Droves Jerry, droves!

Sent from my CPH2451 using Tapatalk

I think someone mentioned in the COVID thread Idaho being "under the radar" crazy; guess radar starting to pick it up.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/relig...taylor-greene/

I do not. It is worth mentioning that the title of the article I pulled that graph from was "Florida fastest growing state for first time since 1957" so it is performing well relative to all the other states, right now, but it is definitely not experiencing historic growth rates, aside from historic lows. Finally, that article also mentioned that the previous fastest growing state was Idaho, which may speak to its value as an indicator.

Hardly sounds draconian. Sounds pretty good, actually. The only evidence I have is that people don’t flock to draconian systems. Which is what opponents are accusing Florida under DeSantis as being.

I don’t understand how you guys are debating the intentions of the people who authored the law or looking at their past motivations to try and draw conclusions. As we learned in the Don’t Say Gay thread, that is not allowed and all that should be thought of is the language in the law itself and not how it affects the people because the people will just go to court to fight it and fix it. Shang ri E.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So, what's the sales pitch from FL then to my non-binary, non-churchgoing child and their mixed-race girlfriend, both in their early 20s, who are just starting out? Why should Florida seem inviting to them?

You have to be blind to not see his only goal is to create a generation of uneducated GOP voters who will be easily manipulated and work for cheap.

Purely anecdotal of course but he (or really his policy focuses) are a primary reason that I may skip any intermediate relocation in Georgia and head straight to Florida when I finally get to move.

While it had some distance to make up, it's certainly the leader among "states headed in the right direction" afaic. Something I sure as hell can't say about the one I'm in.

They don't want them here

Then they don't want them in the SE

Then they don't want them in the USA

unless of course...

They fall in line. Then we'll have them here in the Sunshine State.

I don't believe there is/would be a sales pitch based on your description.

(I'm unsure if I've maybe missed something in the thread & they already moved there or are there, so I'm not entirely sure whether my comment is in the proper context or not. If not, ignore it I guess)

There's a strong belief by many in Eastern Washington/Oregon and Idaho that a holy war is coming. We've seen horror stories of groups overtaking small towns or even small counties with their extremist views by stacking city councils, ect. Their goal in Idaho had been to do it at the state level and then claim those parts of Washington and Oregon as theirs while they prepare for the war they believe is coming.

GF completed her BS (biochem), both were thinking of moving out (because that's what young people ideally want to do) and were contemplating where to go to a) apply for jobs, or b) continue (or in the case of mine, resume) their education. So money is a factor (cost of living, job market), but so is if the place might be hostile, if not downright dangerous (a calculation many make, just with different variables).

At the end of the day they decided to stay put for now and apply for jobs here (or for mine just stay with current employer, maybe with more hours), and lucked into accommodations (while the area is growing, new construction can't keep up with demand and what's being built is marketed as "high end" whatever. Even a batch of new townhouses popping up in the former farmer's field adjacent to us are for rent only. Idea of paying out the nose while not building equity isn't something that thrills them.)

Especially if they have a dog that they like taking for a ride in the car.

Florida Dem drops proposal to ban dogs from sticking their heads out the car window

Cheaper housing (although that is changing rapidly with the influx of NY/PHI/DC/CHI money). No state income taxes. Great weather. Sometimes good football, great hockey, cheap baseball, the arts, Key West, Miami, Tampa, Orlando. Lots of enclaves full of 20-somethings, lots to do.

You confuse me, Dutch.





FWIW, I never said draconian. Glad we got that sorted out, though. People are moving to FL for Quality of Life and Cost of Living reasons more generally than they are for DeSantis' draconian/non-draconian policy implementations.

Yeah, but Dutch said "droves". Are droves of people who think like you are moving to FL? What's a "drove", anyway.


