Author Topic: Politics at the State & Municipal level  (Read 59685 times)





DougMacG

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ccp

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Re: Politics at the State & Municipal level
« Reply #205 on: December 19, 2023, 06:14:25 AM »
"Government should leave there too."

 I think that was Ron DeS plan .

 move to "red" areas.
 hire conservatives into the Fed government and replace the 90% of them who are Dems

Vivek wants to one up this and shut them down altogether.


ccp

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Re: Politics at the State & Municipal level
« Reply #207 on: January 06, 2024, 09:24:28 AM »
 :x

kick her the hell out

go back to your shithole
if you don't like this country.

what is she doing here if that is how she feels

ccp

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Crafty_Dog

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Body-by-Guinness

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Look Whut Dat Awful “Climate Change” has Dun Now
« Reply #212 on: February 06, 2024, 08:59:22 PM »
Muai fire cleanup (caused by “climate change,” don’tcha know?) being slow walked. Is a crisis being used to a political end, you kinda like the manufactured climate crisis is being used to reverse engineer the Industrial Revolution.

https://x.com/nicksortor/status/1754627473348899021?s=61&t=L5uifCqWy8R8rhj_J8HNJw


DougMacG

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Re: GA Squatters
« Reply #214 on: March 04, 2024, 04:12:28 PM »
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2024/03/04/helpless-homeowner-finds-squatters-broke-into-his-home-changed-locks-as-he-was-caring-for-his-sick-wife-1442213/?utm_campaign=bizpac&utm_content=Newsletter&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_source=Get%20Response&utm_term=EMAIL

"It could take months for a Georgia homeowner to see justice if he waits for an eviction order to work its way through the court system."

  - [Doug]  Too bad we don't have a first world thing called ... property rights.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Politics at the State & Municipal level
« Reply #215 on: March 05, 2024, 10:14:59 AM »
Back in the day getting a favor from the Mafia might have been an option , , ,

ccp

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Re: Politics at the State & Municipal level
« Reply #216 on: March 05, 2024, 10:37:42 AM »
had a patient who apparently married into John Gotti family.

an uncle or something -

stated Gotti went up to him at the wedding and said "you get one favor, nothing more."

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Politics at the State & Municipal level
« Reply #217 on: March 05, 2024, 02:46:44 PM »
 :-o :-o :-o

DougMacG

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Politics State & Municipal, Oregon counties want to join greater Idaho
« Reply #218 on: May 26, 2024, 07:08:37 PM »
https://www.greateridaho.org/

As of May 2024, thirteen counties in Oregon had approved ballot measures in favor of Greater Idaho: Baker, Crook, Grant, Harney, Jefferson, Klamath, Lake, Malheur, Morrow, Sherman, Union, Wallowa, and Wheeler.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Idaho_movement

https://geology.com/county-map/oregon.shtml
----------------------------------------------------

Oregon (Dems) would lose electoral votes and Idaho (R) would gain.  Democrats in Oregon would never let that happen and Democrats in DC would never let it happen.  It could only happen if Oregon became a swing state and wanted to ditch their hated Republicans.

The point is still made, the Democrats have no qualm about making these people live without consent of the governed.

Almost every blue state and swing state has this same problem, outstate is ruled against their will by the urban, metro, coastal liberals.
« Last Edit: May 27, 2024, 04:09:20 AM by DougMacG »

ccp

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Re: Politics at the State & Municipal level
« Reply #219 on: May 27, 2024, 07:32:21 AM »
"Oregon (Dems) would lose electoral votes and Idaho (R) would gain.  Democrats in Oregon would never let that happen and Democrats in DC would never let it happen."

and at the same time Democrats would be happy to make DC and Puerto Rico states.


Crafty_Dog

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Re: Politics at the State & Municipal level
« Reply #220 on: May 27, 2024, 08:12:07 AM »
Important Tenth Amendment questions lurking here.

Body-by-Guinness

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Sports Complexes Aren’t
« Reply #221 on: June 19, 2024, 01:37:00 AM »
They’re simple: they suck up far more funds than they claim and indeed promise to provide:

Boosters Beware: Stadiums Aren’t Magic

June 18, 2024

By ART CARDEN

Also published in American Institute for Economic Research Fri. June 14, 2024

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Another day, another push to give many millions to multimillionaires. The Jacksonville Jaguars are pushing hard for the city to renovate their stadium. Not far away, St. Petersburg, Florida is shoveling money at the Tampa Bay Rays. As economists never tire of pointing out, however, government funding for stadiums throws bad money after good. Instead of going after what C. Montgomery Burns called “the American dream: a billionaire using public funds to build a private playground for the rich and powerful,” cities would put the money to better use filling potholes, improving schools, or just cutting taxes.

