Political Discussion
- Thread starter David A.
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Max Sterling
Well-Known Member
Oof... Fix it by basically telling rich people to stop trying to make money? Guess this is just the way things are forever.
I basically only wear them at the grocery store at this point, given that it's the only place I go I would consider "crowded".
But this will depend vastly on where you are and what is going on. I am in a state where all the restrictions have been lifted and basically things are going back to normal (because people got vaccinated not because it is run by ding-dongs). But I think a good rule of thumb is that if the employees have to wear them then maybe you should too.
There will be a time where you walk into like a coffee shop and realize you're the only one wearing a mask. At that point you wearing one alone (if you feel fine) is practically useless. I just went to a museum and a coffee shop today and saw like 3 masks out of 50 people.
This is written for someone who has the attention span of a goldfish.
tonythegamer
Well-Known Member
The problem with this statement is while I believe the governor did a semi-decent job of handling the pandemic and also seems to at least believe in actual science, there are also tons of ding-dongs in my state. I will never forget when we were doing really good numbers towards the beginning of the pandemic, with few deaths and infections. Then a bunch of smooth-brains in my state had to vote to take away her power to keep the state as restrictive as it was, and it only led to more people getting infected and dying at a greater rate.
This is why I had to err on the side of caution with this question, as I know not everyone else is being careful with this mandate.
Do whatever makes you feel comfortable. There is nothing wrong with being cautious.
jaycee
Well-Known Member
y - it's not particularly useful... but also people seem to have the attention span you describe.
The only place in Salem that still requires masks is actually my local record store. For RSD they still required mask, provided disposable gloves and only allowed 6 people in the store at a time, despite all state and local mandates ending.
When I went to the grocery store today 80% of the people where not wearing masks. I still feel like I should wear one, but most everybody including employees are not.
I overheard one old lady in line asking another old lady in the adjacent line why she was wearing a mask. She lady wearing the mask answered "I'm protecting you". The other lady just shook her head and said something about how she can't breath in them and the protection is all a farce anyways.
The housing market is on fire. The Fed keeps adding gasoline | CNN Business
Bidding wars. All-cash offers. Homes selling for $1 million over asking. The housing boom has officially reached the ridiculous stage.
www.cnn.com
The related video is worth a watch as well.
It covers a couples story from Austin, TX who sold their house because it's no longer working for them and they are looking for a new home.
The quickly discovered they can not afford any home in or near Austin with Today's housing market. Austin is a popular city people migrate too, and often have budgets of $800,000 or more. Locals budgets are 30% less and are effectively priced out of the market to stay in the area they grew up in.
To find listings within their budget they have to look 40 minutes outside of Austin. Something they did not want to do and will have to change their whole lifestyle. Even then, they are finding Bidding wars.
They find a house they love and the listing price is right that just went on the market that day, only to find there are several other offers already on the house. All offers due by 10:00am the next morning. Only to find out that to make a competitive offer in the bidding war they are above their budget and have to drop out because they can't afford the house.
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bfly
Well-Known Member
been a bad trend there for a decade, with both renting and buying.The housing market is on fire. The Fed keeps adding gasoline | CNN Business
Bidding wars. All-cash offers. Homes selling for $1 million over asking. The housing boom has officially reached the ridiculous stage.
The related video is worth a watch as well.
It covers a couples story from Austin, TX who sold their house because it's no longer working for them and they are looking for a new home.
The quickly discovered they can not afford any home in or near Austin with Today's housing market. Austin is a popular city people migrate too, and often have budgets of $800,000 or more. Locals budgets are 30% less and are effectively priced out of the market to stay in the area they grew up in.
To find listings within their budget they have to look 40 minutes outside of Austin. Something they did not want to do and will have to change their whole lifestyle. Even then, they are finding Bidding wars.
They find a house they love and the listing price is right that just went on the market that day, only to find there are several other offers already on the house. All offers due by 10:00am the next morning. Only to find out that to make a competitive offer in the bidding war they are above their budget and have to drop out because they can't afford the house.
in 2008-2013, the population influx and subsequent rise in prices obliterated minority-majority neighborhoods on the East side of Austin. since then, most of the service industry and artists (and me!) have also been pushed to the edge of the city or out completely. everyone has gone to San Antonio or Houston, or rural towns near Austin like Lockhart, that are starting to see this trend as well. and yet my mama won't stop asking me why I haven't bought a house yet
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other thoughts from Texas: the governor did a big showy signing of the constitutional carry law a couple days ago. he's an obnoxious ass always, but the worrisome part for me was the language he was using about the border and immigrants during the press conference.
even though he's always spewing garbage, he has somewhat refrained from the alarmist call-to-arms language over the past 2 years- back then he apologized for the words he used that might have inspired the El Paso shooter.
on Wednesday, Abbott and cronies repeatedly said things like "homes are being invaded" when discussing the border and his new wall construction. a reminder that the domestic terrorist that committed the 2019 El Paso attack left a note saying it was "in response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas." they keep using the people who live in the RGV and along the Texas border (on both sides), as well as the fragile ecosystems there, as a political football. the invasion rhetoric that came from the last president and from my current governor makes my stomach churn and fearful for my friends along the border.
