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Texas State legislature just repealed requirement for vehicle safety inspections. All four sponsors say they are "pro life". They said drivers can do their own inspection of their vehicles.

Texas has some of the worst most unsafe roads in the country.

Although inspections are ending, motorists will continue to be charged inspection fee.
 
Everything Beagle said:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/01/02/net-neutrality-fcc-sixth-circuit-strike-down/

Net Neutrality is dead. Again.
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Insanity. This should have been front and center for Dems. Congress should have cemented net neutrality as law. Both Obama and Biden administrations failed us. Democrats MUST do better.
Democrats NEED to focus on:
Reversing Citizens United
Net Neutrality codified (including fiber internet to every home in the America while making it illegal for any company to offer both the pipe and the internet service)
Universal Education to public institutions
Universal Healthcare

Beyond that, protect individual rights.

Just focus on those things and win, IMO. Everything else will take care of itself.
 
Phatguysrule said:
Insanity. This should have been front and center for Dems. Congress should have cemented net neutrality as law. Both Obama and Biden administrations failed us. Democrats MUST do better.
Democrats NEED to focus on:
Reversing Citizens United
Net Neutrality codified (including fiber internet to every home in the America while making it illegal for any company to offer both the pipe and the internet service)
Universal Education to public institutions
Universal Healthcare

Beyond that, protect individual rights.

Just focus on those things and win, IMO. Everything else will take care of itself.
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None of those things will bring down the price of eggs.
 
jonnyboy said:
Looks a whole lot like the cases dropped before the vaccine came out, like many have said. Same with the measles vaccine.
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Part of the drop in polio cases around that time can be explained by the advances in wastewater treatment and the increase in communities actually obtaining a wastewater treatment facility. Polio is a waterborne disease. Prior to the existence of treatment plants, sewage that did not go into septic tanks or outhouses went into streams and rivers. The federal government got its head out of its asses in 1948, and by 1960 more than 50% of American municipalities had treatment systems. I'm sure that went a long way to reducing infections, but it was the vaccine that eliminated it. Sorry for the pedantic history lesson.......
 
Phatguysrule said:
Insanity. This should have been front and center for Dems. Congress should have cemented net neutrality as law.
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Not clear that would have made any difference in the end, the courts are almost as eager to overturn laws as regulations.

Both Obama and Biden administrations failed us. Democrats MUST do better.
Democrats NEED to focus on:
Reversing Citizens United
Net Neutrality codified (including fiber internet to every home in the America while making it illegal for any company to offer both the pipe and the internet service)
Universal Education to public institutions
Universal Healthcare

Beyond that, protect individual rights.

Just focus on those things and win, IMO. Everything else will take care of itself.
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None of that good stuff is going to happen, because the majority of voters don't give a shit about any of it.

barfo
 
barfo said:
Not clear that would have made any difference in the end, the courts are almost as eager to overturn laws as regulations.



None of that good stuff is going to happen, because the majority of voters don't give a shit about any of it.

barfo
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We call them "leaders" for a reason...
 
barfo said:
No, actually we don't.

barfo
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We don't call politicians leaders? Really?

I guess people should just maintain their own roads. Everybody should just clean up the parks. Everybody should just drive a reasonable speed. Put out their own fires. Deal with their own domestic squabbles. No need for police.

If people were any good we wouldn't need any laws we wouldn't need any rules. Heck we shouldn't even need schools. If people were any good they would just teach their own kids.

Blaming the population is absolute insanity. Frankly, it's lazy.
 
Phatguysrule said:
We don't call politicians leaders? Really?
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I don't. I can't think of anytime in my life I've ever thought of or referred to a politician as my 'leader'.

Blaming the population is absolute insanity. Frankly, it's lazy.
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You really think that the population has been taking it's civic duty seriously?

If you think the responsibility of citizens is just to go along with whatever their current "leaders" say, why aren't you doing that yourself?

This is supposed to be a government of the people. Waiting for a hero to come along and save us isn't going to work out. And frankly, it's lazy.

barfo
 
Giuliani has not paid judgment against election workers and was told to come in to court and explain himself. He tried to get out of it by referencing 9/11. Claimed he is unable to travel due to health damage he suffered from 9/11. He has been traveling all over the world. Judge wasn't buying.
 
crandc said:
Giuliani has not paid judgment against election workers and was told to come in to court and explain himself. He tried to get out of it by referencing 9/11. Claimed he is unable to travel due to health damage he suffered from 9/11. He has been traveling all over the world. Judge wasn't buying.
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Probably waiting for a pardon.
 
barfo said:
I don't. I can't think of anytime in my life I've ever thought of or referred to a politician as my 'leader'.



