused of having violently abused four different women, New York's Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) called on him to resign. Before the day was over, Schneiderman did. Everyone deserves a legal presumption of innocence, but to Democrats not everyone deserves to hold public office. There are certain automatic disqualifiers, and violence against women is one of them. Schneiderman was a rising political star, likely on his way to his own eventual governorship or Senate seat, and maybe even more. Politically, he was dogged, principled and progressive, a politician and law enforcement official Democrats could love. He took on criminals and he took on the Trump cabal (which may be the same thing), and it seemed the future was his to make his own. And then it wasn't. Four credible women, none of whom has an apparent political agenda, accused Schneiderman of behavior that is point blank unacceptable to Democrats, and within hours he was gone. That's how it should be. The behavior he was accused of should be point blank unacceptable to everyone, regardless of political or other ideological considerations. No one credibly accused of such behavior should be in any position of power or authority, anywhere, ever. Even if, unlike this case, there turns out to be a woman at least as capable of stepping up and doing the job at least as well. Schneiderman has the right to pursue his legal claims to innocence, but he doesn't have the right to do so while holding public office. And the women who accused him of violent abuse do have the right not to have their suffering exacerbated by seeing the man they accused of abusing them holding public office and legal and political power. This was a rare but slowly more common example of the system working. Not because of statutes but because of public opinion and political pressure. And it is no coincidence that it happened among Democrats. Also within hours of the public accusations against Schneiderman, Trump's gruesome designated dissembler Kellyanne Conway was publicly gloating, as were other right-wing gargoyles, demonstrating yet again their vacuous inability to accept responsibility or self-reflect. Trump has been credibly accused of abusing more than a dozen women, and even bragged about it on audio tape. Republicans voted for him anyway. For some, no doubt, it was part of why they voted for him. Congressional Republicans support Trump. None calls him to account. None calls for the accusations against him to be fully investigated. None has taken the time to reflect on what their support of such a reprehensible little man says about them. Because it says everything about who they are and the political agenda they wholeheartedly support. It’s systemic. It defines the modern Republican Party. Trump's White House systematically covered up accusations of domestic violence by White House staff secretary Rob Porter. Missouri's Republican Governor Eric Greitens has been accused of sexual abuse, and was indicted for invasion of privacy, for photographing without consent a nude or partially nude person, then digitally transmitting the images. Nearly three months after the indictment was announced, he remains in office. When the Alabama Republican nominee for a U.S. Senate seat Roy Moore was credibly accused of multiple counts of sexual assault against minors, Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell courageously refused to denounce him and said he'd let the Alabama voters decide. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan met with accused sexual harasser, Rep. Blake Farenthold, and then boldly announced that his fellow Republican would not seek re-election, rather than telling Farenthold to resign. It was four more months before the disgraced Texas Republican did step down. Republican National Committee Finance Chairman Steve Wynn resigned after being accused of sexual abuse, including rape. But the same national media figures that caterwauled demands that Democrats return campaign donations given by accused violent serial abuser Harvey Weinstein remain all but silent on the Republicans and all the money Wynn raised for them. Republicans don't care about misogynistic violence any more than they care about any other form of misogyny. Their main concern seems to be that when members of Congress are caught abusing women, the taxpayers have to pay the consequences. The violence and harassment itself they seem to deem irrelevant. But that’s their pattern. That’s their ethos. They don't want the taxpayers to help pay for women's health care, they don't want women to be paid equally to men, and they apparently want working-class women to suffer, perhaps for having the temerity of being both working class and women. Republicans don’t seem to care about the suffering of anyone other than themselves, anyway. Arizona Senate candidate and convicted felon Joe Arpaio has a long record of abusive behavior and violations of civil rights, but that didn't prevent self-styled paragon of morality Mike Pence from calling him a "champion of the rule of law." Because to Republicans, abusing people isn't a violation of law, and it isn't disqualifying for the holding of public office. Abusing people is the Republican Party's most basic ethos. Bigotry is their base issue. Trump wants Congress to cut funding for a children's health program, and for years he and the Republicans have been trying to take health care from tens of millions of people. Trump's proposed budget slashes Medicaid spending, while the Centers for Disease Control under his administration is gutting spending on global disease prevention. Trump also wants to cut Food Stamps, because making American great again apparently means making more Americans hungry. And because educated Americans vote more Democratic and against Trump, he naturally wants to follow in the footsteps of Ronald Reagan and cut spending on education, while making it harder for people who need student loans. For his part, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan's sole purpose in politics seems to be to cut Medicare and Social Security, and he's openly admits he’s been dreaming of cutting Medicaid since he was in college. Trump's cruel policies of racism, xenophobia, and exclusion are so consistent and comprehensive one would need to a daily tally to keep up. And House and Senate Republicans support all of it. Whether it’s punishing immigrants to the point of tearing their families apart, or cynically and hypocritically claiming to wage war to protect the same people Trump banned from entering the country as refugees, or rolling back all manner of civil rights protections in a blatant attempt to hurt the same minorities who have suffered historic bigotry and discrimination, Trump and the Republicans attempt to validate their sorry existences by imposing cruel policies that structurally and institutionally Other, not just dividing this nation along demographic lines but shredding it... This is who the Republicans are. This is what they do. Their agenda and values are not about helping people, or making the United States stronger from within. Their policies are designed to hurt people. Women and minorities first, but everyone else in due time. In the vacuum where their souls should have been, the only way elected Republicans can make themselves feel better seems to be to make others feel worse. This is not normal. This is not okay.
