2022 Midterm Elections..

steveschneider wrote:

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:

Thank the closest centrist Democrat you can find and meanwhile tell them to get fucked

At this point it's beyond centrist or progressive. Fun to talk trash over the small progressive vs centrist district battles but the reality is the GOP fights for these elections every day 24/7 365 days a year and 366 a days a year on leap years. They have more funding, and their base buys into loony made up culture wars thanks to Fox/Onan and the church. Just look at some of the suburban school board elections over made up critical race theory - progressives and centrists are getting their asses handed to them.

Batten the hatches 2024 is going to be a shit storm.

Robert J Sakimano wrote:America is a stupid country.

America is a racist country.

Combine this with voter suppression and an addiction to social and mainstream media (all rooted in stupidity and racism), and we're in big trouble.

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:

steveschneider wrote:

At this point it's beyond centrist or progressive. Fun to talk trash over the small progressive vs centrist district battles but the reality is the GOP fights for these elections every day 24/7 365 days a year and 366 a days a year on leap years. They have more funding, and their base buys into loony made up culture wars thanks to Fox/Onan and the church. Just look at some of the suburban school board elections over made up critical race theory - progressives and centrists are getting their asses handed to them.

Batten the hatches 2024 is going to be a shit storm.

“It’s clearly the centrists fault that nothing is happening, we’re losing elections because of it, so now it’s beyond this and a different problem”

Great job

GRR Spartan wrote:Spent the last few weeks in NoCal and saw anger, contempt and the havoc the anti-vaxxers/anti-mask/anti-Critical Race Theory/anti-LGBQ can bring to a community.

At the city council meeting that was in-person for 2 meetings and back to online because of protestors shouted down anyone who disagreed. (One outed the mayor's high school child at one meeting). Then the same protestors (about 2 dozen) showed up outside the mayor's home until the police dispersed them and they moved to the chairperson of the council's home.

There are 2 recent episodes of the Freakonomic's podcasts that are worth a listen. Episode #477 "Why is US Media so Negative" and episode #478 "How Can We Break Our Addiction to Contempt" that do a nice job of explaining the current state of politics.

I see what happened in Virginia along with the tie in NJ and see the strength of the "personal liberty" that I see as code for anti-mask/anti-vax/open bigotry. Trump made it acceptable to say anything about anyone.

And so it goes. Time marches on and we might be nearing the end of US Demcracy where the only close votes that are accurate are those Democrats win.

Robert J Sakimano wrote:On the upside, at least fragile, racist white men aren't whining about voter fraud this morning, attacking the Capitol and killing fellow Americans because of it.

Robert J Sakimano wrote: when roughly half of the population is incredibly dumb, racist and easily manipulated by social media, the mainstream media and politicians who benefit from their racist stupidity,

RQA wrote:

Robert J Sakimano wrote: when roughly half of the population is incredibly dumb, racist and easily manipulated by social media, the mainstream media and politicians who benefit from their racist stupidity,

Keep going with this. Continue to campaign on hating America, racist Americans, dumb Americans. Have you ever thought of enlisting the Lincoln Project to help you out with this?

GRR Spartan wrote:Fear is a powerful motavator and the GOP has effectively painted the Democrats as people who want to use your children as test subject and teach theirwhite children history written by black folks.

One way out of that is vouchers for everyone effectively cripple public schools and be a windfall for the private and parochial school industry.

RQA wrote:

GRR Spartan wrote:Fear is a powerful motavator and the GOP has effectively painted the Democrats as people who want to use your children as test subject and teach theirwhite children history written by black folks.

One way out of that is vouchers for everyone effectively cripple public schools and be a windfall for the private and parochial school industry.

Give every student a $10000 voucher that can be spent on any school they want to attend. Why should a K-12 student be locked into schools based on geography? If college worked like that GRR's grandkids would have to go to Grand Valley and my kids would be going to Oakland. Makes no sense.

AvgMSUJoe wrote:

RQA wrote:

Give every student a $10000 voucher that can be spent on any school they want to attend. Why should a K-12 student be locked into schools based on geography? If college worked like that GRR's grandkids would have to go to Grand Valley and my kids would be going to Oakland. Makes no sense.