Given climate change, it's headed to the bottom of the ocean so I guess that's something we can both agree upon. Maybe we can have an argument about whether my blue state taxes should pay for Florida's imminent flooding mitigation efforts.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to confuse anybody or show my age by saying people were moving here in droves. :)

Statistically, to say what I think most everybody knows, Florida and Texas overall easily outpace the field as the top two states for domestic immigration while NY and California easily outpace the field for domestic emigration.

My area, Tampa Bay market, is #1 nationally and #8 for young adults (25-34).


If it makes you feel better, our flood insurance taxes are going up every year to off-set national disaster money. Im not sure how much it costs national tax payers, but we all know it’s part of the deal and mostly everyone is all for reducing the amount of taxes any state has to pay for Floridians to live by the water (to be fair, we can’t help it, we’re geographically surrounded!) But we are progressing along those lines.

As for climate change, if a tortoise can outrun the rising sea waters, I think the humans along the coast will be quick enough to survive the creeping doom of the salty red tides. :)

Less competition in the workforce I guess. Although I guess my state will have fork over more money to cover their welfare checks.

Srsly? How does anyone not know that word? Cambridge dictionary does the best definition for our purposes a large group, especially of people, moving toward a place or doing something together as a group. It's synonymous with "(a) herd", though the usage is more people-specific. Origin seem to be 12th century Old English "draf" meaning herd.

Behaviorally I think it's more common that people who think like me are looking to Florida over the past couple of years with a combination of admiration & awe, with no small measure of jealousy. But not everyone I know like me is moving yet, though I do know several who have made that very move, each commenting after the fact how nice it was to see some semblance of sane leadership for a change.

you mean the Ayn Rand fever dream?

The beliefs of these groups are straight out of White Supremacist dreams and prognostications. It started as the coming race war, and it's sort of morphed along the way to whatever fit the situation. Either way, it's all just steeped in white supremacy.

Plus a governor who wants to legislate you from existence and a not insignificant percentage of the population that thinks your goal is to force their kid to have public bathroom sex or force them into gender reassignment surgery.

But the Lightening!

I went to a Lightning game in December and it WAS a pretty fun experience. For a visitor, anyway.

Lightning aren’t as good as they were but still a fun team to watch. Like I said, the immigration numbers should clue you in that reality is much better than the grizzly tales you’re reading about online.

Hockey games is fun to attend, but I find it unwatchable on TV. Not what we are talking about, but anyway.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

I wouldn't go that far but it probably does suffer more from that issue than any major sport.

Make sure you fill out the form telling the state when your underage daughter is menstruating.

That's the super secret question to catch all the trannies playing in women's sports.

Stop with the Western literary traditions, but thank you, it closes a loop for some. :)


Come on down! The waters warm! Though rising and sometimes uninhabitable… lol.

Well, I mean, too late.... :D


CA, IL, & NY are dominated by large urban areas in which it is expensive to live, while both FL & TX are cheaper and both, especially TX, build a lot of sprawl, which helps with costs, if you like that kind of thing.

I looked this up, however, and it's been this way for a while. I wonder how much of it, too, is driven by snowbirds & boomers retiring.

Anyway, I still see no evidence that people are moving "in droves" to TX or FL because of the culture war policies of Abbott or DeSantis (except Jon, of course).


I was kidding. I'll get truly wound up about how Florida spends my money once I'm doing being wound up about how Democratic-dominated Cook County, IL, wastes my money.


I got $20 on the tortoise vs. the retiree in their unmaintained wheelchair. ;)


I know what the words means, Jon. I was asking to what numerical order of magnitude Dutch was ascribing it.


Does beg the question what happens when people like you are sequestered into states like FL, TX, OK, ID, etc... and people like me are sequestered into states like CA, IL, TX, MA, etc.... I mean, more so than in the past.

As someone with a Masters in History, meaning I had to actually be all academic about it, the furore over CRT is hilarious. Like, literally the first thing you learn when you start working with primary souces is that they all have bias.