The “economic impact studies” on which stadium subsidies are based have another name: lies. In a recent volume honoring the economist Robert A. Baade, who from a relatively obscure academic position at Lake Forest College helped create modern sports economics and especially the well-developed literature on the effects of stadiums and mega-events, a group of distinguished economists have contributed a series of essays in his honor. The Economic Impact of Sports Facilities, Franchises, and Events is expensive, but it should be required reading before anyone talks about paying for a stadium.

Baade is responsible for the tongue-in-cheek “Baade Rule”: Any time you see an “economic impact” estimate, move the decimal point one space to the left.

Stadium subsidies are classic exercises in the broken window fallacy. Anyone who has ever had small children can think of a lot of things they have had to replace because one of the kids broke something. It’s a mistake to infer from the spending you have to do that the economy is “stimulated” as a result. After all, you could have spent that money on something else, while also having the services of the window one of the kids broke.

Building a stadium with government money is a lot like paying to fix a broken window. The resources have to come from somewhere, and that “somewhere” is going to be taxpayers’ pockets. Furthermore, it is easy to see all the hustle and bustle happening around the new stadium without appreciating the fact that the hustle and bustle is probably coming from somewhere else in the metro area. The money I spend near Progressive Stadium when I go there to watch Stallions or Legion games is money I’m not spending in my neighborhood of Avondale. As city spending goes, stadiums mostly redistribute economic activity within a metro area, much more than they increase it.

As the essays in the volume show, what cities pay for stadiums outstrips any measurable positive spillover effects. They redistribute and waste, but they do not create. It is not a new insight: Heywood Sanders’s Convention Center Follies, which goes into detail about the logic as it applies to municipal civic centers, is a decade old. We have yet to learn the lesson.

Stadium boosters frequently come to the table armed with “economic impact studies” that, the contributors to the volume argue, are best thought of as “advocacy studies” and promotional materials more than serious analysis. They rely on unrealistic and implausible multiplier effects and other assumptions that do not withstand serious scrutiny. They are, however, attractively produced and presented by attractive and persuasive professional people, and they rely on a credulous public who gets wowed by phrases like “multiplier effect” and quantitative sophistry. Rarely, if ever, are there well-done follow-up studies. For economists, the professional rewards are usually scarce and the social penalties are severe.

One of the scholars doing the Lord’s work on this issue, however, is Kennesaw State University economist JC Bradbury, referred to as “Professor Nutjob” by one online critic and regularly savaged on social media for having the courage to speak out and say what just about every economist knows: Publicly financed stadiums are boondoggles that, if anything, imperil cities’ financial positions.

The book suggests a new direction for the ethics of sports journalism. It noted that one “news” story about the economic impact of a new stadium in Nashville was basically identical to the press release. It refers to the economic impact of stadiums as a perfect example of Zombie Economics: “bad ideas that just will not die.” Despite, for example, evidence that the tax revenue effect for Arlington of attracting the Cowboys were trivial, we still keep getting deals like the abominable Buffalo Bills stadium deal and the even more abominable Tennessee Titans stadium deal: “...when economists suggested it was hard to imagine a worse stadium deal than the one in Buffalo, Nashville said ‘Hold my beer,’ and proposed a $2.1 billion stadium with $1.26 billion in public money which was later approved.”

If your only metric for success is “be a big league city,” then of course a lavish stadium deal that attracts or retains a big league team will be a success. But that raises a lot of important questions. Are there substantial local benefits to being a big-league city that won’t be reflected in ticket prices and TV deals?

So beware the special interest group bearing the economic impact study. It’s poorly done and based on a lot of questionable assumptions, and it’s being waved by someone looking to pick your pocket and expecting you to thank him for the honor.

https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14960
« Last Edit: June 19, 2024, 01:39:29 AM by Body-by-Guinness »

DougMacG

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Re: Sports Complexes Aren’t
« Reply #222 on: June 19, 2024, 07:00:31 AM »
My furthest Left old friend and I found this one area of agreement,  opposing stadium subsidies.  We lost.

