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softlynow

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by softlynow

  1. The OP is dumb and this thread shouldn't exist, but . . . I disagree that the bench is "rotted and collapsing." It's just lacking a top line star. The Dem party wasn't a freight train in 2008, it just had Barack Obama. The '05 horns were pretty darn good, but they don't beat SC with your average P5 starting QB standing in for Vince. While you're right that we may not be ready for a gay candidate, the rest of your reasoning is the typical horserace nonsense that almost never actually matters beyond selling a few ads or subs and building the career of a bunch of "journalist" hacks. Fox News et al. will hammer away at any Dem candidate, and there will be something with pretty pictures of "communism" or violence by scary people that you can tie to any candidate. The test is whether they can catch fire in the primaries. The only way to test that is to have them without Biden. Folks get too wrapped up in the breathless headlines that always go away within a week. If that shit mattered all we'd remember of Trumps candidacy was the escalator announcement and his first speech about scary mexican rapists.
  2. It also very much bolsters Bozo's thesis that the Texas Democratic Party is an abomination and a total failure of an organization. It should also be cautionary tale to progressives in other states not to piss off/write off/fail to court centrist Dems and fence-sitters. You may dislike them, but you need them to win. You can be pure and maybe run the trendy city of your state, or you can be smart and, at least sometimes, run your state.
  3. Its striking how much Texas is a "non-voting" state. There were 7.5 million more people living in TX than FL in 2020, but only 180k more votes tallied for president.
  4. People really need to understand that Trump will be the Republican nominee and what that means. It means there is a significant chance he wins the general. Not because of logic or reason, but because 1. swing voters are, in the main, low-information morons and 2. Trumpers, if they haven't already, know that violence will be necssary to win, and they have the time to make plans to violently acquire the EVs they need in Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina and Michigan. CNN's biggest failure here wasn't in how this was staged, the questions asked, the lack of pushback/highlighing lies. It was in having this at all. Trump was given time that "any legitimate" candidate could also get. CNN said last night that Trump could legitimately be president again. CNN legitimized, prospectively, an authoritarian overthrow of our system of government. IMO, it's hard to overstate how bad last night was for this country.
  5. I'm not white knighting Anastasis here, but this terrible thread needs only one villain, and the OP is clearly it.
  6. Firearm deaths aren't the #1 cause of death for service members. Children don't need chaplains, they need advanced tactical training and equipment.
  7. There's a fair amount of y'all talking past each other in this exchange. Just, FYI. I think there are structural/historical reasons and dumb luck that blunt some of b_t's criticisms. Aaron Burr sticking us with the filibuster, and slavery/Jim Crow/racism entrenching it favors the current GOP greatly. So does the timing of SC vacancies which has allowed Clinton/Obama/Biden to only fill 4 seats in 18 years while Bush/Trump filled 5 seats in 12 years. You can quibble about Dem effectiveness in filling Scalia's seat, but no matter your argument, it's still a 5-4 court overturning Roe, ruling for Citizens United, gutting the VRA, and all the rest of their bullshit. But he's absolutely right that Dems have simply written off too much of the electorate to be considered good at politics. Many of them did so because of personal greed; the path to riches doesn't lie in passing laws that help poor people financially (see Sinema, but she's only an obvious example of a legion of her type that fly under the radar). But many of them do so because of cowardice or a total inability to understand what wins elections. b_t nailed this. Does the average voter who is persuadable to 1. vote to begin with or 2. vote Dem over other options care about gerrymandering (if they even understand it)? Care who sits on the Supreme Court? Care that trans kids are prone to suicide, that blacks are more likely to suffer from our brutalizing police forces, that women make less than men, etc.? Of course they don't. They want to know if you have any ideas that might improve THEIR lives. Speak to them, or don't be so surprised that the carnival barker who does make them promises wins their votes.
  8. This is the main problem with the post-Clinton Democratic Party. Bill told Hillary she "forgot about Bubba." It wasn't just Hillary. Dems should have looked on at the horror of the Trump phenomenon and realized that THEY helped create the conditions for his success. Rural America used to be Dem leaning. Then Dems fell in love with Wall Street and free trade (along with their embrace of civil rights), and their platform gave rural and small town Americans no reason to consider voting for them. Now, I don't want to completely exonerate Bill Clinton. He set the Dems on the path to where they are with Third Way politics. Was it necessary to win some elections as the Reagan Era reached its Zenith? Sure. But they should not have completely jettisoned the underpinnings of the New Deal coalition. Y'all shouldn't be so quick to tear down Mayor Pete, though. He seems to have the ability to fight effectively, and, no matter whether the political winds continue to favor an expansion of the progressive wing of the party, the Dems remain the far, far lesser of two evils.
  9. softlynow