You really think that the population has been taking it's civic duty seriously?

If you think the responsibility of citizens is just to go along with whatever their current "leaders" say, why aren't you doing that yourself?

This is supposed to be a government of the people. Waiting for a hero to come along and save us isn't going to work out. And frankly, it's lazy.

barfo
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The system is literally set up to make it hard for people to be engaged
 
I have a rock bottom cold. Already used four boxes of Kleenex, washed hands so many times keep replacing soggy towels, emptied trash twice and full again.
 
barfo said:
I don't. I can't think of anytime in my life I've ever thought of or referred to a politician as my 'leader'.



You really think that the population has been taking it's civic duty seriously?

If you think the responsibility of citizens is just to go along with whatever their current "leaders" say, why aren't you doing that yourself?

This is supposed to be a government of the people. Waiting for a hero to come along and save us isn't going to work out. And frankly, it's lazy.

barfo
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This made me think of what I say to people about our legislators. I voted for them and my taxes pay for them. They represent me and work for me. I wouldn't put them on a shirt or a hat or put their flag on my lawn anymore than I would the part-time kid on my staff.
 
barfo said:
Sometimes people have to do hard things.

Life is tough.

barfo
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Yes, that's very true. And you can convince a person of that.

But people don't do hard things en masse unless it is violent and emotional.

That's what it will take to overcome the corporate influence if Democrats don't get their shit together.
 
Phatguysrule said:
The system is literally set up to make it hard for people to be engaged
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For the "greatest country in the world," we have a lot of problems that the greatest country shouldn't have. I found one today and someday maybe I'll share the story here.

Anyway, I think you have a point, but I'm a bit more with Barfo on this. The system screws people over but it does it mainly because Americans are generally apathetic and willfully uninformed. We don't take even the most basic steps to help ourselves.
 
PCmor7 said:
This made me think of what I say to people about our legislators. I voted for them and my taxes pay for them. They represent me and work for me. I wouldn't put them on a shirt or a hat or put their flag on my lawn anymore than I would the part-time kid on my staff.
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Neither would I. But I don't expect the part-time kid on my staff to lead. I expect the people I vote for to lead.

A representative democracy is a democracy in which the people vote for people to make decisions on our behalf.

The people don't have all of the information. Our representatives do. The people are too busy and uneducated to figure this out. This is the way the system has been set up for the last 50 years.

It's going to take somebody inside. It's going to take a representative or group of representatives to head off mass violence in the next 50 years.
 
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PCmor7 said:
For the "greatest country in the world," we have a lot of problems that the greatest country shouldn't have. I found one today and someday maybe I'll share the story here.

Anyway, I think you have a point, but I'm a bit more with Barfo on this. The system screws people over but it does it mainly because Americans are generally apathetic and willfully uninformed. We don't take even the most basic steps to help ourselves.
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We have the greatest country in the world because we have the most natural resources and the best naturally protected land mass in the world. We can transport product easier than the rest of the world thanks to having 10 or 15 times more miles of navigable waterway than the rest of the world combined.

That's why we have the greatest country in the world. And why we likely will for the foreseeable future.

Then, the rest of the world got destroyed in world war II.

The "greatest country in the world" crap is all bullshit.

We're lucky. As long as we avoid civil war (or natural disasters) that destroy our ability to engage in trade we will be the most powerful country in the world.
 
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Phatguysrule said:
We have the greatest country in the world because we have the most natural resources and the best naturally protected land mass in the world. We can transport product easier than the rest of the world thanks to having 10 or 15 times more miles of navigable waterway than the rest of the world combined.

That's why we have the greatest country in the world. And why we likely will for the foreseeable future.

Then, the rest of the world got destroyed in world war II.

The "greatest country in the world crap" is all bullshit.

We're lucky. As long as we avoid civil war (or natural disasters) that destroy our ability to engage in trade we will be the most powerful country in the world.
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If a country was just a business I would agree with you. A country is more than military and open ports. It’s the people, the healthcare, the security, the education, the peace, the happiness, the ability to thrive. What makes America better than Norway or Holland or Sweden or Canada? More power? Nukes? Never ever do I want to hear bullshit that we are the greatest. Most powerful and influential? Is that the way we define “great”?
 
GoZers said:
If a country was just a business I would agree with you. A country is more than military and open ports. It’s the people, the healthcare, the security, the education, the peace, the happiness, the ability to thrive. What makes America better than Norway or Holland or Sweden or Canada? More power? Nukes? Never ever do I want to hear bullshit that we are the greatest. Most powerful and influential? Is that the way we define “great”?
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That's exactly what I'm saying. We simply have more money and a more powerful military because we have more natural resources and are more naturally protected.

