Dtknuckles
Well-Known Member
Did that tax Bill have a dem vote for it?
Political Discussion
- Thread starter David A.
- Start date
Did that tax Bill have a dem vote for it?
How else are they going to fund re-election campaigns?
yukbon
Well-Known Member
Because the democrats don't have party control/ cohesion. Moscow mitch is a shitbag but he kept his peons in line. Dems could 100% use a damn spine.
Chucktshoes
Well-Known Member
It didn’t have to. The way things work up in Congress the opposition party doesn’t have to really vote for something to let it pass. It simply has to not take action to halt it.
Dtknuckles
Well-Known Member
So how many of the Dems would have voted for that bill if the republicans would not have had enough votes to get it through?
Wow. Just wow at the events that took place in Texas last night.
The GOP controlled legislator attempted to push through sweeping election reform over the weekend and before the 12:00 am deadline last night. The voting reform would have created some of the most restrictive voting laws in the nation. And it was sure to pass. Democrats were able to block it by staging a walk out. They vote could not be conducted before the deadline due to not enough people present to hold a vote.
Now that the state legislation session is over the bill can’t be passed until they meet again in 2 years unless there is a special session. Texas governor is already signaling that he will order all lawmakers back for a special session to pass this voter reform bill. No word yet as to when that might be.
The GOP controlled legislator attempted to push through sweeping election reform over the weekend and before the 12:00 am deadline last night. The voting reform would have created some of the most restrictive voting laws in the nation. And it was sure to pass. Democrats were able to block it by staging a walk out. They vote could not be conducted before the deadline due to not enough people present to hold a vote.
Now that the state legislation session is over the bill can’t be passed until they meet again in 2 years unless there is a special session. Texas governor is already signaling that he will order all lawmakers back for a special session to pass this voter reform bill. No word yet as to when that might be.
I hate this. It happens in Oregon too often--lately with Republicans but I believe originally with Democrats. While the voting restrictions were awful and evil, I despise the walkouts because they become endless tit-for-tat cycles.
On the other hand, I am not sure what the options are in the heavily gerrymandered southern states, but I promise this short-term solution will come back to bite them.
mdmost
Well-Known Member
There's not much Texas Democrats can do. A while back, a group of them left the state and hung out in Oklahoma during the Special Session. I can't remember what became of it but the Governor can just keep calling special sessions until he gets what he wants. Texas Republicans fear losing power with changing state demographics. We're on the cusp of being a majority minority state. That's why you see ridiciously redrawn districts like Dan Crenshaw's. The person who represents my area in Congress, and I'm on the furthest east end of Dallas, also represents people as far away as Alto which is 2 hours southeast of me. His office is in Canton which is an hour east.
I'm in this district, on the very far left near the small lake. Why any part of Dallas proper is attached an area 150 miles southeast of the city is beyond me other than it's a way to keep less Democratic candidates from winning since Dallas is firmly blue.
www.govtrack.us
This is Dan Crenshaw's ridiculously redrawn district outside Houston. You can guess why it's shaped the way it is on the outskirts (read suburbs).
www.govtrack.us
I'm in this district, on the very far left near the small lake. Why any part of Dallas proper is attached an area 150 miles southeast of the city is beyond me other than it's a way to keep less Democratic candidates from winning since Dallas is firmly blue.
Texas’s 5th Congressional District - TX-05 Representatives & District Map - GovTrack.us
Find your U.S. Congress senators and representative in Texas’s 5th Congressional District (TX05) using a map.
www.govtrack.us
This is Dan Crenshaw's ridiculously redrawn district outside Houston. You can guess why it's shaped the way it is on the outskirts (read suburbs).
Texas’s 2nd Congressional District - TX-02 Representatives & District Map - GovTrack.us
Find your U.S. Congress senators and representative in Texas’s 2nd Congressional District (TX02) using a map.
www.govtrack.us
That explains why Texas’ governor said yesterday that he will use his veto powers to not pay any lawmaker who does not return to pass the law for abandoning their responsibilities.
Yes, there are lots of gerrymandered districts in the south, but this is a national problem. Here are the 12 most gerrymandered districts and 3 of them are in what would be considered the traditional south. Add in Texas and you get a total of 6, but Massachusetts and Illinois are also notoriously bad.
