I could comment on this thread, but maybe I'll wait and see if there aren't 17 other ones before lunch.
Anyway, I don't feel very strongly about fluoridated water, but I think it's probably a good idea to keep ii in the toothpaste.
My election was terrible, thanks for asking.
We're going to see how much our local bike community are suckers. In addition to the vehicular cyclist mentioned on other thread winning reelection, a newcomer knocked off an incumbent. She is the founder of a big NIMBY group in my neighborhood and decided the best way to win was become a hard core cyclist. She bought a new cargo bike three months ago, went around campaigning on it, her posters were a stick figure biking in front of the city skyline. In reality she gets to work every day by driving one mile to a commercial area near a subway and street parking there. She's opposed every multi unit project in the area, including complaining about the lack of parking in the developments (only .9 spots per unit!) because it would make street parking harder. She complained about two new units walkable to grocery stores and subway, about 250 units, because she thought having so many units so close to the markets would mean the residents would park in the lots and make traffic getting to the stores worse. Basically a know-blank thing suburbanite view on urban planning but she managed to get the endorsement of biking groups based on her very public and I believe very fake bike-friendly persona. Who knows, maybe she'll continue to pander in office and things will work out, but I suspect her real passion of making the city look like a suburb will override any possible good outcomes.
That should be know-nothing but I like the autocorrect to know-blank thing.
We're going to see how much our local bike community are suckers. In addition to the vehicular cyclist mentioned on other thread winning reelection, a newcomer knocked off an incumbent.
Incumbent bicycles are notoriously difficult to see in traffic.
Heh. There was a guy who used to ride a recumbent bike around my neighborhood. There was nothing in the news about a collision, so I assume he found some dignity.
Our local wackos went with the right result in every single thing on the ballot, except for the one city council race in my ward. 4 of 5 Republican candidates for city council lost, and the big school bond passed (it had looked last night like the high school bond would go down, but late counting changed it.)
Maybe we'll get to vote on Colorado style legalization.
Fortunately the city council tilted the right way on both spots, which is much more important to me than this fluoride thing.
There's a convenience store near campus that sells bongs shaped like automatic weapons. They're sitting in the front window. This in the city that just a few years ago sent Tommy Chong prison for selling paraphernalia.
The truly depressing result was Kentucky. A nontrivial number of people voted away their health insurance. I suppose they'll somehow blame Obama when it disappears.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court election was a success for the Democrats. Most PA elections are, these days, since there are a lot more Democrats here than Republicans. It's a wonder that our US House delegation is more than 2/3 Republican. But this election should help with that.
I know several very liberal Democrats who helped get a Republican prosecutor elected—not because he was particularly great, but because the incumbent Democrat was so, so objectively terrible.
12: Can he stop it for certain? I mean, there's a legislature and all.
12: Not JUST that! He also wants to focus on "school choice," to dismantle early childhood education initiatives, to destroy the current foster care system to make it easier for big Christian families like his to adopt easily, plus all the anti-gay anti-abortion stuff. Surely there's something I care about strongly that won't be ruined, but I can't think of what at the moment.
The not quite as bad guys won in New Jersey Assembly and Pennsylvania Supreme Court, so I'm not quite as unhappy as I might be.
Matt Bevin really is the worst of the worst. And I'm depressed just thinking about the election. But I can't believe there were more than a few dozen people in this entire state who voted for Jack Conway (the Dem) because they actually thought he would be a good governor. I mean, I sure as hell didn't. It was literally a battle of turnout between Bevin-supporters and Bevin-fearers. The fringe of the population who are as crazy as Bevin turned out in full force and voted with enthusiasm. Most of the rest of the state stayed home.
Not so much local wackos, but today our delightful home secretary introduced a bill that would force communications company to retain, and give police and other public authorities access to without a warrant, everyone's "internet connection records", which basically means every website you've visited, at the domain level.
The threshold for the interception having an allowable statutory purpose is laughably low:
It is necessary an proportionate to obtain the data -
(a) in the interests of national security,
(b) for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime or of preventing disorder,
(c) in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom so far as those interests are also relevant to the interests of national security,
(d) in the interests of public safety,
(e) for the purpose of protecting public health,
(f) for the purpose of assessing or collecting any tax, duty, levy or other imposition, contribution or charge payable to a government department,
(g) for the purpose, in an emergency, of preventing death or injury or any damage to a person's physical or mental health, or of mitigating any injury or damage to a person's physical or mental health,
(h) to assist investigations into alleged miscarriages of justice,
(i) where a person ("P") has died or is unable to identify themselves because of a physical or mental condition--
(i) to assist in identifying P, or
(ii) to obtain information about P's next of kin or other persons connected with P or about the reason for P's death or condition,
or
(j) for the purpose of exercising functions relating to--
(i) the regulation of financial services and markets, or
(ii) financial stability.
