What is this talk about closing down all the DMVs so they can't get IDs? Has that ever been discussed? Is there any reason to think that would happen? You guys are starting to sound a little like the FEMA concentration camp people.
http://www.governing.com/topics/politics/drivers-license-offices-will-reopen-on-limited-basis.html Yes this is happening. A lot of elderly minorities and elderly in general don't have state issued photo id's because they don't drive and don't really need them. Some have basic state id's but a lot of them don't. It's not a hypothetical. I'm also not one to normally scream racism at stuff but the people that it affects are disproportionately black.
Is this for real? You're talking about DMVs closed by budget cuts in areas the DMVs were barely being used. Speaking of relevant... So now, in something that actually is motivated by a warped political agenda they're going to keep them open and throw public money down the drain because 'we don't want to be racists.' They were servicing an average of less than one person per day per station, and all that has to happen is some idiots shout racism to reopen them. That's fucking sad. As for the less than half a percent of the voting population affected, I would hope they can make it to another station sometime during the 4 years between elections. Maybe we should start delivering IDs door to door, and quintuple the costs. I don't want to be racist.
I guess what I want to know is why you think we need photo id's to be eligible to vote? This goes back to the voter fraud problem that isn't actually a problem. For the record, I wasn't calling you a racist. I don't think your understanding or perspective of the issue makes you a racist. But I do think the politicians that want a voter photo id law have racial reasoning for wanting one.
How exactly do we know voter fraud is or is not a problem if folks don't have to prove that they are in fact the person they claim to be?
According to the party that doesn't want IDs. Not according to the party that does want them. While we're at it though, I've got another one. Thin privilege voting. What if you're too fat to fit in your car and your hilly area is unfavorable to rolling to the voting booth? How do you do it? Do you want to take away his constitutional rights? No, you don't, you piece of shit. Voting scooters for all.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-ruling-proving-voter-fraud-is-mostly-a-myth/ It's not the Democratic Party that says there isn't a fraud problem. There have been studies conducted by several institutions across the country whenever voter fraud is claimed when an unfavorable result is had after an election. The percentage of actual fraud or voter impersonation or where dead people vote is so incredibly small, that it can't possibly account for a change in an election result. The other question is, why does it always come from the Republican Party? If there was a real problem with voter fraud, then I think people would be more in favor of widespread id laws.
I agree that voter fraud probably isn't a major problem, and I really doubt that it's swinging elections. Of course with no ID required I'm sure there are some voters casting votes for other citizens who didn't go to the polls for whatever reason. The voting for dead people thing is silly and a distraction from how voter fraud would actually occur. I do however, despise the idea that getting an ID is some insurmountable task required by racists. You generally need an ID to work any job legally. I'm not surprised the jackasses who don't have them describe getting off their ass to obtain one as some sort of Herculean trial.
Because everyone loves getting robo calls: Romney sends out anti-Trump robo-calls for Rubio, Kasich http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...lls-for-rubio-against-trump.html?intcmp=hpbt3 What an idiot. All he's going to do is piss people off.
Trump is either a genius or he's simply the right amount of inflammatory kindling at the right time. Yes, I may actually be calling Trump a genius. I heard from one of the 'sources' covering the primaries that it's as if you can see Trump's tendrils slither out in the debates and control Cruz and Rubio like puppets. He just says one controversial offensive remark and they start blathering and shouting over each other like that kid who gets cut from the debate team because he's too emotionally involved to think clearly. Then he slams them with a zinger and they just get angrier and pout more while he calmly stands there with his arms crossed looking like the most presidential candidate on stage. He's got the GOP panicking and every time they try to bend the rules and scare people back to the establishment they make him stronger. I don't know how much of this was intentional and how much is the GOP just imploding, but it's played out brilliantly for Trump.
I'm going to throw a couple of references up here. The Powell Memo. The importance of this document is it starts the neoconservative movement. Why do you care about that? Because these are the policies that have largely been followed - by both Republican and Democratic Presidents and Congresses since 1978. The 2012 RNC Autopsy Report. This was the study done after Romney lost in 2012. Here's a NY Times Opinion Column down the main points.