who are you . and why are you will to tell my private info . if your a family member , better stop . you don,t know how actually old I am or not . unless your my family member . HOW OLD WAS I in 1960 ? ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh you read the beatles deal . now I know . let me enlighten you into the world of ballotstuffing with names of children they would not check in the old days . I was 7 years old when the stuufed the box with my name and I had to wait all the way through then when I turned 18 I could be killed for fuckhead Johnson but still could not vote . but once again stuffed the ballot box. I knowall the finer points of voting before I was eligible . you kids never had to worry about that ? know why ? I stuffed it for you .
and I was democratic before you were born boy .. its ok dairy queen I don,t expect you to understand . just like my son . gets in trouble online with a isuue . I fix it . he asks don,t tell mom please . so I stick up for him . and don,t tell mom ok ? I smoke pot right . how quick you millennials forget about things old dad does . welp read this dairy queen . your nickname is thrasher right .? the old rivals crew at a request is going to get together .. best to lose the title thrasher . lol! your days of play are numbered and you will never see the guys coming . lol ! no comment !
It’s time for liberals to get over Citizens United Repealing the controversial decision is a pipe dream. And there are more promising avenues for campaign-finance reform. from vox's big idea Spoiler By Scott Casleton May 7, 2018, 9:10am EDT This is not where the campaign finance reform effort should be happening. Manny Ceneta/AFP/Getty Outside contributors' opinions and analysis of the most important issues in politics, science, and culture. From the moment the 2010 Supreme Court ruling Citizens United v. FEC came down, it scandalized liberals. The decision heralded the “hostile corporate takeover of our democratic process,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) thundered at the time. In 2017, a commissioner of the Federal Election Commission resigned, claiming “since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, our political campaigns have been awash in unlimited, often dark money.”* This was the animating sentiment of Bernie Sanders’s 2016 campaign for president; he even went so far as to claim that billionaires are simply “buying elections.” This idea has given rise to a new liberal battle cry: Repeal Citizens United! Unfortunately, that tactic is naive and misguided, and relies on a misunderstanding of the law and politics surrounding the case. As we approach the 2018 congressional elections — and beyond that, the crucial presidential election of 2020 — it is more vital than ever to have a clear view of where this ruling fits into the mosaic of campaign finance law. Such understanding will, in turn, shine light on what can be done to make the election process fairer and make politicians more responsive to all their constituents, not just the big spenders. Some cities and states are already experimenting with programs that strengthen the voices of ordinary voters. Building on such efforts is likely to have far greater effects than continuing to demonize Citizens, whose logic is defensible on First Amendment grounds. Most widespread in liberal circles is the idea that Citizens opened the floodgates to massive amounts of corporate spending in politics. But as many legal scholars have argued, the floodgates were already open. Citizens is not responsible for the massive amounts of money showered on favored candidates. Nor is it responsible for the rise of so-called dark money in politics. Citizens didn’t upend our campaign finance system. It was a logical next step, given past court decisions. Let’s put the hated decision into context. The inundation of elections with private cash is not the result of Citizens but rather was facilitated by the 1976 decision Buckley v. Valeo. That case established the legal framework sanctioning billions of dollars of independent private campaign spending. In it, the Court ruled that limits on campaign donations — direct donations to candidates — are constitutional but said it was unconstitutional to limit non-donation expenditures, such as independently funded advertisements. Such independent spending — which cannot be coordinated with candidates, according to the Court — was protected under the First Amendment as not just speech but political speech. The idea is that money is a necessary instrument for supporting a political candidate, whether it’s paying for yard signs or taking out an ad in the newspaper. Not unreasonably, the Court ruled that limitations on independent expenditures would constitute limitations on one’s ability to support a candidate through any number of media. Placing a dollar limit on such expenditures would arbitrarily prevent certain kinds of campaign support simply by the fact of how expensive they are. Our inability to trace campaign donations to their source — the dark money issue — is the result of the lack of federal regulations to make disclosure mandatory. And such regulations are legal; the Court said as much in Citizens, with eight of nine justices agreeing on that point! The only thing standing in the way of transparency is congressional stonewalling. In 2010, Republican senators defeated a disclosure law 59 to 39, which would have made it more difficult for donors to use legal loopholes to hide their identities. Citizens simply has not had the seismic legal impact that many think. Since Buckley protected money as speech, the only question was whether corporations were legitimate speakers. It may surprise some to hear, but the Court had already answered this question in 1978. In First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, the Supreme Court recognized a corporate right to free speech, concluding that the value of speech in the course of political debate does not depend on the identity of the speaker. Citizens simply followed the precedent of these two cases. So when liberals intone that “corporations aren’t people,” thinking they are making a knock-down argument against Citizens, they miss the point. Citizens did not make corporations persons. And corporations do not need to be persons to receive First Amendment protections. Citizens upheld the liberty, provided by Bellotti, of corporations to speak, and they speak under the rules provided by Buckley. The details were debated by expert lawyer Floyd Abrams and First Amendment scholar Burt Neuborne not long after Citizens came down. Abrams noted that even the liberal Justice John Paul Stevens, dissenting, recognized that the Court has “long since held that Corporations are covered by the First Amendment.” Neuborne, in response, argued that corporations lack dignity and a conscience, which he thinks underpin the human right to free speech. But Justice Kennedy, writing for the slim five-justice majority, cited the long history of First Amendment protections for corporations. The Court had sided heavily with the Abrams view. The Court seems inclined to limit the definition of “corruption” to explicit bribery The only remaining question was whether there could be a justification for the government’s curtailing of that speech. Abridging political speech falls under the strictest category of judicial scrutiny; any law that does so must be justified by a “compelling state interest.” One such objective, some suppose, is