That's the kind of thing that happens when you don't let pathologically angry people have guns about them at all times.
20: That's a pretty broad net they are casting. Preventing crime (or disorder, FFS) kind of opens the door to pretty much any kind of intrusive surveillance. From where I sit Knifecrimea seems to have almost given up on any semblance of privacy, which is really unfortunate. I realize I'm out on the fringe in terms of where I stand on privacy but hopefully a critical mass exists to get rid of this stupid bill.
That looks like an impressively ornate way of saying "whenever we want".
My initial notes on the initiative text:
* Adds a special appeals panel to stand over the license-issuing Bureau of Marijuana Control.
* Localities can still make their own regulations and licensing requirements, and violating local rules can cost you your state license too, but localities can't fully prohibit any specific types of business without the voters passing such a rule by majority vote.
* No restrictions on the kinds of license one can hold simultaneously (except that testers must be independent, and no licensees to also deal in alcohol or tobacco), so vertical integration out the wazoo is allowed, unlike the state law recently passed. Just says toothlessly that the authority shall consider whether the license could "allow unreasonable restraints on competition by creation or maintenance of unlawful monopoly power", or "result in an excessive concentration of licensees in a given city, county, or both".
* "Excessive concentration" is strictly and confusingly defined in 26051(c): it can only kick in if (1) the applicant is in a high-crime area (20% greater number of reported crimes than average - shouldn't that be percentage?) and (2) the ratio of licenses to population doesn't exceed that set in local ordinance. But the section it refers to here (26200) just talks about how a locality can ban marijuana businesses, not about how it can set a business-to-population ratio. Omission?
* Licensees prohibited from selling at less than cost.
* 600-foot radius minimum distance from K-12 schools, day care centers, or youth centers.
* No licenses to people who weren't California residents from January 1, 2015 onward, but this expires at the end of 2019. (Is this constitutional?)
* Priority consideration for license applicants previously in operation under the medical system.
More to come around lunchtime probably.
My city actually voted to allow some housing to be built, which I honestly never thought was going to happen. We also voted by fairly large margins not to stream all municipal meetings on the Internet, which seems like a fine idea on the surface and which makes me wonder if the electorate by and large actually reads up on initiatives before voting. (Maybe its just that there's a strong bias toward "no" for low-information voters, but I don't know why that would be the case.)
No licenses to people who weren't California residents from January 1, 2015 onward
I assume that's to stop all the people you dumped off on Oregon from coming back.
25: I think the CW on why they would is fatigue: there are so many initiatives to keep track of that there's hostility to ones where the content is merely minor or non-compelling.
This in the city that just a few years ago sent Tommy Chong prison for selling paraphernalia.
s/b the city where John Ashcroft's FBI sent...
(Maybe its just that there's a strong bias toward "no" for low-information voters, but I don't know why that would be the case.)
Everything on the ballot both statewide and locally passed, mostly by large margins, including two local propositions which were created by opposing forces. I was concluding the opposite.
I am pissed that the anti-tax initiative is passing in WA. This one seemed totally non-sensical:
Maybe your state is different somehow. Or maybe it's something about the measures you get. In CA 2014, 5 of 8 measures passed; 2012, 6 of 13; 2010, 6 of 14.
Most boring possible election where I was. Three uncontested local seats, four incumbents and one challenger running for four at-large seats, all four incumbents reelected. No ballot questions. 14% turnout; I showed up just to vote for my (uncontested) alderman, who I like.
From where I sit Knifecrimea seems to have almost given up on any semblance of privacy, which is really unfortunate. I realize I'm out on the fringe in terms of where I stand on privacy but hopefully a critical mass exists to get rid of this stupid bill.
Well, in some ways UK privacy law is actually much stronger than the UK than the US (especially around data protection, press intrusion, and so on). But specifically on government surveillance, it's atrocious. GCHQ oversight, statutory and otherwise, makes the FISA court look robust. And this government's idea of checks and balances is having the secretary of state sign off on intercepts, though they have been forced to put in some judicial involvement for what it deems the content of communications.
