America - The Official Thread

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Joey D
The federal takeover of anything always concerns me. The government is horrendously inefficient at just about everything it does and almost always makes things ten times more expensive and complicated than they need to be. The only thing I would be in favor of is the federal government requiring mail-in voting to be nationwide and changes to the electoral college.
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The federal takeover of things in Ohio concerns me. The federal takeover of things in Texas does not, because Texas is full of crazy people and is barely functional.

Edit: To clarify, federally mandating that things in general actually work, like mail-in voting or power grids, does not concern me in the slightest. Because that **** is like graduating highschool, it's the very minimum of a functioning society. But all of these things work just fine in Ohio so there is no reason for federal oversight here.
 
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Even "takeover" is a misnomer when it comes to prevention of voter suppression laws. The proposition isn't that the federal government horn in on state election operations so much as it is establishing the extent to which states may regulate elections. HR1 is no more a "federal takeover" than the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is.
 
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Keef
The federal takeover of things in Ohio concerns me. The federal takeover of things in Texas does not, because Texas is full of crazy people and is barely functional.

Edit: To clarify, federally mandating that things in general actually work, like mail-in voting or power grids, does not concern me in the slightest. Because that **** is like graduating highschool, it's the very minimum of a functioning society. But all of these things work just fine in Ohio so there is no reason for federal oversight here.
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While true, the federal government has shown time and time again they can't do even simple things right. I also worry with regards to anything federally controlled how drastically things can change depending on who holds the power. At least at the state level, the governments are more stable for longer periods of time which leads to less drastic changes. Just think if the elections were under federal control when Trump took power? You bet he'd wielded his small willy to ram through legislation to change how federal elections work.

Unless we can get together and actually come up with a Constitutional Amendment, I don't want the feds to be in control. With that said though, I'd like to see a Constitutional Amendment that addresses the election process while either removing or modifying how the electoral college works. I don't think you'd pass an Amendment the strikes down the EC, but I do think you could change it where candidates get votes based on the percentage of votes they received in the state. So if State X had 10 electoral votes and Candidate A got 60% of the vote, Candidate B got 30%, and C got 10%, the votes would be broken up as 6, 3, and 1.

Unfortunately, to see any real change in the way elections are run we need to get rid of old people who are set in their ways and weed out Qcumber terrorists from the halls of Congress.
 
TexRex
Remember when Republicans and right-wing media responded to MLB pulling the All-Star game out of Georgia in favor of Colorado by comparing select voting regulations that happened to be more aggressive in the latter but conveniently disregarded its automatic vote-by-mail applications and high rate of vote-by-mail turnout?

Here we go again.




One wonders what John Cornyn has neglected to mention as part of this comparison. One wonders why he's chosen these states and none of the nine, if memory serves, that open in-person voting at least forty days prior to Election Day. One wonders how the states he's chosen compare to Georgia in terms of eligible voters per polling location, not only statewide average but counties with the highest ratio.

Republicans have demonstrated time and again that they are the party of bad faith, so what context has been conveniently left out of this argument?
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I'm pretty sure we have a huge population difference too.
 
ryzno
I'm pretty sure we have a huge population difference too.
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Approximately four times that of Delaware and approximately 40% of New Jersey, but raw population isn't a particularly meaningful metric when it comes to in-person voting constraints.
 
FuriousDemon
Cmon man…Not the dogs!

www.businessinsider.com

Texas Gov. Abbott vetoed a state animal-cruelty bill, saying the Safe Outdoor Dogs Act was 'micro-managing'

The Texas lawmaker who wrote the bill told CBS Austin that he hadn't heard from the governor about it.
www.businessinsider.com www.businessinsider.com
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Not terribly surprising given the lack of culture war implications.

I'm much more concerned that SB4 was signed into law, mandating any professional sporting organization who enters into contract with a governmental entity play the national anthem at events.

It doesn't matter that playing the anthem because it's required isn't indicative of respect. It doesn't matter that compelled speech isn't free speech. It doesn't matter that the law runs afoul of Unconstitutional Conditions Doctrine. What matters is that it's the law now and what that means for their culture war.

