Is this an everywhere thing (the "Rural voters and their Reps fucking hate and will vote to screw over Urban voters" thing) or a Midwest thing or what?
IN whining in the spoiler, since this is the MI thread.
'Cause holy shit, reading about the shit that MI's legislature does sounds suspiciously like the shit those of us in Indiana deal with. Rural Reps shut down mass-transit plans and funding the last few years for Indianapolis because fuck urban areas. Rural Reps made it so we can't have tighter handgun laws in Indianapolis than in the rest of the state. Rural Reps are about to try to ... well, here, let's quote the Indianapolis Star:
As a national debate rages over gun control, some lawmakers in the Republican-controlled Indiana General Assembly are pushing measures intended to expand access to firearms.
One measure would get rid of Indiana’s licensing requirement to carry a handgun. Another would allow guns at public universities and state office buildings. And a third would make it easier for repeat alcohol offenders to get a handgun license.
[...]
But supporters say the moves are needed to rid state law of unnecessary burdens on those who want to carry weapons.
“It doesn’t make sense to me to make a lawful person jump through hoops and have to pay the state money so they can exercise their constitutionally protected right,” said Rep. Jim Lucas, the Seymour Republican behind two of the measures.
One of them, House Bill 1056, would repeal an Indiana law that requires people to get a license to carry a handgun on their person or in their car. The other, House Bill 1055, would prohibit state agencies, including public universities, from regulating firearms in public buildings or land.
A third bill, filed last week by Sen. Jim Tomes, R-Wadesville, would repeal a law that prevents those with repeat alcohol offenses, such as drunken driving or public intoxication, from getting a handgun license.
We've also got a HIV and Hep-C outbreak in the southern part of the state that Gov. Pence treated like a pyromaniac near a campfire and threw gasoline on it. Limited help to a single county so shit started blowing up, and then he had to expand the program at suddenly a much greater cost to voters. We desperately need to invest in our shitty infrastructure (that "Crossroads of America" thing isn't gonna work out for us if the roads that are crossing are literally falling apart) so the Republican-controlled GA decided "OK, well let's like peg the gas-tax to inflation" (the Speaker wants to up it from $0.18/gal to $0.22/gal) and the governor immediately came out against that because "I think when you have money in the bank and the best credit rating in America, the last place you should look to pay for roads and bridges is the wallets and pocketbooks of hardworking Hoosiers. Let’s invest in our roads and maintain the Crossroads of America, and let’s do it without raising taxes." Because roads magically fix themselves. The alternate is he wants to borrow the money, but hahahahahahahaha Fiscally Conservative.
There's also his complete and utter fucking dipshittery regarding "RFRA" and his refusal to extend any civil-rights protections to the LGBT community, but that's just too fucking depressing to think about.
A lot of state districts were designed to favor rural voters by having very disproportionate districts in terms of population until the SCOTUS killed that and required the populations in the districts to have similar populations as each other. So that sort of thing isn't really new.
Some states redrew their U.S. House districts every ten years to reflect changes in population patterns; many did not. Some never redrew them, except when it was mandated by a change in the number of seats to which that state was entitled in the House of Representatives. In many states, this led to a skewing of influence for voters in some districts over those in others. For example, if the 2nd congressional district eventually had a population of 1.5 million, but the 3rd had only 500,000, then, in effect — since each district elected the same number of representatives — a voter in the 3rd district had three times the voting "power" of a 2nd-district voter. Alabama's state legislature resisted redistricting from 1910 to 1972 (when forced by federal court order.) As a result, rural residents retained a wildly disproportionate amount of power in a time when other areas of the state became urbanized and industrialized, attracting greater populations. Such urban areas were underrepresented in the state legislature and underserved; their residents had difficulty getting needed funding for infrastructure and services. They paid far more in taxes to the state than they received in benefits in relation to the population.[1]
Now they just have to make do with gerrymandering.
Yes it's more or less an everywhere thing with the only thing. Some places it's more explicitly racist (see "ring counties") than others and some places it's the general tribal republicanness but it happens in Washington and Oregon so it happens everywhere there are cities.