There's quite a lot of critical mass against the bill, but I don't know if it will be enough to block it or even materially improve it.
The part of the British TV show "Happy Valley" where the cops use their nationwide network of cameras that can track all license plates at all times was pretty surprising to an American.
Houston had a truly depressing election result. Basically, the local government passed a gay-rights measure, the Texas Supreme Court ordered the city to either repeal it or have a referendum on it, they had a referendum and the voters rejected it. It's like the worst possible combo of majoritarian-tyrrany democracy and anti-democracy judicial rule teamed up together to fuck over a minority, in a big important American city at that.
36: The fear of men in the women's bathroom did it.
Just in case nobody followed the link in 31, here is the ballot title of the initiative:
Initiative Measure No. 1366 concerns state taxes and fees.
This measure would decrease the sales tax rate unless the legislature refers to voters a constitutional amendment requiring two-thirds legislative approval or voter approval to raise taxes, and legislative approval for fee increases.
Does that make any sense?
15. Lunsford is a very sore loser.
Texans voted to increase the amount that one can claim in a property tax exemption from $15k to $25k.
I thought that was only for the elderly, vets, and disabled?
That sounds like quite a country for old men.
Could we get a California initiative to re-legalize the existence of this place? Because it needs to come back to Los Angeles, right now.
44: The photograph of the toddler standing in front of the pack of gators is amazing.
42:
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not because that probably is the way that it was sold to everyone. Gah.
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/all-7-proposed-amendments-surge-to-early-lead/npFsf/
Oh, and this happened in my backyard (but not my voting district):
They ended up passing the bond despite the queasiness about possibly letting section 8 kids in, though, because apparently the schools really did need the money.
Texans voted to increase the amount that one can claim in a property tax exemption from $15k to $25k.
Isn't that pretty trivial? I mean, even in cheap housing Texas, the median home value has to be in the 6 figures.
Or wait, is the problem that poor communities will see a big hit to their tax bases, while wealthy ones will hardly notice, and so public services will decline accordingly?
I went to high school with that guy.
I will not specify which comment I'm replying to in order to maintain pseudonymity.
Okay, spending. As is common, the initiative allocates dribs and drabs of tax money to various specific projects and causes. But if it raises a lot of money, the lion's share will go to substance use outreach, education, and prevention for youth only. Then if the Department of Finance determines the funding exceeds demand, some of that can be reallocated to adult treatment. This seems... limiting, if we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. Surely there are other areas that the money could usefully go to.
Everybody I voted for won (including one former Unfogged commenter and current cow-orker who is now on the City Council), but I live in the People's Republic of Durham where that is expected.
17: Regarding Kentucky, Thorn, I take it you live there.
I have a question that may seem terribly impertinent, but I wonder at times what makes people stay in states that are dramatically unfriendly to their needs and wishes. Of course one might find oneself tied to a job or a family ... but sometimes people just seem to stay regardless.
What I'm getting at is simply: is it better or worse to abandon such a yucky state? On the one hand, if you stay, you might could counter the yucky portions of the electorate. On the other hand, well, you and many others suffer. When North Carolina went rogue all Republican, two friends of mine decided to relocate to another state. Not out of pique, mind, but because the policy changes enacted had real world impact on their lives, and the lives of their loved ones.
51: NCProsecutor (if I remember the pseud right)?
Just the thought of putting all the shit I own in a truck is enough to cost me sleep. Add fixing all the shit that broke in the house over the past dozen years which we have ignored plus finding a new house, school, job, bar, etc.
Then you have to change your license plates to avoid getting your car keyed because they say "FLYERS SUC".
52: I'm old and settled, partly. It's the "Why should I have to change my name when HE's the one who sucks?" thing, partly. But also I do think it's made headway with a few people here and there to get to know and like my family and see things differently because of that. And I don't have much of a support system I couldn't build elsewhere, but my dad is picking Mara up after reading club once a week and I'd need to find someone new to do that sort of thing somewhere else. The biggest thing is that it's where the girls' families are here and they've lost so much already that taking that away for no good reason seems unnecessary, not to mention that I don't know if I'd even be allowed to once we have a custody agreement worked out.