One of the things that I have found very shocking is how much inequality has increased for black families.
Putting together the pieces from a few articles posted here over the last day or two, home ownership rates for black families as at an all time low since they started tracking this information. Pre pandemic, home ownership rates of black families was 30% lower than white families. This is higher than in 1960 where it was legal to discriminate against black families looking to buy a home or any housing fairness and equal opportunity laws were passed.
Sad when you think about that.
Putting together the pieces from a few articles posted here over the last day or two, home ownership rates for black families as at an all time low since they started tracking this information. Pre pandemic, home ownership rates of black families was 30% lower than white families. This is higher than in 1960 where it was legal to discriminate against black families looking to buy a home or any housing fairness and equal opportunity laws were passed.
Sad when you think about that.
jaycee
Well-Known Member
The housing market is on fire. The Fed keeps adding gasoline | CNN Business
Bidding wars. All-cash offers. Homes selling for $1 million over asking. The housing boom has officially reached the ridiculous stage.
The related video is worth a watch as well.
It covers a couples story from Austin, TX who sold their house because it's no longer working for them and they are looking for a new home.
The quickly discovered they can not afford any home in or near Austin with Today's housing market. Austin is a popular city people migrate too, and often have budgets of $800,000 or more. Locals budgets are 30% less and are effectively priced out of the market to stay in the area they grew up in.
To find listings within their budget they have to look 40 minutes outside of Austin. Something they did not want to do and will have to change their whole lifestyle. Even then, they are finding Bidding wars.
They find a house they love and the listing price is right that just went on the market that day, only to find there are several other offers already on the house. All offers due by 10:00am the next morning. Only to find out that to make a competitive offer in the bidding war they are above their budget and have to drop out because they can't afford the house.
5 years ago I moved from Portland to the Midwest in part because I was never going to be able to afford a home. The CA dollars had come-up to the NW and the boomers looking to extend their retirement dollars and income were buying up anything and everything with cash offers well above asking.
I finally was able to save enough money for a 20% down payment (I'm in my 40's) and started looking for a home in-part because the interest rates were way too low. It took me 4 months of constant looking to find a place and I paid 50k over asking with no contingencies. This was dumb, but it's what the market dictated. Sellers have all of the leverage. 100% of the risk is on the buyers. I only feel OK about this because my rent payment was jacked-up 12%/mo., and the low interest rate means what I'm paying for my mortgage (not counting insurance and property tax) is only $100 more than my rent.
I'm happy to finally have something I can call my own but I certainly used my tailwind in life to be able to do it. These capitalist games suck.
jaycee
Well-Known Member
Our systems depend on keeping people poor and desperate. Black Americans have always been at the bottom rung of our caste system and will continue to be until white Americans choose to make different choices.
It may not be legal to discriminate but it's still the norm. People selling their homes choose not to sell to people based on names, based on how much down payment the people have or where they are getting their loan. There are tons of stories of mortgage lenders not giving loans to black people with the same credit worthiness and financial assets as white people.
In 2022 midterm elections, the worse case scenario for democrats is losing 1 senate seat and 37 house seats.
That said, we are more likely to maintain our slim control of the senate than our control of the house of representatives. Especially after district lines get redrawn.
Maintaining control of the senate though will be tough. It requires good voter turnout. If voter turnout is mediocre it favors the republicans.
That said, we are more likely to maintain our slim control of the senate than our control of the house of representatives. Especially after district lines get redrawn.
Maintaining control of the senate though will be tough. It requires good voter turnout. If voter turnout is mediocre it favors the republicans.
Lock it in.
Remote learning during the pandemic is one of the main reasons critical race theory is such a hot button topic today. Parents were seeing what their children were being taught in school and it horrified many of them.
One example is the Rockwood School District in Missouri. They do not teach Critical Race Theory, but they due try to include diversity and inclusion in their lesson plans.
And when Republican parents saw what their kids were learning they accused to school of teaching Critical Race Theory, Marxism and Liberal Propaganda. Several very heated school board meetings ensured. Republican parents do not want their children "fed this propaganda" because they are young and impressionable. These heated school board meetings made it to the national spotlight and was what triggered Missouri's state legislature to pass a ban on teaching Critical Race Theory. Which severely handicapped teaching diversity and inclusions and things like Jim Crow Laws because that would be in violation of the vague language of the law the state passed to ban Critical Race Theory.