stopping corruption, a clear threat to the integrity of Congress. And indeed, in Randall v. Sorrell (2006), the Court reaffirmed that combating “corruption” rises to the level of a compelling state interest. But in Citizens, Justice Kennedy said the only kind of corruption that would count in this context is the most direct kind: “quid pro quo” corruption, which covers only vote-buying bribery. No such vote buying was at issue in Citizens, since the controversy centered on the release of a privately funded campaign video during an advertising “blackout” period. Such off-limits periods, established by the McCain-Feingold legislation, paid insufficient heed to the Court’s precedents on money as speech and the high bar for restricting political speech. In response to Kennedy’s narrow conception of corruption, Harvard Law professor and onetime presidential contender Lawrence Lessig has advocated for a broader idea of corruption. In his book Republic, Lost, Lessig spells out his notion of “dependence corruption,” whereby Congress is unduly responsive to big donors because they are dependent on them for campaign money. He takes pains to argue on “originalist” grounds, hoping to appeal to the conservative majority of the Court, who attempt to cleave closely to the meaning of words as they are found in documents at the time of the Constitution’s drafting. Alas, his arguments have largely fallen on deaf judicial ears. Where does that leave us? We are almost certainly stuck with Citizens, not to mention Buckley and Bellotti. The major hope of many concerned lawyers and academics in the runup to the 2016 election has been dashed: the hope of filling the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat with a more liberal justice who might help reverse the decision. Instead, reformers got Neil Gorsuch. So even if there were a stronger legal argument to be made against Citizens, that argument won’t attract enough votes in the Supreme Court. Desperation has led some, like Sanders, to push for a constitutional amendment limiting corporate campaign spending. But beyond being a pipe dream, given the institutional challenges, this tactic fails to take seriously the intricate First Amendment questions at issue. The upshot of the Sanders campaign is its demonstration of the strength of a candidacy funded by small donations. As a candidate, Sanders rejected Super PAC funding in favor of donations averaging well under $100. Since Super PACs are the primary means individuals and corporations funnel their money to campaigns, it is historically noteworthy that a candidate without such support was capable of seriously contending for the presidency. The lessons to draw from Sanders’s campaign is not that the system is healthy. Instead, we should conclude that the medicine to cure it may take the form of enabling citizens to make more Bernie-size donations. As of late, there has been an uptick in under-$200 donations to congressional races. In order to make such donations a staple in our democratic process, they should be supported by legislation. Such a program has been introduced in Seattle, which gives away “democracy vouchers,” which could serve as a national model. The basic idea is simple: Every eligible voter in Seattle receives $100 in vouchers, which they can freely donate to campaigns in the local city elections. This means every voter can participate in the pre-election process by using their money to “speak up” for candidates they endorse, and it enables lesser-known candidates to find financial support without bending the knee before big money special interests. Theoretically, this ensures that every citizen has a baseline level of equal participation in the political process. It expands our understanding of political equality beyond “one person, one vote” to a wider notion of equal opportunity for electoral participation. The local focus is a crucial first step to reshaping public participation in campaigns. As ACLU national legal director David Cole has argued, the most likely path to substantial federal campaign finance reform is by winning small victories in cities and states. Fostering state- and local-level initiatives accomplishes several things. First, it draws more citizens into the debate over the proper role of money in politics — an essential step toward a sustained national conversation. Second, it allows for political and legal experimentation. Because the Supreme Court is unpredictable, especially given the uncertainty of Justice Kennedy’s swing vote, attempting several strategies at once for public funding increases the chances that a constitutionally passable version is found. More experiments also mean more models that can be used as contrasts to the federal system, making the weaknesses of the federal system all the more clear. Third, such an approach will spark important legal work, which is far from a purely academic matter. By pursuing ballot initiatives and enacting local laws that address money in politics, we will invite legal challenges by entrenched, moneyed interests. This forces judges to issue ever more opinions on what is constitutional, justifying themselves along the way. Higher courts will receive appeals and further scrutinize this reasoning. This, in turn, will attract legal academics like moths to a flame, whose work will be cited by advocates and courts. All of this will arm the public with constitutional arguments to defend the integrity of our democracy. There is no guarantee that all of this will be enough to counterbalance the power of big money in elections. But we can hope that bottom-up political activism will light a fire underneath the complacent rump of Congress. Increased national dialogue, successful local and state initiatives, and a proliferation of academic criticism of current law and policy all generate real political pressure. Signs of hope Disclosure laws are not out of reach in the coming years, and increased participation in local elections, subsidized by voucher systems, may usher in increased voter turnout for national elections. Higher turnout has been shown to heavily favor one of the two major political parties. Hint: It’s not the Republicans. Liberals should take note of the recent special election in Pennsylvania’s 18th District. Outside donations for the Republican candidate, Rick Saccone, were more than five times larger than for the Democrat, Conor Lamb. Yet Lamb pulled off the upset, showing money isn’t everything. He drew strength from a well-mobilized, engaged electorate. Such vigor can be stimulated in elections across the country — particularly if we provide concrete, monetary means for voters to participate in the selection of their representatives. Rather than continuing to rail against Citizens United, reformers should pursue strategies that increase democratic participation and encourage voter turnout. *CORRECTION, 5/11: This passage originally suggested that the Federal Election Commission has a single commissioner, who resigned and criticized Citizens United. The agency is typically run by six commissioners; one resigned. Scott Casleton is a PhD student at UC Berkeley studying political philosophy and intellectual history. He has a degree in philosophy from Yale University. Find him on Twitter @scott_casleton. The Big Idea is Vox’s home for smart discussion of the most important issues and ideas in politics, science, and culture — typically by outside contributors. If you have an idea for a piece, pitch us at [email protected].
