Skinypupy wrote: Sat Jun 20, 2020 11:00 am
The story I read is that he was a child of a former girlfriend who (somehow) ended up living with Gaetz after the relationship ended.
Could explain the lack of official adoption documentation, but doesn’t lessen either the slimy or creepy factors any.
"Brother". Nestor is the younger brother of Gaetz' former girlfriend.
Not that it matters. Salacious innuendo aside, it doesn't fundamentally change (or meaningfully illuminate) the character of Matt Gaetz beyond what was already known about him. Let it go.
Nunes’s funniest suit was filed last year against Twitter, demanding $250 million in damages over tweets by an account called “Devin Nunes’ Cow.” Nunes has very predictably lost his case against Twitter.
The suit cites a series of anti-Nunes tweets from the @devincow account. “Devin Nunes’ Cow has made, published and republished hundreds of false and defamatory statements of and concerning Nunes, including the following: Nunes is a ‘treasonous cowpoke’ and ‘Devin’s boots are full of manure’; He’s ‘udder-ly worthless and its pasture time to move him to prison’; ‘Devin is whey over his head in crime,’” among other messages.
Nunes’s suit advanced the idiosyncratic theory that the tweets were “part of [Twitter’s] agenda to squelch Nunes’ voice, cause him extreme pain and suffering, influence the 2018 Congressional election, and distract, intimidate and interfere with Nunes’ investigation into corruption and Russian involvement in the 2016 Presidential Election,” and somehow not protected by the First Amendment. Judge John Marshall did not agree.
Black Lives definitely Matter Lorini!
Also: There are three ways to not tell the truth: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
1) Representation for DC residents is bad because it's good for Democrats.
2) Representation for currently unrepresented citizens is mob rule.
3) Why should DC get to be a state when other large cities don't get to be states?
4) Of course states smaller than DC deserve statehood because they have loggers and shit.
5) DC would be a bad state because it doesn't add political power to a major industry.
6) DC is majority black and would be the only black majority state but he sort of said it by dog whistling about Governor Marion Barry or Governor Bowser.
6) DC is majority black and would be the only black majority state but he sort of said it by dog whistling about Governor Marion Barry or Governor Bowser.
That's also what he's saying from his point about how Wyoming deserves more representation because it has more loggers and miners and whatnot.
It’s not by accident or oversight that the nation’s capital isn’t a state: The Founding Fathers wrote it into the Constitution. Article I, Section 8 provides explicitly for a national capital that would not be part of a state nor treated as a state, but rather a unique enclave under the exclusive authority of Congress — a neutral “district” in which representatives of all the states could meet on an equal footing to conduct the nation’s business.
Not being citizens of a state, the district’s residents wouldn’t elect their own members of Congress. But that didn’t mean they were condemned to “taxation without representation.” Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor, testified at a 2007 congressional hearing that the framers of the Constitution “repeatedly stated that the district would be represented by the entire Congress and that members . . . would bear a special interest in its operations.”
Reasonable people can disagree on the wisdom or fairness of the framers’ plan, but the only way to change it is to amend the Constitution. That’s exactly what happened in 1961, when the 23rd Amendment was ratified and D.C. residents were granted the right to vote in presidential elections and participate in the Electoral College. In 1978 Congress passed another amendment, giving the District of Columbia seats in the Senate and the House, but only 16 states ratified it. It may frustrate Washingtonians to be denied the perquisites of statehood on Capitol Hill, but Americans plainly have not wanted to change the Constitution to make that happen.
So House Democrats have come up with a creative constitutional workaround. H.R. 51, the bill to be voted on next Friday, purports to shrink the District of Columbia to just the few blocks along the National Mall containing the various federal government buildings, such as the White House, the Capitol, the Supreme Court, plus the “principal federal monuments.” The rest of the city would be rechristened “Washington, Douglass Commonwealth,” and admitted as the 51st state.
Give the drafters points for ingenuity, but their scheme is too clever by half. Congress cannot change the status of the capital district simply by redefining it. Washington, D.C.’s one-of-a-kind standing in the federal system is spelled out in the Constitution; the only way to modify that standing is to modify the Constitution. The plain meaning of Article I is that “the Seat of Government of the United States” comprises all the land supplied for that purpose. H.R. 51 would turn it instead into exactly what the Framers rejected — an island of government buildings, with perhaps a few hundred residents, enveloped within a state.