I have found certain BR circles to be more racist than New Orleans.
Well there was the whole thing with the group trying to get the the entire southern, almost totally white, half of the parish to break away from BR to form a new city, & the result would have mostly ended up fucking over black kids in public schools
One would hope poisoning an entire city would hurt them in the next elections but somehow I don't think that will happen.
Are there stats available for how many people in Flint are registered to vote? Seems like the kind of place with one registration office that opens for thirty minutes on a Monday morning.
One would hope poisoning an entire city would hurt them in the next elections but somehow I don't think that will happen.
Are there stats available for how many people in Flint are registered to vote? Seems like the kind of place with one registration office that opens for thirty minutes on a Monday morning.
Michigan voter registration is handled through the Secretary of State, which also handles vehicle registration, licenses, non-driver IDs, trailer registration, selective service, and a bunch of other things I'm sure I'm forgetting. Flint has two with pretty standard government office hours. Saginaw, Bay City, and Midland have one each.
Michigan tends to go more surreal with its voter suppression, like requiring the Oath of Citizenship or, my personal favorite, an optional checkbox that you check to state that you're not committing voter fraud.
Michigan tends to go more surreal with its voter suppression, like requiring the Oath of Citizenship or, my personal favorite, an optional checkbox that you check to state that you're not committing voter fraud.
Genesee County - 184,583 registered voters, population 415,376.
Kent County (Grand Rapids) - 244964 registered voters, population 621,700.
This doesn't say much, because it's not number of voters in Flint proper.
Either way, the state legislature has gerrymandered the hell out of Flint so it doesn't matter much anyway.
I don't think you can possibly get more gerrymandered than appointing one person to a position that renders any vote regardless of party completely irrelevant.
It doesn't sound that weird on its face, there are a lot of agreements with 'I promise all the stuff I just said is true' boxes to check or lines to sign. The 'optional' part is strange, though. What happens if you don't check the box?
It doesn't sound that weird on its face, there are a lot of agreements with 'I promise all the stuff I just said is true' boxes to check or lines to sign. The 'optional' part is strange, though. What happens if you don't check the box?
I assume your vote gets thrown out if it's legitimacy is challenged.
It doesn't sound that weird on its face, there are a lot of agreements with 'I promise all the stuff I just said is true' boxes to check or lines to sign. The 'optional' part is strange, though. What happens if you don't check the box?
I assume your vote gets thrown out if it's legitimacy is challenged.
It doesn't sound that weird on its face, there are a lot of agreements with 'I promise all the stuff I just said is true' boxes to check or lines to sign. The 'optional' part is strange, though. What happens if you don't check the box?
I assume your vote gets thrown out if it's legitimacy is challenged.
Or just thrown out outright. It's a literacy test, just fig leaf'd.
The Urban-Rural divide is everywhere in America, but interestingly this was not always the case (I had assumed it was from my experiences, others may have done the same):
It doesn't sound that weird on its face, there are a lot of agreements with 'I promise all the stuff I just said is true' boxes to check or lines to sign. The 'optional' part is strange, though. What happens if you don't check the box?
I assume your vote gets thrown out if it's legitimacy is challenged.
Originally, the law said that you had to give the Oath of Citizenship (later changed to "an oath of citizenship" when it turned out most of the people supporting the bill didn't actually know the Oath itself, not to mention that half the Oath is about renouncing your former nationality and is basically meaningless to birthright citizens who never took it to begin with), and the poll worker would check the box that you were a valid voter.
This got thrown the fuck out, but the cards were printed for some precincts with the checkbox anyway, and poll workers were instructed to have voters check it themselves if they were citizens. This also got thrown the fuck out, to which the state said, "Citizens may opt out of the citizenship checkbox by leaving it blank."
No ballots got thrown out, because the checkbox was on the voter card you fill out before you get your ballot, not the ballot itself, so even if people left it blank because they were totally seriously casting all the fraudulent ballots they could stuff in the damn box, the card with the checkbox can't be connected to a specific ballot once you step away from the table.