let me tel you something the republican party was so fucked up with what the dems got now , u took 8 years of Obama up the ass. until you got over your 1958 way of thinking . so quit pointing fingers . know why? 2 short years comes up real fast . after 8 years of dems you would think you would not be like a democrate but you are ? huh ?
2 years in trumps term and your acting just like the democrats . what a joke . you can,t be like a democrate , so why are you trying ?
maybe a millennial but don,t ruin their fun . you were young and free and excited once . let them be their own person .
Its been this way since the first merchants arrived here and will continue to do so until we bleed the rich of the West dry. The constitution and NATO ensures that it does. The USA is imperialist nation that exists to serve a small group of white men. DJT is just peeling back the veil of that. The America you love is a fucking ruse, dude.
here,s my last take . aside from the old ballot stuffing we got a good president for our time .. and you were right I was young , but when your ballot stuffed age doesn,t matter only a name . thus voting at age 6 or 1st grade .( remember - no information boom just yet ) . or imagin . ? I will now make a comment for the future . here is how it goes . 1. joe biden even if trump finishes his term well . will give trump a run hard for the money now . why ? trump has to start focusing more on the democratic values his election people based winning on . in-other-wards it,s still not a give me even if he wins the nobel prize . make no mistake the democratic party will get back to powerfull domestic issues traditionally extra strong . you can not rely on popularity . everyone now is fresh in the mind regarding blocks by electorial votes. republicans swung some states thus the reason Obama let the food gates open for new democratic blood . so everyone knows each others tricks . JOE BIDEN is a excellent values person . he will be hard to beat given the 2 critical swing states both still have economy issues . ( it will take 2 terms ) . p.s. we don,t need a wall we can monopolize ???????? and revolutionize no borders . thus planed parenting and ad another language . ( for trade). crisper and stem-cell research must advance to cover the damage we - us has done to us . controlled population growth , maybe not the giver yet we could possibily beat that bye building up unstead of sideways . and continue good feeding. but America is starting to outgrow it,s boundries . what human will take us to the new millennium ? is my train oft hought radical or logic ? u choose .
Exclusive: how rightwing groups wield secret 'toolkit' to plot against US unions Internal documents obtained by the Guardian reveal a nationwide drive to persuade union members to quit and stop paying dues Ed Pilkington in New York @edpilkington Tue 15 May 2018 06.00 EDT Last modified on Wed 16 May 2018 06.06 EDT Members of the American Federation of Teachers hold up signs depicting Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and David Koch, while protesting in support of unions outside of the supreme court on 26 February. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP Rightwing activists are launching a nationwide drive to persuade public-sector trade union members to tear up their membership cards and stop paying dues, posing a direct threat to the progressive movement in America. Spoiler Documents obtained by the Guardian reveal that a network of radical conservative thinktanks spanning all 50 states is planning direct marketing campaigns targeted personally at union members to encourage them to quit. The secret push, the group hopes, could cost unions up to a fifth of their 7 million members, lead to the loss of millions of dollars in income and undermine a cornerstone of US progressive politics. “Well run opt-out campaigns can cause public-sector unions to experience 5 to 20% declines in membership, costing hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in dues money. This can affect the resources and attention available for union leaders to devote to political action campaigns,” the internal documents say. The anti-union marketing drive is the brainchild of the State Policy Network (SPN), a coast-to-coast alliance of 66 rightwing thinktanks that has an $80m war chest to promote Donald Trump-friendly regressive policies such as low taxes and small government. The group is funded by such billionaire conservative donors as the Koch brothers and the Walton Family Foundation that stems from the Walmart fortune. Previous SPN literature exposed by the Guardian has revealed the political motives behind the network’s attacks on unions. It aims to “defund and defang” public sector unions as a means to “reverse the failed policies of the American left”. The goal, the group said, was “permanently depriving the left from access to millions of dollars in dues extracted from unwilling union members every election cycle”. The Guardian has now obtained what SPN is calling a “toolkit” of advice to its followers on how to go about fomenting “union reform” – a euphemism for draining unions of members and cash. The “toolkit” sets out four “tactics” for depleting their power – “effective union reform”, in its language. One of those tactics is the opt-out campaign “To get employees to opt-out of their union,” the documents say, “they first need to know they have a choice. A direct marketing campaign to union represented public employees that combines mail and digital outreach helps raise awareness and raise opt-out rates.” The SPN blueprint sets out how to acquire the private details of union members through state freedom of information laws so that opt-out propaganda can be targeted directly at them. It says: “Access to lists of union members is essential to this project. The most common means of obtaining lists is through requests made under state public records laws.” The toolkit is being circulated at a vital moment for public sector trade unions. The wave of school teachers’ strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona, Colorado and elsewhere has reinvigorated the labor movement as a key part of the resistance to stagnating wages, waning resources and a hostile White House. More perilously, the US supreme court is poised to deliver its ruling any day in Janus v AFSCME, one of the most important trade union cases in recent times. If the five conservative justices on the highest court vote in favor of the anti-union plaintiff, as many expect, they would deal a severe blow to organized labor by giving