And what about those few hundred residents? As long as the 23rd Amendment is in force, the District of Columbia is guaranteed at least three votes in the Electoral College. Under the House bill, those votes would be controlled by the microscopic population of the drastically shrunken district, making them far and away the most influential voters in the nation. Such an outcome would obviously be absurd, yet it would be unavoidable unless the 23rd Amendment were repealed. And the only way to repeal a constitutional amendment is with another amendment.
6) DC is majority black and would be the only black majority state but he sort of said it by dog whistling about Governor Marion Barry or Governor Bowser.
I get your point, but due to gentrification, DC hasn't been majority black for almost a decade. It's only a plurality black city at this point, and that may not last forever.
It's majority Democratic, though, that's for sure.
6) DC is majority black and would be the only black majority state but he sort of said it by dog whistling about Governor Marion Barry or Governor Bowser.
I get your point, but due to gentrification, DC hasn't been majority black for almost a decade. It's only a plurality black city at this point, and that may not last forever.
It's majority Democratic, though, that's for sure.
Fair enough on the plurality. It might be more about party but to the hard-core base the race is important and they are definitely playing to it.
6) DC is majority black and would be the only black majority state but he sort of said it by dog whistling about Governor Marion Barry or Governor Bowser.
I get your point, but due to gentrification, DC hasn't been majority black for almost a decade. It's only a plurality black city at this point, and that may not last forever.
It's majority Democratic, though, that's for sure.
Fair enough on the plurality. It might be more about party but to the hard-core base the race is important and they are definitely playing to it.
Yep, I won't deny that at all.
Unfortunately, black families getting priced out of DC has been a thing for a long time now. Close in Prince George's County, Maryland is sometimes referred to as Ward 9 because of it. And PG County is most definitely majority-black. But it's also home to several top-10 richest majority black areas in the US, so for all the stick PG County gets from people in the DC area as a whole, it is definitely affluent.
It’s not by accident or oversight that the nation’s capital isn’t a state: The Founding Fathers wrote it into the Constitution. Article I, Section 8 provides explicitly for a national capital that would not be part of a state nor treated as a state, but rather a unique enclave under the exclusive authority of Congress — a neutral “district” in which representatives of all the states could meet on an equal footing to conduct the nation’s business.
Not being citizens of a state, the district’s residents wouldn’t elect their own members of Congress. But that didn’t mean they were condemned to “taxation without representation.” Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor, testified at a 2007 congressional hearing that the framers of the Constitution “repeatedly stated that the district would be represented by the entire Congress and that members . . . would bear a special interest in its operations.”
Reasonable people can disagree on the wisdom or fairness of the framers’ plan, but the only way to change it is to amend the Constitution. That’s exactly what happened in 1961, when the 23rd Amendment was ratified and D.C. residents were granted the right to vote in presidential elections and participate in the Electoral College. In 1978 Congress passed another amendment, giving the District of Columbia seats in the Senate and the House, but only 16 states ratified it. It may frustrate Washingtonians to be denied the perquisites of statehood on Capitol Hill, but Americans plainly have not wanted to change the Constitution to make that happen.
So House Democrats have come up with a creative constitutional workaround. H.R. 51, the bill to be voted on next Friday, purports to shrink the District of Columbia to just the few blocks along the National Mall containing the various federal government buildings, such as the White House, the Capitol, the Supreme Court, plus the “principal federal monuments.” The rest of the city would be rechristened “Washington, Douglass Commonwealth,” and admitted as the 51st state.
Give the drafters points for ingenuity, but their scheme is too clever by half. Congress cannot change the status of the capital district simply by redefining it. Washington, D.C.’s one-of-a-kind standing in the federal system is spelled out in the Constitution; the only way to modify that standing is to modify the Constitution. The plain meaning of Article I is that “the Seat of Government of the United States” comprises all the land supplied for that purpose. H.R. 51 would turn it instead into exactly what the Framers rejected — an island of government buildings, with perhaps a few hundred residents, enveloped within a state.