Garbage. On. Parade.
 
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Danoff
The Connecticut case you cited is Kelo v New London. That's a US supereme court case and a notorious one at that. It is one of the worst supreme court decisions we've gotten in modern memory. Absolutely appalling.
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Here we go:



I'm not going to shed a tear if the dumpster fire that Kelo v. New London is gets extinguished.

I'm a little concerned about New York Times v. Sullivan because I think actual malice is a perfectly fine threshold for defamation in general, to say nothing regarding public figures, and if that threshold is eliminated because Berisha v. Lawson supersedes it, I fear the decision may embolden anti-SLAPP objectors. That said, this one has Thomas' name all over it...and maybe Alito's...but I actually have some faith in Kavanaugh re: First Amendment and I think Gorsuch may be a safe bet as wl. I simply don't know enough about Coney Barrett, but how she sides wouldn't really matter if Kavanaugh and Gorsuch join the liberal Justices upholding Sullivan.
 
Here's some big news for America and American sports fans. The Supreme Court has just decided that the NCAA has been violating anti-trust laws by forcing their workers, the college athletes, to work without pay or even the ability to get paid. Justice Kavanaugh in particular was so bothered that he wrote his own concurring opinion:

"Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate," Kavanaugh wrote. "And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different. The NCAA is not above the law."
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We've yet to see what will happen in the fallout of this decision. The NCAA seems reluctant to even accept the decision with them having already making statements suggesting they'll simply create and enforce new Name, Image, and Likeness rules. But that makes no sense - the SC decision basically voids all NIL limitations, that's the point. The NCAA wants to maintain the status quo because there is little else to maintain their authority over how colleges and college athletes conduct themselves. What happens now we don't know but hopefully it allows these college athletes, some of them superstar-level celebrities, to actually profit of things such as video game licensing. Mark my words, the next NCAA Football video game will sell better than any Call of Duty you've ever heard of.
 
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Keef
Here's some big news for America and American sports fans. The Supreme Court has just decided that the NCAA has been violating anti-trust laws by forcing their workers, the college athletes, to work without pay or even the ability to get paid. Justice Kavanaugh in particular was so bothered that he wrote his own concurring opinion:
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I just skimmed the majority opinion finding. It appears that contrary to what you posted above, and to what the Kavanaugh quote would suggest, the supreme court did not require college athletes to be paid. It merely requires that the NCAA permit college athletes to be paid under anti-trust law.
 
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I can practically smell the frat house while reading Kav's opinion. What a bro. I bet he drives a lifted dually Silverado.
 
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Joey D
The ball's in your court now EA. Give me NCAA Football 23 next year along with NCAA Basketball 23.
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They announced earlier this year that NCAA Football would be returning, which makes me wonder if they anticipated this ruling. I hope it does happen though as the NCAA game seemed to have a much slower decline than the Madden titles.
 
Danoff
I just skimmed the majority opinion finding. It appears that contrary to what you posted above, and to what the Kavanaugh quote would suggest, the supreme court did not require college athletes to be paid. It merely requires that the NCAA permit college athletes to be paid under anti-trust law.
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Exactly, and I think you might have misinterpreted. Regardless, up until this point the NCAA has actively been banning any students from getting paid in any remotely observable way which is what the decision is aimed at. I'd argue that the core of the NCAA's authority over the whole system is in forcing student athletes to be unpaid "amateurs" and otherwise preventing any potential challenges from students. The NCAA's authority over college sports and univerisities' submission to it is in serious question now.
 
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Joey D
The ball's in your court now EA. Give me NCAA Football 23 next year along with NCAA Basketball 23.
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How about a multi-event NCAA Track & Field type game? Do they have hockey (not field hockey) teams?
 
UKMikey
How about a multi-event NCAA Track & Field type game? Do they have hockey (not field hockey) teams?
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UM_OSU-62.jpg


We got hockey.
 