employees the right to opt-out of paying their share of the costs of collective bargaining even though they benefit from negotiated higher wages and improved conditions. That in turn would give the green light to conservative groups like SPN to step up their efforts to encourage mass resignations of union members. As a clear statement of intent, SPN invited Mark Janus, a child support worker in Illinois who is the named plaintiff at the center of the supreme court case, to speak at its annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas, last August. Carrie Conko, SPN’s vice president of communications, said that “workers should be able to decide for themselves if payment of union dues and fees is a good use of their hard-earned money or if their money is better spent elsewhere”. SPN’s aim was not political, rather it was “simply about protecting free speech”. Public-sector unions had created a problem for themselves, Conko said, by leaving some workers to feel they were being used. The Janus case might actually help government unions improve their standing with members as “they will need to prove their worth by providing better representation to earn the voluntary dues”. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said the Guardian documents revealed the extent of secret planning by rightwing groups in advance of the supreme court’s Janus ruling. “These documents make clear that Janus v AFSCME is not a case brought by individuals trying to have a voice, it’s a case brought by wealthy forces to eliminate worker voice and power.” She added that rightwing billionaires such as the Kochs “know working families only have power through their unity as a union, and they will stop at nothing to destroy that. But we have seen unprecedented support for our unions and the opportunities they enable for a better life – when the Janus decision day comes, we will stand united, ready to act and fight back against the forces that want to silence workers.” One of the SPN thinktanks, the Freedom Foundation in Olympia, Washington state, has already begun campaigning and fundraising on the back of a Janus ruling that goes against the unions. It has been mailing out to supporters in which it says “we are gearing up in a major way to launch an extensive education and activation campaign to take full advantage of a favorable ruling in this historic case”. The foundation goes on to say: “The consequences of a favorable ruling are huge. Imagine tens, even hundreds, of millions of dollars currently used to push damaging leftwing causes and candidates … vanishing.” In 2016 the Freedom Foundation ran a brazen campaign in Washington and Oregon in which it went knocking on the doors of more than 10,000 childcare and home care workers telling them that under a previous US supreme court ruling they could opt out of paying union dues. In the document obtained by the Guardian, SPN boasts that the foundation’s operation cost the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in those states $8.8m in lost dues and legal fees.
Trump Voters Feel Disrespected Because That’s What Fox News Tells Them Spoiler by Nancy LeTourneau May 16, 2018 Political Animal Clemens v. Vogelsang/Flickr When Barack Obama was running for president in 2008, he said this: You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations. People like Dennis Schminke from Austin, Minnesota never forgot the one bolded part of that statement because it has been repeated out of context ad nauseam. “I was very wary of Barack Obama and he proved me correct on that,” he said over coffee on a summer afternoon. “I despise Barack Obama. I think primarily because I don’t think he thinks very much of people like me. That’s just the long and short of it.”… Trump’s appeal, he said, was born in part of resentment toward the Obama presidency. “One of the places I would agree with the hard-core Trump people, they’re tired of being treated as the enemy by Barack Obama,” he said. “His comment, the whole thing, it’s been worn out to death, that clinging to God and guns, God and guns and afraid of people who don’t look like them, blah, blah, blah. Just quit talking down to me.” That quote is from one of the more recent takes on the genre of “what do Trump voters think now,” by Dan Balz. James Hohman summarized the findings of several similar reports. Three new deep dives into Donald Trump’s strength in Midwestern counties that were previously Democratic strongholds — written by conservatives, liberals and a nonpartisan journalist — each highlight a deep craving for respect among supporters of the president and an enduring resentment toward coastal elites that buoys his popularity. There is no denying that this is the view expressed by many of the people who voted for Donald Trump. The question becomes what—if anything—Democrats can do about that. Last night, David Roberts took to twitter with a response. Everything rural and suburban whites (R&SW) know or hear about Democrats or liberals, they get through a media filter. That mostly means Fox News (et al). And Fox is in the business of crafting a ludicrous, bug-eyed, cartoon-evil caricature of liberals. THAT is what R&SW hear from/about Dems. And it’s not just right-wing media. “Mainstream” media like CNN etc. have adopted pretty much the same caricature. They know that “arrogant liberal mocks salt-of-the-earth diner guy” stories are catchy. They sell. They pop. Everybody knows the caricature already. There’s a reason Obama spent 8 years reaching out to the other side, begging for cooperation, being scrupulously respectful toward Republican voters … and one, single, off-the-record, wildly-distorted comment is all most R&SW people know about him. That didn’t just happen. It’s the result of RWM & MSM alike peddling the same hackneyed morality tale that country mice have been telling about city mice since there were cities. That impression of Obama, so at odds with the reality, was deliberately & vigorously cultivated… My point: if the media wants to reinforce a narrative of snooty coastal libs looking down their noses at heartland rubes — and it *very, very much wants to* — there’s no stopping it. There’s no way for every single lib to speak so carefully that nothing can be distorted. And, conversely, it hardly matters at all what Dems decide they want to communicate to S&RW. They can craft empathetic messages until they’re blue in the face — THEY DON’T CONTROL WHAT THOSE PEOPLE HEAR. (Sorry for yelling.)