To take a very simple and also non-racial example, when I was doing my research and reading chroniclers of the Hundred Years' War, it was important to understand how some of them were going to, for various reasons, overestimate the size of the English armies, and others would, for various other reasons, overestimate the size of the French armies.

Bias is rife in history. Heck, it's rife now. Why wouldn't you want to teach children tools for how to discern bias in any source, current or historical, with which they are presented?

That was a rhetorical question, by the way.

That’s fair. Bias does come with a weighted scale. For example, not a lot of people foaming at the mouth when some one incorrectly assumed the French had exactly 37 bronze cannon instead of ~10-37 bronze cannon at battlefield X. All respect to history teachers/enthusiasts who may have gotten heated over a scenario like that, of course.

Yeah, but there again, we should be teaching kids how to look at sources objectively, without emotion. As you note, easy to do with events 700 years in the past, which is a good enough reason to work up to issues of bias where there really will be contention.

That was legitimately unclear to me.

(hence me wondering how it was even possible)

I assume the FL coastal cities are going to be toast within 50-100 years but my hopes for Orlando and a nice condo close by the theme parks (nightly fireworks show) will be safe from the rising waters.

Orlando's 82' above sea level. You should be OK. Your grandkids, probably not.

There's always the other option: "'If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

SI

That’s the exact same thing I say to fans at Raymond James Stadium yelling, “Go Steelers!!!”. (Minus the part about a watery death, of course.) :)

The party that wanted to cancel M and Ms because they weren't fuckable anymore is angry because Scott Adams is now being canceled for literally saying move as far away from black people as you can.

What a world.

Unclear if she had the abortion outside the state of Arkansas since it is illegal in that state. But goes to show the ruling was really about preventing others from getting abortions, not themselves.

To be clear this is a member of one of the most famous vocally anti-abortion families……admitting she got an abortion…… https://t.co/ia3WrqMZj1

— josie duffy rice (@jduffyrice) February 26, 2023

It's a miscarriage when rich white Christians do it. It's an abortion when anyone else does it.

When you, as in YOU RM, use the same language that the far right uses to describe a standard procedure that has been around for decades, and is a vital part of women's health, you empower the right, and you normalize their mischaracterization of the term and the procedure.

I take great exception to your description. Yes, some states think a D&C is the same as an abortion and treat it as such. They are 100% wrong to do so. It puts women in harmful situations and it's far beyond cruel to the families. The stories of states that have restrictions on the D&C need to be vilified.

By defining it using their terms, you fuck us all. It's a D&C. It's a must have, non negotiable, part of prenatal care. The fact that we're even having to defend that in 2023 is fucking stupid. Please don't call it an abortion.

I've been through that exact situation twice, and each time was life altering. The D&C was necessary, it was sad, oh, so very sad. We cried a lot. Instead of calling it an abortion, and who did it, and why are they allowed to get away with it, let's focus on the fact that this is a very common medical procedure, that is vital, and what our world would look like without it, and point fingers at the dumb fucks who decided we didn't need it anymore.

Isn't this what he did

"point fingers at the dumb fucks who decided we didn't need it anymore."

Adams looked at how much fame and money a “cancelled” person gets on the Right Wing grievance tour and realized he was a sucker working for a living.

Same experience when my wife and I were younger.

Thanks for stating things so clearly. My wife struggled with the emotional consequences of the D&C for years - even in the case where there was clearly no heartbeat.

I'm sorry you and your wife also had to go through this.

That's how a took it. It's a procedure the right is banning or trying to ban that falls under their definition of abortion.

I took RM pointing it out as their willingness to move the goalposts and change definitions based on who it applies to.

YEah. I took it as RM just using their own BS definition against them to illustrate the hypocrisy.

Unfortunately my wife and I went through it twice as well and it was horrible.

She had an abortion. The fetus was non-viable and she terminated the pregnancy. Not criticizing her or anyone else who has this procedure. Abortion is an incredibly broad term. A miscarriage is defined as a spontaneous abortion.