He was nominated for green party candidate for Congress and then Governor of MN. His greatest thrill was sharing a stage with Ralph Nader. Not subsidize millionaires and billionaires seems like common sense.

The argument for goes something like, a quarter cent of every purchase is nothing and look at all the economic benefit.  But a quarter or half cent more for every wish item is adding up to tens of trillions we don't have, taken every day with every purchase from every other business and consumer.

But every other city is doing it...

Is that logic you raise your kids to use?
« Last Edit: June 19, 2024, 07:14:58 AM by DougMacG »

Body-by-Guinness

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Re: Sports Complexes Aren’t
« Reply #223 on: June 19, 2024, 08:20:13 AM »
My furthest Left old friend and I found this one area of agreement,  opposing stadium subsidies.  We lost.

He was nominated for green party candidate for Congress and then Governor of MN. His greatest thrill was sharing a stage with Ralph Nader. Not subsidize millionaires and billionaires seems like common sense.

The argument for goes something like, a quarter cent of every purchase is nothing and look at all the economic benefit.  But a quarter or half cent more for every wish item is adding up to tens of trillions we don't have, taken every day with every purchase from every other business and consumer.

But every other city is doing it...

Is that logic you raise your kids to use?

I appreciated the zero sum aspect of the argument: money spent at the stadium is money not spent elsewhere in the municipality, and indeed frivolous spending on gladiatorial analogues sucks dollars from more critical needs or obligations. Hadn't considered that aspect or argument previously....

Crafty_Dog

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MD
« Reply #224 on: June 19, 2024, 11:37:37 AM »
FOX regular Brian Kilmeade was interviewing the MD Gov. and gave him gracious props on getting the channel to the port open again very efficiently.

=============


Sanctuary state Maryland governor wants immigration reform: One sure sign that a presidency is in dire straits is when one politically ambitious party member after another begins to stake out positions in clear opposition to their incumbent president. An El Salvadoran illegal immigrant was arrested for murdering Rachel Morin, a Maryland mother of five, last August while she was out hiking. In response, promising young Maryland Democrat Governor Wes Moore scurried off the Bad Ship Biden. "My heart is broken for the Morin family, as is our entire state," Moore said. "She should still be here." Moore, who perhaps has forgotten that the state he governs offers sanctuary status to illegal immigrants, is now calling for something to be done. "We have an immigration policy that needed to be dealt with and was not. The consequences then fall on us as the leaders of our individualized jurisdictions." Sadly, though, for Rachel Morin and her five children, the governor's words can only ring hollow. Morin's blood, as well as the blood of Laken Riley, is on the hands of every Democrat who failed to denounce Joe Biden's disastrous border policies from the outset.
« Last Edit: June 19, 2024, 11:39:58 AM by Crafty_Dog »

Body-by-Guinness

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Qualified Immunity Takes a Hit at the School Board
« Reply #225 on: July 16, 2024, 09:57:16 PM »
This kind of officious abuse of office deserves a strong rebuke. Hopefully there’s also renumeration involved so these clowns get hit in the wallet good and hard, too:

No Qualified Immunity when "Public Officials … Baselessly Threaten[] a Citizen-Journalist With Legal Action"
The Volokh Conspiracy / by Eugene Volokh / Jul 16, 2024 at 12:37 PM
["if he did not remove a video on a matter of public concern that he made and posted on Facebook without breaking any law."]

From Berge v. School Committee, decided yesterday by the First Circuit, in an opinion by Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson, joined by Judges David Barron and Lara Montecalvo (though there's a lot more going on in the opinion as well):

On a motion to dismiss a case, does qualified immunity protect public officials who baselessly threatened a citizen-journalist with legal action if he did not remove a video on a matter of public concern that he made and posted on Facebook without breaking any law? We answer no …. {[A]s a heads-up for the legal neophytes out there, qualified immunity gives officials cover when they decide close questions in reasonable (even if ultimately wrong) ways—sparing them from money-damages liability unless they violated a statutory or constitutional right that was clearly established at the time (much more on all that soon).} …

Inge Berge is a citizen-journalist living in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Back in early March 2022, he went to the city's school superintendent's office—which is open to the public (during specified hours, we presume). He wanted to buy tickets to his daughter's sold-out school play. And he wanted to hear from officials why the school's COVID-19 rules still capped the number of play-goers when the state had already lifted its COVID-19 mandates by then.