And what about those few hundred residents? As long as the 23rd Amendment is in force, the District of Columbia is guaranteed at least three votes in the Electoral College. Under the House bill, those votes would be controlled by the microscopic population of the drastically shrunken district, making them far and away the most influential voters in the nation. Such an outcome would obviously be absurd, yet it would be unavoidable unless the 23rd Amendment were repealed. And the only way to repeal a constitutional amendment is with another amendment.
There’s talk of making DC a state while preserving a very small zone (basically just the mall and core Federal buildings) for the capital mandated in the Constitution.
Why not just keep it called Washington, District of Columbia, and then call the new federal district the "Federal Government District" or something like that?
El Guapo wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 2:18 pm
Is "Douglass" to reflect Frederick Douglass?
Why not just keep it called Washington, District of Columbia, and then call the new federal district the "Federal Government District" or something like that?
Two states called Washington would be confusing, and if it’s a state/commonwealth then it’s no longer a “district.”
El Guapo wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 2:18 pm
Is "Douglass" to reflect Frederick Douglass?
Why not just keep it called Washington, District of Columbia, and then call the new federal district the "Federal Government District" or something like that?
Two states called Washington would be confusing, and if it’s a state/commonwealth then it’s no longer a “district.”
Plus Douglass was awesome.
Why call it "Washington?" There is already a state and tacking on something at the end doesn't make it that much less confusing. Just call it Douglass Commonwealth or something else and keep the Federal District named Washington.
" Hey OP, listen to my advice alright." -Tha General "“I like taking the guns early...to go to court would have taken a long time. So you could do exactly what you’re saying, but take the guns first, go through due process second.” -President Donald Trump. "...To guard, protect, and maintain his liberty, the freedman should have the ballot; that the liberties of the American people were dependent upon the Ballot-box, the Jury-box, and the Cartridge-box, that without these no class of people could live and flourish in this country." - Frederick Douglass MYT
El Guapo wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 2:18 pm
Is "Douglass" to reflect Frederick Douglass?
Why not just keep it called Washington, District of Columbia, and then call the new federal district the "Federal Government District" or something like that?
Two states called Washington would be confusing, and if it’s a state/commonwealth then it’s no longer a “district.”
Plus Douglass was awesome.
Why call it "Washington?" There is already a state and tacking on something at the end doesn't make it that much less confusing. Just call it Douglass Commonwealth or something else and keep the Federal District named Washington.
People are used to referring to it as Washington / DC. And the Washington is staying either way, as the proposed name is "Washington, Douglass Commonwealth".
I guess it's not important, as the proposed name is a way for people to keep calling it Washington DC without it being the federal district.
Holman wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 1:54 pm
There’s talk of making DC a state while preserving a very small zone (basically just the mall and core Federal buildings) for the capital mandated in the Constitution.
Holman wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 1:54 pm
There’s talk of making DC a state while preserving a very small zone (basically just the mall and core Federal buildings) for the capital mandated in the Constitution.
I don't think Jacoby's argument was convincing in terms of DC statehood being unconstitutional. Clearly Congress has the power to change / shrink the territory of the district, and/or to make new states / territories out of old ones with proper approvals (see, e.g., returning Arlington to Virginia, taking West Virginia out of Virginia, etc.). He is right that the amendments in the 60s and 70s clearly envisioned DC remaining in its current form, but that says nothing about why Congress couldn't change its mind on its approach.
The three electoral college delegates created by the 23rd amendment is a practical issue, but that really doesn't say anything about why you couldn't carve out part of the current DC and leave the rump district with its three delegates. The easiest approach is what's been discussed - as part of the statehood bill Congress can just provide that the three rump delegates go to whomever wins the electoral college majority elsewhere, which makes them effectively moot.
That said, do I think there's a reasonable possibility that the conservative SCOTUS majority uses these arguments to invalidate DC statehood later? Sure, they've endorsed dumber arguments in recent years. But I think the statehood bill stands on pretty firm constitutional ground.
Z-Corn wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 6:19 pm
Or Warshington. That's different enough.
That'll confuse Indianans.