It's not me changing the definition, it's the right. They've tried to get you and others to believe that abortions are when a poor black woman uses it because they were lazy and slutty. Abortions are done all the time to protect the Mother. They are done when the fetus is not viable. They are done for all sorts of perfectly acceptable medical reasons.


My issue is that procedures like this are banned in 13 states, including the one she lives in. She is allowed to get it because she is rich, white, and friends with the Governor. You or someone else would not be given that luxury. Read about similar cases in other states where patients have to travel over state lines or deliver dead fetuses (with the risk of complications) because of these laws.

And that's how abortion was treated pre-Roe. Illegal for the masses but allowed for the rich and connected. Just change the name of the procedure a little.

I am happy she was able to get this medical procedure. I feel bad she has to go through it. I think it is unfortunate that she believes that she should be able to make those decisions for herself but you and others should not.

Rainmaker is right. I just looked it up.

White - 100%
Black - 0%
Hispanic - 0%
Asian - 0%
Other - 0%

Rich - 100%
Poor - 0%

Knows governor - 100%
Doesn’t know Governor - 0%

Same situation here. This lady had to travel 400 miles to Illinois.

Abortion ban causes complications for Arkansan family | thv11.com

Every state is different. Depending on how quickly she wants to do this, here are some travel options.

Approximate Travel Time (400 miles)
Car 6-8 hours
Plane 1-2 hours

The party of limited government has now voted to install a board to govern Disneyworld (not Disney) because they spoke out against a bill said party pushed through. As mentioned earlier in the post about governing the universities, the board is made up of Desantis donors, a spouse of an RNC leader, and other unqualified people.

But hey, OWN LIBS! Take over their private businesses because they are against your party's platform. I can only imagine there will be no outrage when California votes to make rules and external boards for business that don't agree with their philosophies.

It isn't as simple as that. I mean, don't get me wrong, I think DeSantis is a dick, and given a different composition of the Supreme Court, he might get smacked down for violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

But the Reedy Creek Improvement District has existed for decades, and it was basically the state going "yeah, no, we don't want to deal with this, we'll let you tax yourself and deal with your own infrastructure improvement needs."

What's going on HERE is DeSantis and FLGOP threw a fit over Disney's opposition to Don't Say Gay, and when they realized that a straight dissolution of RCID would leave Orange County on the hook for billions in bond debt, they went "never mind, let's just change how the district works."

So your point about toadies and donors etc is a valid one, but this isn't "taking over their private business." This is FLGOP changing what had been a special set of rules for essentially one company to a different set of rules as a punitive measure.

Which, again, probably not constitutional since it's effectively targeted at one company and they've been outspoken about WHY, even though they later went "well uh something something fairness maybe that's why we're doing it instead," but the current mix of the Supreme Court will ignore that, since it's the home team fucking with shit instead of the road team.

The fact Disney isn’t fighting this tells you all you need to know about who it benefits. They could easily come lawsuits that would outlast DeSantis but they are choosing not to.

Honestly, I think they're looking at DeSantis' political aspirations and going "fucker'll be gone soon enough; this won't hamper our business significantly in the next two years, and it's cheaper to wait until he's out and then hope his successor is easier to deal with."

DeSantis is playing to a culture warrior crowd and isn't gonna be swayed by greased palms. Two years from now, the way Disney wields campaign contributions might end up undoing or at least blunting the fallout of the RCID revamp.

Starting to think Fox might actually be fucked in this case. Check out his whole thread.

Media Matters has obtained a copy of the latest Dominion filing, featuring Rupert Murdoch's deposition (and some light redactions from the court).

I will be tweeting out snippets in this thread as I read through it.

— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) February 27, 2023

There is a reason FOX News is banned is other countries.

we on the other hand show it on our military bases.

Unsurprising support for banning things. In any event, I’ve seen CNN on military bases, but Fox News programming is much more popular so to not show it on a federal compound would show a poorly executed bias. The fed laws and the military must remain inclusive.