Those countries that you listed are better for their people than the US is.

The US should be helping the rest of the world get where those countries are. That is what people used to think the US was.

That is our challenge. Unless we (as individuals) just choose to give up and move to one of those countries...
 
Phatguysrule said:
We have the greatest country in the world because we have the most natural resources and the best naturally protected land mass in the world. We can transport product easier than the rest of the world thanks to having 10 or 15 times more miles of navigable waterway than the rest of the world combined.

That's why we have the greatest country in the world. And why we likely will for the foreseeable future.

Then, the rest of the world got destroyed in world war II.

The "greatest country in the world crap" is all bullshit.

We're lucky. As long as we avoid civil war (or natural disasters) that destroy our ability to engage in trade we will be the most powerful country in the world.
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I guess I'll tell my story here. It was either here or on the civil rights lawyer thread.

On April 22, I was on business that took me through a town I rarely go through but where I have a couple of old friends. One of them, who I hadn't talked to in three years and works as a probation officer, lost their aunt a couple of weeks earlier, so I dropped off a sympathy card at the front desk of the courthouse and asked if it could be passed along to them. I'd done something similar six months earlier for their co-worker and they thanked me and welcomed me to stop again.

Three weeks later, police showed up at my door and told me I was under arrest for stalking and harassment.

Before the preliminary hearing, the DA gave us a deal to drop the stalking and drop everything else to disorderly conduct, which we didn't take because we didn't think leaving a sympathy card could be construed as an attempt to create a disturbance.

At the preliminary hearing, the probation officer and her co-worker refuted everything they gave in their police report. However, the magistrate, who apparently knew the primary complaintant before she started working at the courthouse, didn't recuse himself and passed the case on to the Court of Common Pleas anyway.

It wasn't the first conflict of interest in this case. The arresting officer's fiancee went to school with the probation officer. The magistrate that signed the arrest warrant was friends with her mother since they were kids. The magistrate that held the prearraignment was the complaintant's internship advisor.

Then, on top of that, not just the judge but the president judge decided to preside over the case. He'd worked with her since April 20222. Normally, a judge recuses themselves from a case involving someone they know that well. He didn't.

My lawyer and I thought we had a very solid motion to get the case dismissed on about a half-dozen reasons, but the likely partisan judge would decide the motions and anything at a jury trial and even my attorney said he was surprised he was keeping the case. He also tried to accommodate the probation officer, who lied about not being able to testify again at the pretrial hearing in person by asking if she could just testify over the phone. Weird.

The DA came back with a deal to cut the stalking and reduce all the harassment to disorderly conduct, and make two of those summary offenses. Then they told us the 3 1/2 days I had to make the decision was down to 12 hours because the complaintant needed to know whether or not she'd have to be at the pretrial hearing.

I talked to my attorney as much as I could and decided to take the plea deal for probation rather than risk a trial that could give me 10 years in jail -- yes, 10 years in jail for a card saying "I'm sorry about your aunt. She was really nice. Your family was lucky to have her" -- and try to go through non-partisan agencies to sue for false arrest and defamation, since all of the conditions for stalking and harassment were eliminated by the complaintants' prior testimony.

I talked to a defamation lawyer that's won cases against these people today. He said I was write, but I don't have a case. First, I don't have a case because I took a plea deal. Second, I don't have a case because you can't sue a judge or a prosecutor, even if they are acting corruptly. Third, I'd have to pursue a case for malicious prosecution against the police and the probation officers, and he said winning that is very rare -- even if I went to trial and won, I probably wouldn't win a judgment for that.

Basically, he said I was right, I had legitimate damages, but the system isn't set up to protect people from something like this, so I just needed to move on. He said he wouldn't even go to the press with my story because I'd probably get into more trouble for doing that.

I had no record, but I lost my job just because I was accused of this. Then the complaintants basically said they made it all up, and I had no way to recover anything because our system protects judges, prosecutors, cops and anyone else in the judiciary from everything. I had no way to protect myself or to recover damages.

We have a president-elect who tried to overthrow the government and broke numerous laws and it's OK, but a normal person is at the mercy of the whims of the system. Yeah, hard for me to see how our country is the greatest in much of anything.

P.S. The probation officer that first said she couldn't be at the pretrial hearing and then said she had to know by the following morning whether she had to be there that cut into my time to evaluate my options, then showed up at the pretrial hearing when she didn't have to be there. The judge had her introduce her fiance, who had nothing to do with the case, to the court. Yeah, this would have been fair.
 
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