And I don't know that we'll suffer ourselves. I don't think he'd be able to revoke their medical coverage and they're adopted and in a middle-class home. I figure that there's good I can do in communities here that someone needs to do, and leaving wouldn't change the need. Maybe this is stupid and I'd be happier on the coasts like most of the people here, but I get by.
56: Thanks for spelling it out. I'm not, by the way, saying you'd be happier on the coasts. Was just wondering what it would take to declare "Enough!" Clearly it's not enough yet.
I should also probably be honest that the low cost of living is part of what makes it appealing to stay, plus hating moving more than just about anything else. But mostly it's about privilege and that because I have the privilege to move it makes me feel I shouldn't.
I couldn't have stayed, but I am genuinely sorry to have left my home state to the current government, and it's going to sit permanently on my conscience, in its relatively small way.
what makes people stay in states that are dramatically unfriendly to their needs and wishes.
I stay so I can fight the good fight on behalf of all the Texans who have never seen a violin. All you blue staters are cowards.
Much as I coo over my little liberal bubble in NY, there's lots of stuff about NYS politically that I disapprove vehemently of. There just doesn't seem to be an earthly paradise to move to.
But mostly it's about privilege and that because I have the privilege to move it makes me feel I shouldn't.
So, if you couldn't move, you would.
I stay in Ohio, so I can describe the ocean.
If you hold your ear up to Akron, you can hear the sea.
The local newspaper once printed a picture of my son being adorable with a violin he could not play a whit. The caption didn't mention that.
I guess it does say, "makes sounds on a violin." Journalism has standards.
I think that the political orientation of your state-level government, and, with more exceptions, your local government, doesn't generally have much if anything to do with your quality of life or community as a middle-class liberal urbanite. It could certainly be isolating to be in a community where you are politically or socially isolated, but that could just as easily happen for an urbanite middle class liberal SWPL type in the Central Valley of California or upstate New York. What's great about big coastal cities doesn't really have much to do with which party controls their state governments. That doesn't mean that state or local issues aren't important but let's get a grip, it's not like living in a biggish, urbanized city in Kentucky means that you are in the Handmaid's Tale or something.
Right, my concerns are very much what this will do for poor people in the state. Although if this does turn into the Handmaid's Tale, you owe me. I don't remember what they do to women who are no good for breeding or marrying, a life of drudgery as Marthas or something like that, right?
Bevin has promised to actively work against environmental regulations and protections to the maximum extent possible, to sell off any state-owned public lands that he can find a buyer for, and to strip down the budgets of the state parks. All of those have real potential to impact me personally. Not to mention that yes he plans to fuck the poor even worse.
Not to mention set up a crazy system of unsupervised religious charter schools, while defunding the regular schools. And slashing state support for higher education, which impacts a lot of my friends personally.
I mean yes, I would obviously be unhappy if he were only planning to fuck the poor, but he's a tea party true believer. He thinks government is the enemy. It could be ugly.
I will say that when AB moved here from living in 2 successive liberal paradises*, she complained all the time about local culture and politics, and wished to live again in a liberal paradise, and I bristled. But I've certainly enjoyed living here more as it's become more of a local liberal paradise.
Point being, people can tolerate a lot, so political shittiness can be handled at a lot of levels, but I suspect that most liberals really would be happier living in liberal places. You can hope that your place gets more liberal, and it may, but, sort of in parallel with my comments on the school thread, it's hard to know what the grass is really like on the other side.
*one local paradise, the other state and local. I will say that, as a bureaucrat, the quality of government mattered directly and emotionally for her in a way that it doesn't for most
Democrats still hold the House, and may be able to prevent some damage. But he can dismantle the state exchanges, and do a lot of other damage, unilaterally.
it's hard to know what the grass is really like on the other side.
We missed our chance here.
A lot of states really like to screw around with what more local governments can do if they think something is going on that they don't like. So a bunch of really red states will have ordinances prohibiting the liberal cities in them from having various (probably mostly anti-discrimination) statutes that they'd otherwise want. And I know that Minnesota has a state law prohibiting charging anyone for being drunk in public, so it's certainly not limited to the red states.
I think the bigger difference would be that liberal governments and conservative ones tend to flourish in different political cultures, though, and that does make a pretty big difference even without taking the laws into account. Living in a "we're mostly in this together" area in Minnesota really does feel different to me than living in the general "prisons pay a lot for these children" area in Pennsylvania.