That's a lot of reading you dropped, VI. I'm not going to get through all of it. At least not now, probably ever. I think they nailed many of the party's main problems. They made little effort to address them over the last four years, that I could see. Yet, there's one big one they missed, and it's one you brought up earlier. It's not going to be fair to so simply paint Republicans. Lies in the face of overwhelming evidence and an adamant refusal to bend is THE problem though. Look at what they've claimed over the last 20 years, without pause. Single payer health care: There's lines miles outside the doors. Wait times are days, weeks, or months! You'll die waiting! It costs so much more than our health care system. There's no way to afford it. Europeans hate their health care. We have the best health care in the world. Foreigners flock to the United States to escape socialized medicine and get proper treatment. Doctors decide when to kill you. Socialized medicine is designed to make you dependent on the government, and control your life. The Environment: Global warming doesn't exist. It snowed yesterday. There's no evidence for rising temperatures or shrinking glaciers. The ecosystem doesn't face any problems. Regulating industries only raises costs with no environmental benefits. Taxes: The less you tax the rich, the richer everyone gets. No one will invest, no new businesses will be created if the rich pay the same rates as the middle class. Wealth trickles down. American history proves this. The Economy: The less regulation for wall street the better our economic growth. Financial institutions can police themselves. Legislative oversight only serves to kill business and wreck the economy. The free market fixes EVERYTHING. We believe in separation of Church and state: But with national prayer days. No gay marriage. Christians are victims. They're being discriminated against. If you try to pray in a school you get expelled. Unless you're a Muslim. This country was built on Christian values. Forget about the Deist founders. Drugs: The war on drugs has been totally worth it. Minorities: Racism doesn't exist anymore. Maybe in the KKK. Immigrants are the reason you can't get a job. Communism: Everything is communism. And so on. They've done this sort of insanity on almost every issue. I know some very firm conservatives that have been cringing over the last several years. It's as if they've thrown common sense out the window and instead of tackling the issues intelligently they've shouted louder and louder at the most ignorant underbelly of America. And they've done a lot of damage in the process. They could have offered a great, moderate alternative to the rising environmental alarmists, the social justice witch hunts, the belief that all poor people try their best, and so many other issues. Instead they dug their heels in on the furthest side of the spectrum and refused to budge. I know this is a very incomplete portrait of the Republican party, and there are still some very good ideas there. But this has been their biggest problem. It is that they're isolating far too many voter groups, but it's also that they're just wrong. Paying someone to conduct an unscientific study, and spending countless hours crafting your arguments isn't going to make a false narrative become true. The democrats have lied and been caught as well, but it is not nearly so prevalent, nor have they been so stubborn to change.
Going back a little to the voter ID laws I think the biggest problem everyone has is with their intent. If you look into how they've been implemented it has been to make it more difficult for minorities to vote in a lot of these areas. It's fine to say stop being lazy and go get an ID so you can vote. But when the rules are implemented in republican controlled states in an attempt to make it more difficult for people who are going to vote against them to vote you should also be able to say that's discriminatory.
In other news, an interesting poll that seems to reflect the national trends: http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/08/politics/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-nbc-poll/index.html The good news for Clinton is that the elderly are far more reliable voters. The good news for Sanders is that the error margins in the polling are more likely to go in his favor.
Russia warns North Korea over threats of nuclear strike http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/08/russia-warns-north-korea-nuclear-strike Now they're pissing Putin off and that never turns out well... "Russia has warned North Korea that threats to deliver “preventive nuclear strikes” could create a legal basis for the use of military force against the country, suggesting that even Pyongyang’s few remaining friends are growing concerned about its increasingly confrontational stance."
Even better...a combined Russian/Chinese/US coalition. War is over in like 15 minutes, millions of people freed.
So right now Best Korea has pissed of China, Russa, the US, and South Korea. What could possibly go wrong? All kidding aside, I really wonder if he's going to grab a clue and settle the fuck down, or if some shit is going to go down. Before he was doing these antics (I assume) to get some sort of concession from someone, but I don't see that happening this time. I think he's kind of overstepped and finally enough is enough. Part of me can't wait to see how it plays out, part of me really doesn't.
Civil unrest maybe. Or perceived civil unrest. Or he's just a nutbar. His power is predicated upon his infallibility, second to his inept, underfed, ill-equipped army. One must keep up appearances. Especially without any appearances of Force Ghost Kim Jong Il. Aside from the *possible* threat of poorly made and up-kept nuclear weapons, the only thing stopping a foreign takeover of the country is the cost of repairing the country. Amish are more advanced. Those citizens are lost. Millions of people since 1950 lost, forgotten, with no future or past or present, no record of even their existence. Completely mind boggling.