The Most Gerrymandered Districts In America
You've likely heard about gerrymandering in the United States. As the country becomes more and more divided over political issues, it's a term that comes up a lot. So what is gerrymandering, and why is it so bad?Gerrymandering is a tool employed by many congressmen to ensure they stay in power....
www.ranker.com
I used to live in Texas' 2nd. It was created to silence the voices of the gay community, the intellectual community around Rice, and in-town hispanics. So now that cretin Dan Crenshaw represents Rice University, it's insanity.Yes, there are lots of gerrymandered districts in the south, but this is a national problem. Here are the 12 most gerrymandered districts and 3 of them are in what would be considered the traditional south. Add in Texas and you get a total of 6, but Massachusetts and Illinois are also notoriously bad.
The Most Gerrymandered Districts In America
You've likely heard about gerrymandering in the United States. As the country becomes more and more divided over political issues, it's a term that comes up a lot. So what is gerrymandering, and why is it so bad?Gerrymandering is a tool employed by many congressmen to ensure they stay in power....
I haven't forgotten about this, I just needed some time to compose my thoughts.
So there is an inverse relationship, economically speaking with assets prices and interest rates. As interest rates rise, asset prices fall. The reason for this is that interest rates control the amount of credit people can afford to take out. Limiting credit was the reason that my parents bought their first house when interest rates were at 17% in the late 70's. This restricted how much people could buy because they could only afford so much interest. After the crash of 2008, the fed decided that it needed to open the floodgates of credit and they manipulated the interest rate so that it would stay around 2%. This rise of easy money via credit, made real asset prices rise because people could easily afford the interest payments, so they started outbidding others for things like houses--because they understand that if easy credit is available (i.e. increase in the money supply) tangible assets like housing and food are only going to increase in real cost because they have a more limited availability than the easy credit money. This causes inflation.
So now we have a situation where housing prices are rising very fast due to easy credit. The problem with this is that rents are going up too, which is not good for anyone who works in the service sector where wages have been suppressed for about 40ish, almost 50 years. They demand higher wages because their checks no longer cover their rent. The only way for stores to get workers, is for them to pay more; thus, more inflation. The Covid pandemic did not change anything with interest rates. The only thing it did was allow workers to ask for more money given the very real rise in rents over the past year--and the only reason they could stage this sort of worker sit out was due to increased unemployment benefits. This pandemic did not create the clusterf*ck, it just sped it up.
Inflation is not necessarily bad if the increase in the money supply is based on a new technology or due to wage increase to compensate workers fairly. Inflation is bad when the increase in money supply is due to easy credit lending terms, and credit is over extended to people that cannot pay it back, you get market overheat and crash. The problem with inflation is that it's always going to happen. We can either let it rise and compensate workers fairly, or we can hold down interest rates artificially, create an easy credit situation and have inflation rise anyway due to irresponsible investing. Inflation doesn't always mean redistribution to the top 1%, but in this instance, because there is no check on credit being extended, this will only pay off for those people that are "credit worthy", and most of those folks already have money.
Here's a a couple places I got my info on things:
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Here's Why Asset Prices Go Down When Rates Go Up.
Stocks, bonds, real estate, and other asset prices fall when interest rates increase for two primary reasons.
Federal funds rate - Wikipedia
So hey, just another reminder that the war on drugs is never going to get us to a drug free America. Issues like addiction are better dealt with in a medical clinic than a jail cell. I have often advocated for better wages for workers as a way to help with smoking cessation, obesity, and drug abuse/addiction much more than any PSA, government program, or corporate solutions. If you want to really depress yourself, you can google deaths of despair statistics to see that failed neoliberal policies are literally killing my generation, and is the main reason that Gen Xers and Millenials both have a lower life expectancy than their parents.
But a growing body of work suggests this area needs to be explored more deeply if communities want to address the opioid problem. One study published earlier this year found that for every 1 percent increase in unemployment in the U.S., opioid overdose death rates rose by nearly 4 percent.
