US Politics: Guns versus Butter

[Fury Resurrected]

Also, on the insurance claims- Uncle Hugo’s science fiction bookstore/Uncle Edgar’s mystery bookstore was burned to the ground last summer. The insurance paid out just about a month ago, and only for the building and provable inventory- not a dime for loss of income. They were not BIPOC owned. Nobody was ever going to be made whole by the insurance companies.

[Week]

1,000,000% that. (What @Fury Resurrected said)

12 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Bigot. At least capitalize the I. One of my grandmothers' maiden name was Ireland, after all.

My grandfathers - both sides - were Irish.

[Maithanet]

2 hours ago, Prince of the North said:

By far, the best way to say goodbye

I'm a fan of a personal goodbye for exactly one person at the party.  Then just ghost everybody else.  

[DMC]

Even the FBI/DOJ acknowledges that the bad actors in Minnesota were simply because looters gonna loot:

Quote

But documents in dozens of state and federal criminal charges, reviewed by the Star Tribune, present a much more complicated narrative of splintered and disorganized crowds with no single goal or affiliation, and in some cases contradictory motives, that vastly outnumbered police and took advantage of a lawless scene.

Despite outgoing-U.S. Attorney General William Barr echoing Trump's blame for "antifa," federal prosecutors in Minnesota do not cite the term "antifa" — short for anti-fascist — or any other leftist group in a single charging document, and investigators here say the evidence doesn't support those claims.

"We haven't seen any trend of antifa folks who were involved here in the criminal activity or violence," said Michael Paul, special agent in charge of the FBI's Minneapolis Field Office.

Paul said a "smattering" of opportunistic crowds amassed spontaneously after Floyd's death, in most cases following no plan and pledging no apparent affiliation.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

10 hours ago, Week said:

1,000,000% that.

My grandfathers - both sides - were Irish.

First, 1,000,000% sounds an awfully lot like Dr. Evil asking for one million dollars. Coincidence? I think not.

Second, did you mean to say this?

[Week]

24 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

First, 1,000,000% sounds an awfully lot like Dr. Evil asking for one million dollars. Coincidence? I think not.

Second, did you mean to say this?

No, poor posting -- meant to tag Kay in the 1,000,000% comment. ++What she said.

Second, no, but that is the best movie ever made - bar none. NONE.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

37 minutes ago, Week said:

No, poor posting -- meant to tag Kay in the 1,000,000% comment. ++What she said.

Second, no, but that is the best movie ever made - bar none. NONE.

I know what you meant, *Not* Dr. Evil. 

Also, spoken like a man whose luggage has the password "1,2,3,4,5," much like Trump, to tie things back to the thread. Now we must achieve Ludicrous Speed to get us all back to a germane topic! 

[SpaceChampion]

Perhaps Manchin will suddenly see the light on ending the filibuster after all....

[DMC]

57 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

Perhaps Manchin will suddenly see the light on ending the filibuster after all....

Well let's just hope this ends better than Trump with McConnell and Chao.

[Zorral]

Discussion: should Dragon Con re-locate?

Quote

 

Editor Walt Boyes raised some possible implications for Dragon Con, held annually in Atlanta, in the following statement sent for publication. (Boyes adds: “I am speaking for myself, not for Ring of Fire Press, and I haven’t talked to anybody at Dragon Con.”)

In the last 24 hours, the Republicans of the state of Georgia passed a draconian set of voter restrictions, the like of which has not been seen since the Jim Crow laws. It is clear why they have restricted voting, even to the point of making giving water to people on line to vote illegal. They know that the Republican Party cannot win in a standup fair contest and they are trying one more thing to stack the deck against black and brown voters and progressives of all stripes.

If Dragon Con has any respect for democracy, I would hope they would use their huge footprint and buying power to suggest that the State Legislature rethink their voter restrictions, and if the Legislature doesn’t, Dragon Con should leave Georgia. This is a major, essential moral choice.

Several people have tweeted comparable thoughts:

 

http://file770.com/pixel-scroll-3-26-21-good-pixels-make-for-good-scrolls/

[A Horse Named Stranger]

1 hour ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

Highly unlikely. It’s also pretty likely that this law does not hold up in court. 

Also, people from the film industry were all set to boycott GA because of the “fetal heartbeat law” (restricting legal abortion to the first 8 weeks) but then it died in court and everything carried on as normal.

I see what you did there.

[Fragile Bird]

Wow, Delta Airlines, which has it’s major hub in Atlanta, issued a statement explaining why the new Georgia legislation is a good law.

All while ”we understand the concerns about some things in the legislation.” (not an exact quote)

[Ran]

16 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Wow, Delta Airlines, which has it’s major hub in Atlanta, issued a statement explaining why the new Georgia legislation is a good law.