The school district was trying to include diversity and inclusion and not feed the whitewashed history many of the school children's parents learned. However, with the CRT ban and it's vague language, school curriculums unfortunately will shift to be more whitewashed than they were a generation ago.
And this is true for most Republican states rushing to pass through bans on CRT. Tennessee for example passed a law so vague that it pretty much bans them teaching any book by a black author. If suppression, slavery or anything of the like comes up the book is banned. Teaching about Jim Crow laws would also be illegal in Tennessee under the law they passed.
One example is the Rockwood School District in Missouri. They do not teach Critical Race Theory, but they due try to include diversity and inclusion in their lesson plans.
And when Republican parents saw what their kids were learning they accused to school of teaching Critical Race Theory, Marxism and Liberal Propaganda. Several very heated school board meetings ensured. Republican parents do not want their children "fed this propaganda" because they are young and impressionable. These heated school board meetings made it to the national spotlight and was what triggered Missouri's state legislature to pass a ban on teaching Critical Race Theory. Which severely handicapped teaching diversity and inclusions and things like Jim Crow Laws because that would be in violation of the vague language of the law the state passed to ban Critical Race Theory.
The school district was trying to include diversity and inclusion and not feed the whitewashed history many of the school children's parents learned. However, with the CRT ban and it's vague language, school curriculums unfortunately will shift to be more whitewashed than they were a generation ago.
And this is true for most Republican states rushing to pass through bans on CRT. Tennessee for example passed a law so vague that it pretty much bans them teaching any book by a black author. If suppression, slavery or anything of the like comes up the book is banned. Teaching about Jim Crow laws would also be illegal in Tennessee under the law they passed.
Will Joe Manchin learn from his attempt to work with the other side of the aisle?
Joe Manchin created his own voter reform bill to be an alternative to HR1 to try to create bipartisan legislation. The bill was unfavorable to most democrats for not doing enough to protect democracy and pretty much conceded on 90% of the things republicans objected over. He was hoping he would get bipartisan support and get this bill passed instead of HR1.
But no surprise came last week when when it hat zero Republican support. Mitch McConnell indicated that he would block with the filibuster and called for all his Republican counterpart to join him in voting against it.
Today, the bill is dead because there are zero Republican votes in favor of it.
Tomorrow, the HR1 bill is expected to hit the senate floor. And Republicans are expected to fully utilize the filibuster to block the democrats from shoving this bill through if they need to. Though, Mitch McConnell is all to content with just letting Joe Manchin be the villain. If no
Republicans will vote for the bill, it's in writing that Joe Manchin will not vote for the bill. So all Mitch McConnell has to do is unite his party in a no vote to block this bill and let Joe Manchin be the no vote that kills it.
Joe Manchin created his own voter reform bill to be an alternative to HR1 to try to create bipartisan legislation. The bill was unfavorable to most democrats for not doing enough to protect democracy and pretty much conceded on 90% of the things republicans objected over. He was hoping he would get bipartisan support and get this bill passed instead of HR1.
But no surprise came last week when when it hat zero Republican support. Mitch McConnell indicated that he would block with the filibuster and called for all his Republican counterpart to join him in voting against it.
Today, the bill is dead because there are zero Republican votes in favor of it.
Tomorrow, the HR1 bill is expected to hit the senate floor. And Republicans are expected to fully utilize the filibuster to block the democrats from shoving this bill through if they need to. Though, Mitch McConnell is all to content with just letting Joe Manchin be the villain. If no
Republicans will vote for the bill, it's in writing that Joe Manchin will not vote for the bill. So all Mitch McConnell has to do is unite his party in a no vote to block this bill and let Joe Manchin be the no vote that kills it.
This backlash started, not with CRT, but with Common Core requirements.
When they saw how disastrous things like sight words were and as for common core math, well, here's a video to show some fun that parents deal with:
Not just the way common core requires math to be done, but the way they skip around from fractions to multiplication, all I see it doing is confusing my children. Sight words have been proven to be less effective than phonics especially in children with special needs and/or cognitive delay. And more often than not, we end up reteaching kids how to do the math that we learned. They understand the math that we learned much better than the math they are learning in school.
Like I said, I'm okay with us looking at our history book and pointing out that America was built on the backs of slaves that got nothing from it. I noticed that when my kiddo was quarantined that they really did a lot to beef up the curriculum around Native Americans, and I got to learn a lot more about the native groups that lived here prior to Europeans coming in. I think that is a really cool addition to the curriculum.
The problem I see is that while they are killing it in the social studies area, they don't even come close to effective math and reading curriculums. Most of the parents that I know have a much bigger problem with the way they are teaching math, than them teaching CRT. And this is where I get really cranky, because often times when people report that parents were seeing what their kids were being taught and they got upset, I really do wonder how many parents were getting upset over other aspects of the curriculum, but CRT makes a way better story than parents being mad about how kids are being taught to divide.