" Hey OP, listen to my advice alright." -Tha General "“I like taking the guns early...to go to court would have taken a long time. So you could do exactly what you’re saying, but take the guns first, go through due process second.” -President Donald Trump. "...To guard, protect, and maintain his liberty, the freedman should have the ballot; that the liberties of the American people were dependent upon the Ballot-box, the Jury-box, and the Cartridge-box, that without these no class of people could live and flourish in this country." - Frederick Douglass MYT
I found an amusing html game where you can alter points in history and see the consequences of the outcome. Want to give humanity technology early, or suppress the technology? Want to encourage the french revolution or suppress it? The choice is yours. And hopefully you don't end up destroying humanity (oops).
Unbelievable: Stephen King retweeted one of JKR’s tweets today. She got so excited that a single celebrity finally backed up her views with a mere RT that she wrote a whole thank you
King then said “trans women are women” and JKR deleted her praise.
i only used tiktok for the audio but i might’ve added $10,000 worth of trump’s merchandise to my cart so that it says it’s out of stock and no one can buy it
Did you know that digital shopping cart abandonment annually costs retailers $4 Trillion due to inaccurate data and negative effects on available inventory? Did you also know Trump has an online store?
When darkness veils the world, four Warriors of Light shall come.
I'm beginning to love TikTok users antics more than I thought possible.
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” - H.L. Mencken
Paingod wrote: Wed Jul 01, 2020 9:53 am
most sane Republicans
I hear they are both very upset.
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” - H.L. Mencken
pr0ner wrote: Wed Jul 01, 2020 8:57 am
Looks like Colorado Republicans are on the QAnon train now. Oy.
This nutcase may be the Democrats' best bet of retaking that seat in November.
Or we'll see how much kool-aid the people of Colorado have chugged when they go to the polls.
The western slope of CO (west side of the continental divide) is pretty deep red in most parts, she's catnip to many in the district. Tipton who she is replacing may have been more vulnerable. I hope I'm wrong, but I have dim hopes on this one. This is the same special person who reopened Shooters in Rifle, CO against COVID orders. She's another head of the Trump-hydra.
My blog (mostly photos): Fort Ephemera - My Flickr Photostream
“You only get one sunrise and one sunset a day, and you only get so many days on the planet. A good photographer does the math and doesn’t waste either.” ―Galen Rowell
I didn't know that the DOD bill Trump threatened to not sign contained a line that eliminates the need for campaigns to report foreign assistance. This would clear the way for any other nation to send in the financial and cyber troops to help their favorite candidates without repercussion, right?
Black Lives Matter
2021-01-20: The first good night's sleep I had in 4 years.
2025-01-20: The nightmares continue.
Pandemic exposed America in decline. Excerpt below but he hits the nail on the head. He is saying we'll be like a developing nation in a couple decades. I'd argue that process is complete and started over 20 years ago. People are only starting to see it now.
The U.S.’s decline started with little things that people got used to. Americans drove past empty construction sites and didn’t even think about why the workers weren’t working, then wondered why roads and buildings took so long to finish. They got used to avoiding hospitals because of the unpredictable and enormous bills they’d receive. They paid 6% real-estate commissions, never realizing that Australians were paying 2%. They grumbled about high taxes and high health-insurance premiums and potholed roads, but rarely imagined what it would be like to live in a system that worked better.
When writers speak of American decline, they’re usually talking about international power -- the rise of China and the waning of U.S. hegemony and moral authority. To most Americans, those are distant and abstract things that have little or no impact on their daily lives. But the decline in the general effectiveness of U.S. institutions will impose increasing costs and burdens on Americans. And if it eventually leads to a general loss of investor confidence in the country, the damage could be much greater.
The most immediate cost of U.S. decline -- and the most vivid demonstration -- comes from the country’s disastrous response to the coronavirus pandemic. Leadership failures were pervasive and catastrophic at every level -- the president, agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration, and state and local leaders all fumbled the response to the greatest health threat in a century. As a result, the U.S. is suffering a horrific surge of infections in states such as Arizona, Texas and Florida while states that were battered early on are still struggling. Countries such as Italy that are legendary for government dysfunction and were hit hard by the virus have crushed the curve of infection, while the U.S. just set a daily record for case growth and shows no sign of slowing down.