Visibly filming as he went along (he kept his camera out for all to see), Berge made sure to also tell everyone he met that he was recording. And no sign banned or restricted filming in the building's publicly accessible areas either.

Talking to executive secretary Stephanie Delisi, Berge said, "I'm filming this. I'm doing a story on it. If that's okay with you." "No, no I don't want to be filmed," Delisi answered back. Berge kept openly filming. Delisi then walked into superintendent Ben Lummis's office.

Standing at the door of his office, Lummis asked Berge to stop recording. "You do not have permission to film in this area." Berge kept openly filming. "I'm happy to speak with you," Lummis added, "if you turn that off." "You do not have my permission to film here right now," Lummis said as well. Berge kept openly filming. And Lummis closed his office door.

Assistant superintendent Gregg Bach then walked over to Berge. And with Berge still openly filming, Bach took notes about Berge's bid to see his daughter's play. Unlike the others, Bach voiced no objection to Berge's filming.

Hoping to "expose" the "unreasonableness" of the district's "policy," Berge uploaded the video (along with his commentary) to Facebook that very day. And he made the material publicly viewable as well.

None too pleased, district-human-resources director Roberta Eason fired off a letter to Berge within hours. Citing Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 272, § 99(C), she accused him of violating Massachusetts's wiretap act by not getting "the consent" of all participating officials before recording and posting the film. And she "demand[ed]" that he "immediately" remove the video or face "legal action" (his supposed wiretap act violation was the one and only reason she gave for the removal demand).

Turns out she was way off base in relying on the wiretap act. And that is because this law pertinently bans "secret" recordings, which Berge's most certainly was not….

Berge did not do as directed, however. He instead sued …. According to that count, defendants threatened "bogus legal" action under the state wiretap act to "frighten him into suppressing his own First Amendment rights." …

[W]e—after taking Berge's allegations as true (though knowing that discovery or trial evidence may cast the case in a different light)—have a hard time picturing a more textbook First Amendment violation.

Berge very publicly recorded public officials performing public duties in the publicly accessible part of a public building—all to get information about the district's COVID-19 policies, in a form he could then share, with the goal (to quote again from the complaint) of "expos[ing] and comment[ing] on the unreasonableness" of those "polic[ies]." And his speech (front and center in the complaint) about COVID-19 protocols—the kind that has sparked much political and social debate (and litigation too)—strikes us as sufficiently "a subject of legitimate news interest" to come within the sphere of public concern.

If the First Amendment means anything in a situation like this, it is that public officials cannot—as they did here—threaten a person with legal action under an obviously inapt statute simply because he published speech they did not like. "[T]o prevent the pursuit of legal action in this matter," the Eason-signed letter "demand[ed]" that Berge "immediately remove the

from [his] Facebook account and/or any other communications." Which shows the complaint plausibly alleges that the individual defendants knew the legal-action threat centered on Berge's right to publish. What is more—and as already explained—the letter cited the state wiretap act as the only basis for the removal demand (no one defends the threat on any other ground). But—as also earlier noted—the wiretap act only bans "secret" recordings (in which the persons recorded did not know they were being recorded) and thus does not apply here. Which shows the complaint plausibly alleges that the individual defendants knew such action was baseless….

Shifting then from qualified immunity's step one (constitutional rights violation) to step two (clearly established law), we also think it follows naturally from the above cases that Berge has plausibly pled a violation of a clearly established right to publish on a topic of public interest when the violators acted (as a reminder, but using a different case quote, a right is "clearly established" when it is no longer among the "hazy" area of constitutional issues that might be "reasonably misapprehend[ed]"). And by "acted" we mean (as the complaint alleges) threatening Berge with an obviously groundless legal action: Surely no sensible official reading these long-on-the-books opinions could believe that that act—assuming it represents an adverse action—was not a burden on Berge's First Amendment right to publish on a matter of public concern. So given all this, Berge's complaint plausibly alleges that the threat constituted First Amendment retaliation in violation of his clearly established right….


Marc J. Randazza, Jay M. Wolman, and Robert J. Morris II (Randazza Legal Group, PLLC) represent Berge.