Is this an everywhere thing (the "Rural voters and their Reps fucking hate and will vote to screw over Urban voters" thing) or a Midwest thing or what?
IN whining in the spoiler, since this is the MI thread.
'Cause holy shit, reading about the shit that MI's legislature does sounds suspiciously like the shit those of us in Indiana deal with. Rural Reps shut down mass-transit plans and funding the last few years for Indianapolis because fuck urban areas. Rural Reps made it so we can't have tighter handgun laws in Indianapolis than in the rest of the state. Rural Reps are about to try to ... well, here, let's quote the Indianapolis Star:
As a national debate rages over gun control, some lawmakers in the Republican-controlled Indiana General Assembly are pushing measures intended to expand access to firearms.
One measure would get rid of Indiana’s licensing requirement to carry a handgun. Another would allow guns at public universities and state office buildings. And a third would make it easier for repeat alcohol offenders to get a handgun license.
[...]
But supporters say the moves are needed to rid state law of unnecessary burdens on those who want to carry weapons.
“It doesn’t make sense to me to make a lawful person jump through hoops and have to pay the state money so they can exercise their constitutionally protected right,” said Rep. Jim Lucas, the Seymour Republican behind two of the measures.
One of them, House Bill 1056, would repeal an Indiana law that requires people to get a license to carry a handgun on their person or in their car. The other, House Bill 1055, would prohibit state agencies, including public universities, from regulating firearms in public buildings or land.
A third bill, filed last week by Sen. Jim Tomes, R-Wadesville, would repeal a law that prevents those with repeat alcohol offenses, such as drunken driving or public intoxication, from getting a handgun license.
We've also got a HIV and Hep-C outbreak in the southern part of the state that Gov. Pence treated like a pyromaniac near a campfire and threw gasoline on it. Limited help to a single county so shit started blowing up, and then he had to expand the program at suddenly a much greater cost to voters. We desperately need to invest in our shitty infrastructure (that "Crossroads of America" thing isn't gonna work out for us if the roads that are crossing are literally falling apart) so the Republican-controlled GA decided "OK, well let's like peg the gas-tax to inflation" (the Speaker wants to up it from $0.18/gal to $0.22/gal) and the governor immediately came out against that because "I think when you have money in the bank and the best credit rating in America, the last place you should look to pay for roads and bridges is the wallets and pocketbooks of hardworking Hoosiers. Let’s invest in our roads and maintain the Crossroads of America, and let’s do it without raising taxes." Because roads magically fix themselves. The alternate is he wants to borrow the money, but hahahahahahahaha Fiscally Conservative.
There's also his complete and utter fucking dipshittery regarding "RFRA" and his refusal to extend any civil-rights protections to the LGBT community, but that's just too fucking depressing to think about.
New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the union.
Christie was carried in by votes from the suburban and rural counties (state elections are in off years from the federal government, yes we have important elections every single November, yes it is stupid) and his agenda has basically been to fuck the cities and the employees of the cities and the states here over from day one. All of this in the state where Obama won his largest margin of victory in 2012.
Fuck the people here.
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And hahahaha: Snyder wants Flint back under local control:
“The Flint city charter establishes a mayor-centric form of government,” Snyder said in a statement. “Flint is headed by the mayor who serves as the city’s chief executive and the City Council, serving as the city’s legislative body. The city currently is in receivership, and the city administrator is responsible and accountable for the day-to-day city operations.
“Mayor Weaver has requested that the powers and authority currently vested in the city administrator be transferred to the mayor. I agree with her, and have asked the Receivership Transition Advisory Board to support that resolution.”
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
And hahahaha: Snyder wants Flint back under local control:
“The Flint city charter establishes a mayor-centric form of government,” Snyder said in a statement. “Flint is headed by the mayor who serves as the city’s chief executive and the City Council, serving as the city’s legislative body. The city currently is in receivership, and the city administrator is responsible and accountable for the day-to-day city operations.