    LBGTQ

    "Hey, we know medical and psychological science has avenues that could assuage your pain, but I don't want to feel like a hostage to your threats, so I'm not gonna look go that route. We're gonna be creative."
  10. softlynow

    LBGTQ

    Frustrations borne of the daily grind of parenting are totally valid reasons for enacting punitive, faith-based, draconian public policy. My 10 y.o. will not practice piano between lessons, therefore we should ban music instruction.
  11. IA needs to be the best funded, most prestigious, most feared section of every department/sheriff’s office. Federal funding and any seized funds (after vigorous reform in that arena too) goes to them ONLY. Give cops someone to fear, and hold them to the same standard as the rest of us in terms of charging them with crimes. Bagging a corrupt cop should be the fast track to electoral success for prosecutors, too.
  12. He said now. As in now now.
  13. You know some MAGAt holocaust denier lawyer would tie up the execution with appeals and writs. Just about every Texas DA would get the headline and move on.
  14. Probation. And we'd likely be worse in that situation. Germany has a far more robust welfare state. Most states in the union would likely see imprisoning her as a huge expense and not worth the hassle. If she was convicted of something from 77 years ago in Texas and sentenced to any amount of prison time, I could see TDCJ immediately paroling her and calling those 77 years of not participating in genocide as "good time." New York would probably have to bite the bullet and pay for her to die in prison, for political reasons. California would have her consult on a movie/streaming show script.
  15. She was tried in juvenile court and received two years of juvenile probation. Nice headline for the prosecutors, but that's about it.
  16. All my stories about them are boring and dumb. Family case a SC wanted transferred to The Hague. Traffic case appealed de novo to County Court then to the appellate level because the offense was listed in the transportation code not the penal code. Another idiot accused me of failing to get him a bond … while sitting in my office 30 minutes after I was appointed to represent him. Another couple I told off as much as it took until they backed off. It helps when judges refuse to replace me with another lawyer. They do dumb shit for dumb reasons.
  17. Nuke this thread. Having represented a few adherents, SC foolishness is simply a scam aimed at those whose intelligence rates between plain dumb and truly regarded.
  18. Why? This is silly. Let people do their jobs. Firing someone with a multi-million dollar contract doesn’t happen on Twitter time. Even with a solid contract breach claim and sovereign immunity to back that up, there’s no way the lawyers involved are giving the go ahead this quickly.
  19. You can charge someone by Information. Normally that is filed in short order after an instanter arrest. The indictment can come later.
  20. That’s the short form. Probably all that will be made public in written form, at least for a while. Take away the affluence of those involved it looks like a report in a case that ends up pled to deferred adjudication on a reduction to a class A family violence. The choking aspect is a bit weak, and most prosecutors would be willing to offer the reduction to clear the case. But this isn’t you’re average defendant. The audio recording is also a wild card.
  21. Excellent. Someone here will accept your challenge, and that arrest report will be amazing.
  22. Someone requests it. Often it is the vic . . . ahem, complaining witness. Other times the officer can request it. The state sees these cases very differently than just 10-15 years ago. CW's are often considered hostile witnesses from the jump because of the volume of battered family members who immediately "try to have the charges dropped."
  23. Seems like the standard amount based on the charge for someone with no criminal history. Everything about this seems normal, to those of y'all who don't do this. Yes. Meaningless. His lawyer is doing what he can, which is very little, in the court of public opinion. A few will buy it. Correct. That's a probable cause hearing at the jail. No, you don't have a right to an attorney, though you can always remain silent. You want to get that bond set as quickly as possible so you can get out. In some counties if you don't like the first magistrate's decision you can appeal it the next day and have an attorney present.
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