Speaking of inclusivity, how do any of these network news stations magically get 95% single-threaded bias in their personalities and journalists? Is it sketchy non-inclusive hiring practices or mandated opinion?

So you think our military baes should be shown what has been proven propaganda?

And don't give me that shit about banning things. The list of things the right wants to boycott is far longer than the left, starting with fair elections and books.

Dola- I'll also add it is downright equal parts comical and insane that a network that has shown every step of the way it puts profit over country should have any rights to be shown on military bases.

And don't give me the CNN whataboutism. We are WAY past the whole "both sides do it" nonsense with regards to cable news networks.

Fox News encouraging its adherents to start a boycott against major companies such as Amazon, BofA, United Airlines, Target, even Walmart: These 51 big businesses target conservatives. Here’s what you can do to stop them | Fox News

Why? Because they're too "woke".

Thank you, Rupert, for continuing to perpetuate a culture war you had a hand in starting for no obvious end other than to make you more money.

Why not both?

psstttt....


It's the money....

Carlson used to be on CNN.

My BIL met him at a banking function in 2016. Carlson told him Trump was a total moron who is unfit for the job.

They all have sold their souls for the almighty dollar. In Carlsons case I think it is also the power.

Nobody treats the conservative base with more disrespect than does the conservative elite. They aren't lying to liberals, they're lying to their supporters.

Howard Stern nailed it years ago

He’s such a small man. The party is such a joke. Complaining about private companies deplatforming right wing voices while their dear leader actually tried to use the federal government to silence a late night host who hurt his feelings.


Trump White House Pressured Disney to Censor Jimmy Kimmel – Rolling Stone

People around trump on J6 said the only thing he was really complaining about was how sloppy his supporters looked.

He'd rather surround himself with the coastal elites he complains about than his own supporters.

Totally normal stuff.

Blaise Ingoglia bill would 'cancel' Democratic Party

Your problem is that you are judging the GOP by what the majority of its voters and elected leaders want, say, and do.

Instead, you should mumble "inflation" three times and pretend that it is 1982.

The fact that people continue to support theatrical hacks like this, speaks volumes on how stupid we are as a country, scream about inflation and crime, then spend your time after elected playing mean girl revenge games.

So, in a perfect world, we get rid of Fox News and I guess Tucker Carlson and Hannity and Britt Hume go to CNN? Would they then be forced to follow the same rules as those personalities? I’m guessing they would have too.

As for military bases. You know who controls the TV’s? Some regular dude or gal with the remote control. Nobody mandates what is watched. Unless it’s in the lobby of a major command then it’s probably the Public Affairs office. In one such place there are two TV’s. One with Fox News and one with CNN. The military member sometimes changes the station when other visitors (particularly waiting rooms) ask. It’s crazy.

In a perfect world there are consequences media companies spreading blatant lies and misinformation. I know free speech and all that, but there's no way the Founders intended for this kind of behavior to be OK.

I'm pretty sure that they would say the solution to bad speech is more speech.

In a perfect world, professional political commentators wouldn't exist. Not because they were banned, but because people wouldn't watch their garbage. For-profit political discourse doesn't exist to improve people's lives or help people to be more informed. It exists to make money.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

Agreed. The point of the founders was for us to be informed, to allow us to be informed free from government oversight. I’m not sure when the news began to pick sides, maybe it’s always been that way, but they are getting better at dividing the facts into “juicy facts” and “let’s not air these facts” that clearly fit into one of two categories. Pro-Democratic Party and Pro-Republican Party. That’s it. So yes, the news on TV and social media is the Wild West of news information.

Take for example the “bombshell” at the Texas Border involving Haitians trying to cross the border.

Possible headlines.

“Thousands of Haitians attempt illegal crossing of the Rio Grande”
“Texas Rangers whip Haitian immigrants at the Rio Grande”

One major network went with the first option (Fox News). Every other network went with option 2.