“Mayor Weaver has requested that the powers and authority currently vested in the city administrator be transferred to the mayor. I agree with her, and have asked the Receivership Transition Advisory Board to support that resolution.”
I don't want Snyder to resign, I want him to perp walk with all the people who poisoned people.
These aren't mutually exclusive.
Eh I'd imagine if they let him resign it will be part of a deal with not charging him.
Unless they think they can leverage a Republican-controlled congress to force him out, they've got no leverage other than the arrest.
And there's no way the DoJ lets this stand, they're already building a case. Unless they can roll him on literally everyone else, they'd rather get the big fish I'd think.
The problem with fixing a state like Michigan is that the urban areas who would counterbalance the crazy are depopulating on the balance, so it will simply become harder to stop this as time goes on.
Michigan's somewhat unique in that case. Other states where the urban-rural divide has led to a lot of fuckery are not seeing urban depopulation on quite the same rate (Pennsylvania, for instance, is slowly becoming more dominated by Philly and Pittsburgh because the rust belt effect hit the big two and small towns equally, but the big two have other draws which lead a population recovery, while rural PA's only hope for revival comes from shale gas, the jobs for which are largely transient anyway).
But Michigan may well be doomed? It's hard to say.
And hahahaha: Snyder wants Flint back under local control:
“The Flint city charter establishes a mayor-centric form of government,” Snyder said in a statement. “Flint is headed by the mayor who serves as the city’s chief executive and the City Council, serving as the city’s legislative body. The city currently is in receivership, and the city administrator is responsible and accountable for the day-to-day city operations.
“Mayor Weaver has requested that the powers and authority currently vested in the city administrator be transferred to the mayor. I agree with her, and have asked the Receivership Transition Advisory Board to support that resolution.”
There is no end to how much of a scumbag Snyder is.
You don't get to say this when the people of your state voted EMs away and you snuck them back in anyway.
I don't want Snyder to resign, I want him to perp walk with all the people who poisoned people.
These aren't mutually exclusive.
Both, however, seem rather unlikely.
I hope i'm wrong though.
if anything this has probably made him more popular among republicans
hell if he'd come out explicitly bragging about poisoning black people on welfare he might be able to slip into the R presidential race and get past Cruz
They thought about it, but the DIA is still public last time I checked.
I think I remember reading that some of its collection was sold, but it's not like it went to a bunch of random rich people, it mostly ended up in other museums around the state, something the museum's always done anyway.
It's amazing to me that after spending the last 20 years dragging Hillary's name through the mud and doing their absolute best to directly tie Benghazi to her that a republican anyone can be salty when they at the very best stood idly by for 3 months while people were being poisoned due to a decision they made.
On top of that, the fucker has the gall to try and spin this back on the government for only providing 5 million instead of 96 in assistance; The State government was the one that fucked these people over, they should be the ones to deal with this.
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A lot of state districts were designed to favor rural voters by having very disproportionate districts in terms of population until the SCOTUS killed that and required the populations in the districts to have similar populations as each other. So that sort of thing isn't really new.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_man,_one_vote#Historical_background
Now they just have to make do with gerrymandering.
It's an issue in places that aren't the US too.
Well there was the whole thing with the group trying to get the the entire southern, almost totally white, half of the parish to break away from BR to form a new city, & the result would have mostly ended up fucking over black kids in public schools
Are there stats available for how many people in Flint are registered to vote? Seems like the kind of place with one registration office that opens for thirty minutes on a Monday morning.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Kent County (Grand Rapids) - 244964 registered voters, population 621,700.
This doesn't say much, because it's not number of voters in Flint proper.
Either way, the state legislature has gerrymandered the hell out of Flint so it doesn't matter much anyway.
Michigan voter registration is handled through the Secretary of State, which also handles vehicle registration, licenses, non-driver IDs, trailer registration, selective service, and a bunch of other things I'm sure I'm forgetting. Flint has two with pretty standard government office hours. Saginaw, Bay City, and Midland have one each.