Another recent study from researchers at Harvard University and Baylor College of Medicine reported U.S. counties with the lowest levels of “social capital”—a measure of connection and support that incorporates factors including people’s trust in one another and participation in civic matters such as voting—had the highest rates of overdose deaths. That review of the entire U.S. mined data from 1999 through 2014 and showed counties with the highest social capital were 83 percent less likely to be among those with high levels of overdose. Areas with low social capital, in contrast, were the most likely to have high levels of such “deaths of despair,” with overdose alone killing at least 16 people per 100,000
Overdose is now the nation’s leading cause of death for people in the prime of life. And suicide- and alcohol-related deaths have also risen—most dramatically in regions with the highest levels of economic distress. “It will be hard to address the addiction and overdose crisis without better understanding and addressing the neurobiology linking opioids, pain and social connectedness," says Sarah Wakeman, medical director of the Substance Use Disorder Initiative at Massachusetts General Hospital and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
www.scientificamerican.com
But a growing body of work suggests this area needs to be explored more deeply if communities want to address the opioid problem. One study published earlier this year found that for every 1 percent increase in unemployment in the U.S., opioid overdose death rates rose by nearly 4 percent.
Another recent study from researchers at Harvard University and Baylor College of Medicine reported U.S. counties with the lowest levels of “social capital”—a measure of connection and support that incorporates factors including people’s trust in one another and participation in civic matters such as voting—had the highest rates of overdose deaths. That review of the entire U.S. mined data from 1999 through 2014 and showed counties with the highest social capital were 83 percent less likely to be among those with high levels of overdose. Areas with low social capital, in contrast, were the most likely to have high levels of such “deaths of despair,” with overdose alone killing at least 16 people per 100,000
Overdose is now the nation’s leading cause of death for people in the prime of life. And suicide- and alcohol-related deaths have also risen—most dramatically in regions with the highest levels of economic distress. “It will be hard to address the addiction and overdose crisis without better understanding and addressing the neurobiology linking opioids, pain and social connectedness," says Sarah Wakeman, medical director of the Substance Use Disorder Initiative at Massachusetts General Hospital and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
The Social Life of Opioids
New studies strengthen ties between loss, pain and drug use
Jan
Well-Known Member
There was aa nice article about redistricting and gerrymandering and some mathematicians attemps to develop mathematical models for fairer district lines in scientific american a while ago. It's worth a read
www.scientificamerican.com
The Mathematicians Who Want to Save Democracy
With algorithms in hand, scientists try to make U.S. elections more representative
I'm torn on this.There was aa nice article about redistricting and gerrymandering and some mathematicians attemps to develop mathematical models for fairer district lines in scientific american a while ago. It's worth a read
The Mathematicians Who Want to Save Democracy
With algorithms in hand, scientists try to make U.S. elections more representative
The mathematician in me loves this, and I really like the idea of both a compactness score and an efficiency score. But I'm very suspect of our lives becoming even more driven by algorithms.
gaporter
Well-Known Member
Happy Pride Month! You know, the month where all the brands and companies pat themselves on the back for making their logo rainbow colored while shit like this is going to keep happening because America doesn't give a fuck about queer people, they just want their money.
Joe Mac
Well-Known Member
I’m even more suspect about the formulation of these algorithms and the fact that they’re designed to serve the same purpose as the rest of the system, that being extracting money from poor people’s wallets and depositing in the wallets of the super rich.
I saw on Snapchat a story from a Woman who lives in Kankakee Illinois. A car in front of her at a stop light had "Make [N Word plural] Afraid Again" witten on the back of their car in white duct tape in big huge letters. Took up the full back window and bumper.
She called 911 to report it and was told it was not a police emergency and that it was protected free speech. She was like why are the police letting these people driving around like this and that she is afraid.
I get first amendment rights and all but how is that not an exception that needs to be dealt with? It's only purpose is hate.
She called 911 to report it and was told it was not a police emergency and that it was protected free speech. She was like why are the police letting these people driving around like this and that she is afraid.
I get first amendment rights and all but how is that not an exception that needs to be dealt with? It's only purpose is hate.
debianlinux
Well-Known Member
This has come before the Supreme Court in numerous ways over the past several decades. Possibly the most relevant is R.A.V. v City of St. Paul. which protected displays containing abusive invective citing what I believe to be one of the original 1949 precedents Terminiello v City of Chicago.