All while ”we understand the concerns about some things in the legislation.” (not an exact quote)

Did you read the actual statement? It doesn't really say that it's "good law". It says that the bill improved in part due to Delta's efforts with legislators, and promises to continue to work to make sure Delta's employees and all Georgia voters can exercise their right to vote.

There's a massive wave of social media-hysteria over this bill. It's bad in some ways, good in others.. That's just the honest truth about it. Is it part of a dangerous slippery slope towards more egregious voter suppression? Sure, which is why it's contested. But it's not the apocalypse, and Delta is perfectly right to talk about the fact that it had a role in improving the bill and that it will continue to work to make things better.

Here's the local branch of NPR explaining the bill, both the good and the bad of it.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

23 hours ago, DMC said:

Well let's just hope this ends better than Trump with McConnell and Chao.

Will she stand by both her men? That had to be an uncomfortable car ride home for Mitch.

[ThinkerX]

Biden's Transportation Secretary (guy's name seems vaguely familiar for some reason) floats a mileage tax as part of the infrastructure package.  Probably not the best of ideas, given republican hostility towards taxes of any sort, and probably not popular with much of the D base - but that's just my take.  Anyhow...

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/26/buttigieg-says-white-house-is-weighing-mileage-levy-to-fund-infrastructure.html

 

• Pete Buttigieg, the Transportation secretary, said a vehicle mileage tax could be on the table in infrastructure talks.
• He contended that President Joe Biden’s forthcoming plans to rebuild the nation’s roads, bridges and waterways would lead to a net gain for the U.S. taxpayer.
• “I’m hearing a lot of appetite to make sure that there are sustainable funding streams,” Buttigieg said. A mileage tax “shows a lot of promise.”

 

[Jace, Extat]

A mileage tax? Go fuck yourself Buttigeg.

[ThinkerX]

as to the voter suppression laws being passed by the GOP...yes, I'm annoyed...

 

However, to me, these restrictive laws are a rearguard action - not a permanent solution (the last couple of elections showed that).  

A large minority (or even majority) of the GOP base is 'social security age.'  These people are dropping dead at an accelerating rate (I get to deal with a tiny slice of this at work - probate issues with addresses).  Way I look at it, in some gerrymandered districts this decline could be enough for a popular or determined D candidate to win....by maybe twenty votes.

Second, the work from home thing brought on by the pandemic.  Whole bunch of people realizing they no longer need to commute to the office each day - instead visit the place maybe once or twice a week.  Given that, why buy that super expensive house in a blue district, when you can get a far cheaper one in a red district.  I see a fair amount of this happening.  Given how tight some of the gerrymandering is, even a modest migration of this sort likely spells trouble for the GOP.

Third, the 'Trump effect.'  Yes, Trump is out of office.  Trump is also utterly self centered, bat-shit crazy, and utterly vindictive, especially towards people whom he believes betrayed him.  Real easy to envision Trump supporting a few utterly repulsive conservatives to primary GOP congressmen - who go on to win said primaries, but suffer huge backlashes at the polls.  Quite possible the D's will pick up 'short term rentals' on normally safe R seats this way - after all it's happened before.

So...these things have me wondering:  What happens WHEN the GOP gets most of these restrictive laws in place and STILL looses critical elections?

 

 

[Ran]

5 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

Probably because with more electric vehicles on the roads, the gas tax is less applicable, yet, the vehicles still cause the same wear and tear on the roads.

I think it might sound like “an idea” (good or bad in the eye of the beholder) but impractical to implement.

It's worth listening to the video, and by what precedes it: he seems dubious of depending on higher gas taxes, in part because it may overly-burden the middle class (and presumably those below the middle class as well), and in part because, as you say, we're trying to electrify. I would guess that any vehicle mileage tax would be used to wholly replace the gas tax, first, and second, they'd try to work out how to do it in such a way to not have it be more burdensome on the middle class than the gas tax is.

[Ser Reptitious]

21 minutes ago, Ran said:

I would guess that any vehicle mileage tax would be used to wholly replace the gas tax

But isn't it a bit early yet for that? If one has to pay certain taxes for using a gasoline-based vehicle that can be avoided with an electric one, that would certainly be an incentive to make the switch, which is something that this administration should very much encourage. 

[ThinkerX]

24 minutes ago, Ran said:

It's worth listening to the video, and by what precedes it: he seems dubious of depending on higher gas taxes, in part because it may overly-burden the middle class (and presumably those below the middle class as well), and in part because, as you say, we're trying to electrify. I would guess that any vehicle mileage tax would be used to wholly replace the gas tax, first, and second, they'd try to work out how to do it in such a way to not have it be more burdensome on the middle class than the gas tax is.

Go with an annual federal registration fee for electric vehicles instead of a mileage tax - I dunno could that be done without going through Congress?  

Maybe a battery replacement tax as well.