Michigan tends to go more surreal with its voter suppression, like requiring the Oath of Citizenship or, my personal favorite, an optional checkbox that you check to state that you're not committing voter fraud.
...the fuck?
I don't think you can possibly get more gerrymandered than appointing one person to a position that renders any vote regardless of party completely irrelevant.
I assume your vote gets thrown out if it's legitimacy is challenged.
Or just thrown out outright. It's a literacy test, just fig leaf'd.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/11/red-state-blue-city-how-the-urban-rural-divide-is-splitting-america/265686/
Originally, the law said that you had to give the Oath of Citizenship (later changed to "an oath of citizenship" when it turned out most of the people supporting the bill didn't actually know the Oath itself, not to mention that half the Oath is about renouncing your former nationality and is basically meaningless to birthright citizens who never took it to begin with), and the poll worker would check the box that you were a valid voter.
This got thrown the fuck out, but the cards were printed for some precincts with the checkbox anyway, and poll workers were instructed to have voters check it themselves if they were citizens. This also got thrown the fuck out, to which the state said, "Citizens may opt out of the citizenship checkbox by leaving it blank."
No ballots got thrown out, because the checkbox was on the voter card you fill out before you get your ballot, not the ballot itself, so even if people left it blank because they were totally seriously casting all the fraudulent ballots they could stuff in the damn box, the card with the checkbox can't be connected to a specific ballot once you step away from the table.
New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the union.
Christie was carried in by votes from the suburban and rural counties (state elections are in off years from the federal government, yes we have important elections every single November, yes it is stupid) and his agenda has basically been to fuck the cities and the employees of the cities and the states here over from day one. All of this in the state where Obama won his largest margin of victory in 2012.
Fuck the people here.
Come Overwatch with meeeee
pleasepaypreacher.net
These aren't mutually exclusive.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Both, however, seem rather unlikely.
I hope i'm wrong though.
We've done all we can do here. Back to you!
Eh I'd imagine if they let him resign it will be part of a deal with not charging him.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Unless they think they can leverage a Republican-controlled congress to force him out, they've got no leverage other than the arrest.
And there's no way the DoJ lets this stand, they're already building a case. Unless they can roll him on literally everyone else, they'd rather get the big fish I'd think.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Michigan's somewhat unique in that case. Other states where the urban-rural divide has led to a lot of fuckery are not seeing urban depopulation on quite the same rate (Pennsylvania, for instance, is slowly becoming more dominated by Philly and Pittsburgh because the rust belt effect hit the big two and small towns equally, but the big two have other draws which lead a population recovery, while rural PA's only hope for revival comes from shale gas, the jobs for which are largely transient anyway).
But Michigan may well be doomed? It's hard to say.
There is no end to how much of a scumbag Snyder is.
You don't get to say this when the people of your state voted EMs away and you snuck them back in anyway.
MWO: Adamski
if anything this has probably made him more popular among republicans
hell if he'd come out explicitly bragging about poisoning black people on welfare he might be able to slip into the R presidential race and get past Cruz
I think I remember reading that some of its collection was sold, but it's not like it went to a bunch of random rich people, it mostly ended up in other museums around the state, something the museum's always done anyway.
WoW
Dear Satan.....
The monster.
End of credit.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
The news articles I see are more interested in covering the response to the crisis and the war of words between Rick Snyder and every one else.
Whenever a Republican says "Don't politicize this." What they really mean is "Let's ignore who/what is actually responsible."
Typically, because who/what is responsible is either them, or someone with whom they have vested ($$$$$$) interest.
It's amazing to me that after spending the last 20 years dragging Hillary's name through the mud and doing their absolute best to directly tie Benghazi to her that a republican anyone can be salty when they at the very best stood idly by for 3 months while people were being poisoned due to a decision they made.
On top of that, the fucker has the gall to try and spin this back on the government for only providing 5 million instead of 96 in assistance; The State government was the one that fucked these people over, they should be the ones to deal with this.