… Actual liberals exist on cable news almost entirely as phantasms, discussed in absentia by panels consisting of nonpartisan mainstream journos and right-wingers (“balance” in cable news). They — esp the non-white, non-male kind — are rarely allowed to speak for themselves. Anyway. The whole “liberals are smug” thing is dumb, dumb, dumb. It’s been around for centuries & it’s always been dumb. It’s a narrative that requires no actual liberal smugness to perpetuate itself. Some libs are smug; some cons are smug; people are annoying; whatever. I should remind you that David Roberts is no disrespectful elitist. Early in the 2016 campaign he wrote what I consider to be one of the most thoughtful and empathetic portrayals of Trump supporters. That was long before the current genre became an obsession in the media. He simply knows what I’ve been saying for a long time now: for many conservatives, their view of liberals is a caricature that is at odds with reality because it has been crafted for them by Republicans and right-wing media. As long as they live in that epistemically closed bubble, they will feel disrespected because victimhood has become the rallying cry for what used to be the “party of personal responsibility.” In the meantime, no Democratic messaging to the contrary is likely to break through, which is why authenticity is always the best approach. not true for me anymore. I do think less of them and judge them to be both ignorant and arrogant
not really an orange idiot issue Burlington, Vermont, Says "No" to F-35s, Setting Off a Chain Reaction Tuesday, May 15, 2018 By James Marc Leas, Truthout | News Analysis Spoiler Politicians and developers are pushing for the F-35s over the objections of citizens who will be affected by them. (Photo: Robert Sullivan / Flickr) Truthout readers like you made this story possible. Show your support for independent news: Make a tax-deductible donation today! The F-35 fighter bomber is screamingly loud. The US Air Force also says that the F-35 has a high crash rate. A Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division report describes releases of toxic, carcinogenic and mutagenic chemicals, particulates and fibers during combustion of a military carbon composite aircraft body, making the consequences of an F-35 crash in a city catastrophic. A proposal to base 18 F-35 fighter bombers at the city-owned airport in Burlington, Vermont, would put nearly 3,000 small working-class homes in a noise danger zone that the 2013 US Air Force Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) says will impair children's learning and cognitive development. Notwithstanding lockstep support by the Vermont political and commercial establishment, the plan to base the fighter bombers in Burlington was shaken up in March when citizens voted to cancel the basing. While the vote was a major step toward revoking the plan, a bit more than a democratic vote of the people may be needed in view of the enthusiasm for F-35 basing that Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger, US Sen. Patrick Leahy and commercial real estate developers continue to display, notwithstanding the serious harm the basing will impose on thousands of families. Impacts of F-35s on Residents The airport is located in the most densely populated part of Vermont -- 124,000 people live in seven towns and cities within five miles. Although owned by the City of Burlington, the airport is located entirely within the city limits of South Burlington. About 1,000 small, single-family homes and an elementary school are close, and they are blasted by the noise of groups of F-16 jets taking off twice a day. The runway aims directly at the center of Winooski, an ethnically diverse working-class city where more than 20 languages are spoken, just one mile away, and the F-16s fly low over the city on takeoff. Burlington itself is mostly far enough to the side of the runway so only small portions are heavily affected by F-16 noise. A map in the Air Force EIS indicates that the F-35 taking off in normal military power with its afterburner off is almost as loud as the F-16 taking off with its afterburner blasting. When an afterburner is engaged, fuel is injected into the exhaust stream to increase the temperature and speed of the exhaust as it leaves the tailpipe nozzle, significantly increasing thrust. Unfortunately for people and animals in the flight path, the afterburner also vastly increases the noise level. The EIS says that a person on the ground below will be hit with 115 decibels when the F-35 is at 1,000-feet elevation on takeoff with its afterburner off. But even 115 decibels is a sound level above the threshold of pain. To avoid permanent hearing loss, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) says that a worker may be exposed to 115 decibels for no more than 28 seconds. The NIOSH recommends that protective measures be taken at the much lower 85 decibels sound level. Damage to children from aircraft noise was acknowledged in the Air Force EIS, which states: Several studies suggest that aircraft noise can affect the academic performance of schoolchildren ... tasks involving central processing and language comprehension (such as reading, attention, problem solving, and memory) appear to be the most affected by noise ... there is increasing awareness that chronic exposure to high aircraft noise levels may impair learning. This awareness has led the [World Health Organization] and a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) working group to conclude that daycare centers and schools should not be located near major sources of noise, such as highways, airports, and industrial sites. The US Air Force EIS provided data showing that the 18 F-16 aircraft currently based at the airport have had "disproportionate impact" on low-income populations and residents of color that would continue or increase under the F-35. For example, a table in the US Air Force EIS reports 2010 Census data showing that heavily impacted Winooski is 17.4 percent non-white and 24.6 percent low income. By contrast, none of the wealthy neighborhoods in Burlington or South Burlington are shown on Air Force EIS maps as being impacted by F-16 or F-35 noise. Citizens Fight an Uphill Battle Over F-35 Basing In Burlington, the democratic process opposing the F-35 fighter bombers faced multiple obstacles. First, despite sub-zero temperatures, petitioners unexpectedly succeeded in collecting 1,800 valid signatures of registered voters by the January 18 deadline to put a resolution calling for cancelation of the plan on the ballot for a vote on March 6. The ballot item asked for a yes or no vote: Shall we, the