52:
Mostly what 68 said, plus family proximity and general inertia. And at least two of the big cities in Texas are actually pretty nice places to live. Although we will see how long that lasts once open carry is legal.
I mean yes, I would obviously be unhappy if he were only planning to fuck the poor, but he's a tea party true believer. He thinks government is the enemy. It could be ugly.
And have you seen his wife? She was wearing three strands of pearls at the victory celebration. What century is this?
I think the bigger difference would be that liberal governments and conservative ones tend to flourish in different political cultures, though, and that does make a pretty big difference even without taking the laws into account. Living in a "we're mostly in this together" area in Minnesota really does feel different to me than living in the general "prisons pay a lot for these children" area in Pennsylvania.
Hey, that's the area where I grew up. It's a Democratic stronghold. Maybe that's why Ciavarella and Conahan actually got prosecuted and sent to prison, instead of being assigned to perform 50 hours of community service as guest lecturers at the Light Of God's Word Publicly Funded Baptist Charter School.
"assigned" s/b "sentenced". I forgot the word "sentenced".
most liberals really would be happier living in liberal places
I've certainly taken this as a guiding principle.
Local and/or regional government controls transit, libraries, schools, rent control to a certain extent - all things that have a huge impact on my day to day life.
I tell myself there are fewer insufferable people in red states.
That's just a function of lower population density.
So, on the exciting good news side of the ledger, Denise Juneau is announcing her candidacy for Congress today.
All the worst things about conservatism are present nationwide anyway, like white flight and general icked-out-edness from white people about having to be around minorities and the decimation of labor.
I guess nobody likes to nitpick proposed legislation. Can't imagine why!
The piece linked in 45 is much better than the Yglesias one making a similar argument. I'm still not sure I buy it as an accurate prediction for the future (the current condition of unprecedented polarization is clearly wreaking havoc with our political institutions in ways that are hard to predict the results of, for one thing), but it's an interesting read.
20 this dsquared CT post is worth thinking about in that light.
I keep telling myself that once I have tenure (knock on wood, cross all fingers), I'll start volunteering in local politics.
My grad school classmates are all bummed out because the husband of an alum lost re-election as Fl/int's mayor.
So, thorn, not sure if this makes you feel better or worse about living in KY, but it turns out the election was probably rigged.
(Other helpful links: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/11/06/1445626/-Was-the-Kentucky-Governor-s-Race-stolen
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/did-gop-insiders-steal-kentucky-governors-race-tea-partier-matt-bevin)
A theory on how this could conceivably have been a legitimate outcome, and not fraud: http://thepoliticus.com/content/you-have-win-home-how-kentuckys-governors-race-was-decided-city-not-country. I'll let you judge plausibility.
I swear, on Election Day I felt a weird unease about the big "diebold" brand name on the front of the voting machine, but I thought I was just being paranoid. I guess not.
I guess election fraud is old news these days, but this is the first time I've personally been a victim.
Holy shit. I'm sure the major news networks will be all over that, as soon as they finish covering whatever the hell it is they're covering instead.
93: I don't understand how you could be sure you haven't been a victim in the past, or why you appear certain that you were in this case..
From what I read in your links all this is based on is the unusual result that some down-ticket Dems got more votes than the Dem running for Governor. If someone was rigging the vote why wouldn't they have made all the Republicans win?
92: The claim in the first link made about there being "essentially no such thing" where down ballot votes getting more amuses me, since it happened here in the local elections in a case where there's clearly no election fraud: County Executive Fitzgerald got only 75% of the vote, while all the County Council elections were clear democratic sweeps. Most notably, the #blm candidate who ran against Fitzgerald and got 24% of the vote, Koger, also ran against Fazio for the At-Large County Council seat and only got 8%.
I'm biased against thinking the results are due to fraud since I have a coworker who sees fraud in every red-leaning election and is using this as an argument to get rid of the secret ballot. I'd like to see more evidence.
I voted on paper, filled in my little boxes completely and then dropped the ballot in what looked to be a non-Diebold machine. My county went for Bevin, which I'd expect it to, but Conway did better than I'd feared. I haven't closely checked the Grimes numbers, which is where it might get interesting if there's a difference. But when Bevin had been so thoroughly rejected by Republican leadership outside the state it makes me skeptical people would bother rigging an election for him. The W-era Diebold accusation of course predates the Tea Party but I thought the (alleged) infiltration came from the party mainstream/leadership rather than the libertarian side.