They're not... kids can go anywhere they want.

https://www.michigan.gov/mde/0,4615,7-140-81351_81352_81356---,00.html

RQA wrote:

Robert J Sakimano wrote: when roughly half of the population is incredibly dumb, racist and easily manipulated by social media, the mainstream media and politicians who benefit from their racist stupidity,

Keep going with this. Continue to campaign on hating America, racist Americans, dumb Americans. Have you ever thought of enlisting the Lincoln Project to help you out with this?

RQA wrote:

AvgMSUJoe wrote:
They're not... kids can go anywhere they want.

https://www.michigan.gov/mde/0,4615,7-140-81351_81352_81356---,00.html

So I can take the $10000+ my district spends on my kid and bring it to Country Day instead? Good to know.

AvgMSUJoe wrote:

RQA wrote:

Give every student a $10000 voucher that can be spent on any school they want to attend. Why should a K-12 student be locked into schools based on geography? If college worked like that GRR's grandkids would have to go to Grand Valley and my kids would be going to Oakland. Makes no sense.

They're not... kids can go anywhere they want.

https://www.michigan.gov/mde/0,4615,7-140-81351_81352_81356---,00.html

DWags wrote:

RQA wrote:

So I can take the $10000+ my district spends on my kid and bring it to Country Day instead?    Good to know.

Now you’ve moved the goal posts. You want public money to go to private for profit schools?   That’s another subject. Will we be able to hold them to the same rules?   And I mean every rule?  

steveschneider wrote:Joe Manchin an object of hate these days. The far left is obsessed with him. New Jersey has the most progressive mayor and he almost had a shocking defeat. Maya Wiley lost in NYC and Turner lost this summer. I think the voters are rejecting the far left and Biden’s first year mistake was embracing too many of their ideas. The infrastructure bill had bipartisan support and the far left are killing it. I think the winning move for Joe is to be more like Manchin and just tune out this cancer on the party.

TrapperGus wrote:

steveschneider wrote:Joe Manchin an object of hate these days. The far left is obsessed with him. New Jersey has the most progressive mayor and he almost had a shocking defeat. Maya Wiley lost in NYC and Turner lost this summer. I think the voters are rejecting the far left and Biden’s first year mistake was embracing too many of their ideas. The infrastructure bill had bipartisan support and the far left are killing it. I think the winning move for Joe is to be more like Manchin and just tune out this cancer on the party.

The simple problem with that thought is that the policies that the Progressives are fighting for are very popular.  Like 80% of the voters want them passed.

The results could just as easily be seen as a rejection of Manchin's acts, however, IMO elections are still at their core still significantly about the people who are running and if they can convince people they are nice people to vote for. The Democratic woman running for mayor in Buffalo NY lost and people are blaming it on her opponent painting her as a radical socialist. My guess is that it is always an uphill battle for a woman to be elected to much of anything where the voters and not already overwhelming on the side of the party she is in.

TrapperGus wrote:McAuliffe drew more votes than any Democratic gubernatorial candidate in the commonwealth’s history, which pretty much backs up Bob's opinion of the electorate

TrapperGus wrote:

steveschneider wrote:Joe Manchin an object of hate these days. The far left is obsessed with him. New Jersey has the most progressive mayor and he almost had a shocking defeat. Maya Wiley lost in NYC and Turner lost this summer. I think the voters are rejecting the far left and Biden’s first year mistake was embracing too many of their ideas. The infrastructure bill had bipartisan support and the far left are killing it. I think the winning move for Joe is to be more like Manchin and just tune out this cancer on the party.

The simple problem with that thought is that the policies that the Progressives are fighting for are very popular.  Like 80% of the voters want them passed.

The results could just as easily be seen as a rejection of Manchin's acts, however, IMO elections are still at their core still significantly about the people who are running and if they can convince people they are nice people to vote for. The Democratic woman running for mayor in Buffalo NY lost and people are blaming it on her opponent painting her as a radical socialist. My guess is that it is always an uphill battle for a woman to be elected to much of anything where the voters and not already overwhelming on the side of the party she is in.

steveschneider wrote:

TrapperGus wrote:

The simple problem with that thought is that the policies that the Progressives are fighting for are very popular.  Like 80% of the voters want them passed.

The results could just as easily be seen as a rejection of Manchin's acts, however, IMO elections are still at their core still significantly about the people who are running and if they can convince people they are nice people to vote for. The Democratic woman running for mayor in Buffalo NY lost and people are blaming it on her opponent painting her as a radical socialist. My guess is that it is always an uphill battle for a woman to be elected to much of anything where the voters and not already overwhelming on the side of the party she is in.