The View took it a step further with, “Texas Rangers whipped Haitian immigrants like slaves” and that spread like wildfire on social media for a while. The ladies on The View were literally weeping on air about a return to slavery.

The White House condemned the Texas Rangers actions at the border.
The CBP boss was horrified.
Every major network (except Fox News obviously) slammed the Texas Rangers actions.
The View never corrected their comparison of Texas Rangers with Slavery.

The Photographer said it wasn’t a whip but horse reigns (to maneuver the horse).
Video shows no such whipping ever took place and clearly show the reigns of a horse.
Texas Rangers don’t have whips…

It was a rush to sensationalized judgment that no news channel corrected and I don’t know if the White House did either, but the damage was already done. The money already made. No investigation ever took place.

I believe one local news station and Fox News did expose Option 2 as a sensationalized hit piece (might be more but if you weren’t looking for a correction you probably never saw it).

So here we are. Fox News chairman takes the stand and admits to what we already know. Have any other network heads admitted to it? I’m sure Fox News will come up with something to increase the pain against CNN or MSNBC. Rinse and repeat.

When TV news became a profit center, and then cable news took that quest for profit into a whole new level.

Um, are we forgetting the "Yellow Journalism' got us into a shooting war? (the Spanish-American war)

Suddenly the thread takes a turn into ignoring the long history of the U.S. media.

There has never been an apolitical media here.

Not before the Revolution, not after the Revolution, and not at any time since the Revolution.

all fine and good except for the fact the Haitian immigrant incident happened, or at least was rooted in an event that took place. No rational person is ever going to argue cable news isn't bias (oddly enough except Fox News viewers because they are told the network is fair and balanced).

The problem with this latest revelation, the one that inspired my comment and your original reply, is that they are reporting things as facts, election integrity, etc..., when not only did it never happen, they KNEW it didn't happen and reported it anyways because they were afraid of losing viewers to competitors who would tell their viewers what hey want to hear, not what actually happened! Look at what happened when they called Arizona for Biden, their base and Trump went crazy.

They did this for months, knowing the damage it was doing to the country and they did not care. Murdoch literally said in his deposition it wasn't about red or blue, it was about the green FFS. If someone can't see how their reporting ripped the country apart and has had dire consequences (Kari Lake anyone?) they they are part of the problem.

There is no "all networks do this' crap when it comes to this. Any sane nation would view this as what it was and they would be removed from the airwaves. This should be the scandal of a lifetime.

You may need to clarify.

The news took an event (illegal border crossing) and changed the entire event to be an illegal whipping of black people by white men.

The news took an event (election) and changed the entire event to be a widespread conspiracy of voter fraud to sway an election.

Based on what we know, neither happened. They were both based loosely (fictionally?) on true events. Now, either are possible to happen in the future but there was no evidence of either when reported and the news ran with both at a full sprint.

Thank you.

And even that wasn't particularly more political than the era that preceded it (there was just more profit motive, rather than power motive, attached)

Way to cherry pick. The next thing I said was the Haitian immigrant story was at least rooted in reality. The videos and pics made it look like they were being whipped. Did cnn et al get it wrong in a rush to condemn. Yup. But comparing that to Fox News systematically and purposely painting a completely false narrative, that they knew was wrong m, and knew it would wreck democracy, for profit isn’t even in the same stratosphere. But sure, both sides.

The most prestigious award in journalism is named after one of the people involved in that. It's kind of crazy how people thought there has ever been integrity or apolitical journalism in this country.

In fairness, they have no real policies. For real, what is their plan outside of theatrical stunts?

It quoted for brevity, but I understand how if I were a journalist or a lawyer that would be seen as taking it out of context. So I apologize for that.