voters of the City of Burlington, as part of our strong support for the men and women of the Vermont National Guard, and especially their mission to 'protect the citizens of Vermont,' advise the City Council to: 1. Request the cancellation of the planned basing of the F-35 at Burlington International Airport, and 2. Request instead low-noise-level equipment with a proven high safety record appropriate for a densely populated area? By a vote of 6,482 (55.3 percent) to 5,238 (44.7 percent), the citizens of Burlington voted in favor of canceling the basing. The vote was a bit of shock, coming in the face of unanimous support for F-35 basing by Vermont's entire political establishment, including Senators Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders, Congressman Peter Welch, the governor, the mayor, the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Round Table and real estate developers who had figured out how to turn dangerous F-35 noise into money for themselves. A massive advertising campaign, much of it paid for by prominent real estate developer Ernie Pomerleau, flooded newspapers, social media and airwaves. Uniformed Vermont National Guard commanders intervened with on-base news conferences. Signs attacking the resolution saying, "If you truly support the Guard vote no on 6," were planted, lining major streets in the city. To counter the attack, grassroots health and safety activists implemented a social media and print media campaign that featured satire, full-page ads and a couple of opinion pieces in the local daily newspaper. In a boost to the campaign, seven local state legislators signed on to a letter calling on the public to vote "yes" to request cancellation of the F-35s. The letter cited noise and crash danger from the F-35 and the availability of alternative missions for the Vermont Air Guard if the F-35 basing is cancelled. But the highlight was a demonstration of the outrageously loud 115-decibel sound level of the F-35 organized by Ben and Jerry's activist co-founder Ben Cohen in March. A stadium-sized sound system mounted on a trailer led by Cohen drove with sign-bedecked vehicles through the streets of Burlington. As widely reported, Burlington police arrested, handcuffed and jailed Cohen and two others for violating the city's noise ordinance as they demonstrated the sound of an F-35 taking off in front of city hall. The arrests constituted tacit admission by city officials that the deafening noise level produced by the F-35 was illegal. "You can't have it both ways. If the sound is illegal -- if you're going to arrest us for it -- they should arrest the [Burlington] City Council that is inflicting this noise on 6,600 people," Cohen told a reporter just before being arrested. The campaign to cancel the F-35s and the resulting citizens' vote against the basing proved to be a catalyst for three city councils to take up the matter. Three City Councils Vote to Cancel F-35 Basing Burlington council member Joan Shannon was council president in 2013 and had led the council in supporting F-35 basing back then. But immediately after voters approved the resolution to cancel the F-35 in 2018, Shannon prepared and circulated a resolution generally respecting the will of the voters. The resolution called on the secretary of the US Air Force "to replace the planned basing of the F-35 with a basing of a low-noise-level plane with a proven high safety record." The resolution also included questions for the Air Force on several hot topics: F-35 crash risk in a densely populated area, F-35 noise level, F-35 use of its afterburner, and availability of an alternative plane for the Vermont Air National Guard if the F-35 basing was cancelled. Although the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce mobilized its members to lobby councilors to support F-35 basing at the Burlington city council meeting on March 26, the council adopted Shannon's resolution 9-3. Though Burlington's pro-F-35 Mayor Miro Weinberger did send the resolution to Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson two weeks later, he included a cover letter rejecting the will of the city's voters, instead supporting F-35 basing in Burlington and disparaging the town meeting vote and council resolution. (A real estate developer himself, Weinberger and his administration appear to have conflicts of interest regarding 44 acres of commercially valuable land facing the airport entrance. As Truthout previously reported, the city acquired that land for free with grants from the Federal Aviation Administration to purchase and demolish 200 small working-class homes.) Meanwhile, neighboring Winooski and South Burlington are the cities currently most harmed by F-16 noise, and they will be even more harmed by F-35 noise. On April 16, the City Council of Winooski voted unanimously and the City Council of South Burlington voted 3 to 1 to adopt their own resolutions calling on the secretary of the Air Force to cancel the planned basing of the F-35 and instead provide low-noise-level equipment with a proven high-safety record. Passage of the Winooski and the South Burlington city council resolutions, adding to the town meeting vote in Burlington and its city council vote, shredded any remaining claim of public support for F-35 basing. The citizens' vote in Burlington, and the subsequent votes by the three city councils, is built on seven years of visible public actions. Activists had organized large demonstrations, public meetings, mass marches and rallies. They had initiated two lawsuits and published dozens of articles -- all to get out the message of severe danger to children and elderly in local communities. Though judges ruled against them in both F-35 lawsuits, discovery in the federal case produced a trove of Air Force documents that revealed government misconduct in decisions leading up to the Air Force selecting Burlington for F-35 basing. Those documents helped demolish the case for basing the jets and contributed to the town meeting and city council vote results. Among the thousands of pages released were documents showing pressure applied by US Sen. Patrick Leahy on the Air Force chief of staff. If Vermont elites press on anyway and succeed in pressuring the Air Force to push the F-35s on a non-consenting and unwilling public, a crisis of democracy will be added to the lack of legitimacy created by impairing health, safety, children, learning, schools and affordable housing, and for disproportionately impacting low-income residents and people of color while engaging in government misconduct.