The post No Qualified Immunity when "Public Officials … Baselessly Threaten[] a Citizen-Journalist With Legal Action" appeared first on Reason.com.

https://reason.com/volokh/2024/07/16/no-qualified-immunity-when-public-officials-baselessly-threaten-a-citizen-journalist-with-legal-action/

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Politics at the State & Municipal level
« Reply #226 on: July 17, 2024, 06:46:51 AM »
This is really interesting-- and is likely to be the first of many interactions and cases fleshing out the meaning and implications of the SCOTUS decision.

May I ask you post it and related matters on the Lawfare thread instead?


Crafty_Dog

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FO: Big spending cuts at State level
« Reply #227 on: July 22, 2024, 09:58:18 AM »


(3) STATES CUT SPENDING AT FASTEST RATE SINCE GREAT DEPRESSION: According to analysis by The Pew Charitable Trusts, states are on track to cut general-fund spending an average of 6% this fiscal year, the biggest spending cut since the Great Recession.
Pew said about half of states planned to spend more this year, but this is dwarfed by spending cuts in states like California and Arizona, which cut state budgets to make up deficit shortfalls.

Why It Matters: Pew’s analysis says state spending cuts are coming after the COVID era influx of federal assistance, which is now drying up. However, some states are likely cutting spending due to the impact of the immigration crisis, as the influx of at least 12 million illegal immigrants since 2021 means more immigrants competing with citizens for state and local resources. Some municipal governments in states impacted by the immigration crisis, including in the Midwestern and Northern U.S., have announced local spending cuts in the last year as government services were overwhelmed by immigrants and refugees. – R.C.


Crafty_Dog

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WT: Gov race: Go Winnie Sears!
« Reply #229 on: September 27, 2024, 11:12:21 AM »


VIRGINIA

Early polling finds race to be next governor in dead heat

Earle-Sears, Spanberger tied for lead at 39%

By Kerry Picket THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The two leading candidates in next year’s Virginia gubernatorial election are in a dead heat.

Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger are tied at 39%, according to a new statewide poll by the University of Mary Washington’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies.

The rest of the 22% of respondents in the survey said they were undecided, did not plan to vote, would back another candidate or declined to respond.

Pollsters also found that, if Virginia Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares was his party’s nominee, he would also be just as competitive against Ms. Spanberger in a general election.

If Ms. Spanberger and Mr. Miyares faced off, 40% of survey respondents said they would support Ms. Spanberger while 39% they would favor Mr. Miyares.

Mr. Miyares has not announced he’s running for governor, but has strongly hinted that he’s eyeing the job.

The poll is similar to results from another UMW survey that found Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump in a dead heat in Virginia. That poll of likely voters showed Ms. Harris at 47% and Mr. Trump at 46%.

Ms. Spanberger, who has represented Virginia’s 7th Congressional District since 2019, launched her gubernatorial bid in November 2023.

Ms. Earle-Sears, the first Black woman to serve as lieutenant governor in Virginia and is looking to make history again as the state’s first Black woman governor. She previously served in the state legislature.

She announced her campaign earlier in the month.

Virginia does not allow its governors to serve consecutive terms, so the commonwealth’s popular Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, must leave office in January 2026.

Mr. Youngkin became the first Republican elected governor of Virginia since Bob McDonnell in 2009. He defeated former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who was running for a second nonconsecutive term, by just over 60,000 votes.

“Virginia elections are often close, and the look ahead to next year suggests more of the same in the campaign for governor,” said Stephen J. Farnsworth, a political scientist at the University of Mary Washington and director of UMW’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies. “The big challenge for these potential candidates is becoming better known across the commonwealth.”

Virginia voters were less optimistic about the direction of the country than where they thought the commonwealth was going.

Twenty-four percent said Virginia was going in the right direction and 26% believed it was headed in the wrong direction. The remainder suggested mixed opinions.

However, 51% said the country was headed in the wrong direction, while 16% thought the U.S. was headed in the right direction. Thirty percent offered mixed views.

“Elections never stop in Virginia, and 2025 looks to be another very interesting electoral year in the commonwealth,” Mr. Farnsworth said.

Research America Inc. conducted the UMW poll between Sept. 3 and 9, 2024. The survey included a total of 1,000 Virginia residents, consisting of 870 registered voters and 774 likely voters. The margin of error was +/- 4.1%.