Manufacturer a problem (Libs indoctrinating college students), create a solution (have Libs self-identify; definitely not going to do anything nefarious with the info).
Public universities in Florida will be required to survey both faculty and students on their political beliefs and viewpoints, with the institutions at risk of losing their funding if the responses are not satisfactory to the state's Republican-led legislature.

The unprecedented project, which was tucked into a law signed Tuesday by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, is part of a long-running, nationwide right-wing push to promote "intellectual diversity" on campuses — though worries over a lack of details on the survey's privacy protections, and questions over what the results may ultimately be used for, hover over the venture.

Based on the bill's language, survey responses will not necessarily be anonymous — sparking worries among many professors and other university staff that they may be targeted, held back in their careers or even fired for their beliefs.
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www.salon.com

New law will survey Florida students, professors on political views

Colleges could lose funding if survey of "ideas and perspectives" fails to satisfy state's GOP-run legislature
www.salon.com www.salon.com
 
Wow. The right-wing really are running scared. This move is straight out of the Chy-Nah play book.
 
Joey D
I can't wait to see the Supreme Court get ahold of that.
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Assuming it gets that far. It's toothless. I don't expect it to pass muster on significant legal challenge and these pathetic ****ers aren't likely to venture appeal with the Court.

Sadly, that would mean not being able to read a bat-**** crazy dissenting opinion from Justice Thomas. I'm not necessarily opposed to judicial activism, but he's off his ****ing rocker.
 
TexRex
Y'know...it's nice to see reason win over insanity.

Judge dismisses staff lawsuit over Houston Methodist vaccine mandate


Anti-vaxxers are ****ing garbage, as are the politicians who empower them.
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www.chron.com

Houston hospital fires employees who refused COVID vaccine

More than 150 employees at a Houston hospital system who refused to get the COVID-19...
www.chron.com www.chron.com
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Of particular note is that the 153 employees who resigned or were fired accounted for a little over half of a percent of the Houston Methodist workforce. Twenty-five employees complied with the mandate subsequent to the Fifth Circuit ruling and immediately had their suspension rescinded.
 
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McLaren
Manufacturer a problem (Libs indoctrinating college students), create a solution (have Libs self-identify; definitely not going to do anything nefarious with the info).

www.salon.com

New law will survey Florida students, professors on political views

Colleges could lose funding if survey of "ideas and perspectives" fails to satisfy state's GOP-run legislature
www.salon.com www.salon.com
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This sounds like a trial run at a more far reaching "Jim Crow" type of legalized discrimination except instead of race it will be based on political leanings. All citizens would have to register their political beliefs and say if a landlord was conservative, he would be authorized by the State of Florida to charge liberal residents more rent. Or a conservative business owner could deny service to liberal customers or even pay his liberal workers far less than the conservative ones or even not hire them at all.
 
TexRex
Assuming it gets that far. It's toothless. I don't expect it to pass muster on significant legal challenge and these pathetic ****ers aren't likely to venture appeal with the Court.

Sadly, that would mean not being able to read a bat-**** crazy dissenting opinion from Justice Thomas. I'm not necessarily opposed to judicial activism, but he's off his ****ing rocker.
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I believe Oxford defines it as Performative Asshattery.
 
05XR8
That Geotz guy sure does deserve the poo emoji. Anyway, interesting...
www.npr.org

Top General Defends Studying Critical Race Theory In The Military

Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley also said he wanted to understand "white rage" in a tense exchange that Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz had with him and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
www.npr.org www.npr.org
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AAAAAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Watching a video of this hearing, I couldn't help but notice Gaetz's impotent head shake at the rebuke over referring to military officers as "woke."

rkp3Hs.gif


That invocation is the right's bread and butter right now and this pathetic **** got called out.

Edit: AND HE TOOK TO TWITTER TO BITCH ABOUT IT!!!



:lol:

Who'd have thought a sophomoric ****ing Florida frat boy who pays underage girls for sex would end up being so weak? Oh...literally everyone.
 
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Oh sweet, we're turning on the military just like we turned on "back the blue" b/c they don't automatically align with me.


Heh.™
 
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