wonder if any of the parents of today's school shooting attended the gun fetishfest Governor Greg Abbott at NRA Convention: ‘The Problem is Not Guns, It’s Hearts Without God’ President Trump and other GOP leaders slammed the press and peddled a cocktail of conservative issues at the NRA convention in Dallas. Governor Greg Abbott speaks at the NRA convention in Dallas. AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki At the NRA convention in Dallas Friday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said religion and the Second Amendment are the best ways to curb gun violence and mass shootings. “The answer to gun violence is not to take guns away, the answer is to strengthen the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens,” said Abbott during his brief speech to about 5,000 firearm enthusiasts. “The problem is not guns, it’s hearts without God.” Spoiler Beyond installing the Lord in godless hearts, the only policy endorsed by the conservative leaders who spoke at the convention was putting more guns in the hands of trained teachers and school guards. Abbott pointed out that Texas lawmakers “already authorized our teachers to be armed in our schools.” President Donald Trump even found his way to the same talking point. “We want highly trained teachers to carry concealed weapons,” said Trump. “When [attackers] know there are guns inside, they’re not going in.” (The arena itself was a gun-free zone — a safety precaution under U.S. Secret Service orders.) Trump mocked calls for gun regulation shortly after offering condolences to mass shooting victims in Las Vegas and Sutherland Springs. “It seems that if we’re going to outlaw guns, like so many people want to do — Democrats — then we are going to have to outlaw immediately all vans and all trucks, which are now the new forms of death,” Trump said. But most of the speechmaking had nothing to do with guns. Led by Trump and Mike Pence, NRA officials and Republican leaders offered a cocktail of conservative issues: immigration, a border wall, freedom of speech, abortion and even pornography. “We have the worst immigration laws in the world,” Trump said, as calls to “build the wall” floated up from the audience. “You’ve all seen the illegal migrants pouring up through Mexico, flooding the border.” During his characteristically free-form half-hour speech, Trump unloaded on Democrats and progressive activists who’ve called for tightening gun laws in the wake of mass shootings. He touched on everything from the ongoing Russia investigation (“witch hunt”) to Kanye West (whom he thanked for doubling “my African-American poll numbers in one week”) to his victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Trump also “fully endorsed” Abbott, Ted Cruz and both Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is fighting felony fraud charges, and his wife, Angela, who is running for the Texas Senate. Trump and other speakers went on the offensive against the media, an enemy that Trump and the NRA spoke of in near-violent terms. Pence complained that journalists “refuse to tell the truth” and only present unfair coverage of gun violence and gun owners. Videos that played for the audience in the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center prior to the speakers included NRA TV celebrities smashing a TV with a sledge hammer and threatening to torch a copy of the New York Times. Another compared journalists to lemons and was followed by an NRA TV personality blending the lemons into lemonade. The only thing that drew more boos from the audience than MS-13 gang members? Journalists. Speakers named news organizations like CNN, ABC, NBC, MSNBC and the New York Times as the biggest violators. Many of the speakers told the same “good guy with a gun” stories. Every speaker mentioned Stephen Willeford, the Sutherland Springs resident who shot the church attacker last year after the assailant killed more than two dozen people, as a model for how to stop mass shootings. “He had an AR-15, but so did I,” Willeford said in a video that was played at least twice during the speeches. No one, though, mentioned that 26 people were killed before the attacker was stopped. Or that there was an armed guard who didn’t engage the shooter at the Parkland, Florida, high school where 17 were killed. Or that a good guy with a gun (a security guard) was killed just before the Las Vegas shooter opened fire on a crowded concert below, and that it then took police 18 more minutes to breach the assailant’s room. Cruz, who spoke near the end of the lineup, managed what no other speaker up to that point had: He blamed the Sutherland Springs shooting on “the Obama administration’s” failure to report the shooter’s criminal history. “I bet you didn’t read that in the news,” Cruz said. “These reporters, they’re not in the reporting business, they’re in the propaganda business.” In fact, it was widely reported that the Air Force admitted to failing to properly report the shooter’s conviction of domestic violence while he was enlisted to federal law enforcement. He purchased the semi-automatic rifle he later used to mow down 26 people at a sporting goods store in San Antonio. Trump ended his speech on a high note: “We will never give up our freedom. We will live free and die free.” Kolten Parker is the digital editor of the Observer. You can find him on Twitter or at [email protected]. Get the latest Texas Observer news, analysis and investigations via Facebook, Twitter and our weekly newsletter.
Inside the Massive U.S. 'Border Zone' https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018...e-probably-you-mapped/558275/?utm_source=SFFB
You end up with ridiculous situations like in Texas where the female to male transitioning student was forced to wrestle girls despite starting male hormone therapy
Outside of a trans category, which would be sparsely populated, there’s really not. I actually don’t have a problem with FtM trans people competing with men. It’s the opposite direction that causes issue
Good article on the economic impact of closing two coal fired power plants in Adams County Ohio and why the rural population does not leave for Columbus or Cincinnati. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...-americans-stay-when-their-town-has-no-future
Kind of weird that the first few stanzas discuss Americans reluctance to move and then the first details regarding the closing plants mention many of the workers moving from hundreds of miles away.
Some do and some don’t. We understand why those who move do. I’m not sure this thread understands the ones who don’t.
I should add that it’s definitely a difficult thing to understand for those who haven’t experienced it firsthand.
Nashville NPR story: http://nashvillepublicradio.org/pos...says-goodbye-new-life-he-hoped-build#stream/0
Couldn't even finish that story because it made me so mad. The US has to get over it's Bober for incaerating black and brown people.
Are there any sexy af tankies or people left of neo-libs? Conservatives have a few smoke shows and I think it really helps them market their shit ideology.