As for Fox News and CNN, they are extremely well trained, experienced, and calculated in their presentation. It took me about five minutes to understand what CNN, et al, were doing and it was no mistake. They purposefully upset and angered people of color in order to get a reaction from their base audiences to cheer as a “gotcha!” win. It was disgusting to to see and I’m surprised you thought it merely “got it wrong” but what your ideological opponent did was “not even in the same stratosphere”. Did it bother you at all the racial wounds were ripped open for no ethical reason? Across multiple networks?

Give me a break. That was a blip on the radar compared to what Fox did. When the border control files a multi billion dollar lawsuit, one that likely wins, against CNN then we can compare the two. Until then it is just you excusing bad behavior from FOX for profit.

dola- Even if CNN fabricated the entire story using actors in a studio it wouldn't compare to what FOX News did.

Are you seriously excusing what they did under the guise of "everyone does it"

Do you honestly not see the severity of their actions and the generational damage it has caused?

Haitians are moving here in droves.

Something...something...both sides.

I think it depends on what you mean by OK, but Jon is correct on this IMO. Lots of the founders used blatant lies and misinformation to get things done, including getting elected in the early days of the Repubic. I also think, based on what I know what was written by the best of them in their better moments, that their philosophy was more likely that a populace gullibe enough to be duped long-term by misinformation is one that is inadequate to the task of self-governance anyway. One might call the ability and willingness to sift through some of the noise as a prerequisite to civil liberty.

We should definitely not look warily at the party that wants to destroy public education and and privatize is solely for profit under the false guise of improving it.

SI

Honestly, I agree 100% with this. Partisan journalism existed in Colonial America, so it's not like the "news" was ever a bastion of neutrality. But that's not the point.

The Founders assumed that there would be a learned ruling class who would generally be in control of things. Remember that although the Constitution let the States determine who could vote, many if not most states initially restricted the franchise to white male property owners.

And originally the state legislatures elected U.S. Senators directly, to say nothing of the Electoral College setup.

So even from the start the U.S. was set up to be an oligarchy. Maybe it kinda/sorta worked back in the 18th century since you more-or-less had to be pretty well educated to be part of the ruling class/oligarchy back then, but clearly over time the lack of checks that were considered unnecessary if you had a bunch of relatively smart people running the show (again, arguably), now has us in a situation where demonstrated morons like Boebert and Jewish Space Lasers MTG are running the show.


Or, to put it another way, the Founders were A-OK using bullshit to sell stuff to the masses, but knew using bullshit to set actual policy wouldn't fly because a) everyone else at that table was smart enough to counter the bullshit and b) in the early years at least a lot of them knew each other anyway.

On point b, up to about 30 years ago, Reps & Senators would routinely spend multiple weeks at a time in Washington DC (unless they lived really close) because flights were generally expensive and the need to fundraise constantly (and thus be back in district/state) wasn't as pressing. Nowadays they're in town Tue-Thu, half of which they spend making calls, and then back home fundraising over the weekend (or doing things like supporting the local/state party, etc...).

What this means is that even 30 years ago there was more bipartisanship due to the simple fact that a lot of these politicians actually were forced to spend time together and to talk to each other and understand things. It's a lot easier to talk about a few bills in succession with a small group of colleagues and agree, verbally, on some puts-and-takes across those few bills if you're interacting every day in person. That's all gone, and boy are we paying the price for it now.

As with most everything in the GOP, the people who want to make money off of something are using the True Believers to get it done. In this case the True Believers fall into two camps: those who believe that public education will always teach the wrong stuff and want things like religious indoctrination in the curriculum, and those who believe that certain people just don't deserve to be educated.

They probably actually wrote the bills themselves, too.

Sounds like we are dangerously close to saying maybe slavishly adhering to a document written 225 years ago by men who were probably just as flawed and certainly far more scientifically and socially unenlightened than anyone born in the last 50 years is a bad idea?

Been in western Colorado for 10 minutes and I’ve already seen a huge thisnis Boebert country sign in the side of a house. I’ll never understand it.

*see also don't need to be educated; just trained in a trade.

In grade school?

SI