Fair point but there’s always something like ‘defund the police’ that is just a complete brain fart blunder that kills us. Obama was right to beg them to stop.

TrapperGus wrote:

steveschneider wrote:

Fair point but there’s always something like ‘defund the police’ that is just a complete brain fart blunder that kills us. Obama was right to beg them to stop.

However sensible restructuring public safety organizations is, adding people skilled in areas the police are asked to handle but for which they don't have the training, the words "defund the police" are a terrible slogan for much of the populaton to listen to.

TrapperGus wrote:

steveschneider wrote:

Fair point but there’s always something like ‘defund the police’ that is just a complete brain fart blunder that kills us. Obama was right to beg them to stop.

However sensible restructuring public safety organizations is, adding people skilled in areas the police are asked to handle but for which they don't have the training, the words "defund the police" are a terrible slogan for much of the populaton to listen to.

Cameron wrote:

TrapperGus wrote:

The simple problem with that thought is that the policies that the Progressives are fighting for are very popular.  Like 80% of the voters want them passed.

The results could just as easily be seen as a rejection of Manchin's acts, however, IMO elections are still at their core still significantly about the people who are running and if they can convince people they are nice people to vote for. The Democratic woman running for mayor in Buffalo NY lost and people are blaming it on her opponent painting her as a radical socialist. My guess is that it is always an uphill battle for a woman to be elected to much of anything where the voters and not already overwhelming on the side of the party she is in.

Some people see what they wanna see, no matter how moronically delusional it may be.

steveschneider wrote:

TrapperGus wrote:

However sensible restructuring public safety organizations is, adding people skilled in areas the police are asked to handle but for which they don't have the training, the words "defund the police" are a terrible slogan for much of the populaton to listen to.

I think we all agree the far left is just awful at messaging and their 'I didn't get the shiny pony so I'm going to stay home' mentality is a cancer on the party.

TrapperGus wrote:McAuliffe drew more votes than any Democratic gubernatorial candidate in the commonwealth’s history, which pretty much backs up Bob's opinion of the electorate

Robert J Sakimano wrote:

TrapperGus wrote:McAuliffe drew more votes than any Democratic gubernatorial candidate in the commonwealth’s history, which pretty much backs up Bob's opinion of the electorate

thanks, man.. it really is pretty simple when you just tune out the "noise" meant to distract the low information types.

and it's not gonna get better. The right and the mainstream media are just gonna ramp up their narratives designed to appeal to their easily manipulated, gullible base.

steveschneider wrote:

The Southlake NBC doc is a good watch to understand all the noise/bs around CRT. Parents in Southlake objected to "CRT" in the district's diversity proposal.

Spoiler alert: there was no mention of CRT in the proposal.

This is where the playbook was drawn up for the CRT and the press is just all to willing to run with it.

MiamiSpartan wrote:

DWags wrote:

Now you’ve moved the goal posts. You want public money to go to private for profit schools?   That’s another subject. Will we be able to hold them to the same rules?   And I mean every rule?  

FWIW, this is set up in Florida, to an extent.  And no, I'm not holding up Florida as an example of what should be, just relaying some info.  I have no real opinion either way.  

It is for low-income households here.  Last I heard (couple of years ago) it ranged from around $3K to $6K, depending on how low the income is.  That isn't going to cover full tuition at many places.

It is up to individual schools whether or not to accept students that get this money.  But for the high-end ones ($35K/year or so), it probably isn't an issue. If your income is low enough to get these vouchers, you probably don't have the other $29K to cover the difference.  I think Country Day is probably in that ballpark.

There is also public money for kids with disabilities to attend private schools.

I'm not aware of any state-mandated rules that schools need to follow if they accept these students (which doesn't mean that there aren't, but I do know that private schools were not subject to DeathSantis' bullshit over masks...and I'm sure he would have tried to force them if he could).

GRR Spartan wrote:DWags,

I am very familiar with National Heritage Academy, a national charter school company that got its start in West MI.

They select their students from applicants. If a student has behavioral issues they aren’t accepted for another year and parents are told they should seek out another school that has specialists. (That’s the public school system). They also pick and choose students. Require parents to volunteer minimum hours.

Charters don’t have special education because those programs and teachers are expensive.

MiamiSpartan wrote:Just speaking anecdotally, but knowing many people down here whose kids go to charter schools, for them it is less about perceived academics and more about a better environment (or at least perceived as such). Or because they want to go to PitBull's school.